Declino di Roma, male morale, felicità eterna. Su alcuni aspetti della concezione agostiniana della storia nel "De civitate Dei"

(eng) Starting from a critical analysis of Karl Löwith’s theory of the « crisis » of modern philosophy of history (as secularisation of theological comprehension of Being), the aim of this article is to develop an interpretation of Augustine’s conception of history, by an analysis of the category of ‘corruption’ in the De civitate Dei. In that work, the notion of ‘corruption’ has a twofold meaning − an ‘apologetic’ one (connected with the pagan intellectuals’ polemic concerning the alleged responsibility of Christianity in spoiling Latin mores and consequently bringing about the political crisis of the Roman Empire) and a metaphysical-moral one (connected with the nature of evil and the human condition). Focussing on the latter meaning, the article shows how the category of corruption provides the hinge for a new (as compared to Hellenistic philosophies) conception of the will. On this basis, and after highlighting the correspondence between polemos of freedom and polemos of time, the article goes on to analyse Augustine’s theory of the duae civitates and his foundation of the ‘linear’ and ‘teleological’ conception of human history (saeculum).