Homework: Augustine vs Thomas Aquinas - Politics

I have an assignment for a political science paper (college level, 7-10 pages) that I'm trying to wrap my head around: The importance and identity of earthly politics (post-polis collapse) in the minds of Augustine of Hippo vs Thomas Aquinas. Specifically, where I would start, how I would set it up, and where I could find quotes/talking points regarding the paper. What should I do?
 
More than likely you would have to look at their writings and maybe the even the time period they lived in. You've would have to look at what shaped their views where they contemporaries, did they happen to look at the same issues in different or similar ways etc.
 
You may want to start with a Catholic textbook on political philosophy. Ot simply with theire entries in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, those are liable to be extensive and well referenced. Not unbiased, though, you'll need something else to work with. But they should give you some sources and starting points.

Augustine's work is interesting because he so totally divorces the civitas Dei from the civitas terrena (he would, though). That makes sense mostly from his perspective of the total collapse of Roman imperial power. De Civitate Dei is what you want to read, if you have the time to do it.

Meanwhile, Thomas Aquinas writes from a position of having witnessed the imperial papacy and its failure. His ideas on the status of secular power are informed by a very different idea of what the church is. The Summa THeologica is probably too long to read in its entirety.
 
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