Augustine's work set out to defend Christianity against the criticism of proponents of traditional pagan worship. It launches an attack on the pattern of immorality in Roman life under the worship of the pagan gods and offers, in contrast, the way of life taught by Christianity. His arguments are based on his interpretation of history, both Old Testament history and Roman. There is not a specific practical plan for the government of his imaginary ideal state but rather a distinction drawn on philosophical lines between two guiding principles. In the "City of Earth," the love of self holds precedence over love of God; in the "City of God," the love of God holds precedence over the love of self.
The Medieval document most frequently cited in historical surveys of the utopian theme is Dante's Latin treatise on government, De Monarchia (1308?). Here again the differences between that work and More's are greater than the resemblances, and it is not suggested that More was acquainted with Monarchia. Dante, living in the period when the rivalry between popes and emperors for secular supremacy was splitting nations, cities, and even families, wrote his book to maintain the right of the emperor to independent authority over Europe in temporal matters, refuting the claims of the papacy that the emperor owed his title to the pope as God's vicar and was the pope's subject in matters temporal as well as spiritual. Dante does present his practical concept of an ideal commonwealth, the Holy Roman Empire. What this meant to him was a United Europe under the rule of a man of authority, an emperor elected — not by the populace but by the designated electors.
