The article seeks to investigate the exegetic literature of the first half of the 12th century in order to understand how the City of God was imagined and understood in the monastic theology of this time. A particular flowering of exegesis was taking place in Europe at this time, theologians have engaged with the understanding the world and God, the idea of Jerusalem was often associated in the theology with the Church Reform. The interpretation of the Bible became an important tool to perceive the process that shaped the monastic communities of this time. The research is going to explore how the «modern» exegesis of the City of God and the reception of the Augustine's teaching both elucidate and conceptualize the idea of the reform in the 12th century. The analysis of the history of exegetical interpretation of the City of God is to be combined with the search for the paradigm shift in the monastic conception (f.e. Jerusalem as civitas Dei, Bethelem as civitas Dei). The principal questions are how do different but fixed by the Augustine's authority ways of interpreting Scriptures give rise to different concepts of the civitas Dei, how have theologians of the reform gone about interpreting the City and in what ways might the chosen strategies of interpretation connect local and universal, earthy and spiritual, material and imagined spaces, a small cloister Stella and glorious city of Jerusalem, elucidating their own vision of the City of God.

Keywords:Augustine, cistercians, regular canons, medieval city, monasticism, exegesis.