Books in the Fathers of the Church Series series

In the autumn of A.D. 388, St. Augustine returned from Italy to northern Africa. Here in his native Thagaste he assembled a monastic community. When the brethren found their leader Augustine in a rare moment of leisure, they had no misgivings about putting questions to him on a variety of topics which he answered from the store of his vast knowledge. These questions together with the answers were later collected and assembled in a random order (ractions ). The English translation presented here affords the reader a rare opportunity to glimpse some of the topics that interested members of a community that eventually gave the early Church four bishops: Alypius of Thagaste, Severus of Milevis, Profuturus of Citra, and Possidius of Calama. Even though St. Augustine intended no specific sequence in this collection, four broad categories in the question and answer literary form are discernible. One category serves as Christian apologetic, e.g., against Arian and Manichaean errors. The second presents Augustine in the role of exegete of selected passages from both the Old and New Testaments. The third and fourth categories, containing the greater number of questions and answers, show Augustine the philosopher and theologian, a person of towering intellectual stature in western Christianity and one of the important "Founders of the Middle Ages." Though formulated between the years A.D. 388 and 395/97 and presented from the viewpoint of Neoplatonists, many topics, e.g., the cause of evil, sin and freewill, still have great relevance for the modern reader.

As significant as his contribution was to history, Leo the Great had an even greater impact on theology. Pope Leo developed the most explicit and detailed affirmations known up to that time of the prerogatives enjoyed by successors if St. Peter. This volume presents the first English translation of the complete sermons.

Steeped in Greek Christian writings, Ambrose, Bishop of Milan in the fourth century, is known for (among other achievements) his allegorical exegesis of the Old Testament. This volume offers English translations of Ambrose's interpretations of three stories in the Old Testament: of the six days of creation, of the Fall (Adam and Eve's loss of Paradise), and of the brothers Cain and Abel. From these stories are drawn lessons on morality and God's will for humankind.

St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan A.D. 373-397, enjoyed a great contemporary reputation for his sermons and homilies, to whose eloquence St. Augustine of Hippo himself gives witness. But, while we have from Augustine hundreds of sermons in virtually their original form, Ambrose's pulpit oratory has not come down to us as delivered. However, Ambrose would often recast his sermons as treatises, and seven of these are presented in this volume. These works are mainly an exegesis of many parts of the Bible, particularly of portions of Genesis, Deuteronomy, Job, and the Song of Songs (on which Issac, or the Soul is in large part a commentary). The Psalms make their echo on nearly every page, as do the Gospels. In special contexts, two apocryphal writings receive attention, IV Esdras and IV Machabees. Ambrose's primary interest is in the moral sense of the Scriptures, and he attains his results through insistent allegorical interpretation. Detailed indices of subjects and of Scripture citations facilitate consultation of Ambrose's thinking on the moral and scriptural problems upon which he, in his time, thought it important for Christians, lay and clerical, to be informed.

During the years between Augustine's ordination to the priesthood (391) and his consecration as the Bishop of Hippo (395 or 396), he took an intense interest in biblical exegesis. One of the fruits of his penetrating investigations is his two-volume Commentary on the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, of which a lucid English translation is presented in this volume. Also included are Augustine's subsequent, self-critical remarks (Retractationes 1.19) on this commentary, as well as seventeen selected sermons on topics relevant to the commentary.

In Christian Latinity, the tractate is a specific type of sermon, delivered as part of a liturgy, which combines scriptural exegesis, preaching, spiritual commentary, and theological reflection. This volume contains the first ten of the 124 tractates on the Gospel of John delivered by St. Augustine, the world-renowned fourth-century bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa. As sermons they exemplify the theory of preaching he outlined in his De doctrina Christiana (On Christian Instruction) --to preach in a simple and direct style accessible to all without compromising the theological knowledge and spiritual experience of the message.Because John's Gospel particularly emphasized the divinity of Jesus, the identity of the historical Jesus with the Messianic Christ, the Trinitarian Word, these sermons necessarily involve much Trinitarian and Christological theology. They explain and defend the orthodox position established at the councils of Nicea (A.D. 325) and Constantinople (A.D. 381). Their major theme is that Jesus Christ is the center of the Christian life, the Son of God and the Son of Man.Beyond contemplation of John's Gospel, the Tractates reveal much about the heresies to which Augustine's congregation was exposed: Manichaeism, with its dualistic logic; Donatism, a schismatic, puritanical, and sacramental movement which involved the intervention of the state in the affairs of the Church; and Pelagianism, with its doctrines of original sin, grace, free will, and predestination.Augustine delivered these sermons in Ciceronian oratorical style, having as his purpose to teach, to please, and to persuade. Through his allegorical exegesis, his audience was led to an understanding of the meaning of Scripture that would so affect their souls as to help them grow spiritually and bring them to eternal salvation.

Marius Victorinus, a contemporary of St. Ambrose and one who had considerable influence on St. Augustine--he has been styled "an Augustine before Augustine"--is an important Fourth-Century Neoplatonist. Before his conversion to Christianity Marius Victorinus wrote commentaries on works of Cicero and translated Aristotle's tracts on logic and some Neoplatonic books into Latin.After his conversion, probably A.D. 354, he turned his vast learning to the composition of theological treatises in refutation of Arianism and the errors of Ursacius and Valens expressed in the Creed of Sirminum (357) as well as those of Basil of Ancyra and of the Homoeans in the credos of Sirmium and Rimini in 359.The Theological Treatises on the Trinity contain the following: two letters, one from Candidus the Arian to the Rhetor Marius Victrorinus and the addressee's reply. Both documents are quite probably literary devices helping to bring into sharp focus the matters under discussion. These are followed by four books Against Arius, a short treatise demonstrating the necessity of accepting the term homoousios (of the same substance), and three Hymns, mostly in strophic structure, addressed to the Trinity and explaining the names and functions of the divine Persons in salvation history. In the Treatises Marius Victorinus adopts, in addition to the then traditional arguments, Neoplatonic concepts--adapted probably from Porphyry--to present a systematic explanation of the Trinity. Posthumous influences of the Treatises are discernible in works of Alcuin.The present translation is made from the latest critical text and has profited greatly from the vast erudition of Pierre Henry and Paul Hadot.