Augustine’s Expositions and Homilies: A Translation for the 21st Century (11 vols.)

As the psalms are a microcosm of the Old Testament, so the Expositions of the Psalms can be seen as a microcosm of Augustinian thought. In the Book of Psalms are to be found the history of the people of Israel, the theology and spirituality of the Old Covenant, and a treasury of human experience expressed in prayer and poetry. So too does the work of expounding the psalms recapitulate and focus the experiences of Augustine’s personal life, his theological reflections and his pastoral concerns as Bishop of Hippo. The full set of 6 Volumes of the Expositions of the Psalms is translated by Maria Boulding.

Saint Augustine’s ten homilies on the First Epistle of John are among his greatest and most influential works. John and Augustine both develop the same central theme love and in these homilies Augustine uses John's epistle as a point of departure for exploring the meaning and implications of love with his customary profundity, passion and analytic rigor. As with John, a context of dissension and conflict within the Christian community (the Donatist breakaway from Catholic unity), gives his preaching a tone of urgency and poignancy. Anyone who reads these homilies, universally viewed as classics, cannot fail to be moved and challenged both intellectually and emotionally.

Few ancient Christian authors attempted anything like a complete commentary on the Gospel of John, among them Origen, John Chrysostom and Augustine. Of these, Augustine’s must count as the greatest. Unlike Origen’s, it has come down to us in its entirety, and of the others that remain it is certainly the most theologically profound. John’s gospel allows Augustine to range broadly over themes that were his life’s work —the Trinity, the person of Christ, the nature of the Church and its sacraments, the fulfillment of the divine plan.

The 124 homilies that constitute Augustine’s commentary, however, are masterpieces not only of theological profundity but also of pastoral engagement. In the question-and-answer style that he frequently employs, for example, one can sense Augustine’s real awareness of his congregation’s struggles with the gospel text. And the congregation’s response to Augustine, which he frequently alludes to, is an indication of the success of his dialogical preaching style.

The Johannine literature drew out the best in Augustine. The Homilies on the Gospel of John are the indispensable complement to The Homilies on The First Epistle of John, published in this series, and they should be a part of any serious theological library.

New Testament I and II contains the translations of four works, all of which are exegetical treatises of one sort or another. Each of the four works is accompanied by its own introduction, general index, and scripture index. For all those who are interested in the greatest classics of Christian antiquity, Augustine’s works are indispensable. This long-awaited translation makes his monumental work approachable. The Lord’s Sermon on the Mount discusses chapters five through seven of Matthew’s Gospel. Augustine’s explanation of the Sermon is more a charter of Christian morality and spirituality than mere exegesis of the text and brings a unity to the lengthy discourse that goes far beyond a simple account of what the text says.

Augustine wrote Agreement among the Evangelists in 400, contemporaneously with the composition of his Confessions (397–401). This treatise is an attempt to defend the veracity of the four evangelists in the face of seeming incompatibilities in their record of the gospel events, especially against some pagan philosophers who raised objections to the gospel narratives based on alleged inconsistencies.

Questions on the Gospels is a record of questions that arose when Augustine was reading the Gospels of Matthew and Luke with a disciple. The answers to the questions are not intended to be commentaries on the Gospels in their entirety but merely answer the questions that arose for the student at the time.

Seventeen Questions on Matthew is similarly in the question-and-answer genre and is most likely by Augustine, but it includes some paragraphs at the end that are certainly not his.

This volume contains three works on the Book of Genesis: On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees, Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis, and the third and longest, The Literal Meaning of Genesis.

In the writings gathered here, Augustine clarifies difficult passages in the Old Testament, from the building of Noah’s ark to the struggles of Job, and addresses common questions from the members of his congregation. Each work is introduced and annotated by modern scholars who provide context for Augustine’s life and thought at the time of his writing.