The needle has moved quite a distance in some 40 years. Up to the late 1980s, scholars – with a few notable exceptions, such as the late Gerald Bonner and Pauline Allen, among others – tended to treat Augustine’s and other fourth-century bishops’ sermons derisively, dismissing them as the pronouncements of an elite who knew little of their audiences. W.H.C. Frend, F. Lot, and most notably, R. MacMullen, among others, made such arguments. But 3 watershed moments marked and arguably contributed to a changed direction of travel for many of us. First, starting in 1990, Fr Edmund Hill OP and New City Press began rolling out Hill’s vast work – and gift – of translations of a large portion of the extant sermons. Sister Maria Boulding OSB stepped in to complete this project; together they produced translations and introductions to some 950 extant sermons, an amazing and substantial set of materials. New City Press published these relatively inexpensively, and they are now available digitally in the Past Masters database. Second, during the same period, in 1990, F. Dolbeau discovered a set of 26 sermons in Mainz. These were not, in themselves, particularly revelatory and did not present an unknown Augustine (though they certainly provided vital and important insights), but most particularly and helpfully, they served a key purpose, sparking new interest in the sermons that led to scholarly reappraisals and fresh readings. Third, one such reappraisal came from Peter Brown, who published a new edition of his magisterial 1967 biography of Augustine in 2000. In this edition, however, he clearly and overtly took the sermons into account, acknowledging that he had not properly understood Augustine the pastor and preacher. He thereby added new depth and breadth to his – and our – understanding of this Late Antique bishop. Since then, a goodly variety of articles and monographs on Augustine’s sermons have appeared, including contributions by this reviewer.
The significance of this progress is now further demonstrated by the publication of this valuable Cambridge Companion. The series of Companions covering a multitude of authors and subjects gives testimony to their perceived value and is inevitably worthy workhorses contributing to many a library. This is no less the case here. Andrew Hofer has performed admirable service assembling an excellent team of 15 scholars offering informed content. The work itself is divided into sections beginning with an introductory essay on understanding the place of humility as a centrepiece to Augustine’s sermons. It then moves forward with Part 1 focusing on Augustine’s Pastoral task of Preaching Sermons (with 3 chapters/contributions); Part 2 offers 6 chapters on Augustine’s Sermons on the Scriptures and Liturgical Feasts. Part 3 offers 7 chapters on Augustine’s Preaching Themes. Each chapter concludes with a brief helpful bibliography for relevant follow-up considerations and the work attaches a substantial and fairly comprehensive bibliography and an index.
There are too many authors and chapters here to give a review of each, so let me address some broader issues, beginning with the audience. This is a work that should attract interest from both scholars and pastors. The various contributors offer both rich detail and analysis as well as insights into Augustine’s pastoral work and preaching from which readers might benefit whether pursuing a particular relevant study or sermonizing. Citations include both the Latin rendering of the work (with quite limited use of Latin itself) and the modern English translation. The contributions are richly detailed, readable, and deeply informative. It will be a worthwhile contribution to university libraries and personal libraries for scholars of Augustine and Late Antique sermons.
But these dual considerations also pose some frustrations due to a certain editorial unevenness and lack of consistency between the contributions. Some of the contributions are clearly written by a scholar for a scholar, others are written with broader, pastoral care and preaching concerns in mind, and yet other contributions offer insights for both types of readers. Some of the more scholarly reflections offer academic detachment; others are clearly more personally engaged. This points to another issue: differing citation styles with some chapters and authors providing highly technical citations and extensive footnoting, others much less so.
A trivial point, but one that points to a certain lack of consistency: contributors mostly reference both the appropriate critical Latin texts, with some including both the name of the work and the critical edition, but not always; most, but not all, contributors use the English translations in the Works of St Augustine/New City Press editions, with a few authors relying on other translations.
A final and more important critique: one might wonder why Hofer chose the particular 7 themes included for the third section rather than others. Some are clearly central, such as studies of the sermons on the Trinity, Totus Christus, and the Sacraments. But why not include a chapter on atonement, which figures quite largely in his sermons (and gives a richer sense of Augustine’s understanding than paying attention only to his anti-Pelagian writings) and other key concerns for Augustine? In this way, section 3 presents more like a series of conference contributions than a Companion. Readers should not conclude that these are the only important themes to be found, and thereby limit what the sermons can provide. The work would have better served readers here by including a section introduction explaining and contextualizing the themes and perhaps giving a broader overview of the many substantial topics to be found in Augustine’s sermons.
In the end, though, regardless of these critiques, this is a worthwhile work that deserves to be read and used, perhaps not read through from cover to cover, but used as needed, focusing on relevant items. It contributes especially as a work of ressourcement, helping modern readers discover the riches to be found in the sermons of this notable preacher and pastor who shaped so much of the later tradition not only through his many works addressing various controversies and doctrines but also through his regular preaching that spanned the whole of his priestly and episcopal career.
