Augustine of Hippo preaches a sermon at the feast of unnamed martyrs, probably in Carthage (central North Africa). Exposition on Psalm 102, delivered in Latin, 392/417.
Evidence ID
E01835
Type of Evidence
Literary - Sermons/Homilies
Major author/Major anonymous work
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 102.3
Hoc enim considerantes martyres, quorum etiam memoriam hodie celebramus, et omnes omnino sancti qui uitam istam contemserunt, et sicut audistis in epistola Iohannis, animas suas pro fratribus posuerunt...
'This had in mind the martyrs whose commemoration (memoria) we are celebrating today, and indeed all the saints who scorned this life, and, as you have heard in the [reading from] the Letter of John, "laid down their lives for their brothers" ...'
Text: Dekkers and Fraipont 1956.
Translation: Robert Wiśniewski.
Liturgical Activities
Sermon/homily
FestivalsSaint’s feast
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Source
Augustine of Hippo was born in 354 in the north African city of Thagaste. He received an education in rhetoric at Carthage, and after a period teaching there moved to Rome, and then in 384 to a public professorship of rhetoric in Milan. In these early years of adulthood Augustine was a Manichaean, but then got disillusioned with this religion, and in Milan in 386, largely under the influence of Ambrose, bishop of the city, he converted to Christianity, and was baptised by Ambrose in 387. Returning to Africa in 388, he was ordained a priest in 391 at Hippo Regius (in the province of Numidia), and rapidly acquired a reputation as a preacher. In 395 he became bishop of Hippo, which he remained until his death in 430. Details of his early life were recorded by Augustine himself in his Confessions, and shortly after his death a pupil and long-time friend, Possidius, wrote his Life, focused on Augustine as an effective Christian writer, polemicist and bishop (E00073).Amongst his many writings, the most informative on the cult of saints are his numerous Sermons, the City of God, and a treatise On the Care of the Dead. The Sermons tell us which saints (primarily African, but with some from abroad) received attention in Hippo, Carthage and elsewhere, and provide occasional details of miracles and cult practices. The City of God records the distribution, and subsequent miracles, of the relics of saint Stephen, after they arrived in Africa from Palestine in around 420. On the Care of the Dead, discusses the possible advantages of burial ad sanctos (in other words, close to a saint), and theorises on the link between the saints who dwell in heaven and their corporeal remains buried in their graves. In these works, and others, Augustine reveals his own particular beliefs about the saints, their relics and their miracles.
The Expositions on the Psalms are based on Augustine's homilies on the Psalms preached in either Hippo or other places in North Africa in the period from 392 to 417. According to La Bonnardière 1971, 87, the series of expositions to which this sermon belongs was preached at Carthage.
Bibliography
Edition:Dekkers, E., and Fraipont, J., Enarrationes in psalmos (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 38; Turnhout: Brepols, 1956).
Further reading:
La Bonnardière, M.A., "Les Enarrationes in Psalmos prêchées par saint Augustin à l'occasion de fêtes des martyrs," Recherches Augustiniennes 7 (1971), 73-104.
Record Created By
Robert Wiśniewski
Date of Entry
27/06/2016
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00060 | Martyrs, unnamed or name lost | Certain |
|---|
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