Augustine of Hippo preaches a sermon on the feast of the *Maccabean Martyrs (pre-Christian Jewish martyrs of Antioch, S00303), referring to the reading of their history and admonishing his audience to participate in the feast of the martyrs rather than in theatrical shows. Sermon 301A, delivered in Latin in Bulla Regia (Proconsularis, central North Africa), possibly in 399.
E02702
Literary - Sermons/Homilies
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 301A
[In solemnitate ss. Machabeorum
'For the feast of the holy Maccabees']
The first part of the sermon does not refer to the feast.
7. Modo spectauimus magnum certamen septem fratrum et matris illorum. Quale certamen, fratres mei, si nouerunt mentes nostrae spectare. Comparate huic sancto spectaculo uoluptates et delicias theatrorum. Ibi oculi inquinantur, hic corda mundantur: hic laudabilis est spectator, si fuerit imitator; ibi autem et spectator turpis est, et imitator infamis. Denique amo martyres, specto martyres: quando leguntur passiones martyrum, specto ... Opportune de spectaculo sanctorum Machabaeorum, quorum uictoriae memoriam hodie celebramus, de spectaculis theatricis admonenda uisa est mihi caritas uestra. O fratres Bullenses, circumquaque prope in omnibus ciuitatibus uicinis uestris lasciuia inpietatis obmutuit. Non erubescitis, quia apud uos solos remansit turpitudo uenalis?
'7. We have just now been spectators of the great contest of the seven brothers and their mother. What a contest, my brothers and sisters, if only our minds knew how to watch it! Compare with the holy spectacle the pleasures and delights of the theaters! There the eyes are defiled, here the heart is purified; here spectators are to be praised, if they become imitators; while there the spectator is base, and the imitator infamous. Well, anyway, I love the martyrs, I go and watch the martyrs; when the passions of the martyrs are read, I am a spectator, watching them ... The spectacle of the holy Maccabees, the memory of whose victory we are celebrating today, seemed to me to provide just the right opportunity for admonishing your graces about theatrical shows and spectacles. O my brothers of Bulla, all round about, in practically all your neighbouring towns, this kind of licentious impiety had fallen silent. Are you not ashamed that among you alone the obscenity has remained up for sale?'
In what follows Augustine preaches against theatrical shows.
Text: Morin 1930, 87.
Translation: Hill 1994, 295-26.
Summary: Robert Wiśniewski.
Service for the saint
Sermon/homily
FestivalsSaint’s feast
Non Liturgical ActivityTransmission, copying and reading saint-related texts
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.
This sermon is tentatively dated to 399 on the basis of intertextual references and its place in the collection of Augustine's sermons. It was certainly preached at Bulla Regia, since Augustine addresses his audience as Bullenses.
Bibliography
Edition:Morin, G., Sancti Augustini Sermones post Maurinos reperti (Miscellanea Agostiniana, vol. 1; Rome: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1930).
Translation:
Hill, E., The Works of Saint Augustine. A Translation for the 21st Century, vol. III 9, Sermons 306-340A on the Saints (New York: New City Press, 1994).
Dating:
Kunzelmann, A., "Die Chronologie der sermones des hl. Augustinus," Miscellanea Agostiniana, vol. 2 (Rome: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1931), 417-452.
Robert Wiśniewski
11/04/2017
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00303 | Maccabean Martyrs, pre-Christian Jewish martyrs of Antioch | Machabei | Certain |
|---|
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