Augustine of Hippo preaches a sermon on the martyrs, emphasising that they did not care about the integrity of their bodies at death. Sermon 335F, delivered in Latin in an unknown city of central North Africa, sometime between 391 and 430.
E04447
Literary - Sermons/Homilies
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 335F
[De martyribus
'On martyrs']
Sed quid de martyribus dicamus? Quanta illis securitas data est ut non curarent etiam de diuisione membrorum suorum? Curam gerit de numero capillorum et non gerit curam in resurrectione de integritate membrorum?
'But what are we to say about the martyrs? What a great assurance was given them, so they shouldn't worry even about the severing of their limbs! He takes care about the number of their hairs, and takes no care at the Resurrection about the integrity of their limbs?'
In what follows Augustine reflects generally on the martyrs and their readiness for death, and does not refer to any specific personage or form of the cult.
Text: Patrologiae Latinae Supplementum 2, 802.
Translation: Hill 1994, 240, lightly modified.
Summary: Robert Wiśniewski.
Sermon/homily
FestivalsSaint’s feast
RelicsDivision of relics
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.
Sermon 335F is not a complete sermon, but part of one. It cannot be dated with any certainty.
Discussion
The context suggests that when Augustine tells about the division of the limbs (divisio membrorum) of the martyrs he means severing during or just after the execution and not any custom of dividing relics.Bibliography
Edition:Hamman, A., Patrologiae Latinae Supplementum, vol. 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1960).
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).
Robert Wiśniewski
23/08/2017
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00060 | Martyrs, unnamed or name lost | Certain |
|---|
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