New Approach To Augustine Of Hippo’s Sermons To The People And Its Impact On Augustinian Scholarship

The great project of the first comprehensive bilingual edition of Augustine’s almost 600 authentic Sermons to the People, with introduction and commentary, was ultimately instigated by François DOLBEAU’S discovery of twenty-six new authentic sermons by Augustine of Hippo in the Municipal Library of Mainz, Germany, in 1990. 1 This fortunate discovery created, naturally, a public sensation, as Augustine is still one of the best-known and most influential thinkers in the Western hemisphere. However, no-one could possibly have imagined that it would start an avalanche of innovative research that fundamentally changed all Augustinian scholarship. The first effect on my own work was, in 1993, when I realized that the date which DOLBEAU suggested for the new sermons could not possibly be true. However, this doubt, in its turn, led to the general conviction that a complete revision of the chronology of all of Augustine’s sermons was needed. This new approach resulted in a fundamental re-consideration of chronological methodology in general and thus the perception of Augustine’s entire life and works. From there, it became clear that a general basis for a new appreciation of Augustine’s sermons could only be laid by a thorough and comprehensive reading and understanding of the texts, including a precise translation into the vernacular, accompanied by introduction and commentary providing in-depth and innovative analyses of the texts.