Sermons to the People
Advent, Christmas, New Year, Epiphany
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A superb new translation brings the words of Augustine the preacher stirringly to life!
When the great Saint Augustine was called from his country home to become Bishop of Hippo in the fourth century, his new responsibilities took him away from the solitude of his writing and into the glare of the public eye. The author of two of the greatest works of religious literature, Confessions and City of God, Augustine became a shepherd to the people, inspiring and enlightening them with his sermons. His skills as a speaker were as great–if not greater–than his skills as a writer. According to his friend Possidius, “Those who read what Augustine wrote on the divine topics do get something out of them. But those who saw and heard him in person–they were the ones who got heaven and Earth.”
Sermons to the People collects the homilies on the liturgical seasons of the Church Saint Augustine delivered over the course of his lifetime. This Image edition includes the first sermons in that vast collection: from Advent, Christmas, New Year’s, and the Epiphany. Newly translated by William Griffin, they address timeless concerns, including the problems of materialism and the intellectual difficulties of faith. Griffin renders the sermons with such immediacy, it is as though he had been present when Augustine spoke to his flock.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Augustinian renaissance continues with this volume devoted to the saint's sermons from Advent through Epiphany. Griffin offers a lively introduction, describing Augustine's history and the ritual observance of the winter holidays in the fourth century, and then provides comfortable, "paraphrasal" translations of 23 sermons. It's a real treat to read them, for they remind us that although Augustine has survived for us as a writer most notably for his Confessions and City of God he was in his own day primarily a bishop and a priest, preaching regularly over a period of 30 years. Griffin writes that it is through Augustine's rarely published sermons that we encounter an impassioned orator, "revealing the real Augustine, not the one we thought we knew." The volume closes with three appendices containing essays that contextualize Augustine's preaching.
