Selected Sermons of St. Augustine

(From the dust cover) "St. Augustine, the Father of the Christian West, is best known to readers through his "Confessions" and "City of God". But the full measure of Augustine as psychologist of religion, as bishop, as theologian --and as literary stylist-- cannot be understood without a reading od the sermons. Up to now, however, there is no single volume which presents a representative selection from the whole body of his sermons. Quincy Howe, Jr., a Classics scholar at Douglass College, has selected and translated thirty of these sermons which Henri Marrou has called "major religious texts that have particular relevance for our time." In his Introduction, Howe discusses the efficacy of religious persuasion in Augustine's sermons: "The sermons, like the "Confessions," are the effusions of the soul rather than the closely reasoned work of the mind, and their purpose is to instill in the listener this joy, confidence, and high purpose that were the continuous state of Augustine's own awareness. What he hoped to do in the sermons was to gain indirect access to the souls of his listeners." This selection encompasses the full range of Augustine's subjects and captures the quality of his sermons from spontaneous to mannered. Howe has successfully rendered into English the complexity and beauty of Augustine's original style. The sermons, some of which have never been translated into English before, are grouped into six sections: Love of Man and Love of God, On the Holy Days, Pagans and Heretics, Christianity Prefigured, The World of the Present and the World to Come, Diverse Topics, and an Epilogue, Life in Christ.