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St Augustine as a Preacher

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2024

Edmund Hill O.P.
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There is to my mind little doubt that St Augustine regarded preaching as the most important of a bishop’s duties. It is the pastoral work par excellence, to feed the flock, to break the bread of the Word to the hungry. It is the bishop’s proper mode of almsgiving, of investing the talent which the Lord has given to him. ‘To lead a carefree life of leisure’, says Augustine, ‘little force would be needed to make me do that. There could be nothing more enjoyable than rummaging about in the divine treasure chest, with no one to plague me. While preaching, arguing, rebuking, building God’s house, having to manage for every one, who wouldn’t shrink from such a heavy burden i But the gospel scares me’—namely, the parable of the slothful servant. He also preached on that text, once when ‘the lords my brethren and fellow-bishops have been good enough to visit us and encourage us by their presence; and yet for some reason or other they refuse to give tired me a helping hand, and you a sermon when I ask them’. A short sermon, and very pointed. Poor blushing bishops in the apse!

Besides preaching tirelessly himself, he also provided in the De Doctrina Christiana what really seems to be a manual on preaching for the clergy. Most of this work, it is true, is concerned with how to interpret Scripture; but this means, for Augustine, how to acquire the matter for your sermons.

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 35 , Issue 416 , November 1954 , pp. 463 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © 1954 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Sed terret me Evangelium, S. 339.

2 S. 94.

3 In Ps. 99.

4 Augustine constructs the book on two distinctions; the first between things and signs which represent things; the second between things to be enjoyed, which make us happy, i.e. the things that really matter, and things to be used in order to attain the things we should enjoy. It is a bad mistake to enjoy the second things for their own sake, and a worse one to use the first things in order to get the others.

5 cf. in Ps. 21, preached on a Good Friday.

6 cf. S. 185, and the following sermons. Also our Lord's longing for Jerusalem as a hen for her chicks, which is called an affection ‘maternae infirmitatis, non amissae majestatis’. (In Ps. 58.).

7 In Ps. 30, S. 1.

8 Ego sim mendicus mendicorum, ut vos numeremini in numero filiorum. The word I translate ‘plate’ is ‘quadriga’, lit. ‘chariot’, which I assume to have been the popular name for some sort of collecting box. S. 66.

9 In Ps. 31.

10 nescio quomodo suavius, Doct. Christ. II, 6.

11 S. 83.

12 In Ps. 49, Ss. 248–51. N.B. this passage from S. 249, typical of his easy touch. ‘When you add these seven (gifts) to ten (law), it makes ten. What did I say? How absurd! Seven and ten make ten, as though I had forgotten how to count! Of course I should have said seven and ten make seventeen, as everyone knows. Why, these boys here started laughing at me when I said seven and ten make ten. Yet I'll say it again without blushing. When you see why, you won't find fault with my counting, but you will like my method of reckoning. When you add seven to ten, it makes ten; when you add the Holy Ghost to the Law, the Law is kept, you make ten.’

13 cognoscendi avida multitudo; c. 10. Augustine appreciated his audience.

14 Compare these two passages, which I have left untranslated to preserve the quality of the style.

S. 216, ad Competentes (early).

Infantia vestra innocentia erit, pueritia reverentia, adolescentia patientia, juventus virtus, senium meritum, senectus nihil aliud quam canus sapiensque intellectus. Per hos articulos vel gradus aetatis non tu evolveris, sed permanens innovaris. Non enim ut decidat prior secunda succedet, aut tertiae ortus secundae erit interitus, aut quarta jam nascitur ut tertia moriatur; non quinta quartae invidebit ut maneat, nec quintam sexta sepeliet.

In Ps. 127 (later).

Optas ut crescant filii, ut accedat aetas. Sed vide quia veniente pueritia moritur infantia, veniente adolescentia moritur pueritia, veniente juventute moritur adolescentia, veniente senectute moritur juventus, veniente morte moritur omnis aetas. … Nati pueri tamquam hoc dicunt parentibus ‘Eja, cogitate ire hinc, agamus et nos mimum nostrum’. Mimus est generis humani tota vita tentationis.

The other undoubtedly early sermon is S. 214.

15 Fila me fecisti! S. 213.

16 in Ps. 29.

17 in Ps. 99.

18 in Ps. 31.

19 ab isto odore; in Ps. 72.

20 Audi ergo me de hoc quod proposuisti, domne pauper. S. 14.

21 S. 224.

22 e.g. Breviter dico, saeculi laetitia est impunita nequitia S. 171. Piscis assus Christus est passus, In jn. 123. Or on Pelagian pride; Quid dicitis, non assertores sed praecipitatores liberi arbitrii, ex alto elationis, per inania praesumptionis, in profunda submersionis? In Jn. 81.

23 S. 73.

24 S. 56.