As Allan Fitzgerald explains in his excellent introduction the homilies are a unique artefact: “The first and only commentary dedicated to the Gospel of John in ancient Latin literature.” Even more importantly, they bring us as close as we’re ever going to get to the real, raw and clearly rattled Augustine.
As one scholar has written, they show us Augustine in the “unpredictable, popular setting of a diversified and boisterous Christian community”.
This volume contains the first 40 homilies (out of a total of 124). Donatism features heavily. The first 16 pieces are dripping with anti-Donatist contempt but there is much more on display here. Whether he is chastising people for their sins and their addiction to astrology or showing them how to appreciate Scripture and grow in their faith, Augustine is revealed as a passionate, winningly meandering pulpit-basher. Even those of us who have our doubts about Augustine’s theological trajectory would concede that crowding into the Basilica Pacis and hearing his fulminations, witticisms and memorable wordplay must have been a rare privilege.
Hill’s translation of the homilies isn’t stellar, but I’d still advise you to take a look. If you’d like to know how Augustine confronted the fractured world of fifth-century North African Christianity, if you’d like to hear him hold forth on why God created flies and fleas, and if you’ve any interest in seeing a brilliant, bewildered theologian groping towards his version of the truth, then this is the book for you. I couldn’t put it down. It reminded me that the history of North African Christianity deserves more of our attention and it proved that Augustine, love him or hate him, should be seen as more than a theological commodity to be used and abused by his acolytes and enemies. Once upon a time, he was just a befuddled bishop in a bewildering situation. He didn’t always makes things better, but even when he made things slightly worse he did so with a rhetorical flourish or two.
What’s wrong with the old version? 🙂 They are remarkable sermons, although the anagogical interpretations lead him way off the reservation at some points. Nevertheless, I can’t remember one sermon that didn’t move me to worship, and quite a few moved me to tears. Some paragraphs are permanently imprinted on my mind, less of a testimony to my memory and more of a testimony to Augustine’s ability to convey thoughts so powerfully they remain stuck in the heart and the mind.