E01782: Augustine of Hippo preaches a sermon at a feast of unnamed martyrs, probably at Hippo Regius (North Africa). Exposition on Psalm 141, written in Latin in North Africa, 397/405.
online resource
posted on 2016-08-04, 00:00authored byrobert
Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 141.1
Solemnitati martyrum, sicut deuotio celebritatis uestrae, ita nostrae seruitutis sermo debetur.
'Just as it is your duty to celebrate piously the festival of the martyrs, my obligation is to deliver a sermon.'
In what follows Augustine does not refer to any specific martyrs or their feast.
Text: Dekkers and Fraipont 1956. Translation: Robert Wiśniewski.
Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Ecclesiastics - bishops
Source
The Expositions on the Psalms are based on Augustine's homilies preached either in Hippo or other places in North Africa in the period from 392 to 417. According to la Bonnardière, 93-95, Sermons 140 (see E001779) and 141 were preached in Hippo between 397 and 405 AD, that is between Augustine's episcopal ordination and the beginning of the violent confrontation with the Donatists to which Augustine does not make any allusion. Sermon 140 does not mention any feast directly, but we know that it was preached on the eve of a feast of martyrs, because in Sermon 141, delivered the day after, Augustine mentions explicitly the feast.
Bibliography
Edition:
Dekkers, E., and Fraipont, J., Enarrationes in psalmos (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 38; Turnhout: Brepols, 1956).
Further reading:
La Bonnardière, M.A., "Les Enarrationes in Psalmos prêchées par saint Augustin à l'occasion de fêtes des martyrs." Recherches Augustiniennes 7 (1971), 73-104.