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Complete Course of Patrology, Latin Series, Volume 38: The Complete Works of Saint Augustine of Hippo, Volume Five, First Part

Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, Tomus XXXVIII: Sancti Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi Opera Omnia, Tomus Quintus, Pars Prior

1845·Latin·754 pages PDF (70MB) Source

Volume 38 of J.-P. Migne's Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, published in Paris in 1845. This volume is the first part of the fifth tome of Augustine of Hippo's Opera Omnia, following the Benedictine Maurist recension collated against Louvain, Vatican, Gallican, and Belgian manuscripts. It gathers three of the four classes of Augustine's Sermones ad Populum as organized in the Benedictine edition: Classis Prima (Sermones de Scripturis, cols. 23–994), Classis Secunda (Sermones de Tempore, cols. 995–1246), and Classis Tertia (Sermones de Sanctis, cols. 1247ff.), together with accompanying apparatus of variant readings, annotations, and indices. These sermons were preached by Augustine over the course of his episcopate at Hippo (396–430) and range from sustained exegetical homilies on Scripture to liturgical sermons tied to the liturgical calendar. The text is printed in the standard Patrologia Latina two-column format with sequentially numbered columns.

Author

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo

Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis

354–430

Readings

Sermon 117, Chapter 1

Sermo CXVII, Caput I

The opening chapter of Augustine's Sermo CXVII, a sermon on John 1:1–5 ("In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum") preached against the Arians. §1 ("Verbum Dei ut intelligatur, quo pretio comparandum") opens with an argument about the incalculable worth of the divine Word: every saleable thing is either equal to, subject to, or exceeds its price, but to the Word of God nothing can be made equal, nothing can be subjected to it, and nothing can be set above it — an argument of immediate relevance to the theology of simony, which treats spiritual goods as though they could be priced. §2 ("Pretium Verbi ipse homo") turns this into a soteriology: the price the Word demands is the self, offered not as a loss but as a gain, since Christ's humanity was made through the Word and is restored to it. §3 ("Verbum Dei forma quædam non formata") concludes with a meditation on the Word as the uncreated form of all forms — immutable, without time or place, the ground and summit of all created things.

Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo·411·Latin·Sermo CXVII, §§1–3·col. 661–662