Saint Augustine: Eighty-Three Different Questions

by Augustine of Hippo

Publisher:

Catholic University of America

, 1982

Overview

In the autumn of AD 388, St. Augustine returned from Italy to northern Africa. Here in his native Thagaste he assembled a monastic community. When the brethren found their leader Augustine in a rare moment of leisure, they had no misgivings about putting questions to him on a variety of topics which he answered from the store of his vast knowledge. These questions together with the answers were later collected and assembled in a random order (ractions). The English translation presented here affords the reader a rare opportunity to glimpse some of the topics that interested members of a community that eventually gave the early Church four bishops: Alypius of Thagaste, Severus of Milevis, Profuturus of Citra, and Possidius of Calama.

Even though St. Augustine intended no specific sequence in this collection, four broad categories in the question and answer literary form are discernible. One category serves as Christian apologetic, e.g., against Arian and Manichaean errors. The second presents Augustine in the role of exegete of selected passages from both the Old and New Testaments. The third and fourth categories, containing the greater number of questions and answers, show Augustine the philosopher and theologian, a person of towering intellectual stature in western Christianity and one of the important “Founders of the Middle Ages.” Though formulated between the years AD 388 and 395/97 and presented from the viewpoint of Neoplatonists, many topics, e.g., the cause of evil, sin and freewill, still have great relevance for the modern reader.

Key Features

• Topical teaching by Augustine on a variety of subjects
• Text provides background on Augustine and the theological questions of his day
• One of 127 published volumes in a well-respected series on the Church Fathers

Contents

Top Highlights

“Wherefore the statements of the two apostles Paul and James are not contrary to one another when the one says that a man is justified by faith without works, and the other says that faith without works is vain. For the former is speaking of the works which precede faith, whereas the latter, of those which follow on faith, just as even Paul himself indicates in many places.” (Page 196)

“But again it can be asked by whose death have even we ourselves become the inheritance of God, in accord with the verse: ‘I will give the nations to you as your inheritance.’¹⁸ Assuredly¹⁹ it is [by the death] of this world, which first had possession of us as though it were [our] lord and master. Afterwards, however, when we say: ‘The world has been crucified to me, and I, to the world,’²⁰ then Christ possesses us, for that has died which used to possess us. Whenever we renounce it, we die to it, and it, to us.” (Page 193)

“‘Those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God,’ he adequately shows that moral conduct is required of believers from the moment of their faith. James as well says this, and in all sorts of places the same apostle Paul, with sufficiency and candor, preaches to all believers in Christ the necessity of living aright in order to avoid coming to punishment.” (Page 196)

“By all means he has mercy on whom he wants, and he hardens whom he wants, but this will of God cannot be unjust. For it springs from deeply hidden merits, because, even though sinners themselves have constituted a single mass on account of the sin of all,²⁵ still it is not the case that there is no difference among them. Therefore, although they have not yet been made righteous, there is some preceding thing in sinners whereby they are rendered worthy of righteousness, and again, there is some preceding thing in other sinners whereby they are deserving of obtuseness.” (Page 163)

Product Details

• Title: Saint Augustine: Eighty-Three Different Questions
• Author: Augustine of Hippo
• Series: The Fathers of the Church
• Volume: 70
• Publisher: Catholic University of America
• Print Publication Date: 1982
• Logos Release Date: 2014
• Pages: 279
• Era: era:nicene
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Theology › Miscellanea; Philosophy › Miscellanea
• ISBNs: 0813200709, 0813213231, 9780813200705, 9780813213231
• Resource ID: LLS:GHTYTHRDFFRNTQS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T19:52:28Z

About Augustine of Hippo

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) is often simply referred to as St. Augustine or Augustine Bishop of Hippo (the ancient name of the modern city of Annaba in Algeria). He is the preeminent Doctor of the Church according to Roman Catholicism, and is considered by Evangelical Protestants to be in the tradition of the Apostle Paul as the theological fountainhead of the Reformation teaching on salvation and grace.