Christ is Risen! A brief commentary on St. Augustine's Sermon 228b

Jan Van Eyck's The Adoration of the Lamb of God

Today I would like to offer a commentary on one of St. Augustine’s sermons purported to have been given during the Resurrection of the Lord perhaps prior to 411 AD. This would have placed the sermon between the first 16 years of his episcopate, and we place this cutoff point because it was at the Council of Carthage in 411 AD that St. Marcellinus (a Roman official) and the Catholic bishops exiled the Donatists from northern Africa and seized their properties, which eliminated much of St. Augustine’s need to address questions of the unity of the Church and Donatism. It is disputed by some scholars that this sermon is a true sermon of St. Augustine, but some (like Edmund Hill OP, whose work I’ve used before) believe it to be a true sermon and so I will proceed anyway in presenting it.

St. Augustine’s early synthesis on Grace, Law, and Predestination: An Overview Summary of the teachings in the Miscellany

I should have made this post a long while back before releasing my two outlines on the Miscellany of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus, but here will be a main summary of St. Augustine’s view of justification, grace, law, and predestination as presented in the Miscellany. Much of what is presented in St. Augustine’s Miscellany shows up in the very late Augustinian corpus, such as St. Augustine’s usage of the Three Stages in life (lawlessness, imprisonment under the law, and finally the freedom of grace to fulfill the law), his development of original sin (in the second half of his miscellany is it fully developed), the primacy of grace, and many other things.

An Outline of “Miscellany of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus”: The early Augustinian doctrine on Grace and Law (Question 2 of 2)

This post regards the second main question in the Miscellany of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus, that is the proper way of understanding God’s election of the blessed, His reprobation of the damned, predestination in general, and how to reconcile this with the free will. It is a preliminary look by St. Augustine on what grace, the law, justification, and eternal predestination mean for the Catholic Church. Much of St. Augustine’s terminology and early thoughts will continue to be used further on by the saint in his doctrines of grace, though as with all things he sharpens them, though as far as I have read much of his early thought is only deepened, developed, looked to with greater care, and not much changes in the saint’s thoughts (recall he became a bishop during what we would call the middle of life [though in those times it was not very common for every person to reach St. Augustine’s age]). All of this account then precedes the Pelagian controversy, and it is remarkable to read the orthodoxy of St. Augustine’s theology of grace so early on, in fact it is beauty to the eyes to behold it. With all of this in mind then, let us proceed to strive to understand our holy father, St. Augustine, though I must warn that it gets quite bleak towards the middle of this document, do not be disheartened for the Church has not yet decided completely how to comprehend authoritatively God’s most ineffable mystery and revelation for man, the call to election and glory with Him in eternity. Read carefully and let me know if anything herein disturbs you. St. Augustine’s doctrine as it appears to me seems orthodox and true to the Gospel, but to the untrained eye and those young in the faith, may not understand entirely what the Doctor of Grace is explaining to us.

To go to the summary of this enormous post and the post that goes along with this post, go here:

Summary

An Outline of “Miscellany of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus”: The early Augustinian doctrine on Grace and Law (Question 1 of 2)

Not very much is known to us regarding St. Simplicianus other than what is told to us through the mouth of St. Augustine and other contemporaries. His importance to the Church and to history have mainly regarded his influence on Sts. Ambrose and Augustine, as well as the conversion of famed philosopher Marius Victorinus, as well as his own bishopric in Milan, succeeding St. Ambrose. Having said this, St. Simplicianus is a saint, who’s feast day is on August 14th in the Ambrosian rite and August 16th, sometimes 14th or 13th, but never the 15th as it once was since the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated on this day. St. Simplicianus is thought to have been born around 320 AD, and died around 400 AD or 401 AD, of which he spent from 396 or 397 AD to his death as the successor of St. Ambrose as bishop of Milan. I won’t go much farther into the biographical details of St. Simplicianus, which can be found in the Confessions of St. Augustine or otherwise online.

[To go to the summary of this long post and the post that goes along with this post, go here:

Summary]

It was during his ascension to the bishopric of Milan (around the same time as St. Augustine’s rise to the bishopric of Hippo) that he asked St. Augustine a variety of questions regarding difficulties in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and difficulties in the Old Testament references used in St. Paul’s Epistle or otherwise. We will consider then in this article the two questions dealt with by St. Augustine regarding the Epistle to the Romans. Specifically the questions were: