Introduction to This Volume
How this book is arranged
This is the fifty-fourth volume of a series that gathers the writings of the early Church in order of date, from the generation after the apostles down to the eighth century. This volume holds Augustine and the Donatists, with Pastoral Treatises, from the period about AD 395 – 422.
Within each work the text is divided into chapters and numbered sections, so that any passage can be found again and cited. The small bold figures in the text are the section numbers.
The translations
The text is in English only. Wherever a modern English version has been prepared for SermonIndex it is used here; otherwise the book prints an older public-domain translation. In both cases the wording is the translator’s own: older translations have not been altered beyond dividing them into sections. The sources for every work are listed at the back of the book, together with the licence under which each text is released. All the works in this volume are printed in older public-domain translations.
In this volume
Augustine was born at Thagaste in North Africa in AD 354. He taught rhetoric at Carthage, Rome and Milan, and after years as a Manichaean he was baptised at Milan by Ambrose in AD 387. He returned to Africa, was ordained a presbyter at Hippo about AD 391, and was bishop of Hippo from about AD 395 until his death in AD 430, while the Vandals were besieging the city. He wrote the Confessions, The City of God and On the Trinity, and a great body of sermons, letters and treatises against the Manichaeans, the Donatists and the Pelagians.
The Donatists were a rival church in Africa that refused to accept the ministry of clergy who had given up the Scriptures in the persecution under Diocletian. Augustine argued for the unity of the Church and for the validity of baptism given outside it. The shorter treatises that follow were written for his own church on practical questions: work, patience, lying, and the care of the dead.
Dates and authorship
Dates are approximate and are debated by scholars. Each work begins with a short introduction that states what is known about its author and its date, and what is uncertain.