SERMONS TO THE PEOPLE: Advent, Christmas, New Year's, Epiphany

The Augustinian renaissance continues with this volume devoted to the saint's sermons from Advent through Epiphany. Griffin offers a lively introduction, describing Augustine's history and the ritual observance of the winter holidays in the fourth century, and then provides comfortable, "paraphrasal" translations of 23 sermons. It's a real treat to read them, for they remind us that although Augustine has survived for us as a writer—most notably for his Confessions and City of God—he was in his own day primarily a bishop and a priest, preaching regularly over a period of 30 years. Griffin writes that it is through Augustine's rarely published sermons that we encounter an impassioned orator, "revealing the real Augustine, not the one we thought we knew." The volume closes with three appendices containing essays that contextualize Augustine's preaching. (Oct. 15)