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Augustine (Works) (01)
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Augustine (Works) (01).
[II] SURVEY OF THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE
(1) The Writings (edited from Karl Jaspers)
1. The eleven folios of Augustine's works are like a mine. To study the work as a whole is a life task for specialists or monks.
2. The earliest of them grew out of his philosophizing with his friends in Cassiciacum.
3. The first group consists of philosophical writings, all dialogues; Christ is rarely mentioned and there are few Biblical quotations.
4. But his Christian conviction was real and final. Even after his baptism he wrote largely in the philosophical style until his ordination (387-391).
5. Then began the great body of work that was to continue for the rest of his life:
(1) the sermons and letters, the exegetic works (particularly on the Psalms and St. John),
(2) the didactic writings (On the Instruction of Novices, On Christian Doctrine, the Enchiridion) and side by side with these,
(3) the great works, three of which are of particular importance:
① The Confessions, c. 400; here Augustine gives praise and thanks to God by way of an autobiography in which philosophical and theological thoughts appear as the substance of a life that knows itself to be under God's guidance.
② On the Trinity (De Trinitate), a profound, purely speculative work (c. 398-416).
③ The City of God (De civitate Dei, 413-426), the great justification of Christianity after the sack of Rome by Alaric, and at the same time a general exposition of Christian faith and historical consciousness.
6. The polemics, first against the Manichaeans, and later against the Pelagians and Donatists, may be regarded as a group by themselves.
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Introduction
Theology 