Augustine: the Preacher and his Audience

In my first book (In hora mortis), I decided to focus on sermons instead of treatises in order to study attitudes towards death in the fourth and fifth centuries. My claim is that through a careful reading of the sermons (for a general introduction, no. 1 below) it is possible to discover something about the expectations of the audience. Nos. 2-5 are illustrations of this approach.

• 1. “Sermones.” In Augustine through the ages: an encyclopedia. Edited by Allan D. Fitzgerald, 773-792. Grand Rapid, Mi : Eerdmans, 1999.
• 2. “Contexte local et prédication: Augustin et la détresse des mourants.” In Cristianesimo e specificità regionali nel Mediterraneo latino (sec. IV-VI). XXII Incontro di studiosi dell'antichità cristiana, 179-187. Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 46. Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1994.
• 3. “Interaction between the preacher and his audience: the case-study of Augustine's preaching on death.” In Studia Patristica. 31. Edited by Elizabeth A. Livingstone, 86-96. Leuven: Peeters, 1997.
• 4. “La figure du catéchumène et le problème du délai du baptême dans la pastorale d’Augustin.” In Augustin prédicateur (395-411): actes du colloque international de Chantilly (5-7 septembre 1996). Edited by Goulven Madec, 285-292. Collection des Études Augustiniennes. Série Antiquité 159. Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1998.
• 5. “Augustin et le culte des statues.” Ministerium sermonis: an international colloquium on Saint Augustine’s Sermones ad populum. Forthcoming.