A SELECT LIBRARY

OF THE

NICENE AND

POST-NICENE FATHERS

OF

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

EDITED BY

PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D.,

PROFESSOR IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK,

IN CONNECTION WITH A NUMBER OF PATRISTIC SCHOLARS OF EUROPE AND AMERICA.

VOLUME III

ST. AUGUSTINE:

ON THE HOLY TRINITY

DOCTRINAL TREATISES

MORAL TREATISES

BUFFALO:

THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE COMPANY

1887

Copyright, 1887, by

THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE COMPANY

Contents.

Preface

I. Introductory Essay.

Translator’s Preface.

I. Doctrinal Treatises Of St. Augustin.

On the Holy Trinity

Translated by the Rev. Arthur West Haddan, B.D.

Revised and annotated, together with an introductory essay, by the Rev. Professor W. G. T. Shedd, D.D.

Book III

Book IV

Book V

Book VI

Book VII

Book VIII

Book IX

Book X

Book XI

Book XII

Book XIII

Book XIV

Book XV

The Enchiridion

Introductory Notice

On the Catechising of the Uninstructed

Introductory Notice

A Treatise on Faith and the Creed

Introductory Notice

Concerning Faith of Things Not Seen

On the Profit of Believing

On the Creed: a Sermon to the Catechumens

On Continence

On the Good of Marriage

Of Holy Virginity

On the Good of Widowhood

On Lying

Against Lying

Of the Work of Monks

On Patience

On Care to Be Had for the Dead

Preface

This third volume contains the most important doctrinal and moral treatises of St. Augustin, and presents a pretty complete view of his dogmatics and ethics.

The most weighty of the doctrinal treatises is that on the Holy Trinity. The Latin original (De Trinitate contra Arianos libri quindecim), is contained in the 8th volume of the Benedictine edition. It is the most elaborate, and probably also the ablest and profoundest patristic discussion of this central doctrine of the Christian religion, unless we except the Orations against the Arians, by Athanasius, “the Father of Orthodoxy,” who devoted his life to the defense of the Divinity of Christ. Augustin, owing to his defective knowledge of Greek, wrote his work independently of the previous treatises of the Eastern Church on that subject. He bestowed more time and care upon it than on any other book, except the City of God.

The value of the present translation, which first appeared in Mr. Clark’s edition, 1873, has been much increased by the revision, the introductory essay, and the critical notes of a distinguished American divine, who is in full sympathy with St. Augustin, and thoroughly at home in the history of this dogma. I could not have intrusted it to abler hands than those of my friend and colleague, Dr. Shedd.

The moral treatises (contained in the 6th volume of the Benedictine edition) were first translated for the Oxford Library of the Fathers (1847). They contain much that will instruct and interest the reader; while some views will appear strange to those who fail to distinguish between different ages and different types of virtue and piety. Augustin shared with the Greek and Latin fathers the ascetic preference for voluntary celibacy and poverty. He accepted ...