Tag: St. Augustine

The 1412 inventory of the manuscripts of Amelungsborn Abbey

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I reported yesterday on the discovery of two new sermons by St Augustine in a Latin manuscript in a monastery in Poland.  One statement in the press release is also of great interest.  The discoverer, Prof. Christian Tornau, of the University of Würzburg, stated:

“An old catalogue from the monastery mentions a text that bears the same headings and has the same sequence of content as our manuscript. It could have served as a model,” the researcher explains. Tornau cannot confirm this assumption with absolute certainty, however, as the entire library holdings of Amelungsborn Monastery were destroyed by fire during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).

The “old catalogue” in question is the inventory of 1412 of the Cistercian Abbey of Amelungsborn. This takes a little locating.

The inventory is listed in a catalogue of surviving medieval inventories, published by Theodor Gottlieb, Ueber mittelalterliche Bibliotheken (1890 – online here).  Amelungsborn is on p.18-19:

The footnote reads:

Im Anniversarienbuch sind 7 Schenkungen von Büchern aufgeführt; dies wird pg. 18 gesagt. – Ferner ist auf einer Seite des Catal. ein Verzeichniss von Büchern mit der Ueberschr.: Hii de Corbeja, (von woher sie nach Dürres Vermuthung  zur Abschr. entlehnt waren).

The anniversary book lists seven donations of books; this is mentioned on page 18. Furthermore, on one page of the catalogue, there is a list of books with the heading: “Hii de Corbeja” (from where, according to Dürre’s presumption, they were borrowed for copying).

The inventory of 1412 is preserved, then, in a manuscript, once in the Ducal Library in Wolfenbüttel, today in the Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv (NLA) where it has the shelfmark “Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv Wolfenbüttel VII. B. 111.”  A monochrome microfilm is online.  Each image is two pages: the catalogue is right at the end, on pages 101-105, i.e. images 54-56.  Here is the start of it:

Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv Wolfenbüttel VII. B. 111, folio 101r, top (image 54)

The inventory has been printed, but those seeking it may find that it can take a bit of time to locate thanks to a pleasant custom in 19th century German scholarship, whereby the author publishes the article twice under the same title in the same year but with different contents.  So it has been here.

The actual article, that contains a transcription of the inventory of 1412, is this:

H. Dürre, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Cistercienserabtei Amelungsborn”, Programm des herzoglichen Gymnasiums zu Holzminden. Ostern 1876, p. 3-24; esp. 19-24.

This may be downloaded from here, and the inventory starts on page 19 thus:

But the unwary or unlucky researcher will search Google for “Dürre Beiträge zur Geschichte der Cistercienserabtei Amelungsborn” or something of the sort and will be presented with this:

H. Dürre, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Cistercienserabtei Amelungsborn”, Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereins für Niedersachsen. 1876

In this volume, Dr Dürre’s article is the fourth, begins on p.179, and ends on 212, omitting the transcription of the inventory altogether.  It was only when you start to search for Programm des herzoglichen Gymnasiums zu Holzminden that you will make progress.

Looking at the inventory, the entry for the new sermons is on p.22, line 220 of the printed inventory.

The manuscript:

NLA WO VIII B 111, fol. 103r, column 2, part way down.

So there is the reference explained.

I think we will all be very interested to see the text of Dr Tornau’s discovery in full!

Another two sermons of St Augustine discovered: on the Witch of Endor

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Excellent news from the University of Würzburg, where a researcher has discovered two unknown sermons by St Augustine in a Latin manuscript in Poland!   The reporting (by Martin Brandstätter) is unusually good:

One day in 2024, the phone rang for Professor Christian Tornau, a Latinist at the University of Würzburg: An employee of the Bad Doberan Monastery Association in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania asked him to decipher a 12th-century manuscript that originally belonged to Bad Doberan Abbey but is now kept in its daughter monastery, Pelplin, in Poland. The manuscript contained six sermons by the Christian Church Father Augustine of Hippo (354-430).

What initially seemed like a routine philological assignment turned into a discovery: “Two of the six sermons are previously undiscovered writings by Augustine,” Professor Tornau rejoiced at the unexpected find. He is currently working with Professor Dorothea Weber and Dr. Clemens Weidmann from the CSEL series (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum) on an edition of the two Latin sermons.  …

The newly discovered sermons deal with the Old Testament story of the Witch of Endor from the First Book of Samuel. “Saul believes himself to be in a hopeless situation shortly before a battle against the Philistines. God does not hear his prayers. He turns to a witch,” explains Tornau. At Saul’s request, she summons the supposed spirit of the deceased prophet Samuel, who foretells his death in battle.

The story raises a theological question: “Why can a necromancer summon the spirit of a prophet? This, in turn, opens up the problem of theodicy: How can an omnipotent God allow this, or is he not truly omnipotent?” the Latinist explained. Theologically, there are two interpretations: Either it must be a case of deception by the witch, or God permitted the summoning to warn Saul of certain death.

The sermons play with these interpretations. “The first sermon was given during the Sunday service and ends with the question of theodicy and its interpretations. Only the second sermon, on the following Wednesday, weighed the options,” Tornau explained. The congregation was thus given a certain degree of freedom to form their own thoughts on the biblical passage.  …

There have already been cases in which supposed writings by Augustine turned out to be forgeries. Therefore, the professor of Latin studies proceeded cautiously: He analyzed the text together with the expert Clemens Weidmann, conducted meticulous research, and organized a summer school in Vienna in the autumn of 2025. Twenty other Latinists attended to discuss and verify the authenticity of the text. In the end, everyone agreed: The sermons are genuine.

Reconstructing the transmission history of the sermons proved challenging. “First of all, the creation of such a manuscript in the 12th century is unusual. A copy from the beginning of the 8th or 9th century would be more typical,” says Latinist Tornau. He therefore considers it very likely that the manuscript is based on an earlier version from the Lower Saxon monastery of Amelungsborn.

“An old catalog from the monastery mentions a text that bears the same headings and has the same sequence of content as our manuscript. It could have served as a model,” the researcher explains. Tornau cannot confirm this assumption with absolute certainty, however, as the entire library holdings of Amelungsborn Monastery were destroyed by fire during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).

The first edition will address the transmission of the texts and contextualize their content and authenticity. “This isn’t a sensational find like the 30 Augustinian writings discovered in Mainz in 1990. But we are supplementing Augustine’s extensive body of work with two further fascinating texts in a critical edition,” Tornau summarizes. The edition is expected to be published by CSEL at the end of 2026.

The article even includes a legible photograph of the first page of the manuscript, and clearly identifies it – a first, in my experience.  The red title reads, I think: “Sermones Augustini de phitonissa et de resuscitatione samuelis”, (i.e. de pythonissa…?)

Excerpt from the manuscript (in red): “Augustine’s sermons on the fortune teller and the appearance of Samuel.” Source: Pelplin, Diocesan Library, Codex 114 (195), fol. 14r. (Image: Biblioteka Diecezjalna im. Biskupa Jana Bernarda Szlagi w Pelplinie)

The town of Pelplin originated from the monastery, itself populated by monks from Bad Doberan in Mecklenburg, according to Wikipedia.  The Biblioteka Diecezjalna library has a website here, although it does not seem to have any manuscript material online.  There is a website for the “Friends of Bad Doberan monastery,” mentioned in the article, here.  I was unable to locate a publication of the “old catalogue” of Amelungsborn unfortunately.

It’s very good news, and it will be most interesting to see what Augustine had to say on this curious passage of the bible.

Update (16 June 2026): The “old catalogue” of Amelungsborn, mentioned by Dr. Tornau, is discussed in my next post.

Augustine, Letter to Firmus – English translation

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An article by Lambot informs me of the existence of an interesting letter by St. Augustine, and a correspondent has let me know that an English translation exists in the Fathers of the Church volume of the City of God, to which the letter relates.1

While discoveries of sermons by St. Augustine have never ceased, his correspondence has remained pretty much where the Maurist fathers left it.  Only 5 letters have been discovered since the late 17th century; 2 in 1732 by G. Bessel, 1 in 1901 by Dom G. Morin, and finally 2 in 1898 and 1904 by A. Goldbacher, the CSEL editor of Augustine’s letters.

A further letter is found in two manuscripts of Augustine’s De civitate dei, and might reasonably have come to light earlier.  The mss. are the Reims 403 (12-13th c.) and Paris Saint-Genevieve 2757 (14-15th c.).

The letter is deeply interesting for what it tells us about the circulation of the works of a major author in his own time.

Here is the letter.  I have copied a few of the notes from the Fathers of the Church translation, which I have prefixed with FoC:

To Firmus,2 My Distinguished and Deservedly Honored Lord, and My Cherished Son, Augustine Sends Greeting in the Lord.

The books on the City of God which you most eagerly requested I have sent you as I promised, having also reread them myself. That this, with God’s help, should be done has been urged by my son and your brother, Cyprian, who has furnished just that insistence I hoped would be forthcoming.

There are twenty-two sections.3 To put all these into one whole would be cumbersome. If you wish that two volumes be made of them, they should be so apportioned that one volume contain ten books, the other twelve. For, in those ten, the empty teachings of the pagans have been refuted, and, in the remainder, our own religion has been demonstrated and defended—though, to be sure, in the former books the latter subject has been dealt with when it was more suitable to do so, and in the latter, the former.

If, however, you should prefer that there be more than two volumes, you should make as many as five. The first of these would contain the first five books, where argument has been advanced against those who contend that the worship, not indeed of gods, but of demons, is of profit for happiness in this present life. The second volume would contain the next five books, where [a stand has been taken against those] who think that, for the sake of the life which is to come after death, worship should be paid, through rites and sacrifices, whether to these divinities or to any plurality of gods what­ever. The next three volumes ought to embrace four books each; for this part of our work has been so divided that four books set forth the origin of that City, a second four its prog­ress—or, as we might choose to say, its development,—the final four its appointed ends.

If the diligence you have shown for procuring these books will be matched by diligence in reading them, it is rather from your testing than from my promises that you will learn how far they will help you. As for those books belonging to this work on the City of God which our brothers there in Carthage do not yet have, I ask that you graciously and will­ingly acceed to their requests to have copies made. You will not grant this favor to many, but to one or two at most, and they themselves will grant it to others. Among your friends, some, within the body of Christian folk, may desire instruc­tion; in the case of others, bound by some superstition, it may appear that this labor of ours can, through God’s grace, be used to liberate them. How you are to share it with them you must yourself decide.

For my part I shall take care to make frequent inquiry, God willing, what progress you are making in my writings as you read them. Surely, you cannot fail to know how much a man of education is helped toward understanding the written word by repeated reading. No difficulty in understanding occurs (or, if any, very little) where there is facility in reading, and this gains in scope with successive repetitions. Constant appli­cation [brings to fruition] what [through inattention] would have remained immature.

In earlier letters, my distinguished and deservedly honored lord and my son Firmus, you have shown acquaintance with the books on the Academics that I composed when my con­version was yet fresh.4 Please write in reply how you came to this knowledge.

The range of subject matter comprised in the twenty-two books of my composition is shown in the epitome that I send you.

  1. Lambot, Lettre inedite de S. Augustin relative au “De Civitate Dei“, Revue Benedictine 51, 1939, p.109-121.  The first couple of paragraphs I give below; and Augustine, City of God, Books I-VII (tr. Zema and Walsh), FotC (Washington, 1950) — appendix p. 399.[↩]
  2. FoC: Lambot (113f.) collects the evidence identifying the African priest, Firmus. In Epist. 200, Augustine speaks of his intimate friendship with him. The closing paragraph of Epist. 82 (= Jerome, Epist. 116) is one of the texts which reveal Firmus as carrying letters between Augus­tine and Jerome. A certain Cyprian named there as performing similar service is probably the Cyprian mentioned early in the present letter; cf. Lambot 115 n. 3. From Epist. 184A, addressed to the monks Peter and Abraham, we learn that Firmus was to bring them a copy of the first thirteen books of The City of God.[↩]
  3. FoC: Lat. ‘quaterniones.’ The word ‘quaternio’ normally signifies one of the 16-page quires or signatures commonly used in the physical com­position of an ancient codex. Here it may well be synonymous with the literary division ‘liber’ (‘book’) [↩]
  4. FoC: The Contra Academicos, translated, under the title ‘Answer to Skeptics,’ by D. J. Kavanagh, OS.A., in the first volume of the Writings of Saint Augustine as found in this series. In discussing this passage, Lambot (114) reminds us that Augustine’s earliest writings were soon eclipsed by the greater works of his maturity. As we learn from Augustine’s Retractations (12), his own copy of the De beata vita showed gaps he could not fill. All but one of his treatises on the liberal arts had vanished from his shelves, though Augustine understood that copies were owned by others (Retract. 1.6). In the De Trinitate (15.xii.21) Augustine discusses the utility of his books on the Academics to any­one ‘who wishes to read them and can do so’ (‘qui potuerit et voluerit legere’)—language which suggests that it was hard to find a copy. Read in the light of this passage of the De Trinitate, Augustine’s request that Firmus write how he came to know the Contra Academicos gains point and, as Lambot remarks, is a guarantee of the authenticity of the letter.[↩]