Augustine's sermons on the New Testament Letters. Critical edition and contentanalysis from a rhetorical point of view.

The sermons 151-183 pf Saint Augustine (354-430) focus on the New testament Letters and especially on those of Saint Paul (151-178), who played a pivotal role in the development, theology, and pastoral activity of Augustine. This research project has two parts: (1) the critical edition of sermons 151-183 in the Series latina of the Corpus Christianorum; (2) a content analysis of these texts from a rhetorical point of view. (1) The edition aims at replacing the last complete edition of the series of serm. 151-183, which was made by the French Benedictine monks of the Congregation of St-Maur in 1683 and which is available today in the series Patrologia Latina (PL 38 = 1861). (2) The content analysis of serm. 151-183 will start from the assumption that Augustine's preaching has baan determined by these earliers activities in the field of ancient rhetoric. The analysis will focus on the purpose of each sermon, on its historical, geographical and liturgical context as well as on the question how these elements have affected argumentation, structure and style of each text.

Keywords:Patristics, Homiletics, Latin literature, Ancient rhetoric, Augustine, Paul, Exegesis, Critical edition

Disciplines:Theory and methodology of literary studies, Theology and religious studies, Other philosophy, ethics and religious studies not elsewhere classified, Historical theory and methodology