The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

This paper presents the first translation into Russian of St. Augustine’s five Easter sermons: 228, 227, 229A (= Guelf. 7), 255A and 376A. The first three of these were preached on Easter morning, while sermon 376A and most likely 255A were delivered on the first Sunday after Easter. In the sermons, St. Augustine focuses on the new members joining the Church. This fact determines the two main themes of the sermons: an explanation of the sacrament of the Eucharist and a call to live a life worthy of Christians. The first theme is revealed through the exegesis of key passages from the New Testament, primarily 1 Cor 10:17: “For we being many are one bread, and one body”. Treating the moral theme, St. Augustine points that in the Church there are both good Christians and bad ones, and the so‑called “infantes”, i. e. the newly baptized, should imitate the former, not the latter. The sermons contain many references to specific features of St. Augustine’s catechetical practice, such as the rites of “handing-over” and “handing-back” of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer or the custom requiring the newly baptized to stand during the service with their heads covered until the eighth day. These details make the sermons a valuable source both for the history of catechesis and for the history of the Church in general. The translation is provided with an introduction and historical and philological commentary. The most valuable part of the paper is the appendix containing a reconstruction of the Latin text of sermon 228, based on the 1683 Benedictine edition and two manuscripts: Saint-Mihiel, Bibliothèque municipale, Z 20 (10th century) and Cassino, Biblioteca statale del monumento nazionale di Montecassino, 17 (11th century). The appendix records all textual variants (variae lectiones) found in the edition and the manuscripts.