Homilies On The Gospel According To Saint John And His First Epistle

THESE Discourses on St. John are assigned by the Benedictine Editors to A.D. 416, or the following year. In favour of an earlier date, it might indeed be alleged, that the keen controversy against the Donatists, which so frequently occurs in these Sermons, shews the schism to have been still flagrant when they were preached; as in fact in the Homilies on the Epistle of St. John, delivered in the same year, St. Austin expressly mentions, that the schismatics had still their altar at Hippo: quid faciunt in hac civitate duo altaria? Whence it might seem that their date must be prior to A.D. 411, the year of the Conference of Carthage. That this, however, would be too early a date, is shewn, as the Editors remark, by numerous passages, in which not only is the doctrine of Predestination put forth as a well-understood and most certain truth, (e. g. Tr. xlv, xlviii, lxviii, lxxxiii, cv, cxi.) but there is pointed reference, only not by name, (e. g. liii, lxvii, lxxxi, lxxxvi.) to the Pelagian heresy, which came into Africa in that same year 411. A distinct note of time, however, is given in Tract, cxx. 4. in the mention of the revelatio corporis beatissimi Stephani, which in the account written by the Presbyter Lucian is assigned to the close of A.D. 415. Aeterna Press