Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
The Preacher 123
The Ruins of Augustine's Basilica Pacis: Hippo Regius (Annaba, Algeria).
Photo: Michael Flecky, S.J. Used with permission.
flowing numbers."4 The altar, unlike that found in medieval and many modern churches, stood in the center of the nave and was surrounded by wood railings. At the basilica's far end was a semi-circular apse, lined with stone benches where the presbyters sat. At the apse's center, slightly elevated, was the bishop's seat (cathedra). From here Augustine presided and preached.
No sacramentary from North Africa has survived, but scholars have been able to reconstruct the outlines of the Sunday liturgy from passing references in Augustine's sermons, treatises, and letters.5 The service began with the bishop greeting the congregation: "The Lord be you." "And with your spirit," they would answer. Then a reader—typically, a teenage boy—read an excerpt
4. En. Ps. 39.10 (CCL 38:433); my trans. 5. On the ancient Eucharistic rites, see Paul F. Bradshaw, Eucharistic Origins (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Geoffrey Wainwright and Karen B. Westerfield Tucker, eds., The Oxford History of Christian Worship (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). For a reconstruction of the liturgy in Hippo, see Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, 161–64, 312–13; Robin M. Jensen and J. Patout Burns, "The Eucharistic Liturgy in Hippo's Basilica Major at the Time of Augustine," AugEncy, 335–38.