Tractates on the Gospel of John
28 ST. AUGUSTINE (39) La Bonnardiere,^^ in addition to the standard methods of dating, introduces a new and effective method, relating themes and particular scriptural quotations with their particular exegeses to other datable writings of St. Augustine. She divides the sermons into several groups. Tractates 1 to 12, which, like Le Landais, she combines with En in Ps 95 and 1 19 to 133, and the 10 Tractates on the First Epistle into a group of 38 sermons; Tractates 13 to 16; Tractates 17 to 23; Tractates 24 to 54; and Tractates 55 to 124. She disagrees sharply with other scholars about the dates of these sermons.
(40) The first group of 38 sermons she places in the years 406—407. The law about Donatist property which Le Landais had identified with the rescript of Honorius in June, 414, is similar to one dated February, 405. Augustine refers to it in Epistula 93 which is probably from 408. Most of the persons named by Augustine in these sermons are mentioned by him elsewhere only in the anti-Donatist writings prior to 4 1 1 . For example, Marculus and Donatus of Bagai in Tractate 11.15 cur also in the Contra Litteras Petiliani 2.20.46 and the Contra
Cresconium 3.49.54, both written in 405-406.
(41) To Cyprian's arguments about rebaptism, alluded to in Tractate 5.16, Augustine responded with an exegesis of Phil 3.15 which is used twenty times in this way in works between 400 and 411. So certain themes that are prominent in these sermons, such as the theme of the dove, occur almost entirely in works from the period 400 to 41 1 . Other important considerations require a date earlier than June 411. There is not a single mention of the Conference of Carthage held in that month; the Donatists still have freedom of worship which that conference denied them. Moreover, on June 8,411, Augustine held a debate with the Donatist Emeritus of Caesarea on the meaning of the Latin word mundus; there is not a sign of the arguments employed there in these sermons. Likewise, she asserts, there are no references to Pelagianism. Considerable evidence of this kind narrows the date to 406-408.
Tractate 7 refers to a "feast of blood"; La Bonnardiere identi-
85. See note 71.
INTRODUCTION 29 fies this with an aberration of the traditional rites of Cybele held on March 24. A law of November 1 5, 408, forbade pagan rituals. Tractate 7 was preached on a Sunday; only 407 permits that. Hence these 38 sermons are dated in 406-407. To this group she adds En in Ps 21.2, holding that it was preached on the day after Tractate 12. This group then contains 39 sermons. (42) There are no clear chronological references in Tractates 13 to 16. From a careful examination of scriptural references in Tractate 15 in comparison with other writings, she places this group in 407 -408.
(43) Tractates 17 to 23 constitute an isolated block of sermons. Tractate 17 makes no reference to Tractate 16, and Tractate 23 ends abruptly with Jn 5.30 while Tractate 24 begins at Jn 6.5 with no reference to Tractate 23. The text is treated in the same manner as in certain anti-Arian works, such as the Contra Sermonem Arianorum. These seven sermons were delivered after 418.
(44) La Bonnardiere argues that the series Tractates 24 to 54 were all preached after 418, probably from August to Lent in either 419-420 or 420—421. The heavy emphasis on Trinitarian heresies relates these sermons to the arrival of the Arian Goths in North Africa in 417. Scriptural exegesis, especially of Nm 20. 1 1 and Is 52.3 as interpreted in the Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, and the treatment of Rom 8.3, 2 Cor 5.21, and Lv 4 as a group, decisively date these sermons.
(45) Finally, she argues for the "oral character" of Tractates 55 to 124 which, she says, constitute a homogeneous group, all completed within a limited time. Yet she holds that these were neither preached to the people nor dictated, but belong to a third class which Augustine recommended in DDC
4.29.62, sermons given before clerics as guides for their sermons. From varied statements in several of the sermons, for example, that Augustine's treatment of the location of unbaptized infants in heaven in Tractate 67 is the same as his treatment of that subject in the De Natura et Origine Animae which is dated 419-420, she would date this group after 419-420.