to believe in Christ) would be left with nothing of their inheritance as God's chosen people.
86 SAINT A UG USTINE - SERMONS
NOTES
1. Preached in Hippo Regius, like most of these seasonal sermons. The style again suggests the early date, on which I am happy to be able to agree with Kunzelmann and Fischer.
2. Quite where it is written, it is not easy to say; it could be a paraphrase of two texts like Prv 8:12 & 20. 3. Magnum sacramentum!—a frequent exclamation on Augustine's lips; sacrament in the ex¬ tended sense he gives the word, of a biblical reality, thing or event, symbolically signifying the great mysteries of salvation.
4. The joint emperors Arcadius, at Constantinople in the East, and Honorius, at Ravenna in the West.
5. See Jn 18:36.
6. The force of the "only," I think, is that besides the scriptures, the Jews (as long as they failed to believe in Christ) would be left with nothing of their inheritance as God's chosen people.
7. See Eph 2:20.
8. See Eph 2:17.
9. Which is what the Magi were, of course, much more obviously in Latin than in English. Magus is a Greek word, of Babylonian or Persian origin, meaning magician and/or astrologer.
10. See Ps 118:2, quoted in Mk 12:10.
11. Namely the joining of the two together, Jews and Gentiles. 12. See Rom 11:5.
13. He means the Donatists.
14. See Rom 11:23. Paul, of course, is talking about the Jews being grafted in again, as Augustine knew perfectly well. But I doubt if he was thinking about the Jews here; what Paul felt for his fellow Jews who rejected Christ, Augustine felt for his fellow Africans who rejected the Catholic Church.