Augustine: Confessions and Letters

Chapter I — Literature

I. sources.

Augustin's Works. S. Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi Opera...Post Lovaniensium theologorum recensionem [which appeared at Antwerp in 1577 in 11 vols.], castigatus [referring to tomus primus, etc.] denuo ad MSS. codd. Gallicanos, etc. Opera et studio monachorum ordinis S. Benedicti e congregatione S. Mauri [Fr. Delfau, Th. Blampin, P. Coustant, and Cl. Guesnié]. Paris, 1679-1700, 11 tom. in 8 fol. vols. The same edition reprinted, with additions, at Antwerp, 1700-1703, 12 parts in 9 fol.; and at Venice, 1729-'34, in 11 tom. in 8 fol. (this edition is not to be confounded with another Venice edition of 1756-'69 in 18 vols. 4to, which is full of printing errors); also at Bassano, 1807, in 18 vols.; by Gaume fratres, Paris, 1836-'39, in 11 tom. in 22 parts (a very elegant edition); and lastly by J. P. Migne, Petit-Montrouge, 1841-'49, in 12 tom. ("Patrol. Lat." tom. xxxii.-xlvii.). Migne's edition gives, in a supplementary volume (tom. xii.), the valuable Notitia literaria de vita, scriptis et editionibus Aug. from Schönemann's "Bibliotheca historico-literaria Patrum Lat." vol. ii. Lips. 1794, the Vindiciæ Augustinianæ of Cardinal Noris (Norisius), and the writings of Augustin first published by Fontanini and Angelo Mai. So far the most complete and convenient edition.

But a thoroughly reliable critical edition of Augustin is still a desideratum and will be issued before long by a number of scholars under the direction of the Imperial Academy of Vienna in the "Corpus Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum."

On the controversies relating to the merits of the Bened. edition, which was sharply criticized by Richard Simon, and the Jesuits, but is still the best and defended by the Benedictines, see the supplementary volume of Migne, xxi. p. 40 sqq., and Thuillier: Histoire de la nouvelle éd. de S. Aug. par les PP. Bénédictins, Par. 1736.

The first printed edition of Augustin appeared at Basle, 1489-'95; another, in 1509, in 11 vols.; then the edition of Erasmus published by Frobenius, Bas. 1528-'29, in 10 vols., fol.; the Editio Lovaniensis, of sixteen divines of Louvain, Antw. 1577, in 11 vols. and often reprinted at Paris, Geneva, and Cologne.

Several works of Augustin have been often separately edited, especially the Confessions and the City of God. Compare a full list of the editions down to 1794 in Schönemann's Bibliotheca, vol. ii. p. 73 sqq.;…