Augustin, Enarrationes in psalmos 1-50: Edition of en. 1-32

Research project P 13832 Augustin, Enarrationes in psalmos 1-50: Edition of en. 1-32 Adolf PRIMMER 28.06.1999 The sermons or commentaries of St. Augustin on all 150 psalms are not only his most extensive opus, but also belong to the most influentious works of the Latin Church Fathers in the Middle Ages. Their popularity is reflected in the rich manuscript tradition (400 manuscripts are known from the period ut to the 12th century). Because of the wide diffusion a critical edition of the opus meeting modem scholarly demands is still required. After the research on the middle and third parts work on the Enarrationes 1-50 was begun as part of the previous projects. These texts are very heterogeneous and consist of different commentary forms. The already almost finished text to the psalms 15-32, which are avowed in a recently discovered literary form, i.e. in an allegoric paraphrasis, should be edited in common with the Enarrationes 1 14, which are object of the new project, we are applying for. Thus at its end the first text-critically secured edition of the earliest commentaries on psalms 1-32 by St. Augustins will be edited. Such a critical edition of the opus will afford important new insights into the theological development and literary performance of the Bible-exegete Augustinus.

For the first time for more than 300 years the commentary of St. Augustine (354-430) on the Psalms 1-32 is present in a critical text edition. Composed in the years 392-395 A.D. as the oldest part of the Enarrationes in Psalmos, they are for the first time seizable in a manuscript written around 700 and are among, like numerous later manuscripts prove, the most common texts of the Middle Ages. By comparison of text variants (including 11. cent.) the relationship of the different text versions was determined and the original text, whose history lies for the first 300 years in the dark, has been reconstructed. The commentary of the psalms being in common use in the Middle Ages, has been partly disfigured unconsciously by writing-errors, partly adapted consciously by improvement attempts to the needs of the medieval users. Such changes concern not only the wording (e.g. the adjustment of Bible quotations to the common version), but above all the outer appearance and the arrangement of the texts: The most serious interference could be proven for the commentary of the Psalms 15-32, which are explicated in a recently discovered literary form: Augustinus had paraphrased these Psalms as a whole, without interrupting this explanation by the Psalm verse treated; instead he had placed the whole Psalm in front of its explanation and had ensured the clear relationship between psalm-verse and verse-explanation by a numeric reference system (e.g., the original arrangement for Psalm 15 reads thus: Verse I, II, III... Commentary on verse I, II, III...). In all manuscripts however the individual Psalm verse is posed before the appropriate verse explanation in each case and interrupts the original context (the traditional arrangement reads for Psalm 15: Verse I + commentary on verse I, verse II + commentary on verse II, verse III + commentary on verse III...). The original text shape could be reconstructed by attention to the context and different indications. In addition it could be shown that in the course of the manuscript tradition on the one hand texts, which do not have anything to do with the explanation of Psalms were eliminated from the manuscripts of the Enarrationes (e.g. a council document in en. 36/2/18-23), on the other hand however related texts were added: So four sermons from the two most important Bible comments of Augustine, the Enarrationes in psalmos and the Tractatus in Iohannis evangelium (en. 25/2; Io. ev. tr. 20-22) have been recognized as independent sermons, which survive to us only therefore, because they were added to the two major exegetical works of Augustine.