Commencement de commentaire sur l'epitre aux Romains

This book offers a new critical edition, and the first detailed study of St Augustine's Epistulae ad Romanos inchoata expositio ("Beginning of a Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans"). Shortly before he was made bishop of Hippo, in AD 395/96, St Augustine undertook a major project to comment the epistles of St Paul. After a succinct commentary on Galatians, and a book of 'Questions' on Romans, he began a full-scale commentary on Romans, which was to rival and surpass any Scriptural commentary yet produced by the Latin Church. However, on his own admission, Augustine was defeated by the ambition of this project: he gave up on his commentary after the first paragraph of Romans. Still, he considered what he had written worth preserving and circulating. Despite its brevity, the Inchoata Expositio shows all Augustine's wisdom and imagination as a student of Scripture, and ends with a rich discussion of the nature of the Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (the unforgivable sin). This books offers a new critical edition (with French translation) of this text, and the first detailed literary, historical and theological commentary on this key work in Augustine's early development.