Edition (with translation and commentary) of the early Augustinian dialogues for the “Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum” as well as for “Augustinus, Opera – Werke.”

Project management: Dr. Therese Fuhrer, Professor

Researcher: Simone Adam

Brief description: The aim of the project is to produce a critical text edition of the first three extant texts by the Latin church father Augustine (Contra Academicos, De beata vita, and De ordine) from the year A.D. 386, of which, to date, the only editions are either inadequate older ones or unsatisfactory newer ones (limited selection of manuscripts, errors in the Recensio Codicum, text criticism structures that are either too extensive or too limited, issues of credibility of transmission, lack of uniform spelling, typographic errors). The work will be published in the series Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL), which is published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna and is a leading authority on editions by the Latin author and church father. The new edition is intended as a replacement for Volume 63 in the series, which was originally published in 1922 and contains an inadequate edition of the three Augustinian texts mentioned above (obtained by Father Pius Knöll). An edition of the abovementioned texts to stringent academic criteria is a desideratum for students and teachers of classical language and literature, philosophy, and theology who are examining the continued effects of pagan literary and philosophical traditions in the Christian late antique period or the reception of these traditions by early Christian authors. These three texts are arranged in the style of the philosophical dialogues of Cicero and treat questions of stoic and skeptical perception theory, ethics, pagan and Christian theology, and the philosophical educational structure handed down from antiquity (which continued to be the standard in some areas into the Middle Ages).

The researcher, Simone Adam, will handle the edition of the text De beata vita, for which she is also to supply the translation and commentary (doctoral project).

The texts Contra Academicos and De beata vita are to appear in the series “Augustinus, Opera – Werke,” a bilingual Latin/German annotated new edition of the entire works of Augustine, eds. Volker Henning Drecoll, Johannes Brachtendorf, Therese Fuhrer, and Christoph Horn. Authors: Therese Fuhrer (Contra Academicos), Simone Adam (De beata vita).