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Editor’s Preface
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This fourth volume of St. Augustin’s Works contains his polemical writings in vindication
of the Catholic Church against the heresy of the Manichæans, and the schism of the
Donatists. The former are contained in Tom. II. and VIII., the latter in Tom. IX., of the
Benedictine edition.
Like the preceding volumes, this also is more than a reprint of older translations, and
contains important additions not previously published.
I.—Seven Writings Against the Manichæan Heresy. Four of these were translated by
the Rev. Richard Stothert, of Bombay, for Dr. Dods’ edition, published by T. & T. Clark,
Edinburgh, 1872, and revised by Dr. Albert H. Newman, of Toronto, for the American
edition. The other three treatises are translated, I believe for the first time, by Dr. Newman
for this edition. (See Contents.)
The Edinburgh translation, especially of the first two treatises, is sufficiently faithful
and idiomatic, and needed very little alteration by the American editor, who compared it
sentence by sentence with the Latin original, and made changes only where they seemed
necessary.
This part of the volume is also enriched by an introductory essay of Dr. Newman, which
embodies the literature and the results of the most recent as well as the earlier researches
concerning that anti-Christian heresy.
II.—The Writings Against the Donatists. These were well translated by the Rev. J. R.
King, of Oxford, and are slightly revised by Dr. Hartranft, of Hartford, after a careful com-
parison with the Latin.
The literary introduction of Dr. Hartranft, in connection with the translator’s historical
preface, will place the reader in the situation of the controversy between the Catholic Church
and the Donatists at the time of St. Augustin.
In both sections the treatises are arranged in chronological order.
The fifth volume will contain the writings of St. Augustin against the Pelagians and
Semi-Pelagians. It is in the hands of the printer and will be published in October.
Philip Schaff.
New York, June, 1887.
Editor’s Preface.
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Editor’s Preface.