This chapter introduces the main themes and scope of the volume, including discussing the origin of the concept of ‘heresy’, as well as outlining what aspects of it will and will not form the focus of the following chapters. It then provides a summary of the division of the volume into two parts and the particular topics and case studies contained in each.

Augustine’s doctrine of the totus Christus, the whole Christ with Christ as Head and the Church as Body, developed within his preaching ministry. The doctrine emerges from Augustine’s prosopological exegesis of the Psalms and grows into a theological reflection on the enduring union of Christ and the Church that leads Augustine to say that Christ and the Church share a voice, an identity, and a life. This transforming union gives Christians a new identity as members of the Body of Christ through the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. The life of the Church reflects the love and unity of Christ in its life and action in the world. Because of its deep roots in his preaching, Augustine’s doctrine of the totus Christus can be called a preached theology. That is, it is a theology developed within the context of preaching, both in the preparation for preaching and in the preaching itself.

This chapter explores Augustine’s preaching on the Old Testament in three primary collections: 1) Sermons to the People, 2) Explanations of the Psalms, and 3) the Dolbeau sermons. It begins by considering Augustine’s Christo-ecclesial hermeneutic for the interpretation of Scripture, which Augustine employs while preaching in the context of liturgical worship. Then it provides an overview of Augustine’s developing figurative exegesis of the Old Testament, especially during his debates with the Manicheans. Next, it examines how Augustine engages the different kinds of literature in the Old Testament, such as the Pentateuch, Psalms, and wisdom literature, in the aforementioned collections. The chapter concludes by arguing that Augustine’s sermons on the Old Testament demonstrate the unity of Scripture and the underlying Christo-ecclesial meaning of the Old Testament in Augustine’s thought.

While studies frequently concern preachers and their audiences, this chapter avoids the word “audience” and relies more upon the phrase that Augustine uses for the people who stand before him when he preaches: fratres mei (my brethren). The chapter first considers Augustine as preacher with a critical use of Possidius’s Life of Augustine. One of Augustine’s most devoted episcopal friends, Possidius knew him for nearly 40 years and heard him preach many times. The chapter then considers how Augustine understood the people before him. It treats how he spoke to them and how he allows us to glimpse something of who they are and how they think, with a focus on the descriptions of his people in ep. 29. Attending to this biography and letter can help us have a greater appreciation for the study of Augustine as a preacher and those with him when we focus on the extant sermon collection.

Thascius Caecilianus Cyprianus – better known to history as Cyprian – converted to Christianity around 246 after a successful secular career as a rhetorician. Soon he was ordained to the priesthood and in 248 or 249 was consecrated as the bishop of Carthage. Not long after this, in late 249, the persecution of Emperor Decius broke out and Cyprian fled Carthage out of a concern that his church not be deprived of its bishop, as had recently happened in Rome and elsewhere. When the persecution ended in 251, in its wake there arose in Carthage and Rome several theological and pastoral problems, particularly over the readmission into the church of those who had lapsed in the persecution. Cyprian adopted a measured policy of readmitting the lapsed after a period of suitable repentance, and this policy was adopted also by Cornelius, the new bishop of Rome. He lays out this approach in On the Lapsed (De lapsis), written in 251. But laxists in Carthage, who supported the lenient readmission of the lapsed, and rigorists in Rome, who denied that readmission was even permissible, opposed the official policy, leading to schisms in both places.

Jesus Christ names the Trinity’s defining purpose. The Holy Spirit names the Trinity’s unfolding purpose. We recognise as the work of the Holy Spirit the occasions when it anticipates or echoes the action of God in Christ. More vividly, Christ, along with the Father, sends the Spirit, to point to Christ, to make Christ present in creation, to foster the ways human beings are with Christ, to prepare the way for Christ’s first and second comings. Hence this chapter explores Israel, church and God’s realm as particular lenses through which we see that Christ-prefiguring, Christ-imitating and Christ-replicating action of the Holy Spirit. The purpose of this chapter is to articulate the continuous activity of the Holy Spirit in actions of bringing people into relationship with God – in their being with God, one another and the wider creation.

Covenant, community and communion are ways in which God’s means and God’s ends are identical. Covenant is not the ‘Plan B’ after the failure of creation in the fall; it is the fulfilment of the reason for creation, and the anticipation of the true covenant, the incarnation itself. God’s love for Israel goes far beyond any instrumental goodwill: Israel is God’s child, God’s spouse, God’s companion forever. Communion is the centre of the Christian faith: being with but also being together. Communion and community name the two aspirations of church. The one is about being in, and bringing others into, relationship with God; the other is about relating civilly, cordially and sacrificially with one another, and attending to the things that need doing to function humanly. When Jesus talks of the realm of God, he is talking about this communion and community becoming a reality for all people.

St. Paul speaks about the church as the body of Christ, and he also speaks about the Eucharist as the body of Christ. How are these two affirmations related? Christian medieval authors gave consideration to the notion of the church as the “mystical body” of Christ and understood the church as the fruit or result of eucharistic communion in the “true body” of Christ. This chapter examines the thought of Thomas Aquinas on the church and its relation to the sacraments. It also shows how this conception has deeply informed the modern idea of the church as a sign and instrument of grace for all human beings, called to communion in the one Christ.

This chapter treats liturgical experience. It finds that there are few textual sources for the study of this experience and that instead practices, postures, gestures, and other elements of lived ritual experience must be considered. Liturgical experience is characterized by structures of repetition and predictability that enable participants to integrate their own experiences and to feel that they belong to something that has preceded them, thus providing a sense of stability and meaningful identity. Liturgy features cycles of confession and celebration that in their back-and-forth movements allow people to process their emotions and to participate in bodily practices that express their convictions and deepest concerns. Liturgical participants are thus shaped in their identity within communities of belonging that provide meaning to their daily experience, both regular and extraordinary.