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In Against Julian Augustine stresses in the first two books the traditional teachings of the Church found in the Fathers and contrasts their teaching with the rationalism of the Pelagians

This is the first English translation of the last two theological works of Eusebius of Caesarea, Against Marcellus and On Ecclesiastical Theology. The first text was composed after the deposition of Marcellus of Ancyra in 336 to justify the action of the council fathers in ordering the deposition on the grounds of heresy, contending that Marcellus was “Sabellian” (or modalist) on the Trinity and a follower of Paul of Samosata (hence adoptionist) in Christology. Relying heavily upon extensive quotations from a treatise Marcellus wrote against Asterius the Sophist, this text provides important information about ecclesiastical politics in the period before and just after the Council of Nicea, and endeavors to demonstrate Marcellus’s erroneous interpretation of several key biblical passages that had been under discussion since before the council. In doing so, Eusebius criticizes Marcellus’s inadequate account of the distinction between the persons of the Trinity, eschatology, and the Church’s teaching about the divine and human identities of Christ.

On Ecclesiastical Theology, composed circa 338/339 just before Eusebius’s death, and perhaps in response to the amnesty for deposed bishops enacted by Constantius after the death of Constantine in 377 and the possibility of Marcellus’s return to his see, continues to lay out the criticisms initially put forward in Against Marcellus, again utilizing quotations from Marcellus’s book against Asterius. However, we see in this text a much more systematic explanation of Eusebius’s objections to the various elements of Marcellus’s theology and what he sees as the proper orthodox articulation of those elements.

Long overlooked for statements at odds with later orthodoxy, even written off as heretical because allegedly “semi-Arian,” recent scholarship has demonstrated the tremendous influence these texts had on the Greek theological tradition in the fourth century, especially on the orthodox understanding of the Trinity. In addition to their influence, they are some of the few complete texts that we have from Greek theologians in the immediate period following the Council of Nicea in 325, thus filling a gap in the materials available for research and teaching in this critical phase of theological development.

With this translation, Irven M. Resnick makes the complete work available for the first time in English

The Muwaṭṭaʾ, written in the eighth century CE by Mālik b. Anas—known as the Imam of Medina—is the first written treatise of Islamic law. The Prophet Muḥammad and his earliest followers immigrated to the city of Medina after they experienced severe persecution in their hometown of Mecca, establishing the first Muslim community in Medina. As the Muslim community rapidly expanded, Medina lost some of its political importance, but retained its position as the leading Muslim center of learning for over one hundred years after the Prophet Muḥammad’s death. Imam Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ provides an unparalleled window into the life of this early Muslim community, and the rituals, laws, and customs they upheld.

This translation is based on the recently published critical edition of the Muwaṭṭaʾ, The Royal Moroccan Edition (2013). With its extensive notes, this edition is intended to make this important early legal text widely accessible to a broad spectrum of readers, including those interested in both legal history and Islamic Studies.

A new translation for scholars and students of biblical interpretation and ancient Christianity

The ancient writer dubbed Ambrosiaster was a pioneer in the revival of interest in the Pauline Epistles in the later fourth century. He was read by Latin writers, including Pelagius and Augustine, and his writings, passed on pseudonymously, had a long afterlife in the biblical commentaries, theological treatises, and canonical literature of the medieval and the early modern periods. In addition to his importance as an interpreter of scripture, Ambrosiaster provides unique perspectives on many facets of Christian life in Rome, from the emergence of clerical celibacy to the development of liturgical practices to the subordination of women.

Features

• An up-to-date overview of what is known about Ambrosiaster, the transmission of his commentary on the Pauline Epistles, his exegetical method, his theological orientation, and aspects of Christianity in Rome in the fourth century
• A scholarly translation of the final version of the commentary, along with notes that identify significant variants from prior versions of the commentary
• Bibliography thatincludes a comprehensive list of the scholarly literature on Ambrosiaster

On the march to greatness.

Arrian (Flavius Arrianus), of the period ca. AD 95–175, was a Greek historian and philosopher of Nicomedia in Bithynia. Both a Roman and an Athenian citizen, he was governor of the Roman province of Cappadocia 132–137, and repelled an invasion of the Alani in 134. He retired then to Athens (where he was archon in 148–149) and later to Nicomedia.

Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander in seven books is the best account we have of Alexander’s adult life. Indica (a description of India and of Nearchus’ voyage therefrom) was to be a supplement.

A student of Epictetus, Arrian took notes at his lectures and published them (in eight books, of which we have four, The Discourses) and also the Encheiridion or Manual of Epictetus. Both works are available in the Loeb edition of Epictetus (LCL 131, 218).

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Arrian is in two volumes.

On the march to greatness.

Arrian (Flavius Arrianus), of the period ca. AD 95–175, was a Greek historian and philosopher of Nicomedia in Bithynia. Both a Roman and an Athenian citizen, he was governor of the Roman province of Cappadocia 132–137, and repelled an invasion of the Alani in 134. He retired then to Athens (where he was archon in 148–149) and later to Nicomedia.

Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander in seven books is the best account we have of Alexander’s adult life. Indica (a description of India and of Nearchus’ voyage therefrom) was to be a supplement.

A student of Epictetus, Arrian took notes at his lectures and published them (in eight books, of which we have four, The Discourses) and also the Encheiridion or Manual of Epictetus. Both works are available in the Loeb edition of Epictetus (LCL 131, 218).

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Arrian is in two volumes.

Epiphanius of Cyprus was lead bishop of the island from 367 until his death in 403, and he was a contemporary of several of the great church fathers of the patristic era, including Athanasius, Basil, and Jerome. He is well known among modern scholars for his monumental heresiology, the Panarion, as well as for his involvement in several ecclesiastical and theological controversies. Before he began to write his magnum opus, however, he had already completed the Ancoratus, an important theological treatise, written in the form of a letter to Christians in southern Anatolia. The Ancoratus addressed numerous theological issues, particularly in response to the continuous disputes about the divinity of the Son, the developing arguments over the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and the early quarrels over the Incarnation of Christ. In addition, he included his thoughts on proper biblical exegesis, the problematic theology of Origen, and the relationship of the Christian faith with Hellenistic culture. Epiphanius's convictions on these issues represented important contributions to the ongoing theological and cultural controversies of the late fourth century, but he has often been overshadowed in modern scholarship by the work of his more illustrious contemporaries. Because there has been no complete English translation of the Ancoratus to date, this volume adds significantly to the resources available for patristic studies.

Animal Fables of the Courtly Mediterranean is a treasure trove of stories and lessons on how to conduct oneself and succeed in life, sometimes through cleverness rather than virtue. They feature human and many animal protagonists, including the two jackals Stephanites and Ichnelates, after whom the book is named, as well as several lion kings. At the heart of this work are tales from the Sanskrit Panchatantra and Mahabharata, to which more were added, both in the original Middle Persian collection and its eighth-century Arabic translation, the widely known Kalīla wa-Dimna.

In the eleventh century, readers in Constantinople were introduced to these stories through an abbreviated Greek version, translated by Symeon Seth from the Arabic. The new Byzantine Greek text and English translation presented here is a more complete version, originating in twelfth-century Sicily and connected with Admiral Eugenius of Palermo. It contains unique prefaces and reinstates the prologues and stories omitted by Seth.

From the first centuries of Christianity, believers turned to the perfection modeled by saints for inspiration, and a tradition of recounting saints’ Lives flourished. The Latin narratives followed specific forms, dramatizing a virgin’s heroic resolve or a martyr’s unwavering faith under torture.

In early medieval England, saints’ Lives were eagerly received and translated into the vernacular. The stories collected here by unknown authors are preserved in manuscripts dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They include locally venerated saints like the abbess Seaxburh, as well as universally familiar ones like Nicholas and Michael the Archangel, and are set everywhere from Antioch to Rome, from India to Ephesus. These Lives also explore such topics as the obligations of rulers, marriage and gender roles, private and public devotion, the environment, education, and the sweep of human history. This volume presents new Old English editions and modern English translations of twenty-two unattributed saints’ Lives.

Contains two very different narratives; both are for the first time presented in an updated Latin text with an annotated English translation.An anonymous notary of King Bela of Hungary wrote a Latin Gesta Hungarorum (ca. 1200/10), a literary composition about the mythical origins of the Hungarians and their conquest of the Carpathian Basin. Anonymus tried to (re)construct the events and protagonists—including ethnic groups—of several centuries before from the names of places, rivers, and mountains of his time, assuming that these retained the memory of times past. One of his major "inventions" was the inclusion of Attila the Hun into the Hungarian royal genealogy, a feature later developed into the myth of Hun-Hungarian continuity.The Epistle to the Sorrowful Lament upon the Destruction of the Kingdom of Hungary by the Tartars of Master Roger includes an eyewitness account of the Mongol invasion in 1241–2, beginning with an analysis of the political conditions under King Bela IV and ending with the king's return to the devastated country.

Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109 CE), in his work Proslogion, originated the “ontological argument” for God’s existence, famously arguing that “something than which nothing greater can be conceived,” which he identifies with God, must actually exist, for otherwise something greater could indeed be conceived. Some commentators have claimed that although Anselm may not have been conscious of the fact, the Proslogion as well as his Reply to Gaunilo contains passages that constitute a second independent proof: a “modal ontological argument” that concerns the supposed logical necessity of God’s existence. Other commentators disagree, countering that the alleged second argument does not stand on its own but presupposes the conclusion of the first.

Anselm’s Other Argument stakes an original claim in this debate, and takes it further. There is a second a priori argument in Anselm (specifically in the Reply), A. D. Smith contends, but it is not the modal argument past scholars have identified. This second argument surfaces in a number of forms, though always turning on certain deep, interrelated metaphysical issues. It is this form of argument that in fact underlies several of the passages which have been misconstrued as statements of the modal argument. In a book that combines historical research with rigorous philosophical analysis, Smith discusses this argument in detail, finally defending a modification of it that is implicit in Anselm. This “other argument” bears a striking resemblance to one that Duns Scotus would later employ.

The interpretation of Anselm of Canterbury’s Proslogion has a long and rich tradition. However, its study is often narrowly focused on its so-called “ontological argument.” As a result, engagement with the text of this work tends to be lopsided, and the prayerful purpose that undergirds the whole book is often completely ignored. Even the most rigorous engagements with the Proslogion often have little to say, for instance, about how the prayers of Proslogion 1, 14, and 18 contribute materially to Anselm’s argument, or how his doctrine of God develops organically from the divine formula in the early chapters to the doctrines of eternity, simplicity, and Trinity in later chapters. There are very few works that offer a sustained analysis to Anselm’s flow of thought throughout the entire Proslogion, and no one has explored how Anselm’s doctrine of creaturely joy in heaven in Proslogion 24-26 is a fitting climax and resolution to the book. Anselm’s Pursuit of Joy attempts a sustained, chapter-by-chapter textual analysis of the Proslogion, and offers the first effort to situate Anselm’s doctrine of heaven in Proslogion 24-26 as the climax of the earlier themes of Anselm’s work. Gavin Ortlund suggests that the basic purpose of Anselm’s argument in the Proslogion is to seek the visio Dei that he articulates as his soul’s deepest desire (Proslogion 1). While Anselm’s argument for God’s existence (Proslogion 2-4) is an important piece of this effort, it is only one step of a larger trajectory of thought that leads Anselm to meditate further on God’s nature as the highest good of the human soul (Proslogion 5-23), and then to anticipate the joy of possessing God in heaven (Proslogion 24-26). In other words, the establishment of God’s existence is only the penultimate consequence of Anselm’s famous formula “that than which nothing greater can be thought”—his ultimate concern is with the infinite creaturely joy that is entailed by his existence. The Proslogion is, far more than an argument for God’s existence, a meditation on God as the chief happiness of the human soul.

The life and miracles of a pagan holy man.

This biography of a first-century AD holy man has become one of the most widely discussed literary works of later antiquity. In a grandly baroque style style Philostratus portrays a charismatic teacher and religious reformer from Tyana in Cappadocia (modern central Turkey) who travels the length of the known world, from the Atlantic to the river Ganges. His miracles, which include extraordinary cures and mysterious disappearances, together with his apparent triumph over death, caused pagans to make Apollonius a rival to Jesus of Nazareth.

In his three-volume Loeb edition of this third-century work, Christopher Jones gives a much improved Greek text and an elegant translation with full explanatory notes. The Life of Apollonius is formally a biography (by far the longest that survives from antiquity), but in reality a combination of travel narrative, rhetorical showpiece, and much else. In the introduction, Jones addresses the question of how far the Life is history and how far fiction. He also discusses the survival and reception of the work through Late Antiquity and up to modern times, and the role that it continues to play in controversies about Christianity.

The life and miracles of a pagan holy man.

This biography of a first-century AD holy man has become one of the most widely discussed literary works of later antiquity. In a grandly baroque style style Philostratus portrays a charismatic teacher and religious reformer from Tyana in Cappadocia (modern central Turkey) who travels the length of the known world, from the Atlantic to the river Ganges. His miracles, which include extraordinary cures and mysterious disappearances, together with his apparent triumph over death, caused pagans to make Apollonius a rival to Jesus of Nazareth.

In his three-volume Loeb edition of this third-century work, Christopher Jones gives a much improved Greek text and an elegant translation with full explanatory notes. The Life of Apollonius is formally a biography (by far the longest that survives from antiquity), but in reality a combination of travel narrative, rhetorical showpiece, and much else. In the introduction, Jones addresses the question of how far the Life is history and how far fiction. He also discusses the survival and reception of the work through Late Antiquity and up to modern times, and the role that it continues to play in controversies about Christianity.

The life and miracles of a pagan holy man.

Philostratus’ colorful biography of Apollonius of Tyana, recounting the sayings and miracles of a Pythagorean sage, incidentally provoked a long-lasting debate between pagans and Christians. This volume, which completes the Loeb Classical Library edition of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, provides full context for that much discussed third-century portrayal of a charismatic religious teacher.

Here is a new translation of the surviving letters of Apollonius, augmented and illuminated by recent discoveries. These letters reveal Apollonius’ personality and his religious and philosophical ideas. New for this edition is a selection of ancient reports about Apollonius from authors such as St. Jerome and St. Augustine.

Philostratus’ biography was quickly caught up in the religious struggles that marked the rise of Christianity. An official in Diocletian’s empire named Hierocles used it as ammunition in an anti-Christian polemic, initiating a controversy that lasted well into modern times. The reply by Eusebius, the fourth-century bishop of Caesarea, was originally included in editions of the Life of Apollonius in order to serve as a spiritual antidote and to provide cover for the publishers; today it is an essential chapter in the history of Philostratus’ masterpiece.

Oratory and philosophy from a Latin novelist.

Apuleius, one of the great stylists of Latin literature, was born ca. AD 125 in Madauros to a politically prominent family and received an elite education in the provincial capital Carthage and at Athens, where he began a lifelong allegiance to Platonic philosophy. In the later 150s, he married Pudentilla of Oea, a wealthy widow, and seems to have enjoyed a distinguished public career in Africa and perhaps as an advocate in Rome.

Although Apuleius is best known for his picaresque novel Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass (LCL 44, 453), he also wrote and declaimed on a wide variety of subjects. This edition contains the other surviving works of Apuleius that are considered genuine. Apologia is a speech delivered probably in 158/59 in which Apuleius defends himself against in-laws who had accused him of having used sinister means, including magic, to induce Pudentilla to marry him. The Florida is a collection of twenty-three excerpts from speeches by Apuleius, probably all of them delivered in Africa; the title refers either to their florid style or to their resemblance to an anthology, perhaps both. De Deo Socratis (On Socrates’ God) takes the form of a speech addressed to a cultured, nonspecialist Latin-speaking audience that locates Socrates’ invisible guide and protector (daimonion) within the more general concept of daimones as forces intermediary between gods and humans.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Apuleius is in three volumes.

Apologist is the English translation of two of Chrysostom's treatises, written about 378 and 382, aimed at provoking the divinity of Jesus Christ.

Presented here for the first time in English translation (from Rufinus's Latin version) is the Apology for Origen, the sole surviving work of St. Pamphilus of Caesarea (d. 310 AD), who was one of the most celebrated priest-martyrs of the ancient Church

Five hundred years ago, working from hints in classical Greek and Latin poets, the young author Jacopo Sannazaro crafted the book called Arcadia, a narrative in richly descriptive Italian prose interwoven with elegant and passionate poems. A young man—transparently a stand-in for the author—leaves his home in Naples to join a community of shepherds in the remote Greek region of Arcadia. Yet he finds that this seemingly idyllic land is as fraught as the homeland he fled. Like the author’s humanist community in Naples, ravaged in the fifteenth century by invasion and regime change, the eloquent shepherd-poets of Arcadia are driven to distraction and depression by the frustrations of desire and the social unrest that threatens their pastoral lives. Amidst all that, they tell each other their personal histories and share their sorrows in song.
Sannazaro’s Arcadia is widely recognized as a foundational text of pastoral poetry, humanism, and Italian literature. But the book itself has been largely inaccessible to English-language students and readers. This new translation uses contemporary American English to convey Arcadia’s youthful vigor, narrative energy, and poetic inventiveness. The extensive introduction and commentaries place Arcadia in the context of late fifteenth-century humanist thought and writing, as well as the complicated crisis of Naples in the years just before 1500. This translation is designed to facilitate the re-entry of Arcadia into scholarly discourse and general readership while outlining its lasting cultural influence on poetry, drama, art and music.

This is the first book to offer a translation into English-as well as a critical study-of a Spanish treatise written around 1650 by Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira, whose most renowned congregant was Baruch Spinoza. Aimed at encouraging the practice of halachic Judaism among the Amsterdam-based descendants of conversos, Spanish and Portuguese Sephardic Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity, the book stages a dialogue between two conversos that ultimately leads to a vision of a Jewish homeland-an outcome that Morteira thought was only possible through his program for rejudaisation.

The first complete English translation of Aristaenetus in nearly three centuries

Through allusion and adaption of earlier authors, Aristaenetus recounts tales that are the stuff of comedy, erotic poetry, and ancient novel. Here we read of lovers who use every trope of erotic literature to praise their beloveds in over-the-top speeches. Aristaenetus amazes us with tales of paramours hatching complicated schemes to achieve their desires, while wily go-betweens help smooth their way. He presents us with accounts of unfaithful spouses who barely avoid capture in the midst of hair-raising and amusing infidelities. This sixth century collection is perfect for anyone interested in classical and postclassical literature.

Features:

• English translation and Greek text on facing pages
• Introduction with history of the text
• Discussion of intertextual connections with Greco-Roman authors

Aristotle’s much-translated On Poetics is the earliest and arguably the best treatment that we possess of tragedy as a literary form. The late Seth Benardete and Michael Davis have translated it anew with a view to rendering Aristotle’s text into English as precisely as possible. A literal translation has long been needed, for in order to excavate the argument of On Poetics one has to attend not simply to what is said on the surface but also to the various puzzles, questions, and peculiarities that emerge only on the level of how Aristotle says what he says and thereby leads one to revise and deepen one’s initial understanding of the intent of the argument. As On Poetics is about how tragedy ought to be composed, it should not be surprising that it turns out to be a rather artful piece of literature in its own right.

    Benardete and Davis supplement their edition of On Poetics with extensive notes and appendices. They explain nuances of the original that elude translation, and they provide translations of passages found elsewhere in Aristotle’s works as well as in those of other ancient authors that prove useful in thinking through the argument of On Poetics both in terms of its treatment of tragedy and in terms of its broader concerns. By following the connections Aristotle plots between On Poetics and his other works, readers will be in a position to appreciate the centrality of this little book for his thought on the whole.

    In an introduction that sketches the overall interpretation of On Poetics, Davis argues that, while On Poetics is certainly about tragedy, it has a further concern extending beyond poetry to the very structure of the human soul in its relation to what is, and that Aristotle reveals in the form of his argument the true character of human action.

An elegant medieval guide to verse composition and rhetoric, presented in a new authoritative edition and English translation.

The Art of Making Verses, Ars versificatoria, was composed by the thirteenth-century English poet and teacher Gervase of Melkley, who studied under John de Hauville. He belongs to a select company of French and English scholastic poets including not only de Hauville but also Alan of Lille and Bernardus Silvestris. The educational treatise was probably begun around 1200 and completed in 1220.

Gervase departs from established critical texts on poetry by Matthew of Vendôme and Geoffrey of Vinsauf; instead, he seeks to teach the art of verse in an entirely new way. The method outlined in Ars versificatoria instructs elementary students how to compose in three progressively more difficult modes: literal but still artful language, metaphor, and irony or paradox.

This edition presents a new and improved Latin edition based on the manuscripts, a new translation into English, and thorough annotation of the most original of the medieval Latin treatises on poetry.

Persuasion analyzed.

Aristotle (384–322 BC), the great Greek thinker, researcher, and educator, ranks among the most important and influential figures in the history of philosophy, theology, and science. He joined Plato’s Academy in Athens in 367 and remained there for twenty years. After spending three years at the Asian court of a former pupil, Hermeias, where he married Pythias, one of Hermeias’ relations, and living for a time at Mytilene, he was appointed by Philip of Macedon in 343/2 to become tutor of his teenaged son, Alexander. After Philip’s death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school, the Lyceum at Athens, whose followers were known as the Peripatetics. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling in Athens after Alexander’s death in 323, Aristotle withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322.

Aristotle wrote voluminously on a broad range of subjects analytical, practical, and theoretical, but nearly all the works that he prepared for publication are lost; extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda, some spurious. Rhetoric, a manual for public speakers, was probably composed while Aristotle was still at the Academy and Isocrates was still alive. Instead of the sophistic and Isocratean method of imitating model speeches, Aristotle devised a systematic method based in dialectic, on which he had recently written the first manual. The goal of rhetoric is to find the available means of persuasion for any given case using argument, the character of the speaker, and the emotions of the audience. Rhetoric, he says, is “a kind of offshoot from dialectic and the study of character, which is justly called the science of politics.”

This edition of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, which replaces the original Loeb edition by J. H. Freese, supplies a Greek text based on that of Rudolf Kassel, a fresh translation, and ample annotation fully current with modern scholarship.

The Art of the Game of Chess is the first English translation of Fr. Ruy López’s 1561 book about chess, Libro de la invención liberal y arte del juego del ajedrez. López was a priest who served as King Philip II’s confessor and royal advisor. As a connoisseur of chess, King Philip II promoted the game in his court, and it did not take long for López to become known as Spain’s and one of Europe’s greatest chess players. López is widely acclaimed as one of the most influential chess thinkers of all time whose theories of chess are an integral part of how chess is played today. Academics, including historians, linguists, sociologists, and Hispanists, as well as non-academics, especially chess enthusiasts, will appreciate this translation, which opens with a Foreword by Andrew Soltis, who is a Grandmaster and a United States Chess Hall of Fame Inductee, and includes a critical introduction and more than 275 footnotes.

Poetry of the sky and stars.

Marcus Manilius, who lived in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, is the author of the earliest treatise on astrology we possess. His Astronomica, a Latin didactic poem in five books, begins with an account of celestial phenomena, and then proceeds to treat of the signs of the zodiac and the twelve temples; there follow instructions for calculating the horoscoping degree, and details of chronocrators, decans, injurious degrees, zodiacal geography, paranatellonta, and other technical matters. Besides exhibiting great virtuosity in rendering mathematical tables and diagrams in verse form, the poet writes with some passion about his Stoic beliefs and shows much wit and humor in his character sketches of persons born under particular stars. Perhaps taking a lead from Virgil in his Georgics, Manilius abandons the proportions of his last book to narrate the story of Perseus and Andromeda at considerable length.

In spite of its undoubted elegance, the Astronomica is a difficult work, and this edition provides in addition to the first English prose translation a full guide to the poem, with copious explanatory notes and illustrative figures.

This volume offers a comprehensive portrait--or rather, self-portrait, since its words are mostly Augustine's own--drawn from the breadth of his writings and from the long course of his career

A new edition featuring Saint Augustine’s dialogue on immortality from a tenth-century Latin manuscript, accompanied by an Old English vernacular adaptation translated into modern English for the first time in a hundred years.

Around the turn of the tenth century, an anonymous scholar crafted an Old English version of Saint Augustine of Hippo’s Soliloquia, a dialogue exploring the nature of truth and the immortality of the soul. The Old English Soliloquies was, perhaps, inspired by King Alfred the Great’s mandate to translate important Latin works. It retains Augustine’s focus on the soul, but it also explores loyalty—to friends, to one’s temporal lord, and to the Lord God—and it presses toward a deeper understanding of the afterlife. Will we endure a state of impersonal and static forgetfulness, or will we retain our memories, our accrued wisdom, and our sense of individuated consciousness?

This volume presents the first English translation of the complete Old English Soliloquies to appear in more than a century. It is accompanied by a unique edition of Augustine’s Latin Soliloquia, based on a tenth-century English manuscript similar to the one used by the translator, that provides insight into the adaptation process. Both the Latin and Old English texts are newly edited.