Two previously unknown sermons by St Augustine have been identified in a 12th-century manuscript preserved in Poland, giving scholars a rare new window into the mind of one of Christianity’s greatest theologians. Source: OSV News.
The discovery was made at the diocesan library in Pelplin in northern Poland after nearly two years of research by scholars from Germany and Austria.
The sermons, to be published in a critical edition by the end of 2026, address Saul’s encounter with the Medium of Endor in the Book of Samuel.
The manuscript had long been catalogued in the library’s collection, but no one had studied it in depth before the recent collaboration with scholars from Germany and Austria, Fr Jan Walkusz, director of the library, said.
“Only the recent research by scholars from Bad Doberan, Würzburg and Vienna showed that the manuscript contains two previously unknown sermons by the Bishop of Hippo,” Fr Walkusz, said.
The story began with a phone call.
“In 2024 I was approached by Paul Nebauer from Bad Doberan … who had found a medieval manuscript with sermons attributed to Augustine in the diocesan library of Pelplin,” Christian Tornau, a Latin scholar and professor at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, said.
“He asked me for help with the identification and translation of the texts,” Professor Tornau said.
Mr Nebauer, a member of the Bad Doberan Monastery Association, has spent years tracing medieval manuscripts from the former Cistercian abbey. Its library was destroyed during the Thirty Years’ War in the 17th century.
During research visits to Pelplin in 2024 and 2025, Mr Nebauer identified six manuscripts that clearly originated from Bad Doberan. One volume immediately drew his attention.
Mr Nebauer “found the text very unusual — words like that from St Augustine,” he said. Recognising that the manuscript required expert analysis, he contacted Professor Tornau. The 12th-century manuscript was copied at Bad Doberan, possibly from a now-lost manuscript at Amelungsborn Abbey.
Fr Walkusz said the manuscript reached Pelplin through the Cistercian monks. When monks from Bad Doberan established a daughter abbey in Pelplin in the 13th century, “it was customary for Cistercians to equip the new community with the necessary liturgical and theological books,” he said.
“That is how this volume containing St Augustine’s sermons, together with other manuscripts from Bad Doberan, came to Pelplin.”
Of the six sermons preserved in the manuscript, four were already known to scholars, while two had never been identified.
FULLS TORY
How newly identified St Augustine sermons were found (By Katarzyna Szalajko, OSV News)
