Quodvultdeus of Carthage: The Creedal Homilies (Ancient Christian Writers, No. 60)

Here is a first-time translation and commentary of the Latin Creedal Homilies of Quodvultdeus, a younger contemporary, friend, and correspondent of St. Augustine. Quodvultdeus delivered these homilies on the Sunday before Easter for three successive years in the mid-430's. Deeply influenced by the theology and rhetoric of Augustine, the homilies provide an invaluable window on the fifth-century church in Carthage and Roman north Africa, including her views on Judaism and paganism as well as on her internal dynamics, debates, and strife. The homilies focus on the nature, meaning, and effect of the liturgy of baptism in the process of conversion to a living Christianity. From the homilies, the reader learns who the candidates were, why they sought a new religious life, what they expected from Christianity, what was expected of them, and how the baptismal liturgy transformed and initiated them into the church's life.