Andrew Hofer, O. P. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's Sermons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024, xviii + 343 pages. $46.99

The Cambridge Companions to Religion span a range of figures, movements, topics and -in recent years especially -classic texts.Like the larger Oxford Handbooks, this series continues to set a high standard in terms of state of the craft survey to introduce novices to primary sources, crucial contexts and pertinent matters for debate.As the series has grown to several dozen, it has become an interesting measure of key items of interest in theological studies.It is telling, therefore, that this latest entry stands out.It is the fifth entry relating to Augustine, with a companion to him, his Confessions, the City of God, and a new companion to him having been already released.Nothing new there.Editor Andrew Hofer has pulled together the first companion to consider sermons as a legitimate topic of theological interest.Here something fresh emerges.Theologians frequently preach today.Theologians of note sometimes publish their sermons today.Yet, the world of theological studies is a long way from the historic Christian period where homilies and sermons were central items of theological discussion.Organizations such as the Center for Pastor Theologians in the USA or the Littlemore Group in the UK have sought to reassert pastoral and homiletical practice as a legitimate and even leading contribution to ongoing theological debate.They do so aspirationally and, it must be said, from the margins of the guild.But it was not always so.That The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's Sermons really does introduce much of great theological consequence and does so via initiating readers into a diverse spate of the sermons of the Bishop of Hippo is a twofold sign of its great significance.The Companion involves 16 chapters in three parts.Part 1 addresses 'Augustine's Pastoral Task of Preaching Sermons'.Chapters introduce Augustine as preacher and his congregation as his rhetorical context, his goal in preaching, and the transmission and collection of his sermons.Part 2 surveys 'Augustine's Sermons on the Scriptures and Liturgical Feasts'.Six chapters consider the Old and New Testaments, Christmas and New Year's feasts, Lent and Holy Week, Ascension and Pentecost, and feasts of the martyrs.Part 3 concludes by contemplating 'Augustine's Preaching Themes'.Seven chapters attend to a