Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history.

On this episode, we're going back to one of our good friends,

Augustine. In fact, I think Augustine was the subject of our very first episode of five minutes in church history.

Well, this time we're going to talk about what one scholar has called

Augustine's longest,

and at the same time the least read of Augustine's works,

and that would be his explanations of the Psalms. This long book, The Explanations of the Psalms, was also a long time

in writing. Augustine first worked on this book in 392 and he did not finish it

until 418. He preached and taught and dictated his way all through the Psalms through those decades.

His commentary on the Psalms, these explanations of the Psalms, is over two times as long as the city of God.

It was published recently as a five volume set.

Throughout his interpretations of the Psalms,

Augustine's focus is on Christ.

In fact, at one point he says Christ is the comprehensive mystery underlying all of scripture.

He started his Psalms in 392.

Now that date is important.

He was born in 344, he was converted in 386 and he was ordained as a priest in 391. In fact it was right after he was ordained as a

he was ordained as a priest that he requested a leave of absence so that he could pull away from

his work and simply immerse himself in scripture. You know that Augustine was quite the scholar. Before he was a Christian, he was a scholar, a teacher, an academic.

He had read all the works of Plato and the works of Aristotle and the works of the great Greek

and Roman thinkers. He had written many of his own books.

But it was time for him as a priest to immerse himself in scripture.

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