A German scholar has confirmed two previously unknown sermons by St. Augustine, one of Christianity's most important Church Fathers, hidden for centuries in a medieval manuscript copied at a German abbey.

Christian Tornau, a Latin professor at the University of Würzburg, spent nearly two years studying a manuscript that had been copied at Bad Doberan Abbey in present-day Germany during the 12th century. The manuscript contained six sermons. Four had already been attributed to Augustine. The other two had never been identified, until now.

Tornau began his work in 2024 after a representative of a monastery's preservation association asked him to decipher the manuscript. What followed was a painstaking process of analyzing style, humor, theological content, liturgical context, and concluding prayers to determine whether the two mystery sermons could genuinely belong to the bishop of Hippo Regius, the ancient North African city in present-day Algeria where Augustine served from the late fourth century until his death in 430 A.D.

His conclusion was unequivocal. Tornau told Fox News Digital:

"Our final verdict is that they are indeed authentic."

A Sunday sermon and a Wednesday follow-up on the Witch of Endor

The two newly authenticated sermons explore the Old Testament story of the Witch of Endor, a passage from 1 Samuel in which King Saul, facing a battle against the Philistines, consults a witch who apparently summons the spirit of the deceased prophet Samuel. Samuel's spirit then foretells Saul's death in battle.

Tornau explained that Augustine preached the first sermon during a Sunday service, ending it by presenting the question of theodicy, the problem of why God permits evil, and offering possible interpretations. The second sermon followed on the next Wednesday.

"Only in the second sermon, delivered the following Wednesday, are the alternatives weighed... the style, humor, and content also strongly indicate that the sermons preserved in the manuscript really are by Augustine."

What makes the sermons particularly striking, Tornau said, is Augustine's treatment of Saul himself. In most early Christian writing, Saul is portrayed in a harsh light. Augustine took a different path. He weighed the possibility that Saul repented after hearing Samuel's prophecy and was ultimately redeemed.

Tornau described this as remarkable, telling Fox News Digital that Augustine's openness to Saul's redemption was unprecedented in early Christian thought:

"This is unparalleled in Augustine and in ancient Christianity in general, where we find a very negative image of Saul."

Augustine, Tornau added, appeared to have drawn on Jewish rabbinic interpretations in forming his view, a detail that speaks to the theologian's intellectual breadth. The discovery echoes other recent finds that have expanded scholars' understanding of ancient texts, including the recovery of lost pages from an ancient New Testament manuscript using advanced imaging technology.

"In any event, it is indicative of Augustine's [independence] of mind and his willingness to think everyone, even those who appear most evil, [are] capable of salvation through the grace of God."

Tornau called this combination of traits distinctly Augustinian:

"This combines intellectual honesty and episcopal humility in a remarkable and very Augustinian way."

Nearly two years of skepticism preceded the verdict

The authentication was not a rush to celebrate. Tornau acknowledged that he and his colleagues approached the sermons with doubt before arriving at their conclusion. Parts of the text initially did not read the way they expected Augustine to sound.

"We were fascinated, of course, by the idea of having found new sermons of Augustine, but soon turned skeptical because [in] some places the sermons did not seem to read like Augustine."

That skepticism drove deeper analysis. Tornau examined the liturgical background of the sermons and found that the concluding prayer of the first sermon used a form "only attested in late-antique Africa", placing its origin squarely in Augustine's time and region. He noted that the texts can "confidently" be dated to Late Antiquity and reflect a style of Christian liturgy "that would have been impossible in the Middle Ages."

The manuscript itself cannot be traced further back than the 12th century, when monks at Bad Doberan Abbey copied it, likely from an earlier manuscript that has since been lost. But the internal evidence pointed firmly to a North African origin centuries before the copy was made.

Tornau also noted that the sermon's author "is familiar with Augustine's thought and works but does not simply copy them, which would be a sign of inauthenticity." In other words, the sermons showed original thinking consistent with Augustine's known body of work, rather than the kind of imitation a later forger might produce.

The University of Würzburg issued a press release describing Augustine as someone who "is regarded as one of Christianity's most important Church Fathers" and whose "extensive body of writings continues to occupy scholars today." Augustine lived from 354 to 430 A.D. and remains one of the most widely read theologians in Western history.

The discovery adds to a growing body of ancient Christian and biblical finds that have captured scholarly and public attention in recent years. Ancient historical sources from Roman and Jewish writers continue to provide evidence for the foundations of the faith, while archaeological digs across the Mediterranean and Middle East keep turning up physical artifacts tied to Scripture.

Tornau now races to publish the sermons for the first time

Tornau is working to publish both sermons in a scholarly edition, their first appearance in print since Augustine delivered them roughly 1,600 years ago. No specific journal or timeline for publication has been announced.

The manuscript that preserved them is catalogued as Codex 114 (195) and is held at the Pelplin Diocesan Library in Poland. How it traveled from a North African liturgical setting to a German abbey and eventually to a Polish library is a story the available evidence does not fully tell.

Several questions remain open. Tornau used the word "we" in describing the authentication process, but no other scholars involved in the work have been publicly named. The specific Jewish rabbinic sources that may have influenced Augustine's surprisingly sympathetic reading of King Saul have not been identified in detail. And no verbatim text from the sermons themselves has been released.

Finds like these remind us that the ancient world still has secrets to surrender. Christian artifacts recovered from an English river and statues unearthed at Egyptian sites tied to the Exodus are just two recent examples of physical evidence emerging from the deep past to shed new light on the faith's earliest centuries.

Sixteen hundred years after Augustine stood before his congregation and preached on the fate of a flawed king, his words survived, copied by monks, overlooked by generations of scholars, and finally recognized by a professor willing to spend two years making sure he got it right. Some things are worth the wait.