Lost Christian text hidden for centuries reveals new insight into the Bible's most chilling mystery

Hidden within the pages of an ancient manuscript in a Polish library were lost sermons of a saint who attempted to tackle one of the Bible's most chilling encounters.

The 12th-century Latin texts were written by St Augustine, the theologian whose ideas helped shape Western Christianity and who is often regarded as the most important Christian thinker after the Apostle Paul.

Researchers found that the newly identified sermons focus on King Saul's visit to the Witch of Endor, one of the Bible's most mysterious episodes, in which the dead prophet Samuel appears and foretells the king's death.

The story, recorded in 1 Samuel 28, has troubled Jewish and Christian scholars for centuries because it appears to suggest that a medium successfully summoned a dead prophet.

St Augustine wrestled with that possibility in the newly discovered sermons, questioning whether the figure Saul encountered was truly Samuel or some form of supernatural illusion.

Ultimately, St Augustine argued that the Witch of Endor held no power over the dead. If Samuel genuinely appeared, he believed it was because God allowed it, not because the medium had summoned him through magic.

Professor Christian Tornau, a Latin scholar at the University of Würzburg, said: 'The first was preached during the Sunday service and ends with the theodicy question and the interpretations. 

'It was not until the second sermon on the following Wednesday that the options were weighed up.' 

St Augustine lived from 354AD to 430AD. Born in North Africa to a pagan father and a devout Christian mother, Augustine lived a worldly and intellectually restless early life.

He initially rejected Christianity, exploring hedonism and the dualistic religion of Manichaeism before embracing Neoplatonism.

Following a profound spiritual crisis, he converted to Christianity and was baptized in Milan in 387.

The discovery was made in 2024, when Tornau was asked to decipher six sermons written by the saint. He found that two were previously undiscovered.

The newly discovered sermons were focused on the Old Testament story. 

'Saul believes himself to be in a hopeless situation shortly before a battle against the Philistines. God does not listen to his prayers. He turns to a witch,' Tornau said in a statement.

At Saul's request, she conjures up the supposed spirit of the deceased prophet Samuel, who predicts his death in battle. According to the Bible, Samuel anointed the first two kings of Israel, Saul and David, at the order of God.

The story has long baffled theologians, raising questions about how a witch could summon the spirit of a prophet. 

Latin scholars have also asked 'How can an omnipotent God allow this or is he not really omnipotent?'

For centuries, theologians have debated whether the apparition was a deception created by the witch or a genuine appearance of Samuel permitted by God to warn Saul of his impending death. 

The researchers noted that after St Augustine presented the two sermons, the church audience was to form their own opinion on the biblical passage. 

Tornau suggested that this didactic and rhetorical approach is typical of St Augustine, as the saint was known for presenting options for interpretation, omitting a final judgement and allowing the audience to think for themselves. 

'The style, humor and content also clearly indicate that the sermons in the manuscripts were actually written by Augustine,' he said.

However, there have been cases where others presented writings attributed to the saint, but were later found to be forgeries. 

Tornau and his colleague, Dr Clemens Weidmann of the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL), got to work and invited 20 other Latin scholars to verify the authenticity of the text.

Reconstructing the transmission history of the sermons was not an easy feat.  

'Firstly, the creation of such a manuscript in the 12th century is unusual. A copy at the beginning of the 8th or 9th century would be more typical,' said Tornau. 

Researchers believe the newly discovered sermons survived because a medieval scribe copied them from an older manuscript that has since been lost to history. 

'An old catalogue from the monastery mentions a text with the same headings and the same sequence of contents as our manuscript,' Tornau explained.

'It could have served as a model.' However, the researcher noted that he cannot confirm this assumption 100 percent, as the entire library collection was burnt during the Thirty Years' War from 1618 to 1648.