Institut d’Études Augustiniennes

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Abstracts:

Martine DULAEY, «L’histoire de David lue par les écrivains des premiers siècles chrétiens. (II) Le roi sans terre persécuté», p. 1-39

This second article considers how early Christians were able to see David as a prefigurement of Christ through the different stages of his nomadic life, which led him from the desert to the land of the Philistines, and finally to Jerusalem when he became king. Due to his persecution by Saul, he embodied the suffering of the righteous. Although his roles as king and priest were not yet revealed, he was clearly the leading player in these events.

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Polymnia ATHANASSIADI, «Le théurge comme dispensateur universel de la grâce: entre les Oracles chaldaïques et Jamblique», p. 41-68

Living in “an age of anxiety”, Iamblichus sought out a response to the soteriological cul-de-sac faced by his contemporaries. To this end he grafted onto the solid trunk of a revamped Platonic education the experience that he had gained through his contact with the traditional and “oriental” cults of the Roman World, with Hermeticism, and above all with a recent revelation that went under the name of “The Chaldaean Oracles”. It was in this last that he discovered the figure of the theurgist, which he used as a tool for the construction of a universal theory of grace to challenge the Christian and the Gnostic eschatological positions. Maintaining a proper balance between the liberal anthropology of Plotinus and the elitist anthropology of the Oracles (which distinguished between two types of men – the theurgist and the common herd), Iamblichus opened up the spiritual path to anyone who wished to enter on it and, pushing the exegesis of Chaldaean theology to its limit, he introduced the concept of grace by proxy. Thanks to this descendant of a priestly dynasty, theurgy was no longer the exclusive prerogative of a hereditary caste, but became the heritage of the whole of mankind.

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Lukas J. DORFBAUER, «Die Interpretatio evangeliorum des „Epiphanius latinus“ (CPL 914) und ihr Verhältnis zum Evangelienkommentar Fortunatians von Aquileia», p. 69-110

This article demonstrates that the Interpretatio evangeliorum (CPL 914), usually attributed to one ‘Epiphanius latinus’, is in fact a compilation. Chapters 1-16, which differ from the rest by their brevity, are excerpts from the newly discovered commentary on the gospels by Fortunatianus of Aquileia; chapters 17-62 are a collection of sermons by an Italian preacher from Late Antiquity (5th or 6th century) who could have borne the name ‘Epiphanius’. The Interpretatio evangeliorum was compiled by an unknown person who was active between the 7th and the 8th century, probably in Italy. The present article offers a study of the work’s manuscript tradition, which is considerably enlarged compared with the edition of the Interpretatio evangeliorum by A. Erikson from 1939. In addition, it is demonstrated that Fortunatianus’ commentary was one of the sources of the homiletic collection, which constitutes chapters 17-62 of the Interpretatio evangeliorum. Two appendices deal with questions of detail: 1. Is it possible to complete a lacuna in the direct tradition of Fortunatianus by means of the indirect tradition (the Interpretatio evangeliorum, among other witnesses)? 2. In what way does MS Bruxelles, Bibl. roy. 14920-22 which preserves chapter 59 only constitute a special case?

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Gérard NAUROY, «Les lettres du manuscrit de Boulogne-sur-Mer (Bibl. mun. 32) et l’épistolaire d’Ambroise de Milan», p. 111-134

The oldest manuscript of Ambrose of Milan (6th century) contains, at the end, four letters which are also found in the collection of the letters of the bishop of Milan transmitted in ten books in the most ancient witnesses (9th and 11th centuries). After a codicological examination of this 6th century witness, in particular of the double numeration which is a feature of the four letters, an examination is made of the relationship of this small dossier, which is centred on the exegesis of verses of Galatians, with the collection of 77 letters in ten books. Is this a separate edition, which dates from the period of the bishop of Milan, or an extract taken by the copyist from the collection in ten books? The author attempts to show that the 6th century manuscript is without doubt part of an independent edition which was taken up by Ambrose himself when, toward the end of his life, he was preparing the edition of his correspondence.

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Julie HIGAKI, «Péguy et Pascal: la métamorphose de l’augustinisme. (1) Ordre et Figure», p. 135-158

The surpassing of the Figures is done, for Pascal, as for Péguy, by the integration of the inferior Orders and not by their exclusion. Ontology and Hermeneutics are oriented by the central Axiology of each of them. However, here is the revolutionary novelty of Péguy: by grasping the real in the mystery of the Incarnation of God made flesh, Péguy replaced, by his new opposition between the Mystical and the Political, the old traditional Augustinian dualism of the Carnal and of the Spiritual. “The Supernatural is itself Carnal.” The Carnal is restored and assumed in the Charity, and the Spiritual liberates itself from disembodied intellectualisation to find again its essential, vital place in man’s real-life experiences. It thus marks a major step of the reception in Augustinism and the History of Christianity.

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Martine DULAEY, «L’histoire de David lue par les écrivains des premiers siècles chrétiens. (III) Heurs et malheurs d’un roi», p. 197-237

This third article focuses on David as king in Jerusalem: he was a “king according to God’s heart”, foreshadowing Christ and his gift of salvation. The dance before the ark, where the king abased himself before his servants, evoked the kenosis of Christ. The king’s adultery with Bathsheba was not denied, rather his union with her was given an allegorical meaning: it represented the wedding of Christ and the Church. The conflicts between the king and his various enemies echoed those of the Passion. David was seen as the model for princes, but early Christian authors, with the exception of Ambrosius of Milan, were more interested in him as a man than as a king.

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François DOLBEAU, «Le sermon 380 d’Augustin sur la relation entre Jean-Baptiste et le Christ. Édition critique», p. 239-271

The Sermo 380 was preached by Augustine for the feast of John the Baptist on the twenty-fourth of June. It was considered dubious by the Maurists, whose assessment was influenced by a codicological accident that they were not sure to have properly rectified. Their appraisal explains why this sermon has often been neglected or considered spurious. With the discovery of a new manuscript without the accident (Mainz, Stadtbibliothek I 9, 15th c.), a critical edition is now possible and a defence of its authenticity. The blunt criticism of Arian Christology implies a late dating of the sermon, during the last fifteen years of Augustine’s life.

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Daniel BURNS, «Augustine on the Moral Significance of Human Law», p. 273-298

Book 1 of Augustine’s dialogue De Libero Arbitrio offers his only systematic account of the proper tasks of human or political law. While this text is often read as asserting that political law has no moral-educative function, in fact one of its characters, Evodius, is put forth as a striking illustration of the effects of political law’s educative function. Augustine shows us Evodius in order to demonstrate how difficult it is for a sincere Christian who believes himself independent of the law’s moral guidance to be truly freed from that guidance, and how likely one is to remain under the sway of that guidance even after accepting the “Augustinian” detachment from politics that Augustine eventually brings Evodius to accept. This text shows that laws cannot help but inculcate a certain basic moral understanding in both their Christian and their non-Christian subjects, and hence that the relative quality of this legally inculcated moral education must be part of any genuinely Augustinian evaluation of a given political situation or regime.

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Jean-Pierre LAPORTE, «Hippone: à la recherche de la basilique de saint Augustin», p. 299-324

In 1958, Erwan Marec published an antique church of Hippo. He argued it to be the Basilica Pacis, i.e. the St. Augustine’s Cathedral. Gradually, great scientists expressed doubts separately. Together, their arguments form an impressive beam which allows to exclude Marec’s identification. Gathering of all available documentation, published articles and unpublished archives allow to propose another location. Next restructuration of the plain is expected to allow detailed investigations. The recognition of various objects and inscriptions previously discovered in the building and the necropolis which gradually surrounded it precise some aspects of the Basilica of St. Augustine, which, as it seems, stood up to Byzantine period.

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