Institut d’Études Augustiniennes

62/1

62/2

Abstracts:

Geoffrey D. DUNN, «Zosimus and Ravenna: Conflict in the Roman Church in the Early Fifth Century», p. 1-20

One of the little known incidents from the episcopate of Zosimus in Rome between 417 and 418 concerns clergy from his own church. From Ep. 14 (JK 345) (Ex relatione), written shortly before Zosimus’ death, we read that a couple of groups of them had gone to the imperial court with a complaint against their bishop. One group had been excommunicated already and in this letter Zosimus threatens the same fate on the other. Their action had been contrary to established canons. Although the letter tells us nothing further, we are able to place this into the context of what we know about ecclesiastical complaint procedures to establish how limited the options were for clergy to complain against their bishops, especially when they came from Rome itself, and how this incident fits into a growing pattern of recourse to civil authority to arbitrate in internal conflict. The possibility of a connection with the division of the Roman clergy in the light of Zosimus’ treatment of the Pelagian controversy is also considered. The letter indicates just how widespread was the discontent with Zosimus’ leadership style late antique churches in the West.

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Miguel CARABIAS ORGAZ, «Un fragmento de la primera mitad del siglo XI de los Tractatus in Evangelium Iohannis de San Agustín», p. 21-25

We present a codex fragment copied to the first half of the xith century, containing excerpts of the Tractatus in Iohannem of Saint Augustine. We provide a transcript and the textual variants.

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Sebastián SALVADÓ, «The Augustinian Reform, the Panormia Glosses, and Reading the Bible in the Medieval Latin Liturgy of Jerusalem», p. 27-55

This study aims to discuss some of the intellectual traditions informing the liturgical rites instituted by the Latin clergy of Outremer. At the height of the clerical reform’s proliferation in Western Europe, in 1114, the canons of the Church of Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem adopted the rule of Augustinian rule. Recent scholarship reveals how the ordinal of Jerusalem (Rome, Bib. Vat. Barb. Lat. 659) contains a passage of liturgical prescriptions copied from the Panormia, a twelfth-century collection of canon law long associated with Ivo of Chartres. This passage stipulates the distribution of biblical readings for the entire liturgical year, the accompanying chants, and introduces novel glosses on the season’s devotional meanings. A comparative analysis of this text with the practices of continental sister rites, and a discussion of the patristic texts used to interpret the Biblical readings it stipulates, allows the present study to demonstrate two conclusions: The marked influence of the Augustinian reform on the rite of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, and also equally significant, the distinctiveness of this liturgy’s devotional character in comparison to European counterparts.

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Christof MÜLLER – Christian TORNAU, «Text – Subtext – Context. On the Way to a Comprehensive Commentary of the Augustinian Letters», p. 59-66

‘Small genres’ are currently ‘en vogue’ in the humanities – and ‘letters’ are a conspicuous example of these genres. Therefore it’s no wonder, that during the last decades the number of publications and projects dealing with the topic of ‘Augustinian Letters’ has increased. Given their number and the wide variety of types and subjects, Augustine’s letters provide a unique source for the culture and history of late antiquity. Since several years, an international and interdisciplinary equipe of scholars – coordinated by the Zentrum für Augustinus-Forschung an der Universität Würzburg – is on the way to a comprehensive commentary of this corpus containing about 310 pieces. After some smaller conferences the equipe presented first results of the ongoing ‘Epistulae project’ in a workshop at the ‘Oxford Patristics Conference’ in 2015. These results are now published in the current and in the next volume of the RÉAug. The articles will especially focus on the interaction of text, subtext and context and of content, form and function of the letters by and to Augustine. For some of these case studies a certain template is employed, which is going to be a recurrent feature of the commentaries.

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Volker H. DRECOL, «Kommentar zu Augustin, Epistula 184A», p. 67-93

Letter 184A gives interesting informations about the links between Augustine and the recipients of the letter: some persons who belong to the monastic milieu, interested in apologetical and philosophical questions. The letter which Augustine answers here had maybe strategical motivations: to receive a letter from a famous theologian, and to reinforce their position. This letter, written during the beginning of 419, contains many informations about the making of the City of God and about the interferences between his apologetical and his anti-pelagian works. It also contains a discussion about the religious attitude of the pagans, and, one year after the condemnation of pelagianism at the Synode of Carthago (418), it propagates Augustine’s doctrine about original sin, and definitely presents baptism as the passage from death to life.

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Hildegund MÜLLER, «Augustine’s Retractationes in the Context of his Letter Corpus: On the Genesis and Function of an Uncommon Genre», p. 95-120

Augustine’s Retractationes, while unique and innovative in their literary genre, can be paralleled with Augustine’s letters on his literary production, in particular letters he wrote to accompany the sending of his books. In the case of Letter 101 (on De Musica), Letter 174 (on De Trinitate) and Letter 1A* (on De Ciuitate Dei), Augustine uses the traditional form of the accompanying letter to reshape and control the reception of his literary œuvre. The parallels between this process and Retractationes not only help to explain the origins of the literary form of Retractationes, but also shed light on its intended purpose as a means of self-protection and a tool in Augustine’s struggles with adversaries.

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Christian TORNAU, «Der Bischof und der Priester. Elemente einer Kommentierung von Augustins Briefwechsel mit Longinianus (ep. 233-235)», p. 153-182

This paper attempts to apply the method of writing commentaries on Augustine’s letters developed in the Introduction (above, RÉAug, 62/1, 2016, 62-64) to his correspondence with Longinianus (ep. 233-235). Although the correspondent presents himself as a committed pagan and priest, the exchange lacks polemics and is reminiscent of the style and tone of late-antique letters of friendship. In order to interpret this fact, I address the following issues: date and addressee, communicative and rhetorical strategies, and philosophical background. Both Augustine and Longinianus use traditional Brieftopik and epistolary accommodatio in order to determine their respective roles in the exchange, which is that of the senior and junior partner in a philosophical dialogue. As far as persuasion and argument is concerned, Augustine adapts the dialectical skills familiar from the dialogue genre to his aim of converting Longinianus to Christianity, whereas Longinianus’ tactics in eluding the bishop’s questioning and avoiding a clear answer concerning Christ is inherited from rhetoric. The Neoplatonic background of Longinianus’ paganism, as far as it can be ascertained from his letter, differs from Porphyry’s ideas on virtue and ritual in the De regressu animae (as reported in the City of God); he rather resembles the Platonist supporters of paganism Augustine caricatures in Sermo Dolbeau 26.

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Winrich LÖHR, «Augustine’s Correspondence with Pascentius (epp. 238-241) – an epistolary power game?», p. 183-222

The article analyzes the correspondence between Augustine and the comes domus regiae Pascentius (Augustin, epp. 238-241): First one attempts to determine the date, occasion and circumstances of these letters. Then a detailed analysis of the letters is offered which places them in context: The correspondence continues in written form the power game of the preceding disputation between Augustine and Pascentius. Our analysis shows the dynamic of the correspondence, the diverging self-definitions, aims, tactics and rhetorical tools used by the opponents. For Augustine both disputation and correspondence aim at correcting the doctrinal error of Pascentius and making him publicly and in written form confess his error. It is very difficult for Pascentius to thwart the aggressive and deliberate approach of the bishop of Hippo.

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Christopher NUNN, «References in the Correspondence of Augustine. Chances and Boundaries of digital “Distant Reading” Processes», p. 223-233

Analyzing Augustine’s usage of intertextual references can provide information about the kinds of texts used and modes of argumentation or about the social background of his audience. But is it also possible to make a conclusion of Augustine’s attitude towards the intellectual abilities of his correspondents? Is there a difference between his letters to women and those written to men? With the help of “Distant Reading”, it becomes evident that Augustine uses more textual references when writing to women than to men. Although only 17 letters to solely female correspondents have survived alongside 227 letters to men, letters to women are among the top five with respect to the frequency of words, total references used, or the percent of references included. Even if the marking degree of the references is considered, that is, if we focus only on explicit quotations or implicit allusions, references in letters written to women are more frequent in every case. A closer look reveals, however, that this result does not depend on Augustine’s estimation of the intellectual ability of his correspondent, but on the kind of text he is writing or Augustine’s ability to mirror the writing style of his correspondents.

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Charlotte KÖCKERT, «Augustine and Nebridius (Augustine, epp. 3–14): Two Christian Intellectuals and Their Project of a Philosophical Life», p. 235-262

The article studies the letters Augustine exchanged with his long-term friend Nebridius. Twelve letters, written between Augustine’s retreat from public life in 386 and Nebridius’ death someday in 390, have been preserved (Augustine, epp. 3–14). They constitute Augustine’s largest extant private correspondence. The collection allows us to identify a programme of ascetic-philosophical discussions in which the two friends engaged after their return to North Africa. It also gives insights into the circumstances of their life and reveals how Augustine presented himself and his situation at Thagaste in 388–390 to the absent friend. The article argues that while Augustine and Nebridius construed the ideal of a joint philosophical life in their letters the realization of this ideal was seriously impeded by their obligations to the family, to other friends, and to the civitas. By and by, the exchange of letters became a substitute for the life they had envisaged. In this regard, their epistolary exchange is compared to the correspondences of other ascetic-minded Christian friends of this period (Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus, Paulinus of Nola and Sulpicius Severus). In an appendix to the article, questions of the letters’ date and chronology are discussed. It is argued that only ep. 3 was written at Cassiciacum and that all other letters stem from the period after Augustine’s return to North Africa.

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Jérémy DELMULLE, «Le florilège augustinien de Bède le Vénérable et les discussions tardoantiques sur la grâce, le libre arbitre et la prédestination», p. 265-292

Contrary to the Augustinian Expositio on Paul composed by Florus of Lyon, which is to be situated within the early mid 9th c. controversy about predestination and whose objectives clearly indicate a personal involvement of the florilegist in the debates about the claims of Gottschalk, Bede the Venerable’s florilegium, which was the latter’s model, is the most inconspicuous about the question of grace and predestination. Research on Bede’s processing of Augustine’s latest writings, penned within the context of the postpelagian discussions in Africa and Provence, and of key passages of the Pauline letters relevant for the issues of grace and predestination, indicates that the intention of the compiler might even have been to erase all traces of a question too complex for the intended readership. Bede might have intended to address rudes or novices, offering them – based on an interpretation of Paul’s writings – a synthesis of the Augustinian doctrine which leaves aside the most controversial positions.

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Warren PEZÉ, «Des notes marginales sur le schisme des Trois Chapitres dans le plus vieux manuscrit du De baptismo contra donatistas», p. 293-334

The manuscript El Escorial, Monasterio de San Lorenzo, Camarin de las Reliquias, vitrina 25 (CLA XI 1628-1629) is the oldest manuscript witness of Augustine’s De baptismo contra donatistas: it was long believed to be an autograph of Augustine himself. It contains a corpus of several hundreds marginalia, also to be found in its apograph, ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library, laud. misc. 130: they have not been studied until now. A special feature of these notes, this article shows, is that they make direct reference to their writing context. They accuse anonymous bishops of having anathemized “Fathers” dead in the peace of the Church. These notes must be framed, this article argues, in the context of the Three Chapters Schism (540s-570s). Even if meaningful parallels with Facundus’ Contra Mocianum and the Epistula in defensione III capitulorum can be drawn, one should be careful and refrain from assigning these notes, which bear witness of a local conflict arisen on the occasion of the Three Chapter schism, to a particular author or circle.

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Klaus KRÖNERT, «Une compilation historiographique attribuée à Méthode (Trèves, début du XIIe siècle)», p. 335-367

This article presents the reconstruction of a chronicle that had been fabricated at Trier during the first half of the 12th century. Its so-called author is Methodius of Patara who was supposed to have written the famous Revelationes. This compilation is essentially based on the Chronicle of Eusebius-Rufin and the Gesta Trevirorum. The fake aims at convincing the reader that the see of Trier, founded by Eucharius, a direct disciple of St Peter, had never known a gap in the episcopal succession during the first Christian centuries. The Chronicle of Pseudo-Methodius is known owing the quotations mentioned in three historiographical compilations of the 12th century.

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