Institut d’Études Augustiniennes

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Abstracts:

Edwina MURPHY, «Sin no more: Healing, wholeness, and the absent adulteress in Cyprian’s use of John», p. 1-15

“See, you have been made whole; sin no more lest anything worse befall you.” (John 5, 14b) Cyprian quotes or alludes to these words of Jesus six times, focusing not so much on the healing itself (mentioned only once, separately from the maxim), but rather on the need to preserve such healing. Examining Cyprian’s references to this passage highlights the relationship between his exegesis and his pastoral concerns, the connection between wholeness and salvation in his thought, and the healing role of the bishop. Finally, it raises a textual question: Jesus also says, “Sin no more,” to the woman caught in adultery (John 7, 53 - 8, 11), but this pericope is never mentioned by Cyprian. I will consider the significance of this omission.

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Emanuele CASTELLI, «Sulpicio Severo contro Girolamo. Per una nuova interpretazione della lettera prefatoria e del primo capitolo della Vita Martini», p. 17-35

This article offers an analysis of the beginning of Sulpicius Severus’s Vita Sancti Martini, giving particular consideration to what Severus says at the end of his prefatory letter: “suppresso… nomine libellus edatur… titulum frontis erade…” These words cannot be explained in terms of rhetorical necessity, nor are they inspired by passages from classical authors, like Ovid, Horace or Martial. Rather, they should be seen as a polemical declaration by Severus in particular in reaction to the publication of Jerome’s De viris inlustribus. This reading of Severus’s preface also carries over into, and makes sense of, the work’s first chapter.

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Mariagnese GIUSTO, «L’interpretazione patristica della pericope evangelica della donna curva (Lc 13, 11- 17)», p. 37-71

The evangelical passage of the healing of the woman who was bent double has drawn the attention of many patristical authors; some of them just mentioned it, while others developed a complete commentary. The analysis of theirs writings allows us to interpret this text as a parabole of God’s plan of salvation for humanity. This article is divided in three parts to point out the evolution and the complementarity of authors’ commentaries: in the first one, we study authors writing until Augustine’s time; in the second one we focus on the augustinian interpretation of this miracle; in the third one, among the authors who wrote after Augustine, we distinguish those who were inspired by Augustine from those who gave different interpretations.

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Matthieu PIGNOT, «Setting rules for becoming Christian: Augustine’s polemical treatise De fide et operibus in context», p. 73-114

The treatise De fide et operibus, written at a turning point in Augustine’s life (412-413) against unnamed opponents who questioned the necessity of pre-baptismal discipline, provides a remarkable example of the significance of Christian initiation for dictating rules of behaviour and defining Christian membership. Instead of assuming that the work was composed as a one-off reaction to a marginal problem, I argue that the treatise has to be set in a context of diverging practices of initiation and that, like his opponents’ writings, it precisely aimed at establishing norms based on a detailed exegesis of authoritative passages. Moreover, I show that Augustine’s position, aiming at enforcing strict rules of admission for converts and catechumens, has to be set in continuity with Augustine’s broader emphasis on rules of behaviour for catechumens and baptised Christians alike. Expanding on what he had progressively taught in his sermons and earlier works, and perhaps written in connection to his regular participation in the teaching of catechumens in Carthage, where he stayed for some time in 412-413, this treatise, shaping how the catechumenate should be organised and understood in late antique Africa, provides a striking and neglected synthesis of Augustine’s thinking.

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Enrico MORO, «A proposito delle tre ipotesi sull’origine delle anime nel libro X del De Genesi ad litteram (X, 1, 1 – 5, 8)», p. 115-137

In book X of his De Genesi ad litteram Augustine devotes extensive reflection to the origin of the souls of Eve and Adam’s successor, that, in its initial part, is viewed by most scholars as unclear and not linear. The article proposes an analysis of chapters 1-5 of book X, in which three hypotheses on the origin of the human souls are set out and discussed, in order to highlight the logic and demonstrate the consistency of Augustine’s argumentation.

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Anne DE SAXCÉ, «La rosée dans l’exégèse augustinienne», p. 139-164

In this paper we try to read several texts of Augustine, in which he analyses the biblical theme of dew. This theme takes a great place in patristic exegesis, particularly when the Fathers read such texts as Gideon’s fleece or Jacob’s blessing, or some verses of the Song of Solomon, the Psalms, Deuteronomy or the book of Isaiah. We will attempt to compare these exegesis with the augustinian one, in order to point out what he owes to his predecessors, and what he found by himself. By mean of the topic of dew, we want to give a clear understanding of the originality of Augustine’s thought about happiness.

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Giulio MALAVASI & Anthony DUPONT, «Marius Mercator and the Augustinian Concept of Carnal Concupiscence», p. 165-180

Marius Mercator was one of the less well-known theologians in the fifth century who reacted against the Pelagians. As such he wrote against the principal protagonists of the Pelagian movement: Pelagius, Caelestius, and Julian of Aeclanum. Because it was one of the most debated issues of the Pelagian controversy, the Augustinian concept of carnal concupiscence easily serves as a valuable litmus test for the sake of evaluating Marius Mercator’s loyalty to and understanding of Augustine’s own anti-Pelagian doctrine. A meticulous textual analysis of passages in which Mercator discusses carnal concupiscence shows that while he had a good knowledge of Augustine’s doctrine, at the same time, he often simplified and reduced the complexity of Augustine’s position.

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François DOLBEAU, «Un épitomé inconnu des Confessions d’Augustin», p. 181-187

In a thirteenth-century Manuscript of Clairvaux, an unedited epitome of Augustine’s Confessiones is included. Its prolog, published at the end of the study, mentions two names: the dedicatee, M., i.e. Milon of Trainel († 1203), premonstratensian abbot of Saint-Marien at Auxerre, and the author, B., i. e. Bernoald, canon of the same abbacy and successor of Milo. That epitome is not to be confused whith the pseudo-augustinian Soliloquia animae ad deum, in spite of what a sixteenth-century Librarian said from another copy now lost.

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Fabienne JOURDAN, «Une appropriation habile de Numénius: Eusèbe de Césarée et son emploi critique de l’adjectif ὁµοούσιος en PE XI 21-22», p. 215-242

In PE XI 21, Eusebius quotes a series of Plato’s texts in order to prove the agreement between the philosopher and Moses about the definition of the Good identified to God. These quotations are paraphrased to assert the agreement between Plato and the Hebrews about Monotheism, while condemning philosophical Polytheism. Now, in this criticism, Eusebius uses the word ὁμοούσιος in a very problematical way (PE XI 21, 6). The rejection of the notion it conveys about the Good (identified to God) and what comes from it produces a double difficulty: the understanding of this rejection itself, although Eusebius will accept the word ὁμοούσιος after the Council of Nicaea to refer to the relation between the Father and the Son; and the apparent calling into question of the divinity of the Son produced notably by this rejection, when Eusebius’ discourse is considered from a theological point of view. In his paraphrase of Plato, Eusebius appropriates in advance the contents of Numenius’ four fragments he quotes in the following chapter (PE XI 22). This first paper shows what his paraphrase owes to these fragments and how the theological double difficulty finds a first solution by recalling the meaning of the adjective ὁμοούσιος at the time of Eusebius and how he used it in his writings.

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Jérémy DELMULLE, «Une page inédite d’Augustin sur le septième jour de la Création, tirée du s. 229 W», p. 243-285

Editio princeps of a fragment of Augustine’s s. 229 W, on the seventh day of the Creation, the last sermon in a series of seven devoted to the explanation of the Heptaemeron. The existence of this sermon was known until now only by the Indiculus of Hippo. Like the other fragments of this series (s. 229 R-V; s. 229 Q, on the first day, is lost), this sermon reached us essentially through the Expositum in Heptateuchum of John the Deacon, preserved in the ms. Paris, BnF, lat. 12309. The probable knowledge, by Isidore of Seville, of several pieces of the series, also encourages to search in his Expositio in Genesim for other traces of lost passages of the same sermons.

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Lukas J. DORFBAUER – Victoria ZIMMERL-PANAGL, «„Iacobus episcopus“, Ambrosius von Mailand und die Bibliothek von Lorsch», p. 287-308

The first part of the present article clears up an old mistake: lost works of an unknown author “Iacobus episcopus” have been wrongly deduced from entries in some Carolingian library catalogues from Lorsch. Actually, these entries testify to a certain collection of works by Ambrose of Milan which, in a comparable form, is otherwise known from only one later codex (Karlsruhe, BLB Aug. perg. 130, s. X1). The Ambrosian corpus attested for Lorsch is of interest for the transmission and edition of the relevant texts, especially the speeches on the death of Satyrus. These matters are discussed in the second part of the present article.

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Cécile LANÉRY, «Une bio-bibliographie médiévale: la Vita Augustini BHL 787 et son Indicium inédit», p. 309-367

The Vita Augustini BHL 787 was written in the 11th to 12th century, in the region of Cologne, or perhaps Trier. The author based his text on Augustine’s Confessions and Possidius’ Vita Augustini BHL 785. Like Possidius, he includes in his compilation an Augustinian bibliography (Indicium omnium librorum eius) drawn from various sources. One finds Augustine’s Retractationes and Confessiones, a Anglo-Norman bibliographical list, and the analysis of a number of Augustinian manuscripts. The document resulting from his bibliographic research is a curious and precious testimony of medieval erudition. The article provides a critical edition with notes and commentary.

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Gilles BANDERIER, «Notes sur la réception d’un exemplum augustinien (Cité de Dieu, XIV, 24) au XVIIIe siècle», p. 369-375

In Augustine’s City of God is to be found an exemplum telling how a priest called Restitutus was able to throw himself voluntarily into catalepsy, looking as if he was dead. This anecdote was quoted several times in eighteenth-century France, in (or without) an apologetic purpose, in connection with Jansenist controversy and the vexed question of miracles.

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