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This article aims to complete and correct the existing analyses of the unpublished Expositum in Heptateuchum of John the Deacon (mid-sixth century) by studying sixteen fragments of patristic works that have not or not properly been... more
This article aims to complete and correct the existing analyses of the unpublished Expositum in Heptateuchum of John the Deacon (mid-sixth century) by studying sixteen fragments of patristic works that have not or not properly been identified. A new critical examination of nine fragments edited by Jean-Baptiste Pitra in 1852 makes it possible to specify their nature and to propose a better founded localization in various works of Origen (Stromata, Peri physeon, Letter to Gobarus), of Didymus of Alexandria (De fide) and of Augustine (Sermo Delmulle 1). Seven other fragments, not previously identified, are published here for the first time: a new passage from a Latin translation of Justinian’s Edictum aduersus Origenem, a tractatus on Joshua attributable to Gregory of Elvira, four pieces on Genesis probably from Augustine’s preaching, and a sentence by Victor of Capua. Each of these fragments is the subject of a critical edition and attribution criticism.
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In his treatise Contra collatorem (c. coll. 21.3), published in 432/3 AD, Prosper of Aquitaine lists ten anti-Pelagian works written by Augustine, which he advises his adversaries and other readers to turn to, in order to better... more
In his treatise Contra collatorem (c. coll. 21.3), published in 432/3 AD, Prosper of Aquitaine lists ten anti-Pelagian works written by Augustine, which he advises his adversaries and other readers to turn to, in order to better understand the unity and continuity of Augustine’s thinking on grace, free will and predestination. The aim of the present paper is to try to understand what guided Prosper in the choice of these ten titles and what his knowledge of this anti-Pelagian corpus might have been. By comparing the Contra collatorem list with the other lists of Augustine’s anti-Pelagian works already available at the same time (in Augustine’s Retractationes or Possidius of Calama’s Indiculus) and by taking a look at Prosper’s many direct sources, it can be argued that Prosper had a first-hand knowledge of all the works he cited. Did this anti-Pelagian corpus already exist as such before Prosper, or did Prosper forge it himself? Even if this list seems to have had almost no impact after Prosper’s time, it certainly provides a very valuable testimony with regard to the question of the first diffusion of Augustine’s works in the years immediately following the death of the bishop of Hippo.
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In his Vetera Analecta (1675), the French Benedictine monk Jean Mabillon was the first to distinguish between the two Augustinian florilegia on the Apostle Paul compiled by the Venerable Bede and by Florus of Lyons, and to draw attention... more
In his Vetera Analecta (1675), the French Benedictine monk Jean Mabillon was the first to distinguish between the two Augustinian florilegia on the Apostle Paul compiled by the Venerable Bede and by Florus of Lyons, and to draw attention to two manuscripts from Bede’s unpublished Collectio in Apostolum. By putting this discovery in its historical context and in relation to Mabillon’s works and travels in the 1670s, this article shows that the two manuscripts described by Mabillon were two manuscripts from the Abbey of Saint-Bertin (at Saint-Omer), one of which is now lost. From the indications given by Mabillon and other medieval and modern sources, it is possible to reconstruct the content and understand the textual value of this lost Carolingian manuscript.
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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... more
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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This article aims to characterize a singular type of «extrastemmatic» or «extratraditional» contamination, which specifically affect the manuscript tradition of «derivative texts» (florilegia, commentaries, translations, etc). The... more
This article aims to characterize a singular type of «extrastemmatic» or «extratraditional» contamination, which specifically affect the manuscript tradition of «derivative texts» (florilegia, commentaries, translations, etc). The specific nature of these texts, built from pre-existing (and often well preserved) sources, implies a double risk of contamination: not just an ‘ordinary’ contamination from different copies of the same text, but also what could be called a ‘contamination ex fontibus’, deriving directly from the manuscripts of the implicated sources. The topic is discussed from the standpoint of Augustinian late-antique and medieval florilegia, particularly Eugippius’ Excerpta, Bede’s Collectio in Apostolum and the Augustinian Expositio by Florus of Lyons. The study of these florilegia in both their mutual relation and individual manuscript tradition shows that such a practice was very frequent throughout the Middle Ages; two cases of recourse to direct witnesses are presented (in a manuscript from St. Gall, for the Excerpta of Eugippius, and in a manuscript from Corbie, for the Collectio of Bede). The demonstration of the existence of such a practice of contamination leads us to propose hypotheses on the caracteristics of the textual traditions of the Augustinian florilegia and to study the consequences of this practice on the ecdotic work: we draw the attention, in fine, on the complexity of the editorial work on such texts, by proposing some methodological recommendations for the recensio and the constitutio textus of Augustinian florilegia or florilegia in general.
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The Expositum in Heptateuchum, an unpublished commentary on the first books of the Bible composed of several hundred patristic extracts, is attributed, in the single manuscript which transmits it, the ms. Paris, BnF, lat. 12309 (ninth... more
The Expositum in Heptateuchum, an unpublished commentary on the first books of the Bible composed of several hundred patristic extracts, is attributed, in the single manuscript which transmits it, the ms. Paris, BnF, lat. 12309 (ninth century), to a certain Iohannes Romanae Ecclesiae diaconus, probably active in the sixth century and who scholarship agrees to identify with Pope John III (561-574). This identification rests essentially on the quotation, in the anthology, of a passage attributed to a supposedly unknown author, Catellus, which might be another name for John. In fact, the passage under the name of Catellus is taken from the Liber promissionum and praedictionum Dei, now restored to Quodvultdeus of Carthage. The identification of this source shows that no Catellus identifiable with Iohannes exists and thus calls into question the attribution of the commentary to the future John III. It also draws attention to a passage in the Liber’s prologue, in which the author designates himself as a catellus. Unless this common name has been mistakenly taken as a signature by Iohannes or an older reader of the Liber, it is possible that this is a pseudonym taken by the author to conceal his identity.
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Prosper of Aquitaine, especially famous for his works of antisemipelagian polemic, resorted to poetic form during the controversy by composing the Carmen de Ingratis. But he is also the author of an Epitaphium of the Pelagian and... more
Prosper of Aquitaine, especially famous for his works of antisemipelagian polemic, resorted to poetic form during the controversy by composing the Carmen de Ingratis. But he is also the author of an Epitaphium of the Pelagian and Nestorian heresies, both of which, in the heresiological literature of the period, are often presented as related. The present article proposes to study a suggestion by G.B. De Rossi (1888), taken up by Dom H. Leclercq (1926), which never gave rise to any work, concerning the possible attribution to Prosper of a metric inscription dating from the pontificate of Sistus III. This study is an opportunity to analyze two other contemporary epigraphic poems, engraved in other Roman basilicas and also celebrating the Catholic victory over the Nestorian heresy. While the first poem seems to be regarded as Prosper’s work, the authorship of the two others remain uncertain.
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À l’occasion de la préparation d’une nouvelle édition du Peri akharistôn (Carmen de ingratis) de Prosper d’Aquitaine, cet article cherche à donner une interprétation générale du poème, en proposant de voir, derrière les visées didactiques... more
À l’occasion de la préparation d’une nouvelle édition du Peri akharistôn (Carmen de ingratis) de Prosper d’Aquitaine, cet article cherche à donner une interprétation générale du poème, en proposant de voir, derrière les visées didactiques et polémiques dont est porteur le discours du poète sur la grâce de Dieu et le libre arbitre de l’homme, la construction d’une représentation de la grâce, toujours et partout à l’œuvre, qui emprunte aux formes de l’épopée classique. Les traits épiques qui émaillent le poème justifient à eux seuls la question de ce rattachement générique du De ingratis. Leur analyse plus fouillée tend à montrer qu’en réalité l’initiative de l’action ne revient nullement aux hommes, mais que ces derniers sont mus par une force supérieure qui, en définitive, ne peut qu’être identifiée avec la grâce divine même qui est l’objet du discours du poète. Une telle perspective permet de résoudre quelques incohérences apparentes et de rendre compte de l’unité d’une œuvre parfois déroutante, en mesurant la place que celle-ci tient dans l’évolution du genre épique dans l’Antiquité tardive.
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Sedulius Scottus’s Collectaneum Miscellaneum has preserved the contents table of a lost manuscript (here called Σ) transmitting a set of Augustinian works, for some very rare (c. Secundin and c. Gaud.). This manuscript directly served... more
Sedulius Scottus’s Collectaneum Miscellaneum has preserved the contents table of a lost manuscript (here called Σ) transmitting a set of Augustinian works, for some very rare (c. Secundin and c. Gaud.). This manuscript directly served Sedulius, who extracted numerous passages from a dozen different treatises for his Collectaneum Miscellaneum and his Collectaneum in Apostolum. The study of these excerpts, the confrontation of the text they witness with the data of the direct tradition of the works and the analysis of the content of another lost manuscript, the MS. † Chartres, BM, 104 (101), linked to the collection Σ, make it possible to trace the circulation of this collection in the ninth century, to establish relationships with traditions from Liégeois and Auxerrois regions and thus to propose new hypotheses on the biography of Sedulius Scottus and the places that he frequented.
Research Interests: Manuscript Studies, Augustine, Augustine of Hippo, Biblical Exegesis, Manuscript studies, codicology, palaeography, medieval paper, Chaucer, circulation of texts and books, history of the book, electronic editing and digital humanities, and 2 moreMonastic and patristic florilegia and Sedulius Scottus
This lexical note intends to point out an error in the Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (third edition [Paris, 1840-1850] and later) concerning the word « Langusta » which is supposed to designate an edible herb. I propose two... more
This lexical note intends to point out an error in the Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (third edition [Paris, 1840-1850] and later) concerning the word « Langusta » which is supposed to designate an edible herb. I propose two correctives. The word recorded in the « Du Cange », taken from a passage of Jacques of Vitry’s Historia Orientalis, is actually a Middle French word translating the lat. locusta; it is therefore at the entry « Locusta » that the passage in question of Jacques of Vitry, which attests for this word an acceptation not yet referenced, deserves to be included. Moreover, the consistent testimonies of a gloss added by Ekkehard IV of St. Gallen in the ms. Sankt Gallen, SB, 176, an excerpt quoted by Werner of St. Blasien in his Liber deflorationum and a biblical gloss contained in the ms. Città del Vaticano, BAV, Pal. lat. 930 allow us to suppose the existence of a common source earlier than the middle of the eleventh century which already attests this use of the word: this makes it possible to trace the appearance of this acceptation to at least two centuries earlier.
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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... more
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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L’expression « Sancta Sedes », dénomination juridique officielle de l’Église catholique depuis 1917, est fort attestée au Moyen Âge, mais reste rare dans l’Antiquité tardive (les expressions utilisées étant surtout Sedes apostolica et... more
L’expression « Sancta Sedes », dénomination juridique officielle de l’Église catholique depuis 1917, est fort attestée au Moyen Âge, mais reste rare dans l’Antiquité tardive (les expressions utilisées étant surtout Sedes apostolica et Cathedra Petri). Avant de s’imposer comme revendication de la supériorité du siège de Rome sur les autres, les mots « Sancta sedes » ont été utilisés, en premier lieu, par le pouvoir impérial ; la première occurrence non ambiguë de ce nom pour appuyer l’idée de la potestas papale remonte aux pontificats de Xyste III et Léon Ier.
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A new examination of the manuscript tradition of the Augustinian anthology prepared by the Venerable Bede, and more attention paid to the codicological patterns of the oldest witnesses reveal permanent features that allow us to better... more
A new examination of the manuscript tradition of the Augustinian anthology prepared by the Venerable Bede, and more attention paid to the codicological patterns of the oldest witnesses reveal permanent features that allow us to better understand the early stages of the diffusion of this text, and especially to draw the following conclusions about the work itself: the different branches of the tradition depend in fact on a single archetype, whose last part was mutilated after being copied once (the witnesses thus could be distributed between integri, mutili and suppleti); Bede’s anthology originally had about five hundred extracts, among which fifty of at least disappeared; this loss is explained by the material conditions of the first copies, made by a composition by fascicles that, even before the copy of the archetype both caused the fall of quires and sheets and resulted in interpolations. Several excerpts of the anthologie therefore can now be dismissed as inauthentic, and several lacunae must be assumed.
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This paper highlights the discovery of extraction marks in the archetype of the collection De bono coniugali of St. Augustine’s writings (Città del Vaticano, BAV, Pal. lat. 210), which shall be attributed to the workshop of Eugippius of... more
This paper highlights the discovery of extraction marks in the archetype of the collection De bono coniugali of St. Augustine’s writings (Città del Vaticano, BAV, Pal. lat. 210), which shall be attributed to the workshop of Eugippius of Castellum Lucullanum. They consist in marginal alpha and omega combined with crosses inside the text : they were used during the composition of the Excerpta ex operibus sancti Augustini around 500. They make it possible to date the ms. Pal. lat. 210 approximately one century before the date to which it was previously assigned on palaeographical grounds. This study sheds new light not only on the making of Eugippius’ Excerpta and on the value of the different branches of its manuscript transmission, but also on the origins of the collection De bono coniugali, on the rise of the use of excerption signs in late Antiquity and on the criteria of datation of the roman uncial.
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Copied on the last folio, remained blank, of a manuscript probably originated in Fleury, an exegetical note, to be dated to the end of the tenth century, questions the true nature of locustae that Mark’s Gospel wrote they constituted the... more
Copied on the last folio, remained blank, of a manuscript probably originated in Fleury, an exegetical note, to be dated to the end of the tenth century, questions the true nature of locustae that Mark’s Gospel wrote they constituted the meal of John the Baptist in the desert. Refuting the idea that it could be locusts, the author implements a very critical exegesis and uses a great biblical culture and encyclopedic knowledge about the taxonomy of insects and crustaceans, and concludes that the locustae in question were to be shrimp or crayfish. The interest of this text lies mainly in the fact that, to make clear what it is, the author glosses the word “locusta” with vernacular words in use in Germany and northern Italy, and that he also convenes in support of his thesis an unknown non-Vulgate version of the passage from Leviticus concerning dietary restrictions.
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The present article aims to signal the existence of an until now unknown poetic text whose only four lines have been kept in a late seventeenth-century inventory of the library of the Cistercian abbey of Longpont (Aisne, France). These... more
The present article aims to signal the existence of an until now unknown poetic text whose only four lines have been kept in a late seventeenth-century inventory of the library of the Cistercian abbey of Longpont (Aisne, France). These lines, copied from a medieval manuscript, are the proem of a much longer piece of poetry which very interestingly mentions the figure of Moneta, invoked as the mother of the Muses and the Latin equivalent of Mnemosyne. The allocation of this status to Moneta is extremely rare: it dates back to Livius Andronicus’s Odusia and is only known through a fragment preserved by Priscian. A study of the manuscript’s description given by the modern inventory and an analysis of the four particularly rich verses in question allow to identify the lost poem as probably a hagiographical poem written in honor of a certain St. Mary, no more nameable. Lexical and stylistic features of the verses, however, reveal a close relationship with a series of poems nowadays assuredly attributed to Peter Riga. It seems therefore to be plausible that this lost poem is a part of the poetic production of this author, already known for having composed two other metrical hagiographies; in this case, the work should be dated from the period of Peter’s training in the 1160s.
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The question of the Law as related to nature and grace was one of the main concerns of those who, after Augustine’s death, defended him against the so-called “Semipelagians”, from Cassian to Faustus of Riez. An analysis of the probable... more
The question of the Law as related to nature and grace was one of the main concerns of those who, after Augustine’s death, defended him against the so-called “Semipelagians”, from Cassian to Faustus of Riez. An analysis of the probable filiations between the texts by Augustine and those of his defenders, Prosper of Aquitaine and Fulgentius of Ruspe, allows us to observe the terms and reasons for the emergence of Augustinianism, in the sense of a partly conscious and partly unconscious hardening of the original doctrine. Although the terms and developments are identical in appearance and deeply rooted in Augustine’s theology, their application to various objects and their integration into new contexts help to give a distorted representation of Augustine’s thought.