Latin epistolography Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Sidonius C. Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius, Die Briefe. Eingeleitet, übersetzt und erläutert von Helga Köhler, Stuttgart: Hiersemann 2014, XXXVII + 355 pp., ISBN 978-3-7772-1414-6, € 224 (hb). Die Briefe des Apollinaris Sidonius sind seit eh und je eine erstrangige Quelle für das Gallien des fünften Jahrhunderts und haben bis in den Humanismus hinein die europäische Literatur entscheidend beeinflusst. Als prototypi-sche Mischgestalt aus Aristokrat und Seelenhirt, römischem Präfekt und Bischof von Clermont, Hofpoet und liturgischem Autor ist Sidonius wesent-lich für unser Verständnis des spätantiken Christentums. Helga Köhler (K.) stellt ihn nun erstmals in einer mustergültigen Übersetzung seiner ganzen Korrespondenz dem deutschsprachigen Publikum vor. Dank ihrem wegwei-senden Kommentarband zum ersten Buch der Korrespondenz (Heidelberg 1995) ist K. eine der Urheberinnen der heutigen Sidonius-Renaissance. Das Buch enthält, neben der Übersetzung, eine Einleitung, eine Auswahl-Bibliographie und ein Namen-und Sachregister. Die Einleitung ist eine gekonnte, äußerst zugängliche Zusammenfassung unserer Kenntnis auf dem heutigen Stand der Wissenschaft. Binnen dreißig Seiten wird der Leser infor-miert über den Autor, seine Briefkunst und sein Nachleben. Zudem legt K. Rechenschaft ab über die Entscheidungen, die sie bei der Übersetzung getroffen hat. Einige, für die Übersetzung wichtige Aspekte möchte ich hier hervorheben. Die Sammlung von 147 Briefen in neun Büchern würdigt K. zu Recht als mehr als ein historisches Dokument, nämlich als ein sorgfältig angeleg-tes Gesamtkunstwerk aus Prosa und poetischen Einlagen, das Politik und Privatleben, Weltliches und Geistiges verbindet zu einem Kaleidoskop wech-selnder Stimmungen. Form und Sprache der Briefe stehen dabei stets gleich-rangig neben ihrem Informationsgehalt. Dem Stil des Sidonius gerecht zu werden war Hauptaufgabe dieser Über-setzung. Die sehr langen Perioden, die alle denkbaren Stil-und Gedankenfi-guren häufen, überforderten schon nachweisbar manche Zeitgenossen. K. hat sich für die weitestmögliche Nachbildung des Originals entschlossen, da die deutsche Syntax ja die Möglichkeit zu Schachtelsätzen bietet. Das Ergebnis ist eine vornehme, zuweilen leicht altertümliche, aber immer kristallklare Über-setzung. Die erfindungsreiche Wortwahl und der präzise Aufbau steuern den langen Atem, den der Leser braucht. Die Übersetzung wäre besonders dazu geeignet, vorgetragen zu werden. Bemerkenswert sind die poetischen Einla-gen, die K. virtuos gemäß der ursprünglichen Metren übersetzt.

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- Latin Literature, Patristics, Late Antiquity, Epistolography

in Invigilata Lucernis 40 (2018) 187-98

- by Joop van Waarden
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- Latin Literature, Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Biography, Late Antiquity

"Las cartas de Cicerón se pueden entender como extractos de un diario de su vida y por extensión como un retrato de su época. Y es que hay momentos de su vida en que es posible seguir día a día no solo sus acciones, sino hasta sus lecturas y el curso de sus pensamientos y preocupaciones… Cualquier lector, pues, podrá decir de Cicerón lo que su hermano Quinto: «te he visto por entero en tu carta» (te totum in litteris vidi). Porque, en un diálogo directo con sus interlocutores, el autor se despoja por momentos de la máscara del personaje para mostrar todas las contradicciones —grandezas y miserias— del ser humano: sensible y vanidoso, obsesionado con su imagen pública y el apoyo de los poderosos, cálido o distante para con los suyos, a veces consecuente, dubitativo siempre.
Este ha sido el punto de partida del libro que el lector tiene en sus manos: trazar un recorrido por la vida y la época de Cicerón a partir de una selección de sus cartas más representativas, en su original latino y en la traducción y notas de José Miguel Baños."

- by José Miguel Baños Baños
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- Classics, Latin Literature, Roman History, Roman Republic

This article discusses three recent studies on the Letters of Pliny, including a biography (Winsbury, Pliny the Younger. A Life in Roman Letters), a commentary (Whitton, Pliny the Younger. 'Epistles' Book II), and a critical study (Gibson and Morello, Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger. An Introduction). It pays specific attention to recent interpretations of letter collections as structured unities.

L’epistolario di Plinio il Giovane è uno dei capolavori della prosa latina e una miniera di informazioni sul periodo a cavallo fra il I e il II secolo d.C. Delle oltre 350 lettere che lo compongono, questo volume presenta una selezione che attinge sia alle missive private destinate a parenti, amici e colleghi, sia a quelle ufficiali indirizzate all’imperatore. Alcune sono pietre miliari della storia e della cultura dell’Occidente – come quelle sull’eruzione del Vesuvio o sui processi a carico dei cristiani, di cui costituiscono la prima testimonianza -, altre illuminano usi e costumi di Roma o i rapporti fra intellettuali e personaggi di spicco nella politica del tempo, e altre ancora sono, semplicemente, biglietti ancora oggi esemplari per gusto ed eleganza.

- by Giulio Vannini
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- Epistolary literature, Latin epistolography, Pliny the Younger, Trajan
- by Oliver Overwien
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- Latin Literature, Late Antiquity, Late Roman Empire, Satire & Irony

This paper questions the common modern distinction between literary and non-literary texts in Graeco-Roman culture. With special focus on the private and o cial letters of aristocrats in Late Antique Gaul it will be shown that, neither from the point of view of the writer, nor from that of the contemporary reader, did a given letter not have a ‘literary’ quality per se. Obvious di erences in language and style are not necessarily an indication of an intended ‘literary’ or ‘non-literary’ reception, they merely re ect di er- ent communicative situations and rhetorical codes. The form of transmission or medial representation may serve as false friends: Cassiodor’s o cial letters, for example, were legal texts in the rst place, but became ‘literature’ by being copied into a manuscript collection. This ‘redeployment’ truly changed the nature and semantic of the original text by changing its mediality, signalling to or preparing the reader for a speci c literary reception. Thus the private letter exchanges of Avitus of Vienne, Ennodius or Ruricius of Limoges – indeed highly elaborate social performances – were only collected and pub- lished after their authors had died. However these letters certainly had a ‘literary’ recep- tion during contemporary circulation within the peergroups of their authors. Instead of projecting modern ideas of ‘the literary’ onto Late Antiquity, one would therefore do well to look at the actual reading conventions and habits within the elite micro-communities in which these letters were exchanged. Fictional texts aside, only the reconstruction of the essential ‘contracts’ between texts and readers makes for historical reliability and o ers insight into the forms and manners of literary reception within relatively closed interpre- tative communities.

- by Raphael Schwitter
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- Classics, Latin Literature, Late Antiquity, Epistolography

Il giudizio positivo di Plinio si può forse spiegare perché, al pari di Clelia e di Porcia, la moglie di VI, 24 ed Arria vengono raffigurate in ultima analisi come esempi limite, l'uno circondato da un velo di oscurità ed imprecisione (ricordiamo che dell'eroica protagonista è taciuto persino il nome!), l'altro fortemente influenzato dalla manipolazione mitizzante dell'opposizione senatoria al potere imperiale e proiettato in un passato abbastanza lontano e quasi eroico. La virilità di queste donne, quindi, non scompagina i tabu antropologici della tradizione perché viene allontanata nella collocazione geografica e sociale ovvero, nel caso di Arria, viene isolata nella sua eccezionalità ormai consacrata dalla tradizione, tanto da risultare, per così dire, come sterilizzata e quindi innocua agli occhi di Plinio: sta agili studiosi moderni tentare di riportarne alla luce i caratteri originari.

- by Ermanno Malaspina
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- Anthropology, Classics, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Epistolography
- by Rita Pierini
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- Latin Literature, Cicero, Latin Language and Literature, Classical philology

This paper focuses on the history of concepts by studying the key theological themes in the correspondence between Jerome and Augustine. Their otherwise fierce debate remains respectful within the literary genre of epistolography and its confines that were characteristic of the period. Although each of them stood by their beliefs that Jerome frequently refused to even discuss, their respect and mutual affection were not in question, particularly when they were both intellectually focusing on the front against their common adversary, Pelagius.

- by Mohamed Arbi Nsiri
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- Early Christianity, Late Antiquity, Augustine of Hippo, Epistolography

Bringing together an international team of historians, classicists, and scholars of religion, this volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the extant Greek and Latin letter collections of late antiquity (ca. 300–600 C.E.), illustrating how letter collections advertised an image of the letter writer and introducing the social and textual histories of each collection. Each chapter addresses a major collection of Greek or Latin literary letters, examining their assembly, publication, and transmission. In addition, contributions reveals how late antique letter collections operated as a discrete literary genre with their own conventions, transmission processes, and self-presentational agendas. This book will fundamentally change how people both read these texts and use letters to reconstruct the social history of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries

- by Edward Watts and +1
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- Libanius, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Emperor Julian, Augustine

"Roman and Roman-friendly Women Writers Bibliography (Prose)" in D. Mantzilas, Roman and Roman-friendly Women Writers: Poetesses and Prose Writers from the Beginnings of Latin Literature to Late Antiquity [Ρωμαίες και Φιλορωμαίες συγγραφείς: ποιήτριες και πεζογράφοι από τις απαρχές έως την ύστερη Αρχαιότητα], Ioannina: Carpe Diem Publications, 2018, passim

- by Dimitris Mantzilas
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- Gender Studies, Latin Literature, Women's writing, Latin Epigraphy

Abstract This article focuses on the first part of the Letter 113 to Lucilius, where Seneca argues against a "strange" theory by the Stoics. He contends the Stoics' syllogism that depicts virtues as animals, using satirical humour and a colloquial language near to the comedy and to the satire. The paper aims to illustrate that language here is functional to ridicule the content of too abstract and absurd philosophical metaphysics.

Not far down the Italian coast from Rome, a little past Anzio, a small and lonely medieval castle, perched on submerged Roman ruins just off the present shoreline, turns an almost windowless back to the mainland and stares out instead at the Tyrrhenian sea. Somewhere very near this spot, in a villa he describes as in mari ipso, “right in the sea,” Cicero once sought to shut out the world, in order to be alone with a seemingly limitless grief…

- by Shane Butler
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- Sound studies, Jorge Luis Borges, Melancholy, Cicero

Flavio Magno Aurelio Cassiodoro (490-583 d.C. circa) fu questore, console, maestro degli uffici, prefetto al pretorio di Teoderico e dei suoi successori sul trono del regno ostrogoto d'Italia. Animatore di una politica di collaborazione tra goti e romani nel nome di una condivisa civilitas, egli ha lasciato testimonianza della sua attività di ministro dei re goti nella silloge da lui intitolata Variae, giunta a noi integra, in dodici libri, per un totale di 468 documenti. L' opera rappresenta una delle fonti principali per la storia dell' Italia e dell' Europa nella prima metà del VI secolo d.C.: ne risultano illuminati aspetti politici e istituzionali, amministrativi, diplomatici, sociali, economici, culturali e religiosi. Molti documenti risultano a tutt' oggi inesplorati dagli studiosi.
Le Variae è l'unica tra le grandi opere della cultura latina a non essere stata mai tradotta integralmente in alcuna lingua moderna. Il motivo di questa sorprendente lacuna va ricercato soprattutto nella eccezionale difficoltà del latino cassiodoreo, nel quale confluiscono numerose tradizioni che si uniscono a uno stile molto personale e inventivo. Oltre che per l' accuratissima traduzione, questa edizione si caratterizza per un vastissimo commento e per un apparato critico che reca elementi di novità.

- by Angelo Luceri
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- Latin epistolography, Cassiodorus, Medieval Epistolography, Cassiodoro

Edition and description of an unpublished papyrus fragment in Latin language and script nowadays preserved at the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung in Berlin; on paleographical grounds, it can be referred to the fourth century.... more

- by Serena Ammirati
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- Latin Paleography, Latin epistolography, Latin Papyri, Theophanes

En un principio, la carta es un tipo de mensaje escrito que sirve para poner en comunicación a dos personas que están separadas; a partir de este uso meramente práctico, la carta se convirtió con el tiempo en un verdadero género literario, regido por reglas retóricas y apto para admitir determinados contenidos. El trabajo que aquí se ofrece supone un breve recorrido por ese largo camino que llevó a la carta a presentarse a los ojos de los autores y de los lectores como verdadera literatura.

This article proposes a new interpretation of the Ep. IX 12 of Pliny the Younger. In the middle of the text we find a reference to ll. 101-110 of Terence's Adelphoe, while the concluding sentence (et hominem esse te et hominis patrem) reveals the affinity with a similar expression , not identified so far, which was present in the texts of consolation (especially Seneca's Consolatio ad Marciam and Plutarch's Consolatio ad Apollonium, but originating from Teles). Pliny, through the mediation of the School of Rhetoric, recovers this sentence and transforms it into a real pedagogical project clearly derived from Terence.

- by Sergio Audano
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- Classics, Latin Literature, Teacher Education, Intertextuality

In late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, when different parts of the former Roman Empire politically and culturally drifted slowly away from each other, Dalmatia and the Adriatic functioned as an important bridge region, linking Italy and the Latin European West to the Balkans and the Greek East. From the 5th century, the local bishops of Dalmatia had taken on an important role not only as ecclesiastical authorities, but also as political players in the Adriatic region. Dalmatia and the Adriatic therefore offer an interesting case study of the balance of power and the modes of interaction between the local bishops and the ecclesiastical and secular authorities in the Eastern and Western Mediterranean. In particular, the register of Gregory the Great (590-604), offers comparatively detailed insights into the different layers of political interrelations of local bishops, the bishop of Rome, and the imperial court in Constantinople. This paper discusses the intermediate position of the bishops in Dalmatia and the Adriatic region between Rome and Constantinople. Keeping in mind the methodological constraints of analyzing ecclesiastical politics from papal communications, a set of textual sources biased in many ways, it is argued that Gregory’s letters indicate that the bishops of Dalmatia, especially the bishops of Salona, attained a comparatively independent position between Rome and Constantinople, the two most important centers of political gravity at the time. This specific position “in between” not only affected ecclesiastical and secular politics, it is also reflected in a specific understanding of the social role of a bishop. In particular, local ideas of the appropriate modes of behavior in episcopal office seem to have conflicted sharply with Gregory’s ideal conception of the office of bishop. Gregory’s register also demonstrates that the bishops of Dalmatia successfully strengthened their positions in ecclesiastical politics by playing off Byzantine secular authorities against the bishop of Rome. From a long-term perspective, managing their intermediate position between Rome and Constantinople was a crucial factor in securing a bishop’s political role.

This thesis provides an overview of the Roman correspondence on papyrus, ostrakon and tablet.
Communication was very important in Roman army, as in the armies of every time. The Roman military letters show a world where Latin and Greek are both official languages of the soldiers and where barbarians and provisioning are the most pressing matters.
This overview will mainly deal the four largest corpora (the Vindolanda tablets, the ostraka from the Eastern Desert of Egypt, the Dura Europos papyri and the ostraka from Bu Njem) and many texts from these corpora will be analyzed. A specific section will also focus on the mail management and transportation.

- by Fabrizio Lusani
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- Roman History, Roman military history, Roman Army, Greek Papyrology

Publicado en Mª. J. Alonso Veloso, ed., Quevedo en Europa, Europa en Quevedo, Vigo, Academia del Hispanismo, 2017, pp. 33-78. ISBN: 978-84-16187-79-9. En la publicación definitiva se incluye reproducción de las epístolas analizadas en el... more

Πρόκειται για αναλυτική και λεπτομερή παρουσίαση των 5 πρώτων επιστολών του Οβιδίου από το έργο του Epistulae ex Ponto. Παρουσιάστηκε στα πλαίσια μεταπτυχιακού σεμιναρίου που υλοποιήθηκε από το Τμήμα Φιλολογίας του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών το... more

- by Liana Barlou
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- Exile, Exile Literature, Latin epistolography, Ovidius

Dos dez livros que compõem a correspondência de Gaio Plínio Cecílio Segundo, ou Plínio, o Jovem (61-114), nove, publicados entre 97 e 109, caracterizam-se pela variedade genérica, temática, elocutiva e de destinatário 2. Nessas 247 cartas, ou epistulae curatius scriptae, como o próprio Plínio as denomina (Ep. 1.1), encontramos testemunhos sobre a vida social, política e financeira da Roma Imperial, bem como o posicionamento do autor acerca de temas como infância, filosofia, poesia, ensino e tradução. Êmulo de Cícero, por quem atesta admiração em diversas passagens (1.2.4; 1.5.11; 1.20.4; 9.2.2; 9.26.8), contemporâneo e interlocutor de Marcial (38-104), Tácito (56-117) e Suetônio (56-117), seguidor de Quintiliano, de quem fora discipulus (2.14.9; 6.6.3), Plínio nos convida a observar e admirar sua interação com seu círculo de familiares, letrados, eruditos, escritores, senadores, entre outros. Como amostragem desse universo eclético tratado pelo autor, elaboramos traduções de cartas selecionadas ao longo desses nove livros, cujos assuntos recorrentes, quando tomados em conjunto, dialogam intertextualmente, complementando-se e contrapondo-se, produzindo novos significados. Desse modo, os seguintes temas nortearam a seleção de textos: "Plínio e os lugares-comuns da epistolografia" (1.11; 2.2; 3.17; 6.7; 9.2;); "Plínio e o ócio" (1.9; 2.8; 9.32); "À mesa com Plínio" (1.15; 2.6;3.12;

- by Adriano Scatolin
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- Latin epistolography, Pliny the Younger, Pliny's Letters, Latin Epistolary Prose

«Dear friend, I am writing this letter to you in my own hand...». Such are the declarations of medieval authors whose texts are here collected and analyzed. In a world where the vast majority of intellectuals did not write with their own hand, but rather employed a secretary who wrote under dictation, the epistolary milieu was one of the contexts in which the practice of autography and its valorization developed, foreshadowing their spread in the modern age. The letters often offer information concerning the circumstances in which they were written and the aims of their authors, and therefore constitute a suitable source; the analysis of the references to autography in Latin letter written between the beginning of the XI century and the first half of the XIII allows to examine the authors’ awareness of the possible uses and advantages of autography, and more generally their conception of writing and composing.

- by Micol Long
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- Cultural History, Media and Cultural Studies, Medieval Literature, High Middle Ages

The portrayal of Zenobia of Palmyra in the Historia Augusta
must be regarded with suspicion as a faithful representation
of historical events. When considered as a narrative, however, this
episode becomes a discourse on the correlation of power, gender,
and ethnicity. In a new reading of the Life of Aurelian (HA 22–34),
I argue that the construction of the episode’s plot as well as devices
such as variable focalization and dramatic irony call attention to the
nexus of power, gender, and cultural identity, and ultimately destabilize
the assumption that power is Roman and masculine.

- by Prudence Jones
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- Ancient History, Archaeology, Classics, Epistolary literature

Nel corso del saggio vengono analizzati gli aspetti della retorica declamatoria di Draconzio (in particolare i tre carmi "retorici" dei «Romulea» - «Verba Herculis» [Rom. IV], «Controversia de statua viri fortis» [Rom. V] e «Deliberativa Achillis» [Rom. IX]) e di altri testi dell'Africa vandalica tardo-antica («Aegritudo Perdicae», «Epistula Didonis ad Aeneam»), nel tentativo di identificare tratti di continuità, ma anche, inevitabilmente, di discontinuità, con gli elementi propri della retorica latina repubblicana e imperiale.

- by armando bisanti
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- Latin Literature, Late Latin Literature, Latin Rhetoric, Latin epistolography

Tendo como ferramentas a tradução das cartas e seu estudo a partir de referenciais da Análise do Discurso e da História Cultural, além das próprias concepções antigas sobre epistolografia e epidítico, nosso objetivo foi examinar de que modo e com quais funções Plínio, o Jovem, utiliza, em sua correspondência, o elogio dirigido a alguns de seus contemporâneos ainda vivos. Para isso, discutimos a inserção
do autor na tradição epistolográfica antiga, assim como as conceituações e práticas do elogio na Antiguidade, o que permitiu observar elementos que compõem o estilo e a linguagem de Plínio. Nesta leitura, selecionamos, entre os nove primeiros livros que compõem a coleção epistolar pliniana, um total de treze missivas. Os textos selecionados têm por tema principal o elogio a um contemporâneo do autor e apresentam algumas estruturas próprias do discurso epidítico descrito pela retórica.

- by Leni Ribeiro Leite and +1
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- Latin epistolography, Pliny the Younger, Pliny's Letters, Epistolografia
- by Sara Fascione
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- Late Antiquity, Late Antique Literature, Latin epistolography, Pliny the Younger

La correspondance de Cicéron révèle l’originalité des relations nouées par les Romains de l’époque tardo-républicaine entre les pratiques de santé, les pratiques épistolaires et la présentation de soi. Non seulement la santé joue un rôle-clé dans le fonctionnement pragmatique de la lettre, mais le récit de maladie contribue à la
construction d’un « je » socialisé qui permet à Cicéron de partager les valeurs de ses correspondants. Réciproquement, les conseils qu’il adresse à ses destinataires sont inséparables d’un désir d’afficher son propre statut. Souci de soi et souci de l’autre apparaissent donc comme les deux facettes d’une même construction sociale. Cette correspondance témoigne d’autre part des vertus thérapeutiques
prêtées à l’échange épistolaire et plus largement des liens étroits existant entre le corps, l’écriture et la lecture dans le monde romain.
Cicero’s letters reveal the special links between healthcare, epistolography and self-presentation during the late Roman Republic. Health is not only playing a key-role in the pragmatic functioning of the letter, but the narrating of the disease contributes also to the elaboration of a socialized « I », who asserts and shares his
correspondents’ values. Reciprocally, the health advices given by Cicero to his addressees is inseparable from the desire to display his own social rank and authority.
Self-concern and caring for others appear then as the two facets of a single social construction. Cicero’s correspondence also reveals the therapeutic virtues attributed to the epistolary exchange and underlines the close link between body practices and writing/reading activities in the Roman world.

- by Emmanuelle Valette
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- History of Medicine, Health Care, Politics, History of Reading and Writing
- by Ralph Mathisen
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- Late Latin Literature, Late Antiquity, Late Roman Empire, Latin epistolography

This article provides a close reading of Augustine's ep. 158
(414/415 ce) a letter of Evodius’, Thagastan, former agens in rebus,
Augustine’s interlocutor on the soul, his co-monastic, and eventually
bishop of Uzalis, and custodian and promoter of the translated
relics of Stephen. The letter stands first in an Evodian dossier
that includes 4 letters to Augustine and 4 replies from him.
A short summary of the content and structure of ep. 158 is provided
and Augustine’s reply, ep. 159 is taken into consideration.
Layered and even “zerstreut” this letter, whose very form
reflects its author’s agitation and mental excitement, points in
multiple directions. Usually read as a philosophical, it is primarily
concerned with the supernatural – ghosts – and has been studied
(somewhat superficially) through that lens by Schmitt. After a
brief survey of the scholarship, I pursue various perhaps eccentric,
neo-Doddsian, lines of interpretation. These include: the intellectual
culture of the question, what happens to questioning when
death’s boundary intervenes, loss, love, spiritual channeling, anxiety
about sexuality, and homosociality. The latter discussion will
concentrate on a very unusual, and hitherto unremarked, passage
where Evodius described how he felt inhabited or possessed by his
dead secretary’s’ soul. This phenomenon, somewhat similar to the
much latter Dybbuk possession of Ashkenazi Judaism, is hard to
parallel in antiquity, but Philostratus’ VApollonii 3.38 (a boy possessed
by the soul of an amorous soldier) comes interestingly close.
The interiorisation of a dead person may be a tellingly erotic
model. And further examination of the letter confirms the impression
that Evodius was defending the boy’s chastity. But Evodius’
philosophical problem involved a physical vehicle for the human
soul post mortem. Augustine’s response was impatient and intolerant,
and unwilling to come to terms even with hauntings visible
to more than one witness. It sent Evodius and his readers to
the De Genesi ad litteram, where much of Augustine’s thinking on
visions and contact with the afterworld is to be found. Epp. 158
336 abstracts
and 159 can also be seen as examples of literary host-jumping
(from dialogue to epistolography). Here a series of narrated deaths
followed by urgent discussion and questioning invert the structure
of a Platonic Περὶ Ψυχῆς. Visions and witnesses to the afterlife
replace the Platonic eschatological mythos. The second decade of
the 5th C . proved a n i mportant c ross-roads for t he i ntellectual h istory
of relations between the living and the dead. Epp. 158-159,
the De Genesi ad litteram, and the De cura pro mortuis stand at
the heart of the debate that pitted Evodius’ corporeal theories
about the post mortem soul and many peoples’ theology of sentiment
against Augustine’s more austere ideas that excluded apparitions
and hauntings. The Middle Ages however, would vindicate
Evodius.

- by Katerina Daniil
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- Latin Literature, Propertius, Epistolography, Roman Elegy

La christologie et la Trinité chez les Pères

- by Gérard NAUROY
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- Latin epistolography, THEOLOGIE, Antiquite Tardive

This article addresses Joshua HaLorki's discussion of faith (emunah), as it appears in his famous letter to the convert Pablo de Santa Maria. It suggests that ha-Lorki weighed against each other competing models of faith, that he deemed crucial for the issue of conversion, As I argue, the choice upon which ha-Lorki contemplated was not between the religion of the intellect and mystic beliefs, as some have argued; but rather between the volitional model of scholastic fides, and the religion of tradition.

- by Sara Fascione
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- Roman History, Intertextuality, Mediterranean, Late Antiquity

The question of Christian almsgiving in late antiquity is one that has received fresh treatment recently in Richard D. Finn's monograph, and the issue of wealth and poverty in this period is the subject of a number of current international scholarly projects. This paper considers the place of almsgiving in Jerome's vision of asceticism found in his advice to wealthy Christians. When one reads Jerome's letters to Furia (Epistula 54), Lucinius (Epistula 71), Oceanus (Epistula 77), Salvian (Epistula 79), Eustochium (Epistula 108), Julian (Epistula 118), Ageruchia (Epistula 123), and Demetrias (Epistula 130), where the parable of the wily manager (Luke 16:9 in particular) is employed, as well as in other letters containing ascetical advice that do not employ the parable, it would be easy to conclude that the purpose of almsgiving for Jerome was soteriological self-interest.It will be argued here that to reach such a conclusion would be to fail to appreciate his rhetorical strategies employed in these letters addressed to wealthy Christians. Jerome's vitriolic treatise Contra Vigilantium, written for a different kind of audience and with a different purpose in mind, as recently investigated by David G. Hunter, also contains references to almsgiving. In it the poor are not simply the objects enabling the wealthy to be saved but are considered in terms of social justice and equity as subjects whose needs must be addressed.

- by Geoffrey D Dunn, FAHA
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- Patristics, Asceticism, Early Christianity, Late Antiquity

Review of V. Alice Tyrrell, 'Merovingian Letters and Letter Writers', Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin 12. Turnhout: Brepols, 2019.

Le présent travail s’inscrit dans une démarche d’archéologie conceptuelle. Il s’agit de suivre, à travers les épîtres échangées entre Jérôme et Augustin, les grandes thématiques abordées par les deux hommes. Leurs échanges, très orageux parfois, restèrent respectueux à la codification de l’épistolographie du temps. En somme chacun gardait ses idées, et Jérôme se refusait à toute discussion ; mais ni l’estime, ni l’affection réciproque ne reçurent d’atteinte et il viendrait un temps où la collaboration intellectuelle si désirée s’établirait d’elle-même pour faire front devant l’ennemi commun, Pélage.

- by Clotho / Κλωθώ
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- St Jerome, Latin epistolography, Heresy and Orthodoxy, Saint Augustine