Abstract The Great Letter of Evagrius of Pontus (d. 399) has received considerable scholarly attention as a source for reconstructing Evagrius’ speculative theology; however, due to a relative paucity of manuscripts and the fact that the text only survives in Syriac, the reception and translation technique of the letter have not been systematically studied. This article proposes that the Syriac translation of the Great Letter contains numerous manifestations of paronomasia, or wordplay, that operate in Syriac but would not be meaningful in Greek. A translator may have inserted these paronomasias to add meaning to Evagrius’ metaphors and theological images. Furthermore, cognitive-linguistic evidence suggests that these paronomasias would have been seen as meaningful by readers or listeners even if they were not intended by the translator. For this reason, the Syriac Great Letter represents a nativizing of Evagrius’ text into a Syriac context that is not reducible to its Greek original.

Abstract Orientius’s commonitorium is well-known for containing a list of vices (1,321-592 ; 2,13-84). Most scholars have underlined the unity of these lines and have considered the conclusion of the first book and the begining of the second one as digressions. Based on the observation that the commonitorium is an explicit well-structured poem, our study aims to explain the discontinuity in the treatment of vices between each book. Such considerations lead to reconsider the structure of the poem. The commonitorium seems to be drawn to its end by a kind of « eschatological tension » and presents reflection effects between the first and second books which allow to highlight the core of the poem (1,593-618; 2,1-12), previously considered as digression. This article results from an adjustment of a passage of our doctoral thesis (L. Martin, Le poème d’Orientius. Introduction, texte critique, traduction et commentaire (Université de Strasbourg 2023) 70-83 (https://publication-theses.unistra.fr/public/theses_doctorat/2023/MARTIN_Lucie_2023_ED270.pdf).

Abstract Recent literature on Tyconius has assembled something of a consensus towards Steinhauser’s suggestion that Tyconius was an ethnic Greek. This theory was originally proposed to mollify the central riddle of Tyconian studies which has vexed his readers since Augustine: how could he have remained a Donatist? By proposing him as an ethnic outsider to an African controversy, his puzzling ecclesiastical affiliation might thereby be explained. This article seeks to challenge this account in establishing two points. The first is to argue the sincerity of Tyconius as a Donatist, situating him within the diversity of “Donatisms”, and examine the principles of his Donatist conviction. Secondly, showing his intense interest in Africa from a theological and ecclesiological perspective, this paper concludes we have no reason to suppose that he was anything other than an African among Africans, and the theory of his Greek origins must be registered with some caution or dismissed.

Abstract Edition of an early fourth century papyrus letter from the University of Michigan collection that is addressed to a priest and confessor. The latter title is attested here for only the second time in documentary papyri, and the letter is written in a high register with several scriptural allusions.

Abstract In this article, I problematise the scholarly understanding of Origen’s exegetical homilies, typically understood as condensed and simplified versions of his exegetical commentaries for a mixed audience. This assessment was necessarily based mainly on the homiletic material in Latin translation by Rufinus and Jerome, who had condensed and rearranged the material. However, the 2012 discovery of Codex Monancensis 314, Origen’s Homilies on the Psalms, more than doubled the number of Origen’s homilies in the original Greek, thus providing much more material with which to analyse the nature of the homily in Origen’s corpus. I argue that the very technical and textually oriented nature of the Greek homilies on the psalms and Jeremiah, the latter of which were previously the only extant set of Greek homilies, provide evidence that Origen’s target audience was an elite (literate) one, and that the exegetical teacher had the same pedagogical goals in his homilies as he did in his commentaries.

Vigiliae Christianae 78 (2024) 581-585 brill.com/vc Vigiliae Christianae Contents volume 78, no. 1 Articles Trois notes sur le texte des fragments historiques d'Hilaire de Poitiers (Fragmenta ex opere historico,