Latin Sermon Research Articles

Simeon Polotsky’s Preaching Heritage and its Sources: Some Observations

The study attempts to investigate created within the framework of other denominations sources of Simeon’s Polotskij two sermons: «Slova o perenesenii Ubrusa iz Edessy» (Sermon to a feast of the Mandylion’s translation from Edessa) from sermon’s collection «Vecherya Dushevnaya», 1683 and interpretation of the evangelical parable of the Good Samaritan from collections of homilies «Obed dushevnyj», 1681. The study confirms existed in the literature disparate observations about the significant commonality of the sources of inspiration and factual material of Simeon’s collections and his poetic encyclopaedia «Vertograd mnogotsvetnyj» (A Garden of Many Flowers; Latin poetry sources identified by Anthony Hippisley); in particular, that in both cases Simeon used Latin collections of annual sermons by Bavarian Jesuit Matthias Faber (1586/87–1653). The techniques of translation of Latin sermons were also investigated: these techniques give the reader (researcher) the impression that in one case the biblical fragment of Song of Songs (5:10–16) acts as the structuring text for Simeon’s «Slovo», and in the other case – interpretation of the evangelical parable of the Good Samaritan by John Chrysostom, while Simeon both compositionally and textually reproduces homilies written by Faber and his elder fellow of the Jesuit Order, Spanish exegete Alfonso Salmerón (1515–1585).

Attitudes towards Exempla in the Wycliffite Latin Sermon Cycles of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 200

ABSTRACT This article examines the contradictory attitudes towards the use of exempla in the two Wycliffite Latin Sermon Cycles of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 200. While the author of the sermons condemns exempla that are not scripturally derived, he in fact employs a range of examples, several of which are extra-biblical. There is thus a divide between his theory and practice. These sermons complicate our views of Wycliffite preaching theory, demonstrating that the debate for some dissenting preachers was about what was suitable material for exempla, rather than if exempla were in themselves appropriate for sermons.

Latin sermons for the feast of Corpus Christi in medieval England

ABSTRACT In her study of Corpus Christi (1991), Miri Rubin discussed four genuine sermons for the feast from medieval England (three in English, one in Latin). The present essay extends her findings to all Latin sermons for the feast that I have found in manuscripts: some twenty-five items clearly marked to be preached on Corpus Christi, the Thursday after the First Sunday of Trinity, plus one sermon that may be assumed to have been written for that occasion. Major topics dealt with are listed and discussed in some detail.

Kilka uzupełnień źródłowych do edycji Żywotu Pana Jezu Krysta Baltazara Opeca (w pięćsetlecie wydania z 1522 roku)

Some Supplementary Remarks on the Edition of Baltazar Opec’s Żywot Pana Jezu Krysta (on the Five Hundredth Anniversary of Its 1522 Edition) 500 years ago one of the most important Polish medieval works was published: Żywot Pana Jezu Krysta by Baltazar Opec (1522). It is the only complete Medieval apocryphal narrative written in Polish, describing Mary and Christ’s lives from the Annunciation till the Ascension and the Assumption of Mary. The first critical edition of this work was published in 2014, revealing multiple sources that may have been used by Opec. However, the primary sources of the last chapters dealing with the Dormition, Assumption and Coronation of the Mother of God were not identified. This paper presents these chapters together with fragments of a collection of Latin sermons by a Hungarian Franciscan Pelbartus Ladislaus de Temesvár, entitled Stellarium corone benedicte Marie Virginis (1498), which were previously used by the Polish translator and editor. The comparison of both texts makes it possible to observe how Baltazar Opec transformed Pelbartus’ erudite theological and Mariological treatise into the apocryphal narrative on the Dormition and Assumption of the Mother of God, preserving the style of the whole Żywot Pana Jezu Krysta. It is evident that Opec used Stellarium as model sermons but adapted them in a different way than the other sources of Żywot, such as Meditationes vitae Christi or Historia rythmica: he omitted the names and opinions of the Fathers of the Church and medieval theologians cited by the Hungarian Franciscan, as well as most of the references to ex Scriptura arguments.

Raising the Roof in Cædmon's Hymn

Raising the Roof in <i>Cædmon's Hymn</i>

St. Hedwig of Silesia: The Ducal Ideal of a Wife in Light of 15th-century “Sermones de sancta Hedwigis”

A collection of 15th-century Latin sermons for the day of St. Hedwig of Silesia (“Sermones de s. Hedwigis”) constitutes the source material for an analysis of matrimonial role models and the ideal of a wife (uxor) in medieval culture. The collection includes 84 sermons about St. Hedwig, preserved in 45 codes of Silesian provenance. The corpus of sermons on St. Hedwig is supplemented by 61 edited versions of “Vita sanctae Hedvigis” written in 47 manuscripts. The present article includes an analysis of St. Hedwig as a married woman, the ideal of a pious wife avoiding the pleasures of the flesh and observing moral norms in marriage, above all in sexual relations.

Bilingual Strategies in Fourteenth-Century Latin Sermons from Catalonia

This article discusses the phenomenon of bilingualism in medieval sermons by focusing on one of the most understudied areas of sermon studies – fourteenth-century Catalonia and Aragon. Specifically, I concentrate on Latin sermons, which remain largely underexplored, partly due to a certain historiographical bias that favours »national« languages over Latin. The main focus is on Dominican sermons from the Aragonia Province (which included Catalonia and Aragon). The main argument is that bilingualism in sermons was an editorial communicative strategy acquired and developed in an educational context, i.e. in how language was approached and learnt by bilingual users. To make my case, I first discuss the language training of the Dominicans from Aragon and briefly review some bilingual grammatical works in order to place the bilingualism of the sermons within a wider context of written (and spoken) multilingualism. Second, I address bilingualism and code-switching in sermons by analysing texts in which Latin is the matrix language, the most common type of sermon evidence preserved from this area. As in better studied areas, such as France, England, or Italy, the linguistic intermingling in fourteenth-century sermons from Catalonia covers all types of »macaronicity«, as categorised by Siegfried Wenzel. Thus, the paper will add to current debates that seek to understand medieval bilingualism (written and spoken) as a late medieval Europe-wide phenomenon by discussing hitherto unstudied and underexplored evidence in manuscripts that remains largely unknown to scholarship.

Czy warto wydawać antologie kazań? Na marginesie Kazań w kulturze polskiej. Edycje Kolekcji Tematycznych, red. Kazimierz Panuś, t. 1-3, Kraków 2014, ss. 1849.

&lt;p&gt;Artykuł jest dyskusją wokół celów i metod wydawania antologii tekstów dawnych kazań w związku z wydaniem monumentalnej trzytomowej edycji liczącej w sumie 1849 stron druku, pt.: &lt;em&gt;Kazania w kulturze polskiej. Edycje Kolekcji Tematycznych&lt;/em&gt;, red. K. Panuś, t. 1-3, Kraków 2014. Na omawianą edycję składają się trzy odrębne zbiory kazań tematycznych: &lt;em&gt;Kazania maryjne&lt;/em&gt;, t. 1; &lt;em&gt;Kazania funeralne&lt;/em&gt;, t. 2 oraz &lt;em&gt;Kazania pasyjne&lt;/em&gt;, t. 3. Całość stanowi największe kompendium dawnych tekstów kaznodziejskich reprezentujących tradycję homiletyczną od średniowiecza do XXI w. w polskiej humanistyce. W trzech tomach umieszczono w sumie 69 edycji kazań w oryginale polskim lub w tłumaczeniach z języka łacińskiego, w kolejności: 33&lt;em&gt; &lt;/em&gt;maryjne, 15 funeralne&lt;em&gt; &lt;/em&gt;oraz 21 pasyjnych. Razem kompendium zbiera mowy 62 kaznodziejów począwszy od średniowiecznych, m.in.: Peregryna z Opola, Mateusza z Krakowa, Mikołaja z Błonia, Stanisława ze Skarbimierza i Jana z Szamotuł oraz nowożytnych m.in.: Grzegorza Orszaka, Jakuba Wujka, Piotra Skargi, Krzysztofa Kraińskiego, Fabiana Birkowskiego i Szymona Starowolskiego i współczesnych Stefana Wyszyńskiego, Karola Wojtyły i Józefa Tischnera. Każdy tom poprzedzony jest odrębnym obszernym wstępem (R. Mazurkiewicza, K. Panusia, M. Skwary, J. S. Gruchały) z przedstawieniem stanu badań, wykazem skrótów oraz zasadami wydania i transkrypcji. Główną trudnością w przygotowaniu antologii był wybór metody edytorskiej, która w przypadku edycji z kilku epok nie mogła być jednolita, wybór autorów oraz umieszczenie w jednej serii kazań w tłumaczeniu z łaciny z kazaniami w oryginalnym brzmieniu staropolskim lub współczesnej polszczyzny. Strona edytorska jest przygotowana pod kątem kodykologicznym, filologicznym i rzeczowym. Pytania może zaś budzić strona językowa. Czy nie lepiej było w przypadku łacińskich kazań umieścić je w formie testimonium? Był to efekt kompromisu ze strony autorów między zachowaniem poziomu edytorskiego, a intencją szerszego udostępnienia „cennego materiału źródłowego do poznania dziejów języka, literatury, sztuki, kultury religijnej, duchowości i obyczajów”. Odpowiedź na postawione w artykule pytanie jest pozytywna. Warto, o ile edycja i aparat krytyczny idzie w parze z właściwą selekcją materiału oraz z komplementarnym, interdyscyplinarnym widzeniem kazań jako piśmiennictwa sakralnego, służącego duchowemu budowaniu i religijnemu nauczaniu, i w konsekwencji „czytanych” dziś jako „teksty kultury”, skarbnica idei i języka.&lt;/p&gt;

An edition of the four sermons attributed to Candidus Witto

AbstractIn 1891, Germain Morin identified a set of brief, anonymous Latin sermons that he controversially attributed to Alcuin’s Anglo-Saxon pupil named ‘Witto’ or ‘Wizo’ in Old English, ‘Candidus’ in Latin. The texts in question are of considerable interest but have remained unprinted and thus scarcely known. The present article offers an edition of them, based on all the known manuscripts, as well as a translation and commentary. An introductory discussion reviews the state of scholarship on Candidus’s career and writings, then examines in detail the content and sources of the four texts, the evidence supporting their attribution to Candidus, and some points of comparison between the items here edited and other Latin sermons produced at Carolingian centres in the early ninth century.

JOHN EYTON ALIAS REPYNGDON AND THE "SERMONES SUPER EUANGELIA DOMINICALIA" ATTRIBUTED TO PHILIP REPYNGDON

The sermons on the Gospel readings for Sundays, attributed to Philip Repyngdon, an Austin canon, were well known in England during the fifteenth century. They were the subject of two doctoral dissertations in 1984 and 1985, though neither has been published. I have not seen the work of J. R. Archer, 'The preaching of Philip Repyngdon, bishop of Lincoln: a descriptive analysis of his Latin sermons' (unpub. Ph.D. diss., Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Calif., 1984), but I have had the opportunity to read S. N. Forde's 'Writings of a reformer: a look at sermon studies and bible studies through Repyngdon's Sermones super euangelia dominicalia' (unpub. Ph.D. diss.,University of Birmingham, 1985), who provides a description of the manuscripts and an analysis of the fifty-one sermons consistently found in the series, leaving out a further three not always included. Their authorship has been treated as setded since the sixteenth century, but the manuscript evidence has never been tested. It presents an alternative context.The basic data on Philip Repyngdon's career were brought together by A. B. Emden, and Dr Forde himself contributed a brief biography in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography} The salient points are that he was a canon of Leicester Abbey at the time of his ordination on the day before Trinity Sunday, 26 May 1369.2 In 1382 he preached a sermon at Brackley, Northants, as a bachelor of theology, upholding as orthodox the teaching of John Wyclif on the eucharist, and again in Oxford a few weeks afterwards on the feast of Corpus Christi, 5 June.3 His defence of Wyclif's position meant that he was suspended from preaching on 15 June of that year and summoned to appear before Archbishop Courtenay at Black Friars in London. The defence put forward by himself and Nicholas Hereford survives in the anti-Wycliffite Fasciculi sgsgmiorum.4 By the end of November he had abjured any heresies and was restored to his academic status. He incepted as a doctor of theology at Oxford in the same year. From 1394 he was Abbot of Leicester. After 1399 he had the favour of King Henry IV and in 1404 he was promoted to Bishop of Lincoln, in which office he remained until his resignation in 1419 was accepted by Pope Martin V in 1420. He retired on a generous pension and died in 1424. It was his wish to be buried outside the porch of the parish church of St Margaret in the Close at Lincoln, as appears from his will.5 He had been nominated a cardinal by Pope Gregory XII in 1408, during the schism, but this promotion was never effective. One book given by him to Lincoln Cathedral can still be identified, now BL, Royal MS 8 G. iii, a copy of Petrus Aureolus, Compendium super Bibliam, with a lengthy inscription dated 6 February i422[/3].One Latin letter is securely linked to Philip's name when he was Abbot of Leicester, a letter addressed to King Henry IV in 1401, which had some circulation, since it was available to be copied, for example, by the chronicler Adam of Usk and a generation later by Thomas Bekynton. With such a letter one cannot be certain that it was not drafted by a secretary, and it is not evidence of literary intentions.6 The usual reference works make no mention of a short treatise in English, a conventional exposition of the commandments, 'For als mykyll as euerylke man whyls he lyffys in Jtis warld', which is found as a booklet of ten leaves in BL, Cotton MS Vespasian A. xxiii, fols 107-115v, with a Latin colophon, 'Expliciunt mandata Christi secundum magistrum Philippum quondam abbatem de Leycestria'.7 This copy deals only with the first four commandments, while a second copy, unascribed, in BL, Harley MS 2250, fols 88r~9ov, ends at the start of the fourth commandment and has been treated as part of a larger work.8 The wording of the ascription makes one ask, Why 'quondam abbatem'? If the work was put out after 1404, Philip would have been referred to as Bishop of Lincoln, so we may perhaps guess that the exemplar dated from his time as abbot and that a copyist has supplied the word 'quondam', unaware of Philip's later career but knowing or at least supposing he was no longer Abbot of Leicester. …

A Quotation from the Questions of Bartholomew in an early Medieval Latin Sermon

The Questions of Bartholomew, originally composed in Greek probably between the second and fourth centuries, describe how the titular apostle questions Christ, Mary, and the devil about various topics after Christ’s resurrection. Relatively few signs of the possible influence of this text have been discovered in later works, and its reception has consequently been difficult to study. The present article identifies a significant borrowing from the Questions in a seventh- or eighth-century Latin sermon now surviving in two ninth-century manuscripts. The sermon’s account of the fall of Satan and his angels draws heavily on the fourth chapter of the Questions. This discovery should encourage a renewed interest in finding possible borrowings from the apocryphon in the medieval West.

Cserei hallgat…

This paper as a case study is an attempt at revealing some of the previously ignored, but relevant contexts related to the phenomena of reading, listening to, or assimilating early modern sermons. Due to the survival of numerous ego-documents accounting for the everyday life of an early modern individual, Mihály Cserei (1667–1756), my interperation provides a microhistorical reconstruction of those moments when Cserei was either listening to or reading Catholic and Protestant sermons. As he put down his reflections recording the hermeneutical experience of listening to or reading early modern Hungarian or Latin sermons, there is a possibility to decipher the cultural, confessional, and mental intentions, biases or prejudices shaping the act of understanding. Thus, Cserei became a modelreader immortalized in the microhistorical contexts of his life, revealing some of the unknown historical anthropological features of reading and understanding in the confessionally divided culture of the early modern era.

„Parcite autem obsecro Lampridio Vestro in Zabanio redivivo, Dynastae spectatissimi…”

Izsák Zabanius, rector (school teacher) of Szeben (Hermannstadt) told his Latin sermon on the funeral of Mihály Apafi, Duke of Transylvania. During his reign, Apafi succeeded in expelling the Hapsburgs and the Turkish from the territory of Hungary and Transylvania, so after the death of the duke, Transylvania was soon under the rule of Emperor Leopold I. This paper presents the way the leaders of Transylvania and especially the Saxons regulated by the new interests of the Western ruler, and how they immediately turned from a tradition of one and a half century.

An Edition of an Unstudied Early Carolingian Sermon Collection

This article consists of a study and edition of a previously unpublished cycle of nineteen early medieval Latin sermons. This collection survives mostly intact in two ninth-century manuscripts in the monastic library of St. Gall, while two later manuscripts from Italy and Germany bear witness to a few individual pieces from the cycle. Among the more interesting characteristics of these sermons are their simple, rustic language, which is heavily influenced by Vulgar Latin in both syntax and vocabulary; and their thorough dependence on the Hiberno-Latin Reference Bible (De enigmatibus) for basic scriptural exegesis. The author argues that the collection was originally composed for an uneducated public in the late eighth or early ninth century, probably in a Romance-speaking area of the Carolingian Empire.

Du sermon-modèle aux paroles d’un saint: le remploi du sermon In synodis, 3 de Guibert de Tournai dans la Vita Braulionis, indice pour la datation des sermones ad status?

This article discusses the ‘borrowing’ of a Latin sermon by Gilbert of Tournai, OFM (d. 1284) into the anonymously composed Vita of a Spanish saint. The sermon, which is part of the famous ad status series by Gilbert (In synodis, 3 — RLS192), has been incorporated without reference to Gilbert into the Vita Braulionis (BHL 4810) and is presented by the hagiographer as a sermon given by Saint Braulion himself, offering an interesting example of circulation of the materia praedicabilis not only between sermons but also between genres. The discovery of this reuse sheds new light on the Vita Braulionis: it sets a new terminus post quem for the Vita and might be a clue to a mendicant milieu. Regarding the borrowed sermon, the evidence concerning the dating of the Vita seems a bit too conjectural to set the terminus ante quem of the ad status collection definitely, even if a pre-1272 hypothesis ties in well with the main literary activity of Gilbert. An edition of the sermon In synodis, 3 — RLS 192 is provided from eleven manuscripts of the ad status collection.

Studies in the Transmission of Wyclif’s Writings (review)

Reviewed by: Studies in the Transmission of Wyclif’s Writings G. R. Evans Studies in the Transmission of Wyclif’s Writings. By Anne Hudson. [Variorum Collected Studies Series, 907.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2008. Pp. xiv, 329. $144.95. ISBN 978-0-754-65964-8.) This is an unusual Variorum volume in that it includes, as well as reprints, items selected by the author, which are published here for the first time. The first of these new pieces, placed at the beginning of the volume and forming an introduction, is concerned with “Wyclif’s Works and Their Dissemination.” It takes capable charge of the confusion that derives not only from the attempts to suppress John Wyclif’s works but also from Wyclif’s own untidy authorial habits. In this he was not alone in his day, although he seems to have been peculiarly susceptible to fits of indignation leading to irritable changes and to revisions of the very opinions he was so passionately recording. The Oxford academic of the time was used to lecturing with a student reportatio commissioned to remind him of what he had said and the expectation that he would be lecturing again. A book was not necessarily envisaged as a finished product but as work in progress. Wyclif was often conscious that he had said something similar elsewhere. (The fourth item included in this volume looks at “Cross-Referencing in Wyclif’s Latin Works.”) Then there was the factor of the making of extracts for purposes of condemnation, not always from versions that survive in the same form in a complete text. Discussed in no. XIII are “Notes of an Early Fifteenth-Century Research Assistant and the Emergence of the 267 Articles against Wyclif.” “Accessus ad auctorem: The Case of John Wyclif” (no. VII) takes us into the complexities of contemporary attempts to provide finding systems for would-be users of Wyclif’s works. The reprinted items originally appeared from 1991, but derive, as Anne Hudson explains, from researches of earlier decades. They form, with the new material, a comprehensive body of original work principally on the history of the Wyclif texts, in which Hudson has long had no equal. Trinity College Cambridge, MS B.16.2 is re-examined in no. VIII in an attempt to reconstruct the process of its evolution. A new piece (no. III) is “The Hussite Catalogue of Wyclif’s Works.” There are pieces on “Wyclif Texts in Fifteenth-Century London” (no. XV); “Wyclif and the North: The Evidence from Durham” (no. IX); and “The Survival of Wyclif’s Works in England and Bohemia” (no. XVI), another new publication. There are studies of Wycliffite themes: the issues of authority (no. X) and poverty (no. XI), and “The King and Erring Clergy” (no. XII). There is a piece on “The Development of Wyclif’s Summa Theologiae” (no. V) that takes a sharp knife to the suppositions of the Wyclif Society editors, working as they were in a generation that knew much less than we do now about the structure of the medieval syllabus of systematic theology. Further key questions of genre and norms are explored in “Wyclif’s Latin Sermons: Questions of Form, Date, and Audience” (no. VI). “The Framing of the Lollard Heretic and/or Saint” Wyche is the subject of no. XIV. [End Page 531] Each of these studies stands on its own, but a successful effort has been made to draw them together into a book that has, in every sense, an integrity of its own. An index of Wyclif’s works discusses, an index of manuscripts, and a general index conclude the volume. Of the quality and importance of this work it is scarcely necessary to speak. G. R. Evans University of Cambridge Copyright © 2010 The Catholic University of America Press

&lt;i&gt;Striving with Grace: Views of Free Will in Anglo-Saxon England&lt;/i&gt; (review)

Reviewed by: Striving with Grace: Views of Free Will in Anglo-Saxon England Jonathan Wilcox Striving with Grace: Views of Free Will in Anglo-Saxon England. By Aaron J. Kleist. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Pp. xvii + 420. $90. This is a book based on an appealing premise—to pursue a single important theological idea across the complexity of writings in Anglo-Saxon England—which is fulfilled with notable success. Teasing through the complexity of theological thought that has accrued on the distinction between striving and grace, Aaron Kleist lays out the thought of three patristic writers, Augustine, Gregory, and Bede, and four Anglo-Saxon authors they influenced. Kleist uses source study and manuscript evidence along with close reading to make a contribution to the history of ideas, uncovering the subtlety of thought of some of the most important named authors of Anglo-Saxon England—Alfred, perhaps Wulfstan, and Ælfric, as well as the lesser-known Lantfred of Winchester. The result is a deeply informed theological study that provides insight into the thought world of Anglo-Saxon England. The issue of merit vs. grace, or the role of human volition in distinction to the capacities given by the creator, is a hugely important one for Christian thought, leading quickly to consideration of the source of evil, the extent of human freedom [End Page 533] of will, and the conundrum of predetermination. Differences within the debate are often rather subtle, yet small distinctions mattered a lot with various unsuccessful views condemned as heresies. Manichean, Donatist, Pelagian, and Semi-Pelagian positions are sketched out with admirable clarity and economy by Kleist, who shows how underlying all the discussion is a delicate pas de deux between striving and grace, freedom of will and divine determinism. Kleist presents in a few pages Augustine’s evolving position, which was to become orthodoxy despite his perhaps surprising extreme emphasis on grace over merit. Gregory, Kleist shows, gives a bit more weight to human striving, while Bede, despite repeatedly stressing grace, provides yet more emphasis on human merit in striving. Kleist shows how the work of all three fathers circulated in Anglo-Saxon England and suggests they provide a range of orthodox options for subsequent writers to draw on. Bede plays a pivotal role as both a father of the church and a thinker within Anglo-Saxon England, and the remainder of this study focuses on theological positions in England. Kleist briefly moves away from explicitly Christian theological work to consider Boethius’ Neoplatonic Consolation of Philosophy, which includes prominent consideration of the source of evil and the nature of free will, a work that famously circulated in an Alfredian translation. Kleist considers how the work is Christianized through the commentary traditions, explaining in part its huge popularity in the Middle Ages, and considers anew the famous image of the axle and the idea of divine foreknowledge within the Old English translation, which turns out to present a largely Augustinian position on grace. Kleist then turns to an altogether less familiar work, Lantfred of Winchester’s Carmen de libero arbitrio, a poem on free will by a probably Frankish monk who visited Winchester in association with the Benedictine reform, which, Kleist shows, pulls away from Augustine’s emphasis on prevenient grace to embrace a Semi-Pelagian heresy in its emphasis on human volition. Kleist then considers a Latin sermon preserved in Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, MS Gamle Kongelige Sammlung 1595, a work either composed by or strongly associated with Wulfstan the Homilist. Most of Wulfstan’s vernacular writings paint with too broad a brush to allow Kleist to position the archbishop in relation to the debates on free will, but this Latin sermon, Kleist shows, draws on a book of Cassian’s Collationes that was central to the Semi-Pelagian heresy and condemned on that account. Despite that source, the theology of the Wulfstanian sermon sounds mostly unexceptionable, apparently by simply avoiding those parts of the Collatio that had been condemned as heretical by Prosper of Aquitaine. Nevertheless, it perpetrates Semi-Pelagian thought in just the way a homilist might be expected to, by stressing the individual’s responsibility for repentance where, Kleist suggests, Augustine would have insisted...

A Doomsday Passage in an Old English Sermon for Lent, Revisited

In a 1982 article in Anglia , “A Doomsday Passage in an Old English Sermon for Lent”, J. E. Cross showed that the author of Fadda Homily no. I (HomM 5) made use of a Latin sermon on the Last Judgment falsely attributed to St. Augustine. Citing the Latin sermon from the Patrologia Latina , Cross concluded that the Old English homilist had freely modified this source by making additions from his own memory of Doomsday commonplaces. A variant text of the Latin sermon, however, proves that the homilist was translating a fuller version that accounts for most of the apparent additions, as well as for further material in the Old English homily beyond the passage isolated by Cross. The new text of the Latin homily enables a better understanding of the Old English homilist's working methods, but also raises important methodological questions for source studies.

Heraclius Learns Humility: Two Early Latin Accounts Composed for the Celebration of Exaltatio Crucis

The medieval western image of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (c. 575-641) was largely formed by a Latin legend (BHL 4178) composed for the celebration of Exaltatio Crucis (14 Sept.). The main purpose of the article is to present a critical edition of this legend, together with an editio princeps of a Latin sermon (BHL 4181a) that tells the same story, as well as annotated English translations of both. First, however, the origin of the two texts is considered. A feast of Hypsosis tou Staurou seems to have been created in Constantinople in or soon after 614, when the sacred relic of the Cross was abducted from Jerusalem by the Persians. When Heraclius brought the Cross back in 630, the feast began to spread. It was introduced in Rome no later than 645 and came to be called Exaltatio Crucis. The popes added the veneration of a relic of the Cross to the traditional celebration of Cornelius and Cyprian on 14 September, while other churches introduced a special mass and office. Our two texts originated in these circumstances, at some time between the end of the seventh and the middle of the eighth century. However, they derive from an Eastern original composed between 630 and 636. The article goes on to consider sources and analogues of three prominent themes in the texts: a duel on a bridge, a silver tower, and a miracle in Jerusalem. The first two have parallels in various texts, both Western and Eastern, while the third has no known textual analogue but is depicted as a carving on an Armenian church founded c. 639/40. Together, the various sources give us an idea of the stories that were told about the Persian campaigns of Heraclius in the decade after they ended. (Less)

Basilius, Hexaëmeron 7, 2 in den Übertragungen von Ambrosius und Eustathius*

Basilius from Caesarea had tried in succession of Origenes to connect the short biblical text of Genesis with the huge scientific heritage of antiquity (first of all Aristoteles and Theophrast). Ambrose of Milan has transposed these homilies written in Greek into Latin sermons, which transformed and extended his main-source in order to adapt the material found in Basilius to Roman thought and to the postulates of western culture and audience in such a manner that he rhetorically uses the principles of the so-called Second Sophistic. This transformation will be explained by an analysis of a passage in the seventh homily concerning the creation of the animals in the sea. The Ambrosian translation or better the Bishop's free adaptation will be compared with the literal translation of Eustathius, a translator approximately contemporaneous.