Sermones De Research Articles

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.

A Review of the Contents of Albi, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms 40

The paper proposes a new description of Albi, Biblitohèque Municipale, MS 40. The volume is rich in unedited anonymous texts, and the boundaries between them are displayed in different, sometimes confusing ways, which has led to some inaccuracies in previous descriptions. Moreover, several unedited texts are brought to light, namely Nomina dierum et mensium, Vocationes mundi, Quaestiones Albigenses (linked to the Prebiarum de multorium exemplaribus, CPL 1129b), and the ps. Augustinian sermon De decem talentis (CPPM 3310), among others. Also, emphasis is put on the consistent contacts of the Albi MS with Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 2718, München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 19410 and Köln, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, MS 15.

Katecheze o moci Kristovy krve v Quodvultdeově promluvě De ultima quarta feria

The sermon De ultima quarta feria, attributed to Quodvultdeus, was pronounced in the last phase of the baptismal preparation in Carthage at the end of the 430s. This paper studies the mystagogical method employed in the catechesis on the power of Christ’s blood in baptism and the Eucharist that makes up part of the sermon. First, the baptismal rites in Carthage in 430s are presented. Second, the questions of its dating and the structure of the sermon are discussed. Third, the mystagogical catechesis on the power of Christ’s blood is presented. This analysis demonstrates that Quodvultdeus stands in the Latin tradition of the patchwork usage of Biblical quotes in the course of the mystagogy that allows the audience to enter the history present in the sacred books and understand themselves as part of this history. In addition, this method allows for transferring the message of the centrality of Christ’s redemption that can be attained through the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist.

La passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis en los Sermones de Agustín

The article presents in the first part, a approach to the passio of Perpetua and Felicitas, making a synthesis of the main essays on it. In the second part, the article focuses on Augustine’s Sermones de Sanctis, particularly the sermons in which the Bishop of Hippo comments on the passio of Perpetua and Felicitas, namely ss. 280, 281, and 283 auct. (Erfurt 1). The article presents the discussion of the common elements which are in them. Subsequently, it is focused on the characteristics which are peculiar to each of these sermons. The passio of Perpetua and Felicitas is also analized within Augustine’s en. Ps. 47.

Manuscript Evidence of the Genesis of Sermons by Peter of Zittau

ABSTRACTThe article deals with the sermon collection entitled Sermones de principalibus festis, by Peter of Zittau (d. 1339). The collection has survived in a single manuscript – codex Ms 434 at Leipzig University Library. Drawing on the results of paleographic, codicological and textual analysis of codex Ms 434, the authors explore what the manuscript record of the sermons reveals about the genesis of the texts and Peter of Zittau's working methods. Particular attention is paid to the numerous corrections which were added to the text of the sermons (as copied into the codex by a scribe) by a different contemporary hand. Based on an analysis of the nature of these corrections and a comparison of the handwriting with that of Peter of Zittau (as known from the autograph of the second book of his Chronica Aulae regiae), the paper tests the hypothesis that the author of the corrections in manuscript Ms 434 was Peter of Zittau himself.

Ps.-Jean Chrysostome, In Iob et in Abraham (CPG 4999, BHG 939w). Introduction, édition du texte grec et traduction française.

The article presents the first edition of a pseudo-Chrysostomian homily, preserved in a Greek manuscript written between 869 and 879: Basel, Universitatsbibliothek, B II 15. The homily deals with the religious heroism of the Old Testament Patriarch Job and, incidentally, with the uncompleted sacrifice of Abraham; it seems to have been preached on the eve of Easter. In the introduction we discuss the Basel manuscript, as well as the link between our homily and the other pseudo-Chrysostomian sermon De beato Abraham (CPG 4514). The Greek text is accompanied by our French translation and by a Latin translation from the hand of the humanist John Oecolampadius (aka Johannes Hussgen), made in 1523.

The Eighth-Century Sermon De reddendis decimis in London, British Library, MS Royal 5.E.XIII and Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, MS Aug. perg. 254: Edition, Translation, and Commentary

This article explores the history and textual relationships of the unpublished tithing sermon De reddendis decimis. The sermon, which was likely composed in the eighth century, survives in two manuscript witnesses of the eighth and ninth century, both of which have strong Hiberno-Latin affiliations. In addition to presenting an edition, translation, and full commentary on the text, I trace the sermon’s transmission history and manuscript context, and reveal its debt to a variety of late-antique, early-medieval, and apocryphal literary sources. The collocation of these material, textual, and orthographical features, I argue, locates this sermon’s origin in a Continental monastic center under the strong influence of Irish textual and intellectual traditions.

La oración de Jesús en Getsemaní

The article deals with the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane, as presented by St. Augustine in the Enarrationes in Psalmos and in the Sermones de sanctis. An exegetical introduction of the New Testament texts of the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane is offered, as well as the pre-Augustinian patristic tradition, highlighting the various points that Augustine’s previous Fathers of the Church underlined in the Prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane. It later discusses Augustine’s Texts where He addresses this topic, highlighting particularly the ecclesiological interpretation of the Bishop of Hippo.

Il mistero dell’incarnazione nel commento al “Simbolo Apostolico” di san Quodvultdeus di Cartagine

The first Commentaries to the “Apostolic Symbol”, written in a quite simple language, spread about the IV century among the Latin Churches, which were ac­customed to use professions of faith reproducing the “Roman Symbol”, a model for the textus receptus of the “Symbol” so called “of the Apostles”, an excellent summary of the revealed truths. St. Quodvultdeus of Carthage, in his Sermones de Symbolo, comments the first article of the “Apostolic Symbol” by affirming that it contains the whole faith in the Trinity and the plan of salvation. In commenting the second article, St. Quodvultdeus of Carthage explains how the Incarnate Son is the Messiah announced by the prophets of the Old Testament. Such Incarnation constitutes the second birth of the Word of God after that from the Father without any participation from a mother. He further highlights the great dignity of Mary, playing a quite active role in the work of the Incarnation by gi­ving birth to her Creator. The coming of the Son of God into the world was carried out in a miraculous way, by the work of the Holy Spirit and without the participation of man. For this reason Mary remains virgin and the true Son of God becomes a true man, while still remaining equal to the Father in his divinity. By assuming the human nature in the Incarnation, the Son of God took on Himself all that constitutes a true hu­man being: the soul and the body, already redeemed and sanctified in the very moment of the Incarnation.

Introduzione allo studio critico dei Sermones de tempore di Iacopo da Varazze

The author examines the homiletic production of James of Voragine, especially the Sermones de tempore. The collection was published in the seventeenth century by Rudolf Clut, but until today a study that examines the entire manuscript tradition has been missing and this kind of information is essential for the realization of a new critical editionThe article presents the results obtained by a first critical study, conducted on eighteen manuscripts, selected on the basis of dating and origin (Italy, Germany, France and Czech Republic). The results of the recensio codicum reveal the existence of four families: a first Italian family (called α) has a good text; a transalpine family (β) is very corrupt; the family γ comprises a text composed in an unknown scriptorium; finally the family δ has an Eastern origin and is contaminated. This reconstruction presents interesting points of contact with the manuscript tradition of James of Voragine’s Sermones quadragesimales and Sermones de sanctis studied by Giovanni Paolo Maggioni and shows that the transmission of these collections was probably conveyed by the members of the Dominican Order.

Practical Hagiography: James of Voragine’s Sermones and Vita on St Margaret of Antioch

In addition to his exceedingly popular Legenda Aurea, James of Voragine wrote in another hagiographical genre: sermons on the saints. The Sermones de sanctis likewise became immediately popular, as his Dominican brothers used James’s model sermons to learn to preach about the saints in a format that would provide the laity with intelligible and practical theological instruction. James’s corpus gives us a rather unusual opportunity to compare the ways in which a single author manipulates multiple hagiographical genres, and his writings on St Margaret of Antioch allow us to explore how a medieval preacher used a historically disputed saint — a dragon-fighter — to provide a practical model of sanctity to his lay audience. I compare the representations of Margaret in James’s sermones and vita, arguing that James adapted certain features of Margaret’s saintly example in the vita to instruct the audience of his sermons about proper Christian virtues and actions. As a point of comparison, I explore a sermon by Évrard of Val des Écoliers in which the Augustinian teaches his audience a practical skill — how to pray — through Margaret’s example.

“Una visión pegada a las pupilas”: perspectivas apocalípticas en la poesía chilena de la crisis

Drawing from the Apocalypse the idea of a writing devoted to showing, through a revelation, the divine project in the contemporaneity of the community this message is meant for, as the original function of this prophetic genre was, in this essay I aim at studying the testimonial dimension in two Chilean poetry works: El sermon de la montana (1970) by Raul Zurita y Diario de navegacion (1986) by Tomas Harris. Applying the category of “deictic testimony” I will show how the tension towards a present of crisis (Cold War and inner political conflicts in the first case, dictatorship in the second one) is elaborated in the rhetorical surface and in the enunciation structure of the two texts. As I will show, the direct “indication” of testimony, pointing at a hopeless void, is modulated through the ambiguity and the proliferation of a visionary writing, while the responsibility of enunciation is entrusted to the precarious speech and the obstructed vision of an inept subject.

An anti-Donatist sermon on fasting: Augustine’s De utilitate ieiunii. A new critical edition with philological introduction

This article offers a new critical edition of Augustine’s anti-Donatist sermon De utilitate ieiunii. The edition is preceded by a study of the sermon’s manuscript transmission (Vat. lat. 5758, Paris Bibl. Nat. lat. 792, Paris Bibl. Sainte-Geneviève 136, Mainz Stadtbibl. I 9 and the lost source of the Amerbach edition of 1506) and editorial history as well as by a discussion of its authenticity and global content. In addition, the article proposes February 405 as the sermon’s terminus post quem against the traditional dating between 408 and 411/412.

Ein neuer Textzeuge zu Augustinus, Sermo Erfurt 2. Mit einer Edition von Pseudo-Augustinus, De ieiuniorum ritu

INHALT. Alfred DUNSHIRN, (An)gebundenes Delos? Zum Text des homerischen Apollonhymnus; MIkhail POSZDNEV - Viktor STREICHER, "Die doppelten Künste der Magie"? Zu Giorgias von Leontinoi, Helena c.10 Rosalia HATZILAMBROU, Isaeus`Art of Persuasion: The Case of his Third Speech Alexander KIRICHENKO, Von Delphi nach Kyrene. Dichtung und Religion in Kallimachos`Hymnus auf Appolon; Rudolf STEFEC, Zur Überlieferung und Textkritik der Sophisten-viten Pilostrats; Thomas GÄRTNER, Eine übersehene Thukydides-Reminiszenz im Liebesroma des Achilles Tatius; Francis CAIRNS, The Genre "Oaristys" Farouk F. GREWING, Karneval in Rom: Metapoetische Quisquilien in Martials Epigrammen; Christine HARRAUER, Why Styx? Some remarks on Statiu`s Achilleid; Giampiero SCAFOGLIO, La problematica filologica della Mosella; Clemens WEIDMANN, Ein neuer Textzeuge zu Augustinus, Sermo Erfurt2. Mit einer Edition von Pseudo-Augustinus, De ieuniorum ritu; Lukas J. DORFBAUER, ....talis compilatio magis sit utilis quam subtilis. Das Milleloquium veriatis Augustini des Bartholomäus von Urbino und der Hieronymianus des Johannes Andreae; Gerlinde BRTEZIGHEIMER, verum-falsum-verisimile. Theorie und Praxis in Albert von Stades "Troilus" Rezensionen und Kurzanzeigen Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chastity Models in the Legenda Aurea and in the Sermones de Sanctis of Jacobus de Voragine

The Sermones de sanctis of Jacobus de Voragine is not an independent text but the last written link of a communicative chain that starts with the holy figurae of the Legenda aurea and is completed with a final speech from a preacher to his audience. Chastity is represented in this hagiographical material, which is closely connected to the most important saints of the Dominican calendar, through absolute models that are removed from everyday experience: these models need to be interpreted by a preacher's spoken words and to be illustrated with a choice of exempla to reach laypeople effectively.

Guillaume d'Auvergne ou Jacques de Vitry?

Palemon Glorieux proposed in 1949 to attribute a small treatise on Penance (De confessione) that was published for the first time in 1674 to William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 to 1249. F. N. M. Dietkstra has rejected this attribution in 1994, essentially because the treatise is present in the Jacques de Vitry's collection of Sermones de tempore. However, the text appears -explicitly attributed to the bishop of Paris - in one of the six manuscripts of sermons that Robert of Sorbon bequeathed, probably in 1274, to the library of the college that he founded. The three manuscripts of the 13 th century that indicate William of Auvergne as the author of the De confessione make plausible this attribution. The paper ends with the edition of the short version of the text.

Bonaventure's Christocentric Epistemology: Christ's Human Knowledge as the Epitome of Illumination in De scientia Christi

Bonaventure’s Christocentric Epistemology: Christ’s Human Knowledge as the Epitome of Illumination in De scientia Christi Bonaventure’s theory of illumination is deeply connected to the mystery of the Incarnate Word. One of his key illuminationist texts is his investigation of Christ’s divine and human knowledge in the Quaestiones disputatae de scientia Christi, the first disputation which Bonaventure held as a new master at the University of Paris in 1254. The relationship between illumination and Christ’s knowledge in this work yields interesting insights into the way in which the mystery of Christ completes and explicates Bonaventure’s illuminationist epistemology: in its intimate union with the Word, Christ’s human soul exemplifies human knowledge at the height of its perfection. At the same time, this soul’s cognitive perfection only makes sense in the context of certain illuminationist epistemological principles. Bonaventure’s Bonaventure, Quaestiones Disputatae de scientia Christi [hereafter De sc. Chr.], Quaracchi 5:1-198. All English translations, unless otherwise noted, are from Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ, introduction and translation Zachary Hayes. Works of Saint Bonaventure IV (Saint Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1992) [this edition hereafter “Hayes”]. Andreas Speer, “The Certainty and Scope of Knowledge: Bonaventure’s Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 3 (1993): 38. Ignatius Brady dates the work instead to the spring of 1256 and identifies it as the first work in which Bonaventure “weld[ed] his previous thinking [on illumination] into a coherent whole” (“St. Bonaventure’s Doctrine of Illumination: Reactions Medieval and Modern,” in Bonaventure and Aquinas: Enduring Philosophers, ed. Robert W. Shahan and Francis J. Kovach [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976], 58-59). Other key texts of Bonaventure’s doctrine of illumination are the later sermon De Christo unico magistro, Quaracchi 5:567-74, which expounds the doctrine in greater detail; the Itinerarium mentis Deum, Quaracchi 5:295-313, which discusses the mystical ascent of wisdom; and In II. Sent., d. 24, part 1, a. 2, qq. 1-4, Quaracchi 5:554-571, which elucidates Bonaventure’s understanding of agent intellect. 63 Franciscan Studies 65 (2007) 04.Scarpelli.indd 63 12/5/07 17:32:55 Therese Scarpelli 64 illumination theory and his doctrine of Christ’s knowledge are thus mutually dependent and indeed inseparable. Although Christ’s knowledge and illuminationism each are common themes for Bonaventurean scholarship, the mutual interdependence of these two themes, which are significantly juxtaposed in De scientia Christi, is rarely addressed. Yet an investigation of this interdependence can be very fruitful for the study of each theme. With respect to Christology, it shows Christ’s universal, yet not unlimited, human knowledge to be the logical conclusion of Bonaventure’s ordinary illuminationist principles when applied to human nature hypostatically united with the Word. Moreover, when the Christological questions of De scientia Christi are read within the context of the illuminationism in q. 4, it becomes possible to identify the virtue of wisdom, together with its special form of “influence,” as an integral part of Bonaventure’s illumination theory which implements the natural principles of illumination on the supernatural level. Such an inquiry highlights the way in which the Christian philosopher Bonaventure blends a judicious distinction between natural and supernatural knowledge with the unmistakable Christological orientation which suffuses his whole theory of human cognition. Before addressing the Christological aspects of Bonaventure’s illuminationism , I will first briefly discuss the epistemology which Bonaventure advances in De scientia Christi. I will then explore the ways in which his theory of illumination makes possible his analysis of Christ’s knowledge and vice versa. The last section will conclude with a discussion of the relationship between the mystery of the Word and human knowledge in general . This inquiry will be limited to qq. 4-7 of De scientia Christi, although I will mention certain key principles from qq. 1-3 as they relate to concepts in the last four questions. For instance, in Marrone’s important work on illumination, the Christological implications receive only a scant paragraph of attention: see Steven P. Marrone, The Light of Thy Countenance: Science and Knowledge of God in the Thirteenth Century, vol. 1, A Doctrine of...

Codices Keionenses: Essays on Western Manuscripts and Early Printed Books in Keio University Library edited by Takami Matsuda (review)

TAKAMI MATSUDA, ed., Codices Keionenses: Essays on Western Manuscripts and Early Printed Books in Keio University Library. Tokyo: Keio University Press, 2005. Pp. 214. ISBN: 4-7664-1154-4. ¥ 5,990 For those interested in manuscripts and rare books the buzz of activity in Japan is most exciting. Keio University in Tokyo is home to the formidable HUMI (Humanities Media Interface) Project; in 2001 the exhibition and accompanying catalogue Mostly British: Manuscripts and Early Printed Materials from Classical Rome to Renaissance England in the Collection of Keio University Library (Tokyo: Keio University, 2001) celebrated Keio University's collection of Western manuscripts and rare books. The latest work to honor the rare books collection at Keio University, Codices Keionenses, is a compilation of five essays that developed from a lecture series in 2002-2003. Several of the objects that are discussed in these essays are being published for the first time. Claudia Rapp offers her self-titled 'preliminary description' of the Antiochos manuscript, a twelfth-century Greek manuscript including the Pandects of Antiochos, a few works by Gregory of Nazianzus, and several unpublished poems. Rapp does an admirable job of establishing the setting from which the manuscript originates, but the fascinating aspect of her article is found in the description of the object itself. Rapp presents details on the content of the manuscript, listing each text, its foliation, author, and when the text is known, a citation to a published version. For the texts that are unknown, Rapp transcribes the tide and incipit of each work, offering these intriguing new texts to scholars far-removed from Tokyo. Yukie Baba and Neil McLynn focus their attention on the two remaining leaves of the Speculum Novitii that was added to a manuscript of Augustine's Sermones de verbis domini et apostoli. Baba and McLynn provide a transcription of the two leaves, and plates of all four folios accompany the article. The authors discuss the textual differences between the four previously known copies of the Speculum and the version at Keio, arguing that the Keio copy presents the most original version of the text. The article includes an apparatus detailing the textual differences between the versions and an appendix with an English translation of the Keio text. In the next article A.S.G. Edwards offers the most comprehensive codicological study in the book, examining the fifteenth-century Hopton Hall manuscript of Middle English devotional texts, compiled by the scribe William Halls. …

The Search for Idols and Saints in Colonial Peru: Linking Extirpation and Beatification

The Search for Idols and Saints in Colonial Peru: Linking Extirpation and Beatification

Ælfric on the creation and fall of the angels

Ælfric, in the Preface to Genesis, comments about what we do not find in the first book of the Old Testament: ‘Seo boc ys gehaten Genesis, Þæt ys “Gecyndboc”, for Þam Þe heo ys firmest boca and spricÞ be ælcum gecinde (ac heo ne spricð na be Þæra engla gesceapenisse).’ Although he proceeds to explain what is contained in the opening verse, noting that creation ‘on annginne’ refers at once to the literal act of creation and, ‘æfter gastlicum andgite’, to Christ through whom all creation was formed, he makes no further comment here upon the angels. In other works, however, where the topic could be more appropriately introduced, Ælfric enthusiastically engages with the problem of angelic history. The sermon De initio creaturae, the Interrogationes Sigewulfi, the Exameron, the Letter to Sigeweard and the Letter to Wulfgeat all contain accounts of the angelic creation and fall. Because Ælfric is a writer actively concerned with orthodoxy and sound doctrine, we would do well to ask why he has such an interest in the angels–about whom such an authority as Bede would say almost nothing–and to investigate precisely how, and from what sources, he presents their extra-scriptural history.