Marie-Anne VANNIER, Sivia BARA BANCEL, Markus VINZENT: Maître Eckhart, lecteur d'Augustin

Maître Eckhart, même s’il n’est pas nommé comme Bonaventure par exemple le second Augustin, n’en est pas moins l’un des meilleurs lecteurs d’Augustin, celui qui a pénétré les intuitions de l’évêque d’Hippone et en a dégagé l’enjeu non seulement pour son époque, mais de manière plus universelle encore, à tel point que son actualité en ressort encore.Pour le mettre en évidence, nous étudierons systématiquement les œuvres d’Eckhart au cours de ce workshop, pour préciser la réception qu’il a faite d’Augustin, comment il le réinterprète pour son époque. De manière croisée également, nous reprendrons les grandes thématiques : anthropologiques, trinitaires… pour y rechercher les convergences et les prolongements qu’Eckhart propose de la pensée d’Augustin.Jusqu’ici, le rapport entre Eckhart et Augustin n’a été envisagé que de manière partielle, nous souhaitons mettre en évidence la source augustinienne (qui occupe plus de cent trente pages des occurrences de l’index patristique de l’œuvre d’Eckhart) et en dégager les enjeux, ce qui renouvellera la lecture d’Eckhart, qui n’est pas tant un disciple de Denys l’Aréopagite (qui occupe à peine quelques pages des occurrences de l’Index) que d’Augustin.Pour en rendre compte, nous prendrons l'exemple du Commentaire du Livre de la Sagesse d'Eckhart.

Barbara Villani: The Challenge of Authenticating Catena Fragments of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on the Psalms

An important portion of Eusebius’ Commentary on the Psalms is known only from extracts in catenae. The authentication of the single fragments assigned to a certain author by the redactor of the catena is difficult for various reasons: sometimes the abbreviation ascribing the fragment to Eusebius is not reliable; often the extracted passages from the commentary have been shortened or paraphrased; in other instances, extracts from two authors may have been combined. An edition of Eusebius’ commentary is planned within a project at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In this paper I will present the work of the editors and show, by means of some examples, how they face the afore mentioned problems.

Ilaria Vigorelli: Gregory of Nyssa’s and Cyril’s Theology of the Unity of the Two Natures in Christ

At the Council of Constantinople II (553), the union of the divine Logos with humanity askata schesin was condemned, while it was accepted as kath’ypostasin. The first theologian to use the latter expression in a Christological sense was Cyril in his II Epistle to Nestorium. It is interesting to compare Cyril’s and Gregory’s expressions on the union of the two natures in Christ in order to verify if the Cappadocian Father already differentiates the predicationkata schesinfrom kath’ypostasin. The Nyssean theology of unity emerges through his Christology, rooted in the Trinitarian elaboration of the philosophical category of relation (schesis) and of the consequent apophatism.

Mark Vessey: Rethinking the Books of Our Fathers: A Case for Cognitive Bibliology

Patristics as a theological science with philological underpinnings has proved both responsive and impermeable to the periodic retooling of humanistic disciplines that is a feature of Western academic ecosystems. The rise of ‘literary history’ in the nineteenth century led to projects for an altchristliche Literaturgeschichte that lapsed by the Second World War; since then, texts of the Fathers have floated free in disciplinary spaces marked out for ‘literatures’ of ‘late antiquity’. Developments in papyrology and codicology during the the last century created conditions for histories of books, ‘book culture’ and ‘the material book’ that have crossed patristic terrain without so far altering the appearance of the Fathers. In the 1980s and ‘90s, work by Averil Cameron and Peter Brown transformed our understanding of the late ancient ‘culture of paideia’ in ways that have impinged on study of late antique Christian texts, while leaving the traditional apparatus of critical editions and primary reference essentially intact. It is too soon to say whether the current revival of interest in the same texts as documents of the ‘organization of knowledge’ will have a more radical impact. How would it be if one could now (re)engage all these research tendencies at once? What might then happen to the Fathers—that is, in the first instance, to the books in which their profiles have chiefly been transmitted to us? This paper offers an experiment in such thinking, on the basis of the earliest evidence for the transmission of Leo the Great’s Tomus ad Flavianum.

Sever J. Voicu: Severian of Gabala: the Way Ahead

     Currently 62 complete homilies by Severian of Gabala are known; 53 survive in Greek; 9 complete homilies are only known in translation: 8 in Armenian and one in Georgian. They were all delivered in Constantinople from Lent of 401 until Summer of 402.     Fragments from at least five otherwise lost homilies are also known in Greek, Armenian and, perhaps, Latin.     The planned critical edition is an important venture. Undoubtedly we will gain a more precise picture of Severian’s oeuvre, highlighting its unique importance as a source – at least – for the Constantinopolitan liturgy around the year 400.     However, it is still necessary to define objective criteria on the authenticity of each individual text (and its parts), since: 1. different reconstructions of Severian’s oeuvre have been proposed; 2. some attributions to Severian in the manuscripts are undoubtedly wrong; 3. in Greek Severian’s homiletic corpus was transferred by the mid-6th century under John Chrysostom’s name.     An agreement about how a text qualifies as authentic is vital for the whole project.      Additional tasks can be considered: 1. assessing the authenticity of the fragments transmitted by the Pauline catenae, overcoming the shortcomings of Staab’s edition; 2. a systematic search of Severianic testimonia in the florilegia; 3. looking for additional works that may be hidden among the unpublished homilies attributed to John Chrysostom, in Greek, Armenian and Slavonic, perhaps in Arabic. That also includes the many unidentifed fragments that have been used to compose derivative texts.

Maxim Venetskov: Reading traditions of the Ladder of Divine Ascent according to the manuscript marks

The Synaxarium Triodii and Pentecostarii, written in the 11th-12th century at the monastery of the Mother of God Evergetis, prescribes the reading of some ascetic treatises during Lent.A large number of manuscripts containing the text of the Ladder of John of Sinai provide specific information on how the text was read in the Byzantine monasteries from the 14th century.In several codices of the Klimax there are found some various marginal marks or reading notations ("στάσεις" and "ὧραι") which attest to one or many monastic practices of reading the Ladder aloud. These were read in pericopes, performed in the course of the Offices of Terce, Sext and None, and extending from Monday to Friday during the first six weeks of Lent.Various characteristics of the manuscripts (formats, illuminations, annotations) also provide some valuable clues about the readers of Climacus, in the monastic milieu as expected, but also a few secular scholars.The tradition of reading the Ladder of Divine Ascent at the refectory of Mount Athos and other Orthodox monasteries continues to the present day.

Leontien Vanderschelden: The manuscript tradition of the type III catena within the broader catena tradition of the Psalms.

The Parisinus graecus 139, an important illuminated Psalter known as the Paris Psalter, has been discussed intensively in art-historical research. The text itself, a type III catena on the Psalms, was studied by Karo-Lietzmann, Dorival and Mühlenberg. Each of those studies had their own focus: to define categories in the Psalter catenae, to retrace the origins and composition of these catenae and to assess the value of the catena tradition to retrieve the commentaries of certain patristic authors. The witnesses of the type III catena however, can now be described in more detail and the composition of the stemma shows how every witness treated the text. This brings some changes to what was previously assumed: MS Venetus Marcianus graecus 17 is not a twin manuscript of the Paris Psalter and some of the witnesses listed by Dorival composed their own commentary on the Psalms using the type III catena. These findings can be put in a broader perspective through a comparison with the catena tradition of the Psalms in general.In my paper I will present the relations between the manuscript witnesses of the type III catena and discuss how they reflect the more general trends within the broader tradition of the catenae on the Psalms.

Raúl Villegas Marín: The Traps of the Heresiological Discourse: “Pelagianism” in the British and Irish Sources

References to Pelagianism in sources from, or relating to, late antique and early medieval Britain -ranging from Prosper of Aquitaine’s Chronicle (430s) to Rhigyfarch’s Life of David (late 11th century) and Jocelin of Furness’ Life of Kentigern (late 12th century)-, as well as the use of Pelagius’ Expositions of Thirteen Epistles of Paul by Irish writers, have led some scholars to talk about the “Pelagian influence” on the 5th to early 7th centuries “Celtic churches” from Britain and Ireland. Nevertheless, leaving aside the vexed questionof the “Celtic Christianity”, the notion of a “Pelagian influence” on the British and Irish churches also raises problems: what did this influence consist of? Did “Pelagianism / Pelagian” mean the same to all the authors who made use of this heresiological label, from Prosper to Jocelin? This communication aims at providing a relational and contextual approach to the uses of “Pelagianism” by these authors.

Robert Volk: The Greek Lives of St John Damascene - common information, differences, historical value.

The Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca (BHG) altogether lists 18 bio-hagiographical texts on St John Damascene in three different locations within the this reference book. Four of these 18 texts are still not edited or printed at all, namely BHG 885h, 885k, 885m, and 1076q. Seven of them need a new critical edition (BHG 394, 395, 884, 884a, 885, 885b, 885c). This edition work now is well underway. Based on this work, one finds that the numbers of the BHG are not allocated on the basis of internal details; they don’t inform us to which group a text belongs. Two groups of longer texts are extant: In the first (represented by BHG 394, 884a), only one person called Cosmas appears. In the second group (represented by BHG 885b, 884, 394a, 395, 885), two persons called Cosmas appear. The two persons called Cosmas are found for the first time in the Arabic Life of John, written in 1085, which became the source of BHG 884. The focus of many shorter texts is the miracle of John’s cut off hand cured by the Holy Virgin; in this connection, BHG 885c belongs to the genre of ‘converting the caliph’ texts.

David Voprada: Diues misericordiae diues est deo. What makes Christian rich according to Ambrose of Milan

The paper proposes an analysis of the connection between the term misericordia and wealth in Ambrose’s works. First, it is Christ rich in mercy that is the real Christian’s wealth. Second, it is Christian’s mercy that makes him rich before God. And there is also a way how Ambrose delivers this message to his public: the study would focus on the formative process in Ambrose's church of Milan.

David Vopřada: Diues misericordiae diues est deo. What makes Christian rich according to Ambrose of Milan

The paper proposes an analysis of the connection between the term misericordia and wealth in Ambrose’s works. First, it is Christ rich in mercy that is the real Christian’s wealth. Second, it is Christian’s mercy that makes him rich before God. And there is also a way how Ambrose delivers this message to his public: the study would focus on the formative process in Ambrose's church of Milan.

Vessela Valiavitcharska: Logos proforikos in Middle Byzantine Thought

The division of logos into endiathetos and proforikos, present in the thought philosophers from Philo to John of Damascus, appears foundational to the late antique and early Christian anthropology of language. It survives well into the middle Byzantine period, where it presents itself as part of the wider intellectual vocabulary. However, in contrast with the predominantly Neoplatonic understanding of late antiquity, Byzantine thinkers no longer see a dichotomy between logos endiathetos, pure thought, and logos proforikos, its fleshly shadow; rather, they offer a development, moving from the idea of logos proforikos as “messenger of the thought,” as Meletius and John of Damascus posit, to logos proforikos as an active participant in the divine life as the patriarchs Methodius and Photius see it. Logos proforikos receives attention also from the Byzantine teachers of rhetoric. Unlike their late antique counterparts, who adopt the sharp Neoplatonic dichotomy, rhetoricians John Siceliotes and John Doxapatres speak of both kinds of logos as a sort of rhetoric – but a distinct, purified form of rhetoric. Logos proforikos, the enunciated, performed human logos, born by the movements of the reasoning faculty of the soul and perfected by art, is a material procession, a flowering of the energies of the soul and a mystērion, through which human beings participate in divine creation and in the divine life.  This emphasis on the spiritual weight of the performed logos responds to a more general emphasis on  logos proforikos as a material activity – with implications for the performance of liturgical texts.

Margarita Vallejo Girvés: The image of empress Lupicina/Euphemia in the patristic sources

Among the government of  Anastasius and Justinian, and those of their respective wives, that of Justin I have gone unnoticed. Until the study of B. Croke in 2007 the period between 518 and 527 has been treated as a previous step of the mandate of Justinian I, being, therefore, Justin I a mere puppet in the hands of his nephew. Nonetheless, there is currently a broad debate about the figure of Justin I and his real political activity. On top of this, it should not be surprising that the interest for Euphemia, wife of Justin I, has been practically reduced to a simple opposition to the marriage of Justinian and Theodora. However, the ecclesiastical sources present her with a great capacity to influence her husband in such matters as the end of the Acacian schism, which was the great religious initiative of Justin I´s reign. This is the case of Pope Hormisdas, on behalf of the supporters of the ecclesiastical union between Rome and Constantinople, who requests the intervention of Euphemia to persuade the emperor to restore three Chalcedonian bishops deposed by Anastasius I. This is also the case of John of Ephesus who, as attested in  fragments preserved through Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre and Michael the Syrian, is presented not only as an active militant of the Chalcedonian, but also as the only member of the court of Justin I whose pressure on John of Constantinople achieved that he accepted, in the end, the union with Rome.

Valentin Cosmin Vesa: World and Body in the Writings of Isaac of Nineveh. Asceticism and communication

Isaac of Nineveh, one of the most important Syriac authors, develops in his discourses a kind of „guide” of ascetical-mystical life that brings together the two essential anthropological themes – body and world. During time, these two concepts underwent through difficult relations, from a gnostic extreme to an anthropocentric perspective. Nowadays this relation gets a plus of interest in the context of practice, adding also a religious connotation. In this frame, asceticism created a specific perspective during time of this relation, and nowadays may also bring a specific attitude towards life, in general, a specific response to social, political and physical problems. Isaac of Nineveh is an „expert” on ascetical life, with its both connotations – negative (as self-denial and renunciation), considered as formative, and positive, in terms of freedom, beauty and joy, described as functional, as attaining a spiritual higher state. The first part of this paper will focus on the definition of asceticism, and the most important technical terms colligated to it, as Isaac refers to, and the second section will be dedicated to the ascetic forms and technics, as a possible response to the social and existential problems – the functionality and the scope of ascetical life in the process of transforming the world. This will enable us to get a world view, a personal way to interpret the world, the life, the other and the self. This last goal reveals the possible role of asceticism in the nowadays society, having as source Isaac’s discourses.

Paul J.J. van Geest: Parallels and differences in the way Augustine and Eriugena prove themselves to be real negative theologians

From his Periphyseon can be deduced that John Scottus Eriugena, through his translation and study of the work of Pseudo-Dionysius and of the Cappadocian Fathers Basilus and Gregory of Nyssa, became devoted to their way of apophatic speaking about God. Before him, Augustine had also come to the understanding, reading other sources, that one could not say to God that God was good or merciful, because the predicates 'good' or 'merciful' contained too many associations with our human representation of what would be good or merciful. For both it is crucial to deny God's goodness to find - paradoxically - some of God's unimaginable 'goodness'.
Nevertheless, there are important differences in the way they understand and take up the via negativa. These differences are related to the way in which they intertwine (1) negative-theological statements in their interpretation of God as Creator. Difference can also be recognized in (2) the way in which they provide the incarnation of God with an explanation in which the influence of the via negativa appears. Finally, there are also (3) differences in their negative anthropology. This contribution attempts to trace the differences in the apophatic speaking of Augustine and Eriugena back to their respective sources and their processing of these sources.

Vasilije Vranic: The Christology of Eusebius of Dorylaeum

Eusebius of Dorylaeum was involved in both Christological controversies of the fifth century in very important ways. In the ‘Nestorian’ controversy he was the first to challenge the theological orthodoxy of the newly installed archbishop of Constantinople, Nestorius, by writing a pamphlet known as the Contestatio Eusebii. In it he likened the theology of Nestorius with condemned heretical teachings of Paul of Samosata. Some twenty years later, he accused a powerful archimandrite in Constantinople, Eutyches, of heresy, which set in motion the Miaphysite controversy.Yet, despite his prominence in the theological events leading to the definition of Christological orthodoxy at the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), very little is known about his Christology.In this paper, I argue that the Contestatio Eusebii plays a crucial role in identifying the Christological position of Eusebius of Dorylaeum in the Nestorian controversy. I argue that Eusebius believed in a full, personal union of the divine and human natures of Christ into one reality without confusion.

Eva Elisabeth Houth Vrangbæk: Text Mining Augustine: A Case Study of ‘God' and ‘Will’ in De Civitate Dei

This short paper will through a computerized analysis of the themes of ‘God’ and ‘will’ in De civitate dei communicate how text mining as a method of text analysis can be applied on Augustine studies. As for now, text mining is rarely used within patristic studies, but the methods are rapidly gaining terrain within the traditional fields of humanities. I will in my paper show an example of how these methods can be operated in patristic studies1) In the first part of the communication, I will give a brief presentation of the field of text mining focusing on the use in the humanities, its merits and its limitations. 2) In the second and main part, I will demonstrate four central analytical models for analyzing the themes of ‘God’ and ‘will’ in De civitate Dei using text mining and display how this example can be used as a starting point to work with larger portions of Augustine’s writings. One of the key benefits of text mining is that we can analyze vast corpora of texts (Big Data). In this paper I will use a single - but comprehensive and varied - work, to demonstrate the methodological benefits. I will show how one advantageously can work both quantitatively and qualitatively with texts using e.g. sentiment analysis, word-clustering, word-frequency and topic modelling. 3) In the third and last part, I will give a brief evaluation of how these computerized methods can be fruitful to and complement traditional analogous examinations of Augustine’s texts.

Naïs Virenque: Memorizing time and history. Eusebius' chronography and arboreal frameworks at the end of the Middle Ages

This paper aims to reflect on the place of Eusebius' conception of time and history in the making of chronographic arboreal frameworks between the 12th and the 15th centuries. By studying arboreal universal chronicles, genealogical trees of Christ and trees of Jesse, we will wonder to what extent Eusebius constitutes a model to memorize the succession of events.

Sergey Vorontsov: Ecclesia in the works of Isidore of Seville: meaning and usage

1.Isidore defines the Church in several treatises (especially,sententiae, de ecclesiaticis officiis,. etymologiae). The reconstruction of Isidore’s opinion on the Church seems to be problematic, because a) Isidore’s texts are constructed mainly from the quotations; b) these definitions seem to be commonplaces. However, not only the meaning, but also the usage of the notion should be considered (Q. Skinner).2.The usage is to be reconstructed from the structures 0f the text. Isidore includes the passages onecclesiain the context of different notions inde ecclesiasticis officiis, Etymologiaeandsentaentiae. InEtymologaeecclesiais correlated to the notions ofreligioanddogma, on the one hand, and to the long raw of the deviations from the doctrine of the Church. The connotations of theecclesiahere is the unity of orthodoxy.Ecclesiainde ecclesiasticis officiisis the unity that possesses special customs (mores, consuetudines) and laws. Hereecclesiais identified with the clergy and is opposed touiri saeculares. InsententiaeIsidore uses the termecclesiamostly in the context of eternal salvation, preferring to use notions likegrex, populus, plebsfor temporal dimension3.It is not necessary to make some unified structure of “Isidore’s concept of the Church”, based on the Modern concept of the authorship. According to the rhetorical culture of his time Isidore could use the motive of the Church in different ways.

Andrea Villani: Leo Allatius on an ancient exegetical debate: Origen and Eustathius of Antioch interpreting the witch of Endor narrative (1King 28)

The Greek philologist and theologian Leo Allatius (1586-1669) is the author of the editio princeps of Origen’s homily on the witch of Endor as well as of Eustathius’ of Antioch treatise on the same subject, which has been composed exactly to refute Origen’s interpretation. In addition to the Greek text and his Latin translation of the two works, Allatius published a wide and learned commentary, the De engastrimytho syntagma, which is devoted to the history of the ancient exegesis of the biblical narrative on the witch of Endor (1King 28), and which mostly supports Eustathius’ view of the issue. This paper aims at analyzing method and purpose of Allatius’ syntagma as the first modern discussion of an until then neglected exegetical debate of the early Church.