Olga Alieva - Traits of Protreptic Exhortation in St. Basil's Homily On the Words ‘Give Heed to Thyself’

The paper examines the influence of the philosophic protreptic upon the genre of St. Basil’s Address to Young Men on Greek Literature. The Address is sometimes referred to as a piece of protreptic or paraenetic literature. Although the connection of the Address to the corresponding ancient tradition is attested by manuscripts (some of them call it λόγος προτρεπτικὸς or παραίνεσις), no attempt has yet been made at exploring the nature and the scope of such a connection. At the same time, recent scholarly investigations into the genre of the philosophic protreptic (to which paraenesis is closely related) made it possible to place patristic hortatory writings in a wider literary and philosophical context. Such an approach offers a deeper insight into the genre of the Address itself as well as enables to shed some new light on the process of ancient genres transformation in Christian literature. 

Charles Hill - 'The Scripture which Says ...' The Status of The Shepherd of Hermas in the Writings of Irenaeus

The importance of the contribution of Irenaeus of Lyons to the developing Christian doctrine of Scripture, including what we now call the canon of Scripture, is well recognized.  Yet attempts to clarify the contents of Irenaeus’ Scriptural corpus still face many ambiguities.  In Adv. Haer. 4.20.2 Irenaeus cites lines from the Shepherd of Hermas with the introduction ‘Rightly, then, the scripture (or writing) which says …  ’, raising the question whether Irenaeus considered The Shepherd to be a Scriptural book or whether his use of h( grafh in this instance signifies a more mundane reference to The Shepherd simply as a written text?  This communication will interact with recent, conflicting treatments of this question and will offer new considerations pursuant to an answer. 

Levan Gigineishvili - Eros in Theology I. Petritsi and Sh. Rustaveli

This paper discusses the notion of eros in the Neoplatonic philosophy of Ioane Petritsi and his influence on the thought of the epic poet Shota Rustaveli, who holds a similar vision. In both Petritsi and Rustaveli eros represents an anagogic power that leads souls from their self-centeredness towards higher realities and ultimately to God; in both, eros is intimately connected to the notion of conscience (logos/intellect/understanding). Comparisons and influences will be sought in the thought of the church fathers, but most importantly, in the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Since eros in thought of Petritsi and Rustaveli is a universal power that permeates all and, thus, by implication, is not restricted to any single culture or religion, those thinkers ran a risk of falling under a censure of the official church, which would deny any salvific or even anagogic activity happening outside her bosom. I argue that this explains the hostility of the church officials towards both these authors in Medieval Georgia; especially in the case of Rustaveli, this hostility even has a theoretical/theological basis.

Pascale Farago-Bermon - Surviving the disaster: the use of psyche in 1 Pet. 3.20

This paper addresses the problem of dealing with greek philosophy when
commenting on NT, focusing on one specific point: the use of psyche in 1Pet. 3:20,
to designate the survivors of the flood.  The word refers here unambiguously
and exclusively to human living beings, a specific meaning that cannot be traced
back to any philosophical background.

Emmanuel Bermon - Grammar and metaphysics: About the forms essendi, essendo, essendum, and essens in Augustine’s Ars grammatica breuiata (IV, 31 Weber)

The Ars breuiata attributed to Augustine brings a valuable piece of information about the verb esse ("to be"): "Some scholars in fairly recent times have also said, since they had to translate and explain deep and divine expressions: essendi, essendo, essendum ["to be", gen. / dat. / abl. / acc.], and essens ["being"] on the pattern of scribendi, scribendo, scribendum, scribens.") (… Docti quidam temporis recentioris cum haberent necessitatem magna et diuina quaedam interpretandi explicandique et essendi et essendo et essendum et essens dixerunt, quemadmodum scribendi, scribendo, scribendum, scribens).

The forms listed here are extremely rare or absent in the Latin of antiquity. Apart from this text, essendi is attested for the first time in two places of Augustine’s works, essendo and essendum do not appear before the ninth century, and there is only one other instance of the present participle essens, in the whole history of the Latin language: in Augustine himself, who presents it as an equivalent of the Greek ôn.

This excerpt from the Ars breuiata doubly confirms the attribution of this Treatise to Augustine. It further points out a bold grammatical innovation of which Augustine was a witness. What is it? I shall advance two hypotheses: essens was introduced to explain and perhaps to translate the name of God revealed in Exodus 3, 14 (LXX): egô eimi ho ôn; and essendi appeared in such expressions as "essendi causa" or "auctor essendi" which are precisely found in Augustine, and which formulated in Latin the Neoplatonic idea that God (or the first principle) is aitios or arche tou einai. While dealing with these two points, I will suggest that the invention of these atypical forms goes back to Marius Victorinus.

Martin Claes - Exercitatio mentis and Mystagogy: Exercises in Communal Thinking and Living in De beata vita and De doctrina Christiana

As an experienced teacher Augustine used pedagogic skills such as exercitatio mentis in a diversity of contexts in his written work. Despite Augustine’s extensive application of this concept which was widely used in Stoic and Neoplatonic contexts, he never simply copied this pedagogical method. He transformed it according to the needs of his own developing ideas.

In this paper I focus on exercitatio mentis in the context of a community which became determining for the formation of the individual. I shall address the question whether we can find suggestions that Augustine integrates the pedagogical concept of exercitatio mentis in his vision on mystagogy. In order to provide a contribution to answer this question I will concentrate on the crucial role of the community in this process. In this communication I will focus on Augustine’s pedagogy concerning exercise in virtue in community-life, temperantia and caritas in De beata vita and De doctrina Christiana.

Joseph Grzywaczewski - Religion of the Barbarians and of the Romans according to Salvian of Marseilles

Salvian divided the Barbarians in two groups: pagans and heretics. The Barbarians – pagans are cruel, perverse and inhuman; they are influenced by demons. They have a very bad image about the Christians and they persecute them. The Barbarians – heretics have some knowledge of the Christ teaching but very limited. They are not able to make studies, they do not know the God’s Law, they have no culture; they practice their religion by tradition. Their way of living is wrong, but they try to act according to their belief. The Romans have the true faith, they make studies on the Bible and on the Gold’s Law, but they do not live according to their faith and knowledge. One of the biggest faults of the Romans is a disorder in the sexual matter. Salvian noticed the ignorance (ignorantia) by the Barbarians and the transgression (praevaricatio) by the Romans. For this reason, he pointed out that the Romans are worse than the Barbarians. Surely, his opinion was simplified and nowadays it is not considered as completely correct.