The Commentary on the Psalms is a monumental work which for more than thirty years consumed the energies of Augustine as exegete. The extraordinary quantity of this work as well as the exceptional number of manuscript traditions which it has spawned has delayed until now the production of a critical edition carried out according to the exacting criteria of modern textual criticism. The part of the editorial project which the Vienna Academy entrusted to the Patristic Institute, the «Augustinianum» (en. Ps. 101-150) has now been completed in five volumes published in the CSEL series (voll. 95, 1-5). The editor’s intention was to incorporate the progress made in modern textual criticism to the specific case of Augustine’s treatment of the Psalms, giving due attention to the peculiar characteristics both of the text and of the manuscript tradition.

For over a century modern scholars have passionately debated whether Augustine’s conversion narrative from Confessions 8 is an accurate description of what ‘has really happened’ in 386 in a garden in Milan without reaching so far a consensus. However, long before modern scholars disputed the historicity of his conversion account Augustine was already confronted with the mistrust of his contemporaries who doubted the authenticity of his conversion and compelled to deal with their accusations. This article intends to show how in the Confessions Augustine defends the truth of his narrative while admitting to his incredulous readers his inability to offer an exact picture of his past life, by looking at his views on memory, language and cognition, as presented mainly in the last non-narrative books of this work.

The article presents 111 newly-identified texts in manuscripts of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, which had hitherto all been attributed to Augustine of Hippo. Only thirty of them, however, proved to be authentic, fifty originate from works of other patristic and medieval authors, while thirty-one remain anonymous. Especially remarkable is the identification of two fragments from the new letters of St Augustine discovered by Johannes Divjak in Paris and Marseille, which predate the two manuscripts of his edition. These results complement the catalogues on the manuscript transmission of Augustine’s works compiled by the Vienna Academy and continue the Author’s earlier publications on manuscripts in Germany, Great Britain, Poland, Spain, and Sweden.

Severian of Gabala’s homilies and Pseudo-Theodoret’s Quaestiones et responsiones ad Orthodoxos (CPG 6285; = QRO) exhibit some notable parallels. Such links show that a marginal current of the Antiochene school was still thriving by the end of the 5th century, i.e. the most probable date of QRO.

Two topics already studied to a sufficient extent are the spread of Christianity in the first centuries and the ministry of women in the early Church. This article focuses, however, on the contribution of women in making known the faith and Christian life in the context of everyday life. Some apostles were married and traveled together with their wives, who in turn spoke of their life with those with whom they came in contact. In this sense we may speak possibly of a ‘family’ apostolate. In the second and third centuries this mission took place especially inside their families among their husbands and children. Then, as now, grandmothers and mothers were the vehicles of transmission of the Christian faith, in as much as they taught to the children their first prayers and the foundational elements of the faith.

Gregory of Nyssa’s Laudatio altera S. Stephani Protomartyris (CPG 3187) has been critically published by Lendle from the two extant copies of the long recension, mostly disregarding the unique Greek witness of a short form which is attributed to John Chrysostom. Following the unveiling of an Armenian translation of the short recension, also attributed to Chrysostom, the paper examines its critical role, its links with the short Greek form and proposes a revision of Lendle’s text.

Contrary to the position sustained in recent German- and English-language studies, the Author of this note rejects the suitability of using the modern and generic term “Homoianism” to describe the different subordinationist doctrinal positions circulating during the second half of the fourth century. In the case of Eudoxius, Valens, Urascius and Ulfila, among others, it is more appropriate to continue to speak in terms of “Arianism”, as their Nicene opponents had already realized, not without reason.