This article aims to explain and clarify the controversial textual issue over which manuscripts should be preferred in an edition of Sulpicius Severus’ Martinellus. In particular, Ruggiero examines the case of the Letters. Firstly, he shows that there is only one contaminated textual tradition, as proven by the numerous adiaphoristic variants. Secondly, he shows that the manuscripts from the French-German area are superior to those from the Italic peninsula and some insular areas, as they provide a much more elegant and correct text. This is consistent with our knowledge of Sulpicius Severus’ higher literary education. In publishing the Martinellus, it is therefore advisable to follow the variants of the French-German manuscripts, whereas the ones of the Italian manuscripts are to be taken into account only in the case of obvious errors. Consequently, Ruggiero maintains that the editions that predate Halm’s should be rated much more highly than they are.

The Funus acerbum is a rite typical of traditional Roman religion and therefore it should not be related to the Christian attitude in the face of the death of children. However, although Christians and Pagans had different ideas about the afterlife, they shared rules about respect for graves, a similar timing in the cult of the dead, and often also the same burial places. This article examines the Pagan sphere and the Christian sphere and highlights similarities and differences. Concerning more specifically Christians, it shows their wide range of attitudes towards infant death, also in relation to thorny question of the paedobaptism. In this sense, the influence of Augustine is reduced at both the theoretical level and, especially, at the level of burial practices.

The patristic period is of particular interest for the theme of “masculine” and “feminine” given the interconnection between the patristic exegesis of the two stories of creation (Gn 1:26-27 and 2:7) and the religious and social culture of the time. Late antiquity parameters of masculine and feminine, however although they are placed beyond the modern questions, cannot be considered completely extraneous from modernity for that path of history that connects human epochs beyond their own determined period. In this note we attempt to summarize the patristic approaches with an overall view, having both, a not too dispersive picture, and also to obtain some elements for further reflections, keeping in mind what Freud already observed «that the concepts “masculine” and “feminine”, whose content appears so devoid of ambiguity to common opinion, belong to the most confused concepts in science».

Irenaeus of Lyon uses the tale of Abraham as biblical proof for his thesis on the unity of God and of the history of salvation. In order to do this, however, he must first refute the Gnostic and Marcionite interpretations of Abraham, and so the episode of Isaac’s sacrifice (Gn 22:1–19). In Irenaeus’s exegesis of Gn 22:1–19, Abraham becomes the progenitor of the apostles and gentiles who are welcomed into the Church and an ante litteram disciple of Mt 4:22 and 16:24; he, who prophetically foresees the day of Jesus’s passion (Jn 8:56), offers his son Isaac as a sacrifice, just as God would offer his son, the incarnate Logos, as a sacrifice for the salvation of his descendants.

Several treatises have come down to us from Christian antiquity devoted to the defence of the dogma of the resurrection of the flesh (περὶ ἀναστάσεως). Such works are mutually connected by evident similarities in the content and often by literary dependence. The treatise On the resurrection attributed to Justin Martyr is preserved almost exclusively in the Sacra Parallela. This has been used as a source by different authors, e.g. Tertullian (in the treatise De resurrectione) and Methodius of Olympus (in Aglaophon or On the resurrection of the flesh). According to the optimistic viewpoint of recent scholars, the text which is included in the Sacra Parallela represents nearly the totality of the original text. However, this article, by combining the text of Tertullian and Methodius of Olympus, aims to reconstruct some now lost passages of περὶ ἀναστάσεως which are devoted to biblical exegesis (Gen. 3,21; 2,23-24) or which demonstrate the resurrection of the flesh on the basis of philosophical thought.

As part of the studies on Pseudo-Basiliana Graeca, the vol. LIX of Sacris Erudiri (2020) dedicated some interventions to the Commentary on Isaiah attributed to Basil. Faced with new doubts about authenticity, the author examines the arguments proposed, but reconfirms his position on the Basilian authorship of the work.

The essay points out some loci in the surviving part of the Coptic translation of De anima et resurrectione, written in Greek by Gregory of Nyssa. It shows how the Coptic text can be useful not only for amending the Greek text but also for understanding better the underlying theology of the Alexandrian Church, which promoted the Coptic translation. In this way, a reading of Gregory’s fragment will be read for the first time using the Coptic version on its own terms and not merely as a translation of Ancient Greek.

The so-called gammadiae are symbols similar to letters whose specific meaning is unknown. It is currently believed that they could have originated among Hellenistic Jews, and been inherited by Christians, who adapted them to own needs. They seem to have indicated the holiness of the characters marked by them. Building on previous analysis and on the recent systematic cataloguing of the Early Christian catacombs of Rome, as well as a range of other artefacts, we examine two lesser known archaeological finds, and finally consider some examples of gammadiae “of transition”, which appear during the Medieval period predominantly in manuscripts or in the mosaics of basilicas. These last symbols show differences from the Early Christian ones, even though they still appear systematically on the pallia of Christ, the martyrs, saints and other holy people.