This paper analyses an important Valentinian source, the Tractatus Tripartitus, the last work in the so-called Codex Jung. The main aim of the article is to provide a reading of the text as a whole, high-lighting how the Tractatus Tripartitus might be understood as an attempt to remove the apocalyptic matrix of Valentinian theology. Finally, several essential features of the work are compared with the well-known charges brought against the Gnostics by Plotinus, investigating the possibility of an actual historical relationship between the Tripartite Tractate and the ninth essay of the second Ennead.

St Augustine himself recognised in Retractationes that De Mendacio is a difficult text to understand, because its argument is both complex and dialectical. Understanding the treatise has been further complicated by St Thomas Aquinas’ reading of it in the light of Aristotle, and under the influence of a possibly flawed textual tradition. This article clarifies Augustine’s well known eight categories of lies to resituate them in the social experience of Augustine and his contemporaries. It shows that Augustine’s argument and exegesis are strikingly exploratory and undogmatic. His hard-won conclusion is driven by a demanding understanding of sanctity. A synopsis of the argument of De Mendacio is appended.

This paper is about the contribution of Saint Augustine to the reform of the Catholic Church in North Africa, through his ministry of preaching. When he was still a priest at Hippo, Augustine waged a forceful and successful war against some pagan practices which had gradually crept into the Church. The common practice of celebrating the dead in the Roman world was being applied to the Saints of the Church and Christians were celebrating their memory by getting drunk. The prohibition of such practices by the authority of the Church met with the resistance of the faithful, so Augustine decided to act precisely through the power of the Word he proclaimed to his flock. In his Letter 29 addressed to Alypius the Bishop of Thagaste, he narrates how he convinced the faithful to stop the celebration of the feast called Laetitia on the feast day of Saint Leontius. After sketching the background of the devotion to the Saints in North Africa, our study examines the line of Augustine’s argumentation that led to the success of this preaching, and hence shows how he contributed to the reform of the Church of his day.