This article re-examines the attention scholars have given to the origins of monoergenism and monotheletism and proposes a rebuttal to the positions of J. Tannous who, in an article in Dumbarton Oaks Papers in 2014, holds that these doctrines represented in Syro/Palestine certain “regional doctrinal hegemonies, at least among Chalcedonian communities, and were not artificial concoctions”. For the author, on the other hand, the episcopal sees in these regions had to have been for the most part in the hands of monophysites, without in any way excluding the possibility that there were also Chalcedonian bishops and communities as well, as in the case of Abraham of Rusafa. Thus, for the Author, monoenergism and monotheletism, from an epistemological and theological point of view, were the last glimmer of Apollinarism which was continually re-emerging from the ashes and given a new life by Severian monophysitism.

This study aims to delineate some aspects relating to Hosius of Corduba, especially in regard to the nexus between ecclesiastical politics and faithfulness to Nicene orthodoxy found on the margins of the often discussed concessions by the Spanish bishop to the pressures of Emperor Constantius II, when the former signed the homoiousian formula of the Council of Sirmium in 357. Through an analysis of the ancient historiographical witnesses, one notes a clear divergence between the Eastern and Western sources. While Hosius’s orthodoxy and sanctity are a given in the tradition of the Greek Church, Latin historiography considered him a crazy old man and traitor of the Nicene faith. These contrasting judgments come from the differing evaluations attributed to the Spanish bishop’s concessions when he was confronted by Constantius II: for those of the East, it is simply a question of ecclesiastical politics; for the West, faithfulness to Nicene orthodoxy involved taking a much greater risk. This note wishes to foster a reading of the Orthodoxy of Hosius that is more juridical than doctrinal.

This short article is intended to contribute to the solution of a known locus desperatus of the Augustinian Confessions. The Author proposes that 8, 2, 3 should be read spirabat paululum iam instead of spirabat † popilios iam †. The conjecture is reminiscent of Catil. 61, 4 paululum etian spirans concerning Catilina’s death (Augustine remembers this famous Sallustian locus when he writes civ. 3, 27 vix paululum respirante civitate). Catilina’s death is a metaphor for the fall of Roman paganism, and for Marius Victorinus’s and Augustine's personal lives as well as their conversions. Ruggiero adds further evidence to Manlio Simonetti’s arguments as shown in the «Nota al Testo» (vol. I, 1992, pp. CLXIIICLXVIII) preceding his edition of Confessiones for the Italian collection “Lorenzo Valla”: common mistakes such as popilios iam were already in the edition’s manuscript.