Saint Hilary of Poitiers in his Commentary on Matthew explains the famous scene of the centurion and his servant (Mt. 8, 5-13). According to Hilary, the centurion represents the “prince of the nations,” but he does not explain who this “prince” is because he wants to speak about the servant. However, he gives two references in the Bible for those who want to know who this prince is. The hypothesis defended in this article maintains that the prince is an angel who looks after the Gentile nations. This hypothesis is grounded in research on Hilary’s biblical references and in the comparison with other texts in which he expounds his doctrine about this type of angel.

The focus is on the meaning of ὑπόϑεσις in Irenaeus of Lyons’ Adversus haereses. Our case is to argue that two different elements converge in ὑπόϑεσις or its translations (especially argumentum) in the Latin version of AH. The first stems from the Greek literary field, in which ὑπόϑεσις means the “subject” or “plot” of a dramatic or poetic composition. The second is related to the philosophical meaning of ὑπόϑεσις as “that which is placed under” or “foundation”. On the one hand, Irenaeus uses ὑπόϑεσις theologically to express the plot of the historia salutis, so that the term can be understood as teaching or doctrine. On the other hand, this ὑπόϑεσις is at the same time a regula, the normative foundation of all the elements that take part in God’s economy of salvation.

At the beginning of Irenaeus of Lyons’ Adversus Haereses, the doctrine of the Valentinian Ptolemy is presented using terms from the semantic field of time and eternity, which were undergoing a semantic evolution in contemporary Middle Platonic philosophy. These allow us to identify three phases, from a chronological point of view, at the beginning of the Valentinian myth: strict, supra-durational, eternity – eternity of indefinite duration – moment ante tempus.

Barb. gr. 441 is a miscellaneous manuscript that contains fragments of different Fathers of the Church (Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, Sophronius of Jerusalem and Epiphanius of Salamis). The scope of these adnotationes is to delimit the folios belonging to each author and offer a more detailed information on Epiphanius’ passages.

This article analyses an old issue regarding the identity of John the Baptist in the Commentary on the Gospel of John by Origen of Alexandria in response to the Gnostic Heracleon and some enigmatic anonymous adversaries. Taking as a starting point the two hypotheses existing nowadays about this topic, a new approach is proposed through which it is shown that both hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. The present work has been structured into two large sections. The context where this debate emerges is presented in the first part. This context refers to the continuity or discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments. The second part is focused on the identity of John the Baptist adopting the point view related to the impossibility of identifying the disciple with no specific character, also revealed in the first section.

In this paper we shall examine a few texts by authors who predate Hilary in order to investigate a possible exegetical tradition or interpretative current that could include several gnostic groups cited by Irenaeus of Lyons (II c.), to Origen (III c.) and saint Hilary of Poitiers (IV c.). However, one of the interpretations that Origen presents in his Commentary on saint John is the same interpretation that Hilary gives, but it is more developed. Certainly, Hilary and Origen comment two different Gospels, but both comment homologous scenes; Hilary comments Mt. 8:5-13 and Origen, Io. 4:46-54. In addition, we believe some testimonies in Hilary’s commentary can reveal the influence of Origen’s commentary on Hilary/s. One of these testimonies could be the explanation of the strange reading transmitted by Hilary who calls tribunus to the centurio of the Gospel.

The study of the reception of Irenaeus of Lyons in the Liber de sectis hereticorum of Baldwin of Canterbury (+ 1191) illuminates three aspects of the author’s context: (1) the theological and ecclesial context (the problem of Catharism and of Nihilism); (2) the context of the libraries in which Baldwin could have read the Adversus Haereses; (3) the context of the manuscript tradition of the Adversus Haereses. Here a study of the titles of the chapters and of the textual variants allows us greater precision concerning the manuscripts which we know in a stemma codicum. Our conclusion is that the work of Baldwin is the only witness which we have to the manuscript of Canterbury which, in turn, is shown to have a closer kinship with the manuscripts of the family of manuscripts preserved in Lyons, especially with the Arundel manuscript.

Vat. gr. 1196 is a miscellaneous manuscript that contains canonical, synodal and heresiological texts from different authors. These adnotationes offer its own foliation and contents.

This article studies Isidore of Seville’s reception of the moral theology of Gregory the Great. Examples will be offered from the Expositio in Vetus Testamentum and the second book of the Differentiae; the moral project of the Sententiae will also be explored. The most significant conclusion is that Isidore refuses to reproduce the most relevant innovations of Gregory’s teaching on charity.