In the Epistle to the Hebrews (10,1; cf. Hbr. 8,5; Col. 2,16-17) the terms σκιά and εἰκών are opposed, and most commentators have focused on the latter term, interpreting it as a Platonic allusion. If we consider in more detail the meanings of σκιά and σκιαγραφία, another interpretation appears more likely. Σκιαγραφία means “shading”, “silhouette” or “outline”, and finally “sketch” or – even better – “preliminary drawing”, “underdrawing”or “sinopia”. The last meaning is well attested in the sources at least since the late second or early third century AD and a number of passages in the Fathers alluding to the Epistle support the same conclusion. The term is common in the technical terminology of painters on wooden tablets and was a widely employed topos with different nuances according to different authors.

In Augustinian reflection, the main problem of the imago Dei is the renewal of its image through being healed from lust, so as to regain the ordo amoris destroyed by sin. Current research investigates what the gratia Christi and charity contribute to the renewal of the image of God, at the level of a marriage bond that human race was given as part of the act of creation. This emerges as a primary element, both in the original state of man and in his recovery through the gratia Christi.

The note reinterprets an important epigraphic testimony of the Ostrogoth age (ICUR I, 2794), published for the first time by Giovanni Battista de Rossi in 1894. It is a polymetric funeral eulogy commissioned among the Amali royal family, perhaps dedicated by Flavia Amala Amalafrida Theodenanda to one or more relatives, unless one wishes to identify her with one of the dedicatees of the eulogy. After a presentation of supportive material and a new edition of the text, the history of the discovery of the inscription is retraced, involving leading figures of the 19th century political and ecclesiastical culture including cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli and H. Stevenson Jr., a pupil of de Rossi. The contribution dates the artifact between the end of the 5th century and the beginning of the 6th; it studies the hypothesis of identifying Amalafrida with one of the princesses in the family circle of King Theodoric and with the Ostrogothic wife of Flavius Maximus; it illustrates a hypothesis of the intended use of the epigraph for a funeral monument in the cemetery area of the Martyrial Basilica of S. Secondino on the Praenestina.

The present study, after a quick codicological investigation of the two surviving manuscripts of the De trinitate by pseudo-Didymus, in which it is concluded that one is a copy of the other, focuses on the lexical analysis of the first book of the mutilated trinitarian treatise. By showing divergences from the authentic works of Didymus, alongside parallels with the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret, of other late patristic authors, as well as with those of the Neoplatonic philosophers, in particular Proclus, the author concludes that the chronological position of De trinitate should not be before the end of the 5th century, and suggests a possible origin from an environment of Antiochene influence.

In De immortalitate animae Augustine is not satisfied with completing his proof of the immortality of the soul – which had been left open in the second book of the Soliloquies –; he also answers some possible objections, demonstrating that the rational soul cannot cease to exist, it cannot die, nor can it change into an irrational body or soul. Furthermore, remaining faithful to the programmatic declaration of never wanting to stray from the authority of Christ (Acad. 3, 20, 43), he specifies the ontological status of the soul by affirming that it is, in itself, mutable and therefore not of a divine nature, as Varro had argued. Nor is it a substance foreign to the body, as the Platonists claimed, because the soul has an appetitus ad corpus and, if it questions itself, it easily discovers that it desires nothing else «except to do something, to know with intelligence or with the senses, or only to live, as far as this is in its power» (nisi agendi aliquid, aut sciendi, aut sentiendi, aut tantummodo vivendi in quantum sua illi potestas est).

This article intends to provide a further contribution to the attribution of the Greek Scholia on the Corpus Dionysiacum by examining the Latin version by Anastasius Bibliothecarius. In particular, some Latin manuscripts have recently been identified, which retain many of the critical signs used by Anastasius in order to mark the scholia dating back to Maximus the Confessor. The collation of these cruces not only allows us to identify the contribution of Maximus as a scholiast of the Corpus Dionysiacum, but also to ascertain further the work of John of Scythopolis and to point out a possible way to research the contribution of other commentators of Pseudo-Dionysius.

The aim of this paper is to reconsider a recent hypothesis of M. Simonetti on Hermas and the Jewish scriptures.

This in-depth study of the apophatic dimension crafted by Gregory of Nissa is the translation on the epistemological level of a new ontology, developed in debates with Arianism, and intended to expand classical metaphysics on the meaning of relationship. In Neoplatonic philosophy silence protects the absolute nature of the First Principle leaving expressive mediation to degrees of intermediate ontologies. Through trinitarian revelation God is manifested as a communion of love within which the external Logos is identified with the divine essence itself, in a unity founded upon relationship and will. Beginning from this new trinitarian ontology, Gregory sees in contemplation and in adoration, made up of silence and word, the human response to a free creative act of divine love and thus cognitive instruments, paths of access to the personal relationship of union with the Beloved.

This contribution presents some results of recent research carried out on the Spanish manuscript tradition of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great (590-604). After a panoramic review of the present state of philological research and the expectations that such investigations have raised in the last three decades, this article analyses the situation of the Iberian manuscript tradition in general terms and afterwards illustrates the results of the research carried out on the so-called fragment of the Barcelona Dialogues (CLA 1626), a folio in uncial characters that transmits a passage of the Homilies on the Gospels of Gregory but which, nevertheless, offers the opportunity for some reflections on the lexis gregoriana. This article also offers some details concerning three codices in Visigothic characters from the libraries of La Seu d’Urgell, Santo Domingo de Silos and the British Library of London, which are either complete or which conservelarge parts of the text. Finally, this investigation provides some hints concerning Spanish manuscripts in Carolingian characters which, as exemplars of the Vulgate text from the Frankish area, were completely unhelpful for the purpose of preparing a critical edition of the text.

Notwithstanding the fact that Novatian’s De trinitate follows Tertullian’s Adversus Praxean as a pre-eminent source, the former parted company with the latter on some crucial doctrinal points. This article examines Novatian’s approach to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in his De trinitate, analyzing at the same time its Stoicbackground. The paper illustrates how a meticulous research of Novatian’s De trinitate prompts scholars to discover hidden motives in ancient Christian literature.

It seems opportune to commemorate in ‘Augustinianum’ the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, insofar as he is an outstanding figure whose theoritical insight gave birth to the computer revolution of the twentieth centur y. His theories are equally important for the methodology supporting studies in the humanities.

In Novatian’s De Trinitate there is a passage which, while it makes a reference to an “invidia mortalitatis”, has been to some extent the torment of editors and of translators. On the one hand, the genitive tends mostly to be read as objective, on the other, the text is manipulated at times (even in recent editions) on the basis of a lectio facilior derived from conjecture. The article summarizes the history of criticism relative to the above-mentioned passage, highlighting some of its limits. From there it searches for historical-philological bases of a reading of the passage in which the genitive is understood as subjective. The evidence gathered seems to point to an Origenist source, and that would lean us toward welcoming the invitation, already formulated by Manlio Simonetti, to new research inNovatian and his sources.

The aim of this article is to show that the trinitarian theology of Origen of Alexandria shares the same theoretical structure as the henology of Plotinus. In particular, there is a strong correspondence between the trinitarian hypostases in Origen and the moments of the One in Plotinus: the Father is the One; the Son-Logos is the Intelligence; finally, the Holy Spirit is the Soul. Both Origen and Plotinus seem to assume the ontological difference between God, who, on the one hand, comes before the generation of the Son, i.e., before the distinction between Father and Son, and who is indeed God, and, on the other hand, God who is the Father as he generates the Son and who, by doing so, distinguishes himself from himself. The system of ideas which represents the basis of both the theology of Origen and the henology of Plotinus is evidently a Platonic one.

Pope Gregory the Great’s homilies and letters document his fight against simony, widely spread among all patriarchates, where sacraments, first of all Holy Orders, were sold, and where one could become a bishop solely through the donations and support of influential people. The Pope asked both laity and bishops to help in eradicating this terrible plague which he considered a real heresy, inasmuch as it debased the dignity of the priesthood and the action of Holy Spirit and undermined the unity of the Church. In an eschatological perspective he invited bishops and laity to cooperate in his reform of ecclesiastical custom according to the Holy Scriptures, the tradition of the Church Fathers and canon law.

It is futile to say that scholars have worn themselves out in an attempt to give a name to the pagan philosopher with whom Macarius Magnes argues in the Apocriticus. The first to take up the question, Crusius, a follower of Wagenmann, Hauschildt, Harnack and Goulet, identified him as Porphyry. This identification was refuted by Möller, Salmon, Zahn and Frassinetti, who thought of Julian the Apostate; and by Duchesne and Crafer, followed, in part by Pezzella, who proposed Hierocles. Following the studies by Corsaro, who, advised by Borzì, argued with good reason the impossibility of giving a precise name to the pagan philosopher, the vexata quaestio seemed to come to an end. In a recent intervention, Digeser reproposed the identification of Hierocles, going back, in large part, and not without some original notions, to the arguments of Duchesne and Crafer. It is the intent of this contribution to demonstrate the insufficient credibility of this identification.

Clement of Alexandria’s Quis dives salvetur is the first text of Christian literature expressly devoted to the problem of the relationship between wealth and poverty. Clement’s discourse clarifies how he considers the Scriptures as the basis of all pedagogy, inasmuch as they are normative in themselves and esteemed for the absolute value in them that transcends any contingency related to temporal, cultural, historical or sociological situations. This article offers a study of the reception of the Old Testament and New Testament in Clement’s work, focusing on a particular scriptural text, Mk 10:17-31, that is primary and foundational for all of his thought.

An erotapòkrisis of the Corpus macarianum presents an exegesis and interpretation of Rm 2,14b as found in an ascetical brotherhood with origins in the fourth century. The lemma forms the beginning of the erotapòkrisis and invites a single response. The Author orients this lemma toward a moral, ascetical and “spiritual” interpretation of the natural law and the divine law written in the conscience, one which is obscure and not entirely comprehendable by moderns. The exegetical and hermeneutical procedure at work in the text may offer a suggestion for further reflection and reconsideration of the environment and identity of the author, as well as of the origins of those writings comprising the Corpus macarianum.

Through an analysis of the transmission and the historical context of the text, as well as of the doctrinal content of CPL 1610, this paper substantiates the likelihood of the Gelasian authorship of the letter, which was called into question by Coustant Thiel and Schwartz and supported by Nautin.

This paper discusses the merits and faults of a Note by Vittorino Grossi, published in this journal (volume 52), concerning a new Italian translation of Augustine’s bestseller, City of God, with an introduction by Domenico Marafioti (Mondadori 2011). The Author discusses the divergence of interpretations of Augustine’s works.

This article will attempt to show that from the beginning of the letter of Eusebius of Nicodemia to Paulinus of Tyre, the meaning of ὁμοούσιος should be sought in the opposition on the part of the Council of Nicea to the divisive doctrine of hypostases by Arius and his followers. The assertion of the similarity or identity of nature or ousia between the Father and the Son that ὁμοούσιος suggests is traceable to the teaching of Alexander of Alexandria, but also of Eusthatius of Antioch, so that it could be thought that in Nicea a convergence between the two major opponents of Arius could have taken place, in the same way in which it had occurred over the Antiochene formula of 325. Analysis of the doctrine of ὁμοούσιος by Athanasius confirms that the term was opposed to the divisive interpretation of the hypostases within Arianism. The second part of the article, takes into consideration the study on the interpretation of the Nicene ὁμοούσιος proposed by P. F. Beatrice. The Author argues that Beatrice’s thesis, which attempts to trace the introduction of the term in the Nicene Creed back exclusively to Constantine, with the agreement of Eusebius of Caesarea, is not backed by the documentation at our disposal.