Aus den folgenden Anmerkungen zur mittelalterlichen Übersetzung von Galen De motibus dubiis geht einerseits die Beziehung der Schrift zum Gesamtwerk Galens klarer hervor; andererseits wird dabei die schon erwähnte Kenntnis, die Nemesius von dieser Schrift gehabt hat, ausführlicher belegt. Darüberhinaus belegen die nachfolgenden Anmerkungen eine Beziehung dieser Schrift Galens zu der Schrift De fato des Ps. Plutarch und zur stoischen Denkweise, wie ich sie in bezug auf den Timaioskommentar Galens schon anderswo angemerkt habe. Ein Zeugnis aus Theodoret belegt zusätzlich den nicht-christlichen Charakter der Ausführungen dieser Schrift. Andererseits scheinen sich die Erklärungen des Clemens Alexandrinus in Stromateis I, XVII: 53, 14 sqq. (sowie auch 60, 12 sqq.: τò αὐτόματον) gegen die Auffassung unserer Schrift, Seite 216, VII 38 sqq. zu richten. Zum Vergleich s. a. die christliche Stellungnahme zu diesen und ähnlichen Fragen bei Jo. Damascenus (nach Nemesius); vgl. De fide orthodoxa II, cap. 12–30 (PG 94: 925–80. Klar geht aus diesen Addenda auch hervor, daß die in dieser Schrift vertretene Lehre, oder besser die Lehre, die eine folgerichtige Erklärung für viele der Aussagen dieser Schrift liefert, eng 1) mit der Lehre, die aus den von mir erstveröffentlichten Fragmenten des Timaioskommentars Galens hervorgeht; und 2) mit der Lehre, die in Ps. Plutarch De fato entfaltet ist, und somit auch mit den betreffenden Partien aus Nemesius und Chalcidius zusammenhängt, wie ich es in bezug auf den Timaioskommentar Galens geschildert habe. Ihrerseits erhellen sich aus diesen drei sich gegenseitig erklärenden Schriften manche Ansichten, die uns aus Galens Gesamtwerk bekannt sind. Für Ps. Plutarch De fato ist eine Datierung in der Zeit Trajans oder vielmehr in der zweiten Hälfte des zweiten Jahrhunderts (so Valgiglio 319) bislang akzeptiert worden. Ebenso ist die Zuweisung der Fragmente des Timaioskommentars an Galen bis jetzt nicht ernsthaft in Zweifel gezogen worden. Die vorliegende Schrift De motibus dubiis ist gleichfalls unter dem Namen Galens überliefert und soll dies auch bleiben, solange seine Urheberschaft nicht begründeterweise angezweifelt wird. Wir haben es also hier mit einer Lehre zu tun, die A. Gercke folgendermaßen trefflich charakterisiert hat: “im Anschlusse an Platon werden Naturordnung und Vorsehung gegliedert und geordnet und mit der Weltseele, den Himmelssphären, den drei Parzen und drei Götterklassen in Verbindung gesetzt. Aristoteles liefert logische Erörterungen über das Mögliche mit Beispielen; die Stoa wird zwar bekämpft oder vielmehr ihre Lehre eingeschränkt und umgebogen: aber vielleicht ohne daß der Verfasser sich dessen bewußt ist, verdankt er ihr ein gut Theil seiner Anschauungen” (vgl. auch Valgiglio 325 sq.).

Le deuxième livre de la Geste de l'histoire spirituelle publiée par l'évêque gallo-romain Avit de Vienne au début du VIe siècle apparaît, en réalité, comme le cœur d'une trilogie hexamétrique consacrée aux premiers instants bibliques de l'histoire du monde et des hommes, et que l'on a parfois comparée au Paradis perdu de Milton. Dès le premier vers de ce livre, le poète prend soin de rattacher le sujet du péché originel à la longue méditation initiale Sur le début du monde, jusque dans l'emploi d'un adverbe temporel de transition qui marque le début du récit, interea. Par ailleurs, comme l'a observé Michael Roberts, la longue digression finale sur l'épisode de la femme de Lot et de la destruction de Sodome et Gomorre, qui occupe quatre-vingt-un vers du deuxième livre, assure la transition entre le sujet majeur de ce livre, à savoir la lutte qui oppose Ève au serpent, et le problème de la culpabilité d'Adam, qui sera débattu au troisième livre: la femme de Lot est, comme Ève, une autre «fouineuse de malheurs», mais à l'inverse de la première femme, elle n'est pas parvenue à séduire son «propre Adam». Un peu à la manière des décors simultanés en usage dans le drame médiéval, le récit principal se double ici d'un récit secondaire qui annonce recentrage au livre III sur l’évaluation de la complicité d’Adam et Ève dans la faute. Parmi d'autres détails qui confirment le lien entre cet épisode adventice du livre II et le livre III, la malédiction de Dieu contre le sol des deux cités condamnées est un exemple particulier de cet espace de punition et d'illusions qu'est devenue la terre depuis la sentence de Dieu contre Adam; du reste, le châtiment de Sodome réapparaît explicitement au livre III comme une figure du feu éternel qui attend les damnés à la fin des temps.

The Latin poet Venantius Fortunatus (ca. 530–600) is known today for his Holy Cross hymns, for the classicizing epithalamium that he wrote for the wedding of the Frankish king Sigibert, and for his panegyrics of the royal and powerful in Merovingian society. Yet despite the attention that has been lavished on Fortunatus's other major works, his ambitious four hundred line poem De Virginitate (8.3) has been noticeably neglected, perhaps because of its subject matter. A highly original work nevertheless, this poem was written in the late 560s for his patroness, the royal nun Radegund. Most probably, it was recited by the poet at the installation of Radegund's “spiritual daughter” Agnes as abbess of the Convent of the Holy Cross, which Radegund had founded at Poitiers. It is a work equal in importance to Fortunatus's episcopal panegyrics and other ceremonial poems for church occasions.

Aldhelm of Malmesbury (ca. 640–709/710) conceived and practiced an idiosyncratic style of Latin prose called “hermeneutic,” which was characterized mainly by lexical peculiarities: neologisms, graecisms, archaisms, poeticisms, distributive numerals, and other varieties of contrived or recherché diction. The principal model of the hermeneutic prose style was, of course, Aldhelm's treatise on virginity, the Prosa de virginitate (hereafter Pdv). Aldhelm probably wrote the work in the 670s. Partly — if not mainly — because of this influential treatise, hermeneutic Latin became a vogue in seventh- and eighth-century England, and practitioners of it flourished on the continent, too. Alas, ninth-century Viking incursions put an end not only to hermeneutic latinity but also to native literature. Not until the 920s would interest in hermeneutic Latin be renewed, and after a few more decades Aldhelm's prose work became one of the most intensively studied books in Anglo-Saxon England. In fact, the complexity of Aldhelm's prose led to copious glossing.

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41 contains the B-text of the Old English Bede, and a sizeable body of marginalia that includes a substantial amount of liturgy. The main text is in a large format but remains incomplete in some of its artwork; it was copied in two parts by two different scribes in the early eleventh century and supplied with various decorated initials, not all of them finished. The book was given by Bishop Leofric to Exeter between 1050 and 1072. It is not immediately apparent whether the liturgical addenda were copied there or done earlier at some other center, but the nature of the marginalia suggests that the additions were made, as was perhaps the book itself, in a provincial scriptorium of no great size. The use of the margins of the text indicates a shortage of available vellum, thus suggesting that the original text of the Old English Bede may have been made for a smaller center with a minimal library, or possibly for an individual.

An important area of investigation in both historical and contemporary liturgical theology is the relationship between the theology of liturgy and the theology of the Trinity. Liturgical theologians are beginning to examine more closely the intrinsic trinitarian grounding of Christian worship and prayer. Systematic theologians, for their part, have explored various aspects of sacramental and liturgical theology as the foundation of a full and fruitful exploration of trinitarian theology.

Many thinkers, Thomists especially, view the real distinction between being and essence as one of the most important topics in philosophy. It is certainly one of the most intriguing. The philosophical development of this doctrine has thus been amply dealt with by historians of philosophy. The extent to which William of Auvergne has contributed to such development has, however, been a matter of considerable disagreement. In fact, scholars differ radically in their interpretations of William's distinction between being and essence. In this article, I shall attempt to make as clear as possible William's understanding of the distinction between being and essence. Specifically, I shall try to answer the question of whether or not he holds a real distinction between being and essence. To do so, I shall look closely at certain texts of William that are relevant to the question. I shall also provide a brief account of some of the more important and representative commentaries on William's understanding of this distinction.

In the final decades of the fourteenth and first few years of the fifteenth centuries, scions of the second house of Anjou engaged in what can only be described as an obsession with the conquest of the “Kingdom of Naples and Sicily.” The story of this ultimately futile quest provides one of the more colorful chapters in late-medieval political history, cutting across national and religious boundaries in its recounting of transalpine invasions by massive armies, papal plot and counterplot, betrayal, and only momentary glory. For all the French money and lives lost in the enterprise, almost nothing remains today to remind the world of what happened in southern Italy at that time.

There are many still unstudied aspects of the cultural history of early Quattrocento Rome, especially if we consider the years before 1443, the date of the more or less permanent re-entry into the civitas aeterna of Pope Eugenius IV. The nexus between the still ephemeral papacy and the emerging intellectual movement of Italian Renaissance humanism is one of these aspects. It is hoped that this study will shed some light on this problem by presenting a document that has hitherto not been completely edited: the original will of Cardinal Giordano Orsini. As we shall see, this important witness to the fifteenth century provides valuable information on many fronts, even on the structure of the old basilica of Saint Peter. The short introduction is in three parts. The first has a discussion of the cardinal's cultural milieu with a focus on the only contemporary treatise specifically about curial culture, Lapo da Castiglionchio's De curiae commodis. The second part addresses the textual history of the will as well as some misconceptions which have surrounded it. The third part contains a discussion of the will itself, along with some preliminary observations about what can be learned from the critical edition of the text here presented for the first time.

L'ouvrage principal d'Eusèbe de Césarée narre l'histoire des trois premiers siècles de l'ère chrétienne, c'est-à -dire la période comprise entre l'Avènement du Christ et le triomphe de Constantin le Grand. Pourtant l'historien ecclésiastique ne manque pas de s'arrêter sur l'é poque préchrétienne allant d'Adam à l'Incarnation.

In the 1973 edition of Cassiodorus De anima, two sixteenth-century books containing this work were mentioned at second hand. Thanks to the collection of early printed editions at the Öffentliche Bibliothek der Universität Basel (ÖB), I can supply direct information on these books.

The insurrectionists of Gaul and Spain who were known as the Bacaudae/Bagaudae constitute one of the more intriguing yet obscure anti-Roman resistance movements of the later Roman Empire. Establishing the correct spelling and meaning of their name may help in identifying them. Many scholars have concluded that ‘Bagaudae' is the correct form because of its association with the Celtic root bág (fight) and the fact that the Bacaudae were ‘warriors' or ‘fighters' whom the Romans regarded as ‘rebels'. Here it will be argued that the form ‘Bacaudae' precedes the form ‘Bagaudae' and that all hypotheses about the Bacaudae based on G-form of their name must be revised.

In a recent article on the medieval dogma of transubstantiation, Gary Macy builds upon the works of Hans Jorissen and James F. McCue to question the validity of Jaroslav Pelikan's claim that “at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, the doctrine of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist achieved its definitive formulation in the dogma of transubstantiation.” Macy demonstrates that through most of the thirteenth century, the majority of theologians did not, in fact, consider Lateran IV's decree the final word on eucharistic theology. The debate over precisely how the real presence of Christ occurred in the eucharist was far from closed.