The ‘Cervuli’ and ‘Anniculae’ in Caesarius of Arles

Two passages in the sermons of Bishop Caesarius of Arles († 542) have aroused the special interest of philologists and students of the history of religion alike. The first passage is found in the concluding section of a sermon in which the bishop scathingly criticizes some superstitions and heathen customs which, to all appearances, were still rife among the common people of his day.</jats:p

The ‘Malleus’ Metaphor in Medieval Characterization

The metaphor of St. Augustine as a hammer against the heretics occurs twice in the writings of John Capgrave, the learned English Augustinian friar of the fifteenth century. In his Life of St. Augustine which, in substance, is a free translation of Jordan of Saxony's Vita S. Augustini into English, Capgrave devotes chapter 40 in its entirety to the relentless war St. Augustine waged against the Donatists, Manichaeans, and Pelagians, and it is in this connection that he calls the Saint ‘an hard hambyr', euyr knokkyng up-on hem.’ Again, in his Chronicle of England, speaking of the Priscillianists and Pelagians, he says that ‘these heresies were beten and knokked be the myty hambir of God, whech was called Augustine.’</jats:p

The ‘Vita Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi’ in COD. Laurent. PLUT. 90 SUP. 48

In 1955, Professor Eric Colledge of the University of Liverpool called our attention to hagiographical and historical material relating to the Order of the Augustinian Hermits, found in Cod. Plut. 90 sup. 48 of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence. The hagiographical section is headed by an anonymous Life of St. Augustine which, for its structure and the methods of its composition, offers a striking example of the genre of medieval hagio- graphy. We shall first give a general analysis of the MS and its contents, and then discuss the Vita Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi in detail.</jats:p

Fasting and Prophecy in Pagan and Christian Antiquity

Fasting as a religious practice is a world-wide phenomenon, and can be found in the religions of almost all the peoples on earth. It cannot be traced back to one common motive. Nor did it come into existence within one single people or religion, and spread from there to the rest of mankind, but it sprang up independently among completely different peoples and religions. Of course, as has happened in every field of cultural life, transmissions of individual practices of fasting from one people to another, from one religion to another, took place.</jats:p

The Question of the Authorship of the ‘Milleloquium Veritatis S. Augustini’

The Augustinian friar Bartholomew of Urbino, as he is usually called after the town of his birth where he served as bishop during the last three years of his life (1347–1350), is best known for his still valuable Milleloquium veritatis S. Augustini. This monumental concordance contains some fifteen thousand excerpts from the writings of St. Augustine, grouped under about one thousand alphabetically arranged key words (for instance, abstinentia, ecclesia, fides, haeresis, iustitia, lex, praedestinatio, etc.) illustrating Augustine's doctrines on these topics. The work, for which Bartholomew's friend Petrarch furnished two poetical embellishments in the form of as many alternate sets of verses, was a success. Bearing witness to its wide diffusion and appreciation are over thirty MSS still extant in northern and central Europe (Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, The Netherlands, and Poland), and about the same number in French, English, Italian, and Spanish libraries. It also went through five printings: Lyons 1555; Paris 1645, 1649, and 1672; Brescia 1734.</jats:p