Paul Mattei, Les frontières de l'Église selon la première tradition africaine (Tertullien, Cyprien, Anonyme De rebaptismate), p. 27-47. - «Hors de l'Église pas de salut » : l'article montre que cette formule de Cyprien, promise à un long avenir, s'enracine dans une définition, au demeurant complexe et parcourue de tensions, de l'Église comme sacramentum unitatis. La comparaison avec Tertullien, lui aussi «excfusiviste», fait percevoir où se situent à cet égard, entre les deux théologiens, rupture et continuité. Une présentation du De (...) rebaptismate, œuvre contemporaine de Cyprien, manifeste la difficulté qu'il y avait, au IIIe siècle, en Afrique, malgré qu'on en eût, à rompre avec la conception cyprianique ; ce qu'Augustin, plus tard, devait réussir (il est vrai pour partie seulement, mais un pas était fait) dans sa confrontation avec les donatistes. (shrink)

The basic idea of the present work is this one: supposing the it is not naive nor anachronistic to read the situation psychologically, Ambrose never was a ‘mentor’ who used his friendship to dominate totally Gratian who would have been a weak character. The investigation considers almost the whole reign, in two parts: De fide ad Gratianum libri V. The Council of Aquileia. It aims to develop a more subtle understanding of: the image of each of the two protagonists, as (...) they mirror one another; the history of their links, shaped of course by the existence of powerful cliques at court and by the strict rules governing the relations between a bishop and an emperor; the notion, more broadly, of the progressive establishing of the Christian Empire. This, then, is a work of synthesis. Such an undertaking is timely, given the number, size and importance, of the studies on the subject. (shrink)

A critical review of the editio princeps of the Liber Timothei episcopi de Pascha recently published by Pierre Chambert-Protat and Camille Gerzaguet in the coll. Sources chrétiennes. The article questions the editors’ thesis, at length developed in the Introduction, that the text is only the Latin translation, also known by Gregorius of Elvira and St. Augustine, of a Greek treatise apparently due to one Timothy, bishop of Cybistra in Cappadocia during the first half of the IVth century. It tries to (...) show that this thesis, although not implausible, is not however as strong as its promoters imagine, and that several of their arguments are to be rejected or at least to be qualified. This discussion, which forms the main part of the article, is supplemented by two lists of proposed corrections: the first deals with the Latin text and the second, in an appendix, with its French translation. (shrink)