Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum

Peu avant d’accéder à l’épiscopat d’Hippone, en l’année 395/96, Augustin entreprend un projet ambitieux de commentaire sur les épîtres de saint Paul. Après un commentaire succinct sur Galates, et un livre de «　Questions　» sur Romains, il entame un commentaire à grande échelle sur Romains, qui devait rivaliser, voire surpasser, tout autre commentaire scripturaire jusqu’alors produit par l’Eglise latine. Cependant, comme il l’admet lui-même, il se décourage devant l’ampleur de la tâche, et abandonne son travail n’ayant commenté que le premier paragraphe de Romains. Néanmoins, il décide que ce qu’il a écrit mérite d’être conservé, et donne à son texte le nom d’Epistulae ad Romanos inchoata expositio («　Commencement de commentaire sur l’épître aux Romains　»).

Malgré sa brièveté, cette Inchoata expositio révèle toute la sagesse et l’imagination d’Augustin lecteur des Écritures, et comporte dans sa partie finale un riche exposé sur la nature du blasphème contre l’Esprit Saint, qui serait, selon l’Évangile, le péché impardonnable.

Ce livre fournit une nouvelle édition critique de l’Inchoata expositio, accompagnée d’une traduction française et d’un commentaire détaillé sur les aspects littéraires, historiques et théologiques de ce texte-clé pour le développement de la pensée exégétique d’Augustin.

This compendium compiles the latest research findings on the patristic literature of Late Antiquity, including questions surrounding editorial methods and interpretive approaches, and also presents a previously unpublished and lost tractate from Late Antiquity. It contains essays on Tertullian, Fortunatianus of Aquileia, Ambrosius, Prudentius, Augustine, Hieronymus, Eucherius, Gregor of Nazianzus, as well as monastic texts.

This volume includes papers presented at the September 2015 international conference in Salzburg entitled "Forunatianus Redivivus," which focused on the commentary on the gospels by Bishop Forunatianus of Acuileia, first discovered in 2012. To supplement the first edition (CSEL 103), these papers examine this major "new" text, so extraordinarily important for patristics, from the perspectives of philology, theology, and historiography.

With his Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Hieronymus became the most influential interpreter of this Biblical book until the early modern era. For the first time, this volume offers a German translation and continuous commentary on Hieronymus’s interpretations from the perspective of biblical scholarship. An extensive introduction to the topic and a revised Latin text complete the volume.

In 2012, Lukas Dorfbauer identified a manuscript in Cologne Cathedral Library as a copy of the Commentary on the Gospels by Fortunatianus, bishop of Aquileia in the middle of the fourth century. This discovery enabled him to identify further witnesses to the commentary and works dependent on it. Dorfbauer's critical edition, to be published in the CSEL series in 2017, makes this work available to scholarship for the first time in over a millennium.

The discovery of a new work from late antiquity is always a landmark in the history of research. This extensive commentary shines new light on fourth-century biblical interpretation and the exegetical practices and literary work of an African bishop ministering in north Italy in this period. What is more, it appears to be dependent on works by Origen and Victorinus of Poetovio which are no longer preserved.

In order to make this important work available to a wider audience, Dr Houghton has prepared an English translation and introduction in conjunction with the COMPAUL project on the earliest commentaries on the New Testament as sources for the biblical text.

CSEL 109 is the first critical edition of the five books of Vigilius of Thapsus’ Contra Eutychetem based on all known codices. Composed in the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon, the books deal with the refutation of the Monophysite heresy and the defence of Chalcedonism. The introduction presents the stemmatic classification of the manuscripts, discusses linguistic peculiarities and explains the reasons for textual decisions.

This volume is the first to present a critical edition of the recently discovered Latin translation of the sermons by the "Pseudo-Makarios." It has been preserved in a manuscript from the sixth century, which was overwritten with a text of Horace's poems several centuries later. Specialized imaging techniques and image processing technology have made it possible to decipher most of the original text, of which sixteen sheets have survived.

CSEL 107, the second part of the critical edition of Ambrose’s Orationes funebres, contains the two speeches that Ambrose held when his brother Satyrus died: the first he gave at the funeral, the second seven days afterward as an extensive treatise on resurrection. Alongside the issue of the work titles, the introduction to the edited text deals above all with how they have been passed down as manuscripts.

This edition presents Ambrose’s eulogies for the emperors Valentinian II and Theodosius I, taking into account the full scope of their transmission. In a number of codices, the interpretation of Psalm 61 (the last text in the Explanatio psalmorum XII, ed. M. Petschenig) has been transmitted together with the two "emperor speeches" as De obitu Gratiani. This volume thus also provides a new edition of this text with an extensive introduction.

This volume includes the first critical edition of two of Augustine’s most important writings on the theology of grace, De gratia et libero arbitrio and De praedestinatione sanctorum libri duo. It also contains De dono perseverantiae, presented and edited as a second book in accordance with the extant manuscript. A detailed preface describes the historical tradition and explains the most important textual decisions.

More than 500 bishops were invited to attend a trial in Carthage in 411 that terminated the 100-year-old Donatist schism. The extensive records of the trial, which are largely preserved, provide valuable insight into church history. They are presented here in a critical edition, together with two texts by Augustine that summarize the events of the trial.

This volume contains the first edition of the commentaries on the gospels by Bishop Fortunatianus of Aquileia (mid-4^th century). This work, which was only discovered in the form of an almost complete manuscript in 2012, is the oldest preserved commentary on the gospels from Latin antiquity, and therefore of extraordinary significance for patristics. The critical edition of the text includes a detailed introduction.

Modern scholars have neglected some of the sermons of Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) because they considered them inauthentic. This volume argues in favor of the authenticity of more than ten of these sermons, and for the first time, presents them in a critical edition. In addition, several sermons previously known to be authentic are presented for the first time in a complete version.

This volume of the CSEL presents the first critical edition of Prosper of Aquitaine’s Liber epigrammatum, edited by A. Horsting. From his position at the side of Pope Leo, Prosper composed a poetical synthesis of Augustine’s vast œuvre, writing poems inspired by maxims he had excerpted from his works. The epigrams were a guide to Augustine that was both authoritative and pleasant to read. His synthesis became an essential part of the school curriculum from the days of Charlemagne to those of Louis XIV, serving as the first and most universal interpretative scheme for Augustine’s theology for generations of students. The poems, though little known and studied today, were widely read throughout the Middle Ages, in the debates of the Reformation over the nature of predestination and grace, and again in the controversies over the teachings of Port Royal.
This popular text is preserved in more than 180 manuscripts. In order to establish the text, those manuscripts fragments copied before the twelfth century have been used, a group amounting to around forty textual witnesses. This volume fills a major desideratum in the field of Christian Latin poetry and will be of interest to philologists, theologians, and historians of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

This volume presents a critical edition of two Latin monastic texts from late antiquity along with a scholarly introduction. The Regula Donati and the anonymous Fragmentum Regulae were both designed for nunneries. Donat’s rules in particular transmit a complex tradition of early monastic rules.

As part of the first critical edition of Augustine’s commentary on the Psalms, the edition of Expositions on Psalms 101–150 was developed in collaboration between the CSEL and the Istituto Patristico Augustinianum (Rome). This volume completes the sub-project, developed by Franco Gori together with Angelo De Nicola.

Volume 3 of the media quinquagena of Augustine's Enarrationes in psalmos includes the interpretations of Psalms 71-80. Some are based on co-stenographed sermons, others Augustine added later. The introduction provides information about the manuscript tradition and Augustine's handling of the Psalter text. Each enarratio is accompanied by information on dating, localization, scripture readings, and the reconstructed wording of the psalm.

Augustine’s commentaries on Psalm 61-70 are mostly based on sermons. In this edition, a special emphasis was laid on the adequate presentation of Augustine’s expressive and nuanced oral style. Each Enarratio is accompanied by an introduction, in which the known facts on time, date and liturgical circumstances are presented, as well as a precisely reconstructed version of the text of Augustine’s Psalter(s).