Language:
French
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
Revue des Sciences Religieuses
Angaben zur Quelle:
94, 2-4 (2020) 127-158
Keywords:
Cassiodorus,
;
Ambrose, Criticism and interpretation
;
Patriarchs (Bible) Early works to 1800
;
Christian literature, Early Latin authors
;
History and criticism
Abstract:
These last years, the following idea has been gaining ground: Ambrose’s works, under the form that has reached us, might be the result of some sort of retractatio, enacted between 395 and 397, on the part of the Bishop of Milan, both in relation with his life course and his literary work. Within this context, the opinion of Ambrose’s ancient publishers, according to which there might have existed a series of treatises entitled De patriarchis, has recently been taken up again. According to this hypothesis, Ambrose may have collected, revising them and relating them to each other, the works that he had devoted to the most eminent figures of the Old Testament. The present study reexamines once again this vexata quaestio, by analysing the foundational elements in favour of the existence of this series, namely a testimony from Cassiodorus in his Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum, the preambles to Ambrose’s works on the Patriarchs, notably the preamble to the De Ioseph, and the title libri qui inscribuntur de patriarchis found on a sheaf of manuscripts containing Ambrose’s works. After analysing the elements concerning the supposed series of treatises on the Patriarchs, it appears in the end that there is nothing leading us in the direction of the hypothesis that Ambrose revised his writings on the Patriarchs with the purpose of publishing them in the form of a unified collection.
Note:
With an English summary.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
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