Noting how an hypothesis can turn into a truth simply by being repeated, this article examines carefully the basis for the date normally given for this sermon and the frailty of the textual tradition that is the basis for the Morin edition of this sermon. After a careful analysis of the factors that might help to date it, it is assigned an uncertain date. It remains, however, plausible to think that it was delivered ad mensam Cypriani. The analysis of the (...) transmission of this sermon includes several new manuscripts, a new stemma and several general observations about its transmission. This article concludes with comments about the content and a new edition of the Latin text of the sermon. (shrink)

Published here is a critical edition of Augustine’s Sermons 293 and 299, the first edition since the Maurists. Sermon 293 was preached in Carthage on the 24th of June 413, feast of John the Baptist, at a time when infant baptism was a controversial question. Sermon 299 was delivered on the 29th of June, in honour of Peter and Paul : its manuscript transmission and thematic likeness with Sermon 293 suggest that it was preached, according to Pierre-Marie Hombert’s hypothesis, in (...) the same year in the same city, not five years later. Both texts, numbered among the longest of the De sanctis sermons, contradict Pelagian theses about the origin of death and the notion of human impeccability. (shrink)