Origeniana Undecima. Origen and Origenism in the History of Western Thought. Papers of the 11th International Origen Congress, Aarhus 2013, ed. Anders-Christian Jacobsen (Bibli-otheca Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium 279), Leuven / Paris / Bristol, CT 2016: Peeters, 2016, 525-543, 2016
In the year 414 Orosius from Spain travelled to North Africa to visit Augustine. In this context ... more In the year 414 Orosius from Spain travelled to North Africa to visit Augustine. In this context he delivered his Commonitorium ad Augustinum de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum and requested an answer from him to reaffirm orthodoxy in Spain.The paper focusses on the presentation of the errors of Origen in these two texts. Besides she considers the historical background and the relationship of these events to the so-called first Origenist controversy. It is still a matter of dispute what Augustine knew at which point of time about this controversy, and it can be called into question if Orosius from Spain was able to inform Augustine about the details of this controversy. Because of this it is far from clear whether and how this Origenist controversy influenced the presentation of wrong ideas of Origen in the Commonitorium of Orosius and in the answer of Augustine.
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Papers by Uta Heil
This volume presents various versions of the Letter from Heaven, as well as other texts (the pseudepigraphic Acts of the Synod of Caesarea; pseudepigraphic sermons of Eusebius of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, and Basil of Caesarea; passages from the Didascalia or Diataxis of Jesus Christ; the Second Apocryphal Apocalypse of John; the Visio Pauli; a sermon of Sophronius of Jerusalem; and the Apocalypse of Anastasia), together with a translation and commentary. An introduction tells the story of this letter and integrates it and the other texts into the cultural history of Sunday. It becomes clear that Sunday as a day of rest and a feast day was not in the foreground of the development of an ecclesiastical festival calendar for a long time, although Emperor Constantine enacted a law on holiday rest on Sunday in 321 CE. Sunday, rather, marks the end of the Christianization of time and the calendar, when Easter, Pentecost, Christmas, and martyrs' feasts were already taken for granted. The authors of these texts obviously wanted to accelerate , which is why an anonymous person even resorted to presenting Christ himself as the author of this letter. Here, severe punishments are threatened to all who do not observe Sunday, who work as if it were a weekday, and who skip worship. The broad tradition shows that the letter was read and distributed despite all the criticism, and was even turned into an early form of a chain letter.