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Tertullian's treatiseDe palliois the briefest and most difficult of the North African's works. Its purpose, ostensibly, is to advocate for a change in clothing from the toga to the pallium. This sartorial shift functions, in turn, as a metaphor for conversion to the philosophical life, which, at the end of the treatise, is revealed to be the Christian life. Towards the centre of the work, Tertullian turns to nature to support his argument, citing the example of five different animals. This essay analyses his description of the chameleon, arguing that it is a riddle: drawing on the natural historians, Tertullian paints a realistic picture of the small lizard, but at the same time, skews the description of these features to depict the philosopher. The purpose of this central sketch is to alert listeners to the nature of the speech as a guessing game, and to point to the complex identity of the speaker.

Ancient philosophers differed on whether grief was truly an emotion, based in cognitive assessment, or simply a sensation, linked to other pathologies of the body, but its undeniable intensity provoked continuing comment. Over the course of his career, John Chrysostom returned repeatedly to the topic of despondency, often describing it in strongly medical terms as either a symptom or a remedy for an underlying pathology. This essay explores the medical basis of this imagery and argues that these two quite different ways of characterizing grief are united by the preacher’s fundamentally ascetic orientation.

In January or February of 384c.e., the Christian pilgrim known to us as Egeria left Jerusalem, where she had been based, and headed east. According to her own account, she felt impelled by God to climb Mount Nebo. With her traveled “some holy men from Jerusalem, a presbyter and deacons, and several brothers (monks).” The trip, which took them through Jericho and Livias, went very well. Her guides were able to point out further local sites, and, after some instructive detours, they reached their goal. Mount Nebo was high and steep, but the group of pilgrims, now swollen in number by the addition of local monks, made the climb successfully. Close to the summit they found a church commemorating the site of Moses's death. After a short service consisting of readings from Scripture and prayers, the local holy men asked Egeria if she would like to see “the places which are described in the Books of Moses.” This proposal “delighted” her, and together they climbed up to the actual summit.

Among the Greek papyri in the John Rylands Library is a small, 5th century papyrus fragment, inscribed on both sides with non-continuous scriptural texts. Arthur S. Hunt, who catalogued this portion of the collection, described Papyrus Rylandensis 8 as a 'liturgical fragment' designed for 'private devotional purposes'. Several features of this papyrus, however, (its size, content, decoration, irregular orthography, use of nomina sacra, and possible fold pattern) suggest that it may have been an amulet designed for use by children. Although few such amulets have been securely identified, the writings of contemporary clerics attest to the widespread use of protective charms by Christians. Given that P.Ryl. 8 corresponds in many details to what we assume these amulets would have looked like, it should be reclassified as 'probably an amulet.'

The writings of John Chrysostom contain many references to excrement and other kinds of refuse. This study collates the information he offers on urban sanitation and examines his rhetorical use of the language of filth. This aversive language occurs primarily not in his fulminations against Jews or Jewish-Christian interaction, but in his attacks on traditional Greco-Roman practices. He mobilizes disgust in order to deter his congregation from pursuing or admiring elite behaviors. Defilement is for him a moral category, but the power of his rhetoric springs directly from the brutal facts of urban waste that he details.

Cet article veut faire avancer l'idee grandissante de la forte attraction exercee par les coutumes juives sur les communautes chretiennes des debuts du christianisme, en se centrant sur les commentaires de Tertullien sur le sang. Mais avant de chercher a savoir ce que Tertullien veut dire quand il parle du sang chretien comme d'une «semence», il passe en revue les interpretations juives sur le sang, surtout le sang de la circoncision.

L'A. s'interesse a la geographie des pelerinages chretiens en destination de la Terre Sainte : pour ce faire, il se fonde sur les recits de voyage laisses par les pelerins tout au long de l'histoire (a partir du IV e siecle). Il prend l'exemple du pelerin de Bordeaux en premiere partie. La seconde partie est consacree au recit d'Egeria (380 en Terre Sainte). Les recits de Jerome occupent la partie suivante. Apres l'examen d'un dernier temoignage l'A. tire des considerations generales pour conclure

Few themes so dominate the homilies of John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407 CE) as the plight of the poor and the necessity of almsgiving. His picture of the poor, however, is always set against the prosperous marketplace of late antiquity. It seems therefore scarcely surprising that his sermons on almsgiving resound with the language of investment. With such imagery, Chrysostom tried not only to prod wealthy Christians into acts of charity but also, and perhaps more importantly, to dislodge his rich parishioners from their conviction that an uncrossable social gulf separated them from the poor. The rhetorical strategy he used is typical of all his polemical attacks. On the one hand, he denigrated the pursuit of money and social status as fundamentally unattractive; it is both unchristian and unmasculine. On the other hand, he insisted that real wealth and lasting prestige should indeed be pursued, but more effectively through almsgiving. I shall first examine how Chrysostom effected this recalculation of wealth, and then I shall turn to the question of whether there may have been some advantage for him in pleading so eloquently on behalf the poor.