Andrew Cain

Three Further Echoes of Lactantius in Jerome

Abstract Jerome was very familiar with the writings of Lactantius, yet strikingly few instances of his appropriation of specifically Lactantian phraseology have been brought to light. The present study adduces three new verbal echoes in three different writings to show that Jerome’s literary imitation of the North African Father was slightly more extensive than has hitherto been thought.

Rufinus’ Historia monachorum in Aegypto and the Promulgation of Evagrian Ascetic Teaching

Around 403 Rufinus composed his Historia monachorum in Aegypto, a Latin translation of Ἡ κατ’ Αἴγυπτον τῶν µοναχῶν ἱστορία (“Inquiry about the Monks of Egypt”). This Greek work, authored anonymously years earlier by one of the monks in his monastery on the Mount of Olives, chronicles the author’s months-long travels throughout Egypt, where he met notable monastic personalities and recorded for posterity their deeds and teachings. In rendering the Greek original into Latin Rufinus made certain amendments which point to possible reasons why he undertook this ambitious translation project. In this article I draw attention to amendments he made pertaining to the figure and teachings of Evagrius of Pontus and I argue that one of his principal authorial objectives was to promulgate and popularize the core principles of Evagrius’ ascetic mysticism among a western readership.

The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and Athanasius’ Life of Antony

Abstract This article examines possible literary sources underlying the Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto, which was composed anonymously in the last decade of the fourth century, and argues that the Life of Antony, which Athanasius had released some forty years earlier, exercised a demonstrable influence over it.

Jerome and the Monastic Clergy

In Jerome and the Monastic Clergy Andrew Cain provides the first full-scale commentary on Jeromes famous Letter to Nepotian along with an introduction, newly revised Latin text, and English translation

Gregory of Elvira, Lactantius, and the Reception of the De ira Dei

Gregory of Elvira’s indebtedness to the Latin patristic tradition has been copiously documented. However, until now no scholar has been able to prove that he worked from Lactantius. This article adduces two clear reminiscences of Lactantius in Gregory’s homilies, one of which is the only extended quotation from the De ira Dei to surface in all of Latin patristic literature.