A Latin Chrysostom Collection, the Semi-Pelagian Controversy, and Sixth-century Rome

What is it about?

Many late antique and medieval texts are anonymous or pseudoanonymous. We don’t know who actually wrote them. This often keeps them from being useful historical sources, but it can also pose an interesting challenge. Can we figure out their original author? This article attempts to determine the provenance and authorship of a collection of 31 late antique Latin sermons. It looks at a range of clues, such as links to saints lives, theological opinions, and textual borrowings. It argues that the author was writing in Rome during the last decades of the Ostrogothic kingdom in a milieu not far from the philosopher Boethius. The author was a strong minded sort, not afraid to call out Augustine or modify papal decretals to make a case for his non-Augustinian theology about free will.

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