Éthique binaire et exégèse dans l’Homéliaire de Vienne

The paper explores the Homiliary of Vienne, a collection of sermons that has been claimed by the Donatist movement. The Viennese corpus has a total of 60 homilies, 21 of which was unpublished, while the others were already known from other collections. The main challenge is to establish the coherence of the unpublished corpus and the possibility of variants compared to texts transmitted by other tradition. The author highlights significant divergences in the only sermon available, at the time of writing, in double edition (sermon 39), noting differences both stylistically and theologically. In general, the group of 22 "unpublished" homilies is strongly influenced by moral rigorism, manifested through marked rhetoric and particular stylistic structures such as accumulations and antitheses. The ethic suggested by the texts is binary and retributive: obedience-reward, disobedience-punishment. This scheme is applied consistently concerning both the Old and New Testaments. The analysis of the sermons thus shows affinities with Donatism, but also differences. Although common themes appear, such as the persecution of the righteous and the separation from sinners, the polemical intensity is lower here, while God's mercy and the possibility of redemption are emphasized. In conclusion, the article raises serious doubts about the claim of the entire corpus to the Donatist movement and refutes the traditional dating based on the presence of a passage that would refer to the Pelagian controversy, a passage that could have been added later by a copyist.