Le présent ouvrage livre la première édition et la première traduction de l’ensemble des chaînes aux Proverbes recensées pour les Chapitres 1 à 3 ; 8, 22-36 ; 30, 15-33 et 31, 10-31 des Proverbes. Les résultats de cette recherche permettent de considérer sous un jour nouveau la mouvance observée entre les différentes traditions caténaires. L’apport d’un manuscrit jusqu’ici négligé, le Bodleianus Barocci 195, permet de démêler l’écheveau de textes amalgamés, non délimités, souvent anonymes et parfois fautivement attribués par les caténistes ou les critiques. Il permet de retrouver un état de texte long et articulé, sous la forme d’un commentaire continu, de l’exégèse de Didyme aux Proverbes, quand les autres traditions ont eu tendance à la pulvériser sous la forme d’une multitude de scholies. Le commentaire qui accompagne cette édition repense à la fois les rapports entre les différentes formes de textes et le rapport de ces textes aux textes d’auteurs, jusqu’à redéfinir les contours d’un genre généralement conçu de façon trop monolithique : la chaîne exégétique. Outre les fragments nouveaux qu’il porte à la connaissance du public, le présent ouvrage se propose de reconstruire, sur la base de l’échantillon considéré, la personnalité herméneutique et littéraire d’auteurs qui ne sont pas conservés, pour les commentaires aux Proverbes, autrement que par cette forme de littérature secondaire : Didyme d’Alexandrie au premier chef, mais aussi Hippolyte et Origène. La mise en regard des traditions caténaires donne un riche aperçu de la réception patristique du premier des trois livres bibliques attribués au Roi Salomon. / The present work gives the first edition and first translation of all the catenae on the Proverbs known to these days, for parts commenting on Chapters 1 to 3 ; 8, 22-36 ; 30, 15-33 and 31, 10-31. The results of my inquiry allow to give a new signification to the mobility between the different traditions. The rediscovery of a neglected witness, the Bodleianus Barocci 195, brings some new light on texts amalgamated, without clear delimitation, often anonymous, and sometimes wrongly ascribed to antique writers by compilers or modern critics. It allows to have access to an extended and more articulated state of text for Didymus’ work on the Proverbs: a running commentary, not membra disjecta. The analysis in a separate volume rethinks the links between the different forms of texts and those between the catenary texts and the original texts. It renews our understanding of a too strictly defined genre: the exegetical catena. In addition to new fragments edited for the first time, the present work tries to rebuild the exegetic and literary personality of authors whose commentaries on the Proverbs are not preserved out of this form of secondary literature: Didymus of Alexandria first, but also Hippolytus and Origen. The parallel established between the various catenary traditions gives a rich insight into the Patristic reception of the first of the three biblical books ascribed to King Salomon.

This thesis seeks to answer the question of the origin of some of the most fundamental additions made to early Christian baptism. Christian baptism began in a relatively simple liturgical form, but became, by the fourth century, a much more dramatic set of initiation rituals. Among the added elements to baptism were washing ceremonies in the nude, physical anointing with oil, being marked or signed with the cross on the forehead, and receiving white garments. Scholars have proposed different theories as to the origins of these baptismal rituals. Some claim the elements existed in the New Testament practice of the rite. Others have supposed that the Christian church adopted the elements from either the Jewish synagogue or from contemporary pagan modes of initiation. This thesis argues that the initiation rituals of the Israelite tabernacle and temple provide a much more likely source for the added elements of Christian baptism. The esoteric practices of the temple priests became the esoteric tradition of early Christianity. The rites of this temple-oriented esoteric tradition in both the Old and New Testaments parallel, and may have been the origin for, the evolutions made to Christian baptism during the third and fourth centuries of the church. Christian groups such as the Valentinians provide evidence of higher esoteric rites being interpreted as baptism. Somehow the esoteric rites of the Israelite temple and the esoteric rites of early Christianity were adopted into the practice of Christian baptism.