Quodvultdeus’ sermons on the creed: A reassessment of his polemics against the Jews, pagans, and Arians

The turn of the 4th and 5th century is very often portrayed as an era of significant advancement for orthodox Christianity (where orthodoxy refers to the right doctrine rather than to our times’ Orthodox Churches). The legislation of Theodosius set the Christianity confessed by Peter as the privileged belief of the Roman people and its Emperors1.The life of Jews started to be regulated in relation to Christians. The efforts of the pagan nobility in Rome under the leadership of Symmachus and Praetextatus in the 380s were brought to an end by Theodosius’ victory at the river Frigidus in 3962. Indeed, Arianism seemed to have been defeated at the councils of Constantinople and Aquileia in 381. Still, it is quite clear that Arianism and other heretical doctrines survived through the 5th century, as the many polemical writings of Augustine bear witness to3. A group of pseudo-Augustinian sermons attributed to the Bishop of Carthage, Quodvultdeus, and composed towards the end of the 430s attests to the continuing polemics against Jews, pagans, and especially Arians4. Quodvultdeus is an excellent witness to the first generation of post-Augustinian theologians and pastors. He asked Augustine to write De haeresibus, which is a handbook