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Josef Lossl
Julian von Aeclanum: Studien zu seinem Leben, seinem Werk, seiner Lehre and ihrer Uberlieferung
Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 60
Leiden: Brill, 2001
Pp. xvi + 406. $112.
Comprehensive is perhaps the best word to describe L6ssl's detailed and welldocumented study of the life, work, and teaching of Julian of Eclanum. With the most recent monographs about Julian being the books by Albert Bruckner (1897) on Julian's role in the Pelagian controversy, Alberto Vaccari (1915) on Julian's commentary on Job, and Gilbert Bouwman (1958) on Julian's commentary on the minor prophets, this Habilitationschrift (Munster, 2001) fills a long standing chasm in research on Julian.
After introducing the reader to the present state of the research in his first chapter, Lossl dedicates chapters 2 and 3 to biographical data on Julian including the place and date of his birth, his family background and youth, and his marriage. A major source of information is the Epithalamium (Carmen 25) written by Paulinus of Nola for Julian and his wife, Titia, on the occasion of their marriage.
The major issue in chapter 4 is the tension between voluntarism and determinism in the thought of Julian. Lossl sides with both Bruckner and Franqois Refoule in finding an Aristotelian rather than Stoic influence...