Re-editing “The Correspondence of Peter III Mongus, Patriarch of Alexandria, and Acacius. Patriarch of Constantinople” (Codex Vatican Copt. 62, ff. 62r–89r). A preliminary report (original) (raw)
Related papers
Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum – Journal of Ancient Christianity 16 (2012) 181-225
The present article offers the edition, accompanied by an English translation, of a Coptic homily on the Cross and the Good Thief (CPG 2622; clavis coptica 0395) attributed to Theophilus of Alexandria. The edition is based on the Pierpont Morgan codex M595, ff. 141ro-148ro, a 9th century parchment codex, which belonged to the Monastery of the Archangel Michael, situated near Hamuli in the Fayyum oasis. The critical apparatus records the variant readings of the three other surviving manuscripts of Ps.-Theophilus’ sermon. The introduction contains the description of the manuscripts, as well as a commentary which links the sermon on the Cross and the Good Thief by Ps.-Theophilus to the Patristic exegetical tradition. Literary connections between the long hymn to the Cross, which appears in the text edited here, and similar material in the pseudo-Chrysostomic work In venerabilem crucem sermo (CPG 4525) are also pointed out.
The "Apostolic Fathers" in Coptic: Problems and Overview
I. Miroshnikov (ed.), Parabiblica Coptica (Parabiblica 3; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023), 103-26.
The collection conventionally referred to as the "Apostolic Fathers" (henceforth AF) is notoriously a modern construct 2 that has built-in modern ideological presuppositions that are only rarely addressed. 3 The latest introduction to AF describes it as "a para-apostolic and post-apostolic corpus of writings, a group of texts composed beside and after the New Testament," 4 projecting in a sense today's notion of New Testament on a time prior to the formation of a neo-testamentary canon. The various scholarly definitions of the corpus normally focalize three interrelated elements: their ancestry, their elusive connection to the apostles, and their perceived orthodoxy (in "proximity" with the New Testament and in contradistinction with the early and late antique Christian writings that may have seemed "suspect" in any way in modern scholarship). In different ways, all are problematic and insufficient criteria and cannot be fulfilled entirely or similarly for all AF texts. Consequently, much like virtually any current understanding of the designation "apocryphal literature," AF as a corpus is the result of modern publishing practices and conventions. With regard to what is included in such collections, the Loeb Classical Library volumes of 2003, edited by Bart Ehrman, contain eleven writings: 1 Clement, 2 Clement, the Epistles of Ignatius, the Epistle of Polycarp, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Didache, the Epis-1 This research was carried out with the support of a Fritz Thyssen Stiftung Project Grant (Ref. 10.20.1.028TR), currently based in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at KU Leuven, and of an FRS Postdoctoral Mandate at the Institut des civilisations, arts et lettres of UCLouvain (2020/2021), and was completed during my stay as a Visiting Scholar at Wolfson College, Oxford, supported by a grant for a long stay abroad from the FWO (Research Foundation-Flanders). I am also grateful to Ivan Miroshnikov for inviting me to contribute to the volume and for his useful comments on successive drafts of this chapter. 2 See Clare K. Rothschild, "On the Invention of Patres Apostolici," in her New Essays on the Apostolic Fathers,
Journal of Theological Studies, 2022
WITH a few exceptions, this is an excellent addition to the Cambridge Companions series, which according to the website furnishes 'authoritative guides, written by leading experts, offering lively, accessible introductions to major writers, artists, philosophers, topics, and periods'. Accordingly, the volume does not intend to break new ground, but to orient readers to the Apostolic Fathers. It is divided into two parts. Following an introduction, the first nine chapters present focused essays on themes relating to the corpus as a whole, a strength of the collection not found in earlier introductions (S. Tugwell, The Apostolic Fathers [1989]; M. G€ unther, Einleitung in die Apostolisichen V€ ater [1997]; C. Jefford, The Apostolic Fathers: An Essential Guide [2005]; P. Foster [ed.], The Apostolic Fathers [2007]; W. Pratcher [ed.], The Apostolic Fathers [2010]), and an advance over R. Grant's cursory discussion of a few of the same themes (The Apostolic Fathers [1964]). Chapters 9-17 are dedicated to each of the texts. 1 and 2 Clement are discussed together, as are Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians and the Martyrdom of Polycarp, and the Epistle of Diognetus and the Fragment of Quadratus; Papias's fragments are also given a chapter. The decision to group the first two pairs, perhaps based on economy of scale, is an unfortunate one: apart from the names, 1 and 2 Clement and Polycarp's letter and the Martyrdom are unrelated. The introduction by Scott Harrower which orients readers to the Apostolic Fathers would have been strengthened by a discussion of what occasioned the creation of the collection in the seventeenth century (Clare Rothschild deftly reconstructs that background in 'On the Invention of the Patres Apostolici', New Essays on the Apostolic Fathers [T€ ubingen, 2017], pp. 7-34). Even as Harrower agrees that the collection is an artificial one, he tacitly endorses the untenable position that first warranted its creation, that the corpus deserves to be treated as a special case because its authors knew one of the 12 apostles or knew people who did (p. 2). That can be said with confidence only of Polycarp and of Papias although his fragments were not included in the seventeenth-century collection. The first chapter, by Michael J. Swigel, 'The Roman Empire in the Era of the Apostolic Fathers', offers a superficial overview of
This article offers the first edition of the fragments of the lost Church History of a certain Philo. We argue that it is, most likely, a fourth-century work by the homonymous bishop of Carpasia, on the island of Cyprus. The two extant fragments both derive from works ascribed to Anastasius of Sinai (7 th century), of which at least one, so we demonstrate, must be ascribed to Anastasius of Antioch (second half of the 6 th century). The fragments report anecdotes about the persecutions of Diocletian, and we suggest that they should be understood against the background of discussions about episcopal authority current in the last quarter of the fourth century. If these anecdotes have no historical value, the Church History of Philo is important for our understanding of the genre of ecclesiastical history: Philo was one of the earliest successors of Eusebius but clearly did not consider his own work as a continuation of the latter. In fact, only in the fifth century, after Rufinus' Latin translation and continuation of Eusebius' Church history, does the Eusebian format appear to have found wider acceptance. We first offer a general discussion of the work, followed by an edition of the fragments with translation and brief commentary.