Titus 1,12: Epimenides, Ancient Christian Scholars, Zeus’s Death, and the Cretan Paradox

Many logicians and exegetes have read Titus 1,12 as an example of the Liar’s Paradox without paying sufficient attention to the nature of ancient oracular utterance. Instead of reading the verse as a logical puzzle, it should be read from its ancient context in the history of religions—a context of which ancient Christian scholars were aware. The Syriac scholars preserved a shocking Cretan tradition about Zeus’s death that probably goes back to Theodore of Mopsuestia. The god responsible for Epimenides’ oracle presumably rejected the Cretan tradition of Zeus’s death and tomb. The truth value of 1,12 consequently depends on the oracle and not the human being (i. e., Epimenides) who delivers the oracle. A reading sensitive to the history of religions preserves the Pauline author’s perspective in Titus 1,13: ἡ μαρτυρία αὕτη ἐστὶν ἀληθής. There is, consequently, a strong analogy between Caiaphas’s words in John 11:49–50 and those of Epimenides in Titus 1,12.

Circulation of St. Isaac of Nineveh’s Ascetical Homilies Outside the Church of the East. Part Two: Interpolation of Personal Names

Настоящая публикация является второй частью исследования, посвященного проблеме заимствования Первого собрания сочинений известного аскетического писателя Церкви Востока Исаака, епископа Ниневийского, христианами других конфессий. В данной части представлены результаты текстологического анализа разночтений имён авторитетных духовных писателей, цитируемых св. Исааком. Анализ был осуществлен по доступным автору сирийским манускриптам восточносирийского, западносирийского и сиро-халкидонского происхождения, которые в изначальном виде содержали полный текст Первого собрания св. Исаака Сирина, а также по греческому переводу и нескольким арабским рукописям. Задача исследования - восстановить историю филиации текста Первого собрания при пересечении конфессиональных границ. По результатам исследования удалось зафиксировать модификации текста во всех случаях употребления св. Исааком имён авторитетных для восточносирийской церковной традиции авторов: Диодора Тарсийского, Феодора Мопсуестийского и Евагрия Понтийского. При пересечении конфессиональных границ эти имена или относящиеся к ним эпитеты были заменены или пропущены с целью очищения исходного текста от нежелательных для переписчиков других конфессий элементов. При этом аутентичное чтение всегда засвидетельствовано списками восточносирийской редакции. В заключение автор исследования предлагает новую классификацию сирийских манускриптов, разделив их на четыре группы в зависимости от их происхождения и содержащихся в них чтений имён. В процессе исследования была установлена неизвестная доселе церковно-конфессиональная принадлежность нескольких манускриптов. Впервые удалось прояснить причины ряда текстуальных разночтений в восточносирийских списках, подвергшихся интерполяции со стороны сиро-ортодоксальных читателей. Isaac, bishop of Nineveh, belongs to the Church of the East’s most famous ascetic authors This three-part study explores the way how the First Part of his writings was adopted in other Syriac Christian communities. The second part analyzes variant readings of personal names of some important church figures in Isaac of Nineveh’s writings. Makarov uses all available Syriac manuscripts of East Syriac, West Syriac, and Chalcedonian Syriac origin, which initially contained the full text of the First Part, as well as its Greek and Arabic manuscripsts. Makarov seeks to reconstruct how the text changed as it crossed borders of different Christian communities. For that purpose, he explores variant readings of names of persons considered important in the Eastern Syriac tradition: Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Evagrius Ponticus. When Isaac’s writings were adopted in other Syriac Christian communities, the names or titles of those persons were intentionally removed or altered in order to purge the original text from the elements viewed as heterodox by the copyists and translators. In the East Syriac texts, however, the original reading is always preserved. Makarov proposes a new classification of the Syriac manuscripts based on their origin and on forms of personal names they contain. He also clarifies the origin of some previously unattributed manuscripts and explains variation in the East Syriac manuscripts, which, as he argued, is due to the later Jacobite readers.

THE SEMITIC SCHOOL OF CHRISTIAN PATRISTICS

The Jewish community of Antioch was not monolithic. Communities of different currents tended to gather separately. Apparently, some of them, having received the news of the coming of the Messiah from the apostles, became the first centers of Christianity in Antioch, providing the basis for the future theological school. Such Semitic features of Antiochian patristics as literalism, historicism, and a kind of mystical materialism provoked criticism from other schools. On the other hand, Aramaic-speaking Christians could rightly call the Hebrew-Aramaic Bible "our Scriptures." As heirs to Old Testament prophets and legislators, Syrian apologists addressed the "Greeks" in a paternal tone. Theophilus of Antioch and Theodore of Mopsuestia even show a direct dependence on the rabbinic tradition of interpretation.

The Minor Prophets and the Book of the Twelve in Late Eighteenth-Century through Early Twenty-First-Century Research

This essay traces and analyzes modern-critical scholarship on the Minor Prophets or Book of the Twelve Prophets from the late eighteenth century through the early twenty-first century. It differentiates between the Christian practice from the time of Jerome and Theodore of Mopsuestia that treated the Twelve as twelve individual Minor Prophets that were collected together and the Jewish practice of reading the Twelve as the Book of the Twelve Prophets. Early treatment of the Minor Prophets focuses especially on the early work of J. G. Eichhorn (1780–1783), W. M. L. de Wette (1817), F. Hitzig (1838), H. Ewald (1840–1841), and B. Duhm (1875, 1922). More modern treatment of the Book of the Twelve Prophets focuses especially on the work of K. Budde (1922), R. E. Wolfe (1935), D. Schneider (1979), O. H. Steck (1991, 1999), James D. Nogalski (1993, 2011), Jakob Wöhrle (2006, 2008), and the author (Sweeney 2000).

Whom do Angels Serve? The Teaching of John Philoponus on the Angelic World in the Context of the Christological Controversy of the Mid Sixth-century

В статье на материале трактата «О сотворении мира» («De opificio mundi») (557-560 гг.) рассматривается ангелология богослова и философа VI в. Иоанна Филопона. Проводится сравнение его учения об ангелах и учения Феодора Мопсуестийского; делается вывод о том, что ключевым расхождением между ними было понимание функции ангельского мира: если для антиохийцев ангел обращён к творению и человеку как его венцу, то для Иоанна Филопона - к Богу. Подвергается сомнению традиционное представление о том, что основным объектом критики Иоанна Филопона был трактат Космы Индикоплова «Христианская топография». Приводятся аргументы в пользу того, что трактат «О сотворении мира» следует рассматривать в русле полемики вокруг богословия Трёх глав 530-550-х гг. The paper uses the material of the treatise «On the creation of the world» («De opificio mundi») (AD 557-560) to examine the angelology of the sixth-century theologian and philosopher John Philoponus. A comparison is made between his teaching on angels and the teaching of Theodore of Mopsuestia; it is concluded that the key difference between them was the understanding of the function of the angelic world: whereas for the Antiochians the angel is addressed to creation and man as its crown, then for John Philoponus the angel is addressed to God. The traditional idea that the main object of criticism of John Philoponus was the treatise of Cosmas Indicopleustes «Christian Topography» is questioned. It is argued that the treatise «On the creation of the world» should be considered in the context of the Three-Chapter controversy which took place in the 530s-550s.

Transmitting Theodore to the Church of the East: The Contribution of Thomas of Edessa

Thomas of Edessa (d. c. 540), author of Explanations of the Nativity and of Epiphany, flourished as a teacher at the School of Nisibis in Sasanid Persia. By analysing his understanding of salvation history, exegesis and the idea of the human being as ‘bond of creation’, this article shows how Thomas took up and popularised concepts central to the theology of Theodore of Mopsuestia. The article posits that the Nisibene school theology of Thomas and others constituted – alongside liturgy, canonical decrees and biblical commentaries – one of the principal avenues by which Theodore's theology was transmitted to the Church of the East.