The “Catholic” Church in Socrates of Constantinople and Pacian of Barcelona

While this article does not presume to answer the old question “Was Socrates of Constantinople a Novatian?”, it does offer a hitherto-unnoticed observation that may bear on the question. Socrates, as has been noted, is very reticent to use the term “catholic” in describing the church in his Historia ecclesiastica. This is unlikely to be a stylistic quirk, as a comparison to the history of Sozomen shows. No one yet has connected his reticence to the Novatian Sympronian, who objects to the same term on theological grounds in letters exchanged with Pacian of Barcelona. Given Socrates’ reluctance to use the term and a(nother) Novatian’s rejection of the same term, we may well have more evidence suggesting that Socrates was at the very least sympathetic not only to Novatians as a community but to their theological positions as well. In any case, the resistance of both Sympronian and Socrates to the notion of a “catholic” church stands in contrast to the usual interpretation of late antiquity as a period of growing universalism. The article also discusses whether it is even valid to ask whether Socrates was a Novatian or whether this question falls into less useful confessional dichotomies.

A Pontic Ophir: A Proposed Emendation to Gregory of Nazianzus’s Epistle 4 on Basil’s Monastery

Gregory of Nazianzus’s Ep. 4 to Basil features a hapax that has given pause to readers Byzantine and modern alike. A conjecture is proposed that restores sense to the passage and in such a way that it engages with Basil’s own letter.

The Catena Manuscripts on Acts: A Revised Classification

Earlier scholarship faced a number of limitations in classifying catena manuscripts on the Acts of the Apostles. This study makes a comparison of exegetical scholia in selected text passages (Acts 2:1–16, 8:9–25, 28:19–31) in order to determine the different types of catena and how they relate to each other. This survey reveals the diversity of the tradition: some manuscripts are merely copies, which repeat the same text with only small variations, but others are unique and cannot be directly identified with a particular catena type. It is therefore necessary to expand the classification of catenae on Acts in the Clavis Patrum Graecorum so as to mark subdivisions within the individual types.

A Latin Pictorial Witness to Tatian’s Diatessaron

This study explores the content correlation of two important and well-known early gospel harmonies for the first time – a visual harmony and a textual harmony – that originated within the Roman Empire in the Latin west and the Syriac east some 400 years apart during Late Antiquity. Based on in-depth comparative analyses summarized in tables and diagrams, it identifies four distinctly diatessaronic patterns in the painting that do not accord with any one of the canonical gospels, nor any other possible combination of them, but follow instead the unique construction of the Diatessaron as documented by its Arabic Christian witness. In light of contemporaneous Latin and Syriac evidence about the liturgical rites of pedilavium and eucharist during the Holy Week, this study also contextualizes the choice of the focal vignettes in the painting.

The Trinitarian Doctrine of Isidore of Pelusium

The correspondence of Isidore of Pelusium (360–435/440?), which consists of approximately two thousand letters, deals to a considerable extent with spiritual teachings and biblical exegesis and to a lesser degree with theological subjects. This article focuses specifically on Isidore’s Trinitarian doctrine and aims to bring to light its sources. The examination of the predominant anti-Arian and anti-Neo-Arian arguments and of the biblical passages Isidore deployed to support his doctrinal points illustrates two aspects of interest: on the one hand, it reveals Isidore as a derivative representative of Neo-Nicene orthodoxy acquainted with different anti-Anomoean works; on the other hand, it confirms the well-established view that Isidore was a resourceful and cultivated exegete.