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The Patriarchate of Antioch: A Revision of Le Quien and the Notitia Antiochena

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Ernest Honigmann
Ernest Honigmann*
Affiliation:
École Libre des Houies Études, New York
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Extract

Msgr. Devreesse, well known to every Church historian for his successful researches on Theodore of Mopsuestia, on Greek catenae and other subjects, reveals in a recent publication his mastery in a field in which he had previously published only various minor essays. By its rich documentation and lucid presentation the new work, a historical and geographical description of the Patriarchate of Antioch, will remain for a long time the standard work on the subject. Based upon a scrupulous and intelligent investigation of the original sources and the author's perfect familiarity with all problems related in any way to the topic, his work deserves the admiration and appreciation of all who are interested in the history and institutions of the Ancient Church. My own studies in the same field, pursued during some twenty-five years, perhaps enable me to recognize more than many other critics the extraordinary qualities of Devreesse's work—a fact which I want to stress all the more as in the following I shall mention many details about which I cannot agree with the author; for my objections and additions could easily be misinterpreted as a sign that I underrate the incontestable merits of the work as a whole.

Type
Articles
Information
Traditio , Volume 5 , 1947 , pp. 135 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © 1947 by Cosmopolitan Science & Art Service Co., Inc. 

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References

1 Robert Devreesse: Le Patriarcat d'Antioche depuis la paix de l’église jusqu'à la conquête arabe (Études Palestiniennes et Orientales, Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, J. Gabalda et Cie, Éditeurs, 1945) xix, 340 pp. in-8°.Google Scholar

2 Zach. Rhet. VI 7 (CSCO, Scr. Syri III 5, 1526[1027]. With book VII begins the continuation by an anonymous author.Google Scholar

3 E.g. ‘Lucianus of Heliopolis’ in the Martyrologium Syriacum should be corrected, ‘Helenopolis’ (PO 10, 1110; cf. Acta Sanct. Nov. II 2, 29 ad Jan. 7, n. 3).Google Scholar

4 To all appearances this chapter was added in the last moment to the work, for otherwise the end of chapter IX would have been the appropriate place where the author could have ‘got rid’ of it (p. 310: ‘afin d'en finir avec elle’). Thus he might have spared himself all further references to the ‘forgery’.Google Scholar

5 Of course the author is not only well aware of these facts, but even expressly points to them. Yet he presents his list as a model of what we should expect a ‘genuine Not. Ant.’ to look like.Google Scholar

6 The bishop of Heraclea was metropolitan of ‘Europa’, the province in which Constantinople was situated, the bishop of Caesarea metropolitan of Palaestina I, the province to which Jerusalem belonged. In Egypt, ecclesiastical metropolitans did not exist in antiquity. Concerning the pope's metropolitan jurisdiction over the ecclesiae suburbicariae see Fliche, and Martin, , Histoire de l’Église 5 (1938) 39–40; Mommsen, , Gesammelte Schr. 5, 187 sq.Google Scholar

7 In the catalogue of 83 Syriac (and 21 Arabic) MSS conserved in the library of the Chaldaean bishopric of Mardin, published by Scher, Addai, Revue des bibliothèques 1908, pp. 64–95, the Not. Ant. is not mentioned. Of the collections in Urfa and Der Za‘farän there exist no catalogues.Google Scholar

8 Add to the remarks on the list of the bishops of Antioch, p. 138 above: No. 20, Tyrannus (Devr. 115) cannot have ruled until 316, since Vitalis (No. 21) was bishop already in 314.—Add to the remarks on the bishopric of Chalcis, p. 143 above: In 342/3, Maris, not Thelafius (Devr. 164 n. 7) was bishop of Chalcedon (PWK s.v. Maris No. 4: about 325–363); cf. CSEL 65, 601–2 .Google Scholar