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Manuel II Palaeologus as theologian

With Manuel II Palaeologus' Opera theologica (De processione Spiritus Sancti, De ordine in Trinitate, and Epistula ad Alexium Iagoup), Charalambos Dendrinos adds an impressive new chapter to the Corpus Christianorum. Series Graeca (volume 71).

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The volume comprises the editio princeps of the treatise On the Procession of the Holy Spirit by the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus (1391-1425). The lengthy treatise was written in response to the tract of an anonymous Latin monk, presented to the Emperor during his sojourn in Paris (1400-1402). Information in the text and palaeographical evidence in the earlier version (Vat. gr. 1107) suggest that though the major part of the treatise was written in Paris, Manuel continued revising the text after his return to Constantinople, with the help of his fellow theologian Macarius Macres. The edition is based on the revised version (Barb. gr. 219) copied by an anonymous scribe belonging to Manuel's circle. The treatise comprises a brief Preface by the Emperor, a précis of the syllogism put forward by the Latin in defense of the dual procession of the Holy Spirit, and Manuel's refutation of the Latin arguments in 156 chapters, followed by the unpublished discourse On the Order in the Trinity. The volume also comprises an edition of Manuel's Letter to Lord Alexius Iagoupes, preserved in two manuscripts (Par. gr. 3041 and Barb. gr. 219). In this long epistolary discourse, addressed ostensibly to his oikeios Alexius Iagoupes, but in reality to an anonymous Latinophron, Manuel defends his views on the study of theology and, to some extent, his imperial duties towards the Church. Internal evidence in the Letter enables us to identify the anonymous critic with Manuel Calecas, placing its composition ca. 1396. The edition of these texts, accompanied by three apparatuses (locorum parallelorum, criticus and fontium), is preceded by Bibliography, an Introduction and a study of the manuscript tradition with detailed description of the extant manuscripts, an examination of the texts, the relations of the manuscripts, and the stemmata codicum, followed by indices locorum Sacrae Scripturae, nominum and verborum.


Charalambos Dendrinos is Senior Lecturer in Byzantine Literature and Greek Palaeography, and Director of The Hellenic Institute at the History Department, School of Humanities, Royal Holloway, University of London, and Director of the University of London Postgraduate Working Seminar on Editing Byzantine Texts.

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