Trying to get my head around the Pastoral Epistles for a lecture, and aware of the germane criticism by Matt Colvin of my treatment of I Timothy (who suggests that I have failed to recognize “the massive power and authority that these legates of Paul are charged to exercise”) I turned to think about the role of Timothy as a Pauline legate, and to Johnson’s characterization of the letters as corresponding to the mandata principis, and as a result read Margaret M. Mitchell, “PTebt 703 and the Genre of 1 Timothy: The Curious Career of a Ptolemaic Papyrus in Pauline Scholarship” Novum Testamentum ..read more

After a few years of preparation, we have finally started a new project at the University of Fribourg (CH), under the direction of Prof. Franz Mali: “Lebendige Tradition: Der pseudoklementinische Oktateuch als historisches Dokument von der Spätantike bis ins arabisch-muslimische Mittelalter”. The pseudo-Clementine Octateuch is a compilation of various early Church orders, which has become particularly important in the Coptic Church of Egypt and Ethiopia. Although the individual texts from it are equally important for theologians, liturgical scholars, and historians, they are only inadequately ..read more

Five years ago I began my research on St. Cyprian of Antioch. (Cyprian of Antioch and Magic in the Church Orders | ancientchurchorders (wordpress.com) My preoccupation with the magician and exorcist resulted from the study of church orders: for the Traditio Apostolica (and after it the Canones Hippolyti and the Apostolic Constitutions) forbid bishops to accept magicians into their churches. The Cyprian legend, whose sources date back to the 4th century, serves as an illustration of this requirement. The pagan magician Cyprian fails with his magic and despite the help of demons and devils to fo ..read more

It was my great pleasure this week to attend (virtually) a launch event for Mona Tokarek LaFosse, Honouring age: the social dynamics of age structure in I Timothy. This is a radical and compelling re-reading of I Timothy, and of chapter 5 in particular. I am especially grateful for this publication as when I first saw the work, in manuscript, I had for some time been working on an article for RAC on widows; I was baffled by I Timothy 5 but baffled no more once I had read this work. I am so happy to see the MS turned into a book. LaFosse offers fascinating insights into the material on widows ..read more

I have long been convinced of the inaugurated/realized nature of early Christian eschatology, in particular seeing this as represented in the early Christians’ liturgical activities, broadly understood. In this light I have often wondered how the thanksgiving for the vine of David in Didache 9.2 operated, given that 9.4 offers precisely such an example of a liturgically realized eschatology. I had recognized that its position in the meal rite is that corresponding to the qedusha ha-yom and had also noted that whereas Traditio apostolica 25 refers to the same rite it does not illuminate its con ..read more

Newly appeared is “τὰ ἅγια εἰς λόγον εὐλογιῶν: Laodicea Canon 14 in its Phrygian Context” published online in advance on the Vigiliae Christianae website: https://brill.com/vc Abstract: The 14th canon of Laodicea, forbidding the exchange of τὰ ἅγια εἰς λόγον εὐλογιῶν, has never received a satisfactory explanation. This article suggests that it may be legislating against a local paschal custom which has become suspect due to its practice by Montanist communities. E-offprints can be supplied via the usual channels ..read more

A bibliography of the Didache, 2001-2023, newly published in the Polish journal Vox patrum, may be found here ..read more

I have just come across John-Christian Eurell, “Presbyters and the Development of Church Offices” Journal of Early Christian History, DOI: 10.1080/2222582X.2023.2279656 Abstract: This article questions two central presuppositions of recent research on early Christian ecclesial office. It argues that bishops and presbyters should not be too readily equated and that ecclesial office was not as closely connected to the providers of liturgical space (owners of house churches) as is often assumed. Naturally enough when I saw this my instinct was to nod in agreement. Not equating bishops and presb ..read more

In Vita Polycarpi Polycarp visits Daphnos, apparently a chorepiskopos. Polycarp had restored the bins in which Daphnos’ food was kept with the result that he was able both to sow again and eat. When Polycarp returns, …in thanksgiving (εὐχαριστῶν) for this gift he [Daphnos] made an offering in his presence to a number of brothers. He placed a barrel in the midst of them containing wine, and told the domestic servants to bring wine and to pour it in… Vit. Pol. 26 Polycarp directs that the wine should continue to flow, and so the barrel miraculously replenishes itself as they drink, until a se ..read more

Eduard von der Goltz, “Unbekannte Fragmente altchristlicher Gemeindeordnungen” Sitzungsberichte der königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Verlag der königlichen Akademie, 1906), 141-157, is a study of certain fragments found in Horner’s Statutes of the apostles. In it he notes some significant fragments previously unknown to the scholarly world, and compares the version of some chapters of the Didache found in the Ethiopian Senodos to the Greek text. It is chiefly, however, of historical interest since von der Goltz was the first to identify the “Egyptian church order” wi ..read more