Folia Theologica et Canonica 1. 23/15 (2012)
RECENSIONS
RECENSIONS 291 The supplementary section - so called Annexes - firstly publishes the French translation of the theoretical basic version of the Collection of Antioch (Annexe 1: 261 -315), listed one by one conciliar texts from Ancyra to Laodicea (Canons du synode de Ancyre, 264-273; Canons du synode de Néocésarée, 274-277; Canons du synode de Gangres, 278-285; Canons du synode d’Antioche, 286- 299; Canons du synode de Laodicée, 300-315). Then there are noticed the best critical editions of their texts (Annexe 2: 317). A very important table can be found on pages 318-319 which contains the correspondences between the Apostolic Canons and the Collection of Antioch (Annexe 3), not only in one form but listing several textual traditions and fragments of these canons. The Fourth Annex (320) dedicated to those texts which were inserted from the writings of St. Basil the Great. There are five further Annexes summarizing important themes about the Theodosian Code and its influence, disciplinary prescriptions on clerics, the state of chorbishops, and about female servers in the Church in the Eastern tradition (321-330). Finally, the volume is completed with a very rich updated bibliography - distributed into sources (331-337) and literature (338-378) - moreover with a well detailed indices of councils (379- 387), canonical collections (388-389) and patristic authors (389). John Meyendorff pointed out in 1974: “(•••) the very notion of Truth, which is conceived, by the Byzantines, not as a concept which can be expressed adequately in words or developed rationally, but as God Himself - personally present and met in the Church in His very personal identity. Not Scripture, not conciliar definitions, not theology can express Him fully; each can only point to some aspects of His existence, or exclude wrong interpretations of His being or acts. No human language, however, is fully adequate to Truth itself, nor can it exhaust it (...)” [i.e. Byzantine Theology. Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes, New York 1974, 11], If we keep in mind Meyendorff s sentences, we will be able to understand the importance of this early Eastern canonical collection which made strong influence on every later Byzantine canon law collection, including the Collectio Trullana. Aram Mardirossian’s publication - without doubt - creates a substantial headway in the scientific research of the Syntagma Canonum. Thanks to the lucid, readable, precise explanation and textual comparing of the development and contents of the Collection of Antioch, the author could give answer for every single essential question which remained after the profound work of Eduard Schwartz and Jean Gaudemet concerning this lost but reconstructed collection. Szabolcs Anzelm Szuromi. O.Praem.
