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To the student of the ancient synods of the Church of
Christ, the name of William Beveridge must ever stand most illustrious; and his work on the canons of the undivided Church as received by the Greeks, published at Oxford in 1672, will remain a lasting glory to the Anglican Church, as the “Concilia” of Labbe and Cossart, which appeared in Paris about the same time, must ever redound to the glory of her sister, the Gallican Church.
Of the permanent value of Beveridge’s work there
can be no greater evidence than that to-day it is quoted all the world
over, and not only are Anglicans proud of the bishop of St. Asaph, but
Catholics and Protestants, Westerns and Easterns alike quote him as an
authority. In illustration of this it will be sufficient to
mention two examples, the most extensive and learned work on the
councils of our own day, that by the Roman Catholic bishop Hefele, and
the “Compendium of Canon Law,” by the Metropolitan of the
Orthodox Greek Hungarian Church, in both of which the reader will find constant reference to Beveridge’s “Synodicon.”
This great work appeared in two volumes full folio, with
the Greek text, beautifully printed, but of course with the ligatures
so perplexing to the ordinary Greek reader of to-day. It should
however be noted that the most learned and interesting Prolegomena in Συνοδικὸν
sive Pandectæ Canonum, as well as the Præfationem ad annotationes in Canones Apostolicos, is reprinted as an Appendix to Vol. XII. of “The Theological Works of William Beveridge, sometime lord bishop of St. Asaph,” in the “Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology,” (published at Oxford, 1848), which also contains a reprint of the “Codex Canonum Ecclesiæ Primitivæ vindicatus ac illustratus,” of which last work I shall have something to say in connection with the Apostolical Canons in the Appendix to this volume.
Nothing could exceed the value of the Prolegomena and it
is greatly to be wished that this most unique preface were more read by
students. It contains a fund of out-of-the-way information which
can be found nowhere else collected together, and while indeed later
research has thrown some further light upon the subject, yet the main
conclusions of Bishop Beveridge are still accepted by the learned with
but few exceptions. I have endeavoured, as far as possible to
incorporate into this volume the most important part of the learned
bishop’s notes and observations, but the real student must
consult the work itself. The reader will be interested to know
that the greatest English scholars of his day assisted Bishop Beveridge
in his work, among whom was John Pearson, the defender of the Ignatian
Epistles.
I think I cannot do better than set out in full the
contents of the Synodicon so that the student may know just what he
will find in its pages:
“Συνοδικὸν
sive Padectæ Canonum SS. Apostolorum, et Conciliorum ab Ecclesia
Græca receptorum; necnon Canonicorum SS. Patrum Epistolarum: Unà cum Scholiis Antiquorum singulis eorum annexis, et scriptis aliis huc spectantibus; quorum plurima e Biblothecæ Bodleianæ aliarumque codicibus nunc primum edita: reliqua cum iisdem summâ fide et diligentiâ collata. Totum Opus in duos Tomos divisum, Guilielmus Beverigius, Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ Presbyter, Recensuit, Prolegomenis munivit, et Annotationibus auxit. Oxonii, E Theatro Sheldoniano. M.DC.LXXII.”
Such is the title in full. I proceed to note the
contents, premising that for all the Greek a Latin translation is given
in a parallel column:
Volume I.
The Canons of the Holy Apostles, with the Ancient
Epitome, and the scholia of Balsamon, Zonaras and Aristenus.
The Canons of the Council of Nice with notes ut supra and so throughout.
The Canons of the
Council of Constantinople.
The Canons of the Council of Ephesus.
The Canons of the Council of Chalcedon.
The Canons of the Sixth Council in Trullo.
The Canons of the Seventh Œcumenical Council.
The Canons of the Council of Constantinople called the
First-and-Second [in the time of Photius].
The Canons of the Council held in the Temple of Wisdom
[which confirmed the Seventh Œcumenical Synod]. All these
with notes as before.
The Canons of the Council of Carthage [over which St. Cyprian, the Martyr, presided] with the notes of Balsamon and Zonaras.
The Canons of the Council of Ancyra.
The Canons of the Council of Neocæsarea.