An annotated edition of the Refutation of the Errors of the Latins by Matthaios Blastares

• Main Author: Palaiologos, Konstantinos
• Other Authors: Dendrinos, Charalambos
• Published: Royal Holloway, University of London 2011
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.541504

The present thesis is an annotated edition of the 'Refutation of the errors of the Latins' by the Byzantine scholar, canonist and theologian Matthaios Blastares (c.1350). The thesis comprises an Introduction and an edition of the text. The Introduction is divided into two Parts (I-II). Part I gives biographical information on the author and his work in the wider context of the dialogue between the Byzantine and Latin theologians in this period. This is followed by an examination of the evidence concerning the circumstances of the composition of the treatise, an analysis of its structure and content together with a commentary on the arguments put forward by Blastares to refute the most important points of divergence between the two sides, concerning doctrinal and ecclesiastical issues as well as liturgical practices, and finally an evaluation of the treatise. Part II is devoted to the manuscript tradition. The treatise is transmitted in twenty-four manuscripts (MSS) dated between the fourteenth and seventeenth century. Our edition is based on eleven of the earlier MSS containing the entire treatise. These codices, together with the partial editions of chapter [38.66-60] by Dositheos Patriarch of Jerusalem, Τόμoç Καταλλαγñç (Jassi, 1694), pp. 441-456, and chapter [49] by Leo Allatius, In Roberti Creyghtoni apparatum, versionem & notas ad historiam concilii Florentini scriptam a Silvestro Syropulo de unione inter Graecos & Latinos, exercitationes, pars prima (Rome, 1665), pp. 331-332, are described and studied from the codicological and palaeographical point of view, before their relation is established and a reconstruction of the stemma codicum is proposed. The edition of the text of the complete treatise is accompanied by an apparatus fontium et locorum parallelorum, and an apparatus criticus, preceded by a brief note on the conventions adopted in the present edition and a list of abbreviations and signs used in the apparatus criticus. The thesis closes with full bibliography, an Appendix and facsimiles of selected folios of the MSS used in our edition.