BOOK REVIEW: Antonio Rigo, ‟Gregorio Palamas, Tomo aghioritico: La storia, il testo e la dottrina”. OLA 298. Bibliothéque de Byzantion 26. Leuven: Peeters, 2021, 187 p.

Abstract

The publication of the critical text of a work by Gregory Palamas – especially one as important as the Hagioretic Tomos – is a cause for celebration. Until now the only Palamas text that has been edited in accordance with the best modern standards is Anne Philippidis-Braat’s Captivity Dossier (1979). Even Robert Sinkewicz’s One Hundred and Fifty Chapters (1988) falls a little short in this respect. With regard to the Hagioretic Tomos, we have had to rely hitherto on the very inferior text of Basil Pseftonkas published in 1967, in the second volume of Panagiotis Christou’s edition of Palamas’ collected works. Besides making some eccentric emendations of his own, Pseftonkas bases his text on the four earlier printed editions (including Jacques-Paul Migne, which is only a reprint of the text published in the Philokalia by Nikodemos the Hagiorite), supplemented by readings from an arbitrary selection of early manuscripts.