Section 02: Sources and Attestation

The source-critical heart of the collection. The Thirteen Fathers are a sixth-century group known only from a cycle of Georgian hagiographic texts whose earliest layer is lost and whose surviving redactions are of the ninth–tenth centuries and after. The first file is the flagship: it inventories the Lives as dated artifacts, on the model of the St. Xenia methodology, and states the rules the collection follows under METHODOLOGY §3.5. The second treats the live scholarly disputes both-sides — what Lang, Rapp, Loosley Leeming, Matitashvili, and the Georgian tradition can and cannot establish, above all the contested question of the Fathers’ theological allegiance.

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox

Contents

File Topic
The Lives and Their Dating The flagship source-critical statement (§3.5): the hagiographic cycle, its lost earliest layer (John-Martyrius), the redactions of the Catholicoi Arsen and Arsen(ius) II and later hands, and the rules for pinning every claim to its attestation and giving dates as ranges
History and Hagiography The live disputes, both-sides: whether the number, the roster, and the chronology are historical; the sharply contested question of the Fathers’ theological allegiance (Chalcedonian / anti-Chalcedonian / Nestorian); what the historical core plausibly was

How to Use

  • Read The Lives and Their Dating first; it is the governing source-critical statement for the whole collection, and the biographical sections (03–06) presuppose it.
  • Read History and Hagiography for the scholarly disputes handled from both sides — most importantly the theological-allegiance question, which the collection reports but does not adjudicate.
  • The methodological model for this section is the repository’s flagship treatment of a thin-source saint, the St. Xenia methodology.

Cross-References