It’s publication day! I decided 11 years ago I wanted to do this project and began working on it eight years ago, so it’s gratifying to reach this point. Thanks to all who helped us bring it to fruition.

Please reskeet: CFP is open for the North American Patristics Society meeting, May 21-23, 2026 in Chicago Submit abstracts either for the general call or to a pre-arranged theme, or you can submit a whole planned session! Deadline is Nov 19th, details at link: www.patristics.org/annual-meeti...

The oldest Jewish cemetery in the UK, dating back to the Norman Conquest, was just discovered. www.jpost.com/history/arti...

There is still one week to go before the application deadline for our two job openings in biblical and early Christian studies (15 August). Please spread the word! I would be glad to speak with anyone who has questions about the positions.

My associate supervisor Rob Turnbull has written an exciting and accessible report on the research he's been doing! He recently published his PhD dissertation (brill.com/display/titl...), and he's currently applying phylogenetic methods to texts beyond the New Testament.

Back in my happy place at the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome with the reading room all to myself today.

11th July is the feast of St Benedict and here is the earliest extant copy of the Rule of St Benedict. Bodleian Library MS. Hatton 48; Rule of St. Benedict; c.700 CE (?); England (Canterbury?); f.1r @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social

I can tell you from experience that the IRCI is a beautiful place to work! Don't miss this opportunity!

I am delighted to announce the IRCI has 2 job openings in early Christianity (specialisation open, research-focus, early career). Closing date 15 Aug. Contact me with any questions. We hope you'll consider joining our excellent group of scholars! candidate.aurion.cloud/acu/producti...

A small discovery: the Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität includes an entry for εὐάγγελμα with a single ref: Didymus, De Trin 1.29.8. The term shows up nowhere else in TLG. The ms actually reads ἐπαγγέλματα which was misread in the 1769 editio princeps and a new ed in 1975.

So far the standard version of Copilot (@msftresearch.bsky.social) can't transcribe an 11th c Greek manuscript and in fact made up a completely different text it claimed was the transcription. Seems to have picked up βασιλέα from the first line, misread it as a similar word, and then ran with it.

So, here's the webpage of our project on Gospel harmonies. I will be working with a wonderful advisory board, including my wonderful Doktormutter @joantaylor.bsky.social, and @mcrawford.bsky.social . mf.no/en/ungos

I asked one of supervisors about this (he'd spent some time at Saint Catherine's), and he responded with some relieving news. The Greek papers seem to have gotten the story wrong: newsprime.gr/sina-den-gin... (I had to use Google Translate on the page)

Spotted today at the Vatican Museums. An unusual depiction of the evangelists as oarsmen in a boat with Christ at the helm. Matthew is missing but we have John, Luke, and Mark, the so-called ‘Western’ order of the gospels.

I am delighted to announce that I have received a fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation for a research stay in Tübingen to produce an edition of The Emperor Julian's Against the Galileans and to study its 20th c. reception, including a German translation from the Third Reich.

If you like manuscripts, there's lots of interesting stuff in this new open access volume. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Registration is still open for our Makarios conference on Love of Neighbor and Human Flourishing (deadline 15 May) which will take place at ACU’s Rome campus in partnership with Baylor, Harvard, and Boston College! >

I wrote a short piece on Easter and the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea www.abc.net.au/religion/170...

Dual language editions on facing pages. Coming late 2025 or early 2026: Phoebadius, Contra Arianos (DelCogliano) Apollinarius, Kata Meros Pistos (Kelley Spoerl) Theodore, Debate with Macedonians (Matt Crawford)

Join for a hybrid BECS Seminar with Prof. Bronwen Neil on “Sarcophagi on the Street: Burial in the Necropoleis at Roman Ostia” to be held at 11:00 am AEDT on Thursday, 3 April 2025.

"Quite simply, this is one of the most important and exciting Iron Age period discoveries made in the UK" Historic England Press release on the Melsonby hoard 👇👇 historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/ne...

Come do a PhD with me (and other excellent colleagues) as part of an ARC-funded project—Night Vision in the Late Ancient Mediterranean! Funded places (fees and stipend) available! More info here, and reach out with any questions. Applications due Monday 21 April. www.acu.edu.au/research-and...

Coming this July. www.cambridge.org/au/universit...

I’m particularly excited about this piece because it makes extensive use of some extremely important but widely neglected texts: namely, the Pseudo-Athanasian dialogues (which @markdelcogliano.bsky.social and I are translating for CUA), and (Ps-)Didymus, De Trinitate, which (1/2)

Congratulations to two teams led by IRCI scholars for Discovery Project grant success from the Australian Research Council totalling almost a half a million dollars!

[sold out] Nov 25 Melbourne/NGV Discovering the ‘Melbourne Gospels’ - "Discover The Gospel Book of Theophanes (Tetraevangelion) in an intimate workshop hosted by..Dr Jonathan Zecher &..Ruth Shervington as they guide us through..this incredible manuscript" events.unimelb.edu.au/arts/event/d...

Just a reminder about our reception tomorrow night with the University of Divinity. If you’re in San Diego for SBL/AAR, stop by!

Hard to believe only one week until #sblaar24 in San Diego — Who else will be there? If so, come say hello! Then stay to hear some of the many fine papers and reviews in our Development of Early Christian Theology sessions!

We are excited to be partnering this year with the University of Divinity to host a reception at the annual meeting of AAR/SBL. Details below. Come along and say hello if you're going to be in San Diego!

Next year we will be hosting the second biennial Makarios conference on human flourishing at ACU's Rome campus. Details below. CFP currently open with a deadline of 1 December. Would love to see you there! Get in touch if you have any questions.

Oct 10 online Melbourne (4pm) #BECS @irci.bsky.social Seminar: Prof Yair Furstenberg (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Communal Justice in Qumran and in the Jesus Traditions - with response from Dr Gareth Wearne. Zoom - email [email protected]

The 78th meeting of SNTS began today @irci.bsky.social with a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria to view the Gospel Book of Theophanes, a 12th c. manuscript from Constantinople that contains a beautiful set of Canon Tables and other decorated pages!

Samuel Fernandez’s Fontes Nicaenae Synody is out! It provides the primary sources for the Council of #Nicaea. Enjoy!

My latest: 'The Emperor Julian and Cyril of Alexandria on Human Nature, Ethnicity, and Moral Progress', available open access in ETL 100/1 doi.org/10.2143/ETL....

June 6 online Melbourne (5pm) @irci.bsky.social #BECS Seminar: Annette Weissenrieder (MLU Halle-Wittenberg), A new edition of the Codex Vercellensis Luke based on multi-spectral images. Join the mailing list for links: [email protected]

Excited to be heading back to Rome where I will be working with Dr Fulvio Mercuri next week to use the technique of pulsed thermography to try and recover the faded text in manuscript gr. 116 at the Biblioteca Angelica which contains Didymus the Blind's treatise De Trinitate!

Coming soon! books.google.com/books?id=Xo8...

friends, the final #NAPS2024 program is up; if you are presenting and/or chairing, take a gander and make sure all is as you wish! also (which I didn't know!) apparently audio of plenary sessions will also be available "live" to members! www.patristics.org/wp-content/u...

NAPSters! The 2024 #NAPS2024 program is UP! www.patristics.org/wp-content/u...

The Academic Program for the 2024 SNTS Meeting has been updated with the schedule, full list of seminar papers, and the presidential address. snts2024.org/academic-pro...

Come study with us! For information about our Ph.D. and M.Phil. offerings, please visit us on our "Virtual Open Day." www.acu.edu.au/research-and...

Tomorrow (18 March) at 1pm Melbourne time, I'll be giving a paper titled 'Defending the Glory of God: Cyril of Alexandria’s Political Theology at the Court of Theodosius II' in the Ancient World Seminar at the University of Melbourne. If you'd like to join virtually, let me know!

A paper that spun off from my PhD research has just been published in Novum Testamentum 66.2: brill.com/view/journal.... I show how statistical and computational techniques can shed light on what P46 likely read in its lacunae containing Gal 3:1 and 4:17, Heb 11:4, and Phil 1:1.

Excited to share my latest work on 1 John at ACU. Join in if you can!

Melbourne is abuzz with the arrival of Taylor Swift but in other news this morning at ASCS45 I'll be sharing a sample of a new edition of the De Trinitate treatise attributed to Didymus the Blind. I've been using UV light to try and recover the faded text on the first 3 folios.

Our schedule for Semester One 2024 for the BECS Global Seminar.

BECS Global Seminar today with Harmut Leppin of Goethe University on ‘Emperior Maurice: From Failure to Holiness.” This is a hybrid seminar, contact [email protected] for the Zoom link.

Wow! Congrats to Brent Seales on his 20-year crazy quest. Nobody thought this would work, yet, here we are. We can now read entire passages from inside the Herculaneum Scrolls. There could be a ton of new ancient world texts coming in the next few years. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Just off an 18 hour flight from Australia and stopped in the Cambridge University Press book store. Was delighted to find this on display. This volume has been in the making for 7 years and was finally published two weeks ago. Further details here: doi.org/10.1017/9781...

Join us for our next BECS Global Seminar on 2 November (11:00 a.m. Melbourne) with Kai Akagi of Rikkyo University with "Ephesians 3:15 as an Allusion to Genesis 12:3 in the Context of Fatherhood and Household Metaphors in Ephesians." IRCI's Joey McCollum @joeymccollum.bsky.social is responding.