Andrew Patton was awarded a doctoral scholarship on the ERC CATENA project, and moved to Birmingham's Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing to start his research in October 2020. He recently submitted his doctoral thesis, "The Development of the Catenae on the Gospels", and has just passed the viva voce examination with his examiners Prof. Tommy Wasserman and Prof. Candida Moss, chaired by Prof. Charlotte Hempel.
Andy's research has already been influential. He was awarded the Michael O'Rourke prize for the best publication by a student in the College of Arts and Law for his article "Greek Catenae and the 'Western' Order of the Gospels" in Novum Testamentum (2022). In March 2022, he organised a workshop in Birmingham, papers from which have just been published in a special feature in TC: A Journal of BIblical Textual Criticism. This month, he has had an article on "Direct Copying in a Group of Gospel Manuscripts with Catenae" published in New Testament Studies. As part of work on his thesis, he proposed a new organisation of catena manuscripts on Luke, which has been adopted in the Clavis Clavium online register. He also co-edited the volume That Nothing Be Lost: Fragments and the New Testament Text.
In October, Andy moved to KU Leuven to take up a position as a postdoctoral research fellow on the 1COR project, working towards the Editio Critica Maior of 1 Corinthians.
Andy's thesis drew on the results of the recent AHRC Codex Zacynthius project at ITSEE to advance a new understanding of how catenae on the gospels developed, through a compilation which he identifies as Type Z.
The abstract of the thesis is as follows:
This thesis seeks to explain how the catenae on the Gospels developed up to the ninth century. Advances in the study of catenae on other sections of the Bible and the publication of a new catalogue of catena manuscripts of the Greek New Testament warrant a fresh investigation of the Catenae on the Gospels. Updated descriptions are provided here of five catena traditions on the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John which are called the Type A Basic Form, Type A Catena Form, Type B Basic Form, the Type B Catena Form, and the Type Z catenae. The Type A and Type B compilations developed in similar patterns of expansion from an anonymous compilation commentary into a more complex catena with attributed scholia. Examining the additional material in the Catena Forms led to the identification of another catena tradition, Type Z, as the source of the attributed scholia. The Basic Forms also share a connection to Type Z. All three compilations used as a source an early exegetical collection which is cited in the Type Z manuscripts with the enigmatic appellation ἐξ ἀνεπιγράφου (from an unattributed source). These findings chart the development of the Catenae on the Gospels in new ways, proposing that the manuscripts in Type Z are a distinct catena type which were a project to interpret the Gospels as a collection. The Catenae on Mark developed separately from the other Catenae on the Gospels even though they are transmitted in the same manuscripts. The recensions of the Commentary on Mark are given updated descriptions and assessed in light of the development of the other catenae on the Gospels. These conclusions have led to a reclassification of the Catenae on Luke in the Clavis Patrum Graecorum and provide the foundation for studying catenae as a genre of exegetical writing, the history of biblical interpretation, and the receptions or use of catenae in Byzantine Christianity.
