Paul of Constantinople

Abstract

The story of Paul, the first man to be consecrated as bishop of Constantinople, has come down to us only in fragments. Le Nain de Tillemont made the first modern attempt to fit the fragments together into a biography. His work is characterized by a sagacity not always exhibited by more recent writers. An addition was made to the fragments previously known by the discovery of passages referring to Paul in the ‘codex Theodosianus’ belonging to the Chapter Library of Verona. This material was brought into use by E. Schwartz in the ninth of his now-famous articles “Zur Geschichte des Athanasius,” where he touches on Paul as an associate of Athanasius. The passages in the ‘codex Theodosianus’ are in Latin, but they derive ultimately from an Alexandrine work of ecclesiastical history otherwise almost wholly lost. This work, to judge from internal evidences, was composed in 368 to celebrate the forty-years' episcopate of Athanasius, and its theme might be called “The contendings for the faith of the bishops of Alexandria.” It is not obvious why such a work should contain anything about either Paul or Constantinople. And a comparison of the Paul passages with those that concern themselves with Alexandrine history is much to the disadvantage of the former.