CALL FOR PAPERS: Workshop on Eunomius’ Apologia apologiae at the XVIII International Conference on Patristic Studies (Oxford, 19-24 August, 2019)
In the Trinitarian debates of the fourth-century Eunomius of Cyzicus was the leading proponent of Heteroousian theology. The groundbreaking critical editions, English translations, and studies of R. P. Vaggione at the end of the 20th century built upon a previous generation of European scholarship on Eunomius and remain foundational. Scholarly interest in Eunomius continues, though in recent years mostly as a foil for the Cappadocian Fathers who rebutted his theology and refuted his primary works, the Apologia, the Apologia apologiae, and the Confessio fidei, as seen in the three Gregory of Nyssa Colloquia devoted to the three books of his Contra Eunomium (Pamplona, 1986; Olomouc, 2004; Leuven, 2010). It is high time to turn scholarly attention from those who responded to Eunomius to the writings and thought of Eunomius himself.
At the Oxford patristics conference we are planning a workshop that focuses on the Apologia apologiae, a work that Eunomius wrote during his exile in the 370s in response to Basil of Caesarea’s Contra Eunomium. It survives only in the extensive fragments preserved in the Contra Eunomium of Gregory of Nyssa and many unresolved textual issues continue to hamper the study of this work. The organizers of this workshop (Matthieu Cassin, Mark DelCogliano, and Andrew Radde-Gallwitz) are in the preliminary stages of producing a new critical edition of the fragments as well as an annotated English translation. In this workshop we hope to investigate the status quaestionis of the study of this text, with particular attention to the myriad text-critical, philological, rhetorical, historical, interpretive, philosophical, theological, etc. issues that continue to impact the study of the Apologia apologiae. We also hope to chart new ways forward toward a fuller appreciation and more accurate understanding of this important polemical work, inaugurating a new phase in the study of Eunomius.
We call for papers of 15-20 minutes (to be followed by 10-15 minutes of discussion). Presentations may be on any aspect of Eunomian studies but preference will be given to those that focus on the Apologia apologiae.
Please submit your abstract to eunomiusoxford2019@gmail.com by 31 October, 2018. (Please do not submit your abstract to the Oxford Patristics website.) Questions may be directed to the same e-mail address. The organizers will make a decision about which papers to include by 15 November, 2018. Those persons whose papers were not accepted would then be able to submit their proposals directly to the general Oxford call for papers and would have sufficient time to do so (the Oxford deadline is 31 December, 2018).