Abstract

One of the two oldest manuscripts of Greek canon law, the Codex Patmiacus 172, sheds new light on the history of the Council in Trullo . Whereas from the other 45 extant manuscripts only 220 episcopal signatures to this Council have been known so far, the Patmiacus has preserved 6 additional signatures and thus raises the number of the hitherto known clerical participants to 226, representing a total of 227 bishoprics. Since these subscriptions are preceded by the signature of the Emperor, the Patmiacus is the sole extant manuscript that bears in fact a total of 227 signatures, the number of participants assigned to this Council in the later canonistic tradition. Besides, this manuscript offers a great number of additions and corrections to the other 220 signatures. Due to the discovery of the six new episcopal signatures, however, the question of authenticity of the six position markers found in some manuscripts to indicate the place for the signatures of six episcopal sees which were present at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 681/82 but apparently absent in 691/92 must be reconsidered. Whereas so far these markers have been considered original because it was only by their connumerating that the number of 227 could be achieved, this argument has become obsolete by the subscription list of the Patmiacus. Furthermore, the missing of the first three markers in the oldest extant manuscripts as well as their odd positions makes it very likely that they are not original but were interpolated at the times of the Seventh Ecumenical Council in order to assimilate the beginning of the subscription list of the Council of 691/92 to the one of 681/82 and thus substantiating Tarasios' claim that the Council in Trullo was a continuation of the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Whether the West and the metropolitan sees present in 681/82 - Rome, Thessaloniki, Sardinia, Ravenna and Corinth - were in fact invited as well to the Council in 691/92 is once again an open question and cannot be answered by reference to the manuscript tradition. Finally, the reasons for the western opposition to this Council are not so much to be sought in the form of the subscription list but more in the content of the canons and the Logos Prosphonetikos