Cover -- Half-title -- Title page -- Copyright information -- Table of contents -- List of figures and tables -- List of contributors -- Acknowledgements -- List of abbreviations -- Part I Introducing early Christian letters -- Chapter 1 Continuities and changes in the practice of letter-collecting from Cicero to late antiquity -- Classical letter-collections -- New Testament letters -- Papal letters -- Methodological challenges -- The public nature of ancient and late-antique letters -- The hybridisation of late-antique letters -- Themes and structure of the volume -- Chapter 2 Rationales for episcopal letter-collections in late antiquity -- Types of letter-collections -- Deliberate and/or authorial collections -- Later, intentional collections -- 'Collections' with mixed transmission -- 'Collections' made by post-enlightenment editors -- Concluding remarks -- Part II Collecting New Testament and early monastic letters -- Chapter 3 The Pauline letters as community documents -- The emergence of the Pauline corpus -- Putting Paul in his place -- The first Pauline collection -- Paul and his companions -- Conclusion -- Chapter 4 2 Corinthians and possible material evidence for composite letters in antiquity -- Composite letters in the correspondence of Cicero -- The letters of Pachomius -- Ancient collection of papyrus letters -- Conclusions -- Chapter 5 The letter-collections of Antony and Ammonas -- The collection attributed to St Antony -- The collection attributed to Ammonas -- Characteristics of the letters -- Collections or not? -- Conclusion -- Chapter 6 From letter to letter-collection -- Letters of Pachomius -- Papyrological monastic epistolary assemblages -- Narrative sources on monastic letter-writing in Egypt -- Conclusion -- Part III Collecting early bishops' letters -- Chapter 7 Letters of Ambrose of Milan (374-397), Books i-ix.

The general character of Ambrose's collection -- The ten books -- Ambrose's use of allegorical exegesis -- Book x -- Conclusion -- Chapter 8 The letters of Basil of Caesarea and the role of letter-collections in their transmission -- History of editions of Basil's letters -- Investigation of Basil's letters in the early twentieth century -- The primitive collections: some conjectures -- Comparing the aggregation of Gregory of Nyssa's letters -- Selecting the manuscripts for collation -- Conclusion -- Chapter 9 The ins and outs of the Chrysostom letter-collection -- The shape of the letter-collection -- The contents of the collection -- What is missing? -- Letters outside the collection -- Evidence of letters from external sources -- Letters cited by John that are not included in the collection -- Who compiled the collection? -- Conclusions -- Chapter 10 The letters of Theodoret of Cyrrhus -- Theodoret's personal collections: Patmensis -- Theodoret's personal collections: Sirmondiana -- Multi-author collection: Theodoret's conciliar letters -- Conclusion: combining methods and collections -- Part IV Collecting early papal letters -- Chapter 11 Collectio Corbeiensis, Collectio Pithouensis, and the earliest collections of papal letters -- Collectio Corbeiensis in previous scholarship -- Collectio Pithouensis in previous scholarship -- Fresh consideration of the primitive letter-collection -- Conclusions -- Chapter 12 De profundis -- Papal archives from the fifth and sixth centuries -- Transmission of the collection -- Contents of the Pelagian collection -- Defence of doctrine and papal authority -- Persecuting schismatics -- Exercising clerical discipline -- Managing the papal 'household' -- Protecting papal property -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index of people, places and things -- Index of biblical citations.

The first multi-authored study of New Testament and late antique letter collections, crossing the traditional divide between these disciplines.

Available electronically via the Internet.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.