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Patriarchs, Bishops and Monasteries in the Syriac Consecration Lists, c. 800–1000

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2025

Philip Wood*
Affiliation:
Aga Khan University, https://ror.org/04m2z2476 Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations , London, UK

Abstract

This article offers a new chapter in the history of the Severan Miaphysite church, the ancestor-institution of the modern-day Syriac Orthodox. It employs the consecration lists in Michael the Syrian’s 12th-century chronicle to investigate changing patterns of authority, and relationships between monasteries and episcopal sees, in a period poorly served by narrative sources. The home monastery of the Miaphysite patriarchs corresponds to shifts in political authority from Abbasid Raqqa, to Hamdanid Aleppo, to Byzantine Melitene, but this did not preclude the survival of local patterns of patronage. Clusters of patronage, identified using historical network analysis, are not geographically segregated, and this helps to explain the relative stability of the network, which did not see major attempts at secession in this period. The patterns in these lists help us to establish the places where narrative sources highlight unusual phenomena, and where the phenomena they report are typical features of the relationships between bishops and monasteries.

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Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society of Church History

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References

1 My thanks to Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, David Gyllenhaal, Aslisho Qurboniev, Valerie Turner, David Taylor, and Peter Verkinderen, for their advice and assistance. Thanks also goes to audiences at Cambridge and AKU-ISMC. I use Jean Maurice Fiey, Pour Un Oriens Christianus Novus: Répertoire des Diocèses Syriaques Orientaux (Franz Steiner, 1993) for data on the incumbents of see, which is preferable to Giorgio Fedalto, Hierarchia ecclesiastica orientalis: series episcoporum ecclesiarum christianarum orientalium (Massagero, 1988) on the subject of this paper. The lists have not been used intensively in recent years, but they were drawn on by Ernst Honigmann, Le Couvent de Barsauma et le Patriarcat jacobite d’Antioche et de Syrie (Durbecq, 1954) and Ephrem Barsaum, History of the Syriac Dioceses, tr. M. Moosa (Piscataway NJ, 2009) (a work originally composed in the 1920s).

2 Menze, Volker, Justinian and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church (Oxford University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leppin, Hartmut, “The Roman Empire in John of Ephesus’s Church History: Being Roman, Writing Syriac,” in Historiography and Space in Late Antiquity, ed. Van Nuffelen, Peter (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 113135 10.1017/9781108686686.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Phil Booth, “John of Ephesus: Historian on the Edge,” Millennium, forthcoming.

4 Wood, Philip, The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre (Princeton University Press, 2021), 2225, 78–98Google Scholar.

5 Dionysius’ work is the basis for Wood, Imam of the Christians; Hage, Wolfgang, Die syrisch-jakobitische Kirche in frühislamischer Zeit nach orientalischen Quellen (Harrassowitz, 1966)Google Scholar; Ilse Nabe-von Schönberg, “Die Westsyrische Kirche im Mittelalter (800–1150),” PhD dissertation, Heidelberg University, 1977; Oez, Mikael, Cyriacus of Tagrit and his Book on Divine Providence, 2 vols. (Gorgias, 2012)Google Scholar; See Andrew Palmer, Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Ṭur ʿAbdin (Cambridge University Press, 1990)’s treatment of the period 750–850. In particular, Dionysius’ work is preserved in Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, reproduced (vol. 4) and tr. J.-B. Chabot (vols. 1–3) (Paris: Leroux, 1899–1924); Edessa-Aleppo codex reproduced in Kiraz, George, Texts and Translations of Michael the Great (Gorgias Press, 2009), vol. 1Google Scholar. (henceforth MS) chapter XII, but also in substantial parts of X and XI. A list of the extant fragments of Dionysius by Peter Van Nuffelen, Maria Conterno, and Marianna Mazzola is forthcoming.

6 Ignatius’ work is the basis for Ilse Nabe-von Schönberg, ““Die Westsyrische Kirche im Mittelalter (800–1150),” Dagron, Gilbert, “Minorités ethniques et religieuses dans l’orient byzantin à la fin du Xe et au XIe siècle: l’immigration syrienne,” T&M 6 (1976): 177216 Google Scholar, and Bernd Andreas Vest, Geschichte der Stadt Melitene und der umliegenden Gebiete: Vom Vorabend der arabischen bis zum Abschluß der türkischen Eroberung (um 600–1124) (Kovac Verlag, 2007)’s coverage of the late tenth century. Ignatius’ work is most completely preserved in MS XIII. See further Jan van Ginkel, 2010, “A Man Is Not an Island. Reflections of the Historiography of the Early Syriac Renaissance in Michael the Great,” in The Syriac Renaissance, ed. Herman Teule and Carmen Tauwinkl with Robert Bas ter Haaar Romeny and Jan van Ginkel (Peeters, 2010), 113–121.

7 Appendix III (Starting at MS 4:732, 3:448). For Michael the Syrian as historian see the important work by Weltecke, Dorothea, The “Description of the Times” by Mor Michael the Great (1126–1199): A Study of its Historical and Historiographical Context (Peeters, 2021)10.2307/j.ctv1q26wbsCrossRefGoogle Scholar. In particular note her useful diagram of the text’s contents at 115–116, her description of the unusual layout of the text at 150–162 and her comments on the appendices at 163. See also Debié, Muriel, L’écriture de l’histoire en syriaque. Transmissions interculturelles et constructions identitaires entre hellénisme et l’islam (Peeters, 2015), 149153 Google Scholar.

8 The lists do not include bishops consecrated by the metropolitan of Takrit for sees in Iraq, though sees in Central Asia (e.g., Herat, Segestan) were consecrated by the patriarch of Antioch and these figures are included.

9 Following the schema used by Chabot in his translation of Michael, I refer to the lists by Roman numeral for the number of the patriarch followed by an Arabic numeral for the number of the bishop consecrated by that patriarch.

10 If we were dealing with a list compiled by Michael from (say) the consecration lists given in colophons I would expect coverage to be much more patchy, but the number of bishops given in Michael’s list is roughly proportionate to the reign of each patriarch.

11 Wood, Imam of the Christians, 74 for the case of George of Beltan excommunicating his predecessor’s bishops.

12 In network theory these are Degree Centrality and Betweenness Centrality.

13 Schrier, O. J., “Chronological Problems Concerning the Lives of Severus bar Mašqā, Athanasius of Balad, Julianus Romāyā, Yohannān Sābā, George of the Arabs and Jacob of Edessa,” Oriens Christianus 75 (1991): 6290 Google Scholar; at p. 71.

14 Wood, Imam of the Christians, 101–105.

15 Wood, Imam of the Christians, 172–174, 182.

16 Wood, Imam of the Christians, 80.

17 MS XII. 14 (4:517, 3:65).

18 Fiey, Jean Maurice, “Les laïcs dans l’histoire de l’Eglise syrienne orientale,” Proche-Orient chrétien 14 (1964): 169183 Google Scholar for the role of lay influence in the Church of the East.

19 Sebastian Brock and David Taylor, The Hidden Pearl: The Syrian Orthodox Church and its Ancient Aramaic Heritage, 3 vols. (Trans World Film Italia, 2001): II, 154–165 discuss a number of these famous monasteries.

20 Tannous, Jack, “Athanasius Gamala,” in Gorgias Enyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Brock, S., Butts, A., Kiraz, G., and Van Rompay, L. (Gorgias Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

21 Tannous, JackYou Are What You Read: Qenneshre and the Miaphysite Church in the Seventh Century,” in History and Identity in the Late Antique East, ed. Wood, P. (Oxford University Press, 2013), 83102 Google Scholar.

22 Wood, Imam of the Christians, 111–119. I use “pocket see” in analogy to the pocket boroughs of eighteenth-century England, such as Old Sarum, which were political constituencies that were in the gift of a single patron.

23 Palmer, Andrew, Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Ṭur ʿAbdin (Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Tannous, Jack, “The Life of Simeon of the Olives: A Christian Puzzle from Islamic Syria,” in Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics and Society in Honour of Peter Brown, ed. Kreiner, J. and Reimitz, H. (Brepols, 2016), 309330 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Wood, Imam of the Christians, 63–72.

25 Heidemann, Stefan, “The Agricultural Hinterland of Baghdād, al-Raqqa and Sāmarrāʾ: Settlement Patterns in the Diyār Muḍar,” in Le Proche-Orient de Justinien aux Abbasides: Peuplement et dynamiques spatiales, ed. Borrut, A. et al. (Brepols, 2011), 4357 Google Scholar.

26 Wood, Imam of the Christians, 98, 171–174. On ‘Abdallah ibn Tahir see Kennedy, Hugh, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, 3rd edn. (Routledge, 2016), 134 Google Scholar

27 They have very high centrality on a number of different measures. They also dominate distinct Newman clusters within the network.

28 In technical terms, Qartmin enjoyed the highest Bonacich Power Centrality in both phase I and II, and it is second placed in phases III and IV as well. See the definition provided in https://faculty.ucr.edu/~hanneman/nettext/C10_Centrality.html#Bonacich

29 Ernst Honigmann, Le Couvent de Barsauma et le Patriarcat jacobite d’Antioche et de Syrie (Leuven: Durbecq, 1954), 53 observes this. Tell Ada lies some 48 km east of Antioch and 13 km from Qala’at Semaan. It had been the monastery of the seventh-century polymath Jacob of Edessa and it lay near the monastery of Eusebona, which had supplied the patriarch Iwannis (c. 739–755), but it had not previously been so linked to the patriarchate. Vincenzo Ruggieri, “Il ‘Grande Monastero’ di Tell ʿAda,” OCP 58 (1992): 157–184 provides a study of the monastery: he identified an initial building phase in the fifth/sixth century and a second in the ninth/tenth (160).

30 See the recent study in Joshua Mugler, “A Martyr with Too Many Causes: Christopher of Antioch (d.967) and Local Collective Memory,” PhD dissertation, Georgetown University (2019).

31 On Kulayb see Vest, Geschichte der Stadt Melitene und der umliegenden Gebiete, 2:1113 and Varghese, Baby, The Council of Chalcedon and the Syriac Orthodox Church: Efforts of Reconcilation 451–631 (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2025), 197198 Google Scholar.

32 These were quite distinct from the traditional suffragan sees of Melitene in the late Roman period (Arabissos, Ariaratheia, Arka, Komana, Kukosus): Hild, Friedrich and Restle, Marcell, Tabula Imperii Byzantini II: Kappadokien (Kappadokia, Charsianon, Sebasteia und Lykandos) (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1982), 113 Google Scholar. For the new foundations see Hild and Retsle, Tabula Imperii Byzantini II, 117–118; Klaus-Peter Todt and Bernd Andreas Vest, Tabula Imperii Byzantini XV: Syria (Syria Prōtē, Syria Deutera, Syria Euphratēsia) (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2014), 359; and Gilbert Dagron, “Minorités ethniques.”

33 Vest, Geschichte der Stadt Melitene und der umliegenden Gebiete, 2: 1086, 1088–1089, 1092, 1097.

34 Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical History, ed. and trans. D. Wilmshurst (Gorgias, 2015) (BH moving forward), 1:401–407; MS 4:551–554, 3:124–127. Much of these accounts are derived from a history of the monastery of Sergisyeh composed by one Lazar. Kulayb was involved in the surrender of fortresses in northern Syria to the Byzantines in 975. See Vest Geschichte der Stadt Melitene und der umliegenden Gebiete, 2:926, 1032–1038, 1151. Now see Durak, Koray, “The Economy of Melitene/Malaṭya and Its Role in the Byzantine-Islamic Trade (Seventh to 11th Centuries),” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 115 (2022): 829874 10.1515/bz-2022-0044CrossRefGoogle Scholar for the immense flow of money into Melitene in the course of the frontier wars and the reception of Christian immigrants.

35 Coakley, J., “When Were the Five Greek Vowel Signs Introduced into Syriac Writing?Journal of Semitic Studies 56 (2011): 307325 10.1093/jss/fgr005CrossRefGoogle Scholar identifies this as the period when Greek vowels were widely adopted for writing Syriac. Brock, Sebastian and Raby, Julian, “New Light on Syriac Painting in the Eleventh Century,” Eastern Christian Art 10 (2016): 3380 Google Scholar, at p. 70 see Melitene as the origin of an “open estrangela book-hand,” which remained dominant in Tur Abdin for many centuries after this point (cf. Palmer, Andrew, “Charting Undercurrents in the History of the West Syrian People: The Resettlement of Byzantine Melitene after 936,” Oriens Christianus 70 (1986): 3768 Google Scholar; Vest, Geschichte der Stadt Melitene und der umliegenden Gebiete, 2:1145; BH 1:417). Brock and Raby also see Melitene as a site of cultural exchange between Syriac-speaking Miaphysites and Armenians, especially in manuscript illustration. Dagron, “Minorités ethniques,” 197 lists a number of significant manuscripts produced in Melitene. Many of these were copies of the Harklean version of the New Testament rather than texts on Christology. Marianna Mazzola, “Finding Common Ground: Syriac Orthodox Monastic Culture in the Interconfessional Context of Byzantine Melitene (10th–11th Century),” in Foreign Monks in Byzantium: Migration Trends and Integration Policies in Religious Context, ed. P. Van Deun, R. Ceulemans and D. Oltean (Peeters, forthcoming) dates the bulk of these Melitenian manuscripts to the period 990–1010. In addition to new monasteries, wealthy Takritians also founded a number of churches in the city of Melitene itself and even offered loans to the emperor Basil II: Vest, Geschichte der Stadt Melitene und der umliegenden Gebiete, 2: 1152–1153.

36 I owe this point to David Gyllenhaal.

37 Gyllenhaa, David, “Byzantine Melitene and the Social Milieu of the Syriac Renaissance,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 75 (2021): 205236 Google Scholar, responding to Dagron,“Minorités ethniques.” Vest, Geschichte der Stadt Melitene und der umliegenden Gebiete, 2: 925–928, 1026–1042 (first phase), 1077–1098 (second phase), 1139–1156 (third phase) makes a detailed survey of the sources, including the consecration lists. Vest, Geschichte der Stadt Melitene und der umliegenden Gebiete, 2: 926, notes that the earliest Syriac manuscripts from Melitene are dated to 926. See Cheynet, Jean-Claude, “The Duchy of Antioch during the Second Period of Byzantine Rule,” in East and West in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean, II: Antioch from the Byzantine Reconquest, ed. Cigaar, K. and Metcalf, N. (Leuven, 2013), 116 Google Scholar on both Antioch and Melitene and Baby Varghese ‘The Byzantine occupation of northern Syria (969-1089) and the renaissance of the Syrian orthodox church’, The Harp 28 (2013), 37–74, on liturgical reforms and their political context, including the borrowing of Chalcedonian hymns by the Miaphysites. For the Chalcedonian church in Antioch under the Byzantines see Todt, Klaus-Peter, Dukat und die griechisch-orthodoxes Patriarcat von Antiocheia in mittelbyzantinischer Zeit (969–1084) (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2020)Google Scholar.

38 For the interaction between Miaphysites and Chalcedonians on the Black mountain see Glynias, Joe, “Byzantine Monasticism on the Black Mountain West of Antioch in the 10th–11th Centuries,” Studies in Late Antiquity 4 (2020): 408451 10.1525/sla.2020.4.4.408CrossRefGoogle Scholar which discusses the complaints of Nikon of the Black mountain at the corruption of local Chalcedonians by the Miaphysites, especially the dangers of interreligious dialogue and the veneration of “virtuous heretics.” For the trial of Yohannan Bar ‘Abdun see now Alexandre Roberts, “Heretics, Dissidents and Society: Narrating the Trial of John bar ‘Abdun,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 76 (2022): 117–145.

39 Magdalino, Paul, “Honour among Romaioi: The Framework of Social Values in the World of Digenes Akrites and Kekaumenos,” BMGS 13 (1989): 183218 Google Scholar.

40 Sarris, Peter, Byzantium: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2015), 7172 Google Scholar. Trade: Eger, Asa, The Islamic-Byzantine Frontier: Interaction and Exchange between Muslim and Christian Communities (I. B. Tauris, 2014)Google Scholar. For the resettlement of groups across the frontier note Kaldellis, Anthony, Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (Harvard University Press, 2019), 127132 Google Scholar and Dixon, Carl, The Paulicians: Heresy, Persecution and Warfare on the Byzantine Frontier, c. 750–880 (Brill, 2022), 279288 10.1163/9789004517080CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the Khurramites, the Paulicians, and the Banu Habib. Note that cases of interaction across the frontier do not obviate the fact that both Byzantium and the caliphate regulated travel: Kaldellis, Anthony, “Byzantine Borders Were State Artifacts, Not Fluid Zones of Interaction,” in The Islamic-Byzantine Border in History: From the Rise of Islam to the End of the Crusades, ed. Tor, D. and Beihammer, A. (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), 100124 10.1515/9781399513043-009CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 The Notitia Episcopatum for the Melkites in the patriarchate of Antioch dates to the late sixth century but was merely an aspirational document in later centuries: Honigmann, Ernst, “Zur den Notitia Antiochena,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 25 (1925): 6088 10.1515/byzs.1925.25.1.60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Honigmann, Ernst, “The Patriarchate of Antioch: A Revision of Le Quien and the Notitia Antiochena,” Traditio 5 (1947): 135162 10.1017/S0362152900013544CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Synodicon orientale is very useful for reconstructing the episcopal network of the Church of the East, but the last signatory lists of bishops is the synod of Henanisho II in 778. Fiey, Jean Maurice, Pour Un Oriens Christianus Novus: Répertoire des Diocèses Syriaques Orientaux (Franz Steiner, 1993)Google Scholar, puts together the available information from this and from narrative sources.

42 Troupeau, Gérard, “Églises et chrétiens dans l’Orient musulman,” in Évêques, moines et empreurs (610–1054): Histoire du christianisme des origins à nos jours. Tome IV, ed. Dagron, G., Riché, P. and Vauchez, A. (Desclée, 1993), 375456 Google Scholar, p. 414.

43 The monastery of Barsauma, likewise, long predates the tenth-century colonization and is first attested as the burial site of the patriarch George of Beltan in 790: Honigmann, Ernst, Le Couvent de Barsauma et le Patriarcat jacobite d’Antioche et de Syrie (Leuven: Durbecq, 1954), 47 Google Scholar. Honigmann, Ernst, “Neronias-Irenopolis in Eastern Cilicia,” Byzantion 20 (1950): 3961 Google Scholar; at p. 57 argues that the see of Irenopolis was abandoned after a devastating Byzantine raid in 915 depopulated the city.

44 Honigmann, Ernst, Evêques et évêchés monophysites d’Asie antérieure au 6e siècle (Durbecq, 1951), 179188 Google Scholar. On the Tritheists in general see Alois Grillmeier and Theresia Hainthaler with Luise Abramowski, Christ in Christian Tradition. Volume 2: From the Council of Chalcedon 9451) to Gregory the Great (590–604). Part 3: The Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch (Oxford University Press, 2013), 268–280.

45 MS XI. 6 (4:416–417, 2:422–423).

46 For the course of this warfare see now Kaldellis, Anthony, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade (Oxford University Press, 2017)Google Scholar.

47 E.g. Millar, Fergus, “The Evolution of the Syrian Orthodox Church in the Pre-Islamic Period: From Greek to Syriac?,” in Empire, Church and Society in the Late Roman East: Greeks, Jews, Syrians and Saracens, ed. Millar, F. (Peeters, 2015), 631678 Google Scholar.

48 George of Beltan (758–790) a native of Homs, may have been a Greek speaker (he got in trouble for swearing in Greek in front of the caliph): MS XI. 26 (4:476–477, 2:527–528); BH 1:319–321.

49 The succession for this see is unclear. Fiey, Pour Un Oriens Christianus Novus, 181 gives only two incumbents, Basil (XXII, 47) and Cyriacus (XXIII, 40). But the list names a bishop of Bithynia and Ardeat ordained by Cyriacus of Takrit (XVII, 71) and another was ordained by John bar Abdoun (XXXI, 7), and another by Athanasius VII (XLI, 2) so it may be that the community in Bithynia had a longer existence, even if it only periodically received a bishop.

50 Theophanes (422, 427–429, 451–452) with Kaldellis, Romanland, 221 describes deportations of Miaphysites into Thrace in the eighth century, which does not seem to have generated any new episcopal sees.

51 MS XII. 16 (4:522, 3:67) for the meeting at Kaysum. Kaysum was also heavily fortified during the fourth fitna: MS XII. 7 (4:494, 3:27).

52 For this sixth-century background see now Walter Beers, “The Tottering House of the World”: The Ruralization of the Miaphysite Church in the Works of John of Ephesus (c. 507–88 C.E.),’ PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 2022.

53 Fiey, Pour Un Oriens Christianus Novus, 204, 254.

54 MS XI. 23 (4:469, 2:514).

55 Fiey, Pour Un Oriens Christianus Novus, 272.

56 MS XII. 6 (4:491, 3:23–24). Kumit was then a village inhabited by the Tanukh, a Christian Arab group. The Gubbites were also supported by one John of Kokta, Kokta being another minor settlement that is unlocated.

57 Frend, W. H. C., The Rise of the Monophysite Movement: Chapters in the History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries (Cambridge University Press, 1972), 294295, 320Google Scholar; Wood, Imam of the Christians, 79.

58 MS XI. 19 (4:456, 2: 491).

59 MS XII. 8 (4:496, 3:32) for Bostra and MS XII. 7 (4:491, 3:24) for Mopsuestia.

60 Asa Eger, The Islamic-Byzantine Frontier: Interaction and Exchange between Muslim and Christian Communities (I. B. Tauris, 2014), 173 and 176 for ‘Abd al-Malik’s development of Mopsuestia in c. 700, when it was walled and given a mosque, after which it was further enlarged by successive Umayyad caliphs. The site was inhabited until the 13th century at least.

61 This is Bonacich centrality, the degree to which a node dominates the ability of other nodes to connect to the rest of a network. https://faculty.ucr.edu/~hanneman/nettext/C10_Centrality.html#Bonacich.

62 Wood, Imam of the Christians, 118–119.

63 The Chronicle to 819 and the Chronicle to 846 are discussed in Palmer, Andrew, Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Ṭur ʿAbdin (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 813 Google Scholar

64 For instance, in phase I, Qartmin has a high numbers of links, because of its consistent control of Tur Abdin, Dara, and Harran. But its hub centrality, which is determined by having links to nodes that also have in-links to many other nodes, is much lower than for monasteries like Mar Zakkai, the easterners, the mountain of Edessa, and Mar Hanania. Mar Mattai may have enjoyed a similar dominance in northern Iraq, but this is impossible to trace. Both Qartmin and Mar Mattai were unusual in being the seats of bishops. The Matteans are identified as having a bloc vote in synods: MS XI. 23 (4:470, 2:516) is a striking example, where one Mattean bishop signs for the rest of his party at the synod of Tella in 752.

65 See further https://hypermode.com/blog/community-detection-algorithms. Newman clusters are normally used for relatively small data sets such as this.

66 Because the geodata is only partial, the visualization does not display all links, but it can show Newman clusters for the nodes that are located, and the impression of the geographic mixing of the clusters is clear.

67 Caldarelli, Guido and Cataranzo, Michele, Networks: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2012), 7071.10.1093/actrade/9780199588077.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68 Schor, Adam, Theodoret’s People: Social Networks and Religious Conflict in Late Antique Syria (University of California Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

69 Cvetkovic, Carmen Angela and Gemeinhardt, Peter, Episcopal Networks in Late Antiquity: Connection and Communication across Boundaries (De Gruyter, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hillner, Julia, “Waves across the Pond: Exiling Clerics in Late Antiquity,” Studies in Late Antiquity 3 (2019): 331336 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 E.g. Gross, Simcha, Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2024)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goodman, Martin, “The Nature of Jewish Studies,” in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies, ed. Goodman, Martin, Cohen, David, and Sorokin, Jeremy (Oxford University Press, 2002), 113 Google Scholar, see p. 6.