We proceed to publish the original text and Russian translation of the newly discovered fragments of «Book of the Chapters on Knowledge» of Joseph Ḥazzāyā (8^th c.). Now the readers are offered the original text and Russian translation of Christological chapters 193–194 from the fragment of Joseph Ḥazzāyā’s work known from the East Syriac manuscript Paris. syr. 434. These chapters contain some insights into triadological and christological topics.

  This publication contains the Russian translation of the first 23 chapters of the Augustine’s work «Commentary on Statements in the Letter to Romans». This work was written by Augustine of Hippo in the beginning of 394, during his active controversy with the Manichaeans, and touches on the most important questions for the author’s theology of divine grace and human will, which he will develop throughout his work. The work is translated into Russian for the first time. The translation is accompanied by a Preface and the necessary commentary.

   The part of «Amphilochia» published here is a collection of mostly short works, which treat the topics, both exegetical and theological, previously developed by the patriarch in more expanded form. In some cases St Photios strives to provide a most concise summary of the already investigated problem, but sometimes he expounds his views more precisely or even revises certain points. The section includes also educational materials (for instance, treatise № 225) and pieces of historical information, such as treatise № 242.

   The article is the second part of our study concerning some possible repercussions and influences between Leontius of Byzantium and the thirteenth-century Byzantine Latinophile thought (Veccus). We have demonstrated that the main confusion in Veccus’ On the Union between the Churches of the Old and the New Rome was due, first, to the too wide usage of such categories as essence, hypostasis, nature, and enhypostaton, and, second, to the Patriarch’s lack of awareness of Leontius’ writings, especially of Against Nestorians and Eutychians, where the author himself had foreseen some lines of reasoning analogous to those of Veccus. On much the same lines that reduction of Veccus’ Latinophile ideas to tritheism is based which can be found in Georges Moschambar’s Against the Blasphemies of Veccus dating back to 1281. Leontius’ and Moschambar’s treatises do indeed refute a widespread idea represented, in particular, by H.-G. Beck and T. Kolbaba, that in Byzantine theology rhetoric dominated over logic.

   The article traces back to Clement of Alexandria the first emergence of the understanding of freedom as the ground of human subjectivity in Christian thought. Up to Irenaeus, Christian understanding of freedom remained within the framework of the Middle Eastern mentality as exemplified by the Biblical story of the Ancestors’ disobedience, where freedom is pedagogically presented as one’s ability to choose between good and evil. With Clement of Alexandria, Christian thought first appropriates the Greek philosophical understanding of human nature, according to which one is in principle unable to choose whatever does not appear to one as good for him or her. Correlatively to this understanding of human nature as inherently «selfish», human freedom is understood as pursuing one’s true good (as distinguished from a merely apparent one): to be free is to truly serve oneself. Thus freedom already implies a self-relation, which is constitutive of the «subject» (or «I») in our modern sense. Michel Foucault had brought attention to self-forming ascetic practices developed in Late Antiquity within the framework of philosophy understood as a «way of life» (rather than a mere theorizing). In Middle Platonism, such practices aimed at purifying one’s mind so as to enable it to see one’s true good in one’s assimilation to God as much as possible. For Clement, one’s deification cannot be achieved by just one’s own efforts but is a work of God relating to Himself through a Christian in whom He dwells, along the lines of Paul’s words: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. This theocentric understanding of human subjectivity was then further developed in Byzantine patristic tradition, resulting, in particular, in Maxim the Confessor’s famous formula «One energy of God and the saints».

   The present paper deals with the manuscript tradition of the sacramental prayer of Joseph Ḥazzāyā, an East Syriac mystical writer and theologian of the 8^th c. This prayer is one of his most outstanding texts dealing with liturgical topics. Two previously unidentified manuscript attestations of the sacramental prayer are described here. For the first time the description of the «Order of the liturgy for solitaries» is provided. Besides this, for the first time for Russian-speaking readers, a translation from Syriac is made for this prayer.

   The Trisagion sounds differently in the Orthodox and the Ancient Oriental Churches, inasmuch as the text contains or is missing the words «who was crucified for us»; thus it appears to address, respectively, the entire Holy Trinity or only Jesus Christ. It is recognized by the ancient and contemporary authors alike that the hymn is based on the praise sung by the Seraphim: «Holy, Holy, Holy» (Is. 6, 3). How is this vision understood in the Byzantine and Armenian exegetical traditions? Whom did the heavenly host address, the entire Holy Trinity or solely the Son? The article is dedicated to interpretations of the prophesy in the two said traditions.

   The two final verses of the Song of Songs are read here as a separate poem, which is shown to depend largely on the tradition of paraclausithyron (ancient serenade). The topoi of this oral genre help explain some features of the poem usually considered to be difficult: the solemn invocation of the girl as «living in the gardens», the presence of the «friends» and, above all, the fact that the girl (contrary to what is said in many commentaries) does not invite the boy, but rather sends him away. Another important aspect of the poem is that it serves as an epilogue to the lyric sequence of Song of Songs. Thus the farewell of the girl to the boy corresponds, on a metapoetic level, to the farewell of the poet to the book and to the audience.

   This Teaching Materials is offered in the quality of primary textbooks for the study of the controversy that took place in the Church since the beginning of the II century to VII century inclusive. It consists of two parts: the first gives the general content of the course above-named period; the second part provides a more detailed description of the first part of the first section of the course, which covers the initial stage of the controversy in the Pre-Nicene period. The presentation of each topic provides three sections necessary for its study: a description of the main episodes of the controversy and the reaction of the Church to it, literature on the topic and questions for self-training.