ps-Ignatius and Meletius of Antioch:

As so often, soon after publication I find an omission. Whilst looking for something else I have just stumbled across Oliver Hihn, “The election and deposition of Meletius of Antioch: the fall of an integrative bishop” in Johan Leemans et al. (ed.) Episcopal elections in late antiquity (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 119; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 357-373. Since I argue, in my Ignatius, that ps-Ignatius was a member of the Meletian party its relevance is obvious, and given the links (to which allusion has already been made) with Apostolic constitutions, there may be some basis for connection. Nonetheless I am relieved to find that Hihn assesses Meletius much as I do, as an “integrative” bishop, namely one who “pursued a religious policy of integration and unity” (373). This is the tone and tenor of the pseudo-Ignatian correspondence, and it is in this light, I suggest, that we should read the non-Nicene elements in the Apostolic Constitutions.