POLYCRONIUS. - Bishop of Apamea in Syria, d. c. 430. He was the brother of Theodore of Mopsuestia and by Theodoret, who indeed ends his Ecclesiastical History with the memory of P. (PG 82, 1277 B), he is praised as "an excellent pastor, distinguished for the grace of his speech and the exemplariness of his life."

No other information about him remains except from his own writings, which have come down to us in fragments in exegetical catenae, extracts from commentaries on Job and on the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. In these P. vies with the other interpreters of the Antiochene school in adherence to the literal sense and to historical reason, but surpasses them all in his knowledge of the languages and antiquities of the Hebrews. Of a calmer temperament and more measured judgment, he kept himself from the excesses of his elder brother. Even in dogma, the remains of his writings that have come down to us, and not all of them yet published, give no handle for any censure.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: fragments In Iob in the catenae edited by P. Junius, London 1637, whence in PG 93, 13-468, and P. Comitolus, Venice 1587 (Latin only); on Ezekiel in A. Mai, Nova PP. Bibl., VII, II, Rome 1857, pp. 92-127 and Script. veter. nova coll., I, II, ibid. 1825, pp. 105-60, whence in PG 163 (supplementary volume, very rare); for Jeremiah cf. M. Faulhaber, Prophetenhatenen, Freiburg im Br. 1889, p. 125; L. Dieu, s. v. in Rev. d'hist. ecl., 14 (1913), pp. 685-701; in general O. Bardenhewer, Polychronius, Freiburg im Br. 1879.

Alberto Vaccari

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Polycronius

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