This is a solid, well-produced hardback, with 31pp of introduction, and 228 of text. ISBN 0-88402-088-6. As well as being in the 'Corpus' series, it is also 'Dumbarton Oaks Texts 5'.The volume is the first critical edition of this anonymous 9th century work. The Synodicon vetus contains a description of every church synod from the beginning to his own time. Earlier material is usually abstracted or inferred from works like the Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius.
The introduction contains a solid discussion of the date of the work, with a detailed investigation of all the manuscripts and editions and a stemma. The work was first printed by the Lutheran J. Pappus in 1601 from a poor copy made by the dubious copyist and trickster Andreas Darmarios, and sold to Pappus. All subsequent editions have been reprints of this text.
The text itself consists of the Greek with a facing English translation. While I cannot evaluate the quality of this, it is certainly readable and seems close to the text. The footnotes are limited, but useful. A critical apparatus is provided, and the volume closes with an index.
One curious feature of this work, is that a revised version (labelled SV2) exists. The text of this is also included, but, curiously, not a translation.
The work is of questionable historical value, since the author was an enthusiast rather than a scholar. An example is that this work is the first known to mention the legend that at the First Council of Nicaea, the real gospels were separated from the apocrypha by piling them all on an altar and coming back the next day when, of course, the real ones had miraculously sorted themselves to the top (ch. 35, p.29).
Dr. Duffy has done the world a favour by making this work available to us all.
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