Talk:Synodicon Vetus

Ancient source

From the article: ”The Synodicon Vetus is also the only ancient source that asserts the canonical books of the Bible were decided at the First Council of Nicaea.” This seems to be stretching the boundaries of “ancient”. Shouldn’t the Synodicon Vetus be considered early medieval rather than ancient? —Amble (talk) 14:17, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I came here to post the same comment. Late 9th century is firmly medieval, definitely not ancient by anybody's definition. Probably "pre-modern" (by comparison with 18th century Voltaire and everyone who copied from him) is intended. Vultur~enwiki (talk) 19:35, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, "pre-modern" would be good. However, I'm not sure whether there might be other medieval mentions later than the Synodicon Vetus. Perhaps we should just go with "earliest". --Amble (talk) 19:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Agree! And fairly uncontroversial change imho. Went ahead and made the edit. Ford MF (talk) 15:37, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Pseudo-historical?

@Fordmadoxfraud: Can you explain why you chose the word "pseudo-historical"? Srnec (talk) 19:51, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

@Srnec: Basically every source on this book puts some variation of "wow, basically everyone agrees this book is a bad historical source containing myriad errors and possibly outright fabrications" really early in its description.

From the Wiki article linked: "Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research". Plausibly this attributed an unwarranted intentionality and agenda in this case.

I don't think I'm ready to die on the hill of "pseudohistory" as a descriptor here, but I do strongly feel that *some* notion of this work being widely criticized as being full of junk belongs in the lede. Ideas? Ford MF (talk) 15:58, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Also like, imho the main thing a lay audience probably cares about here is the fact that SV is the earliest known source of the false claim about the First Council of Nicaea and Biblical canon. So maybe that's a better thing to put in the lede, more than descriptive language about the character of its content. Ford MF (talk) 16:03, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Could the lede of Historia Augusta be a useful model here? --Amble (talk) 18:46, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Plausibly this attributed an unwarranted intentionality and agenda in this case. Yes, that is my issue. Duffy and Parker summarized it like this:

"the writer was anything but a careful researcher, and though in places his sources, or copyists, may be at fault, he himself must be held responsible for most of those numerous errors which in the past have prevented scholars from treating the SV as a historical document above suspicion."

No matter how riddled with errors, I don't think the Synodicon is pseudohistory. Srnec (talk) 21:20, 6 November 2025 (UTC)