The Catena watershed

Claim (verbatim)

The Catena watershed: the Catena aurea project (begun 1263) was a supply shock to Aquinas's citation economy. Compiling it built him a personal bank of newly translated Greek patristic excerpts, so afterwards his Greek-father citation volume should jump discontinuously across all genres of his writing — but the channel should stay mediated, because the bank is itself a mediating instrument. Volume without directness: a scholastic's own reference tool, once built, is the strongest predictor of whom he cites next, and its fingerprint is a step function at the tool's composition window.

Prediction clause (verbatim)

Classify contacts to Greek fathers (Chrysostom, John Damascene, the Cappadocians, Cyril, Theophylact, and kin) across composition windows. Primary clause: the Greek-father share of all citation contacts in windows after 1264 is at least double the share in windows before 1263; the verdict follows this clause. Secondary clause: among post-1264 Greek-father contacts, the mediated share remains at least 50 percent and falls by no more than 10 points relative to pre-1263.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

Kill: the in-house Aquinas citation corpus (cited authority, direct-vs-mediated flags, and composition-date windows over 1,424 judged contacts).

Novelty / leakage triage

provisional — model-triaged, shepherd review pending

A provisional first pass authored by the model (Opus), not yet confirmed by the shepherd. It carries the same dated-search requirements as an authoritative verdict but is excluded from every headline figure and cannot underwrite a prediction until a shepherd confirms it. Provisional reading: Adjacent (closely related prior work exists).

The supply-shock narrative is documented Aquinas scholarship: his engagement with the Greek fathers comes to the fore from the 1260s specifically through the Catena aurea (1262/3-1267/8), for which he commissioned fresh translations (Theophylact, cited ~1017x; Chrysostom ~2044x), and the 'Quidam Graecus' study shows those Greek excerpts entering his own work as a mediating bank. Not located: the item's quantified step-function on the in-house corpus -- Greek-father citation share after 1264 at >=2x its pre-1263 level while the mediated share stays >=50% -- as an executed measurement.

• 'Quidam Graecus: Theophylact of Ochrid in the Catena Aurea and Lectura Super Ioannem' — The Catena aurea as a bank of newly-translated Greek patristic excerpts feeding Aquinas's later work, still mediated
• In-house Aquinas citation corpus (cited authority, direct-vs-mediated flags, composition windows) — The kill dataset for the post-1264 Greek-father step-function

Predictions

No prediction registered yet.