Christian Historiography Between Empires, 4th-8th Centuries 9042941650, 9789042941656

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LATE ANTIQUE HISTORY AND RELIGION 23

CHRISTIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY BETWEEN EMPIRES 4th-8th Centuries

edited by

Hagit Amirav, Cornelis Hoogerwerf, and István Perczel

PEETERS

CHRISTIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY BETWEEN EMPIRES - 

L A H  R General Editor Hagit Amirav (Oxford) Series Editors Bas ter Haar Romeny (Amsterdam), Emiliano Fiori (Venice), James Carleton Paget (Cambridge), Gavin Kelly (Edinburgh) Advisory Board Averil Cameron (Oxford), Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony (Jerusalem), Evangelos Chrysos (Athens), Christoph Markschies (Berlin), Susanna Elm (Berkeley)

LAHR Volume 23 Beyond the Fathers Volume 3

Late Antique History and Religion is a peer-reviewed series.

CHRISTIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY BETWEEN EMPIRES 4th-8th Centuries

edited by

Hagit Amirav, Cornelis Hoogerwerf, and István Perczel

PEETERS  –  – ,  2021

ISBN 978-90-429-4165-6 eISBN 978-90-429-4166-3 D/2021/0602/124 A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. © 2021, Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval devices or systems, without prior written permission from the publisher, except the quotation of brief passages for review purposes.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword and Acknowledgments ........................................................



List of Contributors ................................................................................



e Past, the Present and the Time In-Between: Some oughts on Early Medieval Historical inking in Caucasia ........................ Nikoloz A Is the Patriarch Pyrrhos (638–641 and 654) the Author of the First Part of Nikephoros’ Short History (Chapters 1–32)? ................... Christian B Historiography Across the Borders: e Case of the Islamic Material in eophanes Confessor’s Chronographia................................... Maria C Generic Concepts and Topoi of Medieval Georgian Historiography Nino D e Making of a Syriac Chronicler: e Case of Joshua the Stylite of Zuqnīn ............................................................................................ Amir H History Writing in the Time of Islam’s Beginnings .......................... Robert H e Sack of Rome (410  ) in the Constantinopolitan Church Histories of the Fih Century ........................................................ Yonatan L Rewriting Scripture as an Exercise in Counter-History: Apologetic Genealogy and Anti-Judaism in the Syriac Cave of Treasures .. Sergey M Malalas and the New Age of Justinian................................................. Roger S Hagiography as a Historiographic Genre: From Eusebius to Cyril of Scythopolis, and Eustratius of Constantinople ....................... István P

1

21

41 67

81 109

123

143 163

181

Bibliography ..............................................................................................

221

General Index ...........................................................................................

245

FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS e present volume contains the proceedings of the third workshop in a series of four international colloquia, which were generously funded and supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and the project’s partners in several universities across Europe: the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the University of Oxford, the Central European University, Budapest, and the Humboldt Universität, Berlin. e project Beyond the Fathers (www.beyondthefathers.org) had the overarching theme In Search of New Authorities: The Development of New Literary and Artistic Genres in Late Antique and Early Islamic Eastern Mediterranean (5th–8th centuries). e first volume is entitled New Themes, New Styles in the Eastern Mediterranean: Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Encounters, 5th–8th Centuries.1 e second volume focuses on Apocalypticism and Eschatology in the Abrahamic Religions (6th–8th Centuries).2 e third workshop in the series, whose material we are publishing here, was held at the Central European University, Budapest, and was entitled Christian Historiography between Empires (4th–8th Centuries). It explored the construction of the Christian historiographic traditions from the fourth to the eighth century between Byzantium, Georgia, Armenia, and the Islamic caliphates, at the geographic, linguistic and disciplinary borders. History as a science has been defined by nineteenth-century historians, such as Leopold von Ranke and eodor Mommsen. As these German historians were inspired by ucydides and Tacitus, for a long time, historians, and Byzantinists especially, adhered to the tendency to give precedence among our sources to a small set of high-bred historiographical writings, produced in Constantinopolitan court circles in a high-style Atticizing Greek language, relating political history, war, diplomacy and court life, and written in a generic imitation of the classical historians. is literature is transmitted in a small number of manuscripts. Oen, it is highly ideological, and its handling of the sources is far from Mommsen’s requirements. However, the bulk of the historical narrative 1. Hagit Amirav and Francesco Celia (eds.), New Themes, New Styles in the Eastern Mediterranean: Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Encounters, 5th-8th Centuries (Late Anitque History and Religion 16; Leuven, 2017). 2. Hagit Amirav, Emmanouela Grypeou, and Guy Stroumsa (eds.), Apocalypticism and Eschatology in Late Antiquity: Encounters in the Abrahamic Religions, 6th-8th Centuries (Late Antique History and Religion 17; Leuven, 2017).

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  

that exerted real influence in its own time and is transmitted in a great number of manuscripts has been written down in other than ucydidian and Tacitian genres, and belongs mainly to chronography, ecclesiastic history and saints’ lives (hagiography). Also, polemical and legendary literature, apocrypha and apocalypses served as additional narrative genres. Greek was far from having a unique position and our information derived from the Greek historiographic literature should be constantly checked against what there is in Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Latin – the list could be continued. As an interesting proof of continuity and entanglement between the Christian and the Islamic worlds, the Eusebian genres have inspired the Islamic Arab historiography as well, which in its turn was providing source material to the Christian one, so that oen it is difficult to separate the two. However, much recent development toward the opening of perspectives notwithstanding, Eastern Christian narrative sources still tend to be treated in a nationalistic framework, with the implication that Syriac sources are there for the history of the peoples of Syriac culture, Armenian for the history of the Armenians, Georgian for the history of Georgia, and so on. Concomitantly, nationalistic stereotypes loom large over our studies. An inspiring book on the question of genres is the book by Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Textures of Time.3 ey show that one should look for history-writing in South India through subtle generic indicators in literary texts instead of looking for the classical historical genre in the Mommsenian sense. All of a sudden, the idea that the Indian mind is a-historical, disappears. e same methodology can be applied, for example, to Byzantine hagiographic texts, such as Nicetas Stethatus’ Life of Symeon the New Theologian. It is hagiography with all the generic requirements of a hagiographic text. However, suprageneric markers indicate when and in which way it turns to history precisely when the author abandons, or feels uneasy about, the hagiographic topoi, or when he handles them in an awkward manner. Mutatis mutandis, similar methods are being applied in historical Jesus studies vis-à-vis the Gospels. A standard error coming from the neglect of the question of genre is the judgement that pseudo-historical writings, or writings written in mixed genres are falsifying history, whereas generic and suprageneric markers indicate the fluctuation between history and fiction. Another example is the ‘principle of elimination’ which oen results in 3. Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Textures of Time: Writing History in South India (New York, 2003).

  

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eliminating a source as unreliable, because it contains contradictory information in the Aristotelian sense, instead of understanding first the authors’ agenda and, so, the reason why they gave contradictory information. e last decade has seen much development and many new results in the assessment of the historiographic traditions of the period under investigation. Byzantinists have explored new sources and approached well-known sources in innovative ways, new editorial and commentary projects are under way, sources in Oriental languages ceased to be the subject of the Orientalist disciplines and entered the major historiographic discourse, areas previously considered peripheral entered the mainstream narrative, and narrative genres that previously had been neglected as having little value as historical sources, such as hagiography, have been re-evaluated. Readers have become less prone to accept everything at face value and are more sensitive to hidden meanings and allusions. e workshop sought to take stock of these developments and explore the ways forward. e workshop brought together specialists working on narrative sources written in all these languages from a multiplicity of innovative approaches. It has turned out that ‘borderline history’ in the multiple meanings of this polyvalent expression, is the order of the day and tends to subvert old convictions. All in all, the combination of all the methods, approaches and competencies displayed in this volume might lead to a unified and novel history, created through collective effort. ere follows a short introduction to each article. Although some of them are thematically connected, we have arranged them according to alphabetical order. In ‘e Past, the Present and at Time in Between: Some oughts on Early Medieval Historical inking in Caucasia’, Nikoloz Aleksidze writes about the historiography of the so-called Caucasian Church Schism. In the early seventh century an active exchange of letters was initiated between the Armenian and Georgian Church hierarchs over doctrinal and ecclesiastical matters, which eventually led to the Schism. As a result of the work of the Armenian historian Uxtanes of Sebastia in the tenth century, one oen reads in contemporary scholarship about a pre- and post-schismal historical writing. Aleksidze argues that this is a misconception. Rather than being a ‘tangible’ historical event, the Schism is itself a rhetorical construct ‘invented’ by Uxtanes and re-invented throughout the Middle Ages and even in contemporary historiography. rough the process of re-invention, the Schism became a kind of an interpretive tool or a narrative prism, through which medieval Armenian narratives read

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the ‘pre-Schismal’ Caucasian history. Medieval Armenian and Georgian historical narratives, chronicles, ecclesiastical histories and hagiographies tried to construct the story of the beginnings of Caucasian cultures by creating a myth of Caucasian ecclesiastical unity and of separation. What remains striking is that the Schism retains exactly the same interpretive features in contemporary scholarly discourse. In ‘Is the Patriarch Pyrrhos (638–641 and 654) the Author of the First Part of Nikephoros’ Short History (Chapters 1–32)?’, Christian Boudignon argues that the answer to the question posed in the title must be positive. e first part of Nikephoros’ Short History (ch. 1–32) deals with the reign of Emperor Herakleios (610–641), which must have been the extent of the source text, called the Chronicle to 641. e agenda of the Short History is the defence of the role of the patriarch in political life, and the defence of the honour of Patriarch Pyrrhos. Another main theme is the problem of the second and controversial marriage of Herakleios to his niece Martina. For the redactor of the Short History, and also for his source, this is the very reason for the collapse of the Empire in Orient. ese characteristics point to the hypothesis that the source of the first part of Nikephoros’ Short History comes from the monothelite patriarchal circle of Constantinople. e date of the Chronicle to 641 will be determined to be shortly aer the deposition of Pyrrhos in 641, probably between 645 and 647. In ‘Historiography Across the Borders: e Case of the Islamic Material in eophanes Confessor’s Chronographia’, Maria Conterno examines some passages from this Chronographia, which attest to a case of upstream intercultural transmission, namely the passage of historical information from the Islamic milieu to the Christian Greek-speaking one. In recent scholarship, Lawrence Conrad’s hypothesis that eophanes Confessor’s ‘Oriental Source’ was a Greek translation-continuation of eophilus of Edessa’s lost historical work has been called into question. A more nuanced picture of the circulation of historical knowledge in the Late Antique and Early Islamic Near East is gradually emerging. In this scenario, eophanes’ Chronographia is a most valuable testimony, since it also contains materials of oriental origin unparalleled in the Syriac and Christian Arabic traditions. Such passages, analysed by Conterno in this paper, present the reader with examples of ‘frontier information’, attesting to how accounts of events and descriptions of characters originated, evolved and circulated in the Arab-Byzantine frontier region. It is sometimes almost impossible to draw a line between Islamic and Christian material, so that a black-and-white picture of the sources should be abandoned in favour of the appreciation of a far more complicated reality,

  

XI

where the oral transmission and reworking of historical narratives also played a fundamental role. In ‘Generic Concepts and Topoi of Medieval Georgian Historiography’, Nino Doborjginidze considers historiographical topoi of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, which largely determined the character of old Georgian historical narratives. e arguments are focused on three aspects of this subject. First, the topos developed in old Georgian hagiography that shaped the role and functions of Kartli (Georgia) as a part of the Christian world (Iovane Sabanisdze). Secondly, the topos developed in Georgian historical prose on the affiliation with a larger-scale polyethnic, religious, and cultural world, that eventually shaped the self-identity of medieval Georgian scholars. e third aspect is the topos of the language equality of Georgian and Greek. In ‘e Making of a Syriac Chronicler: e Case of Joshua the Stylite of Zuqnīn’, Amir Harrak investigates how a stylite could become a chronicler.  e Chronicler of Zuqnin, most probably Joshua the Stylite, produced a world chronicle going from the creation to the year  775/6. He learned chronographical methods from his compiled sources: Eusebius of Caesarea, John of Ephesus, and the short Edessene chronicle, to mention only a few. e latter part of the chronicle going from 750 to 775/6, the author’s personal contribution, contains clear literary indications of his learning how to write a chronicle, including jeremiads discussing devastating plagues and giving progressively market prices in the context of Upper Syria. Harrak presents extracts from the chronicle to illustrate the debt of the chronicler to his major sources. In ‘History Writing in the Time of Islam’s Beginnings’, Robert Hoyland asks what kind of history writing was being produced in the Near East in the seventh-eighth centuries, and why so little of it survived intact. Aer dismissing the possibility that nothing was written in this period, it is argued that everything was destroyed in the sense that later historians and chroniclers heavily reworked earlier sources for their own purposes. Hoyland explores who was writing in the Christian and the Islamic traditions, and what they were writing. On the Christian side it is possible to identify a common source that was widely used by chroniclers of the ninth-tenth centuries. In the Islamic tradition things are more complicated than they appear: critical study reveals that those assumed to be mere compilers actively shaped their sources. Further, there is material that was shared by Christian and Muslim traditions, for instance in the case of Persian historiography and Umayyad history in Syria. Authors from the ninth century, then, revised works from the seventh-eighth centuries. Remarkably, these earlier works show no clear

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confessional divides. Writers and audiences seem to have had no problem using works from traditions other than their own. In ‘e Sack of Rome (410 ) in the Constantinopolitan Church Histories of the Fih Century’, Yonatan Livneh compares several accounts of Alaric’s sack of Rome (410 ) and highlights the independence of the church historiography compiled in fih-century Constantinople (Philostorgius, Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen) from earlier Christian argumentation regarding the event. While the pagan exploitation of the sack in the rhetoric against Christians lays at the heart of Augustine’s and Orosius’s response to this event, this matter appears to be of little concern to the later Constantinopolitan writers. eir narratives of the sack are assertively constructed as cautionary tales for their immediate Constantinopolitan audience in a bid for inner-church peace on the one hand, and a more aggressive policy towards foreigners, on the other. Such liberty to reform earlier traditions regarding the sack appears to be part of a heightened interest – characteristic of fih-century Constantinopolitan literature as a whole – in classical Greek literary themes and standards. is corpus is therefore shown to mark a break from earlier Christian experimentation in historiography in the manner in which it encompasses both secular and religious matters, as well as how it deploys classical historiosophy alongside a Christian theology of retribution. In ‘Rewriting Scripture as an Exercise in Counter-History: Apologetic Genealogy and Anti-Judaism in the Syriac Cave of Treasures’, Sergey Minov deals with the Cave of Treasures, a Christian pseudepigraphic composition written in Syriac during the sixth or early seventh century in Sasanian Mesopotamia, which presents a particular version of Heilsgeschichte, where the narratives of both Old and New Testaments are creatively merged into a new account. is new version of the sacred history features remarkable innovations that are not found in the canonical narratives and that serve the peculiar agenda of its author. With the aim of clarifying the question of the genre categorization of this composition, its formal as well as functional aspects are discussed. e Cave emerges as a representative of the mixed genre that brings together genealogical, chronographic and historiographic literary strategies in the service of anti-Jewish apologetic and polemic. In ‘Malalas and the New Age of Justinian’, Roger Scott attempts to show how Malalas’ World Chronicle, for a long time despised by Byzantinists of a classicist background because of its language quality, can assist in drawing attention to other sources that reveal features present in the sixth century, which are not normally emphasized, but which herald the changed world of the seventh century. Sixth-century Byzantium

  

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(especially Justinian’s reign) is usually noted for its remarkable major achievements: the Codification of Law, the Hagia Sophia; the (rather coincidental) conquest of the Western Empire; and also for its literature, especially classicising works such as Prokopios’ works and Agathias’ Cycle as well as Romanos’ Kontakia, and Kosmas Indikopleustes’ Christian Topography. With notable exceptions, such as Mischa Meier’s Das andere Zeitalter Justinians (Göttingen, 2004), little attention is usually paid to a change in character during the period, difficult to define, but probably of greater significance in explaining the onset of a different world of the seventh century. Facets include notably a fear of punishment for dissent, whether social or religious, that led to authors writing in code; reactions to numerous natural disasters, and concern over eschatology; though also an apparent acceptance of the correctness of a more puritanical way of life. In ‘Hagiography as a Historiographic Genre: From Eusebius to Cyril of Scythopolis and Eustratius of Constantinople’, István Perczel proposes the thesis that the literary genre of Saints’ Lives, oen treated as a merely representative genre, was invented as a historiographic genre by Eusebius of Caesarea as part of his ‘Grand Project’, aiming at presenting the new Christian concept of time and history over against Porphyry’s eternalist and anti-creationist position. To this Grand Project belongs the invention of three new historiographic genres: Chronography, Eccclesiastic History and Saints’ Lives. While apologetic, Eusebius had a Mommsenian aim avant la lettre: to found his new perspective on facts and documents. However, as the miraculous intervention of God in history was one of the main Christian arguments against Porphyry’s eternalism, thus, for Eusebius, recounting the miraculous had a philosophical meaning. Perczel analyses in this context the parallel accounts on Constantine’s vision and his subsequent adoption of the chi-rho/rho-chi symbol as the new Roman military standard, to conclude that the common source of all these accounts must have been Constantine’s own official propaganda, which Eusebius substantially changed to make the vision the symbolic beginning of a new cosmic era inaugurated by a divine intervention. e Eusebian concept survived, even dominated Christian historiography, although it underwent much modification due to historical circumstances and the evolution of the genres. From the rich survival history of the Eusebian hagiographic concept,  the paper examines two cases and asks the question how these two very different Saints’ Lives can be treated as historiographies and, thus, historical sources for our own historiographic aims. ese two cases are the monastic histories of Cyril of Scythopolis and the Life of Patriarch Eutychius by Eustratius of Constantinople, both from the sixth century. Perczel argues

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that, in order to read such hagiographical pieces as historiography, we need hermeneutical tools appropriate for each piece of literature. In the first case he shows how Cyril, who combines hagiography to the other two Eusebian genres, has used documents of imperial legislation to make his historiography reliable and how, per consequent, his narrative contains unique source material for understanding these laws. In the second, he analyses some weird miraculous elements in the Life of Eutychius, and shows that these elements, partly going back to the Life of Constantine by Eusebius, have an organic role in the narrative and convey a hidden meaning, which permit the reader to understand the historical circumstances of the events related.   In conclusion, precisely in order to avoid traditional errors, the examination of genres, generic criteria, and the writing techniques that are associated with certain genres, should be our first task when dealing with the text of our period and region. As shown by the contributors to this volume, scholars oen tend to mould their discussions by using presuppositions about genres, but these are only rough categories which are better used cautiously and treated as a common effort in knowledge systematization. Words of thanks are owed to the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for funding the project most generously, and to the European Research Council (ERC), which funded the project’s director, Hagit Amirav, during the period of the project, as well as the Central European University, which supported the project from its inception and contributed to the funding of the workshop. We are very grateful to Roger Scott, Sebastian Brock, and Averil Cameron, who offered their input in lively discussions prior to the workshop which have determined the concept of the present volume. e contributors should be thanked wholeheartedly. e editors Amsterdam, Leiden, and Budapest

N.B.: Abbreviations for periodicals and reference works are from the list in the Cambridge Ancient History volume 14.

CONTRIBUTORS Nikoloz Aleksidze is a Junior Research Fellow, Pembroke College, and Research Associate at the Faculty of History, Oxford University. Christian Boudiginon is a Lecturer in Classics at Aix-Marseille University. Maria Conterno holds a post-doctoral position in the Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Ghent University. Nino Doborjginidze is the Director of the Institute of Linguistic Studies, Ilia State University, Tbilisi. Amir Harrak is Professor of Aramaic and Syriac at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto. Robert G. Hoyland is Professor of Late Antique and Early Islamic Middle Eastern History at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University. Yonatan Livneh is a post-doctoral Fellow at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Sergey Minov is Research Fellow at the Faculty of History, University of Oxford. István Perczel is Professor at the Department of Medieval Studies at the Central European University, Vienna and Budapest. Roger Scott is Principal Fellow at the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne.

THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE TIME INBETWEEN: SOME THOUGHTS ON EARLY MEDIEVAL HISTORICAL THINKING IN CAUCASIA Nikoloz A

A comparative study of Early Medieval Georgian and Armenian historiography has received a well-deserved treatment by some of the field’s most renowned scholars.1 It has been pointed out throughout scholarship that the two traditions, Armenian and Georgian, reveal substantial asynchronicity: the Armenian historical writing has been shaped and mastered throughout the first two centuries of Armenian literary tradition, whereas the Georgian counterpart was somewhat lagging behind, only to reach a comparable stage of development near the turn of the millennium. e purpose of the present essay is by no means to provide a comparative study of the two traditions, but instead, its rather modest aim is to contrast several attempts attested in early medieval Armenian and Georgian historical writing to connect two times, that of their own experienced biographical memory and what in certain disciplines scholars call cultural memory, the days of the distant past, in order to overcome a certain historiographic tension which arises when the two are in radical dissonance.2 ese two modes of remembering were described by Maurice Halbwachs and later elaborated by Jan Assmann as communicative and cultural memories, although perhaps there are many other ways of terming the same phenomena.3 is essay attempts to illustrate two principal developments in medieval Caucasian historical thinking: first, during the ardent Armeno-Georgian controversy, which led to the 1. See, e.g., Robert W. omson, ‘e Writing of History: e Development of the Armenian and Georgian Traditions’, in Il Caucaso: Cerniera tra Culture dal Mediterraneo alla Persia (Secoli IV-XI) 1 (Spoleto, 1996), pp. 493–521; idem, ‘e Origins of Caucasian Civilization: e Christian Component’, in Ronald Grigor Suny (ed.), Transcaucasia, Nationalism, and Social Change: Essays in the History of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (Ann Arbor, 1996), pp. 25–45. 2. ese questions have been explored in greater detail in my book Nikoloz Aleksidze, The Narrative of the Caucasian Schism: Memory and Forgetting in Medieval Caucasia (Leuven, 2018). 3. Jan Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance and Political Imagination (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 15–70.

2

. 

so-called Caucasian Schism, thoroughly documented in the Book of Letters, and in ensuing novel circumstances, how certain Georgian and Armenian writers attempted to connect the two times – the experienced communicative memory and cultural memory of illo tempore, and secondly, how the two explained each other. To utilize Reinhart Koselleck’s wording, the essay tries to answer how in actual situations the experiences of the present come in terms with the past, and also, in a sense, with the future.4 In the Armenian case, as exemplified by the contributors to the Book of Letters, this ‘inexplicable present’ was a sudden emergence of Chalcedonianism in neighbouring Iberia and the bizarre claim by the Georgians that they, and indeed Armenians, have always been Chalcedonian. e exchange of letters between the Armenians and Georgians resulted in a certain reassessment of the past and eventually led to the need to create a new standard narrative of Caucasian history.

T B S  M At the outbreak of the seventh century, the locum tenens of the Armenian Patriarchal throne, Vrtanēs Kerdoł, received a rather alarming letter. e disturbances came from the Armeno-Georgian marchland of Gugareti (Gugark‘/Gogarenē), a stretch of land just south of Tbilisi and north of the Armenian plateau. is land, traditionally bilingual and multi-ethnic, was historically inhabited by Armenians and Georgians, with the two ethnic groups sharing the same faith and belonging to the same diocese of Curt‘avi. As it transpires from the Book of Letters, a certain unwritten tradition had existed in the region that the Bishop of Curt‘avi was supposed to be elected sometimes from among the Armenians and other times from the Georgians, and according to the requirements of this office, ought to have been versed in both of these languages – an arrangement that had made the region a showcase of harmony and cohabitation.5 e principal patron saint of the region, Queen Šušanik, daughter of the valiant prince Vardan Mamikonean, and the wife of the Georgian pitiaxš of the land, Varsken, who had been martyred at the hands of her husband in the fih century, symbolized this unity. Her shrine attracted Georgians and Armenians, where the two would meet, interact and even intermarry. 4. Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York, 2004), p. 3. 5. For the French translation of the letter, see Nina Garsoïan, L’église arménienne et le grande schisme d’orient (Leuven, 1999), pp. 538–39.

 ,      -

3

us, for the participants in the correspondence as preserved in the Book of Letters the land was a region of peaceful cohabitation of the two nations. Such a state of affairs made the contents of the letter particularly disturbing. Movsēs, the Armenian bishop of Curt‘avi, complained that aer having served for several years in the region, he only now discovered that the Georgians, who were supposed to be sharing the faith with the nextdoor Armenians, merely had ‘leaves dyed in the colour of Orthodoxy’, whereas in actuality ‘their twigs were barren’ as they practised heresy and celebrated Chalcedonian definitions. Georgians, continues the letter, were incited by the Mcxetan Katholikos Kyrion, who had masterminded the Georgian apostasy. Due to his whistleblowing and his exposure of the Georgians’ mischief, Movsēs had been forced to vacate his see and was violently persecuted by the ghastly Katholikos. us, claims the bishop, centuries of peace and friendship had terminated, the Georgians had apostatized, becoming hostile towards him, and, as it happens, towards everything Armenian. Consequently, they even changed the language of the liturgy and celebrated it solely and exclusively in Georgian – an aberration so far unheard of. is and other controversial issues of doctrine and practice were ardently debated in the ensuing correspondence between Armenians and Georgians, which involved the Armenian katholikoi, Movsēs and Abraham, the locum tenens Vrt‘anēs, an Armenian prince, the Georgian katholikos Kyrion, and the Georgian nobility, triggering what we have come to know as the Caucasian ecclesiastic Schism. As I have illustrated elsewhere, in time the Schism became a virtual historical interpretive schema, and subsequent writers, especially in the dramatically changing political landscape of medieval Caucasia, persistently harked back to the deeply engrained conception of the schism in their attempts to comprehend the rather unfortunate circumstances of the present. Going back to Movsēs, the disgraced bishop concluded the letter with the following plea: I fully appropriated the book of blessed Timothy [Aeluros] and copied all of the letters that can be found in that holy Church and with you. Other letters also reached me in fullness from various places of blessed teachers that expose and anathematize the council of the diphysites. But aer the eradication of the definitions of that Jewish Council by the pious emperors Zeno and Anastasius, I could not discover anywhere in what manner or by whose hand this innovation ruined so many churches. May your holiness order in writing to my humbleness whatever you may know concerning this subject.6 6. GT‘ I, p. 140. Translated from the Armenian by N. Aleksidze.

4

. 

is inquiry, sent by Movsēs, states a problem that was addressed on multiple occasions by later Armenian historians and is perhaps one of the first instances in Armenian writing where the lack of historical record concerning the Christian doctrine is explicitly referred to as a political and rhetorical problem. In his capacity as the leader of the Armenian community in Curt‘avi and environs, Movsēs effectively requested from Vrt‘anēs, an indeed great intellectual authority of his times, a standard narrative of the past century, the story of the rejuvenation of the Chalcedonian aberration and of the distancing of Armenian Orthodoxy from this error. In other words, Vrt‘anēs was supposed to fill in the ‘floating gap’ of memory that had opened between the Orthodox past, an integral part of Armenian cultural memory, and the immediate biographical memory, and to discover the resulting ‘missing link’. is narrative he could then disseminate among the ethnic Armenian members of his diocese and thereby defend his flock from the Georgian attacks – a rhetorical tool that he, and, as it turned out, the Armenian party in its entirety, apparently lacked. e question that bothered Movsēs and other Armenian participants in the correspondence was what had happened during the previous one hundred years, from the time of the ‘eradication’ of the Chalcedonian error by the blessed emperors Zeno and Anastasius until the unexpected resurgence of Chalcedonianism at the very centre of the Caucasus in their own times. Indeed, the impression one receives from Movsēs’ letters is that in a situation of unambiguous union in Caucasia, marked by so many symbols mentioned above, suddenly and out of the blue the Georgians under the leadership of Kyrion emerged as being Chalcedonian. us, to the Armenian party, the ‘qualitative leap’ from Orthodoxy to the Chalcedonian heresy remained historically inexplicable, especially in the circumstances where the Georgian katholikos persistently attested that nothing had changed in their doctrine: they had always been and remained in communion with the five patriarchates in their acceptance of the five oecumenical councils. When Bishop Movsēs and later patriarchs Movsēs and Abraham faced Georgian opposition, they realized the paucity of mnemonic tools required effectively to overcome this opposition, and to counter the very ambiguous Georgian rhetoric with its bizarre references to the faith that they ‘commune both here and there’ and a persistent claim that their religious practice had always been the same.7 7. For a discussion on the lacunae of Armenian historiography of the late fih and the entire sixth century, see Tara L. Andrews, ‘Identity, Philosophy, and the Problem of Armenian History in the Sixth Century’, in Philip Wood (ed.), History and Identity in the Late Antique near East (Oxford, 2013), pp. 30–42.

 ,      -

5

e historical ignorance of a provincial bishop may be more or less understandable, but the lengthy answer by Vrt‘anēs to this enquiry and his attempt to recount the history of the previous century in a nutshell, is no less incompetent, abounding in pious legends, and lacking empirical knowledge of specific historical developments. Vrt‘anēs begins his narrative with an assurance that these are ‘the true histories of his memories (or remembrances)’, as if stating a caveat that he is writing in an impromptu fashion and not applying to any particular sources. He refers to remembrance in several other instances, claiming that there is more to recall of the numerous perditions that the resurgent Council of Chalcedon caused but that he would keep these for a later time. Vrt‘anēs reminded the Armenian diocese of a certain pan-Caucasian canon that had once safeguarded the region from Chalcedonianism, by once again alluding to the remembrance of Chalcedon, as to a long forgotten bad dream that has recently resurfaced: Because some unpleasant news has reached us that the schism of Nestorius and of the Council of Chalcedon, which had been eradicated as something not to be remembered through a terrible anathema pronounced by common canon of the bishops and princes of the Armenians, Georgians and Albanians, now that so-called katholikos, together with his bishops and princes, is accepting and professing that heresy.8

Vrt‘anēs narrated at length the story of the emperors Justin and Justinian, with the anecdote of the miraculous absence of the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon from the tomb of St Euphemia, without mentioning the Second Council of Constantinople or any of the accompanying events that could have provoked Chalcedonian backlash.9 Neither is there provided any account of the Armenian reaction against Chalcedon, nor of any Armenian council convened against Chalcedonianism, whereas a persistent and somewhat later Armenian tradition assigned this role to the famous Council of Dwin of 555, allegedly convened less than fiy years before Vrt‘anēs, specifically to counter diphysitism of all sorts. But nothing of this kind is yet transparent in Vrt‘anēs’ narrative, which is remarkable because the period that Movsēs is inquiring about does not go back far beyond their lifetime, and is not a matter of days of distant past but rather a matter of some fiy years, a period that in principle cannot be called a ‘floating gap’ of oral memory.10 e impression that one 8. For Uxtanēs’ rendering see Bishop Ukhtanes of Sebastia, History of Armenia part II, History of the Severance of the Georgians from the Armenians, tr. Zaven Arzoumanian (Fort Lauderdale, 1985), p. 61. 9. For an abridged version of this letter with an English translation, see Bishop Ukhtanes, pp. 74–76. See also Garsoïan, L’église, pp. 540–44. 10. e term is coined by Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison, 1985), p. 23.

6

. 

receives when reading this correspondence is that following the ‘antiChalcedonian’ decrees of Zeno and Anastasius nothing happened and a blank spot in history and memory appeared in the official narrative of the past century. us, through his request to communicate the immediate ‘biographical’ memory, Movsēs was effectively requesting a formulation of cultural memory, which he would then disseminate among his Armenian flock and thus create, as it were, a first line of mnemonic defence against the Georgians. is tension between biographic and cultural memory was retained throughout the entire correspondence and produced the need to create, as it were, interpretive schemata through which the past would be comprehended, whereby the past could constantly explain the present and, on the other hand, the current state of affairs could illustrate the distant past. But, in the circumstances the past and the present were not connecting, as a certain new time emerged in the Book of Letters, a certain chronological buffer zone between the past and the present. is, I believe, resulted in a need to create a new standard historical narrative of Caucasia’s religious history and to redefine the longue durée of Caucasia’s conversion history or, in other words, of its salvation history. is, like any salvation history, resulted in a novel narrative, where, on the one hand, new liminal stages of history were discovered and, on the other, a new image of an identity-making other was created.

‘O H Y  U’ is new standard for narrating the history of the century before the Schism was in a way set by Vrt‘anēs K‘erdoł and the two Armenian katholikoi. In order to sustain evasive continuity between the past and the present, both sides and particularly the Armenians oen alluded to remembrance by referring to a certain written document, a certain ‘letter of oath’ undersigned by Georgian and Armenian bishops, which allegedly affirmed the unity of faith between Armenians and Georgians some one hundred years earlier during the reign of King Kawad of Persia. For the first time this document was mentioned in a letter from Katholikos Movsēs Elivardec‘i to Kyrion, preserved only in the Uxtanēsian (tenth-century) redaction of the Book of Letters. Be it known unto you that in the time of Kawad King of Kings, there was an enquiry on the matter of faith, and the Romans accepted the faith of Chalcedon, whereas our and your country rejected and distanced themselves [from them], and the unity of faith between us and you is still

 ,      -

7

preserved in writing. erefore, do not betray the covenant of our fathers, which they established between the two of us.11

To this Kyrion responded that yes, indeed, he was aware of this document and moreover, he and his Church remained faithful to it. Furthermore, the same claim was repeated several times by the newly elected katholikos Abraham to Kyrion. For instance: During the reign of the King of Kings Kawad (488–96, 498–531), there was an enquiry between our land and [the land] of the Romans, who accepted the Council of Chalcedon and the Tome of Leo. Teachers and princes of our and your lands separated from their communion, [which is] kept with unity and in writing among us until our days. Now it is inappropriate for your holiness to introduce alienation between the two countries, and deprive them of bodily love and kinship, and spiritual communion, so that no one travels from here to pray at that Holy Cross and from there to the holy Cathedral12

Elsewhere: And now if you have not strayed from the faith of the fathers, as you wrote to us many times, come and you too condemn the cursed Council of Chalcedon and the filthy Tome of Leo, just as your forerunner blessed Gabriel the Katholikos of Georgia [did] together with our blessed fathers and with his sharers of the throne [the list of the Georgian bishops]. ese blessed bishops, who were from your land, together with the Albanians and Siwnians arrived in Armenia in the times of Babgēn the Katholikos of the Armenians, at the council, where they unanimously cursed the Council of Chalcedon and the Tome of Leo. e letter of oath, which was written in Armenian, was lost during the unrest, but was then translated in the town of Urha [Edessa] from Greek, for they also had it from us. But they could not translate it faithfully and truly as appropriate. ere are some well-known names of your bishops and eparchies, as well as there are others extremely obscure and deformed. But if you wish to find out the names of the bishops, and according to their seats and their alternative names, as they are written, you can find out the exact names of the episcopates and others, because that was the way we found it ourselves, moreover you can find the letter of oath also in your language.13

As already mentioned, Kyrion eagerly acknowledged the existence if not of such a document, then at least of an established unity, apparently not thinking that the two, the document and his confession of faith, were contradictory.14 11. Arzoumanian (trans.), Bishop Ukhtanes, pp. 45–46. See also Garsoïan, L’église, p. 518. 12. Arzoumanian (trans.), Bishop Ukhtanes, p. 91. 13. Arzoumanian (trans.), Bishop Ukhtanes, p. 99. 14. is judgment is understandably true if his position is faithfully rendered by the Armenian manuscript tradition.

8

.  at you have written about the times of Kawad King of Kings, we know it, for it was indeed so, as we have heard numerous times. Whatever you have written about the unity, oath and the confirmation of faith by our fathers and yours, we keep the same unchanged. Concerning what you have written and said on the unity of your lands, which is still preserved in our days, we are committed to the same unity and we shall not change it.15

It only seems logical to conclude that the document under discussion was well known and highly esteemed. But these references do raise a problem, namely in the claim that whereas the Albanians, Armenians and Georgians had condemned the Chalcedonian definitions, the Romans had accepted both of them and Leo’s infamous Tome. For if this document had been produced during the reign of King Kawad and Katholikos Babgēn, then this must have happened during the reign of either Zeno, Basiliscus or Anastasius, emperors that are considered as holy in the Armenian tradition for their fervent opposition to Chalcedon. erefore, on the one hand to praise the Roman emperors as the defenders of Orthodoxy and on the other to claim that during their rule the Armenians had separated from the very same Chalcedonian Romans is nonsensical. e confusion is retained by Uxtanēs, the tenth-century editor of the Book of Letters, who retains all these references in his edition, but on another occasion quotes The History of the Albanians, which claims that the very same council, together with the Romans, formally condemned the Chalcedonian definitions. Evidently two or more events have been confused and chronologically severely contaminated: One hundred and eighty years aer the conversion of Armenia, a council was convened concerning the world-destroying Council of Chalcedon. Greece, Italy, Armenia, Albania, and Georgia unanimously cursed the infamous Council of Chalcedon and the tome of Leo at the command of the pious kings Zeno and Anastasius. Eighty-seven years later, in the days of Abraham, Katholikos of Armenia, the Georgians separated from the Armenians through the accursed Kyrion, and Greece and Italy with them.16

us, a certain cognitive dissonance is produced and both sides could claim that that very same document strengthened their position. e ‘one hundred years’ between the affirmation of unity and its rejection became a standard historical and explicative concept in subsequent Armenian historical writing, a certain buffer time-zone, although with practically non-existent empirical knowledge of what it all was about. By the tenth century, when Uxtanēs produced his redaction of the Book of Letters, the 15. Arzoumanian (trans.), Bishop Ukhtanes, pp. 47–48. 16. Movsēs Dasxuranc‘i, History of the Caucasian Albanians, trans. C.F.J. Dowsett (London, 1961), p. 173.

 ,      -

9

idea of Caucasian unity and separation had already acquired a certain mythical dimension. As another somewhat belated answer to Movsēs’ inquiry, the eleventh-century Armenian historian Anania Sanahinec‘i, an eager and ardent polemicist against the Georgians, wrote the following furious words: What shall we say of the severance of the Georgians from our faith that had not yet reached us? For one hundred years they were cursing the council of Chalcedon with us until the Armenians gathered in Dwin and Manazkert and threw away the council of Chalcedon and established the same faith that they received from St Gregory and three holy Councils. Gabriel Hałałac‘i, the Archbishop of Mcxeta, was together with us and thus united with us. ey separated from us when Gabriel died and a certain Kyrion was established in his place, who latently had the poison of Chalcedon and being ill of the longing for supremacy, and enraged because of the establishment of the Albanian and Siwnian in front of him, that was decided among us in the times of Katholikos Abraham, he was summoned once and twice and he did not obey.17

Anania’s account is a very typical representation of the Schism narrative in Medieval Armenian cultural memory. In Anania’s narrative the concept of ‘one hundred years of unity’ is integrated within the Armenian rhetorical arsenal as a hypothetical transitional period of peace and union, jeopardized by the Georgians, and acts as a conceptual link between the affirmation and rejection of this unity. ese one hundred years, the condensed and obscured period of Caucasian history, fell prey to extreme schematization and became a very usable interpretive tool in Medieval Armenian literature, which indeed oen reduced the entire period to a mere ‘narrative template’ of unity and divergence, filled with various specific narratives, whether written or oral.18 us, Medieval Armenian sources highlight only two Georgian katholikoi from the sixth century and are ignorant of any others. ese are Katholikos Gabriel, who remained as a symbol of unity between the two Churches, who affirmed the ArmenoGeorgian unity, and the ‘filthy’ Kyrion, the betrayer of union. Depending on the author’s predilections, these katholikoi were sometimes called archbishops, sometimes metropolitans, yet some other times merely bishops. For example, Kirakos Ganjakec‘i (thirteenth century) constructs the following narrative: 17. Anania Vardapet Sanahinec‘i, Vasn Bažanmac Vrac‘ [On the Separation of the Georgians] in Črdilo mxareta somexta moghvac‘eni d amati vinaoba [‘e Teachers of the Armenians of the North’ and their Identity], ed. L. Melikset-Beg (Tbilisi, 1928), p. 112. Translated from the Armenian by N. Aleksidze. 18. On ‘narrative templates’, see James V. Wertsch, Voices of Collective Remembering (Cambridge, 2002).

10

.  During those years, the bishop of the Georgians died; coming to lord Movsēs, they asked him to give them a bishop. So he ordained a certain warden of his church named Kyrion and gave him to them, trusting him to keep love and unity with the throne of Saint Gregory – for up to that time, the Georgians received ordination from the Armenians ... From that time forth [aer Kyrion’s apostasy], Georgian ordination, which had been received from the Armenians, ended, since they started to follow the Greeks.19

Yovhannēs Sarkawag (twelh century) recounts the events in a similarly schematic fashion: ‘In the seventy-third year aer Lord Abraham and in the forty-third year aer Lord Yovhannēs, Georgians fully separated from the union with the Armenians and confessed Chalcedon, receiving the bile, which they had been cursing for 114 years together with us,’20 without mentioning anything before or in between. In the absence of reliable knowledge, the two Georgian katholikoi symbolized the unity and divergence and became virtual sites of memory upon which the recollection of these supposedly turbulent events was grounded. is was true to such an extent that oen Gabriel’s and Kyrion’s identities were confused and the entire narrative of Caucasian unity and separation, the ‘one hundred years’, was shrunk into a single event of history. Mxit‘ar Goš’s version of the events serves as a good example: e Georgians were cursing the council of Chalcedon together with us for one hundred years, until the Council of the Armenians in Dwin and in Manazkert, where they separated from the faith of Chalcedon and established the [faith] of three Holy Councils and Gabriel, Bishop of Mcxeta, and then they separated from us. Gabriel died and Kyrion, who secretly had the heresy of Chalcedon, occupied his throne.21

Mxit‘ar presents Kyrion as Gabriel’s successor in spite of at least a ninety-year gap between the two katholikoi. Having lost its rhetorical purpose, the long period of one hundred years became a mere event, squeezed between the past and the present. e two Georgians were merged even further in a sixteenth-century anonymous History that claims that the Georgians had separated from the Armenians by the hand of ‘Kyrion and Gabriel – the Georgian leaders’.22 19. Bedrosian (trans.), Kirakos Gandzakets‘i’s History of the Armenians, p. 39. 20. See Leon Melikset-Bek, Črdilo mxareta somexta moghvac‘eni da mati vinaoba [‘e Teachers of the Armenians of the North’ and their Identity], pp. 151–52. 21. Mxit‘ar Vardapet Goš, ‘T‘owłt‘ ar Vrac‘isn jałags owłłap‘ałowt‘iwn hawatoy [Letter to the Georgians Concerning the Orthodoxy of Faith]’, in 11-13 dareri Hay-Vrac‘akan Davandakan Xndirner ev Mxit‘ar Goši ‘Ar Vrac‘isn’ t‘owłt‘, ed. P. Mouradian (Yerevan, 2011), p. 196. Translated from the Armenian by N. Aleksidze. 22. Ananun Žamanakagrout‘iwn (XVI) [Anonymous Chronicler, sixteenth century], in V.A. Hakobyan (ed.), Manr Žamanakagrowt‘iwnner, XII–XVIII dd. 1 (Yerevan, 1951), pp. 140–53.

 ,      -

11

e most striking aspect of the original correspondence between the Armenian and Georgian hierarchs is that in their quest for an explanation of the current state of affairs, it seems as if they are discussing a certain distant and impenetrable past and not talking of their own experiences, of their immediate predecessors and their policies. When they refer to the unity in faith of the two Churches, they do not speak of it as of a univocally accepted fact, as a natural state of being, but as something that requires further proof, as if no continuous institutionalized memory of such a unity had existed, not within the realm of cultural memory and not even in communicative memory. For the protagonists of the initial early seventh-century controversy, who referred to a unifying document composed some one hundred years earlier, the legendary one hundred years of unity was already a blank period. Just as Vrt‘anēs was unable to provide a reliable explanation of how the Chalcedonian error had been ‘eradicated’ – and if it indeed was, then how can one historically explain the ‘dissent’ of the Georgians? – so the later historians were unaware of the actual events and causes that led to the separation. Despite this, the ‘separation of the Georgians from the Armenians’ became a valid historical concept and a narrative template in the Armenian cultural memory, which led to a historiographic problem: separation from what?

T N ‘O’ A need to allocate to the period immediately preceding the Schism a meaningful place in the Armenian grand national narrative persisted in Medieval Armenian writing far beyond the immediate aermath of the Schism, either in the seventh or the eighth centuries. e question that later Medieval authors oen encountered was how one could unite the idyllic and mythical understanding of the past or rather of the foundation of Christian Caucasian cultures and of the received tradition of Caucasian unity, and how they could meaningfully conjoin it with the very unexpected disturbances caused by the Georgians. us, the Schism as an interpretive tool was formed in medieval Armenian tradition that acted as a certain transitional point dividing two times and two histories. Perhaps, one of the most vivid examples of providing Armenian historical thinking with new liminal stages and of incorporating the Schism into the Armenian ‘salvation history’ is offered by Armenian katholikos Yovhannēs Ōjnec‘i (717–28), one of Armenia’s most illustrious patriarchs, who effectively finalized the formation of the Armenian ecclesiastic tradition. Ōjnec‘i’s History of the Armenian Councils reads as a salvation story

12

. 

of the Armenian nation, a path from the adoption of Christianity towards the culminating point at the councils of Dwin and Manazkert, convened by Yovhannēs himself, which in a sense ratified Armenian Orthodoxy.23 Ōjnec‘i projects Armenia’s religious history through the prism of the Church councils convened at various times as a linear history of the formation of Armenian Orthodoxy and a long story of the drawing of a line of demarcation between Armenia and the rest of the Christian world. To summarize Ōjnec‘i’s essay, the first Armenian council was convened by St Gregory the Illuminator himself, followed by the adoption of the Nicene canons and, more importantly, their adaptation to the Armenian tradition by St Sahak.24 Further, Nersēs I the Great called the second synod as a reaction to the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople. e third Armenian Council was of particular importance as it was an Armenian response to the anti-Nestorian policy of the Council of Ephesus, the last ecumenical council recognized by the Armenian Church. e fourth council was dedicated to the adoption of the Armenian Church canons at Šahapivan. e fih council was convened by Babgēn in K‘ałak‘udašt to counter Persian Nestorians and to strengthen the limits of Orthodoxy. e sixth council was the ultimate point of divergence, where ‘the unity of Baptism and Nativity was established, one nature of Christ confessed, and the “who was crucified for us” addition introduced’, convened by Katholikos Nersēs II (548–557) to combat the Chalcedonian definitions. Incidentally, this council of paramount importance was entirely ignored by the early seventh-century authors. And finally Yovhannēs himself assembled the seventh council, which reaffirmed the definitions of Dwin 555 and finalized the formation of the national Church. erefore, for Ōjnec‘i, Armenia’s salvation history resides in its constant nationalization of the universal and each council is a liminal event and another step towards the nationalization of the Christian faith. Within the narrative, a local council validates the ecumenical councils and when ecumenical councils lost their authority and charisma, Armenian councils assumed the same universality. In a situation when the distant past and the present do not create a logical continuity, a need arose for one to explicate and justify the other. 23. For the German translation and study of the text, see Michel van Esbroeck, ‘Die sogenannte Konziliengeschichte des Johannes von Odzun (717-728)’, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 26.1 (1994), pp. 31–60. 24. For discussion on the appropriation of the Nicene canons by the Armenian Church, see Robert W. omson, ‘e Armenian Adaptation of the Nicene Canons’, in D. Chitunashvili (ed.), The Caucasus between East and West, Historical and Philological Studies in Honour of Zaza Aleksidze (Tbilisi, 2012), pp. 454–61.

 ,      -

13

us, for example, whereas the 555 Council of Dwin was entirely absent in the seventh-century historical writing, Ōjnec‘i rediscovered it as a transitional event in Armenia’s history of Orthodoxy. When the concept of the Schism was constructed and had thus emerged as a historical reality, a certain realignment of the past became a desideratum. In other words, if there was a Schism, there must have been a prior union and this union ought to have occupied a meaningful place in the national narrative. From the Armenian perspective, a historian who, I believe, most ingeniously dedicated his work to such a project was Movsēs Xorenac‘i. Although the author pretends to be a late fih-century voice, it has been substantially argued that most likely the History of Armenians, as we currently know it, was completed or written in the eighth century.25 It is in Movsēs’ narrative that for the first time the history of Caucasia is presented as a consciously political project and indeed an Armenian project. For Movsēs, for whom the Schism already was an integral part of the narrative and who writes in the circumstances where the Schism constitutes a certain horizon of expectation for the readers, the very concept of the Schism needed thorough justification. Unlike earlier Armenian historiography, where Georgians do not play any particular role, apart from being anti-Sasanian allies and occasional traitors, in Xorenac‘i’s narrative they emerge as a distinct identity-making other, and due to his tremendous influence have thus remained in later Armenian historical narratives. is othering of the Georgians Xorenac‘i attempts to accomplish on two major levels the foundations of Christianity in Georgia and the ethnic foundation of the region in illo tempore of the ethnarchs of Armenia. At a certain point in his History, amidst recounting a story of the valiant Arsacid Trdat, Armenia’s first Christian king, Xorenac‘i diverts his narrative and inserts an account of Iberia’s conversion, a story very well known to both Greek and Georgian sources. But stemming from Xorenac‘i’s pen, the Georgian tradition that constitutes the core of the Conversion of Georgia and was a standard narrative of Georgia’s conversion to Christianity becomes a part of the Armenian literary tradition and ‘grand narrative’. In Xorenac‘i’s rendering, Georgia’s Illuminatrix Nino, in Armenian Nunē, is yet another Hripsimean virgin and a companion of Gayanē and Manē, who had survived the wrath of King Trdat and managed to narrowly escape death. Having reached Iberia, Xorenac‘i’s Nunē merely acts on St Gregory’s behalf, being essentially his emissary to Iberia and 25. Moses Khorenats‘i, History of the Armenians, Translation and Commentary on the Literary Sources by Robert W. omson (revised edition; Ann Arbor, 2006), pp. 1–60.

14

. 

evangelizing the land through his order. us, Iberia’s conversion is effectively overseen by Gregory. Although Xorenac‘i claims to be applying to Socrates Scholasticus, he drastically changes the received tradition and incorporates it into the standard Armenian narrative:26 Blessed Nunē sought out trustworthy men and sent them to St Gregory, asking him to command her, what to do from then on, for the Georgians had happily accepted the preaching of the Gospel. She received a command to destroy the idols, just as he had done himself, and to set up the honourable sign of the Cross until the day when the Lord would grant them a pastor as guide.27

Xorenac‘i further amended the well-known story by claiming that aer the Georgian royal family was baptized, King Mirian sent an embassy to Gregory, whereas Socrates asserted that the delegates were sent to Constantinople with a mission to request an archbishop of Mcxeta. Moreover, Movsēs claimed that Nino spread the Gospel in the regions between ‘Klarǰk‘ (K‘larǯeti) to the gates of the Alans (Darial) and the Caspians, as far as the borders of the Massagetae, as Agathangelos informs us’, a claim that is nowhere to be found in any of the versions of Agathangelos.28 In the same context, the Georgian King Mirian/Mihran is referred to as merely Trdat’s other general and loyal servant, and Iberia’s arajnord (leader), not even a king. Elsewhere Movsēs elaborates on St Mesrop (Maštoc‘), the creator of Armenian writing, who had allegedly also created an alphabet for the Georgians.29 Earlier, at the outset of the narrative, Movsēs discusses the ethnic foundation of Caucasia and recounts the story of the region’s ethnarchs. Here his tone is even more arrogant. In the process of the distribution of the Caucasian lands, Georgians were almost fully ignored and together with other Caucasian people were merely called ‘Northerners’. Briefly put, Movsēs Xorenac‘i presented the history of Caucasia as a history of the Armenian people; the Southern Caucasus was a promised land that belonged and belongs to the Armenian nation, while all other nations were subject to it. According to the idea of Caucasia, as presented by Xorenac‘i, which became a dominant ideological framework in Medieval Armenia, all Caucasian lands and people were to be subjected to the Armenian crown, because such was the Divine predestination from the 26. See Bernadette Martin-Hisard, ‘Jalons pour une histoire du culte de sainte Nino (fin IVe-XIIIe s.)’, in J.-P. Mahé and R.W. omson (eds.), From Byzantium to Iran: Armenian Studies in Honour of Nina G. Garsoïan (Atlanta, 1997), pp. 66–67. 27. Moses Khorenats‘i, History, p. 239. 28. Moses Khorenats‘i, History, p. 239. 29. Moses Khorenats‘i, History, pp. 316–18.

 ,      -

15

age of the founding fathers. us, Movsēs attempts to incorporate each aspect of Georgian identity, whether foundations of Christianity, conversion history, national writing or ethnic myth, into the grand Armenian narrative that would dramatize the present situation of a Schism and of the Georgian nation’s original sin.

T G V: T T F e dramatic difference between the two conceptions of history is perhaps most blatant in the Life of the Georgian Kings, a text roughly contemporaneous to Xorenac‘i. e author of the Life of the Georgian Kings did not attack the Armenian claims of supremacy, as developed by Xorenac‘i, but twisted it into something completely different and with a new angle. Unlike Xorenac‘i, he argued not for monoethnic dominance of the Georgians in Caucasia, but, on the contrary, he presented all the Caucasian peoples as blood relatives and the Armenian ethnarchs as their leaders. In contrast to Movsēs, who presented the myth of Armenian expansion as a series of aggressive conquests, the Life of the Georgian Kings perceived the idea of Caucasian unity as a brotherly union: ‘First, let us recall that the Armenians and Georgians, Ranians and Movak‘anians, Hers and Lek‘s, Megrels and Caucasians, had a single father, called Targamos.’30 e Life even claimed that the language of the Georgians was Armenian before it became Georgian, the latter being a mixture of various languages. is is important because in all appearance and according to the surviving sources, while Georgians did occupy the place of an identity-making other in certain strands of Armenian historical thinking, such an othering of Armenians had not occurred in the Georgian tradition and appears only much later with regard to the Byzantines. e Early Medieval Georgian historical writing treats Georgian religious history in a strikingly different way. Late Antique theological controversies that ripped through Caucasia and the formation of the Orthodox tradition that constitutes the gist of Armenian writing from the early centuries of its existence, are echoed extremely dimly in Georgian writing. e nonexistence of a properly documented ecclesiastical history and of a standard narrative of Iberia’s conversion history turned out to be a matter of concern many a century later, when Georgians at the monasteries in Byzantium needed to defend their Orthodox tradition 30. Robert W. omson, Rewriting Caucasian History: The Medieval Armenian Adaptations of the Georgian Chronicles (Oxford, 1996), p. 2.

16

. 

from Byzantine allegations. Even the standard narrative of Georgia’s conversion had to all appearances experienced a hard time establishing itself and becoming canonical. St Nino, the protagonist of the Conversion of Kartli and of the Life of Nino in the seventh century, was not readily accepted as Georgia’s unequivocal illuminator. Even in the eleventh century Katholikos Nikoloz Gulaberisdze had to provide systematic justification of Nino’s unfortunate gender, by urging his flock to pay due respect to her. When in the tenth or eleventh century, Georgian Katholikos Arseni of Sapara was writing a short history of the ecclesiastical split between Armenians and Georgians, he solely utilizes either Armenian, or else Chalcedonian Armenian sources, as if no Georgian between the seventh and the eleventh century had bothered to write their own view of the nature of the Caucasian Schism or of other events preceding it. e Schism, as a turning-point or as a meaningful event in Caucasian history, is entirely absent from the Georgian corpus, playing virtually no role in the construction of historical narratives.31 A piece of Georgian historical writing that is worth briefly discussing for our particular case is the Conversion of Kartli, and this for two reasons: first of all, it is most likely the earliest securely dated historical writing from as early as the seventh century, and secondly the Conversion has a very clear and explicit structure as if the entire purpose of its creation is to provide a historic template which would be later filled by specific narratives. Traditionally, the Conversion of Kartli stood for one text, or else was considered as a union of two: of the Chronicle of the Conversion of Georgia, a short narrative that starts with the invasion of Alexander the Great in the Caucasus and ends with the campaign of Emperor Heraclius, and of the Life of Nino. e discovery of a new type of collection on Mt Sinai revealed that the Conversion of Kartli or the Books of the Conversion of Kartli most likely stood for a corpus of texts which also included the Life of Abibos of Nekresi, one of the so-called Syrian Fathers.32 erefore, the Conversion of Kartli stood for a collection of texts that included the Conversion of Georgia, the Life of Nino and the cycle of the Lives of Thirteen Syrian Fathers and were thus known to medieval authors. Similarly to the Armenian tradition, where there exists a problem of interpreting the essence of the sixth century and its place in the formation of Armenian orthodoxy, the Conversion of Kartli and indeed all 31. Zaza Aleksidze and Jean-Pierre Mahé, ‘Arsen Sapareli: sur la séparation des Géorgiens et des Arméniens’, Revue des études arméniennes 32 (2010), pp. 59–132. 32. Zaza Aleksidze and Jean-Pierre Mahé, Le nouveau manuscrit géorgien sinaïtique N Sin 50 : Édition en fac-similé (CSCO 586; Leuven, 2001).

 ,      -

17

subsequent historical narratives create an identical blank spot in their treatment of the period. Here the blank spot is even wider: whereas the Armenian tradition is deeply aware of the ecclesiastic schism, nothing of this sort transpires in Georgian narratives. Just as from a long period of time the ‘one hundred years’ turned in Armenian historiography into a single event in time, so the Conversion of Kartli condenses a series of several unrelated events of over fiy years into one episode of Kartli’s history: And aer [Vaxt‘ang] Parsman reigned and katholikos was Saba, a native of Mcxeta. ereaer, two native households of Mcxeta received the honour of katholikosate. Under the same king Evlale was katholikos. en Ioane Zedazadeneli came from Mesopotamia of Syria together with his twelve disciples on the two hundredth year from the conversion of Georgia. And then Bak‘ur reigned and Mak‘ari was katholikos and during his reign Šušanik‘ was martyred in Curt‘avi and the kingship came to an end in Kartli.33

All major events that were remembered as crucial in the religious and national identity of the Georgians are presented here as a single event: the patriarchal see was occupied by a native of Mcxeta; the Syrian fathers came to (re)-enlighten Georgia; St Šušanik, the protomartyr of Georgian tradition, died, thus signalling the beginning of a new era of Georgian Christianity; and finally kingship was abolished in Iberia, thus closing a chapter of Georgia’s history. e much longer Life of the Kings repeats this passage almost verbatim, without having anything meaningful to add.34 Indeed, this passage essentially ends the religious history of Kartli. e period coinciding with the Schism is described in several historical narratives, but Church politics is entirely neglected and the entire period is highly schematized. In a very symptomatic paragraph, the whole period between Vaxt‘ang and Heraclius, that is to say the whole of the sixth century, is described thus in a twelh-century edition of the Life of Nino by Arseni Beri: [Aer Vaxt‘ang’s reign] numerous calamities were inflicted upon the Georgians by the Persians. Many souls perished and many lands were captured by the Persians and many were martyred in Christ’s name. Some are described, but much is le without description. Yet all are described in the books of the living and rejoice into the presence of God.35 33. Constantine Lerner, The Wellspring of Georgian Historiography: The Early Medieval Historical Chronicle e Conversion of Kartli and e Life of St. Nino (London, 2004), p. 148 (translation lightly modified). 34. omson, Rewriting, p. 226. 35. Cxorebaj da mokalakeobaj cmidisa dedisa čuenisa ninojsi [e Life and Work of Our Holy Mother Nino], in I. Abuladze (ed.), Works of Old Georgian Hagiographical Literature 3 (Tbilisi, 1966), p. 48.

18

. 

e medieval tradition considered the cycle of the thirteen Syrian fathers as an organic part of Georgia’s conversion narrative and as another ‘book of the Conversion of Georgia’. e cycle of the Syrian fathers has also been identified as a ‘second conversion of Georgia’, revealing striking parallels with a similar tradition in Aksum.36 e ever-expanding corpus of the Syrian fathers acted as a certain filler of the gap in Georgian religious history, a period of time which was supposed to be turbulent in Georgia’s Orthodox history. Conversely, the corpus of the Syrian fathers is entirely silent about the confessional position of the Syrian fathers or about any matter of doctrine, with very minor exceptions. erefore, contemporary theories range from considering the Syrian fathers as miaphysite missionaries or refugees who had escaped the imperial persecutions of the fih and sixth centuries, to taking them as the enforcers of Chalcedonian Christology against the Armenian influence that eventually led to the schism. But neither of these theories is deducible from the Lives themselves. As for the confessional affiliation of the fathers, their only concern, according to the Lives, was various pagan practices and ‘barbarians’, rather than other Christians. Within the larger tradition, the Syrian fathers act as Georgia’s second illuminators. e Life of Ioane Zedazneli, the leader of the group, is perhaps most explicit about the metaphysical role of the Syrian fathers in Georgia’s history. e Life emphasizes several times that the main purpose of Ioane was missionary, as by that time Georgians were still newly converted (axalnerg), even though, according to the same tradition, Christianity was adopted by Georgians two hundred years earlier. In order to affirm the continuity of tradition and of perpetual conversion, the author brings Ioane immediately upon his arrival in Mcxeta to the same place, where one night the reason for all our goodness, our radiant mother, St Nino, stood in prayers, imploring our mighty Lord Christ [to erect the Living Pillar] and immediately the captive one captivated all powers of the king and his workers and by prayer she received the Living Pillar and hung it in the void of the air.37

us Ioane’s literary task is to re-enlighten and to remind Georgians of their foundations. Despite multiple speculations over the number of the fathers or the date of their arrival, or their confessional belonging, 36. Christopher Haas, ‘Mountain Constantines: e Christianization of Aksum and Iberia’, Journal of Late Antiquity 1 (2008), pp. 101–26. 37. Cxorebaj Ioane Zedaznelisaj [Life of Iaone Zedazneli], in I. Abuladze (ed.), Asurel Moguac‘eta cxovrebis c‘ignta zveli redakciebi [Old Georgian Redactions of the Lives of the Syrian Fathers] (Tbilisi, 1955), pp. 22–24.

 ,      -

19

I believe the cycle of the Syrian fathers in a sense acted as a connector between two times – the foundation of Christianity in Iberia and the present that the writers experienced. Due to this, almost all monastic establishments founded throughout the Middle Ages claimed to be founded by one of the thirteen fathers, although, as it happens, their number was oen far greater than thirteen. Medieval Georgian memory kept alive the sixth century as a turning-point, which to all appearances it was, but exactly how it was a turning-point was not retained. us, the sixth century, the period before the Schism, was retained in Georgian memory, and is to this day retained as such in Georgian historiography, as the era of the Syrian fathers. As a consequence, some of the most prominent spiritual authorities of the fih, sixth and possibly even of the seventh centuries, bore a generalized name of Syrian fathers and were adduced in the original list, if such a list ever existed.

C e observations provided above certainly do not claim to be universal for the entire early medieval Armenian or Georgian tradition. Despite this, the memory and history discourse that is subsumed in the Book of Letters and in the exchange of polemic between Armenians and Georgians largely defined subsequent historical writing when it came to understanding the religious history of Caucasia. Whether largely authentic or not, these letters were known and consulted as a source of information, especially since Uxtanēs’ editorial work; he was the first to utilize them in his construction of history. e isolation of a ‘third’ historic time, of a buffer zone between the distant past and the experienced present, that occurred during the early correspondence, was utilized throughout subsequent centuries, albeit devoid of any particular meaning. e concept of one hundred years of unity – a legendary buffer time between the idyllic illo tempore and the deplorable present, between union and separation, became an interpretive tool of a great part of subsequent historical thinking. Georgian writing, although much less prominent in the period in question, had chosen a different path. Rather unconcerned with the religious history and the formation of doctrine, the Georgian tradition devised an ever-expanding cycle of the Syrian fathers, who literarily populated the Georgian religious landscape throughout the sixth century and metaphorically populated the ‘floating gap of memory’ that the same century regrettably produced.

IS THE PATRIARCH PYRRHOS (– AND ) THE AUTHOR OF THE FIRST PART OF NIKEPHOROS’ SHORT HISTORY (CHAPTERS –) Christian B To Constantin Zuckerman

Nikephoros1 patriarch of Constantinople (806–15), wrote an ‘œuvre de jeunesse’, namely the Ἱστορία σύντομος, probably in the 780s according to Cyril Mango.2 is work, namely the Breviarium in Latin or the Short History in English, ‘falls into two parts, the first from [610] to 641, the second from 668 to 769’.3 We do not know the source of the first part, which runs from chapter 1 to chapter 32, except for the first chapter. is beginning is clearly taken from the last chapter of the Ἱστορία χρονική of John of Antioch, as we may know from a comparison with the fragment 321 of Umberto Roberto’s edition.4 e sources of the second part are used also by eophanes Confessor in his Chronography, according to Mango: ‘From 668 to the end, the Breviarium and eophanes run in parallel channels and are quite clearly derived from the same sources’.5 For the first part, however, there is almost no point of contact between eophanes’ Chronography and Nikephoros’ Short History. e purpose of this paper is to revalue the recent hypothesis made by Constantin Zuckerman that the first part of the Short History is based on a source written by the patriarch of Constantinople, Pyrrhos (638–41 and 654), and called by Zuckerman the ‘Pyrrhos pamphlet’.6 1. I have to thank warmly Phil Booth for his correction, for his criticism, and for several improvements that are now part of this paper. 2. Cyril Mango, Nikephoros Patriarch of Constantinople. Short History. Text, Translation and Commentary (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 13; Washington DC, 1990), p. 12. e translation of this text will always be Mango’s, unless I have used the text of the manuscript L1 (ch. 1–11), where I have adapted Mango’s translation. 3. Mango, Short History, p. 12. 4. See Umberto Roberto (ed.), Ioannis Antiocheni Fragmenta ex Historia chronica: Introduzione, edizione critica e traduzione (TU 154; Berlin–New York, 2005). is fragment bears the number 110 in Carl de Boor (ed.), Excerpta historica iussu Imperatoris Constantini Porphyrogeniti confecta. 3. Excerpta de insidiis (Berlin, 1905), pp. 149–50. 5. Mango, Short History, p. 15. 6. Constantin Zuckerman, ‘Heraclius and the Return of the Holy Cross’, in Constantin Zuckerman (ed.), Constructing the Seventh Century (T&MByz 17; Paris, 2013), pp. 197–218,

22

.  . T Chronicle to  I  C   ἹΣΤΟΡΙΑ ΧΡΟΝΙΚΗ  J  A

Mango named this unknown source used by Nikephoros in his first part ‘Chronique de 641’ or ‘chronique constantinopolitaine’.7 I will keep this name: Chronicle to 641.8 But his general hypothesis on this Chronicle to 641 has become outdated since Roberto’s work on John of Antioch. Mango’s idea9 was that the Chronicle of John of Antioch, written in high level Greek, would have finished under the reign of Anastasius, in 518. Aer that, a continuation in ‘vulgar’ Greek would have extended until the fall of Phokas in 610 (where the first chapter of Nikephoros’ Short History made use of it), and perhaps even further. But Roberto10 made the point that in the Chronicle of John of Antioch the death of the tyrant Phokas echoed that of Romulus. For this reason, the death of Phokas may have been part of the whole plan of John of Antioch’s writing. It may have been its climax, and also very probably its end because no further excerpt has been made aer this in the Excerpta of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. e difference of language in the fragments of John of Antioch, according to Roberto,11 was possibly caused by the use of an epitomized version of John’s Chronicle in the Excerpta Constantiniana.12

on pp. 204–209. I reached similar conclusions in my paper in Budapest in autumn 2014 without being aware of the results of Constantin Zuckerman published a year before. I am grateful to Phil Booth, Averil Cameron and others who made known to me what Zuckerman first said. 7. Cyril Mango, ‘Deux études sur Byzance et la Perse sassanide’, T&MByz 9 (1985), pp. 91–118, on p. 106. 8. James Howard-Johnston, Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century (Oxford–New York, 2010), pp. 242–56 calls that source ‘the second continuation of John of Antioch’. 9. Mango, Short History, pp. 13–15. 10. Umberto Roberto, ‘Romolo, Foca e la morte del tiranno. Racconto storico e tensione emotiva nell’opera di Giovanni di Antiochia’, Ὅρμος Ricerche di Storia Antica 3 (2011), pp. 257–73, on pp. 272–73. 11. Umberto Roberto, ‘e Circus Factions and the Death of the Tyrant: John of Antioch on the Fate of the Emperor Phocas’, in Falko Daim and Jörgen Drauschke (eds.), Byzanz – das Römerreich im Mittelalter 1 (Monographien des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums 84.1; Mainz, 2010), pp. 66–70. One may look on the debate on the last fragments of John of Antioch in Peter Van Nuffelen, ‘John of Antioch, Inflated and Deflated. Or: How (Not) to Collect Fragments of Early Byzantine Historians’, Byz. 82 (2012), pp. 437–50. I am indebted to P. Booth for this reference. 12. Should one reject Roberto’s conclusion and claim that this last chapter had been written by some one else than John of Antioch, it makes no big difference: what matters is that this chapter was part of the ‘living text’ read and known in the seventh century, ‘circulating under the name John of Antioch’, as suggested by Van Nuffelen, ‘John of Antioch’, p. 445.

   ’ SHORT HISTORY

23

. T Chronicle to  E   A  P   P T As eophylact Simocatta’s History dealt only with the reign of Maurice (582–602) and as the Chronicle of John of Antioch most probably ended with the fall of the tyrant Phokas in 610, it is likely that the Chronicle to 641 dealt only with the reigns of Herakleios (610–641) and of his two sons Constantine III and Heraclonas (641) and ended in the last two chapters 31–32 with the coronation of his grandson Constans II in 641 and the appointment of Paul II, patriarch of Constantinople. ereaer Nikephoros’ text leaps without warning to the death of Constans in 668. Mango13 has written two pages to refute the hypothesis made by Lilie14 and Speck15 that one folio had dropped out between the chapters 32 and 33. It would have been strange ‘that [Nikephoros] showed no awareness of the gap’ of 27 years. e second point is that ‘practically everything eophanes records on the reign of Constans II is drawn from his Oriental (Syriac) source’: there was almost no ‘Byzantine’ historical material for that period. I may add that Nikephoros, in an other work known as Chronography, says: Κωνσταντῖνος, υἱὸς Ἡρακλείου, ἐβασίλευσεν ἔτη κηʹ. Οὗτος ἐν Σικελίᾳ ἀνῃρέθη.16 ‘Constantine, son [sic] of Herakleios, reigned for [sic] 28 years. He was murdered in Sicily.’ Let us pass over the confusion between Constantine III, son of Herakleios, and Constantine or Constans II, grandson of Herakleios: the only information on his reign was his death in Sicily, as if nothing other was known at that time. Such a gap within a historical work also occurs in the Chronicon Paschale (between 13. Mango, Short History, pp. 14–15. 14. Ralph-Johannes Lilie, ‘Zweihundertjährige Reform: Zu den Anfängen der emenorganisation im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert’, Byzslavica 45 (1984), pp. 27–39 and 190–201, on p. 31 n. 22: ‘Es scheint sich um eine mechanische Lücke zu handeln, etwa Blattausfall oder der gleichen. Hierauf deutet einmal der völlig unlogisch Satzausgang hin; zunächst wird die Intronisierung des Paulos erzählt. Der Chronist fährt fort: “Κωνσταντῖνος οὖν ἐν Σικελίᾳ... φονευθεὶς ἐν τῷ λουτρῷ... ἐτελεύτα” (S. 31f.). Von Konstans war in den Sätzen zuvor keine Rede gewesen.’ 15. Paul Speck, Das geteilte Dossier. Beobachtungen zu den Nachrichten über die Regierung des Kaisers Heraclius und die seiner Söhne bei Theophanes und Nikephoros (Ποικίλα Βυζαντινά 9; Bonn, 1988), p. 205: ‘Die zweite Frage betri die Lücke in 31,18; fast die gesamte Regierungszeit von Konstans II. Während Lilie von eine mechanischen Lücke ausgeht, hält Mango es für möglich, dass Nikephoros für diese Zeit kein Material hatte und überhaput nichts schrieb. Doch fragt man, darum – schon Lilie wies darauf hin – wieso er nach der Lücke dann mit Κωνσταντῖνος οὖν... fortfuhr. Diese Lücke ist nur durch Blattausfall zu erklären.’ 16. Carl de Boor (ed.), Nicephori archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani opuscula historica (Leipzig, 1880), p. 99.

24

. 

the years 532 and 602), whose author, despite the existence of sources, may have had no access to them. So, most probably, Nikephoros did not find any Greek chronicle for Constans II’s reign. Until here, I agree with Mango. But if the Chronicle to 641 really ended with the appointment of Paul as patriarch of Constantinople, then there is no reason to say, as Mango did, that ‘part I breaks off in medias res’: it just ended at the accession of Paul, which is the most important fact for the author, who is not necessarily following the pattern of traditional Roman historiography. e existence of the gap in Nikephoros’ Short History does not, therefore, mean that the ending to the Chronicle to 641 is missing. e appointment of Paul is the last event of the Chronicle to 641, as we will see more accurately. Written under Constans II, it begins with the coronation of Herakleios by the patriarch Sergios and ends with that of Constans II by the patriarch Pyrrhos and the Emperor Heraclonas and Paul’s accession to the patriarchal throne. We should stress the link between the first coronation and the last one. In the first event, the role of Sergios is emphasized by the omission of the first crowning by Stephen as written in the aforementioned fragment 321 of John of Antioch. e metropolitan of Cyzicus, Stephen, in this Chronicle, took the diadem held in the church of the eotokos in the port of Artakē near Cyzicus and put it on the head of Herakleios while he was in island of Kalonymos. A second omission is that of the church of the coronation: in eophanes’ Chronography (  6102 =   609/610), εἰσελθὼν δὲ Ἡράκλειος εἰς τὰ βασίλεια ἐστέφθη ὑπὸ Σεργίου πατριάρχου ἐν τῷ εὐκτηρίῳ τοῦ ἁγίου Στεφάνου ἐν τῷ παλατίῳ.17 ‘Herakleios entered the palace and was crowned by the patriarch Sergios  in the chapel of Saint Stephen, which is in the palace.’18 No mention of that church appears in Nikephoros’ Short History. A superficial reading of the Chronicle to 641 may suggest that Herakleios had been crowned by the patriarch in the church of Hagia Sophia.19 is confusion may be properly intended by the writer of the Chronicle to 641. A question remains about this Chronicle. Why did it not end with the death of Herakleios? Why is it so important to finish with the crowning of Constans II and the appointment of Paul as patriarch of Constantinople? 17. Carl de Boor, Theophanis chronographia (Leipzig, 1883), vol. 1, p. 299. 18. Cyril A. Mango and Roger Scott (trans.), The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813 (Oxford, 1997), pp. 428–29. 19. Andreas N. Stratos, Byzantium in the Seventh Century 2. 634–641 (Amsterdam, 1968), p. 193: ‘It has been maintained, and probably rightly, that [Constans II’s coronation] was the first instance of a coronation of an emperor in the Church of Saint Sophia.’

   ’ SHORT HISTORY

25

. T Chronicle to    D   R   P  P L e patriarchs are prominent figures of this text. Let us look as an example at the reception of Herakleios in the city aer his victory against the tyrant Phokas. If we accept Roberto’s point of view, and if we accept that the Chronicle to 641 really ends in 641, we have to reset our watches and have a fully different look at the source of the first part of Nikephoros’ Short History. If the Ἱστορία χρονική of John of Antioch ended in 610 with the death of Phokas, and if the first chapter of Nikephoros’ Short History is taken from the last chapter of John’s Chronicle, it means that the second chapter of Nikephoros’ Short History is indeed the beginning of the separate source. As Roberto pointed out, in the Chronicle of John of Antioch, ‘although its importance has been reduced and marginalized, the demos, organized in factions, is the heir of the Republican populus of ancient Rome, and as such continues to be present and politically active’.20 And so does the Senate. ey are responsible, along with Herakleios, for the fall of the tyrant. However, what is the first event to happen as soon as the Chronicle to 641 begins? What is the first sentence of the second chapter? Sergios, the patriarch of Constantinople, appears and receives Herakleios inside the city, as if Sergios were the master of the city. Sergios had been very recently appointed patriarch in April 610, and Herakleios entered the city in October. In John of Antioch’s narrative, the main role is played by the patrician Priscus, son-in-law of Emperor Phokas, comes excubitorum and representative of the Senate.21 ere is no mention of the patriarch Sergios but, as I have said, in the fragment 321 John reports: ‘When Stephen, [metropolitan] of Cyzicus learned [of the arrival of Herakleios], he took the crown from the church of the Mother of God in Artakē and brought it to Herakleios’ (μαθὼν οὖν Στέφανος ὁ Κυζικηνὸς λαβὼν ἐκ τῆς θεοτόκου Ἀρτάκης στέμμα ἀπήγαγεν αὐτὸ τῷ Ἡρακλείῳ). Whereas we find a quotation of this sentence in eophanes’ Chronography  (  6102 =  609/610),22 in the Chronicle to 641, on the contrary, there is no mention of Stephen of Cyzicus. 20. Roberto, ‘e Circus Factions’, p. 66. 21. Priscus became Crispus in the Chronicle to 641; see Mango, Short History, p. 34 and p. 173. 22. De Boor, Theophanis chronographia, p. 299 and Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 428: Στέφανος δέ, ὁ τῆς Κυζίκου μητροπολίτης λαβὼν στέμμα ἐκ τῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἁγίας θεοτόκου Ἀρτάκης ἀπήγαγεν αὐτὸ τῷ Ἡρακλείῳ. ‘And Stephen, the metropolitan of Kyzikos, took a crown from the church of the holy Mother of God of Artakē and brought it to Herakleios’.

26

. 

I must say here a few words on the editorial process of Nikephoros’ Short History which is known to us, above all, by two manuscripts, the Londinensis Add. 19 390 (L) and the Vaticanus graecus 977 (V). Mango writes: e existence of two redactions by the same author represents a rare case in Byzantine historiography and leads to some interesting observations. Setting aside a number of minor omissions and additions (some of them being of a scribal nature), the differences between L and V are purely stylistic and do not concern the substance of the narrative. Furthermore, it is apparent that the first eleven paragraphs of L (in our numeration) were subjected to a thorough revision, but from paragraph 12 to the end of L, only small changes were made.23

I may add that for the first 11 chapters, the Londinensis (L) represents Nikephoros’ source (that is the Chronicle to 641).24 e Vaticanus (V), for the first 11 chapters, bears a text that seems to have been slightly rewritten by Nikephoros himself. At the beginning of the second chapter of Nikephoros’ Short History, it is written in the Londinensis (L): Μετὰ τοῦτο εὐγνομόνως παρά τε Σεργίου τοῦ τῆς πόλεως ἱεράρχου καὶ τῆς λοιπῆς πληθύος εἰσδέχεται … τέλος δὲ ὑπὸ τῆς συγκλήτου βουλῆς καὶ τοῦ δήμου Ἡράκλειος βασιλεὺς ἀνακηρύσσεται καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀρχιερέως στέφεται. Aer that, Sergios, the bishop of the city, and the rest of its crowd, received Herakleios with gratitude. … At length, Herakleios was proclaimed emperor by the senate and the people and was crowned by the bishop.

In the Vaticanus (V), we read: Σέργιος δὲ αὐτίκα ὁ τῆς πόλεως πρόεδρος καὶ ὁ λοιπὸς ταύτης ὅμιλος σὺν πάσῃ εὐγνωμοσύνῃ Ἡράκλειον ἐντὸς εἰσδέχεται. … τέλος ὑπὸ τῆς συγκλήτου βουλῆς καὶ τοῦ δήμου Ἡράκλειος βασιλεὺς ἀνακηρύσσεται καὶ τὸν βασίλειον παρὰ τοῦ προέδρου περιβάλλεται στέφανον. Straightaway, Sergios, the bishop  of the city, and the rest of its crowd, received Herakleios within the walls with much gratitude. … At length, Herakleios was proclaimed emperor by the senate and the people and was invested by the bishop with imperial crown.

23. Mango, Short History, p. 5. 24. I follow here the first hypothesis suggested by Bernard Flusin in his review of Mango’s edition of Nikephoros’ Short History, in REB 50.1 (1992), p. 281, that for the first 11 chapters L represents the source of Nikephoros. e second hypothesis, ‘première ébauche due à Nicéphore’, supposes two rewritings of Nikephoros which is a less economical solution.

   ’ SHORT HISTORY

27

So, differently from the Chronicle of John of Antioch, Sergios is presented in the Chronicle to 641 as the real chief of the city, who first admitted within the wall the rebel Herakleios and then crowned him. is image fits well with the political stature of the patriarch. Let us compare the Chronicon Paschale, written shortly aer 630, where the coronation took place in the Hippodrome and the entrance in the Great Church appears to be of lesser importance, as a consecration of what has already happened in front of the Senate and the δῆμοι: καὶ εὐθέως ἀνῆλθεν εἰς τὸ Ἱπποδρόμιον, κἀκεῖ στεφθεὶς προσεκυνήθη ὑπὸ τῶν συγκλητικῶν ὡς βασιλεύς, καὶ εὐφημήθη ὑπὸ τῶν μερῶν, καὶ οὕτω σὺν τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ ἐξῆλθεν εἰς τὴν μεγάλην ἐκκλησίαν, βασταζόμενος ὑπὸ Φιλαρέτου.25 (Herakleios) came straightaway to the Hippodrome, and there, he was crowned and venerated by the Senators as emperor and acclaimed (as such) by the parties. And so he went out with his father and entered the Great Church carried by Philaretas.

ere is no mention there of the role of the patriarch Sergios. Since the Chronicon Paschale is not generally anti-patriarchal, it is a proof a contrario of the pro-patriarchal agenda of the Chronicle to 641. e role of the patriarchate is constantly evoked in the Chronicle to 641: ἐν οἷς ἐβουλεύετο συνῄνουν ὅ τε ἱεράρχης καὶ οἱ ἐν τέλει ‘(Herakleios’) views on these matters were approved by the high priest and the dignitaries’ (ch. 7: manuscript L); οἱ οὖν πολῖται αἰσθόμενοι, ὡς δυνατὰ ἦν, διεκώλυον· ὡς καὶ τὸν ἀρχιερέα Σέργιον ὑποθέσθαι ὅρκοις αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἐνέγκαντα καταδεσμῆσαι μὴ μεθίστασθαι τῆς βασιλευούσης. On becoming aware of this, the citizens tried to prevent him to do so, as best they could, so that the archpriest Sergios, too, invited Herakleios to the church and bound him there by an oath that he would not by any means abandon the Imperial City (ch. 8: manuscript L).

I may add: his admonition against the second marriage of Herakleios (ch. 11); Herakleios’ children in the care of Sergios (ch. 12); the recognition of the True Cross by the archpriest Modestus in Jerusalem (ch. 14); an annual subsidy to be paid to the Great Church and its clergy (ch. 19); the role of patriarch Cyrus in Alexandria in diplomatic relations with the Saracens (ch. 23); Pyrrhos’ relationship to Herakleios and appointment as patriarch; the recall of Cyrus in Constantinople (ch. 26); Herakleios’ testament read in the presence of Pyrrhos (ch. 28); money provided to 25. Ludwig Dindorf, Chronicon paschale, vol. 1 (Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae 11; Bonn, 1832), pp. 703–704.

28

. 

Pyrrhos by Herakleios for Martina and his son Constantine (ch. 29); reinstallation of Cyrus in Alexandria (ch. 30)… Besides that, the author oen uses the formula: Σέργιόν τε τὸν τῆς πόλεως πρόεδρον, ἔτι τε καὶ ἄρχοντας καὶ τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ λαοῦ μέρος ‘Sergios, the first of the city alongside the magistrates and the rest of the people’ (ch. 12:10–11), or: Πύρρον τὸν ἀρχιερέα καὶ τοὺς βασιλικοὺς ἄρχοντας, … καὶ τὸν περὶ τὸ Βυζάντιον λαόν ‘the archpriest Pyrrhos and the imperial magistrates, … and the people of Byzantium’ (ch. 28:1–4), and so on. is expression gives the real vision of the political system of Byzantium, according to the author of the Chronicle to 641: the patriarch is the chief of the city (even if the magistrates are not under his orders), as if one should add to the famous Roman formula senatus populusque romanus a first element: pontifex, senatusque, populusque romanus. In chapter 8, when Herakleios plans to leave definitely Constantinople, the patriarch is the intermediary between the city and the emperor, that is, both the people and the magistrates on one side and Herakleios on the other. So, in this Chronicle the patriarch plays the role of political advisor, ambassador or even banker. He is a kind of prime minister or grand vizier.

. T M T   Chronicle to  I  B H  H S W e most important action of Sergios is, in the eleventh chapter, his warning and admonition given to the Emperor Herakleios to prevent him from contracting a marriage with his niece Martina, the daughter of his sister Maria. e answer given by Herakleios to Sergios is the following: εὖ μὲν ἔχει τὰ παρὰ σοὶ λεγόμενα· ὃ γάρ σοι χρέος ὡς ἀρχιερεῖ καὶ φίλῳ, ἤδη ἀποδέδωκας· ἐφ’ ἡμῖν δὲ τὸ λοιπὸν κείσεται τὰ τῆς πράξεως. ‘What you say is very well. e obligation you owe me as high priest and friend you have already paid. For the rest, the responsibility shall lie on me.’26 e juridical reasons against this marriage are not explicit in the text of the Chronicle to 641. Nikephoros makes them explicit in rewriting the text of his source. Whereas the Londinensis bears the following text: κατὰ δὲ τὸν αὐτὸν χρόνον ἄγεται Ἡράκλειος εἰς γυναῖκα Μαρτῖναν τὴν ἀνεψιάν ‘in the same time, Herakleios married his niece Martina’, we read in the Vaticanus: 26. Mango, Short History, pp. 52–54.

   ’ SHORT HISTORY

29

Ἡρακλείῳ δέ, καίτοι τῶν κοινῶν αὐτῷ πραγμάτων ἐπὶ τοσοῦτο δυσχερείας καὶ ἀνωμαλίας ἡκόντων, οὐ μὴν οὐδὲ τὰ οἰκεῖα εὖ θέσθαι φροντὶς ἐγεγόνει, ἀλλ’ ὅγε πρὸς πρᾶξιν ἄθεσμον καὶ ἣν Ῥωμαίων ἀπαγορεύουσι νόμοι ἰδών, τὸ πρὸς τὴν ἀνεψιὰν Μαρτῖναν ἠσπάσατο κῆδος. Now Herakleios, even though matters of state had come to such a sorry and abnormal pass, did not even take care to put his private affairs in order; instead, he committed an unlawful deed, one that is forbidden by Roman custom, by contracting a marriage with his niece Martina.27

As I have shown elsewhere,28 it was forbidden according to the Codex Iustinianus 5.5.9 to marry one’s niece, but there was a legal precedent in the marriage of Emperor Claudius to his niece Agrippa. And there was no ecclesiastical prohibition of such marriage until the Council in Trullo in 692.29 Sergios married them in the Augusteum, as mentioned in eophanes’ Chronography ( 6105 =  612/13): ὁ δὲ Ἡράκλειος τῷ αὐτῷ χρόνῳ ἔγημε Μαρτῖναν καὶ ἀνηγόρευσεν αὐτὴν αὐγούσταν στέψας αὐτὴν εἰς τὸν Αὐγουστέα, στεφθεῖσαν ὑπὸ Σεργίου πατριάρχου. ‘In the same year, Herakleios married Martina whom he proclaimed Augusta and crowned in the Augustaion. e coronation was performed by the patriarch Sergios.’30  is marriage may have seemed shameful to few (or many) people, but it was not impeded. All the reign of Herakleios will be doomed to failure because of this supposed incestuous union. Taking up from John of Antioch a dialogue between Phokas, the failed emperor and Herakleios the future one, the sexual problem is presented from the very beginning (ch. 1: manuscript L): Φώτιος δέ τις ὄνομα, ὃς παρ’ αὐτοῦ εἰς τὴν σύζυγον ἐπεβουλεύθη ποτέ, ἐπελθὼν εἰς τὸ παλάτιον μετὰ πλήθους στρατιωτῶν, κατέσχεν τε αὐτόν, καὶ τὴν βασιλικὴν ἀπαμφιάσας ἐσθῆτα καὶ περίζωμα μέλαν αὐτὸν περιθέμενος, 27. Mango, Short History, p. 52. 28. Christian Boudignon, ‘Darf der Kaiser seine Nichte heiraten: Eine politischreligiöser Disput über Inzest une Ehepolitik im Byzans des siebten Jahrhunderts’, in Matthias Morgenstern, Christian Boudignon, and Christiane Tietz (eds.), Männlich und weiblich schuf Er sie: Studien zur Genderkonstruktion und zum Eherecht in den Mittelmeerreligionen (Göttingen, 2011), pp. 221–38, on pp. 224–25. 29. Cyril Mango, ‘Deux études’, p. 105 wrote: ‘Le mariage de Constantin, qui était déjà couronné, avec Grégoria, était un mariage incestueux, d’après les canons de l’Église orthodoxe. On s’est beaucoup préoccupé de l’union prohibée d’Héraclius à sa nièce Martine, sans remarquer qu’il imposa un mariage semblable à son héritier désigné.’ But he added in n. 4: ‘À moins qu’on ne suppose que les mariages au sixième degré d’affinité, condamnés déjà par l’Ecloga isaurienne, furent encore tolérés au VIIe siècle.’ It is indeed methodologically safer not to suppose that the Ecloga promulgated in 726 explains the attitude of Sergios one century before, who presided over the marriage of both Herakleios and Martina, and Constantine and Gregoria, the daughter of his father’s cousin Nicetas. 30. De Boor, Theophanis chronographia, p. 300, and Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 428.

30

.  τάς τε χεῖρας περιηγμένας εἰς τοὐπίσω ἀποδήσας, πλοίῳ ἐμβαλὼν πρὸς Ἡράκλειον δεσμώτην ἀπήγαγεν. ὃν ἰδὼν ἔφη· ‘οὕτως, ἄθλιε, ἐδιοίκησας τὴν πολιτείαν;’ ὁ δέ· ‘σὺ μᾶλλον’ ἔφη ‘κάλλιον ἔχεις διοικῆσαι.’ Now a man called Photios, whose wife Phokas once purposed to seduce, entered the palace with a throng of soldier and arrested Phokas, whom he stripped of the imperial robes and, aer putting a black tunic on him and tying his arm behind his back, cast him in a boat and brought prisoner to Herakleios. On seeing him Herakleios said: ‘Is it thus, o wretch, that you have governed the state?’ He answered: ‘No doubt, you will govern it better.’31

As pointed out by Speck, the dialogue is about the infamous behaviour of Phokas, seducing the women of others: but enigmatically, Herakleios is doomed to have no better sexual life.32 is context explains why Phokas’ ‘genitals are cut off ’ in both John of Antioch’s Chronicle and the Chronicle to 641. e first two anecdotes reported at the beginning of the Chronicle to 641 have the same symbolic value. e death sanction for a casual spitting on the corpse of Eudocia (ch. 3), Herakleios’ first wife, at her funeral is a sign of the deep respect in which all held Eudocia, contrasting to the future contempt for Martina. e malediction of a widow against Herakleios’ children (ch. 4) if she is not given justice appears as an omen of the future fate of those children, since Herakleios does not hurry to punish her malefactor, Boutelinos/Bizoulinos. Let us return to the eleventh chapter, which reports Herakleios’ second marriage: the first consequence of this damnation is that Flavius, son of Herakleios and Martina has a paralyzed neck which he could not turn in any direction, and eodosios, another son, is deprived of the sense of hearing.33 In contrast, the author does not say much about the other children begotten, in particular the healthy sons as Heraclonas, David and Martinus.34 e second consequence appears in a more indirect fashion in the twentieth chapter. e emperor Herakleios got angry with his brother eodore because of a rumour. e meeting between them took place in Edessa. In fact, eodore ‘was railing at the emperor on account of Martina and saying that “his sin is continually before him”’ (λοιδορεῖσθαι αὐτὸν τῷ βασιλεῖ Μαρτίνης ἕνεκεν, λέγοντα ὅτι ‘ἡ ἁμαρτία αὐτοῦ ἐνώπιον 31. Mango, Short History, p. 37 (translation) and p. 166 (text). 32. Speck, Das geteilte Dossier, pp. 232–33: ‘Der Verfasser dieses Romans weiss nämlich Bescheid: Heraclius wird seine Nichte Martina heiraten, und das ist mindestens so unmoralisch wie das, was man Phokas vorwerfen kann.’ 33. Mango, Short History, p. 52. 34. See Speck, Das geteilte Dossier, pp. 33–40.

   ’ SHORT HISTORY

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αὐτοῦ διὰ παντός’).35 It is a quotation in the third person of the famous psalm attributed to David (Ps. 51:5b), aer he had gone in to Bathsheba and committed adultery with her: ἡ ἁμαρτία μοῦ ἐνώπιόν μου διὰ παντός, ‘my sin is ever before me’. Because of this, eodore is removed from his office of ‘commander of the eastern forces’ (στρατηγὸς ἀνατολῆς) and is sent to Constantinople to be publicly dishonoured and put in jail. is happens as the Saracens are overrunning the region round Antioch. Another man, named also eodore, the sacellarius eodore Trithyrius, is appointed commander of the eastern forces and he is defeated at Gabitha, that is to say, probably in the great battle on the Yarmuk in 636.36 So, reading Nikephoros’ Short History, one may think that the Roman army was defeated at Gabitha because of the removal of eodore, brother of the emperor, aer the rumour on account on Martina. e text suggests that the punishment of the great general eodore, brother of Herakleios leads to the rebellion of the subordinate commander. Nikephoros’ Short History (ch. 20) tells us: ἐκ τούτου παρήγγειλε Θεοδώρῳ μὴ συμβάλλειν πρὸς μάχην Σαρακηνοῖς. ὁ δὲ ὑπ᾽αὐτὸν στρατηγὸς τὰ κατὰ γνώμην τῷ βασιλεῖ οὐκ ἔπραττεν, ἐπεὶ νεώτερα αὑτῷ βουλευσάμενος ἦν, καὶ ἐπεὶ παρήγοντο πολεμεῖν ὡς ἀνελπίστων περιέσεσθαι τῶν πολεμίων, καὶ συνεργὸν ὑπελάμβανον τὴν νίκην τῆς κατὰ τοῦ βασιλέως ἐπαναστάσεως. ἔτι τοίνυν ἐν τόπῳ καλουμένῳ Γαβιθὰ συγκαταμείγνυσι Σαρακηνοῖς. en (Herakleios) ordered eodore37 [the sacellarius] not to join battle with the Saracens; but his subordinate commander did not act according to the emperor’s wishes because he had rebellion in mind and (the men) were induced to fight as to overcome the enemy unexpectedly: they believed that victory would be on the side of the insurgents against the emperor. And so he joined battle with the Saracens at a place called Gabitha.38

e third consequence of the supposed impious marriage may be the ignominious death of Herakleios. e cause the death is explicitly a punishment for his transgression (ch. 27): 35. Mango, Short History, p. 68. 36. I follow here Walter E. Kaegi, Heraclius, Emperor of Byzance (Cambridge, 2003), p. 240, basing this identification of the battle of Gabitha with that of Yarmuk on Karl Heinz Uthemann (ed.), Anastasius Sinaita. Opuscula adversus monotheletas 3.1.6 (Turnhout, 1985), p. 60. For a different point of view on these complicated issues, see Phil Booth, Crisis of Empire: Doctrine and Dissent at the End of the Late Antiquity (Berkeley–Los Angeles–London, 2014), p. 242 n. 65. 37. Mango, Short History, p. 20:21, edited θεόδωρος, according to V before correction. But θεοδώρῳ is the reading of L and V after correction: it is a better reading paleographically (because supported by L) and from the point of view of the structure of the whole work, because the fault lies on Herakleios. 38. Mango, Short History, p. 68.

32

.  χρόνου δὲ διελθόντος νόσῳ ὑδερικῇ περιπίπτει, καὶ ὁρῶν τὸ πάθος δυσίατον – ἐπὶ τοσοῦτο γὰρ ἐπετείνετο ὡς καὶ ἡνίκα ἀπουρεῖν ἤμελλε σανίδα κατὰ τοῦ ἤτρου ἐπετίθει· ἐστρέφετο γὰρ αὐτοῦ τὸ αἰδοῖον καὶ κατὰ τοῦ προσώπου αὐτοῦ τὰ οὖρα ἔπεμπεν. ἔλεγχος δὲ ἦν τοῦτο τῆς παρανομίας τῆς ἑαυτοῦ, ὑπὲρ ἧς ταύτην δίκην ὑστάτην ἐξέτισε τοῦ εἰς τὴν ἀνεψιὰν τὴν οἰκείαν γάμου. Sometime later he fell ill with dropsy and realized that his disease was difficult to cure, for it grew to such an extent that when he was to urinate, he would place a board against his abdomen: (otherwise) his private parts turned round and discharged the urine in his face. is was in reproof of his transgression, namely his marriage to his own niece, on account of which he suffered this ultimate punishment.39

So if the condemnation of the second marriage is a major theme, it means that the Chronicle to 641 was written under the reign of Constans II, and for the pleasure of the king Constans II himself, grandson of Herakleios’ first wife Eudocia. It would fit the imperial propaganda against Martina launched since the beginning by the first discourse of the young Constans II addressed to the senate of Constantinople, as reported by eophanes’ Chronography ( 6134 =  641/42): τὰς γὰρ χρηστοτάτας ἐλπίδας ὁ Μαρτίνης, τῆς αὐτοῦ μητρυιᾶς, φθόνος συνδιατμήξας τοῦ ζῇν ἀπήλλαξεν, καὶ τοῦτο διὰ Ἡρακλωνᾶν, τὸν ἐξ αὐτῆς καὶ Ἡρακλείου ἀθεμίτως γεγεννημένον· ἣν μάλιστα μετὰ τοῦ τέκνου ἡ ὑμετέρα σὺν θεῷ ψῆφος τῆς βασιλείας δικαίως ἐξέβαλεν, πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἰδεῖν ἐκνομώτατον τὴν βασιλείαν Ῥωμαίων… For the envy of [my father Constantine’s] stepmother Martina both cut off his fair hopes and deprived him of life, and this on account of Heraclonas, her illicit offspring by Herakleios. Your godly decision rightly cast her out from the imperial dignity along with her child lest the Roman Empire appeared to be ruled in an unlawful manner…40

. T Chronicle to  H B W  D  P Mango was right when he wrote that ‘Nikephoros’ unexpectedly sympathetic attitude toward Patriarch Pyrrhos (638-641)’ was drawn ‘from the source he was following, a source that was favorable to Pyrrhos’ and that ‘Nikephoros did not realize that Pyrrhos was a heretic’.41 I will 39. Mango, Short History, p. 76. 40. De Boor, Theophanis chronographia, p. 342, and Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, pp. 475–76. 41. Mango, Short History, p. 11.

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continue digging in that field. For me, the source favourable to Pyrrhos was written in the patriarchal circle of Constantinople. Let us say a few words on this character. Pyrrhos,42 probably a Greek from Africa, was on familiar terms with Herakleios’ family. His godmother was probably Herakleios’ sister Maria, Martina’s mother (unless he were her godfather). He was monk in the church of the Resurrection (or Anastasis) in Jerusalem and spiritual master of saint Anastasius the Persian in Palestine in the 620s. en, sometime aer 627, he became priest of the church of Hagia Sophia (πρεσβύτερος τῆς μεγάλης ἐκκλησίας), supervisor of all the monks of Constantinople (ἄρχων τῶν μοναστηρίων) and monk and abbot of the monastery of the Mother of God in Chrysopolis (μοναχὸς καὶ ἡγούμενος τῆς ἑν Χρυσοπόλει μονῆς τῆς πανυμνήτου θεοτόκου).43 He was in friendly terms with patriarch Sergios and shared his quarters. He became his successor aer his death in December 638. He continued to defend Sergios’ doctrine on the one will of Christ (monotheletism) and gathered a synod on this matter. He received money from the ill emperor Herakleios to secure the future of Martina and her children. Aer the death of Herakleios in February 641 and that of Constantine III in May of the same year, he helped Martina and her son Heraclonas to rule, until the failure. Aer a riot against the church of Hagia Sophia, he resigned as patriarch in September 641 and retired in Carthage where he met the monk Maximus the Confessor with whom he had exchanged letters. A new patriarch of Constantinople, Paul II, was chosen. en, in 645, when Gregory was Exarch of Carthage, Pyrrhos rejected the doctrine of one will of Christ (monotheletism) he had defended, and sticked to the two-will creed (dyotheletism). In 646, he went to Rome to submit to Pope eodore a libellum of adherence to dyotheletism and was consequently anathematized by the patriarch of Constantinople, Paul II, supporter of the monotheletism. But in 647, aer the death of Gregory, Exarch of Carthage, who had tried to usurp the imperial throne, Pyrrhos retracted, returned to monotheletism and fled to Ravenna and then to Constantinople. ere, in January 654, despite the opposition of a part of the clergy, he succeeded to his successor Paul II and died aer less than six months, in June 654. 42. As far as I know, there is no complete study on Pyrrhos. For his two patriarchates, see Jan Louis van Dieten, Geschichte der Patriarchen von Sergios I. bis Johannes VI. (610–715) (Amsterdam, 1972), pp. 57–75 and 104–105; and for his stay in Palestine, see Bernard Flusin, Saint Anastase le Perse et l’histoire de la Palestine au début du VIIe siècle 2. Commentaire (Paris, 1992), pp. 384–89. 43. Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos, Enarratio de episcopis et de patriarchis constantinopolitanis, PG 147.456D–457A, quoted by Flusin, Anastase, p. 386 n. 191.

34

. 

e Chronicle to 641 is a patriarchal chronicle, that is to say, it was written inside the patriarchal circle of Constantinople, or even, as Zuckerman has suggested, by Pyrrhos himself.44 He also made it clear that two of the three dates given in the Chronicle are linked with Pyrrhos. ‘Writing from memory explains another peculiarity of Nikephoros’ source: it provides practically no dates. e exceptions are few and hardly unexpected.’45 ese exceptions are: – 2nd indiction (628/29): arrival of the true Cross in Constantinople (ch. 18); – 12th indiction (638/39): death of the patriarch Sergios (ch. 26); – 15th indiction (641): appointment of Paul as patriarch (ch. 32). Except the arrival of the true Cross in Constantinople, which is the great event of the century, the two other dates concern in fact the beginning and the end of Pyrrhos’ first patriarchate. Let us focus on the beginning and on the end of Pyrrhos’ first patriarchate (638–641). In chapter 26, the reasons for his election are clearly given, as will be the case also with his successor, who was chosen because he was the administrator of the church of Hagia Sophia (ch. 32): προχειρίζεται Παῦλος, οἰκονόμος γεγονὼς τῆς μεγάλης ἐκκλησίας, ἀρχιερεὺς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, κατὰ τὸν Ὀκτώβριον μῆνα τῆς πεντεκαιδεκάτης ἰνδικτιόνος. ‘Paul, the former oikonomos of the Great Church, was appointed archpriest of Constantinople in October of the fieenth indiction.’ ose are the very last words of the Chronicle to 641: a patriarchal election! What are the reasons for Pyrrhos’ election? On the pattern of the election of Paul, we are informed that Pyrrhos ‘has been on friendly terms with Sergios (whose quarters he had shared)’ (ᾠκειωμένον Σεργίῳ καὶ συνδιαιτώμενον). He might have been, then, his syncellus, as suggested by Mango.46 is reason could be sufficient. In fact, however, it is a second and secondary reason. e first and primary reason is that Maria, Herakleios’ sister, was probably the godmother of Pyrrhos: καὶ ἐπειδήπερ προσέκειτο Ἡράκλειος Πύρρῳ, ἀδελφόν τε ἐκάλει, ὡς ἡνίκα τῷ θείῳ λουτρῷ ἐφωτίζετο ἡ τοῦ βασιλέως ἀδελφὴ χερσὶν ἐδέξατο, καὶ ἅμα ᾠκειωμένον Σεργίῳ καὶ συνδιαιτώμενον ἐγίνωσκε, τοῦτον ἀρχιερέα τοῦ Βυζαντίου ἀνηγόρευσεν. Since Herakleios was devoted to Pyrrhos, whom he called his brother (because when he was baptized in the holy bath the emperor’s sister had 44. Zuckerman, ‘Heraclius’, pp. 204–209. 45. Zuckerman, ‘Heraclius’, p. 208. 46. Mango, Short History, p. 190.

   ’ SHORT HISTORY

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received him in her arms) and knew him, furthermore, to have been on friendly terms with Sergios, (whose quarters he had shared), he appointed this man archpriest of Byzantium.47

Van Dieten had contended that Pyrrhos might have been the godfather of Maria,48 but Pertusi49 and Flusin50 made her his godmother. Speck adds that this baptism should have been celebrated before 610, that is, in the Roman province of Africa.51 Pyrrhos, being godson (or godfather) of Herakleios’ sister is then a familiar of Herakleios’ clan. Despite his reign in the East, Herakleios still prefers African occidental personnel to succeed to Sergios in 638. is explains also Pyrrhos’ voluntary exile in Africa, aer he resigned in 641. is notice is given only by the Chronicle to 641: it is sign of the patriarchal origin of this source, and it gives to Pyrrhos every claim, because of this link with Herakleios’ clan, to be recalled by Constans II, grandson of Herakleios and Eudocia, as patriarch of Constantinople for the second time. In chapter 31, Pyrrhos is forced by the mob and by the new Emperor Heraclonas, son of Martina and Herakleios, to crown the young Constans II. en, in the evening, the ‘boorish’ part of the people devastated the church of Hagia Sophia: Πύρρος δὲ ταῦτα μαθὼν τῇ ἐπιούσῃ νυκτὶ ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ παραγίνεται καὶ πάντα τὰ ἱερὰ ἀσπάζεται καὶ τὸ περικείμενον αὐτῷ ὠμόφορον περιελὼν τῇ ἱερᾷ ἀποτίθεται τραπέζῃ, φήσας ‘τῆς ἱερωσύνης μὴ ἀφιστάμενος ἀποτάσσομαι λαῷ ἀπειθεῖ’. ἐκεῖθεν ἡσυχῇ ἐξελθὼν παρὰ μιᾷ θεοσεβεστάτῃ γυναικὶ κρυφῇ κατήγετο καὶ καιροῦ εὐθέτου λαβόμενος πρὸς τὴν Χα[ρ]κηδόνα ἀπέπλει. οὗ τὴν ἔλευσίν τινες τῶν μοναζόντων ἐκεῖσε ἀκηκοότες περὶ τῶν 47. Mango, Short History, p. 74. 48. Van Dieten, Geschichte der Patriarchen, p. 51 n. 1 reads a text with a comma aer ἀδελφή: ὡς ἡνίκα τῷ θείῳ λουτρῷ ἐφωτίζετο ἡ τοῦ βασιλέως ἀδελφή, χερσὶν ἐδέξατο… ‘because, when the emperor’s sister was baptized in the holy bath, he received her in his arms…’. 49. Agostino Pertusi, ‘L’encomio di S. Anastasio, martire persiano’, AB 76 (1958), pp. 5–63, on p. 19 n. 3: ‘È assolutamente impossibile che Pirro possa aver battezzato la sorella di Eraclio, Maria, perché questa doveva esser poco più giovane del fratello se non più anziana. È noto che Eraclio sposò in seconde nozze, nel 614 la figlia della sorella Maria, Martina: non sappiamo quanti anni avesse al momento del matrimonio, ma doveva certo esser molto giovane. Ammettendo che avesse avuto 18 anni e che la madre si fosse sposata pur giovanissima, la sorella non può esser nata dopo il 576/578. Ora, se Pirro morì nel 654, ammettendo che sia morto molto vecchio, a quella data nasceva o da poco era nato.’ 50. Flusin, Anastase, p. 386, is mistaken regarding Van Dieten’s position. Van Dieten, Geschichte, p. 57 n. 1, claims in fact that Pyrrhos was the godfather of Herakleios’ sister. On the contrary, Flusin thinks that probably Maria, Herakleios’ sister, was the godmother of Pyrrhos. 51. Speck, Das geteilte Dossier, pp. 409–410.

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.  ἐκτεθέντων παρὰ τοῦ πάλαι Ἡρακλείου τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ Σεργίου τοῦ τῆς πόλεως ἱεράρχου, ἕνεκεν τῶν δύο ἐπὶ τοῦ σωτῆρος Χριστοῦ θελημάτων καὶ ἐνεργειῶν ἀνηρεύνων, ὧν προασπισταὶ ἐτύγχανον Μάξιμος καὶ Θεοδόσιος ὄντες ἐν Ἀφρικῇ. καὶ τὰ μὲν κατὰ Πύρρον οὕτω πως ἔσχεν. When Pyrrhos had been informed of this, he came to the church the following night and, aer embracing the sacred objects, took off his pallium and placed it on the altar, saying, ‘Without renouncing the priesthood I abjure a disobedient people’. So he went out quietly and found a secret refuge with a pious woman; then seizing a favorable occasion, he sailed away to [Carthage]. When some of the monks there heard of his arrival (their leaders were Maximos and eodosios, who dwelt in Africa), they interrogated him concerning the Exposition made by the former emperor Herakleios and by Sergios archpriest of the City, regarding the two wills and energies of Christ our Savior. So much for Pyrrhos.52

What strikes me here are the words pronounced by Pyrrhos. It may be an invention of the author of the Chronicle more than real words. It echoes, as Mango pointed out, the words of ‘Martyrios, who was forced out of office by Peter the Fuller, … thus underlining the unjust treatment of Pyrrhos’.53 I may add that it gives a precedent to the case of Pyrrhos and suggests to the emperor the proper behaviour to adopt toward Pyrrhos, expelled from his patriarchal throne in 641. As Emperor Leo I restored Martyrios in 470, Pyrrhos should also be restored by the emperor, as soon as possible. e author of the Chronicle to 641 is a connoisseur of ecclesiastical laws. is issue alludes to the problem of the return of Pyrrhos to the patriarchal throne. e attitude of Pyrrhos is full of gravity and pride when he took off his pallium and placed it on the altar. It is as if he were indeed preparing his return. In this perspective, I am forced to think that the Chronicle to 641 was written in preparation for his return. Stratos demonstrated that Pyrrhos de jure kept his patriarchal statute even at that time.54 e three main arguments are that Nikephoros stated in his Chronography that ‘Pyrrhos resigned as a rebellion occurred against him’ (στάσεως δὲ γενομένης αὐτῷ παρῃτήσατο), and that ‘he was restored’ to the patriarchate aer Paul II (Πύρρος πάλιν ἀπεκατέστη).55 e second source is the first synodical letter of pope eodore written in 646 to patriarch Paul II  before Pyrrhos’ retraction, when eodore had every reason to claim that Pyrrhos was still patriarch and Paul illegitimate:  52. 53. 54. 55.

Mango, Short History, pp. 82–84. Mango, Short History, p. 193. Andreas N. Stratos, ‘Ὁ πατριάρχης Πύρρος’, Βυζαντινά 8 (1976), pp. 11–19. De Boor, Nicephori opuscula historica, p. 118.

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Vivente itaque praedicto Pyrrho et nondum natura et culpa extincto, ne forte fieret schisma, opportuerat praecaveri. Ut ergo fraternitatis vestrae sacerdotalis robustior ordo permaneat, oportet debitum adversus eum colligi episcoporum ex propinquioribus locis conventum. Since then the aforementioned Pyrrhos is alive and still not dead either because of the human nature or of his sin, attention should have be paid to prevent any schism. In order to make stronger your patriarchal statute, my brother, a proper synod of bishops of the nearest sees shall be gathered about his case.56

e third source is a letter of African bishops written to the pope eodore in 646 and published in the Acts of the Lateran council of 649 where Pyrrhos, still before his recantation, is ‘our brother, the patriarch of Constantinople’ (Πύρρου τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ ἡμῶν τοῦ ἐπισκόπου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως), whereas Paul II is designated as ‘our brother, who presently holds the church of Constantinople’ (Παῦλον τὸν ἀδελφὸν ἡμῶν, τὸν νυνὶ τὴν αὐτὴν ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει διακατέχοντα ἐκκλησίαν).57 eophanes the Confessor, as other oriental sources, wrote in his Chronography ( 6132 =  639/40): βασιλεύει δὲ μετ’ αὐτὸν Κωνσταντῖνος, ὁ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ, μῆνας δʹ, καὶ φαρμακευθεὶς ὑπὸ Μαρτίνης, τῆς αὐτοῦ μητρυιᾶς, καὶ Πύρρου πατριάρχου τελευτᾷ. ‘Aer him, his son Constantine reigned four months and died aer being poisoned by his stepmother, Martina and the patriarch Pyrrhos.’58 But in our Chronicle, and in the Chronicle of John of Nikiu,59 the death of Constantine is natural: ἐπεὶ δὲ νόσῳ χρονίᾳ Κωνσταντῖνος συνείχετο ‘since he was afflicted of a chronic illness’, as it is written in the twenty-ninth chapter.60 Pyrrhos fled away to Africa that is to say to Carthage.61 And there is a strange detail. It is said that: ‘When some of the monks there heard of 56. Johannes-Dominicus Mansi, Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio 10 (Florence, 1754), col. 704. 57. Rudolf Riedinger (ed.), Concilium Lateranense a. 649 celebratum (ACO 2.1; Berlin, 1984), p. 68. 58. De Boor, Theophanis chronographia, p. 341 (see also pp. 330–31) and Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 474. 59. See Hermann Zotenberg (ed.), Chronique de Jean, évêque de Nikiou: Texte éthiopien (Paris, 1883), p. 205, and the translation of Phil Booth, ‘e last years of Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria († 642)’, in J.-L. Fournet and A. Papaconstantinou (eds.), Mélanges Jean Gascou (T&MByz 19; Paris, 2016), pp. 509–58: Constantine ‘vomited blood from his mouth’, and he ‘remained in this illness for one hundred days, that is, his entire reign’. 60. Mango, Short History, p. 78. 61. And not to Chalcedon, as the manuscripts of the Short History state, where Pyrrhos could not have escaped a punishment by his enemies. Mango, aer a suggestion of De Boor (Nicephori opuscula historica, p. 31 in his critical apparatus), without correcting the text, translated instead of Χαλκηδόνα: Καρχηδόνα, which must be the good reading as he explained in a footnote (Mango, Short History, p. 83 n. 17). Stratos, ‘Ὁ πατριάρχης Πύρρος’, p. 12, keeping the reading Chalcedon, blames Nikephoros for his confusion!

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his arrival (their leaders were Maximos and eodosios, who dwelt in Africa), they interrogated him’. Maximus is the great monk and philosopher better known as Maximus the Confessor. But who is eodosios dwelling in Carthage?62 We know only one eodosios in relation with Maximus the Confessor, namely eodosios, priest of Gangra (in Paphlagonia) and monk, probably brother of eodore Spudaeus, disciple and admirer of Maximus the Confessor. We have no information that this Palestinian monk lived in Africa.63 He may, like many Palestinian monks, have fled first in Africa, aer the fall of Jerusalem in 638, and then to Rome at an unknown date, before the end of the 640s. at is the reason why I agree with Zuckerman64 when he defends the authenticity of the sentence ‘When some of the monks there heard of his arrival’ and further (see above), against Mango who thought it ‘a later note appended to the manuscript of the source’!65 But the most important point lies elsewhere: there is no hint to any theological problem in the Chronicle to 641 before this sentence. Suddenly, the reader learns that there is a theological discussion between Pyrrhos and the monks Maximus and eodosios about the Ecthesis. Contrary to Zuckerman, who wrote: ‘e passage aims at dissimulating information about Pyrrhos rather than informing the reader’,66 I think that this is a sign that the Chronicle to 641 had been written at that time. I have already noticed elsewhere that Maximus had very good relations with Pyrrhos in 633/34, before he became patriarch of Constantinople 62. A desperate solution could have been to correct Theodosios in Theodoros, who then may be eodore, priest and higoumen of Maximus in the sabaitic laura of Carthage. See Riedinger, Concilium Lateranense, pp. 50–51. 63. As proven by Jacques Noret, ‘À qui était destinée la lettre BHG 1233d d’Anastase l’Apocrisiaire?’, AB 118 (2000), pp. 37–42, eodosios, priest of Gangra, was associated to the church of the Resurrection (Anastasis) at Jerusalem. But this eodosios, priest of Gangra and monk, was active in the 650s along with his brother eodore Spudaeus, in the entourage of the pope Martin I in Rome, and aer June 653, in Constantinople. We have a letter of Maximus to him dealing with logical and philosophical terms, to provide him with arguments in defence of dyotheletism in Constantinople. He is the addressee of a theological opusculum of Maximus, ‘dated a little before 656/7’. See Marek Jankowiak and Phil Booth, ‘A New Date-List of the Works of Maximus the Confessor’, in Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil (eds.), The Oxford Handbook to Maximus the Confessor (Oxford, 2015), pp. 19–83, on p. 68. eodosios is also the addressee of a letter from Anastasius the Apocrisiary on the death of Maximus with eight theological extracts, dated to 665 or 666. See Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil (eds.), Scripta Saeculi VII vitam Maximi Confessoris illustrantia cum Latina interpretatione Anastasii Bibliothecarii iuxta posita (CCSG 39; Turnhout–Leuven, 1999), pp. XX–XXII, 171–89. 64. Zuckerman, ‘Heraclius’, p. 206: ‘e encounter in Carthage with Maximos and eodosios, leaders of “some of” (τινες τῶν) the local monks, has nothing of a marginal gloss.’ 65. Mango, Short History, p. 14. 66. Zuckerman, ‘Heraclius’, p. 206. 

   ’ SHORT HISTORY

39

in 638, and that in 645, Pyrrhos probably tried to ally with the Exarch of Carthage, the rebellious patrician Gregory, and with his supporters like Maximus, in the hope that Gregory might become the new emperor.67 It may be the real reason of his rejection of monotheletism in 645. Let us suppose that the Chronicle to 641 was written in a dubious time, when Gregory appeared as a challenger to the imperial throne. In that case, it would have been better for the author not to speak of doctrinal problems that had opposed Sergios and Pyrrhos on the one hand and Maximus and his allies on the other hand. To say it in a few words, the whole description of Pyrrhos’ flight from Constantinople to Carthage would have been written as a subtle defence of the rights of Pyrrhos to be restored as patriarch of Constantinople either by Emperor Constans II, or even by the usurper Gregory. Zuckerman thinks that the ‘Pyrrhos pamphlet’, as he said, was written or inspired by Pyrrhos: ‘I propose viewing Nikephoros’ source as a historical pamphlet rather than a chronicle, a plea pro domo inspired and possibly composed by Pyrrhos ca. 650.’68 ere are too many mistakes to suppose that Pyrrhos would have written this text. It is difficult to think that Pyrrhos, monk in the church of the Anastasis in Jerusalem in the 620s, would not have remembered that the Persian conquest of Jerusalem (in 614, ch. 12) preceded that of Alexandria (in 619, ch. 6)! So the Chronicle to 641 may be the work of a supporter of Pyrrhos who made some confusions. It may have been written before 647, by someone who had no clear thought on future, and may have hoped the restoration of his patriarch by either Constans II or the usurper Gregory.

C So, in a word, the source of the first part of Nikephoros’ Short History that I call aer Mango the Constantinopolitan Chronicle to 641 is the continuation of the Ἱστορία χρονική of the John of Antioch that ended in 610. e first act of the Chronicle to 641 is to set up the patriarch Sergios as the real master of the city that welcomed Herakleios inside its walls. e last event is the accession of Paul II to the patriarchal throne. e main themes indeed of this Chronicle to 641 are to defend the idea 67. Christian Boudignon, ‘Le pouvoir de l’anathème: ou Maxime le Confesseur et les moines palestiniens du VIIe siècle’, in Alberto Camplani and Giovanni Filoramo (eds.), Foundations of Power and Conflicts of Authority in Late-Antique Monasticism (Leuven– Paris–Dudley, 2007), pp. 256–65. 68. Zuckerman, ‘Heraclius’, p. 207.

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that the patriarch is the real representative of political legitimacy, to blame Herakleios for his union with Martina, as if it were the source of all evils, and to restore the honour of Pyrrhos when he quitted. For all those reasons, I think that the Chronicle to 641 may have been written by a supporter of Pyrrhos some years aer his resignation, probably between 645 (year of Pyrrhos’ adherence to dyotheletism) and 647 (year of the death of the usurper Gregory), should Gregory be successful or not in his usurpation. But at the same time, the blame on Herakleios’ second wedding is clearly intended to please the emperor Constans II, should he stay on the throne.

HISTORIOGRAPHY ACROSS THE BORDERS: THE CASE OF THE ISLAMIC MATERIAL IN THEOPHANES CONFESSOR’S CHRONOGRAPHIA1 Maria C

T  C-T  I T e transmission of culture, knowledge, and texts in the Late Antique and Medieval Near East is oen depicted as a stream from Greek to Syriac, and from Syriac and Greek to Arabic, with a final stretch westwards, into Latin. is supposedly one-way path is of course a simplified view. As such, it does not take into account some few, much interesting, and understudied exceptions: the influence of Syriac poetry on Byzantine hymnography,2 for instance, or the Sasanian astrological sciences that reached Byzantium flowing through the Abbasid court.3 Historiography has lately come to the fore as a particularly fruitful field to search for cases of upstream intercultural exchanges. e reception of Greek historiographical texts and models in Syriac is a well known and widely studied phenomenon,4 and direct passages from Greek into Latin and from Latin into Arabic are also attested (Anastasius Bibliothecarius’ Historia Tripertita – a Latin translation of Nicephorus’, George Syncellus’ and eophanes Confessor’s works – and the Arabic translation of Orosius’ 1. e research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/20072013) /ERC Grant, Agreement n. 313153. 2. See for instance William O. Petersen, ‘e Dependence of Romanos “the Melodist” upon the Syriac Ephrem: Its Importance for the Origin of the Kontakion’, VC 39 (1985), pp. 171–87; Sebastian P. Brock, ‘Syriac and Greek Hymnography: Problems of Origin’, StPatr. 16 (1985), pp. 77–81. 3. See David Pingree, ‘Sasanian Astrology in Byzantium’, in Antonio Carile (ed.), La Persia e Bisanzio: convegno internazionale (Roma, 14-18 ottobre 2002) (Atti dei convegni Lincei 201; Rome, 2004), pp. 539–54; idem, ‘From Alexandria to Baghdad to Byzantium: e Transmission of Astrology’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 8 (2001/ 2002), pp. 3–37. 4. Muriel Debié, ‘Du grec en syriaque: la transmission du récit de la prise d’Amid (502) dans l’historiographie byzantine’, BZ 96 (2003), pp. 601–22; eadem, ‘Jean Malalas et la tradition chronographique de langue syriaque’, in Joëlle Beaucamp and Sandrine Agusta-Boularot (eds.), Recherches sur la chronique de Jean Malalas (T&MByz 15; Paris, 2004), pp. 147–64; Witold Witakowski, ‘e Chronicle of Eusebius: Its Type and Continuation in Syriac Historiography’, Aram 12 (2000), pp. 419–37.

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Historiae adversos paganos5 made in tenth-century Córdoba). Interestingly enough, however, no historiographical text seems to have travelled all the way from Greek down to Syriac, Arabic, and then Latin, at least not in the form of a full, or even partial, translation. is is probably due to the fact that historical information migrated from one text to the other, evolving and becoming stratified in ways that are oen difficult to trace with precision. Late antique and medieval historiographical genres, such as universal chronicles and church histories, had less rigid composition and transmission processes than classicising historiographical monographs or philosophical and scientific treatises, in that they were not just read, but literally used: quoted, excerpted, adapted, updated. ey were certainly copied and translated, but they were also epitomized, transcribed in large or small chunks within other texts, continued, enlarged or even reworked. Very oen, either the indirect transmission had the upper hand on the direct one, or the distinction between the two faded irretrievably, causing the loss of the original version, or of the original full translation. It has in fact been suggested that the definition of ‘living-text’, initially coined with reference to more popular genres such as hagiography and apocryphal literature, can be profitably used to describe and understand also the historiography of this period.6 Such texts were not only ‘living’, but also open to the flow of heterogeneous material and likely to end up accommodating accounts of the most disparate provenance: archival documents, letters, more or less official reports, military dispatches, but also religious texts (lives of saints, homilies, writings issued from theological disputes), even poetry, popular tales, oral traditions, words of mouth. ey let transpire memory-building in the making, so to speak, and they prove an excellent hotbed for intercultural transmission in multiple directions. Although it is very difficult, if not impossible, to retrieve the trajectories of this material across linguistic, religious and political borders, from one text to the next, from one genre to another, and from oral to written sources, it is nevertheless possible and useful to detect and analyse the traces that such intercultural exchanges have le on the preserved texts. eophanes Confessor’s Chronographia is in this respect a most interesting case, since it appears to have been involved in more than one stream of circulation of historical knowledge, from Syriac to Greek, from Arabic to Greek, with or 5. Christian C. Sahner, ‘From Augustine to Islam: Translation and History in the Arabic Orosius’, Speculum 88.4 (2013), pp. 905–31. 6. Peter Van Nuffelen, ‘John of Antioch Inflated and Deflated. Or: How (Not) to Collect Fragments of Early Byzantine Historians’, Byz. 82 (2012), pp. 437–50.

   

43

without a Syriac go-between, and from Greek back into Syriac.7 In the present paper I will examine some passages of eophanes Confessor’s Chronographia that attest to a case of upstream intercultural transmission, namely the direct passage of historical information from the Islamic milieu to the Christian Greek-speaking one.

F A  G,     S G- e existence of information of Islamic provenance in eophanes’ Chronographia was first supposed in the nineteenth century by eodor Mommsen, who, in his edition of two eighth-century Latin chronicles from Spain, suggested that those two texts owed their information on early Islamic history to an epitome of Arabic chronicles on which Nicephorus and eophanes relied as well.8 e first to delve deeply into the matter was, more recently, Lawrence Conrad. With his article entitled ‘eophanes and the Arabic Historical Tradition’,9 Conrad revisited the topic and explored new avenues of research on eophanes’ so-called ‘Oriental Source’ and on the relations between the Chronographia and Syriac, Christian Arabic, and Islamic historiography. In his essay, Conrad argues convincingly that some pieces of information on Islamic history in the Chronographia cannot but derive ultimately from the Islamic tradition itself, since they show features of the early Islamic historical reflection and self-representation in fieri. Conrad based his remarks on the analysis of four items – the genealogy of the Arab tribes, the chronological partition of Muhammad’s life, the battle of Mu’ta and some specific terminological issues – and he reached the conclusion that the most likely intermediary between the Islamic tradition and eophanes was a Greek translation/ continuation of the Syriac lost historical work of eophilus of Edessa, a Maronite intellectual and astrologer active at the court of the Caliph 7. Federico Montinaro has recently put forward the hypothesis that some pieces of information on the fourth and fih centuries contained in the Chronicle of 1234 and in the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian derive from eophanes’ Chronographia via a later Greek intermediary (possibly the Chronicle of the Pseudo-Symeon the Logothete), see Federico Montinaro, ‘e Chronicle of eophanes in the Indirect Tradition’, in Federico Montinaro and Marek Jankowiak (eds.), Studies in Theophanes (T&MByz 19; Paris, 2015), pp. 177–205. 8. Continuatio Isidoriana Byzantia-Arabica et Hispana, in . Mommsen (ed.), Chronica Minora saec. IV.V.VI.VII (MGH, Auctores Antiquissimi 11; Berlin, 1894), p. 324. Today the two Spanish chronicles are better known as Chronicle of 741 and Chronicle of 754. 9. Lawrence I. Conrad, ‘eophanes and the Arabic Historical Tradition: Some Indications of Intercultural Transmission’, BF 15 (1990), pp. 1–44.

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al-Mahdi (743–85). In subsequent publications, he further developed this hypothesis, analysing some significant parallels between the Chronographia, Michael the Syrian’s chronicle, the Chronicle of the year 1234, and Agapius of Mabbug’s Kitāb al-‘unwān, which are likewise supposed to depend on eophilus’ History for the material concerning the seventh and the eighth centuries.10 Conrad’s theory has been expanded since, revised, and even challenged.11 More sources have been taken into account, and different possible transmission paths have been envisaged. eophanes’ dependence on eophilus of Edessa now looks less straightforward than Conrad supposed – much more difficult to delineate with a sufficient amount of certainty12 – and how precisely the material eophanes shares with Michael the Syrian, the Chronicle of 1234, and Agapius of Mabbug reached Constantinople is still an open question. However, this does not directly concern the purpose of the present paper, because the Chronographia also contains information of Islamic origin not found in the Syriac chronicles, and it is a few of these items that I will be discussing here. Whether they were added by the Greek translator to eophilus’ work or they reached eophanes through another source, is not immediately relevant. What is relevant is that these passages attest to the direct transmission of historical information from the Arabic-speaking to the Greek-speaking domain, and they provide therefore a most interesting case for the study upstream intercultural transmission. The Battle of Siffin Conrad himself had already spotted in the Chronographia some information of Islamic origin that has no corresponding passages in the Syriac chronicles. He focuses mainly on the material concerning the origins of 10. Lawrence I. Conrad, ‘e Conquest of Arwād: A Source-Critical Study in the Historiography of the Early Medieval Near East’, in Averil Cameron and Lawrence I. Conrad (eds.), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East 1. Problems in the Literary Source Material (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 1; Princeton, 1992), pp. 317–401; idem, ‘e Arabs and the Colossus’, JRAS (ser. 3) 6 (1996), pp. 165–87. 11. Robert G. Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle and the Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (Translated Texts for Historians 57; Liverpool, 2011); Maria Conterno, La ‘descrizione dei tempi’ all’alba dell’espansione islamica. Un’indagine sulla storiografia greca, siriaca e araba fra VII e VIII secolo (Millennium Studies 47; Berlin–Boston, 2014); eadem, ‘eophilos, “the More Likely Candidate”? Towards a Reappraisal of eophanes’ “Oriental Source(s)”’, in Montinaro and Jankowiak, Studies in Theophanes, pp. 383–400; Muriel Debié, ‘eophanes’ “Oriental Source”: What Can We Learn from Syriac Historiography?’, ibidem, pp. 365–82. 12. As effectively shown by Hoyland’s adjustments to the stemma fontium initially drawn by Conrad, see Conrad, ‘e Conquest of Arwād’, p. 326 and Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle, p. 337.

   

45

Islam and the first Islamic expansion, but very interesting examples can be found also from later times. We will focus on passages from the first Islamic civil war to the early Abbasid times. e first civil war, or ‘First Fitna’, was the succession struggle between Ali and Muawiyah aer the death of the third of the Rashidun Caliphs, Uthman ibn al-Affan. In comparison with Agapius of Mabbug, the Chronicle of 1234, and Michael the Syrian, eophanes offers rather scanty information on this moment of Islamic history. He presents, though, a brief account of the battle of Siffin (657) that finds no match in other Christian sources and is partly borne out by the Islamic tradition: In this year Mauia took up arms against Ali. e two of them met in the area of Barbalissos at Kaisarion near the Euphrates [ἀναμέσον Βαρβαλισσοῦ εἰς τὸ Καισάριον πλησίον τοῦ Εὐφράτου]; and the men of Mauias, gaining the upper hand, captured the water supply [τὸ ὕδωρ ἔλαβον], while Ali’s men were reduced to thirst and were deserting. Mauias did not wish to give battle but obtained victory without any toil [Μαυΐας δὲ οὐκ ἤθελε πολεμῆσαι· ἀλλ’ ἀπονητὶ τὴν νίκην ἤρατο].13

Tabari’s account of the battle of Siffin contains a long section entitled ‘e battle by the water’,14 relating the skirmishes between the two armies along the banks of the Euphrates. e beginning is the same as in eophanes – Muawiyah has camped close to the only watering place and prevents the enemy from taking water supplies – but the following differs significantly, in that all of Tabari’s sources say that Ali’s men did actually engage in a fierce battle to gain the water, one even says that Muawiyah attacked them first although they had asked to postpone the fight, and the very last version says that Ali won the fight and succeeded in getting access to the river. From eophanes’ short sketch, Muawiyah comes out in a rather positive light: it is explicitly stated that he did not want to take advantage of the dire conditions in which Ali’s army found itself and refused to attack. is seems to suggest that, besides being an abridged version, eophanes’ account is also a pro-Muawiyah version of the story, whereas all the sources quoted by Tabari present the episode from the Alid side and depict Muawiyah as a cynical commander, surrounded by equally ruthless advisers. at the Chronographia contains traces of pro-Muawiyah sources is confirmed by the fact that eophanes counts Muawiyah’s regnal years directly from the death of Uthman and assigns to him a reign of twenty-four years, thus not counting Ali at all among 13.  6148: C. de Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1883–85), pp. 346:27– 347:4; Cyril Mango and Roger Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near East History AD 284–814 (Oxford, 1997), p. 483. 14. Ehsan Yar-Shater (ed.), The History of al-Ṭabarī. An Annotated Translation, 40 vols. (New York, 1985–2007), vol. 17, pp. 11–16.

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. 

Muslim kings. He repeats this reckoning twice, aer the death of Uthman and aer the death of Muawiyah himself:  6147. In this year Outhman, the leader of the Arabs, was assassinated by the inhabitants of Ethribos aer he had been emir ten years. Now discord prevailed among the Arabs: for those who dwelt in the desert wanted Ali, the nephew of Ali, Mouamed’s son-in-law, whereas those who were in Syria and Egypt wanted Mauias. e latter prevailed and reigned for 24 years. ...  6171. In this year Mauias, the Caliph of the Saracens, died on the 6th of the month Artemisios, indiction 1. He had been military commander 20 years and emir 24 years. His son Izid assumed power.15

e civil war between Ali and Muawiyah went on for five years, from Uthman’s assassination, in 656, to Ali’s death, in 661. Muawiyah was appointed governor of Syria in 639, and he reigned as a caliph until his own death in 680, therefore twenty-four years from a pro-Umayyad point of view, but only nineteen if Ali is counted as Uthman’s legitimate successor. Theophanes’ reckoning is not paralleled in any other Christian Oriental source. Michael the Syrian, the anonymous chronicler of 1234, Agapius and the anonymous chronicler of 846 assign to Muawiyah twenty-one years as a commander and twenty as sole ruler.16 e Chronicle of Zuqnin counts twenty-one years of reign, five of which were spent fighting against Ali.17 Elias of Nisibis has Ali’s son Husayn succeeding his father, and Muawiyah assuming power only aer him.18 e list of caliphs that closes the socalled Chronicle of 724 does not mention Ali, but assigns Muawiyah a reign of nineteen years and two months.19 e reckoning that most resembles eophanes’ is to be found in the two Latin Spanish chronicles first edited by Mommsen, which both state that Muawiyah reigned for twentyfive years, five of which were spent in a war against his own people.20 15. De Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, p. 346:24 and p. 356:15–17; Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 483 and p. 497. 16. J.-B. Chabot (ed.), Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarch jacobite d’Antioche (1166–1199), 4 vols. (Paris, 1899–1924), vol. 2, p. 468; idem (trans.), Anonymi auctoris Chronicon ad annum Christi 1234 pertinens 1 (CSCO 109; Leuven, 1937), pp. 224–25; Alexander Vasiliev (ed.), Kitab al-‘Unvan. Histoire universelle écrite par Agapius (Mahboub) de Menbid 2.2 (PO 8; Paris, 1912), p. 493; Ernest W. Brooks (ed.), Chronicon ad annum 846 pertinens, in idem, Chronica Minora 2 (CSCO 4; Paris–Leipzig, 1904), p. 175. 17. Robert Hespel (trans.), Chronicon anonymum Pseudo-Dionysianum vulgo dictum 2 (CSCO 507; Leuven, 1989), p. 115. 18. Ernest W. Brooks (ed.), Eliae metropolitae nisibeni opus chronologicum 1 (CSCO 63; Leuven, 1910), p. 68. 19. Ernest W. Brooks (ed.), Chronicon miscellaneum ad annum domini 724 pertinens, in idem, Chronica Minora 2, p. 119. 20. Juan Gil (ed.), Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1973), vol. 2, p. 10 and p. 25.

   

47

Fig. 1.

e geographical position of the battle of Siffin given by eophanes is also worth reflecting upon. Although Siffin is not explicitly mentioned, the two names Barbalissos and Kaisarion – ‘Bālis’ and ‘Qāṣirīn’ in Arabic – point to the area of the plain of Siffin, which lies south of al-Raqqa, across the Euphrates. ey are both on the right bank of the Euphrates, at the point where the river widens and turns eastwards. e two places are at 10/11 kilometers distance from each other, and about 65/75 kilometers west of al-Raqqa (see figure 1). Tabari does not provide any more precise geographical indication with reference to the ‘Battle by the Water’, and eophanes’ location is not paralleled in other sources, but since the battle of Siffin consisted of a long series of fights and skirmishes rather than one unique clash, it is possible that the two armies moved along the river and at a certain point ended up encamping more westwards. e Greek phrasing, though, is a bit unclear in that it hardly can mean that they met within the city of Barbalissos itself (ἀναμέσον Βαρβαλισσοῦ) because of the following ‘εἰς τὸ Καισάριον’. Most likely what is meant is ‘within (the area of) Barbalissos towards/at Kaisarion’, and thus ‘between Barbalissos and Kaisarion’. From Baladhuri we know that, although close to the river, the city of Barbalissos/Bālis itself and the surrounding villages did not receive any water but from rain, until the general Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik (685–738) dug a canal to irrigate the whole area:

48

.  Bâlis and the villages attached to it on its upper, middle, and lower extremities were tithe-lands watered only by rain. When Maslamah ibn-‘Abd-alMalik-ibn-Marwân led an expedition against the Greeks from the side of the Mesopotamian frontier fortresses, he camped at Bâlis whose inhabitants, together with those of Buwailis, Ḳâṣirîn, ‘Âbidîn, and Ṣiffîn (which were villages attached to Bâlis) came to him, together with the inhabitants of the upper extremity, and they all asked him to dig for them a canal from the Euphrates to irrigate their land, agreeing to offer him one-third of the produce of the land, aer taking away the usual tithe for the government. Maslamah consented and dug the canal called Nahr Maslamah; and the people lived up to their promise.21

is confirms that getting water supplies in that area was rather difficult and there might have been indeed just one accessible watering place along the river between Barbalissos/Bālis and Kaisarion, and suggests that eophanes’ more precise geographical indication might in fact be correct. Baladhuri gives also another interesting piece of information about, remarkably, Barbalissos/Bālis and Kaisarion/Qāṣirīn together, concerning their conquest by the general Abu Ubaidah (583–639): Bâlis and Ḳâṣirîn belonged to two brothers of the Greek nobility to whom were given as fiefs the adjacent villages and who were made guardians of the towns of Syria that lay between Bālis and Ḳâṣirîn. When the Moslem armies reached these towns, their inhabitants capitulated, agreeing to pay poll-tax or evacuate the places. Most of them le for the Byzantine Empire, Mesopotamia and the village of Jisr Manbij.22

Hugh Kennedy lists this passage among the pieces of evidence pointing to the existence in pre-Islamic Syria of local elites whose power was based on both landowning and civil service, and who were still influential in the very last years of the Byzantine domination.23 Barbalissos/ Bālis and Kaisarion/Qāṣirīn (modern Dibsi-Faraj, identified with the ancient Neocaesarea) were indeed not just any villages. In pre-Islamic times they were both walled and garrisoned towns, and they had some ecclesiastical relevance, too,24 as suffragan dioceses of the province of Hierapolis/ 21. Philip Khuri Hitti, The Origins of the Islamic State, Being a Translation from the Arabic, Accompanied with Annotations, Geographic and Historic Notes of the Kitāb Futūh al-Buldān of al-Balādhuri, 2 vols. (New York, 1916–1924), vol. 1, p. 232. 22. Khuri Hitti, The origins, vol. 1, pp. 231–32. 23. Hugh Kennedy, ‘Syrian Elites from Byzantium to Islam: Survival or Extinction?’, in John Haldon (ed.), Money, Power and Politics in Early Islamic Syria: a Review of Current Debates (Fahram–Burlington, 2010), pp. 181–98, in particular pp. 185–87. 24. Raymond Janin, ‘Barbalissos’, in Alfred Baudrillart et al. (eds.), Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Paris, 1932), vol. 6, cols. 575–76; Richard P. Harper and Tony J. Wilkinson, ‘Excavations at Dibsi Faraj, Northern Syria, 1972–1974: A Preliminary Note on the Site and Its Monuments with an Appendix’, DOP 29 (1975), pp. 319–38;

   

49

Bambyce/Manbij within the patriarchate of Antioch.25 Hence the choice of these two places instead of Siffin as a geographical reference to locate the event, besides being more accurate, might also be telling of who recorded the event, and for whom it was recorded. What we have here is in fact a piece of information of Islamic provenance whose geographical setting is expressed with Christian/Byzantine coordinates. The Death of Abbas ibn al-Walid e next passage regards one of the protagonists of the ‘ird Fitna’. e third Islamic civil war began with the assassination of the Caliph Walid II (706–44) by Yazid, son of Walid I (668–715), who succeeded him as Yazid III. Yazid died aer only five months from a brain tumor, and was succeeded by his brother Ibrahim, but Marwan, the governor of Armenia, deemed both to be usurpers, moved with his army from Mesopotamia, took Damascus and ascended to the throne as Marwan II (744–50). A key character in both the Islamic tradition and in the Syriac chronicles (in particular in the version of Michael the Syrian and the Chronicle of 1234) is Abbas ibn al-Walid, half-brother of Yazid and Ibrahim. According to the Islamic tradition, he tried to discourage his brother Yazid as he was planning the coup d’état, and he refused to support him until the very end, when he had already taken possession of Damascus, and even then rather unwillingly. Contrariwise, in the Chronicle of 1234 we read that the real originator of the plot against Walid was Abbas himself, who, being the son of a slave, could not seize power directly, so he managed to manipulate his brother and push him forward. Strangely enough, eophanes does not mention Abbas at all in the context of the succession struggle, but he does give us an account of his death later on, containing very precise details uncorroborated by any other source, neither Islamic nor Christian: At Emesa he [Marwan] impaled 120 Chalbenoi and he killed Abas in prison – a man who had devastated and depopulated many places. e Ethiopian who was dispatched by Marouam to carry out this task filled a bag with unslaked A. Asa Eger, The Islamic-Byzantine Frontier: Interaction and Exchange Among Muslim and Christian Communities (London–New York, 2015), pp. 79–83. 25. Simon Vailhé, ‘Une notitia episcopatuum du Xe siècle’, Échos d’Orient 10 (1907), pp. 90–101; idem, ‘Une notitia episcopatuum d’Antioche du patriarche Anastase’, ibid., pp. 139–45. According to Vailhé, this Notitia Episcopatuum is a tenth-century updating of a document originally composed in the second half of the sixth century, therefore it is difficult to assess precisely which moment in time this list actually represents, and it might even be that it does not represent the real situation of any precise moment in history, but rather an overlapping of different chronological layers.

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.  lime [θύλακα πλήσας ἀσβέστου ζώσης] and, having approached Abas, placed it over his head and nostrils and so smothered him, thus contriving a just punishment for the magician [τῷ γόητι]. For he had wrought much evil to the Christians by means of magic and the invocation of demons [μαγείαις γὰρ καὶ δαιμόνων ἐπικλήσεσι πολλὰ κατὰ Χριστιανῶν κακὰ ἐτεκτήνατο]. He had also shared in the murder of Oualid.26

e precise details on the way Abbas was executed make this account look like ‘insider information’, seemingly pointing to its Islamic origin. However, according to the Islamic tradition, Abbas died in prison – yes – but as a result of an epidemic.27 e charge of witchcra, moreover, is extremely difficult to explain away, and I have not been able to find any reference to, or echo of, such details in any other text. Both from Byzantine and Islamic sources we learn that Abbas participated regularly in the almost annual expeditions launched into Byzantine Asia Minor. He was the protagonist, together with his uncle Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik, of the long siege of Tyana in 707/8, of which we find different but equally emphatic accounts in eophanes, in Nicephorus and in the Syriac chronicles (but, remarkably, only eophanes mentions Abbas explicitly in relation to the siege of Tyana itself).28 Among his most notable campaigns were the capture of Sebaste in Cilicia in 712 and of Antioch in Pisidia in 713, and the raid into Paphlagonia in 721, where he is reported to have captured 20,000 prisoners. Baladhuri says in his Futuh, that ‘he burned down Antioch in the land of the Greeks’ (Antioch of Pisidia), and in Tabari he is mentioned as governor of Aleppo.29 He clearly owes such a negative description to his brilliant military career on the Byzantine front. erefore a plausible explanation is that we are not confronted here with a piece of information leaked from Muslim informants, but with a fragment of a local Christian tradition that had demonized Abbas and constructed a negative myth about him. eophanes received the account of Abbas’ death from a source that was much better informed about, or much more interested in, what Abbas had done to the local Christian population than in his role in the Islamic civil war. 26.  6236: de Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, p. 421:25–33; Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 583. 27. Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 27, p. 167. 28.  6201: de Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, p. 376:31–377:14; Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, pp. 525–26. Cyril Mango, Nikephoros Patriarch of Constantinople. Short History (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 13; Washington DC, 1990), pp. 104–107; Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, vol. 2, p. 478; idem, Chronicon anonymum, p. 232; Vasiliev, Kitab al-‘Unvan, pp. 498–99. 29. Khuri Hitti, The Origins of the Islamic State, vol. 1, p. 263; Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 24. p. 145.

   

51

The Abbasid Revolution eophanes’ account of the events that led to the establishment of the Abbasid dynasty is sketchy, but rich in details that cannot but come either from the Islamic tradition itself, or from informants who had first hand knowledge of what happened – or of how what happened was narrated among Muslims. A number of the actual actors on the scene are discernible even through the haziest of phrasings and distortion of names. Also, eophanes’ words reflect tribal dynamics, clan oppositions and scraps of propaganda from both sides. e outburst of the rebellion and the defeat of Marwan II are described as follows, in the  6240: In this year a people called the Chorasanite Maurophoroi rose up in the eastern part of Persia against Marouam and the entire clan that had ruled from the time of Mouamed, the false prophet, down to the same Marouam, that is the so-called progeny of Oumaia. For while the latter were busy fighting one another aer the murder of Oualid, the sons of Echim and Alim (as they are called) [οἱ λεγόμενοι υἱοὶ τοῦ Ἐχὶμ καὶ τοῦ Ἀλίμ], who were likewise related to the false prophet [συγγενεῖς μὲν καὶ αὐτοὶ τοῦ ψευδοπροφήτου τυγχάνοντες], but were fugitives and lived in hiding in the Lesser Arabia [κεκρυμμένοι δὲ καὶ φυγάδες ὄντες κατὰ τὴν μικρὰν Ἀραβίαν], gathered together under the leadership of Abraim and dispatched a certain freedman of theirs named Aboumuslim to some of the prominent men of Chorasan asking for armed help against Marouam. ese banded together round a certain Chaktaban [Χακταβάν] and, aer taking counsel, incited slaves against their own masters and made a great slaughter in one night; equipped with their victim’s arms, horses, and money, they became powerful. ey were divided into two tribes, the Kaisinoi and the Imanites [διαιροῦνται δὲ εἰς φυλὰς δύο, Καϊσινοὺς καὶ Ἰμανίτας]. Judging the Imanites to be the stronger, Aboumuslim incited them against the Kaisinoi and, aer killing the latter, came to Persia together with Chaktaban. He made war on Ibindara and captured all of his men, some 100.000 of them. He then moved against Ibinoubeira, who was encamped with 200.000 men and undid him also. en, at the river Zabas, he overtook Marouam, who had 300.000 men, made war on him, and slew an infinite multitude. One could then see one man chasing a thousand and two men driving ten thousand, as Scripture says.30 When Marouam had observed that those men were winning signal victories, he went to Harran and, aer crossing the river, cut the bridge which he had made of boats [καὶ περάσας τὸν ποταμὸν ἔκοψε τὴν γέφυραν ἀπὸ πλοίων οὖσαν]. Taking all the money, his household, as well as 3.000 servants, he fled to Egypt.31 30. Allusion to Deuteronomy 32:30: ‘How could a man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up?’ (NIV). 31. De Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, pp. 424:12–425:1; Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 587.

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.  YƵ‫ܙ‬ĂLJLJ ‘Abd DĂŶĈĨ

͚ďĚĂů-‘Uzza

͚ďĚ^ŚĂŵƐ

‘,ĈƐŚŝŵ

‘Umayya

͚ďĚĂů-DƵ‫ܞܞ‬Ăůŝď ‘ďƻ ͛ů- ‫ܙ‬

‫ى‬Ăƌď

‫ى‬ĂŵnjĂ

Al-‘ďďĈƐ

ďƻ ‫٭‬Ĉůŝď

‘al-Hakam

‘Abd ůůĈŚ

The Prophet DƵ۹ĂŵŵĂĚ

‘ĨĨĈŶ DĂƌǁĈŶ I

‘ďƻ ^ƵĨLJĈŶ ‘hƚŚŵĈŶ

al-‫ى‬ĂŶĂĨŝLJLJĂ

&Ĉ‫ܞ‬ŝŵĂ

‘ůţ

‘DƵ͚ĈǁŝLJĂ I DƵ۹ĂŵŵĂĚ

al-‫ى‬ĂƐĂŶ al-‫ى‬ƵƐĂLJŶ

Fig. 2.

e rebels are called ‘the sons of Echim and Alim’, that is Hashim ibn Abd Manaf, the Prophet’s great-grandfather, and Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law. e opposition movement that toppled the last Umayyad caliph consisted of a coalition of Abbasids (who traced their ancestry back to al-Abbas, one of the Prophet’s uncles), Alids (Shiites) and Khurasani (Persian Muslims). e rebels’ main claim was that the Umayyads were unfit to rule because they did not belong to the Prophet’s family. Of course, this all depended on how large a definition of ‘family’ one decided to adopt, since the Umayyads actually represented a parallel branch of the family tree as descendants of Hashim’s brother Abd Shams ibn Abd Manaf (see figure 2). ere were disputes about the delimitation of the Prophet’s family also among the rebels themselves, since the Alids tended to emphasize their direct descent from the sons of Ali and Fatimah. e Abbasid party was also called Hashimiyya, a name that they linked back to Hashim, the common ancestor of al-Abbas, Ali and Muhammad. As a matter of fact, though, this was in Umayyad times the name of a religious-political faction that supported as real imam Abu Hashim – the son of Muhammad ibn Hanafiyya, who was born to Ali from an Hanafi woman – a movement whose claims and organisation the Abbasids had taken over. is sentence by eophanes, therefore, records pieces of both Umayyad and Abbasid propaganda: on the one

   

53

hand it implies the most extended notion of the Prophet’s family, in which the Umayyads were included as well; on the other, it echoes the Abbasids’ claim of being descendants of Hashim. e detail that the Abbasids were living as fugitives in ‘Lesser Arabia’ presents us with another very peculiar geographical indication. At first glance, the expression ‘Lesser Arabia’ might not seem particularly odd (it could simply be understood as Roman/Byzantine terminology rather than Islamic). But it is actually very rare in Greek. Ἀραβία μικρά only appears in a treatise on celestial signs by the sixth-century antiquarian John Lydus.32 Mικρὰ Ἀραβία only appears in eophanes, and just one more time beside this, a few pages later: under the year  6243 we read that ‘eodore, son of Vikarios, a native of Lesser Arabia, was ordained patriarch of Antioch’.33 e indication sounds vague, but we understand to which region it refers a little later, under the year  6248: eodore, patriarch of Antioch was exiled because of the malice of the Arabs, having been accused of frequently communicating Arab affairs by letter to the emperor Constantine. And so, Salim [i.e. Salih ibn Ali, governor of Qinnashrin, Emesa, and Damascus] himself banished him to the land of Moab which was his native country [εἰς τὴν Μωαβῖτιν χώραν πατρίδα τε αὐτοῦ]. e same Salim decreed that no new churches should be built, that crosses should not be displayed and that Christians should not discourse with Arabs on matters of religion.34

e ‘land of Moab’ is the mountainous plateau alongside the eastern shore of the Dead Sea (in modern Jordan), which was once occupied by the biblical Kingdom of Moab. e name stuck to the region also aer the decline of the eponymous kingdom, but it has still a strong biblical colour. eophanes’ geographical indication points in the right direction but it does not quite hit the mark, because the Abbasids were actually based in Humayma, a city farther south, more or less halfway between Petra and Aqaba, which, in biblical terms, would rather correspond to the land of Edom (see figure 3). Although the use of the expression Μικρὰ Ἀραβία might look insignificant here, the link with the figure of the Patriarch eodore revealed by its only other occurrence tells us in fact 32. John Lydus, De Ostentis 23.15 and 58.15. According to what John himself says (54) the second passage is translated verbatim from a Latin source, the otherwise unknown ‘Vicellius the Roman’. See Curt Wachsmuth, Lydus. De Ostentis. Calendaria Graeca (Leipzig, 1897), p. xxviii; C. Bandy (trans.), Ioannes Lydus. On Celestial Signs (De Ostentis) (Lewiston–Queenston–Lampeter, 2013), pp. 127, 213, 217. 33. De Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, p. 427:16–17; Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 590. 34. De Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, p. 430:3–9; Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 594.

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. 

Fig. 3.

that here as well, just like in the case of the battle by the water, pieces of information of Islamic origin were being given within a geographical framework that would sound familiar to a very precise Christian audience, providing once more a significant connection with the city of Antioch. e mention of Qahtaba ibn Shabib (Chaktaban) is also relevant, because he hardly ever appears in the other Christian sources but he

   

55

emerges as a key figure in the Islamic tradition. He was the first representative of the Khurasanis to go West and make contact with the Abbasids, and he then came back to Khorasan with Abu Muslim, to organize the insurrection.35 is fundamental role of his at the very initial stage of the revolution is also stressed in eophanes’ account. Behind the words ‘Kaisinoi and Imanites’, instead, there are most likely the Qays and the Yamami, the two main branches of the Arab tribes. eophanes’ passage is rather obscure and it cannot be traced back to any precise piece of information in the Islamic tradition, but it certainly echoes the long-lasting feud between the two. e hostility, exploded in Syria during the ‘Second Fitna’, had re-emerged chronically at every political crisis. At the beginning of the eighth century the Qays-Yamani conflict had spread to Iraq as well, and it inevitably overlapped with the dynamics of the Abbasid revolution: Marwan II, being the strong man of the Qays, had ousted the Yamani leaders from Syria, who then sided with the Abbasid opposition forces. However, since also some alienated members of the Umayyad elite played a significant role in the triumph of the rebels, the future Caliph Abu Ja‘far tried later on to find a compromise with the Qays leader Yazid ibn Umar ibn Hubayra, but his attempt was hindered precisely by Abu Muslim.36 eophanes’ passage mirrors, therefore – although in a simplistic and inaccurate way – the latter’s actual opposition to the Qays. e reference to Deuteronomy 32:30 alludes to the fact that the Abbasids had the upper hand over Marwan’s troops although they were heavily outnumbered, which is also what Islamic sources maintain. And, likewise, three of Tabari’s accounts of the battle on the river Zab confirm the detail of the bridge’s being cut by Marwan before fleeing,37 which is not reported by the other Christian sources. In the following yearly entry,  6241, eophanes tells about the establishment of the Abbasid dynasty and offers a brief résumé of Marwan’s reign: In this year Marouam was pursued by the Maurophoroi, who captured him and killed him aer waging a very heavy war. ey were commanded by Salim, son of Alim, one of the aforementioned fugitives who had sent Abumouslim on his mission. e rest of them gathered in Samaria and 35. See Moshe Sharon, ‘Ḳaḥṭaba’, in Peri J. Bearman et al. (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Islam, 12 vols. (2nd edition; Leiden, 1960–2005), vol. 5, pp. 445–47. 36. Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century (2nd edition; Harlow, 2004), pp. 91–94, 105, 127– 28. 37. Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 27, p. 166.

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.  Trachonitis [κατὰ τὴν Σαμάρειαν καὶ Τραχωνίτιδα χώραν] and awarded their leadership by lot [κλήρῳ] to Aboulabas [Abu’l-Abbas al-Saffah], and next to him to his brother Abdela [Abu Ja‘far Abd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Mansur], and next to the latter to Ise Ibinmuse [Isa ibn Musa]. ey appointed Abdela, son of Alim and brother of Salim, to be commander in Syria; Salim himself to be commander in Egypt; while Abdela, brother of Aboulabas (from whom he received the nomination to the command) they appointed over Mesopotamia. Aboulabas himself, who was in supreme authority, established his seat in Persia, the government and all the seized treasure (which Marouam had carried away) having been transferred to him and his Persian allies from Damascus. Marouam’s surviving sons and relatives went from Egypt to Africa, whence they crossed the narrow sea that separates Libya from Europe next to the Ocean at a place called Septai and settled until this day in Spain of Europe, where some kinsmen and coreligionists of theirs had come to dwell at an earlier time – the latter being descendant of Mauias who had suffered a shipwreck there. e devastation in the days of Marouam lasted six years and in the course of it all the prominent cities of Syria lost their walls except Antioch, which he planned to use as a refuge. Innumerable Arabs were also killed by him for he was very cunning in war38 matters. He belonged to the heresy of the Epicureans, that is Automatists [τῶν Ἐπικουρείων ἤτοι Αὐτοματιστῶν], an impiety that he had imbued from the pagans who dwell at Harran.39

What first strikes the reader in this passage is the quaint geographical definition used to locate the gathering of the winning rebels. ‘Trachonitis’ is in fact only mentioned in Josephus’ Antiquitates Judaicae and in the Gospel of Luke, as a part of the kingdom of Herod.40 All the subsequent occurrences of this toponym refer back to biblical times. It corresponds to the rocky area south of Damascus, modern Lajat, whereas Samaria is the area north of Jerusalem, between the river Jordan and the coast (see figure 3), and it is as well used exclusively as a biblical reference. Neither of these terms seems to have been actually employed in eophanes’ time, nor at the time of the described events. Moreover, they prove to be not only an extreme vague and loose geographical reference, pointing to two areas remarkably distanced from one another, but also a totally wrong one, since the proclamation of Abu’l-Abbas al-Saffah took place at Kufa, not in the West. And it also happened before the battle of the river Zab, not aer. According to the Islamic tradition, Abu Ja‘far and Isa b. Musa were designated as al-Saffah’s successors not by lot at the very 38. I have modified here Mango and Scott’s translation, where the Greek πολεμικά is rendered with ‘civic matters’. 39. De Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, pp. 425:13–426:13; Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 588. 40. Flavius Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae 17.2.1; Luke 3:1.

   

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beginning, as eophanes claims, but by al-Saffah himself on his deathbed, four years later.41 What also lacks historical grounding, and is not paralleled in any Christian or Islamic source, is the story of the shipwreck undergone by Muawiyah’s descendants in Spain. Al-Andalus was conquered in the early eighth century by the governor of Ifrikiya and Maghrib, Musa ibn Nusayr, and his lieutenant, Tarikh ibn Ziyad, and it remained firmly under the control of Muslim governors appointed in Damascus, until the arrival of Abd al-Rahman ibn Muawiyah (grandson of the Caliph Hisham), the only relative of Marwan II’s who was not hunted down and executed by Abd Allah ibn Ali. He managed to escape and reach Spain, where he defeated the appointed governor and founded the Umayyad emirate of Cordoba. No tradition links relatives of Muawiyah to the first Muslim settlement in Spain, and it is very difficult to figure out where the account of the shipwreck might have originated from. e final résumé of Marwan’s reign sounds openly hostile to the last Umayyad caliph. Such a devastation of Syrian cities is not ascribed to him by any other source,42 and the accusation that he was an Epicurean who does not believe in God’s providence resembles very closely what John Malalas says about the Emperor Nero, persecutor of Christians par excellence: ‘e Emperor Nero belonged to the faith of those called Epicureans, that is of those ‘automatists’ who say that everything is due to chance’ (ἦν γὰρ ὁ αὐτὸς Νέρων βασιλεὺς τοῦ δόγματος τῶν λεγομένων Ἐπικουρείων, ὅ ἐστι τῶν αὐτοματιστῶν τῶν λεγόντων ἀπρονόητα εἶναι τὰ πάντα).43 Although Abbasid historiography depicts Marwan II in very negative tones, there does not seem to be any Islamic tradition presenting him as a pagan or a heretic, but eophanes’ claim is vaguely echoed by Michael the Syrian, who says that he did not believe in the existence of God.44 Although the intent of this sentence is simply to denigrate Marwan, this derogatory association with the pagan community of Harran fits the Christian better than the Islamic imagery, since the unabated 41. Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 27, p. 212. 42. Tabari, for instance, mentions the demolition of the walls of Hims only: Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 27, pp. 52, 58. Michael the Syrian of Hims and Baalbek: Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, vol. 2, p. 505. Other Christian sources ascribe instead the demolition of the walls of Syrian cities to the Abbasids’, not to Marwan: Brooks, Chronicon ad annum 846, p. 179; Chabot, Anonymi auctoris Chronicon ad annum Christi 1234, p. 262. 43. Malalas, Chronicle 10.30: Johannes urn, Ioannis Malalae Chronographia (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 35; Berlin–New York, 2000), p. 189:78–80. It is worth noticing that the word αὐτοματιστής with this specific association to the Epicureans, appears only in these two passages of Malalas and eophanes. 44. Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, vol. 2, p. 508.

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cultivation of pagan philosophy and the resilient cult of the planets in the city was notoriously a target of Christian invectives throughout Late Antiquity.45 Also the quote from Deuteronomy, if we are to take it as something more than a purely descriptive simile, unveils a charge of idolatry when read in its original context. e line comes in fact from the so-called ‘Song of Moses’, where Moses prefigures God’s punishment for Israel’s idolatry: besides sending all possible evils and ruins, God wants to have Israel vanquished by a foolish weak people (Deut. 32:21 NIV: ‘ey made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding’), but he is afraid that neither Israel will understand it is being vanquished because God has forsaken it, nor the other people will realize that it is just being an instrument of God’s revenge (Deut. 32:26–30 NASB): I would have said, ‘I will cut them to pieces, I will remove the memory of them from men,’ Had I not feared the provocation by the enemy, at their adversaries would misjudge, at they would say, ‘Our hand is triumphant, And the Lord has not done all this.’ For they are a nation lacking in counsel, And there is no understanding in them. Would that they were wise, that they understood this, at they would discern their future! How could one chase a thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight, Unless their Rock had sold them, And the Lord had given them up?

It looks indeed as if the quote had been accurately chosen so that the comparison would not have any positive undertone for either of the two Muslim parties, since it implies a parallel between the Israelites and the godless idolatrous Marwan, and between the Abbasids and ‘those who are not a people’. Moreover, it gives a Christian reading of Muslim internal power struggles, in that it presents them as a fight between people ignoring the worthlessness of their actions, ignoring what is the only real agent in history, namely God’s providence. Finally, no other source says that Marwan had decided to make of Antioch his refuge, as his residence and headquarters were in fact in Harran. Here as well, eophanes offers an unparalleled version of the story, containing details that match with the Islamic tradition but are 45. See Glen W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor, 1990), pp. 36–39.

   

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reported from the point of view of local Christians, are lined with biblical allusions, and reveal once more a special attention for Antioch. Succession Struggles at the Death of the First Abbasid Caliph Antioch is significantly mentioned also in the following passage, which concerns the succession struggles aer the death of the first Abbasid caliph, Abu’l-Abbas al-Saffah. His uncle, Abd Allah ibn Ali, had taken advantage of his popularity in the western part of the caliphate and, at the death of al-Saffah, had tried to seize power. e heir apparent, Abu Ja‘far al-Mansur, sent against him Abu Muslim, who defeated him at Nisibis: In this year Mouamed, also called Aboulabas [Μουάμεδ, ὁ καὶ Ἀβουλαβᾶς], died aer a reign of five years. His brother Abdelas, who was then at Mecca (the place of their blasphemy), wrote to Aboumuslim, who was in Persia, to guard the throne for him as it had been allotted. Now Aboumuslim, on being informed that Abdelas, son of Alim and brother of Salim, sole commander of Syria, was seeking the kingship and marching to take possession of Persia; furthermore that he was hostile to the Persians and friendly to the Syrians who supported him, roused his army and engaged him at Nisibis. Having vanquished him, Aboumuslim killed many men, most of whom were Slavs and Antiochenes [ἦσαν γὰρ οἱ πλείους Σκλάβοι καὶ Ἀντιοχεῖς]. Abdelas, who alone escaped, sought a few days later a pledge from the other Abdelas, Mouamed’s brother, who in great haste had arrived in Persia from Mecca. e latter, however, confined him in a ramshackle hut whose foundations he ordered to be dug up and so he killed him by stealth [ὅν τινα φρουρήσας ἐν οἰκίσκῳ σαθρῷ καὶ κατορυχθῆναι προστάξας τὰ θεμέλια λάθρα τοῦτον ἀπέκτεινεν].46

What is worth noticing in this passage is the elucidation given about the victims of the battle of Nisibis, which is not present in the other Christian sources, and which again has a focus on Antioch. e fact that at Antioch and in the region of Apamea there was a substantial Slav community is confirmed both by Islamic sources and by other passages of the Chronographia.47 e description of Abd Allah ibn Ali’s death is also 46.  6246: de Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, pp. 428:15–429,1; Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, pp. 592–93. 47. Baladhuri says that Marwan II had manned the frontier fortresses with Slavs: Khuri Hitti, The Origins of the Islamic State, vol. 1, p. 231. eophanes mentions groups of Slavs deserting the Byzantine army and settling within the caliphate both under the reign of Muawiyah and Abd al-Malik: Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 467 ( 6156), p. 511 ( 6184), p. 513 ( 6186). See also Fahil Husayn, ‘e Participation of Non-Arab Elements in the Umayyad Army and Administration’, in Fred M. Donner (ed.), The Articulation of Early Islamic State Structures (e Formation of the Classical Islamic World 6; Farnham–Burlington, 2012), pp. 265–89 (in particular pp. 278–79).

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absent from the other Christian sources and tallies with the Islamic tradition. Even more remarkable is the fact that eophanes reports this event twice, apparently drawing from two different sources. Further on, under the year  6258, we read: ‘In this year Abdelas Ibnalim died, the tower in which he was imprisoned having collapsed on top of him [πτωθέντος ἐπ’ αὐτὸν τοῦ πύργου, ἐν ᾧ ἐφρουρεῖτο]’.48 Here the information is phrased in a way that makes the execution look more like an accident, but the Islamic tradition confirms that Abd Allah ibn Ali was shut up in a building built upon salt foundations, which were then melted down causing the building itself to fall.49 Aer Abd Allah ibn Ali, it was Abu Muslim’s turn; his independence and popularity with the army looked threatening to the new Caliph, and so he was speedily eliminated as well: Now Aboumuslim was incensed at the Syrian Arabs for having rebelled against the Maurophoroi and taken many captives in Palestine, Emesa, and on the sea coast, and was intending to attack them with his army, but Abdelas held him back. e other, furious at Abdelas, withdrew with his host to inner Persia. Being very much afraid of him, Abdelas called him back by means of plausible excuses and entreaties, even with the abominable symbols of their kingship – I mean the staff and the sandals of the false prophet Mouamed [καὶ αὐτοῖς δὲ τοῖς μυσαροῖς συμβόλοις τῆς ἀρχῆς αὐτῶν, φημὶ δὴ τῇ ῥάβδῳ καὶ τοῖς σανδαλίοις τοῦ ψευδοπροφήτου Μουάμεδ] – asking him to turn aside the distance of one day’s journey in his direction that he might pay him the gratitude due to a father. is deceived, Aboumuslim arrived with 100.000 horsemen and, when he had joined Abdelas, the latter killed him with his own hands [κτείνεται ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ χερσὶν ἰδίαις].50

e detail that Abu Muslim was enraged at the Syrian Arabs appears only in eophanes. e Islamic tradition says, instead, that he granted a general amnesty to the Syrian army who had supported Abd Allah.51 e reasons for the friction between Abu Ja‘far and Abu Muslim are explained at greater length in the Islamic sources, but what eophanes grasps correctly is that Abu Muslim wants to go back to the eastern part of the caliphate, which supports him, and that the caliph wants to prevent him precisely from doing that. Also the detail that Abu Ja’far killed Abu Muslim with his own hands is not found in other sources: most sources (including the Syriac chronicles) speak about a sign made by Abu 48. De Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, p. 439,8–9; Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 607. 49. Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 29, p. 17. 50.  6246: de Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, p. 429:1–14; Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, p. 593. 51. Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 28, p. 17.

   

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Ja’far to his guards, who then took Abu Muslim and killed him, only one of Tabari’s versions says that he stroke him with his staff and then the guards finished him off.52 But the most interesting piece in this account is the mention of the sandals and the rod of the Prophet as symbols of the Islamic political authority. I have not been able to find any possible match, or even vague echo, for this detail, since the sandals and the rod of the Prophet do appear in Islamic symbolism, but never together and not as emblems of political legitimacy.53 e only object that was reportedly held as a token of the legitimate succession to the Prophet was Muhammad’s signet ring, which the third caliph, Uthman, is said to have lost in a well.54 e sandals and the rod of the Prophet might be either a mocking parallel of the Byzantine emperor’s sceptre and red shoes, and therefore an addition of a Christian source to the Islamic account, or a trace of an early symbolism that is now completely lost to us. The Exclusion of Isa ibn Musa from the Succession Line e final passage we will look at is another episode that cannot be found in the Christian sources and, in the form in which eophanes presents it, does not have an exact match in the Islamic tradition either. Tabari reports various different narratives of the way in which al-Mansur succeeded in making his son al-Mahdi heir apparent in place of the designated Isa ibn Musa, none of which tallies with eophanes’ account. In the version related by Isa’s family, the Caliph first tries to convince Isa to give up his succession rights spontaneously; then he provokes and humiliates him, in the hope that he will react and provide thus a pretext to ban him; he even tries to poison him, and finally succeeds in making him swear the oath of allegiance to al-Mahdi as heir apparent by threatening to kill his son. According to other sources, Isa gave up his succession rights a) under the pressure of the army, b) thanks to a ruse devised by Khalid ibn Barmak, c) aer being talked into it by Salim ibn Qutaybah, or d) in exchange for a very generous sum granted by al-Mansur to him, his sons, and his wife.55 None of these accounts resembles even vaguely what we read in the Chronographia: 52. Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 28, p. 39. 53. See Conterno, La ‘descrizione dei tempi’, pp. 82–83. e staff, in particular, connects Muhammad with Moses, and it is therefore a token of his prophetic investiture. At the same time it associates him with Kayumars, the Persian mythical first man and first king, but without being a symbol of his kingly authority, see Ghazzal Dabiri, Prophets, Kings, and Heroes: Constructing Moral Types in Early Islamic Iran (tentative title, forthcoming). 54. Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 15, pp. 62–64. 55. Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 29, pp. 17–38.

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.  As for Abdelas [Abu Ja‘far al-Mansur], he used the following ruse to remove from power Ise Ibinmuse [Isa ibn Musa] who, as we have said above, had received the third lot of ruling aer him. Observing him to suffer from a migraine on one side of his head [κεφαλαλγούμενον γὰρ ἡμικρανικῶς], which filled him with dizziness [σκοτοματικῶς], he persuaded him that he would be cured if he were injected in the nose with a sneezing drug [πταρμικῷ τινι] that was prepared by his physician, a certain Moses (a deacon of the Church of Antioch), whom he had already bribed to concoct a very strong medicine that would also act as a potent narcotic. us convinced by Abdelas, the same Isa, even though he took precautions not to eat with him for fear of a plot, received the nose medicine [διάρρινον]. Having had the regions of his head injected and been deprived of his senses and his reasonable faculties, he lay speechless. en Abdelas called in the leaders and prominent men of their race and said, ‘What do you think about your future king?’ ey unanimously repudiated him and pledged themselves to the son of the same Abdelas, Mouamed, surnamed Madi. As for Ise, they conveyed him to his house, senseless as he was. ree days later, when he had recovered, Abdelas consoled him with feigned excuses and repaid the injury with 100 talents of gold.56

What is worth noticing first, in this passage, are the technical words employed with reference to Isa’s headache and to the drug he was given. e terms ἡμικρανικῶς, σκοτοματικῶς, πταρμικός, and διάρρινον occur very rarely in Greek literature, and almost exclusively in medical or veterinarian treatises.57 e two adverbs ἡμικρανικῶς and σκοτοματικῶς, in particular, are apparently hapax legomena, since only the respective adjectival forms σκοτοματικός (more frequently spelled σκοτωματικός) and ἡμικρανικός are attested in the medical literature.58 Also peculiar is the figure of the physician who prepared the narcotic for al-Mansur. We know from both Islamic and Syriac sources that al-Mansur’s physician was George Bokhtisho, from the famous Bokhtisho family of physicians, who were natives of Elam and trained at the School of Gundishapur.59 is Moses, 56.  6256: de Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, pp. 435:20–436:8. 57. Διάρρινον appears only here and in the Hippiatrica, whereas πταρμικός is so far attested just in medical papyri (see for instance A.S. Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 8 [London, 1911], col. II, 24, pap. n. 1088). 58. Ἡμικρανικός can be found in Galen (second century), De compositione medicamentorum secundum locos; Oribasius Pergamenus (fourth century), various works; Aetius Amidenus (sixth century), Iatricorum libri; Paulus Aegineta (seventh century), Epitomae medicae. For σκοτωματικός see Philip J. van der Eijk (ed.), Diocles of Carystus. A Collection of Fragments with Translation and Commentary, 2 vols. (Studies in Ancient Medicine 23; Leiden–Boston–Köln, 2001), vol. 2, p. 167. I owe my thanks to Antonio Ricciardetto, of the University of Liège, for his expert advice on the medical terminology of this passage. 59. See Lutz Richter-Bernburg, ‘Boḵtīšū‘’, in Ehsan Yar-Shater (ed.), Encyclopaedia Iranica (London–New York, 1990), pp. 333–36. On the medical school of Gudishapur see Karl Hummel, ‘Die medizinische Akademie von Gundishapur’, Iranzamin 2.1 (1981), pp. 52–61; Gail M. Taylor, ‘e Physicians of Jundishapur’, e-Sasanika 11 (2010), pp. 1–16.

   

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mentioned by eophanes, is otherwise unknown, and, remarkably, he brings us back once more to Antioch. e one hundred gold talents given as a compensation to Isa echo one of the versions reported by Tabari, in which Isa is said to have literally sold his succession rights to the caliph for a lavish sum.60 In fact, also the narcotic provides a partial overlap with Tabari, where he mentions the failed poisoning of Isa at the hands of the caliph. ere are, however, major differences, and in Tabari’s story alMansur’s physician, the above mentioned George Bokhtisho, is not at all involved in the poisoning attempt. Quite the opposite, when Isa starts to feel sick, he refuses to cure him right there and he strongly recommends that he returns to Kufa, sensing that the court is a dangerous place for him. Although the narrative as a whole is fundamentally different, one small part suggests that it might be somehow linked to eophanes’ story. Tabari reports what a poet (Yahya ibn Ziyad ibn Abi Huzabah al-Burjumi Abu Ziyad) said aer Isa’s recovery from the illness caused by the poison, an illness which had made his hair fall out: You escaped from the medicine of the doctor as the gazelle escapes wellaimed arrows. From a hunter whose arrow penetrates al-faris (the flesh behind the shoulder blades) when he prepares the arrow of death in his bowstring. God defended you from the assault of a lion who wants (to hunt) lions inside his thicket. at is why he came to us carrying within him a hidden (illness) made known through hearing and seeing him, A man with little hair, for from his head the thick black hair has gone away.61

No medicine prepared or given by a doctor is mentioned in Tabari, where we simply read that al-Mansur had administered to Isa ‘something that would make him perish’, with no information on what it was and where it came from. But ‘you escaped from the medicine of the doctor’ applies precisely to what Isa undergoes in eophanes’ story. It is admittedly a slight detail, but it might indeed point to the existence of other variants of the poisoning story which were being told and circulated, and were possibly at the origin of the version that has reached eophanes. C e passages that I have analysed in this paper present us with examples of what I would like to call ‘frontier information’, and they attest to how accounts of events and descriptions of characters originated, evolved 60. Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 29, pp. 37–38. 61. Yar-Shater, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 29, p. 20.

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and circulated in the ‘everyone’s land’ that the Arab-Byzantine frontier was in early Islamic times, an area where Christians, Muslims, and Jews, Arab-speaking, Syriac-speaking, and Greek-speaking people, Persians, Slavs, and Armenians, lived together rubbing shoulders and trading information on a daily basis.62 e fact that Antioch is so frequently mentioned, and that it oen appears as an implicit or explicit geographical reference point, denotes a focus on Northern Syria and points to it as the most probable place of provenance of eophanes’ Islamic information. is is supported also by Conrad, who noticed that other passages in the Chronographia seem to betray a particular interest in the affairs of Emesa/Hims, what informs his assumption that the translation-continuation of eophilus’ work was most likely composed in that area.63 Trying to identify the precise place where the information was collected or written down may not be a productive line of enquiry, but it is indeed undeniable that early Islamic history is presented in eophanes from a Northern Syrian perspective. What also has emerged from the proposed survey is that information of Islamic origin was embedded in local Christian narratives in such a way that it is at times difficult to draw a clear-cut line between ‘purely Islamic’ material and the result of its reworking on the Christian side. It is almost impossible to pinpoint the passage from one tradition to the other. Most likely, the written redaction of these accounts happened entirely in a Christian context. Information coming from various Christian Arabspeaking or bilingual informants was funneled into one or more Christian written texts, and the transmission from the Muslim to the Christian side was probably exclusively oral.64 In the previous pages we have come across two characters who give us an idea of how this could actually happen: the Melkite Patriarch eodore of Antioch and Moses, the mysterious physician of al-Mansur. As we have seen, according to eophanes, eodore was exiled by the governor Salih ibn Ali for leaking information regarding internal Muslim affairs to the emperor. Although the Melkite church became gradually independent from the Byzantine Chalcedonian one – especially as Arabic became its everyday language – in the eight-ninth centuries high ranking ecclesiastics 62. e idea that the Arab-Byzantine frontier was a no-man’s land consisting mainly in isolated fortresses is not supported by the archeological evidence and has been recently compellingly questioned, see for instance Asa Eger, The Islamic-Byzantine Frontier. 63. See Conrad, ‘e Conquest of Arwād’, pp. 336–38, 346. 64. For a discussion of the evidence of spoken Arabic in the Chronographia see Conterno, La ‘descrizione dei tempi’, pp. 95–102.

   

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were still likely to have maintained contacts with their peers in the empire, as much as they were likely to be (more or less) well informed on what was happening within the caliphate. Figures like eodore, therefore, represented possible channels through which historical information could cross borders, and – provided that the governor’s charge was well-founded – it would not be too much off the mark to say that part of eophanes’ oriental material reached Constantinople thanks to eodore’s letters. On the other hand, the Antiochene deacon and physician who is said to have provided al-Mansur with the narcotic for Isa ibn Musa – although an otherwise unknown and probably fictitious character – reminds us that Christians, both clerics and laymen, were employed by the Abbasids as well as by the Umayyads in a wide range of duties, from the administrative to the personal service of caliphs, governors, generals,65 and they oen ended up becoming very close to key figures in the caliphate, gaining their trust and confidence. ese Christians, who were highly educated, or intellectuals proper, were Greek-, Syriac-, or Arabic-speaking, even bi- or trilingual, and they were other possible gates through which pieces of the Islamic tradition could enter Christian narratives, or even possible initiators themselves of Christian traditions on Islamic history. It becomes more and more evident that talking about a ‘Muslim side’ and a ‘Christian side’ paints a black-and-white picture that is probably misleading. First, the possibility that information derived from direct observation and independent record of the events by Christian eye-witnesses cannot always be ruled out. But secondly, and more importantly, even the presence of details that seem to point to the Islamic provenance of an account – such as biased descriptions or pieces of propaganda – is sometimes not compelling proof. It would be wrong to assume that Christians under Muslim rule were always passive and neutral spectators of the major political and military events, and that they simply collected whatever stories were carried on the wind. Christians could take side in Muslim conflicts as well, if not directly, explicitly, and actively, at least in their view and representation of what was going on, and certainly depending on how this or that Muslim leader, general, family, or party behaved or promised to behave toward them as Christians in general, or toward their specific community, or region. erefore, not only could they deliberately 65. See Daniel J. Sahas, ‘Cultural Interaction During the Umayyad Period: e ‘Circle’ of John of Damascus’, Aram 6 (1994), pp. 35–66; Jean-Maurice Fiey, Chrétiens syriaques sous les Abbassides surtout à Bagdad (749–1258) (CSCO 420, Subsidia 59; Leuven, 1980); Bénédicte Landron, Chrétiens et musulmans en Irak: attitudes nestoriennes vis-à-vis de l’Islam (Paris, 1994).

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choose to pass on or discard one or the other Muslim version of a certain event, but they could also produce biased descriptions themselves, painting things in pro-Muawiyah or anti-Marwan colours, or building up their own ‘myths’ around key figures of Islamic history. Such remarks might be discouraging for those historians willing to use Christian historical texts as sources for factual information to reconstruct early Islamic history,66 but they offer invaluable thought provoking insight into the study of ‘frontier societies’, intercultural exchange, and formation of historiographical traditions. ey urge scholars to bear in mind the important role played by oral transmission. Not only were the Christian sources permeable to the flow of historical knowledge in the form of story-telling that was at the origins of Islamic historiography, but similar processes of production and circulation of shared memories were most likely under way among Christians too, as suggested for instance by the episode of Abbas ibn Al-Walid’s execution. Against the backdrop of the early Islamic context, where orality was much more pervasive and le evident traces also in written texts, we begin to grasp the oral and aural practices also within contexts where high levels of literacy tend to disguise and make us overlook the unwritten sources, like the Byzantine and Syriac ones.67

66. Beside Conrad, others have already warned scholars that Christian sources are not necessarily neutral and impartial on Muslim affairs, but can contain biased information of Islamic origin, see for instance Fred M. Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, 1981), pp. 142–46; Antoine Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir. L’espace syrien sous les derniers Omeyyades et les premiers Abbasides (v. 72–193/692–809) (Leiden–Boston, 2011), pp. 137–62. e possible presence of even a Christian bias on matters Muslim might add to the general skepticism on Islamic and non-Islamic sources for early Islamic history. Fortunately, we are witnessing of late a welcome overcoming of such a skepticism, based on a rigorous evaluation and critical comparison of all the available sources, see for instance Robert G. Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire (Oxford, 2015). 67. See also M. Conterno, ‘“Storytelling” and “History writing” in Seventh-Century Near East’, Working Papers de la Fondation Maison Sciences de l’homme, online: http:// www.fmsh.fr/fr/c/6050. A thorough re-consideration of oral/aural aspects of Byzantine literacy has been recently proposed by a conference held at Princeton University: The Sound of Sense: Orality/Aurality in Byzantine Texts and Contexts, May 16-17, 2015. Of particular interest for the matters handled in the present paper is Dieter Reinsch’s presentation, entitled ‘Orality/Aurality in Ancient Greek and Byzantine Historiography’.

GENERIC CONCEPTS AND TOPOI OF MEDIEVAL GEORGIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY Nino D

. I Old Georgian historiography1 is a conventional name, which I use in the context of this paper as an umbrella term to encompass narratives from different genres of literature including hagiography, polemic literature, and historical prose. e reason to connect these various genres under one term is that they are related by the generic concepts or topoi which they convey. For instance, Old Georgian hagiography, and specifically martyrology, employs the stereotype of the martyrdom for Christ’s sake under Iranian2 and Arab rule.3 us, martyrdom is the 1. Some questions relating to the study of old Georgian historical sources have been meticulously examined in Georgian as well as foreign publications. However, historical narratives as a genre, their literary properties and relationship with non-Georgian archetypes remain less studied. For the general description and review of historical narratives including hagiography, see I. Perczel and I. Karaulashvili, ‘History Writing in the Christian East’, in J. Bak and I. Jurković (eds.), Chronicon: Medieval Narrative Sources (Brepols Essays in European Culture 5; Turnhout, 2013), pp. 81–96; M. Chkhartishvili, ქართული ეთნიე რელიგიური ძოქცევის ეპოქაში [Georgian Ethnie in the Epoch of Religious Conversion] (ქართული ერთობა და ძისი იდენტობა: იდეები, სიძბოლოები, პერცეფციები [Georgian Community and its Identity: Ideas, Symbols, Perceptions] 3; Tbilisi, 2009); I. Javakhishvili, ისტორიის ძიზანი, წყაროები და ძეთოდები წინათ და ახლა [Objectives, Sources and Methods of Historical Studies Previously and Now] 1 (Tbilisi, 1977); S. Rapp, ‘Georgian Sources’, in M. Whitby (ed.), Byzantines and Crusaders in Non-Greek Sources, 1025–1204 (Proceedings of the British Academy 132; Oxford, 2007), pp. 183–220. 2. Ilia Abuladze, (ed.), წაძებაჲ წძიდისა შუშანიკისი დედოფლისაჲ [Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik] (Tbilisi, 1938, repr. 1978); ძარტჳლობაჲ და ძოთძინებაჲ წძიდისა ევსტათი ძცხეთელისაჲ [Martyrdom of Eustathius of Mtskheta], in I. Abuladze et al. (eds.), ველი ქართული აგიოგრაფიული ლიტერატურის ეგლები [Works of Old Georgian Hagiographical Literature] I (Tbilisi, 1963), pp. 30–45; ძოქალაქობაჲ და წაძებაჲ წძიდისა აბიბოს ნეკრესელ ეპისკოპოსისაჲ [Martyrdom of Abibos of Nekresi], in I. Abuladze (ed.), ასურელ ძოღვაწეთა ცხოვრების წიგნთა ველი რედაქციები [Old Georgian Redactions of the Lives of the Syrian Fathers] (ველი ქართული ენის კათედრის შროძები [Proceedings of the Chair of the Old Georgian Language] 1; Tbilisi, 1955), pp. 188–96; K. Gabidzashvili and M. Kavtaria (eds.), წაძებაჲ და ღუაწლი წძიდისა დიდისა ძოწაძისა რაჟდენისი [Martyrdom of Rajden], in id., ველი ქართული აგიოგრაფიული ლიტერატურის ეგლები, წ. 5 [Works of Old Georgian Hagiographical Literature, Book 5] (Tbilisi, 1989), pp. 64–79. 3. წაძებაჲ წძიდისა და ნეტარისა ძოწაძისა ქრისტესისა ჰაბოჲსი, როძელი იწაძა ქართლს შინა, ქალაქსა ტფილისს, ჴელითა სარკონოზთაჲთა [Martyrdom of Abo of

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central ‘methodological’ concept of hagiography as a genre, and in fact appears as the only, unchangeable, and genuine path against the historically changeable threats and dangers such as Iranians and Arabs. e topoi of Old Georgian polemic literature follow the same principle. Generally speaking, this kind of literature comprises martyrdoms from the time of the Christian struggle against Paganism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Islam, and internally, against Christian ‘heresies’ such as Monophysitism, Chalcedonism or Monotheletism, depending on the perspective of the author.4 Here too, the main ‘methodological’ concept is Christianity, or more precisely, ‘Orthodox’ Christianity as the only, unchangeable, and true path against historically changeable threats and dangers – Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Islam or heresies within Christianity. In this respect, hagiography and polemic literature are an important part of Old Georgian historiography along with the historical prose, and are to be examined in one context. It is noteworthy that hagiography and polemic literature served as the space where the topoi developed that shaped the self-awareness and selfconsciousness of Medieval Georgian scholars. In this paper, I will focus on some of the main topoi and generic concepts. e first topos reflects the strategic positioning of the state of Kartli on a broader map – specifically, its affiliation with a larger-scale polyethnic, religious, and cultural world (associated with Iovane Sabanisdze, seventh–eighth century). e Tbilisi], ცხორებაჲ და წაძებაჲ წძიდისა ძოწაძისა კოსტანტი ქართველისაჲ [Martyrdom of Kostanti Kartveli], წაძებაჲ წძიდისა ძოწაძისა გობრონისი [Martyrdom of Gobron], in I. Abuladze et al. (eds.), Works of Old Georgian Hagiographical Literature I, pp. 47–80, 164–72, 172–83; წაძებაჲ და ღუაწლი წძიდათა და დიდებულთა ძოწაძეთა დავით და კონსტანტინესი [Martyrdom of David and Constantine], წაძებაჲ წძიდისა და დიდებულისა არჩილისი, როძელი იყო ძეფე ქართლისა [Martyrdom of King Archil], in I. Abuladze et al. (eds.), Works of Old Georgian Hagiographical Literature III (Tbilisi, 1971), pp. 248–62, 208– 12. For the generic classification of Martyrdoms, see E. Gabidzashvili, ‘ქართული ნათარგძნი ჰაგიოგრაფია [Hagiographic Works Translated Into Georgian]’, in S. Kalaijishvili (ed.), ნარკვევები ველი ქართული სასულიერო ძწერლობის ისტორიიდან [Essays from the History of Old Georgian Ecclesiastical Literature], II (Tbilisi, 2014), pp. 9–275; K. Kekelidze, ქართული აგიოგრაფიული ეგლები, ნაწ. 1, კიძენი, ტ. 2 [Monumenta Hagiographica Georgica, pars prima, Keimena, tom. 2] (Tbilisi, 1946); K. Kekelidze, ველი ქართული ლიტერატურის ისტორია [History of Old Georgian Literature], I (Tbilisi, 1980), pp. 497– 543. 4. For complete bibliography, generic properties, classification and periodization of original Georgian polemic literature, see K. Kekelidze, ‘ანტიძაზდეისტური პოლეძიკის ფილოსოფიური დასაბუთება უველეს ქართულ ძწერლობაში [Philosophical Substantiation for Anti-Mazdean  Polemic in Earliest Georgian Writings]’, in id., ეტიუდები ველი ქართული ლიტერატურის ისტორიიდან [Studies in the History of Old Georgian Literature III (Tbilisi, 1955), pp. 42–60; K. Kekelidze, History of Old Georgian Literature I, pp. 474–96; M. Rapava, ‘დოგძატიკა და პოლეძიკა [Dogmatics and Polemic]’, in Kalaijishvili (ed.), Essays from the History of Old Georgian Ecclesiastical Literature, II, pp. 345–515.

  

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second is about the conceptualization of Kartli itself, its inhabitants, ‘our kin’, and the criteria for delineating its borders (ninth and tenth century), which eventually shaped the self-awareness of Medieval Georgian scholars. Lastly, I will touch upon the concept of language equality: the legitimation of the Georgian language as functioning on the same level as Greek.

. T T   B S: ‘T I   R B-L’ (შორიელთა აძათ კიდეთა ძკჳდრი) e main topoi of Georgian historical narratives evidently evolved gradually in response to (or rather as a reflection of) significant religious, cultural, and, in general, historical events unfolding in great neighbouring empires, and also in response to the position of these empires towards their neighbours, including the Kartvelian ethnic groups. is is how the anti-Iranian, anti-Arab, anti-Zoroastrian, anti-Muslim or similar antistereotypes mentioned above emerged, namely to oppose either the empire in question or with regard to their main religious and ideological fundaments, whether Zoroastrianism, Islam, and so forth. Given that this is the case, I believe it is quite natural that the stereotype about the strategic positioning of Kartli was the first to emerge in Georgian sources. is is the topos of Kartli as a part of a greater religious and cultural area – Kartli as a buffer state of the Eastern Christian world. Georgian historical prose attributes the formation of this topos to King Vakhtang Gorgasali.5 It first appears in his will: When Vaxt’ang realized that he was dying, he summoned the Catholicos, his wife and sons, and all the nobles, and said: ‘Behold, I am departing to my God, and I bless his name because he did not exclude me from his holy elect. Now I command you to remain firm in the faith and to seek death for Christ’s sake in his name, so that you may gain the glory that passes not away.’ To all the nobles he said: ‘You, inhabitants of K’art’li, remember my good deeds, because first from my house you received eternal light, and I honoured you my kin with temporal glory. Do not despise our house, nor abandon the friendship of the Greeks.’6 5. King of Georgia in the second half of the fih century ( 440–502). 6. Juansher, The life of King Vakhtang Gorgasali, see Z. Sarjveladze and S. Sarjveladze, ‘ჯუანშერი, ცხოვრებაჲ ვახტანგ გორგასლისა [Juansher, e Life of Vakhtang Gorgasali]’, in R. Metreveli (ed.), ქართლის ცხოვრება [Kartlis Tskhovreba – History of Georgia] (Tbilisi, 2008), p. 220. R.W. omson, Rewriting Caucasian History. The Medieval Armenian Adaptation of the Georgian Chronicles. e Original Georgian Texts and the Armenian Adaptation Translated with Introduction and Commentary by R.W. omson (Oxford, 1996), pp. 222–23.

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Philhellenism and strict adherence to the Greek path was a strategy against the Iranians deliberately chosen by Kartli under Vakhtang Gorgasali. Hence, it naturally became the central strategic concept of The Life of Vakhtang Gorgasali, a historical narrative composed under the patronage of the secular authorities. As regards the works that were created under the patronage of the religious authorities, The Martyrdom of Shushanik, The Martyrdom of Eustathius of Mtskheta, and The Martyrdom of Abibos of Nekresi, their main concept is likewise anti-Iranian, but they are dominated by the genre-specific characteristics of hagiography. ese works aim to show that martyrdom for Christ’s sake – a great religious contribution by a mortal, the only right choice and reward allotted to a selective group – in this particular case is consonant with the anti-Iranian strategy. is reward transforms a mortal into a saint. ese mortals deserve to become saints for their spiritual heroism against a transient historical threat, which in this case emanates from Iran. Naturally, historical threats are the ‘contextual variables’ of the stereotype, but the prospects for becoming a saint remain constant and unchanged. It is a reward a mortal receives through resisting and overcoming dangers. is is the specific perspective employed by hagiographers when describing historical events. In literary works of the eighth and later centuries, whether created under the patronage of the secular or religious authorities, the Arab threat replaced the Iranian, but the topos remained unchanged. Both in hagiography and the polemic literature, heroes of the anti-Arab period – Abo of Tbilisi, David and Constantine, King Archil, and Konstanti Kakhi – accept the reward and became saints, having withstood this new historical threat. e legitimation for the concept of the strategic positioning of the Kingdom of Kartli in the Christian world was shaped in the eighth century anti-Arab hagiographic work The Martyrdom of Abo of Tbilisi, written by Iovane Sabanisdze. Although a remote borderland, the threshold of the Christian world, Kartli nevertheless was a legitimate member of this great religious and cultural unity, as it had all the necessary properties that structured the legitimacy of Greece, the centre of this unity. Not only Greeks placed their faith in God, but we, too, the natives of this remote border-land..., and the inhabitants of Kartli also abide in faith and [this land too] is called the mother of saints, some of them being locals and others from foreign countries, from time to time chosen among us as martyrs by Christ our Lord.7

7. Abuladze et al. (eds.), Works of Old Georgian Hagiographical Literature, I, p. 55.

  

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. ‘O K’ (ჩუენი ნათესავი)   C  O G H P Like the previous stereotype, the concept of ‘our kin’ too was shaped in the context of great historical events and actors, and in response to the influences and attitudes of neighbouring great empires. e question as to where one stands, and which cultural, religious, or political context one belongs to is naturally followed by the question: Who are you? e concept of the Georgians and the inhabitants of Kartli as a distinct body appears almost simultaneously in the works of various genres of Old Georgian literature. More precisely, they point out the unique features or markers that shape them. is set of features unites people living within the boundaries of Kartli as one group. Later, in the eleventh century, the compiler of the Georgian historical chronicles will term this unity as ‘our kin’, which corresponds to the medieval European gens.8 So this set of features distinguishes, delineates, and differentiates this group from other neighbouring groups. e concept of Kartli, or rather of the inhabitants of Kartli united by common language and faith, is first mentioned in the tenth-century hagiographic work The Life of Grigol of Xandzta:9 Kartli consists of that spacious land in which the liturgy and all prayers are said in the Georgian language. But [only] the Kyrie eleison is said in Greek, [the phrase] which means in Georgian “Lord, have mercy” or “Lord, be merciful to us”.10

e local historiography starts to a) identify the unique markers uniting ‘our kin’ and distinguishing them from others, and b) to find grounds for legitimating these markers. is is how the ethnic groups in the Christian East, including the Georgians, started to reflect on their own history during the Middle Ages. History perceived in this manner is, first of all, 8. See W. Boeder, ‘Die georgischen Mönche auf dem Berge Athos und die Geschichte der georgischen Schrisprache’, Bedi Kartlisa 41 (1983), p. 4. 9. Full title: ‘e work and career of the worthy life of our holy and blessed father Grigol the Archimandrite, builder of Xandzta and Shat’berdi, and with him the commemoration of many blessed fathers (შროძაჲ და ძოღუაწებაჲ ღირსად ცხორებისაჲ წძიდისა და ნეტარისა ძაძისა ჩუენისა გრიგოლისი არქიძანდრიტისაჲ, ხანთისა და შატბერდისა აღძაშენებლისაჲ, და ძის თანა ხსენებაჲ ძრავალთა ძაძათა ნეტართაჲ)’. See N. Marr (ed. and trans.), Георгий Мерчул. Житiе св. Григорiя Хандзтiйскаго, Грузинскiй текстъ. Введенiе, изданiе, переводъ Н. Марра [Giorgi Merchule. e Life of the Holy Gregory of Khandzta. Georgian text. Introduced, Edited and Translated by N. Marr] (S. Petersburg, 1911). 10. Marr (ed. and trans.), Giorgi Merchule. The Life of the Holy Gregory of Khandzta, p. 44. For an abridged English translation of the passages see D. Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia: A History (Oxford, 1994), pp. 50–55.

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the history of affiliation, the expression of the will of a particular group (or what others perceive as a group) regarding their affiliation and origin; it is also concerned with the identification of the markers that shape them as a unity different from other groups. Language and origin are certainly the most important of these markers as they structure a group as an ethnos and nation. Reflections about one’s own past start precisely by outlining and conceptualizing these markers. How did the Georgians see themselves in the context of universal history? Antiquities of the Jews, composed by Flavius Josephus in  93, and the Jewish apocryphon of the middle of the first century , the Book of Jubilees or Leptogenesis, which are based on the Table of Nations from Genesis 10, can be seen as the archetypes of the most widespread topoi of religious historiography, the so-called diamerisms (tabula linguarum et populorum).11 Various revised versions of these topoi in Syrian, Greek, and Arabic became widespread in the literary tradition of the Christian East,12 11. The work Antiquities of the Jews was translated into Georgian in the twelh century and survives in a thirteenth-century manuscript (ძოთხრობანი იუდაებრივისა უელსიტყვაობისანი). For its Old Georgian versions see N. Melikishvili (ed.), იოსებ ფლავიოსი, ძოთხრობანი იუდაებრივისა უელსიტყუაობისანი [Flavius Iosephus, Jewish Antiquities, Old Georgian Translation] I (Tbilisi, 1987). e Book of Jubilees was presumably translated into Greek in the second century and from Greek into Ethiopian. About the original Hebrew version of this work and its earliest Greek and Ethiopian translations, see A. Dillmann, Das Buch der Jubileen oder die kleine Genesis (Leipzig, 1874). 12. About the topoi and diamerisms of the universal chronicle in religious historiography of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, including Georgian, see A. Borst, Der Turmbau von Babel. Geschichte der Meinungen über Ursprung und Vielfalt der Sprachen und Völker, I (Stuttgart, 1995), pp. 258–92; N. Doborjginidze, ენა, იდენტობა და საისტორიო კონცეპტები. რელიგიური ისტორიოგრაფიის წყაროთა ინტერპრეტაციის ცდა [Language, Identity and Historical Concepts. An Attempt to Interpret Sources of Religious Historiography] (Tbilisi, 2010), pp. 11–69, 70–93; A. Gutschmid, ‘Untersuchungen über den Διαμερισμὸς τῆς γῆς und andere Bearbeitungen der Mosaischen Völkertafel’, in id., Kleine Schriften V (Leipzig, 1894), pp. 585–717; S. Krauß, ‘Die Zahl der biblischen Völkerschaen’, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft XIX (1899), pp. 1–14; id., ‘Zur Zahl der biblischen Völker’, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft XX (1900), pp. 38–43; id., ‘Zur Zahl der biblischen Völkerschaen’, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft XXVI (1906), pp. 33–48; P. de Lagarde, ‘Biblische Völker’, Die Goettingischen gelehrten Anzeigen 4 (1891), pp. 348–50; P. Müllenhoff, ‘Die römische Weltkarte und Chronographie’, in id., Deutsche Altertumskunde III (Berlin, 1892); E. Nestle, ‘Die schreibkundigen Völker von Genesis 10’, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft XXV (1905), pp. 210–13; S. Poznański, ‘Zur Zahl der biblischen Volker’, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 24 (1904), pp. 301–308; U. Roberto, ‘Julius Africanus und die Tradition der hellenistischen Universalgeschichte’, in M. Wallraff (ed.), Julius Africanus und die christliche Weltchronistik (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 157; Berlin, 2006), pp. 3–16; G. Staab, ‘Chronographie als Philosophie. Die Uhrwahrheit der mosaischen Überlieferung nach dem Begründungsmodell des Mittelplatonismus bei Julius Africanus (Edition und Kommentierung von Africanus Chron. fr. 1)’, in Wallraff (ed.), Julius Africanus, pp. 61–81.

  

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including Georgia.13 From Late Antiquity through the Late Middle Ages, ethnic groups successfully used this model of universal history to legitimate their own history and connect it with world history. Each of them found its ancestor in the genealogical tree or at least linked its own ethnogenesis to one of the seventy-two ethnoses and languages.14 is topos was adopted in the Georgian historical prose as well. e aforementioned Georgian historical narrative of the eighth century, The Life of Vakhtang Gorgasali, makes use of the stories about the division of languages and peoples when describing the Kingdom of Kartli, and attempts to embed the events of Vakhtang’s times in the universal chronicle as a sequel of the original Babel stories: You, O inhabitants of K’art’li, kin to the kings of K’art’li, today stand in the rank of mt’avari (appointed) by us kings who are descended from the 13. Apart from Flavius’s version, several other versions of diamerisms were also translated into Georgian. e most remarkable of them are Ekvtime the Athonite’s (eleventh century) compilatory translation of Maximus the Confessor’s Quaestiones ad Thalassium (see K. Kekelidze, ‘ხალხთა კლასიფიკაციისა და გეოგრაფიული განრიგების საკითხები ველს ქართულ ძწერლობაში [Questions on Classification and Geographical Distribution of Peoples in Old Georgian Writing]’, in id., ეტიუდები’ ველი ქართული ლიტერატურის ისტორიიდან [Studies in the History of Old Georgian Literature] I [Tbilisi, 1956], pp. 168–82); Arsen of Ikalto’s (twelh-century) translation of George Hamartolos’s version (S. Kaukhcishvili, ხრონოგრაფი გიორგი ძოანაზონისაჲ [Georgii Monachi Chronikon], in id. [ed.], Monumenta Georgica. III. Historici, Nr. 1 [Tbilisi, 1920]); fragments from the Chronicon of Hippolytus of Rome, a fragment from the royal lineage (I. Abuladze, იპოლიტე როძაელის ქრონიკონის ველი ქართული ვერსია [Old Georgian Version of Hippolytus of Rome’s Chronicon], in ხელნაწერთა ინსტიტუტის ძოაძბე [Journal of the Institute of Manuscripts], III [1961], pp. 223–43); an episode about the tower of Babel and the division of languages preserved in Juansher’s chronicle mentioned above (S. Kaukhchishvili [ed.], ქართლის ცხოვრება [e Life of Kartli] [Tbilisi, 1955], pp. 162–64; Z. Sarjveladze and S. Sarjveladze, ‘Juansher, e Life of Vakhtang Gorgasali’, pp. 174–75); an apocryphal version of diamerisms preserved in Machabeli’s redaction of the Georgian Chronicles (E. Takaishvili, ‘აპოკრიფული თხზულება, როძელიც წინ უღვის „ქართლის ცხოვრების“ ძაჩაბლისეულ ხელნაწერს [An Apocryphal Work Preceding the Machabeli Manuscript of the Georgian Chronicles]’, აკადეძიკოს ს. ჯანაშიას სახელობის საქართველოს სახელძწიფო ძუზეუძის ძოაძბე [Journal of S. Janashia State Museum of Georgia] VIII (1953), pp. 25–47); Leonti Mroveli’s version of diamerisms, introducing Queen Mariam’s redaction of the Georgian Chronicles, see: T. Kurtsikidze (ed.), განთა ქვაბი [e Cave of Treasure] (ველი ქართული აპოკრიფული ლიტერატურის ეგლები [Old Georgian Apocryphal Texts] 2; Tbilisi, 2007); J.-P. Mahé (trans.), La Caverne des trésors: version géorgienne (CSCO 527, Scriptores Iberici 24; Leuven, 1992). See the texts of the fragments and their review in Doborjginidze, Language, Identity and Historical Concepts, pp. 83–93, 112–25. 14. Using the sacralized model of the universal chronicle, religious historiography divided peoples of the world into two groups: the genuine sons of history, that is the seventy-two prominent ethnoses (according to some sources, seventy ethnoses) and the rest of the world, whom Arno Borst described as ‘stepchildren of history’ (‘Stieinder der Geschichte’, Borst, Der Turmbau von Babel, p. 292). Being part of the universal history or among the seventy-two biblical ethnoses was regarded as the most legitimate ground for starting one’s own history.

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.  giant Nebrot’, who before all (other) kings became renowned on earth. With his strength he led a lion as if it were a kid; on foot he captured wild asses and gazelles. For his strength became so great that all the descendants of Noah obeyed him, so that he was able to build a city in which he used gold for the stones and silver for the bases. He surrounded it with bricks and mortar; the tops of the gates and windows he fashioned from rubies and emeralds, from whose light the night could not become dark. Within it he built palaces and pavilions which it is impossible for us to conceive, and the skill which he devoted to each detail is incomprehensible. Finally he raised it up to a height of three days’ journey; he constructed steps in the walls by which to ascend, since he wished to go up to the sky and see the inhabitants of heaven. But when he had gone through the zone of the air and had entered the zone of the stars, the builders were no longer able to build because the gold and silver melted. For in those regions the force of the fire of the ether is such that it flames from the powerful turning of the firmament. He heard there the conversation of the seven companies of heaven, of which the sons of Adam were terrified. Each man with his own family became a speaker of his own language; no more did they mutually comprehend their neighbour’s speech, so they departed.15

e bridge built by Juansher between Vakhtang’s reign and the universal history was expanded in the eleventh century by Leonti Mroveli in order to apply it to the history of Kartli in general. He composed a conceptual introduction to Kartlis Tskhovreba (The Georgian Chronicles),16 which is the Old Georgian version of a diamerism from the Syriac tradition included in the so-called Cave of Treasures. Jean-Pierre Mahé, who studied the text and translated it from Georgian into French, believes that the Old Georgian text was translated from the Arabic version and that it is the Old Georgian version that comprises the Eastern narrative of the destruction of the Tower of Babel.17 15. omson, Rewriting Caucasian History, p. 177. 16. e beginning of Queen Mariam’s and Machabeli’s redactions with the stories of creation is justly believed to be the conceptual intent of Leonti Mroveli, the systemizer of the history of Georgians (see E. Takaishvili, ქართლის ცხოვრება. ძარიაძ დედოფლის ვარიანტი [e Georgian Chronicles, Queen Mariam’s Version] [Tbilisi, 1906]; Takaishvili, ‘An Apocryphal Work’, pp. 25–47; Kekelidze, ‘Questions on Classification’, pp. 168– 82; I. Javakhishvili, სინის ძთის ქართულ ხელნაწერთა აღწერილობა [Descriptions of Georgian Manuscripts of Mount Sinai] [Tbilisi, 1947], pp. 1–7). ‘It is no mere coincidence that both Queen Mariam’s and Machabeli’s redactions of Kartlis Tskhovreba start with the story of creation and not with Leonti Mroveli’s narrative. e stories introducing these two narratives convey the history of the world, in which the editor of this history book relates about the creation of the world, followed by the history of first fathers, the story of Jerusalem, etc. e inclusion of these narratives is not incidental but must have been an introduction to Kartlis Tskhovreba from the very start’ (Kaukhchishvili, The Life of Kartli, p. 11). 17. Borst, Der Turmbau von Babel, pp. 279, 282; Mahé (trans.), La Caverne des trésors, pp. XXXIII–XXIV.

  

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A natural question may arise: Why was the sacral model of the world history added to Georgian history? I believe the answer becomes clear in the title of the work: Exposition of the creation of heaven and the earth and Adam, as his body was buried at Golgotha; and the succession of generations, as we traced our kinship with Christ according to the flesh, as it is written in the Gospel of Luke, from Adam, the father of all, to Christ, our Lord and God.18

e aim of the author is to link the history of the Kingdom of Kartli with world history by declaring the former as the natural continuation of the latter. Such introductions containing these topoi commonly appear in medieval religious historiography. e authors started to reconstruct their people’s historical past through elucidating their relation to biblical genealogy. eir goal was to confirm their direct participation in ‘the holy history’ and their prominent position as one of the seventy-two ethnic groups.19 Aer the conceptual introduction, Leonti Mroveli described the history of ‘our kin’, the Georgians, as a particular case of the sacralized biblical table of ethnic groups and languages. is includes the emergence of the genetic ancestor of the Georgians from the ruins of Babel, that is, the first layer of history, and the stages the ethnarch had to go through before the biblical universal history evolved into the history of ‘our kin’. us, the ethnarch of all Caucasians, who was Noah’s direct descendant, le Babylon aer the fragmentation of languages and ethnic groups, and settled in the Caucasus: First let us recall that for the Armenians and Georgians, Ranians and Movkanians, Hers and Leks, Megrelians and Caucasians, there was a single father named T’argamos. is T’argamos was the son of T’arSi, grandson of Iap’et’, son of Noah. Now this T’argamos was a giant. Aer the division of tongues – when they built the tower at Babylon, and the tongues were divided there and they were scattered from there over the whole world. is T’argamos set out with his family and he settled between the two inaccessible mountains, Ararat and Masis. His family was large and innumerable and ... the land of Ararat and Masis was no longer sufficient. T’argamos divided the country and his family between these eight giants.20

e sons of the ethnarch, including Kartlos, received their respective parts of the territory, which, however, did not have ‘strict’ boundaries. Although their languages were different, they could communicate thanks to amazing multilingualism: ‘Now all these peoples in K’art’li became so 18. Kurtsikidze (ed.), The Cave of Treasure, p. 43. 19. See Doborjginidze, Language, Identity and Historical Concepts, pp. 59–61. 20. omson, Rewriting Caucasian History, pp. 2–4.

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mixed that six languages were spoken in K’art’li: Armenian, Georgian, Xazar, Syrian, Hebrew, and Greek. All the kings of Georgia, (and) the men and the women, knew these languages.’21 Aer the legendary King Parnavaz had eliminated multilingualism in Kartli and given a unique opportunity to its inhabitants to unite through the Georgian language, 22 the descendants of Kartlos became ‘our kin’: ‘is P’arnavaz was the first king in K’art’li from among the descendants of K’art’los. He extended the Georgian language, and no more was a different language spoken in K’art’li except Georgian. And he created the Georgian script.’23 It was this sequential interpretation of history that allowed Leonti Mroveli to present the history of Kartli as an integral part and a continuation of the biblical history and thus to anchor the history of Kartli within the biblical chronotope.24

. T T  L E: ‘T [G  G] A T S’ (ესე არიან ორნი დანი) e development of narratives about one’s ethnic origin, history, regional unity or common religious space is rather a theoretical, conceptual side of self-establishment. However, the major challenge, as in the case of other vernacular languages of the East is the practical side: the actual establishment of the Georgian language in the Eastern Christian world alongside Greek, the advanced language of ancient philosophy and rhetoric. 21. omson, Rewriting Caucasian Historyi, p. 23. 22. Compare W. Boeder, ‘Sprache und Identität in der Geschichte der Georgier’, in B. Schrade and . Ahbe (eds.), Georgien im Spiegel seiner Kultur und Geschichte. Zweites Deutsch-Georgisches Symposium: Vortragstexte (Berlin, 1998), p. 74: ‘Die Sprache bekommt also nach Leonti Mroveli Geschichtsverständnis erst jetzt eine eigene, identitätsstiende Funktion. – In sprachlicher Hinsicht sind ihre Könige in dieser Zeit nicht ethnisch orientiert, sonern sprechen die verschiedenen Sprachen ihrer Völkerschasen. ... Er (sc. Mroveli) spricht in seinem Bericht über die Anfänge Georgiens einen wichtigen Grundzug der georgischen Geschichte an, nämlich die wesentliche Rolle der Sprache als Merkmal nationaler Eigenständigkeit. Der georgische Einheitsstaat ist in ethnischer und sprachlicher Hinsicht das Ergebnis eines historischen Prozesses der sich in drei Stufen vollzieht: zuerst stammemäßige, räumliche und sprachliche Einheit; dann stammemäßige, räumliche und sprchliche Trennung; und schließlich Bildung einer neuen räumlichen und sprachlichen Einhet, nämlich Kartli uns seine Sprache. Die räumliche Einheit entsteht dadurch, daß verschiedene Völker in Kartli zusammenkommen.’ 23. omson, Rewriting Caucasian History, p. 37. 24. See L. Pataridze, პოლიტიკური და კულტურული იდენტობანი IV–VIII საუკუნეების ქართულ ერთობაში: „ქართლის ცხოვრების “ საძყარო [Political and Cultural Identities in 4th–8th Centuries. Georgian Community: e World of Life of Kartli] (ქართული ერთობა და ძისი იდენტობა: იდეები, სიძბოლოები, პერცეფციები [Georgian Community and its Identity: Ideas, Symbols, Perceptions] I; Tbilisi, 2009), p. 132.

  

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is would mean the legitimation of Georgian as a language of liturgy and the Bible and, in general, a language of literature.25 Although the Eastern missionary practice and the related processes of enculturation26 encouraged the legitimation of the use of Georgian and other vernacular languages, the latter nevertheless remained ‘poor’ in the eyes of the Greeks. ese languages were considered to be of limited expressive capacity, failing to grasp the depth of religious texts and the highly sophisticated biblical allegories. Georgians, like other peoples in the East, did not deny that their language, as well as their people, was poor in comparison to the Greek language and the Greeks, and that Georgian translations abounded in inaccuracies and mistakes.27 However, unlike 25. On the formation of the cultural identity of medieval Georgian scholars see N. Doborjginidze, ‘Language and Identity: Formation of Cultural Identity in Medieval Georgia’, in I. Augé et al. (eds.), L’Arménie et la Géorgie en dialogue avec l’Europe. Du Moyen Âge à nos jours. Actes du colloque «Les relations interrégionales et la question de l’identité». 27 et 28 septembre 2012, Université Paul Valéry-Montpellier III (Paris, 2015), pp. 119–33. 26. Religious enculturation refers to the spread of a new religion in local cultures and traditions through vernacular languages, while religious acculturation implies the establishment of a common supra-national language of liturgy, which also penetrates culture and other spheres of public life. From the Early Middle Ages, missionary activities among nations in the Christian East were carried out in vernacular languages (see Boeder, ‘Die georgischen Mönche’, pp. 85–95; Winfried Boeder, ‘Identität und Universalität: Volkssprache und Schrisprache in den Ländern des alten christlichen Orients’, Georgica 17 [1994], pp. 66–84; N. Doborjginidze, ‘e Problems of Functional and Quantitative Legitimation of the Georgian Language in the Middle Ages’, Tsaknagi Facet: Annual of Philological Studies 1 [2009], pp. 13–29; ead., ‘Religious Inculturation and Problems of Social History of the Georgian Language’, in Cornelia Horn and Basil Lourié [eds.], Philalethes: Collected Studies Dedicated to the 135th Anniversary of Shalva Nutsubidze (1888–1969) [Leiden, 2014], pp. 136–57), that is, through enculturation. As regards the West, it mainly followed the model of acculturation, manifested through the establishment of Latin as the language of the Bible and liturgy (see B. Luiselli, ‘Inkulturativer und akkulturativer Prozeß der Christianisierung: Die Entstehung der nationalen Literaturen und der Latein sprechenden Eliten in Westeuropa’, in U.-C. Sander and F. Paul [eds.], Muster und Funktionen kultureller Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung. Beiträge zur internationalen Geschichte der sprachlichen und literarischen Emanzipation [Göttingen, 2000], pp. 146–68; id., La formazione della cultura europea occidentale [Roma, 2003]). us, the Christian East differed radically from the West in this regard. e Eastern practice of enculturation encouraged the establishment of vernacular languages in the religious space, which in turn favoured the idea of language equality. On the other hand, the Roman ecclesiastic space of the West for a long time followed the principle of functional differentiation of languages, reserving for Latin the prominent status of the language of church and culture and presupposing its ‘spiritual imperialism and sacramental cult’ (H.-B. Gerl, ‘Zwischen faktischer und numinoser Gültigkeit: Lorenzo Vallas eorie vom Vorrang der lateinischen Sprache’, in R.J. Schoeck [ed.], Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Bononiensis [New York, 1985], p. 327). It was due to the supremacy of Latin that the emancipation of the vernacular languages of the West and their development into written or standard languages started much later. 27. e translators even cited an example that the Georgian translation did not distinguish between such important Greek words as psyche and pneuma: ‘It should be borne

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the situation in the medieval Christian West,28 this did not lead to the legitimation of functional disparity between Greek and Georgian, but to the acknowledgment of the advanced semantic and stylistic potential of the Greek. is acknowledgement naturally entailed a major challenge to the medieval Georgian cultural space: the qualitative emancipation of the ‘poor’ Georgian language vis-à-vis Greek through the ‘upgrade’ of its expressive means. e biographies, translated works, and the related metatexts of the well-known tenth- and eleventh-century Georgian authors – Iovane the Athonite, Ekvtime the Athonite, and Giorgi the Athonite (იოვანე ათონელი, ექვთიძე ათონელი, გიორგი ათონელი) – discribe the way they responded to this challenge typically in almost identical ways: they were called the enlighteners of the nation and the eradicators of the deficiencies of the Georgian language. For example: ey enlightened our language and country. He [Ekvtime the Athonite] embellished and made prosperous our language and our country with his translations of the Holy Scriptures. … He [Ekvtime] filled up the deficiencies of our language and thanks to wisdom granted by God, made us, whom Hellenes called barbarians due to our illiteracy and ignorance, their equals.29

e medieval Georgian scholars responded to the challenge of cultural and linguistic emancipation in both ways: conceptually, by developing concepts regarding the equality of the Greek and the Georgian language, and practically, by means of medieval Georgian translation projects – by rendering important works of literature from the Greek language into Georgian, thus enriching the expressive capacity of the Georgian language.30 in mind that soul has two names in Greek: psyche, which denotes spirit in most cases in Paul[’s epistles], and there is also pneuma, which is the name of the essence of His (God’s) soul and is also used for the Holy Spirit. Georgian has one word suli because of its poverty’ (Manuscript of Fund A of the National Centre of Manuscripts: A 217, 322r, eleventh century). 28. For differences in the development of the vernacular languages of the Medieval Christian East and West, see N. Doborjginidze, ‘Die identitätsbildende Funktion der Sprache und Übersetzungsprobleme bei den altgeorgischen Exegeten’, in Sander and Paul (eds.), Muster und Funktionen, pp. 169–84; G. Hille-Coates, ‘Bibelsprachen – Heilige Sprachen. Zur Legitimierung des Hauptsprachenmodells im Spannungsfeld von Latein und Volkssprache im Mittelalter’, in Sander and Paul (eds.), Muster und Funktionen, pp. 206–38. 29. I. Javakhishvili (ed.), გიორგი ძთაწძინდელი, ცხორებაჲ იოვანესი და ეფთჳძესი [George the Hagiorite, e Life of St. John and St. Euthymius] (ველი ქართული ენის ეგლები, 3 [Monuments of the Old Georgian Language 3]; Tbilisi, 1946), p. 14; I. Lolashvili (ed.), გიორგი ძცირე, ცხოვრება გიორგი ძთაწძიდელისა [Giorgi Mtsire, e Life of Giorgi Mtatsmindeli] (Tbilisi, 1994), p. 177. 30. See Nino Doborjginidze, ლინგვისტურ-ჰერძენევტიკული ძეტატექსტები. პრაქტიკული გრაძატიკა და ჰერძენევტიკა X-XIII საუკუნეების ქართულ წყაროებში [Linguistic and Hermeneutic Metatexts. Practical Grammar and Hermeneutics in Georgian

  

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Here I will illustrate the development of this topos by discussing one case from Medieval Georgian literature, The Eulogy and Magnification of the Georgian Language by Iovane Zosime, a prominent eleventh-century Georgian translator and calligrapher. is hymn is evidently aimed at the legitimation of the relatively poor Georgian language beside Greek, a language with the richest literary traditions. e author uses symbolic language to describe the unflattering, inappropriate position of the Georgian of his times, prophesies that it will be brought to life like Lazarus, and declares it to be the language of the eschatological future:31 Buried is the Georgian language as a witness until the day of the second coming, so that God may examine every language through this language. And so the language is sleeping to this day, and in the Gospels this language is called Lazarus. And, on her arrival, Saint Nino converted it and so did Queen Helen. So they are two sisters like Mary and Martha. And ‘Friendship’, he [Jesus] said, because every secret is buried in this language. And this language, beautified and blessed by the name of the Lord, humble and afflicted, awaits the day of the second coming of the Lord.32 Sources of the 10th–13th Centuries] (Tbilisi, 2012), pp. 5–11. e challenge of emancipation found its reflection in the implicit concepts of translation. For instance, ‘imprint in our language’, Ephrem Mtsire (in Maia Rapava [ed.], იოვანე დაძასკელი: დიალექტიკა (ქართული თარგძანების ტექსტი გაძოსცა, გაძოკვლევა და ლექსიკონი დაურთო) [John of Damascus: Dialectic. Georgian translations with a study and glossary] [Tbilisi, 1976], p. 66); ‘the translator [Ekvtime the Athonite] revealed these to the language of the Georgians’, Giorgi the Athonite (in Mzekala Shanidze et al. [eds.] and Ekvtime Atoneli [trans.], იოვანე ოქროპირი: თარგძანებაჲ ძათეს სახარებისა [John Chrysostom: Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew] [Tbilisi, 1996], p. 19); ‘to grasp in our language’, Ephrem Mtsire (Ms. A 24, 1r); ‘to write in our language’, Ephrem Mtsire (Ms. Jerus. 13, 241v.); ‘God has bestowed [this translation] on the Georgian language’, Ephrem Mtsire (Ms. Athon. 18, 238). In this metaphorical conceptualization of translation, the difference between the original work and the translation is reduced to a minimum. All the riches of the original work will be fully imprinted and put into the translation. e Georgian Athonites believed that this was the way to culturally legitimize the Georgian kin (who were) called barbarians because of their ignorance. 31. anks to the highly ambiguous implications and allegories, this hymn remains one of the most intricate ‘puzzles’ in the Georgian eulogic poetry and has attracted considerable attention from researchers. Winfried Boeder offers a highly interesting interpretation of Iovane Zosime’s arguments for the legitimation of Georgia as presented in his Praise. Boeder points out that the Georgian author turns to the eschatological future in search of an argument for the Georgian language to “compete” with Hebrew, Greek and Latin. He thus finds a most convenient position for Georgian: if Hebrew is a sacred language because it is the first language of mankind, an equally powerful argument for Georgian will be its being the language of the Last Judgement, the ultimate language of the humanity, as Zosime argues. If mankind uttered its first word in Hebrew, thanks to which the latter was assigned the status of a sacred language, the last language will be Georgian. See Boeder, ‘Sprache und Identität’, pp. 71–72. 32. S. Tsaishvili, ‘იოვანე ზოსიძე: ქებაჲ დიდებაჲ ქართულისა ენისაჲ [Iovane Zosime, Praise and Glory of Georgian Language]’, in id., ქართული პოეზია თხუთძეტ ტოძად [Georgia Poetry in Fieen Volumes], I (Tbilisi, 1979), p. 72.

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Praising a language and claiming its prominence and singularity is a popular topos in vernacular literatures of the Christian East in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.33 Evidently, the narratives about the distinctiveness of Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, or ecclesiastical Slavonic were driven by attempts to throw off the label of a poor language,34 to become equal and competitive with the sacral languages,35 chiefly Greek, and thus to obtain a high degree of legitimation for the vernacular language.

. C Old Georgian hagiography, polemic literature, and historical prose are connected by generic concepts or topoi that developed from Late Antiquity onwards. e first and earliest topos discussed here is Kartli as a buffer state of the cultural unity that had Greece at its centre. In the hagiographic and polemical literature martyrdom is the central concept with which the anti-Iranian and anti-Arabian stance is expressed. e second topos is the concept of Georgians and the inhabitants of Kartli as a distinctive body. at involves linking the history of the Kingdom of Kartli to the biblical genealogy of nations. Furthermore, one of the most distinctive features of a nation is its language. is is expressed in the topos of language equality: in various ways, scholars attempted to present the Georgian language as advanced and equal to Greek.36

33. About texts of the Syriac, Armenian, Georgian and ecclesiastical Slavonic tradition, see Boeder, ‘Die georgischen Mönche’, pp. 89–95; N. Doborjginidze, ‘“ქებაჲ და დიდებაჲ ქართულისა ენისაჲ” ქრისტიანული აღძოსავლეთის სახოტბო პოეზიის კონტექსტში0 [“Praise and Glory of Georgian language” in the context of Eastern Christian Poetry]’, Semiotics, Scientific Journal 1 (2007), pp. 92–100. 34. Cf. Boeder, ‘Die georgischen Mönche’, pp. 87–88. 35. For the theory of the three sacred languages, that is, Trilinguitas, and the special status of Hebrew, Greek and Latin in the Christian East of Late Antiquity and Middle Ages see G. Hille-Coates, ‘Auffassungen von der Herkun der Sprachen im Identifikationsfeld der lateinischen Sprache im westlichen Christentum des Mittelalters’, in Udo Schöning (ed.), Internationalität nationaler Literaturen (Göttingen, 2000), pp. 129–47. 36. I would like to thank the editors for their helpful remarks and suggestions for improvement.

THE MAKING OF A SYRIAC CHRONICLER: THE CASE OF JOSHUA THE STYLITE OF ZUQNĪN Amir H

Syriac sources are completely silent about the education and/or the training of the various authors who composed local and universal chronicles, of which there are many with immense historical value. is silence may not be too surprising in the case of a stylite, whose life is supposed to be totally absorbed by devotion and prayer on the top of his pillar. Yet we know of at least one stylite who was versed in chronography, John of Litarb (†737), who corresponded with the prolific Jacob of Edessa (†708) on chronological and other matters. His letters have not survived, but Jacob’s replies fortunately have.1 We also know that John of Litarb was one of the sources consulted by none other than the patriarch and chronicler Dionysius of Tell-Maḥre (†845), though the latter’s chronicle has reached us only in extracts. As we shall see, the author discussed here, Joshua the Stylite, does not seem to have had the same level of skill as John, given his chronological miscalculations and especially his rather crude use of earlier sources in his own composition. Much has been written about this stylite of Zuqnīn, mentioned in a colophon added by Elisha, a ninth-century monk who lived in the monastery of Zuqnīn and later at the monastery of the Syrians in Skete. In repairing the manuscript of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn he wrote as follows: Pray for the wretched Elisha, of the monastery of Zuqnīn, who copied this leaf, that he may find mercy, like the thief on the right hand, Amen and Amen. May the mercy of the great God and our saviour Jesus Christ be upon the priest Mār Yēšū‘ (Joshua) the Stylite, of the monastery of Zuqnīn, who wrote this book of records dealing with evil times that are past, and of the calamities and troubles which that tyrant had caused among men.2

It suffices here to mention that the author of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn complained bitterly about the bringing down of stylites from their pillars 1. F. Nau, ‘Lettre de Jacques d’Édesse à Jean le Stylite sur la chronologie biblique et la naissance du Messie’, Revue de l’Orient Chrétien  5 (1900), pp. 581–96; F. Nau, ‘Cinq lettres de Jacques d’Édesse à Jean le stylite (traduction et analyse)’, Revue de l’Orient Chrétien 4 [14] (1909), pp. 427–42. 2. Amir Harrak, Chronicle of Zuqnīn Parts I and II: From the Creation to the Year 506/7 (Gorgias Chronicles of Late Antiquity 2; Piscataway NJ, 2017), pp. 362–63.

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by the invading Abbasids, most probably a predicament he himself experienced firsthand. Whether or not this was the case, we know nothing about his education, let alone his training as a chronicler. He may simply have learned to write history from reading historical books, some of which he compiled in his universal chronicle. ese include the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea, the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, the third part of the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus, and the whole of the Edessene Chronicle (the so-called Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite). He in fact relied on and learned extensively from the latter two sources: from the first he borrowed a lengthy and verbose description of a sixthcentury plague, and used it to describe one that happened in his own lifetime. From the second he borrowed a report of the market prices of commodities, as the following discussion shows.

. T A  T P 1.1. The Mid-Sixth- and Mid-Eight-Century Plagues e Great Plague (541–43) which took place during the reign of Justinian (527–65) was witnessed by John of Ephesus (†586). Over an extended period, he observed with his own eyes the plague’s destructive effects on countless people, on a journey that he took from Palestine to Constantinople, passing through the whole of Syria. He may have been himself stricken by the epidemic, as he ‘knocked with everyone else at the door of the grave day aer day’,3 but survived to leave for future generations a lengthy and emotional account of its devastation. Most of this account was copied almost verbatim by the Chronicler of Zuqnīn, who must have been profoundly struck by its emotional tone. Other versions of the account have also survived, more or less completely, in the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian4 and in the manuscript published by Land.5 In the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, the account of John is divided into five sections, as follows.

3. J.-B. Chabot (ed.), Incerti Auctoris Chronicon Pseudo-Dionysianum Vulgo Dictum 2 (CSCO 104 [III.2]; Leuven, 1933), pp. 79:16–109:27. 4. J.-B. Chabot (ed. and trans.), Chronique de Michel le Syrien patriarche jacobite d’Antioche (1166–1199) (Paris, 1899–1924), vol. 4, from p. 307 (Syriac), vol. 2, from p. 240 (trans.). 5. J.P.N. Land (ed.), Anecdota Syriaca 2 (Leiden, 1868), from p. 304. For more details about the various versions of the account see W. Witakowski, ‘Sources of Pseudo-Dionysius for the ird Part of his Chronicle’, Orientalia Suecana 40 (1991), pp. 252–75, on p. 265.

     

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An introductory section contains lamentations, brief details about the origin of the plague, and a description of the extraordinary events said to have happened at the beginning of the plague.6 Didactic statements are also inserted, as throughout the entire account. A second section, untitled, discusses the journey of John from Palestine to Constantinople. A list of countries stricken by the plague is given, and the effects of the epidemic on people, animals, and agriculture are described with striking detail. e author saw the fulfilment of prophecies (namely of Isaiah) in the plague as well as in wars (Barbarians against Rome, Persians against Antioch) and in other woes that preceded the plague. A third section, untitled, describes the effects of the plague in Constantinople. e tone is essentially didactic: while the plague was destructive, it offered the opportunity for repentance – for those who were disposed toward it. A fourth section, with a title, is a continuation of the third one. e title reads as follows: ‘When the pestilence reached the capital (Constantinople), (God’s) compassion called first upon the poor so as to be carried and buried in dignity and without the confusion of the Wrath.’ It begins with a moralistic theme: the plague killed first the poor and then the wealthy. Although the poor lived in misery, when they died they were taken care of by the wealthy, who clothed them, arranged burial services for them, escorted them, and buried them in their own carefully built graves, with respect and honour. By the time the plague struck the wealthy, who until then had lived a life of pleasure and vanity, no one survived to perform the burial service for them and to bury them, so they rotted in streets, houses, and palaces.7 e symptoms and name of the plague in Greek and Syriac are also given. Among the symptoms are the swelling of the groin and the appearance of black pock marks deep inside the victim’s palm. is is followed by a long and verbose description of the burial of thousands of victims in collective graves, and of the state of some of the victims who were found discarded in houses and streets. It also mentions the appointment by Justinian of an official, eodorus,8 ordered to remove thousands of corpses through the distribution of great amounts of gold to workers. 6. e Byzantine historian Procopius, a contemporary of John, also reported about such unusual events; see Wars II.22.10 and further. 7. e fact that these people remained without burial was seen by John as yet another punishment. e same attitude toward death without burial is detected in ancient Mesopotamia and in the Bible; see W. von Soden, Herrscher in Alten Orient (Heidelberg, 1954), pp. 103–105 (the case of Sargon II’s death), and Deuteronomy 28:25–26; 1 Kings 14:10–11; and Jeremiah 16:4. 8. See also Procopius, Wars II.23.6.

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A fih section, with the title ‘Also concerning the same lamentable story – on wills and inheritance’, is essentially didactic: ‘e Messenger of Death was instructed to struggle with people until they despised all the matters of the world, whether they wanted to or not.’9 More lamentations follow, and finally misconceptions,10 which the plague had generated in the minds of people, are described and condemned. In the eighth century, the Near East and Anatolia witnessed another devastating plague, which is described by the Chronicler of Zuqnīn in a single account. It can be divided into the following sections, all of which echo those in John of Ephesus: An introduction consisting of lamentations is followed by the fulfilment of prophecies (namely of Isaiah) in the plague as well as in the wars (Arabs among themselves), famine, and fugitives from taxes, as interpreted by the author. en the effect of the plague on people is described: the plague killed first the poor, who were buried by the wealthy in their own carefully built graves, in dignity and aer burial services, but thereaer the wealthy rotted in streets, houses and palaces. is theme recurs later in the account. ereaer, countries stricken by the plague are identified, and the account ends with didactic statements on how material things were abandoned by people, with the name and symptoms of the plague noted. is quick survey of accounts by John of Ephesus and the Chronicler of Zuqnīn already suggests that they share many common features. e following list of quotations from both accounts will demonstrate further the degree of dependence of the one author upon the other. In each section, first the account of Zuqnīn is given and then that of John of Ephesus, both quoted from Chabot’s edition of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn (pages and lines).11 1.2. Comparative Quotations from John of Ephesus and the Chronicle of Zuqnīn e quotations in Syriac, along with English translations, begin with the Chronicler of Zuqnīn and then John of Ephesus, and are conveniently divided into subjects to highlight the reliance of the former on the latter. 9. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 105. 10. One of the misconceptions was that breaking earthenware would eliminate evil. 11. For the full accounts see A. Harrak, The Chronicle of Zuqnīn Parts III and IV A.D. 488–775 (Toronto, 1999), pp. 94–113 (from John of Ephesus), pp. 168–74 (from the Chronicler).

     

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1.2.1. Lamentation > zx¿Úãs¿ÚÃæèàÎÑþÐÄӿݍz âï¿ćà¾æxˆËÙüÙĀÙ{ 1 A ? èÚÃÅâÝèãÛæ{ËÐx¿æøà{s ‘Here Jeremiah the prophet was of great use to us, because he was exceedingly knowledgeable about lamenting over the afflictions that surrounded me (for: us) on all sides’ (179:19–21). ¿çÂÎÓ èà À{z ÒþÐ ÄÓ Áxz ÀĀÚðýx âÚÝz ¿ÙÎþà 1‘ > ¿ÚÃæ ¿Úãs ? ĀÙ¾ÆÚçÐx À{z Žxs ‰sx {z ÀĀçÚù ? ? À{zûêæÍäïÛçÂxÁü{¿ćáÂÎÐâïxÀĀÚà{sx ‘e blessed Jeremiah was of great use to us for the beginning of this account, he who had the experience to sadly uttering songs of lamentation over the destruction and ruin of the children of his people’ (79:18–22). ÁËÐâï{sxÎÑá¿ćäïËÐâïÎà¿Þ¾æ{¿ýzÀ¾æ 2 ? …{ÍáÝ âï ¿ćàs åÚáý{s ÀĀçÙËã âï ‰s{ ¿ćääï ? ? èÚæs ËÃï Àăøðãx ÀÎãË ÀÏÅ{x À¾ÚÆé ÀĀçÙËã A ? ÀĄÚóý¿ÃçðàxßÙsèÙÍÙăÎäï…{ÍáÞàèÙÍÙÎƍøï{Žx{ A èéÎÐ ¿ćàx ‘He should come now and cry not over one single nation or one single city, Jerusalem, but over all nations and many cities, which wrath, so to speak, has turned into wine press, in which it treaded and squeezed all the inhabitants without mercy, as if they were ripe grapes’ (180:5–11). > À{zĀÙsåÚáý{sÁËÐÀĀçÙËãxÍáÂÎÐâïâÚÞãÎàËÝ 2‘ ? ¿ćàs xÎÑá ¿Ùx{ÍÙx ËÐ ¿ćäï âï {s À¾ćáæ{ ¿ÞÃæx Íà ? ? èÚæsËÃïÀăøðãxÀÎãËÂÀÏÅ{xÀ¾ ÚÆéÀĀç ÙËãâï A ? ÀĄÚóý¿ÃçðàxßÙsèÙÍÙăÎäï… {ÍáÞàèÙÍÙÎƍøï{Žx{ ¢ èéÎпćàx ‘But henceforth, he would have to cry and lament over the destruction of not one single city, Jerusalem, or one single Jewish people but over many cities which Wrath had, as it were, turned into wine presses, inside which it trampled and squeezed all the inhabitants without mercy, as if they were ripe grapes’ (79:25–80:3). > ? âï Áx{øÐ ßÙs ¿æËùÎò ûóæx ÀĀäÚù ÍáÝ ¿ïs âï 3 A ? ? ? ¿ćàxÁËÑÝsèäŏâÝ{èÑýÎãâÝ{èãÎùâÝåٍs{„ËÅ{ ÄýÎÐ ‘(He would cry) over the whole earth, because the (divine) decree went out like a harvester to standing crops; it cut down and removed people of various statures, distinctions, and ranks, together and without exception’ (180:11–13).

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.  > ? âï Áx{øÐ ßÙs ¿æËùÎò ûóæx ÀĀäÚù A ÍáÝ ¿ïs âï 3‘ ? ? ? ¿ćàx] èÚäŏ âÝ{ èÑýÎã âÝ{ èãÎù âÝ Ûãs{ „ËÅ{ [èÃýÎÐ ‘(He would cry) over the whole earth, because the (divine) decree went out like a harvester to standing crops; it cut down and laid low people of various statures, distinctions, and ranks, together [and without exception]’ (80:3–6). ? ? {Ëýs{ ÍáÝ ¿ćäáïx ¿ùÎþ {üòs{ €üéx ÁËáý âï 4 ? > ? üÃùxĀÚà{¿ùÎþ¿ÚãßÙsèÙÍàz ‘(He would cry) over corpses that stank and burst open in the streets throughout the whole world; their pus ran down like water into the street and there was no one to bury (them)’ (180:25–13:15). ? ? > üÃùxĀÚà{¿ù Îþ€üé{{üòsxÁ Ëáýâï 4‘ ‘(He would cry) over corpses that burst and stank in the streets with no one to bury (them)’ (80:6–7). ? Ûáý èã {{zx ¿ÆÚÅă{ ¿Ù¾ò ÁăÎï|{ ¿Â{ă ÀĀÂ? âï 5 ? ...ÁËÑÝs¿ÙĄã{ÁËÃïÛáýèã…{ÍÂâóæ{…{ÍÙăÎäðàÁĄÃù ? ? üÃàÀĀÂÎÅèã… {ÍÙËáýûóæxÿæsÕáòs¿ćà{ ‘(He would cry) over large and small houses, pleasant and attractive, that suddenly became graves for their inhabitants, in which both servants and masters fell suddenly together … ; and no one remained to remove their corpses from inside the house’ (180:15–19). ? Ûáý èã {{zx ¿ÆÚÅă{ ¿Ù¾ò [ÁăÎï|{] ¿Â{ă ÀĀÂ? âï 5‘ ? ¿ÙĄã{ ÁËÃï ¿Úáý èã …{Í âóæ{ …{ÍÙăÎäðà ÁĄÃù > èã > …{Íçã Õáòs ¿ćà{ ...ÁËÑÝs ? ÎÅ èã …{ÍÙËáý ûóæx üÃàÀĀÂ? ‘(He would cry) over large and [small] houses, pleasant and attractive, that suddenly became graves for their inhabitants, in which both servants and masters fell suddenly together … ; and no one of them who could remove their corpses from inside the house had escaped’ (80:7– 12). ? ? èÙÍÙăÎäï ÎÚò{sx À¾ÚÆé ëÙăÎù âï €x‹x ÀĀÐă{s âï 6 ? ÀĀÚðýĀà{ÀĀáäà…ĄÃïxèÚàzßÙsxÀ¾ÚÆéâï[...]ÁËÑÝs ? ¿ćáÚáã… {ÍáÝx ‘(He would cry) over roads and many villages whose inhabitants vanished all at once … and over many (scenes) like these that are beyond the speech and narration of all eloquent speakers’ (180:19–27).

     

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? ? âï ... Îúêòsx] ¿ćáÚÃý âï €x‹x ÀĀÂă{ ÀĀÐă{s âï 6‘ ? [èÚàzßÙsx]À¾ÚÆéâïÁËÑÝsèÙÍÙăÎäïÎÚò{sx [¿ÙăÎù ? ¿ćáÚáã… {ÍáÝxÀĀÚðýĀà{ÀĀáäà…ĄÃïx ‘(He would cry) over deserted highways, roads [that were cut … and villages] whose inhabitants vanished all at once, and over many (scenes) [like these] that are beyond the speech and narration of all eloquent speakers’ (81:1–4). ? ? ? ? ÀĀÂøã¿æ ÎçÅâïÁËÐâÃùÎàÁËЀ{ zèã ÍæxÀĄÑéâï 7 ? ? ÎÙÏЏsèÙÍÂÀĀÚãÛáýèãxÀĀááÝx ‘(He would cry) over the palaces – they used to roar against each other – and over the adorned quarters of the brides, who were suddenly discovered dead inside’ (180:21–23). ? ? èãÍæx ? ¿æÎçÅ âï] ÁËÐ âÃùÎà ÁËÐ €{z ÀĄÑé âï 7‘ ? ? ? ?€{zÀĀáÐxx{ÀĀÚãÛáþæ[ ãxÀĀÂøãÀĀáá Ýx ‘(He would cry) over the palaces – they used to roar against each other – and [over the quarters of the attired brides, who sud]denly became dead bodies and objects of fear inside’ (80:23–25). ? ? ? ? À{ËÑà èÚÞêã{ ¿æÎÔÚù ÎÆ €{z …ĄÔæĀãx ÀĀà{Ā âï 8 ? ÁüÃùÎÆàâÂ{()sÛáýèãxèÙÍÚàÎáÐx ‘(He would cry) over the virgins who were kept in private rooms, looking forward to the joy of their weddings, but were suddenly carried off into the grave’ (180:23–25). ? ? > ? èãèã]ÒÝĀýs¿ćàx¿æ ÎÔÚú €{z[… ĄÔæĀãxÀĀà{ĀÂâï] 8‘ ? ? [èÚæsƒÎÃêæÁüÃúà¿æÎÔÚù ‘(He would cry) over the virgins who were kept in private rooms, as there was [no one to carry them from the rooms to the grave]’ (80:26– 81:1). ? ÀÎÚÃæx ¿ćáä ÎÑþÐĀäà (¿Úãs) Íà À{z ĀÙs ‰s{ 9 ? Ëùsx üÐĀýsx èÚáÙsx ¿Ýüý Îà üã¾æ{ ÀĀÙ¾æ{ zÎçÝx ? ¿ÑÂËãÛçþäþãÎááÙs{ ‘He (= Jeremiah) would also have to make use of the prophetic words of his colleagues, cite them, and say to the remnant of people who survived: Mourn and lament, O ministers of the altar…’ (181:2–4). ÎÑþÐĀäà ¿æs üÃéx ßÙs (¿Úãs) Íà À{z ĀÙs ‰s{ 9‘ ? ? ¿çÝüý Îà üã¾æ{ ÀĀÙ¾æ{ zÎçÝx ÀÎÚÃæ èãx ¿ćáä ? ? ¿ÑÂËãÛçþäþãÎááÙs{{Ëùsx¿þçÚçÃÂ{üÐĀýsx

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.  ‘He (= Jeremiah) would also have to make use of words from the prophecies of his colleagues, I believe, cite them, and say to the remnant of people who survived: Mourn and lament, O ministers of the altar...’ (81:9–11).

1.2.2. Fulfilment of Prophecies ? ? ÁxÎæ{¿Âă{¿ï {|¿ćäàÎýâúý¿çÂ|¿æÍÂèÙÍáÝèÚàz 1 ? ? ? ? ÁxËÑ¿ÚÚÓxÀăz{¿ÂĄù{ÀÎáÚÐåï¿óÚù ‘All of these (prophecies) have been fulfilled at this time: severe tremors, violent quarrels of the Arabs among themselves’ (181:16–18). ? ÁüÅÎæËÚÂÎàĀÙsüÚäÅ¿ćäàÎýâúýèÙÍáÝ […ĀãÎÚÂèÚàz] 1‘ ? > ÍáÝ ¿ïs Āàx ...{{zx ¿Â{ă ÁxÎæ{ ...ÁÎï| ¿çÂÏ ¿ćàs ...ÀĀçÙËã¿ćã{züÂ¿ÂĄù...¿Âüðãx ‘All of these (prophecies) have been completely fulfilled [during our days], not over a lengthy period but within a short while: earthquakes … severe tremors … the whole West being shaken … wars in the city of Rome...’ (88:26–89 and further).

1.2.3. Plague and People ? ? ¿ùÎþ À{z ĀÙsx èÚàz ¿çÞêä ¿æz ¿æÎã èÙx €üý 1 ? {{z èÚóïĀã  ÀĀÑÃýĀÂ{ Áüúپ ÿçáÝ èã ËÝ{ èÙËýx ĀÙ¾ÃÓèÚäÚéĀã{ ‘e pestilence started with the poor people who were discarded in the street; they were given funeral rites and were buried, appropriately, by everyone with respect and honour’ (182:18–20). ? ¿çÞêãx¿ćäÅĀ„ËùÎàÁxzÀĀçÙËäà¿ÔÃýßäéèÙxËÝ 1‘ ? ÀÎÔÚóÑÂ{{{zèÚóÚéèÚàz{...ĀÙ¾ÔÚóпùÎþÂèÙËýxèÚàz èÙÎàĀã{ ÿçáÝ èã èÚþÃàĀã ËÝ èÙüÃùĀã{ {{z èÚóïĀã ÀĀ èÚúóæ{ ‘When the plague reached this city (Constantinople), it started with vigour first with the masses of poor people, who were discarded in the streets… us they perished and with great diligence they were given funeral rites and were buried, clothed, and given escort by everyone’ (94:18–20, 25– 27). {z ¿çÆã ËÝ ¿æz ¿ÔÃþ ‰s ĀÙÏЏs ÀĀ ÀÎçäÐüã 2 ? ? ? ‚{ËáÞ ËÝ ÀĀçÙËãx ¿ùÎþ {{z èÚãx èÚàz ¿çÞêã âï „ËùÎà > À{z À{z …{Í „ËùÎà ¿ÙÎý

     

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‘(God’s) great mercy was seen even in this plague as it descended first upon the poor, who were discarded in the streets of the cities since (the pestilence) everywhere started with them’ (186:4–7). ? ÀÎÃÚÓ ĀðÅs „ËùÎà ¿çÞêã âïx ÀÎÞáã ĀçÙËäà ñçã ËÝ 2‘ ‘When the pestilence reached the capital (Constantinople, God’s) compassion descended first upon the poor’ (94:15–17). ? ? ÁÎð€Íäþã{¿çÔàÎý€Ë ÚÐsâï¿çáÃÑãzËÙsÕý{s ... 3 ÀÎÂüÂÛÅüóã{ ‘en the Destroyer struck those in positions of power, who were renowned because of their wealth, and took delight in their greatness’ (183:29– 184:1). ? ÀÎÞáä¿ćäáï€ËÚÐsâï¿çáÃÑãzËÙsÕý{sèÙËÙz ... 3‘ …{ÍÚçÔàÎþÂÛÅüóã{ÁÎðÂۍ{ă{¿Úçïăsx ‘en the Destroyer struck the rulers of the world, the celebrities in the terrestrial kingdom, and people of great wealth and who took delight in their power’ (95:8–11). ? ¿ćàx ÁËÑÝs ¿ÙĄã{ ÁËÃï ĀÙ¾ÙÎý (¿Â¾Ý) Îðá ËÝ 4 ? {{z èÙËý ËÐ âÃùÎà ËÐ ¿çýă åï ¿çÔù ¿ò¾Â Äêã ÀÍãĀà{zĀæÿçáÝÀÍàsx¿çÙxÏÅâïx¿çÞÙsèÚãÍçã{ ? âï ‚üþæ Áüã{x{ {s èÚÃúïĀã ¿ćàx èÚàz ÀÍàsx €zÎçÙx ? ? ¿ćãz¿Ùüãxåà€zÎçÙx.ÁËÚáÙèãèÚÑþãĀã{sèÚݍxĀ㠿 ‘(e plague) devoured both servants and masters alike and without partiality; common people and nobles were discarded beside each other and were moaning, so that everyone may wonder at the sentence of God and keep wondering at and admiring the judgement of God that cannot be scrutinized or understood or fathomed by mortals: The judgement of the Lord are the great deep’ (183:19–28). ? [¿çþÙă] ÁËÑÝs ¿ÙĄã{ ÁËÃï ĀÙ¾ÙÎý (¿Â¾Ý) Îðá 4‘ ? èÚãÍçã{{{zèÙËýËÐâÃùÎàËÐËÝ¿ò¾ÂÄêã¿ćàx¿çÔù{ ? …{zĀæx ûþòs ÀÍàsx ¿çÙx ÏÅ âïx{ ÀÍãĀà{ ¿þçÚç ? ? âï …ÎÝüþæ u{ ¿ćà{ èÚïËÙĀã ¿ćàx ¿æ¾Ý ÀÍàsx €zÎçÙx ? ßÙs ßÚçÙxx .ÄÙĀÝx ¿ćã ßÙs ¿þæs Ûç èã èÚÑþãĀ㠿¿ćãz ‘(e plague) devoured both servants and masters, nobles and the general populace alike and without partiality, while they were discarded beside each other, and were moaning. It is stated that humans wonder and keep

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.  on wondering concerning the judgement of God; and concerning these judgements, (it is stated) that they will neither be known not fathomed by humans, as it is written: Your judgement are the great deep’ (95:17– 24). ? 5 ? ÁüúÙ¾Â{{z…{üÃùĀæxèÚÞêãxÀăÎЀĄÚúÙÀĀÃé{¿Ã é ? ? ? èÚÑÙĀò{ÀÎÔáóÂ{ÀĀÃÂ{¿ùÎþÂèÙËýx…{Íُ{ĄÙèã¿Â ? ? ? ? ÀĀäÚáï{ ÀĀÙ¾ò ÀĀà{Ā .èÙüé{ èُüòĀã{ …{ÍÚãÎò ? ? ? ? ? ÀĀÑæxÀĀÚ‹Āà{À{ËÐx¿æÎçÆà€{zèÚÞêãxèÚàzÀĄÚóý > ? ? ? Às …ËÚÃï{ ÁxËÑ …{Íàz ÕÚáÐ{ èÙËý{ èÚéĄóãx ÁĄÚúÙ ? ? ? .¿ùÎýÎÆÂ{ÀĀÿćàsÁĄÃùÎÆÂèÙx€Îà{.¿ÙÏÑà¿Ù{x ? ? …{Íàz ÕÚáÐ{ èÙËý{ èÙüäÝx ¿ÑÙøò{ ¿ÆÚÅă ¿ćäÚáï ? …{ÍÙ; ‘Old men and women with honourable white hair, who looked forward to be buried in great splendour by their heirs, were discarded in the street, houses and palaces, burst open, stinking, and with their mouths open. Graceful virgins and beautiful young girls, who looked forward to bridal feasts and elegant and precious garments, were discarded, exposed, and rotting together; they became a pitiful lesson for onlookers. If only it had occurred inside graves! Rather, it took place in houses and market-places! Handsome and cheerful young men, who turned dark, were discarded, and rotted with their fathers’ (184:30–185:9). ? âÝ ÎÓzx èÚàz ¿Ãéx ? ÀăÎÐ 5‘ ÀÎúÙüê …{ÍÚãÎÙ ÁüúÙsx{¿Ð{|xÀÎÃúà{{zèÚÞêã{ÎþçÝ{ÎòøÙ{¿ćäáïx ? ¿ćàzü …{zăÎÐ èáóáóã{ ¿ïs âï èÙËýx …{Íُ{ĄÙ èã ? ? èÚàz ÀĀà{ĀÂ{ ÀĄÚóý ÀĀäÚáï ...ĀÙ¾ÆÚçÐ …{Íُ{ĄÙx ? ? ? ? ? ? èÙËý{èÚéĄóãxÀĄÚúÙÀĀ Ú‹xÀ {ËÐx¿æ ÎçÆà €{zèÚ Þêãx ? ? ? ÀĀÙ{x ÀÏÐ …ËÚÃï{ ¿æĄÐs ÀĀÚãx ¿çÚê èáóáóã{ ? ? .¿æ¾äáÂ{ ¿ùÎþ ¿ćàs ÁĄÃù ÎÆ èÙx €Îà{ .ÀüÙüã{ ? ? ĀÚЏ…{ÍÚþÙăĀÂèÚçÚÆï{èÙüÚäÝx¿ÑÙøò{¿ÆÚÅă¿ćä Úáï ? ÁxÎéèÙËÚÃï{ÁxËÐ ‘White haired old men, who engaged themselves in the worldly vanity all their days, toiled to gather (wealth), and looked forward to solemn and honourable burial by their heirs, are discarded on the ground, their white hair sadly soiled by the putrefaction of their heirs… Beautiful girls and virgins, who were looking forward to bridal feasts and garments of precious decor, are discarded, exposed, and soiled by the filth of the other dead; they became a pitiful and repelling sight. If only it had occurred inside graves! Rather, it took place in market-places and harbours! Handsome and cheerful boys, who turned dark, were thrown, head down, beneath each other, and made into an object of terror’ (98:21– 99:5).

     

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? {{zèÚúóã{À¾ÚÆéèãâÚáùüÐĀýsxèÚàz{{zèÚáÃéËÝ 6 ÁËý¾æx ÿæs ßÙs èÙËý èÚúóæ{ ¿ïÎÔù ¿ćàx ¿ćãÎÙ ÍáÝ ƒ|¾æ{ ÎÝz ŒÎóæ{ ÀüÐs Äêæ ‚ÎòÍæ{ ÁüÆÚ ¿ò¾Ý ÁËþæ ‘e very few who survived endured; during the whole day they used to remove (corpses) without interruption and go out to cast them away; they were like a person who throws a stone on a heap, then returns to take another one, and goes out to throw it in the same way’ (185:10– 14). [èÚÞòz{èÙËý]èÚà|s{èÚçÚðÓxÎþòâÚáù¿Ýüýx¿ÞÙs¿æĄÐs 6‘ > ? > > ƒ|s{ > ÁËý Às] ßòz{ ÿæs âÅüðãx „Ëã ¿ò¾Ý ÎãË âÅüðæ ¿çÝz{ èðÔæ ‚ÎòÍæ{ ÁüÆÚ ÁËþæ u{{ [èðÔæx [¿ćáÝ¿ćãÎÙ] ‘Others, whenever a small remnant had survived, used to carry (corpses), [cast them away and return]; they were like a person who removes stones and throws them on a heap, then returns [and carries more] to throw them, and returns once again to carry still others, and so he does [this all day long]’ (87:19–23). ? > ? ? ? ÀĀÆçÐèÚáÙsÛà ÚÃпæËï{ Í¿ðÂsÛÝ¿ð ãxèÚá پ 7 ? ? èÚáÙs ÀËùĄã èÚáÙs ¿Ãà ü ¿çÙs Ûà € {z èúóêæ ? ÀÏÑæ ËÝ !èúóêæ ¿þÐ? èÚáÙs ÀĀçÚù ? èÚáÙs ÀĀÚà{s ? ¿Ãêà ? ? ? ßÙs èÙËý{ èÚäÚÅzx ¿þçÚçÂx ÀĀÑýÎã{ ÀĀãÎù âÞà{ À|ăs ‘With what tears should I have cried at that time, O my dear one? What sighs would have been enough for me? What heart-break, what mourning, what dirge and what pains would have been enough, at the sight of old men and people of various statures and distinction, who collapsed and were discarded like cedar trees?’ (185:29–186:4). > > „¾ùx > ¿ðÂs ÛÝ ¿ðãx ? èÚáپ ? ? ĀÙ{z ÛÃÚÃÐ ¿æËï {Í 7‘ ? ? > ? ? èÚááãĀã¿ćàx¿ï{|{¿ÑæÎÅèÚáãxèÚàzÀĀÚ þÞ¿úÂĀã{ ? èúóêæ ? èÚáÙs ? ¿Ãà ü ¿çÙs ÀËùĄã èÚáÙs Ûà €{z ÀĀÆçÐ ? ? ? ? ? €{zèúóêæ(ÀĀà þÐ=)ÀĀà ýÎÐ{ÀĀç ÚùèÚáÙsÀĀ Úà{sèÚáÙs > ? ? âðàèُüóã{ÀĀ{ăÀĀÚþÞ¿þçÚçÂèÙËýx¿æËï{zx¿þÑà ? ...ÁxËÐèã ‘With what tears should I have cried at that time, O my dear one, as I was standing and observing these piles (of corpses) full of horrors and terrors beyond description? What sighs, what mourning, what heartbreak, what lamentation, what dirge and threnody would have been enough for the suffering of that time, when people were cast away in great piles, burst open one on top of the other…’ (98:9–15).

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1.2.4. Symptoms of the Plague ÀĀáÚÐx ÀÎÑä ÎÚÑãs ĀÚã ¿ćàx èÚáÙs ÀüÑÂ{ 1 ÁxzèُăxĀÙs{ÁËÐxĀÙs…{zĀÚÃÂăsxèÙxÎæz¿Â¾Ýx ¿ýËÅÁxz€zèÙ¾ÐxèÚáÙ¾ćà‰s{{{zèÙĀÚãxèÚáÙ¾ćà‰sx A ? > ÍþóæâïûêòzËÑã{… {zĀÚÃÂăs€{zèÚÑóùÛáýèãËݏ{z > ÁxzÀsèã ‘At the end, those who did not die were struck with a terrible disease: the swelling of the groins, some in one and some in both, and this thing happened to those who were dying as well as to those who survived. As soon as the swelling of the groins struck a man, he gave up hope accordingly’ (187:3–8). ÀĀ ÁËÐ ÀÎÑä ¿çþÙă åï ¿çÔù âÚÞ㠿ݍz èã{ 1‘ èã üÔé Ûáý èã âóæ{ ñáÂx ÀÏÑäà À{z ĀÙs ÀüÙüã{ ÀÎãèãxèÚáÙs‰s{¿ćàs{ĀÚãxèÚàzxÎÑáÂÎà{ÁăÎï| > > èÙxÀs//… {zĀÚÂÎÂăsx€zÀÎÑäÂjÎÔáòsÀĀðýx ? ? ? ÀĀïøäÂÀ{sĀà€{zèÙÏÐĀãx¿çÝzĀÙÏЏs...ÀĀÙüÐs ? èÙÏÐĀã ? ¿Ùüý èÙÍäï €{z èÚàzx ¿çÞÙs{ ...ÿæsx zËÙs Āêòx > À{zÛÔã ‘From now on one could see a great and violent blow that suddenly fell upon and engulfed [both] populace and nobles. Except for a few, not only the ones who died (subsequently) but also those who escaped from the sudden death (were stricken) with a blow: the swelling of the groins’ (95:11– 15). ‘en another sign … appeared as follows: ree marks were seen in the person’s palm… And wherever these appeared the end followed’ (96:6– 13).

1.2.5. Regions of the Plague ? ¿ïĀþæx ¿þçÚçÂx ¿çþà {z Îï| ¿Âüðäà üò èãx èÙx ¿ïs âï 1 ? > ? ÀĀçÙËãx ¿Ýüý âï ‰s Í {üïĀés ÀĄãx{ ¿ÑæÎÅ èÚáÙs ¿Ýüý âï ‰Îéx ¿ćäÚà ¿ćãËï{ ¿çäُx{ ¿ÚÂüÅx{ ¿çÚÔêáòx ‰s ¿ÚÔáÅx{ ¿ÚæÎéÎàx{ ¿Úæ{ĀÂx{ ¿Úésx{ ¿ÚçúÙsx{ ¿Úúáùx ¿ÚúÙËóùx ‘Indeed, the human tongue is unable to describe the horrors and miracles that happened in the land and in the cities of Palestine, the north and the south and the region up to the Red Sea, as well as those in Cilicia, Iconia, Asia, Bithynia, Lusonia, Galatia, and Cappadocia’ (184:7–13). èÙĀÙsè㏿çÚÔêáó¿æÎãâÚÝËïx¿çÂÏÂÍÂèçЉsËÝ 1‘ À{ăsx¿Ýüþà{èãĀà‰sÀ{xüãĀݍxs‰sËÝ...èÙ{z ¿Úésx{ ¿Úæ{ĀÂx{ ¿Úæ{[úÙsx{ ¿ÙÎéx{] ¿ÚéÎãx{ ¿Úúáùx ¿ÚùËóùx{¿ÚÔáÅx{

     

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‘As for us, while the pestilence was still in Palestine, we were there (…) When the punishment also reached that region and the rest of the territories of Cilicia, Moesia, [Syria, Ic]onia, Bithynia, Asia, Galatia, and Cappadocia…’ (87:5–11).

1.3 Philological and Literary Notes e Chronicler borrows existing material about a sixth-century plague and included it in his account of an eighth-century plague. Sometimes the borrowing is so literal that the variants between the original text and its copy are either misspellings or corrections made by the Chronicler. Moreover, some of the literary themes found in John have been borrowed by the Chronicler not only for his account of the mid-eighth-century plague but also for his accounts of other catastrophes that took place in the Near East. In the present section we will discuss in detail these philological and literary issues. 1.3.1 Lamentation e Chronicler borrows most of the lamentations from John, oen word for word. He even begins his whole account with them, just as John did at the beginning of his long account. Nonetheless, not only does the Chronicler fail to justify their inclusion in his account, but he leaves out John’s warning that in this particular account, his role as writer is in fact that of mourner. erefore, the Chronicler’s account seems to be the result of a cut-and-paste operation rather than of an original literary exercise. 1.2.1 (1-1‘): Both plague accounts open with a series of lamentations, as mentioned above. In his version, the Chronicler has ÎÑþÐ, what looks like a pe‘al perfect, third masculine plural verb, whereas John has ÒþÐ À{z, a continuous past, third masculine singular. Chabot, the editor of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, does not seem to have realized the great dependence of the Chronicler on John; this explains why he was puzzled by the verbal form given by the Chronicler. As a result, he suggested in his edition another reading: {øàss ‘he was (lit. they were) urgently needed’.12 Given the dependence of the Chronicler on John, ÎÑþÐ of the Chronicler seems to be a phonetic spelling of ÒþÐ given by John. e he of À{z is normally silent, and in this case it may have dropped out, as does the silent waw of most of the plural perfect verbs in the Chronicle 12. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 179 n. 2.

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of Zuqnīn. us, perhaps the final waw of ÎÑþÐ should not be taken as the marker of the masculine plural verb in the perfect, but possibly part of the verb À{z, although one would still expect a final olaph. Chabot took the Ûæ{ËÐ13 as a pronominal suffix first singular, and therefore felt compelled to change it into a first plural suffix: èæ{ËÐ ‘they surrounded us’.14 Nevertheless, the pronominal suffix (just the nun) is first person plural, although one should drop the yod: Ûæ{ËÐ for …{ËÐ.15 is is one case among many others in the Chronicle in which final nun is followed by an unnecessary yod. Examples: ÛæÎÚÔã for …ÎÚÔã ‘they reached us’; …{{ ÎÆ Ûæ{{ for …{{ ÎÆ …{{ (as in 255:9) ‘room inside room’.16 ÛæĀáð for …Āáð ‘Ba’altan (toponym)’,17 ÛçÚãüù for èÚãüù ‘Qartamin (toponym)’;18 most probably €[çé]ÎÝ for [èé]ÎÝ;19 and so on. Other words in the Chronicle ending in a consonant may also show this yod. is is the case with €Íàs in€Íàs ¿ćà ‘godless’ (absolute state) for Íàs 20 and €Āݏ for Āݏ ‘(God) abated (his anger)’.21 According to Nöldeke, this yod ‘attached parasitically to words ending in a consonant’ can be found even in very old manuscripts.22 1.2.1 (2-2‘): e first two verbs in John are correctly given: ¿ÞÃæ ¿ćà¾æ{ ‘he (Jeremiah) would have to cry and lament’, the second verb being initial and final weak. e Chronicler reduced these two verbs to one, ¿Þ¾æ, but this verbal form is wrong. Here the olaph is clearly superfluous, although it is also attested elsewhere in the Chronicle with verbs as well as with nouns, where there is no room for etymological considerations. Examples: ÁËý¾æ (for ÁËþæ; see 1.2.3 [6]), ‘he throws’; Áüý¾æ (for Áüþæ)23 ‘eagle’; Áüã¾æ (for Áüäæ)24 ‘leopard’; Îãx¾Â (for ÎãËÂ) ‘like’;25 ÍÙăËо (for ÍÙăËÑÂ) ‘in its suburbs’;26 Á¾Â 13. See also the same form in Chabot, Chronicon II, p. 231:15. 14. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 21 and n. 5. 15. See also the same form in Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 231:15, where one would not expect the yod. 16. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 225:1. 17. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 212:16. 18. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 213:25. 19. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 419:29. 20. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 121:14; 333:11; 381:10; 385:11. e same form is attested elsewhere but as the first part of a bound phrase; see . Nöldeke, Compendious Syriac Grammar, trans. J.A. Crichton (London, 1904), #50 B. 21. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 348:9. 22. . Nöldeke, Compendious Syriac Grammar, #50 B. 23. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 195:3. 24. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 273:19. 25. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 351:25. 26. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 148:23.

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(for ÁüÂ)27 ‘steppe’, and so on. In all of these cases the olaph was used as a mere vowel sign, just as the yod in ¿ÚáÚà (for ¿Úáà) ‘night’ plays the same role.28 John, as is clear in the two versions of his account preserved in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn and in Land,29 called upon Jeremiah to cry over ‘the destruction of not one single city, Jerusalem, or one single Jewish people, but over many cities (and over all nations).’ e words added in parentheses are missing in John, but one would expect them. e Chronicler must have been aware of the missing part, so he added: âï ¿ćàs ? ? ? À¾ÚÆé ÀĀçÙËã âï ‰s{ ¿ćääï …{ÍáÝ ‘but over all nations and many cities’. In 1.2.1 (3-3‘), the plague is compared with a harvester who cuts and throws the crop on the ground. e Chronicler changed the verb Ûãs ‘he threw’ in John30 (aph‘el of ¿ćã) to åٍs ‘he removed’ (literally ‘he lied up’), aph‘el of middle weak „. e reason for this change cannot be determined.31 What is sure is that John’s wording describes well the action of the harvester, who, aer cutting the crop, throws it on the ground to be collected by workers behind him. e verb given by the Chronicler, on the other hand, seems to describe the action of the thresher, who, aer beating the grain, throws the grain into the air to separate the grain from the husk. ? ‘attired ? In 1.2.1 (7-7‘), John32 has the phrase ÀĀÂøã ÀĀááÝ brides’, a feminine plural noun modified by a feminine plural adjective. e Chronicler changed the feminine plural adjective ‘attired’ to a mas? culine plural adjective modifying ‘the quarters of the brides’: ¿æÎçÅ ? ÀĀÂøã ? ÀĀááÝx ‘the adorned quarters of the brides’; but he absentmindedly referred to the ‘quarters’ with a third feminine pronominal suffix in the phrase èÙÍ ‘in them’. One might suggest that the Chronicler had described ‘the quarters of the brides’ because the preceding noun ‘palaces’ is modified by a relative clause. is is unlikely, however, since the Chronicler paraphrases existing texts, including even the Bible (see for example 1.2.3 [4 versus 4‘]), for no apparent reason. 1.2.1 (9-9‘): Chabot was surprised by the form ÀĀÙ¾æ given by the Chronicler. His objection seems to be about the yod in this verbal form, since in his French translation of Part IV of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, he 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 273:20. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 237:8. Land, Anecdota 2, p. 304:16–19. e verb is also found in Land, Anecdota 2, p. 304:21. He may have simply confused them, since they share two of the same radicals. e phrase is found in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn and Land, Anecdota 2, p. 305:10.

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took it for a pe‘al imperfect (jussive), third masculine singular, referring to Jeremiah: À¾æ ‘he should come / let him come’. Nevertheless, ÀĀÙ¾æ ‘he will cause to bring / he will quote’, an aph‘el imperfect (jussive) third masculine singular verb, should not be emended, although one would expect ÀĀÚæ, as seems to be also the case in the version of John published by Land.33 Since ÀĀÙ¾æ is also found in John, in the version of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn,34 the Chronicler may have copied John. Here the unusual ÀĀÙ¾æ did not provoke an objection from Chabot. Note that other misspellings by the Chronicler, also noted by Chabot, occur in the various versions of John. One example is the defective ¿çÔù (for ¿çÓÎù)35 ‘common people’. 1.3.2 Fulfilment of Prophecies In 1.2.2 (1-1‘), the Chronicler adopts from John the idea that biblical prophecies have been fulfilled not only through the plague but also through other catastrophes. Among the latter are wars against the western Roman empire and the total destruction of Antioch by the Persians (540), both of which happened during the lifetime of John. Since these military events took place prior to the time in which the Chronicler was living, this author conveniently replaced them by events of the same character (military, social), which took place during his own lifetime. us the wars in Europe were replaced by the wars among the Arabs (namely ‘Abbasids versus Umayyads), a famine that struck east and west (that is, Mesopotamia and Syria), fugitives as a consequence of the heavy taxes imposed by the Arabs, and so on. 1.3.3. Plague and People 1.2.3 (1-1‘): e burial of the poor is discussed, and here John used a total of six verbs to describe this process, but the Chronicler replaces four of them with the adverb ĀÙ¾ÃÓ ‘appropriately’. e reduction of the number of verbs by the Chronicler makes the borrowed text less redundant than that of John. e Chronicler adopts from John the description of the circumstances in which the poor died before the rich, as a conse33. Land, Anecdota 2, p. 305:20. 34. is verbal form is also found elsewhere in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn; see Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 364:27. 35. As in Land, Anecdota 2, p. 315:5.

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quence of the plague. John believed that there was a divine plan in the fact that the poor were struck first (so that they may be appropriately buried, as they were, by the wealthy), and in the fact that by the time the wealthy were struck, there were no survivors to bury them (so that they rotted in streets, houses, and palaces). In 1.2.3 (2-2‘), John’s account, as found in the of Chronicle Zuqnīn, includes a sentence that is not included in the other versions of the same ? account: ¿çÞêã âï ÀÎÃÚÓ ĀðÅs.36 e Chronicler seems to have reworded the sentence as follows: {z ¿çÆã ...ÀÎçäÐüã ? ¿çÞêã âï. At least one scholar was puzzled and even misled by both sentences, especially the first one. Hespel, who published a French translation of parts three and four of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, hesitantly translated the first sentence (by John) as ‘(ce sont les pauvres ... qui) reçurent la faveur d’être ramassés’,37 although he could not identify ĀðÅs. As for the sentence given by the Chronicler, Hespel38 followed Chabot39 in translating it as ‘(le fléau) s’était abattu (sur les pauvres)’. Hespel’s being puzzled is understandable. ĀðÅs as it stands in John seems to be the aph‘el of ¿ðÅ third feminine singular perfect, the subject being feminine ÀÎÃÚÓ ‘compassion’: ‘(God’s) compassion caused to call / roar / shout (over / upon the poor)’. As is clear, the verb in question does not fit the context of the sentence, unlike the form given by the Chronicler, {z ¿çÆã. is is a continuous past, comprising the aph‘el feminine participle of èÅ ‘to descend, come down, settle over, (and hence) protect’, and the third feminine singular perfect of À{z. e composite tense modifies feminine ÀÎçäÐüã ‘mercy’ and not masculine ¿ÔÃý ‘plague’ as translated by both Chabot and Hespel. It is safe to say that the two verbs in question were originally the same, for the following reasons. First, the Chronicler greatly depends on John to describe the mid-eighth-century plague. ere is little reason for him to replace the original verb by another one. Second, the letters ‘ayn and nun are sometimes confused in Syriac manuscripts; this is especially true when the nun follows the slightly slanting gomal. ird, and perhaps most importantly, èÅ ‘to protect’ is frequently attested in Syriac literature modifying one of the following subjects, in an expression of wish: ÀÎçäÐüã 40 ‘mercy’ (as in 1.2.3 [2]), ÀÎÃÚÓ ‘compassion’ 36. Such as the ones in Land, Anecdota 2, and Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien. 37. Robert Hespel, Chronicon  anonymum Pseudo-Dionysianum vulgo dictum 2 (CSCO 507; Leuven, 1989), p. 71 and note 2. 38. Hespel, Chronicon, p. 142. 39. J.-B. Chabot (trans.), Chronique de Denys de Tell-Maḥre (Paris, 1895), p. 37. 40. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 360.

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(as in 1.2.3 [2‘]), ¿çÚäÙ41 ‘(the Lord’s) hand’, ÀÎà‹ ‘(the Lord’s) prayer’, ¿Ð{ ‘(the holy) Spirit’, and so on.42 Consequently, ĀðÅs of John must be corrected to ĀçÅs. In 1.2.3 (4-4‘), John wrote about old and young people, who were cast away, dead and putrid, in great piles in streets and harbours, as a consequence of the plague. He witnessed in Constantinople the way these victims were collected and brought to the harbour, to be transported in ships far away from the capital. Although most of the passage was ? ‘harbours’ was changed borrowed by the Chronicler, the word ¿æ¾äà ? into ÀĀ ‘houses’. is adaptation is understandable given the fact that the Chronicler probably never travelled beyond the Jazirah (northern Syria), and that in this region there was no harbour. Would literal borrowing of this passage not have raised the brows of the monks in the monastery of Zuqnīn, to whom the Chronicler had dedicated his Chronicle? 1.2.3 (6-6‘) included John’s analogy of the man who keeps throwing stones all the day long, an analogy merely reworded by the chronicler. 1.2.3 (7-7‘): the Chronicler avoided statements made by John in the first person. us the compound form (¿úÂĀã{) ĀÙ{z „¾ù ‘I was standing, (observing...)’ was replaced by a verb in the collective plural ËÝ ÀÏÑæ ‘when we see’. Moreover, the phrase ‘piles of corpses’ (seen at the harbour) was too specific for the Chronicler to simply cut and paste into his account since there is no harbour in the Jazirah. As a result, he not only avoided it, but also replaced it by another much less specific phrase to describe the old people ‘fallen like cedar trees’! Most of this section originally written by John was copied almost lit? ? erally by the Chronicler, except for one word: ÀĀÃýÎÐ (read ÀĀÃþÐ) ‘threnody’ in John (in the version of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn) was changed ? ‘pains’. Nonetheless, since he replaced the feminine plural into ¿þÐ noun with a masculine plural noun, one would expect him to change the ? èúóêæ into a masculine plural verb: …Îúóêæ feminine plural verb €{z [{{z]*. Not only did he fail to adapt the verb to the masculine noun which it modifies, he copied it incompletely (èúóêæ) from John. e same section includes a biblical verse, Psalm 36:6. While John quoted the Peshiṭta Bible, the Chronicler took the freedom of paraphrasing not only the whole passage of John but also the Bible, as he oen did in the rest of the Chronicle. 41. Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 360. 42. For examples and references see R. Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus (Oxford, 1879; reprint Hildesheim–New York, 1981), p. 742.

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1.3.4. Symptom of the Plague According to John in 1.2.4 (1‘), the survivors of the bubonic plague, as well as ‘those who died’ ({ĀÚãx èÚàz) were struck with the swelling of the groins.43 e verb {ĀÚã (pe‘al perfect, third masculine plural) suggests that the dead were also struck with the swelling of the groins. e Chronicler seems to have noted the ambiguity in the text of John. erefore, he changed the verb in the perfect to a continuous past (èÚáÙs {{z èÙĀÚãx ‘those who were dying’). is slight change suggests that those who were in the process of dying were struck, along with the rest of the survivors, with the swelling of the groins. e change makes sense. e description by the Chronicler of the bubonic plague in 1.2.4 (1) seems to have been borrowed from John. First, both descriptions start with a temporal clause: ¿Ýz èã ‘from this point’ (John), ÀüÑ ‘at the end’ (the Chronicler). Second, both texts talk about the swelling of the groins of both ‘those who were dying and those who survived.’ ird, John and the Chronicler both talk about the victims giving up hope in life at a specific stage aer they had been stricken by the deadly plague. According to John, that stage was when three black marks appeared in the palm of the victim. According to the Chronicler it was when the groins of the victim swelled. Most probably the Chronicler le out the detail of the three marks, because he could not verify this phenomenon on victims he may have seen. By overlooking the detail about the marks, the Chronicler was compelled to connect the death of the person with the swelling of his groins. 1.3.5. Regions of the Plague In 1.2.5 (1‘) John listed several countries and Byzantine provinces that suffered the consequences of the sixth-century plague. Most of these toponyms are listed in the various versions of John’s account, including the one in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn. Michael the Syrian44 also includes the list of countries by John, in addition to another list given by PseudoZachariah Rhetor. Strangely enough, the Chronicler includes the whole list of John in his own description of the eighth-century plague. Even more strange is the fact that the Chronicler includes the list while he most probably never travelled beyond northern Syria.45 43. is passage is found in both the Chronicle of Zuqnīn and in Land, Anecdota 2, p. 315:7; it is not available in the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian. 44. Chronique de Michel le Syrien 2, p. 240; 4, pp. 307-308. 45. Witakowski, Syriac Chronicle, pp. 91–92.

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e list given by the Chronicler in 1.2.5 (1) is not without problems. e final eight countries mentioned by John are also listed by the Chronicler, with two exceptions. First, Syria was dropped, perhaps consciously, since the Chronicler mentioned earlier the region extending ‘from the Euphrates to the West’. is is a reference to Syria in the fourth part of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn. Second, John has ¿ÚéÎã, the Byzantine province of Moesia on the Pontus (Black Sea), but the Chronicler replaces it with puzzling LWSWNY’ (¿ÚæÎéÎà). is supposed toponym is not found in any version of John’s account, nor is it included in the long list of countries by Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor. Moreover, lwswny’ does not appear in this or any other form in any Greek, Latin, Syriac or Arabic source. Hespe146 followed Chabot47 in transcribing it as such in their translations of the Chronicle, and in questioning whether or not the toponym was a mistake for ‘Lydie’ (Lydia). Nevertheless, Lydia (spelled normally ¿ÙxÎà [lwdy’] in Syriac sources) is hard to defend. Not only is the confusion of the original dolat with the semkat in ¿ÚæÎéÎà difficult to explain in terms of palaeography, the suffix ¿Úæ in this particular word cannot be justified either. One might suggest that Syriac ¿ÚæÎéÎà stands for ¿ÚæÎùÎà ‘Lucaonia’.48 In terms of palaeography, this suggestion is quite possible; Serto qof is roughly half a large semkat. Moreover, Lucaonia was a Byzantine province located in south east Anatolia; its mention with other Byzantine provinces, such as Cilicia, Iconia, Cappadocia, etcetera, makes good sense. Nonetheless, Syriac ¿ÚæÎéÎà is probably a gross misspelling of ¿ÚéÎã for the following reasons. First and most importantly, the Chronicler borrows the whole list of toponyms from John; it is difficult to justify why he would have to replace one foreign toponym by another one. Second, the Chronicle is full of misspellings, which relate to vocabulary, personal names, and toponyms;49 ¿ÚæÎéÎà could be just one of them. ird, it has been argued with good reason50 that the Chronicler’s knowledge of geography was essentially limited to northern Syria, his native country. He oen referred to lands bordering the Jazirah with vague terms such as ‘the north’, ‘the south’, ‘the east’, and ‘the west’. e name ‘Lucaonia’, which never occurs in his entire Chronicle, may not have meant anything to him. 46. Hespel, Chronicon, p. 140 and n. 24. 47. Chabot, Chronique, p. 36 and n. 1. 48. For the toponym see Land, Anecdota 2, p. 242:13. e reading of Lucaonia was suggested by Dr. L. Wickham, University of Cambridge, at the ird World Syriac Conference, India. 49. See the list of misspellings in Chabot, Chronicon 2, pp. viii–x. 50. Witakowski, Syriac Chronicle, pp. 90–91.

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1.4. Trends of the Chronicler of Zuqnīn’s writing In borrowing material from John of Ephesus, the Chronicler uses the latter’s material in different ways, including paraphrasing, as in 1.2.1:1-1‘ where John’s specific mention of places that suffered the plague was replaced by the vague phrase ‘all sides’. Likewise, in 1.2.1:2–2‘, instead of ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Jewish people’ who also bore the effect of the plague, the Chronicler limits himself to ‘Jerusalem’, which he probably never visited. is same quotation, as well as others (see for instance 1.2.1:3–3‘), highlights another trend in the Chronicler: his mere copying from John – nearly all the quotations of 1.2.3 are copied from John. He also adapts some of the borrowings and this is particularly true in 1.2.2, where warring nations, including the Romans, who waged battles before the midsixth-century plague, were replaced by warring Arabs. Part of the information about the sixth-century plague, such as the timing of the death of the poor and the timing of the death of the wealthy, as well as the contrasting fates of the two social groups aer they had been destroyed by the plague, is more didactic than historical. Because of its didactic nature, the Chronicler applies it to his account of other catastrophes, such as the disease (probably meningitis) that killed many people in Mosul and the rest of the Jazirah in  772/3.51 At least two other anonymous histories included the theme in their histories: Chronicon  1234,52 and the Arabic Chronicle of Seert.53 Since the account of the eighth-century plague includes many literary borrowings, one might wonder if such a plague ever occurred at that time. Despite the heavy borrowings referred to above, the account of the Chronicler included details of a practical nature. Some of these details are: the small number of the priests administering the victims, in contrast to the huge number of these victims; the way the victims were gathered in one place in a city (Amida? Edessa?) to be administered by the priests; and the way the priests divided themselves in order to administer the victims, who were gathered in large groups; and the different kinds of graves in which the dead were buried.54 It is doubtful the Chronicler would have just imagined such a scenario for a basically moralistic account. Because the details are practical in nature, they must be historical as well. 51. Chabot, Chronicon 2, pp. 358–59 (for the disease), pp. 360:23–361:11 (for the theme). 52. Anonymi auctoris Chronicon ad annum Christi 1234 pertinens 1, ed. J.-B. Chabot (CSCO 81; Paris, 1916), pp. 197:25–198:2. 53. Chronique de Séert, ed. and trans. Addai Scher, in PO 7.2, no. 32 (1909; repr. Turnhout, 1983), p. 183 [91]. 54. e Chronicler distinguished between ‘holes’ in which Jews and Muslims buried the dead in contact with earth, and ‘graves’, being burial vaults in which Eastern Christians laid their dead; Chabot, Chronicon 2, p. 183.

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Although the list of countries that suffered the plague is borrowed almost lock, stock and barrel by the Chronicler, he may have done so just to suggest that the plague was widespread. At any rate there is a way to confirm, through other non-Syriac sources, not only that there was a plague during the mid-eighth-century, but also that it was indeed widespread. eophanes,55 a Byzantine historian (†818), dated to Annus Mundi 6238 ( 746–47) a severe plague, which started in Sicily and spread throughout Greece and Byzantium. ere is also evidence provided by the Arab historians al-Ṭabarī56 and al-Azdī57 that the plague spread to the East, at least as far as Baṣrah (modern Baṣrah in Iraq). e first author dates the plague to Hijrah 130 ( 747–48), while the second author assigns it to the following year ( 748–49).

. M  In the latter part of the Zuqnīn Chronicle, one is struck by the consistency of the author in reporting fluctuating market prices at a time of economic crisis caused most probably by the construction of Baghdad and the exploitation of the rich province of the Jazirah. Interestingly, the Edessene Chronicle, which the Zuqnīn Chronicler copies even with statements in the first person, also includes market prices that were prevalent during the Persian-Byzantine wars from which northern Syriac particularly suffered. In the following, market prices reported by the Edessene Chronicle are given first, and then those given by the chronicler of Zuqnīn. e goal of listing these market prices is not to compare between prices in both chronicles, but to highlight the reliance of the Chronicler of Zuqnīn on the practice of reporting prices first evidenced by the Edessene Chronicle. 2.1. Market prices in the Edessene Chronicle58 ? èُ? Lƒ €z{¾Â ¿çÂ| ¿æÍ èÙx {{z èÚçÂxÏã 1 ¿ÔÐ? èÙËã ..܎܎ ÁĄðé{ÁüçÙË 55. eophanes, Chronographia 1, ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig 1883; repr. Hildesheim, 1963), pp. 422–24. 56. al-Ṭabari, Tarīkh al-Rusul wal-Mulūk, ed. Muḥammad Ibrāhīm (Cairo, 1978), vol. 7, p. 401. 57. Yazīd ibn Muḥammad al-Azdī, Tarīkh al-Mawṣil, ed. A. Ḥabībah (Cairo, 1967), p. 118. 58. All the quotations are from J.-B. Chabot (ed.), Incerti Auctoris Chronicon PseudoDionysianum Vulgo Dictum 1 (CSCO 91; Leuven, 1927).

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‘At this time in Edessa, thirty modus-measure of wheat were sold for a denarius as were fiy of barley’ (253:23–24). > („ËäáÝx{ÁÎÃïx¿æüùÎÙÀ{Íäà€üý èA êÚæ}¾ÂzËÑã{) 2 A ? ? ..ÁüçÙË¿ÔÐèÙËã¿ðÂăs{{zèÚçÂxÏã{ ‘Already in the month of Nīsān (April) there was a shortage of corn and of everything else, and four modii of wheat were sold for a denarius’ (264:21– 23). ? èÙËã ? €{z ? èçÂxÏã ? ? ¿ðÂăs ¿çÂ| ¿æÍ ¿ÔÐ ÁüçÙË ¿ÔÐ 3 A ? ? ? ? 59 ? ¿ćã ÎÅx¿Ãù{.èÚãÎæ ¿ćäþäÑ¿ÃùÀøäÐ.ÀĀýÁĄðé{ A ? ? ? ? ? .èÚãÎæèÙĀ ý{À¾ ãĀàĀ ¿Ñ óáÓx¿Ãù{.èÚã ÎæÀ¾ćäðÂă¾Â A .üúÙ¿ćàâÚÝËïèÙxÁüê A ‘Were sold at this time: wheat four modii – barley six – for a denarius; one kab-measure of chickpeas for five hundred nummi; one kab-measure of beans for four hundred nummi; one kab-measure of lentils for three hundred and sixty nummi. Now meat was not yet expensive’ (265:23–27). ? ? ? ? {zè ĄêïĀçãÁĄðé{.ÁüçÙË¿ÃùĄêïĀà ¿Ô Ѐ çÂxÏã{ 4 A ? ? ÀĀáLÆ捏x ÁüÔÚà{ .èÚãÎæ À¾ćä ÁüêÂx ÁüÔÚà{ .èÚÃù ? ? èÚðÂă¾Â ÀĀðÚÂ{ .èÚãÎæ ? À¾ćãĀàĀ ÁxøÐ Ā èã) .èÚãÎæ > èÚÝÎé èáÃù èÙx ¿ćà .¿æüùÎÙ èã èçÙÍÆã âÚÞãx èÙA {z èÙüÃé> ? ¿þäÑà > ¿ćã ßÙs ? ÁüçÙË èÙËã ¿ćãËï ¿ćàs (.èÙ{z èÙüÃéx ? ? ? {zè çÂxÏã .ÀËÐÀĀááïx¿ÔЀ ‘Wheat was sold thirteen kab-measures – barley eighteen kab – for a denarius. A pound of meat cost a hundred nummi, a pound of chicken three hundred nummi, and an egg forty nummi. (Aer the harvest, we hoped that we would be delivered from the famine, but we did not meet our expectations as we hoped;) rather, the wheat of the new harvest was sold up to five modii a denarius’ (270:7–10, 24–27). ? èçÂxÏã ÁüçÙË ¿ÔÐ? èÙËã ¿ðÂăs ¿æz ¿çÂÏ ‰sx âÔã 5 ? ? .ÀĀýÁĄðé{.xÎÑá €A {z ‘Wheat was sold four modii – barley six modii – for one denarius only’ (271:14–16). ? ? ? .Ąê èÂx|s .ÁüçÙË ¿ÙËã ¿ðÂăs €{z èçÂxÏãx ¿ÔÐ 6 ? ? ? .èÙă{èÙüêïèÂx|s.èA ÙËãÀĀý€{zèçÂxÏãxÁĄðé{ ‘Wheat, which used to be sold at four modii a denarius, was sold at twelve; and barley, which used to be sold at six (modii a denarius), was sold at twenty-two’ (272:15–17).

59. Phonetic spelling of À¾ćäþäÐ.

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? ? ñÂăs .ÀĀçý ÁxÍà èÙx ¿ćãËï  èçÂxÏã ÁüçÙË ¿ÔÐ? èÙËã A ? ? ? ÀĀááïèÙxĀÂèã.ÀĀáÚÝèُÁüäÐ{.ÀĀ ýÁĄðé{.€ {z ? > ? ? dÁüêïÁĄðé{ÁüçÙËÂ¿Ô Ðè ÙËãÀĀ ýèÚç Âx|s.ÀËÐ A ‘Up to this year four modii of wheat were sold for a denarius, just as six of barley and two kaylō-measures of wine; aer the new harvest, six modii of wheat or ten modii of barley were sold for a denarius’ (308:18–21).

2.2. Market prices in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn60 > ? ? ¿Úçã¿Ô Ðåùx(¿ćãËï.¿ïs ÍáÞ¿¿çóÝÀ{z{) 1 ? ? .ĀÚà{¿ðÃý‰s{ÁüçÙËÂÀÏÚ óù ‘(A severe famine arose in the whole land to the point that) eight or even seven qefīzē of wheat were sold for a dinar, when it was available at all!’ (178:28–179:1). ? ? ÍÆáò{À|{|ÀĀ àĀÂÀÏÚóùèÙxåù(...¿çóÝ…{ÍÚáïÀ{z{) 2 .À{zĀÚà{ ‘(A great famine occurred), the qefīzō (of grain) went up to three and a half zūz, when it was available at all’ (239:7–9). ? èà|s ? ...ÀĀçý ÁxÍ èÙx ¿ÔÐ3 ? èÙĄêï €{z ? ¿ÃÙĄÅ ¿þäÐ{ ? ? ÁüçÙË ÀĀáÚÝ èÚðÂăs ÁüäÐ .èÙĀàĀà ¿ćãËï ‰s{ ÁüçÙË ? .À{zÀ{Îý„ËäáÝ{ÎÝz.ÿäÐ{èÚðs{ ‘In this year…, twenty-five or even thirty gerībō of wheat were sold for a dīnār, and forty or forty-five kaylō-measures of wine for a dinar; thus everything was of moderate price’ (243:8–12). ? ? èÙĀà ÁüäÐ .ÀÏÚóù ¿ÔÐ? .(À{z „ËäáÝx ÀĀ ÀĀÙÎý) 4 ? ? .ÁĄÔÚà¿ç㏿Ñþã.À|{ÏÂÁËó éèÚðÂăs ‘(e price of everything was moderate:) One zūz for thirty qefīzō of wheat, forty vessels of wine and eight litra of oil’ (252:12–14). ? ĀÙs{ .¿ÃÙĄÅ èÚþäÑ ? ÁüçÙx ¿ÔÑ ? uÍÙ5 ¿æĄÐs .èÙĀþ ? > > ¿ćäÝ À{z ÀÎÑã À|{|x èã âÝ .èÚðÃþ {{z èÚÂĀÝ ¿Â‹x ? ? ? ? èÚðÃþÂ{èÙĀ þ¿æĄÐs.ÀĀá ÚÝèÚþ äÑÂÁüçÙxuÍÙÁüäÑÂ{.Íà ? ? ! ? .ÁüçÙË  ¿ÃÙĄÝ èÙĀà ¿ùÎþ €{z èà|s ¿ÔÐ? .èÚçãĀà ¿ćãËï ? ? èÙĀà{ ¿Âüï.ÎÝzÁüäÐ{.ûáéèÚðÂă¾ćà¿ćãËï{ .¿þäÐ{ ? ? > ¿ðÂă¾Â ÁüäÐ{ .À|{| ¿þäÑ Á{ .À|{Ï ÀÏï .À|{Ï ? .À{zĀÙs„ËãâÝxÀĀÙÎý{.À|{| ‘(e securities) valued fiy and sometimes sixty – seventy for others – gerībō of wheat at a dinar. To the one who bribed them with one zūz, they ascribed whatever amount he wanted! ey valued fiy – sixty, seventy and 60. All the quotations are from Chabot, Chronicon 2.

     

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up to eighty for others – kaylō of wine at a dinar. irty, thirty-five, and up to forty gerībō of wheat were sold in the market for a dinar. Wine was similarly moderate. A sheep was sold for one zūz, a goat for one zūz, an ox for five zūz, and a donkey for four zūz. e price of everything was moderate’ (278:22–279:1). ? ? ËÃï (.…{Íçã ñÃé ¿ćàÎï ¿ćáäï …Îæz A A ¿ćáòs{ ¿ćàs) 6 ? ? üÂÀĀÚæ{sÁă{èÙĀàâÝ{.À|{|¿ðÂăs{èÙĄêï¿æËóà ? Íà > ËÃï ÀĀÚæ{¾ćà Íà{ > u{ èÚðÂă¾ćà{ .üêï㏠À|{| .ÁüÚæ A ? > > ËÝ¿ðÂăs{èÙĄêïÀ|{|ÍàËÃïÀ{ĀàÍà{ .À{Áă{ > ¿ðÂăs ¿ćà{ …{ËÃï ÀĀÙĄÂxx ÁÎÞà{ .¿ùÎþ {z ¿ÃÓ .À|{| ‘(But those wicked agents were unrelenting.) ey charged twenty-four zūz on the acre (faddān) and one yoke-heifer on thirty oxen. ey charged twelve zūz on the heifer and one cow on forty oxen. And on the cow they charged twenty-four zūz – while in the market it was not worth four – and they charged one zūz on the bee-hive’ (300:8–14). ? âïs{ ... .ÀĀçÙËã ? ÀÏï èÙÍáÞ ¿ćàÎï ¿æz ûóæ ¿çÝz{) 7 ? ? > ÍáÝ{ Áă{{ ¿ÂĄï{ èÙă (€zÎçÂ|{ ¿çÞêã ¿þæsx ÁËÃï ? ? ? ? ÁăÎò‹{ .À|{Ï Āà{ èÙă ÀÎúæ{ .À|{Ï ÀĀçÔ ÀÏï ? ? ? .À|{|ÀĀàĀ¿æËòxÁ{{.À|{|èÙăĀÂÁüäÐ.À|{Ï¿þäÐ? ? ? .À|{|¿ðÂă¾Â{À ĀàĀ¿çÔÂx{ÀĀçÚþïÀ{ ‘(And thus this wicked agent went out to all the cities.) He gathered goats, sheep, bulls, and all the properties of the poor people, and sold them: two pregnant she-goats for one zūz, two or three ewes for one zūz, five he-goats for one zūz, one donkey for two zūz, one yoke-ox for three zūz, a strong and pregnant cow for three or four zūz’ (307:15–22). ? ? ? .À|{ÏÂĀà{èُăÀĀ çÔÂÀÏ ï(...¿ïsx¿çÚçùÍáÝèÂx|s) 8 ? ? > ...À|{|ÁĄêð¿ćáÆÂ.À|{ÏÂÁüäÐ.À|{ÏÂÁ{.ÎÝzÀÎ úæ{ ‘(All the cattle of the country were sold…:) two or three pregnant she-goats were sold for one zūz, as were ewes; one ox for one zūz, one donkey for one zūz, and one mule for ten zūz’ (344:23–26).

2.3. The practice of giving market prices e only known chroniclers that consistently provide fluctuating market prices are the Edessene Chronicler and the Chronicler of Zuqnīn, both of which focus on local conditions.61 Since the Chronicler of Zuqnīn copied the entire Edessene Chronicle in his universal history, he may well have gotten the idea of giving market prices from the latter source. is 61. e Chronicle of Zuqnīn is universal, but its author devoted the latter part of it (Part 4) to the history and economy of the Jazīrah exclusively.

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being said, he was careful in giving real (not borrowed) price tags, as is confirmed by the weights and currencies that were in use during the Abbasid period. e following lists compare between technical terms used by both chroniclers with regard to weights and currencies, but while the Chronicler of Zuqnīn covers grain, wine, and animals, the Edessene Chronicler limited himself to grain and wine only: e Edessene Chronicler

e Chronicler of Zuqnīn

liṭrō (weight = Pound)

liṭrō (weight = Pound)

kab / modius (grain measure)

qefīzō / gerībō (grain)

kayltō (wine measure)

kayltō + sfōdō (wine measures)

denarius + nummi (currencies)

dīnār + zūz (currencies) faddān (land)

Terms for weights and currencies in the ancient and medieval Near East were conservative and adoptable as in the case of liṭrā (Latin libra) and denarius. While the dīnār was adopted by the Abbasid Arabs, the liṭrā does not seem to have been, but it could well have continued to be used among the people of northern Syria, an agricultural society above all. Nummi, a fraction of the denarius, ceased to be used during the Arab period, being replaced with the familiar zūz, whose value differed from period to period. We see the zūz appear in a commercial context in Takrit, sometime during the ninth century,62 and probably it had the value of the dirham (Greek drachma) during the time of the Zuqnīn Chronicler. e kab and modius (measure of capacity) were replaced by qefīzō and gerībō, the first being of Greek origin and the second of Persian derivation. Both terms are attested in Arabic sources as qafīz and jarīb, the first being one tenth of the second. Semitic kayltō is attested in both Syriac chronicles, and thus before and aer the Islamic period, highlighting the continuation of its use. Although Arabic knows the term kaylah, this refers to dry measure, unlike the Syriac term which is a liquid measure. As for sfōdō, ‘a plumb container (’esfōdō) with which wine is offered,’ 63 it must be a fraction of the kaylō. Finally, the term faddān is borrowed from Arabic and it refers not only to a yoke or a plow, but also to a unit of land, equivalent to what a yoke of oxen could plow in a day, corresponding to an acre.64 62. A. Harrak, Syriac and Garshuni Inscriptions of Iraq 1 (Recueil des inscriptions syriaques 2; Paris, 2010), pp. 615–19. 63. Payne Smith, Thesaurus syriacus 2, p. 311. 64. A. Harrak, ‘Arabisms in Part IV of the Chronicle of Zuqnīn’, in R. Lavenant (ed.), Symposium Syriacum VII: Uppsala University, Department of Asian and African Languages, 11-14 August 1996 (OCA 256; Rome, 1998), pp. 469–98, on p. 488.

     

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e contrasts between the technical terms used by the Edessene and the Zuqnīn chroniclers highlight the fact that the Chronicler of Zuqnīn reported market prices as they must have been prevalent during the second half of the eighth century, that is, his own time. ere is no question that he learned the practice of reporting prices from the Edessene Chronicle, the only other source exhibiting this practice in Syriac literature as a whole. One may also conjecture that he learned from the Edessene Chronicle to concentrate in the latter part of his universal chronicle on economic and military matters. Why else would he begin his work as a universal history but then switch, in the latter part of his work, to a focus on strictly local events?

C e literary analysis of the eighth-century plague described by the Chronicler of Zuqnīn, which is entirely based on the description of the sixth-century Great Plague reported by John of Ephesus, gives us a sense of how one Syriac chronicler learned from another chronicler to write about history. Our author also noticed the reporting of fluctuating market prices in the sixth century Edessene Chronicle, in the context of hardship due to Sassanian-Byzantine warfare. He followed suit by giving market prices during three years of economic crises in northern Syria due to the foundation of Baghdad. is fabricando fit faber case at the authorship level is unique in Syriac chronography and in fact in the fourteen-century history of Syriac literature, which makes it worthy of discussion at a conference with the theme ‘Beyond the fathers’.

HISTORY WRITING IN THE TIME OF ISLAM’S BEGINNINGS Robert H

For those wishing to investigate Islam’s emergence and evolution it is particularly unfortunate that history writing across the Near East would appear to falter at the crucial moment, just as the Arab conquests begin. e genre of secular classicizing history in Greek, which had had a continuous tradition stretching all the way back to ucydides, finds its last exponent in eophylact of Simocatta, whose narrative ends with the death of Emperor Maurice in  602. Church history in Greek, which was initiated in the early fourth century by the venerable Eusebius of Caesarea, though it had a promising start, found no continuator aer John of Ephesus, who died in 595. In Syriac it did still find a voice, but none that were composed in the seventh and eighth centuries have survived intact and they live on only in excerpts cited by twelh and thirteenth-century authors. Chronicles fared much better, but even here we possess no texts that were written in the period between the composition in the 630s of the Greek Chronicon Paschale and the Syriac chronicle of omas Presbyter on the one side, and the appearance in the 770s of the Syriac Chronicle of 775, the Syriac Chronicle of Zuqnin and the Greek Brief History of Patriarch Nicephorus at the other end.1 e situation might appear to be better when we turn to the Islamic sphere, since the coverage is very full, but the earliest extant chronicle dates only from the 840s, that of Khalifa ibn Khayyat (d. 845),2 and so again there is a surprising absence of texts written during the seventheighth centuries. is has puzzled many outsiders to the field, and one has recently put the matter very bluntly: Over the course of almost two hundred years the Arabs … composed not a single record of their victories, not one, that has survived into the present day. How could this possibly have been so when even on the most barbarous fringes of civilisation … books of history were being written during this same period?3 1. For all these texts and further discussion of the problem see my Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Wrings on Early Islam (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 13; Princeton, 1997), pp. 387–453. 2. Carl Wurtzel, Khalifa ibn Khayyat’s History on the Umayyads (Liverpool, 2015). 3. Tom Holland, In the Shadow of the Sword (Abacus, 2013), p. 39.

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Holland does not mention that we also lack Christian historical texts from the same period, but that does not solve the problem; what we need is a solution that can explain the dearth in both traditions. To put it crudely, we have to assume either that nothing was written or that everything was destroyed. e fact that many extant ninth-century histories relay much information about the seventh and eighth centuries means that the former option is unlikely, though it may well be that material was sparse. In the Byzantine case, the loss of many of their provinces, the waging of almost constant warfare and the enormous financial costs of both phenomena meant that there was little positive news to celebrate and little patronage for would-be historians. In the Islamic case, the fact that most Arab Muslims were soldiers and most non-Arab Muslims were freed prisoners-of-war for the first few decades aer the death of Muhammad meant that a Muslim civilian society, from which history writing might arise, was slow to emerge. We must then assume the second option to be true, that everything was destroyed. I do not mean, though, deliberate and total destruction; rather, seventh- and eighth-century works were subjected to censure and revision. In the light of the momentous changes to political and religious life in the Near East in the seventh and eighth centuries, authors felt a need to rework these earlier accounts, which now seemed out of synchrony with present circumstances and values. We get an explicit indication of this from Ibn Hisham (d. 832), who, faced with the wide-ranging biography of the prophet Muhammad written by Ibn Ishaq (d. 767) some decades earlier, decides that he will omit ‘what does not pertain directly to the messenger of God and what does not find a place in the Qur’an and what I have seen none of the scholars recount’.4 is means that extant works from the seventh and eighth centuries do not survive in their original form, and the material that is quoted from them by later historians is likely to have been heavily redacted. Is it at least possible, though, to identify who was writing in these times and recover the substance of what they wrote? ough it is difficult to be certain, we do receive some tantalizing hints. W W W The Christian Tradition Very occasionally a chronicler may himself give us a hint about his aims and activities, as, for example, does George Syncellus, who in 4. Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-nabawiyya (Dar Ibn Hazm; Beirut, 2009), p. 8.

      ’ 

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his youth lived as a monk in the region of Jerusalem before going to Constantinople to become personal assistant to the patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople (784–806). At the end of his life he set his mind to composing a world chronicle, which in the end he did not live to complete, but he explains his original intention in his introduction: From them [‘divinely inspired scriptures and the more illustrious historians’], I have extracted the greater part of this work, with the exception of a few things that have taken place in our own times. And I shall endeavour to make a kind of synopsis, always alert to combining continuity with accuracy, and maintaining correspondence in the sequence of events: I mean about the various kings and the numbering of priests, as well as prophets and apostles, martyrs and teachers…, culling everything from the aforementioned historians, to the extent that I am able. And finally, I shall treat the covenant, abominable to God, that has been made against Christ and our nation both by ‘the tents of the Idumaeans and by the Ishamaelites’ (Psalm 82:6), who hound the people of the Spirit and by the judgement of God also practise the apostasy that was prophesied by the blessed Paul for the end of days (2 ess. 2:3). ese things I shall describe to the best of my ability up to the current year, the 6300th from the creation of the universe, the first year of the indiction (808).5

More commonly we have to rely on later compilers to give us information about their sources for seventh- and eighth-century history. For example, Michael the Syrian, a twelh-century patriarch of the West Syrian Church, helpfully tells us that for the period up to  1021 ( 709) he relied heavily on the chronicle of Jacob, bishop of Edessa (684–88). In fact, says Michael, ‘the whole of Jacob’s chronicle pertinent to this subject is utilized here, for he methodically reported in his book the calculations of the years elapsed since Adam, that is, since the creation of the world’. ereaer, continues Michael, ‘we have found no one who undertook these tabulations and computations of years, which show very clearly the passage of time’.6 What Michael means here is that the Eusebian style of chronology, setting out the events pertaining to different kingdoms in parallel columns, was not taken up by anyone aer Jacob, and so this particular method of marking time died out at this point. 5. For this quotation and discussion of George see W. Treadgold, ‘e Life and Wider Significance of George Syncellus’, in M. Jankowiak and F. Montinaro (eds.), Studies in Theophanes (T&MByz 19; Paris, 2015), pp. 9–30. 6. Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, ed. J.-B. Chabot (Paris, 1899–1924), pp. 450, 482–83. Michael notes that though Jacob is said to have died in  1019 (707/708), the text of the chronicle he is using goes up to 1021, which he accounts for by assuming the intervention of a disciple of Jacob or an error in the reporting of Jacob’s death.

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The Islamic Tradition In the sphere of Muslim historiography we would appear to be particularly fortunate, for whereas Christian historians only rarely divulge their sources, many Muslim historians give a full list (isnad) of the authorities allegedly responsible for transmitting their material to them. Some Islamicists will accept these isnads without question, which permits them to present a lively picture of numerous seventh- and eighth-century Muslim scholars busily seeking out historical reports and carefully recording them in books.7 Since no such texts survive, however, Islamicists of a skeptical bent either refuse to accept the validity of these isnads or take the view that, even if valid, they do not help us, since by the time it reaches its final form in extant ninth-century books the material has been substantially transformed in the course of its transmission.8 It is possible, however, that the lists of authorities, even if the individual names in them cannot be linked to specific texts, may be able to provide us with useful information. For example, a recent study of the extant ninth-century book entitled ‘e Conquests of Syria’ (Futuh al-Sham) composed by al-Azdi reveals that it has twenty-one informants in common with the work of the same title by the scholar Abu Mikhnaf (d. 774), which, though it does not survive, was much quoted by later chroniclers.9 e conclusion drawn from this by the author of the study is that al-Azdi is reliant upon Abu Mikhnaf’s text. ere are other possible scenarios, but it is certainly evident that the two works are very closely related. It has also been suggested that we can use these lists to tell us more about the social and political background of those engaged in writing history. For example, a study by Edward Coghill of the informants cited in the Egyptian history of Abu ‘Amr al-Kindi notes that twenty-three of the thirty-nine Egyptian scholars mentioned are freedmen (mawlas, prisoners-of-war who were subsequently manumitted and converted to Islam). Of these twenty-three freedmen scholars, twelve, over half, are said to be affiliated to Quraysh, and five of these belonged to the ruling Umayyad clan. erefore it appears that among those involved in transmitting historical knowledge about early Islamic Egypt freedman status was the norm and that Quraysh surpassed the other tribes in terms of 7. For example A.A. Duri, The Rise of Historical Writing among the Arabs, trans. Lawrence Conrad (Princeton, 1983); Amikam Elad, ‘e Beginnings of Historical Writing by the Arabs: e Earliest Syrian Writers on the Arab Conquests’, JSAI 28 (2003), pp. 65– 152. 8. Still the best presentation of the skeptical view is to be found in Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 3–17. 9. Suleiman Mourad, ‘On Early Islamic Historiography: Abu Isma‘il al-Azdi and his Futuh al-Sham’, JAOS 120 (2000), pp. 577–93.

      ’ 

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patronage of freedmen scholars. e disproportionate extent of patronage by Quraysh is crucial to understanding how this elite Meccan tribe maintained their status in the very different circumstances of the early Islamic caliphate. is can be seen in the accounts of the first Arab civil war in Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam and al-Kindi. All the freedmen of the first two generations of transmitters are freedmen of Quraysh, and it seems reasonable to suppose that their clientage to Quraysh allowed them access to this elite, which could provide them with sources of direct, albeit biased, historical information. Appointments also point toward close contacts between these scholars and the ruling class. For example, the freedman Yazid ibn Abi Habib was appointed a judge of Egypt by the caliph ‘Umar II, and he directly passed on his historical knowledge to Ibn Lahi‘a, a judge of Egypt for the caliph al-Mansur, and Layth ibn Sa‘d, who served as head of the financial administration for al-Mansur. us the history recorded in Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam and al-Kindi’s works appears to be history written by the senior religio-legal figures in the late Umayyad and early Abbasid establishment, whose status was bound up with official and institutional recognition.10

W T W If we want, however, to get a sense of what was written in the seventh and eighth centuries and not just who was writing, then we need to do some detective work. e most tried and trusted method is to look for material that is cited by multiple writers, since this is a reasonable indication of dependence upon an earlier source. The Christian Tradition For the history of the seventh and eighth-century Near East the most discussed common source is the one used by the chroniclers eophanes the Confessor (d. 817), Dionysius of Tel-Mahre (d. 845) and Agapius of Menbij (wr. 940s). Its existence was inferred more than two centuries ago from the large number of events that are recorded in similar manner and in similar order by all three writers across the period 630–750.11 Certain 10. is paragraph draws on the findings of my doctoral student Edward Coghill in his M.A. thesis: Qurashi Clientage and Egyptian Historical Knowledge: A First Look at the Affiliations of a Local Egyptian Historiography (Chicago, 2014). 11. Much has been written on this putative source; most recently see the articles by myself, Marek Jankowiak, Muriel Debié and Maria Conterno in Jankowiak and Montinaro, Studies in Theophanes.

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of these events, particularly those treating warfare and diplomacy between the Arab and Byzantine rulers, are recounted in considerable detail, with a strong narrative style and a distinctively pro-Byzantine slant. A few describe victories for the Byzantines: their triumph in the naval battle of Phoenix in 654/55 off the coast of southwest Anatolia, the thwarting of a revolt by the general Shabur against Emperor Constans, the stalling of an Arab naval advance on Constantinople circa 670, the successful launch of incursions by guerrillas in the mountains of Lebanon circa 680, and Leo III’s breaking of the Arab siege of Constantinople in 717–18, which would appear to conclude this set of narratives. Other reports concern Byzantine defeats, but even here a pro-Byzantine note is struck: there is the heroic figure of the patrician Sergius, who sought to defend Palestine against the Arabs in 634 and who, having fallen off his horse, brushes aside offers of help from his soldiers, selflessly advising them rather to run and save themselves from the pursuing Arabs. en there is the loyal chamberlain Andrew who courageously stands his ground against the caliph Mu‘awiya and lectures him on noble conduct. By contrast, Arab victories are oen explained away by recourse to adverse conditions (for example wind and sand at the battle of Yarmuk) or the deceitful cunning of the Arabs, and Arab leaders are oen portrayed in a negative light; thus Mu‘awiya is depicted as greedy and base in his decision to support the rebel Shabur instead of Andrew the Chamberlain, and he is said to have been frightened at the news of the Mardaite incursions.12 e original language of these accounts is uncertain. Greek or Syriac are the obvious contenders, but the language is so simple and unadorned that, even when we can discern direct correspondence in wording in the citations of the later chroniclers, making a firm judgment between the two is difficult. A good example occurs in the encounter between the Arabs and Manuel, the new commander-in-chief of Egypt, who refuses to hand over to respect the tribute agreement that the patriarch Cyrus had arranged:13 Theophanes: At the end of the year the Saracen tribute collectors came to receive the gold (πληρωθέντος τοῦ χρόνου οἱ τῶν Σαρακηνῶν πράκτορες παρεγένοντο λαβεῖν τὸ χρυσίον), but Manuel drove them away saying that ‘I am not unarmed like Cyrus that I should pay you tribute. Nay, I am armed’.

12. For references and further discussion see my Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle and the Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (Liverpool, 2011), pp. 23–29. 13. Hoyland, Theophilus, pp. 109–13.

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Dionysius: When a year had passed, the emissaries of the Arabs came to ? Egypt as usual to receive the gold (ÁËÅÏÙs {s ÀĀçý Āäáý ËÝ ? ¿ÂzËà…ÎÃêæx...¿ÚÚÓx) and they found Manuel encamped at Fustat. He replied to them: ‘I am not Cyrus, who used to give you gold. He did not wear armour, but a woollen tunic, whereas I wear armour’.

Possibly the original language was Greek, and this collection of secular narratives on Arab-Byzantine encounters in the seventh century was then translated into Syriac by eophilus of Edessa (d. 785), court astrologer in Baghdad, and incorporated into his broader history of the Near East up until the coming to power of his patrons, the Abbasids. However, this remains speculative. What is clear, though, is that this text had an enormous reach, circulating far and wide around the Middle East, crossing confessional boundaries as it went. For example, it appears in East Syrian/Nestorian circles in north Mesopotamia:14 Theophanes: Oumaros started to build the temple at Jerusalem, but the structure would not stand and kept falling down. When he enquired aer the cause of this, the Jews said: ‘If you do not remove the cross that is above the church on the Mount of Olives, the structure will not stand’. On this account the cross was removed from there and thus their building was consolidated. For this reason Christ’s enemies took down many crosses. Chronicle of Seert: ‘Umar ordered that there be built in Jerusalem a mosque on the place of the tomb of Solomon… When they had built what ‘Umar ordered, it fell down. ey did it again, but when they had built it a second time, it fell down again. e Jews were asked about the reason for it and they said that if the cross placed on top of the Mount of Olives, opposite Syria, was not removed, then the building would not stay up. e Christians were asked to remove it; they obligingly took it down and the building stabilised.

The Muslim Tradition On the face of it one might think that Muslim histories provide ample scope for recovering earlier lost sources. Firstly, Muslim historians frequently name their informants, so one could – and some Islamicists do – simply collect all the quotations of a particular author and publish them as a distinct text of that author.15 Secondly, Muslim historians narrate 14. Hoyland, Theophilus, pp. 126–27. 15. is is a very common practice of Middle East scholars. An example by a Western scholar is Gordon Newby’s attempt to recover the first part of Ibn Ishaq’s Life of Muhammad (The Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earliest Biography of Muhammad [Columbia SC, 1989]); see the review by Lawrence Conrad in JAOS 113 (1993), pp. 258– 63.

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many of the events of early Islamic history in very similar ways with very similar phrasing, and one might think that by comparing all the different versions of an event one should be able to get back to the original or at least to an earlier version. However, matters are not quite so simple. In particular, the compilers of histories, though they oen gave the impression that they were faithfully citing their sources, evidently felt free to refashion them and to combine them without acknowledging this activity. Modern scholars have demonstrated this time and time again, and I will present here just one example, taken from the classic study of Stefan Leder on the downfall of Khalid al-Qasri, who was governor of Iraq and the eastern provinces under the caliph Hisham for more than a decade (724–37).16 An ‘Account of the Killing of Khalid al-Qasri’ was composed by al-Haytham ibn ‘Adi (d. 207/822), and this survives in fragments excerpted by later writers. Two episodes present Khalid in conversation first with ‘Uryan ibn Haytham and then with Bilal ibn Abi Burda, two of his close subordinates. e essential plot in both consists in the subordinates’ vain attempt to warn Khalid of the ‘evil intentions’ of the caliph’s tribe of Quraysh. Both conclude with a prediction. ‘Uryan remarks: ‘It is as if he were already dismissed, everything taken from him, and accused of what he did not do, and having nothing at his disposal – and so it came to pass’; and Bilal says: ‘It is as if with this man (Khalid’s successor) there were sent a man unkind, of odious character, deficient in piety and shame, who set upon him with malice and vindictiveness – and so it came to pass.’ Both episodes depict the historical situation in very general terms, the operative factors in it being the envy of Quraysh and the caliph’s power to dispose. e main focus is rather on the character of Khalid, stubborn and proud, maintaining until the end: ‘Never shall I give in out of meekness/compulsion.’ Haytham remains withdrawn from the narrative, so lending it an aura of objectivity. He provides isnads which go back to ‘Uryan and Bilal, and presents these two as telling their own story in their own words, he himself being no more than a copyist. It is nevertheless clear that there is a single narrator who, though apparently distant from the world of the characters, is very much in charge. e concluding prediction, for example, is retrospective, and so can only be the work of someone acquainted with the outcome, and its function is evidently to connect the present incident to future events. It also contains an interpretation of the dialogue, drawing our attention to the meaning and consequences of Khalid’s 16. Stefan Leder, ‘Features of the Novel in Early Historiography: e Downfall of Xalid al-Qasri’, Oriens 32 (1990), pp. 72–96.

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attitude. For when coupled with the comment, which appears in both episodes, that Khalid owed all his present wealth and high rank to the caliph, it is hinted that, by his refusal to comply, Khalid is at least partly responsible for his own fall from grace. Haytham’s account was taken up and reworked by subsequent transmitters. at these ‘transmitters’ did indeed actively rework it is immediately evident from a comparison of the versions in the histories of Tabari (d. 314/923) and Baladhuri (d. 279/892). e latter’s is much shorter, but this is not just the result of abridgement. In the ‘Uryan episode, for example, the dialogue is very simple in Baladhuri’s version. ‘Uryan openly speaks his mind, and Khalid interjects only twice: once to say that he does not suspect ‘Uryan of malice, nor anticipate any danger, and a second time to aver that he will never humiliate himself by making concessions. In Tabari’s rendering, however, the format is much more complex. e two men are made to have much more of a conversation, with Khalid responding five times to the advice proffered by ‘Uryan. is means that, though we know the outlines of al-Haytham ibn ‘Adi’s account, we cannot be sure of its details. Was it closer to the version of Baladhuri or of Tabari or have both of these later writers developed it in substantially different directions? The Christian and the Muslim Tradition We have so far dealt with the Christian and Muslim traditions of history writing separately, but they were in fact not sealed off from each other, and there is quite a lot of material that circulates across the two traditions in the seventh and eighth centuries. It is oen not clear by what means material crossed geographical and confessional boundaries, but that it did so is abundantly clear. Since this phenomenon has not been much remarked upon, it is worth giving a few examples here. My first instance of shared material comes from the Sasanian Persian Empire. Sadly we have no extant historical narratives emanating directly from this realm, and for the purposes of this paper I shall accept the widespread assumption that there was an official Persian historical tradition and that it was taken up and further developed by Muslim historians (such as Tabari, cited here):17 Chronicle of Khuzistan (circa 660): e Persians entered it (Jerusalem), seizing the bishop and the city officials, torturing them for (information on) the wood of the Cross and the contents of the treasury… ey revealed to them the wood of the Cross, which lay hidden in a vegetable garden. 17. References given in Hoyland, Seeing Islam, p. 42.

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.  Tabari (d. 923): e Persians came to Jerusalem and seized its bishop, the clergy in it and the rest of the Christians for (information on) the wood of the Cross, which had been put in a golden casket and buried in a garden with vegetables planted over it.

e presence of material ultimately of Christian origin in Tabari’s account reflects the increased influence of Christians in the Persian realm during the reigns of Hormizd IV (579–90) and Khusrau II (591–628). e latter was particularly important, for not only was he married to a Christian, Shirin, but was for a time, by virtue of his conquest of Egypt and the Levant, the ruler of many Christians. And in the eleventh century Chronicle of Seert, which is an Eastern Christian compilation in Arabic of earlier histories, most of which were originally composed in Syriac, we can observe a marked change in focus with the reign of Hormizd IV: much more material on the politics of the Persian emperor’s court and his relationship with a range of Christian elites, both lay and ecclesiastical. e entry on Hormizd IV in the Chronicle of Seert begins with a note taken, it says, from the “royal annals” (akhbār al-mulūk), implying that the narrative in this section, with its international scope and concern for the relationship between the church and its leadership, was seen as bound up with official Persian history (as recorded in the putative ‘Book of Lords’, Xwadāy-Nāmag). A similar argument could be made for the Syriac Khuzistan Chronicle, cited above, which also begins with the reign of Hormizd IV and continues to focus on the Sasanian realm up to its collapse in 652. ere are reasons to think that Christian history writing contributed much to Persian historiography at this time. In particular, the portrayal of Persian kingship gets a Christian makeover in the Persian/Islamic narratives as well as in the Christian ones. For example, a speech attributed to Hormizd IV has him reprimand some Zoroastrian priests who had urged him to persecute the Christians, counselling them to bolster Zoroastrianism by the practice of virtue rather than by the exercise of coercion. He reminds them, in a passage frequently cited, that the religions of the empire are like the legs of the royal throne: they are crucial to the maintenance of equilibrium and balance.18 e image presented here is not of a Christian emperor, but of an emperor who is the defender of religious pluralism against wily Zoroastrian advisers seeking to establish 18. Most recently see Scott McDonough, ‘e Legs of the rone: Kings, Elites and Subjects in Sasanian Iran’, in J.P. Arnason and K.A. Raaflaub (eds.), The Roman Empire in Context (Chichester–Malden MA, 2011), p. 308; M. Stausberg, ‘From Power to Powerlessness: Zoroastrianism in Iranian History’, in A.N. Longva and A.S. Roald (eds.), Religious Minorities in the Middle East (Leiden, 2012), p. 175.

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a religious monopoly. is may or may not reflect Hormizd’s actual thinking, but what is important is that it reveals to us how Christians living under Persian rule envisaged their relationship with the imperial office and their strategy for tackling their Zoroastrian opponents, portraying them as inimical to the stability of the empire in contrast to the Christians, who were loyal subjects of the emperor with a keen interest in the success and continuity of his rule. In Tabari’s account, this positive image of Hormizd is augmented by his portrayal as defender of the downtrodden. For instance, aer the court scene with the Zoroastrian priests, Tabari narrates how the emperor rebuked the future Khusrau II when he tramples the crops of a farmer, ordering that the prince’s horse’s tale be docked in punishment.19 As a second example, I would like to draw attention to a degree of similarity in the portrayal of a number of different aspects of Umayyad history in Syria. It is oen not so close that one can argue for direct copying from one source to another, but the same basic ingredients are present in much the same order so that one suspects at least some indirect linkage. e account of the Mardaite raids in northern Syria, for instance, follow much the same format in both the Eastern source (see above) and Baladhuri: the Mardaites set off from the Byzantine capital, ascend Mount Lebanon and capture territory from the Black Mountain southwards, joined by prisoners-of-war and natives:20 Agapius [Theophanes]: e Romans boarded ships and set off in them on the sea until they came to the coast of Tyre and Sidon. en they disembarked and seized Mount Lebanon and took refuge in it. People called them Jarajima. Having seized Mount Lebanon they spread from the Mountain of Galilee to the Black Mountain [e Mardaites entered Mount Lebanon and made themselves masters from the Black Mountain as far as the holy city and captured the peaks of Lebanon. Many slaves, captives and natives took refuge with them so that in a short time they grew to many thousands]. Ibn ‘Asakir [Baladhuri]: e Byzantine Emperor sent Plqt the patrician at the head of a group of Byzantines by sea; he led them until they anchored at Wajh al-Hajar. He advanced with his men until he had ascended Mount Lebanon and dispersed his commanders throughout the mountain range until they reached Antioch and other places by the Black Mountain. [A large number of the Jarajima, the anbāṭ (native Aramaeans) and the runaway 19. In these two paragraphs I draw freely from Philip Wood, ‘e Christian Reception of the Xwadāy-Nāmag: Hormizd IV, Khusrau II and eir Successors’, JRAS 26 (2016), pp. 407–22; I am grateful to Philip for allowing me to see an advance copy of this insightful article. 20. Hoyland, Theophilus, pp. 169–70 (Agapius and eophanes); Ibn ‘Asakir, Ta’rīkh, ed. ‘A. Shibri (Beirut, 1995–98), XX, p. 145; Baladhuri, Ansāb al-Ashrāf VI, ed. K. Athamina (Jerusalem, 1993), p. 141.

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.  slaves of the Muslims followed them.] e Jarajima captured all the mountains of Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon (Snir), Mount Hermon and the mountains of the Golan.

e best illustration of this phenomenon is provided by the siege of Constantinople. e accounts of this event in a number of Muslim and Christian texts have many of the same themes: Maslama contacting Leo, Leo deceiving Maslama with promises of aid, the role of the Bulgars in harrying the Muslims, extreme deprivation suffered by the Muslim troops, the attempt of Maslama to hide the accession of ‘Umar II and the latter’s calling off of the siege, and ‘Umar’s measures to help Muslim troops get home. Occasionally we encounter passages where the wording is close enough to claim a common source, even if via an indirect route:21 Dionysius of Tel-Mahre (d. 845): King ‘Umar sent reinforcements to support those who were returning by land with more than 20,000 mules and some horses, for all the Arabs were without mounts when they le because all their livestock had perished of starvation… He also sent instructions throughout his empire that everyone who had a brother or other relative in the army under Maslama’s command should go out to escort him home, taking provisions for the journey. Ibn Khayyat (d. 854): In this year (99/717–18) ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz had food and mounts brought to Maslama ibn ‘Abd al-Malik in the lands of the Byzantines. He ordered that everyone who had relatives there go to them, and he also sent troops with them to relieve the people. en he gave them permission to return.

Very likely underlying all this shared material is a contemporary account of the Arab siege of Constantinople that was composed in Syria and circulated widely.

C e answer to the question that I posed at the beginning of this paper is yes, history was still being written in the seventh and eighth centuries, but it has largely not survived because, besides the unfavourable sociopolitical conditions, ninth century authors, living in a very different world, felt the need to revise these earlier works. Another point that I would like to make is that no clear confessional divides exist among historians or among audiences. Writers and readers seem willing to turn to works of those belonging to a different religious or ethnic community to themselves. 21. Hoyland, Theophilus, p. 215 (Dionysius of Tel-Mahre); Wurtzel, Khalifa ibn Khayyat, p. 196.

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ey may perhaps have had an esprit de corps of their own – thus the elite freedmen of Egypt seem a tight-knit bunch, but this is oen not the simple sectarian, ethnic and class ties that modern historians frequently ascribe to them. For example, modern scholarship has oen attributed group solidarity to all freedmen vis-à-vis the Arab rulers, but one cannot imagine the likes of Layth ibn Sa‘d and Yazid ibn Abi Habib preferring the company of peasant converts from Upper Egypt to the circles of the Arab governors and caliphs.

THE SACK OF ROME 410 CE IN THE CONSTANTINOPOLITAN CHURCH HISTORIES OF THE FIFTH CENTURY Yonatan L1

While writing under the duteous title of Historia ecclesiastica, and claiming to continue the grand historiography of Eusebius Pamphilus, the fih-century Constantinopolitan historians Philostorgius, Socrates Scholasticus, and Sozomen were in truth breaking new ground.2 eir Histories undermine crucial aspects of Eusebius’ plan for Christian historiography, and offer a unique vantage point on events. Unlike Eusebius, they operated independently of Church institutions, hence showing greater daring in their path along the borders between Church and state, and between Christian and Classical literature. Indeed, in Socrates one even finds explicit criticism of Eusebius’ approach to history, and a similar strain may also appear in Sozomen.3 1. is research was supported in part by the Israel Science Foundation (#16213), and by the Einstein Center Chronoi in Berlin. Parts of this paper were presented in a workshop of the East and West in the Early Middle Ages research project, headed by Profs. Stefan Esders and Yitzhak Hen, and funded by the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF). I wish to thank the organizers and participants of the workshop for their helpful comments and suggestions. I also wish to thank Prof. Evangelos Chrysos for his invaluable and kind review of an earlier version of this paper. Lastly, I wish to thank Prof. Oded Irshai for his long-standing support and guidance. 2. ‘Constantinopolitan’, for although both Philostorgius and Sozomen were provincial migrants to the city, like Socrates they most probably compiled their works while residing there, and were addressing mainly a Constantinopolitan readership. Sources regarding the biographies of the three historians amount almost solely to their own respective works, and are discussed with further bibliography, for example in: Peter Van Nuffelen, Un héritage de paix et de piété: étude sur les histoires ecclésiastiques de Socrate et de Sozomène (Leuven, 2004), pp. 1–10 [Socrates], 46–59 [Sozomen]; Gabriele Marasco, ‘e Church Historians (II): Philostorgius and Gelasius of Cyzicus’, in Gabriele Marasco (ed.), Greek and Roman Historiography in Late Antiquity: Fourth to Sixth Century A.D. (Leiden, 2003), pp. 258–59. e Church History of their near-contemporary, eodoret of Cyrus, differs substantially from this corpus, as I intend to demonstrate elsewhere. It is generally more loyal to the Eusebian historiographic approach, and, for our current concerns, gives less information regarding imperial and military affairs, and makes no mention of the sack of Rome. 3. Socrates directly criticizes Eusebius’ historical account of the emperor Constantine and his glossing over the events of the Nicaean council, for example in Socrates Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica, 1.1.1–3, and 1.10.5, ed. Günther Christian Hansen, Sokrates:

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In time, this corpus came to reform Church historiography along perceived higher standards of writing and historical crasmanship, and eventually undercut the Christian histories written during the century between Eusebius and their own days. eir works surpassed some writings, now lost, such as those of Gelasius of Caesarea, Philip of Side, and the ‘Arian historian,’ and to a degree also weakened the status of Rufinus’ Latin continuation of Eusebius. While Rufinus’ account of the fourth century was probably translated to Greek early on, it eventually lost its place among the historiographic canon of the East.4 us, for the sixth-century Antiochene Church historian Evagrius Scholasticus, it seemed but natural to open his work with the Nestorian controversy, where the fih-century Constantinopolitan Histories le off.5 While this choice of timeframe was further fueled by Evagrius’ doctrinal interest in the council of Ephesus (431 CE), this motivation should not lead us to dismiss his declared goal: to compile a concluding volume to the already canonized Church Histories of Eusebius and his synoptic continuators. ese works are depicted by him in the prologue of his History as a unified and continuous narrative of Church history, to which he wishes to contribute another volume.6 Kirchengeschichte (Griechischen Christlichen Schristeller NF 1; Berlin, 1995), pp. 1, 41. Sozomen writes against earlier, partisan, records of church affairs. While he does not specify to which works he is referring, it is at least possible that he too had in mind Eusebius’ Church History and Life of Constantine (Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica, 1.1.15–17, ed. Joseph Bidez and Günther Christian Hansen, Sozomenus: Kirchengeschichte [Griechischen Christlichen Schristeller 50; Berlin, 1960], pp. 9–10). at Sozomen emends some of Eusebius’ oversimplifications of legal matters indicates that he approached Eusebius’ work with critical awareness; see Jill Harries, ‘Sozomen and Eusebius: e Lawyer as Church Historian in the Fih Century’, in Christopher Holdswoth and T.P. Wiseman (eds.), The Inheritance of Historiography, 350–900 (Exeter Studies in History 12; Exeter, 1986), pp. 47–49. 4. ere is no surviving ancient Greek translation of Rufinus’ books 10 and 11. However, two remarks in Photius’ Bibliotheca (88 and 89) seem to attest the existence of such a translation, notwithstanding the general confusion the Patriarch shows regarding the chain of editions. is information was thoroughly discussed in the now century-old debate regarding the interdependence of the works of Gelasius of Ceasarea, and of Rufinus. e debate has yielded a scholarly consensus as to the availability of a Greek translation of Rufinus’ books already in the fih century. Reviews of the issue appear in Philip R. Amidon (ed.), The Church History of Rufinus of Aquileia, Books 10 and 11 (Oxford, 1997), pp. XXIII–XXVII; Peter Van Deun, ‘e Church Historians aer Eusebius’, in Marasco (ed.), Greek and Roman Historiography, pp. 156–58. 5. Sozomen’s History did not survive intact and breaks off in the year 425 CE. According to the author’s dedication of the work, it was intended to (and probably did) continue until the year 439 CE (Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica, dedicatio.19, ed. Bidez–Hansen, p. 4). 6. Εὐσεβίῳ τε οὖν τῷ Παμφίλου, Σωζομενῷ τε καὶ Θεοδωρήτῳ καὶ Σωκράτει ἄριστα πάντων πεπόνηται ἥ τε εἰς ἡμᾶς ἄφιξις τοῦ φιλανθρώπου θεοῦ, ἥ τε εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἀνάβασις, ὅσα τε τοῖς θεσπεσίοις ἀποστόλοις ἀτὰρ καὶ μάρτυσι διαθλεύουσι κατώρθωτο, ἢ εἴ τι καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις, ἀξιόλογον ἡμῖν ἢ καὶ τηνάλλως ἔχον, πέπρακται, μέχρι τινὸς τῆς Θεοδοσίου

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e novelty of the corpus compiled by the fih-century Constantinopolitan historians is most clearly realized in their classicizing impetus – their Atticizing Greek, the philosophical, ethnological, and geographical digressions running through their narratives, and, finally, their attempt to address political events and embed them in their ecclesiastical histories.7 To this last aspect of their works, their interest in imperial political affairs, I wish to devote the following paper, demonstrating their approach through a discussion of their portrayal of Alaric’s career and final sack of Rome (410 CE). In the context of this current volume, I seek thereby to depict the journey of fih-century Christians in the realm of historiography, and at the same time mark the historical backdrop of contemporary Constantinople as significant in the overall transformation of Christian literature in the period. e decision to concentrate on the career of Alaric emerges from the fact of its appearance in all three Histories, as opposed to some other episodes that were not addressed by all three historians, or that did not enjoy the good fortune to be included in the surviving excerpts and epitome of Philostorgius’ work. More importantly, the focus on the description of Alaric’s sack of Rome allows a glimpse at some of the unique aspects of the Constantinopolitan Histories of the fih century. In their record of this specific event, they do not merely head in new literary directions, but also demonstrate remarkable liberty in approaching previous Christian argumentation. In this, they show a strong commitment to charge their histories with contemporary relevance, tackling not the questions of the past but the challenges confronting their readers in the immediate present. βασιλείας (‘Eusebius son of Pamphilus, Sozomen, eodoret, and Socrates have elaborated better than everyone else the arrival amongst us of the benevolent God, the ascent to heaven, all the accomplishments both of the venerable apostles as well as of the martyrs who contended to the end, or anything else indeed done by others which for us is praiseworthy, or indeed otherwise, up to a point in the reign of eodosius’) (Evagrius Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica, 1.intr., ed. Joseph Bidez and Leon Parmentier, The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius [Byzantine Texts; London, 1898], p. 5, trans. Michael Whitby, The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus [Translated Texts for Historians 33; Liverpool, 2000], p. 4). 7. For these authors’ part in a wave of fih-century Constantinopolitan ‘Christian Classicism’, see Anthony Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 173–88. For detailed analyses, see, for example: Allana E. Nobbs, ‘Digressions in the Ecclesiastical Histories of Socrates, Sozomen and eodoret’, Journal of Religious History 14 (1986), pp. 1–11; Mary Whitby, ‘Writing in Greek: Classicism and Compilation, Interaction and Transformation’, in Christopher Kelly (ed.), Theodosius II: Rethinking the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 195–218; Pauline Allen, ‘Some Aspects of Hellenism in the Early Greek Church Historians’, Traditio 43 (1987), pp. 368–81.

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To this end, I shall contrast their rhetoric with that of our most significant source for Christian reactions to the sack, the twin works of The City of God by Augustine and Orosius’ History against the Pagans, the latter composed upon the request of Augustine to accompany his own treatise.8 Earlier orations of Augustine regarding the sack as well as other earlier patristic writings have survived, for example in the corpora of Jerome and Pelagius. However, the City of God and the History against the Pagans are projects of a different scale.9 Taken together, they constitute a forceful, twofold apologetic attempt to fend off what can be reconstructed as a pagan reaction to the sack: the claim that it was the Roman desertion of the traditional gods and the imperial turn to Christianity that toppled Rome.10 Such an attack must have hurt the Christian mission among the pagans, as well as the inner unity and strength of certain congregations, among them Augustine’s own North African community, which harbored Christian refugees from Rome, and was shocked by their testimonies. Augustine addresses these matters in The City of God through a series of discussions on divine retributive justice, aiming to give his audience a wider perspective on their suffering, and charge the event with positive meaning as proof of the progression of divine victory over evil. Notwithstanding this line of inquiry, Augustine also sought to advance another, more concrete, line of argumentation: that the event was rather minor in scale in comparison with true Roman catastrophes of previous eras, and for this, he turned to his pupil Paulus Orosius.11 Upon Augustine’s request, Orosius compiled a universal history from the Creation to the fih century, referring also to the sack of 410 CE, presenting it against the backdrop of previous tragedies that befell Rome. is formed a grand narrative of a continual collapse of the empire that began much before Christianity reached its shores. Orosius’ claim is blunt – that the sack of Rome was almost inconsequential compared to the truly calamitous chain of tragedies that fill the pages of Roman history. Furthermore, Orosius 8. e complex character of their collaboration and some discontinuities between their works have received ample scholarly attention; see further in Peter Van Nuffelen, Orosius and the Rhetoric of History (Oxford, 2012), pp. 197–205. 9. For a discussion of most ancient textual references to the sack, see Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘Roma a Gothis Alarico duce capta est. Ancient Accounts of the Sack of Rome in 410 CE’, in Johannes Lipps, Carlos Machado and Philipp von Rummel (eds.), 410 – The Sack of Rome: The Event, its Context and its Impact (Wiesbaden, 2013), pp. 87–102. 10. is conjectured pagan reaction is explored in Michele R. Salzman, ‘Memory and Meaning. Pagans and 410’, in Lipps et al., 410 – The Sack of Rome, pp. 295–310. 11. Paulus Orosius, Historiarum adversum paganos, pre. 1–2, ed. Adolf Lippold, Orosio: Le Storie Contro i Pagani, 2 vols. (Scrittori Greci e Latini; Milan, 1976), vol. 1, p. 6; discussed in Pedro Martínez Cavero, El pensamiento histórico y antropológico de Orosio (Murcia, 2002), pp. 143–60.

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shows that Christianization brought with it an era of peace and security quite unparalleled in the age of pagan hegemony. Concluding his discussion regarding the sack of Rome, Orosius writes that:12 cuius rei quamuis recens memoria sit, tamen si quis ipsius populi Romani et multitudinem uideat et uocem audiat, nihil factum, sicut etiam ipsi fatentur, arbitrabitur, nisi aliquantis adhuc existentibus ex incendio ruinis forte doceatur. Although this deed is of recent memory, if anyone were to see the great numbers of Rome’s population and listen to them, he would think, as they themselves say, that ‘nothing had happened’, unless he were to learn of it by chance from the few ruins which still remain from the fire.

is composite response of Augustine and Orosius to pagan accusations reveals two, not fully consistent, lines of reasoning; on the one hand, an understanding of Rome’s gradual fall as a just result of the city’s surrender to moral decay and on the other, a dismissal of the event as small in scale, and finally negligible in the longue durée of universal history. Taking contrary courses, this argumentation accentuated the role of the sack in the grand providential plan while minimizing its salience in the first place. Rather little is known regarding the reception in the East of Augustine’s writings, and even less regarding the circulation in Constantinople of his City of God. Likewise, we are in the dark as to any possible Greek translation of the treatise.13 We fare no better with regards to Orosius’ work. It is entirely plausible that these works were products of Western circumstances and confined to Western audiences.14 And yet, as we shall shortly see, Alaric’s career and the sack of Rome were certainly objects of Constantinopolitan interest, and were debated not only through a practical prism regarding the circumstances leading to it, but also through moral and theological lenses, in an investigation of its part in the divine scheme of things. If one conjectures that the sack of Rome was central in 12. Paulus Orosius, Historiarum adversum paganos, 7.40.1, ed. Lippold, vol. 2, pp. 384– 86, trans. A.T. Fear, Orosius: Seven Books of History against the Pagans (Translated Texts for Historians 54; Liverpool, 2010), p. 404. 13. Josef Lössl, ‘Augustine in Byzantium’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 51 (2000), pp. 272–73; Barbara Crostini, ‘e Byzantine World (to 1453)’, in Karla Pollmann and Otten Willemien (eds.), The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (Oxford, 2013), vol. 3, pp. 726–27. 14. is does not mean, however, that their perspective and rhetoric were characteristic of all Christian literature of the West. Jerome’s letters from Jerusalem to Gaul, for example, show other, and truly opposite, lines of argumentation, emphasizing the magnitude of the destruction of the city, and crystalizing its symbolic significance; see Stefan Rebenich, ‘Christian Asceticism and Barbarian Incursion: e Making of a Christian Catastrophe’, Journal of Late Antiquity 2 (2009), pp. 49–59.

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pagan polemics against the Christian rise to dominance in imperial affairs, one must assume also its currency in Constantinopolitan debates between pagans and Christians.15 Correspondingly, it may be speculated that similar lines of refutation could have been applied by Christians of the Eastern capital to counter these claims. Sozomen’s narrative certainly supports such a reconstruction, and shall be discussed here in this vein. First, however, let us consider the more general question of the appearance of political history within the confines of the genre of Church history. In the introduction to the fih book of his work, Socrates Scholasticus directs his attention to the peculiarity of his account of certain political events in his Church History. is is, in effect, an apology for his expansion of the purview of church history as formed by earlier writers, and, while appearing only mid-work, seems to serve as an introduction to his opus as a whole. Among his reasons for the crossing of literary lines, he introduces a historiosophic notion of the simultaneity of events between the church on the one hand, and the state on the other, a correspondence of events captured by the Stoic concept of sympatheia.16 Socrates states that his inclusion of political events makes it apparent that τῶν δημοσίων ταραττομένων ὡς ἔκ τινος συμπαθείας καὶ τὰ τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν ἐταράττετο (‘whenever the affairs of the state were disturbed, those of the Church, as if by some vital sympathy, became disordered also’).17 He further clarifies that this correspondence of affairs is bidirectional: ποτὲ μὲν τὰ τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν ἡγούμενα, εἶτα αὖθις ἐπακολουθοῦντα τὰ δημόσια, ποτὲ δὲ τοὔμπαλιν (‘sometimes the affairs of the Church come first in order; then commotions in the state follow, and sometimes the reverse’).18 ese historiosophic claims, central in any reading of Socrates’ work,19 are immediately followed by the author’s narrative of Gothic interaction 15. ese lines of reasoning are developed in Walter E. Kaegi, Byzantium and the Decline of Rome (Princeton, 1968). Kaegi depicts a rather strong Oriental interest in the sack, and thus counters earlier scholarly assessments minimizing Eastern investment in matters of the West. For a more cautious interpretation of the sources, see Umberto Roberto, ‘Alarico e il sacco di Roma nelle fonti dell’Oriente romano’, in Henriette HarichSchwarzbauer and Karla Pollmann (eds.), Der Fall Roms und seine Wiederauferstehungen in Antike und Mittelalter (Berlin, 2013), pp. 109–30. 16. For an overview of the development and varied application of the term, see René Brouwer, ‘Stoic Sympathy’, in Eric Schliesser (ed.), Sympathy: A History (Oxford Philosophical Concepts; Oxford, 2015), pp. 15–35, esp. 26–28. 17. Socrates Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica, 5.intr.3; ed. Hansen, p. 276, trans. A.C. Zenos, Socrates, Sozomenus: Church Histories (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, s.s. 2; New York, 1890), p. 118. 18. Socrates Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica, 5.intr.4; ed. Hansen, p. 276, trans. Zenos, p. 118. 19. For example: Glenn F. Chesnut, ‘Kairos and Cosmic Sympathy in the Church Historian Socrates Scholasticus’, ChHist 44 (1975), pp. 161–66; eresa Urbainczyk, Socrates

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with the Roman Empire in the East from the last decades of the fourth century until his own days. Here, Socrates consistently contrasts the details of these political episodes with events, primarily disputes, in the church. Two books further on, however, while the same reasoning seems to drive Socrates’ description of Alaric’s sack of Rome, it is in fact quite subtly destabilized. Socrates condenses the story of the rise and fall of Alaric to but one chapter of his work (7.10), and juxtaposes it with affairs in the Roman bishopric. He places this episode between two chapters that are highly critical of the Roman episcopacy. us, chapter 7.9 lists the line of Roman bishops from Damasus to Innocent, the latter described as τοὺς ἐν Ῥώμῃ Ναυατιανοὺς ἐλαύνειν ἤρξατο (‘the first persecutor of the Novatians at Rome’).20 Immediately thereaer, in chapter 7.10, Socrates continues with the history of Alaric’s career and final sack of Rome, presenting them as taking place ὑπὸ δὲ τὸν αὐτὸν τοῦτον χρόνον (‘about this same time’).21 e following chapter (7.11) returns to the Roman bishops – from Innocent to Celestinus – also admonishing these later bishops for their belligerence and intolerance. e conclusion is clear: in accordance with Socrates’ claim for sympathy of events, Rome’s fall is closely connected to inner-ecclesiastical misconduct in Rome. Upon closer scrutiny, however, we see that, in addition to a correspondence of events between the state and the church, Socrates posits a specific direction of causality: from the degeneration of the Roman episcopacy to the providential punishment of the city. Whether Socrates was motivated by his commitment to Novatian freedoms, or possibly even by a commitment to their confessional institutions themselves, as some suggest,22 his logic is apparent – the sack was an act of divine retribution for the illiberality of the Roman episcopacy.23 Furthermore, as if to crystallize in the mind of his readers this interpretation of the events, Socrates ends the story of the sack of Rome with of Constantinople: Historian of Church and State (Ann Arbor, 1997), pp. 69–79, 169–76; Martin Wallraff, Der Kirchenhistoriker Sokrates: Untersuchungen zu Geschichtsdarstellung, Methode und Person (Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte 68; Göttingen, 1997), pp. 284–85; and Van Nuffelen, Un héritage, pp. 120–24. 20. Socrates Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica, 7.9.2; ed. Hansen, p. 355, trans. Zenos, p. 157. 21. Socrates Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica, 7.10.1; ed. Hansen, p. 355, trans. Zenos, p. 157. 22. See Urbainczyk, Socrates of Constantinople, pp. 26–28; Van Nuffelen, Un héritage, pp. 42–46. 23. Edward Watts, ‘Interpreting Catastrophe: Disasters in the Works of PseudoJoshua the Stylite, Socrates Scholasticus, Philostorgius, and Timothy Aelurus’, Journal of Late Antiquity 2 (2009), pp. 79–98.

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an anecdote about Alaric’s march on Rome.24 Alaric, so tells Socrates, met during the march a Christian monk who objected to the general’s brutal intentions. In reply, Alaric says that it is not of his own will that he is marching on Rome, but that he is compelled to do so by an external force: Οὐκ ἐγώ … ἐθελοντὴς ἐπὶ τὰ ἐκεῖ πορεύομαι, ἀλλά τις καθ’ ἑκάστην ὀχλεῖ μοι βιαζόμενος καὶ λέγων· “ Ἄπιθι, τὴν Ῥωμαίων πόρθησον πόλιν” (‘I am not going on in this course of my own will; but there is a certain something that irresistibly impels me, saying, “proceed to Rome, and desolate that city”’).25 us ends Socrates’ depiction of a divinely inspired sack of Rome. As a whole, Sozomen’s Church History adopts the general structure and historiographic approach of Socrates’ work, including a forthright interest in the hidden natural law of sympatheia, alongside a no-less-frequent pursuit of explanations based on retributive justice. Both these approaches appear as well in Sozomen’s narrative of Alaric’s Western campaign and sack of Rome. Indeed, Sozomen shows a much broader concern with the career of Alaric than does Socrates, and in his long chapters on the matter he follows closely an earlier, pagan, historian – Olympiodorus of ebes.26 But it is from Socrates, nonetheless, that Sozomen draws his opening remark on Alaric: Περὶ δὲ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον, ὡς ἐπίπαν συνενεχθὲν εὑρεῖν ἔστιν ἐν ταῖς τῶν ἱερέων διχονοίαις, καὶ τὰ κοινὰ θορύβων καὶ ταραχῆς ἐπειράθη (‘about this period, the dissensions by which the Church was agitated were followed, as is frequently the case, by disturbances and commotions in the state’).27 is is an instance of Sozomen’s rather understudied adoption of Socrates’ theme of sympatheia, and its influence on his writing. Moreover, 24. Socrates Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica, 7.10.8–9, ed. Hansen, pp. 355–56. He does not disclose during which of Alaric’s marches on Rome this incident took place. Sozomen (9.6) places it in the first of Alaric’s approaches (408 CE). 25. Socrates Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica, 7.10.9; ed. Hansen, p. 356, trans. Zenos, p. 158 (slightly adapted). 26. Olympiodorus’ work spans the years 407–425 CE. He does not appear in our sources later than 425 CE, and the date of compilation of his work can therefore only be speculated: views range from the late 420s to the early 440s, and see Peter Van Nuflelen, ‘Olympiodorus of ebes and Eastern Triumphalism’, in Christopher Kelly (ed.), Theodosius II: Rethinking the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge Classical Studies; Cambridge, 2013), p. 130, n. 2. 27. Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica, 8.25.1, ed. Bidez–Hansen, p. 283, trans. Chester D. Hartran, Socrates, Sozomenus: Church Histories [Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, s.s. 2; New York, 1890], p. 415). In my view, the English translation here accurately captures the meaning of the sentence; however, the sentence could also be read otherwise to state only the simultaneity of the events, as claimed also in Socrates’ general formula cited above, that is, with no stated directionality or causation. If we adopt the latter reading, some of the discussion here can be somewhat toned down.

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we see that the aforementioned observation regarding Socrates’ construction of directionality and causality in the case of the sack of Rome is not a modern over-reading of his words, but rather coheres with the way a contemporary reader understood him: for Sozomen, Church dissensions preceded state perturbations. Once again, beneath the cloak of Greek historiosophic tropes and contrary to their self-distancing from Eusebius and earlier Christian writing, Socrates and Sozomen betray an almost biblical reasoning of retributive justice.28 e situation, however, is not so simple. While we indeed witness here the penetration of Socrates’ historiosophy into Sozomen’s work, we also see the latter’s ultimate independence of thought. Note that Sozomen shis his account, crediting the misfortunes of the Gothic attacks and of the sack of Rome not to the Roman persecution of the Novatians, but to something else altogether. is he constructs through a similar editorial strategy of splitting the description of inner-church failings with the corresponding political event that is thus presented as its immediate consequence. In Sozomen’s case, chapter 8.25, which introduces Alaric and the first phases of Gothic aggressiveness, interrupts a long series of chapters depicting the turbulent decades of the Constantinopolitan bishopric at the turn of the fih century. ese chapters discuss the career of John Chrysostom, his deposition, and the intensive hostility towards Chrysostom’s loyal followers that spread ripples of ecclesiastical struggles throughout the East. Sozomen criticizes Church inner strife in the period, and his remark regarding the ‘commotions in the state’ clearly portrays them as another consequence of the troubles in the Eastern churches and the persecution of John and his followers. is is quite far from Socrates’ deployment of the events: while Socrates pins Rome’s sack on local Roman failings, Sozomen sees it as a part of the barbarian assault on the empire at large, and therefore correspondingly as a result of church-wide problems.29 is may prove to be important in appreciating the respective position of their works with regards to their Constantinopolitan readership, and may help in identifying their immediate concerns, a point to which I shall return shortly. us far, I have marked the infiltration of a logic of retributive justice in Socrates’ and Sozomen’s narration of the political events of the turn of the fih century, notwithstanding their more reserved reliance on a notion of correspondence of events. In this, they may at first seem close 28. See further in G.W. Trompf, Early Christian Historiography: Narratives of Retributive Justice (London, 2000); Van Nuffelen, Un heritage, pp. 295–99, 304–305. 29. However, see Sozomen’s regard also for more local circumstances of the city of Rome, discussed below.

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continuators of previous Christian literature. Once we turn to contrast the specific claims they make with those of earlier Christian apologists, however, the uniqueness of this corpus begins to surface. By the fih century, Church writing had developed a tradition to set a direction of causality in two common lines of advancement, describing either the ways in which an emperor aiding the church would find good fortune in his political career, and especially on the battlefield; or, correspondingly, a persecuting emperor would be confronted by divine punishment in the battlefield or at home. Eusebius consistently makes this point in one variation or the other, most prominently in his biographies of Constantine in his Church History and even more so in the Life of Constantine. Similarly, this reasoning shapes large parts of the Constantinopolitan Church Histories discussed here – for example, in Socrates’ and Sozomen’s demonstration of the success that pro-Nicaean emperors found in their rule, crediting this success to the emperors’ piety.30 For his part, Philostorgius, a partisan of the Eunomean, anti-Nicaean, sect, shows precisely this tendency, at times resulting in a mirror image of these very same emperors – portraying their support of the Nicaean creed as impairing their rule.31 Such claims of early Christian rhetoric, though, which indeed appear in these Constantinopolitan Church histories, are most strikingly subverted in the case of Alaric. Here, it is not imperial policy towards the Church, but inner-church affairs, that have political repercussions for the state. It is true that some strands of earlier literature, as well as Jerome’s and Pelagius’ letters regarding the sack of Rome itself, sometimes mobilize political events in the call for Christian piety. However, even these writers do not risk the presentation of the institutional failures of the Church as compromising the state. For them, Christian piety can li the state from its current ruin, but no blame is put on Christian shoulders for any previous failings. In this, Socrates and Sozomen are truly walking an untrodden path, and correspondingly step away, too, from the narratives of Augustine and Orosius with regards to their reconstruction of the details of the event and its significance, a comparison to which we now turn. Orosius’ general dismissal of the sack, cited above, is oen met with scholarly skepticism, for it is clearly fueled by apologetic motivation. Furthermore, it is hard to reconcile the claim that the event was minor 30. Hartmut Leppin, Von Constantin dem Großen zu Theodosius II. Das christliche Kaisertum bei den Kirchenhistorikern Socrates, Sozomenus und Theodoret (Hypomnemata 110; Göttingen, 1996). 31. Anna Lankina, ‘Leadership for the Christian Empire: Emperors and Bishops in the Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgius’, ChHist 87 (2018), pp. 684–717.

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in scale with the enormous efforts that were required of Augustine and himself to repel pagan utilization of the event in their rhetorical attacks, and to heal the wounds it opened in Christian confidence. If indeed Alaric’s occupation of the city amounted to but a few local acts of violence, it would have been much easier for Christian apologists to shrug off pagan criticism, and Augustine would not have lent such an open ear to Christian lamentations for their displacement from the city and for their toils under Alaric. Interestingly, however, Orosius’ claim that the material impact of the sack constituted only of ‘some charred ruins’ is quite consistent with the modern archaeological finds from the period. We can point with some certainty to a few specific sites of destruction that can be related to the event, but cannot reproduce any large-scale picture confirming a major event shaping the material history of the city. Further evidence, both textual and material, also indicate that the city was not stripped of its previous importance and that it maintained its strength later on in the century.32 A confusing distance exists, then, between ancient and modern depictions of the sack as a historical watershed on the one hand, and that of Orosius’, and the available archaeological data, on the other. While the full details of the sack of Rome and the scale of the city’s devastation are naturally not completely clear today, we may speculate that a puzzling picture also shaped Constantinopolitan perceptions of the event. is allows for some discrepancies between our sources. Socrates, for example, reports the devastating advance of Alaric’s men across the city:33 πᾶν τὸ παραπεσὸν ἀφανίζοντες … τέλος καὶ τὴν Ῥώμην κατέλαβον. Καὶ πορθήσαντες αὐτὴν τὰ μὲν πολλὰ τῶν θαυμαστῶν ἐκεῖ θεαμάτων κατέκαυσαν, τὰ δὲ χρήματα δι’ ἁρπαγῆς ἔλαβον, καὶ πολλοὺς τῆς συγκλήτου βουλῆς διαφόροις δίκαις ὑποβαλόντες ἀπώλεσαν. destroying everything in their way, [they] finally took Rome itself. ey pillaged the city, burning the greatest number of the magnificent structures and other admirable works of art it contained. e valuables they carried off as plunder. Many of the senators they put to death on a variety of pretexts. 32. See several summaries of the archaeological data in Lipps et al., 410 – The Sack of Rome, but also warnings against its interpretation as positive evidence for Orosius’ minimizing narrative (for example, p. 38). e volume also contains further evidence for the rather limited effect of the sack, for example in Carlos Machado’s prosopographic study in this volume: ‘e Roman Aristocracy and the Imperial Court, before and aer the Sack’, pp. 49–76. 33. Socrates Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica, 7.10.4, ed. Hansen, pp. 355, trans. Zenos, p. 158 (slightly adapted).

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From what survives of Philostorgius, one gets an impression of a similarly evocative account of the fall of Rome: τῆς τοσαύτης δόξης τὸ μέγεθος καὶ τὸ τῆς δυνάμεως περιώνυμον ἀλλόφυλον πῦρ καὶ ξίφος πολέμιον καὶ αἰχμαλωσία κατεμερίζετο βάρβαρος (‘all the magnificence of that glory and the renown of that might was decimated by the fire of the foreigner, the sword of the enemy, and captivity by the barbarian’).34 In the aermath of the sack, says Philostorgius, ἐν ἐρειπίοις δὲ τῆς πόλεως κειμένης (‘the city was lying in ruins’).35 As mentioned above, among the three historians discussed here, the richest and most complete description of Alaric’s career survives in Sozomen’s Church History. However, following a long and detailed narrative, Sozomen depicts the sack itself in rather vague terms:36 Ἀλάριχος … περικαθεσθεὶς τὴν Ῥώμην εἷλε προδοσίᾳ, καὶ τοῖς αὐτοῦ πλήθεσιν ἐπέτρεψε ἑκάστῳ, ὡς ἂν δύναιτο, τὸν Ῥωμαίων πλοῦτον διαρπάζειν καὶ πάντας τοὺς οἴκους ληίζεσθαι, ἄσυλον εἶναι προστάξας αἰδοῖ τῇ πρὸς τὸν ἀπόστολον Πέτρον τὴν περὶ τὴν αὐτοῦ σορὸν ἐκκλησίαν, μεγάλην τε καὶ πολὺν χῶρον περιέχουσαν. τουτὶ δὲ γέγονεν αἴτιον τοῦ μὴ ἄρδην ἀπολέσθαι τὴν Ῥώμην· οἱ γὰρ ἐνθάδε διασωθέντες (πολλοὶ δὲ ἦσαν) πάλιν τὴν πόλιν ᾤκισαν. Alaric … besieged Rome and took it by treachery. He permitted each of his men to seize as much of the wealth of the Romans as he was able, and to plunder all the houses; but from respect towards the Apostle Peter, he commanded that the large and very spacious church erected around his tomb should be an asylum. is was the only cause which prevented the entire demolition of Rome; and those who were there saved, and they were many, rebuilt the city.

34. Philostorgius, Historia ecclesiastica, 12.3, ed. Joseph Bidez and Friedhelm Winkelmann, Philostorgius, Kirchengeschichte (Griechischen Christlichen Schristeller 21; Berlin, 1972), p. 142, trans. Philip R. Amidon, Philostorgius: Church History (SBL Writings from the Greco-Roman World 23; Atlanta, 2007), p. 157. 35. Ibid. Rome is portrayed as laying in ruins in Palladius’ description of the sack as well, yet another indication of the strong impressions in the East regarding the sack: θύελλά τις βαρβαρική, ἡ καὶ ἐν προφητείαις πάλαι κειμένη, ἐπέστη τῇ Ῥώμῃ, καὶ οὐκ εἴασεν οὐδὲ τοὺς ἐπ’ ἀγορᾶς ἀνδριάντας χαλκοῦς, ἀλλὰ πάντα πορθήσασα βαρβαρικῇ ἀπονοίᾳ παρέδωκεν ἀπωλείᾳ· ὡς γενέσθαι τὴν Ῥώμην, τὴν ἐν χιλίοις ἔτεσι καὶ διακοσίοις φιλοκαληθεῖσαν, ἐρείπιον (‘there fell on Rome a hurricane of barbarians, which was ordained long ago in prophecies, and it did not spare even the bronze statues in the Forum, but sacking them all with barbaric frenzy delivered them to destruction, so that Rome, which had been beautified by loving hands for 1200 years, became a ruin’), in Palladius, Historia Lausiaca, 54.7 [Melania the elder], ed. G.J.M. Bartelink, Palladio. La storia Lausiaca (Vita dei Santi 2; Verona, 1974), p. 248, trans. W.K. Lowther Clarke, The Lausiac History of Palladius (Translations of Christian Literature. Series I, Greek Texts; New York, 1918), pp. 159–60. 36. Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica, 9.9.4–5, ed. Bidez–Hansen, p. 401, trans. Hartran, p. 424 (slightly adapted).

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In this account, it appears that the entrance to the city was not a violent one, and while looting was allowed, its actual scale is not given, nor is any other information regarding the extent of the devastation to the city. Sozomen’s tone is dramatic regarding the potential of the event, but he says nothing specific about its actual unfolding. It would seem he is trying to sustain both sides of the argument – to maximize the sack, while explaining that it had no long-term effect. is peculiarity may be rooted in the varied nature of the sources in front of Sozomen. In these chapters he is following Olympiodorus closely, as we can deduce through a comparison with another independent source for Olympiodorus, the sixth-century historian Zosimus.37 From these extracts, it is possible to reconstruct Olympiodorus’ general portrayal of Alaric and his role in the collapse of the Roman West.38 rough Philostorgius’ remaining excerpts and epitome, we can discern hints to his dependence on Olympiodorus’ narrative; Philostorgius was probably himself read by Socrates, thus disseminating further this EastRoman political interpretation of the events.39 As already mentioned, Sozomen’s debt to Olympiodorus in these chapters is even more manifest than that of Philostorgius or Socrates, and he sometimes seems to offer an outright epitome of Olympiodorus. is, then, may explain how the three Constantinopolitan historians arrived at their parallel narratives of a grand sack of Rome, an assessment that counters previous Christian literature of the West. In Sozomen, however, we see the influence of at least one other source unavailable to Socrates and Philostorgius (as far as we can tell from his surviving excerpts). is is most clear in two stories that he embeds in his narrative and that also feature in some variations in earlier Christian sources, highlighting moments of Christian piety and divine intervention on behalf of the Romans in the face of the civic tragedy. e first of 37. Unfortunately, Zosimus’ History cuts off just before the sack itself, and does not lend access to comparable evidence regarding Olympiodorus’ account of the event. us, it is difficult to assess Sozomen’s independence from Olympiodorus in these passages. With regards to Olympiodorus’ portrayal of Alaric, see John F. Matthews, ‘Olympiodorus of ebes and the History of the West (A.D. 407–425)’, JRS 60 (1970), p. 94; Van Nuffelen, ‘Olympiodorus’, pp. 130–52. 38. For Olympiodorus’ ‘Eastern triumphalism’ see Van Nuffelen, ‘Olympiodorus’. 39. is speculated chain of reception is based on the common dating of the publication of these works: Olympiodorus in the late 420s, followed by Philostorgius, then Socrates and finally Sozomen (see n. 26 above). Such a genealogy is supported by certain hints of interdependence in these works. However, these hints are not conclusive and leave room for alternative reconstructions. For an example of such a re-evaluation of the evidence, with a detailed discussion of the sources, see Andrew Gillett, ‘e Date and Circumstances of Olympiodorus of ebes’, Traditio 48 (1993), pp. 1–29.

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these stories, appearing also in Augustine and Orosius, celebrates that during the sack Alaric had assigned churches as places of asylum for the citizens of the city, and that many people, not only Christians, found there safety.40 e second story, surviving in Jerome and Orosius, conveys the heroic piety of a Christian Roman woman facing one of Alaric’s men.41 e various versions of these stories differ with respect to many elements, but nevertheless maintain enough similarity to permit speculation on their infiltration into Sozomen’s narrative through a Christian source.42 is source – or perhaps several sources – may have used these stories in an apologetic attempt to soen the impression of the sack and vindicate divine providence, and thus offered Sozomen an alternative perspective to that of Olympiodorus, Philostorigius, and Socrates.43 In this case, Sozomen may have decided to postpone independent judgment and tread a middle path that would not follow any one source, but at the same time would not directly contradict any of them either. In this way, Sozomen may have retained residues of earlier Christian apologetics minimizing the scale of the event, similar to those of Orosius and Augustine, alongside the dominant view in his days that highly amplified it. is tendency of Sozomen, to throw a wide net over his sources, also occurs in other parts of his work, and in fact appears also regarding Alaric’s first siege of Rome. Here, while upholding the retributive logic he presented earlier, when tying Alaric’s rise to power with the persecution of John Chrysostom and his followers, he seems to shi responsibility elsewhere. us, aer mentioning several failed attempts by 40. Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica, 9.9.4, ed. Bidez–Hansen, p. 401; Paulus Orosius, Historiarum adversum paganos, 7.39.1, ed. Lippold, vol. 2, p. 380; Augustinus, De civitate Dei, 1.4, 34–35, eds. Bernard Dombart and Alphonse Kalb, Augustinus: De civitate Dei (CCSL 47; Turnhout, 1928), vol. 1, pp. 8–9, 50–51. 41. ese versions substantially differ one from the other, but all contain the element of a female protagonist saved through steadfastness in face of a barbaric Gothic soldier; see Hieronymus, Epistula 127, 13, ed. Isidorus Hilberg, Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, vol. 3 (CSEL 56; Vienna, 1918), p. 155; and Paulus Orosius, Historiarum adversum paganos, 7.39.3–7, ed. Lippold, vol. 2, pp. 380–82. One may add here also Augustine’s engagement with cases of less fortunate Roman women, suffering violence and rape during the sack (De civitate Dei, 1.25–28, ed. Dombart–Kalb, vol. 1, pp. 40–44). 42. It is of course at least possible that they appeared also in Olympiodorus, but for this to hold one must explain Philostorgius’ and Socrates’ ignorance of it. Had Philostorgius retained it, his surviving epitome would probably mention it as well. With regards to Socrates, as we have already seen in his story of Alaric’s encounter with the monk, one must assume he would similarly have chosen to enrich his repertoire of stories crossing the boundaries between Christian and Roman historiography. All this is based on the common, yet contested, dating of these texts, see above n. 39. 43. Indeed, Socrates’ record of the encounter of Alaric and the Christian monk is similarly a story that probably stems from Christian sources.

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pagan sorcerers and priests to repel Alaric’s siege of Rome, Sozomen concludes that:44 τούτων μὲν οὐδὲν ὄφελος ἔσεσθαι τῇ πόλει ἡ ἀπόβασις ἔδειξεν. τοῖς γὰρ εὖ φρονοῦσιν ὑπὸ θεομηνίας κατεφαίνετο ταῦτα συμβαίνειν Ῥωμαίοις κατὰ ποινὴν ὧν πρὸ τοῦ ὑπὸ πολλῆς ῥᾳστώνης καὶ ἀκολασίας εἰς ἀστοὺς καὶ ξένους ἀδίκως καὶ ἀσεβῶς ἥμαρτον. e event, however, proved that no advantage could be derived from these persons for the city. All persons of good sense were aware that the calamities which this siege entailed upon the Romans were indications of Divine wrath sent to punish them for their excessive luxury and debauchery, and their manifold acts of injustice towards each other, as well as towards strangers.

Here, Sozomen probably means to connect the impiety and injustice that prevailed in Rome (‘luxury … debauchery … injustice’) mainly to its pagan population to which he referred in the previous sentence. Furthermore, even if he implicates the Christian citizens of the city in these vices, and even if he considers an involvement in them of the local church as a whole, his narrative turns now from focusing on church-wide matters to the local factors of the city of Rome. In doing so, he is including such themes as we may reconstruct occur in several of his sources, such as that of Socrates (as we have seen above) and Olympiodorus. Furthermore, in terms of anti-pagan polemics, Sozomen’s above description of the failure of pagan divinations and sacrifices may echo earlier attempts to assure a Christian readership of the incompetence of paganism, but it does not offer a strong enough answer against pagan polemics that portrayed a Christian weakening of the city and the empire in the first place.45 e fact that pagan divination could not check Alaric’s advance against the city could not answer for his success hitherto, and since it is not accompanied by a comparable successful Christian intervention on behalf of the city, it is irrelevant to the question of the general Roman collapse under Christian expansion. We find, then, another indication of the abundance of source material in the hands of Sozomen, and his tendency to incorporate as much of it as possible, while not always doing so in a way that yields a coherent narrative and rhetoric. is inconsistent approach to the material, and unapologetic stance of the Constantinopolitan Church historians, can be seen as evidence for a shi of polemical grounds: from the pagan-Christian debate of earlier 44. Sozomenus, Historia eccclesiastica, 9.6.5, ed. Bidez–Hansen, p. 398, trans. Hartran, pp. 422–23 (slightly adapted). 45. Sozomen’s contempt for pagan sorcery echoes older Christian apologetics regarding the impotence of pagan worship, some appearing with regard to the sack of Rome, for example in Augustinus, De civitate Dei, 1.3, ed. Dombart–Kalb, vol. 1, pp. 6–8.

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historiography to that of inner-church affairs. Such a shi in these decades of the fih century can indeed be explained by the advancement of Christianization, particularly rapid in Constantinople and the East at large. e Constantinopolitan Church historians were free not only to ignore central debates of the past regarding the sack, but even to cra a narrative that countered earlier Christian interpretations. By their days, it seems, the memory of the sack of Rome was to some extent liberated from any Christian necessity to justify the event or depreciate its significance. is freedom goes back to Jerome’s understanding of the affairs in the West, to his evocative language regarding Alaric, and to the symbolism he identified in the sack of Rome. Jerome, writing contemporaneously with the events, leverages the sack to call for Christian piety and selfimprovement in the face of the evolving catastrophe.46 Indeed, Jerome held a unique position – writing in Jerusalem but targeting a Western readership – but his disregard of the possibility that his words would serve pagan polemics recalls that of his younger Constantinopolitan authors under discussion here.47 And yet, even if the fourth-century tides of pagan anti-Christian polemics in the East ebbed by the fih century, the failure of the imperial system still had to be placed within a divine plan, and a theodicy of sorts had to be constructed regarding an event in which Christians were – to whatever extent – hurt. In this context, we ought to read the Constantinopolitan church histories not as attempts to fend off pagan attacks but as a response to Christian doubts specific to the political climate in fih-century Constantinople, and to general anxieties framing much of the capital’s literature in these decades: the Gothic incorporation in the imperial system on the one hand, and the persistent dogmatic feuds plaguing church politics on the other. While the true dimensions of the so-called barbarian migration of the fourth century remain an open question, there is no doubt as to its salience in Constantinopolitan political discourse and literature. e campaigns to force Gothic groups beyond the Danube, the recruitment of these groups as military auxiliaries to repel other advancing forces, and the allocation of land for their settlement within the empire – all these were employed throughout the period by different emperors with different, mostly unpredictable and tragic, results. By the mid-fih century, 46. See note 13 above. 47. In the case of Jerome, this is due also to the circulation of these pastoral letters and exegetical works that would not have been expected by him to exceed close Christian circles.

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this was already a decades-long challenge transforming not only the provinces of the border and the military, but also the composition of the imperial city and court. It is unsurprising, therefore, that this social transformation is discussed by much of the surviving Constantinopolitan literature of the period, from works that otherwise have very little in common such as de providentia of Synesius, or the Historia Lausiaca of Palladius, to give but two examples. We have focused here on the historiographic record of Alaric’s move from East to West in the late first decade of the fih century, but Alaric’s career began earlier, already under Gainas in the 390s, and continued to intersect during the next decade or so with that of another general of inferior ancestry, Stilicho.48 ese two generals effectively held the reins of empire for some significant periods, and other strongmen, similarly ‘outsiders’ in Roman eyes, continued to play a role in the imperial government throughout the century. e integration of Ardaburius and his son, Aspar, in Constantinopolitan politics is probably only the most striking example of a wider shi in the sociology of the governing elite of Constantinople at the time.49 e central place that Alaric’s sack of Rome takes in the Constantinopolitan church histories and the tendency in this literature to emphasize the event’s significance should thus be read as attempts to address the risks of the integration of newcomers within the imperial system, and to present any settlement with these foreign groups and their generals as temporary in character. In this vein, the three historians go to some lengths to display Alaric as disloyal and hot-tempered, two stereotypical ‘barbarian’ traits in Greek tradition.50 Sozomen further chooses to underscore the Goths’ unorthodox Christology, labeling it conventionally as ‘Arian’.51 All this attests to the continuation into the mid-fih century of Constantinopolitan wrangling with the question of Gothic integration in the city’s social fabric. Likewise, the histories of Socrates and Sozomen signal contemporary distress regarding the ongoing confrontations and negotiations with the Huns, a real reason for fear among Constantinopolitans who may have 48. For Stilicho’s ancestry (Vandal father, Roman mother) see A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale, and J. Morris (eds.), The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume 1: AD 260–395 (Cambridge, 1971), p. 853. 49. Meaghan McEvoy, ‘Becoming Roman?: e Not-So-Curious Case of Aspar and the Ardaburii’, Journal of Late Antiquity 9 (2016), pp. 483–511. 50. See Socrates Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica, 7.10.1, ed. Hansen, p. 355; Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica, 9.7.4, ed. Bidez–Hansen, p. 399; Philostorgius, Historia ecclesiastica, 12.3, ed. Bidez–Winkelmann, p. 142. 51. Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica, 9.9.1, ed. Bidez–Hansen, p. 401.

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considered the possibility that their New Rome was destined to a fate similar to that of the senior Rome. With regard to the Huns, the late thirties and early forties of the fih century saw a repetition of the dynamics between Romans and Goths of previous decades: a cycle of fierce fighting, a truce based on financial allowances from the Romans, some military service for the empire, a breakup of the truce, further fighting, and so on. Alongside their warnings regarding Gothic incorporation within the imperial system, then, these histories seem geared to reassuring their Constantinopolitan readership that the city’s fate is not, in fact, doomed. Sozomen opens his description of the sack with this very comparison, adopted from Olympiodorus, between East and West:52 Τὰ μὲν οὖν πρὸς ἕω τῆς ἀρχομένης πολεμίων ἀπήλλακτο καὶ σὺν κόσμῳ πολλῷ ἰθύνετο παρὰ τὴν πάντων δόξαν· ἦν γὰρ ἔτι νέος ὁ κρατῶν. τὰ δὲ πρὸς δύσιν ἐν ἀταξίαις ἦν πολλῶν ἐπανισταμένων τυράννων. us was the Eastern Empire preserved from the evils of war, and governed with high order, contrary to all expectations, for its ruler was still young. In the meantime, the Western Empire fell a prey to disorders, because many tyrants arose.

We may now incorporate some remarks of Socrates and Sozomen that attribute the Roman catastrophe to the particular characteristics of Rome and the West: Socrates’ stress on the intolerance of the Roman episcopacy towards Novatians, and Sozomen’s framing of the sack as divine retribution for Roman misdeeds.53 Correspondingly, battling paganism, keeping inner-church peace, maintaining moderation and justice within the city, can all be read in these authors as antidotes to the capital’s ills. e histories at hand, then, present a correspondence of cause and effect between church affairs and political failures. is theme, one may surmise, arises from reasons that Socrates delineates in his introduction to the fih book: to justify a literary decision to compose under the title Church History a new history for his time, one that encompasses both the political and the ecclesiastical spheres and that has the potential to displace not only earlier Christian historiography but also secular literature, such as that of Olympiodorus of ebes. A second reason for this line of argumentation could stem from Socrates’ and Sozomen’s desire to engage with a current ecclesiastical-political attempt of the Constantinopolitan church to quell dogmatic competitiveness, and force Alexandria and Antioch to acquiescence to a ‘Constantinopolitan peace’. To this end, 52. Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica, 9.6.1, ed. Bidez–Hansen, p. 397, trans. Hartran, p. 422. 53. Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica, 9.6.5, ed. Bidez–Hansen, p. 398.

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the political dangers facing the state seem to be deployed as further rhetorical leverage in a larger polemic for an inner-church armistice.54 us, a combination of personal literary ambitions and pressing contemporary problems led these church historians to overstep traditional boundaries between secular and ecclesiastical history. Lessons for their Constantinopolitan readers lay, so it seems, on both fronts. e imperial court audience itself was comprised of a mix of military, church, and bureaucratic backgrounds. Reaching such a diverse readership demanded not only a reconstitution of literary genres, but also a reformulation of classical and biblical historiosophy – melding concepts of fortune and virtue with those of divine omniscience and recompense.

54. Discussed further in Yonatan Livneh, ‘e eme of Late Ancient Inner-Church Discord Reconsidered’, in Yaniv Fox and Erica Buchberger (eds.), Inclusion and Exclusion in the Late Antique and Early Medieval Mediterranean (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 25; Turnhout, 2019).

REWRITING SCRIPTURE AS AN EXERCISE IN COUNTERHISTORY: APOLOGETIC GENEALOGY AND ANTIJUDAISM IN THE SYRIAC CAVE OF TREASURES Sergey M

During the period of Late Antiquity, Syriac-speaking Christians produced a wide arrange of apologetic and polemical compositions.1 Aimed against Jews, ‘pagans’, or various heterodox groups, these works were composed in a great variety of literary genres, in poetry as well as in prose. In what follows, I would like to examine one particular case of adaptation of the historiographical modus of writing to the needs of apologetics and polemic. With that purpose in mind, I am going to focus on the Syriac composition known as the Cave of Treasures, discussing how the literary shape of this in many senses innovative work reflects particular polemical and apologetic agenda pursued by its author. ere is a general consensus that the Cave is an original Syriac composition produced during the last centuries of Late Antiquity.2 Although the title ascribes its authorship to the famous fourth-century poet and theologian Ephrem the Syrian, there is little doubt that this claim has no basis and that the Cave should be regarded as an Ephremian pseudepigraphon.3 As I have tried to demonstrate recently, it was composed, most likely, in the Sasanian-controlled part of Northern Mesopotamia, 1. For an overview of this rich body of literature, see various contributions in Flavia Ruani (ed.), Les controverses religieuses en syriaque (Études syriaques 13; Paris, 2016). 2. For the Syriac text and a French translation, see Su-Min Ri, La Caverne des Trésors: les deux recensions syriaques, 2 vols. (CSCO 486–87, Syr. 207–208; Louvain, 1987). For an English translation, see Alexander Toepel, ‘e Cave of Treasures: A New Translation and Introduction’, in Richard Bauckham, James R. Davila, and Alexander Panayotov (eds.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures 1 (Grand Rapids MI, 2013), pp. 531–84. For a detailed commentary, see Andreas Su-Min Ri, Commentaire de la Caverne des Trésors: étude sur l’histoire du texte et de ses sources (CSCO 581, Subs. 103; Leuven, 2000). 3. On this aspect of the Cave, see Sergey Minov, ‘e Cave of Treasures and the Formation of Syriac Christian Identity in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Between Tradition and Innovation’, in Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony and Lorenzo Perrone (eds.), Between Personal and Institutional Religion: Self, Doctrine, and Practice in Late Antique Eastern Christianity (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 15; Turnhout, 2013), pp. 155–94, on pp. 157–65.

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somewhere between the middle of the sixth and beginning of the seventh century.4 Given its pseudepigraphic nature, it is not an easy task to situate the Cave within the diverse world of the Syriac-speaking Christianity of Late Antiquity. However, some internal and external considerations, such as the affinity of the exegetical traditions, used by its author, and the history of the work’s reception, allow us to propose that its author belonged to a West-Syrian, that is, Miaphysite, milieu.5 e Cave offers its readers an extended retelling of the biblical history of salvation, beginning with the creation of the world and up to the Pentecost. Its author states explicitly that the purpose of his work is to provide his audience with the correct order of ‘the succession of the generations’ from Adam to Christ.6 To carry out this task, he chooses the conceptual framework of septimana mundi, that is ‘world-week’, a peculiar Christian version of the general chronological approach known as millenarianism, as the general organizing principle of his historicalgenealogical narrative. Applying this scheme in his work, the author presents the pre-Christian part of the history of salvation, which spans from the beginning of the first millennium to the middle of the sixth millennium, following the general sequence of events as they unfold in the canonical narratives of the Old and New Testaments. e Cave presents a rather peculiar version of the Christian Heilsgeschichte, which has no immediate precedents in the Syriac or, for that matter, in any other Christian literary tradition of Late Antiquity. is is, first and foremost, due to the fact that its author exercised a remarkable degree of creativity and inventiveness vis-à-vis the canonical text of Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments. Several scholars noticed the unique literary character of the Cave. us, Sebastian Brock characterizes it as ‘the highly idiosyncratic work’.7 Although the author of the Cave presents his work as a genealogical composition,8 the scope of information 4. Sergey Minov, ‘Date and Provenance of the Syriac Cave of Treasures: A Reappraisal’, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 20 (2017), pp. 129–229, on pp. 131–49. See also Clemens Leonhard, ‘Observations on the Date of the Syriac Cave of Treasures’, in P.M. Michèle Daviau, John W. Wevers, and Michael Weigl (eds.), The World of the Aramaeans III: Studies in Language and Literature in Honour of Paul-Eugène Dion (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 326; Sheffield, 2001), pp. 255–93. 5. See Minov, ‘Date and Provenance’, pp. 150–204. 6. See Cave of Treasures (henceforth: CT) 44.1–20 as well as 1.1 and 54.16–17. Here and in what follows the Syriac text of the Cave and the chapter division are given according to the edition of Ri, La Caverne des Trésors. 7. Sebastian P. Brock, ‘e ruaḥ elōhīm of Gen. 1,2 and its Reception History in the Syriac Tradition’, in Jean-Marie Auwers and André Wénin (eds.), Lectures et relectures de la Bible: Festschrift P.-M. Bogaert (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum eologicarum Lovaniensium 144; Leuven, 1999), pp. 327–49, on p. 334. 8. See on this below.

      - 145 that he chooses to include in it is much wider and goes far beyond what one might expect from such description. Since it deals with the past, the Cave could be legitimately described in most general terms as a historiographic composition. A more precise genre classification of this work would involve a close analysis of its literary structure and comparing it with other compositions that possess similar formal traits, a task that would require an entire book. Moreover, such task would face a considerable challenge if one takes into consideration the inherently dynamic and fluid nature of ancient literary genres, including that of historiography.9 Because of the limitations imposed by the format of this volume, I shall focus only on two aspects of the Cave that are of foremost importance for understanding its literary character: first, its formal characteristics, such as explicit claim to be a genealogical work, as well as affinity with the ‘rewritten Scripture’ writings, and, second, its prominent anti-Jewish apologetic orientation.

. F: F S G  ‘R S’ Speaking about formal characteristics of the Cave, one should, first of all, take notice of its self-identification as the ‘book on the succession of ? âÂÎÙ âïx ¿ÂĀÝ), found in the work’s title. generations’ (ÀĀÂÌý is title agrees with the author’s explicit claim that the whole literary project was launched by him in order to provide an unbroken genealogy, comprised by sixty-three families, from Adam to Christ.10 Within the work itself, the noun yuḇālā, ‘propagation, origin, course, succession, tradition’, is used to refer to different kinds of genealogical lines, which include (a) the ‘royal succession’ (ÀÎÞáãx¿ćáÂÎÙ), CT 33.8 (see also CT 39.10); (b) the ‘succession in the genealogy of Jesus Christ’ (¿ćáÂÎÙ ¿ÑÚþãˆÎþÙxz{ËÚáÚÂ), CT 33.16; (c) the ‘succession of the children ? ¿ćáÂÎÙ), CT 34.1; (d) the ‘succession of priests’ of Israel’ (âÙüêÙ ÛçÂx ? (¿æÍÝx¿ćáÂÎÙ), CT 42.7. e exact phrase ‘succession of generations’ appears also in CT 44.1–5, where the triple destruction of the genealogical books of the Jews is mentioned. 9. is point has been well stressed in connection with the Greco-Roman tradition of historical writing by John Marincola, ‘Genre, Convention, and Innovation in GrecoRoman Historiography’, in Christina Shuttleworth Kraus (ed.), The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts (Mnemosyne Supplement 191; Leiden, 1999), pp. 281–324. 10. See CT 44, especially 13–51, where the whole genealogical succession is presented as a list. More on this below.

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e claim to be first and foremost a genealogical work sets the Cave apart, as it has no immediate analogues among Syriac or other Christian literary traditions of Late Antiquity. e most obvious precedents for this aspect of our composition would be the genealogical lists of the Old Testament (see Gen. 5; Gen. 11:11–32; 1 Chr. 1–9), as well as the genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels (Mt. 1:2–17; Lk. 3:23–38).11 e connection of the Cave to the biblical genealogical tradition becomes even more apparent if one takes into consideration that the Syriac author uses the nouns šarbātā and tawldātā (a cognate of the Biblical Hebrew technical term tôlēdôt, ‘generations’) as synonymous, as one can see from such phrases as ‘the true succession of the generations of their fathers’ (ÁüÙüý¿ćáÂÎÙ ? ? …{ÍÙÍÂsx ÀËà{x) in CT 44.8, or ‘the succession of the genera? tions of David’ (ËÙ{xxzËà{x¿ćáÂÎÙ) in CT 44.49. Trying to figure out genre affiliation of the Cave, one should take into account that its author, while hiding behind the name of Ephrem, does not pretend to produce his work in a vacuum. Rather, to buttress his claim to be an unrivalled expert of genealogical knowledge, able to present a correct line of succession from Adam to Jesus, he refers to works of some earlier writers, Jewish and Christian, although without giving any specific names or titles. On several occasions he claims his superiority ? 12 vis-à-vis some unspecified ‘ancient writers’ (¿ÚãËù? ¿çÂĀÞã). In CT 42.6, he asserts his superiority over ‘the writers of the Hebrews, ? ? ? ? Greeks and Syrians’ (¿ÚÙyÎéx{¿Úæ ÎÙx{¿Ù ÌÃïx¿çÂĀ Þã), who were active before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 .13 In an even more detailed statement, found in CT 44.8–16, our ? ? author reproaches both the ‘many writers’ (À¾ÚÆé¿çÂĀ Þã) of the ? Jews, as well as ‘our own writers, the children of the Church’ (¿çÂĀÞã ? ÀËï Ûç èáÙx), for their incompetence, claiming that it is him, who by ‘the grace of Christ’ (¿ÑÚþãxzÎÃÚÓ) has been enabled to supply the correct genealogical information. e main organizing principle of the Cave’s narrative is the division of the whole time- span from Adam to Jesus into six large sections, in 11. On this genre, see Marshall D. Johnson, The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies (Society for New Testament Studies, Monograph Series 8; Cambridge, 1969); Robert B. Robinson, ‘Literary Functions of the Genealogies of Genesis’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 48 (1986), pp. 595–608; Yigal Levin, ‘Understanding Biblical Genealogies’, Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 9 (2001), pp. 11–46. 12. See CT 15.4; 24.11; 44.1. 13. A similar list appears in CT 44.14, where the author points out inability to provide the correct genealogical information on the side of ‘the Greek writers, and the Hebrew ? ? ? writers, and even the Syriac writers’ (¿ćáòs{¿ÙÌÃïx¿ćà{¿Úæ ÎÙx¿çÂĀ Þã¿ćà ? ¿ÚÙyÎéx).

      - 147 accordance with the six thousand years, into which the entire course of the history of humanity is divided. e Cave, thus, presents the history of salvation, which encompasses 5500 years and spans from the beginning of the first millennium to the middle of the sixth millennium, following the general sequence of events as they unfold in the canonical narratives of the Old and New Testaments. e first thousand years (chapters 1–10) cover the period from the first day of the creation of the world to the rule of Jared (Gen. 5:15–20). e second thousand years (chapters 11–17) describe events from Jared to the entrance of Noah and his family into the ark during the Flood (Gen. 7:7). e third thousand years (chs. 18–24) deal with the period from the Flood up to the reign of Reu (Gen. 11:18–21). e fourth thousand years (chapters 25– 34) describe the period from the reign of Reu to the rule of Ehud son of Gera (Judg. 3:15–26). e fih thousand years (chapters 35–42) cover the time-span from the rule of Jabin of Canaan (Judg. 4:2–24) to the second year of the reign of the Persian king Cyrus. e concluding section of CT (chapters 42–54) covers the period of five hundred years, from the second year of Cyrus to the birth of Christ, and culminates in the detailed account of the execution and resurrection of Jesus. is division of biblical history is rooted in the concept of septimana mundi, that is the ‘world-week’, a peculiar Christian version of the general chronological approach known as millenarianism, which emerges as the general organizing principle of our author’s historical-genealogical narrative.14 According to this doctrine that gained a considerable currency among Christian intellectuals and is connected with the names of such prominent writers as Hippolytus of Rome and Julius Africanus, the whole time-span of human history is divided into the seven periods of 1000 years duration. e notion of septimana mundi is based on the typological interpretation of the creation week in Genesis 1, where the six days of creation represent the time of this world, while the seventh day of Sabbath rest signifies the eschatological future of the world to come. 14. On this aspect of the Cave, see Leonhard, ‘Observations on the Date’, pp. 285–87. On the development of this notion, see Jean Daniélou, ‘La typologie millénariste de la semaine dans le Christianisme primitif’, VC 2 (1948), pp. 1–16; Auguste Luneau, L’histoire du salut chez les Pères de l’Eglise. La doctrine des âges du monde (eologie historique 2; Paris, 1964). On its popularity in Syriac Christian tradition, see Witold Witakowski, ‘e Idea of Septimana Mundi and the Millenarian Typology of the Creation Week in Syriac Tradition’, V Symposium Syriacum, 1988: Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, 29-31 août 1988 (1990), pp. 93–109; Peter Bruns, ‘Endzeitberechnungen in der syrischen Kirche’, in Wilhelm Geerlings (ed.), Der Kalender. Aspekte einer Geschichte (Paderborn, 2002), pp. 122– 39.

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As far as the general notion of septimana mundi is concerned, there is certainly an affinity between the Cave and works of such earlier Christian historiographers as Julius Africanus (third century) with his Chronography.15 However, there seems to be no sufficient ground to speak about direct influence of Africanus on the author of the Cave. e principal difference between the two compositions is that whereas the principal driving force behind Africanus’ project is an attempt to harmonize two different chronological systems, biblical and classical with its succession of the Olympiads, the Syriac writer is completely uninterested in the GrecoRoman chronographical tradition and bases his chronology exclusively on the biblical sequence of events. e use by the author of the Cave of Creation as a starting point of his narrative and the fact that it encompasses subsequent world history in a linear manner bring his work close to the genre of ‘universal history’ or ‘world chronicle’, a peculiar form of Christian historiography that enjoyed a considerable popularity during Late Antiquity.16 e genre of Christian world chronicle that starts, apparently, with Julius Africanus developed on the basis of the Greek chronographical writing and Jewish-Hellenistic tradition of historiography. In distinction from the classical forms of Greco-Roman historiography, history in these writings was interpreted within a universalist Christian framework that was based on the Bible as the most important and authoritative source of historical knowledge. Covering the widest possible time-span from the beginning of time to contemporary events, the Christian authors of these works sought to uncover how a divine and providential plan was unfolding through the whole course of human history. Given that it starts with Creation and presents subsequent history of the world in a linear manner, the Cave shares with these works the general organizing principle. ere are, however, significant differences as well. 15. For an edition of all surviving textual witnesses of this work, see Martin Wallraff, with Umberto Roberto, Karl Pinggéra (eds.), and W. Adler (trans.), Iulius Africanus Chronographiae: The Extant Fragments (Die Griechischen Christlichen Schristeller NF 15; Berlin, 2007). 16. See Arnaldo Momigliano, ‘e Origins of Universal History’, in R.E. Friedman (ed.), The Poet and the Historian: Essays in Literary and Historical Biblical Criticism (Harvard Semitic Studies 26; Chico CA, 1983), pp. 133–54; Brian Croke, ‘e Origins of the Christian World Chronicle’, in B. Croke and A.M. Emmett (eds.), History and Historians in Late Antiquity (Sydney, 1983), pp. 116–31; William Adler, Time Immemorial: Archaic History and its Sources in Christian Chronography from Julius Africanus to George Syncellus (Dumbarton Oaks Studies 26; Washington DC, 1989); Michael I. Allen, ‘Universal History 300–1000: Origins and Western Developments’, in Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis (ed.), Historiography in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2003), pp. 17–42; Martin Wallraff, ‘e Beginnings of Christian Universal History: From Tatian to Julius Africanus’, Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 14 (2011), pp. 540–55.

      - 149 us, contrary to the common practice of other Christian chronographers, the author of the Cave does not try to integrate the recent events into his work, as he stops at the Pentecost and does not extend his narrative to the later period of Christian history. Moreover, even in the part of human history that he does cover, the scope of our author’s attention is not nearly as universal as that of his Greek- and Latin-writing colleagues, since he makes almost no attempt to supplement his narrative systematically, using sources other than biblical. e author of the Cave builds his composition by creatively amalgamating accounts from both the Old and the New Testaments into a coherent new narrative. is new idiosyncratic version of the Christian sacred history features a considerable amount of material that is not found in the two canonical collections. Some of these traditions come from various strands of the earlier tradition of Christian biblical exegesis, whereas origins of others are difficult to establish with certainty.17 Such blending together of canonical and extra-canonical material within the general framework of biblical narrative by our author allows us to characterize his work as a representative of the broadly defined category of ‘rewritten Bible/Scripture’ or biblical paraphrase. is genre, the most appropriate designation and precise formal characteristics of which are still hotly debated by scholars, has its beginning in Jewish literary and exegetical creativity of the Second Temple period.18 Among its earliest specimen are such compositions as the Book of Jubilees, Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities, Genesis Apocryphon and several other writings from Qumran, in which biblical material is refashioned with a greater or lesser degree of manipulation into new narratives that serve particular agendas of their authors and communities. A similarly ‘free’ approach to the canonical texts has been also adopted from a very early stage by many Christian authors, who would naturally extend it to the New 17. One of the most notable among the latter is that of Yonṭon, the fourth son of Noah (CT 27.6–11). For attempts to explain this tradition, see Stephen Gero, ‘e Legend of the Fourth Son of Noah’, HThR 73 (1980), pp. 321–30; Alexander Toepel, ‘Yonton Revisited: A Case Study in the Reception of Hellenistic Science within Early Judaism’, HThR  99 (2006), pp. 235–45. 18. For general information, see Philip S. Alexander, ‘Retelling the Old Testament’, in D.A. Carson and H.G.M. Williamson (eds.), It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture. Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 99–121; Daniel K. Falk, The Parabiblical Texts: Strategies for Extending the Scriptures in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Library of Second Temple Studies 63, Companion to the Qumran Scrolls 8; London, 2007); Sidney White Crawford, Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times (Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature; Grand Rapids MI, 2008); Molly M. Zahn, ‘Rewritten Scripture’, in Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford, 2010), pp. 323–36.

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Testament writings as well.19 In what concerns the complicated problem of relationship between these texts and their canonical prototypes, I find particularly useful the theoretical model developed by Hindy Najman, who in a seminal discussion of such early Jewish reworkings of biblical narratives as Jubilees and 11QTemple Scroll has argued that they were produced not in order to replace Scripture, but that their authors sought to participate in this way in the authoritative ‘Mosaic discourse’ by providing an appropriate interpretive context, only within which canonical scriptural traditions could be properly understood.20 e authors of scriptural paraphrases seek to safeguard the authoritative message of canonical texts by transforming them into literary forms suitable to their own times and cultures. It happens very oen that the alterations of canonical narratives by their later emulators reveal a surplus of meaning that reflects new developments in self-understanding of their authors or communities of readers. By retelling the biblical history in the guise of Ephrem, the author of the Cave aimed at providing his community with an accessible and authoritative version of the sacred history, which at the same time would address new challenges that it faced, most notably the one posed by the Jews. e latter aspect of the Cave brings us to the question of the function of this work. . F: A-J A  P A literary aspect of the Cave that has, perhaps, the greatest significance for understanding its function as a whole is the apologetic element 19. See Michael Roberts, Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity (ARCA Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs 16; Liverpool, 1985); Christine M. omas, The Acts of Peter, Gospel Literature, and the Ancient Novel: Rewriting the Past (Oxford, 2003); Roger P.H. Green, Latin Epics of the New Testament: Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator (Oxford, 2006); István Czachesz, ‘Rewriting and Textual Fluidity in Antiquity: Exploring the Socio-Cultural and Psychological Context of Earliest Christian Literacy’, in J.H.F. Dijkstra, J. Kroesen, and Y.B. Kuiper (eds.), Myths, Martyrs, and Modernity: Studies in the History of Religions in honour of Jan N. Bremmer (Numen Book Series 127; Leiden, 2010), pp. 425–41. 20. Hindy Najman, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 77; Leiden, 2002), pp. 41–69. See also discussion of this problem by George J. Brooke, ‘Between Authority and Canon: e Significance of Reworking the Bible for Understanding the Canonical Process’, in Esther G. Chazon, Devora Dimant, and Ruth A. Clements (eds.), Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 58; Leiden, 2005), pp. 85–104; Anders Klostergaard Petersen, ‘Rewritten Bible as a Borderline Phenomenon – Genre, Textual Strategy, or Canonical Anachronism?’, in Anthony Hilhorst, Émile Puech and Eibert Tigchelaar (eds.), Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 122; Leiden, 2007), pp. 285–306.

      - 151 that features prominently in this composition. e apologetic orientation of the Cave is made explicit by the author himself as he claims that the whole enterprise of providing an accurate genealogy of Jesus and Mary was undertaken by him in order to defend his coreligionists against the Jews, who allegedly challenge Christians in the matter of Mary’s sexual integrity.21 In chapter 44, he goes to a considerable length discussing the subject of the genealogy of the Virgin Mary with a view to repelling the accusations, which were made against her by Jews. It opens with the statement that the failure of the ‘early writers’ to establish the correct genealogy of their fathers served as a pretext for the Jews to attack Christians in the matter of Mary’s descent (CT  44.1–2). e main rationale behind the whole genealogical enterprise is ‘to shut up the mouth of the Jews’, who ‘call Mary an adulteress’ (CT 44.3–4).22 e author buttresses his declaration of having the exclusive and correct information on the descent of Mary with the claim that, as a result of the destructions of Jewish genealogical books under Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Herod, the Jews do not have anymore ‘table of succession which shows them the true order of the families of their fathers’ (CT 44.5). At one point, he makes an explicit statement about what he considers to comprise his unique contribution to the tradition of Christian knowledge. In a rhetorical address to his projected interlocutor ‘Nāmūsāyā’, he asserts that due to the divine assistance he is the first Christian writer, who was able to ‘write down the true table of succession’ of the sixty-three generations of Christ (CT 44.15–20). At the same time, providing the correct genealogy of Mary and Jesus is not the only area, where our author seeks to engage Judaism. On more than one occasion he switches from the apologetic to polemical mode, so that the narrative abounds with examples of direct and indirect attacks against the Jews and their religion. us, our author enhances the anti-Jewish message of the canonical narrative of Jesus’ Passion. He does that mostly in chapters 49–53, where an extended and inventive retelling of the canonical Passion narrative is presented.23 Among the most prominent anti-Jewish arguments deployed there is the notion of Jews as the killers of Christ.24 is imagery appears 21. For a detailed analysis of this claim, see Sergey Minov, Syriac Christian Identity in Late Sasanian Mesopotamia: The Cave of Treasures in Context (Ph.D. dissertation; e Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2013), pp. 95–106. ? > 22. OrA: èã åÙüã ÍÙĀÙsx ÎçäÙz{ .¿Ùx{ÍÙx …{ÍãÎò üÝĀés ¿Ýz{ .„züÂsx{ ËÙ{x ĀÚÂx ¿ï| 23. For a detailed discussion, see Minov, Syriac Christian Identity, pp. 106–23. 24. On this notion, see Jeremy Cohen, ‘e Jews as the Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from Augustine to the Friars’, Traditio 39 (1983), pp. 1–27; idem, Christ Killers:

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more than once in our composition. For instance, in CT 51.12 the Jewish people are described as the ‘congregation of the crucifiers’ (ÀĀýÎçÝ ? ¿òÎù|x). To exacerbate the portrayal of the Jews as the murderers of Christ, the author infuses his retelling of the Passion narrative with the rhetoric of demonization, vilifying the Jewish people as ‘evil dragons,’ ‘filled with the venom of Satan’ (CT 51.12–13). e author also reworks substantially several details of the canonical account of Jesus’ execution with the goal to present the violent actions against Jesus undertaken, according to the New Testament narrative, by the Romans or some not explicitly defined agents, as performed by the Jews. us, one comes across such statements that it was the Jews, who divided Jesus’ garments (CT 49.11; 50.4), or who ‘wove a crown of spikes of thorn bushes, and set it upon His head’ (CT 50.1). e author also makes the Jews to hand out to Jesus ‘vinegar and gall in a sponge’ (CT 51.1), the detail not found in the canonical Passion accounts.25 In order to put an even stronger emphasis on the active participation of the Jews in the murder of Jesus, the author introduces a unique extracanonical motif, dealing with the origins of the wooden beams, from which the cross was made. He relates that the wooden beams used for making the cross served originally as the carrying poles of the ark of the covenant in the Temple of Jerusalem (CT 50.20–21). ey were brought out by the Jews to serve as an instrument of Jesus’ execution and, aer that, were returned back to the Temple (CT 53.6). Constructing a negative image of the Jewish people as the killers of Christ was not an end in itself for the author. Rather, this anti-Jewish imagery serves as a necessary prerequisite for developing a general perspective on the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, which in his case takes the form of supersessionist theology. Known also as the theology of replacement, this Christian doctrine consists of the belief that the Jewish people and religion has been completely superseded by the Christian people and religion.26 According to this belief, the rejection of Jesus and his message, which culminated in his crucifixion and death, became a turning point in the history of the Jewish people, aer which the old law of Judaism was replaced with the new law of Christianity. As The Jews and the Passion from the Bible to the Big Screen (Oxford, 2007); Frederick B. Davis, The Jew and Deicide: The Origin of an Archetype (Lanham MD, 2003). 25. Cf. Matt. 27:47–48; Mark 15:35–36; John 19:28–29. 26. For a general presentation, see Rosemary Radford Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York, 1974), pp. 124–65; Marcel Simon, Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire (AD 135–425), trans. H. McKeating (London, 1996), pp. 76–97; R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis, 1996), pp. 1–18, 25–56.

      - 153 a punishment for the willing participation of the Jews in the execution of Jesus, God disowned them as his chosen people and installed in their place a new ‘spiritual Israel’, that is the Church of the Christians. e author of the Cave fully endorsed this perspective on Jewish-Christian relations, as one discovers the theology of supersessionism permeating his work on different levels. One of the most prominent among supersessionist arguments, scattered through the narrative of the Cave, is the notion of munus triplex, the three spiritual gis, namely kingship, priesthood, and prophecy, that originally belonged to the Jewish people, but were taken from them by God as a result of their rejection of Christ. Our author traces the notion of the three spiritual gis of God to the human race to the very beginning of its history. According to CT 2.18, Adam, who was created in Jerusalem and granted the highest authority over the creatures, ‘was made king, and priest, and prophet’ (¿Þáã ¿ÚÃæ{¿æÍÝ{). ese three endowments were kept and further transmitted through the generations of Adam’s posterity. In the course of history, the three gis were passed on to the people of Israel through the mediation of its greatest spiritual leaders. e most dramatic turning point in the history of transmission of the three gis was constituted by the rejection of Christ by the Jews. e author presents Jesus’ Passion as the fateful event, as a result of which these three tokens of spiritual blessing were removed from the Jewish people and appropriated by Christ. According to our author, the three spiritual offices were not the only loss sustained by the people of Israel as a result of their rejection of Jesus. In one passage (CT  50.17) he denies Judaism its validity as religion by declaring that the Holy Spirit had le the Jewish people immediately aer the death of Jesus on the cross. Another spiritual deprivation that was suffered by the Jews as a consequence of Jesus’ death was the loss of the festival of Passover. In addition to these cases, one comes across several cases of supersessionist exegesis of the Old Testament embedded into the narrative of the Cave.27 ese include following exegetical traditions: 1. interpretation of the raven and dove sent by Noah (Gen. 8:8–11) as referring to the Old and New covenants (CT 19.9–12); 2. interpretation of the cursing of Canaan by Noah (Gen. 9:20–27) as a prefiguration of Jesus’ rejection of the Jewish people aer his resurrection (CT 21.21–22); 27. For a detailed discussion of these exegetical motifs, see Minov, Syriac Christian, pp. 137–57.

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3. interpretation of the biblical account of Jacob’s marriage to Leah and Rachel (Gen. 29:15–28) as a figurative reference to the two crucial moments in the spiritual history of the Jewish people, where the Law of Moses is made obsolete by the New Covenant (CT 31.26–28); 4. interpretation of Daniel’s prophecy of the weeks (Dan. 9:26–27) that counters Jewish objections to the Christian belief that Jesus is the eschatological Messiah promised to the Jewish people in the Old Testament (CT 44.53–57); 5. interpretation of Psalm 80:8–15 and Deuteronomy 32:6,32–33 as figurative references to the malice and ungratefulness of the Jewish people, who offered Jesus the vinegar-soaked sponge during the crucifixion (CT 51.8–14); 6. interpretation of Psalm 118:27 as a divinely inspired prophecy about the abrogation of the Jewish festivals as a result of a divine punishment for the crucifixion of Jesus (CT 52.1–2, 14–17); 7. interpretation of the ‘breast-piece of judgment’, manufactured by Moses (cf. Ex. 28), as a symbol of God’s discriminating attitude towards two groups of people on the basis of their relation to Christ: punishing the Jews, who killed Jesus, and rewarding the Gentiles, who accepted him (CT 53.12). e explicit anti-Jewish rhetoric and scriptural exegesis were not the only literary vehicles used by the Cave’s author to convey his supersessionist vision of the Jewish-Christian relations. ere is another, more subtle, dimension of anti-Jewish polemic in this composition, which comes to light as one turns attention to more general aspects of how its author represents the pre-Christian period of the history of salvation. One can discern here two additional apologetical strategies at work, through which our author advances his anti-Jewish agenda. One of them involves intentional recomposition of the canonical version of biblical history in order to ‘de-Judaize’ it. As a result of this reworking, the amount of narrative space allocated by our author to the pre-Abrahamic period of the history of salvation overshadows considerably that of the post-Abrahamic one. us, out of the total amount of forty-one chapters that cover the whole course of biblical history from Adam to the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile under Cyrus (chapters 2–42), twenty-six chapters are dedicated to persons and events prior to Abraham, whereas only fieen chapters deal with the rest. It is apparent that the space allocated by our author to the primeval history is almost twice as big as that of the whole following period of biblical history.

      - 155 One recognizes immediately that this ratio stands in striking contrast to the perspective of the canonical corpus of the Old Testament, where the narrative space taken by the latter historical period exceeds greatly that of the former. Such a pronounced inequality in the distribution of our author’s interest is hardly incidental. e promotion of the primeval period of humanity’s history at the expense of the history of the Jewish people should be regarded as an intentional literary strategy, employed by the author of the Cave to advance his agenda. Subversive power of this polemical strategy lies in the oblique manner, in which it marginalizes and downplays a considerable part of the shared biblical past that presents the history of the people of Israel. ere is an additional consideration that strengthens even more the suggestion of an anti-Jewish objective behind the peculiar way in which our author recomposes biblical history. What strikes an attentive reader of the Cave is the absence from its version of the post-Abrahamic part of the biblical narrative of several episodes that are of crucial importance for the history of the Jewish people. e most remarkable example of this kind is, unquestionably, the complete silence of our author about such pivotal events in Jewish history as the exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. Neither of these milestones in the history of God’s providential care for his chosen people is mentioned in chapter 34, where Moses’ biography is briefly recounted, nor do they receive substantial attention anywhere else in the work.28 Another significant gap in the narrative of the Cave is that its author completely ignores the whole of the Second Temple period of Jewish history. is silence is particularly noticeable in light of the fact that there are several indications that he was acquainted with such sources covering this historical period as the books of Maccabees and Josephus.29 Particularly striking is the absence from the Cave of any references to the story of the Maccabean martyrs, since their heroic accomplishments were well known to and enjoyed considerable popularity among Syriac Christians from Late Antiquity onwards.30 28. e Exodus is referred to only en passant in CT 35.9, where God is described as the one ‘who had delivered them from the servitude of the Egyptians’. 29. See his references to the persecution by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (CT 44.6) and to Herod the Great (CT 44.6; 47.20–27). 30. In addition to 1–4 Maccabees that formed a part of the canon in the Syriac Old Testament, see the additional documents published by Robert L. Bensly and William E. Barnes, The Fourth Book of Maccabees and Kindred Documents in Syriac First Edited on Manuscript Authority (Cambridge, 1895). See also Witold Witakowski, ‘Mart(y) Shmuni, the Mother of the Maccabean Martyrs, in Syriac Tradition’, in René Lavenant (ed.), VI Symposium Syriacum, 1992: University of Cambridge, Faculty of Divinity, 30 August – 2 September

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Alongside the process of de-Judaization, one can recognize in the revision of the biblical past by our author another literary strategy that advances his anti-Jewish agenda by subverting in a subtle manner the Jewish character of the Old Testament. is strategy is manifested in a pronounced propensity to Christianize the primeval period of biblical history. In its most visible form, this tendency finds expression in introduction by the author of an assortment of explicitly Christian ideas and images into his retelling of biblical narrative. A substantial part of these additions is comprised of the exegetical traditions that present biblical figures or events as symbols or types of Christ, his Crucifixion, the Church or the ecclesiastical sacraments. It should be noted that nearly all of these Christian motifs are found in the part of the biblical history before Moses. ese additions include several cases of Adam-Christ typology (CT 6.17– 18; 48.12–30; 49.1); mention of the Trinity in the context of the creation of Adam (CT 2.2–3); connection between the newly-created Adam and Golgotha (CT  2.16); description of the Garden of Eden as ‘the Holy Church’ (CT 3.17, 21; 4.1); interpretation of the Tree of Life as a prefiguration of the Holy Cross (CT  4.3); God’s promise to Adam to send his Son to redeem him (CT 5.7–13); typological connection between the Ark of Noah and Church (CT 18.2–7) and the Ark and the Cross (CT 19.5); interpretation of the drunken Noah as a symbol of the crucifixion of Jesus (CT  21.18); depiction of Melchizedek making Abraham participate in a quasi-Eucharistic sacrament during their meeting, described in Gen. 14:18–20 (CT 28.11); interpretation of the ram entangled in the thicket during the binding of Isaac (Gen. 22:13) as a symbol of the crucified Jesus (CT 29.9–10); interpretation of Jacob’s ladder (Gen. 28:12) as a symbol of the Cross, of the stone and the pouring of oil (Gen. 28:18) – as of the Church and chrism (CT 31.17–19), and of Jacob’s well (Gen. 29:10) as a symbol of baptism (CT 31.20–24). On one level, it is certainly legitimate to consider this material as an expression of such fundamental principle of Christian interpretation of the Old Testament as the notion of the unity of the two Testaments.31 Articulated in the famous dictum of Augustine, ‘the New (Testament) is 1992 (OCA 247; Roma, 1994), pp. 153–68; Sebastian P. Brock, ‘Eleazar, Shmuni and Her Seven Sons in Syriac Tradition’, in Marie-Françoise Baslez and Olivier Munnich (eds.), La mémoire des persécutions: Autour des livres des Maccabées (Collection de la Revue des Études Juives 56; Leuven–Paris, 2014), pp. 329–36. 31. See on this Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, trans. Mark Sebanc and E.M. Macierowski, 3 vols. (Ressourcement; Grand Rapids MI, 1998– 2009), vol. 1, pp. 225–68.

      - 157 concealed in the Old, and the Old is revealed in the New’,32 this axiom of theologically based hermeneutics affirms that God of the New Testament is the same as the God of the Old Testament and that, while the latter finds its fulfilment in the former, both bear witness to Christ. By infusing his reworking of the Old Testament narratives with references to Christ and the Church the author of the Cave faithfully follows this rule, as many other Christian readers and interpreters of the Bible did before and aer him. ere is, however, more to be said about apologetic and polemic implications of this hermeneutics in the Cave. In order to appreciate better its subversive power in the context of a polemic against Judaism, let us turn to another manifestation of our author’s propensity to Christianize the primeval history, namely the construction of a quasi-Christian tradition before Christ. In addition to Christianizing the biblical past in a superficial manner, through the introduction of explicitly Christian images and notions, our author pursues this strategy on a deeper level, by remodeling several figures from the primeval period in such a way that their behaviour would embody Christian attitudes and practices. is aspect of presentation of the biblical past in the Cave has been noticed by Han Drijvers, who observed that this work represents Adam, Seth and several other patriarchs as having knowledge of Christ and, thus, as ‘Christians avant la lettre, namely, before the Jewish nation came into existence through Moses’ activities and law-giving’.33 Indeed, an examination of the pre-Abrahamic figures in the Cave demonstrates that its author significantly reworked this period of biblical history by constructing an ‘axis of righteousness’ that includes such figures as Adam, Seth and his progeny, Noah and Melchizedek, who are presented as bearers of Christian values. is tendency manifests itself most prominently in the notion of the uninterrupted ministry of unceasing prayer that had started in the cave of treasures with Adam himself and was carried on before his embalmed body by his descendants up until Melchizedek (see CT  5.10–12,17; 6.9–14; 8.1,15; 9.1,7–8; 10.1,8; 13.3–7; 16.12–21,28; 23.13–23). Another outstanding example of the remodeling of primeval biblical figures in accordance with Christian ideals is found in the elaborate description of the course of life, pursued by the descendants of Seth on 32. in vetere novum lateat et in novo vetus pateat; Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum II.73, ed. Josephus Zycha, Sancti Aureli Augustini Quaestionum in Heptateuchum libri VII, Adnotationum in Iob liber unus (CSEL 28.2; Vienna, 1895), p. 141. 33. Han J.W. Drijvers, ‘Jews and Christians at Edessa’, Journal of Jewish Studies 36 (1985), pp. 88–102 (p. 101).

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the mountain of Paradise, presented by the author in CT 7.1–14: following Adam’s command in CT 6.14, they live ‘in all purity and holiness and ? while their wives in the fear of God’;34 they are called ‘holy’ (¿þÙËù), ? are ‘pure’ (èÚÝx); since they are free from any vices and exempt from the need to toil and work to survive, their only occupation is ‘to praise and glorify God, together with the angels’.35 Furthermore, in his description of the interior arrangement in the ark during the flood in CT 18.2–7, the author models it aer the pattern of the Christian community gathered in a church, where men and women are confined to separate sections of the indoor space so that they do not see the faces of each other. Finally, in CT 16.24–28 and 23.19–23, the author presents Melchizedek’s ministry over the body of Adam deposited on Golgotha in quasi-eucharistic terms such as the offering of ‘bread and wine’ (ÁüäÐ{¿ćäÑà), while the patriarch himself is depicted as a Nazirite (ÁüÙÏæ), constituting thus a role-model of Christian anchorism: he lives alone, practices celibacy, does not shave his head and is forbidden to pour the blood of animals. All these examples demonstrate that in his presentation of the primeval period of the history of the human race the author of the Cave deliberately chooses to portray some of its main protagonists as paragons of Christian virtues. In his supersessionist revision of the biblical past our author, thus, resorts to the two distinctive narrative strategies that complement and enhance each other: the silencing of the national history of Jewish people, on the one side, and the Christianization of the primeval history, on the other. is double manoeuvre forms, perhaps, a most basic structure of supersessionist hermeneutics in our composition.

. C One can hardly overestimate significance of apologetic and polemical works for understanding the dynamics of Christian group identification.36 e primary task of Christian apologists, that is the defence of Christian doctrines and practices against the hostile criticisms of Jewish or ‘pagan’ others, inevitably involved articulation of a Christian collective identity, defined through the contrast with such rival groups. Designed to persuade their addressees, these texts did so by operating within the framework > 34. OrA:ÀÍàsĀáÐËÂ{ÀÎþÙËù{ÀÎÚÝxÍáÞ ? 35. OrA:¿Ý¾ćáãåïÀÍà¾ćà… ÎÑÃþæ{…ÎáàÍæx 36. See on this Aaron P. Johnson, Ethnicity and Argument in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford, 2006), pp. 1–10.

      - 159 of the binary model of self-identity, where ‘the negation of collective others serves simultaneously to assert the self’.37 Moreover, they exerted a dynamic force on their audience, not only through providing counterarguments against supposed opponents, but by actually shaping the beliefs, which they allegedly defended. Averil Cameron has emphasized this aspect of apologetic discourse, relying upon Bourdieu’s sociological theory of cognitive structures that are involved in construction of the social world, as she argued that it has an important function of not merely sustaining a world of belief, but of creating it anew: ‘“Christianity”, “Hellenism” and “Judaism” are not fixed entities; rather, apologetic writings themselves create the respective identities which they purport to defend or attack.’38 e rich assortment of direct and indirect critical references to Jews and their religion in the Cave demonstrates that this work is organized as an extended engagement with Judaism, which takes the dual form of apologetics and polemics. On the basis of this variegated material, it might be concluded that polemic against Judaism was a major driving force that motivated our author in his retelling of biblical history. Accordingly, one should take seriously the author’s explicit declaration that he initiated the whole literary project in order to provide an adequate response to the Jews, who challenged his coreligionists on the subject of the descent of Mary and Jesus. In his work, however, he not only faces this challenge by forging an elaborate genealogy for the Virgin, but engages in a sustained attack against Judaism, which is carried out through the two principal avenues: the portrayal of the Jews as the killers of Christ and the theology of supersessionism. e latter notion is especially important for understanding the author’s agenda in the Cave, because it provides the general ideological framework, within which he operates while reworking the biblical narrative. As has been pointed out above, while there is no earlier work, Jewish or Christian, that would serve as a model for imitation for our author, the Cave does exhibit certain affinity with such compositions as Christian world chronicles or works that fall into the category of ‘rewritten Bible’. Given the unique character of the Cave, it seems preferable to characterize it as a historiographical composition of mixed genre, in which the literary 37. Judith M. Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford, 2004), p. 271. 38. Averil Cameron, ‘Apologetics in the Roman Empire – A Genre of Intolerance?’, in Jean-Michel Carrié and Rita Lizzi Testa (eds.), ‘Humana sapit’: Études d’antiquité tardive offertes à Lellia Cracco Ruggini (Bibliothèque de l’antiquité tardive 3; Turnhout, 2002), pp. 219–27, on p. 223.

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strategy of ‘rewritten Bible’ is put in the service of apologetic and polemical agenda. In that sense, one might regard this composition as an exercise in the genre of ‘counter-history,’ aimed against the Jewish version of Heilsgeschichte. Introduced by the historian Amos Funkenstein, this notion refers to a category of polemical literature that aims at ‘the distortion of the adversary’s self-image, of his identity, through the deconstruction of his memory’.39 Apologetics, that is, explanation, justification and defence of a person’s or group’s system of beliefs, was one of the major areas of intellectual activity in the multiconfessional world of late ancient Near East, where various religious groups such as ‘pagans’, Jews and Christians vied for power and influence.40 While it could be conveyed through a variety of literary and non-literary media, the apologetic use of history writing became one of the most sophisticated and efficient tools to be used by Jews and Christians in such inter-communal rivalry.41 Importance of this particular intellectual practice for development and maintenance of collective identities in antiquity was rooted in ‘the pre-modern perception of culture which explicitly and implicitly regarded the imagined past as the sole legitimate basis for appraising the legitimacy of the present and envisioning or shaping the future’.42 39. Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley CA, 1993), p. 36. See also David Biale, ‘Counter-History and Jewish Polemics against Christianity: e Sefer toldot yeshu and the Sefer zerubavel’, Jewish Social Studies 6 (1999), pp. 130–45. 40. For general information of Jewish and Christian apologetics in antiquity, see Arthur J. Droge, Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture (Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur eologie 26; Tübingen, 1989), especially pp. 12– 48; Monique Alexandre, ‘Apologétique judéo-hellénistique et premières apologies chrétiennes,’ in B. Pouderon and J. Doré (eds.), Les apologistes chrétiens et la culture grecque (éologie historique 105; Paris, 1998), pp. 1–40; Mark J. Edwards, Martin Goodman, and Simon Price (eds.), Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Oxford, 1999). For important methodological observations on this literature, see SilkePetra Bergjan, ‘How to Speak About Early Christian Apologetics? Comments on the Recent Debate’, StPatr. 36 (2001), pp. 177–83; Cameron, ‘Apologetics in the Roman Empire’; Johnson, Ethnicity and Argument, pp. 1–24. 41. An in-depth analysis of the beginning and earliest representatives of apologetic historiography in Jewish and Christian traditions is provided by Gregory E. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephus, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography (Supplements to Novum Testamentum 64; Leiden, 1992). On the use of this genre by Christians in antiquity, see also Todd Penner, In Praise of Christian Origins: Stephen and the Hellenists in Lukan Apologetic History (Emory Studies in Early Christianity  10; New York, 2004); Richard W. Burgess, ‘Apologetic and Chronography: e Antecedents of Julius Africanus’, in M. Wallraff (ed.), Julius Africanus und die christliche Weltchronik (TU 157; Berlin, 2006), pp.  17–42; Arieh Kofsky, Eusebius of Caesarea against Paganism (Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series 3; Leiden, 2000). 42. David E. Aune, Apocalypticism, Prophecy and Magic in Early Christianity: Collected Essays (Wissenshaliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 199; Tübingen, 2006), p. 13.

      - 161 In his seminal monograph on the beginnings of the use of history writing for apologetic purposes, Gregory Sterling has singled out within the ethnographic and historiographic literature of Hellenistic and early Roman world a subgenre of ‘apologetic historiography’, to which he assigned works of such writers as the Babylonian Berossos, the Egyptian Manetho, the Hellenistic Jewish historians Demetrios, Artapanus, Eupolemos and Flavius Josephus, as well as the Christian author of Luke-Acts. According to Sterling, all these historical compositions should be categorized as representatives of this genre because they present ‘the story of a subgroup of people in an extended prose narrative written by a member of the group who follows the group’s own traditions but Hellenizes them in an effort to establish the identity of the group within the setting of the larger world’.43 e theory of ‘apologetic historiography’ developed by Sterling has been subjected recently to further refinement by Todd Penner, who suggests that it would be more appropriate to analyse the apologetic dimension of these and several other Greco-Roman historical works as rooted in the attempts to articulate collective history in terms of the epideictic mode of rhetoric, when one would present his own tradition in a praiseworthy manner and treat other competing traditions in a derogatory way.44 Penner’s suggestion brings us close to the methodological approach of those scholars of early Christian literature, who argue that apologetics in antiquity should be considered not as a distinctive literary form that can be precisely defined in terms of genre characteristics, but rather as a ‘type of argumentation’ or ‘mode of thinking’, which is attested across a variety of literary forms and which comes into existence ‘as a response to a situation of competition’, whether real or imagined.45 As Aaron Johnson has outlined this approach in his recent study on the apologetic argumentation employed by Eusebius of Caesarea, ‘apologetic writings were defined … not so much by genre … but by shared concern, a Tendenz or strategy of identity formulation and world-construction.’ 46 Analysed among these lines, the Cave emerges as a representative of the mixed genre that fuses together genealogical, chronographic and 43. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition, p. 17. 44. See Penner, In Praise of Christian Origins, pp. 138–42, 229. 45. See Cameron, ‘Apologetics in the Roman Empire’, pp. 221–22; Anders Klostergaard Petersen, ‘e Diversity of Apologetics: From Genre to a Mode of inking’, in AndersChristian Jacobsen, Jörg Ulrich, and David Brakke (eds.), Critique and Apologetics: Jews, Christians and Pagans in Antiquity (Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity  4; Frankfurt am Main, 2009), pp. 15–41. 46. Johnson, Ethnicity and Argument, p. 5.

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historiographic literary strategies in the crucible of the apologetical mode of thinking. Its author aims at arming his intended audience with an expedient summary of the history of salvation that would enable them to build up their cultural self-confidence in face of the rival claims over the biblical past made by the Jews. A sophisticated and multi-dimensional composition, the Cave provides us with a fascinating example of literary creativity among Syriac-speaking Christians of Syria-Mesopotamia, a region where during Late Antiquity the situation of competition between Jews and Christians would give rise to a great variety of literary forms that the latter would use in their polemic against the former.47

47. On various aspects of Jewish-Christian relations in Syria-Mesopotamia, see Lucas van Rompay, ‘Judaism, Syriac Contacts with’, in Sebastian P. Brock et al. (eds.), Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Piscataway NJ, 2011), pp. 232–36; Han J.W. Drijvers, ‘Syrian Christianity and Judaism’, in Judith Lieu, John North, and Tessa Rajak (eds.), The Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (London, 1992), pp. 124–46; Jean-Maurice Fiey, ‘Juifs et Chrétiens dans l’Orient syriaque’, Hispania Sacra 40 (1988), pp. 933–53; Alison P. Hayman ‘e Image of the Jew in the Syriac Anti-Jewish Polemical Literature’, in Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs (eds.), ‘To See Ourselves as Others See Us’: Christians, Jews, ‘Others’ in Late Antiquity (Scholars Press Studies in the Humanities; Chico CA, 1985), pp. 423–41; Adam H. Becker, ‘L’antijudaïsme syriaque: entre polémique et critique interne’, in Ruani (ed.), Les controverses religieuses en syriaque, pp. 181–208.

MALALAS AND THE NEW AGE OF JUSTINIAN Roger S

is paper is about the sixth-century chronicler Malalas and his portrayal of his emperor Justinian.1 Malalas has oen been criticized for his superficiality and his errors, and understandably so. Yet, as I have pointed out elsewhere, he alone of our sources records all four of Justinian’s more famous activities (the reconquest of the West; the codification of the Law; the building of Hagia Sophia; and the closing of the Academy in Athens), whereas the justly more famous Procopius only scores one out of four in his Wars.2 As it is also clear that Malalas was at least reasonably well educated and was probably trained as a lawyer, quite possibly with a career as a bureaucrat in the office of the Comes Orientis in Antioch, we should take at least reasonably seriously his choice and arrangement 1. I should acknowledge immediately that as I have toiled for many years with aspects of Malalas’ depiction of Justinian and his reign, I have inevitably repeated material that I have used elsewhere, though I trust my presentation here is a development. In particular the latter part of this paper repeats verbatim considerable sections of three recent papers (all published in 2013) where I had begun exploring the ideas that lie behind this paper. For me this was clearly the most efficient way of presenting material that this paper needs in full rather than as a simple cross-reference. e relevant papers are: Roger Scott, ‘e Literature of Sixth-Century Byzantium’, in Dean Sakel (ed.), Byzantine Culture: Papers from the Conference “Byzantine Days of Istanbul” [İstanbul’un Doğu Roma Günleri], held on the occasion of Istanbul being cultural capital of Europe, May 21-23 2010 (Ankara, 2013), pp. 45–57; idem, ‘e Treatment of Religion in Sixth-Century Byzantine Historians and some Questions of Religious Affiliation’, in Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony and Lorenzo Perrone (eds.), Between Personal and Institutional Religion: Self, Doctrine and Practice in Late Antique Eastern Christianity (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 15; Turnhout, 2013), pp. 195–225; idem, ‘Revisiting the Sixth-Century Turning Point’, Adamantius: Journal of the Italian Research Group on ‘Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition’ 19 (2013), pp. 303–13. I should also acknowledge with thanks that those three papers and consequently this one too depend enormously on fruitful (though sometimes exhausting) conversations with István Perczel during the time we were both Fellows of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2010. 2. Roger Scott, ‘Writing the Reign of Justinian: Malalas versus eophanes’, in Pauline Allen and Elizabeth Jeffreys (eds.), The Sixth Century: End or Beginning? (Byzantina Australiensia 10; Brisbane, 1996), p. 23; ‘Narrating Justinian: from Malalas to Manasses’, in John Burke (ed.), Byzantine Narrative (Byzantina Australiensia 16; Melbourne, 2006), p. 33, both reprinted in Roger Scott, Byzantine Chronicles and the Sixth Century (Variorum; Farnham, 2012) as Studies XIII and XVII.

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of material for Justinian, for which, as a contemporary, he is a primary source. What most notably emerges from this is the lack of emphasis given to Justinian’s western wars and his supposed attempt at restoring or regaining the western Roman Empire; and that although Malalas’ material amounts to just a collection of snippets rather than any worthwhile analysis, what emerges from these snippets is the importance of Christianity, the Church and the pious emperor in everyday society, impinging on so many facets of people’s lives – which is so despite Malalas’ almost complete ignorance of or lack of interest in the big theological issues of the day. (He covers the fourth ecumenical synod at Chalcedon for instance in just twelve words and omits the fih, Constantinople II, entirely.) I would, however, also point out that when Dame Averil Cameron refers to Justinian ‘as a repressive autocrat … who burnt books … who arrested intellectuals … who closed the academy’ in her ground-breaking book on Procopius,3 her source is not Procopius Secret History as one might expect but Malalas. So Malalas provides not only the major achievements of the reign, but is also our source for the criticisms, though (incidentally) Malalas would almost certainly have interpreted all Cameron’s criticisms as a favourable judgement, evidence of the emperor doing his job properly, making the world safer, which needs to be remembered. I should just add that, more or less following Malalas, I divide up Justinian’s reign into three periods: an initial period of about twelve years of success, confidence and optimism (say 527–38), during which all his major achievements occur; a short period of horrendous disasters (539–42: the massacre of 300,000 in Milan in 539; the disastrous Persian invasions of 540 and 541 including the sack of Antioch; the plague of 542) followed by another long dismal period of almost a quarter of a century (543–65), not so impressively disastrous, but still a lengthy period of pessimism and failure. My faith in Malalas as a source has now been vindicated, it seems, by the German Academy which has awarded Mischa Meier of Tübingen a huge grant for twelve years for research on Malalas, with annual conferences each leading to a volume of studies on Malalas which should make Malalas Byzantium’s most published author. It is, however, to Meier’s previous work that I now wish to turn (in some ways to my own embarrassment), notably his Das anderes Zeitalter Justinians, published in 2004. My embarrassment comes from my having given a paper in Paris back in January 2003 for the École des Hautes Études as one of four papers 3. Averil Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (London, 1985), p. 21. Cf. Scott, ‘Writing the reign’, pp. 22–23.

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spread over four weeks, which were supposed to be published with some others by the École soon aerwards in French. Over a decade later this has not happened (and now seems unlikely ever to happen), but the point is that those papers were given before Meier published Das anderes Zeitalter Justinians which appeared the following year. When I decided it was best to publish an English version of that unpublished Paris paper as a chapter in my Variorum volume,4 I really did not want it to differ much from the original French version and consequently I did not adapt it to take notice of Meier’s book. But there I do make much of sixth-century catastrophes followed by expectations of the end of the world and the Second Coming and, when that fails to materialize, the suspicions that Justinian may be the Antichrist, a notion first put forward by Berthold Rubin in 19515 and which Meier also accepts. I also suggested that there are signs of a changing world from the outset of Justinian’s reign that foreshadow a Byzantine rather than a Classical mentality that is generally recognized to be present by the seventh century. It is this that I want to emphasize. Meier’s book is huge, 739 pages, so any attempt at summarizing it very briefly is likely to produce distortions. It is clear, however, that our interpretations do overlap considerably. He likewise draws attention to but plays down those great early achievements of Justinian, but his main thesis concerns the large numbers of catastrophes (both natural and those caused by human beings) that occur in the Byzantine East during the sixth century and particularly during Justinian’s long reign; and that this is the key to understanding the period of Justinian and its mentality. Meier of course notably gives due attention to Malalas. At the end of his book he also catalogues all the catastrophes (his term) that occur in the Byzantine East between 500 and 565. It is an impressive, if horrifying list. For Justinian’s reign alone (that is 527–65) he catalogues some 86 catastrophes with a further 27 for the period 500–26. In only two years of Justinian’s reign has he failed to identify a catastrophe (527 and 552), giving an average of almost 2.5 catastrophes per annum. One might quibble occasionally about his definition or acceptance of an event as catastrophic, but it is still impressive. What he does bring out, which I had failed to 4. Scott, Byzantine Chronicles. 5. Berthold Rubin, ‘Der Fürst der Dämonen’, BZ 44 (1951), pp. 469–81; idem, Die Zeitalter Justinians (Berlin, 1960), pp. 441–54; idem, ‘Der Antichrist und die Apokalypse des Prokopios von Kaisareia’, ZDMG 110 (1961), pp. 55–63. It has also been suggested by Nicholas de Lange, ‘Jewish and Christian Messianic Hopes in Pre-Islamic Byzantium’, in Markus Bockmuehl and James C. Paget (eds.), Redemption and Resistance: The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity (London, 2007), pp. 274–84 at p. 279.

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perceive, is how many of these catastrophes (some eighteen) occur in the period that I regard as happy and successful. Nevertheless, Meier still divides the reign in a similar way to my division, with an initial successful period of 527–40 (as against my 527–38), and a dismal period of 540– 65. But what I also want to stress is that Malalas is footnoted as being at least one of the sources for some 42 of the 86 catastrophes under Justinian and for ten of the 26 that occurred between 500 and 526. For forty of these Malalas is either the sole source or the main source. It is thus the evidence of Malalas that also enables us to recognize the significance of other sources and take note of disasters that we might otherwise have passed over without comment. Meier probably pays more attention to natural disaster than I do, and perhaps gives rather less attention to contemporary intellectual debates on eschatology, for instance not discussing at any stage the debate between Philoponus and Kosmas Indikopleustes on the End of the World. It might be queried whether Meier’s long list of natural disasters was actually felt by contemporaries as having anything to do with their fears about divine intervention and worries about the end of world. Here Procopius shows that he at least saw it that way in his Secret History6 where Procopius links ‘the calamities which fell upon all mankind during the reign of the demon (δαίμων)’ and refers to δαίμων several times in the next few lines. For δαίμων one can in effect read ‘Antichrist’, as Berthold Rubin argued many years ago (δαίμων being an acceptable word for a classicising writer, which ‘Antichrist’ obviously was not). So here I am going to take Meier’s basic case as proved, and likewise the notion of the period being one in which Christians expected the end of the world and preferably the Second Coming; or if things went wrong, the Antichrist; and with the Antichrist described as a ruler who would at first pretend to be a gentle Christian who would build a great church and reform the laws (just as Romanos describes the Antichrist),7 before revealing himself as the Antichrist amidst plague, invasion, earthquakes, drought and famine, so when things did go wrong with a similar set of disasters, it also became natural to identify Justinian as the Antichrist. 6. Procopius, Secret History, 18.36–37, in Jacob Haury and Gerhard Wirth (eds.), Procopii Caesariensis opera omnia, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1962–64), vol. 3, p. 118. Cf. Roger Scott, ‘Malalas, The Secret History and Justinian’s propaganda’, DOP 39 (1985), reprint in Byzantine Chronicles, Study IX, pp. 99–109 at p. 108. 7. Romanos, Kontakion 34, ‘On the Second Coming’ strophes 9–13, in Paul Maas and Constantine A. Trypanis (eds.), Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica, Cantica Genuina (Oxford, 1963), pp. 269–71.

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Here, however, I would like to look at something a bit different and begin with what is almost the opening of Malalas’ final book of the chronicle, book 18 on the reign of Justinian, though the full title, restored by urn from the Slavonic Malalas, is ‘e reign of Justinian and the Sixth Collapse of Antioch’. e extra part of the title, ‘the Sixth Collapse of Antioch,’ is probably only of marginal significance, beyond showing that Malalas too thought of the period in terms of catastrophe, if limited to one place. (We should also note that for Book 17 on Justin, again Malalas’ full title is ‘e times of the emperor Justin and the Collapse of Antioch’.) Which suggests that Malalas too saw the period in the way that Meier sees it rather than as a golden age of wondrous achievements. So, to Malalas. Following the title for Book 18, Malalas first provides the almost standard physical description of Justinian in the opening paragraph. But the very next paragraph as the very first event is about the appointment of a Comes Orientis with troops to restore Palmyra and protect Jerusalem. It continues as follows: Palmyra had formerly been great, for in that place, before the city was built, David fought the fully-armed Goliath in single combat. David struck Goliath with a stone and felled him, and running up, beheaded him with the sword Goliath had been carrying. He took his head and kept it for some days and then brought it into Jerusalem in victory, raised on a pole before him. So the emperor Solomon made Palmyra a great city because of his father David’s victory and gave it its name, since it had been the death (μοῖρα, no doubt pronounced ‘myra’) of Goliath. Formerly this city also protected Jerusalem. us the Persian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar advanced by way of it and took it with great effort first, for he feared to leave it at his rear since an army of Jewish soldiers was stationed there. He captured it, burnt it and so took Jerusalem.8

To introduce the story of David and Goliath at any stage of an account of the sixth century of the Common Era is odd. To do so in a book devoted to Justinian before narrating a single thing that Justinian did is very odd. What is also remarkable is the linking of this to the defence of Jerusalem, and all this in the context of (or even being excused by) the needs of restoring Antioch. (Remember: all that Malalas has told us about Justinian so far in Book 18 is his physical appearance.) e version given here also represents a considerable expansion by Malalas on the account he gave of David and Goliath in its proper Old Testament context, back a few hundred pages earlier in Book 5, where he merely states that Solomon 8. Malalas, Chronographia, 18.2, ed. Ioannes urn (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 35; Berlin, 2000), pp. 354–55, trans. Elizabeth Jeffreys et al., John Malalas: A Translation (Byzantina Australiensia 4; Melbourne, 1986), pp. 244–45 (Cf. 1 Sam. 17).

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‘also built a city on the limes which he called Palmoira (reading ‘Palmoira’ rather than ‘Palmyra’), because in the past the village had been fatal for Goliath whom his father had slain there.’9 Malalas does, admittedly, a little later, make rather more of Nebuchadnezzar’s capture of Jerusalem, exploiting it to open his Book 6 entitled ‘e Time of the Empire of the Assyrians’, the last of his six books dealing with the Hebrew or Old Testament world. But there it is firmly separated from anything to do with David and Goliath. I would find it hard to believe that Justinian himself was not somehow responsible for Malalas’ stress on David and Goliath and also Solomon at the opening of his narrative on Justinian. How to interpret this is unclear, so I only offer a suggestion. In a couple of papers that I published thirty or more years ago I argued that much of Malalas’ account of events in his own lifetime was derived from official notices emanating from the imperial office (which Malalas presumably saw and collected while working in the office of the Comes Orientis).10 My argument in those two papers seems to have been accepted with approval. So I suspect that this is just another example. e most obvious assumption is surely that Justinian himself had drawn attention to the story of David and Goliath in his propaganda and had linked this both with Solomon, Palmyra, the defence of Jerusalem and also the defence of Antioch; and that will have been the source for Malalas. So it is likely enough that Malalas’ inclusion and expansion of the story here is due to Justinian. Otherwise it is hard to see why Malalas should have used this story to open his account of Justinian. So next there are the interrelated questions of why would Justinian want this and what does this also imply about Malalas’ treatment of Justinian? Certainly it was rare for any Byzantine emperor to identify himself with King David until Heraclius almost a century later when there was something of an outpouring of Heraclius’ links to David (most famously through the so-called David plates), as Claudia Rapp has pointed out.11 But 9. Malalas, 5.39 (urn, p. 112) but 5.69 in Australian translation (p. 76). 10. Roger Scott, ‘Malalas and Justinian’s Codification’, in Elizabeth and Michael Jeffreys and Ann Moffatt (eds.), Byzantine Papers (Byzantina Australiensia 1; Canberra, 1981), reprint in Byzantine Chronicles, Study VIII, pp. 12–31; idem, ‘Malalas, Secret History’, pp. 99–109. 11. Claudia Rapp, ‘Old Testament Models for Emperors in Early Byzantium’, in Paul Magdalino and Robert Nelson (eds.), The Old Testament in Byzantium (Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposia and Colloquia; Washington DC, 2010), pp. 175–98 at p. 194. Rapp does, however, also note the occasional use of David as a model by earlier emperors, but comments (p. 185), ‘On the whole, then, early Byzantine church historians … employed Old Testament comparisons for emperors only sparingly.’

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against this, Romanos in his hymn on Earthquakes and Fires certainly seems to compare Justinian with David, as Wolf Liebeschuetz has noted,12 while a bishop at Justinian’s colloquium in 532 or 53313 between Monophysite and Chalcedonian bishops thought Justinian was like another David.14 Likewise no less an art historian than Kurt Weitzmann has interpreted the mosaic of David, prominently and centrally placed in the apse mosaic at St Catherine’s at Sinai, as representing a deliberate likeness of Justinian,15 a view that has been reinforced more recently by another distinguished art historian, Leslie Brubaker.16 Weitzmann, on noting that the bust of David is in a focal position, commented that: His purple chlamys and jewel-studded crown emphasize not only an imperial connotation in general, but show the prophet in the guise of the contemporary Byzantine emperor. Moreover, it will be noticed that David appears unbearded whereas normally he is depicted in Byzantine art with a beard and thus distinguished from King Solomon who, as a rule, wears no beard.17 us, it seems quite reasonable to assume that through such means of distinction the artist wanted to allude to Justinian, the founder of the Sinai monastery, who appears beardless also … in San Vitale and S. Apollinare Nuovo…

So it is not unfair to suggest that Justinian may well have spotted the value of a link to King David rather ahead of Heraclius, and perhaps Justinian also wanted to draw attention to links with the Old Testament. Perhaps too, as Justinian’s background was similar to that of his uncle Justin, who rose from being a shepherd or herdsman, the upstart Justinian may have wanted to be compared with the poor shepherd boy David, as did another later emperor with a humble background, Basil I, ‘whose upstart rise to power made him keen to identify himself as a new David 12. Wolfgang Liebeschuetz, ‘e Use of Pagan Mythology in the Christian Empire with Particular Reference to the Dionysiaca of Nonnus’, in Allen and Jeffreys (eds.), Sixth Century, pp. 75–91 at p. 91. 13. For the date, Ernst Stein, Histoire du bas-empire, 2 vols. (Paris, 1959), vol. 2, p. 378; Franz Diekamp, Die origenistischen Streitigkeiten im sechsten Jahrhundert und das fünfte allgemeine Concil (Münster, 1899), p. 36. 14. Eduard Schwartz (ed.), Innocentii Maronitae epistula de collatione cum Severianis habita, in ACO IV/2, pp. 169–84, here p. 182 (or Joannes D. Mansi [ed.], Collatio Catholicorum cum Severianis, in Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio [Florence, 1762], vol. 8, col. 832A). I am grateful to Margaret Riddle for discussion of this issue. 15. Kurt Weitzmann, ‘Introduction to the Mosaics and Monumental Paintings’, in George H. Forsyth and Kurt Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Church and Monastery of Justinian, Plates (Ann Arbor, 1966), p. 15. 16. Leslie Brubaker, ‘Gesture in Byzantium’, in Michael J. Braddick (ed.), The Politics of Gesture: Historical Perspectives (P&P 203, suppl. 4; Oxford, 2009), pp. 36–56. 17. I here must bow to the authority of the distinguished art historians but, as Jean Liggett has pointed out to me, the David in the Sinai apse mosaic does in fact appear to have a slight beard.

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and to claim the special protection of the prophet Elijah,’18 where it is also worth noting that Basil in his propaganda tried to link himself to Justinian.19 So it is also worth mentioning that Justinian’s uncle, Justin 1, to escape his herdsman background, had not only walked all the way from Bederiana20 in Illyricum to Constantinople (about 800 km), but aer he became emperor had somehow arranged to have the whole story of his arrival in Constantinople and his subsequent career depicted on the walls of a public building (δημόσιον) by the chartularius Marinus, who supposedly explained:21 I have represented these things in pictures for the consideration of the observant … in order that magnates and rich men … may not trust in their power and their riches … but in God, who raises the poor man out of the mire and places him as chief over the people.

at was clearly a fine piece of imperial publicity (and we wish we knew how long it survived), even though Zachariah interprets it differently. We also know that Justinian had his victories over the Vandal and Ostrogoth ‘usurpers’ portrayed in mosaic in the restored Chalke building, the entrance to the imperial palace. So did Justinian go one better here and somehow have his own story neatly compared with King David, with particular attention to the killing of Goliath, perhaps even linking this with the defence of the New Jerusalem, a title Constantinople was just beginning to claim? at would certainly help explain the initial and prominent place of the David and Goliath story in Malalas’ narrative on Justinian. e David and Goliath story draws attention of course not only to David but also to Solomon.22 e late story23 that at the dedication of Hagia Sophia Justinian raced ahead of the patriarch24 so that he could 18. Magdalino and Nelson, ‘Introduction’, in id. (eds.), Old Testament in Byzantium, p. 22. 19. Cf. Gilbert Dagron, Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium. Trans. by Jean Birrell (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 211–13. 20. Near Skopje, capital of modern Macedonia. 21. Zachariah of Mitylene, Chronicle, 8.1, trans. Frederick J. Hamilton and Ernest W. Brooks, The Syriac Chronicle known as that of Zachariah of Mitylene (London, 1899), p. 189, where δημόσιον is translated as ‘public baths’, rightly objected to by Alexander A. Vasiliev, Justin the First: An Introduction to the Epoch of Justinian the Great (Cambridge MA, 1950), pp. 89–90. 22. As both Margaret Riddle and Christine Stephan-Kaissis have pointed out to me. 23. Διήγησις περὶ τῆς ἁγίας Σοφίας, 27–28, ed. eodor Preger, Scriptores Originum Constantinopolitanarum, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1901–07), vol. 1, pp. 104–105; cf. Glykas, Annales, ed. Immanuel Bekker (Bonn, 1836), p. 498. 24. Eutychius according to Patria which is chronologically impossible (Menas was the current patriarch).

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shout ‘Solomon, I have conquered you’ remains just a story, but it is likely enough that it reflects a genuine issue. For it is also reflected even more emphatically in another late story of which there are similar versions preserved in the Patria25 and by Michael Glykas, whose version I cite here: [Justinian] set up a statue of Solomon on the basilica cistern looking towards the Great Church of God that he had built, holding its chin as if to show that Solomon had been outdone in the building of the New Jerusalem.26

at there was a statue nearby which was believed to be that of Solomon, whether or not with these characteristics, is attested by accounts in several versions of Symeon Logothete that refer to Basil I placing this statue in the foundations of his Nea church.27 Because of Basil’s action that story has provoked varied discussion, but more to do with Basil and his Nea than with Justinian. For Justinian scholars have instead pointed rather to his viewing his church as a triumph not so much over Solomon as over Anicia Juliana whose recent and huge Hagios Polyeuctos was, in its measurements and decoration, very likely aimed at mimicking in some way Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem as well as advertising her own royal heritage, a heritage that Justin and Justinian certainly lacked.28 But there is no need to turn to later sources to find Justinian’s Hagia Sophia contrasted with Solomon’s temple as the contrast is also noted precisely by Corippus. iam salomoniaci sileat descriptio templi Let the description of Solomon’s temple now be stilled.29 25. Patria of Constantinople, 2.40 in Albrecht Berger (trans.), Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 24; Cambridge MA, 2013), pp. 74–75; Preger, Scriptores, vol. 2, p. 171. 26. Glykas, Annales, p. 498. 27. Symeon Logothete, Chronicon, 132, 14 in Stefan Wahlgren (ed.), Symeonis Magistri et Logothetae Chronicon (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 44/1; Berlin, 2006), p. 265; in Immanuel Bekker (ed.), Leonis Grammatici Chronographia (Bonn, 1842), pp. 257–58; in . Tafel (ed.), Theodosii Meliteni qui fertur Chronographia (Munich, 1859), p. 180; in Immanuel Bekker (ed.), Georgii Monachi (Continuati), Vitae recentiorum imperatorum (Bonn, 1838), pp. 843–44. 28. E.g. R. Martin Harrison, A Temple for Byzantium: the Discovery and Excavation of Anicia Juliana’s Palace Church in Istanbul (Austin, 1989), pp. 15–41; Gilbert Dagron, Constantinople imaginaire; études sur le recueil des ‘Patria’ (Paris, 1984), p. 303; Johannes Koder, ‘Justinians Sieg über Salomon’, Θυμίαμα στη μνήμη της Λασκαρίνας Μπούρα (Athens, 1994), pp. 135–42; Robert Ousterhout, ‘New Temples and New Solomons: the Rhetoric of Byzantine Architecture’, in Magdalino and Nelson (eds.), Old Testament in Byzantium, pp. 223–53 at pp. 243–47. 29. 4.283, in Averil Cameron (ed. and trans.), Flavius Cresconius Corippus, In laudem Iustini Augusti minoris, libri IV (London, 1976), pp. 81 and 115 with commentary at pp. 204–205.

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So Justinian (and possibly his uncle Justin before him) may well have found it important to advertise possible links with such significant Old Testament kings as both David and Solomon to make up for their own shortcomings in their claim to imperial status. As Gilbert Dagron has pointed out: No new event was wholly true nor any new emperor wholly authentic until they had been recognized and labelled by reference to an Old Testament model. In Byzantium the Old Testament had a constitutional value; it had the same normative role in the political sphere as the New Testament in the moral sphere.30

All that is necessarily speculation, and I am trying to make much of it simply because, so far as I know, no one else has. e stories provide at least enough to suggest that Justinian may well have had a particular interest in the chronicler’s otherwise odd introduction of David and Goliath, whether that was to highlight a link to David or to Solomon or to both. e prominent placing of the David and Goliath story in Malalas is one of those troublesome bits of ‘evidence’, from which it would be rash to draw definite conclusions but which it would also be wrong to ignore entirely (as has been done so far). It fits neatly into our conference’s title of ‘Beyond the Fathers: In Search of New Authorities’. For Malalas, it may be more than simply a matter of picking up some Justinianic publicity, but have implications for us on how to interpret his chronicle. ere is not space to expand thoroughly on this. But what I want to suggest is that the image of himself that Justinian wanted to project may well have more to do with an Old Testament view than has normally been recognized. Almost thirty years ago I drew attention to how Malalas saw fear of Justinian as a positive sign of his rule, demonstrating that Justinian was doing his job properly in removing dissidents from society.31 (Procopius, I suggested, simultaneously had the reverse interpretation, seeing it as the removal of any form of tolerance in society). But Malalas’ understanding of ‘fear’ (and so presumably also Justinian’s) was very much an Old Testament one, suggestive of a return to Old Testament values with a stress on fear of a terrifying God who demanded total obedience. In saying that, I was also simply picking up on Averil Cameron’s argument for a ‘process of cultural integration’ in the late sixth century ‘that could only be expressed in religious terms’ where writers ‘who had previously striven to keep up “classical” styles of writing now presented their 30. Dagron, Emperor and Priest, p. 50. 31. Scott, ‘Malalas, Secret History’, p. 104.

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subjects unblushingly within terms of Old Testament typology’ supported by imperial patronage.32 In that context Averil Cameron also noted that: ‘by the end of his reign, Justinian was exhibiting a more priestly and liturgical side to his imperial image’33 (with this liturgical image also linked to Old Testament values). My own suspicion is that this priestly side was present right from the beginning with Justinian’s efforts to eliminate any form of deviance in his empire. As an indication of this, we note that his very first enactment aer he became emperor in 527 was aimed at ridding the state of heretics, Manicheans, Jews and Samaritans (CJ 1.5.12), in effect an attempt to produce a uniform state of orthodox believers, and he followed it up quickly with legislation to limit gambling to a single solidus (CJ 3.43.1) and to separate male from female religious institutions (CJ 1.3.43, 18 February 529). Christian Wildberg has pointed out that Justinian’s actions ‘were initially part of a broader legislative initiative to procure for the empire “the grace of God” (CJ 1.5.16.2; 1.11.10.1)’,34 whether or not this was to cleanse his empire of various dissidents in time for the Second Coming. It all does help emphasize Justinian’s intense preoccupation in the early stages of his reign with religious and moral reform. In stressing religious reform, I am not suggesting that Justinian was personally involved in the theological issues themselves (or certainly not at this early stage), but rather that he was troubled by the fact that theological divisions hindered his aim of establishing a unified empire, as Volker Menze has argued and I think demonstrated.35 But what needs stressing is that religious and moral reform are also the areas where that initial energy is retained throughout his long reign, even in the period that both Mischa Meier and I see as a time of pessimism. So marriage, divorce and questions of inheritance dominate the novels or new laws from the mid-530s right through to the 560s.36 Which also illustrates what I also want to stress here, namely the emperor being concerned with the social implications of Christianity. 32. Averil Cameron, ‘Images of Authority: Elites and Icons in Late Sixth-Century Byzantium’, first published in P&P 84 (1979), pp. 3–35, here pp. 3–4, reprinted in her Continuity and Change in Sixth-Century Byzantium (London, 1981), Study XVIII, and in Margaret Mullett and Roger Scott (eds.), Byzantium and the Sixth Century (Birmingham, 1981), pp. 205–34. 33. Cameron, Procopius, p. 255. 34. Christian Wildberg, ‘Philosophy in the Age of Justinian’, in Michael Maas (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2005), p. 330. 35. Volker L. Menze, Justinian and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford, 2008). 36. Cf. Scott, ‘Malalas, Secret History’, pp. 102–104; idem, ‘Justinian’s New Age and the Second Coming’, in Byzantine Chronicles, Study XIX, pp. 9–11.

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So it is these aspects (rather than reconquest or even conquest) that are not only clearly present at the opening of the reign but also characterize the later part where Meier and I among others have noted a change in atmosphere during the reign, with a change from an exuberant enthusiasm and self-confidence in the opening years of the reign to a rather depressed fear in the latter years. With that change from optimism to pessimism I suggest also comes the possible change among his subjects from looking forward to the Second Coming to viewing Justinian as the Antichrist,37 which seems to be present in several writers, most notably Procopius in the Secret History and Romanos with the change from his On Earthquakes and Fires (dated to 532–37) to such a different image in his On the Second Coming and On Ten virgins 2 (dated by Paul Magdalino to the mid-550s).38 It is here that I want to draw attention to two linked features of Justinian’s reign that have been raised separately by Averil Cameron and István Perczel. Cameron has drawn attention to sixth-century and later Byzantine literature being used to shape public opinion, most clearly and powerfully in an article entitled ‘Disputations, Polemical Literature and the Formation of Opinion in the Early Byzantine Period’, published in 1991 but reinforced in more recent publications such as ‘Text as weapons: Polemic in the Byzantine dark Ages’ in 1994 and ‘Enforcing orthodoxy in Byzantium’ in 2007.39 Perczel has recently been showing how writers were increasingly trying either to conceal their identity or else to encode their message so only their chosen audience would be able to interpret it correctly.40 e most famous and blatant case is Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, pretending to be a first-century contemporary of the apostles but 37. I first suggested this in 1985 in a footnote in ‘Malalas, Secret History’, p. 108. is was developed by Annamma Varghese, ‘Kaiserkritik in two kontakia of Romanos’, in Burke, Byzantine Narrative, pp. 393–403. It has also been suggested by Nicholas de Lange, ‘Jewish and Christian Messianic Hopes’, p. 279. 38. Paul Magdalino, ‘e history of the future and its uses: prophecy, policy and propaganda’, in Roderick Beaton and Charlotte Roueché (eds.), The Making of Byzantine History: Studies dedicated to Donald M. Nicol (Aldershot, 1993), pp. 3–34 at p. 6. 39. ‘Disputations, Polemical Literature and the Formation of Opinion in the Early Byzantine Period’, in Gerrit J. Reinink and Herman L.J. Vanstiphout (eds.), Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East (OLA 42; Leuven, 1991), pp. 91–108; ‘Text as Weapons: Polemic in the Byzantine Dark Ages’, in Alan K. Bowman and Greg Woolf (eds.), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 198–215; ‘Enforcing Orthodoxy in Byzantium’, in Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory (eds.), Discipline and Diversity (Studies in Church History 43; Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 1–24. Apart from the last, these items are reprinted among others in her Changing Cultures in Early Byzantium (Aldershot, 1996). 40. Cf. Scott, ‘Literature of Sixth-Century’, pp. 50–53. I have chosen to repeat part of it verbatim here.

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certainly written in either the late-fih or early-sixth century. (I merely note here Perczel’s identification of the author through an anagram as Agapitos, bishop of the island of Rhodes).41 Another is the Erotapokriseis (or Questions and Answers) of Pseudo-Caesarius, whom Perczel has identified as eodore Ascidas, Justinian’s main theological adviser from the late 530s to the early 550s, with Ascidas using Caesarius as a pseudonym to identify himself only to his own supporters, as Ascidas was also bishop of Caesarea.42 (Ascidas was presumably only called ‘Ascidas’ by his enemies, such as Cyril of Scythopolis, as an abusive nickname since it means ‘wine-sack’.) Ascidas was of course a controversial figure in that he appears to have been Origenist but signed his support for Justinian’s anti-Origenist decree of 546, whether from understandable cowardice aer seeing how Justinian dealt with other recalcitrants, or whether to retain his influence with Justinian while he (Ascidas) set about stacking important bishoprics with his own supporters. Another intriguing example is Cyril of Scythopolis who takes over Justinian’s monogenes hymn, or rather its beginning and end and in between (as again Perczel has demonstrated to me) inserted passages taken from eodoret of Cyr’s counter-anathematisms against St Cyril of Alexandria,43 and this at a time when eodoret’s writings 41. István Perczel, ‘Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and the Pseudo-Dormition of the Holy Virgin’, Le Muséon 125 (2012), pp 55–97 at pp. 85–88. Cf. idem, ‘e PseudoDidymian De trinitate and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: A Preliminary Study’, StPatr. 54 (2012), pp. 1–26; idem, ‘Once again on Dionysius the Areopagite and Leontius of Byzantium’, in Tzotcho Boiadjiev, Georgi Kapriev, and Andreas Speer (eds.), Die Dionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter: Internationale Kolloquium in Sofia vom 8. bis 11. April 1999 unter der Schirmherrschaft der Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale (Turnhout, 2000), pp. 41–85; idem, ‘e Christology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: e Fourth Letter in Its Indirect and Direct Text Traditions’, Le Muséon 117 (2004), pp. 409–46; idem, ‘e earliest Syriac Reception of Dionysius’, Modern Theology 24.4 (2008), pp. 557–71. 42. István Perczel, ‘Finding a Place for the Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Caesarius: A New Document of Sixth-century Palestinian Origenism’, in Palestinian Christianity: Pilgrimages and Shrines, ARAM Periodical 18–19 (2006–7), pp. 49–83; idem, ‘Clandestine Heresy and Politics in Sixth-century Constantinople: eodore of Caesarea at the Court of Justinian’, in Hagit Amirav and Francesco Celia (eds.), New Themes, New Styles in the Eastern Mediterranean: Christian, Jewish and Islamic Encounters, 5th-8th Centuries (LAHR 16; Leuven–Paris–Bristol, 2017), pp. 137–71; idem, ‘Universal Salvation as an Antidote to Apocalyptic Expectations: Origenism in the Service of Justinian’s Religious Politics’, in Hagit Amirav, Emmanouela Grypeou, and Guy Stroumsa (eds.), Apocalypticism and Eschatology in Late Antiquity: Encounters in the Abrahamic Religions, 6th-8th Centuries (LAHR 17; Leuven, 2018), pp. 125–61; idem, ‘Pre-Existence and the Creation of the World in Pseudo-Caesarius’, in Peter Van Deun, S. Van Pee, and B. Demulder (eds.), Building the Kosmos. Greek Patristic and Byzantine Question and Answer Literature (Turnhout, 2019). 43. Perczel treats this question in his forthcoming monograph Origénistes ou théosophes? Histoire doctrinale et politique d’un mouvement des Ve–VIe siècles. Cf. eodoret, Counter-anathematisms, PG 76, col. 393B.

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against Cyril had just been condemned, controversially and posthumously, for being Nestorian in 553 at the fih ecumenical council. It was a very neat way of safely revealing his continuing support for the condemned eodoret by simultaneously disguising that support inside what was being promoted as Justinian’s own hymn, even if it was actually written by Severus. ere are also several examples of theological or ecclesiastical documents being forged as Patrick Gray, Richard Price and Philippe Blaudeau have all recently noted.44 Anthony Kaldellis has also argued determinedly that several classicising authors were in fact pagans but had to disguise this because of fear for their safety by pretending to be Christians in their writings. He may be right though I remain utterly unconvinced by his arguments that I have tried to challenge elsewhere.45 But, as distinct from the classicising writers, even the few examples I have given are enough to show the existence of distinguished Christian writers who were highly troubled by what officialdom regarded as orthodox but recognized that it would be dangerous to challenge the official line openly. To cope with this, they found it necessary to disguise either their authorship or write in a code that only their adherents would recognize. But the point that needs emphasising is that these writers and presumably others all wanted to have their say in forming public opinion but clearly felt it unsafe to do so openly. is is very much a characteristic of the age of Justinian and does need remembering when we catalogue the glorious achievements of the reign. But what I now want to suggest is that this reign of fear and control is exactly what Justinian had intended from the beginning. Here I need to return to another oddity in Malalas’ presentation of Justinian. Although I am being perfectly accurate in drawing attention to Malalas’ exploitation of the David and Goliath story to mark the opening of his book 18 on Justinian, I do also need to point out that Malalas did introduce Justinian earlier into his narrative, quite properly at the end of Book 17 on his uncle Justin 1 aer Justin promoted Justinian to be co-emperor. ere Malalas noted that in the few months between May and August of 527, Justinian ‘gave generously to the city of the Antiochenes; he 44. Cf. ‘e methods employed by the council, and by the emperor who dominated it, included brutality towards its opponents … and the apparent falsification of documents in the dossiers…’ Richard Price (ed.), The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553, 2 vols. (Translated Texts for Historians 51; Liverpool, 2009), Preface, p. vii; likewise Patrick Gray, ‘Forgery as an Instrument of Progress: Reconstructing the eological tradition in the Sixth Century’, BZ 81 (1988), pp. 187–96; Philippe Blaudeau, ‘Le documentum symmachien consacré à Polychronius de Jérusalem; enseignements géo-ecclésiologiques d’un faux romain’, StPatr. 48 (2010), pp. 131–36. 45. Scott, ‘Treatment of Religion’, pp. 195–225.

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established secure orderly conditions in every city … so no one dared to cause any kind of disorder, since Justinian had struck fear into all provinces;’46 built several churches; and with eodora also built a hospice, baths and cisterns; provided many gis (as also did eodora); and punished the Manichaeans.47 at amounts to quite a lot to achieve in four months and is all provided in a few short paragraphs taking up scarcely more than a single page, all before Malalas begins his book on Justinian. (For no other emperor does Malalas provide material in a previous book). Clearly the dominant theme here is of Justinian the builder (though with particular emphasis on Antioch), which is also very much the dominant theme in later Byzantine accounts of Justinian (where, eophanes apart, Justinian is simply never shown as all-conquering).48 But almost equally important is the stress on law and order, and with this the theme of fear – and fear as a good thing. And it is achieved through the removal of disorderly behaviour and punishment of a heresy or dissident group (in this case the Manichaeans and also the circus factions). All this was achieved in just four months, if Malalas is to be believed, between Justin appointing Justinian as co-emperor on 1 April and Justin’s death on 1 August of 527 – and much of this certainly must have been achieved in those four months. Even if Malalas transferred at least some bits from a little later in the reign, it cannot have been from much later since it is virtually certain that everything in Book 17 would have appeared in the first edition of the chronicle, seemingly published in the early 530s. at also implies that as propaganda this appeared early in the reign, and so should help us with recognizing Justinian’s early aims: buildings and uniformity of belief and behaviour, achieved through fear. My argument is obviously not watertight, but it is still worth making. It is this early activity, still under Justin, that sets the tone for what follows in Justinian’s long reign as emperor. Again, it is difficult to believe that Malalas’ picture was not based on Justinian’s own propaganda. So it is worth stressing the two main themes: Justinian as a builder, both of churches and of public utilities, of baths, hospices and cisterns; and the stress on law and order, the crackdown on deviants (in this case Manicheans and the circus factions) and the presence of fear, with such fear being seen as a positive. And then note how neatly Justinian’s more famous achievements fit into this pattern. e Codification of Law was certainly aimed at clearing up a mess, but it also obviously had much to do with re-establishing Law 46. Malalas, 17.18 (urn, p. 351; Australian translation, pp. 242–43). 47. Malalas, 17.19–22 (urn, pp. 351–53; Australian translation, pp. 243–44). 48. Scott, ‘Narrating Justinian’, pp. 29–46.

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and Order; the Closing of the Academy is also obviously linked to his policy of establishing unity of belief and removing dissidents of any kind; while simply to enter Hagia Sophia is surely to experience a sense of awe and wonder (irrespective of one’s religious beliefs), and share in Justinian’s boast of outdoing Solomon, with both the awe and Solomon recalling Old Testament values. But then note our sources. e prefaces to the various codes make clear Justinian’s pride in his achievement, yet no contemporary source bothers to mention them apart from Malalas – and he does so twice.49 Malalas again is our only source for the Closing of the Academy; and, unlike Procopius’ Wars, Malalas does record the building of Hagia Sophia, just as it is Malalas (as we have seen) who alone refers to Justinian approvingly ‘as a repressive autocrat … who burnt books … who arrested intellectuals … who closed the academy’,50 as features of this golden age. What I hope I have been able to show is that Justinian’s reign, despite all its great achievements – and they are great and they do owe a lot to Justinian’s own initiative as a leader (and we should not forget that) – was still a troublesome period for many and particularly its writers and intellectuals who wanted to challenge official opinions or had their own agenda to pursue, but then had to be very careful how they did this, as they simply could not risk doing it openly. But whereas Mischa Meier wants to draw particular attention to the catastrophes of the reign, his ‘anderes Zeitalter’, which I am sure he is right to emphasize, I have elsewhere suggested a different background, which goes something like this.51 My suggestion is that it is only from the mid to late fih century that Christianity at last became concerned with the social implications of its beliefs and teachings rather than being obsessed with its legal status and its theological difficulties, as it had been in the century and a half since Constantine. In the West Bronwen Neil and subsequently Michele Salzman have drawn attention to the fact that Leo (pope 440–61) was in effect the first pope to take an active interest in various social issues raised by Christianity.52 ey both note that scholarship, through concentrating on Leo’s theology and spiritual activity, has failed to recognize his role as a civic leader, and in particular that he was the first pope to organize the poor rolls in Rome and oversee the organization of almsgiving as 49. Scott, ‘Codification’, pp. 67–85. 50. Cameron, Procopius, p. 21. 51. Scott, ‘Revisiting the Sixth-Century’, pp. 303–13. Most of the remaining concluding part of this paper is taken verbatim or almost verbatim from that paper. 52. Bronwen Neil, ‘Blessed are the rich? Leo the Great and the Roman Poor’, StPatr. 44 (2010), pp. 533–47; Michelle Salzman, ‘Leo in Rome: the evolution of episcopal authority in the fih century’, in Giorgio Bonamente and Rita Lizzi Testa (eds.), Istituzioni, carismi ed esercizio del potere (IV-VI secolo d.C.) (Bari, 2010), pp. 343–56.

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a means of financing this. But in the East, it is shown in the actions of Emperors, now aware of their role as God’s representative on earth, controlling God’s kingdom. So here is a brief list of topics first raised between 470 and 520 that we first hear of in Malalas or occasionally in one of the Syriac chroniclers – and it is only in these supposedly insignificant chroniclers that we do hear of these issues. Most notably there is the question of whether slavery is appropriate in a Christian society, an issue which Malalas reports was raised by the emperor Anastasius.53 ere is also concern over tattooing or branding of slaves;54 the abolition of mimes and wild beast fights;55 a tightening up on what activity is permitted on Sundays, so as now to exclude even all private entertainment and the playing of musical instruments;56 and a law guaranteeing inheritance rights for adopted children, and so putting an end to the practice of exploiting unprotected and oen orphaned or illegitimate children.57 Altogether one could reasonably object that these social issues, that I have just listed, do not amount to much. But nonetheless they are there and there can be little doubt that they were only raised as issues because of Christianity. ere is absolutely nothing of this kind reported anywhere in Malalas’ account covering the period from Constantine to 457, where instead the issues involve more where Christians, from the moment of Constantine’s conversion until late in the fih century, are more concerned with trying to establish Christianity’s legal status in society and being obsessed with sorting out and rationalising the apparent logical and theological difficulties of Christianity. So, although it is understandable that these matters are treated as trivial (not one of them scores a single mention in the massive Cambridge Ancient History volume 14 [Cambridge, 2000] which covers just this period [425–600], nor would one expect them to be mentioned), nevertheless they do exist and they surely do point to a change in society, and almost certainly a change that has come as a result of Christianity, and it is a change that takes place in the half century between say 470 and 520. But the changes come, I suggest, because Christianity is only now at this stage sufficiently confident of its dominant place in society that it can consider the social implications of its beliefs. at, I think, is a fair deduction from the way that the history of the period is recorded by chroniclers. 53. Malalas, 16.14, ed. urn, p. 328, Australian translation p. 225. 54. Malalas, 16.14, ed. urn, p. 328, Australian translation p. 225. 55. Joshua Stylites, Chronicle, 34, trans. Frank R. Trombley and John W. Watt, The Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite (Translated Texts for Historians 32; Liverpool, 2001), p. 32. 56. Malalas, 14.39, ed. urn, p. 293, Australian translation, p 204. Cf. CJ 3.12.9. 57. Malalas, 16.14, ed. urn, p. 328, Australian translation, p. 225.

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But what also resulted, with emperors becoming more aware of their social responsibilities, was the combination of fear of God and fear of the emperor with both now being accepted as positive factors which in turn produced a puritanical society or perhaps a society made conscious of Old Testament values where fear was accepted as normal and appropriate. So changes that stemmed from religion had a major effect on secular society, marking a very real change from antiquity. It is this that leads to the changed ‘Byzantine World’ of the seventh century and beyond. But it is also clear that it develops from Justinian’s policies from the moment his reign began. And we can establish this through paying proper attention to the much-maligned Malalas.

HAGIOGRAPHY AS A HISTORIOGRAPHIC GENRE: FROM EUSEBIUS TO CYRIL OF SCYTHOPOLIS, AND EUSTRATIUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE István P

. I: H   C O History as a science has been defined by nineteenth-century historians, such as Leopold von Ranke and eodor Mommsen. ey have set the tone for defining what is history and what is not. Ranke formulated the aim that history should be written wie es eigentlich gewesen, as it actually happened.2 eodor Mommsen has introduced the method of Quellenkritik in order to remove the mythological overlayers from historical reality. Doubtless, Ranke and Mommsen were influenced by great historical models, namely by ucydides mocking upon Herodotus’ mythicizing historiography3 and by Tacitus’ sine ira 1. All the ideas expressed in this paper have emerged in an intellectual interaction with Roger Scott, which started in 2010, when we spent something like six months together at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It is needless to say that he does not bear any responsibility for my errors. Be this as it may, the first part of what I am going to address here flows very much from Roger Scott’s ideas and he is the main inspirator also behind those of the second part. e final form of the paper also owes much to Stephanos Ehymiadis who has helped me with precious suggestions. 2. ‘Man hat der Historie das Amt, die Vergangenheit zu richten, die Mitwelt zum Nutzen zuküniger Jahre zu belehren, beygemessen: so hoher Aemter unterwindet sich gegenwärtiger Versuch nicht: er will bloß sagen, wie es eigentlich gewesen.’ – ‘To history has been assigned the office of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of future ages. To such high offices this work does not aspire: It wants only to show what actually happened.’ Leopold von Ranke, Introduction to Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1535, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1824), pp. v–vi; translated by Fritz Stern in The Varieties of History from Voltaire to the Present (reprint of the 2nd ed.; London, 2015), pp. 56–57. 3. It is known that ucydides oen corrects Herodotus and implicitly criticizes him. A prominent case is the earthquake on Delos. Compare History of the Pelopponesian War II.8.3 with Herodotus, Histories VI.98. It seems to me that while Herodotus sincerely believes the miracle (which, in fact, has never happened!), ucydides is making a persiflage, mocking both Herodotus and the credulity of the people. See, however, Adolf Kirchhoff, Über die Entstehungszeit des herodotischen Geschichtswerkes (2nd ed.; Berlin, 1878), pp. 18–19 and Felix Jacoby, ‘Herodotos’, in RE, Suppl. 2 (Leipzig, 1913), cols. 205–520, in cols. 230– 31, who both think the two historians spoke about two different earthquakes. Arnaldo Momigliano rejected this view but thought that ucydides wanted to correct the date

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et studio4 which seem to lurk in the background of wie es eigentlich gewesen. It is a general truism that very little of Rankeian history-writing can be found among Byzantine and East-of-Byzantium historiographers. is fact notwithstanding, we are inclined to consider as reliable history what we believe resembles most the Rankeian and Mommsenian ideals. As these nineteenth-century German historians were inspired by ucydides and Tacitus, we have the tendency to give precedence among our sources to a small set of high-bred historiography, produced in Constantinopolitan court circles in high-style Atticizing language, relating political history, war, diplomacy and court life, written in a generic imitation of the classical historians.5 is literature is transmitted in a small number of manuscripts. Some of these writings, deemed important for our scholarship and readership, have been transmitted to us in a single manuscript only. is means that these chefs d’oeuvre of historiographic literature exerted little influence other than on each other and through more popular writings, before their modern reception.6 It is not always clear why of the earthquake mentioned by Herodotus (‘Erodoto e Tucidide sul terremoto di Delo’, Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica, N.S. 8 [1930], pp. 87–89, on pp. 88–89); Momigliano’s interpretation is followed by many scholars, including E. Guidoboni, A. Comastri, and G. Traina, Catalogue of Ancient Earthquakes in the Mediterranean Area up to the 10th Century (Rome, 1994), pp. 109–111; however, recently, Jeffrey S. Rusten correctly noted that none of the two earthquakes mentioned by the two historians has occurred in reality (‘ΔΗΛΟΣ ἘΚΙΝΉΘΗ: An “Imaginary Earthquake” on Delos in Herodotus and ucydides’, JHS 133 [2013], pp. 135–45) but still accepts the correction theory. To all this, it is to be added that ucydides is utterly ironic here and scornful of the mythological historiography that Herodotus is practising. 4. Tacitus, Annales I.1.3. 5. is statement is taken from Brian Croke and Roger Scott, who have formulated it in several of their studies. See B. Croke, ‘Uncovering Byzantium’s historiographical audience’, in Ruth Macrides (ed.), History as Literature in Byzantium (Publications of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies 15; Farnham, 2010), pp. 25–53; R. Scott, ‘Writing the Reign of Justinian: Malalas versus eophanes’, in Pauline Allen and Elisabeth Jeffreys (eds.), The Sixth Century: End or Beginning? (Byzantina Australiensia 10; Brisbane, 1996), pp. 20–34, on pp. 22–24; idem, ‘Narrating Justinian: From Malalas to Manasses’, in John Burke et al., Byzantine Narrative: Papers in Honour of Roger Scott (Byzantina Australiensia 16; Melbourne, 2006), pp. 29–46, on p. 32; and an ampler study of this phenomenon, entitled ‘Chronicles versus Classicizing History: Justinian’s West and East’, in Roger Scott, Byzantine Chronicles and the Sixth Century (Farnham, 2012), VI, pp. 1-25. 6. As is the case of Procopius’ Secret History. Yet, Evagrius Scholasticus, who makes an ample use of Procopius’ Wars in his Ecclesiastic History, may also have read and used the Secret History without mentioning it. See, for example, his judgment on the apparent difference between the Chalcedonianism of Justinian and the Miaphysitism of eodora in Ecclesiastic History IV.10, which seems to echo Procopius in Secret History, 10.14–15, who claims it was mere hypocrisy. Of course, it is also possible that Evagrius came to this conclusion, which he proposes in a cautious way, independently of Procopius. Yet, the similarity is striking and Evagrius’ keenness on using Procopius elsewhere makes one doubt this independence.

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these works have our preference. Oen, they are highly ideological, and their handling of their sources is far from Mommsen’s requirements. e bulk of historical narrative that exerted real influence in its own time and is transmitted in a great number of manuscripts is distributed between three main literary genres: chronography, ecclesiastic history and saints’ lives (hagiography). Several authors have produced mixed genres combined of two or three of the latter. ese genres, deemed ‘inferior’, contain much source material that cannot be found in the ‘higher’ historiographical literature.

. A N C  T It seems to me that the aforementioned three historiographic genres – chronography, ecclesiastic history, historical hagiography – were founded as a conscious project by Eusebius of Caesarea, who devised them during the time of the great persecutions, partly as a response to the ideas of the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry, used as the main ideological tools of the persecutors.7 Porphyry powerfully proposed the idea of an eternal world endlessly revolving according to the circles of identity and difference, representing an unchangeable world order. Fragments of a lost treatise by him, written in defence of the eternity of the world have been transmitted in diverse works, including Proclus,8 7. It is a generally held view that Eusebius’ oeuvre is permeated with a polemic against Porphyry. Since Lenain de Tillemont and Adolf von Harnack, it was held that the double apology of the Demonstratio Evangelica and the Praeparatio Evangelica was conceived as a response to Porphyry’s Contra Christianos. is view was greatly nuanced by the subtle analysis of Aryeh Kofsky, Eusebius of Caesarea Against Paganism (Leiden, 2000), pp. 250– 75, who has shown that the Contra Christianos is explicitly cited only three times, and that Porphyry is rather cited as a witness against himself to the truth of Christianity and as a clear example of inner, self-contradicting confusion of pagan philosophy. Yet, these subtle rhetorical techniques used for polemical purposes do not mean that Porphyry’s presence in the Demonstratio and the Praeparatio Evangelica would be less emphatic. See also Sébastien Morlet, ‘Eusebius’ Polemic against Porphyry: A Reassessment’, in Sabrina Inowlocki and Claudio Zamagni (eds.), Reconsidering Eusebius: Collected Papers on Literary, Historical, and Theological Issues (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 107; Leiden, 2011), pp. 119–50. On Porphyry being the main ideologist behind Diocletian’s persecutions, see Elisabeth DePalma Digeser, A Threat to Public Piety: Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution (Ithaca NY–London, 2012). 8. Proclus, in his commentary on the Timaeus mentions that Porphyry wrote a treatise consisting of four chapters for refuting the arguments of Plutarch and Atticus on the temporal creation of the world: in Tim. II.119B. In what follows, he gives the summary of the four chapters: see Procli Diachochi In Platonis Timaeum Commentaria, vol. 1, ed. E. Diehl (Leipzig, 1903), pp. 391–96. English translation in Proclus, Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. Volume II, Book 2: Proclus on the Causes of the Cosmos and its Creation, ed.

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Pseudo-Justin,9 Philoponus and Augustine but have never been collected in their entirety. It seems to me that this treatise was written against the Christians, more precisely against the Christian Platonist school of Origen, which developed philosophical arguments in favour of the creation in time of the corporeal world. Christians replied to Porphyry, and in the continuing polemics two antagonistic concepts of time developed. One, represented by Porphyry, and later Proclus, considered time an eternally repetitive process measured by the unchanging revolution of the celestial bodies, which has never started and will never end. e other view, gradually developed in response to Porphyry’s arguments, was that of a linear but also structured time process, which began some 5500 years before the Incarnation of Christ and would end before very long.10 Certainly, this time was measured by the revolution of the celestial bodies, but this revolution was far from being eternally unchangeable. e celestial bodies were set in the moment of creation to measure the time and their revolution was maintained by the divine power of the Creator, who also had the power to alter them. ese alterations happened at important moments of history, which themselves had a transforming effect on the order of the cosmos. and trans. D.T. Runia and M. Share (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 263–71. A comparison of this section to Proclus’ anti-creationist arguments in other parts of the Timaeus commentary show that he was using Porphyry’s arguments throughout this work. 9. In Pseudo-Justin’s Christian Questions to the Gentiles there are five Gentile arguments against the Christians and in favour of the eternity of the world, which recognizably belong to Porphyry’s treatise summarized by Proclus, see Quaestiones Christianae ad Gentiles in S. Justini Philosophi et Martyris Opera, ed. J.C.T. Otto (Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum Saeculi Secundi 3.2; Jena, 1848), pp. 238–317. Modern scholarship had not recognized the Porphyrian origin of these fragments. us, J.P. Martín, ‘Las Quaestiones de Pseudo Justino: Un lector Cristiano de Aristóteles en tiempos de Proclo’, Tópicos 18 (2000), pp. 115–41, attributes to Proclus the doctrines expressed in the Ps.-Justinian fragments. B. Gleede, ‘Johannes Philoponos und die christliche Apologetik: Die Widerlegungen des Proclus und Aristoteles und die Debatte des Schöpfungsproblems in der Schule von Gaza und bei Ps-Justin’, JbAC 54 (2011), pp. 73–97, at p. 82, proposes that the pagan opponent of the Quaestiones is not a professional philosopher but just a pagan intellectual who develops his arguments on the basis of vulgar-Platonist monotheism, akin to the Corpus Hermeticum. In András Kra and István Perczel, ‘John Italos on the Eternity of the World: A New Critical Edition of Quaestio 71 with Translation and Commentary’, BZ 111 (2018), pp. 659–720, at p. 661, András Kra and I proposed that the five pagan arguments in Pseudo-Justin are fragments from the lost Porphyrian treatise summarized by Proclus and, thus, the refuted pagan opponent is a follower of Porphyry. I intend to publish a detailed philological proof of this argument. 10. ere were several methods for calculating the time of the Creation and of the Incarnation. According to the most common Alexandrian computing (era of Annianus), the creation of the world happened on the 25th of March 5492 , while the Annunciation happened aer 5500 years, that is, on the 25th of March  9. See V. Grumel, Traité d’études byzantines. Vol. 1, La chronologie (Paris, 1958), pp. 92–97.

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Such an event was, according to sacred history, when Joshua stopped the course of the sun and the moon in Gabaon until he won a complete victory over the Amoreans (Joshua 10:12–14; Sirach 46:4), or when King Hezekiah was ill while the Assyrians were fighting the Jews and upon the intercessions of Isaiah the sun was going backwards ten degrees during ten hours of the day and resumed its movement during the next ten hours, thus creating a day almost three times longer than the usual one, which resulted in the peaceful surrender of the Babylonians to the King of Israel (2 Kings 20:8–12; Isaiah 38:7ff). Yet, the most important such astronomical change occurred when Christ was crucified and the sun was eclipsed for three hours until the death of Christ, which miracle was accompanied by the temporary resurrection of many dead persons who were walking on the streets of Jerusalem (Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44ff). ese miraculous events, together with their scientific explanation, constituted a major argument in favour of the temporal creation of the world and the new conception of time in the Christian philosophical fiction of Pseudo-Dionysius, who mentions them in his Seventh Letter.11 Although based on good biblical examples and a long-standing Jewish tradition, this was a new concept of time for the late antique GrecoRoman world. Time in this new framework was not only linear as it is oen claimed but vectorial, pointing toward the definite end of the times, the Second Coming and the general Resurrection of all the dead.12 So, it was measured not only by the repetitive revolution of the celestial bodies but also by a series of unpredictable interventions of the divine power, which altered and shaped the structure of the world. Arguably, this new 11. Pseudo-Dionysius, Ep. 7.2–3: Corpus Dionysiacum II: Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, De coelesti hierarchia-De ecclesiastica hierarchia-De mystica theologia-Epistulae, ed. Günter Heil and Adolf Martin Ritter (Patristische Texte und Studien 36; Berlin–New York, 1991), pp. 167–70. e whole text of this letter consists of ad hominem arguments to Proclus – called Apollophanes in the letter – namely refuting his theory on the eternity of the perceptible world and arguing for the possibility of divine intervention into the revolutions of the heavenly spheres. us, the contemplation of the extraordinary solar eclipse at the crucifixion seems to be a cryptic reference to a Christian Platonist interpretation of the eclipse mentioned in the gospels as the main proof of divine intervention, being the prefiguration of the future reversal, according to the myth of Plato’s Statesman 269c–274d, of the revolutions of the circles of the identical and the different at the Second Coming, when the heavenly luminaries would rise in the West and set in the East, and when the human beings would be born from the earth – meaning the Resurrection of the dead – and disappear at the end of their lives, meaning the general Restoration (apocatastasis). 12. See on this, Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica 3.3.14–17. Here, Eusebius enlists Plato as a supporter of the Christian teaching of the creation and expected end of the corporeal world – clearly in opposition to Porphyry’s eternalist arguments, just like later Pseudo-Dionysius and Philoponus.

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concept of time demanded a new way of writing history. us, by all means, a new historiography was to be created. Yet, another factor shaping this new historiography was Porphyry’s attack on the Christians as being a new and innovative sect, whose atheism can be measured not only over against the venerable old traditions of the Greeks and the Romans but also those of the Hebrews.

. E  H G P It was Eusebius of Casearea who elaborated the new genres of historiography destined not only to give an appropriate answer to Porphyry’s accusations but also to give a powerful expression to the new Christian concept of time as being historically important. I would call this the ‘grand project’ of Eusebius. De facto, Eusebius is the founder of three historiographic genres, chronicle, ecclesiastic history and saints’ lives.13 e first piece of his grand project was the Chronicon, which he composed perhaps before 306 and 311.14 It is mentioned first in the Eclogae Propheticae, composed perhaps in 311 or 312.15 e next must have been the Life of his philosophy teacher, the martyr Pamphilus, which he wrote not long aer 310, the date of Pamphilus’ death, followed or accompanied by the Lives of the Martyrs of Palestine.16 e latter is extant in Greek fragments and in a loose Syriac translation of the entire work.17 In 313 Eusebius composed 13. Brian Croke credits him with the foundation of two genres, ecclesiastic history and chronography. See B. Croke, ‘Late Antique Historiography, 250-650 CE’, in J. Marincola (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Malden, 2007), pp.  568–81, especially pp. 574–80. 14. is is the dating proposed by Richard Burgess, ‘e Dates and Editions of Eusebius’ Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica’, in JThS 48.2 (1997), pp. 471–504. See also James Corke-Webster, Eusebius and Empire: Constructing Church and Rome in the Ecclesiastical History (Cambridge, 2019), p. 40. Earlier Alden A. Mosshammer, The Chronicle of Eusebius and Greek Chronographic Tradition (Lewisburg–London, 1979), p. 32, proposed a date before  303. e difference between the two dates is meaningful. e date established by Burgess prompts us to include the Chronicle among the works provoked by the Porphyrian challenge and the persecutions. 15. Eusebius, Eclogae Propheticae I.1, in omas Gaisford (ed.), Eusebii Pamphili Eclogae Propheticae (Oxford, 1862), p.  1.27–29. Mosshammer, The Chronicle of Eusebius, p. 32. proposes the date 311; Burgess, ‘e Dates and Editions of Eusebius’ Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica’, p. 484, the date 312. 16. Burgess, ‘e Dates and Editions of Eusebius’ Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica’, p. 484. 17. e Greek fragments were published by Hippolyte Delehaye, ‘Eusebii Caesariensis De Martyribus Palaestinae Longioris Libelli Fragmenta’, Analecta Bollandiana 16 (1897), pp. 113–39. e Syriac version was published by William Cureton, History of the Martyrs in Palestine, by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, Discovered in a Very Ancient Manu script (London, 1861). For the date, see Corke-Webster, Eusebius and Empire, p. 41.

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the Collection of Ancient Martyrdoms, which is lost.18 Perhaps it was in 313–14 that he composed the first redaction of the Ecclesiastic History and included in it a shorter version of the Lives of the Martyrs of Palestine.19 e suggestion that this pioneering hagiographic work constituted for Eusebius ‘the narrative bridge … from chronology to history’ is worth considering here, because this shows that chronography, hagiography and Church history were part of the same historiographic project.20 e question of the subsequent redactions or editions of the Ecclesiastic History has been widely debated. For a long time, the suggestion of Richard Burgess prevailed, who distinguished three redactions, the first in 313–14, the second in 315–16, which was re-edited and supplemented by book 10 in 325–26.21 However, recent studies have questioned the very concept of separate editions and proposed a more fluid editing strategy.22 Between 315 and 326, Eusebius wrote a polemical work against Porphyry, refuting the latter’s antiChristian arguments. Unfortunately, this work is also lost. Part of Eusebius’ grand project was also a Christian Geography, including 1) an Interpretation of ethnological terms in the  Old Testament, 2) a Chorography of Ancient Judea with the inheritance of the tribes, 3) a Plan of Jerusalem and of the Temple with memories relating to the various localities, 4) and the Onomasticon: On the place names of Sacred Scripture.23 Only the Onomasticon survives. Finally, between 335 and 339, before his death, Eusebius wrote the Life of Constantine.24 Apparently, when creating the new Christian historiographic genres, Eusebius aimed at the blending of traditions inherited from the sacred Scripture with those of classical Antiquity. His Chronicon is arguably the 18. Referred to in Historia Ecclesiastica IV.15.47. 19. In most manuscripts this is found between books 8 and 9, in one manuscript it is in the middle of book 8, while in some it is placed at the closing section of book 10. It is missing from other manuscripts. See Corke-Webster, Eusebius and Empire, p. 41. 20. Corke-Webster, Eusebius and Empire, p. 41. 21. Burgess, ‘e Dates and Editions of Eusebius’ Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica’. 22. Aaron P. Johnson, Eusebius (Understanding Classics; London 2013), pp. 104–12 and Matthieu Cassin, Muriel Debié, and Michel-Yves Perrin, ‘La question des éditions de l’Histoire ecclésiastique’, in Sébastien Morlet and Lorenzo Perrone (eds.), Eusèbe de Césarée. Histoire ecclésiastique. Commentaire, Tome 1: Études d’introduction (Anagôgê 6; Paris, 2012), pp. 185–207. See Corke-Webster, Eusebius and Empire, pp. 60–61. 23. For the dating, see Andrew Louth, ‘e Date of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica’, JThS 41 (1990), pp. 111–23, at pp. 118–20. 24. On the debates on the dating of the Vita Constantini, see Averil Cameron’s ‘Introduction’ to A. Cameron and Stuart G. Hall, Eusebius’ Life of Constantine: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Oxford, 1999), pp. 9–12. Cameron accepts the theory proposed by Harold A. Drake, ‘What Eusebius Knew: e Genesis of the Vita Constantini’, CPh 83 (1988), pp. 20–38, according to which Eusebius started to write the Vita in 335 and completed it aer the death of the emperor in 337.

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first attempt at creating a universal chronology of history.25 Quite obviously, this was triggered by Porphyry’s accusation that Christians are a new, rootless sect with no venerable ancient tradition. One of the aims of the Chronicon is to present the Christian Church as the direct heir to the people of Israel and to prove that the history of the latter, starting with Abraham, is more ancient than the history of any other nation on earth. e project is also characterized by a remarkable Rankeian and Mommsenian aim at historical precision, trying to set diverse chronologies in parallel and to create a universal dating system. is aim at accuracy goes hand in hand with Eusebius’ biases as an apologist, who definitively writes cum ira et studio.26 is scholarly endeavour became important as, with the new conception of time, history became a much more important subject than before. While, until then, history was important as that of a community, a state, or an empire, now it has become salvation history and, as such, world history. However, generically, the Chronicon draws on Jewish and Greek chronological traditions as well as, perhaps, the Roman tradition of state Annals.27 In the Ecclesiastic History, Eusebius continues the same project. It is a direct continuation of the New Testament and, within this, the Acts of the Apostles. It begins with a direct answer to Porphyry on the novelty of the Christian religion, establishing first the eternal existence of Christ, then all the prophetic promises about his coming, and a justification of the Church as the New Israel, so that the history of the Church may be exposed as an organic continuation of the history of the Hebrews.28 us, the Ecclesiastic History is closely and organically connected to the plan of the Chronicon. Remarkable are both Eusebius’ reliance on the classical historiographic tradition and his rupture with some of its elements.29 While he takes over many stylistic elements, he is not writing his story as a semi-fiction destined to entertain the reader, as ucydides wrote 25. See Brian Croke, ‘e Originality of Eusebius’ Chronicle’, American Journal of Philology 103 (1982), pp. 195–200. 26. On the apologetic nature of the Chronicon, see Burgess, ‘e Dates and Editions of Eusebius’ Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica’. 27. e Jewish tradition is represented by Josephus Flavius, to whom Eusebius himself refers. Yet, it seems that for sacred history and its synchronization with Greco-Roman Chronography, Eusebius used the Chronographiae of Sextus Julius Africanus. On this, see Mosshammer, The Chronicle of Eusebius, pp. 133–35. 28. Historia Ecclesiastica I.1.2–4. 29. On the generic characteristics of the Historia Ecclesiastica and its kinship with several Classical historiographic works, as well as on its innovative elements see the thoroughgoing discussion of David J. DeVore, ‘Genre and Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History: Toward a Focused Debate’, in A.P. Johnson and J.M. Schott (eds.), Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations (Hellenic Studies 60; Washington DC, 2013), pp. 19–49.

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his history, interspersed with semi-fictitious or entirely fictitious discourses by the protagonists. Instead, Eusebius boasts of his handling of the sources. Already in the last chapter of the first book, where he gives the earliest report on the Abgar legend, he claims to have found the apocryphal correspondence between the Edessan king Abgar and Jesus in the Edessan archives, written in Syriac, from which he translated it (or got it translated) into Greek.30 In his description of the persecutions of the Christians as well as when treating the imperial legislation in favour of the Church, he is citing official documents.31 So, his Ecclesiastic History is a mine of otherwise unavailable information for history writing. e genre of Ecclesiastic History that Eusebius founded preserved this characteristic. While the authors of Church histories cannot boast of the literary qualities of ucydidian historiography, through their reliance on earlier sources, oral traditions and documentary evidence they are major sources for us to establish history wie es eigentlich gewesen. at this faithfulness to the sources is combined to a taste for the transcendent and the miraculous is only natural, as the conception of history that has called to being the new historiographic genres is based on the new Christian conception of time, for which the direct divine intervention into human history is a structural element. e same holds for the genre of Saints’ Lives, apparently also founded by Eusebius. Generically, it is a continuation of individual heroic history, such as the Parallel Lives of Plutarch, and of national war history.32 At the same time, it sets the lives of the new heroes in the frames of the old-new universal community, which Eusebius wants to be as much the heir to the people of Israel as to what was best in the ancient world. Hence his double project of the Praeparatio evangelica and the Demonstratio evangelica, the first having been written in the period between 314 and 318 and the second between 318 and 323. e project was complemented by a Praeparatio ecclesiastica and a Demonstratio ecclesiastica (both lost), written between 318 and 323.33 e new heroes are, first, the martyrs 30. Historia Ecclesiastica I.13.5. is is the first testimony to the apocryphal history of Abgar Ukama. 31. Historia Ecclesiastica VIII–X. 32. This was the innovative thesis of Franz Overbeck in Über die Anfänge der Kirchengeschichtsschreibung (Basel, 1892), pp. 42–43. is presentation of the martyrs as the warrior heroes of the Church is general in all the literature. Yet, it seems to be Eusebius’ innovation to apply this concept in a generic way and create the new genre of Christian heroic lives. 33. On these dates see Jean Sirinelli and Édouard des Places, Eusèbe de Césarée: la Préparation évangélique. Introduction générale. Livre I. Introduction, texte grec, traduction et commentaire (Sources chrétiennes 206; Paris, 1974), pp. 8–15. See also Kofsky, Eusebius of Caesarea Against Paganism, p. 75 and Corke-Webster, Eusebius and Empire, p. 42.

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of the persecutions, to whom Eusebius added the Life of the first Christian ruler, Constantine.34 It has been argued that the Life of Constantine follows the generic models of ‘novelistic Hellenistic biographical traditions of “Romances” such as the “Alexander Romance” and the “Seleucus Romance”.’35 Once again, a scrupulous use of the sources, oen cited word for word, characterizes the enterprise, which, by all means, is biased and lays great emphasis on the miraculous.36 From this point of view, the famous scene of Constantine’s vision before engaging in war against Maxentius is significant and is inscribed in the long list, in sacred history, of the direct intervention of the divine into history.37 I will dwell upon this vision a bit longer, as I believe it to be a key for the understanding of some of the sixth century hagiographic narratives, too.

. T V  C   S   N C E In the Life of Constantine, Eusebius describes Constantine in doubt before the invasion of Italy. Constantine muses upon the fate of former co-emperors who fought against Maxentius putting their trust in the many gods of the Roman pantheon and who reached a miserable end; so, he comes to the logical conclusion that he would need a more powerful divine assistance. en, he turns to the ‘God who is beyond all things’, whom already his father had revered, and asks for a divine revelation, which he gets during daytime, when he and all his army see in 34. Friedhelm Winkelmann (ed.), Eusebius Werke, I, 1: Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantin (Die Griechischen Christlichen Schristeller; Berlin, 1975). English translation in Cameron and Hall, Eusebius’ Life of Constantine. 35. Fernando Lopez-Sanchez, ‘“Under this Sign You Shall Be the Ruler!” Eusebius, the Chi-Rho Letters and the Archē of Constantine’, in Álvaro Sánchez-Ostiz (ed.), Beginning and End: From Ammianus Marcellinus to Eusebius of Caesarea (Exemplaria Classica, Anejo 7; Huelva, 2016), pp. 137–58, esp. 142. 36. is indubitable bias of the Life of Constantine has earned damning judgments for Eusebius. See Jacob Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen (Leipzig, 1880 [second edition of the original from 1857]), p. 347: ‘In this case, one would not be easily convinced by the fact that an important theologian, a researcher of little critical acumen but of great diligence, a contemporary who was so close to the events, Eusebius of Caesarea, is repeating the same untruth all over the four books [of the Life].’ See also Franz Overbeck, Werke und Nachlaß, Band 6.1: ‘Kirchenlexicon Materialien: Christentum und Kultur’, ed. Barbara von Reibnitz (Stuttgart, 1996), p.  246: Eusebius, ‘a stylist to the emperor’s theological wig’. I have taken the quote of Overbeck from Corke-Webster, Eusebius and Empire, p. 2. 37. Life of Constantine I.27–30; Cameron and Hall, Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, pp. 79–81, commentary on pp. 202–210.

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heaven ‘beyond the sun’ a cross of light, with an inscription: ‘By this, conquer!’38 e next night, Christ appears to him to explain the vision and tells him to make a copy of the sign that appeared in the heaven and make it the standard of the army. Constantine obeys, creates the labarum, invades Italy and obtains victory over Maxentius. It is also important that the truth of the story was confirmed by an oath that Constantine himself made to Eusebius. 4.1. Three Versions of the Story of Constantine’s Vision Oen, it is being claimed in the literature that the parallel narrative of Lactantius in De mortibus persecutorum 44, written not long aer the events, while Eusebius’ narrative postdates them by over a quarter of a century, is substantially different.39 Yet, to me it seems that the two texts have more to do with each other than it is usually supposed, the differences notwithstanding. ere is also a third narrative by Philostorgius, apparently independent of both, summarized by Photius and echoed in a number of parallel texts.40 Here is an attempt at a parallel reading of the three texts. Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum 44.5–641

Eusebius, Vita Constantini, 1.30–31

Constantine was warned in a dream to mark out on the shields the celestial sign of God before entering the battle. He did as he had been ordered and marked on the shields chi-ro, with an

He said he saw with his own eyes, about the time of the midday sun, when the day began to decline, in the very heaven, superior to the sun,42 the victorious sign of a cross, made of

38. Life of Constantine 1.28, Winkelmann, p.  30.5–8: ἀμφὶ μεσημβρινὰς ἡλίου ὥρας, ἤδη τῆς ἡμέρας ἀποκλινούσης, αὐτοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἰδεῖν ἔφη ἐν αὐτῷ οὐρανῷ ὑπερκείμενον τοῦ ἡλίου σταυροῦ τρόπαιον ἐκ φωτὸς συνισταμένον, γραφὴν τε αὐτῷ συνῆφθαι λέγουσαν· τούτῳ νίκα. 39. See Cameron and Hall, Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, p. 204: ‘It differs in almost all respects from Lactantius’ account of the dream experienced by Constantine before the battle of the Milvian Bridge at DMP 44, with which legend-writers and historians alike have regularly mixed it up.’ 40. Joseph Bidez (ed.), Philostorgius Kirchengeschichte mit dem Leben des Lucian von Antiochien und den Fragmenten eines arianischen Historiographen (Die Griechischen Christlichen Schristeller der ersten Jahrhunderte 21; Leipzig, 1913), p. 7. 41. Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum 44.5–6, in Samuel Brandt and Georg Laubman (eds.), L. Caeli Firmiani Lactanti Opera omnia accedunt Carmina eius quae feruntur et L. Caecilii qui inscriptus est De mortibus persecutorum liber (CSEL 27.2; Prague–Vienna– Leipzig, 1897), p. 223.17–21. 42. Or ‘brighter than the sun’. is is apparently the meaning of the term ὑπερκείμενον τοῦ ἡλίου. In fact, ὑπέρκειμαι may mean ‘being beyond, above’, but also metaphorically,

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.  Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum 44.5–6

Eusebius, Vita Constantini, 1.30–31

x letter intersected by a line, with its light, and a writing that was attached to upper end being curved. Armed by it, saying: “By this, conquer!” He said this sign, the army took its weapons.43 that stupor seized him and the whole army, which was with him as he was preparing to a campaign somewhere and so became a seer of the vision. He also said that he was wondering Philostorgius, Ecclesiastical History, about what this vision could be. As he in Photius’ Epitome 1.6 was musing and was immersed in his He [Philostorgius] also agrees with thoughts for a long time, there came the others attributing the cause of the night and he fell asleep. en, as he was great Constantine’s conversion from sleeping, he saw the Christ of God with the pagan religion to Christianity to the sign that had appeared in the heahis victory against Maxentius, when ven, who commanded him to prepare a the sign of the cross appeared widely copy of the sign and use this as a proextended in the East, so that a stupe- tection against the attacks of the enefying radiation outlined it, while the mies. When it dawned and he woke up, stars surrounded it in the manner of a he recounted to his friends the ineffarainbow and formed the shape of let- ble (see 2 Cor. 12:4).44 en, he convoters, which said in the Latin language: ked the crasmen working with gold ‘By this, conquer!’ and precious stones, sat in their midst, ‘superior to’. Apparently, this is how ancient readers of the story, who blended it with Philostorgius’ account, understood the Eusebian expression. See Passio Artemii: ‘Christ showed him the sign of the cross in the middle of the day, shining brighter than the sun’ (δείξας αὐτῷ τὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ σημεῖον μεσούσης ἡμέρας ὑπὲρ τὸν ἥλιον ἐξαστράπτον); also Guidi’s Life of Constantine: ‘there appeared to him a radiation shining brighter than the sun in the air, acquiring the shape of a cross’ (ἀκτινοβολία γάρ τις ὑπὲρ τὸν ἥλιον ἐξαστράπτουσα κατὰ τὸν ἀέρα εἰς σταυροῦ τύπον μετασχημαθεῖσα). See Bidez, Philostorgius Kirchengeschichte, p. 7. Cameron and Hall, Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, p. 81, translate: ‘About the time of the midday sun, when day was just turning, he said he saw with his own eyes, up in the sky and resting over the sun, a cross-shaped trophy…’ 43. Commonitus est in quiete Constantinus, ut caeleste signum dei notaret in scutis atque ita proelium committeret. Fecit ut iussus est et transversa x littera, summo capite circumflexo, xp̄ o in scutis notat. quo signo armatus exercitus capit ferrum. is is the text of the unique extant manuscript containing the De mortibus persecutorum, copied in the eleventh century, Paris, BnF Latinus 2627, fol. 13r, available online at https://gallica.bnf. fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9072461x/f1.image.r=latin%202627 (accessed on 11-11-2019). In their edition, Brandt and Laubman have emended the text in the following form: Commonitus est in quiete Constantinus, ut caeleste signum dei notaret in scutis atque ita proelium committeret. facit ut iussus est et transversa X littera, summo capite circumflexo, Christum in scutis notat. quo signo armatus exercitus capit ferrum. (e underscores are indicating the emendations). Subsequently, although they have duly noted these emendations in the apparatus criticus of their edition as well as the original readings in the manuscript, only the emended text was cited, which has caused much misunderstanding. 44. In Eusebius’ formulation, the vision of Constantine is modelled upon the Apostle Paul’s vision of Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1–29 and 22:3–21), combined with his narrative on his rapture in 2 Cor. 12:2–5). e ‘recounting of the ineffable’ (ἐξηγόρευε

     Philostorgius, Ecclesiastical History, in Photius’ Epitome 1.6

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Eusebius, Vita Constantini, 1.30–31 explained the image of the sign, and commissioned to copy it in gold and precious stones, a copy that later the emperor deemed us worthy to see with our eyes, this also being given to us by God. It was made in the following shape. A long lance plated with gold had an intersecting horn made in the form of a cross. Above, at the top of the whole object, there was fixed a wreath composed of precious stones and gold, on which the symbol of the saving invocation, two letters intimating the name of Christ were indicating it by the two first letters, so that the rho was placed in the middle of the chi. e emperor was wearing these letters also on his helmet in later times. From the transverse horn that was traversing the lance, a linen cloth was hanging suspended…

4.2. The Relationship of the Three Stories A comparison of the three texts offers useful conclusions. ere is, definitively, a discrepancy in the dating: while Lactantius, who is closer to both the events and to Constantine, places the vision and the invention of the new military standard to the eve of the battle at the Milvian Bridge, Eusebius, who is definitively less well informed but claims to have heard the story from a direct communication of the emperor, places it before the beginning of Constantine’s Italian campaign against Maxentius. Apparently, not only Philostorgius, but also other elaborations of the story based on Philostorgius, agree with Lactantius.45 Another difference is that, while Lactantius simply describes the sign that Constantine had seen and claims that this sign was marked on the shields of Constantine’s soldiers, Eusebius, writing much later, speaks about a midday τὸ ἀπόρρητον) seems to be an oxymoron formed on the Pauline oxymoron ‘he heard unspeakable speaches’ (ἤκουσεν ἄρρητα ῥήματα). Cameron and Hall, Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, p. 209 mention the parallel of Moses building the ark of the covenant upon the heavenly pattern, which is certainly another scriptural model used by Eusebius. 45. ese are the Passion of Artemios, Guidi’s Life of Constantine and Zonaras, see Bidez, Philostorgius Kirchengeschichte, p. 7.

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vision preceding the dream. Philostorgius mediated by Photius describes only the vision but apparently places it in the night, presenting the appearance of the cross-shaped symbol as a light-sign preceding dawn. ere is no information in Philostorgius on the military standard. Eusebius complicates the story claiming that a late development of the labarum that he has seen corresponds to the copy of the sign seen by Constantine. It is to be noted that some of the discrepancies between Lactantius and Eusebius observed by modern scholars are due to misunderstandings in reading the texts and in interpreting them. First of all, Lactantius’ editors, Brandt and Laubman, had changed the reading of the unique manuscript, Parisinus Latinus 2627, from xp̄ o in scutis notat, to Christum in scutis notat, taking xp̄ o for an abbreviation of Christum. Subsequently, the original reading of the manuscript was forgotten and is normally not even mentioned in the secondary literature.46 Yet, the text says that Constantine was warned in a dream to mark ‘the heavenly sign of God’ in the shape of chi-rho on the shields of his soldiers. is does not mean that it was only in the dream that he first saw the chi-rho sign: it only means that there was such a sign in heaven, which now he had to mark on the shields. is short reference does not either state or exclude that there was a vision earlier. Definitively, Eusebius’ much later and embellished narrative is an expansion of the same story. In principle, it could be based on Lactantius, but there are indications that Eusebius had not read Lactantius, although he definitely knew Latin. Among others, he is utterly insecure in dating the event, that is, the change in the military standard and Constantine’s previous experience.47 Had he read Lactantius, most probably he would have used his precise dating. us, we can exclude with quite a high probability that Lactantius would be Eusebius’ source. Yet, it is all the more striking that there are close, quasi-verbal, or even verbal, coincidences between the two narratives. 46. See, for example, the speculations of M. DiMaio Jr, J. Zeuge, and N. Zotov, ‘Ambiguitas Constantiniana: the Caeleste Signum Dei of Constantine the Great’, Byz. 58 (1988), pp. 333–60, esp. 341–44, where not only they read the heavenly sign as being an upright staurogram (Ք), but also speculate about it being a constellation in this form seen in the Zodiacal sign of the Capricorn. See also Alfons Schädele’s edition, translation and commentaries: Laktanz, De mortibus persecutorum/Die Todesarten der Verfolger (Fontes Christiani 43; Turnhout, 2003), pp. 202–203, who translates the text as follows: ‘Er verfuhr wie befohlen, und indem er den Buchstaben X umlegte und seine Spitze umbog, setzt er Christi Zeichen auf die Schilde’, and comments upon the text in the following way: ‘Laktanz beschreibt offensichtlich ein sogenanntes Staurogramm, urspünglich eine Ligatur der griechischen Buchstaben P und T.’ Apparently, both the authors of ‘Ambiguitas Constantiana’ and Schädele take transversa x littera to mean ‘placing obliquely’ (to outline an upright cross). 47. ‘e whole army, which was with him as he was preparing to a campaign somewhere’ (τὸ στρατιωτικὸν ἅπαν, ὃ δὴ στελλομένῳ ποῖ πορείαν συνείπετο).

    

195

In Eusebius’ narrative, the following phrases: ‘as he was sleeping, he saw the Christ of God with the sign that had appeared in the heaven, who commanded him to prepare a copy of the sign and use this as a protection against the attacks of the enemies’ (μίμημα ποιησάμενον τοῦ κατ’ οὐρανὸν ὀφθέντος σημείου τούτῳ πρὸς τὰς τῶν πολεμίων συμβολὰς ἀλεξήματι χρῆσθαι) echo quite closely Lactantius’ ‘he was warned in a dream to mark out the celestial sign of God on the shields before entering the battle … armed with this sign, the army took its weapons’ (Commonitus est in quiete … ut caeleste signum dei notaret in scutis atque ita proelium committeret. … quo signo armatus exercitus capit ferrum). Also, Lactantius’ ‘an x letter intersected by a line (transversa x littera)’ is strangely echoed in Eusebius’ ‘a long lance plated with gold had an intersecting horn made in the form of a cross’ (κέρας εἶχεν ἐγκάρσιον σταυροῦ σχήματι πεποιημένον). Modern scholars correctly interpret this ‘horn’ as indicating, in Eusebius’ narrative, the transversal bar, on which a cloth was hanging from the labarum.48 Yet, the wording yields itself with difficulty to this interpretation. Originally, κέρας does not mean a “bar” but a “horn” consisting of two lines pointing upward obliquely, and the whole expression describes rather the intersection of the vertical line of the rho, intersected by the chi sign, than the transversal bar of the labarum. In fact, ἐγκάρσιον looks like a mirror-translation in Greek of transversa, so that I suppose here an original cornu transversum translated by Eusebius. Yet, definitively, it is to the crosswise bar of the military standard that Eusebius applies the word ‘horn’. us, probably, Lactantius and Eusebius had a common source, namely an official narrative on the vision and the subsequent change in the military standard, which both authors were using, but which Eusebius, who wanted to apply it to the labarum, somewhat distorted, imagining a T-shaped upright cross instead of the X seen in heaven according to Lactantius. is misunderstanding could also be intentional, given the ambivalent meaning of the chi-rho symbol. Eusebius must have been aware of the fact that, when he interpreted the intersection of the cross bar with the pole of the labarum as being the copy of the heavenly sign, he was referring to a feature of the Roman military standard, which had always been there, without having a Christian meaning. e innovation was the replacement of the eagle on the standard with the chi-rho symbol. us, Eusebius’ attempt at interpreting the vision and its copy as referring to the upright cross, is awkward. All this does not exclude that there was an occasion, perhaps at 48. See the translation in Cameron and Hall, Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, p. 81: ‘A tall pole plated with gold had a transverse bar forming the shape of a cross.’

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the Council of Nicaea, when Eusebius first met Constantine, when he heard the story (probably together with others) in the emperor’s narrative, who also confirmed it with an oath.49 All this indicates that the whole story was an important element in Constantine’s perception of his own rule and in his propaganda. Lactantius, whose main interest lies elsewhere – in showing the divine punishment that befalls upon those who persecute the Christians – only briefly refers to this as to a well-known story, while Eusebius, for whom the story is important for inserting it into his vision of salvation history, expands upon it, although at the price of a number of imprecisions, even intentional distortions. Finally, placing the vision in the night before dawn, as does Philostorgius, makes much better sense, as it also explains the appearance in heaven of the inscription In hoc vinces as a constellation of stars. Also, if the vision occurred in the night, there is no need for it to eclipse the sun. e appearance of the cross, or rather of the chi-rho symbol in heaven, can just be the forecast of a victorious sunrise.50 is would match much better Constantine’s dedication to the Sol Invictus, which he kept even aer his conversion to Christianity and whom he most probably identified with Christ. If so, Eusebius had good reasons to change the official narrative, to give the story a new meaning in which the rise of the symbol of the cross eclipses the ancient sun worship. us, this story, whose reliability is violently rejected by so many historians starting with Jacob Burckhardt,51 but which was positively treated by Ranke himself, 52 conveys much historical information, including 49. e plural form ἡμῖν ... ἐξαγγείλαντος and ἡμᾶς ... ἤξίωσεν can equally be understood to mean Eusebius alone, or several people including Eusebius, who heard the narrative and saw the labarum. 50. is interpretation was suggested by J. Gagé, ‘Le “signum” astrologique de Constantin et le millénarisme de “Roma aeterna”’, Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 31 (1951), pp. 181–223, esp. pp. 206–207. 51. Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen, p.  351: ‘e well-known miracle, which Eusebius and his followers want to have happened during the campaign against Maxentius, should be definitively removed from the historical presentations, as it does not even have the worth of a legend, nor does it have any folktale origin, but was related by Constantine to Eusebius much later, and was noted by the latter with purposefully unclear pompousness.’ 52. Ranke sees the story of the vision as the legendary and symbolic expression of a truly miraculous event: the victory of Christian monotheism over the traditional polytheism of Rome: ‘e real miracle is, that the Roman emperor had turned from the veneration of the gods, on which the Roman Empire was based until then, to the faith in the One God.’ L. von Ranke, Weltgeschichte, vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1883), p. 507. Also, Ranke considered the story of the vision as having the value of a trustworthy source transmitting the psychological state of the emperor. He thought that the whole story related by Eusebius is a faithful narrative of what the bishop heard from the emperor and of how the emperor remembered

    

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Constantine’s very practical musings before engaging in a battle against an opponent who had got almost twice as many troupes as he had.53 He must have calculated that many of the soldiers at war, on both sides, must have been Christian, so that the usage of a monogram on the labarum and the shields, which could be interpreted as the monogram of Christ, would greatly encourage his own Christian soldiers and discourage those of the opposing camp to fight against him.54 Even more important is, however, the meaning of the vision. If the hypothesis that Lactantius and Eusebius, but also Philostorgius, were working on the basis of a piece of imperial propaganda stands to reason, then it would be important to understand what this propaganda wanted to suggest and why and how Eusebius has changed the original message, to make it the foundational event of the creation of the Christian empire. In two ground-breaking studies, Dominique Hollard and Fernando LópezSánchez have shown, based on numismatic evidence, that neither the vision of a forthcoming victory, nor the appearance of the chi-rho symbol were new in the history of Roman wars, generals and minting.55 In fact, long before Constantine, the chi-rho/rho-chi appears on Ptolemaic and Roman coins, meaning archē, monarchy, associated with Zeus/Jupiter. us, the vision of Constantine is inscribed in a long list of auspicious signs foretelling the monarchy of a ruler in Hellenistic and Roman culture. Yet, Hollard and López-Sánchez do not deny that, in this case, Constantine might have interpreted the traditional chi-rho/rho-chi symbol as being associated with the newly emerging victorious God – Christ, who was acquiring Jovian characteristics and all the more so, because the chi-rho had been since long interpreted as the monogram of Christ.56 is perfectly matches the auspicious moment when he passed from polytheism to the faith in the only God, who gave him the victory over his enemies. See Von Ranke, Weltgeschichte, vol. 4.2 (Leipzig, 1883), pp. 258–61. 53. See Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum 44.2–3. According to Zosimus, Historia Nova 2.15, while Constantine had 90,000 foot and 8,000 horse troupes, Maxentius’ forces amounted to 170,000 foot and 18,000 horse troupes (Ludwig Mendelssohn [ed.], Zosimi comitis et exadvocati fisci Historia Nova [Leipzig, 1887], p. 72). See also Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen, p. 319. 54. is factor was dismissed by Burckhardt, but was recognized by Ranke: Weltgeschichte, vol. 3, p. 508. 55. D. Hollard and F. López Sánchez, Le chrisme et le phénix: Images monétaires et mutations idéologiques au IVe siècle (Bordeaux, 2014), pp. 37–68, and F. López Sánchez, ‘“Under this Sign you shall be the Ruler!”’. 56. F. López Sánchez, ‘“Under this Sign you shall be the Ruler!”’, pp. 154–55: ‘It seems reasonable, then, to conclude, that what Constantine achieved in the battle at the Milvian Bridge and in other subsequent battles was political primacy, regardless of whether he had communicated with Apollo Grannu in Gaul in 310 and with Apollo / Sol or the Christian

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what we know from other sources about the syncretistic religious attitude of Constantine. 4.3. The Meaning of the Inscription In hoc vinces57 Once the source of the story being Constantine’s putative imperial propaganda is recognized, and once, in this propaganda, the ambiguity of the chi-rho/rho-chi symbol and the nocturnal character of the vision is understood, we are in the position to understand what the inscription In hoc vinces shaped by the stars means and in which theoretical frame we should place this putative original story. As mentioned above, the late third and the early fourth century marked intense philosophical debates, which have shaped the future expressions of Christianity. One of these debates was going on about the eternal versus created nature of the perceptible universe, setting against each other the eternalist Neoplatonists on the one side, and the creationist Gnostics and Christians, on the other. Another philosophical debate was running concerning astrology as a science, and the role of the stars in determining human fate. In this debate, the Neoplatonist school of Plotinus and the Christian school of Origen represented almost identical views, attributing the role of signifiers to the stars but denying them the power to influence human fate and, thus, affirming human freedom and rejecting the main principles of astrology.58 On the other side, Gnostics were inclined to attribute to the stars effective influence, and so also the Iamblichean school of Neoplatonism.59 ese God in October 312. is primacy would have been granted to him by Jupiter, according to a pagan interpretation of events, or by Christ-Pantocrator with Jovian attributes if a Christian version of the military victory is followed. It is precisely for this reason that the Christian interpretatio of Eusebius replaces the Chi-Rho monogram with a cross. To any witness of Constantine’s feat at the time, the essential element was not the monogram itself, which simply meant “archē”, but the recognition that the symbol signified “victory” and “supremacy”.’ I would disagree with this judgment only to the extent that, in this case, the rho-chi/chi-rho monogram means simultaneously archē and Christos, the ambiguity being purposeful. 57. is sub-chapter was inspired by Adrian Pirtea’s forthcoming article ‘Astral Ensoulment and Astral Signifiers in Sixth-Century Readings of Origen and Evagrius: Justinian’s Anathemas, Sergius of Rešʿaynā, John Philoponus’, submitted to Vigiliae Christianae. I thank Adrian Pirtea for sharing it with me. e references to Origen, Porphyry and Iamblichus are taken from this article. 58. See DePalma Digeser, A Threat to Public Piety, p. 66, who attributes this teaching, almost identical in Plotinus and Origen, to Ammonius, their common teacher. 59. See Iamblichus, De mysteriis 8.6–8.9. E.C. Clarke, J.M. Dillon, and J.P. Hershbell (trans., intr. and notes), Iamblichus: De mysteriis (Atlanta, 2003), pp. 318–43. e Greek text of this edition reproduces that of É. des Places (ed.), Jamblique, Les mystères d’Égypte (Paris, 1966).

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schools rehabilitated astrology, while Iamblichus connected to it also the higher science of his philosophical outlook, which he called “divination” (μαντική) and theurgy.60 Now, the version of the vision in Philostorgius, which seems to be more original than the one, heavily reworked, in Eusebius, appears to be a popular version and adaptation of the Plotinian/Origenian idea of the stars as signifiers. is is what Photius writes summarizing Philostorgius: He [Philostorgius] also agrees with the others attributing the cause of the great Constantine’s conversion from the pagan religion to Christianity to his victory against Maxentius, when the sign of the cross appeared widely extended in the East, so that a stupefying radiation outlined it, while the stars surrounded it in the manner of a rainbow and formed the shape of letters, which said in the Latin language: “By this, conquer!”

According to Plotinus, those who think that the stars as divine beings are influencing the events of the human lives and are responsible even for the evil acts of men, do not understand the essential freedom of the souls. e configurations of the stars do not influence, only signify the future: We must say that the movement of the stars is for the preservation of the universe, but that they perform in addition another service; this is that those who look into them as into letters and know their grammar (τοῦ εἰς αὐτὰ ὥσπερ γράμματα βλέποντας τοὺς τὴν τοιαύτην γραμματικὴν εἰδότας) may read the future, analogically inferring from the configurations to their signification, just like as if one said that when the bird flies high, it signifies some high deeds.61

Very similar is what Origen thought about reading the configurations of the stars as letters: For, as we have already shown that the fact of God’s knowing the future conduct of every person does not disturb the argument respecting our free will, so neither do the signs, which God appointed to signify, interfere with our free will; but, like a book containing the prophecies on the future, the entire heaven, being as it were one of God’s books, may contain the future. And thus what is said by Jacob in the prayer for Joseph may be understood: ‘For I read in the tablets of heaven (ἀνέγνων γὰρ ἐν ταῖς πλαξὶ τῶν οὐρανῶν) what shall befall thee and thy sons.’ 62 Perhaps also the passage, ‘e heavens 60. Clarke, Dillon, and Hershbell, Iamblichus, p. 330/331; Des Places, Jamblique, p. 276, 13–15. 61. Plotinus III [3].1.6, 19–24, English translation by A.H. Armstrong, Plotinus in Seven Volumes (e Loeb Classical Library 3; Cambridge MA–London, 1980), p. 29, revised. Similarly, Porphyry in his treatise On Free Will apud Stobaeum: Frgm 271F in Andrew Smith, Porphyrii philosophi fragmenta (Stuttgart, 1993), p. 304. 62. is ‘Prayer for Joseph’ resembles the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs 10.7.5: ἀνέγνων γὰρ ἐν ταῖς πλαξὶ τῶν οὐρανῶν… but the continuation is different. See also

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.  shall be rolled together as a book’, (Isa. 34:4) shows that the declarations therein indicative of the future shall be brought to completion, and, so to speak, fulfilled, as the prophecies are said to be fulfilled by the event. And thus will the stars become signs, according as it is said, ‘Let them be for signs’ (Gen. 1:14). And Jeremiah, in order that he may bring us back to ourselves and remove our dread of what is thought to be indicated by the stars, and perhaps supposed to come from them, says, ‘Be not dismayed at the signs of heaven’ (Jer. 10:2).63 Secondly, I conjecture that the signs are exposed to the powers which administer human affairs, in order that they may only know some things and affect others; just as in our books some things are written that we may know them, as, for example, the story of the Creation, or any other mystery, and others that we may know and do them, as, for instance, the commandments and ordinances of God. It is indeed possible that the heavenly letters (τὰ οὐράνια γράμματα), which angels and divine powers can read well, contain some things to be read by the angels and ministers of God in order that they may rejoice in their knowledge; and other things in order that they may receive them as commandments and do them.64

Based on these parallels I would conjecture that the idea of the stars forming the letters of the divine injunction In hoc vinces was for Constantine not so much an extraordinary phenomenon in the heaven (according to the narrative of Philostorgius) but rather the revelation to Constantine that he was the chosen ruler, which he read ‘looking into the stars as into letters and knowing their grammar’ (Plotinus) in the ‘tablets of heaven’ (Origen), ‘reading certain things in order that he may receive them as commandments and do them’ (Origen), aer which he placed the chi-rho sign on the shields of his legions and defeated Maxentius. To avoid misunderstanding: I do not claim that Constantine had read either Plotinus, or Origen, or Porphyry. What I am claiming is that the imperial ideology expressed in Constantine’s vision, as expressed in the putative imperial propaganda that I have tried to reconstruct here based on the Christian witnesses, fits well into this philosophical framework. us, definitively, Ranke was right in claiming that the vision expresses Constantine’s turn from polytheism to monotheism. Yet, this must have Porphyry, although in a different context: βλεπουσῶν [τῶν ψυχῶν] ὥσπερ ἐν πινακὶ ἐν τῇ οὐρανίᾳ γῇ γεγραμμένους [βίους] Frgm 271F, 52–53, in Smith, Porphyrii philosophi fragmenta, p. 304. 63. Origen, Philokalia 23.15, 26–45 in É. Junod (ed.), Origène. Philocalie 21-27 sur le libre arbitre (Sources chrétiennes 226; Paris, 1976). English translation G. Lewis, The Philocalia of Origen (Edinburgh, 1911), pp. 188–89, slightly revised. 64. Origen, Philokalia 23.20, 29–39, Εnglish translation G. Lewis, The Philocalia, p. 194. For more details on the astral significance connected to the idea that the stars are animated beings, see the forthcoming article of Adrian Pirtea.

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been to a kind of philosophical monotheism, permitting the identification of Christ with the Sol Invictus. 4.4. The Eusebian Reinterpretation If such was the case, Eusebius had all good reasons to reinterpret the entire story in his hagiography of Constantine. In his interpretation, the chi-rho had been transformed into the sign of Christ’s cross, although, subsequently, Eusebius had a hard time to explain how the labarum had become the copy of the celestial sign. e nocturnal vision was transposed to the middle of the day, when the sun was at its brightest, so that the appearance of the cross had eclipsed the sunshine and extinguished the solar worship otherwise so much supported by the emperor. Also, the appearance of the cross in a shape brighter than the sun became an obvious sign of direct divine intervention in the heavenly phenomena, similarly to the ones obtained by Joshua and Isaiah, predicting not only victory but also a structural change in the course of the time. Yet, once again, an organic element was lost: while the night stars forming the text In hoc vinces around the chi-rho/the cross, as transmitted by Philostorgius, conveyed a powerful image pointing toward contemporary philosophical ideas, the inscription appended to the light-cross visible in the middle of the day in the Eusebian version creates a rather humorous effect. Also, Eusebius quite consciously exploits Constantine’s vision as the symbolic beginning of the era of the Christian Empire. It is important that Constantine sees the sign while awake (καθ’ ὕπαρ) and not only in dream (κατ’ ὄναρ) because visions while one is awake were judged more reliable than dream visions. Finally, another important element is Constantine’s oath confirming the truthfulness of the narrative. With this recasting of the story that he had taken over from the imperial propaganda, Eusebius set a paradigm for later hagiographic narratives.

. H   S C In what follows, I will trace the Eusebian influence in sixth-century hagiographic works, which, I would say, were meant for being nothing else than historiography in the Eusebian sense and contain irreplaceable information on the contemporary events. Yet, for reading such hagiographical pieces as historiography, we need hermeneutical tools appropriate to each piece of literature, not leaving aside the miraculous element either.

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5.1. Cyril of Scythopolis Cyril of Scythopolis wrote a monumental oeuvre of the Lives of Palestinian monks of the late fih, early sixth centuries. He completed his work sometime aer 555. Its Greek text was critically edited by Eduard Schwartz based on tenth-, eleventh-century Greek manuscripts.65 e Lives were not transmitted in a corpus but in several collections of Saints’ Lives and Menologia, that is, as Lives accompanying the texts of the daily canons of the matins. Schwartz edited the Greek text based on some of the oldest Greek manuscripts. He judged the establishing of a stemma, or the distinction of families, impossible, admitted that his textual choices were arbitrary, and also admitted that, if new witnesses were to be found, the edition should be changed.66 In 1975, new manuscripts were found in the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai. One of them, a palimpsest on parchment, catalogued M11N, contains as its overtext the Syriac translation of the Life of Saint Sabas and the beginning of the Life of Saint Euthymius.67 e undertext contains gospel readings from a Palestinian Christian Aramaic lectionary.68 e fact that the Life of Saint Euthymius, originally written before that of Saint Sabas, is following the latter in the Syriac edition, makes it quite probable that the translation was made in Saint Sabas’ Lavra in the Judean Desert, for it is easily imaginable that there, the Life of the Founder was of prime importance. We know that, in the eighth-ninth centuries, there was at Saint Sabas’ Lavra a workshop of translators who translated Greek texts into Arabic and Georgian. e only evidence for Syriac translators there, is the translation from Syriac into Greek of the ascetical homilies of Isaac of Nineveh by the monks Patricius and Abramius at the end of the eighth century. However, many other Melkite Syriac manuscripts on 65. Eduard Schwartz (ed.), Kyrillos von Skythopolis (TU 49.2; Leipzig, 1939). 66. Schwartz, Kyrillos von Skythopolis, pp. 339–40. 67. For a preliminary description of the manuscript, see Philothée de Sinaï, Nouveaux manuscrits syriaques du Sinaï (Athens, 2008), pp. 301–305. e description of the overtext is on pp. 301–302. Mother Philothea does not mention the beginning of the Life of Saint Euthymius, which is also part of the manuscript. e text consists of a quire of 112 folios plus two separated folios, marked A and B. e Life of Saint Sabas begins on the verso of the separated folio A and ends on fol. 110r. Folio B also belongs to this Life, containing the end of chapter 8 and the beginning of chapter 9. From the Life of Saint Euthymius only the beginning is preserved on folios 110v–112v, corresponding to the first chapter and the beginning of the second (Schwartz p. 6.21 to p. 9.1). Yet, the Prologue of the Life of Saint Euthymius (Schwartz p. 5.1 to 6.20) is missing from this translation. I thank here from all my heart Father Justin of Mount Sinai, the librarian of Saint Catherine’s Monastery, who permitted me to study the manuscript M11N in situ and take photos of it. Also, later he sent me his own, much more professional, photos of the manuscript. 68. e undertext was described by Alain Desreumaux in Philothée de Sinaï, Nouveaux manuscrits syriaques du Sinaï, pp. 303–305.

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Mount Sinai may have come from Saint Sabas’ Lavra, so that the hypothesis of a workshop of Syriac translators there, is perfectly probable.69 Mother Philothea dates the overtext of M11N to the ninth century. According to Sebastian Brock, it is extremely difficult to date the Melkite manuscripts, but a tenth-century date would be more probable.70 e translation may have been made in the eighth-ninth centuries. So, even if Sinaticus Syriacus M11N is not necessarily older than the Greek manuscripts used by Schwartz for his critical edition, the version that it contains is definitively older. Moreover, a comparison of the Syriac text with the Greek edited by Schwartz not only permits the drawing of important conclusions but also permits us to better understand the text and perhaps re-edit it, as we will see. If examined generically, Cyril’s text is a very interesting, I would even say idiosyncratic, example of hagiography. Although it follows the model of eodoret’s Philotheos Historia, it is much more heavily influenced by Eusebius than by eodoret. In fact, it is a combination of the three Eusebian genres. Cyril blends hagiography with the scrupulous need for dating the events, in which he introduces an innovation to hagiography.71 As such, it is our unique source for the church history of the second half of the fih and the first half of the sixth century. On many ecclesiastic events it is our only source and it is an important parallel source for secular events. It follows Eusebius also in two other important features. One is that it is entirely saturated with the miraculous; the other is that Cyril had first-hand access to official documents, presumably kept in the patriarchal archives of Jerusalem, and that he extensively used these documents, many of which are otherwise lost. So, it is a unique witness to imperial legislation regarding Palestine.72 An important question to ask is what literary register these Lives belong to, and who was their audience? Although this is not a received wisdom 69. See Sebastian P. Brock, ‘Syriac into Greek at Mar Saba: e Translation of St. Isaac the Syrian’, in Joseph Patrich (ed.), The Sabaite Heritage in the Orthodox Church from the Fifth Century to the Present (Leuven, 2001), pp. 201–208, esp. 201 and 204. 70. Personal communication by Dr Brock on 16 August 2014. 71. See Bernard Flusin, ‘Un hagiographe saisi par l’histoire: Cyrille de Scythopolis et la mesure du temps’, in Patrich (ed.), The Sabaite Heritage, pp. 119–126. 72. See Bernard Flusin, Miracle et histoire dans l’œuvre de Cyrille de Scythopolis (Paris, 1983), pp. 73–76. Cyril cites Justinian, Contra monophysitas (CPG 6878), see E. Schwartz (ed.), Drei dogmatische Schriften Iustinians (Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaen, Philosophisch-Historische Abteilung N.F. 18; München, 1939), pp. 7– 43; Epistula contra tria capitula (CPG 6882), Schwartz, ibidem, pp. 47–69; Confessio fidei (CPG 6885), Schwartz, ibidem, pp. 72–111; Edictum conttra Origenem (CPG 6880), E. Schwartz (ed.), Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, vol. 3, Collectio Sabbaitica (Berlin, 1940), pp. 189– 214.

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in the literature, if we use Eduard Schwartz’s edition and follow his commentaries, we should arrive at the conclusion that the work belongs to the higher, Atticising register of Byzantine literature and that it was destined for a Constantinopolitan audience. In fact, although Schwartz judged the creation of a stemma, or the distinction of families, impossible, one may still observe that two manuscripts, namely Florence, Laurentianus XI/9 (L) and Vaticanus 1589 (V), both from the eleventh century, contain texts of more popular style, while the other manuscripts are written in a more Atticising language.73 Schwartz, whenever possible, followed Ottobonianus 373, dated around 900, because this gave the best Attic text. His hypothesis was that the work was originally written in an Atticising style and the text was later contaminated by more popular elements.74 Also, if we follow Schwartz’s edition, or simply the testimony of the Greek manuscripts, we have to conclude that the text was written for a Constantinopolitan audience. For example, it speaks about the ‘Samaritans of Palestine’, the ‘Christians of Palestine’, ‘the so-called imperial roads’ in Palestine and adds all kinds of small glosses which would not be needed for a Palestinian audience but are needed for a Constantinopolitan one, which is not at home with the geography of and the situation in Palestine.75 Moreover, all the court dignitaries of Constantinople are mentioned with their due ranks and the emperor always receives the honorary titles ‘most pious’, ‘protected by God’ etcetera. Even the person of the empress eodora, whom Cyril manifestly despises because of her miaphysitism, is called in the Greek text by the periphrastic expression ‘her Piety’.76 However, if we compare the Greek text to the newly found Syriac text, I think we arrive at very different conclusions. Whenever the Greek manuscripts containing the more popular text diverge from the Atticising ones, the Syriac supports the demotic readings. In most cases this gives a much better comprehensible and logical text. Moreover, all those elements that indicate a Constantinopolitan audience are missing from the Syriac. So ‘the Palestinian Christians’ become simply ‘Christians’, ‘the Palestinian Samaritans’ simply ‘Samaritans’, the ‘imperial roads so-called’ simply the ‘imperial roads’. Many of the honorary attributes, reflecting a Constantinopolitan court practice, are simply absent from the Syriac. Most importantly, eodora is never called in the Syriac text ‘her Piety’ but simply 73. For the description of manuscripts L and V, see Schwartz, Kyrillos von Skythopolis, pp. 318–19. 74. See Schwartz, Kyrillos von Skythopolis, pp. 334–39. 75. See Schwartz, Kyrillos von Skythopolis, pp. 172–73. 76. Schwartz, Kyrillos von Skythopolis, pp. 172–74.

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the ‘empress’. So also a number of elements in the Greek text are revealed as mere glosses to make a text, originally destined for a Palestinian audience, comprehensible in Constantinople. What is most astonishing though, is that even the theology of the text changes between the Greek and the Syriac. While the Greek reflects more closely a post-fih ecumenical council imperial Christology, yet interspersed with disturbing elements pointing toward an Antiochian dyophysite interpretation of Chalcedon, the Syriac text is much more overtly Antiochian dyophysite. So, I think that the Syriac is a witness to the fact that Cyril’s text went through some change and was adapted, perhaps in Constantinopolitan Metaphrastic circles, to a later Constantinopolitan audience.77 As to the usage of the text of Cyril as a historiographic source, although it should always be used with caution due to its highly polemical and apologetic character, it contains irreplaceable data worth considering. For example, standard Byzantine historiography, when treating the Samaritan wars of 529–30, follows Procopius’ narrative from the Secret History and attributes the Samaritan revolt to Justinian’s anti-Samaritan legislation, which had provoked the anger of the Samaritans.78 Yet, Cyril gives another story, which can be supplemented with the narratives of John Malalas, John of Nikiu and the Samaritan Chronicle of Kitāb al-Tarīkh, so that it seems to me that the combined usage of all these sources provides us with a different story. According to Cyril, the Samaritans revolted because of some other, unspecified reason and, although their troups were defeated by the imperial army, Justinian’s anger turned against the Christians.79 Malalas also presents the riot as an accidental event and – in the secondary version of the De insidiis – even invokes the custom that on Saturdays, aer the reading of the Gospel in church, Christian children used to go to the Samaritan quarters and throw stones on the houses of the Samaritans. Yet, once, the Samaritans, unable to bear this, killed the children, which started the revolt.80 e Samaritans also crowned as king a certain Julian, son of Sabar, 77. ese texts will be analysed in detail in my forthcoming monograph Origénistes ou théosophes? Vol. 1, Histoire politique d’un mouvement doctrinal des Ve-VIe siècles. 78. Procopius, Secret History 11.24. See for example, Alan D. Crown, ‘e Samaritans in the Byzantine Orbit’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 69.1 (1986), pp.  96–138, at p. 132. See also idem, ‘e Byzantine and Moslem Period’, in idem (ed.), The Samaritans (Tübingen, 1989), pp. 55–81, at p. 72. 79. Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Saint Sabas  70, Schwartz, Kyrillos von Skythopolis, pp. 171.26–173.4. 80. John Malalas, Chronicle 18.35.446, trans. in E. and M. Jeffreys, R. Scott (ed. and trans.), The Chronicle of John Malalas: A Translation (Byzantina Australiensia 4; Melbourne, 1986), p. 260.

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who acted as a Messianic leader, promising the restoration of the Jewish kingdom, and apparently holding Encratite ideals connected to apocalyptic expectations.81 Malalas also speaks about Justinian’s anger, saying that Justinian was upset because the dux eodore, who suppressed the Samaritan revolt, was not acting fast enough to prevent the pillage of the arable lands. So he ‘relieved the dux of his office with ignominy and ordered him to be kept under strict guard’.82 Yet, it is from Procopius that we learn that this happened because the Christian landowners were unable to pay their taxes, given that the Samaritans were the peasants who were working in their lands and that, because of the lack of manpower, the fields remained uncultivated, so that the Christian landowners lost their income.83 At that moment, presumably in April 530 as Cyril says and not in 531, as present historiography interprets Cyril’s text,84 Peter, patriarch of Jerusalem, sent the holy man Saint Sabas to Constantinople, in order to negotiate the remission of the taxes due for the taxation years 530/31 and 531/ 32. According to Cyril, St Sabas’ mission was efficient, he managed to 81. See Paul Stenhouse (trans.), The Kitāb al-Tarīkh of Abu ‘l-Fatḥ (Sidney, 1985), pp. 228–29. John of Nikiu, Chronicle 93, in R.H. Charles (trans.), The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu, translated from Zotenberg’s Ethiopic Text (London, 1916), p. 147. See also Jarl Fossum, ‘Sects and Movements’, in Alan D. Crown (ed.), The Samaritans, pp. 293– 389, at pp. 353–55. 82. John Malalas, Chronicle 18.35.447, Charles, The Chronicle of John Malalas, p. 261. 83. Procopius, Secret History 11.7–30. 84. Cyril’s chronology contains some errors as to the calculation of the indiction, which fact has given room to two alternative corrections. According to the hypothetical solution proposed by Franz Diekamp and corroborated by E. Stein, Cyril makes a mistake in the calculation of the indiction beginning with Saint Sabas’ trip to Jerusalem, which he dates to the eighth indiction, that is, 530, but which must have taken place in 531. Aer that date, one should always add one year to the one given by Cyril according to the indiction. According to the alternative solution proposed by Eduard Schwartz, Cyril only makes an error in the indiction when giving the date of Saint Sabas’ death, which definitively happened on 5 December 532 (eleventh indiction) and not 531 (tenth indiction) as claimed by Cyril, so that, with the exception of this sole date, the indictions given by Cyril are reliable. e scholarly consensus has opted for the Diekamp-Stein hypothesis when citing Cyril’s dates. Yet, neither one of these solutions stands to reason. It seems that Cyril was using a chronological table that was used for calculating the Easter dates, which was also used to convert the annus mundi to indiction. e table contained the Alexandrian world year according to Annianus, which began every year on March 15, while Cyril was using the corrected, Byzantine version of the annus mundi. which began the annus mundi on the 1 September. us, Cyril made a mistake in calculating the indiction whenever the date fell between 1 September and 15 March, unless his documents were dated according to the indiction, as he did not notice the difference. Hence, the indiction is definitively wrong at more than one locus but the cases should be examined one by one, without there being an easy solution as suggested by both previous theories. I owe this solution to Leah di Segni. In Origénistes ou théosophes ? I have dedicated a long chapter to the clarification of Cyril’s chronology.

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turn the imperial anger away from the Christians of Palestine and against the Samaritans, which resulted in the remission of the taxes on the one hand and in the law prohibiting Samaritans to inherit from Samaritans on the other.85 As I mentioned above, the standard literature dealing with the Samaritan revolt of 529 normally follows Procopius’ version without even mentioning the alternative version of Cyril. Yet, Procopius’ version stands alone in the contemporary literature which, conforming to Cyril’s narrative, rather suggests that the revolt was a flaring up, triggered by incidental factors and the Messianic ambitions of Julian, son of Sabar, of a constant enmity, boosted by the oppression and by the Christian occupation of the holy places of the Samaritans. Aer moments of unrest in the fourth century, there were Samaritan uprisings in  415, 452, 484, 495, 529–31, 556 and 572. 86 us, Julian’s revolt was just the most violent episode in a history of constant tension, rather than a unique event provoked by especially oppressive imperial legislation as Procopius, whose aim was to write a bitter invective against Justinian and eodora, presents it. Moreover, Procopius does not speak about a specific anti-Samaritan law but rather about the general oppression of movements judged heretical, among which the Samaritans were also included. Modern research tends to identify the anti-Samaritan law, to which Procopius vaguely refers, with Codex Iustinianus 1.5.17 in Paul Krueger’s edition.87 Yet, things are far from being so clear, and here, Cyril’s hagiography may offer hitherto neglected insights into both the date and the text of the law. However, for this, we have to reconstruct Cyril’s text based on the demotic versions and the Syriac translation. Cyril cites the law almost word for word and he should have had access to it in the Jerusalem patriarchal archives. For sure, there, the law was also dated, so that, unless he wanted to distort consciously the historical reality, Cyril must have known when the law was issued. However, the text cited by Cyril – as one may reconstruct it based on the demotic versions and the Syriac – does not correspond to Codex Iustinianus 1.5.17. Rather, its text corresponds to Codex Iustinianus 1.5.183–4, which is a re-edition and re-application of the anti-Samaritan law against Christian heretics. 85. Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Saint Sabas 70–71, ed. Schwartz, Kyrillos von Skythopolis, pp. 173.4–174.22. 86. On the series of Samaritan revolts against the Christian Roman empire, see Alan D. Crown, ‘e Samaritans in the Byzantine Orbit’, pp. 122–37. 87. Codex Iustinianus I.5.17 in P. Krueger (ed.), Corpus Iuris Civilis, vol. 2, Codex Iustinianus (fih edition; Berlin, 1892), p. 52.

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.  Codex Iustinianus 1.5.183–4

Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Saint Sabas 71, p. 174.12–19, text reconstructed on the basis of the versions of MSS L and V and the Syriac translation of Mount Sinai (Sin).88

We decree that the law that we had the occasion to make concerning the Samaritans, should be applied also to the Montanists, the Taskodrugians and the Ophites, namely:

When the emperor received from the divine elder the petitions concerning the churches of Palestine, his anger has turned against the Samaritans.

that they should not dare to hold gatherings, where those who are coming together would participate in impious or ridiculous deeds, nor is it permitted to them to transmit their fortune to anyone either through inheritance or through the right of fiduciary donation, either through a will or without a will, whether the subject of the bequest is a kinsman, or someone unrelated, with the exception of the case when the person whom they would call for the succession, or whom they would appoint as their heir, or whom they would deem worthy of fiduciary donation, were to embrace the Orthodox faith.

And he gave the order that the gatherings89 of the Samaritans should stop and that they should be exiled from the whole empire, and they might not bequeath to their kinsmen, nor might they transmit to their people through the right of donation.

He also ruled that among them the leaders and the disobedient should be killed. Ἃ δὲ περὶ τῶν Σαμαριτῶν ἐτύχομεν ἤδη νομοθετήσαντες,90 κρατεῖν καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς Μοντανισταῖς καὶ Τασκοδρούγοις καὶ Ὀφίταις θεσπίζομεν, τουτέστιν

τοῦ τοίνυν [θεοφυλάκτου]91 βασιλέως δεξαμένου παρὰ τοῦ θείου πρεσβύτου92 τὰς τῶν ἐκκλησίων Παλαιστίνης δεήσεις93 ἀνθυπεστράφη ἡ ὀργὴ

88. e sigla in the critical apparatus are those of Schwartz. OWG are the atticising manuscripts, L and V contain the demotic version. Sin is Syriac M11N from Mount Sinai. e English translation is that of the reconstructed Palestinian text, while the edition of the Greek indicates the changes in relation to Schwartz’s edition, which I consider an edition of the Constantinopolitan version. 89. e correspondence between the two texts shows that the usual translation of συναγωγή as ‘synagogue’ is erroneous both in the text of the law and in Cyril’s text. It is any kind of prayer gathering that is forbidden, just as in the case of the Christian heretics to whom the same law is applied, and who definitely did not have synagogues. 90. Krueger’s note: see above, 17. 91. θεοφυλάκτου omittit Sin. 92. παρὰ τοῦ θείου πρεσβύτου MSS graeci et Schwartz; παρὰ τοῦ ἁγίου Sin? 93. τὰς ἀπὸ τῶν ἐκκλησίων Παλαιστίνης δεήσεις OLV et Schwartz; τὴν ἐπιστολὴν εἰς ἣν αἱ περὶ τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν Παλαιστίνης δεήσεις ἐνετυποῦντο WG; τὰς περὶ τῶν ἐκκλησίων Παλαιστίνης δεήσεις fortasse Sin.

     Codex Iustinianus 1.5.183–4

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Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Saint Sabas 71, p. 174.12–19, text reconstructed on the basis of the versions of MSS L and V and the Syriac translation of Mount Sinai (Sin). κατὰ τῶν Σαμαρειτῶν [αὐτοῦ διαναστάντος]94

ὥστε μήτε συναγωγήν τινα τολμᾶν αὐτοὺς ἔχειν ᾗ λόγων ἢ πράξεων ἀσεβῶν τε καὶ καταγελάστων οἱ συνιόντες μεθέξουσι, μήτε τὴν αὐτῶν οὐσίαν δύνασθαί τινι παραπέμπειν ἢ κατὰ κληρονομίας ἢ κατὰ φιδικομίσσου δίκαιον ἐν διαθήκαις ἢ ἐξ ἀδιαθέτου, κἂν εἰ συγγενής, κἂν εἴ τις ἐξωτικὸς έκεῖνος εἴη· πλὴν εἰ μὴ τὴν ὀρθόδοξον ἀσπάζοιτο πίστιν ὁ πρὸς τὴν αὐτῶν καλούμενος διαδοχὴν ἢ παρ’ αὐτῶν γραφόμενος κληρονόμος ἤ τινι φιδικομίσσῳ τιμηθείς.

καὶ διατάξει [ἤτοι νόμῳ] χρησαμένου95 τοῦ παύεσθαι τὰς τῶν Σαμαρειτῶν συναγωγὰς καὶ πάσης τῆς πολιτείας ἀπελαύνεσθαι καὶ 96 κληρονομεῖν τοὺς ἰδίους 97 κατὰ δωρεᾶς δίκαιον98 ἑαυτοῖς παραπέμπειν.

ἔτι ἐθέσπισεν ἀναιρεθῆναι99 αὐτοὺς καὶ μάλιστα τοὺς ἀρχηγοὺς αὐτῶν καὶ ἀτάκτους.100

As to CI 1.5.17, its text is much less similar to that of Cyril and it is clear that it was not the model for the latter’s summary. It reads in the following way: Codex Iustinianus 1.5.17, Greek text from Krueger’s edition

English translation

Αἱ τῶν Σαμαρίτων συναγωγαὶ καθαιροῦνται καί, έὰν ἄλλας ἐπιχειρήσωσι ποιῆσαι, τιμωροῦνται. Οὐ δύνανται δὲ διαδόχους ἔχειν ἐκ διαθήκης ἢ ἐξ ἀδιαθέτου, πλὴν ὀρθοδόξων, οὔτε δωροῦνται ἢ ἄλλως ἐκποιοῦσι τοῖς μὴ οὖσιν ὀρθοδόξοις· ἀλλὰ ὁ φίσκος αὐτὰ ἐκδικεῖ προνοίᾳ τῶν ἐπισκόπων καὶ τῶν ἀρχόντων.

e synagogues of the Samaritans are destroyed and, if they attempt at making others, they are punished . ey may not have successors either through a will, or without a will, unless the heirs are orthodox. Nor can they give donations, nor can they alienate in any other way to the non-orthodox, but the treasury expropriates these under the care of the bishops and the magistrates.

94. αὐτοῦ διαναστάντος omittit Sin. 95. διατάξει ἤτοι νόμῳ χρησαμένου codices graeci, omittit Sin. 96. μήτε LV et Sin; μή OWG et Schwartz. 97. μήτε LV et Sin; εἴτε WG et Schwartz. 98. δίκαιον LV, Sin et Schwartz; δικαίων OW; τῶν δικαίων Wcorr. 99. ἀναιρεθῆναι LVWG, Schwartz et Sin; ἀνερεῖσθαι O. 100. καὶ ἀτάκτους MSS graeci et Schwartz; καὶ τοὺς ἀτάκτους fortasse Sin.

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From a comparison of the three texts it should be clear that none of the three contains the original text of the law but all three are indirect testimonies. CI 1.5.183–4 is a later application of the anti-Samaritan law to Christian Gnostic sects, the Montanists, the Taskodrugoi101 and the Ophites, which, however, preserves the text of the original law the most faithfully. e second closest replica of the law is the summary in Cyril’s narrative, which must have been written so that Cyril had the original before his eyes. e verbal coincidences between CI 1.5.183–4 and Cyril’s text, indicated by the italics in the English and the underlining in the Greek, are very close. e only important difference is that, where the later anti-heretical law writes κατὰ φιδικομίσσου δίκαιον ‘through the right of fiduciary donation’, Cyril’s text has κατὰ δωρεὰς δίκαιον ‘through the right of donation’, to which difference I will return below. As to CI 1.5.17, far from giving the text of the original law, it seems to be a later summary that even speaks about the destruction of the Samaritan synagogues, which, on the basis of the other testimonies, is definitively a misunderstanding of the prohibition of holding gatherings, testified to by both CI 1.5.183–4 and Cyril’s text. at there was no such order of destroying the Samaritan synagogues but only a temporary order prohibiting their gatherings in order to prevent another rebellion, is clear also from Novella 129 On the Samaritans, dated 10 August 551, which revokes the ban on the Samaritan bequests and donations, but says nothing about the synagogues.102 Apparently, Novella 129, by restoring the Samaritans’ right to bequeathing, inheriting and giving donations, has restored the Samaritans’ right to practice their religion. Yet it says nothing about the synagogues. Had there been a strict order to destroy the synagogues and a strict prohibition of building new ones, this law should also have been revoked. In fact, the closest parallel to the summary of CI 1.5.17 is that of the Preface to Novella 129, which summarizes the previous law, revoked in 551, so that the even more concise – and erroneous! – summary of CI 1.5.17 is either based on this Preface, or on a similar other summary. As to the difference between the κατὰ φιδικομίσσου δίκαιον ‘through the right of fiduciary donation’ of CI 1.5.183–4 and the κατὰ δωρεᾶς δίκαιον ‘through the right of donation’ of Cyril’s text, most probably it is the latter that preserves the original terminology of the law, as this is repeated both in CI 1.5.17 and in the Preface of Novella 129. Most probably ‘fiduciary donation’ is a precision introduced in the later law. 101. e Taskodrugoi, or Passalorynchites were a Gnostic sect in Galatia, who refused baptism and any corporeal expression of the incorporeal realities, including the incarnation of Christ. eir name is interpreted in diverse ways. 102. R. Schoell and W. Kroll (eds.), Corpus Iuris Civilis, vol. 3, Novellae (Berlin, 1845), pp. 647–50.

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Finally, as to the date of issuing the anti-Samaritan law, the concordant testimony of all the witnesses with the sole exception of Procopius indicates that the law was issued aer, and not before, the Samaritan revolt, perhaps indeed upon the instigation of Saint Sabas (which we would not add to his merit list, by the way). is is particularly clear from the Preface to Novella 129, which says: We have called to sobriety by many punishments the Samaritans, who earlier had committed acts of temerity and risen up against the Christians and had even come to the most extreme madness among all [a cryptonym for armed rebellion] …

Aer this comes the summary of the anti-Samaritan law, without a single reference to synagogues, showing that a prohibition of building synagogues was no part of the original law. is makes it evident that the law against Samaritan inheritance was devised as a punishment of the rebellion rather than an arbitrary and inappropriate measure causing the rebellion as Procopius claims in his invective. Moreover, the Preface also says that Justinian never intended a literal application of the law, so even before it became withdrawn, it had never been applied strictly. As the Samaritans wielded much economic power and their work at the best Palestinian lands was vital for the well-being of the empire, they had to be handled cautiously. From the above investigations it should be clear that two fundamental claims of modern historiography, which have penetrated into all the manuals, namely that the Samaritan revolt of 529 was provoked by Justinian’s anti-Samaritan legislation, which, moreover, included the destruction of the Samaritan synagogues, is unfounded. It is based on a misreading of the indirect testimonies on the – now lost – original text of the law, and on a biased reading of the historiographic evidence, trusting Procopius there, where he should be the least trusted: namely, when he distorts historical facts to help his polemical purposes, and neglecting the historiographic value of Cyril’s hagiography, based on the original documents. Consequently, the date of the law is not 529 but 530, coinciding with, or perhaps provoked by, Saint Sabas’ visit to Constantinople. 5.2. The Life of Saint Eutychius of Constantinople by Eustratius of Constantinople A weird and extremely important document for understanding the political and doctrinal history of Justinian’s times is the Life of Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople, by his disciple, Eustratius of Constantinople. Saint Eutychius was patriarch of Constantinople between 552 and 565,

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and again, between 577 and 582. He presided over the fih ecumenical council in May-June 553. Aer 565, he was in exile because he opposed Justinian’s aphthartodocetist edict. Eustratius’ Life is a hagiographic piece written in a weird baroque style, eluding concrete straightforward speech, full of miracles, visions, exaggerated panegyrical inclusions, apparently cultivating obscurity on purpose. Yet, it was written with clear historiographic aims and, if we understand its language, it proves to be full of concrete and clear information on wie es eigentlich gewesen in the Constantinopolitan court and patriarchal see in the mid-sixth century. I understand that Philip Booth is preparing an English translation of the text and I can only say that we are very much looking forward to it. Until then, here is a small anticipation about the election of Eutychius as patriarch of Constantinople (Eustratius, Life of Saint Eutychius 22–24, 601–687): ‘e one who brings the clouds from the ends of the earth’ (Ps. 134 [135]:7) and ‘who has taken from the herd of the sheep’ David (Ps. 77 [78]:70), God who anointed him prophet and king (Ps. 88 [89]:21), has equally chosen this meek man, and has brought him for the reason mentioned above103 to this city, which is the greatest of all cities. Here he joined the most holy patriarch of that time, who was Menas, a divine and erudite, angelic and prophetic man who, foreseeing the future, encouraged the great Eutychius to stay with him, presented him to the spotless clergy and announced: ‘is monk will be my successor!’ Aer that, he sent him to the emperor. In the emperor’s court there was a debate going on precisely on the subject for which Eutychius had come. He, proving himself ready in all erudition, both the divine and the outer one, entered an argument with the heretics who have the custom of ‘discussing uselessly for the destruction of the simple people’ (2 Tim. 2:14) who, however, ‘were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit through which he was speaking’ (Acts 6:10). In fact, while some had said that it was not allowed to anathematize those whose heresy was discovered aer their death, he, on his turn, showed from the holy Scriptures that one should anathematize them, referring to King Joshiah who, having been warned by a prophecy to act so (3 Kings [1 Kings] 13:2), excavated and burned aer their death the bones of those who, before, sacrificed to the heifers (4  Kings [2  Kings] 23:16). So, similarly should one act toward the heretics and anathematize them aer their death. e emperor and all those who were there became astonished and judged him worthy of much access and respect. From that moment onward he spent his time at the imperial court in greater liberty of speech (parrhesia), so that the wealth of his knowledge became more manifest ‘before God and men’ (Lk. 2:52). e Lord of sceptres or, rather, ‘the King of the kings’ (1 Tim. 6:15), ‘who knows all things before they come to being’ (Sus. 35a [eodot.]), kept 103. at is, in order to participate, as the representative of the bishop of Amasea, at the fih ecumenical council convened by Justinian. See Life of Saint Eutychius 19, PG 86.2, col. 2296D–2297B.

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him in his heart, since ‘those whom He foresaw and predestined, He also called and glorified’ (Rom. 8:29–30). So, He also called the great Eutychius to the measure of the rank of the high priesthood with much respect and glory. In fact, aer a little while, Menas, the aforementioned sanctified servant of God, who administered the episcopal throne of the imperial city, having reached a serene old age and having completed the time of his days in God’s service, embraced, leaving the human life, the conversation with the angels and the holy Fathers. When the most pious emperor received the news of the dormition of this sanctified man, an unspeakable fight and a disproportionate contention was begun by the multitude who wanted to propose those who were not worthy of the rank of the high priesthood. ese people, using promises and gis, tried to convince those powerful around the emperor, in the hope that he would grant them what they desired. However, God, ‘who creates and alters all things’ (Am. 5:8), ‘who scrutinizes the hearts and the kidneys’ (Ps. 7:9), ‘who keeps in his hand’ the heart of the emperor together with ‘the limits of the earth’ (Ps. 94 [95]:4), inclined the heart of the most serene emperor toward this worthy man. So, the emperor orders with much promptitude one of the venerable referendarii (his name was Peter) to look for and find the great Eutychius and to keep him with the reverence due to him. And this indeed happened so. Now listen to the vision that he saw during his custody. is great man has told the following: ‘at night I had got the impression that there was a large and bright house and a nicely prepared bed, on which was lying a woman called Wisdom (Sophia). She called me and showed ornaments to me. Aer this, I saw the balcony next to the house, which was covered by snow and there was a child standing on the balcony, whose name was Soterichus and who was about to fall from the balcony. When I reached there, I took him from the snow, lest he falls.’ What else does this mean than the good administration of the affairs of the most holy Church? In fact, these affairs are the ornaments. Also, the fact that the child was in the snow means that a storm has taken over the doctrines. Both have received the necessary correction by the attention and the governance of this sanctified man. So, when he le his custody, the Christ-loving emperor announced to the spotless clergy and the holy Senate his decision about him, taken from the very beginning. e Emperor told them equally that he saw a divine vision concerning Eutychius when he was sleeping in the house of Saint Peter, the Coryphee of the Apostles in Athyra, since it was there that he passed the night. He said that he saw in the waking state (kath’ hypar) the Coryphee of the Apostles who showed him the great Eutychius and told him: ‘See to it that this one becomes bishop!’ He confirmed with many oaths that this was true. us, seeing the obstinacy of the emperor, seeing also the great zeal he showed and the divine illumination that he had received, they all together, of one will, one decision, in one voice, shouted out, even before the time foreseen: ‘He is worthy, he is worthy!’104 104. PG 86.2, col. 2300A–2303D, critical edition by Karl Laga (ed.), Vita Eutychii patriarchae Constantinopolitani (Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca  25; Turnhout, 1993), pp. 22–24.

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If we examine this text closely, we find invaluable historical information in it, clothed in the miraculous and obscure narrative. First of all, the text says that at the death of patriarch Menas, an unspeakable fight and a disproportionate contention was begun by the multitude who wanted to propose those who were not worthy of the rank of the high priesthood. ese people, using promises and gis, tried to convince those powerful around the emperor, in the hope that he would grant them what they desired.

Who are ‘these people’, or ‘the heretics’, contemptuously mentioned by Eustratius? Parallel historiographic texts make us understand that they are members of a powerful party led by the papal apocrisiarius, the Roman deacon Pelagius, who defended eodore of Mopsuestia and the ree Chapters, opposing their condemnation. eir main enemy in the court was eodore, the bishop of Caesarea, nicknamed by his enemies ‘the Winesack’ (Askidas), who, according to Cyril of Scythopolis, ‘held in his hands the affairs of the state’ and ‘enjoyed the first parrhesia’ in the court of the Emperor.105 As he happened to be a secret adherent to the doctrines of the Origenists so-called, his enemies tried to bring him down by proving his ‘Origenist heresy’, which he was hiding efficiently, while he was using the tool of the condemnation of the ree Chapters to come down on his enemies, all professing an Antiochian interpretation of Chalcedon. e Sabaite monks, celebrated by Cyril, belonged to the same Antiochian party, hence Cyril’s great hostility to eodore ‘the Wine-sack’.106 us, the condemnation of the dead teacher, eodore of Mopsuestia, was the preferred tool of eodore of Caesarea to keep himself safe from his enemies and also to please the emperor who, aer eodora’s death, needed a new policy to rule with the consent of both the Chalcedonian and the miaphysite communities. It was precisely in this policy promoted by eodore, that Eutychius became instrumental, arguing through the citations of Old Testament models for the posthumous condemnation of the heretics. us, apparently, he was one of the protégés and appointees of eodore ‘the Wine-sack’. Why he was in custody, is unclear to me, nor is it clarified by the hagiographer. Is it that originally the other faction was stronger and that 105. Cyril, Life of Saint Sabas 89 and 83, Schwartz p. 197.19–20 and p. 189.5. 106. On this story, see my ‘Clandestine Heresy and Politics in Sixth-century Constantinople: eodore of Caesarea at the Court of Justinian’, in Hagit Amirav and Francesco Celia (eds.), New Themes, New Styles in the Eastern Mediterranean: Christian, Jewish and Islamic Encounters, 5th-8th Centuries (Late Antique History and Religion 16, Beyond the Fathers 1; Leuven–Paris–Bristol, 2017), pp. 137–71. e story of Eutychius related here is a continuation upon the content of this earlier publication.

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Eutychius was facing a difficult fate, had the Antiochian Chalcedonians finally prevailed? Be this as it may, according to the hagiographer, while in custody Eutychius saw a strange erotic vision foretelling his vocation as patriarch of Constantinople. A woman called Sophia/Wisdom invited him to her bed, showing him ornaments, aer which he had to save a boy called Soterichos, that is, ‘of saving character’, from falling from the balcony of the house. According to Eustratius’ hermeneutics, the house where the bedroom was, represents the Church, and the boy, its saving doctrines, which were endangered by a storm of ‘heretical teachings’ (understand: the Antiochian interpretation of Chalcedon). However, who is Sophia here? e key for understanding the riddle of the vision can be found in a text of Evagrius of Pontus, severely condemned by the time when Eustratius was writing his hagiography. Evagrius, in his commentary on the Proverbs, writes about the Wisdom/Sophia of the text the following (Evagrius of Pontus, On the Proverbs  64, at Prov.  5:18: ‘may your source of water belong to you and rejoice with the woman of your youth’): If the ‘woman’ designates here the Science of God, and if this was given to us in ‘our youth’, then, the Science of God was given to us from the beginning. is is what Solomon called above ‘the teaching of youth’. In fact, he says: ‘My son, let the evil advice not overcome you’, that is, the devil, since he gave the evil advices, ‘who has quit the teaching of his youth and forgot the divine covenant’ (Prov.  2:17). e forgetfulness and the quitting are secondary to the science and the possession, just as illness comes aer health and as death is secondary in relation to life. One should also understand that the same science is also called ‘mother’, ‘woman’ and ‘sister’. ‘Mother’, because he who taught me has engendered me through her, just as Paul has engendered the Galatians through the Gospel (1 Cor. 4:15), ‘woman’, because by uniting herself with me she gives birth to the virtues and the true doctrines, for it is said that ‘Wisdom gives to her husband prudence as a child’ (Prov. 10:23), and ‘sister’ because she and I are coming from the unique God and Father. In fact, it is said: ‘Say that Wisdom is your sister’ (Prov. 7:4).107

Evagrius of Pontus, On the Proverbs 88 (at Prov. 7:4 ‘Say that Wisdom is your sister, take prudence a girl-friend for yourself’): ‘Wisdom’ is our ‘sister’, because the Father who has created the incorporeal nature has also created her. Here he does not designate by ‘Wisdom’ the Son of God but the Contemplation of the bodies and the bodiless and of the judgment and the providence which are in these, whose different kinds are prudence, science, instruction and intelligence.108 107. P. Géhin (ed.), Évagre le Pontique, Scholies aux Proverbes (Sources chrétiennes 340; Paris, 1987), pp. 156–57. 108. Géhin, Évagre le Pontique, Scholies, pp. 186–89.

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Using this key, I would propose that this ‘woman called Wisdom’ is to be identified with Evagrius’ ‘Science of God’. She presents herself to the ascetic visionary as his wife who, ‘uniting herself to him’, will ‘give birth to the virtues and the true doctrines’, through which Eutychius would save the Church from the storm in which it is at the moment of his election. e ‘ornaments’ are the affairs of the Church, as Eustratius explains. e ‘virtues and true doctrines’ born from Wisdom will be necessary for their correct administration. Soterichos stands for the saving dogmas, which are endangered and which Eutychius has to save from the storm of heresy. Eutychius, as a wise man accomplished through his union to Wisdom, has got the task of rectifying the endangered doctrines, that is, he has to carry to victory the Church politics of eodore ‘the Wine-sack’ and his party. Finally, if one follows Evagrius’ speculation, this Wisdom is not the Son of God in the proper sense, but she belongs to the nature of the reasonable creatures, created by God at the beginning. She is the pre-existent intellect of Christ. is interpretation of the vision, whose correctness cannot be proven beyond doubt, has nevertheless the merit of being coherent and of corresponding to the structure and the details of the vision. If it is correct, Eutychius was not only a member of eodore’s political party but also a fellow-Origenist. Apparently, there was great resistance against Eutychius’ nomination, so Justinian had to recur to an imitation of his great predecessor Constantine, or rather of the Eusebian story transmitted about Constantine. He referred to a vision, seen in the waking state (kath’ hypar), in the church of St Peter in Athyra, when the Coryphee of the Apostles showed him the great Eutychius and told him: ‘See to it that this one becomes bishop!’ He confirmed with many oaths that this was true.

us, the vision in the waking state and the oaths through which the emperor confirms the authenticity of the vision, mark the divine intervention, inaugurating the victory of the Church policy of eodore the Wine-sack’s party and the condemnation of the ree Chapters at the Fih Ecumenical Council, as well as the survival of eodore’s party, led by Eutychius, although eodore was condemned at another session of the same council as a crypto-Origenist, aer which condemnation he lost his self-control and began to shout that he should have been burnt alive, together with the deacon Pelagius, for having brought to the world this scandalous strife.109 109. Liberatus of Carthage, Brief history of the cause of the Nestorians and the Eutychians 23, p. 141.3–11 in Schwartz, Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, vol. 3, pp. 98–141. See my interpretation of this story in ‘Clandestine heresy’, pp. 154–55.

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. S In the first part of this study, I tried to approach the genres, considered marginal, of early and Byzantine Christian historiography from the point of view of the new conception of time introduced in the late antique Mediterranean world by the emergence of Christianity. is new conception, which sees time as a vector, starting at a certain point, at Creation, and pointing toward an endpoint, the Second Coming and the Resurrection of the dead, having in its focus the Incarnation, got a philosophical elaboration in the debates starting in the third century, on the uncreated eternity or created perishability of the world. is philosophical elaboration, attempting to respond to the eternalist arguments of Porphyry, argued from the impossibility of actual infinity and from a distinction between the divine substance and activity or will. It also laid great emphasis on the free intervention of the Creator God into the revolution of the heavenly bodies, believed to be eternal by the defenders of paganism. is new concept of time also needed a new kind of historiography, the framework of which was created by Eusebius of Caesarea. He initiated three new genres, chronography, ecclesiastic history and hagiography. Each of these genres was rooted both in classical genres and in Scripture: Hellenistic historiographic tradition and the Biblical counting of generations, classical historiography and New Testament history, as well as heroes’ lives both in classical literature and in the Bible. e aim of writing this new kind of historiography conforming to the new concept of time resulted in two seemingly contradictory features: already Eusebius strove to found his narrative on written sources rather than on literary fiction, while he gave ample ground to the narrative of miracles to prove the constant divine intervention in human history. ese features were well preserved in the subsequent tradition, in which, also, these new genres contaminated each other. Within this first part of the study, I attempted to use the concordant or contradictory testimonies of Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, Lactantius’ On the death of the persecutors and of Philostorgius’ Church History, to reconstruct the putative common source of the three accounts on Constantine’s vision, being the official propaganda of the emperor. In the second part of this study, I focused my attention on one of the new historiographic genres, hagiography. Hagiography is only too oen considered a merely performative genre, which gives us information about its author, his times and his ideological aims, rather than about the saint whose life he narrates and his/her times. Yet, this view notwithstanding, by default, hagiographic sources cannot be avoided when treating history. I would suggest that, if we are to consider hagiography a genuine historiographic genre, we will better understand its value for our historiographic

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aims. Even what is considered the most worthless part from the historiographic point of view, miracles and visions, reveal precious information. Hagiographers definitively wanted to conform to the genre that they were practising. us, they were using what are called hagiographic topoi. e historical information is precisely in the way they were handling these topoi, applying them to the given situation. In this second part of the present study, I treated two sixth-century hagiographic texts, the Life of Saint Sabas by Cyril of Scythopolis and the Life of Saint Eutychius by Eustratius of Constantinople. In the case of the Life of Sabas, I gave a short summary on the importance of the remnants of a Syriac translation discovered in 1975 in Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai. rough a comparison of the Syriac text to the variants presented by Eduard Schwartz’s edition, I have come to the conclusion that the extant Greek manuscripts are witnessing a later, Constantinopolitan tradition, where the original text was readjusted so that it might become more easily comprehensible for the Constantinopolitan audience. ere is also a striking major difference: while the strictly dyophysite character of the text is very clear in the Syriac, it is obscured, without disappearing, in the Greek manuscripts. Rather than attributing this difference to a conscious change by the translator, we should attribute it to the Constantinopolitan adjustment: the later audience in Constantinople wanted to see Saint Sabas and his community perfectly faithful to the Neochalcedonian orthodoxy of the later fih ecumenical council enacted in 553, rather than as champions of the defence of the ree Chapters, which they actually were. I was also treating the narrative on the Samaritan wars in the Life of Saint Sabas. Cyril was an eyewitness to these wars and apparently had access, in the patriarchal library of Jerusalem, to the anti-Samaritan edict of Justinian, so he also knew its date. On the issuing of this edict we have two contradictory sources: Procopius’ narrative in the Secret History, and Cyril’s. Procopius dates the edict to the period before the Samaritan revolt and considers it as its cause, while Cyril presents a much more complicated history, Justinian being first inclined toward a lenient treatment of the Samaritans and turning his anger towards the Palestinian Christians because of the murder of the father of his courtier. is is, then, followed by a mission of Saint Sabas to Constantinople, during which he manages to turn away the anger from the Christians toward the Samaritans and obtains the issuing of the edict. us, for Cyril, the edict is a consequence and not the cause and was issued in 530. Modern historiography invariably follows Procopius’ account, while a careful study of the parallel sources show that it is Cyril who transmits the correct date. Moreover, such a

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study, conducted on the basis of Cyril’s text, has shown that our interpretation of the anti-Samaritan law should also be changed and that its original text has been lost but can be reconstructed on the basis of the indirect testimonies. e second case that I examined was a passage about the nomination of Eutychius to the patriarchate of Constantinople in 552, on the eve of the fih ecumenical council. is passage and its interpretation I cited here, in order to show how strong the characteristics of hagiography as a historiographic genre founded by Eusebius remained as late as in the sixth century. is also shows that hagiography has not only a performative function as it is oen emphasized in modern scholarship but is also normative, so that an emperor, like here Justinian, learns from the authoritative life of his predecessor how he should behave and which language he should use, so that everybody who hears the story of his vision understands its meaning on the basis of the Eusebian pattern. Also, I hope to have shown that, here as well, hagiography also works as a historiographic genre. In fact, we have little reason to doubt that Justinian’s postConstantinian vision and the subsequent oaths were the means by which the emperor – who had a much weaker position than we would be inclined to suppose – was able to obtain Eutychius’ nomination to the patriarchate against a powerful opposition. Even such oddly miraculous and seemingly dysfunctional elements as Eutychius’ vision in custody prove to carry important historical information if only we understand their coded language. It is important to state here that it is not only our smartness that squeezes out historical information from a fairy-tale text. Rather, we should make ourselves attentive to the meanings that the author intentionally transmitted to those who have the ear to understand them, using the consecrated codes of hagiography as one of the Eusebian historiographic genres.

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GENERAL INDEX Abbas ibn al-Walid 49–50, 66 Abbasid revolution 51–59 Abd Allah ibn Ali 57–61 Abd al-Malik 50, 59 Abd al-Rahman ibn Muawiyah 57 Abd Shams ibn Abd Manaf 52 Abo of Tbilisi 70 Abraham (patriarch) 3–4 Abu’l-Abbas al-Saffah 56–59 Abu ‘Amr al-Kindi 112–13 Abu Hashim 52–53 Abu Mikhnaf 112 Abu Muslim 55, 59–61 Agapius of Mabbug/Menbij 44–45, 113, 119 Alaric 125–39 Ali ibn Abi Talib 52 Anania Sanahinec‘i 9 Anastasius I 3–8, 22, 179 Anastasius Bibliothecarius 41 Anastasius the Apocrisiary 38 Anastasius the Persian 33 Andrew the Chamberlain 114 Anicia Juliana 171 Antichrist (Justinian) 165–66, 174 anti-Judaism 143–62 apologetics 126, 123, 136–37, 143–62 Arabic historiagraphy 41–66, 109–22 Archil (king) 68, 70 Ardaburius 139 Armenian historiography 1–19 Arseni Beri 17 Arsen of Ikalto 73 Arseni of Sapara 16 Aspar 139 Assmann, Jan 1 Augustine of Hippo 126–36, 156, 184 al-Azdi 102, 112 Babgēn (Katholikos) 7–8, 12 Baladhuri 47–50, 117–20 Basil I 169–71

Basiliscus 8 Bilal ibn Abi Burda 116 biographical memory 1–6, 9–11, 19 borrowing, literary 81–108 Boutelinos/Bizoulinos 30 Brock, Sebastian 144, 203 buffer state, Kartli as 69–70 Byzantine/Graeco-Roman historiography 21–40, 41–66, 123–42, 163–80, 181–219 Cameron, Averil 159, 164, 172–74 Catherine, Monastery of Saint 169, 202, 218 Caucasian ecclesiastic Schism 3, 9, 11, 13, 15–19 Cave of Treasures 143–62 Chalcedonianism 2–12, 16, 18, 64, 68, 169 Christian-Muslim interaction 41–66 Christianization 127, 138, 156–58, 163–80 chronicle 16, 21–40, 42–46, 50–51, 60, 71–74, 81–108, 109–19, 148, 159, 163–80, 182, 186–88, 205–206 church history 42, 82, 109, 115, 123– 42, 168, 181–219 Codex Iustinianus 29, 207–209 compilation 71, 82, 111, 116, 118 Constans II 23–24, 32, 35, 39–40 Constantine 123–24, 132, 178–79, 199– 201 Constantine III 23, 33 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus 22 Constantinople 5, 12, 14, 21–40, 44, 65, 82, 89, 98, 111, 114, 120, 123–42, 164, 170–71, 175, 181 Corippus 171 Council of Ephesus 12, 124 cultural memory 1–6, 9–11, 19, 66 Cyril of Alexandria 175–76 Cyril of Scythopolis 175, 181–219 Cyrus of Alexandria 27–28, 114–15

246 Damasus (pope) 129 Dionysius of Tel-Mahre

  113, 120

ecclesiastical history see church history economic crisis 102–107 Ekvtime the Athonite 78–79 Elias of Nisibis 46 Elisha (monk of Zuqnin) 81 emergence of Islam and historical texts 109–21 ethnic identity 4, 13–15, 71–76 Eudocia 30, 32, 35 Eusebius of Caesarea 82, 109, 123–25, 131–32, 161, 181–219 Eustratius of Constantinople 181–219 Euthymius 202 Eutychius 211–19 Evagrius Scholasticus 124, 181–219 Fāṭima (bint Muhammad) 52 Fitna, First 41–66 Flavius Josephus 56, 72, 149, 155, 161, 188 Gabriel (Katholikos) 7–10 Gelasius of Caesarea 124 genealogy 43, 73, 75, 80, 135, 143–62 genre 42, 67–71, 109, 123–42, 143–50, 159–161, 181–219 George Bokhtisho 62–63 George Synkellos 42, 110–11 George the Hagiorite 78 Georgian historiography 1–19, 67–80 Giorgi the Athonite 78–79 Graeco-Roman/Byzantine historiography 21–40, 41–66, 123–42, 163– 80, 181–219 Gregory, Exarch of Carthage 33, 38– 39 hagiography 42, 67–70, 80, 181–219 Halbwachs, Maurice 1 Hashim ibn Abd Manaf 52 al-Haytham ibn ‘Adi 116–17 Heraclius/Herakleios 16–17, 21–40, 168–69 Heraclonas 23–24, 30–35 Herakleios see Heraclius Hisham (Caliph) 57, 110, 116

historiography vii–ix Arabic 41–66, 109–22 Armenian 1–19 Georgian 1–19, 67–80 Graeco-Roman/Byzantine 21–40, 41–66, 123–42, 163–80, 181–219 Islamic 41–66, 109–22 Persian 109–22 Syriac 81–108, 143–62 Humayma 53 Husayn (Ali’s son) 46, 52 Hippolytus of Rome 73, 147 Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam 52, 113 Ibn ‘Asakir 119–20 Ibn Hisham 57, 110, 116 Ibn Ishaq 110, 115 Ibn Lahi‘a 113 Ibrahim (brother of Walid II) 49 imitation, literary 81–108 imperial propaganda 21–40 Innocent (pope) 129 intercultural transmission 41–66, 109–22 Iovane Sabanisdze 68–70 Iovane the Athonite 78 Iovane Zosime 79 Isa ibn Musa 56, 61–65 Islam, historiography of 109–22 Islamic historiography 41–66, 109– 22 Jacob of Edessa 81, 111 Jerome 126–27, 132, 136–38 John Chrysostom 79, 131, 136 John Lydus 53 John Malalas 57, 163–80 John of Antioch 21–40 John of Ephesus 81–108 John of Litarb 81 John of Nikiu 37, 205–206 John Philoponus 166 Joshua the Stylite 81–108 Joshua the Stylite, Pseudo- 81–108 Juansher 69, 73–74 Julius Africanus 72, 147–48 Justin (Justinian’s uncle) 5, 169–72 Justin, Pseudo- 181 Justinian 5, 82–83, 163–180, 181–219

  Kartli (Georgia) 16–17, 67–80 Kawad of Persia 6–8 Khalid al-Qasri 116 Khalid ibn Barmak 61 Khalifa ibn Khayyat 109, 120 Khusrau II 118–19 Kirakos Ganjakec‘i 9–10 Konstanti Kakhi 70 Kosmas Indikopleustes 166 Kyrion (Mcxetan Katholikos) 3–4, 6–10 Lactantius 191–97 language, cultural status of 76–80 Layth ibn Sa‘d 113, 121 law see Codex Iustinianus Leo I 36 Leo III 114 Leonti Mroveli 74–76 Liberatus of Carthage 216 Machabeli 73–74 al-Mahdi, Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Manṣūr 43–44, 52, 55–56, 61 Malalas 163–80, 205–206 al-Manṣūr, Abū Ja‘far ‘Abd Allāh ibn Muḥammad 60–61 Manuel (commander-in-chief of Egypt) 114–15 Martin I (pope) 38 Martyrios 36 Marwan II 49, 51, 55–59 Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik 47–48 Maurice (emperor) 23, 109 Maximus Confessor 33, 38–39 memory 1–6, 9–11, 19, 34, 42, 66, 138, 160 Michael Glykas 171 Michael the Syrian 43–46, 49, 57, 82, 99, 111 Mirian (king) 14 Mxit‘ar Goš 10 Modestus of Jerusalem 27 Mommsen, eodor vii, 43, 46, 181– 219 Movsēs (patriarch) 3–15 Movsēs Elivardec‘i 6 Movsēs of Curt‘avi 2–4, 17

247

Movsēs Xorenac‘i 13–15 Muawiyah 45–46, 57, 66 Muhammad ibn Hanafiyya 52 Musa ibn Nusayr 57 Muslim-Christian interaction 41– 66 Nero 57 Nersēs I the Great 12 Nersēs II 12 Nicephorus/Nikephoros of Constantinople 21–43, 50, 109 Nino 13–18 Novatians 129, 131, 140 Olympiodorus of ebes 140 oral memory 5, 66 Origen and Origenism 175, 181–219 Orosius, Paulus 126–27, 132–33, 136 Palestine 33, 38–39, 60, 82–83, 92–93, 114, 175, 181–219 Palladius of Helenopolis 134, 139 Paul II of Constantinople 23, 33, 36– 37, 39 Paulus Aegineta 62 Pelagius 126, 132 Persian historiography 109–22 Philip of Side 124 Philoponus 184–85, 198 Philostorgius 125, 132, 134–36, 191– 204 Phokas 22–23, 25, 29–30 Photius 124, 181 Plague (541–43), the Great 81–108, 164 polemics 1–19, 67–68, 70, 80, 128, 137–38, 141 Porphyry 181–219 Priscus 25 Proclus 183–85 Procopius of Caesarea 83, 163–64, 166, 172–74, 178, 181–219 prophecy 83–84, 88, 96, 153–54 Pseudo-Caesarius 175 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite 46, 82, 97, 102, 174–75 Pyrrhos of Constantinople 21–40

248 Qahtaba ibn Shabib

  54

Ranke, Leopold von VII, 181, 196–97 rewritten Bible/Scripture 143–62 Rome, sack of 123–42 Romulus 22 Sabas 202–18 Salim (Salih ibn Ali) 53–56, 59 Salim ibn Qutaybah 61 Samaria and Samaritans 55–56, 173, 204–11, 218–19 Sergios I of Constantinople 24–29, 33–36, 39 Severus of Antioch 176 Shabur 114 Siffin, battle of 44–49 Socrates of Constantinople 14, 82, 123, 125, 128–40 Sozomen 123–25, 128, 130–40 Stephen of Cyzicus 24–25 Stilicho 139 Šušanik 2, 17 Symeon Logothete 43, 171 Synesius of Cyrene 139 Syriac historiography 81–108, 143–62 al-Ṭabarī/Tabari 45, 47, 50, 55, 57, 60–61, 63, 102, 117–19 Tacitus 181 Tarasius of Constantinople 111 Tarikh ibn Ziyad 57 eodora 177 eodore (pope) 33, 36–37 eodore Ascidas 175, 214–16 eodore of Mopsuestia 214 eodore Spudaeus 38 eodore Trithyrius 31 eodoret of Cyr 123, 125, 175–76, 203 eodosios 30, 36

eodosios of Gangra 38 eophanes Confessor 21–25, 29, 32, 37, 41–66, 177 Theophilus of Edessa 43–44, 64, 114–15 eophylact Simocatta 23, 109 thirteen Syrian fathers, the 15–19 time, concepts of 1–20, 181 Timothy Aeluros/Aelurus 3, 129 omas Presbyter 109 ucydides vii, 109, 181–82, 188–89 topoi 67–80 Trdat 13–14 ‘Umar II 113–15, 120 ‘Uryan ibn Haytham 116–17 Uthman ibn al-Affan 45, 52 Uxtanēs 5–6, 8 Vakhtang Gorgasali (king) 73–74 Vardan Mamikonean 2 Varsken 2 Vrtanēs Kerdoł 2

69–70,

Walid I 49 Walid II 49 Walid III 49 Yahya ibn Ziyad ibn Abi Huzabah al-Burjumi Abu Ziyad 63 Yazid see Walid III Yazid ibn Abi Habib 113, 121 Yazid ibn Umar ibn Hubayra 55 Yovhannēs Ōjnec‘i 11–12 Yovhannēs Sarkawag 10 Zachariah Rhetor, PseudoZeno (emperor) 3–4, 6, 8 Zosimus (historian) 135

99

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