Vremennik, 1, p. 503 sqq. E. W. Brooks, op. cit. C. E. Gleye, op. cit., and a paper on the Slavonic Malalas in the Archiv für Slav. Philologie, 16, p. 578 sqq. There is also much on Malalas in Gelzer's Sextus Julius Africanus (1880-5).
Quite distinct from the John of Autioch who was distinguished as Malalas is another John of Antioch, to whom a large number of excerpts preserved in various Mss. are ascribed. His existence is confirmed by Tzetzes, but the questions of his date and his literary property are surrounded with the greatest difficulties. It is quite clear that his name covers two distinct chroniclers, of whom the earlier probably lived in the seventh century and the later in the tenth. But it is still a matter of controversy which is which. The matter is of considerable importance indirectly; it has even some bearings on historical questions (cp. above, vol. 3, Appendix 22); but the question is much too complicated to be discussed here, and no solution has been reached yet.[1] It will be enough to indicate the fragments in question. (1) The Constantinian fragments (excerpta de virtutibus and de insidiis), of which the last refer to the reign of Phocas; (2) fragments in Cod. Paris, 1630; (3) the "Salmasian" fragments of Cod. Par., 1763, of which the latest refer to Valentinian iii.; (4) fragments of the part relating to the Trojan War preserved in Codex Vindobonensis 99 (historicus), under the name of Johannes Sikeliotes. The first three groups were published by Müller, F. H. G. iv. p. 535 sqq., and v. pp. 27, 28, while (4) is partly published in a gymnasial programme of Graz by A. Heinrich, 1892, p. 2-10. The two chronicles, represented by these fragments, may be distinguished as C and S; and the question is whether C, from which the Constantinian fragments, or S, from which the Salmasian fragments are derived, is the earlier work. S was a chronicle of the same style as that of Malalas or Theophanes, Christian and Byzantine; C was a work of "hellenistic" character and dealt with the Roman republic, which the true monkish chronographer always neglected. Cp. Patzig, Joannes Antiochenus, &c., especially p. 22, who upholds the view that S is the older, and that C was compiled in the ninth or tenth century. (Cp. the works of Sotiriadis, Patzig, Gleye, Gelzer, cited in connexion with John Malalas, and C. de Boor Hermes, 1884, B. 19, 123 sqq.; ib., 1885, B. 20, 321 sqq.; Byz. Ztsch., 1893, B. 2, 195 sqq.)[2]
For the Persian wars in the reign of Anastasius we have the valuable Syriac history of Josua Stylites, known to Gibbon through the abridged Latin translation of Assemani (Bibl. Orient., i. 262-283). The work is entitled "A history of the time of affliction at Edessa and Amida and throughout all Mesopotamia," and was composed in A.D. 506-7, the last date mentioned being 28 Nov., 506, but was probably not published till after the death of Anastasius. It contains a very graphic diary of the events at Edessa during a period of great distress. The narrative of the Persian invasion begins in c. xlviii. The original text was first published by the Abbé Martin (with French transl.) in Abh. of the Deutsche Morgenl. Gesellschaft, 6, 1 (1876); but this has been superseded by the edition of W. Wright, with an English version, 1882. The position of Josua in regard to the theological controversies of the day is treated by H. Gelzer in a paper in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, i. p. 34 sqq. (1892). Josua was one of the sources of the Chronicle of Edessa (A.D. 201-540); see L. Hallier, in Texte und Untersuchungen, ix. 1, 1892.
The ecclesiastical history of Zacharias Rhetor, bishop of Mytilene, composed about A.D. 518, throws little light on the political history which is the subject of the volume. But it was translated from Greek into Syriac and incorporated in a Syriac work, which was compiled about fifty years later, and goes generally by the name of Zacharias. The genuine Zacharias corresponds to Bks. 3-6 of the
- ↑ Prof. Krumbacher gives an excellent summary of the facts (§ 141) in his History of Byzantine Literature.
- ↑ Gelzer has conjectured that John of Antioch may be the same as John, Patriarch of Antioch, A.D. 631-649. The work would then have been composed before A.D. 631, as the author of the Constantinian excerpta de virtutibus is styled "John the monk". But I question whether it would have been forgotten that the author was Patriarch.
