Volume 110, Issue 1

By the middle of the sixth century, in Byzantine perspective, Britain had so long since ceased to be part of the empire of the Romans as to have become a kind of never-land, some part of the known world, but also the sort of place of which it was possible to credit the fabulous. Information was scarce. Nevertheless, the chief source for the sixth-century east-Roman regime in Constantinople, Procopius (c. 500 -565 CE), met a group of Anglo-Saxons c. 540, who were contemporaries of Beowulf’s king Hygelac; and Procopius may have learned from hoi Angiloi something about the Old English poetry, at a particularly important point in its formation, before the beginning of the conversion of the English to Christianity in 597 CE. Procopius’s English informants told him a tale (of the vengeful Anglo-Saxon bride of a Frisian basileos named Radigis) of a type consonant with later examples of Old English poetry; also, with an historical basis that coincides with the historical milieu to which the earliest Old English heroic poetry also refers, including Beowulf.

First readings and corrections of notaries’ subscriptions in Byzantine documents on papyrus stand in the focus of this article, supplementing the Notarsunterschriften im byzantinischen Ägypten by J.M. Diethart und K. A. Worp from 1986.

The ninth-century monk and doctor Meletius offers in his treatise De natura hominis a detailed and acute analysis of individuality. Through a set of unusual and well-chosen examples, he offers an explanation of the constitution of individuals based on the solution developed by Porphyry in his Eisagoge. After a discussion of the relevance of discussing individuality in a medical text, this article reconstructs Meletius’s own solution. This article also shows that Meletius’s knowledge of Porphyry comes from a passage of Theodore of Raithu that was integrated into the anonymous Christological florilegium known as the Doctrina Patrum de Incarnatione Verbi.

Most scholars believe that the “Anatolios” appearing in the Geoponika is Vindanius Anatolius of Berytus (Beirut) and the prefect of Illyricum of that name from Berytus mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus. In this paper we shall examine the hypothesis that Cassianus probably identified Οὐϊνδανιώνιος, ᾿Aνατόλιος and Βηρύτιος as three authors, and that Photios by mistake interpreted Οὐϊνδανιώνιος, ᾿Aνατόλιος and Βηρύτιος as one author. Finally, we can conclude from the considerations of 494 chapter headings appearing in the Geoponika that Vindanios Anatolios Berytos is actually an erroneous composite for the names of three different persons, and that the Anatolios in the Geoponika cannot be identified with the man mentioned in Amm. 19, 11, 2 and Eun. vit. soph. 85.

From Homer onwards, in both ancient Greek and Byzantine cultures, dreams were generally conceived as a phenomenon that enters the human being from outside, inasmuch as inspired by the divinity, and not as a product of human interiority. Nevertheless, there exists a distinctly dedicated work about this subject that provides a completely different point of view: it is the treatise On dreams by Synesius of Cyrene. Assuming that dreams are cognizable, Synesius argues that they must be perceived in the same way as sense perceptions. Therefore, they must pass through the center of human self-consciousness, which Synesius calls «Imaginative Spirit». This is only the beginning of a philosophical demonstration aiming to prove that all the images belonging to the Becoming, including oneiric ones, reside inside the soul and do not have their own source outside the human being.

This article examins the hypothesis published in 2013 by Marek Jankowiak, according to which Pope John IV in his so-called Apologia Honorii (CPL 1729) and Maximos Homologetes independently “invented” a dyotheletic Christology for the first time. For that purpose, this letter by John IV is analysed with regard to its sources, its text and the context of its composition. It is shown that the letter, which is preserved only in a Latin retranslation from Greek by Anastasius Bibliothecarius made in 874/75, originally referred only the monothelistic statement of Pope Honorius to the human nature of Christ. The dyotheletic statements, which can also be found in the text, are the result of later updating. This updating begins already in the 7th century in the circle of Maximos’ followers. Here, as well as in the context of the oldest tradition at Anastasius Biliothecarius in the so-called Photian Schism, the conflict-oriented interest in an unlimited authority of the papacy stands in the background. The “invention” of the theologoumenon of a double will in Christ should be assigned exclusively to Maximos Homologetes.

The article examines the portion of the Byzantine chronicle known as the Historia Imperatorum dealing with the Manzikert campaign of Byzantine emperor Romanus IV Diogenes. Comparison with several Byzantine historical works shows that most of the said account derives from some now lost Byzantine historical text. The indications are that this was a Byzantine chronicle which served as a source throughout the Historia Imperatorum’s length and whose appreciation is central to establishing why the Historia Imperatorum was written at all.

This article aims to make a comparison between the teaching of St. John Climacus and that of St. Gregory of Nyssa, with a specific focus on the complex of ideas related to perpetual progress. While one must proceed with caution, a number of close and significant parallels can nevertheless be indicated: a dynamic concept of spiritual perfection, the definition of virtue as limitless, the idea of a perpetual growth in love, and the inclusion of the angels in this progress. I suggest that the best way for explaining these analogies is to admit a (direct) influence of Gregory on John. As a consequence, John Climacus must be counted with a group of Eastern authors holding similar views that includes (Pseudo‐)Macarius, Maximus the Confessor, Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory of Sinai, Gregory Palamas and Kallistos Angelikoudes. These authors appear in fact to be witnesses of a tradition of thought that stems back to Gregory of Nyssa.