Demetrius, Metropolitan of Cyzicus, “Expositio Breuiter Doctrinae Iacobitarum” – Full Greek text edited

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Independent scholar Alex Hourani tells me that he has created a Greek text  from manuscripts of a largely unpublished medieval text.  The anti-heretical work, which is referred to under various titles, was composed between 1026-28 by the deeply obscure Demetrius, Metropolitan of Cyzicus. What little is known about him can apparently be found in H.­G. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im Byzantinischen Reich (Munich, 1959), p.532, although I have not looked.1  A page at Dumbarton Oaks tells us that Demetrius was appointed syncellus in 1029, and later made oikonomos of the Great Church, sometime before April 1032.

His Greek text is here:

The text is there entitled “Expositio Breuiter Doctrinae Iacobitarum” (ἔκθεσις κατ᾿ ἐπιτομὴν τοῦ τῶν Ἰακωβιτῶν δόγματος καὶ τῶν ἀλλων ὧν ποιοῦσι παρὰ τὴν ἐκκλησιαστικὴν καὶ ὀρθόδοξον πίστιν τε καὶ παράδοσιν, “An exposition in summary form of the doctrine of the Jacobites and of the other things which they do contrary to the ecclesiastical and orthodox faith and tradition, written by Demetrios, Metropolitan of Cyzicus“).

However it is also referred to sometimes as “Liber de rebus Armeniae (contra Iacobitas),” and a shortened version of it appears under that title in Patrologia Graeca 127, cols. 880-84, where it is wrongly attributed to Philippus Solitarius. The text was printed from MS. Paris gr. 1315.2

The old McClintock and Strong article on Philip the Solitary mentions the work, and an AI search tells me that the 1648 Combefis editio princeps labelled it “De Fide et Coeremoniis Armeniorum, Jacobitarum, Chatzitzacriorum et Romanorum seu Francorum”.3.

A list of manuscripts appears in the Pinakes database here.  Hourani’s text is from MS Real Biblioteca Escorial R. I. 15, MS Sinai Greek 1795, and MS Heidelberg Cod. Pal. Graec. 356, ff. 129-132v. These include a preface indicating that it was composed at the request of Constantine VIII (1025-1028).

There is a discussion and summary of the text in German, see T. H. Benner, “Die syrischjakobitische Kirche unter byzantinischer Herrschaft im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert” (PhD diss., Marburg, Philipps­Universität, 1989), 123–26; see also Z. Chitwood, “The Patriarch Alexios Stoudites and the Reinterpretation of Justinianic Legislation against Heretics,” GRBS 54 (2014): 300–301.4

The work is of interest as the first text to explain the term “Melchite”.  Dr H. has also drafted an interesting article on the origins of the term which is on Academia here.  Here is the relevant passage (I have slightly revised the translation which is very literal):

4.  τοῦ τοίνυν δηλωθέντος Ἰακώβου τὸ τοῦ Εὐτυχοῦς δόγμα πεπαῤῥησιασμένως κηρύττοντος, σχίσμα γέγονεν ἐν τοῖς Σύροις. καὶ οἱ μὲν Ὀρθόδοξοι οἰ τῇ συνόδῳ καὶ τῷ βασιλεῖ Μαρκιανῷ ἀκολουθήσαντες, ἐκλήθησαν Μελχῖται· ὡς φρονοῦντες τὰ τοῦ ὀρθοδόξου βασιλέως. ἐπεὶ μελχὶ λέγεται καθ’ Ἐβραίους καὶ Σύρους ὁ βασιλεὺς. οἱ δὲ Εὐτυχιανισταὶ καὶ ἐπὶ τούτοις Μονοθελῆται, οἱ τῷ μοναχῷ Ἰακώβῳ τῷ εὐτελεῖ καὶ ἀνωνύμῳ Σύρῳ πεισθέντες, ὠνομάσθησαν Ἰακωβῖται. καὶ ἔκτοτε μέχρι τοῦ νῦν, οὕτως ἀπ’ ἐκείνου καλοῦνται.

4.  This Jacob preached the doctrine of Eutyches outspokenly, and a schism happened among the Syrians. The orthodox, who followed the synod and the emperor Marcian, were called Melchites, as if they held to the opinions of the orthodox emperor, because a king is called “melchi” according to the Hebrews and the Syrians.  The Eutychianists and also the Monothelites who were persuaded by Jacob, the worthless monk and nameless Syrian, were called Jacobites. Since that time, and until now, they are called as such after him.

Here’s a DeepSeek output for the first section of the text:

An exposition in summary form of the doctrine of the Jacobites and of the other things which they do contrary to the ecclesiastical and orthodox faith and tradition; written by Demetrios, Metropolitan of Cyzicus; at the prompting of the Christ-loving lord Constantine, the purple-born emperor; in which there is also (a section) concerning the Chatzitzarioi:—

(1) Since God has bestowed upon the world your nature, that transcends nature and is truly most kingly as a choice possession, O good-loving lord; and having granted to your might the readiness in all things; in you alone of all men He wondrously mingled things that cannot be mingled: kingship and teaching; the flower of the purple and the power of words; and for this reason you have already turned many of the Hebrews from the error handed down from their fathers; and you have refuted no few of the Athinganoi and Paulicians; and you yourself have been deemed worthy to become the mouth of God, according to the divine oracles; for He who brings out, it says, the worthy from the unworthy, “as my mouth shall he be”.

But now the great and burning zeal for God has stirred you up also to the refutation of the Jacobites; so that these too, holding distorted and blasphemous doctrines, may not escape notice, creeping in under the guise and skin of sheep as wolves, and falsely calling themselves orthodox. In clear and concise language I shall set before your majesty the matters concerning their heresy from the books of the Fathers; adding also the matters concerning the Chatzitzarioi, just as you commanded. And the affairs of the Jacobites stand as follows. …

The “Chatzitzarioi” or Staurolatrians5 seem to be an Armenian cross-worshipping judaising group of the period.

Always interesting to see bits like this.

The seal of Demetrius of Cyzicus
  1. James Morton, “Law and Orthodoxy under the Komnenoi”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 76 (2022), 145-162, p.151, n.32.  Online here.[↩]
  2. Bernadette Martin-Hisard, “Le discours des Georgiens sur leur orthodoxie: les heretiques Armeniens et Pierre le Foulon (VIIe-XIIe S.)”, in: Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici 47 (2010) 195-264, p.243, n.204.[↩]
  3. François Combefis, Novum Auctarium Graeco-Latinae Bibliothecae Patrum, Volume 2, columns 261ff, Paris, 1648, but I have been unable to access the book.[↩]
  4. Morton, q.v., n.33.[↩]
  5. Andreas Rhoby, “Byzantine Greek Words in English Vocabulary?” online here.[↩]

The texts of critical editions under French law are not subject to copyright?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An interesting post on Twitter by Gregory Crane of the Perseus project leads to some interesting finds:

The Scaife viewer build on work by @PonteIneptique. It would be easy to import the texts into gitlab.inria.fr/almanach/cllg/ from @ThesLingGraecae. We have chosen not to do so but there is no copyright at play. Here are the biggest 20 not yet in Perseus….

Thibault Clérice seems to be the main man here.  Inria seems to be doing some very useful things.   The Corpus Liberatum Linguae Graecae site at gitlab:

The CLLG Freed Corpus is a free XML-TEI corpus of Ancient Greek texts derived from the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) E CD-ROM.
It has been transformed using Diogenes and enriched with Dapytains-compatible citation structures.

The corpus is developed within the CLLG project, funded by the Programme Inria Quadrant at Inria.

The corpus is tested with HookTest.

With the interesting postscript:

Texts are distributed under French law, which holds that the texts of critical editions are not subject to copyright protection, as they do not constitute an expression of the editor’s personality (CA Paris, Pôle 5, 2ème Ch., 9 June 2017, no. 16/00005).

The Cour d’appel de Paris judgement is here, but I have not tried to read it.  It seems to be a case where a publisher, Libraire Droz, sued another publisher, Libraire Classiques Garnier.  Droz lost.  AI Overview:

In CA Paris, Pôle 5, 2ème Ch., 9 June 2017, no. 16/00005, the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed that a publisher cannot claim copyright protection over public-domain medieval texts when the transcription involves no original creative input.

Lack of Originality: The court held that Librairie Droz did not perform a creative or transformative editorial adaptation on the underlying medieval texts. Transcribing, retranscribing, or applying standard paleographic methods (like fixing punctuation or abbreviations) to public domain material does not imprint the work with the author’s personality.

Copyright Infringement Rejected: Because the texts lacked the originality required to qualify as works of the mind (œuvres de l’esprit), the infringement (contrefaçon) and damages claims by Librairie Droz were dismissed.

Even more interesting is CoMMA:

…a large-scale corpus of medieval manuscripts produced through automatic text recognition. The corpus contains around 2.5b tokens drawn from more than 23,000 digitized manuscripts in Latin and Old French, harvested via IIIF. Unlike other resources, it is made of raw, non-normalized text enriched with layout analysis in various formats.

A PDF describing this is here.  It does say:

For medieval manuscripts in Western languages, recognition accuracy is increasingly limited, not by models but by the availability of ground-truth data, with current error rates often below 10%.

10% is a big error rate, tho.  Even 1% is painful in OCR.  But it’s a massive step forward.

I see other projects which are bootlegging the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.  The TLG is run by the excellent Maria Pantelia, who relies on subscriptions to hire people to transcribe texts.  So I have very mixed feelings here.  The TLG is wonderful and necessary.  It needs that revenue stream until the project is complete.

Much as I want to see everything available to everyone freely, I agree with Gregory Crane.  I’m not going to do things that might injure the TLG.  Nobody else should do so either.  Let Dr Pantelia carry out her mission.  The world will not end if we have to manage for a few more years until she’s done.

In general, if there are people out there producing stuff that promotes the classics, patristics, the ancient world, let them enjoy the income from their labour.  Heaven knows there isn’t huge money to be made.  A few PDFs for use by the poor people, of books that are sold at hundreds of dollars; that is one thing.  That won’t affect the publisher revenue stream.  But let’s not wreck projects like the TLG.

Update (26 Sep 2026): I learn from a twitter post by Gregory Crane that “the EU allows nations to copyright editions for up to but not more than 30 years.”

The regulation in question is article 5 of the EU Copyright Term Directive (Directive 2006/116/EC, originally 1993/98/EC) (Download PDF here).   The regulation is optional, however.  Relevant extract:

An AI search (caution!) tells me that only Germany – inevitably – and Estonia have implemented it.  No doubt the German government – which seems to be completely subservient to the publishing industry – drew up this foolish clause.

From My Diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have a pile of things to write about on my desktop, but domestic trivia keep getting in the way.

I need to decide what to do about the letters of Aeneas of Gaza, now that I know these are at roman-letters.org, with the Greek and an AI-assisted translation from it.  I intended to translate the Italian translation, and took some steps towards it.  What now?

A couple of articles and theses deserve short articles.  One is on the Septizonium in Rome, something always dear to my heart.  Who knew that detailed plans existed of all three levels of the monument?

I need to do something about Coptic texts, and the White Monastery.  I read a lot about this, and it ought to be written up.  There’s some translations in the Liturgy of the Hours that deserve attention.  And so on.

As the days draw in, these all will become easier to work on.  Although I find that I have already booked my Christmas meal, and that this no longer seems very far away.  How the days rush past!

More importantly, I’m also preparing for a short holiday by the sea in a couple of weeks.  As ever, the preparations for the holiday take longer than the holiday itself.  They will no doubt consume most of the intervening time.

The plans are more complicated this year.  Usually I drive to the destination, which means that I can take a car-full of things with me.  But I have  recently discovered that I now cannot drive more than a couple of hours without starting to become dizzy.  I have no idea why.  Is it connected to my new car, perhaps, acquired only in February at a time when I definitely did not have this problem?  Or is it me, little health niggles turning into something more serious?  Whatever the case, this is a new problem, unwelcome, and a bit worrying.  It means that a five hour drive is out of the question.  So this time we are going to take the train, and then hire a car for the last hour of the journey.  More expensive by a mile, but safer.

However it is a long time since I took the train anywhere.  So next week, I shall carry out a reconnaissance.  I will buy a day return covering the first part of the route, just to ensure that I have no problems doing that, and to spy out the facilities – toilets, food, etc – along the way.

Other tasks proliferate, and absorb time with urgent tasks that matter nothing once complete. Other things are more important.  All of them seem to take longer these days.  This afternoon vanished, for instance, getting my car valeted, and steam-cleaned internally.

Four years ago, I moved out of my house to a rented bungalow in the country.  This proved to be in poor repair in important ways – it had a leak in the roof! – and it was damp.  None of this was apparent in high summer when I took it.  So I was obliged to return.  My books were thoroughly jumbled by being packed and unpacked twice.  I did not expect to remain here long, so I took various short-cuts and double-banked the books.  But this had the consequence that I could never find anything.  A week or two back, I finally gave in, brought two book cases back into the house, and un-double-banked the books.  I had not expected this, but I found that I was remarkably pleased to see them all at last!  You can only be temporary for so long, and four years is too long.

Another task left over from the move was to connect up my parents’ hi-fi system.  I keep it because all the LPs from my college days live underneath, stored more conveniently than they could be anywhere else.  But I have never plugged it in since I returned, because I never use it.  All my music is on MP3 these days.  Anyway, that too is done, and after a day of struggle, I managed to play CDs, LPs, cassettes and tune to the radio once more.  Although it is remarkable how awful analogue hi-fis were, and are.

This has led me to look at the three boxes of cassettes that I still have.  Most of these are things recorded from LP at college, to save money.  Such albums I have long since purchased on CD.  But a few of them are unique.  There are demos from two bands that never “made it”, but that I cherish in memory.  There are a few bootlegs on cassette.  These I need to transfer to digital format.  This is fighting me mightily, but I intend to prevail.

I think that I do need that holiday.  It’s too easy to turn life into a treadmill.

Translations at Luke J. Stevens

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Luke J. Stevens is an independent researcher who is publishing interesting material in the JTS, JECS and other significant journals.  Thankfully this is all accessible through his personal website, and also at Academia.

But even better than this, he has made accessible some draft translations of some unusual patristic texts.  (I’ve added CPL numbers where I could find them)

The Dionysius bar Salibi is from the CSCO Latin translation rather than direct from the Syriac, but none the worse for that.

Everyone should do this with their draft translations.  Grab them while they’re hot!

Did Pierius sacrifice?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Acts of St Phileas record the events of 305 AD during the Great Persecution under Diocletian.  An ancient Latin translation exists, but in the 20th century two Greek versions of the Acts were discovered.  These  are in the Bodmer papyrus 20 (= Bo), and a different version in the Chester Beatty papyrus 15 (= Be).

The Bodmer version Bo begins as follows.  The translation us by H. Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (1972), pp. 330-1:

1. The defence speech of Phileas, bishop of Thmuis and ruler of Alexandria, when he appeared for the fifth time in court and was thenceforth consummated.

Now at the time of his first defence, after many insults on the part of the prefect, much disturbance, and rackings by the legionaries even beyond the fourth peg, he was cast [into prison? ] at Thmuis for two days. Then going about in chains and with bare feet . . . he came to Alexandria and was cast into prison…

2. Though insulted and beaten, he did not flinch. Similarly at his third and fourth appearances, after many insults and blows, Phileas was told: ‘You have killed many men by not sacrificing. Pierius saved many by submitting.’ (Πιέριος πολλοὺς ἔσωσεν ὑποταγείς.)

Summoned for a fifth time, together with the clergy who were with him to the number of twenty, Phileas was asked by the prefect: ‘Can you now be reasonable?’

Phileas answered: ‘I am always reasonable, and I exercise myself in good sense.’

‘Sacrifice to the gods,’ said the prefect.

‘I will not,’ said Phileas.

Culcianus said: ‘Why? .. .’

Now Jerome tells us of a famous biblical scholar of the name of Pierius in  his De Viris Illustribus c.76:

Pierius, presbyter of the church at Alexandria in the reign of Carus and Diocletian, at the time when Theonas ruled as bishop in the same church, taught the people with great success and attained such elegance of language and published so many treatises on all sorts of subjects (which are still extant) that he was called Origen Junior. He was remarkable for his self-discipline, devoted to voluntary poverty, and thoroughly acquainted with the dialectic art. After the persecution, he passed the rest of his life at Rome. There is extant a long treatise of his, On the prophet Hosea which from internal evidence appears to have been delivered on the vigil of Passover.

Eusebius in his Church History book 7 c. 32 mentions him:

Among those nearest our times, we have known Pierius, of the presbyters in Alexandria, and Meletius, bishop of the churches in Pontus, – rarest of men. The first was distinguished for his life of extreme poverty and his philosophic learning, and was exceedingly diligent in the contemplation and exposition of divine things, and in public discourses in the church. Meletius, whom the learned called the “honey of Attica,” was a man whom every one would describe as most accomplished in all kinds of learning; and it would be impossible to admire sufficiently his rhetorical skill. It might be said that he possessed this by nature; but who could surpass the excellence of his great experience and erudition in other respects? For in all branches of knowledge had you undertaken to try him even once, you would have said that he was the most skillful and learned. Moreover, the virtues of his life were not less remarkable. We observed him well in the time of the persecution, when for seven full years he was escaping from its fury in the regions of Palestine.

He is also mentioned by Photius (Bibliotheca 119), who had ten of his homilies  before him, and who quotes him.  There is also something among the fragments of Philip of Side.  Palladius in the Lausiac History cc. 12 and 143 tells us that the hermit Ammonius, in the Nitrian desert recited numerous passages of his writing, and St Silvia of Aquitaine on her pilgrimage to the Holy Land studied his commentaries.

Further details can be found in the article by G. Fritz in the old Dictionaire de théologie catholique 12.2 (1935), col. 1744-6 (Online here).  This suggests that Pierius may indeed have spent his final years at Rome, either to avoid the very long and severe persecution at Alexandria, or else to avoid the “decidedly anti-Origenist” Patriarch Peter I, who had succeeded the more tolerant Theonas in 300 and who travelled rather than be martyred.  When the DTC article was written, the Bodmer papyrus was still unknown, so it is interesting to see this opinion.

The discovery of the Bodmer papyrus therefore alters our perception of this man.  In Barns and Chadwick, “A letter ascribed to Peter of Alexandria” JTS NS 24 (1973) 443-455 (JSTOR), we find:

It was natural for the church to remember with pride the names and ‘birthdays’ of the martyrs who had died in the great persecution, and equally natural that the names of apostates were not recorded. Lapse, whether by preference or by weakness, had taken them out of the community, and there could be nothing but grief and embarrassment in the later recall of their concession to diabolical forces. No one had a motive for advertising their number or even existence. There was every reason to hush up the awkward facts, especially if the apostate had been a divine of some eminence like Pierius.2 Poor Pierius had to leave Alexandria and spend the rest of his days in quiet obscurity somewhere in Rome, which was a large enough place to get lost in.

The footnote reads:

2. His lapse is now certain from the Bodmer papyrus of the Acts of S. Phileas. At his trial Phileas was told ‘You have killed many men by not sacrificing: Pierius saved many by submitting’. See Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (1972), pp. 330-1. Jerome (de vir. inl. 76) says that ‘after the persecution Pierius lived the rest of his life in Rome’. In view of Pierius’ lapse it is remarkable that there was a church named after him at Alexandria, mentioned in the list given by Epiphanius (Panarion 69. 2. 4. Ill p. 153 Holl). Perhaps the existence of this church (perhaps a house-church that was originally the private property of Pierius himself?) may have made possible the later legend that Pierius was martyred in the persecution, attested in the Latin martyrologies of Ado (PL vol. 123, col. 390, for 4 Nov.) and Usuard (p. 335 Dubois) and also in Photius (Bibl. cod. 118 and 119).

That sounds rather plausible, but does the evidence stack up?  Reducing the claim to bullet-points, we end up with this:

  1.  One version – only – of the Acts of Phileas says a certain Pierius “conformed”.  We may reasonably assume this means “sacrificed.”
  2. This Pierius must be the famous one.
  3. Jerome tells us that the famous Pierius left Alexandria and spent the end of his life in Rome.

That’s a wee bit feeble for my liking.

Everything depends on whether we think that the “Pierius” must be the exegete, and whether the editor of the Acts had this information, or whether it was inserted for other reasons.  I find it hard to think of Jerome endorsing someone who sacrificed without mentioning it.  The bitter Origenist disputes, which started from 400 onwards, might put Pierius, as “Origen the Younger”, very much in the cross-hairs.  Jerome was an anti-Origenist.  The editor of the Bodmer version of the Acts of Phileas may have been also, depending on when this version was created.

I suspect that a single word in a single edition of a later hagiographical text is perhaps not enough evidence to show that Pierius did sacrifice.

Can you, must you for your own safety, keep a slave if you are an ascetic and renounce all your possessions?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A truly interesting and very well-written article has appeared in Early Medieval History this month.  Fortunately it is open-access.  The article is

T. Dailey & Justin Piggott, “Ascetics, slaves, and necessity in Late Antiquity: renouncing all wealth, but for a single slave”, Early Medieval Europe 34 (2026); https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70055

It can be found online here.  Unfortunately the page numbers do not seem to be given on the website.  Here’s the abstract:

Slave owners in Late Antiquity viewed the possession of at least one slave to be a necessity and a defining mark that distinguished the dignified social classes from the poor. Ascetics who shared this perspective faced a choice when renouncing all worldly possessions in pursuit of spiritual perfection, one not merely about luxury, but also about status and perhaps even survival. Hagiographic literature and monastic rules reveal that the embrace of the ascetic life, in eremitic and coenobitic contexts alike, was often assumed to accommodate the retention of a single slave as a personal attendant.

That is the argument: that asceticism did not exclude having a slave, and indeed for elite people, required it as a signifier of social status.

The article is very well written and compelling, and the illustrations are also interesting.  Here is an excerpt.

High-status individuals of the late Roman world regarded the ownership of at least one slave as a necessity. Indeed, the ephemeral appearance of slaves in hagiographic narratives indicates that their literary function secured the high social status of their protagonist. By retaining one slave, an ascetic addressed the fear that total renunciation might destabilize their social status, in a manner distinct from other forms of wealth.8

Such sentiments appear in a story about the mistreatment of Fructuosus. According to his seventh-century Life,9 when he became separated from his entourage while praying in a secluded place in the woods, Fructuosus found himself confronted by a passing peasant. Alone, dressed in humble clothing, and with no other visible markers of his status, he was taken to be a runaway slave. The peasant shouted abuse and even struck the saint, who faced the risk of enslavement in a society that had particularly strong laws on the reclamation of runaway slaves.10

The Life, however, presented the peasant as behaving irrationally, under demonic influence, and the tension in the scene ended when the saint exorcized his assailant, who was miraculously restored to his senses. Divine intervention thus rescued Fructuosus from the unthinkable fate of equivalent treatment to a slave.

9. Life of St Fructuosus, c. 11, ed. M.C. Díaz y Díaz, La vida de San Frutuoso de Braga. Estudio y edición crítica (Braga, 1974).

St Fructuosus was previously unknown to me, but he is one of the Visigothic saints, belonging to the early 7th century.  The critical edition referenced is not accessible to me, and indeed this article states that it is “quite difficult to access.”1

The “Life” itself is apparently BHL 3194; CPL 1293; old Latin text in PL 87, cols 459-70.  Fortunately an English translation exists in the TTH series by A. T. Fear, Lives of the Visigothic Fathers, Liverpool (1997), p. 123-144.  Chapter 11, p.133, with an interesting footnote:

…. But, as we have said, when he was on that part of his journey which passed through the lands of Idanha-a-Velha, it happened that all the companions of the blessed man went ahead of him a little way,47 while he stopped in a secluded place in the woods, hidden away in the thick forests, and prayed a short while. While he lay prostrate in prayer, the Ancient Enemy, ever envious of all good men, swiftly brought a boorish countryman possessed by madness to the place where the man of God was praying. When he had seen the man of God from afar, catching sight of him alone amongst the trees, dressed in poor clothes with unshod, naked feet, as he had a peasant’s mind he despised him for his poor clothing and because of his mad rashness drew closer. Thinking Fructuosus a runaway slave, the peasant abused him with shameless words and did not delay to insult him with all kinds of vile expressions.48 But when the man of God replied to him with a tranquil mind, ‘I am clearly not a runaway’, the peasant, thinking on the contrary that he certainly was one, goaded by the impulse of the devil, struck him a blow with the staff he was carrying in his hands. The man of God bore this patiently, but the other did not cease from striking him, so soon he made the sign of the cross to him. At once the demon left the woodsman and passed into the earth,49 dashing him prostrate before the feet of the holy man and wounding him to such a degree in its fury that after cruelly lacerating him it left him lying in a pool of his own blood. 50 However, the man of God at once prayed and restored him to his previous state of health without any difficulty.

48.  Part of the problem might have been Fructuosus’ unkempt appearance. This probably involved growing his hair long, which was the sign of a slave – see LV 9.1.5 where it is made an offence to cut a fugitive slave’s hair. There would have been a potential reward of at least a tremiss for the countryman had Fructuosus been an escaped slave, LV9.l.l4. The problem of runaways seems to have been a persistent teature of the Visigothic kingdom. Leovigild legislated on this matter (LV 9 .1.3) as did many of his successors. See King [1972] 162 ff.

50.  Demons characteristically injure their victims when forced from their bodies.

The article is online, 22 pages of it, and so I won’t try to summarise it.  As we all knew from our student days, the summary is at the end anyway:

Slave owners in Late Antiquity viewed the possession of at least one slave to be a necessity and a defining mark that distinguished the dignified social classes from the poor. Ascetics drawn from this background shared the same perspective, and their renunciation of all worldly possessions often stopped short of releasing every slave. In many situations, whether within a hermitage or a monastery, one personal attendant remained, perhaps under legal slavery or perhaps under a freed status that left the same asymmetrical architecture of their relationship in place while maintaining a nominal distinction. …

Slave ownership, especially in the form of personal attendance, functioned as more than an economically oriented relationship. It also marked the high status of the slave owner and defined the identity of the elite. The slave who ran away from Monegund, and the faithful Galienus who remained with Merovech to the bitter end, might have been opposites in terms of their loyalty to their owners, but they shared one essential quality: for their owners, their presence was a matter of life and death.

When late antique authors claimed, consistently and repeatedly, that one slave was a necessity for their own existence as a social elite, they revealed a rare glimpse into the ideological and practical limits of asceticism and renunciation.

So what do we make of this argument?  Argument from scattered examples always carries the risk of generalising as a universal rule what is instead a series of unrepresentative local examples.  But the claim does have the ring of truth.

In all times, members of the elite have always found ways to communicate their status, and always will.  In England social status is conveyed by accent and language rather than dress, a means of communication that can pass unobserved to those unaware of it.  For instance readers of John Wesley’s Diary will remember the scene where he is grabbed by a local landowner and marched off, “to serve his majesty” as a conscript.2  It is only when his captor draws breath that Wesley calmly points out, in elite language, and no doubt in an Oxford accent, that such conduct is illegal.  Whereupon his captor suddenly realises that his victim is not a labourer as he had thought, but a gentleman.  Consternation! –

Upon this Mr. B. lost all patience, and cried out with all his might, “Seize him, seize him! I say, seize the Preacher for His Majesty’s service.” But no one stirring, he rode up and struck several of his attendants, cursing them bitterly for not doing as they were bid.

Perceiving still that they would not move, he leaped off his horse, swore he would do it himself, and caught hold of my cassock, crying, ” I take you to serve His Majesty.” A servant taking his horse, he took me by the arm, and we walked arm in arm for about three quarters of a mile. He entertained me all the time, with the “wickedness of the fellows belonging to the society.”

When he was taking breath, I said, “ Sir, be they what they will, I apprehend it will not justify you, in seizing me in this manner, and violently carrying me away, as you said, to serve His Majesty.” He replied, “I seize you! And violently carry you away! No, Sir; no. Nothing like it. I asked you to go with me to my house, and you said you was willing; and if so, you are welcome; and if not, you are welcome to go where you please.”

I answered, “ Sir, I know not if it would be safe for me to go back through this rabble.” “ Sir,” said he, “ I will go with you myself.” He then called for his horse, and anotherfor me,and rode back with me to the place from whence he tookme.

The slave as a marker of status is quite an argument, and rather compelling.  It will be interesting to see the responses.

What struck me here was that I had never imagined that this might be the case.  It is salutary to be reminded that a few minutes time-travel to late antiquity would most certainly up-end our mental picture of that period in all sorts of ways.

  1. Hérold Pettiau, “La Vie de saint Fructueux de Braga quelques aspects de la relation entre l’ascète et la société en Espagne wisigothique”, L. Lemoine & B. Merdrignac (eds), Corona Monastica, Rennes (2004) p. 51-63.[↩]
  2. July 3, 1745.[↩]

A new modern apocryphon – Scott Wolter and the “Yeshua Scroll in the Green Jar”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Modern apocrypha are fun!  You know the sort of thing – things like the Archko Volume, or the Aquarian Gospel, or any one of a hundred or a thousand similar items.  They’re all modern, they’re all fake, and they all proceed by claiming a “Vatican cover-up” or “this will shake the church to its foundations” and so forth, in a thousand predictable conspiracy claims.  Almost invariably the supposed ancient text only exists in English.  Invariably the supposed manuscript is “lost”.

Here’s the blurb from one example:

DO YOU DARE BELIEVE THAT JESUS DID NOT DIE ON THE CROSS . . . that He was Mary’s illegitimate son and the heir to the Macabees . . . that He married Mary Magdalene, and Barabbas was their son . . . that He wrote His own autobiography . .. that He lived to be 80 years old and died fighting the Romans at Masada . . . that His remains were finally buried in 1969 . . . and that the Russians now have the scroll which proves these disclosures and have so informed the Vatican?

These disquieting revelations are not meant to be accepted on faith. They are backed by documentary evidence!

THE JESUS SCROLL : THE MOST DISTURBING BOOK ABOUT CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY EVER PUBLISHED!

These stirring words belonged to Donovan Joyce, “The Jesus Scroll” (1972).  This is a long-forgotten example of the genre.  In this case the actual text is  cunningly not produced, and the supposed scroll only described on page 178 in what the author says is a fictionalised narrative.  You’d better believe it is fictional.  I believe that there may have been a film as well.  Wikipedia has some of the details of what was clearly just a money-making exercise.

This weekend I came across the twitter feed of somebody named Scott Wolter, who appears to be an American pseudo-science and pseudo-history writer, with no qualifications in either science or history that I could discover.

Text:

The Yeshua Scroll contains a passage that directly challenges the Genesis narrative as compiled by the Council of Nicaea. The text states that Adam and Eve were not the first people, but the first Jews, a distinction that reframes the entire origin story.

It then references the sons of M.F., a term Scott interprets as potentially non-human or extraterrestrial beings, who saw the daughters of men and found them pleasing. These beings came to the land of Nod, where Cain had been sent, and their children lived… (etc)

Ah yes.  We’re already in familiar territory here.  Eric von Daniken, please call your office.

This “Yeshua Scroll in the Green Jar” is supposedly a find in the USA – the frame has been shifted somewhat.  How well it relates to the older story I don’t know, but I have read that it is basically the same idea.  Possibly Wolter came across the old publication and felt that there was something to be made of it.  The “scroll” is “encrypted”, supposedly.

A look at Wolter’s books page makes it clear what we’re dealing with: fiction.  Stories told as entertainment and for profit, and read by the gullible.

In a way, this pseudo-history is a form of storytelling, which has an audience and from which money can be made.  Once you have seen one production from this world, you have seen them all.  Then you have stuff like this:

I must say that these things always leave me feeling that I need to wash my hands, however.

Will the “Yeshua Scroll” ever matter to any of us?  I rather doubt it.  But it is quite interesting to see a modern apocryphon being fabricated right here and now!

A missing chunk of Pope Vitalian’s Letter to King Oswiu about Easter?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In Bede’s Ecclesiastical History book 3 chapter 29, he quotes a letter from Pope Vitalian to the Anglo-Saxon King Oswiu, encouraging him to adopt the new simpler Roman calculation of the date of Easter instead of the Irish method using the 89-year cycle of Victorius.

“To the most excellent lord, our son Oswiu, king of the Saxons, Bishop Vitalian, servant of the servants of God.

“We have received your Highness’s welcome letter. …  Therefore your Highness must, as a member of Christ, always follow the holy rule of the chief of the apostles in all things, both in the celebration of Easter and in everything delivered by the holy apostles, Peter and Paul, who, like two heavenly lights, illuminate the world, while their teaching daily illuminates the hearts of believers.”

After some remarks about celebrating the true Easter uniformly throughout the whole world, he goes on:

“Finally, in view of the length of the journey, we are not at present able to find a man who is entirely suitable and fitted to be your bishop, as you request in your letter….

Bede says that he omits the “remarks about celebrating the true Easter uniformly throughout the whole world”, and the letter has not otherwise come down to us.

But, long ago Archbishop Ussher of Armagh drew attention to a manuscript from Whitby.  This contained a potentially interesting item which he printed in his Veterum epistolarum Hibernicarum sylloge (1632), p.126 (online here).  The book itself is a collection of papal and other letters directed to Ireland in the earliest times.

The entry begins (p.125), with Ussher’s own words in italics:

In the year of Christ 639, the Roman see being vacant through the death of Pope Severinus, these letters were written.  Concerning which, and others similar sent 50 years before to by Pope Honorius to the same Irishmen , Bede wrote thus in book 2 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 19.  Pope Honorius sent letters to the Scottish race, whom he had learned were in error in the observation of Holy Pascha. ….

Then:

Deinde epistolam hanc adjungit: sed quae “de ratione Paschalis observantiae” in ea sunt exposita praetermittit.  Quod & in superioribus Laurentii Cantuariensis ad Hibernos literis, & in aliis Vitaliani Romani Pontificis ad Oswium Nordanhumbrorum regem (quas penultimo 3. libri capiti inseruit) ab eo factum videmus, qui posteriorum illarum defectus ex antiquissimis fortasse Whitbiensis coenobii schedis aliquo modo suppleri poterit; in quibus, praefixo titulo “Vitalini” (“Vitaliani” haud dubie) Papae Urbis Romae, subjectum repperi.

Nunquam enim celebrare [debemus] sanctum Pascha, nisi secundum Apostolicam & Catholicam fidem, ut in toto orbe celebratur a Christiana plebe; id est, secundum Apostolicam regulam CCCXVIII sanctorum patrum, ac computum sancti Cyrilli & Dionysii.  Nam in toto terrarum orbe sic Christi una columbam hoc est, ecclesia immaculata, sanctum Paschae resurrectionis diem celebrat.  Nam Victoris sedes Apostolica non adprobavit regulam Paschae: ideo nec sequitur dispositionem eius pro Pascha.

I.e.

Then he appends this letter: but he omits what is set forth in it ‘concerning the manner of observing Easter.’ We see that he did the same both in the earlier letters of Laurence of Canterbury to the Irish, and in others of Vitalian, Roman Pontiff, to Oswiu, king of the Northumbrians (which he inserted in the penultimate chapter of Book 3). The deficiencies of the latter letters may perhaps in some way be supplied from very ancient documents of the monastery of Whitby; among these I found the following text, headed with the title ‘Vitalini’ (undoubtedly ‘Vitaliani’), ‘of Vitalian, Pope of the City of Rome.

For we ought never to celebrate the holy Easter except according to the Apostolic and Catholic faith, as it is celebrated throughout the whole world by the Christian people; that is, according to the apostolic rule of the 318 holy fathers, and according to the reckoning of St Cyril and Dionysius. For throughout the whole world the one dove of Christ—that is, the spotless Church—thus celebrates the holy day of the resurrection of Easter. For the Apostolic See did not approve Victor’s rule for Easter; therefore it does not follow his arrangement concerning Easter.

Ussher’s “Whitby manuscript” is not known today, but his text is almost the same as Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Digby 63, folio 59v, which may perhaps be the same manuscript.  It is likely enough that Ussher corrected his manuscript for publication.  The Digby manuscript was written between 867 and 892, somewhere in the North of England.  It does not seem to be online, but a recent publication tells us that it contains the following text:

VITA.LINI PAPE URBIS ROMAE

Numquam enim celebrare sanctum pascae nisi secundum apostolicam et chatholicam fidem ut in toto orbe caelebratur a christiane blebe; id est secundum apostolicam regulam CCCXVIII sanctorum patrum ac compototum sancti cirilli et dionisi. Nam in toto terrarum orbe sic Christi una columba, hoc est ecclesia inmaculata, sanctum pascae resurrectionis diem celebrat. Nam victoris sedis apostolica non adprobavit regulam pascae. Ideo nec sequitur dispositionem eius pro pascae.

Holy Easter must never be celebrated except according to the Catholic and apostolic faith, as it is celebrated in the whole world by the Christian people; to wit according to the apostolic rule of the 318 Holy Fathers and the computus of the venerable Cyril and Dionysius. For the one single dove of Christ, i.e. the immaculate Church, celebrates in this way throughout the whole world the day of Holy Easter of Resurrection. Indeed, the Apostolic See did not approve Victor’s Easter rule; thus, neither does it follow his dispositions for Easter.1

“Vitalinus” is apparently an ancient version of “Vitalianus”, and attested in one recension of the Liber Pontificalis, composed prior to 742 AD.  Ussher believed that this was the missing chunk from Vitalian’s letter.

It is not surprising that Bede would omit this material.  Despite what it says, the Easter reckoning of Victor was actually in full use in Rome only a few decades before Vitalian wrote his firm statement that it was not used in Rome.

So is this passage from Ussher/Digby actually from the letter of Vitalian?  Well a recent open-access article thinks so:

The passage is well-known to scholarship since J. Ussher, Veterum epistolarum Hibernicarum sylloge, quae partim ab Hibernis, partim ad Hibernos, partim de Hibernis vel rebus Hibernicis sunt conscriptae (Dublin, 1632), p. 126; its authenticity was doubted by Mac Carthy, Annals of Ulster, vol. 4: Introduction and Index (Dublin, 1901), pp. cxlv–cxlvii, but vindicated by Jones, Bedae opera, pp. 102–4; the passage has been readily accessible to Bedan scholars through Plummer’s edition: Baedae Historiam ecclesiasticam II, 201; the commentary to the recent edition by M. Lapidge with Italian translation by P. Chiesa, Beda, Stroria degli inglesi (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum), 2 vols. (Rome, 2008) II, 568–9 reproduces Plummer’s account, except for his discussion of the Victorian dimension of this passage. See now also I. Warntjes, ‘Pope Vitalian’s Letter to King Oswiu of Northumbria and the Beginning of Armagh’s Claim to Primacy over the Irish Churches’, Revue Bénédictine 134 (2024), pagination tbc.2

Note the reference with “pagination tbc” – that should be “pp.5-43.”

But if this passage in Ussher/Digby is the missing portion of the letter of Vitalian, isn’t that really very convenient?  Too convenient?  How does this extract come to be made in the first place?

It is not easy to see why a scribe, who possessed a complete copy of the letter of Vitalian to Oswiu, one independent of Bede, would copy out of it only the few words which Bede does not reproduce?  Which fit so exactly in the gap, so luckily for modern readers?  It’s a bit too good to be true.  The identification relies on the heading, and these are notoriously unreliable.

Interesting, then, but we should be sceptical.

  1. Luciana Cuppo, “Felix of Squillace and the Dionysiac computus II: Rome, Gaul, and the insular world” in:  Late Antique Calendrical Thought and its Reception in the Early Middle Ages,(2017), pp 138-181; p.163.[↩]
  2. Tobit Loevenich and Immo Warntjes, “Theodore of Tarsus and the Study of Computus at the Canterbury School,” In: Anglo-Saxon England 50 (2023), 29-59, esp. pp.37-38.[↩]

The encomium of Phoebammon on St Colluthus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There are two long encomia / eulogies on St Colluthus.  The first of these exists in English already.  The second, by Bishop Phoebammon or Phoibamon, acting as deputy in the 6th century for the exiled Patriarch Theodosius II, was included in CSCO 650, edited and translated into German by Gesa Schenke in 2010.  It was preserved in a single parchment manuscript of the 9-10th century.

Unfortunately the text is very incomplete.  What we actually have is a single leaf, in Paris, which has the start of the work.  Then we are missing 20 pages, which probably covered the saint’s family, birth and upbringing.  We know how many pages are missing because the next two leaves have page numbers.  They are pages 23-26 of the whole volume.  This contains the beginning of the trial of Colluthus.  These leaves are in Vienna.  Finally there is one more leaf, also in Vienna, with pages 69-70.  By this point Phoebammon has finished the martyrdom, and moved onto miracles performed at the shrine of St. Colluthus.

While we don’t have most of the text in Coptic, in reading CSCO 650 carefully, I discover that a copy of a complete version in Arabic exists!  This is preserved in British Library Or. 4723 [3°], fols. 23v–45r.  As far as I can tell, it has never been printed.  If only I knew a bit of Arabic, I might be tempted to take my smartphone down to the British Library, photograph the 22 pages, and see if I could get it transcribed.  But lacking any knowledge, I suspect that I would photograph the wrong pages!  Hmpff!

The CSCO 650 translation is intended purely as a tool, to be read with the Coptic.  But I thought that the rest of us might like to read the text, so I have scanned it in, removed all the technical stuff, and run the resulting German through ChatGPT and Google Translate.  No doubt there are errors, but it’s better than nothing.  I’ve summarised a few footnotes also.

Here, then, in English, is Bishop Phoebammon’s eulogy of St Colluthus, delivered sometime in the early 6th century at the new shrine in Pneueit.

    *    *    *    *

[Title-summary][1]

The second encomium, delivered by the bearer of all the virtues of the Holy Spirit, Saint Apa Phoebammon,[2] Bishop of the city of Akhmim[3] and deputy of the whole land of Egypt[4].

He proclaimed it for the revered victor and archpriest, the true physician, the chaste, the holy martyr of Christ, Saint Colluthus, son of Lord Heraklamon, the “dux” of the whole land of Egypt.[5]

He delivered this eulogy in his holy martyr-shrine, the one built in his name in the land of Sodom,[6] that is, Pneueit, on the day on which his holy dwelling place was consecrated. This was the 24th day of the month Hathyr, when Apa Kosma[7], the bishop of the capital city Antinoë, was sitting with him, together with Theocharis, the great eparch of that same city of Antinoë and of the city of Schmun[8], and the majority of the archons of the city of Akhmim.

He explained to them how Saint Colluthus had informed him about that lawless village, how he had led them to believe in Christ, and how Saint Colluthus had come to him. He[9] revealed to them these things, as well as the words that the Saviour had spoken to him, while all the people marvelled at the great wisdom, and, even more, at the great love of God for his people.

He also said something in the same eulogy about the sufferings that he, Bishop Phoebammon, had endured in exile together with Apa Theodosius, the Archbishop of Alexandria.

In the peace of God. Amen. [10]

I shall take as my starting point the words of the One who gives me every comfort and strength in all matters, who knows my whole heart and all my thoughts.  Who is this? It is the Logos of the good Father, He whose divine body I break with my own hands. I pour his blood into the chalice, offering it to those who desire it.  It is my Lord and my God, Jesus Christ, who proclaims through his divine mouth the following, “Everyone who asks will receive, and the one who seeks will find, and the one who [knocks, it will be opened to him.]” …

[Pages 23-26][11]

I informed him that I intended to go to the city of Schmun (Hermopolis). And so he gave orders for me to be brought to him in the city of Schmun.

When I had been brought to him in the city of Schmun, I found him sitting together with the courier[12], the entire governing authority of the city of Schmun, and the officials of the city of Antinoë.

Arianus said to me, “Colluthus, I have been informed by people hostile toward you that you are a Christian. Now come and offer sacrifice to the emperor’s gods, so that you may put your accusers to shame!”

But I said to him, “The Lord, my true King, Christ, lives! Even if you were to give me the entire Roman Empire, by saying, ‘Take a grain of incense and offer it to Apollo,’ I could never do such a thing and abandon the true God.”  And immediately I cursed him, as well as his lawless emperor and his abominable gods.

When Arianus heard this from me, he was deeply embarrassed in the presence of the emperor’s courier, who was sitting beside him. He was filled with rage against me.  He gave orders, and two chains were brought. They fastened them to my body and hanged me from a Persea tree.  And there was a millstone, broken into two halves, lying unnoticed beside the Persea tree. He ordered forty torturers[13] to fasten one half of the millstone around my neck and the other half to my feet. He left me hanging from the Persea tree in this manner for three hours, as if he hoped to split me in two.

But those who saw me were astonished, and great fear seized them. In particular, the officials of the city of Schmun pleaded with him, “Spare him, for he is the son of the dux of the whole land of Egypt!” So he ordered them to lower me down, bit by bit. Yet a little blood trickled from my mouth. But later he again ordered them to tie the millstone around my neck and hang me up.

While I remained hanging in this way, a great quantity of blood came out of my mouth and nostrils. My servant, however, had followed me and caught the blood flowing from my mouth. This blood is what has now been cast into this holy well, so that anyone who is sick may find healing by washing in it.

After this, the courier interceded with Arianus, saying to him, “Spare him, for he was a nobleman!” And so he ordered them to unbind me and throw me into the prison of Schmun.

After three days, the governor boarded a ship with the courier. They sailed north to arrange for him to go to the emperor.  But after returning south, he went to Antinoë. It was then, following these things, that he dismissed the courier.

Now Tadiane was the daughter of Komedia, my sister. When she[14] heard about the things that Arianus had done to me, and that he had thrown me into prison, she swore an oath to him in these words, “As long as my brother Colluthus remains in prison, you shall have no dealings whatsoever with my daughter!”  Consequently a great enmity arose between the young daughter and Arianus, lasting for three full years.[15]

However there was a white she-mule that had belonged to my late father, the man who had presented offerings to all the churches of the city. My sister used to send the mule to me through a servant, and I went to see her many times in the city of Antinoë.  Then, after these things, it happened one day that, while I was sitting in prison, while I …

 [Pages 69-70][16]

… the name of that woman was Eudocia, and the name of her husband was Theognostos. These people were more than forty years old and were still childless. Theognostos was deeply saddened by this fact.  So one day he and his wife set out and went to the shrine of the Saint Apa Colluthus, which is located in the necropolis of his city, Antinoë. They remained there, praying and beseeching him to intercede with Christ on their behalf and grant them a child.

When night had fallen, Saint Colluthus appeared to Theognostos and his wife. He said to them,  “Haven’t you heard that the merciful Jesus sent me to this village, called Pneueit, in the district of Akhmim?  So if you want to obtain what you have asked for, truly, arise and go to my shrine in that place!”

After they had heard these things from Saint Apa Colluthus, before daylight had broken they made preparations and boarded a ship. They traveled south to Pneueit, and went to the shrine of Saint Apa Colluthus.

When evening came, they went to rest in the shrine. At midnight, Saint Colluthus appeared to them. He said to them, “When you rise in the morning, wait there until they gather for the service, and then inform the administrator. He will give you the water used to wash the table and the chalice. When you drink it, what you have asked for will happen to you.”  And they acted just as he had told them, as the Holy Messenger does for everyone who asks of him.

After they had told the administrator what had been said, he gave [them the water, and they drank it.]…

    *    *    *    *

[1] The first leaf of the manuscript is preserved in Paris B.N. 12916 fol. 76.  The manuscript was written in the 9-10th century. The text starts with a summary of the work in a single column.  The actual words of Phoibamon start over the page, when the text changes from one column into two.

[2] Mid-6th century.  Also spelled Phoibamon.

[3] Panopolis.

[4] “diadochos” = heir or successor or deputy.  The title “deputy of the whole land of Egypt” perhaps means that he was acting as deputy for the exiled patriarch of Alexandria, Theodosius I (d. 566).

[5] The title “dux of the whole land of Egypt” applied to Heraclamon, the father of Colluthus, presumably refers only to the Thebaid province.  The father is not elsewhere attested, but the name appears in the PLRE as that of a 5th century “praeses” (= dux) who once heard a sermon by Shenoute of Atripe (PLRE II 538 f.), and also as that of other high-ranking 5th century figures mentioned in papyri.

[6] Or “the new Sodom”, according to the Arabic text.  CSCO 650, p.157, n.167, referencing Crum, “Colluthus”, p.326.  Pneueit was a pagan stronghold.

[7] This word is uncertain.

[8] Schmun = Hermopolis.  Theocharis was the “great eparch” of Antinoë and Hermopolis, i.e. the prefect or head of government of the province of the Thebaid, so presumably the official successor of Arianus, the persecutor.

[9] Phoibamon.

[10] At this point the manuscript goes into two columns.

[11] Twenty pages are missing.  The next two leaves of the manuscript cover the start of the martyrdom of Colluthus.  They were originally numbered as pages 23-26, and are preserved in Vienna at the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, ÖNB), as ÖNB K 9525 and K 9526.  Phoibamon is now reading out words placed in the mouth of Colluthus himself.  “Him” means Arianus the persecuting governor.

[12] A “veredarius”, a military messenger from the emperor.

[13] “quaestionarii”.

[14] Komedia.

[15] Colluthus was held in prison for 3 years.

[16] This leaf is also preserved in Vienna as ÖNB K 9524.  This features a miracle story about a childless couple who seek help at the shrine of Colluthus in Pneueit; the shrine where Phoibamon is preaching the encomium.  Phoibamon takes care to tell his listeners how the couple initially seek help at the shrine in Antinoë, only to be told to go to Pneueit if they really want help.

    *    *    *    *

More interesting than one might think, and a window into life in Egypt in the 6th century A.D.