Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik, Band 68/2018

The article presents the edition and a detailed discussion of an anonymous treatise of elementary arithmetic that served as the source of the so-called Letter to Khatzykes authored by the Byzantine scholar Nicholas Artabasdos Rhabdas. An updated survey of the extant evidence about the logistic treatises composed in the Nicaean period and in the early Palaiologan era, and a discussion of the prima facie surprisingly widespread phenomenon of appropriation of scientific treatises written by other contemporaries in late Byzantine times will also be provided.

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The paper offers a critical edition and translation of six hitherto unedited and practically unknown essays by Theodore II Laskaris (1254–1258), preserved in Vind. phil. gr. 321 within a dossier devoted exclusively to works of the emperor. On the one hand, the edition is accompanied by a detailed study of this dossier along with a reconstruction of its lost copying exemplar, while, on the other, the paper presents an analysis of the six essays, placing them in the political, intellectual and cultural context of the late Nicaean Empire.

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The article focuses on the critical edition, translation and commentary of a short logical compendium, found in MS Ambrosianus Q 74 Sup. (= Martini – Bassi Gr. 681, Diktyon 43158), ascribed for a long time to Theodore Abū Qurra, bishop of Ḥarrān. In the first part of the article, the attribution to Abū Qurra is discussed in an attempt to contextualize the compendium in the scope of middle-byzantine logical and philosophical literature. The critical text is enriched by an apparatus fontium, which may help the reader to appreciate the relationship of this work with the literary and scholastic production from late ancient Neoplatonism.

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The purpose of this paper is to trace the reception of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ commentary on Aristotle’s De sensu et sensibilibus in philosophical literature in Greek between the end of Late Antiquity and the fourteenth century. It offers a summary account of the material evidence for the presence of the commentary in the period, as well as more detailed discussions of texts in which its influence is manifest, especially Michael Psellos, Philosophica minora 2:8, George Pachymeres, Philosophia 8.1–2 and Theodore Metochites, In De sensu. The two latter texts are still unedited.

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The paper examines the topographical relationships between five monasteries and a church, all located between Aspar Cistern, Deuteron, and the Golden Horn, most of them on the north slope of the fourth hill. This network of convents also included the monastery τοῦ Παναγίου, which was identified in modern research with the monastery of the Theotokos Panagiotissa (Mouchliotissa) in the district of Phanarion on the slope of the fifth hill. Both monasteries were far apart and existed at different times, so they must be distinguished from each other.

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Ms. AN I 8 in the University Library of Basel contains the second part of the Commentary on the so-called “unread” orations of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus composed by Elias the metropolitan of Crete presumably around 1120, a text that was rarely copied in Byzantium. This essay examines the hitherto little-studied miniatures that were added to the codex, two author portraits and fourteen illustrative frontispieces. Stylistic and especially iconographic evidence suggests that the book’s miniatures were commissioned during the reign of Emperor Manuel I Comnenus (1143–1180), most likely in or after 1166 when Manuel assembled a Church Council in the Great Palace of Constantinople which dealt with the interpretation of Christ’s phrase “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). The essay presents the first detailed analysis of the iconography of the miniatures in light of the theological writings contained in the volume. Painted at a time of intense doctrinal debates, I argue that these images first and foremost serve to celebrate Gregory as a religious leader and teacher of lasting authority in matters of Byzantine Orthodox theology. Codicological analysis reveals a complex production scenario and suggests that at least the frontispieces were added to the book as an afterthought; furthermore, it can be demonstrated that these paintings were not originally intended for the present volume but likely for another copy of the same text. Yet it seems that all sixteen miniatures were created within a short period of time by one and the same workshop comprising a large number of painters, who collaborated on what appears to have been a commission of highly unusual character.

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This article contains the edition and translation of two treatises about the care of the dead. Their authors seek to show that the lot of the dead is alleviated when their names are commemorated in church and alms are given in their name. In order to make their case they insert into their texts passages from the New Testament, episodes from hagiographical texts, and in particular edifying stories that show the efficacy of the care of the dead.

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John Lydus is generally thought of as a harsh critic of Justinian and his politics. While he may not have entirely supported Justinian and his actions, the focus of his political thought lies elsewhere. Far from focusing solely on the emperors, John interprets the recent history of the prefecture as a succession of good (Phocas and the master of offices Peter Patrician) and bad prefects (Marinos and John of Cappadocia). The bad prefects destroy the traditional values of the bureaucracy and bring chaos to the affairs of the prefecture. Only the good prefects who combine political virtues with love for letters can capably administer the institutions of the Roman State. For John, the main role of the emperors is therefore to foster the alliance between letters and government.

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The concept of “circumscription” (περιγραφή) plays a crucial role in the argument in favour of images developed by Theodore the Stoudite in his Antirrhetici. Being circumscribed is the condition of the possibility of depiction, and more generally a characteristic of any being in the sensible world. This concept is traditional, but Theodore redefines anew its meaning thanks to several unprecedented statements about the kind of entities involved in the process of circumscription. For him, it is neither essences nor bodies which are circumscribed but hypostases. Theodore reaches this conclusion by drawing on Aristotelian logic. The resulting understanding of circumscription contributes to ensuring the coherence of his theory of icons.

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In his Third Antirrheticus Theodore the Stoudite made use of older texts. An important source of inspiration was an excerpt from John Philoponus’ treatise Arbiter that was included in the Doctrina Patrum, together with glosses by an unknown Chalcedonian theologian. In one argument Theodore follows the Chalcedonian glossator in rejecting Philoponus’ view that hypostatic idioms only distinguish from each other members of the same species. Yet in another argument he reproduces a definition of hypostasis that had been formulated by Philoponus in order to explain what he means by a certain human being. As a result he can no longer uphold the difference between hypostasis on the one hand and certain human being or individual on the other, which was the mainstay of his icon theology.

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Theodore plays a prominent role in studies of the “Aristotelian turn” of the second period of Iconoclasm. Scholars have shown how Theodore and Patriarch Nikephoros drew on the Aristotelian tradition to defend icon veneration, especially in polemical treatises like Theodore’s Third Antirrheticus. This article turns to Theodore’s festal homilies to show not only how they can be usefully read against the Antirrhetici for Theodore’s Aristotelian defense of images, but also to show how Theodore’s interest in the logical tradition extended beyond its application to theological polemic.

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Theodore the Stoudite’s theory of the icon has only recently attracted the attention it deserves, so perhaps it is now that we can make a proper assessment of it. The foundations of his iconology are still unclear, however, as he does not reference the acts of the Second Council of Nicaea of 787, which overturned the first period of iconoclasm in the eighth century. Also, the fact that he is not familiar with the iconophile writings of John of Damascus, probably means that his refutations of the iconoclasts are largely a product of his own thoughts and devising. Unlike his contemporary iconophile Nikephoros, who cites and refutes iconoclast sources firsthand, he uses the rhetorical question-and-answer genre to deliver his message. It is on this basis that we pose the question of Theodore’s original contribution to the iconophile cause, while examining some chosen themes he discusses during the course of his polemic.

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