Speaking as a Dyothelete, 'tis nice to see work composed to support the Chalcedon decisions of AD 453. Such is the history of Cyzicus composed a few decades after that. We now have a modern translation and (mostly) commentary. Karl Dahm is reviewing it.
The history's proem seems to note Zeno, chief wimp of Constantinople AD 475-90. He'll be succeeded AD 491 by Anastasius who will outright overturn Chalcedon. The anonymous Cyzicene wrote to "update" prior historians' work to support Chalcedon more firmly, against the Monophysite threats which Zeno was allowing to fester and which will erupt under Anastasius.
Chief of those prior historians was Gelasius of Caesarea. In fact the confusion between the two led some of our late-antique historians to ascribe this latter one to the phantom "Gelasius of Cyzicus". We still don't know who our boy was - except that he lived in Cyzicus, on the south Marmaran coast west of Nicaea.
That this historian tampered with the text is unfortunate, thus forcing us back on other sources for the immediate postNicene era when the Empire was Eunomian. Possibly why Anastasius felt free to dismiss such savants as ahistorical liars and why our historians have mostly dismissed it too.
No comments:
Post a Comment