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THEOPHANES

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 786 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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THEOPHANES , surnamed " the See also:

Confessor " (c. A.D. 758-817), See also:Greek ascetic, chronicler and See also:saint, belonged to a See also:noble And wealthy See also:family, and held several offices under See also:Constantine V. Copronymus (741-775). He subsequently retired from the See also:world and founded a monastery (See also:rod Mey&Xou 'kypoii) near Sigriane.l He was a strong supporter of the See also:worship of images, and in 815 was summoned to See also:Constantinople by See also:Leo the Armenian, who formally ordered him to renounce his principles. Theophanes refused, and, after two years' imprisonment, was banished to the See also:island of See also:Samothrace, where he died. He subsequently received the honours of See also:canonization. At the See also:request of his dying friend, See also:George the See also:Syncellus (q.v.), Theophanes undertook to continue his See also:Chronicle, which he carried on from the See also:accession of See also:Diocletian to the downfall of See also:Michael I. Rhangabes (284-813). The See also:work, although wanting in See also:critical insight and See also:chronological accuracy, is of See also:great value as supplying the accounts of lost authorities. The See also:language occupies a See also:place midway between the stiff ecclesiastical and the vulgar Greek. In See also:chronology, in addition to reckoning by the years of the world and the See also:Christian era, Theophanes introduces in See also:tabular See also:form the regnal years of the See also:Roman emperors, of the See also:Persian See also:kings and Arab caliphs, and of the five See also:oecumenical patriarchs, a See also:system which leads to considerable confusion.

The Chronicle was much used by succeeding chroniclers, and in 873-875 a compilation in barbarous Latin (in vol. ii. of De Boor's edition) was made by the papal librarian See also:

Anastasius from Nicephorus, George the Syncellus, and Theophanes for the use of a See also:deacon named Johannes. The See also:translation (or rather See also:paraphrase) of Theophanes really begins with the reign of See also:Justin II. (565), the excerpts from the earlier portion being scanty. At that See also:time there were very few See also:good Greek scholars in the See also:West, and Anastasius shows himself no exception. There is also extant a further continuation, in six books, of the Chronicle down to the See also:year 961 by a number of mostly See also:anonymous writers (called O1 µera Oeoavnv, Scriptores See also:post Theophanem), who undertook the work by the instructions of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. See also:Editions of the Chronicle:—Editio princeps, J. Goar (1655); J. P. See also:Migne, Petrologic Graeca, eviii.; J. Classen in See also:Bonn Corpus Scriptorum Hist. Byzantinae (1839–41); and C. de Boor (1883-85), with an exhaustive See also:treatise on the MS. and an elaborate See also:index; see also the monograph by J. Pargoire, " Saint Theophane le Chronographe et ses rapports avec saint See also:Theodore studite," in Bv3'avrcva Xpovuca, ix.

(St See also:

Petersburg, 1902). Editions of the Continuation in J. P. Migne, Pair. Gr., cix., and by I. See also:Bekker, Bonn Corpus Scriptorum Hist. Byz. (1838); on both See also:works and Theophanes generally, see C. See also:Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897) ; Ein Dithyrambus auf Theophanes Confessor (a See also:panegyric on Theophanes by a certain proZoasecretis, or See also:chief secretary, under Constantine Porphyrogenitus) and Eine neue Vita See also:des Theophanes Confessor (anonymous), both edited by the same writer in Sitzungsberichte der philos.-philol. and t Near the See also:village of Kurshunla, on the See also:Sea of See also:Marmora, between the site of the See also:ancient See also:Cyzicus and the mouth of the Rhyndacus, ruins of the monastery may still be seen; on the whole question see J. Pargoire's monograph, See also:section 6 (see Bibliography). der hist. Cl. der k. bayer.

Akad. der Wissenschaften (1896, pp. 583–625; and 1897, pp. 371–399); See also:

Gibbon's Decline and Fall (ed. See also:Bury), v. p. 500.

End of Article: THEOPHANES

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