Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos

Abstract

This text is an ecclesiastical history, beginning with the time of Christ, that survives in one manuscript. The original, complete text continued through to 911 in twenty- three books; however, the last five books have since been lost. The surviving eighteen books take the story of church history up to 610. Xanthopoulos's project was unusual in that no historians had written in the genre of ecclesiastical history since late antiquity, and his efforts seem to have failed to revive the genre. Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos claims authorship of the work in its preface. Most of our knowledge of his biography comes from the opening of his ecclesiastical history. The preface says that he began work on his history at age thirty- six. He corresponded with Theodore Metochites (1270– 1332). Nikephoros was a priest at Hagia Sophia; he may also have become a monk prior to his death, but this is uncertain. He seems to have survived beyond 1326– 1327. Xanthopoulos also wrote a variety of works including hagiography, poetry, and commentaries on John Klimax and Gregory Nazianzos. Xanthopoulos began the project around 1310 and completed it sometime after 1317. Karpozilos dates it to sometime after 1321 on the grounds that Xanthopoulos mentions repairs made by the emperor to certain buildings at that time. The text is dedicated to Andronikos II Palaiologos (1282– 1328) and while some scholars have understood this dedication as a way to support Andronikos's efforts to repudiate the Union of Lyon, the contents of the dedication do not specifically refer to that debate. Xanthopoulos created his narrative using the histories of Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomenos, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Evagrios, as well as hagiography, chronicles, and letters. He also relied heavily on a collection of church histories in the Baroccianus Graecus 142 , which contains the histories of Sozomen, Evagrios, and a variety of other excerpts on church history, as well as notes and prayers in Xanthopoulos's own hand.