Georgios Monachos

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Georgios Monachos

Georgios Monachos was a Byzantine chronicler who lived in the late 9th century.

life and work

Little is known about his life. Georgios was a monk and is referred to in several manuscripts as "sinner" (which is why he is sometimes called Georgios Hamartolos ), but it is only a common monastic self-name. Georgios is the author (or better: compiler) of a world chronicle , which is extremely popular in Byzantium , which goes from "Creation" to the beginning of the reign of Emperor Michael III. (842) is enough. The time when the chronicle was written is controversial in recent research: Georgios wrote either in the late 860s or in the 870s.

Georgios did not claim to offer an independent historical account. Rather, he collected his material from existing chronicles and compiled a comprehensive Christian world chronicle based on it. His sources were almost without exception Christian authors (unlike Georgios Synkellos , who also relied heavily on pagan historical works). Main sources were about the Old Testament, Eusebios of Kaisareia , Theodoret , Johannes Malalas and Theophanes . In addition, Georgios made little effort to obtain further information, although he seems to have at least used council acts for the 7th and 8th centuries. The chronicle of Georgios therefore has in fact no independent source value, especially since he was apparently not very interested in chronological accuracy and also offered unhistorical descriptions.

Georgios did not strive for a balanced representation, but presents himself as a defender of the orthodox faith. He polemicizes strongly and sometimes with rough words against the iconoclasts in Byzantium (see Byzantine iconoclast ), against Manichaeism and against Islam . His rejection of pagan works is also no coincidence, because Georgios apparently rejected classical historiography , which, however, was also appreciated by Christian authors in Byzantium. Presumably Georgios distinguished himself as an opponent of the so-called Macedonian Renaissance in Byzantium, which began at this time. The focus of his description, written for a broad readership, lies in the area of ​​church history, while political history is only dealt with very briefly. Numerous quotations from the Bible and individual writings of the Greek church fathers are woven into the representation.
The pagan story is interpreted from a Christian perspective: While Gaius Iulius Caesar is dealt with in a few lines, Georgios devotes himself in detail to the time of Augustus , in which the birth of Jesus of Nazareth occurred. The disproportion of the representation is also clear in other places: Due to Georgios' interest in Jewish history, Vespasian's time is treated in much more detail than the time from Trajan to Septimius Severus .

The chronicle found numerous readers mainly because of the simple and easily understandable language. It was later translated into Old Georgian and Church Slavonic. A continuation of the chronicle (up to 948, with some later additions) has been handed down as an independent version as part of the so-called Logothetenchronik .

expenditure

  • Georgius Monachus. Chronicon . Edited by Carl de Boor . 2 vols., Teubner, Leipzig 1904 (reprint Stuttgart 1978).

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Georgios Monachos  - Sources and full texts

Remarks

  1. Cf. in summary Alexander Kazhdan, Anthony Cutler: George Hamartolos . In: Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . Vol. 2 (1991), p. 836.
  2. Cf. Prosopography of the Middle Byzantine Period . First division Prolegomena . Berlin 1998, p. 24.
  3. ^ Herbert Hunger: The high-level profane literature of the Byzantines . Vol. 1, Munich 1978, p. 348.