The Church History of Nicephorus Xanthopulus: From Chrysostomos until Phokas

At the beginning of the 14th century the clergyman and scholar Nikephoros Xanthopulos composed a church history, dedicated to emperor Andronicus II Palaiologus. Therewith the obsolete genus of the Historia ecclesiastica was revived - just at the moment when the orthodox consciousness was accentuated in Byzantium after the refusal of the union of Lyon by support of the emperor. Against the background of this restoration of the "old order" under the new Constantine emperor Andronicus II Xanthopulos wrote his work, outlining the history of Christianity successful against all persecutions and heretical as well as schismatic tendencies. His presentation ends with the emperor Phokas in 610. The work is within the genus of church histories important from two points up to now not appreciated: on the one hand the Historia reflects the official point of view of the history of early Christianity as given by a leading clergyman of the patriarchate of Constantinople (correcting the differences und inadequate presentations in former church histories); on the other hand the work offers an indirect panorama of literature available at the patriarchal library Xanthopulus used for his work. In this context are of importance especially these sources transmitted only in epitome or parts. Thus, the critical edition with an accompanying source analysis will allow insight into the library stock of the patriarchate of Constantinople. Besides, Xanthopulus also made use of sources no more existent in the manuscript tradition. The edition project of books XIII-XVIII is embedded in a research topic of the Institute for Byzantine Studies focusing on Xanthopulus and his work and will be elaborated in cooperation with the University of Munich (books I-VI, prepared for edition by Albrecht Berger). The research work up to now concentrated also on an innovative aspect as regards the text edition itself, viz. with respect of the Byzantine stixis (punctuation) in the cola division from a reader / author oriented point of view (contrarily to the tendency of modern national punctuation standardization). This analysis (on the base of the codex unicus, Vindob. Hist. gr. 8) allows in many cases a better comprehension of the text and makes the text division clearer, for the logical (and not [only] the syntactical) units are taken into account. With focus on this aspect preparatory studies were made with the research topic of the Institute which shall be deepened in the project applied for (the question of the prosopographic paleography too to identify the scribe of the codex and the social surroundings of scribes working for or with Xanthopulus).

The project of the editions of books XIII to XVIII of the historia ecclesiastica of Nicephorus Xanthopulus is embedded in a research focus of the Division of Byzantine Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, which, on the one hand, is devoted to the critical edition of Byzantine texts, on the other hand develops also innovative approaches to Byzantine text editions. The historia ecclesiastica has also been tackled for a first critical edition in this scientific environment of the Academy since a thematic focus of this department is on the history of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Xanthopulus edition project was carried out in cooperation with the University of Munich, Institute for Byzantine Studies (Albrecht Berger). The first six volumes of the edition are prepared for print by the cooperation partner in constant dialogue with the Vienna editors. The edition has been accepted for the prestigious series of the Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae and thus guarantees best international reception and accessibility. The elaboration of the edition by two research units brought about permanent and fruitful discussions about text conformity and presentation whose principles a general introduction into the problems of the entire text constitution (written by both teams in the first volume) will explain. This mutual tuning and waiting for each others progress entailed a necessary delay of the final edition (not immediately after completion, but as a coordinated and completed unit). The coordination was necessary as the edition was to implement new methods of editorial techniques as work in progress (among other things, an adequate adaptation of Byzantine punctuation and diacritical "reading aids", for which a uniform system had to be worked out in the project; for this reason an own international platform was created: Vienna Editorial Initiative). The critical edition of the work provides an insight into the religious renewal in Byzantium after the end of the exile government for nearly 60 years in Asia minor (Nicea). The second Paleologan Emperor, Andronicus II, initiated a course correction against the religious approach to the West of his father Michael VIII; the clergy praised this change as the right path against a union with the pope. In this spirit of renewal, Xanthopulus wrote his history of Christianity, by compiling as well as criticizing earlier sources. From this interpretive perspective, the work addresses an audience of supporters of the new policy of the emperor, which has so far hardly been taken into account by research; on the contrary, Xanthopulus was regarded as a mere excerptor, and the value of his work was only seen in the transmission of his quoted sources.The project was also devoted to the codex unicus of the text, a masterpiece of calligraphy, written on parchment. Within the framework of the project, the milieu of interest in copying this codex around the lifetime of the author was analysed in detail.