The Chronicon Paschale: Critical Edition and Enhanced Edition Method

The edition project completes a long expected desideratum of a critical edition of a basic text of late antique and early Byzantine historiography. The edition of 1832 published under the supervision of Ludwig Dindorf did not respect the manipulation of the main codex Vaticanus gr. 1941 of the end of the 10th century in the sequence of the quires and presents a text of very dubious codicological reconstruction. Moreover, this edition lacks a critical apparatus fontium and locorum parallelorum however, excusable from the spirit of positivism as regards the time of the editor and, hence, a study of the significance of the chronicle among diachronic as well as synchronic annals. The project amends Dindorf`s edition often criticized by renowned specialists and prepares a new edition according to modern standards of high scientific quality for the series Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, Series Vindobonensis, and accompanying studies for scientific journals. The edition project will adapt new methodical aspects in representing the text, mainly with regard to the stixis and the source analysis. The latter will be accomplished in co-operation with a long term project dedicated to the basic parallel chronicle of John Malalas (ca. 490 a. 570), prepared by Mischa Meier. In addition, the project will also co-operate other experts of late antique and early medieval / Byzantine historiography in order to analyse the references and interdependencies of these texts and to document them in the Apparatus fontium as well as in accompanying studies. Besides, the project will concentrate on the text representation connected with the author`s intention who reveals an antichalcedonian tendency and tries to enforce his dating against other concurring dating models through his "annuarium" with exact setting of central events for Christianity. The intention of the author to conform these dates to the astronomic calendar (the title "Easter chronicle" refers to the exact dating of the Easter days at the beginning of the manuscript) is emphasized through a preface, which was regarded by some researchers as separate, independent text although this introduction into the astrological problem of the main text is essential to understand the chronicle (and the intention of the author). The descriptive part of the chronicle varies very much in details and, hence, offers a very interesting research field of illocutionary aspects (apart from its dependency on relevant sources).

The project set itself the goal of preparing one of the most important historical texts of the early Byzantine period, the so-called Chronicon Paschale, for a critical edition. This edition should be supplemented with particular studies on specific aspects of the text. Both could be accomplished during the project time with the granted cost-neutral extension. The edition will appear in the Series Vindobonensis of the Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae and is being submitted to the peer review process of the publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Individual studies have already been published alongside the work on the edition; but there will be a separate volume of Studies on the Chronicon Paschale by the project leader accompanying the edition. During the work on the edition, many problems and questions arose, which are focusing on specific points of the texts and ideally would be incorporated into an introduction. However, these studies surpassed a length that would be acceptable for the series to be treated in the introduction. Thus, parallel to the text edition, the structure of the work, the source analysis, the evaluation and assessment of the codex unicus from the end of the 10th century, the language and the manipulations as well as additions are in detail treated in this volume. A critical edition of the Chronicon Paschale has long been described in science as a desideratum; for the text is a fundamental source of the Byzantine computus of the early Byzantine period under Emperor Heraclius. On the other hand, the report style towards the end of the work (from the Emperor Phocas on), deviating from the chroniclers annalist presentation, with detailed information and in low register Greek, a.o. to the siege of Constantinople 626, is a basic source for research. So far the Greek text was available in its latest edition of Ludwig Dindorf from 1832. However, this text shows a number of shortcomings in textual constitution and source analysis as well as in the identification of gaps in the transmitted text or in very arbitrary changes to the text and its text sequences (very confusing in the parallel description of the realms of Judah and Israel). Some mistakes in this edition, for their part, caused false theses in scientific studies; in sum, a vicious circle, which could only be got under control if the textual basis is secure. This was done with this edition. The detailed examination of all sources, whose variants are also included in the edition, has revealed further errors in the text transmission, even where the text seems to be "smooth". The project particularly benefited from recently published critical editions that were used as the Chronicons source or for comparison. The Chronicon Paschale sees itself not so much as a chronicle, but as an overview of the year-by-year sequence starting from Adam; the narrative addition was not the main target; important was the sequence of the years of the world as determined by the Olympiads, the consuls, the indictions and the years of rulers, in order to provide the chronological basis for the computus. Therefore, the anonymous author was particularly interested in calculation examples for selected data. This computus system and (later) manipulations in the text, however, required a separate study of Byzantine computus. Since countless manuscripts with computus tracts had to be examined in the course of the work, a further publication of the project leader "Studies on the Byzantine Computus" with editions of such tracts, resulted as a further by-product that is at present in preparation for print. The source analysis during the project and the critical revision of the text in the codex Vaticanus gr. 1941 also led to the result that the definition of the Easter chronicle as a work of one anonymous author under Emperor Heraclius had to be corrected. The text in the 10th century version shows so many discrepancies and contradictions, as well as strong stylistic breaks and abrupt changes, that it obviously represents a revision and continuation in the sense of open text theory. The authors question had to be tackled anew and the one author proved untenable.