John Malalas
Template:Short description John Malalas (Template:IPAc-en; Template:Langx; Template:Circa – 578) was a Byzantine chronicler from Antioch in Asia Minor.
Life
Of Syrian descent,<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> Malalas was a native speaker of Syriac who learned how to write in Greek later in his life.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The name Malalas probably derived from the Syriac word Template:Lang Template:Lang 'rhetor, orator'; it is first applied to him by John of Damascus. The alternative form Malelas is later, first appearing in Constantine VII.<ref>Thurn, Ioannis Malalae Chronographia, p. 1.</ref>
Malalas was educated in Antioch, and was probably a jurist there, but moved to Constantinople at some point in Justinian I's reign (perhaps after the sack of Antioch by the Sasanian Empire in 540);<ref>Geoffrey Horrocks, Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers (Longman Linguistics Library, 1997: Template:ISBN), p. 180.</ref> all we know of his travels from his own hand are visits to Thessalonica and Paneas.<ref>Thurn, Ioannis Malalae Chronographia, p. 1.</ref>
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He wrote a Chronographia (Template:Lang) in 18 books, the beginning and the end of which are lost. In its present state it begins with the mythical history of Egypt and ends with the expedition to Roman Africa under the tribune Marcianus, Justinian's nephew,<ref name="EB1911">{{#if: |
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}}{{#ifeq: ||}}</ref> in 563 (his editor Thurn believing it originally to end with Justinian's death<ref>Thurn, Ioannis Malalae Chronographia, p. 2.</ref>); it is focused largely on Antioch and (in the later books) Constantinople. Except for the history of Justinian and his immediate predecessors, it possesses little historical value;<ref name="EB1911"/> the author, "relying on Eusebius of Caesarea and other compilers, confidently strung together myths, biblical stories, and real history."<ref>Warren Treadgold, A History of Byzantine State and Society (Stanford University Press, 1997: Template:ISBN), p. 267.</ref> The eighteenth book, dealing with Justinian's reign, is well acquainted with, and colored by, official propaganda. The writer is a supporter of Church and State, an upholder of monarchical principles. However, the theory identifying him with the patriarch John Scholasticus is almost certainly incorrect.<ref>Thurn, Ioannis Malalae Chronographia, p. 2.</ref>
Malalas cites many sources, including the lost or fragmentary works of Brunichius, Charax of Pergamum, Domninus, Eustathius of Epiphania, Eutropius, Eutychianus, Nestorianus, Philostratus, Priscus, Sisyphus of Kos and Timotheus.<ref name=EJ>Elizabeth Jeffreys, "Malalas' Sources", in Elizabeth Jeffreys, Brian Croke and Roger Scott (eds.), Studies in John Malalas (Brill, 1990), p. 196.</ref>
The work is important as the first surviving example of a chronicle written not for the learned but for the instruction of the monks and the common people,<ref name="EB1911"/> and its language shows a compromise with the spoken language of the day, although "it is still very much a written style. In particular, he employs technical terminology and bureaucratic clichés incessantly, and, in a period of transition from Latin to Greek governmental terminology, still uses the Latin loanwords alongside their Greek replacements ... The overall impression created by Malalas' style is one of simplicity, reflecting a desire for the straightforward communication of information in the written language of everyday business as it had evolved under the influence of spoken Greek."<ref>Horrocks, Greek, pp. 179-81, q.v. for details of lexical and syntactic usage; see also pp. 181-82 for a passage of Malalas with interlinear translation and transcription showing how Horrocks believes it would have sounded in the spoken Greek of the day.</ref>
It obtained great popularity, and was used by various writers until the ninth century; it was translated into Old Bulgarian probably in the tenth century, and parts of it were used for the Primary Chronicle.<ref>Oleg Tvorogov, Хроника Иоанна Малалы Template:Webarchive.</ref> It is preserved in an abridged form in a single manuscript now at Oxford<ref name="EB1911"/> (Baroccianus 182) as well as in various fragments. A medieval translation in Georgian also exists.<ref>Template:Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium</ref>
See also
References
Modern editions
- Text
- Johannes Thurn (ed.) 2000, Ioannis Malalae Chronographia, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae (CFHB) 35 (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter) Template:ISBN
- Translation
- Elizabeth Jeffreys, Michael Jeffreys, Roger Scott et al. 1986, The Chronicle of John Malalas: A Translation, Byzantina Australiensia 4 (Melbourne: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies) Template:ISBN
- Template:Cite book
Further reading
- E. Jeffreys, B. Croke, and R. Scott (eds.), Studies in John Malalas (Sydney: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1990) (Byzantina Australiensia, 6), pp. 1–25.
- David Woods, "Malalas, Constantius, and a Church-inscription from Antioch," Vigiliae Christianae, 59,1 (2005), pp. 54–62.
- J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, "Malalas on Antioch," in Idem, Decline and Change in Late Antiquity: Religion, Barbarians and their Historiography (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006) (Variorum Collected Studies).
External links
- Chronicle of John Malalas (full, translated)
- Translation of the 8th book of Malalas' Chronographia
- Greek Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Graeca with analytical indexes
- Catholic Encyclopedia (1910 ed.), John Malalas"
- Malalas, Chronography (online English translation, open access)