Historia Acephala · Part 1

Letters of Athanasius,

with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life.

The Letters cannot be arranged in strict sequence of time without breaking into the homogeneity of the corpus of Easter Letters. Accordingly we divide them into two parts: (1) all that remain of the Easter or Festal Epistles: (2) Personal Letters. From the latter class we exclude synodical or encyclical documents, or treatises merely inscribed to a friend, such as those printed above pp. 91, 149, 173, 222, &c., &c., the ad Serapionem, ad Marcellinum, &c. There remain a number of highly interesting letters, the survivals of what must have been a large correspondence, all of which, excepting six (Nos. 52, 54, 56, 59, 60, 61), now appear in English for the first time. They are arranged as nearly as possible in strict chronological order, though this is in some cases open to doubt (e.g. 60, 64, &c.). They mostly belong to the later half of the episcopate of Athanasius, and are therefore placed after the Festal Collection, which however itself extends to the end of the Bishop's life. The immemorial numbering of the latter collection is of course retained, although many of the forty-five are no longer to be found.

Prefixed to the Letters are two almost contemporary chronicles, the one preserved in the same ms. as Letters 46, 47, the other prefixed to the Syriac ms., which is our sole channel for the bulk of the Easter Letters. A memorandum appended to Letter 64 specifies certain fragments not included in this volume. The striking fragment Filiis suis has been conjecturally placed among the remains of Letter 29.

For the arrangement of the Letters, the reader is referred to the general Table of Contents to this volume. We now give

a. The Historia Acephala or Maffeian fragment, with short introduction.

b. The Chronicon Prævium or Festal Index, with introduction to it and to the Festal Letters.

A.--The Historia Acephala.

This most important document was brought to light in 1738 by the Marchese F. Scipio Maffei ( 1755), from a Latin ms. (uncial parchment) in the Chapter Library at Verona. It was reprinted from Maffei's Osservazioni Letterarie in the Padua edition of Athanasius; also in 1769 by Gallandi (Bibl. Patr. v. 222), from which edition (the reprint in Migne, xxvi. 1443 sqq. being full of serious misprints) the following version has been made. The Latin text (including letters 46, 47, and a Letter of the Council of Sardica) is very imperfect, but the annalist is so careful in his reckonings, and so often repeats himself, that the careful reader can nearly always use the document to make good its own gaps or wrong readings. Beyond this (except the insertion of the consuls for 372, §17 ad fin.) the present editor has not ventured to go. The importance and value of the fragment must now be shewn.

The annalist evidently writes under the episcopate of Theophilus, to which he hurriedly brings down his chronology after the death of Athanasius (§19). At the fortieth anniversary of the episcopate of Athanasius, June 8, 368, he makes a pause (§17) in order to reckon up his dates. This passage is the key of the whole of his chronological data. He accounts for the period of forty years (thus placing the accession of Ath. at June 8, 328, in agreement with the Index), shewing how it is exactly made up by the periods of exile' and of quiet' previously mentioned. To quiet' he assigns xxii years v months and x days,' to exile' xvii years vi months xx days; total xl years. He then shews how the latter is made up by the several exiles he has chronicled. As the text stands we have the following sum:

Table A.

Exiles

(1)

xc months

iii days

[(2)]

(3)

lxxii "

xiv "

(4)

xv "

xxii "

(5)

iv "

exact result'

xvii years

vi months

xx days

Now the exact result of the figures as they stand is 182 months, 9 days, i.e. 15 years 2 months and 9 days, or 2 years 4 months and 11 days too little. Moreover of the well-known five exiles,' only four are accounted for. An exile has thus dropped out, and an item of 2 years 4 months 11 days. Now this corresponds exactly with the interval from Epiphi 17 (July 11), 335 (departure for Tyre, Fest. Ind. viii), to Athyr 27 (Nov. 23), 337 (return to Alexandria F. I. x). The annalist then (followed apparently by Theodt. H. E. ii. 1) reckoned the first exile at the above figure. But what of the first figure in our table, xc months iii days? It again exactly coincides with the interval from Pharm. 21 (Apr. 16, Easter Monday), 339 to Paophi 24 (Oct. 21), 346, on which day (§1) Athan. returned from his second exile. This double coincidence cannot be an accident. It demonstrates beyond all dispute that the missing item of ann. ii, mens. iv, d. xii' has dropped out after Treveris in Galliis,' and that mens. xc, dies iii' relates to the second exile, so that, in §1 also, the annalist wrote not annos vi' but annos vii menses vi dies iii,' which he repeats §17 by its equivalent mens. xc, d. iii,' while words have dropped out in §1 to the effect of what is supplied in brackets. (Hefele, ii. 50, Eng. Tr., is therefore in error here).

I would add that the same obvious principle of correcting a clearly corrupt figure by the writer's own subsequent reference to it, enables us also to correct the last figures of §2 by those of §5, to correct the items by the sum total of §§6, 7, and lastly to correct the corrupt readings Gregorius' for Georgius, and Constans' for Constantius, by the many uncorrupt places which shew that the annalist himself was perfectly aware of the right names.

In one passage alone (§13 Athyr' twice for Mechir, cf. Fest. Ind. viii) is conjecture really needed; but even here the consuls are correctly given, and support the right date.

We are now in a position to construct tables of exiles' and quiet' periods from the Historia as corrected by itself.

Table B. Exiles &c., of Athanasius.

Exiles lasted

No.

Years

Months

Days

beginning

(a) ii