All Topics  
Chronicon Paschale

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Chronicon Paschale
 
 
  Topics Chronicon Paschale Topic Home

Chronicon Paschale ("the Paschal Chronicle, also Chronicum Alexandrinum or Constantinopolitanum, or Fasti Siculi ) is the conventional name of a 7th-century Byzantine
Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
 universal chronicle
Chronicle

Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronology order. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the chronicler....
 of the world. Its name comes from its system of Christian
Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism#Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus and interpreted by Christians to have been prophesied in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament....
 chronology based on the paschal cycle
Paschal cycle

The Paschal cycle in the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches, is the cycle of the moveable feasts built around Easter . The cycle consists of approximately ten weeks before and seven weeks after Pascha....
; its Greek author named it "Epitome of the ages from Adam the first man to the 20th year of the reign of the most August Heraclius..."

Being a Byzantine chronicle, it follows familiar sources.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Chronicon Paschale'
Start a new discussion about 'Chronicon Paschale'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Chronicon Paschale ("the Paschal Chronicle, also Chronicum Alexandrinum or Constantinopolitanum, or Fasti Siculi ) is the conventional name of a 7th-century Byzantine
Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
 universal chronicle
Chronicle

Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronology order. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the chronicler....
 of the world. Its name comes from its system of Christian
Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism#Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus and interpreted by Christians to have been prophesied in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament....
 chronology based on the paschal cycle
Paschal cycle

The Paschal cycle in the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches, is the cycle of the moveable feasts built around Easter . The cycle consists of approximately ten weeks before and seven weeks after Pascha....
; its Greek author named it "Epitome of the ages from Adam the first man to the 20th year of the reign of the most August Heraclius..."

Being a Byzantine chronicle, it follows familiar sources. From 600
600

Sorry, no overview for this topic
 to 627
627

Events...
, that is, for the last years of the Emperor Maurice
Maurice (emperor)

Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus , known in English as Maurice and in Greek as Maurikios, was a Byzantine Emperor who ruled from 582-602....
, the reign of Phocas
Phocas

Flavius Phocas Augustus, , usurped the Byzantine Byzantine Emperors from the Emperor Maurice , and was himself overthrown by Heraclius after losing a civil war....
, and the first seventeen years of the reign of Heraclius
Heraclius

Flavius Heraclius was a Byzantine Emperor, who ruled the Byzantine Empire for over thirty years, from October 5, 610 to February 11, 641. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his Heraclius the Elder, the viceregal Exarchate of Africa, successfully led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas....
, the author is a contemporary historian, and his narrative is in every way quite interesting.

Like all Byzantine chroniclers, and unlike the more August historians, the author of this popular account relates anecdotes, the physical descriptions of the chief personages, which at times are careful portraits, extraordinary events, such as earthquakes and the appearance of comets, seen from the point of view of church history, with which the chronological plan of the Bible was made to agree. The idiom used was that of common life, little polished, but finically ornate. Sempronius Asellius points out this difference in the public appealed to and in the style of composition which distinguished the chroniclers (Annales) from the historians (Historia) of the Eastern Roman Empire.

The "Chronicon Paschale" is a huge compilation resulting in a chronological list of events from the creation of Adam; the principal manuscript, the 10th-century Codex Vaticanus gręcus 1941, is damaged at the beginning and end and stops short at AD 627. The chronicle proper is preceded by an introduction which contains some reflections on Christian chronology and on the calculation of the Paschal cycle. The so-called Byzantine or Roman era (which continued in use in the Greek Church until its liberation from Turkish rule) was adopted in the Chronicum for the first time as the foundation of chronology, in accordance with which the date of the creation is given as the 21st of March, 5507. The author is merely a compiler from earlier works.

The author identifies himself as contemporary of the Emperor Heraclius
Heraclius

Flavius Heraclius was a Byzantine Emperor, who ruled the Byzantine Empire for over thirty years, from October 5, 610 to February 11, 641. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his Heraclius the Elder, the viceregal Exarchate of Africa, successfully led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas....
 (610-641), and was probably a cleric attached to the suite of the œcumenical Patriarch
Patriarch of Constantinople

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is the Archbishop of Constantinople ? New Rome ? ranking as primus inter pares in the Eastern Orthodox Church organization, which is seen by followers as the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church....
 Sergius. The work was probably written during the last ten years of the reign of Heraclius.

The chief authorities used were: Sextus Julius Africanus
Sextus Julius Africanus

Sextus Julius Africanus, was a Christian traveller and historian of the early 3rd century AD. He was possibly born in Libya, though he calls himself a native of Jerusalem, which some scholars take as his hometown....
; the consular Fasti
Fasti

Fasti, a Latin word, refers to the Roman calendar and almanac; and especially, to a long, possibly unfinished poem on the religious festivals of the Roman year and their mythology underpinnings, by the poet Ovid....
; the Chronicle and Church History of Eusebius; John Malalas
John Malalas

John Malalas or Ioannes Malalas was a , Byzantine Empire chronicler. He was born at Antioch....
; the Acta Martyrum; the treatise of Epiphanius
Epiphanius

Epiphanius was the name of several early Christianity scholars and ecclesiastics:*Saint Epiphanius of Pavia *Saint Epiphanius of Salamis , bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, author of Panarion...
, bishop of Constantia (the old Salamis) in Cyprus (fl. 4th century), on Weights and Measures.

Editions


  • L. Dindorf (1832) in Corpus scriptorum hist. byzantinae, with De Cange's preface and commentary
  • J. P. Migne, Patrologia graeca, vol. 92.
  • See also C. Wachsmuth, Einleitung in das Studien der alten Geschichte (1895)
  • H. Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus und die byzantinische Chronographie, ii. I (1885)
  • J. van der Hagen, Observationes in Heraclii imperatoris methodum paschalem (1736, but still considered indispensable)
  • E. Schwarz in Pauly-Wissowa
    Pauly-Wissowa

    The Realencyclop?die der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, commonly called the Pauly-Wissowa or simply RE, is a German language encyclopedia of classical antiquity scholarship....
    , Realencyclopadie, iii., Pt. 2 (1899)
  • C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897).


Partial English translation

  • Chronicon Paschale 284–628 AD, translated by Michael Whitby and Mary Whitby (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1989) ISBN 0-85323-096-X


Sources



External links

  • (Catholic Encyclopedia)
  • (1911 Encyclopedia Britannica)