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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Nicephorus Gregoras was a fourteenth-century man of letters living in Constantinople who wrote a history of his own times. This work is an example of the traditional school of Byzantine historial writing in that it consists of an introductory summary of earlier history and a much fuller account of events contemporary with the author. But it departs from tradition in that it deals as much, or more, with ecclesiastical as with civil affairs. Gregoras was deeply implicated in the hesychast controversy, which began simply as a dispute among monks, but developed into a crisis of state, and his concern with it, in his life as well as his history, serves to illustrate its scope and importance. He was aware that his history lacked balance and needed some excuse. But the literary deficiencies of the work may be offset by its value as historical evidence. Since it was the hesychast doctrine, opposed by Gregoras, which became officially accepted, it is interesting to read the account of a defeated partisan. One must not, however, expect dispassionate reporting from Gregoras, although his account has sometimes been taken as such by western theologians.
page 169 note 1 Historia Byzantina, i–ii. ed. Schopen, L., Bonn 1829–1830Google Scholar; iii. ed. I. Bekker, Bonn 1855 (Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, the edition cited here: for other editions see Moravcsik, G., Byzantinoturcica, Budapest 1942, i. 276Google Scholar and Krumbacher, K., Geschichte der byzantinische Litteratur, 2nd ed., Munich 1897, 296 ff.)Google Scholar. The latest modern work on Gregoras is Guilland, R., Essai sur Nicéphore Grégoras, l'hornme et l'oeuvrc, Paris 1926Google Scholar, but this does not consider in any detail his connection with the hesychast controversy. It is possible that the significance of Gregoras will eventually have to be reassessed in the light of work on the fourteenth century at present in progress.
page 169 note 2 Gregoras, Nicephorus, Historia Byzantina, xxxvi, 2 (iii. p. 502)Google Scholar.
page 169 note 3 For an excellent general account of the historical background of the fourteenth century, see Ostrogorsky, G., Geschichte des byzantinischcn Staates (Byzantinisches Handbuch in Rahmen des Handbuchs der Altertumswissenschaft, ed. by Otto, Walter), Pt. i. vol. ii. (Munich, 1940)Google Scholar.
page 169 note 4 There has been much recent interest in the hesychast controversy. For general accounts and bibliography (and two different points of view) see on the one hand M. Jugie, A.A., in Dict, de théologie catholique, s.v. ‘Palamas’, and on the other, B. Krivoshein, ‘Ascetic and Theological Teaching of Gregory Palamas’ in Eastern Churches Quarterly, iii. (1938) and V. Lossky ‘La Théologie de la lumière chez Saint Grégoire de Thessalonique’ in Dieu Vivant, i. (1945).
page 170 note 1 Hesychasm was and is a form of contemplation practised especially by the monks of Athos, in which the union of the soul with God is achieved by asceticism, detachment and the repetition of the prayer of Jesus. It had behind it a long tradition of spirituality, but in the fourteenth century it was seen to raise the theological issue of how this deification could be explained, and a distinction was emphasised between the essence and energies of God.
page 170 note 2 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xi. 11 (i. p. 558).
page 170 note 3 P.G., cli. 679–692.
page 170 note 4 Patriarchae de Tomo, P.G., cl. 900–3.
page 170 note 5 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xii. 6f. (i. pp. 590f).
page 170 note 6 P. G., cl. 1225–36.
page 171 note 1 See Diehl, Ch., ‘Les mosaíques de Kahrié-Djami’ in Études Byzantines, Paris 1905Google Scholar.
page 171 note 2 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xix. 1 (ii. p. 919).
page 171 note 3 Ibid., xv. 7 (ii. p. 772).
page 172 note 1 Psellus, Michael, Chronographia, Constantine IX, c. xl. (ed. Renauld, E., i. p. 136Paris 1926)Google Scholar.
page 172 note 2 Ibid., (p. 137).
page 172 note 3 John Cantacuzenus, Historiarum, iv. 3 (iii. p. 27, ed. L. Schopen, Bonn 1832).
page 172 note 4 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xvi. 5 (ii. p. 821).
page 172 note 5 Mansi, J. D., Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, Venice 1784, xxvi. coll. 127–207.Google Scholar
page 173 note l J. D. Mansi, op. cit., 127–131.
page 173 note 2 Ibid., 191 A.
page 173 note 3 Ibid., 136.
page 173 note 4 Ibid., 199ñ206.
page 173 note 5 Ibid., 202 D.
page 173 note 6 Ibid., 206 D.
page 173 note 7 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xix. 4 (ii. p. 953).
page 173 note 8 Cf. ibid., xx. 4 (ii. p. 976). ‘By now it was growing dark, so the lamps were lit (with, incidentally, created light)’.
page 174 note 1 Mansi, op. cit., 206 B.
page 174 note 2 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xxxiii. 21 (iii. p. 414 ff.).
page 174 note 3 Ibid., xix. i (ii. p. 923).
page 174 note 4 Ibid.
page 174 note 5 E.g. ibid., xix. 3 (ii. p. 940).
page 174 note 6 Ibid., (ii. p. 943).
page 174 note 7 Cf. ibid., xxiv. 1 (ii. p. 1136).
page 175 note 1 Nicephorus Gregoras, op. cit., xix. 1 (ii. p. 927).
page 175 note 2 John Cantacuzenus, Hist., iv. 23 (iii. p. 171).
page 176 note 1 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xiiñxiv.
page 176 note 2 Ibid., xv. 11 (ii. p. 790).
page 176 note 3 John Cantacuzenus, Hist., iii. 20 (ii. p. 129).
page 176 note 4 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xv. 9 (ii. p. 784).
page 176 note 5 Ibid., xxvii. 47 (iii. p. 166f.).
page 176 note 6 Ibid., loc. cit., (iii. p. 168).
page 176 note 7 John Cantacuzenus, Hist., iv. 24 (iii. p. 173).
page 176 note 8 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xxxvii. 36 (iii. p. 547).
page 176 note 9 John Cantacuzenus, Hist., loc. cit.
page 177 note 1 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xxvi. 39 (iii. p. 106).
page 177 note 2 John Cantacuzenus, Hist., iv. 24 (iii. p. 183).
page 177 note 3 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xxviii. 16 (iii. p. 205).
page 177 note 4 Ibid., xxviii. 67 (iii. p. 221); xxix. (iii. pp. 223–5).
page 177 note 5 Ibid., xxvii. 41 (iii. p. 161).
page 177 note 6 Ibid., xxii. 4 (iii. p. 377).
page 177 note 7 Ibid., xxii. 4 (iii. p. 382).
page 178 note 1 Nicephorus Gregoras, loc. cit. (iii. p. 390).
page 178 note 2 Cf. R. Guilland, op. cit., p. 240.
page 178 note 3 Nicephorus Gregoras, Hist. Byz., xxvi. 26 (iii. p. 116).
page 178 note 4 Ibid., xxxvi. 2 (iii. p. 502).
page 178 note 5 Ibid., loc. cit
page 178 note 6 Ibid., i. i (i. p. 4).
page 179 note 1 Nicephorus Gregoras, xv. 9 (ii. p. 783).
page 179 note 2 Ibid., xxix. 31 ff. (iii. pp. 244 ff.).
