Library › St Photius the Great › Homilies

Homilies

St Photius the Great, tr. Mango, 1958

Chapter 3

Eighteen Homilies of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople (858–867 and 877–886), have been preserved. All of them, as will be shown below, are probably to be dated in the period of his first patriarchate, a time of momentous developments in the political and ecclesiastical life of the Byzantine Empire. The historical role of Photius has, all too often, been viewed only as it concerned the rift between the Western and Eastern Churches. He has been regarded either as the “Father of the Schism” or as the staunch defender of Greek Orthodoxy against the encroachments of Rome. It is hoped that by presenting the Homilies of Photius in English translation these one-sided views may to some extent be corrected. For, surprising though it may appear, we shall not find in the Homilies a single reference to the Papacy. When they are not purely didactic, the Homilies are dominated by such topics as the suppression of the Iconoclast movement, the re-establishment of sacred painting, the propagation of the true faith among heretics, and the quelling of internal division in the Church of Constantinople. Although their purpose is naturally edifying rather than polemical, these Homilies constitute nevertheless an important historical document, and help us towards a better understanding of the patriarch’s personality and activities.

The life of Photius is too well known to need re-telling.¹ It will be sufficient for the comprehension of the Homilies to recall the main landmarks of his first incumbency of the patriarchal throne. Canonically appointed (December 858) after the enforced abdication of the Patriarch Ignatius, Photius had to contend continually with the opposition of the more stubborn of Ignatius’ supporters. The extent of the opposition has often been exaggerated, but it was nevertheless loud, and there are several references to it in the Homilies. It was indeed the Ignatians who started the conflict by gathering in the church of St. Irene and excommunicating the new patriarch. Photius retaliated by holding a synod at the church of the Holy Apostles (summer 859), at which Ignatius and his principal followers were deposed. In June 860, while the Emperor Michael III had gone off to campaign against the Arabs, Constantinople was suddenly attacked by a Russian flotilla. The invaders soon withdrew, but for a short time the inhabitants of the capital stood on the brink of total annihilation (Homilies III and IV). In the spring of 861, a Council was held at Constantinople in the presence of the papal legates Radoald and Zachary. The deposition of Ignatius was confirmed, and Photius was acknowledged to be the legitimate Patriarch. While Pope Nicholas I repudiated his own legates and fulminated against Photius at the Roman Council of April 863, the Patriarch’s position, supported by the imperial government, remained unshaken. Besides, the Eastern Church was being remarkably successful in its proselytizing activities, such as the mission of SS. Constantine and Methodius to Moravia. Soon after their piratical raid, the Russians too came to ask for a bishop, while in 864 King Boris of Bulgaria was converted to Christianity. It was not until 866 that the tide began to turn. On April 21st of that year, Photius’ chief supporter and patron, the Caesar Bardas, was murdered. On the 26th of May, Basil the Macedonian, whose relations with Photius were somewhat cool, was crowned Co-Emperor. In August King Boris, frustrated in his desire of obtaining his own archbishop from Constantinople, turned to Rome, and for a while the Greek missionaries were driven out of Bulgaria. Photius was not slow in preparing a rejoinder. A local synod held at Constantinople in the early part of 867 condemned the Latin missionaries in Bulgaria and in particular the dogma of the double procession of the Holy Ghost which they were disseminating. Photius followed this up by an Encyclical Letter to the three Oriental Patriarchs, whom he invited to send legates to a general Council that was to assemble in Constantinople. The Council met in August-September 867 and appears to have excommunicated Pope Nicholas. It also condemned Iconoclasm anew, as well as all the other heresies (Homily XVIII). Shortly after, on September 24th, Michael III was murdered by Basil’s associates. On the latter’s accession, Photius was immediately driven out and Ignatius reinstated as patriarch.

Such are the main events that form the background to the Homilies of Photius. The collection of eighteen sermons which has come down to us represents, of course, only a small part of the patriarch’s entire homiletical output. Of his lost sermons—and there is every reason to believe that Photius was a prolific orator—we are able to name a few. For example, in a manuscript which perished in the Escorial fire of 1671 there existed a Homily on the Ascension now lost.² The two sermons on the Arian heresy (nos. XV and XVI) were preceded by at least one other and followed by probably two more on the same subject.’³ A chronicler reports that following a violent earthquake,⁴ Photius mounted the ambo and told his congregation that earthquakes were caused not by the multitude of our sins, but by the abundance of water, and furthermore that each man had two souls of which one sinned and the other did not.⁵ While this report is certainly malicious, and nothing could have been further from the spirit of Photius than to have stated that natural calamities had no connection with our sins, there is no reason to doubt that Photius preached a sermon after an earthquake and that he was intentionally misinterpreted.

In 1900 there appeared at Constantinople an edition of no fewer than eighty-three “Speeches and Homilies” of the Patriarch Photius, published by S. Aristarches (or d’Aristarchi, as he styles himself), Great Logothete of the Oecumenical Patriarchate.⁶ Of the eighty-three, only sixteen are genuine Homilies, one is a rhetorical encomium,’⁷ while the rest were ingeniously reconstructed by the editor to the deception of many an unheeding scholar. Starting with the assumption that fragments of Homilies have been incorporated into other works of Photius, Aristarches proceeded to extract those supposed fragments from the Amphilochia, the Contra Manichaeos, the Bibliotheca, the Letters, etc., and then arranged them in a fictitious chronological order. While there is no justification for the method adopted by Aristarches, his basic assumption is not altogether wrong, since parts of Homilies V and XI have in fact been included in a catena on St. Luke, and, just as there is considerable overlapping between the Letters and the Amphilochia, so passages from Homilies may have been incorporated into other works. It must be made clear, however, that we are concerned here only with actual sermons that have come down to us in a complete form. Possible fragments of other sermons, such as the one on the Last Judgment, published by Cramer⁸ and Hergenröther,⁹ have therefore been excluded. Anyone who wishes to extract supposed homiletical fragments from other works of Photius will almost always be forced, like Aristarches, to rely on subjective criteria, since it is extremely difficult to distinguish stylistically between passages that were actually spoken from the pulpit and those that were never intended for oral delivery. To take one instance, it is not impossible that Books II and III of the Contra Manichaeos represent a series of sermons in compressed form;¹⁰ but even if that were known to be so, how would one proceed to carve out the original sermons? A far more difficult situation is presented by Photius’ commentaries on the Bible, since they are to a large extent unpublished.”¹¹ Besides, the whole study of catenae is a notoriously complex subject, and one must proceed with the greatest caution in determining the authorship of individual scholia. Thus, in 1892 Papadopoulos-Kerameus published a catena on Matthew from the Sabait. 232 under the title Φωτίου σχόλιά τε καὶ τεμάχια ὁμιλιῶν (Photius’ Scholia and Fragments of Homilies).¹² In actual fact, this catena is for the most part not by Photius: it is the anonymous catena attributed to Peter of Laodicea with Photian additions.¹³ It would be of the greatest value to have a reliable edition of all of Photius’ commentaries on the Bible; such an edition, when it comes out, will certainly contribute to the study of the Homilies. Furthermore, there always remains the possibility that Homilies of Photius may be lying concealed under another author’s name. The corpus of Photian Homilies, which only four years ago was enriched by two new items,¹⁴ is not therefore a closed one.

The eighteen Homilies presented here form a collection which probably originated at a time and in a circle not far removed from the Patriarch. Our three principal manuscripts give the Homilies in the same order,¹⁵ and, as will be shown below, there is some reason to think that the order is chronological. If this is true, we must assume that the original collection was made by a person fairly close to the Patriarch. The same conclusion is suggested by the tituli, which show a detailed knowledge of the circumstances in which several Homilies were delivered. Since, however, three of the tituli are probably incorrect (nos. I, XIII, XIV),¹⁶ we may conclude that their author was either a somewhat absent-minded member of the Patriarch’s entourage, or, more likely, one of his younger disciples.

Once the unified nature of the collection is granted, we are one step nearer to understanding its origin. Another interesting fact is the extreme paucity of the manuscript tradition. The tedious sermons of George of Nicomedia or of Leo VI are extant in a great many manuscripts. One might have expected an orator of Photius’ stature and fame to have been widely read and appreciated, yet the opposite is true, as a glance at the list of manuscripts will show (see below, pp. 24 sq.). We are, therefore, justified in looking for a reason other than the usual accidents of manuscript preservation.

Unfortunately, we do not know how the sermons of Photius were first published. In the case of the Patriarch Tarasius (784–806), it is reported that his sermons were taken down stenographically¹⁷ and then conveyed for copying to the best calligraphers.¹⁸ The Patriarch Euthymius (907–912), on the other hand, himself copied out his sermons for the first week of Lent, and presented them to his monastery.¹⁹ Whichever method was adopted by Photius, it is, in any case, quite possible that individual Homilies were put into circulation, and have thus found their way singly into mixed homiletical collections, such as the Coislin. 107, the Monac. 443, the Chalc. 1, and others. As for the corpus of Photian Homilies, now represented by our three principal manuscripts, it must have originated as a special collection. Particularly significant is the fact that the last Homily (no. XVIII) was delivered not more than three weeks before Photius’ downfall, and celebrates the Council of 867. It gives praise to the Emperors Michael and Basil, to the senatorial class and the clergy for having taken part in the Council. We know, however, that Basil’s government immediately repudiated the embarrassing Council—in fact sought to prove that it had never taken place, that Basil had not signed its Acts, and that most of the other signatures had been forged by Photius. The official copies of the Acts were burnt, while anyone who kept and refused to surrender documents pertaining to the condemned Council was threatened with excommunication. Photius’ own archives were impounded. Seven bags sealed with lead, so the story goes, were concealed by Photius in a plot overgrown with reeds, but the Emperor’s emissaries discovered and confiscated them. Among the papers found, were the synodal condemnation of Ignatius as well as that of Pope Nicholas I.²⁰ In such circumstances it is obvious that Homily XVIII, even if it had been “released” in the short interval between the end of the Council and the murder of Michael III, must have been immediately banned from circulation. Its preservation is probably due to some devoted member of Photius’ group. Nor is it likely that other Homilies eulogizing Michael III (especially nos. X and XVII) would have been particularly welcome under the first Macedonian emperors. It may therefore be inferred that the corpus of Photian Homilies was compiled and preserved in secret by the Patriarch’s friends and disciples, which fact may also account for the paucity of the manuscript tradition.

Another factor which points to Photius’ entourage is the character of our principal manuscript, the Iviron 684. This codex, late though it is, provides such a good text, that its archetype must have been of very high quality. Apart from the Homilies, it also includes the Letters of Photius, in the same order and with the same marginal scholia as in the Baroce. gr. 217 (early tenth century), but has some additional letters not found in the latter.²¹ Since the Barocc. gr. 217 is itself a copy, and presumably unfinished, it is likely that its archetype is also that of the Iviron 684 (as regards the Letters). Thus, we are brought to the generation of Photius’ younger contemporaries and disciples. Now, the scholia to the Letters are written in a spirit of great admiration for Photius and may (though this is not established) be by the famous Arethas of Caesarea.²² The scribe of the Iviron 684 was, therefore, in the case of the Letters, copying a text which emanated directly, or nearly so, from the circle of Photius’ friends. In his text of the Homilies there is only one extensive scholion,²³ yet both in spirit and in phraseology, it is akin to the scholia on the Letters. It is not, therefore, unlikely that the collection of Homilies in the Iviron 684, like that of the Letters, is traceable to that group of intellectuals, formed under the tutelage of Photius, among whom Arethas was the most outstanding figure.

The fate of the Homilies during the Middle Ages is practically unknown to us. A few passages were excerpted from them, probably in the fourteenth century, and included in anthologies,²⁴ while nos. III and IV provided material for an address by the metropolitan Dorotheus of Mitylene during the siege of Constantinople in 1422 (see below, p. 82); on the whole, however, the Homilies do not appear to have been widely read. It is only with the Renaissance that we can pick up their story again. In a synodal decree issued ca. 1478 under the Patriarch Maximus IV, there is a vague allusion to “one of the speeches” of Photius (ἔν τινι τῶν αὐτοῦ λόγων) on the subject of ecclesiastical dissension,²⁵ a topic that does indeed hold a prominent place in the Homilies. If Papadopoulos-Kerameus was right in holding that both of our principal manuscripts, the Iviron 684 and the Metochion Panagiou Taphou 529, were written by Alexander Hierax, Great Logothete of the Oecumenical Patriarchate,²⁶ it would indicate that towards the close of the sixteenth century there existed at Constantinople at least two ancient copies of the Homilies and that there was some interest in reproducing them. It is, of course, well known that Constantinople still possessed at the time a great wealth of ancient manuscripts, many of which were being acquired by visiting scholars and diplomats such as Dousa and Busbecq.²⁷ In the milieu of Alexander Hierax an interest in Photius would have been very natural. His father, Constantine Hierax, likewise Great Logothete, was a man of letters who entertained friendly relations with Martin Crusius and Stephan Gerlach.²⁸ Alexander himself is known as the scribe of several manuscripts, mostly of religious content. Four of these are dated between 1593 and 1603, the year of Alexander’s death.²⁹ It does not fall within the limits of this enquiry to ascertain whether our two chief manuscripts of the Homilies are indeed in the hand of Alexander Hierax. A comparison with Cod. 19 (14870) of the Bibliothèque Royale of Brussels, an autograph of Alexander Hierax,³⁰ has failed to show any striking similarity of handwriting. In any case, it is most likely that the two manuscripts were written by the same person, and if that is so, one may wonder what prompted that person to transcribe two slightly divergent texts of the Homilies, and whether it was not with an eye to their publication.³¹

In 1600 a reference to Photius’ discours d’apparat (οἱ πανηγυρικοὶ τῶν λόγων) is made by Maximos Margounios, bishop of Cythera, who helped David Hoeschel with the editio princeps of the Bibliotheca.³² The publication of Byzantine texts was beginning to gather momentum. It was in the fine folios of the mid-seventeenth century that two of our Homilies were first published: no. IX by François Combefis (1648) and no. X by Peter Lambeck (1655).³³

The next incident in the story of the Homilies is of some importance, and centres round the curious figure of Paisios (Pantaleon) Ligarides, metropolitan of Gaza (1610?–1678). For an understanding of his role in the manuscript tradition of the Homilies a brief account of his life is necessary.³⁴ A native of the island of Chios, Ligarides was educated at the Greek College of Rome and was ordained Catholic priest in 1639. In 1642 he was sent to Constantinople with a view to disseminating Roman propaganda, but met with little success there. In 1647 we find him in Wallachia as court confessor to the Prince and teacher at the school of Jassy. His scholarly advice was sought in connection with the Roumanian edition of the Nomocanon. He came in contact with visiting dignitaries, among them the famous Russian monk Arsenij Suchanov and Paisios, Patriarch of Jerusalem. In 1651 Ligarides accompanied his new friend, the Patriarch, to Jerusalem, whither Suchanov was also bound. There, on the 16th of November 1651, he was made a monk under the name of Paisios, and placed under Suchanov’s spiritual supervision.³⁵ While in the Holy Land, he wrote a History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, in which he is said to have revealed his Catholic bias and, ironically enough, his hostility towards Photius.³⁶ Notwithstanding the condemnation of his work, he was promoted metropolitan of Gaza, although it is doubtful if he ever visited his diocese. By 1656 we find him back in the more congenial clime of Wallachia, where he met Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, then homeward bound from Moscow.³⁷ The scholarly reputation of Ligarides reached the Russian Patriarch Nikon, who was especially anxious to secure the services of Greek scholars for the revision of church books. In 1657, therefore, Nikon extended a pressing invitation to Ligarides to come to Moscow, but the latter tarried in Wallachia for another five years. When he finally reached Moscow (February 12, 1662), the situation had entirely changed, for Nikon had incurred the Czar’s displeasure and was in disgrace. With his usual opportunism, Ligarides lost no time in espousing the side of the Czar against that of the Patriarch. His infamous role in Nikon’s trial and condemnation need not concern us here.³⁸

From Nikon’s trial Ligarides emerged as one of the Czar’s most trusted counsellors on Church affairs. This position, which he exploited to the fullest to promote his own financial interests, Ligarides maintained until 1672. In 1668, it is true, the new Patriarch of Jerusalem, Nectarius, exposed in a letter to the Czar the shameful career of the so-called metropolitan of Gaza; unwilling, however, to repudiate his counsellor, the Czar succeeded in having Ligarides absolved. Nevertheless, the cunning Chiote must have realized at that time that his influential position was seriously threatened.

In October 1669 there arrived in Moscow on a diplomatic mission the Dutch scholar and poet Nicholas Heinsius.³⁹ In a letter dated in Moscow December 1st, 1669, he wrote his friend, the famous Utrecht scholar Joh. Graevius, that he had met Paisios Ligarides and been shown by him two manuscripts, one containing some works of St. John Chrysostom, the other the Homilies and Letters of Photius. Knowing that the Letters had appeared in London,⁴⁰ but that the Homilies were still unpublished, Heinsius entertained some hope of obtaining the manuscript itself with a view to having them printed.”⁴¹ Graevius, in a letter of April 13th, 1670, replied that he would be willing to undertake the task himself. Obstacles, however, immediately arose: in the first place, the Russian authorities, who kept all foreigners under constant police supervision, forbade further meetings between Heinsius and Paisios; nor was the latter willing to surrender the manuscript, since he was hoping to publish the Homilies himself, and dedicate them to the rulers of the Netherlands in return for a financial remuneration. Negotiations thus came to a standstill. Heinsius left Moscow in August 1670, but not before receiving from Paisios, by way of token, some extracts from the Homilies together with their titles. On his return to Stockholm, Heinsius allowed the matter to lapse, although he received a further reminder from Ligarides, dated March 7th, 1671, in which the Chiote hinted that other interested parties were willing to pay him 1000 gold pieces for the manuscript of Photius.

Ligarides’ position in Moscow was meanwhile deteriorating and he announced his intention of visiting Palestine. On May 4th, 1672 he was granted permission to leave by way of Kiev. He was given a retinue and funds for the journey, but his house and books in the Simonovskij monastery were to remain in the keeping of the dragoman Nicholas Spatharios. Ligarides did not leave until February 1673 and having reached Kiev, he decided not to proceed to Palestine. He tarried in Kiev for two years engaging in various machinations. In August 1675 he was ordered back to Moscow, where he found his position even more awkward than before, especially on the death of the Czar Alexis (1676). In September 1676 he was again allowed to depart for Palestine, and again he did not go beyond Kiev. There he died on August 24th, 1678 and was buried in the monastery of the Brotherhood. All his belongings were assigned by the Czar’s command to the same monastery.

We have given these biographical data in the hope of throwing some light on the question that concerns us: what manuscript of the Homilies did Ligarides have, and what has happened to it? The extracts which Ligarides made for Heinsius have come down to us, and prove beyond doubt that their model was extremely close to the Iviron 684, but was probably not identical with the latter. It was in fact somewhat better than the Iviron 684.⁴² Moreover, inasmuch as manuscripts of the Homilies were few and far between, it is not unlikely that the codex of Ligarides was the archetype of the Iviron 684. Where Ligarides acquired it is a question we are unable to answer: it could have been in Constantinople, Jerusalem or Wallachia. We know that in Wallachia he had access to the library of Constantine Cantacuzenus which contained a unique Exposition of the Psalms,⁴³ and that Ligarides was a connoisseur of rare books. It has even been suggested that the manuscript of Photius may not have been the property of Paisios at all, but belonged to one of the libraries of Moscow.⁴⁴ We know, of course, that in 1654 Arsenij Suchanov was sent to Mount Athos and came back with 498 manuscripts, of which the greatest share (158 items) was from the Iviron monastery. The Homilies of Photius do not, however, figure in the list of those manuscripts, although the list we have is admittedly not altogether complete.⁴⁵ It is true that in 1663 Ligarides petitioned the Czar to be granted free access to the Greek and Latin books kept in the various libraries of Moscow;⁴⁶ and that in 1671 he was given a manuscript of Photius by the Voskresenskij monastery.”⁴⁷ Nevertheless, unless Ligarides practised wholesale deception in his relations with Heinsius, we must suppose that the manuscript was his own and not one he had borrowed from a public library. It is also most likely that the manuscript never left Russia again. We have seen that when Paisios departed from Moscow in 1673 on what was to be a temporary trip, his books were placed in the keeping of the dragoman Spatharios. Besides, Paisios had no serious intention of going away from Russia, as indicated by his protracted sojourns at Kiev, so that he had no reason to smuggle the manuscript out of the country. We must therefore conclude that the Codex Mosquensis either remained in the Simonovskij monastery or accrued to the monastery of the Brotherhood at Kiev, and that it has since been lost.

The extracts from the Homilies which Paisios Ligarides made for Heinsius have had a chequered history of their own. Heinsius, who considered them unfit for publication,⁴⁸ deposited them with the publishing house of Elzevier, from whom they were received by Emeric Bigot in 1671. The latter communicated the titles of the Homilies to Combefis, who printed them in his Bibliothecae graecorum Patrum auctarium novissimum in 1672.⁴⁹ Bigot died in 1689, and the extracts of Paisios came into the possession of Montfaucon († 1741) who published a succinct description of them in his famous Bibliotheca bibliothecarum manuscriptorum nova (1739).⁵⁰ The library of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where Montfaucon lived and worked, was dispersed during the French Revolution.

In 1845 the Russian historian A. A. Kunik began a systematic search for the two Homilies “on the attack of the Rhos,” which he knew to be the earliest Greek source concerning the Russian people. Having drawn a blank in the Synodal Library of Moscow and in other Russian collections, he turned his attention to Paris, but was informed by C. B. Hase and E. Miller that there was no trace of Paisios’ manuscript at the Bibliothèque Nationale. Kunik then shifted his quest to Spain, but there too his efforts ended in failure.⁵¹ By what means the extracts of Paisios, which could not be located in 1845, found their way into the Bibliothèque Nationale, where they are still preserved, has never been explained.

The final scene in this lengthy search took place on December 28th, 1858 in the Iviron monastery of Mt. Athos. There the notorious archimandrite (later bishop) Porphirij Uspenskij, whose unscrupulous practices have depleted many an Oriental library, found to his great amazement a complete text of the Homilies in the Iviron 684. This is how he describes his own discovery: “The Homilies of Photius occupied my whole attention as being unheard of rarities. Eagerly I read the first two of them, but when I saw the titles of the third and fourth—First sermon on the invasion of the Russians, Second sermon on the same occasion—I became so overjoyed that my whole being was transported with happiness. There was indeed something to be happy about! Since I, who was seeking precious pearls in the Orient, had chanced on two diamonds, of which few people knew, while many, very many, had not even heard of them, and which I was yearning to find, and yearning so much, that after their discovery I could not have wished for better luck.”⁵² Uspenskij’s own edition of Homilies III, IV, XVII and XVIII, which appeared in 1864, was incomplete, incorrect and accompanied by a commentary which can only be described as fantastic. The manuscript text of Homilies III and IV was, however, photographed in 1859 by Sevast’janov, thus making possible the accurate edition of these invaluable documents by A. Nauck.⁵³

On the basis of the Iviron 684 all the Homilies (with the exception of nos. XII and XIII) were published by S. Aristarches, first in the periodical Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ ἀλήθεια and later as a separate edition.⁵⁴ It is on the latter that the present English translation is founded.

Chronology of the Homilies

The order in which the Homilies are given here is based on the lost Moscow MS, the Iviron 684 and the Metochion Panagiou Taphou 529, all of which, however, omit our nos. XII and XIII. The latter are preserved only in the Athen. 2756, where they appear after our no. XI. That is where we have also placed them.

Inasmuch as the order of the Homilies does not conform to the liturgical calendar, we may enquire whether the arrangement of the collection does not depend on some other principle. Of the eighteen Homilies, only five can be dated with any accuracy. These are:

no. III – Shortly after June 18, 860, perhaps on the 23rd, which was a Sunday.
no. IV – Probably beginning of July 860.
no. X – After April 12, 864, and presumably before the end of the year.
no. XVII – March 29, 867.
no. XVIII – September 867.

As can be seen, the order of these five Homilies is chronological. The question, therefore, arises whether the remaining thirteen are likewise arranged in chronological order of their delivery. Of these, six (nos. II, V, VI, VII, XI and XII) conclude with a prayer for a single Emperor, and there can be no doubt that this Emperor was Michael III, since there was no time during Photius’ second incumbency (877–886) when Basil I was, officially at least, sole ruler.⁵⁵ Thus, these six Homilies must be dated between 859 (since Photius did not become Patriarch until late December 858) and 867. We now have to see whether the thirteen Homilies of uncertain date yield any indication that might confirm or invalidate the chronological arrangement of the whole collection.

No. I, as we shall see, was delivered not on Good Friday, as stated in the title, but at the beginning of Lent. This Homily contains, moreover, a reference to Sodom which seems to be picked up in no. III,⁵⁶ thus indicating that no. I is probably earlier than June 860. It could, therefore, be dated with some likelihood to Lent in either 859 or 860.

No. VI was delivered on Good Friday (ὁμιλία τρίτη λεχθεῖσα ... τῇ ἁγίᾳ παρασκευῇ, i. e. third after nos. I and II, on the mistaken assumption that no. I belonged to Good Friday). Its confident claim that the Ignatian opposition is a mere handful⁵⁷ can best be placed after the Synod of 861 which ratified the deposition of Ignatius and curbed the power of his monkish supporters. This Synod ended some time after Easter 861.⁵⁸ Thus no. VI could be datable to Friday April 17, 862, or later.

Nos. XV and XVI, which evidently followed each other at no more than a week’s interval, present a more difficult problem. Aristarches⁵⁹ dated them to 859 because the passage in which Photius regrets the ease of his former life⁶⁰ is paralleled in the so-called “apologetic” letter to Pope Nicholas I, written after the Council of 861,⁶¹ while the enumeration of his griefs⁶² calls to mind his letter to Bardas, written in 859.⁶³ The letter to Bardas may be dismissed from consideration since its alleged resemblance to our Homily XV is altogether remote. It must be admitted, on the other hand, that the letter to Nicholas I offers a very striking similarity to Homily XV, as, for example, in the following passage:

νῦν δέ, οἴμοι, καὶ λυπεῖν ἄλλους ὁ τοῦ ποιμαίνειν νόμος ἐπιτάττει, καὶ βαρὺν φαίνεσθαι, καὶ σοβαρὸν δοκεῖν, καὶ κρίνειν ἔσθ’ ὅτε καὶ κατακρίνειν, τὸν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς φυγόντα τὴν τοιαύτην τάξιν .... εἰ καὶ διαφυγεῖν οὐκ ἐξεγένετο ἃ φυγεῖν εὐδαιμονία ἐκρίνετο.
(Ar I. 270)

νῦν δ’ ἔσθ’ ὅτε καὶ πικρῶς ἐπιτιμᾷν ἀνάγκη τοῖς φίλοις, καὶ τοὺς συγγενεῖς ὑπὲρ ἐντολῆς παρορᾷν, καὶ τοῖς ἁμαρτάνουσι φαίνεσθαι βαρὺς ..... ἃ βλέπων καὶ πρὶν .... ἔφευγον τῆν ψῆφον .... οὐκ ἦν δὲ ἄρα φυγεῖν τὸ προορισθέν.
(Valettas, pp. 150–51).

There would be, therefore, some reason to place Homilies XV and XVI, not in 859 as Aristarches would have it, but in Lent of 861. It is also quite likely that a series of sermons on the Arian and Iconoclastic heresies should have been intended as a prelude to a Council of the Church. The Council of 861 met in the spring of that year, and, in addition to the case of Ignatius, dealt with disciplinary as well as doctrinal matters, among which Iconoclasm occupied an important place.⁶⁴

Homily no. XVI contains, however, a passage which could be construed as suggesting a later date. In defining the Orthodox faith against heresies, Photius says that the Father is the “cause” of the Holy Ghost, for the latter is produced “One out of One,” and further down, “for the One gave birth, the Other was born, and the Third proceeds beyond time and age, and beyond comprehension, neither the Ghost being included in the birth of the Son, nor the Son having a share in the procession of the Ghost (οὔτε τοῦ υἱοῦ τὴν ἐκπόρευσιν τοῦ πνεύματος συγκληρουμένου).”⁶⁵ This, though said en passant, seems to be a reference to the Western addition of the Filioque. Jugie, who has noted this passage, believes that the Homily should be dated to the end of Photius’ first patriarchate.⁶⁶ His statement that “In Homiliis quinque contra haereses, Photius ad controversiam de processione Spiritus Sancti iam alludit; unde colligimus illas circa finem eius primi patriarchatus fuisse prolatas,” needs, however, a slight correction. As we shall see, three out of the five Homilies were fabricated by Aristarches, who even went so far as to include in the fifth a few passages from the Mystagogia, among the bitterest that Photius ever hurled at the Roman Church.⁶⁷ After eliminating the three fictitious Homilies, the only allusion to the Filioque controversy that remains is the one quoted above. Now, the procession of the Holy Ghost does not seem to have been an issue between the Eastern and Western Churches until their missionaries fell afoul of one another in Bulgaria in the year 866. That does not, of course, enable us to say that Photius was unaware of the question before 866; for even if he was ignorant of the previous controversies on that score in the West, he could have known of the clash that occurred at Jerusalem in 808 between the Benedictines of the Mount of Olives and the Greek monks of St. Sabas. In 813 there arrived at Constantinople many Palestinian monks, among them St. Michael Syncellus and the brothers Theodore and Theophanes Grapti who were apparently intending to proceed to Rome in order to represent to the Pope the Oriental position on the Filioque dispute. They were, however, detained at Constantinople, and never pursued their journey to the West.⁶⁸ St. Michael became after 843 abbot of an important monastery at Constantinople, which position he held until his death in 846. Thus Photius could easily have had contact with several prominent Palestinian monks who had been personally involved in the Filioque controversy. It is true that in his writings on the subject (namely the Encyclical Letter of 867, the Letter to the Archbishop of Aquileia and the Mystagogia) he gives no indication of having known of the Filioque addition before 866;⁶⁹ yet we are not in a position to say that he had been totally ignorant of the issue.

If the sermons on Arianism could be considered as a fitting introduction to the Council of 861, the same could also be said in connection with that of 867. We know that in the early part of that year a local synod was held at Constantinople to condemn the errors of the Latin missionaries in Bulgaria, and that Photius immediately set about convoking an oecumenical council. This was not intended to deal exclusively or even primarily with the doctrines of the Latin missionaries, as has been hitherto supposed. It was to be a general condemnation of all heresies, among which Iconoclasm occupied a prominent place.⁷⁰ If we possessed the missing sermons on the Arian heresy which carried the story from Julian the Apostate to the Second Oecumenical Council, we would be able to form a more definite judgment. It is indeed likely that Photius treated in them the heresies of Macedonius and Sabellius which were condemned at the Second Council; and it is precisely those two heresies that Photius considered to be most akin to the Latin teaching on the Holy Ghost, to the point of calling the latter a “half-Sabellian monster.”⁷¹

The date of Homilies XV and XVI must therefore remain in the balance. If they were delivered in 861, we would have to conclude, a) that Photius had expressed himself against the double procession of the Holy Ghost before the Bulgarian episode, and b) that the order of the Homilies is not strictly chronological. If, on the other hand, Homilies XV and XVI belong to the Lent of 867, then the chronological arrangement of the whole collection becomes a valid hypothesis. On the latter assumption, the following dating could be hazarded:

no. I – Lent 859 or 860.
no. II – March 24, 859 or April 12, 860 (Good Friday).
no. V – March 25, 861 or 862 (Lady Day), preferably the latter, since in 861 Photius must have been much busied with the affairs of the Synod.⁷²
no. VI – April 17, 862 (Good Friday).
no. VII – March 25, 863 (Lady Day).
no. VIII – April 4, 863 (Palm Sunday).
no. IX – September 8, 863 (Nativity of the Virgin).⁷³
no. XI – April 21, 865 (Easter Saturday).⁷⁴
no. XII – April 6, 866 (Easter Saturday).
no. XIII – February 5, 867.
no. XIV – February 7, 867.⁷⁵
no. XV – February 23, 867.
no. XVI – March 2, 867.⁷⁶

The above table should, however, be regarded with caution. While it is true that the chronological principle was sometimes observed in contemporary Byzantine publications, it is also known that in certain cases, as with the correspondence of St. Theodore Studites⁷⁷ or that of Leo Choirosphactes,⁷⁸ the order was either not altogether accurate from the beginning or was later confused by copyists. Thus, we cannot be sure, even if Homilies XV and XVI belong to 867, that the remaining ones are placed in correct sequence.

Manuscripts

Because frequent reference to manuscripts of the Homilies is made in the course of this work, it has appeared advisable to present the following short description of them.⁷⁹ Naturally no guarantee can be offered that this enumeration is exhaustive. A full discussion of the manuscript tradition must await a critical edition of the Greek text.

A 1. Mount Athos, Iviron 684 (late sixteenth or early seventeenth century). Contains 16 Homilies (I–XI, XIV–XVIII), pp. 37–234. This weighty tome, numbering 1052 pages, is devoted for the most part to works of Photius. It is written in an ornate hand, recalling the Ottoman calligraphy of that period. Besides the Homilies, the MS contains two letters addressed to Pope Nicholas I, a letter to the Syncellus of Antioch, the canons of the Council of 861, 278 other letters, the Amphilochia, and two treatises, one “On the Soul” and the other “On the Body” by Nicephorus Blemmydes.⁸⁰ At one time this codex belonged to Dionysius IV, Patriarch of Constantinople (1671–1673, 1676–1679, 1683–1684, 1686–1687) who in 1678 bequeathed his library to the Iviron monastery.⁸¹ His ex-libris is found on pp. I, 16 and 1037.⁸² The date of the MS is not known exactly. According to Porfirij Uspenskij, who first found it in 1858, the MS was completed on Saturday, the 26th of July, 1628.⁸³ Aristarches, who did not see the MS itself, but was using a transcription made for him by the monk Jacob of Vatopedi, states that on p. 162 of the MS was a note giving the date April 26, 1627.⁸⁴ Papadopoulos-Kerameus, on the other hand, who examined the MS in 1895, was unable to find in it any such notes, and dated the MS on palaeographic grounds to the late sixteenth century, suggesting furthermore that the scribe was Constantine Alexander Hierax, Great Logothete of the Oecumenical Patriarchate, who was active in the nineties of the sixteenth century.⁸⁵ Papadopoulos-Kerameus admits, however, that the MS had been bound and its pages cropped shortly before his time, which explains the disappearance of the notations. Unfortunately, neither Uspenskij nor the monk Jacob (who dated the MS in the fourteenth century!) gives any information about the handwriting of the missing notes, so it is impossible to say whether they in fact recorded the dates of writing or were later jottings.⁸⁶ If the MS was copied in 1627–28, the scribe could not have been Alexander Hierax, who died in 1603.

B 2. Metochion Panagiou Taphou 529, a volume of 393 pp. Pages 1–384 are written in a hand very close to that of A, while pp. 385–393 are in a different, though contemporary, hand. According to Papadopoulos-Kerameus, this MS was written at the end of the sixteenth century by the same Hierax. It contains the same sixteen Homilies as A (pp. 89–300; the greater part of no. V is, however, missing), in addition to two fragments from the Amphilochia, five letters of Photius, and a number of theological tracts by other authors. The initials have not been written in. On p. 382 is the following note: τὸ παρὸν βιβλίον ὑπάρχει ἐμοῦ Πετράσκου, υἱοῦ δὲ Πέτρου βοϊβόδα καὶ Σκουλαρίου καὶ τῶν φίλων. Aristarches is wrong in identifying the Voevode in question with Stephen Petriceicu, prince of Moldavia from 1672 to 1674.⁸⁷ The owner of the MS was certainly Petrașcu, son of Peter Cercel, prince of Wallachia (1583–1585). Very little is known of Petrașcu except that he was still alive in 1630, by which time he had become a monk under the name of Parthenius.⁸⁸ Thus the MS cannot be much later than the end of the sixteenth century.

With regard to the text of the Homilies, B often differs from A, though not substantially. Generally speaking, B tends to be more elliptical by omitting certain words which are found in A. It was Šestakov’s contention that B was the more trustworthy of the two MSS, in that it reproduced faithfully what he thought to be Photius’ elliptical style.⁸⁹ The relative merits of A and B should, however, be studied anew, because most of the elliptical constructions that Šestakov accepted as authentic are so harsh that one is more inclined to take the opposite view, namely that B is often at fault in such cases. The exact relationship of A to B is difficult to determine. Neither one appears to have been copied from the other, yet they obviously belong to the same family. This is made especially clear by the marginal notes ση(μείωσαι), ὡρ(αῖον) and γνώ(μη) which occur at the same places in both MSS, except that B sometimes omits a few of these notations that are found in A.

3. Athens, National Library 2756 (late thirteenth or fourteenth century). Consisting of 209 folios, this MS is mutilated and generally in bad condition. It contains ten Homilies (nos. IX–XVIII), ff. 1–36, followed by 183 letters of Photius. The text presents a great number of short lacunae indicating either that the scribe was often unable to decipher his original and left gaps to be filled in later, or, more probably, that the original was defective. From the published descriptions it is impossible to tell if the lacunae occur at regular intervals; if they do, certain conclusions could be drawn about the form of the original.⁹⁰

Lig 4. Paris, Suppl. gr. 286, ff. 454–477. Extracts from sixteen Homilies made in 1670 by Paisios Ligarides, and published in full by Jernstedt.⁹¹ The importance of this MS for a critical edition of the Homilies ought to be stressed. Already Jernstedt, who collated Lig with A only in the case of Homilies III and IV, was able, on the basis of two minor variants, to express himself as follows:

“1. The codex of Ligarides is very close to A.
2. The codex of Ligarides is not identical with A.
3. The codex of Ligarides is not worse than A, but probably better.
4. The codex of Ligarides is the archetype of A.”⁹²

This deduction, based on a very keen philological sense, can now be further substantiated. It is quite true that Lig is extremely close to A, much more so than to B.⁹³ Like A, the excerpts of Ligarides begin with the two letters to Pope Nicholas I, the letter to the Syncellus of Antioch and the canons of the Council of 861. Ligarides, on the other hand, does not allude to the 278 other letters and the Amphilochia which are also contained in A. We should note that the Amphilochia had not been published in full at that time, and would have doubtless drawn the interest of Ligarides had that work been included in his MS. Here are a few examples to show that Lig is not wholly dependent on A:

Homily III (Ar II. 18): καὶ συμπένθησον καὶ πένθησον ἐπ᾽ αὐτῇ AB: καὶ συμπάθθησον καὶ πένθησον Lig, which is surely better.

Homily IV (Ar II. 32): ὅσῳ δὲ ξένη καὶ δεινὸς ἄτοπος AB: καὶ δεινὸς καὶ ἄτοπος Lig, which is probably right.

Homily VI (Ar II. 186): καρποφορήσωμεν δικαιοσύνην (δαπάνην B) τὴν κάλλιστα τὸν ἀνθρώπινον συναρμόζουσαν καὶ συμβιβάζουσαν AB: τὰ ἀνθρώπινα συναρμόζουσάν τε καὶ συμβιβάζουσαν Lig, which is precisely the way Papageorgiou emended this passage.

Homily VIII (Ar II. 413): ἐσκοτίσθη ἐν τοῖς διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν ἡ ἀσύνετος αὐτῶν καρδία read by A: first αὐτῶν omitted by B and Lig.

Homily IX (Ar II. 344): εἰκόνα φέρειν χαριτῶσας τοῦ πλάσαντος A, B, Chalc. 1 and Vat. Reg. 15. Lig by mistake writes τοῦ πλάσματος, but the same mistake appears in Monac. 443.

Homily X (Ar II. 438₃): σπουδαργήσαντα (sic) Lig: σπουδαρχήσαντα corrected in the same hand from σπουδαργήσαντα A.

Homily XI (Ar II. 451): τῶν εὐαγγελικῶν ἐξαψαμένῳ ῥημάτων Lig and Coislin. 107: ἐξαψαμένων A and B.

Ibid. (Ar II. 454): χείλη δὲ συμπῆξαι παρασκευάσω Lig: συμπτύξαι Coislin. 107: συμπήξω AB.

Ibid. (Ar II. 466₇): τῶν ἐν τῷ βίῳ κακῶν Lig and Coislin. 107: τῶν ἐν βίῳ AB.

5. Palatino-Heidelbergensis gr. 129 (fourteenth–fifteenth century). A miscellany of the type associated with Maximus Planudes. It contains excerpts from Homilies III and IV (f. 122^r), X (f. 122^v), XVII and XVIII (f. 141^r), which have been published by K. Müller, as well as a further quotation from no. XVII (f. 122^r) and excerpts from nos. XV and XVI (ff. 140^v–141^v) which Müller did not recognize.⁹⁴

6. Chalki, Commercial School 64 (61), ff. 300^r–302^r. A miscellany of excerpts from classical and Christian works (fourteenth century), including both the Letters and the Homilies of Photius. The Homilies represented are I, II, III, IV, VIII, XI, XII, XV, XVI, XVII and XVIII. The order of these excerpts is somewhat haphazard. The MS is now at the Oecumenical Patriarchate.⁹⁵

7. Jerusalem, Greek Patriarchate 1 (tenth century), being a collection of lives of saints and homilies for the month of February. It contains (ff. 30^r–36^r) Homily XV, which was published after this MS by Papadopoulos-Kerameus.⁹⁶

8. Paris, Coislin. 107 (eleventh century), being a collection of homilies from Palm Sunday to the Decollation of St. John the Baptist. It contains (ff. 35^r–45^v) Homily XI, the beginning of which is, however, missing.⁹⁷ This is the “Seguieranus codex” mentioned by Combefis who refrained from publishing the Homily in question because it was incomplete.⁹⁸

9. Cod. Vat. Reg. Svec. 15 (twelfth or thirteenth century), a menologium from September 8th to the beginning of February, containing Homily IX (ff. 32^v–39^r).⁹⁹ It was on the basis of this MS, originally in the library of Cardinal Mazarin, that Combefis published Homily IX, the first Photian Homily to appear in print. The same Homily was transcribed from this MS by Antonios Kateforos, whose copy is now in Venice (App. ad codd. gr. II 15 [1090], ff. 409^r–420^r).¹⁰⁰

10. Monac. 443 (fourteenth century), a two-month menologium, containing Homily IX (ff. 125–130).¹⁰¹

11. Athens, National Library 2449 (fourteenth century). This MS, which is a panegyrikon without regard to the calendar, originally belonged to the monastery of St. John the Forerunner near Serres (no. II 21). Upon its transfer to Athens, it was first catalogued Suppl. 449. It contains Homily VII (ff. 74^r–87^r).¹⁰²

12. Chalki, Commercial School 1 (now in the Oecumenical Patriarchate), written in 1360. A collection of miscellaneous homilies, among them our no. IX (ff. 24^v–29^r).¹⁰³

13. Bucharest, Rumanian Academy 595 (377) (fourteenth century). A mixed collection of sermons and hagiographic texts, containing Homily IX.¹⁰⁴ See Addendum, p. 316 below.

14. Neapol. gr. III. A.A.6 (fourteenth century). A miscellany, composed largely of profane literature. On ff. 126^r–133^v is found Homily X.¹⁰⁵ It was probably after this MS that the Homily in question was published by Lambeck in 1655.¹⁰⁶

15. Vat. gr. 759 (fourteenth century), a catena on Luke.¹⁰⁷ It contains extracts from Homilies V and XI, published by Mai.¹⁰⁸

16. Codex Suprasliensis (eleventh century). A Church Slavonic menaeum for the month of March.¹⁰⁹ It contains a translation of Homily VIII (pp. 332–342). This bulky MS has been split up into three parts: pp. 1–236 are at Ljubljana, pp. 237–268 at Leningrad, and pp. 269–570 presumably at Warsaw.

Lost Manuscript

A manuscript containing eleven Homilies of Photius was at one time preserved in the library of the Escorial and probably perished in the fire of 1671.¹¹⁰ It may have been acquired by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza († 1575) who spent twenty years as ambassador in Italy and amassed an important collection of Greek MSS, most of which, however, were copies made at his behest. In 1579 a succinct catalogue of the Greek MSS of the Escorial was made by Guill. Lindanus which lists: Variae sequuntur Homiliae ut Photii Constantinopolitani.¹¹¹ A fuller version of the same catalogue, communicated to Kunik by the then librarian of the Escorial, gives the following details:

Variae sequuntur Homiliae ut Photii Constantinopolitani. Photii Patriarchae Epistolae quinquaginta novem ... Ejusdem Homiliae XI. Δ. V. I. In Parascevem, de Ascensione, in Baia et Lazarum, εἰς τὴν ἔφοδον τῶν φωτῶν. De Annuntiatione, in Parascevem, in Nativitatem Deiparae, De Detectione imaginis ejus, De templo, de Haeresi.

Sed haec omnes forsan in dicto incendio periere; postea enim non apparent.

The same description was repeated in the catalogue made in 1647 by Barvoetius, with the exception that the Homily In Baia et Lazarum occupies not the third, but the sixth place.¹¹²

In 1586 a certain Valverde, who was assigned to report on the Greek MSS of the Escorial, wrote as follows: Tenemos mas otro volúmen de las epístolas de Libanio, y junto el Phaedro de Platon, y algunos tratados de Aristóteles, de Maximo Planudes, Euclides, Homelias de Photio hechas en S. Sofia, y S. Irene sobre la Salutation angélica y Natividad de Nuestra Señora, dia de Ramos, y entrada de los Russianos en Constantinopla, etc.¹¹³

It will be noticed that the Escorial MS contained one Homily that has not survived (on the Ascension), and, whereas it was said to include eleven Homilies, only ten titles are given, which probably means that there were two Homilies on the same topic. The order of the Homilies as given by Barvoetius is fairly close to that of our extant MSS:

In Parasceven (I or II)
De Ascensione (lost)
εἰς τὴν ἔφοδον τῶν φωτῶν (i.e., εἰς τὴν ἔφοδον τῶν ῥῶς, III or IV, or both)¹¹⁴
De Annuntiatione (V or VII)
In Parasceven (VI)
In Baia et Lazarum (VIII)
In Nativitatem Deiparae (IX)
De detectione imaginis ejusdem (XVII)
De templo (X)
De Haeresi (XVIII).

Since, however, the order of Barvoetius does not wholly agree with that of Lindanus, and still less with that of Valverde, it is not advisable to make any deductions from it.

Editions and Translations

Homily IX was first published by Fr. Combefis, Patrum bibliothecae novum auctarium, I, Paris, 1648, cols. 1583–1604; and in Bibliotheca Patrum concionatoria, VIII, Paris, 1662, pp. 68–71 (Lat. trans. only); reprinted by A. Gallandi, Bibliotheca veterum Patrum, XIII, Venice, 1780, pp. 595–601.

Pater Lambeck (Lambecius) first published Homily X in his notes to Georgius Codinus, Paris, 1655, pp. 187–89 (Greek only); reprinted with Lat. trans. and notes by Combefis, Originum rerumque Constantinopolitanarum, variis auctoribus, manipulus, Paris, 1664, pp. 296–306; A. Banduri, Imperium Orientale, Paris, 1711, I, lib. IV, pp. 117–21 (text and Lat. trans.), II, pp. 804–7 (commentary); Corpus script. hist. byz., along with Georgius Codinus, Bonn, 1843, pp. 194–202.

Homilies IX and X were reprinted by Eugenios Boulgaris in his ed. of Theodoret (Τοῦ μακαρίτου Θεοδωρήτου ἐπισκόπου Κύρου τὰ σῳζόμενα), V, Halle, 1775, pp. 27–34, 35–39; and after Combefis in PG 102, cols. 547–74.

Homilies III, IV, XVII and XVIII in an incomplete form and marred by many mistakes were first published, with a Russian translation and notes, by the Archimandrite Porfirij Uspenskij, Четыре бесѣды Фотія святѣйшаго архіепископа Константинопольскаго, St. Petersburg, 1864.

A good ed. of Homilies III and IV was first given by A. Nauck, Lexicon Vindobonense, St. Petersburg, 1867, pp. 201–32. Re-edited by C. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, V, Paris, 1883, pp. 162–73.

Twelve Homilies were published by S. Aristarches in the periodical Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ ἀλήθεια (Constantinople): vol. II (1881–2), pp. 133–40 (no. III); pp. 197–206 (no. IV); pp. 407–416 (no. I); vol. III (1882–3), pp. 17–28 (no. II); pp. 97–106 (no. VI); pp. 161–68 (no. V); pp. 305–12 (no. VII); pp. 525–31 (no. VIII); pp. 665–69 (no. XIV); pp. 786–92 (no. XV); Second series, vol. I (1885), pp. 481–507 (no. XVI); vol. II (1886), pp. 177–98 (no. XVII).

A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, using fresh manuscript material, published Homilies XV and IX in Правосл. Палест. Сборникъ XI 1, St. Petersburg, 1892, pp. 25–52.

Homily XI was first published by P. N. Papageorgiou, Φωτίου πατριάρχου ἀνέκδοτος ὁμιλία, Trieste, 1900 (reprinted from the journal Νέα Ἡμέρα, 1900, nos. 1343–44).

A complete edition of the Homilies (except XII and XIII) was issued by S. Aristarches, Τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις πατρὸς ἡμῶν Φωτίου ... λόγοι καὶ ὁμιλίαι ὀγδοήκοντα τρεῖς, 2 vols., Constantinople, 1900.

Homilies III and IV (after the Iviron MS) with the excerpts of Paisios Ligarides placed en regard, as well as Ligarides’ excerpts of the other Homilies, were published by V. K. Jernstedt in Mémoires de l’Acad. Imp. des Sciences de St.-Pét., VIII^e sér., Cl. hist.-philol., vol. VII, no. 8 (1906), pp. 06–039; 1–45.

Homilies XII and XIII were published by G. P. Kournoutos and B. Laourdas in Θεολογία, XXV 2, Athens, 1954, pp. 177–99.

A Russian translation of Homilies III and IV by E. L(ovjagin) appeared in Христіанское Чтеніе, St. Petersburg, Sept./Oct. 1882, pp. 414–43.

A Russian translation of Homilies I and II by I. N...skij came out in Ярославскія Епархіальныя Вѣдомости, XLV (1904), pp. 127–34, 147–50, 171–84, 193–96.

Method of the Present Publication

The translation is based on the text of Aristarches, whose pagination is indicated in the margin. The edition of Aristarches is unfortunately marred by a great number of arbitrary emendations, most of which, however, have been rectified by Papageorgiou and Šestakov. Furthermore, Aristarches has been very careless in his collation of the MSS. Consequently, I have been obliged to collate them anew. My own use of the MSS has been as follows. Nos. 1 (Iviron 684), 2 (Metochion 529), 5 (Palat. 129), 6 (Chalc. 64), 7 (Hierosol. 1), 8 (Coislin. 107), 9 (Vat. Reg. 15), 10 (Monac. 443), 11 (Athen. 2449), 12 (Chalc. 1), 13 (Bucharest 595) and 14 (Neapol. III. A. A. 6) have been consulted on photographic reproductions. For no. 4 I have relied on Jernstedt’s extremely careful edition, for no. 15 on Mai’s edition, and for no. 16 on Severjanov’s diplomatic edition. I am sorry to report that the use of no. 3 (Athen. 2756) has been refused by the National Library of Greece.

Whenever the translation departs from the printed text of Aristarches, a note to that effect has been appended. This, however, applies only to such necessary corrections as affect the meaning, not to minor points of grammar, spelling and adherence to the manuscript tradition, which could have been dealt only with in a critical edition. Changes of punctuation have not, as a rule, been noted. For the sake of convenience, Aristarches’ division into paragraphs, though not always adopted, has been indicated by means of Arabic numerals.

Homilies XII and XIII, which are absent from Aristarches, have been translated from the edition of Messrs Kournoutos and Laourdas, whose pagination is likewise given in the margin. The division into paragraphs is our own.

Whenever words not found in the Greek text had to be supplied from the context for the sake of greater clarity, such words have been italicized.

Scriptural references are, as a rule, limited to explicit quotations. Old Testament references are to the Rahlfs edition of the Septuagint.¹¹⁵ No attempt has been made to determine the recensions of the Old and New Testaments used by Photius. Even a cursory examination will show that Photius was not always following the so-called uniform Byzantine text;¹¹⁶ but such an investigation, for all its interest to Biblical scholars, would have been out of place here.

The commentary is not intended to exhaust all the exegetical problems raised by the Homilies, but merely to provide the necessary historical background, whenever that is possible. Questions of religious doctrine, of literary comparison, as well as Photius’ borrowings from other authors have not been dealt with at any length. To have done so would have required much more space and a wider competence than the editor possesses.

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