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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
The treatise Ad viduam iuniorem is one of the few works of St. John Chrysostom that can be dated within a space of two or three years. In general the opinion is that it was composed early in Chrysostom's diaconate, which is usually considered to comprise the years 381 to 386. The establishment of the date of this treatise and the identification of the emperors mentioned in it provide evidence for a terminal date of Chrysostom's birth. This latter question will be discussed briefly after the two primary difficulties have been treated.
1 PG 48.599-610 (ed. Montfaucon).Google Scholar
2 Le Nain de Tillemont, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire écclésiastique des six premiers siècles (Paris 1706) XI 556, dates the treatise somewhere between 379 and 382. Stilting, J., in AS Sept. IV (1868; reprint of the first ed., Antwerp 1753) 437 (cf. 696) holds 381 as the most probable date. Montfaucon, Monitum in Tract. ad viduam iuniorem (PG 48.598) chooses 380 or 381. Dom Chrysostomus Baur, Johannes Chrysostomus und seine Zeit (München 1929) I 135-6, places the treatise somewhere in Chrysostom's diaconate, although elsewhere he says that the date of the treatise is uncertain; ‘Wann ist der heilige Chrysostomus geboren?’ Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 52 (1928) 404-6. (These works will hereafter be referred to as Baur, Chrysostomus and Baur, Zeitschrift respectively.) Meyer, L., Saint Jean Chrysostome, maître de perfection chrétienne (Paris 1933) xix, argues to 381 or 382 as the year of composition. The reasoning is the same in all cases and will be discussed in the text.Google Scholar
3 PG 48.605-6.Google Scholar
4 Ibid. 605.Google Scholar
5 Gratian was born in 359, and would have been about twenty years old at this time; Arcadius and Honorius were about eighteen and eleven respectively when they became co-emperors in 395.Google Scholar
6 Tillemont, loc. cit. Google Scholar
7 PG 48.605: διὰ το … ἐξ οὗ τò διάδημα ἀνεδήσατο μέχϱι τῆς σήμεϱον, ἐν πολέμοις διατϱίβειν ϰαὶ μάχαις …Google Scholar
8 Vasiliev, A. A., History of the Byzantine Empire (Madison 1952) 90–4; Stein, E., Geschichte des spätrömischen Reiches I (Vienna 1928) 345 = Histoire du Bas-Empire I, trans. J.-R. Palanque (Bruges 1959) 225.Google Scholar
9 The exact mode of Valens’ death is not altogether certain; but at least one ancient tradition certified that he was burned alive, and all agree that Chrysostom is referring here to Valens; see Piganiol, A., L'empire chrétien (Paris 1947) 168.Google Scholar
10 Vasiliev, op. cit. 87; Baynes, N. H., in CMH 1 (1911) 237.Google Scholar
11 Tillemont, loc. cit.; Montfaucon, PG 48.597-8.Google Scholar
12 Stilting, loc. cit.; the following list shows the various ways in which the emperors have been identified:Google Scholar
13 PG 48.605-6. The translation is my own.Google Scholar
14 Both ancient and modern sources seem to agree that Constantius II died of natural causes following a fever; see Socrates, , Hist. eccl. 2.47 and Stein, op. cit. 244 (French ed. 157). Valentinian died of apoplexy; see Ammianus Marcellinus 30.6.3, and Alf, A.öldi, A Conflict of Ideas in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford 1952) 43.Google Scholar
15 Historians are in agreement concerning the murder of Constans by Magnentius or one of his emissaries; see Ostrogorsky, G., History of the Byzantine State (Oxford 1956) 45.Google Scholar
16 There is some uncertainty as to whether Julian was killed by the enemy or by the Christians fighting on his own side, but in any event he was most certainly killed in battle; see Vasiliev, , op. cit. 76, and Baynes, N., Byzantine Studies and Other Essays (London 1955) 271–81.Google Scholar
17 The accepted modern version of Jovian's death is that it was accidental, though the actual cause of death is not certain. Most probably he was suffocated by the fumes of a charcoal stove. There was, however, an ancient tradition that Jovian was poisoned, and Chrysostom follows this in his Fifteenth Homily on the Epistle to the Philippians (PG 62.295). Here he speaks of the emperor who was killed by poisonous drugs; this emperor has been identified as Jovian. See Stoderl, W., Johannes Chrysostomus VII (Bibliothek der Kirchenväter 45; München 1924) 228. See also Ammianus Marcellinus 25.20.13, and Jerome, Ep. 60.15.Google Scholar
18 Ancient and modern historians are in agreement over this version of Gallus Caesar's death; see Vasiliev, , op. cit. 166.Google Scholar
19 See above, n.9.Google Scholar
20 Tillemont (op. cit. 556-7) involves himself in this difficulty, but attempts to evade it by assuming that all nine are already dead. He dates the treatise by identifying the living emperors as Gratian and Theodosius. But to separate the sections on the living and dead emperors would seem to be an unnecessary dissection of the text.Google Scholar
21 Op. cit. 557. The writer is currently engaged in editing a critical text of this treatise; none of the manuscripts studied to date give evidence of the variant suggested by Tillemont.Google Scholar
22 Loc. cit.; Tillemont states this suspicion but fails to document his source, contrary to his usual procedure.Google Scholar
23 PG 48.597-8.Google Scholar
24 Baur, Zeitschrift 404-5.Google Scholar
25 Baur, Chrysostomus I 135-6.Google Scholar
26 The years 344, 347, and 354 are most frequently mentioned. Stilting holds for 344, Tillemont and Montfaucon for 347, while Baur (mainly because of his interpretation of Palladius) holds for 354.Google Scholar
27 Op. cit. 409.Google Scholar
28 PG 62.295.Google Scholar
29 See Kühner, R. - Gerth, B., Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache (Hannover und Leipzig 1904) II ii.236-7; also Schwyzer, E., Griechische Grammatik II (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft 2.1.2; München 1950) 576. The enclitic τε is not used with the relative in Attic prose except in the forms (ἐφ’) ὧτε and ἅτε meaning ‘since.’ Stilting's translation is, therefore, unacceptable, unless it can be shown that the word was so used in Greek prose. He renders as follows (AS, Sept. IV 409): ‘Ac potissimum quidem vetera dicam, quae tamen adhuc memoria non exciderunt, sed et nonnulla, quae nostris contigere temporibus.’Google Scholar
30 It should also be noted that Stoderl (op. cit. 227 n. 1) says that the text of this passage seems badly corrupted.Google Scholar
31 See Chrysostom, , Contra Iudaeos (PG 48.833); Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 10.9, and Vita Constantini 1.41; Orosius, Hist. 7.28; see also Vogt, J., Constantin der Grosse und sein Jahrhundert (München 1949) 192–3.Google Scholar
32 PG 48.601.Google Scholar
33 Baur, Zeitschrift 404 n. 5.Google Scholar
34 Baur, Chrysostomus I 3-4; see also Baur, , Zeitschrift 401, where he points out that Baronius, Savile, and Lietzmann also held for 354. Palladius’ Dialogus de vita Ioannis Chrysostomi, S. has been edited by Coleman, P. R.-Norton (Cambridge 1928).Google Scholar
35 Moulard, A., Saint Jean Chrysostome , sa vie, son oeuvre (Paris 1949) 411 n. 2. Although Moulard does not profess to be writing a highly technical work, his book (which makes use of Baur's study) does contain many valuable contributions. The same may be said, to a somewhat lesser degree, of Attwater, D.'s St. John Chrysostom (Milwaukee 1939).Google Scholar
36 Baur, Zeitschrift 403.Google Scholar
37 In the introduction to his edition (pp. lx-lxiv) Coleman-Norton clearly distinguishes between Palladius’ first-hand knowledge of Chrysostom's episcopate and his knowledge of the saint's early life (gained either from Chrysostom himself or from his aunt Sabiniana).Google Scholar