Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts : Four Greek Homilies

Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'> The manuscript contains a collection of <i> Four Greek Homilies</i>: <i> De sacris imaginibus contra Constantinum Cabalinum </i>, a speech against the emperor Constantine V (741-775), called in the Byzantine sources "Kaballinos" (groom) or "Kopronymos" (dung-named), on account of his support for Iconoclasm, written by the monk John of Jerusalem, <i> Homilia de sancta cruce</i>, attributed to Joseph Confessor, archbishop of Thessalonica, the brother of Theodore of Stoudios, a fervent defender of icons, <i> Oratio de consummatione mundi</i>, attributed to Hippolytus of Rome (ca. 170-235 CE) but spurious, and <i> Homilia in divini corporis sepulturam</i>, attributed to Epiphanius (ca. 310-403 CE) but spurious. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'> The manuscript, which is datable to the 15th century, has suffered severe damage; several leaves are missing and those extant have been bound in disorder. The original structure of the manuscript is partially reconstructable. The first leaves of the manuscript, ff. 2r-16v are misplaced. Ff. 2r-12r contain a part of John of Jerusalem's speech <i> De sacris imaginibus contra Constantinum Cabalinum</i>, which follows immediately on from the portion of the same text contained in ff. 17r-24v. The text is incomplete: the beginning is missing. This text is followed (ff. 12r-16v) by the <i> Homilia in sanctam crucem</i>, attributed to Joseph Confessor, which ends incomplete at f. 16v. The first part of the manuscript can be reconstructed as follows: [missing leaves], ff. 17-24, 2-16, [missing leaves]. The disorder in the leaves must have occurred at a late phase of the manuscript's history. When an annotation was written in the lower margin of <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(15);return false;'> f. 2r</a> the leaves were still in the right order, since this note left a trace in the lower margin of <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(62);return false;'> f. 24v</a>. The remaining leaves, ff. 25r-30v, also in disorder, contain two other homilies, both incomplete. Ff. 25 and 30, which are badly damaged, contain the beginning of the spurious <i> Oratio de consummatione mundi</i>, attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, and ff. 26-29 contain a portion of <i> Homilia in divini corporis sepulturam</i>, attributed to Epiphanius, also spurious. Here also leaves are missing: <ul><li> ff. 25,30 [missing leaves]</li><li> [missing leaves] ff. 26-29 [missing leaves]</li></ul>. It is not possible to ascertain where these leaves were originally situated with regard to ff. 2-24. Because of the position of ff. 26-29 between ff. 25 and 30, and because of the fact that no title is present for the <i> Homilia in divini corporis sepulturam</i>, the presence of this text in the manuscript was not previously detected, although, from a physical point of view, the different condition of the leaves (<a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(63);return false;'>ff. 25</a> and <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(73);return false;'> 30</a> are much more damaged than <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(65);return false;'>ff. 26-29</a>, and exhibit the same loss of the lower external part of the leaf) suggest that the leaves could not have originally been adjacent.</p>Dr Erika Elia