Commentary

Summary

I should perhaps describe my practice in quoting from primary sources. Where the original is in Latin or Greek, I quote the original (with translation). Where the source-text was written (or survives) in Syriac, Armenian, Irish or another language, I quote only the translation. In a case where, for example, the original Greek of Theodore of Mopsuestia survives only in Syriac, and is translated by its editor into French, I quote the French translation rather than risk further distortion, since I am regrettably unable to judge whether the French accurately represents the Syriac. In some cases, a Syriac original is represented by a modern Latin translation. When the Latin translation is itself early medieval, I will endeavour to make this clear. Page-references to Malalas's Chronographia throughout are to Dindorf's edition, since this has been taken as a standard by von Stauffenberg, the PG text and the Jeffreys translation, all of which print Dindorf's pagination in the margin.

1 Christe, faue uotis bonis. This opening invocation is possibly a significant feature of the Laterculus. The Christe faue formula is not all that common. Victor, the bishop of Capua, entered XF in the Codex Fuldensis (CLA VIII, no. 1196, a sixth-century uncial gospelbook, which may just possibly have been in England, since it was used by Boniface).