George Hamartolos or Hamartolus ( el, ) was a
monk at
Constantinople under
Michael III
Michael III ( grc-gre, Μιχαήλ; 9 January 840 – 24 September 867), also known as Michael the Drunkard, was Byzantine Emperor from 842 to 867. Michael III was the third and traditionally last member of the Amorian (or Phrygian) dynasty. ...
(842–867) and the author of a chronicle of some importance. Hamartolus is not his name but the epithet he gives to himself in the title of his work: "A compendious chronicle from various chroniclers and interpreters, gathered together and arranged by George, a sinner ()". It is a common form among Byzantine monks. German 19th century scholar
Karl Krumbacher (''Byz. Litt.'', 358) protested against the use of this epithet as a name and proposed (and used) the form Georgios Monachos (Γεώργιος Μοναχός "George the Monk").
Nothing is known about him except from the internal evidence of his work, which establishes his period (in the preface he speaks of Michael III as the reigning emperor) and his calling (he refers to himself several times as a monk).
Chronicle
The chronicle consists of four books. The first treats of profane history from
Adam
Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
to
Alexander the Great; the second, of the history of the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
; the third, of
Roman history
The history of Rome includes the history of the city of Rome as well as the civilisation of ancient Rome. Roman history has been influential on the modern world, especially in the history of the Catholic Church, and Roman law has influenced ma ...
from
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
to
Constantine; and the fourth down to the author's own time, to the death of the emperor
Theophilus (842), whose widow
Theodora restored the veneration of
icons in the same year. The chronicle is potentially the only original contemporary authority for the years 813–842, the other being (depending on its dating) the
Scriptor Incertus. Because of this fact, it is indispensable. As usually in the case of such medieval chronicles, the only part to be taken seriously is the account of more or less contemporary events. The rest is interesting as an example of
Byzantine ideas on the subjects, and of the questions that most interested Byzantine monks.
George describes his ideal and principles in the preface. He has used ancient Greek and modern Greek sources, has especially consulted edifying works, and has striven to relate such things as were useful and necessary, with a strict adherence to truth, rather than to please the reader by artistic writing or pretensions to literary style. But of so great a mass of material he has chosen only what is most useful and necessary. In effect, the questions that seemed most useful and necessary to ecclesiastical persons at Constantinople in the ninth century are those that are discussed. There are copious pious reflections and theological excursuses. He writes of how idols were invented, the origin of monks, the religion of the
Saracens
file:Erhard Reuwich Sarazenen 1486.png, upright 1.5, Late 15th-century Germany in the Middle Ages, German woodcut depicting Saracens
Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek language, Greek and Latin writings, to refer ...
, and especially of the
Iconoclast controversy that had just ended. Like all monks, he hated iconoclasts. The violence with which he speaks of them shows how recent the storm had been and how the memory of iconoclast persecutions was still fresh when he wrote. He writes out long extracts from
Greek Fathers.
The first book treats of an astonishingly miscellaneous collection of persons — Adam,
Nimrod, the
Persians,
Chaldees,
Brahmins,
Amazons
In Greek mythology, the Amazons (Ancient Greek: Ἀμαζόνες ''Amazónes'', singular Ἀμαζών ''Amazōn'', via Latin ''Amāzon, -ŏnis'') are portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Hercules, ...
, etc. In the second book, too, although it professes to deal with Bible history only, he has much to say about
Plato and philosophers in general. Hamartolus ended his chronicle with the year 842, as a
colophon in most manuscripts attests.
Continuations
Various people, among them notably "
Symeon Logothetes", who is probably
Symeon Metaphrastes, the famous writer of saints' lives (tenth century, see Krumbacher, 358), continued his history to later dates — the longest continuation reaches to 948. In these additions, religious questions are relegated to the background, more attention is devoted to political history, and the language is more popular. Still further continuations of little value go down to 1143.
In spite of his crude ideas and the violent hatred of iconoclasts that makes him always unjust towards them, his work has considerable value for the history of the last years before the schism of
Photius
Photios I ( el, Φώτιος, ''Phōtios''; c. 810/820 – 6 February 893), also spelled PhotiusFr. Justin Taylor, essay "Canon Law in the Age of the Fathers" (published in Jordan Hite, T.O.R., & Daniel J. Ward, O.S.B., "Readings, Cases, Materia ...
. It was soon translated into
Church Slavonic
Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Herzeg ...
and also in
Georgian by
Arsen of Iqalto
Arsen Iqaltoeli or Arsen of Iqalto ( ka, არსენ იყალთოელი) (died c. 1127) was a Georgian churchman, theologian, calligrapher and religious author with noticeable role in the ecclesiastic life of Georgia in the reign of D ...
. In these versions it became a sort of fountain-head for all early Slavonic historians, most notably
Nestor
Nestor may refer to:
* Nestor (mythology), King of Pylos in Greek mythology
Arts and entertainment
* "Nestor" (''Ulysses'' episode) an episode in James Joyce's novel ''Ulysses''
* Nestor Studios, first-ever motion picture studio in Hollywood, L ...
. As a very popular and widely consulted book of large circulation it has been constantly re-edited, corrected, and rearranged by anonymous scribes, so that the reconstruction of the original work is "one of the most difficult problems of Byzantine philology" (Krumbacher, 355).
Editions
*
Combefis, François (ed.). "''Bioi ton neon Basileon'' (βίοι τῶν νέων βασιλέων)." In ''Maxima bibliotheca (Scriptores post Theophanem)'' Paris, 1685; reprinted, Venice, 1729. The last part of Book IV of the chronicle and the continuation (813–948).
*
Muralt, E. de (ed). ''Georgii monachi, dicti Hamartoli, Chronicon ab orbe condito ad annum p. chr. 842 et a diversis scriptoribus usq. ad ann. 1143 continuatum''. St. Petersburg, 1859. The
first edition
The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants.
First edition
According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a b ...
of the whole work. It does not represent the original text, but one of the many modified versions (from a
Moscow twelfth-century
manuscript), and is in many ways deficient and misleading (see Krumbacher's criticism in ''Byz. Litt.'', p. 357).
*
Migne, Jacques Paul. ''
Patrologia Graeca'' 110. Reprint of the previous edition, with a Latin translation.
References
*
*
Further reading
*Afinogenov, D. "The Date of Georgios Monachos Reconsidered." BZ 92 (1999). pp. 437–47.
External links
Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Graeca with analytical indexes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamartolos, George
Year of birth missing
Year of death missing
9th-century Byzantine historians
Byzantine chroniclers
9th-century Byzantine monks
Greek Christian monks
Eastern Orthodox Christians from Greece