Ronchey, S. “Those ‘whose writings were exchanged.’ John of Damascus, George Choeroboscus and John ‘Arklas’ according to the Prooimion of Eustathius's Exegesis in Canonem Iambicum de Pentecoste. Novum Millennium: Studies on Byzantine History and Culture Dedicated to Paul Speck. Eds. C. Sode and S. Takacs. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001. 327-36.

The identity of the author of the iambic canon de Pentecoste, the subject of Eustathius’s Exegesis in canonem iambicum, is problematic: in the proem, Eustathius reveals the false attribution to John of Damascus and identifies the true author in a mysterious  John ‘Arklas’.  By virtue of his derisive nickname, the latter is associated with George Choeroboscus, who was also saddled with a disdainful epithet.  Such a connection could suggest that the two characters, who were presumably active at the time of the Second Iconoclasm, perhaps at the imperial court, shared similar chronologies and activities. John Merkouropoulos’ parallel testimony in the Life of John and Cosmas reinforces proof in the Exegesis by also attributing the iambic canon to John Arklas rather than John Damascene.  However, Merkouropoulos supplies little information on the former. As for Eustathius, after torturous argumentation, which the article outlines and clarifies in English, the great Byzantine philologist concludes the proem by suggesting that his readers and listeners (most likely church intellectuals) not disclaim, at least officially, the canon’s attribution to John Damascene. Deference to the orthodox tradition, according to which the paternity of the most popular liturgical hymns could be attributed to famous canonical authors as a “guarantee of survival,” wins out over philological truth, at least in public declarations.  This is Eustathius’s answer to the anonymous but insistent request (axiosis) mentioned at the beginning of the proem to the Exegesis.

 

CITED BY

A. Berger in “Byzantinische Zeitschrift” 95: 2 (2002), p. 774.

Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: A History, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

P. Yannopoulos, Byzantion 75 (2005), pp. 576-80.