84

Philippe Blaudeau

On that occasion, they (i.e. Samaritans) could not bear to give way to the
Christians and so, when the children came out after the holy Gospel, and went to
the Samaritan synagogues and started throwing stones, the Samaritans came out
with swords and killed many of them. Many children fled to the holy altar of Saint
Basil’s, which is there, and some of the Samaritans pursued them and slew them
under the altar.40
As we know that such a martyrium commemorating a local martyr existed in Scytho-
polis, it is most probable that the event took place there.41 But is the De Insidiis text
from Malalas? Traditionally, this assumption has been recently contested by B. Flusin.42
He thinks of another origin for the Constantinian excerpt and stresses that we can
only speak of a contact with Malalas’ original passage, for there is only one sentence of
ten words in common between the Baroccianus text and De Insidiis extract concerning
the ultimate fate of the Samaritan usurper’s head.43 Nevertheless, his proposal to give
a major importance to the wording for selecting and rejecting what is Malalas’ is also
problematic in such a complicated transmission. As G. Greatrex demonstrates in our
volume, Baroccianus can’t be the standard for judging what was and what wasn’t part
of the Urtext. A few years before Flusin’s assertion, R. Pummer had expressed ano-
ther hypothesis which deserves attention: according to him, the two versions of the
Samaritan uprising and its repression {Baroccianus XVIII 35 and De Insidiis 44) can be
considered as two parts of the original text.44 In addition, I would also suggest that at
the end of the 7th century in Egypt, while reading Malalas, John of Nikiou was able
to learn more than what we get from the Baroccianus manuscript, especially about the
messianic dimension of the usurper Julian’s reign.45 46 So it remains acceptable to con-
sider that the De Insidiis text, clipped as it is for certain reasons, is a very significant
version of Malalas’ first edition. The lesson is clear: it is the utmost impiety to kill
young Christian people under refuge, because bloodshed is not permitted there. Esta-
blished as it is, this text presents the opportunity of a comparison with a more famous
tale, preserved in the Fragmentum Tusculum!6 (again a reflection of Malalas’ original
40 Chronicle of Malalas, transl. E. Jeffreys et alii, p. 260: “καί τώ χρόνω έκείνω ούκ ήνέσχοντο δούναι
τόπον τοΐς χριστιανοΐς, καί έξελθόντα τα παιδία μετά τό άγιον εύαγγέλιον άπήλθον εις
τάς συναγωγάς των Σαμαρειτών καί έλίθαζον, έξελθόντες δε οί Σαμαρεΐται κατά των
παιδιών μετά ξιφών πολλούς άπέκτει-ναν. καί πολλά παιδία έφυγον εν τή άγια τραπέζη
τού άγιου Βασιλείου τού όντος έκεΐσε, καί κατεδίωξαν αύτά τινες τών Σαμαρειτών καί κ
ατέσφαξαν ύποκάτω τής άγιας τραπέ-ζης”, reprinted in Thurn (ed.), p. 374.
41 Maraval, Lieux saints, p. 286.
42 Flusin, “Les excerpta constantiniens”, pp. 132-133; 136.
43 “καί άποκεφαλίσας αύτόν έπεμψεν την κεφαλήν αύτού μετά τού διαδήματος” (ed. Thurn,
Ρ· 374-75, 69-71; 374,23*“24*)·
44 Pummer, Early Christian Authors, p. 260.
45 John of Nikiou, Chronicle c. 93, p. 518.
46 The date of the manuscript (Cryptoferratensis Z.a. XXUV (d)) which contains in palimpsest state 5
important uncial fragments is still a matter of incertitude: VIth (so Thurn in Chronographia, p. 10*) or
end of the VIIth century (see Jeffreys, “Beginnings”, p. 508). It is also to be hoped that Pr. Ch. Faraggiana’s
researches (University of Ravenna), based on a revolutionary system for taking photographs of the pa-
ges so deeply degraded by Mai’s tinting process as he was trying to reveal the text in a clearer way, will