John Malalas: from computation to narration

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with solar cults and mystic celebrations.32 The mysterious powers of Pikos-Zeus were
passed on to his descendants, Perseus (II13) and Dionysus. Like Zeus (113), Dionysus
generates φαντασίας (II15). Are these metamorphoses, apparitions? Hard to tell, but
they are tremendously effective. The wonders performed enthrall the chronicler, who
lingers obligingly over these mysterious practices in his narrative.
The recurrent inclusion of long digressions in the first books (and this is still the
case in Book X, with Simon Magus), suggests that Malalas had access to some kind
of “Book of Marvels”, from which he draws items that he paradoxically intermingles
with notices (usually attributed to Palaiphatus) which, on the contrary, provide a ra-
tionalizing version of the myths.
The rooting in the Antiochian tradition, the resort to books of Hermetic quo-
tations, or of miracles, are especially significant in Book II. The chronicler seems to
have added more or less successfully materials from various sources to a chronological
framework he would owe to Africanus: it’s probably one of the main reasons for the
outgrowth of the Theban narrative. But this proliferation is not limited to mythical
times. It sometimes reaches dramatic proportions in the historical books.
2.2. Historical Times
The narrative proliferation is particularly perceptible when the chronicler lingers over
the evocation of landmarks in the life of Antioch: imperial celebrations, important
events of the civic life, earthquakes, construction or restoration of buildings. The direct
or indirect use of an Antiochian chronicle has long been enlightened.33 Here, we’ll
come back to two specific sections of Book X, where the narration reaches unusual
dimensions, that about Veronica’s petition (ch. 1-12), and that about Apollonius’ talis-
mans (ch. 51).
Though Book X, pivotal in the Chronicle, is devoted to “The times of the Reign of
Augustus and Jesus Christ’s Incarnation”, it is strangely silent about the messiah’s
public life, the beginning of which is briefly mentioned in Chapter 11, mainly devoted
to John the Baptist: “Then our Lord Jesus Christ began his work of salvation when
he was baptised by John the Forerunner, being then about 30 years old and working
miracles”. The date and time of the baptism are given with great accuracy: “He was
baptized in the Jordan, a river in Palestine, on 6th of Audynaios-January, at the tenth
hour of the night, under the consulship of Rufius and Rubellius”, but the chronicler
then immediately gets back to Herod and John the Baptist’s beheading.
Still more surprising, while the chronicler is usually keen on stories of wonders,
he evokes one sole miracle by Jesus Christ, and only indirectly, through a petition
32 Cf. Malalas, II16, p. 32,1. 42-43: μυσταγωγίας ήΛιακών βακχευμάτων, (the mysteries of the sun’s
Bacchic rites) II 15, p. 30, 86; τήν ηλιακήν ευχήν ήτοι μυσταγωγίαν των διονυσιακών
βακχευμάτων (the prayer to the Sun or the mysteries of the Bacchic rites of Dionysos).
33 See Jeffreys, “Malalas’ sources”, pp. 203-211.