DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51241#0149
148
Elizabeth Jeffreys
the two recent editions of John of Antioch. He suggests that we should look on the
tradition which formed these texts as a living one which positively encouraged varia-
tion and extension. This is a proposal with which I heartily concur: it is another way of
saying that there was no ownership of the text. The implication for editing texts like
Malalas is that one should rejoice in the variance. Notionally this is something that is
much more easily handled in the digital age than when confined by the limitations of
paper and book-covers, though there are as yet few permanently successful examples
of “born digital” editions.55 To quote David Greetham, we would be well advised to
move away from “the search for an immanent author misrepresented by the extant but
inevitably corrupt witnesses” towards “a recognition that the variance shown in these
witnesses is valuable evidence for the socialization of the text”.56 57 In other words, we
should read the variant witnesses for what they reveal about the reception of what we
think of as Malalas’ text.
Nevertheless, from the time when more than thirty years ago I first began to grap-
ple with the text we think of - that we then thought of - as Malalas’ chronicle, I have
constantly been struck by the extent to which a personality could be perceived behind,
within and through the text to which this name is attached, with particular interests
(Antioch, of course, but fire-worship, oracles, the tychai of cities and so on)57 and with
strong signs of an agenda (in particular the millennial focus) which ran through and
across all the layers that could be dissected out. Does this set of interests add up to
a real figure? Should this figure, one of the strongest moulders of that text, be called
John Malalas? Probably, but not necessarily. And does it matter? The text is the thing!
55 A recent ambitious example can be found at www.ancientwisdoms.ac.uk (accessed 19.06.2014), with
editions, translations and commentaries on gnomological collections in Arab and Greek, including
Kekaumenos, Consilia et narrationes, ed. Roueche.
56 Greetham, “Uncoupled”, p. 46.
57 See, e.g., Saliou, “Statues d’Antioche”.
Elizabeth Jeffreys
the two recent editions of John of Antioch. He suggests that we should look on the
tradition which formed these texts as a living one which positively encouraged varia-
tion and extension. This is a proposal with which I heartily concur: it is another way of
saying that there was no ownership of the text. The implication for editing texts like
Malalas is that one should rejoice in the variance. Notionally this is something that is
much more easily handled in the digital age than when confined by the limitations of
paper and book-covers, though there are as yet few permanently successful examples
of “born digital” editions.55 To quote David Greetham, we would be well advised to
move away from “the search for an immanent author misrepresented by the extant but
inevitably corrupt witnesses” towards “a recognition that the variance shown in these
witnesses is valuable evidence for the socialization of the text”.56 57 In other words, we
should read the variant witnesses for what they reveal about the reception of what we
think of as Malalas’ text.
Nevertheless, from the time when more than thirty years ago I first began to grap-
ple with the text we think of - that we then thought of - as Malalas’ chronicle, I have
constantly been struck by the extent to which a personality could be perceived behind,
within and through the text to which this name is attached, with particular interests
(Antioch, of course, but fire-worship, oracles, the tychai of cities and so on)57 and with
strong signs of an agenda (in particular the millennial focus) which ran through and
across all the layers that could be dissected out. Does this set of interests add up to
a real figure? Should this figure, one of the strongest moulders of that text, be called
John Malalas? Probably, but not necessarily. And does it matter? The text is the thing!
55 A recent ambitious example can be found at www.ancientwisdoms.ac.uk (accessed 19.06.2014), with
editions, translations and commentaries on gnomological collections in Arab and Greek, including
Kekaumenos, Consilia et narrationes, ed. Roueche.
56 Greetham, “Uncoupled”, p. 46.
57 See, e.g., Saliou, “Statues d’Antioche”.