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Sergei Mariev

prehensive overview is a serious obstacle to research, particularly, because the different
historical and textual problems that John of Antioch presents should never be viewed
in isolation. However intriguing or even daunting “new” individual observations or
theses about John of Antioch may appear at a first glance, they should first be put in
relationship with all the other problems that pertain to the composition of the corpus
of this author and evaluated from such a comprehensive perspective.
The gracious invitation to speak at the conference “Die Weltchronik des Johannes
Malalas. Autor - Werk - Überlieferung” in Tübingen which I received from Mischa
Meier and his Malalas team gives me an opportunity to draw a general picture of the
Johannine Question in the hope of providing a comprehensive framework that will
facilitate access to these problems by other scholars. I am especially grateful to Chris-
tine Radtki, who has negotiated with the publishing house the possibility of including
colour illustrations in this contribution, which, I hope, will facilitate understanding of
the central aspects of the much-debated “Johannine Question”.
I. The Inventory, or “Maximalbestand”
Any examination of the “Johannine Question” begins with the creation of an inventory
of all the texts that could contain material that had once formed part of the historical
work we identify as belonging to “John of Antioch”. An inventory of this kind can
also be called the “Maximalbestand”, if one wishes to use this expression.3 This inven-
tory includes all texts that have been brought in connection with John of Antioch both
in the manuscript tradition and in the modern scholarship on this subject.
Van Nuffelen has recently criticized both my and Roberto’s editions for not dis-
tinguishing between “nominally ascribed fragments and those that for various reasons
have been ascribed to John”.4 While it is possible, after excluding errors and misun-
derstandings of both Byzantine scribes and modern scholars, to list all fragments “that
for various reasons have been ascribed to John”, it simply makes no sense at all to list
“nominally ascribed” material: such a list would, for instance, contain most of Malalas’
work, insofar as this author was also known to the tradition as a “John” from the city
of Antioch and was in fact frequently confused with our “John of Antioch” both in
Byzantium and during the nineteenth century.
The first step leading to the construction of a reliable corpus of “John of Antioch”
is, therefore, the creation of such a comprehensive inventory or “Maximalbestand”.
This inventory is found in the preface to the critical edition of Mariev 2008 and is
graphically represented in Illustration 1. While the subsequent illustrations will use
3 I am introducing the term “Maximalbestand”here as an antonym to the term “Minimalbestand”, which
plays an important role in the argumentation of Van Nuffelen, “John of Antioch, inflated and deflated.
Or: How (not) to Collect Fragments of Early Byzantine Historians”.
4 Cf. Van Nuffelen, “John of Antioch”, p. 443.