From Adam to Abraham

31

planations of how their findings were transmitted to posterity, whether through books
and monuments recording their discoveries or through migration and colonization.
The same principle also informs Malalas’ appeal to older authorities, most of which
have been pressed into the service of a tenet of euhemeristic historiography.21 The oth-
erwise unknown and “most learned” Timotheus disclosed the true meaning of fables
told by Greek poets about serpent-footed giants; this was only figurative speech about
the earthly inclinations of evil and unjust men of the remote past.22 From the “narra-
tive of his treatise on gods”, Malalas had learned that Diodorus Siculus, “the most wise
chronographer” (ο σοφώτατος χρονογράφος), established on the island of Crete
the burial place of Picus Zeus erected by his children as a shrine in his honor.23 In the
“truthful exposition” of the reigns of Helios, Hephaestus, and Aphrodite in Egypt
set forth by the mythographer Palaephatus (4th century BC), Malalas discovered the
antidote to Homer’s poetic musings about their sexual intrigues.24 The “most learned”
Rheginus (2nd century AD) recorded the names of all those mortal men who through
skill, construction, wisdom, or some other virtue, were later deified.25 Quotations from
Christian authorities serve much the same end. By interpreting these stories “allegor-
ically” (άΛΑηγορίκώς), Theophilus, the late 2nd-century bishop of Antioch, was able
to recover the Herakles of history, a philosopher known for his mastery over base de-
sires. Only later did his descendants confer upon him the trappings of divinity, naming
a star after him, outfitting him with a lion-skin, and fabricating fanciful stories about
his slaying of a dragon and his theft of golden apples.26 For insight into the Hermes of
history, Malalas appeals to Cyril of Alexandria. From Cyril’s work Against the Emperor
Julian, Malalas had discovered that Hermes Thrice-Greatest, an ancient Egyptian of
surpassing wisdom, revealed to Asclepius mysteries about the consubstantial nature of
the trinity meant only for the initiated.27
The absence of direct quotations, questionable or unsourced citations, and all-pur-
pose descriptions of his authorities as “the most wise chronographer” or “the most
wise historian” hardly inspire confidence in Malalas’ first-hand familiarity with any of
them.28 But a single purpose underlies his wide-ranging selection of source material:
almost all of them aid in the recovery of historical figures of the distant past buried
beneath layers of myth and legend.

21 On Malalas’ sources in general, see Jeffreys (1990c).
22 Malalas, Chronographia 13 (pp. 5,56-6,60 Thurn). On Timotheus’ identity, see Jeffreys (1990c), pp. 195-
196.
23 Malalas, Chronographia 113 (pp. 13,45-14,52 Thurn); cf. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca VI 5,3.
24 Malalas, Chronographia II1 (pp. 17,15-18, 22 Thurn).
25 Malalas, Chronographia II18 (p. 38,13-17 Thurn). See Suda ρ 119 Adler s.v. 'Ρηγΐνος, according to whom
a grammarian named Rheginus was the author of a work entitled Polymnemon.
26 Malalas, Chronographia 114 (pp. 14, 62-15,78 Thurn).
27 Malalas, Chronographia II 4 (pp. 19,54-20,76 Thurn).
28 See Jeffreys (1990c), esp. pp. 168-172; see also Treadgold (2007), pp. 722-725.