Zacharias, Bishop of Mytilene

ZACHARIAS MITYLENES EPISCOPUS. ^A

SECOND NOTITIA

Zacharias Scholasticus ^B, not perhaps distinct from Zacharias the Rhetor, whose Ecclesiastical History—composed from the beginnings of the reign of Marcian down to Anastasius, that is, from A.D. 450 to 491, though tainted by bias and not without partiality to the Nestorian faction—is mentioned by Evagrius and Nicephorus: he devoted himself to the study of philosophy at Alexandria, and later cultivated civil law at Berytus, having become, after an interval of time, bishop of Mitylene, the metropolis of the island of Lesbos, as is held in the title of his book: *Zachariæ Scholastici Christiani, postea episcopi Mitylenæ*. La Croze, in a letter to Jablonski (Vol. I of *Museum Bremense*, p. 90), calls ^C him Bishop of Melitene in Armenia. He was not present at the fifth Council of Constantinople in A.D. 553, as Aubertus Miræus, following Canisius and Possevinus, erroneously reports in his *Auctarium de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis*, p. 28; Oudin, p. 127; Tillemont, Vol. IV of *Mémoires*, p. 408; Elias du Pin, and others; for at that council there is already mention of his successor, Palladius, the metropolitan bishop, whose place was held by John, bishop of the city of Cucusus. But he was present at the Council of Constantinople celebrated under Mennas in A.D. 536, in the acts of which this Zacharias, metropolitan of Mitylene, is mentioned more than once. Of his writings there have reached us:

I. Ammonius, or a dialogue with a certain disciple of Ammonius the Alexandrian philosopher who had betaken himself to Berytus for the study of law, and who was defending the opinion of Ammonius regarding the eternity of the world. ὅτι οὐ συναΐδιος τῷ Θεῷ ὁ κόσμος, ἀλλὰ δημιούργημα αὐτοῦ τυγχάνει: "That the world is not coeternal with God, but happens to be His creation." In this dialogue, Zacharias sets forth what he had debated on the same subject at Alexandria with that Ammonius, the disciple of Proclus, and with Gessius the iatrosophist, or doctor of the medical art. There is also mention in this dialogue, p. 333, of Eustathius, bishop of Berytus, who was present at the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 449 and the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451. He notes, p. 341, that Pythagoras and Plato received the fable of metempsychosis from the Egyptians. He maintains, p. 362, that this visible world, after invisible things, was produced *post res invisibiles μετὰ τὴν τῶν ὄντων δημιουργίαν*. A Latin version of this dialogue, composed by Gentianus Hervetus, which I have never seen, is said to exist in the library catalog of the Barberini, having seen the light at Venice in 1556. Another version, by Gilbert Genebrard, has appeared more often in the *Bibliotheca Patrum*, and also in the latest edition at Lyon, Vol. IX, p. 759, [and in Galland, *Bibl. PP.*, Vol. XI, p. 266 sqq., where see the Prolegomena, p. x., Beck.] But the same little book was also published in Greek and Latin with the version and notes of John Tarinus. ^D

(not Turrianus, as it is printed in Cave's *Historia litteraria scriptor. eccles.* and Oudin, *l. c.*), at Paris, 1619, 4°. ^A With the version and notes of Caspar Barth, Leipzig, 1654, 4°, following the *Theophrastus*, or dialogue on the immortality of the soul, of Aeneas Gazaeus. For Gesner and Simler are mistaken, who attribute the *Theophrastus* to Zacharias. Moreover, the *Ammonius* of Zacharias exists in Greek and Latin with the version of Genebrard and the notes of Fronto Ducaeus in the first volume of the *Auctarium Bibliothecae Patrum*, Paris, 1624, p. 331, and in the *Bibliotheca Patrum Morelliana*, a. 1644, 1654, tome XI (the notes of Ducaeus being relegated to the end of tome XIII). FABR. *De opificio mundi* against the philosophers who attribute eternity to it, Paris, in the public library, codices CDLVIII, n. 2, and CDLX, n. 3. ^B A dialogue, which is inscribed *Ammonius*, in the Bodleian codex, n. 2040, 6, *catalogus mss. Angliae*, etc., I. — Ibid., II, 2, n. 5893, in cod. Th. Gale. — Venice, in the Marcian library, codex CDXCVI. See *Catalogus codicum Graecorum Marcianorum*, p. 260, and certain things of Zacharias ibid. in a codex noted by Montfaucon in *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum mss.*, p. 471 E. HARL.

2. A *Disputation against those who hold two principles*, which he came upon in the public road during the reign of Emperor Justinian: *Syntagma against the Manichaeans*. A short writing of one page, which exists in Latin from the version of Francis Turrianus in Henry Canisius's *Antiquae lectiones*, vol. V, p. 143, Ingolstadt, 1604, 4°, and in the new edition, vol. I, p. 428, and in the *Bibliotheca Patrum* of Cologne, 1618, vol. VI; and Paris, 1644, 1654, vol. IV, part II; and Lyons, vol. IX, p. 794, [Galland. vol. XI, p. 293]. ^C In Greek, ms. at Rome in the Jesuit College. FABR. *Syntagma*, Rome, in the Vatican library, codex, according to Montfaucon in *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum mss.*, p. 133 D. — Moscow, in the library of the synodal press, codex XXXII, n. 4: *Antirrhesis of Zacharias, Bishop of Mitylene, refuting the arguments of a Manichaean*, etc.; you may read more in Matthaei’s notes on the Greek codices of Moscow, p. 294 sq. — *Antirrhesis of Zacharias — of one who found these [arguments] on the road, [dropped] by a certain Manichaean upon the Emperor Justinian*, Munich, in the Bavarian codex LXVI. The learned Hardt, in *Aretini Beyträg.*, etc., a. 1804, part III, p. 29 sq., indeed teaches that much more is contained in that codex than has been published, and that 49 short chapters follow, and concerning the same matter, 16 further short chapters. HARL.

3. Among those who illustrated Aristotle with commentaries, Zacharias is mentioned in the Coislinian codex, concerning which see Montfaucon, p. 598.