Nicholas, Patriarch of Constantinople

Brilliant masterpieces of noble emperors, Of heroic, noble, valiant, and great-souled men, Whose lives not even with the tongue is it possible to navigate. Now at last the thrice-illustrious, scepter-bearing ^A Comnenid emperors appear, great achievers, noble-minded, Crossing seas of trophies, ^B Which not even strong Heracles himself would traverse. And therefore let us fasten the stern-cable here, Checking the oar of our voyage and furling our sails; For men say that the regions beyond Gades are not to be traversed. ^C

Vers. 6733

Of brilliant deeds and things bravely done by noble emperors—which is to say, by heroic men, excelling in nobility of birth, valiant and magnanimous—the paths are impossible for the tongue even to navigate, as if by ship. For according to these, the most valiant Comnenid emperors present themselves to be looked upon, who crossed, as it were, entire seas of victories and trophies, which that keen Hercules could scarcely have measured. Wherefore, let us by all means tie up the cable here, with oars restrained and sails furled. For things lying beyond Gades, as the proverb is wont to say, are not to be approached by sailing. ^D

*Variæ lectiones.*

[alt-version omitted]

[Following this line, there appear in manuscripts AR and follow:] Show what kind of gift you have from our labor, O blessed Queen, most glorious, who bore the best, New Theotokos with the graceful face of great-powered kings. She who flashed more brightly than the eyelids of the moon Was taken in happy marriage to the bridal bed By the descendant of the great-souled Ausonian king, Andronicus the great-souled, the ash-speared warrior, He who first distributed the honors of the Sebastocrator. May you rule, therefore, for infinite years.

Then R: But O Manasses, mouth that charms the heart, Orpheus reborn, better than the old, Pluck the sweet lyre again, And show your face to your friends, And speak with your disciples again as of old.

Finally, a certain Labbean codex: I have grown into a book for the nourishment of old age, Aging in mind and growing young again, A renewal of letters from many sources. Therefore I bring within my bowels The lives of the sovereigns of New Rome, Of Rome most ancient and thrice-splendid, And of all those who have reigned Over Persians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians; For this is the work of the all-wise Constantine, Child of Manasses, the most learned.

ANNO DOMINI 1084.

NICOLAUS, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE, SURNAMED GRAMMATICUS.

NOTITIA.

(CAVE, *Script. eccles.* for the year 1084, p. 538.)

Nicolaus, called Grammaticus, was elevated from monk to Patriarch of Constantinople in the year 1084, or, as Baronius has it, in the year 1089. A man not unacquainted with letters, says Zonaras, though not altogether learned.

LUCAS ABBAS CRYPTOFERRATENSIS. He died in the year 1111, or, by the calculation of Baronius, 1117. There exist in Greek and Latin two synodal decrees regarding the marriage of a paternal or maternal uncle, in Leunclavius, *Jus Græco-Romanum*, book III, page 215; another, *On the Payment of Canonici*, book IV, page 269; and a very detailed synodal epistle to the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, proving from the sacred canons and laws that it is not right for bishoprics to be taken away from metropolitan sees: in the same work, page 271.

NICOLAUS’S SYNODAL EPISTLE TO EMPEROR ALEXIUS COMNENUS

THE SAME’S SYNODAL DECREES

THE SAME ON THE PAYMENT OF CANONICI

ANNO DOMINI MLXXXIV.

LUCAS, SEVENTH ABBOT OF GROTTAFERRATA.

NOTE BY ANGELO MAI

When the *Life of St. Bartholomew the Younger*—who was the disciple of St. Nilus the Younger and the fourth abbot after him in the nearby monastery of the Basilians at Grottaferrata, and who departed to God in the year of Christ 1065—came to my attention in the Vatican codex 1205, I truly regretted that the history of so great a man, written in the original language of the Greeks and of his monastery by the author, as is deservedly believed, of Lucas the seventh abbot (who died twenty years after Bartholomew), was not yet published in Greek, nor given to us, as it should have been, as a companion to that of Nilus the Younger, which Caryophilus published in Greek and Latin at Rome in 1624. Indeed, Giacomo Sciommaro, a very learned monk of Grottaferrata, published an excellent volume in the common Italian language in 1728; in which, besides other antiquities of that monastery, he also offered to readers the *Life of Saint Bartholomew*, collected from various codices and documents, and illustrated it with excellent notes. Still, however, as I have said, the Greek text was missing, and indeed, one to be drawn purely from the biographer Lucas, which is the burden we now undertake to fulfill. I say "purely," for I shall present this writing; for Sciommaro in his vernacular edition often varies, adds many things, and omits some, as the diversity of his codices or information seemed to require. However, when I had set my hand to the work and was accompanying the Greek text with my own Latin translation, suddenly a huge defect or lacuna appeared in the Vatican codex, in which the entire latter part of the biography was submerged. For this reason, I turned to the monastery and from those most reverend monks (whose kindness I had experienced at another time), I easily obtained the part that was missing in the Vatican codex; and thus, finally, at the end of this volume of mine, which overflows with the writings of the Greeks, I have placed the history of this holy man (a).

(a) The most learned cardinal thought that he was the first to have brought this life to light in Greek; he was unaware, of course, that it had already been published by Petrus Possinus in his *Thesaurus Asceticus*, p. 427. Lucas is considered by some to be the author of the *Life of St. Nilus the Younger*, who had been the teacher of Blessed Bartholomew. We published this above, vol. CXX, at the year 1005, in which St. Nilus died. EDIT. PATR.