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JOANNIS BOIVINI DEDICATIO.

TO LOUIS THE GREAT.

To conduct affairs and to give laws to peoples is the task of a king. Yet, not all other things—even if they are less illustrious—are so unbecoming to great princes that they ought to neglect the care of arts and sciences or to despise literature and books. This, indeed, is agreed upon by all: that the reading of history is most useful and fruitful for those who rule. Therefore, Most August King, to whom books of this kind come offered, there is no lack of a just reason for them to excuse their boldness; nor ought it to seem surprising to anyone that I should dare to offer these Commentaries on Byzantine matters to Your Majesty. Indeed, even private motives—and those, too, weighty—compelled me, though timid and doubtful, to do so. For to whom else should I rather have consecrated this fruit of my labor, and these, as it were, first-fruits of my studies, than to You, from whom I have had all that I bring? You have provided the leisure, You the books, You the resources. By Royal presses, at Royal expense, this edition has been perfected. The work itself comes in great part from Your Library. As for the history comprised in these books, it is of such a nature that it will immediately entice not only the heir and defender of the French name, but any lover of it whatsoever, even at the very beginning of its narration. For its beginning is the capture of Constantinople by our people, the division of that most noble empire among Your peers, Baldwin of Flanders and Louis of Blois; the wealth of the Comneni cut away, their forces worn down and scattered. These are great and illustrious things. But as one proceeds further, there appear things no less significant: the vast army of the Franks fighting under the banners of Christ, Asia subdued, deeds bravely performed by land and sea by Charles, brother of the divine Louis, against Michael Palaeologus; finally, the incredible victories of the Catalans (for the glory of these, too, pertains to us) over the Turks, over the Byzantines, over the Achaeans. These honors, Most Great King, Nicephorus Gregoras’s History—adorned with such decorations and illuminated as if by certain lights of French valor—You will, I hope, receive kindly. The historian himself truly has his own praises, by the commendation of which he may easily win over to himself an excellent prince: the noble title of Philosopher among his own, the public profession of almost all doctrines, the intimacy of emperors, the insignia of the highest dignity in the Greek Church rejected, and (than which nothing will be greater in Your sight, the defender of the true religion) labors exhausted for the right doctrine of faith until his last breath. But why do I say these things to You, Most August King, at such an obviously inopportune time? When all Your thoughts are claimed by so many and such great affairs; when legions must be gathered from everywhere, fleets armed, towns fortified; when the enemy must be warded off not only from our own borders but also from those of our allies; when, finally, the salvation of peoples, the protection of kings, and the care of almost the entire world call Your providence to themselves. I cease from saying more. But may You, Most Great of kings, compose wars both with wise counsels and with victorious arms; so that, with peace imposed upon the enemy, You may live long for Yourself and for Your own. These are public prayers. This is what religion, this is what Your pupils, the arts and sciences, pray for; this, flourishing daily through You with new riches, the Royal Library and the Louvre Press pray for along with me.

JOANNIS BOIVINI PREFATIO.

This year is the fourteenth since Charles du Cange, a man of outstanding merit in literature, was the one who encouraged me to translate into Latin the six historical books of Nicephorus Gregoras which existed in manuscript in the Royal Library; so that, after the edition of the Paschal Chronicle, to which he had applied the finishing touch, was completed,

those six books might be added to those which Wolf had published and be committed to the Royal presses. At that time, I was intent on collecting the Letters of Libanius, and I had already rendered quite a few of them from Greek into Latin. It was right that I, as a young man and a novice, should obey the counsel of an ^A exceptionally learned man. Yet, although I was wonderfully delighted by the pleasantries and elegances of Libanius and was reluctant to leave them, I was nonetheless subservient to those instructions; and this was all the more so because, added to his own exhortations, there was the desire of the most illustrious Abbot Camille Le Tellier, a young man who was excellent in character and learned beyond his years, to whom I had dedicated myself and all my studies. He was prefect of the Royal Library and was already proving himself worthy of that office. In order that I might undertake the task imposed upon me with a more eager spirit, he even invoked the authority of his father, a man of the highest standing, who was then sustaining—under the King—the charge not only of war but also of the sciences and the fine arts.

Under these auspices, having set out to interpret the books of Gregoras, I promised myself that all things would be happy and auspicious. But the reality itself deceived my expectation by a great deal. For a few days later, he who, upon my entering a new path, could have led and illuminated me more than anyone else, the excellent and most learned Du Cange, passed away. With this torch of Byzantine history extinguished, I—not sufficiently acquainted with the way—obtained help for my labor and diligence; and the interpretation of those six books, of which he had barely managed to translate one into Latin before his death, I completed after his passing as best I could. Finally, through a cruel war raging throughout Europe, the work of peace was interrupted. And thus, the edition of our Gregoras was deferred to another time; to which delay then occurred another most disastrous one: the sudden death of the Marquis Le Tellier de Louvois, which almost completely overturned those brilliant hopes of my endeavors.

^B But it happened most opportunely that at that time there was staying in Rome a man endowed with singular humanity, J. Vivantius, a Doctor of Sacred Theology of Paris, and also a member of the Sorbonne. Through his care and the obliging diligence of the Reverend Father Dom Stephanotius, and at the expense of the most illustrious Abbot Camille Le Tellier, I eagerly read the nine books described from the Vatican codex and sent to me from Rome, and I perceived that it was the very same Ecclesiastical History which had been mentioned by Possevino in his *Apparatus Sacer*. These nine books, added to the eleven of Wolf and to those six which were in my possession, made the number of twenty-six books. After the twenty-sixth, we were still lacking the twenty-seventh. We had the rest in the Royal Library, except for the last five. Eventually, these too, together with the twenty-seventh, reached us in their entirety, through the efforts and at the expense of Frederik Rostgaard, a nobleman of Denmark; of which matter I shall speak more fully below.

In the midst of these things, by the justice and moderation of the victor Louis the Great, peace was restored to Europe. The administrator of the kingdom, burdened then by the urgent anxieties of difficult times (now Chancellor of France), Louis Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain, turned his whole mind and thought to the ornamentation of peace, according to the things recommended to him by the King. ^C Joannes Paulus Bignonius, a most noble abbot—today a consistorial count—could hardly bear that the Greek type of the Louvre workshop, the most elegant of any that have ever existed, should remain useless and idle. During the very time of the war, when his uncle Pontchartrain was distracted by infinite negotiations, he had thus protected the rights of the literary republic and the academies, so that he was always a distinct benefit to literature and the prizes were duly paid to the academic men. To him, therefore, with matters now peaceful and tranquil, this was not the least of his cares: to illustrate with the Royal Greek type-faces the books of the Greeks. Whence, joined by a long familiarity, he exhorted me to commit to the presses of the Royal printer the writings of Nicephorus Gregoras, which I had often said I had prepared. I, indeed, with the permission—nay, the command—of those whose authority is paramount with me, immediately seized the offered opportunity; and a few days later, the edition of the first volume was begun. In this part, since Wolf preceded me, I shall set forth what I have done privately.

Among the manuscript codices of the Royal Library, there is one paper manuscript to which the number 2558 is inscribed; besides the entire History of Pachymeres, it includes eleven historical books of Gregoras, namely those which were first published by Wolf. In that codex, of otherwise good quality and sufficiently ancient (for it was written... ^D [the accuracy of the 21 books] in one codex of the Vatican... and the last, indeed, would be inscribed 'Roman History 38,' or Byzantine History book XXXVIII).

Meanwhile, I reaped this profit from those very public and private calamities: I had the leisure throughout ten years to correct and refine what I had written, and in addition to unearth other books of Gregoras from the shadows and add them to those which I had first possessed. For, by reading through the various catalogs of manuscript codices, I understood that many more books of Byzantine History by Nicephorus Gregoras had been edited than existed, whether printed or in manuscript, upon the Royal shelves. Labbeus taught me that there lay hidden in the Library of the Escorial twenty-nine historical books of this author; and not long after I stumbled upon a Royal codex which contained the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth historical books, joined with four dogmatic ones. I learned from the *Apparatus Sacer* of Antonio Possevino and from an old catalog that the Ecclesiastical History of the same Gregoras was preserved in the Vatican Library, as well as the Acts of the council, or (as it is called in the same place) the *Lestrike Synodos* [Robber Council], and the narrative of the persecution directed against the orthodox by the Palamites. Finally, the Reverend Father Dom Jean Mabillon, who omits no opportunity to assist these studies of ours, communicated to me an accurate list of twenty-one books, in one codex [of those] existing in the Vatican.

^A ...before the capture of Constantinople by the Turks), a singular feature is that what is missing or imperfect in the published books is found there entire. But there were lacking in the published books those three fragments which Petavius, having received them from Fronton du Duc, first published and appended to the *Historical Breviary* of the Patriarch Nicephorus. Other things of no small account were also missing, such as that notable passage concerning the severity of the Patriarch Athanasius and the reformation of the monks' morals; likewise, the things belonging to the seventh chapter of that same book, to the second chapter of the ninth book, and also to the second chapter of the eleventh book. Finally, in almost every page, some word or even several were missing. We have supplied all these defects in this edition from that Royal codex. The larger supplements are indicated in the margins; the smaller ones are enclosed in brackets; errors, moreover, which were numberless, have been removed with the help of the same codex.

Again, this is most worthy of note in that same codex: that as for those things which Gregoras inserted in the last four books—many things elaborated by him at various times—almost all of them are missing there. And yet, they have been cut out in their own proper places in such a way that the context of the narrative is not interrupted by a breach, but proceeds whole and continuous, with all its parts fittingly coherent. I would like to believe this was done by the judgment of Gregoras himself; nor is it far from the truth that, the fire of his first version having cooled, he reviewed his own work and cut out those things which he had sewn on for the sake of showing off his talent, such as monodies, orations, and other things of that kind. I fear, however, that he, being somewhat too greedy for glory, may have re-interwoven into the repeated work those same patches which he had omitted in the first writing. Certainly these very things, which we say are absent from the Royal codex, pertain nothing to history; nay, they interrupt the series of historical events and present a delay to a reader hastening toward more important matters. Yet, because they held the same position in that manuscript codex which Wolfius used as they have in the published books, we have not dared to move them or relegate them elsewhere: but we have thought it sufficient to warn the reader that they, and certain other things enclosed in brackets, do not appear in the Royal codex.

^B ...we reserved for those to be annexed to the appendices of this volume. It is established from the catalog of the Séguier library that there exists there, among the Greek manuscript codices, a *Syntax of Roman History* by Nicephorus, joined with the *Chronicle* of Zonaras. It would have been worth the labor to compare that codex, in which the title itself indicates the first eleven books of Nicephorus Gregoras are contained, with the printed ones. But access to that library has not yet been open to me.

I had initially decided to represent the Latin translation, whose author was Hieronymus Wolfius—a great name among the learned—in a sincere and intact state with the utmost fidelity; but there were many reasons for changing this plan afterward. Gregoras, a man of wide-ranging erudition and a pretender to the art of rhetoric, often strays from his purpose and digresses to matters that pertain little or nothing to the subject. In these *πλαρείργοις* [digressions], he is remarkably verbose. Wolfius, intent more on the subject matter than the words, strove to make them more concise. Therefore, he restrained his exuberance and suppressed the things that were entirely redundant. I, for my part, thought it would be worth the labor if I adhered to the footsteps of the Greek author and, if I did not weigh his words to the readers, at least weighed them religiously and faithfully; which, as I suppose, is the best method of translating. In some places, the most learned interpreter also seemed to me to have deflected from the true sense, or to have expressed the meaning of the author obscurely and contortedly. I say nothing of minor faults, from which no work, however polished and refined, can ever be entirely free: which faults, as they often elude us in our own labors, so they hardly ever escape notice in those of others. I have indeed diligently labored to remove these blemishes, sprinkled as they are over an otherwise excellent body, and I do not think I have done Wolfius an injury by that, but rather I profess and contend that I have deserved well of him. Nor, because I correct his lapses from time to time, do I therefore set myself up as being more learned or more diligent; nor do I dare for that reason to withdraw from his head that which he wears with much praise.

^C ...Several various readings were supplied for the most part by that same Royal codex; but a few were provided by the one numbered 2078, which differs little from the published ones, except that it differs in the division of the books and chapters; yet it contains no more than four books, even though an index of six books is prefixed. Two monodies, namely those that constitute the beginning of the tenth book, were corrected and illustrated by some readings from the Colbertine codex 4950, the copy of which was made available to us by that man as learned as he is amiable, Stephanus Baluzius. We have had, besides, some readings described from the Vatican codex by the study and diligence of Fridericus Rostgaard. But those, because they were brought late—when the pages to which they belonged were already finished and had already been multiplied under the press—therefore...

^D ...In this manner, both the Greek and the Latin were augmented and reviewed by us. Added to this, the books have been divided by a new arrangement; for in the previous editions, the chapters, ordered quite rashly and inharmoniously, even lacked numbers. Smaller sections have been added. Arguments, or summaries, have been prefixed to individual chapters, more accurate than the common ones and accommodated to the numbers of the sections. Years, months, days, the rising and setting of stars, eclipses of the sun and moon, and various characters of the times have been noted from time to time. It seemed best to omit the sententiae and frequent judgments on morality, as well as certain other things of lesser moment, so that they would not be a burden to the margins. Brief notes were added where there was need; more elaborate ones were rejected to the end of the second volume. Furthermore, the posthumous notes of the most learned Ducange hold the first place among these; which, a little later...

the excellent son of a most excellent father, Philippus Ducangius, questor of France at Poitiers, had entrusted to my care. This Royal edition differs from the common versions in these parts and numbers: of which I have seen no more than four to this day; yet six, or at least five, have been published. Fridericus Rostgaard gathered that the first was published in Germany in Greek and Latin in 1559, from the Wolfian Preface, or rather the prosphonetic Epistle to Antonius Fugger, given in that very year. Given this ^B, the second would be that which was published in Latin at Basel in the year 1562. The third, which was in Latin, Paris, 1567. The fourth, which was in Italian, translated by Lud. Dolce, edited by Augustino Ferentilli, Venice, 1569 in 4to. The fifth, which was in Latin, Frankfurt on the Main, 1587. The sixth, which was in Greek and Latin, Cologne, 1615. Hankius observes that Gregoras’ History was also published at Cologne, Planiciana, in the year of Christ 1616; Warthonus counts two Frankfurt editions; the first in 1568, the second in 1587.

In the second volume, we have used two transcripts, each copied from the ancient exemplars at Rome. The first transcript, which exists in the Royal Library under number 2079, was written in a learned and elegant hand more than one hundred and fifty years ago, as is clear from the testimony of the scribe himself, who upon completing the work subscribed it thus: *This work was completed on the 18th of October, in the year 1543, transcribed by the zeal and diligence of Christopher Awer, a German; and by the munificence and most ardent love for letters of George of Armenia (D'Armagnac), bishop of Rodez and Vabres, sent to Rome as legate from the king of the Gauls to the supreme pontiff Paul III.* From this codex, we have taken care to have the first six books of this second volume accurately transcribed (for I had scruples about committing the codex itself to the printers) for the press. The second transcript, written at Rome five years ago and brought to Paris by the most illustrious J. Vivant, was very faulty. It is no wonder, for as with us, so also at Rome, there is a great scarcity of those calligraphers who have a hand practiced in Greek; and thus it is necessary to recur to rude and unskilled scribes whenever the matter concerns the transcribing of Greek codices. From that transcript, seven books come to light today, which complete the remainder of this second volume; and these, with the exception of ^A not many full ones, were corrected from the Vatican exemplar; with which we have compared dubious readings through most learned men, whose task it was not irksome to bear the tedium and disgust of this work, which is in itself thankless, for the sake of our own and the public utility. Therefore, in this place, if they would easily permit it, we would offer them great thanks; especially the most illustrious abbots, Laurentius Alexander Zaccagni, and the Reverend Father Delmiro; who, as prefects of the Vatican Library, guard the most precious treasure entrusted to them with such integrity and intactness that, nevertheless, all learned men may perceive the great fruit communicated from it, and may kindle a light clear for themselves and their own from that conspicuous light of the whole learned world. From that very Vatican exemplar, as I have already said, Fridericus Rostgaard, through a learned man, his countryman, dedicated five complete books to the Royal Library, and consigned that wish of his in elegant heroic verses prefixed to them. But of these books, more conveniently elsewhere. For they pertain to the third volume.

Scarcely any various readings have been noted in the margins of this part; because we possess a single exemplar of those books which constitute this volume. I say a single one: for the Vatican exemplars were neither in our possession, nor are they to be reckoned as different, since our own were transcribed from them. But such readings as we have received from learned men from them, we have transferred, as the true and genuine writing, not into the margins, but into the middle of the page and into the text itself (as they say): except for those which, having been brought by my dearest friend Lodovico Tarnio recently, we have relegated to the notes at the end of the second volume.

Indeed, here I cannot refrain from grieving both for my own sake and that of Nicephorus Gregoras; because, although it could have been sent into the public here by us, not only complete, but also polished and filed, yet it sees the light at last perhaps sprinkled with more stains and deformed. For it could hardly have happened that many things in a very faulty transcript should not have escaped my eyes, and remained incorrect. Yet this writer could have been given to us far more corrected, if the ancient exemplars which exist on the Vatican shelves had been in our possession. But indeed, not all things are given to one. But what I could not do, that perhaps some day, if the matter shall seem of such importance, the happier industry of another will perform.

As far as our Latin interpretation is concerned, if I should affirm that I have everywhere attained the mind of the Greek writer, I should be arrogant; especially since this did not happen even to Wolfius himself, a veteran and practiced interpreter. We can both, however, defend ourselves in this way: that for one who enters upon a path worn by no one's foot, it is most difficult not to slip; especially if that path be slippery and rugged and full of potholes, such as our Nicephorus throws in one's way here and there; who, as often as it has pleased him to wander (and it pleases him but too often), believes himself to be then most eloquent and elegant, when his sente-

- nce he can entangle as much as possible in the labyrinths of words.

For the individual pages of the first volume, since the chronological system in that part of the history did not seem sufficiently certain, we could not specify the year. Therefore, in that place, instead of years, the reigns or the names of the ruling emperors have been placed. In the second volume, we have added the years themselves, since these were established, but we have omitted the names of the emperors. Indeed, since for the ten continuous years which this volume contains, the imperial power was held by two princes, Palaiologos and Cantacuzenus, we judged it useless to repeat on every page what it would have been sufficient to have indicated once. We have divided the books into chapters, and the chapters into sections, by the same method we employed in the first volume. In the summaries and in the notes as well, we have followed the very same procedure.

^B At first, it was our intention to relegate the dispute with Cabasilas, which is contained in three books (though not entire, for it runs from the beginning of the twenty-second almost to the middle of the twenty-fourth), to the end of the second volume, because it seemed not to pertain sufficiently to the history. Finally, lest the continuous series of the books be broken, I decided that I would do better if I preserved its own proper place for it. One thing held me back: that I had not yet translated that dispute into Latin, nor did I have the leisure to complete that task as well. Meanwhile, M. Claude Capperonnier, a theological licentiate of Paris, kindly offered me his aid. ^C To him, a man most learned in both Greek and Latin, I was easily persuaded to entrust those parts; especially because what he was to undertake to translate was almost entirely dogmatic, and thus could scarcely be expressed in proper and clear words by anyone who had not been much engaged in theological matters and trained by the daily practice of the schools: something which, if it ever fell to anyone, certainly fell most abundantly to him.

The third volume will consist of fourteen books: eight historical, and six truly dogmatic; about which it is unnecessary to provide a preface at the beginning of this volume.

The fourth volume, besides a vast poem in Greek about the holy war, and likewise about the expeditions of the Franks in Constantinople, the Peloponnese, and Naples, will contain select minor works of various authors; those, namely, which can illuminate the history of Nicephorus Gregoras.

Among them will be:

I. A narrative of Nicetas Choniates concerning the statues of Constantinople, which the Latins, after the capture of the City, broke up and minted into coinage. A copy of this narrative, transcribed from the Bodleian codex, was provided for me by the most illustrious man Johann Ernst Grabe.

II. Two orations of Theodore Laskaris. 1. An enconium of his father, the emperor John Doukas. 2. A eulogy for the city of Nicaea, from the Royal codex.

III. The Testament of Arsenius the patriarch, edited by Cotelier.

IV. The epistle of Athanasius the patriarch to the elder Andronicus; and select reports from a unique codex which the most Rev. C. Maurus Tellier, Archbishop and Duke of Reims, recently donated to the Royal Library along with many others.

V. A historical poem of Manuel Philes concerning the deeds of Michael Glabas, transcribed from another Royal codex (formerly of Tellier).

VI. The volume of the Pseudo-synod of the Palamites, edited by Combefis.

VII. Excerpts from the writings of Nicephorus Blemmydes, Gregory of Cyprus, Theodulus the Rhetorician, Nicephorus Choumnos, Barlaam, Acindynus, Palamas, Nicholas Cabasilas, Philotheus the patriarch, the physician Taronites, Cantacuzenus, Demetrius Cydones, Gregoras himself, and others, all of them—with a very few exceptions—unpublished.

Thus the entire work will consist of four volumes (c), which I hope will be completed shortly, with the encouragement for these studies of ours given by the most illustrious count, son of the chancellor, Jérôme Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain. For he, having been admitted to the secret councils of the King and placed in charge of the administration of naval affairs, furthermore applies himself to the ordering of the arts and academies, being himself both successor and rival to his father; whom he reflects so well through his love of letters and men of letters and his mind cultivated in the liberal disciplines, that he seems to have succeeded him not so much in his charges as in his glory.

(c) Volumes III and IV did not see the light of day. But of those things which were promised here, most appeared later and exist in the previous volumes or in those next following our collection. - EDIT. PATR.

LIFE, WORKS, AND EULOGIES OF NICEPHORUS GREGORAS. Joannes Boivinus wrote to the Illustrious Abbot Camille Tellier, Prefect of the Royal Library.

VITA.

Martinus Hankius, a learned man and one not moderately versed in Greek and Latin histories, published not long ago an accurately narrated life of Gregoras. But he had not seen any of Gregoras's books other than the eleven previously edited by Hieronymus Wolfius. I, however, as you well know, most noble Abbot, have possessed the complete thirty-nine; likewise certain other unpublished works of the same author, and among them the dialogue *On Wisdom*, which is also inscribed *Florentius*. Having read through all these, as well as the books of other writers contemporary with Gregoras, I have learned many things that to this day have been investigated by few; and I have decided to set forth anew an account of the man, already (as we have said) treated by that learned man, but one who was destitute of those very aids. Furthermore, if I had woven a sort of patchwork, like Hankius, by gathering fragments of other people’s works from all sides, I feared that a subject small in itself might gradually grow into a vast volume. I preferred, therefore, to commemorate each thing briefly and in my own words, in a nearly continuous narrative; that is to say, as I have collected, by your expense and authority, most illustrious Abbot, the books of this historian, previously dispersed through various libraries, so that you might have his words and deeds briefly comprised by us in a little book, and might the more easily understand how great the renown in which our Gregoras flourished among his own people, and that you might not regret the labor we have devoted to this writer. I am not, however, so unjust as to think that I have done enough for you for my duty with this slight sign of gratitude: nor am I so ignorant of the magnitude of your merits toward me that I would flatter myself that I am able to return thanks equal to your benefits.

Around the year of Christ 1293, during the reign of Andronicus the Elder, Nicephorus Gregoras was born in ^A Asia. Patriarch Philotheus makes him a Paphlagonian in his *Antirrhetica*. He himself calls himself a Heracleote in his dialogue *On Wisdom*. He certainly had as an uncle Joannes, the metropolitan of Heraclea, that is, the one which is called Heraclea Ponti and is situated in the borders of Paphlagonia. Of his parents and other relatives, nothing has been handed down to memory.

Educated in that city, he laid the foundations of his boyish learning under his uncle the prelate. Then, transferred to Byzantium, he surrendered himself to the training of the patriarch Joannes Glykys, who was held to be the most eloquent among the men of that age and most skilled in Attic speech. The studious youth, however, was so delighted by the company of this pontiff that he would hang upon his words day and night. In turn, the style of the disciple was so pleasing to the patriarch himself that, when he was debilitated by a long illness, he ordered him to write and compose his testament for him.

In that city he laid the foundations of his boyish learning under his uncle the prelate. Then, transferred to Byzantium, he surrendered himself to the training of the patriarch Joannes Glykys, who was held to be the most eloquent among the men of that age and most skilled in Attic speech. The studious youth, however, was so delighted by the company of this pontiff that he would hang upon his words day and night. In turn, the style of the disciple was so pleasing to the patriarch himself that, when he was debilitated by a long illness, he ordered him to write and compose his testament for him.

As he had the patriarch for a master in rhetoric, so in astronomy he had a great logothete as an excellent teacher. This was Theodorus Metochites: who indeed at first, whether because he had not yet plumbed the genius of the adolescent Gregoras, or because he thought it a sacrilege for the secrets of the sciences to be rashly divulged, spoke with him sparingly and did not communicate the full knowledge of things to him. But then, overcome by earnest entreaties and by an oration of the same youth composed to persuade him, he perfectly and abundantly imparted to him all the recondite precepts of the art. Moreover, he did not proclaim just once that he had established him as the heir of his own learning; and he confessed this more openly in those verses which he wrote as an exile. Finally, he valued him so highly that he almost equaled him to his own children. And so, the Chora monastery having been restored at great expense, he established him as a partner and assistant there for all things.

^A Furthermore, Gregoras educated the children of Metochites, namely a son and a daughter, and read to them and interpreted the most obscure writings of the ancient authors. He always honored Metochites himself with every kind of duty: he comforted him with his words when he was struck and afflicted by the fear of looming calamity; he publicly lamented him when he was dead in a funeral oration. His statement regarding him is also well-known. Indeed, when asked by Andronicus the Elder how Metochites, having started from humble beginnings (for he had learned very little from his instructor Bryennius), had emerged as a supreme astronomer, Gregoras said, "It is no wonder that a great torch is kindled from a small lamp." Cantacuzenus says that the emperor lauded this incisive reply, as he had placed the nature of the matter before his eyes with an obvious and familiar image.

The Byzantine court flourished with the study of the liberal arts, favored by the emperor Andronicus, so that his house seemed to be not only a workshop of honor and every virtue, but also a gymnasium of literary erudition and a sort of open curriculum for the contests of rhetoric. And so, at that time, there was the greatest harvest of orators, philosophers, and other learned men among the Greeks. Gregoras, having been sated by the company of the Great Logothete, believed it expedient for himself, now that he was twenty-seven years old, to join practical experience to theory and to emerge from the shadows into the light. Therefore, trusting in his studies, he betook himself to the emperor himself, that he might, if he could, insinuate himself into his intimacy. Having been received most lovingly and more kindly than he had dared to hope, he delivered a speech before him and praised the two virtues in him: wisdom and eloquence. As time went on, he found him so benevolent that some were indignant that a youth, commended by no dignity or priesthood, should have such great favor with the prince. Andronicus, in order to stop the mouths of his detractors, decided to confer upon the young man the first honors of the Church, and he immediately offered him the dignity of *chartophylax* as a pledge, and he was already preparing the robes and insignia of the dignity, as if he were undoubtedly about to accept. Gregoras, pleading his immature age and his commitment to his studies, gave thanks and, having praised the emperor, refused the offered honor. Nearly force was brought to bear upon him for refusing.

Some time later, a noble controversy arose among the scholars. Men of learning ^C and wisdom would frequently meet there in the palace and dispute in the presence of Andronicus the Elder about whatever was worthy of knowledge. When, therefore, they were frequently present there on one occasion, Andronicus, wishing to provide an opportunity for speaking to Nicephorus Gregoras, whom he cherished greatly, introduced the subject of astronomy. Then Gregoras, who had long desired to report to the emperor regarding the Pasch, first began to praise astronomy itself; then he said that its use also pertained to the correction of the Paschal cycle. Thus, slowly ^D and imperceptibly bringing forth the question he had premeditated, he lucidly explained his opinion on establishing the day of the Pasch: he provided the method for investigating the vernal equinox as well as for observing the full moon: he showed that to the 365 days which constitute the solar year, not a full quarter of a day should be added, but that the shortest part of a day should be deducted from it—yet not entirely the three-hundredth part itself, as Ptolemy had supposed; finally, he gathered many other things on that matter, from which it was concluded that from the year of the world 6300, which was 792 of Christ, there was an error in setting the chronology and in observing the day of the Pasch; but when in fact the error could be corrected if a little more than two full days were subtracted from the sum of the days, and the observation of the Pasch were instituted immediately before the twentieth day of March, which was wont to be instituted incorrectly from the twenty-second. The emperor approved the plan for correcting the Pasch; he did not want to attempt the matter itself, because he maintained it was not easy to collect the votes of all nations and to abolish a use received throughout the whole world. Gregoras’s opinion was later defended by other astronomers chronologically, and among them first by Isaac Argyrus. Finally, in the sixteenth century, when that question was agitated among the Latins as well, the calendar was reformed by the authority of Gregory XIII in almost the same way that Gregoras had designated.

In the year 1326, he went as an envoy to the Crales. The cause of this legation was this: The daughter of Theodore Metochites, Irene—her husband, John Palaiologos, who had recently been created *Panhypersebastos Caesar*, having died—was staying with the Crales as his daughter-in-law, and she refused to return home to her father. And so, Metochites the father was the prompter to the emperor to force her to return. Legates were sent to the Crales for that reason, one of whom was Gregoras, who was given as a companion to the brother of Irene herself. In that legation, the errors, dangers, and other events that happened to him and his companions on the journey he describes at length in his *History*. The Crales, having heard the legation, dismissed his mother-in-law Irene. She, in order to pay what was just to her husband, set out from there for Thessalonica. Gregoras, however, having accepted her mandates, returned to Byzantium.

^A Two years later, the younger Andronicus entered Constantinople by night through treachery. All power was abrogated from the elder. The house of Theodore Metochites was plundered, and he himself was relegated to Didymoteichon, whence after two years he was recalled and returned home. Gregoras, who had followed the same party, was stripped of his goods, but was not sent into exile. Verily, because he had always studied leisure and tranquility and had not handled public affairs, a lighter punishment was inflicted upon him. That year, too, was mournful due to the death of John, Archbishop of Heraclea, his uncle indeed, who had served him well, and who was—as he says—his guardian from infancy, concerning whose character, learning, and morals he speaks only briefly and in passing in the *History*, because he had published a separate book on his life. In the year following, as it appears, 1329, prophetic booklets were brought to Byzantium from Italy and Colchis; Gregoras, at the insistence of his friends, partly refuted them and partly ^B despised them: he refuted them, indeed, by a letter which survives in book IX, chapter 2 of the *History*.

Before the principate of the younger Andronicus, Nicephorus Gregoras already had a great multitude of students. With the change in the state of affairs, he gave himself over entirely to grief; so much so that, abandoning the duty of teaching and having bid farewell to his auditors, he decided to pass the remainder of his life in perpetual silence. And perhaps he might have remained steadfast in his resolution, had not an unexpected event soon compelled him to resume his former custom of philosophizing. How this happened, he narrates at length himself, but with changed names, in that dialogue which, as I have already said, is inscribed *Florentius or On Wisdom*. The sum of the whole narrative is this: Barlaam the Calabrian, when he had migrated from Italy to Greece in order to draw forth from the Greek sources the philosophy of Aristotle, which he had received not sufficiently pure from Latin interpreters, first settled in Aetolia. There, putting off his Latin garment, he donned Greek habit and custom and learned to speak Greek. Thence he betook himself to Thessalonica; and in that city, in which letters were then flourishing, having delayed for a long time, he acquired a greater use of Greek speech and ^C prepared himself. Then, puffed up with pride, he began to think highly of himself and to despise others. Finally, he arrived at Byzantium. When he had arrived there, his first concern was this: to gather as many students to himself as possible from everywhere. The name of Theodore Metochites was illustrious among the learned, having recently been recalled from exile; nor did the fame of Gregoras’s erudition commend him any less. By carping at these men, Barlaam set out to sell himself and to pull the wool over the eyes of the unskillful; and he enticed to himself some who were won over by a similarity of character, with whom he nurtured vain hopes for a long time. Finally, because he was not succeeding, and the fame of Nicephorus Gregoras was burning the ambitious man, he therefore dared—some persons urging him on—to challenge him openly and to provoke him to a dialectical struggle. Gregoras, afflicted by his own misfortunes and also by the very serious illness of his friend Metochites, initially refused the contest. Then, upon his friends requesting it, and urging him to defend his own glory and that of his fellow citizens, and with some man of great authority—I know not who—ordering it and urging it with threats, he reluctantly descended into the arena, about to contend for the palm of erudition with the Italian. In that disputation, he reduced his adversary, who had boasted that he knew everything, to the point that he confessed himself to be wholly ignorant of astronomy, grammar, rhetoric, and poetics: indeed, that he did not know any books of Aristotle, except those that dealt with physical matters or pertained to dialectic. Furthermore, he taught that logic and syllogisms, in which the Italians gloried uniquely, were not science, but an instrument of science, and thus an ornament of a humble mind. Moreover, he showed that Aristotle, whom Barlaam asserted to be consistent with himself in all things, had contradicted himself more than once. As Barlaam yielded, another ^D athlete arose and fought on behalf of Aristotle; but he too, in vain. Gregoras, having been declared victor, having collected the benevolence of the princes by this merit, was restored to his former place of grace and honor. Barlaam, having attempted more than once to erase the stain branded upon him, after he noticed that the inclinations of all the Byzantines were turned away from him and inclined toward Gregoras, betook himself to the Thessalonians.

Thus Gregoras returned to his first institute of life, that is, to the educating of those who are studios in theology. Cantacuzenus also, in book II, chapter 39 of his *History*, says: "There was a monk from Calabria, trained in the customs and laws of the Latins, named Barlaam, otherwise sharp in understanding and most capable of explaining what he had understood, and very famous regarding these things, who later—to the detriment of Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato—arrived in the Roman empire." Then, a little later: "And for these reasons, as well as for his other wisdom, he enjoyed the benevolence and honor of the Emperor, and was loved no less by the Great Domestic, and was deemed worthy of care, and nothing was lacking to him to be in prosperity."

^A He returned to the public profession of teaching. In this office, he held many people of all nations, ranks, and conditions bound and as it were enslaved to him; so that both parents and children, and whole families of citizens, rendered him the greatest thanks, as to a father and to a guide who led the way for them in all the most beautiful branches of study. Hence he made a name for himself, known and celebrated in almost the entire world, and by antonomasia he was commonly called the Philosopher (37), just as Aristotle is in the schools today. Truly, not only beardless adolescents gathered at his house daily, but also philosophers of consummate doctrine (38), astronomers, rhetoricians, and other literary men of advanced age; whom, obviously, Gregoras's knowledge of every kind and his museum, most furnished with mathematical and bookish equipment (59), attracted, having been summoned from everywhere.

^B Meanwhile, the elder Andronicus died (40), deprived of both his eyes, tonsured, and reduced to the utmost destitution of all things. Gregoras, who had honored him when he was Emperor, attended him as a persistent comforter even when he was a private citizen and a monk, in such a way that he visited him every third or fourth day. And so, on that very evening which preceded his death, he conversed with him familiarly. But he was accustomed to have learned and grave conversations with Gregoras, tempered by a certain urbanity and grace. The final conversation was prolonged beyond midnight, up to the first cockcrow. Finally, those who were present having been dismissed, the old man was suddenly seized by a disease and expired before the end of the night. On the following day of mourning, at the exhortation of Cralana (for she was the daughter of the deceased prince, and was conducting the funeral procession), Gregoras recited a monody impromptu (41). Thirty days having passed from that, the great Logothete Metochites also passed away (42); he had not long before (43) returned from exile, and having changed his habit, had most recently professed as a monk in the Chora monastery. Gregoras lamented his death as well, in a monody recited publicly; upon hearing which, a great mourning of his relatives and a miserable lamentation occurred. With Andronicus dead, he sought to win the favor of the younger man and to gain his friendship with the same services and the same arts with which he had formerly ^C sought it for himself. Not long after, he delivered a consolatory oration (44) for him regarding the death of his mother. When the question of the conspirators was being held, he assuaged it with acclamations and applause, and did what he could as a man to ensure that no inquiry was made into the despot regarding God.

The elder Andronicus had been most alien to the Roman Church. He had scarcely allowed his father, Michael, to be buried because he had approved the dogma of the Latins: he had severely punished the other *Azymites*. Therefore, as long as he lived, no one dared to deal with the settling of the discord of the Churches. After his death, the matter was attempted again. In the year of Christ 1335 (45), two Latin prelates, Franciscus (46) and Ricardus—the latter bishop of Chersonesus (47), the former archbishop of Bosporus (48)—came to Byzantium as legates from Pope John XXII to discuss the controversial matters. Patriarch John Calecas, who himself did not have a tongue exercised in the usage of speaking, and saw that his own bishops were for the most part very unlearned, immediately summoned Nicephorus Gregoras, a layman indeed, but learned and especially eloquent, and exhorted him to enter into the contest with the Latins. He initially advised silence: but soon, fearing future suspicions from that and the unjust judgments of men, he decided that it must be deliberated upon further, and, having held a long oration before select bishops at the patriarch's regarding that business, he declared his opinion to be this: first, that it should not be permitted for anyone to dispute with the Italians; second, that some scope must be proposed for the dispute; third, that a judge must be appointed, but that this task pertained to the Greeks; that the controversies of the faith ought to be defined with all the prelates of the Church gathered together; that the syllogism, in the method of arguing for which the Italians (49) were most capable, had no place where there was a dispute about God; that not even the testimonies of the Fathers should be accepted unless they were clear; finally, that all such disputation was entirely superfluous; that those questions had been agitated long ago; that things defined by the ancient doctors were not to be called into doubt, nor was it lawful to ratiocinate rashly in divine matters. These and

other things, tending to almost the same point, appeared—when he had spoken—to be most vehement; for that disease ^B, recurring at intervals and at certain times, afflicted him his whole life long. The Emperor, having spoken eloquently and with great applause from everyone on that day, missed him while he was absent, and was troubled by his being an auditor. But what was done in that synod is not certain, because the writers of that age have narrated the matter in different ways and each according to his own inclination [(60)]. In this, however, Cantacuzenus and Gregoras agree: that both say that Barlaam, offended by a shameful judgment, returned to Italy and again converted to the customs and dogmas of the Latins. Three or four days after the synod was held, the Emperor, near to death, sent to Gregoras, to inquire from him whether the stars promised an easy cure, or whether they would obstruct the efforts of the physicians. Before an answer was yet received, he relapsed into a lethargy and finished his life on the 15th of June, in the year of Christ 1341. On the third day of mourning, Gregoras, hardly yet recovering, at the urging of the patriarch and the princes of the Auguste house who were present, delivered a tearful oration over the dead Emperor.

After these things, Byzantium struggled in civil war: the Church itself was perturbed by the dogmatic squabbles of the Palamites and the Acindynians. For Gregory Acindynus, upon Barlaam’s return to Italy, had taken up the defense of the cause abandoned by him [(61)]; and although he had been condemned in the same synodic tome [(62)] as Barlaam—almost immediately after the death of the Emperor Andronicus—he nevertheless continued to accuse Palamas of various errors. Hence a great contest arose among the theologians. Gregoras, whose peaceful counsels were at that time of no avail to anyone, voluntarily withdrew from the tumult of the court and the crowding of men into leisure and solitude, and for a long time abstained from all dispute.

Seven years having elapsed since then [(53)], the same Barlaam, having returned to Thessalonica from Avignon, where he had been sent by the Emperor in a clandestine legation [(54)] to the Pope, excited great disturbances in the Greek Church; from which many troubles later redounded upon Gregoras. Indeed, that stranger, having found Greek monks who said they beheld the divine light with their bodily eyes, objected to them Massalianism and the error of the Omphalopsychi [(55)]. The man who undertook the patronage of the monks, and was of great reputation among them, was Gregory Palamas, who had himself already been marked on this account long before, because he had boasted that the divine substance was seen by him with bodily eyes. For Gregoras had heard both this man [(56)]—and one of the same name as him, Drimys—before [(57)] Barlaam had come into Greece, boasting this of themselves, and had already censured both with sharp words; and he had declared the same matter to the grand Logothete and to certain learned prelates. They, however, had pronounced it to be the heresy of the Massalians and had commanded them to flee the company of such men; and this all the more, because they had learned from the warning of a certain ancient prophecy that a new heresy, compounded of all others, would one day arise and would be corrected by the decree of a general council. ^C Therefore, with Palamas as leader, defending their error, and insisting that the light which had encircled the disciples of Christ on Mount Tabor was at once uncreated and perceptible; while Barlaam affirmed that *ditheism*, or the worship of a double God, was being introduced through that opinion, the Emperor Andronicus deemed that a council should be held for the sake of settling the dispute. And so in the year of Christ 1341, in the month of June, in the church of Holy Sophia, the most select and learned of the Byzantines gathered [(58)]. Gregoras, invited by the Emperor and the Patriarch, was kept at home by a headache ^D that he suffered, and he deferred his vengeance for another time. But Gregoras, having returned home, kept his face cheerful by the grace of those who were present, and deferred his vengeance to another time. But at Gregoras, having returned home, all contention in the future... [(60)] Cantacuzenus writes that Barlaam asked for peace and approved the doctrine of Palamas. Patriarch John, who presided over the synod, says that the sentence was passed on two chapters only, namely regarding the Taborian light and regarding prayer, as stated in Leon Allatius, *De Eccles. Occid. et Orient. perp. cons.* lib. II, c. 17. He contends that Gregoras was finally agitated by that question alone; insofar as it pertained to the rest, he maintains that the investigation was deferred: and thus that neither massalianism, nor the other crimes charged against Palamas, were dealt with.

^A Since he rejected this entirely, and did not accept any opinion, she was vehemently irritated and demanded that he deliver his written opinion at once. From that time on, Gregoras persisted in harassing Palamas and all the Palamites, both in writing and in speech—and would perhaps have been exiled for this reason, had not Cantacuzenus meanwhile captured Byzantium. Acindynus, having read the speech in which Gregoras exhorted the orthodox to defend the cause of the true faith, was moved by such great joy that he addressed him again with these iambics:

Thou flowest with the honey of speech and the bee, Gathering flowers with wings of good speed, From Pieria and the hills of Helicon, Moistening them with the impressions of thy face, And warming them with the ferment of thy heart; But thou art covered in the body of silence. Thou art a sweet garden, but thou bearest no fruit; For the crystal of the passions, having chilled thee, Withers the greenery of thy word. Thou art much-sown earth, but the weight of the hail Dreadfully breaks the unripe ear of thy word, And the cloud of the powerful ones somehow blocks The lens of the invisible eyes. Thou art a drinkable spring, but thou dost not flow; For the conduits being blocked by the storm, One cannot see the outpouring of the waters. Thus thou hast bound me with thy words, And with the noble struggles for the Word, Kindling me as with burning coals, O boast of words and of dogmas, And signet of the Word who created all things, And wonder of the earth and of wise thoughts, So that I struggle against the edges of the swords, As if someone might grant me the music of Pindar, To suit the breeze and a noble feast, That I might hymn the most venerable head, And crown Nicephorus with victory-bringing Words flowing from a divinely inspired heart. I see thee... ^B

⟨...and he denies their mysticism with the greatest vehemence. And while he rejects both in words, and wishes not even to appear to hear their name, in fact he proclaims their teachings, and is nothing other than Barlaam and Acindynus in writing.⟩

Sic me efficacis eloquii potentia

At that very time, Anna Augusta, having gathered the leaders of the Palamite faction in the palace, abrogated the patriarchate of John Calecas. But on the following night, Byzantium was occupied by Cantacuzenus.

He had held Nicephorus Gregoras as an intimate friend long before he was raised to the supreme dignity. Devoted to the study of letters from childhood, he loved learned men and associated with them frequently. When he came to power, he indeed preserved the right of ancient familiarity intact for him; ^D but being inclined more than was just toward the Palamites, he completely frustrated the splendid hopes which Gregoras had conceived regarding him. Gregoras, however, concerned for the salvation of his friend (for so he speaks of the emperor), devoted himself entirely to the care of bringing him back, as one who was astray, to the right path. Indeed, having learned of the machinations of the opponents, who strove both secretly and openly before Cantacuzenus to have him punished with exile as soon as possible...

he began to argue his case, so that he might either convict them and put them to shame before the unlearned, or, if he were chased out of Byzantium, he might at least be absent from the sight of the oppressed Church. But he, ^A steadfast in his resolve, and not offended by the words of an angry man, disputed with the emperor on equal terms, just as a private citizen might; and many admired the emperor's clemency even more than they admired the other man's zeal. In the end, since this approach was meeting with little success, Gregoras undertook a different path. Having set out for Didymoteichon, he approached Irene, the emperor's wife, who was afflicted by the recent death of her son. He asserted that this disaster was the fruit of the error spreading under Cantacuzenus, and he offered proof. Thus, he strengthened his own side under the patronage of the Augusta. When the Palamites, and especially the patriarch Isidore, heard of this, they went to Irene and strove to persuade her to abstain from all association with Gregoras. Having been repulsed, they summoned Cantacuzenus from Didymoteichon. Fearful of a riot, he flew back to Byzantium and summoned the litigants, namely Isidore and Gregoras. After many discussions had been held back and forth, Gregoras brought it about that the Canons of Isidore, or his Hymnodies, were burned by fire, and that those who had been deprived of them regained the liberty of speech. On these conditions, a return to harmony was made, and peace was ratified with a sumptuous banquet. But these were indeed brief intervals of calm. For Palamas, ^B because he had not been present at that discussion, having been summoned later to Didymoteichon, renewed the disputes. It was disputed again before the emperor with sharp contention, but with no success. Those who wish to know more about that whole matter should go to Gregoras himself, in book xv, chapter 5 of his History.

About two years after these events had taken place, towards the end of the year 1349, the Constantinopolitan patriarch Isidore died. The emperor Cantacuzenus and the Augusta Irene, having already often tempted the mind of Gregoras with blandishments, promises, largesse, and other arts, even attempting to sway him by holding out the patriarchal dignity and to enslave him to themselves, could not induce Gregoras to change his opinion; but he both chastised them with words and admonished them of their duty, and rejected the honor offered to him. Therefore, a monk of Mount Athos, named Callistus, a man unlettered and the most bitter enemy of the Acindynians, was created patriarch. Finally, in the year 1351, in order to impose silence on the Acindynians, who were causing turmoil and accusing the Constantinopolitan Church, Cantacuzenus decided to convoke a synod, yet not an ecumenical one, as he had often and long since promised. Gregoras, having heard of this, met with him privately, and urged him not to leave everything to a few bishops, and those ^C of the Palamite faction.

When the appointed day arrived, all the bishops of the Palamite faction assembled in the palace. Gregoras was also present with his associates and disciples. Among his associates, three pontiffs stood out: the first of Ephesus, the second the metropolitan of Ganos; the third the bishop of Tyre, who was also serving in place of the Antiochene patriarch; and also two men distinguished for their learning, Dexius and Athanasius. Together with them, Gregoras entered the palace around the second hour of the day, and having been excluded from the entrance to the inner hall by the lictors, he remained for a long time in the vestibule, while the Palamites were meanwhile feasting with the emperor. After lunch, when they were introduced at the midday hour into the Triclinium of Alexius, and had deliberated with Cantacuzenus as to what should be done, the Acindynians were finally ordered to enter, though they had not eaten. It would be long—and indeed it is not necessary—to recount the individual acts of this pseudosynod, since anyone who desires can learn them abundantly from the books of Gregoras himself and from the Palamite Tome. The outcome of the entire dispute, which was completed in four sessions within fifteen days, was this: the doctrine of Palamas was confirmed. Anathema was pronounced against the dead Barlaam and Acindynus of ^D horrendous character. The metropolitans of Ephesus and Ganos were forcibly stripped of the insignia of their dignity; not so, however, the bishop of Tyre, who had not been present at the final session. Some of the disciples of Gregoras were given over to custody, and others were compelled to abjure all association with their master. Gregoras, however, was not himself harmed by word or deed; but it was easily permitted for him and certain others to depart for their homes. The synodal Tome was not published immediately, but two months later. The emperor John Cantacuzenus, and his son-in-law John Palaiologos, signed it; then the patriarch Callistus, and the other pontiffs. Shortly after, Cantacuzenus, having taken...

^A in all his imperial finery, entered the inner sanctuary, and holding the volume in his own hands, placed it upon the altar, while the Palamites applauded and promised that, on account of this, the frontiers of the empire would be extended. Gregoras, as soon as he heard that the Palamites were with Cantacuzenus, if he should consecrate his volume with that new and unusual rite, promised them all favorable things: "Nay," he said, "when you shall see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, know that the desolation of the Roman empire has drawn near (83)." And time proved this prediction of his to be true, but the noble promises of the Palaiologans came to nothing. On that account, and for other reasons, silence was imposed upon Gregoras and the other orthodox. Some of these obeyed; others, because they were contumacious, were cast into chains. The more illustrious were shut up within their own houses, so that they could speak to no one. Thus, compelled by fear, they became silent.

^B But Nicephorus Gregoras did not even then restrain his tongue or his pen; but by letters written to his friends at Trebizond and in Cyprus (84), he accused the Byzantine Church of perverse doctrine and admonished them to secede from it, as if it were infected with a disease. He even dared to arraign the princes themselves. For this reason, with his house walled off and closed, monk sentries were posted. To be sure, although he did not put on the religious habit until after his fifty-sixth year, he had resided nevertheless among the Chora monks from a very young age, and as has already been said, had added himself as a companion and vicar to Theodore Metochites, to whom the administration of that monastery had been commended. Moreover, upon his ^C death, he had succeeded to the procurement and preservation of the principal belongings of that same monastery. He had, therefore, within the monastery a house of his own, separated from the others; a humble one, indeed, and touching no public thoroughfare in any part, if we believe the patriarch Philotheus (85): but it is certain that for many years it had been open to anyone who approached it, and that it flourished daily with a great throng of students, at times when things were tranquil.

Into this place when he was locked, the monks themselves—his long-time housemates and companions—were assigned as jailers and spies; and a command was given to them not to let anyone enter to him, and to take care that no letters of his were carried out to anyone. ^D They performed the task imposed upon them diligently and in a manner far from humane (86); unmindful, indeed, of the benefits with which they had been showered in uncountable numbers by this old guest and, as it were, second founder of the monastery. It is better to hear Gregoras himself tell of this with bitterness.

There was a great and very old bond of friendship and shared studies between Gregoras and Cabasilas; the reputation of both was equal. But while every kind of learning adorned Gregoras, Cabasilas was distinguished not so much by his scholarship as by his excellent natural wit and a certain innate eloquence (87). And so it was decided that he, too, should be sent to Gregoras after the other orators had failed, and one of the primary ministers of the patriarch Callistus was given as his companion. By them these same questions were discussed again. But the result of the long colloquy (88) was the same as that of the previous disputes. And they, having threatened the extreme penalty (namely, that the fire would consume his orations, usually recited on the feasts of the saints; and that he himself, after death, would be cast outside the city walls and lack burial), departed with their mission desperate. But he was surrounded by a custody of vigilant monks harsher than before.

But the old and faithful friend’s cleverness soon deceived the morose vigilance of the guards, if the things that Gregoras records about Agathangelus, son of Callistratus, are indeed true. For at the end of the year 1351, on December 8, the eve of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, when a large and mixed crowd of people had gathered in the church of the Chora monastery, Agathangelus, formerly a student of Gregoras, slipped in with the others; and about the second watch of the night, he was admitted through a window into the master’s bedchamber. He was recognized by him with difficulty, because he had been away from his homeland for ten whole years; after friendly mutual greetings, he first explained in sum the things he had seen or heard while traveling, and then the matters he had learned, after his return to the city, that pertained to Gregoras. Then, before that same night had passed, he was sent away and went home. The same man returned six months later at the end of spring (89), and recounted what had happened at home and in the military during the previous year. Thus, by visiting over three years, he ensured that nothing of the things which it interested him to know remained hidden from the imprisoned scholar. From these narrations of Agathangelus, Gregoras wove his Historical books, in a continuous series of discourse in dialogue.

Changed in nature; for this purpose, in effect, that he might be able in the words of another ^A to argue more freely against his adversaries, and to praise himself with less envy, when the matter required it: a thing which although otherwise base and improper, must perhaps be forgiven to one defending a most noble cause, and contending with heretics. To me, indeed, it seems likely that that whole episode of Agathangelus coming and going repeatedly was fashioned by the historian with that license which most philosophers and orators are accustomed to use in dialogues. Although it is sufficiently certain that there flourished in that age a certain man named Agathangelus, who also wrote an apologetic book in favor of Aristotle against Gregoras.

From the time that the Palamite Tome was promulgated, until the day when John Palaeologus, having suddenly entered Byzantium, received supreme power, Gregoras, enclosed in his house as in a prison, endured many hardships. He complains that he was reduced to such poverty that, when the cold of winter was most sharp, he could not warm his cups of water except by the sun’s rays admitted through the window. The same man records that, having been forced to draw water from a well, he struck his foot against a stone by night, and because of this, for many days, his foot being diseased, he was forced to drink stagnant and putrid water, until by the ministry of Agathangelus he had obtained other water. It was once permitted to Basil the Great and to many other holy men, who had fled into caves and solitudes for fear of persecution, to take the most holy body of Christ with their own hands ^C and bring it to their own mouths where a priest was absent. Following their example, Gregoras, since it was not permitted otherwise—because no orthodox priest dared to approach him while he was enclosed in his house—privately administered the sacrament of the Eucharist to himself. Assuredly, he had in his possession a supply of consecrated hosts provided long before, which, after he had consumed them all, he says he asked his friend Agathangelus to fetch others for him together with morsels of Antidoron, or blessed bread. And so, he was deprived by his adversaries of almost all solace for both soul and body. He narrates that books of Holy Scripture were also taken from him by force by the same(93); likewise, that he was tempted every returning year by the princes through emissaries (whom he calls ἁθημερινούς θεολόγους, or one-day theologians), so that either he might be led astray and corrupted by captious arguments; or, if it appeared that he could in no way be swayed, it was finally determined whether it would be expedient that he be worn away by the hardships of prison and a long, living death, or crushed suddenly by a violent hand(94).

Amidst these fears, he composed ten books of Byzantine History with such speed that scarcely forty days ^B were spent by him on that writing(93). These are the eighteenth book and the nine consecutive ones following; in which are contained many other things, including the Acts of the Palamite synod, and the disputation held with Cabasilas; and also a triple dialogue with Agathangelus. Further, in these, the testament of the author himself (96) seems worthy of special observation: of which testament indeed there are three chapters. First, Gregoras orders that copies of those ten books be transcribed with the greatest care and distributed to friends everywhere in the world. Second, he sets forth his faith, approves the decrees of the Church concerning Barlaam and Acindynus, and acknowledges the true body and blood of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Third, he forbids his corpse, which the Palamites were likely to throw out unburied, to be left unburied. ^B But he teaches that he wrote all these things hastily and by stealth on the cheapest paper, and that he could neither correct nor polish them, being anxious, evidently, and perpetually worried lest he be caught by his enemies. It is no wonder, therefore, if those ten books are less polished, and reveal great bitterness of sorrow; which, in the remaining ones added to them afterwards, is indeed no less existent, but is absent from the seventeen prior ones; which, as it appears from this and is confirmed from elsewhere, had been composed with the integrity of the author's liberty still intact before the Palamite synod. Furthermore, he wrote ten books of Antirrhetics against the Palamite Tome, while enclosed in that same domestic prison; but he first applied his hand to this work when Agathangelus, having stolen into his room for the fourth time, had brought with him the profession of faith edited by Palamas and selected chapters from the synodical Tome, just as he had been commanded by his master (97). Fragments of those books exist in the hands of the Patriarch Philotheus; who, having undertaken the defense of the Palamite Tome, opposed Antirrhetics to Antirrhetics, and attempted to refute the dead Gregoras at the urging of Cantacuzenus.

In the year of Christ 1354, at the beginning of spring, Matthew, son of Cantacuzenus, was crowned and, by the operation and ministry of the patriarch Philotheus, was made an associate in the empire by his father in the temple of Blachernae (98): and by his order, a few days later, he approached Gregoras, intending to tempt his spirit again, and hoping that through the offer of rewards he might persuade him to come to the palace as he had previously come often. And since he could not be swayed by these exhortations or by any promises, he tried to persuade him at least of this: that the cause of the public calamities should be attributed not to the emperor Cantacuzenus, but to the decrees of divine Providence and fatal necessity. Gregoras, on the contrary, proved with stronger arguments that whatever men did, they did not by the compulsion of divine foreknowledge or fate, but of their own private will.

^A But Matthew, when he saw him remain unmoved and inexorable in his opinion, and refusing an audience to him who desired to say more, departed sad: and it came to pass from that, that Gregoras was guarded more strictly than before, after the walls of his house had been shaken by a most severe earthquake, and he dared not go outside.

At the end of the same year, John Palæologus gained control of Byzantium: Gregoras, having recovered his freedom and having shaken off the fear of his guards, when he had betaken himself to the palace, discoursed more freely before the prince—who was not very well-disposed—concerning the impiety of the new dogmas of the Palamites. He urged him to raise up the afflicted religion; and he showed himself prepared to refute those things which Cantacuzenus and Palamas, having confirmed them by force through their own decrees, had defined as unjust and absurd. But Joasaph (that was the name of Cantacuzenus, who had professed monastic discipline), when he learned that these things were being agitated, immediately took care to have Palamas, who was at that time held captive by the Turks, redeemed for a large sum of money, so that he himself might be present to conduct his own case: he then interposed his authority with his daughter Helena, who was married to the emperor John Palæologus, that a judgment should not be instituted which would be ignominious for him. Thus, all the effort of Gregoras for the present was in vain.

In the year following, a Latin bishop, a friend of Palæologus, arrived at Byzantium as legate. His name is passed over by Gregoras, but his learning is commended, as of a man versed in the study of the Holy Scriptures and trained in theological exercises in the schools of the Latins. This was without doubt Paul, archbishop of Smyrna, whom we learn from ecclesiastical annals to have pledged obedience and due reverence to the Roman See ^B to the emperor John Palæologus at the end of the year 1355. When he had heard many things concerning the new opinions of the Greek Church, he requested of the emperor that he be allowed to dispute in his presence with Palamas, the author of those opinions: soon after, opportunity for discourse having been given, when he discovered upon the very matter that he was imbued with many and great errors, he indicated that he also wished to hear Gregoras disputing with him. Therefore Gregoras, having been summoned from the emperor by the grand logothete, came to the palace, ignorant of the reason for which he was being called. For Helena Augusta, favoring the friends of her father Cantacuzenus, had forbidden that he be forewarned, lest he approach ready to dispute. Scarce had he entered the palace when it was announced to him that Palamas was present there. At that news, he was at first struck and hesitated; and, having stood his ground and having taken counsel from the situation, he proceeded further.

Irene Augusta was then present at the palace with her son-in-law Palæologus: the chief men of the court were present. Gregoras, having greeted the emperor, sat down; and, so that we may not dwell too long on reciting the preludes, the question concerning the divine substance and operations having been proposed by his adversary, he proved by many arguments that these in God do not differ at all. The emperor, having heard both sides, whether he was more uncertain than before, or whether he was unwilling to sadden his father-in-law Cantacuzenus by condemning Palamas, did not wish to ^C render a judgment. But Palamas, having interpreted the silence of the gentle prince as he pleased, ran through the whole city the next day, and disseminated the fame of his (as he said) victory everywhere. That matter greatly offended the emperor; but it so irritated the courtiers who were present at yesterday's conversation that, when he returned from the city to the palace, he was badly and sinisterly received by them. What was done in that dispute, and what was said by him or by his adversary, Gregoras has recounted at length in two dialogues written on that matter. Regarding the Latin bishop, for whose sake the dispute had taken place, he neglected to say what judgment he expressed concerning that entire contest.

Moreover, Cantacuzenus, who had become a monk from an emperor, when he saw the new dialogues being read publicly and being worn out by everyone's hands, believed it to be in his interest that they be refuted as soon as possible. And so, at his urging, various libels composed by the Palamites immediately appeared. There exists now also in the codex of the Royal library, among the works of Nic. Cabasilas, a satirical ^D little work with this title: *Against the ravings of Gregoras*. There exists in another codex: *A summary as far as possible of the discussion which took place in the palace before the emperor between our holy Father Gregory, archbishop of Thessalonica, and Gregoras the philosopher*. That is to say, *A most compendious narration of the dispute between our holy Father Gregory, archbishop of Thessalonica, and Gregoras the philosopher, held in the palace in the presence of the emperor*; and that narration is prefixed to the dogmatic works of Palamas. But he who wove it induces Gregoras with futile arguments and disjointed speech, but Palamas defending himself not only by the force of reason, but also with elegant verses. Finally, at Milan in the Ambrosian library, there exists a little book inscribed, *Concerning the false writings and impiety of Gregoras, by me*: whose author, in the very opening, signifies that the narration of the discussion is attacked.

^A For Gregoras, when he denied that these were his own writings which Cantacuzenus had publicly attacked, was not lying; unless perhaps he had composed books of *Byzantine History* different from those which survive. For in these which we have (and there are forty-eight in total), nothing at all appears to be written concerning those mountain oracles consulted by Cantacuzenus; there is much indeed about the monks of Mount Athos, but not those specific things which Cantacuzenus relates that he had read in his own copies; rather, they are things which wondrously commend both the mountain and the monks. From this it is perfectly clear that Gregoras’s books had already been corrupted and depraved by wicked men at that time; and that therefore what he complains of in the last book of his *History* is true: namely, that they had secretly excised many parts from his works with a blade, and by adding or interchanging one or even several letters, had completely inverted the true and correct meaning, so that, for example, *phe* is read for *pro*, *kakon* for *kalon*, *kata* for *peri*. For this reason, he also admonishes and exhorts his readers to compare copies of his books—of which he says there are many in existence—for he, fearing frauds of this kind, had taken care that many apocrypha were copied out by the hand of disciples as accurately as possible at his own or his friends' expense.

Perhaps, therefore, as is the case for most authors, certain things are falsely ascribed to Nicephorus Gregoras—spurious and supposititious works; and I consider that prophetic dream, brought forward and exploded by the Patriarch Philotheus, to be of this kind. ^C Since it has not yet been edited in print, it is helpful to provide it here in its entirety. Gregoras, shut up in his house, addresses Agathangelus, who had stolen inside and was soon to depart, in the epilogue to the *Antirrhetica* (which Philotheus undertook to refute), in these words: "Since it is already far into the night, as you see, and our conversation has dragged on, and it is time for you to go, while they are sleeping to whose charge ours has been committed—come, let us briefly go over the manners of what is to happen, so far as it lies within us. For it is not proper that you should remain ignorant, nor those friends of ours with whom you are about to converse and share the struggle, lest, looking toward the uncertainty of hope, they should be cast down. For it has befallen me, cast into prison, to be surrounded by a vast despondency that stings and gnaws at the reasoning faculty of my soul, not because I myself continue to endure imprisonment, but seeing the tempests of our Church surging against the divine dogmas, and the multitude being ever driven—one part becoming bound, another exiled; and one part bending the knee to Baal on account of the violence of the famine and the plundering of their own kin; ^D and that which is left is nowhere. At that time, I, being filled with thoughts, have become tearful, and having prayed much to God and..."

then sat down, having placed my right hand under my head, I was overcome by light slumber; and it seemed to me in a dream that one of my friends stood by me and said, “Rejoice, and do not be disheartened; for you have God as your most powerful helper for the sake of whom you endure these things for the others. For you shall see before long these persecutors of piety suffering not only the terrible things they have brought upon you, but things far more wretched. For they shall wage war against each other, the emperor against the patriarch and against the bishops; and in turn the bishops against each other, and they shall be caught in each other’s excommunications and in their own. And the patriarch shall be driven from his throne, and another shall be introduced in his place; and after a short time he too shall suffer similar things; and the emperor shall be deprived of his empire along with manifold dishonour. And before these things, Palamas shall be captured by the barbarians, and shall suffer not only most hostile, but most shameful things. And the majority of the bishops, because of a violent earthquake shaking the land of the Romans, shall be buried, crushed along with their very bishoprics, houses, and cities full of citizens. And this would be a just deposition from God for them, in return for the fact that they unjustly deposed the bishops and presbyters and wise men who fought rightly for piety, and all who were like-minded in their piety.” ^A

But since, as you see, we have drawn out our conversation into the middle of the night, and it is necessary for you to go home while our guards are sleeping; come, let us also discuss the future briefly, however it may be. For it is right that neither you, nor those to whom you are about to go—our friends and companions in labor—should be ignorant of this, lest seeing an uncertain outcome, you be tormented by uncertain hope. For when I had already been cast into this prison, I fell into great sadness, and was surrounded by pain, stinging and tormenting my soul vehemently; not because I myself was enduring injury, having been shut up in custody, but because I saw storms rising against the sacred dogmas of God and many being vexed daily, some being coerced with bonds, others going into exile; and others, finally, driven by violent hunger and the seizure of their goods to bow the knee to their idol Baal; yet no salvation appeared. Full of these thoughts I wept, and with many prayers I beseeched God. Then when I had sat down, and had placed my right hand under my head, I was overcome by light sleep; and it seemed to me in my sleep that a certain friend stood by and said hail, and exhorted me not to lose heart. “For,” he said, “you have as your most powerful helper God, for whose sake you bravely endure these labors. Therefore, you shall see these persecutors of the true faith, not only enduring the things they have brought upon you, but also suffering much more grievous evils before long. For both the emperor shall become an enemy to the patriarch and the bishops, and the bishops to each other; both parties shall be held subject to each other’s anathematisms and to their own. The patriarch shall be driven from his seat: ^B in his place an intruder shall succeed: and soon this man himself shall experience a similar fate. But the emperor surely shall lose his power, and will be affected by various ignominies. But before these things happen, Palamas, captured by the Barbarians, shall suffer not only most bitter, but most shameful things. Likewise, many of the bishops shall be buried, overwhelmed, when the Roman provinces are shaken by a violent earthquake, along with their very bishoprics and houses and cities full of citizens: and this for them will be a just divine repayment for the abrogation of their priesthood, because they had abrogated the dignities of the bishops and presbyters and other learned men, and men distinguished by equal piety, who had fought the good fight for the true religion.” ^C

If these things, as they stand in Philotheus, were thus proclaimed by Gregoras before the events occurred (a thing which is difficult to believe, or rather entirely incredible), since it would be necessary that they had foreseen future events by divine inspiration. But if they were added to the completed work by the author himself after the events, then again it is necessary that, when he was writing these things, he wanted to deceive the credulity of simpler men. Yet this seems alien to the character and morals of that man. Therefore, it might be more just to cast the crime of this fraud onto the Palamites. It is certainly not at all probable that Gregoras did this, whom he criticized for having done it by others. Moreover, he criticizes the patriarch Isidore in his *History* for being intent upon his own dreams and auguring future events from them: and he ascribes the nocturnal visions of other Palamites to the devil and to drunkenness: finally, he inveighs against and mocks astrologers, soothsayers, and those who profess any art of divination at all. ^D

At what time and where and at what death Gregoras finally ended his final day, is not yet known to me. His Byzantine History indeed proceeds until the year of Christ 1359 beginning; and from this one could believe that the author died in that same year: but this is only conjecture, not an argument entirely certain. Nor indeed is suspicion lacking that Gregoras carried his narrative to the year of Christ 1359, so that he might describe in the end of the work the phrenesy of the heretic Palamas and his most foul departure from this life; so that the man whom he had pursued with capital anger alive, upon his death, as if having run his course, he might rest as victor.

Such was the inhumanity of the Palamites, primarily the patriarch Callistus, that they ordered those who had lived separated from their communion, even after death, to be cast out unburied, to be prey for dogs and wolves. But if any, moved by the shame of common nature and by pity, buried their bodies, they paid for a new crime with a similar punishment. This ignominy the Palamites had long before denounced against Nicephorus Gregoras. To him, however, most desired...

^A aspiration toward the palm of martyrdom. And so, among other things, he had commanded Agathangelus (25), that when he should see him dead and exposed to wild beasts, he should refrain entirely from all care and vain labor of burying the corpse. Moreover, the prayers regarding the Palamites and Gregoras have been ratified thus far: "That body of the great herald of the true faith," says Cyparissiotes (26), "is to be looked upon, having been long held up to mockery and carried about; the body, indeed, of a man than whom no one among philosophers was more excellent, nor among ascetics more observant of discipline; nor was he more constant in enduring the struggles undertaken for religion, nor in those persecutions, insults, and the anguish of prisons by which his tempters harassed him; I mean of that admirable Nicephorus Gregoras, by which double appellation God signified nothing else than that he, with a vigilant and awakened spirit, would win victories over the enemies of truth." With this eulogy did Joannes Cyparissiotes adorn the deceased Gregoras; from whose great volume of *Palamite Transgressions*, the Rev. Father Franciscus Combefis first translated and published two selected books.

Gregoras’s faults (for I am not so foolish a supporter of this writer as to contend that he had none) were primarily these. He was harsh, insistent, and ^B offended those of high and low rank through petulance; as a philosopher, he did not command his own spirit: as a historian, he did not escape the bias of faction: finally, he labored under an excessive desire for glory and self-love. Much is to be criticized in his style; primarily his *kakozeilia*, or affected ambition for elegance; his poetic luxuriousness of words; insolent figures; hyperbata; and frequent repetitions not only of words but of thoughts. Yet if an example is to be compared, Cantacuzenus is far superior in historical books of the same subject. In chronology, however, Gregoras is more diligent; indeed, with Cantacuzenus it is nearly non-existent. Cantacuzenus seems to have omitted certain things on purpose, which Gregoras did not overlook. Of this kind are those things he narrates here concerning the inhumanity of Synadenus toward Andronicus the elder, the birth of John Palaiologos, the legates sent from the Pope to Constantinople, and numberless others. These, I repeat, are all covered by Gregoras, who does not conceal even the disasters brought by the Barbarians. Cantacuzenus, however, made no mention of Nicomedia or even of the loss of Nicaea itself. The former, in a way, encompassed only Byzantine affairs, while our author included foreign ones as well in his History. Both, therefore, must be read, and one must be supplemented by the other.

WORKS

Gregoras wrote many works of varied erudition, of which few have been committed to print; but most exist as manuscripts in the Vatican, Imperial, Escorial, Barocci, and many other codices, not to mention the Royal ones: some also appear to have perished through the injury of a long time. An extremely rich index, compiled from the papers of the Rev. Father Bernard (27) transmitted to us from Rome, and from various catalogues of manuscript codices, will give information about almost all of them. Do you, most noble Abbot, run your eyes over this entire index, however long it may be. In such a great abundance of books, as many as you will see enumerated here, I believe there will be something that pleases you for the subject matter itself; something you might grieve to have lost; something you might be eager to have unearthed from the dust of libraries. There will perhaps also be some things whose loss you might easily bear. For my part, it has often been a pleasure to read through catalogues of books, because through them I learned that many things were missing from my collection, or were useless, or even harmful.

Biblical Works. On the measure of Noah's Ark, from Origen. Cod. Barocc. 48. 19. Selected sayings from the major and minor prophets, with prologue and commentaries. Cod. Caesar. Vindobon. ^C theolog. 174. See also the index of prologues among the rhetorical works.

EXCERPT OF SELECT SAYINGS OF THE BLESSED AND BRAVE JOB, CONTRIBUTING TO THE BENEFIT OF EVERY CHRISTIAN.

Dogmatic Works. Former *Antirrhetici* and *Stelitentici*. Gregoras had written books *Antirrhetici* against Palamas before Cantacuzenus had gained the empire (28), as he himself testifies in book XXV of his *History* (29). That these were ten in number is indicated by this program, prefixed to the Vatican codex: *Index of the books selected from the history of the Romans by Gregoras, and composed here with his FORMER TEN ANTIRRHETICI (30).* That is to say: *Index of the books of Gregoras selected from his general Roman History, and conjoined here with his TEN PRIOR ANTIRRHETICI.* But in the catalogue of the Colvillian Escorial library (31) (which ^D is missing in the codex itself, but whose part, described from the Ambrosian codex, was communicated to me by Fridericus Rostgardius).

Later Antirrhetici (32). Gregoras wrote ten books of *Antirrhetici* against the Palamite Tome, in the year of Christ 1353; which, immediately after the Tome was published, he had threatened to edit, as is evident from these words of Agathangelus (33): *Minatus es, te eorum Tomum orationibus Antirrheticis refutaturum*; that is, that he would refute with Antirrhétic orations the very Tome which they had recently and secretly dared to compose. In the Colvillian catalogue these Antirrhetici are also indicated (34) (but only eight) with this inscription: ^A *Orationes Antirrhetica contra Tomum Palamiticum*. Toward the later Antirrhetici, the patriarch Philotheus published twelve books, which exist in the Royal Library, No. 1996.

*Dialogus*, whose title is: *Quem initio Deus hominem creaverit, mortalemne, an immortalem*. Biblioth. Cæsar. Vindobon. cod. theol. 174.

*Quæstio soluta*. It is inscribed in Greek, *Epilysis: concerning the reason for which the hymnographer, having praised the Theotokos as more glorious than the Seraphim, through the addition of the word ASYNKRITOS, made that which was determined incomparable; and toward what glory he looked when he composed this hymn.* Wherefore the author of the Hymnodia, after he had sung of the Mother of God as more glorious than the Seraphim, having added the adverb, INCOMPARABILI- ^B LITER, he determined that to be incomparable which had been compared with another: likewise, to what opinion he looked when he composed this hymn. In the same Caesarean codex.

*Dogmatica disputationes variæ*, passim in Historiæ Byzantinæ libris dogmaticis.

Euchologica.

*Exai*, or *Precatioes*. 1. *Ad Christum, et ad Beatam Virginem*. Biblioth. Cæsar. Vindobod. cod. theolog. 174. 2. *Ad Imperatorem, ex persona metropolitæ recens inaugurati*. Initium: *O megas kai hypselos*... Cod. Vatic. 1086. fol. 214. 3. *Ad eam quæ ei contigit metropolim primum intrantis*. Initium: *Kyrie Iesu Christe, o theos hemon, o ten noeran*... Ibid. fol. 215. 4. *Ad Imperatorem, ex persona metropolitæ modo electi*. Initium: *O Theos o megas kai ischyros*... Ibid. fol. 216. 5. *Pronuntiata super nostro in urbem Ephesum ingressu*. Initium: *O Theos o aionios*... Biblioth. Cæsar. Vindobon. cod. theolog. 174 (57). 6. *In faciendo fundamento domus et urbis*. Initium: *Kyrie o Theos hemon, o ten noeran*... Ibid.

Philosophica.

*Philosophia Compendium* (38). Catalogus bibliothecæ Vaticanæ Morellianus (39), fol. 5, 6. *Dialogus inscriptus*, FLORENTIUS, *seu De sapientia*. Initium: *Pothen hemin o kalos Florentios*? Cod. reg. 3984. Item Vat. 1086. De eo dialogo Gregoras ipse Hist. Byzant. lib. xi, cap. 10, sect. 2. *Quod hi qui alterutri sapientia studuerint, eos non jure sapientes dici, sed potius imitatores re ipsa ejus quæ vere sapientia est*. Initium: *Mega men anthropois sophia*. Cod. Cæsar. Vindob. theol. 174. *De illis qui recentiores et antiquos sapientes non recte reprehendunt*. Initium: *Logos exanastantas tinas ton, os outoi phasi brenthyomenoi, ton panta eidoton*. Ead. cod.

Ad eos qui Fatum statuunt. Indicatur a Possevino in *Apparatu sacro*. Fortasse ea est oratio, quæ exstat libro xxviii Hist. Byzant. cap. penult.

Ad Logothetam de magno pisce, et aliis animantibus. Possevin. in *Apparatu sacro*. Utrum bruta sint ratione prædita. Catalog. biblioth. Barocc. N. 48. Visionem non fieri extra mittendo. Ibid. Aerem non esse natura frigidum. Ibid. De fluviis et mari. Ibid. De sole, an sit natura calidus. Ibid. Utrum anima sit immortalis secundum Aristotelem (43). Ibid.

^A *Dialogus Philomathes, or On Detractors.* To a certain friend, concerning those who insolently disparage astronomy. So the Morellian catalogue of the Vatican library. But in Vatican Codex 1086, fol. 128, an epistle exists, beginning: To Aprus, concerning those who disparage astronomy. And other things they transport... An anonymous letter. Beginning: "As of fragrance," concerning [the air] having cooled. Cod. Vat. 1086, fol. 204. See the index of epistles below. ^B Epistola, to the great Logothete, the author of the book, an exhortation concerning astronomy.

Counsel to the Great Logothete regarding astronomy.

(43) A consolatory [dialogue]? (44) The tract on the construction of the globe is praised by Guil. Cave. (45) The work is mentioned at the beginning of the book of Isaac Argyrus. (46) A preface to the work is attributed by Ph. Labbe, in *Bibliotheca nova*, to Nicephorus on the books of Ptolemy, along with Aristoxenus and others. But he, as I suppose, is Nicephorus Bryennius, not Gregoras. (47) Item is the beginning of the dialogue which is inscribed *Logos Deuteros*. See the index of Miscellanea below. (48) Namely, that work is adjoined. (49) Exists in Bolland. for 12 Feb. [Nicephorus the philosopher who flourished circa A.D. 1000. See our *Patrologia*, vol. CVI. EDIT.] (50) Vossius attributes it to an author long anterior to the *Historia Graeca*, lib. II, cap. 26. (51) Is it "exei"? (52) Uncertain if by Gregoras. (53) A gloss?