E07160: Eulogius of Alexandria wrote in Greek Five Books Against Novatus and On the Dispensation, which reported that the Novatians of Alexandria refused to venerate the relics of the martyrs. Written in Alexandria in 580/608; the work is lost, but summarised in the 9th century Bibliotheca of Photius.
online resource
posted on 2018-12-13, 00:00authored byCSLA Admin
Photius, Bibliotheca
182: Eulogius of Alexandria, Five Books Against Novatus and On the Dispensation
After talking about Novatus and his story, Photius summarises the work, which includes the following treatise:
'Now, in the first four books, the author fights generally against the heresy of Novatus, assailing him with scriptural quotations. In the fifth, he argues in particular for the necessity of honouring the relics of the martyrs, which, he says, the Novatians of Alexandria refused to do, either because they alone had contracted this additional malady, or because the whole sect was holding this view.'
Text: Henry 1959. Summary and translation: Efthymios Rizos.
History
Evidence ID
E07160
Type of Evidence
Literary - Theological works
Language
Greek
Evidence not before
580
Evidence not after
608
Activity not before
580
Activity not after
608
Place of Evidence - Region
Egypt and Cyrenaica
Place of Evidence - City, village, etc
Alexandria
Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Ecclesiastics - bishops
Heretics
Source
The Bibliotheca or Myriobiblos (the 'Ten Thousand Books') is a work of the 9th century scholar and Patriarch of Constantinople Photius (c. 810-893), composed of 279 reviews of books of Christian and pagan authors from the 5th century BC to the author’s own time in the 9th century AD. Almost half the books mentioned no longer survive.
Discussion
Eulogius' lost text provides an interesting attestation of debates concerning the legitimacy of the cult of relics in the late 6th century. The roughly contemporary work of Eustratius of Constantinople, On the State of the Souls after Death (E04192), discusses the problem of the nature of miracles, but does not discuss the legitimacy of the cult of relics.
Bibliography
Text:
Henry, R., Photius. Bibliothèque, vol. 2 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1960), with French translation.
Canfora, L., Bianchi, N., and Schiano, C., Fozio, Biblioteca (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2016), with Italian translation and commentary.