Evidence ID
E07163Saint Name
Athanasios, bishop of Alexandria, ob. 373 : S00294Saint Name in Source
ἈθανάσιοςType of Evidence
Literary - Hagiographical - LivesEvidence not before
500Evidence not after
600Activity not before
500Activity not after
600Place of Evidence - Region
Constantinople and regionPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
ConstantinoplePlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Constantinople
Constantinople
Κωνσταντινούπολις
Konstantinoupolis
Constantinopolis
Constantinople
IstanbulMajor author/Major anonymous work
PhotiusCult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Composing and translating saint-related textsCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Ecclesiastics - bishopsSource
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
The pre-Metaphrastic Life of Athanasius is only known to us through the summary and excerpts included by Photius in his Bibliotheca. It probably belongs to a group of hagiographic texts which were composed in Constantinople in the 6th century (Fusco 1996). These include the Lives of *Metrophanes and Alexandros of Constantinople (E07162) and *Paul the Confessor (E07002), the Martyrdom of *Markianos and Martyrios the Notaries (E06890), and the Life of *Isaakios (E06980). All these works are characterised by the poverty of their information about their heroes and their dependence on the 5th century ecclesiastical histories, especially Socrates. Consequently, they can be no earlier than the mid 5th century. Three (the Lives of Metrophanes and Alexandros, Paul the Confessor, and Athanasius) were read by Photius in the 9th century, and summarised in his Bibliotheca in three consecutive chapters (246, 247, 248), which suggests that he may have found them in the same volume.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.
Further reading:
Fusco, R., La vita premetafrastica di Paolo il Confessore (BHG 1472a). Un vescovo di Costantinopoli tra storia e leggenda, (Roma, 1996).
