L’«Histoire Euthymiaque» l’oeuvre du Patriarche Euthymios/Euphemios de Constantinople (490-496, † 515)

Abstract

The paper deals with several different points related to the “Historia Euthymiaca” (HE). 1. Collection of the preserved fragments and evaluation of the contents: HE is a historico-polemical work dedicated (completely or mostly) to the Council of Chalcedon. 2. Recension of the Assumption story referred to in HE: a kind of “Transitus” belonging to the “Palm of Tree of Life” family in a modification of the second half of the 5th cent. 3. Historical kernel of the account (= legend *P, a source of HE) on Juvenal and the Marian relic in Blachernes: Juvenal’s military assault against the Marian shrine in Gethsemane in the late June or the early July of 453, the same as reported from the opposite side by Ps.-Dioscorus in his “Panegyric on Macarius of Tkôw”. 4. Role of empress Eudocie (heroine of an Arabic “Transitus” having points of contact with HE) in the reorientation of the Marian cult from Ephesus to Jerusalem and Constantinople in the context of the competence between Ephesus and Constantinople (which competence was the main cause of the rise of the Assumption cult in Palestine in the middle of the 5th cent.). 5. Legend of Galbius and Candidus (BHG 1058-1058g) as a substitute of the legend *P in the official cult of Blachernes during the reign of Zeno. Its cultic setting (rearranging of the Palestinian feast of the Ark of Covenant in Cariathiarim on July, 2) and later connection with the liturgical commemoration of Juvenal. 6. Sitz im Leben of HE: before the “neo-chalcedonian” restoration of Justin I and Justinian (518), in some dissident circles during the reign of Anastasius. 7. Author: ex-patriarch of Constantinople Euphemius/Euthymius deposed in 496 for his fidelity to the Council of Chalcedon (spelling “Euthymius” is preserved in Theophane Confessor who made use of HE and in some mss of the premetaphrastic “Lives” of St Daniel Stylite).