Beirut Conversion Quake

• from Mango Scott (1997:65)

[AM 5840, AD 347/8]

Constantius, 12th year
Sabores, 46th year
Liberius, 3rd year
Eusebios, 3rd year
Cyril, 8th year
Athanasios, 19th year
Phlakitos, 5th year

ln this year most of the city of Berytos in Phoenicia collapsed during a severe earthquake. As a result, many pagans entered the Church professing to be Christians just like us. Thereupon some of them introduced an innovation and went forth after robbing, as it were, the Church of her usages. They appointed a place of prayer and received the throng into it, imitating all the customs of the Church and becoming very close to us (just as the heresy of the Samaritans [is close] to the Jews), while still living in the pagan fashion.||^a

Conterno (2014:106-107) considers the following regarding reports of natural phenomenon in Theophanes:

However, in examining this type of information two aspects must be kept in mind: on the one hand the fact that they represented the main content of the chronological lists linked to the city archives, on the other hand the fact that events of this type could very likely be the subject of independent recording by several sources and, especially in the case of the most impressive phenomena, their memory could also be passed down orally for a long time. The importance of the registers of the archives of Antioch and Edessa in relation to the Syriac and Greek chronicles was highlighted by Muriel Debié. As emerges from one of his studies, in fact, the registers of documents kept in the city and patriarchal archives - the so-called "archive books" - probably also contained annotations, in calendar or annalistic form, of the most relevant local events, references to which they could be contained in the documents and administrative acts themselves: construction of buildings, destruction due to wars or fires and floods, natural disasters and exceptional events of various kinds (plagues, famines, eclipses and other astronomical phenomena ...)

From these registers, short chronological lists were extracted and circulated independently and from which authors of both Greek and Syriac chronicles could draw, as can be seen from the testimony of Giovanni Malalas. To these must also be added the episcopal lists, lists of rulers and lists of synods and councils, and it is precisely to these thematic lists, which circulated independently and in different versions, that the material centered on Edessa, Antioch and Amida which is found in the later chronicles. According to Debié, any dating discrepancies found in the various chronicles can be attributed, on the one hand, to the fact that the chroniclers had different lists available and often crossed the data from the lists with those taken from other chronicles; on the other hand, the probable difficulties encountered by chroniclers in matching the different dating systems or in obtaining absolute datings from chrono related logies, or even to their precise intention to modify the chronological data for ideological reasons. Debié therefore hypothesizes a large production and circulation of these lists, which in fact constituted a concrete form of scheduling relevant events at the local level, primarily for practical purposes. Being instruments of use rather than compositions of a historiographical nature, they were not intended to cover very large periods, but were rather relatively short clips. An aspect that emerges clearly from his study, moreover, is that in these lists the relative chronology was just as and perhaps more important than the absolute one, since the fixing of memorable facts and their concatenation was essentially aimed at establish reference points for the chronological location of other events.

Brooks, E. W. (1906). "The sources of Theophanes and the Syriac chroniclers." Byzantinische Zeitschrift 15(2): 578-587.

Conterno, M. (2014). La “descrizione dei tempi” all’alba dell’espansione islamica Un’indagine sulla storiografia greca, siriaca e araba fra VII e VIII secolo, De Gruyter.

Grumel, V. (1958). La chronologie, Presses Universitaires de France.

Hoyland, R. G. (2011). Theophilus of Edessa's Chronicle and the Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, Liverpool University Press.

Mango, C., et al. (1997). The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern history, AD 284-813, Clarendon Press.

Proudfoot, A. S. (1974). "THE SOURCES OF THEOPHANES FOR THE HERACLIAN DYNASTY." Byzantion 44(2): 367-439.

Turtledove, H. (1982). "The Chronicle Of Theophanes, Trans. By Harry Turtledove ( 1982)."

Proudfoot (1974:374) noted that while Theophanes used the Alexandrian Anno Mundi system, it is unknown whether he started his years on 25 March as would be done for the Alexandrian version or 1 September as was done in the Byzantine method of Anno Mundi. Although the Alexandrian Anno Mundi system was being replaced by the Byzantine system when Theophanes wrote (and would be obsolete by the 9th century CE), Theophanes used the Alexandrian Anno Mundi system because his chronicle was a continuation of George Syncellus Chronicle which had used the the Alexandrian system.

Proudfoot (1974:405-409) summarized Brook's pioneering work on Theophanes' eastern source (only the first part is shown below)

Exposition of this source might profitably be preceeded by discussion of the pioneer studies of Brooks towards identification of the common source underlying much of the seventh and early eighth century narratives of Theophanes and Michael the Syrian, the development and the corroboration of this work in the light of more recently published primary sources and of other chronicle traditions, and its contribution to the emerging perspective of a stingle Byzantino-Syriac tradition for the historiography of the seventh century. A Monophysite Syriac chronicle extending to 746 written soon after that date by the otherwise unknown John son of Samuel and citing an unknown chronicle composed 724-31 (wherein much of the more detailed material was atrributable to a source written either within or on the frontier of the Caliphate before 717) (2) was transmitted to Theophanes through the intermediary of a Melchite monk of Palestine writing in Greek c. 780 whose work was brought to Constantinople in 813 after the dissolution of the Syrian monasteries and the dispersal of their personnel, and to Michael the Syrian through Denis of Tellmahre -writing c. 843-6, while the chronicle dated to 724-31 was one of the sources of the monk of Karthamin whose work was written c.785 and continued as the Chronicon ad 846 pertinens (3). The last notice Theo-phanes drew from the Melchite continuator of the common source was apparently (780) the persecution of Christians by al-Mandi (775-85) the first caliph of the Abbasid jihad ...

• from Niebuhr (1838:523)

In the 12th year [of Constantius II's reign] there was a great earthquake in Berytus in Phoenicia, and most of the city collapsed.

• from Niebuhr (1838:523)

Duodecimo anno terrae motus maiorem Beryti (urbs est Phoeniciae) partem evertit,

• from Niebuhr (1838:523)

Τῷ (iB ἔτει σεισμὸς μέγας ἐγένετο ἐν Βηρυτῷ τῆς Φοινίκης, ὡς τὸ πλεῖον τῆς πόλεως πεσεῖν.

• see bottom of page 523 (margin note p. 299)
• from Niebuhr (1838:523)
• from archive.org

Niebuhr, B. G. (1839). Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae, Impensis ed. Weberi.- online open access at google books

Cedrenus, G., et al. (1838). Georgius Cedrenus, Ioannis Scylitzae ope, E. Weber (in Greek and Latin) - online open access at archive.org

Grumel, V. (1958). La chronologie, Presses Universitaires de France.

Medieval (Byzantine) Greek Reading Group at the University of Melbourne where an English translation of Cedrenus is apparently close to completion - has lots of useful Cedrenus related links