Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/520

 498 APPENDIX The Life and martyrdom of Axastajsius, an apostate to Christianity from the Magian religion, who suilered on Jan. 22 ,628, was drawn up at Jerusalem towards the end of the same year, and deserves some attention in connexion with the Persian wars of Heraclius. It is published in its original form, distinct from later accretions, by H. Usener, Acta Martyris Anastasii Persae, 1894. The History of Heraclius by Sebaeos, an Armenian bishoj) of the seventh century, written in the Armenian tongue, was first brought to light through the discovery of a Ms. in the librar}- of Etzmiadzin some years before Brosset visited that library in 1848. The text was edited in 18.51, and Patkanian's Russian trans- lation appeared in 1862. Two passages in the work show that Sebaeos was a contemporary of Heraclius and Constans (c. SOwfZA'/i. , p. 122; and c. 3i ad init. , p. 148, tr. Patk. ) ; and this agrees with some brief notices of later writers, who state that Sebaeos was present at the Coimcil of Doviu in a.d. 645 (of which he gives a full account in c. 33). It is also stated that he was Bishop of Bagratun. The work is not strictly confined to the reign of Heraclius. It begins in the reign of the Persian king Perezes in the fifth century, and briefly touches the reigns of Kobad and of Chosroes I., of whom Sebaeos relates the legend that he was con- verted to Christianitj'. The events connected with the revolt of Bahram and the accession of Chosroes II. are told at more length (c. 2-3), and especial prominence is given to the part played by the Armenian prince Musheg, who supported Chos- roes. The next seventeen chapters are concerned chiefly with the history of Chosroes and his intrigues in Armenia during the reign of Maurice. It is not till the twenty-first chapter that we meet Heraclius, and not till the twenty-fourth that his history really begins. In c. 32 we again take leave of him, and the rest of the work (c. 32-38), about a third of the whole, deals with the following twelve years (641-6.52). The great importance of Sebaeos (apart from his value for domestic and ecclesiastical affairs in Armenia) lies in his account of the Persian campaigns of Heraclius. [Besides the Russian translation, Patkanian published an account of the contents of the work of Sebaeos in the Journal Asiatique, vii., p. 101 sqq., 1866.] For the ecclesiastical historj- of the seventh and eighth centuries we are better furnished than for the political, as we have writings on the great controversies of the times by persons who took part in the struggles. Unluckily the synods which finally closed the JMonotheletic and the Iconoclastic questions in favour of the " orthodox " views enjoined the destruction of the controversial works of the de- feated parties, so that of Monotheletic and Iconoclastic literature we have only the fragments which are quoted in the Acts of Councils or in the writings of the Dyothelete and Iconodule controversialists. For the Monotheletic dispute we have (besides the Acts of the Council of Rome in A.D. 649, and of the Sixth General Council of a.d. 680) the works of the great defender of the orthodox view, the Abbot Maximus (a.d. 580-662). He had been a secretary of the Emperor Heraclius, and afterwards became abbot of a monas- tery at Chrysopolis (Scutari), where we find him a.d. 630. His opposition to Monotheletism presently drove him to the west, and in Africa he met the Mono- thelcte Patriarch Pyrrhus and converted him from his heretical error (a.d. 645). But the conversion was not permanent ; Pyrrhus returned to his heresy. Maxi- mus then proceeded to Rome, and in a.d. (353 was carried to Constantinople along with Pope Martin, and banished to Bizya in Thrace. A disputation which he held then with the Bishop of Caesarea led to a second and more distant exile to Lazica, where he died. A considerable number of polemical writings on the question for which he suffered are extant, including an account of his disputation with Pj-rrhus. [His works are collected in Migne, Patr. Gr. xc. xci. (after the edition of Combefis, 1675).] Maximus had a dialectical training and a tendency to mysticism. " Pseudo-Dionysius was introduced into the Greek Church by Maximus ; he harmonized the Areopagite with the traditional ecclesiastical doc- trine, and thereby influenced Greek theology more powerfully than John of Damascus " (Ehrhard, ap. Krumbacher, Gesch. der byz. Litt. ]). 63).