Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/235

PETRUS. ment in the life prefixed to the first edition of his Homiliae, that he hved till near the close of the century, must be inaccurate. Peter acquired his surname from his eloquence. His published writings consist of, 1. Homiliae s. Sermones in Latin. They were first published in 12rao. Paris, 1544, with this title Divi Petri Chrysologi archiepiscopi Ravennatis, viri eruditissimi atque sanctissimi^ indgne et pervetustum opus Homiliarum nunc primum in lucem editum : and have been frequently reprinted. They appear in the seventh volume of the Lyon edition of the Bibliotheca Patrum, fol. 1677. Among these Homiliae, which amount in number to a hundred and seventy-six, some are improperly attributed to Peter. Five of these Sermones were printed in the Spicilegium of D'Achery (vol. vii. p. 120, &c.) under the name of Peter Damiani, an Italian ecclesiastic of much later date, to whom in D'Achery's MS. they were ascribed ; but the error was discovered, and they were assigned by D'Achery in his Index Generalise to Chrysologus, their true author. 2. 'ETrto-ToA?) Tl^Tpov iiriaKo^ov 'Pa€evvr]s dvT ly pa(pe7cTa Trpos EvTuxv Tov apx^fJ-civSplTriP, Epistola Petri Paven- natis Episcopi ad Eutychem Ahhatem. This letter, which is a reply to one addressed by the heresiarch Eutyches to Peter, complaining of the condemna- tion passed on him by Flavianus of Constantinople [Eutyches ; Flavianus, Ecclesiastics, No. 3], was published by Gerard Vossius in the original Greek with a Latin version, at the end of the works of Gregory Thaumaturgus, 4to. Mayence, 1604. It is reprinted in the Concilia (vol. iv. col. 36, ed. Labbe ; vol, ii. col. 21, ed. Hardouin). (Tillemont, Memoires^ vol. xv. p. 184, &c. ; Cave, Hist. Litt. ad ann. 433, vol. i. p. 422; Oudin, De Scriptor. et Scripiis Eccles. vol. i. col. 1250.) 11. Cnapheus. [No. 17.] 12. Of Constantinople. [No. 15.] 13. Damascenus. Among the works of Jo- annes Damascenus [Damascenus, Joannes] (vol. i. p. 652, ed. Le Quien) are an Epistola ad Zachariam, and a short piece entitled Caput de immaculate Curpore, ^c. The Epistola is cited by Michael Glycas at the end of the twelfth century, in certain letters extant in MS., as having been written by Joannes Damascenus ; and both pieces were published under the name of that author by Petrus Pantinus, 8vo. Antwerp, 1601 ; and by Fronto Ducaeus, Paris, 1603 and 1619. These editors were supported by the authority of MSS. in ascribing them to Joannes ; but internal evi- dence showed that such ascription was erroneous ; and the authority of a more perfect MS. enabled Le Quien to restore them to their true author. As published by him (ubi supra) they bear re- spectively these titles, I. 'ETricrroX^ tov dyiayrdrov UeTpov TOV Mavaovp irpos Zaxapiav inicTKOiTov Aodpuiv^ Epistola sanclissimi Petri Mansur ad Zachariam episcopum Doarorum. 2. Tov avrov /ce- <pdAaiov irepl tov dxpdvTov aciixuTos ov /u6Tao/i§a- vo/xeu, Ejusdem Caput de immaculaio Corpore aijus participes sumus. It is by no means clear who this Peter was. His surname Mansur makes it pro- bable that he was of the same family as Joannes Damascenus, by whom that surname was borne. Le Quien thinks that the writer of the letter was not Peter, metropolitan of Damascus, an intimate friend of Joannes Damascenus, who, for writing against the doctrines of the Mohammedans and the Manichaeans (i. e. the Paulicians), had his PETRUS. 223 tongue cut out, and was banished by order of the Caliph Walid into Arabia P'elix, where lie suflered martyrdom. (Theophanep, Chronographia^ ad A. M. 6234 s= A. D. 74.3, p. 349, ed. Paris, p. 278, ed. Venice, vol. i. p. 641, ed. Bonn.) Theophanes men- tions (ibid.) another Peter, as having suffered martyr- dom from the Saracens at Maiuma, the port of Gaza in Palestine, about the same time, and adds that Joannes Damascenus had written in honour of this Peter. Le Quien, though he refers to this passage in Theophanes, gives no intimation that he re- garded the martyr of Maiuma as the author of the pieces in question : but he has observed that a quotation from the Liturgy of St. James, or of Jeru- salem, in the Epistola, shows that the writer was an ecclesiastic of Palestine. There was a later Peter of Damascus, a Greek monk, who flourished in the middle of the twelfth century, and wrote several works on the discipline of a monastic life, which are found in MS. in various libraries : but it is hardly likely that he wrote the Epistola and the Caput, for Michael Glycas would hardly have ascribed pieces of so recent an origin to Joannes Damascenus, a writer of four hundred years pre- vious to his own time. If either of the above- mentioned persons was the writer, we think the balance of probability is in favour of the martyr of Maiuma. (Le Quien, Opera Damasceni, I. c. ; Fabric. Bihl. Grace, vol. ix. p. 717, vol. xi. p. 336 ; Cave, Hist. Litt. vol. ii. Dissert, i. p. 15.) 14. DiACONUS. In the controversy excited near the beginning of the sixth century by the monks, whom ecclesiastical writers call "Scythae," who came from the diocese of Tomi, on the south bank of the Danube [Maxentius, Joannes], Peter, a deacon, took a prominent part. He had accompanied the delegates sent to Rome by the monks, and while at Rome united with his col- leagues in addressing to Fulgentius, and the other African bishops who were then in exile in Sardinia, a work entitled De Tncarnatione et Gratia Domint nostri Jesu Christi Liber. To this Fulgentius and his companions replied in another treatise on the same subject. The work of Peter, which is in Latin, was published in the Monumenta SS. Patrum Orthodoocographa of Grynaeus, Basel, 1569, and has been reprinted in various editions of the Bib- liotheca Patrum. It is in the ninth volume of the Lyon edition, fol. a. D. 1677, and in the eleventh vol. of the edition of Galland, fol. Venice, 1776. (Cave, Llist. Litt. ad ann. 520, vol. i. p. 505 ; Ittigius, De Bibliothecis Patrum, pp. 21, 40, 436, 503 ; Galland. Biblioth. Patrum. Proleg. ad vol. xi. c. 4.) 15. DiACONUS. In the Jus Graeco-Romanum of Leunclavius, lib. vi. pp. 395 — 397, are given 'EpwrriiUara air^p ev(TfV 6 Tt/jiiwTaTOS x°^P'^"'i>^^°^i KipLos TliTpos, KaX hidKovos ttJs tov &eov ^eyaATjs Ik/cAtjo-ios, ep eret rx', Interrogationes quas sol- vit reverendissimus Chartulariust Domhius Petrus, idemque Diaconus Majoris Ecclesiac (sc. of St. So- phia at Constantinople) A. M. 6600 = a. d. 1092. "We learn from this title that the author lived about the close of the eleventh century in the reign of Alexius I. Comnenus, and that he held the offices described, which is all that is known of him. There are, or were, extant in MS. in the King's Library at Paris, Petrus Diaconus et Philosophus de Cyclo et Indictione, and Petri Diaconi et Philo- sophi Tractatus de Sole, Luna, et Sideribus (Codd. cmxxix. No. 7. and mmmlxxxv.), but whether this