Gregentios

Gregentios (Greek: Γρηγέντιος) was the archbishop of Ẓafār (Taphar), the capital of the kingdom of Ḥimyar, in the mid-6th century, according to a hagiographical dossier compiled in the 10th century. This compilation is essentially legendary and fictitious, although parts of it are of historical value. Written in Greek, it survives also in a Slavonic translation.[1] The three works in the dossier are conventionally known as the Bios (Life), Nomoi (Laws) and Dialexis (Debate).[2] The whole dossier is sometimes known as the Acts of Gregentios.[3]

Name

The name Gregentios is unknown apart from the Bios and related texts. According to the Bios, he received his name from a local holy man. Several later scribes, encountering an unheard of name, changed it to Gregorios (Gregory).[4] This is the name that appears in all the Slavonic versions, as well as an Arabic translation of the Dialexis.[1][4] It also appears in the fresco depicting Gregentios in the monastery of Koutsovendis on Cyprus, painted between 1110 and 1118.[5] Other scribal emendations are Gregentinos and Rhegentios.[4]

The name has a Latin ending, which may indicate a western origin for the name, but such suffixes had entered vernacular Greek by the time the Bios was written. The name may be derived from Agrigentius, "man from Agrigento", or from a combination of the name Gregory with either Agrigentius or the name of Saint Vincentius. The biography of Gregory of Agrigento was a major source used by the author of the Bios, and an itinerary of Vincentius may also have been used.[4]

The only known persons named after Gregentios are two 19th-century monks of Mount Athos. The first was the archimandrite of Vatopedi in April 1842 and the second a monk of the Skete of Saint Anne who died in 1879 aged 69. Both monastic communities had copies of the Bios and Dialexis of Gregentios.[4]

Bios

According to his Bios, Gregentios was born in the late 5th century in the town of Lyplianes (Ljubljana). He traveled extensively in northern and central Italy and Sicily before sailing to Alexandria in Egypt.[1][6] Following the massacre of the Christians of Najrān (523) and the Aksumite conquest of Ḥimyar (525), he was sent by the patriarch of Alexandria, Proterios, as a bishop to evangelize the Ḥimyarites.[1] (The actual patriarch at this time was Timothy IV.[1]) This took place while Justin I was emperor (518–527).[6] He remained in Ḥimyar for thirty years, assisting the Aksumite king Caleb and then the viceroy Abraha in building churches. He died on 19 December, on which day he is remembered in the Synaxarion of Constantinople.[1]

The Bios, which Jean-Marie Sansterre called a "hagiographical romance", is divided into nine chapters. While the first eight are vague in their chronology and geography, the ninth draws on superior historical sources and contains more precise details. The Bios was completed either at Constantinople in the 10th century or in Rome in the 9th century.[6] The Nomoi and Dialexis are later additions. The whole collection, which presents as a unity, was not brought together before the 10th century. The Nomoi may contain some authentic information, since it shares characteristics with legal inscriptions from pre-Islamic South Arabia.[1] The Dialexis, which is a debate between Gregentios and a Jew named Herban, was the most popular part of the work and circulated independently into modern times.[3]

There is a treatise against the Azymites in the form of a letter that is ascribed to Gregentios in one manuscript. Given the issue it discusses, it can have no connection to the time in which Gregentios supposedly lived. In 1660, some "letters of Gregentios"—possibly the same treatise—were catalogued as part of the library of Denis Pétau that had been purchased after his death by Queen Christina of Sweden. There is no further record of these letters and they appear to be lost.[7]

References
  1. Fiaccadori 1991.
  2. Berger 2006, p. 1.
  3. Christides 2009.
  4. Berger 2006, pp. 28–31.
  5. Mango & Hawkins 1964, fig. 44.
  6. Insley 2018.
  7. Berger 2006, p. 159.

Bibliography
  • Bausi, Alessandro (2008). "Review of Life and Works of Saint Gregentios, Archbishop of Taphar". Aethiopica. 11: 262–266.
  • Berger, Albrecht, ed. (2006). Life and Works of Saint Gregentios, Archbishop of Taphar: Introduction, Critical Edition and Translation. Millennium Studies, 7. De Gruyter.
  • Bowersock, G. W. (2013). The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-973932-5.
  • Christides, Vassilios (1972). "The Himyarite–Ethiopian War and the Ethiopian Occupation of South Arabia in the Acts of Gregentius (ca. 530 A.D.)". Annales d'Éthiopie. 9: 115–146. doi:10.3406/ethio.1972.896.
  • Christides, Vassilios (2000). "The Martyrdom of Arethas and the Aftermath: History vs. Hagiography". Graeco-Arabica. 7–8: 51–92.
  • Christides, Vassilios (2009). "Review of Life and Works of Saint Gregentios, Archbishop of Taphar". Collectanea Christiana Orientalia. 6: 458–464.
  • Christides, Vassilios (2015). "The Himyarite Kingdom on the Eve of and After the Ethiopian Dominance in the Sixth Century AD in the Martyrdom of St. Arethas and His Companions and in the Acts of St. Gregentius". Journal for Semitics. 24 (2): 678–700. doi:10.25159/1013-8471/3475.
  • Fiaccadori, Gianfranco (1991). "Gregentios". In Kazhdan, Alexander (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
  • Fiaccadori, Gianfranco (2005). "Gregentius". In Siegbert Uhlig (ed.). Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. Vol. 2: D–Ha. Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 889–891.
  • Fiaccadori, Gianfranco (2006). "Gregentios in the Land of the Homerites". In Albrecht Berger (ed.). Life and Works of Saint Gregentios, Archbishop of Taphar: Introduction, Critical Edition and Translation. De Gruyter. pp. 48–82. doi:10.1515/9783110911060.48. ISBN 9783110911060.
  • Hatke, George (2011). Africans in Arabia Felix: Aksumite Relations with Himyar in the Sixth Century C.E. (PhD diss.). Princeton University. ProQuest 3437755
  • Insley, Sarah (2018). "Gregentius, Life of S.". In Oliver Nicholson (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Vol. 1: A–I. Oxford University Press. p. 683.
  • Letsios, Dimitrios G. (1991). "Some Remarks on Reflections of Byzantine Foreign Policy in the Martyrdom of Arethas and the Acts of Gregentius". Graeco-Arabica. 4: 141–155.
  • Lourié, Basil (2008). "Review of Life and Works of Saint Gregentios, Archbishop of Taphar". Scrinium. 4 (1): 446–449. doi:10.1163/18177565-90000200.
  • Mango, Cyril; Hawkins, Ernest J. W. (1964). "Report on Field Work in Istanbul and Cyprus, 1962–1963". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 18: 319–340. doi:10.2307/1291217. JSTOR 1291217.
  • Radius, William Thomas (1939). The Discussion of St. Gregentius, Archbishop of Taphar, with the Jew Herban (PhD diss.). University of Michigan. ProQuest 301813058
  • Shahîd, Irfan (1979). "Byzantium in South Arabia". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 33: 23–94. doi:10.2307/1291433. JSTOR 1291433.
  • Stevenson, Walter (2007). "Review of Life and Works of Saint Gregentios, Archbishop of Taphar". Bryn Mawr Classical Review. 9 (6): 1–4.
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