Ecclesiastical History or Historia Sacra? Genre(s) in Motion on the Verge of 17th-18th Centuries
SARRIS KOSTAS
Atthe turn of the17thto the18thcentury,threeimportant booksin the fieldof Modern Greek historiographywere writtenor published. Nevertheless, there was a difficulty intheintegrationof mostof theseworksin a specifichistoriographicalgenre.
The Compendium of Sacred-secular History (Venice, 1677) by Nektarios of Jerusalem (1605-1676) describes the Monastery of Sinai and its history up to theOttomanconquest of1517. Compendium’s content and quotations can be identified in the spacious, grammatologicalnotionofHistoria Sacra, where diverse literary genres were integrated duringthe CatholicReformation. Historia Sacra, can be viewed as localhistory of the Post-Tridentine Italian bishoprics, as hagiology,or as Christianarcheology, and couldcomplementthesecular historyto the latter’s instructiveandexemplaryrole. In this respect, theCompendium of Sacred-secularHistory attempted to recompose the secular history in such a manner as a sacred-secular history, in order to fulfillNektarios’ objectives regarding the Sinaitic Question. Thus, the Compendiumby Nektarios of Jerusalemseems to acknowledge a lot ofdebts to Historia Sacra, both in terms ofform, content, and objectives,as well as in terms ofmethodologyand sources.
Dositheosof Jerusalem(1641-1707)was one of themost prominent figures of the Greek-orthodox world and a closeassociate ofNektariosof Jerusalem. He conceivedand implementedaparticularly ambitiousprogram regarding the publicationof controversialbooks. His most important book is theHistoryconcerning the patriarchs in Jerusalem (Bucharest, c. 1722, posthumously), known asDodekavivlos.Itisahistoriographicalworkwithanessentiallydualcharacter, which hinders the clarification of its genre. At first, Dodekavivlos had been called to demonstrate both theorthodoxyof the Patriarchateof Jerusalem and the significanceof the pilgrimages, on behalf of the critical Holy Sites Question. Nevertheless, very soon its perspective was broadenedto a general church history. Eventually, Dodekavivlos seeks to confute overall the Uniat historical-theological scheme elaborated by LeonAllatius(c. 1588-1669) in his famous book: De Ecclesiae Occidentalis atque Orientalis Perpetua Consensione Libri Tres (Cologne, 1648). Both Dodekavivlos’ historicalapologetics and Dositheos’ particulareditorialproduction display manysimilarities withHistoria Sacra– mutatis mutandis. Dodekavivloscouldbe defined asa work derived from the commixture notmerely of historians but of various literary genresdeveloped within the framework of Historia Sacra, as well. Despitethe contradictions and the distortions concerning its genre, Dodekavivlos still remainsan important andinterestingendeavorby Dositheos of Jerusalemto transfer and reconceptualize western historiographical models, in order towrite –forhis own controversial objectives and representing theEastern Church – aHistoriaSacra.
Some years later, Meletios of Athens (1661-1714) wrote his Ecclesiastical History (Vienna, 3 vols, 1783-1784). Unlike the above mentioned authors,Meletioswas fully awarethat his book belonged to thehistoriographicalgenreof churchhistory. History–in fact, church history – maintains thecentral position in the narration, while Apologetics function complementarily and always dependent on History. Ecclesiastical History by Meletios has a remarkable consistency. The text is cohesive and follows, in general, the guidelines unfolded in the “Introduction”. There, Meletios describes explicitly aGreek-orthodoxversionof the broadepistemologicalnotion ofHistoria, as it hadbeen formulatedin EarlyModernEurope; that is to say, witha widerangeof descriptivedisciplines on Nature and Man. The Ecclesiastical History, integrated right into the intellectual framework of Historia, could be perceived as an attempt to re-organize the memory and the history of the Church of Constantinople in the early 18th century. Moreover, Meletios,as a keyintroducerofHistoriain the East, willtry toreconcilethe tradition andthe memoryof the Eastern Churchwiththenewmethodological andinterpretativetrends formed by the famous French schoolof churchhistoriography in the 17thcentury.
The perception of these works, in regard to the genre(s) of church history, as formed in 16th-17th centuries Europe, provides new interpretative pathsin the studyof early Modern Greekhistoriography, and reveals yet anotheraspectconcerning the transfer and transformationof episteme/knowledgeinthe age of the Greek-orthodox homines novi of the Ottoman Empire and their intellectual milieu.