John of Antioch (chronicler)

John of Antioch was chronicler in the 7th century. He was a monk, apparently contemporary with Emperor Heraclius (610-41).

John of Antioch composed a chronicle (Historia chronike) from Adam to the death of Phokas (610), using for this purpose Sextus Julius Africanus, Eusebius, Ammianus Marcellinus, and other standard authorities. It is one of the many adaptations and imitations of the better known chronicle of John Malalas. Only fragments of it remain.

Gelzer (Sextus Julius Africanus 41) identifies the author with the Monophysite Patriarch John of Antioch, who ruled from 630 to 648. The fragments of the chronicle are contained in two collections, the Codex Parisinus, 1763, written Salmasius and the encyclopedia of history made by order of Constantine VII, Porphyrogenitus (912-59), in fifty-three chapters, or titles with different headings. Of this collection of excerpts only parts remain (Krumbacher, "Byz. Litt.", 258-60). Two titles: "Of Virtue and Vice" and "Of Conspiracies against Emperors" contain the literary remains of John of Antioch. A difficulty arises from the fact that a great part of the extracts (from the Roman Commonwealth of Justin I) differs considerably from the corresponding quotations in the Salmasian collection. The Constantinian passages are of the nature old the old Hellenic writing of history, the Salmasian ones are rather Byzantine and Christian. The Salmasian compilation is older, and so appears to be the original text; the other is no doubt a re-arrangement made under the influence of the Hellenic Renaissance since Photius. But some authorities see in them two different originals and speak of a "Constantinian" and a "Salmasian" John of Antioch.

The Salmasian excerpts are edited by Cramer, "Anecdota Graeca e cod. mss. regiae Parisiensis", II, Oxford 1839, 383-401. Both series of fragments are in C. Muller, "Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum", vol. IV, Paris, 1883, 535-622; V, 27-8.