International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Raf Praet 
University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands; 
[e-mail]
Eighteen of Nineteen Books? 
The 
Chronicle
of John Malalas as a Mechanism of Cyclical and Apocalyptic Time
The question of the original length of the partially preserved chronicle of John Malalas (c. 490 
– c. 570) has been the topic of an acrimonious philological debate during the last decades. Croke 
(1990: 23-25) plead in favour of the chronicle comprising eighteen books and ending with the death 
of emperor Justinian (c. 482 – 565). Scholars such as Mommsen (1895: 487-488), Haury (1900: 340) 
and Hunger (1978: 320) have, however, argued in favour of the chronicle ending in the reign of 
one of Justinian’s successors, with the possible implication of the chronicle comprising of nineteen 
books. Every different position in this debate had one common point of agreement; until today 
there are no elements from the transmission history which allow for a conclusive and satisfactory 
resolution to the problem of the chronicle’s original length. 
In this paper, I propose that Malalas’ chronicle consisted of nineteen books, and that he 
construed his chronicle on the basis of a premeditated compositional scheme; namely, a circular 
composition, revolving around the pivotal book X, which heralds the coming of Christ. A close 
reading of the work will show that 1) Malalas balances book VII and book XIII as perfect opposites 
around the central book X, 2) that he uses numerological schemes which are also popular in 
contemporaries in the west and the east, such as Cassiodorus (c. 485 – c. 585), and John of Lydia 
(c. 490 – c. 565), 3) that he uses these contemporary structural devices to construe an historical 
work in which the past is used to foretell and come to terms with the future. Indeed, throughout 
his chronicle, Malalas uses the tools of time and time reckoning in order not only to argue why the 
end of the world did not yet happen, but also when it will inevitably come to pass in the year 6000.

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