CHRONICON PASCHALE. - Anonymous Byzantine chronicle of the 7th century, with a predominantly chronological interest. It was commonly called paschal because of the author's undertaking to relate the chronological data to the paschal observances; however, it is also found designated by the name C. Alexandrinum, or Constantinopolitanum, and by that of Fasti Siculi. The author's name is unknown, but from the content it may be inferred, with every likelihood, that he was an ecclesiastic of Constantinople, living in the circle of the patriarch Sergius (610-38). Both the references to that patriarch and the title prefixed by the author to the work lead us to this date: Chronological summary from Adam to the twentieth year of the reign of Heraclius (629).
The C. P. belongs to the genre of those universal histories which were so widely diffused in the Middle Ages. According to this chronicle, the era of the world began 5500 years before the birth of Christ, and the first Easter was celebrated on 13 April of the year 1272 B.C. The birth of the Redeemer took place on a Wednesday, 25 December, and on 23 March, thirty-three years later, his death would fall. The Easters are calculated with a cycle of 19 lunar years and one of 28 solar years. Thus every 532 Julian years they return with the same rhythm.
The foundations of this history of the world, whose pillars are fixed according to a frankly religious vision, are naturally constituted by the biblical texts, although the chronological systems of ancient peoples, from the Babylonians to the Romans, are not ignored. According to the usage of the time, the author does not strictly adhere to his subject, but the historical narrative gives him occasion for digressions of various kinds. The tone of the chronicle changes at a certain point; after the bare schematism of the years 532-600, there follows for the last thirty years a narrative rich in facts and matters to which the author was evidently a contemporary or close to them. In this part lies all our interest in the chronicle, since for the rest it is a very ordinary compilation, not even diligent. Besides the Bible, it is based for the more ancient part on Julius Africanus (v.), then on Eusebius (History and Chronicle), on Malalas and on the so-called Idacian fasti. It therefore follows a path very different from the chronographer of 354 and from the other chronicles that go back to the Hippolytean compilation.
This work, of slight historical and literary value, enjoyed wide popularity in the Middle Ages and great influence on later Byzantine chronicles. For the common people it was, together with Malalas (v. GIOVANNI MALALA), what Eusebius, Syncellus, and Zonaras were for the educated class.
Bibliography3 works
Luigi Aurigemma