Yesterday I collected what I could find about the mysterious writer Pantoleon or Pantaleon, a bunch of whose sermons appear in PG 98. The data was rather a farrago, and a testimony to the obscurity of this medieval figure or figures.
This evening I venture a little further into the mine!
Migne prints the following items. I have supplemented his statements from the the Clavis Patrum Graecorum:
- 1. In sacra lumine or De luminibus sacris, about Christ and St John the Baptist. (PG 98, 1243-1247)
- 2. In transfigurationem Jesu Christi (1247-1253)
- 3. A second sermon, In transfigurationem Jesu Christi (1253-1259). This is CPG 5207.2º, which attributes it to “Pantaleon Constantinopolitanus diaconus”.
The CPG says that this is a sermon usually attributed to Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril’s Commentary on Luke, is made up of a series of homilies. Most of these are extant only in Syriac. Homily 51 (BHGa 1994) is extant in Greek, and printed in PG 77, 1009-1016; and again as PG 98, 1248-1254.
A note in the CPG adds that this homily is attributed sometimes in the manuscripts to Proclus of Constantinople, to Pantaleon (spelled thus), and to Theophilus of Alexandria.
Migne states that some manuscripts attribute this to Cyril of Alexandria, as Homily 51 of the Commentary on Luke.
- 4. Pantaleon, deacon and chartophylax of the great church, Narratio (or Encomium) de miraculis sancti Michaelis. (1259-1265)
- 5. In exaltationem crucis. (1265-1269) Edited by Gretser from 3 manuscripts, but Migne lists a bunch of them. Savile’s edition of Chrysostom also prints it, vol. 7, p.661-663. This is CPG 7915, which attributes it to “Pantoleon Byzantinus presbyter”, and says that it is BHG 430.
A Syriac version of this work is mentioned by Baumstark in Geschichte, p.262; and J.-M. Sauget, in Ecclesia Orans 3 (1986), p. 132-133.
An Old Slavonic version is mentioned in Makarij, Velikija Minei Cetii sobrannyja vserossijskim mitropolitom Makariem, Sanktpeterburg, 1868 ff, Sept. (14-24), col. 718-721. Manuscripts of the Old Slavonic are mentioned in Chr. Hannick, Maximos Holobolos in der kirchenslavischen homiletischen Literatur (Wiener byzantinistische Studien XIV), Wien , 1981, p. 98 sq., n. 20.
- Orationes sive homiliae panegyricae per totum annum, but vaguely, and prints nothing.
The Clavis Patrum Graecorum adds a little to this. In volume 5, the index volume, three authors are listed:
- PANTALEON Constantinopolitanus diaconus 5207.2º
- PANTALEON 9411
- PANTOLEON Byzantinus presbyter 7915-7918, and supplementary vol. p.455.
This gives us a couple more works:
- 7. CPG 9411 is a letter of Pope Martin to a “Pantaleon” (CPL 1733 for Latin version), sent after the Lateran Council, on 31 Oct. 649 AD. It is printed in PG 87, 169-174, and Mansi, volume X, 819-824, in both Greek and Latin.
References are given in CPG to Jaffe-Loewenfeld, Regesta pontificum Romanorum ab condita ecclesia …, 2 vols, Leipzig, 1885-1888, 2nd ed, n. 2068; and P. Conte, Chiesa e primato, p.448, n.152.
- 8. Homilia de exaltatione crucis (BHG 427p). This is CPG 7918, an unpublished homily, also attributed to “Pantoleon Byzantinus presbyter”. Information about manuscripts can be found in BHG 427p.
The Patrologia Graeca also has some interesting information on the author, from older sources. In volume 98, we find in the table of contents the following:
PANTALEON DIACONUS CP. Orationes, ex Frontonis Ducae. Supplemento ad Bibliothecam Patrum. Col. 1243-1273.
[Pantaleon the Deacon of Constantinople, Orations, from Fronto de Duc, with supplement to the Library of the Fathers]
The introduction for the author, starting on column 1243, begins with “Date disputed”. The material given mainly comes from Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, ed. Harles. volume 11, p.445.
We are told that “Pantaleon Graecus”, both deacon and chartophylax of the great church of Constantinople, whom Fabricius says was a Dominican, and dates him to 1252 – for this is the period of the Latin occupation of Constantinople – wrote a work De Graecorum erroribus, on the errors of the Greeks, which was translated into Latin by Petrus Stevartius using the library of Bavaria (i.e. Munich), and printed by him, without the name of its author, in Ingolstadt in 1616, vol. 4, p.553; and reprinted in vol. 26 of the Patrum Lugd. (aren’t abbreviations annoying?) p. 467-471. That Pantaleon was the author was stated by Combefis in his preface on new publications.
Migne’s footnote to this is a mess of abbreviations. But I learn from it that Bandini, in his catalogue of the manuscripts of the Mediceo-Laurentiana library in Florence, vol. 1, p.503, mentions Codex. Laurentianus 9, Plutei II, as written at the start of the 11th century. This manuscript is said to contain the Narration, the miracles of St Michael the Archangel. A. Mingarelli references[] a 9th century “Nanios manuscript 38” which contains part of the In exaltatione crucis. (Apparently a couple of Venetian noblemen were named “Nano” but I can discover nothing about them; the manuscripts are now in Venice and form part of the Marciana collection.) In his index he refers to Pantaleon as “priest of the monastery of the Byzantines”, as being so called in ms. Nan. 73, n.13; ms. Nan. 154 (?) n. 54 and elsewhere; and as “deacon”, based on ms. Nan. 63, 30 and others.
However Margarin de la Bigne (not “Margaret” as I first thought!) refers Pantaleon to the 8th century. We are given no more on this.
There is also mention of a further Pantaleon Ligarides or Ligaridus, also a Greek, whose letter to Allatius is cited by Nic. Comnenus. Another Pantaleon the Logothete is known, to whom Theodore the Studite addressed some letters. A Pantaleon of Nicomedia, and Martyr, is also known.
Are we further forward? I think not. My correspondent has said that he intends to translate at least some of these, and make them publically available. Let us hope that he does!
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