Proclus of Constantinople (d. 446 or 447)

Bp. of Cyzicus and since 434 patr. of Constantinople.

Bp. of Cyzicus and since 434 patr. of Constantinople. His literary work, all in Greek, consists of homilies and letters. His homilies enjoyed great popularity and were translated into several languages. While Leroy’s 1967 study surveyed 34 homilies, the authors of * CPG * list 37 homilies, without counting those of dubious authenticity (* CPG * 5800–5836). A number of these have found their way into the Syr. homiliaries, in particular of the Syr. Orth. tradition. Three homilies were published by Chabot: Hom. 23 (‘On the dogma of the incarnation’); Hom. 24 (‘On the Nativity’, edited in a different version by Moss); and Hom. 25 (‘On St. Clement bp. of Ancyra’). Hom. 1 (‘On the Mother of God’, delivered in Constantinople in 428 or 429, in the presence of Nestorius) was edited by Lucchesi. Both Lebon and Brière edited Hom. 5 (‘On the Virgin and Mother of God’), which in the Syr. version is expanded with a homily by Atticus of Constantinople. Hom. 17 (‘On St. Stephen the first martyr’) is in the Syriac version attributed to John Chrysostom ; it was edited by Malki. Sauget edited Hom. 37 (1969: ‘On the Ascension of Jesus Christ’). Homilies that exist in Syriac, but have not yet been edited are: nos. 3 (‘On the Incarnation’; Leroy, 75); 10 (‘On Holy Friday’; Leroy, 110–11); 13 (‘On the Pascha’; Sauget 1969, 6); 30 (‘On Holy Friday and on the Trinity’, which does not exist in Greek; Sauget 1961, 406 and Leroy, 212–23).

Among Proclus’s correspondence, one letter in particular became very influential: the letter that he wrote as patr., probably in 435, to the Armenians, which is known as the ‘Tomos to the Armenians’ (* CPG * 5897). Written shortly after the Council of Ephesus (431), it contains a balanced, albeit somewhat vague, Christological exposition, which was understood as a rejection of dyophysite Christology associated with the names of Nestorius and Theodore of Mopsuestia (neither of whom is mentioned by name in the text). There exist three different Syriac versions: the first is preserved in a 7th-cent. miaphysite Florilegium (ms. Brit. Libr. Add. 14,557) and was edited by Bedjan; the second was incorporated in the Ecclesiastical History attributed in Syr. to Zacharias (ed. Brooks); the third was included in a 6th-cent. miaphysite Florilegium (ms. Brit. Libr. Add. 12,156) and remains unpublished. Whereas the first and second version represent the same translation (of which the text in Ps.-Zacharias is a revision), the third version is an independent and more accurate translation of the Greek, which probably belongs to the early 6th century, while the other translation is typologically earlier.

Proclus’s works were often used in later Christological treatises and florilegia. Severus of Antioch quotes both from the homilies and from the ‘Tomos’, while Miaphysite florilegia contain several excerpts from the ‘Tomos’. Quotations from Proclus in the works attributed to Yuḥanon Maron and in the later Maronite tradition have been studied by Breydy.