Malelas, John

, of Antioch, a sophist, who was a teacher of rhetoric, and a member of the church of Antioch, is supposed to have lived about the year 900, though some authors have been inclined to place him earlier. He is a writer of little value, and abounds in words of a barbarous Greek. He must not be confounded with John of Antioch, another historian of the same place, who was a monk. We have a chronicle written by Malelas, | which extends from the creation to the reign of Justinian, but is imperfect. His history was published by Edward Chilmead at Oxford, in 1691, in 8vo, from a manuscript in the Bodleian library; and republished among the Byzantine historians, as a kind of appendix, at Venice, in 1733. The Oxford edition contains an interpretation and notes by Chilmead, with three indexes, one of events, a second of authors, a third of barbarous words. Prefixed is a discourse concerning the author, by Humphrey Hody; and an epistle is subjoined from Bentley to Mill, with an index of authors who are there amended. ¹