Nicephorus, St.

, a celebrated patriarch of Constantinople, of the ninth century, was distinguished for his zealous defence of the worship of images, against the emperor Leo the Armenian, who banished him in the year 815, to a monastery, where he died in the year 828, aged seventy. His works are, “An Abridgment of History,” from the death of the emperor Mauritius to Constantino Copronymus, printed at the Louvre, 1648, fol. It forms part of the Byzantine history, and has been translated into French by president Cousin. It is said to be accurate, but written in a dry and concise style. An “Abridgment of Chronography,” which is at the end of Syncellus; and several other works in Greek, which may be found in P. Labbe’s Councils, or the Library of the Fathers. Cardinal Baronius has inserted this patriarch’s “Confession of Faith” in torn. XI. of his Annals. He is supposed by Lardner and others, to have been the author of “The Stichometry,” a catalogue of the books of sacred scripture, which, ifof no other use, at least shews that the Jewish canon was generally esteemed sacred by Christians, and that the other books of the Old Testament, which are now deemed “Apocryphal,” were not of equal authority, though sometimes read in the churches, and quoted by Christian writers. 1