, the son of Callistus Xanthopulus, a learned monk of Constantinople,
, the son of Callistus Xanthopulus, a learned monk of Constantinople, is placed by
Wharton at 1333, but by Lardner in 1325. He wrote in
Greek an “Ecclesiastical History,
” in twenty-three books,
eighteen of which are still extant, containing the transactions of the church from the birth of Christ to the death of
the emperor Phocas in the year 610. We have nothing
left besides the arguments of the five other books, from the
commencement of the reign of the emperor Heraclius to
the end of that of Leo the philosopher, who died in the
year 911. He dedicated this history to the emperor Andronicus Palseologus the elder: it was translated into Latin,
by John Langius, and has gone through several editions,
the best of which is that of Paris, in 1630. There is only
one manuscript of this history, which was said to be formerly in the library of Matthias, king of Hungary, and
now in that of Vienna. Nicephorus was no more than
thirty years of age when he compiled it, and it is said to
abound in fables, and therefore has been treated with contempt by Beza, and by Gesner. Some other pieces are
ascribed to our author. Labbe, in his preliminary discourse
prefixed to the “Byzantine Historians,
” has given a catalogue of the emperors and patriarchs of Constantinople,
composed by Nicephorus. His abridgment of the Bible
in iambic verse was printed at Basil in 1536, and Dr. Hody
has attributed to him a small piece which he published in
Greek and Latin, during his controversy with Mr. Dodwell, under the title of “Anglicani Schismatis Redargutio.
” His homilies on Mary Magdalen are also inserted
in Bandini “Monumenta,
”