Isaiah and the Issue of Genre in the Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite

Abstract

Abstract: This article seeks to elucidate the thesis and literary programme of the Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, which was written in Syriac in Edessa by an anonymous author sometime in the first two decades of the sixth century during the reign of the Roman emperor Anastasius. To do so, it examines how the anonymous author situates events in the Chronicle against historical and theological precedent from the book of Isaiah, through both implicit allusions and explicit references. It suggests that the creation of this inter-text between the Chronicle and the book of Isaiah was intended to function as both a model of and model for the harmonization of local history with the much larger trajectories of salvation history and the history of the late Roman empire. It argues, therefore, that the Chronicle represents one of the many ways in which late antique Syriac writers negotiated not only their place in the late Roman empire but also their place in contemporary Roman literary discourses. As a result, its ultimate contention is that the Chronicle is an example of the trend of "theological Roman patriotism" found in other historiographical texts written in Greek and Latin from the eastern empire in the sixth century.