Tria Corda Jenaer Vorlesungen zu Judentum, Antike und Christentum Herausgegeben von Walter Ameling, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr und Meinolf Vielberg ) Timothy D. Barnes Early Christian Hagiography and Roman History Mohr Siebeck 2010 901Timothy D. Barnes, born 1942; 1966-70 Junior Research Fellow, The Queen's College, Oxford; 1970 D. Phils 1970-72 Assistant Professor of Classics, 1972-76 Associate Professor of Classics, University College, Toronto; 1976-2007 Professor, Department of Classics, University of Toronto; since 2008 Honorary Fellow, Schools of Divinity and History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh. ISBN 978-3-16-150226-2 ISSN_ 1865-5629 (Tria Corda) Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographic; deuallierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet tiber hrip:ldnb.d-nb.de abrufbat. © 2010 Mohr Siebeck Tubingen. Das Werk einschlieBlich aller seiner Tele ist urheberrechtlich geschiizt. Jede Verwertung aufechalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechts- gesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlags unzulissig und strafber Das gilt insbesondere fiir Vervielfiltigungen, Ubersetzungen, Mikro- verfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektro- nischen Systemen, Das Buch wurde von Marcin Fischer in Tubingen aus der Garamond Antiqua geseret, von Gulde-Druck in Tubingen auf alterungsbestin- dliges Werkdruckpapier gedrucke und von der Buchbinderei Nadele in Nehren gebunden. Lhagiographie critique est une branche de la science historique Hippolyte Delehaye It would be hard to think of any field of critical or historical research that could prove more fruitful in every kind of problem, or one in which a greater variety of skills and disciplines could be employed David Knowles f 3Preface All scholarly works are inevitably to some extent the product of their own, often unique intellectual and academic milieu. ‘Thus the second edition of the Oxford English Diction- «ary, published in 1989, had an entry for ‘prosopography" (originally published in a supplement in 1982) in which two separate meanings of the word were identified." The first was the sole meaning registered in the first edition ('2 description of the person or personal appearance’), which was stated co be obsolete by the time of the publication of the fascicule containing it in September 1909.2 The second meaning, which was absent from the first edition, required 2 long definition as ‘a study or description of an individuals life and career; hence, historical inquiry, especially in Roman history, concerned with the study of (political) careers and family connections; a presentation of evidence relating to this study.’ This new meaning was lavishly illustrated with no fewer than fourteen quotations dating between 1929 and 1976: an archaeological report of excavations at Sparta led the way, closely followed by Ronald Syme in 1934, then Arnaldo Momigliano in 1954 at his silliest (‘so-called "A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionaty 3, ed. R.W. Burchfield (Oxford, 1982), 845, 2 The dates at which each separate section and parc of the first edition were published are documented by J. MeMorsis, Lexicography and the OED. Pioneers in the Unknown Forest, ed. C. Mugglestone (Oxford, 2000), 228-231