A Distorted Lemma: Στεφάκης Ἀθηναῖος ἱερομόναχος and a False Biography of Nicholas of Methone

Abstract

Abstract This paper aims at reconsidering traditional data available for the figure of the hieromonk Stephen the Athenian, purported to be the author of a biographical compilation about famous monks of Mt Athos and of a biography of the Byzantine theologian Nicholas of Methone, published by the Greek forger Costantinos Simonides at the end of the 19th century. The main source for Stephen the Athenian is provided by a lemma of a biographical encyclopedia written by the Phanariot scholar Demetrius Procopius of Moschoupolis (with the title Succincta eruditorum Graecorum superioris et praesentis saeculi recensio) and published in 1722 by Johann Albert Fabricius at the end of the 11th volume of his Bibliotheca Graeca. The employment of a philological analysis to the extant sources of “Stephen” shows that the figure is indeed to be considered the mere result of the distortion created by Simonides from a lexicographical lemma.