Marcus
16. HIEROMONACHUS.
Works
In the
Typicum, or ritual directory of the Greek church (
Τυπικὸν σὺν Θεῷ ἁγίῳ παρεῖχον πᾶσαν τὴν διάταξιν τῆς ἐκκλησιαστικῆς ἀκολουθίας τοῦ χρόνου ὅλου,
Typicum, favente Deo, continens integrum Officii Ecclesiastici Ordinem per totum Annum. See the description of the work in Cave,
Hist. Lift. vol. ii.
Dissert. II. p. 38) is contained a treatise,
Σύνταγμα εἰς τὰ ἀπορούμενα τοῦ τυπικοῦ,
De Dubiis quae ex Typico oriuntur, arranged in 100 chapters by Marcus Hieromonachus, who calls himself
ἁμαρτωλός,
a sinner. This commentary is adapted to the arrangement of the
Typicum, ascribed to St. Saba, but which Oudin supposes to have been drawn up by Marcus himself, and produced by him as the work of St. Saba, in order to obtain for it an authority which, had it appeared in his own name, it would not have possessed.
But though Oudin is successful in showing that parts of the
Typicum are adapted to practices which did not come into use till several centuries after St. Saba's death, in the sixth century, and therefore that those parts were of much later date than that of Saint [SABA], he does not prove either that the whole work was a forgery, or that, if it was, Marcus was the author of it.
The very form of a commentary on doubtful parts implies the previous existence and the antiquity of the work itself. Oudin makes Marcus to have been a monk of the convent of St. Saba, near Jerusalem, in the beginning of the eleventh century.
A life of Gregory of Agrigentum [GREGORIUS, No. 2] by Marcus, monk and hegumenus, or abbot of St. Saba, is perhaps by the same author as the commentary on the
Typicum. We are not aware that it has been published. Various works are extant in MS., by Marcus Monachus; but the name is too common, and the description too vague, to enable us to identify the writers.
Further Information
Cave,
Hist. Litt. vol. ii.
Dissert. I. p. 13; Oudin.
De Scriptorib. Eccles. vol. ii. col. 584, &c.; Fabric.
Bibl. Graec. vol. x. p. 232, vol. xi. p. 678.
