Chloros was a protonotarios, or secretary of the
patriarch, and former kanstresios, supervisor of
offerings.[2] He was put on trial by the
patriarchate of Constantinople because he had transcribed texts with content pertaining to magical practices, including the Coeranis, a portion or all of the Cyranides,[3] and a notebook of invocations and spells he had compiled himself,[4] suggesting he had access to various
grimoires.[5] Chloros defended the texts on the basis of their medical value. Other physicians who were witnesses against him called Chloros a disgrace to the art of medicine and said he insulted
Hippocrates and
Galen by regarding them as magicians.[6] Chloros was subsequently sentenced to live as a
monk under surveillance in the
monastery of the Peribleptos.[7]
Chloros is known to have vacillated between
Orthodoxy and
Catholicism. The
synodal decree that condemned him gives equal weight to recounting his ecclesiastic career and his movements between
Constantinople and the
papal court. Since other churchmen advertised themselves as knowledgeable
occult practitioners, the mere possession of magic texts is not likely to have been the true or primary cause of action against him.[8]
Evidence in a later case against a physician named Gabrielopoulos included the discovery at his home of a book of spells by Chloros and the Cyranides.[6] Chloros's notebook was said to be "filled with all manner of impiety including incantations, chants, and names of
demons."[4][5]
Selected bibliography
Copenhaver, Brian P. "Magic." In The Cambridge History of Science. Cambridge University Press, 2006, vol. 3, limited preview
online. Full text
downloadable.
Greenfield, Richard P.H. "A Contribution to the Study of Paleologan Magic." p. 151, full text
downloadable. Also published in The Occult Sciences in Byzantium (La Pomme d'or, 2006), limited preview
online.
Mavroudi, Maria. "Occult Science and Society in Byzantium: Considerations for Future Research." University of California, Berkeley. Full text
downloadable. Also published in The Occult Sciences in Byzantium (La Pomme d'or, 2006).
References
^Maria Mavroudi, "Occult Science and Society in Byzantium: Considerations for Future Research," University of California, Berkeley, p. 47, full text
downloadable. Also published in The Occult Sciences in Byzantium (La Pomme d'or, 2006), limited preview
online.
^Richard P.H. Greenfield, "A Contribution to the Study of Paleologan Magic," p. 151, full text
downloadable.Archived 2010-06-13 at the
Wayback Machine Also published in The Occult Sciences in Byzantium (La Pomme d'or, 2006).
^David Bain, "Μελανῖτις γῆ in the Cyranides and Related Texts: New Evidence for the Origins and Etymology of Alchemy," in Magic in the Biblical World: From the
Rod of Aaron to the
Ring of Solomon (T&T Clark International, 2003), p. 208, note 61
online; Mavroudi, "Occult Science and Society in Byzantium," p. 47.
^
abGreenfield, "A Contribution to the Study of Paleologan Magic," p. 130, citing MM I, 543–44, no. 292.
^
abBrian P. Copenhaver, "Magic," in The Cambridge History of Science (Cambridge University Press, 2006), vol. 3, p. 529
online, and full text
downloadable.Archived 2010-07-09 at the
Wayback Machine
^Mavroudi, "Occult Science and Society in Byzantium," p. 47.
^Mavroudi, "Occult Science and Society in Byzantium," p 47.