Two polemical poems of a certain Constantine the Deacon : Against the Detractor of Chrysostom and Against the Astrologer

This work provides the editio princeps of two polemical poems in dodecasylla- bles, ascribed in the manuscript tradition to a Constantine the Deacon without more precise specification. The first text, here referred to by the Latinised title of Contra Chrysostomi Detractorem (abridged CD), consists of a praise in apologetic form of John Chrysostom’s style; the second, here referred to as Contra Astrologum (abridged CA), is a longer and more articulated piece of anti-astrological polemic. The presence in CA of an allusion to an historical event, identified here with the fall of Constantinople in 1204, allows us to confidently place Constantine at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. The critical text of each poem is accompanied by an explicative translation and a general discussion; textual issues, parallel pas- sages, and other matters of detail are dealt with in the notes to the text.