Byzantion 87, 1-67. doi: 10.2143/BYZ.87.0.3256900 © 2017 by Byzantion. All rights reserved. THE UNEDITED LIFE OF ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM BY NICETAS DAVID THE PAPHLAGONIAN EDITIO PRINCEPS, PART I Following my Introduction to the Life of St John Chrysostom by Nicetas David the Paphlagonian, 1 the first half (chapters 1-28) of this long text is published here for the first time. It should be underlined that, as will have been made clear by now, the work is worth publishing for more than one reason: it is written by a well-known, important author, complementing our knowledge and appreciation of his extensive literary output; it gives us a good glimpse of his intellect, especially through the personal comments he makes throughout its length; it is an ancient hagiographical text, which expands the corpus of the surviving pre-Metaphrastic tradition; and it is a most important link in the chain of Byzantine texts on Chrysostom, allow- ing us to form a more precise idea of the literary tradition on and the cult of this major saint in the tenth century. The critical edition is preceded by a study of the unique manuscript con- taining the work, a presentation of the peculiarities of its language with references to the part of the text published here, and an exposition of the principles of the edition. The numbering of the chapters continues that of the previous study. VII. THE MANUSCRIPT The Life of Chrysostom has come down to us in codex Thessalonicensis Vlatadon 4 (siglum: V). The manuscript has been described twice in the past, namely by S. Eustratiades in his catalogue of the manuscripts of the Vlatadon Monastery and by A. Ehrhard in his Überlieferung. Eustratiades focused on the contents of the manuscript, which he dated to the thirteenth century. Ehrhard improved the previous description, and correctly dated the manuscript to the eleventh century on the basis of the signature on f. 76 v , which had first been noted by P. Papageorgiou (for the relevant references see Literature, below, as well as n. 2). 1 T. ANTONOPOULOU, The Unedited Life of St John Chrysostom by Nicetas David the Paphlagonian. An Introduction, in Byz, 86 (2016), pp. 1-51.