John Lydus: On the Months

views of some scholars, there is no reason to believe John was still writing under Justinian's successor Justin II, who came to the throne in 565.⁴⁶

RELIGION

From the perspective of the study of ancient religion, John's work holds the highest interest. He was clearly entranced by the idea of manifestations of the divinity in the natural world; this can be seen most directly in his work De ostentis, but periodically throughout De mensibus as well.

One famous assessment comes to us from the middle-Byzantine writer Photius, who in his Bibliotheca, cod. 180, gives a brief, general review of John's works. On De mensibus, Photius opines that while the work contains much that is useless, it also includes pleasant and worthwhile material for the study of antiquity. In his opinion, John's writing is very uneven, but certainly of some value. He thinks that John appears to be "superstitious" and inclined toward paganism, but respectful of Christianity as well, making it difficult to judge his true convictions. This observation deserves to be cited in full, since it demonstrates the overall religious impression of John's complete works on the Byzantine polymath:

In matters of religion he seems to have been an unbeliever. He respects and venerates Hellenic beliefs; he also venerates our beliefs, without giving the reader any easy way of deciding whether such veneration is genuine or hypocritical.⁴⁷

Certainly this sentence must be read on the one hand as proving that John at least professed Christianity publicly—and his name (John) also indicates, as a prima facie Latin: "at first sight"—presumed to be true unless proven otherwise assumption, a Christian family background; yet his enthusiasm for pagan religion seemed to Photius to undercut substantially that public profession. Recently, Anthony Kaldellis has attempted to put forward a detailed argument that John was in fact fully pagan in his religious self-identification and beliefs.⁴⁸ This attempt certainly overstates