John Lydus: On the Months

problematic to view John as simply a Christian, might seem unsatisfying to some readers in the face of John's clear fascination with non-Christian practices and beliefs.

Certain further details of John's writings might yield further insight. In one passage, John offers what seems to be a personal statement of belief regarding celestial signs. As he tells it, he was formerly skeptical, but now considers himself a "believer" on the basis of a comet that appeared as a sign of Persian assault and Byzantine victory:

Once I was actually of the majority opinion, and I supposed that the things written about this by the ancients were mere writings. But since experience of them showed me the truth, and the recent appearance of the comet...and the consequent attack of the wretched Persians, which went as far as the region of the Orontes, but suffered a reverse of the most rapid sort possible—for it was indicating also the victory of our most powerful emperor—I was led by the events themselves and the evidence deriving from them to write about such things... (De ost. 1)

This should not, however, be taken as a confession of paganism; despite common assumptions to the contrary, many Late Antique Christians were able to reconcile belief in astrology and signs in the natural world with adherence to Christianity.⁵⁸ The compilation of astrological and teratological relating to wonders or monsters material that follows might easily give pause to a pious bishop concerned about John's soul,⁵⁹ but the preface to the work, giving an overview of the Hebrew perspective on signs, seems clearly to demonstrate that John saw these various traditions as complementary, not contradictory. What does seem clear, at any rate, is that John strongly believed in the interconnectedness of human events and the natural world.

Maas takes another tack in attempting to delve into John's convictions, arguing that John agreed with the Aristotelianizing adopting Aristotelian methods perspective that matter was eternal and pre-existed creation, and thus took the "pagan" perspective on an issue that in contemporary thought represented a dividing line between pagan and Christian Neoplatonists.⁶⁰ Maas does effectively assemble passages to demonstrate John's

58. For comets, compare Origen, Contra Celsum 1.58–9 (on the "star" of Bethlehem), and N. Denzey, "A New Star on the Horizon: Astral Christologies and Stellar Debates in Early Christian Discourse," in S. Noegel et al. (eds.), Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World (University Park, PA, 2003), pp. 207–21. On astrology, see, for example, K. von Stuckrad, "Jewish and Christian Astrology in Late Antiquity: A New Approach," Numen 47 (2000), pp. 1–40; and Part B of T. Hegedus, Early Christianity and Ancient Astrology (New York, 2007).

59. Compare (e.g.) Augustine's description of "many bad Christians" (original: "multi ... mali Christiani") who have and justify such interests and enthusiasms (Enarr. in Ps. 40.3).

60. Maas, pp. 98–100. For this issue and the debates within pagan Platonism as well as between pagan and Christian Neoplatonists, see R. Sorabji, Time, Creation and the Continuum (London, 1983), especially