Theophanes Kerameus

(Kerameus, potter).

Archbishop of Rossano in Calabria (1129-52), a celebrated homiletic writer. His sermons, ninety-one of which are known in manuscript, are mostly exegetical, and written in Greek, which was then still extensively spoken in Sicily and Southern Italy. They are remarkable for their simplicity and naturalness, and are masterpieces of oratorical skill and, for those times, rare examples of lucid and unforced expositions of biblical texts. They were first edited, together with a Latin translation and extensive annotations, by Francesco Scorso, S.J. (Paris, 1644), which edition is reprinted in P.G., CXXXII, 125-1078. A new edition was prepared by Gregory Palamas (Jerusalem, 1860). The fact that various other individuals also bore the surname “Kerameus” has given rise to a controversy concerning the authorship of these homilies. Scorso, their first editor, falsely supposed Theophanes Kerameus to have lived in the ninth century and to have been Bishop of Taormina in Sicily. Batiffol, in his work entitled “L’abbaye de Rossano” (Paris, 1891), XXXI, 36-56, holds that part of the homilies were written by the Calabrian monk John Philagathos, a disciple of Abbot Bartholomaeus of Grottaferrata (d. c. 1050).