The Life and Letters of Theoleptos of Philadelphia

The highlights of Theoleptos' life and career are known to us from both narrative and epistolary sources. Of the two eulogies dedicated to him, the one by Manuel Gabalas, the later metropolitan Matthew of Ephesos, is a purely rhetorical piece, whereas its counterpart by the imperial chancellor, Nikephoros Choumnos, contains important bits of biological information about the man who had influenced both the spiritual and material fortunes of the Choumnos family. As a man involved in the spiritual and political afffairs of his time, Theoleptos must have corresponded with several of his prominent contemporaries. The letters which Nikephoros Choumnos, Michael Gabras and Nikephoros Gregoras wrote to him have survived; but the only letters that have come down to us from the metropolitan's pen are the five that he sent to his spiritual daughter. It was she who preserved them, together with the homilies that he addressed to the religious in her monastery. and had them copied in a manuscript which is now in the Vatican Library.