Compared with
Theodore the Studite, Nicephorus I appears as a friend of conciliation, learned in
patristics, more inclined to take the defensive than the offensive, and possessed of a comparatively chaste, simple style. He was mild in his ecclesiastical and monastical rules and non-partisan in his historical treatment of the period from 602 to 769 (
Historia syntomos, breviarium). He used the chronicle of
Trajan the Patrician but deliberately chose not to name the source so as to connect himself to the historical tradition of
Theophylact Simocatta. The
Short History is thematically focused around the matter of the offices of emperor and patriarch. Nicephorus I attempted to salvage the reputation of the patriarchate by criticising iconoclast patriarchs for submitting to the emperor, not for being iconoclasts. Emperor
Heraclius was the ideal emperor in Nicephorus I's scheme because of how he worked alongside patriarch
Sergius I of Constantinople, but also how Sergius I helped to defend Constantinople from the
Avars in 626 as well as the patriarch's ability to discipline the emperor for his marriage to his niece
Martina. Heraclius failure to heed the Egyptian patriarch's advice is what ultimately brought about the Arab conquest of Egypt. His tables of universal history,
Chronography or
Chronographikon Syntomon, in passages extended and continued, were in great favor with the Byzantines, and were also circulated outside the Empire in the Latin version of
Anastasius Bibliothecarius, and also in Slavonic translation. The
Chronography offered a universal history from the time of
Adam and Eve to his own time. To it he appended a canon catalog (which does not include the
Book of Revelation of
John of Patmos). The catalog of the accepted books of the Old and New Testaments is followed by the
antilegomena (including
Revelation) and the
apocrypha. Next to each book is the count of its lines, his
Stichometry of Nicephorus, to which we can compare our accepted texts and judge how much has been added or omitted. This is especially useful for apocrypha for which only fragmentary texts have survived. The principal works of Nicephorus I are three writings referring to
iconoclasm: •
Apologeticus minor, probably composed before 814, an explanatory work for laymen concerning the tradition and the first phase of the iconoclastic movement; •
Apologeticus major with the three
Antirrhetici against Mamonas-
Constantine Kopronymos, a complete
dogmatics of the belief in images, with an exhaustive discussion and refutation of all objections made in opposing writings, as well as those drawn from the works of the
Church Fathers; • The third of these larger works is a refutation of the iconoclastic synod of 815 (ed. Serruys, Paris, 1904). Nicephorus I follows in the path of
John of Damascus. His merit is the thoroughness with which he traced the literary and traditional proofs, and his detailed refutations are serviceable for the knowledge they afford of important texts adduced by his opponents and in part drawn from the older church literature. == Notes and references ==