ABSTRACT
This chapter continues the discussion from the previous one, and demonstrates the debt owed to the Old Testament and considers why Niketas turned to that rather than the New Testament. The Bible would seem to be a far greater influence and underlying presence than Homer or any classical author, as indeed one might have expected. His brother was a bishop and Niketas himself wrote a theological work, Dogmatike Panoplia, which is a refutation of heresies in 27 books. It has often been noted that Constantinople was for its inhabitants New Rome, but it is worth remembering that it was also New Jerusalem, and it is this aspect of its history that comes to the fore in Niketas’ work. It may be that Niketas thought he made this very clear, but our less religious age may mean we no longer recognize the allusions as readily as the classical ones.
