Byzantine Saints Research Articles

Psellos’ Hagiographical Writings: Resources and New Directions

"Resources available for Byzantine scholarship in general and for studying Psellos in particular have improved greatly in recent years. Electronic databases assist editors of texts in isolating an author’s stylistic habits and in identifying parallel and source texts, while increasingly sensitive search engines provide wide access to scholarly articles, online manuscript catalogues, online publications of texts and translations and great potential for further expansion. Teubner has published Psellos’ extensive writings in genre-defined volumes such as poetry, philosophy, forensic orations and hagiographic orations that represent modern categories of literature but do not capture Byzantine conceptualizations. Two examples illustrate this observation. (1) Although the oration on the Miracle at Blachernae is among Psellos’ hagiographic writings, it contains a brief ecphrasis of a “living icon” prominent in art-historical discussions; however, the oration chiefly focuses upon the Byzantine court system and Psellos’ suggestion for designating a miracle to resolve a vexed legal case. (2) Psellos’ Encomion on Symeon Metaphrastes resembles a saint’s vita and his hymn/canon for Metaphrastes represents a step towards honoring a “new” Byzantine saint. This process continued for 400 years. The 14th-century Hesychast movement used Metaphrastes’ writings to validate their own views and expedited his inclusion in the Synaxarion of Constantinople in the 15th Century. Keywords: Blachernae Oration, Byzantine courts, Hesychasm, hagiographical resources, “new” Byzantine Saints, Mark Eugenikos, Psellos’ hagiography, Symeon Metaphrastes, Synaxarion of Constantinople, Teubner Psellos. "

Inscribed finger rings from late antique and Byzantine Asia Minor

In this short paper we present thirteen metal rings from the museums of Izmir (nos. 3-4 and 9-10), Afyonkarahisar (no. 5), Bergama (nos. 6 and 8), Ödemiş (no. 7), Trabzon (no. 11), and Balıkesir (no. 13), dating mainly from the late antique and middle Byzantine periods. Two of these rings (nos. 2 and 12) belong to the private collection of Mr Koray Selçik and one (no. 1) belongs to the private collection of Ms Berna Oğuz, both of whom reside in Kemalpaşa near Izmir. Only no. 3 was previously published. Most of these rings bear Christian inscriptions, and belong to the late antique period; nos. 12 and 13 seem to date from the middle Byzantine age. Nos. 3, 6 and 7 contain an appeal to God for the salvation or cure. No. 9 is particularly interesting because it expresses one’s devotion to Longinos, a popular late antique and Byzantine saint. Other rings, nos. 2, 4 (with a monogram), 5, and 8 (with a monogram), bear personal names of their owners. No. 1 may be a gift to a girl, called ‘beautiful’.

‘And lastly, one for Saint Blaise’: bishops, widows and patronage in a lost Office of Reginold of Eichstätt

ABSTRACTThis article concerns a fragmentary Office for Saint Blaise found in D-PREk Reihe V G1, a late fourteenth-century antiphoner from the Benedictine convent of Kloster Preetz. Despite the late date of the source, compositional similarities between this office and the Saint Nicholas office support the possibility that the former may be a lost Office attributed to Bishop Reginold of Eichstätt (r. 966–91) by the chronicler Anonymus Haserensis. I argue that Reginold may have written both the Office for Saint Blaise and the recension of the passio on which it is based for Pia of Bergen (Biletrud, Duchess of Bavaria), whom the chronicler names as Reginold's patron. This theory is supported by a consideration of the historical position and practices of Ottonian aristocratic widows, the development of saints’ cults in tenth-century Eichstätt and the text of the passio itself. These findings give new insight into the office compositions of Reginold of Eichstätt, the Ottonian veneration of Byzantine saints and female patrons’ involvement in the liturgical arts and establishment of cults in the late tenth century. These findings also provide hints to the origin of the liturgy of Kloster Preetz, whose mother house has never been identified.

Lenkhoff , Geil Kniaz' Feodor Chernyi v russkoi istorii i kul'ture: Issledovanie i teksty by V. P. Efimenkov B. M. Kloss (review)

REVIEWS 773 and aspire to Western European Humanism’ (p. 173). In this world of globalized cinema, it begs the question of whether or not a book titled The Contemporary Russian Cinema Reader might not be anachronistic, or that the inclusion of the allegedly Russophobe Loznitsa within it renders the idea of Russian cinema itself problematic. These caveats notwithstanding, the book under review is a useful, readable and often incisive, reference guide to recent ‘Russian’ cinema. Department of History Steven A. Usitalo Northern State University Lenkhoff, Geil [Lenhoff, Gail]. Kniaz´ Feodor Chernyi v russkoi istorii i kul´ture: Issledovanie i teksty. With V. P. Efimenkov and B. M. Kloss. Al´iansArkheo , Moscow and St Petersburg, 2019. 350 pp. Map. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Appendix. Indexes. R750.00. This book deals with Prince Feodor the Black Rostislavich of Smolensk and Iaroslavl´ (d.1299). Gail Lenhoff previously studied the same subject in her Early Russian Hagiography: The Lives of Prince Fedor the Black (Wiesbaden, 1997). Important developments have taken place in the field since 1997. New scholarship, including Lenhoff’s own works, has significantly advanced out understanding of the Book of Degrees, which contains a vita of Feodor. O. V. Loseva has also discovered an early commemorative notation on Feodor (c.1400). Part one of the book opens with a biography of Feodor (chapter one). In chapter two, Lenhoff dates the canonization of Feodor and his sons to the 1460s. The canonisation was initiated by the monks of the Iaroslavl´ Saviour monastery, which was under Feodor’s patronage. The cult had no anti-Muscovite connotation. Rather, it became popular in Moscow, especially during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Lenhoff also provides a descriptive account of Feodor’s cult in imperial, Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. Chapter three is devoted to Feodor’s Vita. On the basis of 197 manuscripts, Lenhoff offers a classification of existing manuscripts, detecting five redactions of the Vita. She studies the Vita from the perspective of regionalism and form criticism in the context of Byzantine and Early Slavic hagiography. The section on Byzantine saints’ lives is largely a translation of relevant sections from the 1997 book, but it does incorporate new scholarship on Symeon Logothetes. In chapter four, Lenhoff’s PhD student, V. P. Efimenkov, confidently discusses the liturgical commemoration of the Iaroslavl´ saints. This is a very successful debut publication. In chapter five, B. M. Kloss, who previously contributed to the 1997 book, describes 203 manuscripts of the Synaxarion Lections, the Vita and hymns. Lenhoff concludes the first part of the book by noting that Feodor was a loyalist of the Mongol khan. Thanks to the khan’s support, Feodor SEER, 98, 4, OCTOBER 2020 774 restored the importance of Smolensk in Baltic trade. After Feodor, Smolensk declined and was eventually absorbed by Lithuania. Texts associated with Feodor’s cult underwent stylistic embellishment but retained social memory of the Iaroslavl’s community. The second part of the book contains a critical edition of vitae and liturgical texts. Some observations on the cult may need adjustments. Lenhoff notes that the c.1400 commemorative notation in what she describes as a north-eastern liturgical calendar lacks context (pp. 43, 168). In fact, the notation appears in the famous Pogodin Synaxarion, whose origin is unclear. Its miniatures reveal Novgorodian (i.e. north-western, not north-eastern) stylistic traits, though there are no Novgorodian linguistic features in the text. The provenance of the book is thus more complex than Lenhoff posits. The preparation of such a complex publication in Russian was undoubtedly a challenging task. The literary editor Ekaterina Kislova should be credited for the natural Russian, though some editorial decisions are questionable. The use of otechestvennye (compatriot) with respect to Russian scholars in Lenhoff’s text is amusing (p. 83). More importantly, the account of Lenhoff’s examination of the saints’ relics concludes that they have remained netlennye (uncorrupted, p. 65 note 105). This is a loaded term which the church used for justifying canonization. Furthermore, the relics were frequently relocated. Their history from 1928 to 1986 is known exclusively from oral sources (p. 66 note 106), and we cannot be even sure what remains we are dealing with. Speaking of...

Russian Foolishness and Images of Fools in the Museum of Icons in Recklinghausen

Images of ascetics, which to a certain extent derive associations with Byzantine asceticism, can be found in Western European icons and murals. These are images of Fools-for-Christ. Images of persons clad in short-skirted garments, occasionally with symbols of their specific activities, such aspublic executioners, grave-diggers, and “the halt and the blind” are rare, although not unique. The similarity of garments and extraordinary symbols correlates with icons depicting “secular Fools-of-God,” although carrying a wider emotional and semantic load. The surviving images of “odd-looking” characters in Western European sacred art of the 12–17th centuries can be included in an individual established category known as “Kehricht der Welt” and presented as an outstanding phenomenon within the icon-painting repertoire of Christian artistic heritage. The article is devoted to the study of the image of Procopius and John of Ustiug Fool-for-Christ, who is one ofthe most popular old Russian saints, as well as the image of Saint Christopher Cynocephalus- the most famous Byzantine saint. Information about these blessed ones came to Russia as a result of the spread of literacy. Legends about various saints were brought by travelers and traders who regularly visited Constantinople and other countries. Attention to these saints led to writing about their lives lives and the creation of icons of saints. This situation is typical for Russian art of the Middle Ages 12–17th centuries. Information about monuments of Russian and Cypriot icon-painting of the 15–17th centuries from the Recklinghausen Museum of Icons (Germany) is introduced.

Philosophical and artistic interpretation of the images of Byzantine saints in the works of Russian writers of the 20th century

Philosophical and artistic interpretation of the images of Byzantine saints in the works of Russian writers of the 20th century

La "Grotta dell'affresco": Il fenomeno del monachesimo sul confine tra il Ducato di Amalfi e il Principato di Salerno

During the Middle Ages, a migratory wave of Byzantine monks arrived in the Amalfi Coast. This phenomenon affected both the Duchy of Amalfi and the Principality of Salerno. The written sources of this period mention the translation of the relics, the adoption of the cult of Byzantine saints and the arrival in the territory of specialized craftsmen. The site, object of the study, is situated between the municipalities of Cetara and Maiori. The geological conformation and the ruggedness of the territory is excellent for the experience of Oriental troglodyte monasticism. However, for the same reason, systematic studies on the occupation of caves and high altitude settlements are scarce. The "Grotta dell'affresco", in the area of Monte Piano, represents the site with the most notable evidence of Middle Age material culture. The surface survey revealed the presence of several fictile fragments and a fresco, dating to the medieval period. The caves complex of Monte Piano is part of a wider area of Byzantine religious settlements which occupy the territory of Campania between late 9th and 11th centuries

Transvestite, Harlot, and Kingly Saints: Portraying Gender Ideals in Middle Byzantine and Anglo-Saxon Hagiography

The purpose of my study is to explore and analyze some didactic elements concerning gender ideals that are found in hagiographies in early medieval Christianity. By studying lives from two traditions that are widely separated in terms of region, Byzantine saints from the East and Anglo-Saxon saints from the West of the Medieval world, I have been able to distinguish elements that are specific to the particular society and reinforced through these stories. Focusing on the portrayal of gender ideals, I have been able tosuggest how the authors have contrived to present, and encourage, specific notions of socially appropriatebehaviors and attitudes. My study, dispelling a popular assumption that saints are mainly celibate martyrs,includes transvestite nuns, repentant harlots, military men, and pious kings. In each case, however, it shows that their veneration, and the creation of the written tradition supporting their cult, is clearly influenced by the desire to provide examples of gendered behavior that the church perceives as appropriate for the society.

Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World by Paul M. Blowers

Reviewed by: Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World by Paul M. Blowers John A. McGukin (bio) Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World. By Paul M. Blowers. Christian Theology in Context Series. New York: Oxford University Press. 2016. 367 pp. $110 Paul M. Blowers is one of the world's leading experts on the Byzantine saint and philosopher Maximus the Confessor (580–662). He is also internationally known as a sophisticated historian, textual interpreter, and expert on early Christian exegesis. This present book brings together all those skills as he looks back over many decades of his own research and that of other leading Maximian interpreters, to give us this considerable overview of Maximus and how he stands in the light of modern scholarly labors. In this regard there have been several "greats" in that field since the middle of the 20th century (Epifanovich, Sherwood, Von Balthasar, Thunberg). Maximus has undergone a remarkable re-discovery in modern times and has emerged from it as one of the most profound and far reaching intellectuals of the Byzantine Christian tradition: someone who should have ranked from earliest times as a major "Father of the Church" but whose works were somewhat sidelined from the dominant scholastic traditions of the early middle ages. This was partly because they were too difficult (they remain often obscure) and partly because they were seen to be predominantly concerned with ascetical theology or with the specific issue of the Will of Christ. These are both scholastic categories which heavily over-imposed themselves on him and misrepresented the saint's own deeply holistic program that envisioned a conception of the Word of God's permeation of the entire cosmos to transfigure it, most especially in the priestly consciousness of the believer. The monograph is helpfully structured into four main parts. The first, in two sections (9–63 and 64–100), discusses Maximus' historical location. There is a very helpful and succinct life (the discovery of a Syriac Vita in recent years that contradicts the better known Greek Vita in large ways set a cat among pigeons here). Some treatments have since then chosen which version to follow as and when it [End Page 126] suited, but Blowers masterfully charts a comprehensive path and his version of the Vita thus becomes a "go-to" place for any student wishing to gain an account of the man in his complicated historical environment. The second section of the introduction goes over the ground in a slightly different way to thicken the perspective. Blowers considers why Maximus wrote in the first place. What was the role of writing for a man of his time and condition? Certainly controversy comes into this, but it is as a lifetime monastic practitioner that Blowers situates his protagonist. He was a teacher of the inner life where deep anthropological ideas are intimately related to the Incarnation of the Divine Logos in time and space. The Incarnation is considered not only as a massively transfigurative force for the human person who becomes built up in the image and likeness of the Lord through faithful disciple-ship, but also a transforming energy for the fundamental roots of the Cosmos, the Word being present in all things. The Human thus stands as a priest of this sacramental transfiguration, giving voice and consciousness to the illumination of all things under God, including voiceless materiality. Ascetical theology thus becomes, in Maximus' understanding, far more than a by-water of greater theological ideas, but rather the core grundschrift of the written endeavor. Part Two of the book (101–198) presents master themes of Maximian theology under three headings. The first is the cosmological scope of the divine plan for the world. Maximus takes Irenaeus' and Origen's cosmic theology to new dimensions. He stresses the unfolding plan and history of the world as an ascentive force of eros, from God to humankind and from the human mind and soul back to God. This eros is a passionate energy of freedom that gives definition and meaning to persons. Its ascentive nature is such that it can be called a veritable "deification" (theiopoiesis) wherein the...

Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade by Elizabeth Lapina

Reviewed by: Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade by Elizabeth Lapina Megan Cassidy-Welch Lapina, Elizabeth, Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015; hardback; pp. x, 212; 1 b/w illustration; R.R.P. US $74.95; ISBN 9780271066707. Elizabeth Lapina’s monograph offers an original and engaging exploration of the chronicles of the First Crusade, a group of ever-intriguing sources [End Page 223] which has recently enjoyed the attention of a new generation of crusades scholars. As Lapina eloquently expresses, ‘the chronicles of the First Crusade are not just narratives but attempts, disguised as narratives, to prove that this campaign was different from any that had taken place in the past and to understand what this new development meant for the future’ (p. 151). The chronicles are thus explored in the contexts of genre, imagery, and the communication of both confidence and anxiety in the wake of that somewhat unexpected victory at Jerusalem in 1099. The four main participant chronicles – the Gesta francorum, the Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere of Peter Tudebode, Raymond of Aguiliers’s chronicle, and the eyewitness account of Fulcher of Chartres – form the backbone of the book. The re-workings, redactions, and appropriations of these works tell a textual tale almost confounding in its complexity, yet Lapina navigates the sources with care and clarity. Indeed, the short section describing the sources in the introduction to the book is a beautifully concise presentation of these difficult texts. Chief among the textual devices employed within the chronicles to describe and understand the crusade was the miracle, and this is the focus of the book. The six chapters begin with a nuanced study of eyewitnesses of miracles, and especially eyewitnesses to the discovery of the holy lance at Antioch in 1098. Lapina shows that ‘a vocal minority’ (p. 18) disputed the legitimacy of this relic object and as with the miraculous appearance of celestial troops at the battle of Antioch, the eyewitness was not automatically accorded credibility, especially by second-generation chroniclers, who increasingly asserted their own interpretive sophistication over the telling of events. The second chapter examines more closely the supernatural interventions in the battle of Antioch by considering the longer history of similar occurrences, particularly in Graeco-Roman, early Christian, and Byzantine narratives. Lapina finds that the First Crusade chronicles drew on and reworked these earlier traditions. In the third chapter, the mechanics of this borrowing is analysed. It was Byzantine saints who were reported to have appeared at Antioch and Lapina deftly explains how this cohort of warrior saints became integrated into the western crusade imaginary via the Normans. The appropriation of what Lapina describes as a Byzantine ‘sophisticated vocabulary of power’ (p. 74) took place as the Normans transformed themselves from, as Lapina argues in Chapter 4, the ‘scourge of God’ to the ‘Chosen People’, and was one element in the gradual sacralisation of warfare more generally. In the fifth chapter, the figure of Judas Maccabeus is analysed. As crusades scholars have long noted, the story of the Maccabees provided many medieval commentators with a biblical parallel for their efforts in the Holy Land and Lapina adds to this literature with a careful and articulate reading of how Christian writers were able to integrate Old Testament, Jewish imagery into their texts. The final [End Page 224] chapter returns to specific miracles, this time celestial phenomena, such as fire in the sky. Here, Lapina is interested in the spatial and spiritual meanings of ‘east’ and ‘west’, showing that the First Crusade led to a transformation in understandings of these categories: ‘chroniclers suspected that this spread of Christianity from west to east was to bring about the end of time, which the spread of Christianity from east to west a thousand years earlier had failed to do’ (p. 141). This is an excellent and rigorous study of what many would see as a niche group of texts. As Lapina has shown, however, these texts were nothing less than medieval efforts to understand the meaning of the crusade. As such, they connected with much more than the events they purported to...

The Life of Saint Basil the Younger. Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of the Moscow Version transed. by Denis F. Sullivan, Alice-Mary Talbot, and Stamatina McGrath (review)

Reviewed by: The Life of Saint Basil the Younger. Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of the Moscow Version transed. by Denis F. Sullivan, Alice-Mary Talbot, and Stamatina McGrath Paul Magdalino The Life of Saint Basil the Younger. Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of the Moscow Version. Edited and translated by Denis F. Sullivan, Alice-Mary Talbot, and Stamatina McGrath [Dumbarton Oaks Studies XLV.] (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2014. Pp. xi, 827. $70.00. ISBN 978-0-88402-397-5.) This volume is the latest in a distinguished series of translations of important Byzantine saints’ lives directed by Alice-Mary Talbot during her long association with Dumbarton Oaks. Readers of the series, and indeed all who study Byzantium, will be grateful that, in this case, Talbot and her collaborators have chosen to accompany the translation with a critical edition of the most complete manuscript version of the text. Previously, in order to read the whole text, one had to assemble three partial editions from difficult-to-access Russian publications from the pre-revolutionary period. Yet the text was frequently cited, and its manuscript tradition had been intensively studied, because of the extraordinary interest of its subject. The Life of Saint Basil the Younger is a veritable encyclopedia of Byzantine devotional belief. The main narrative is a model portrait of a Byzantine holy man, who practices solitary asceticism, stands up to tyrannical authority, works miracles, preaches morality, and acts as spiritual adviser to the rich and powerful while remaining totally self-effacing. He is also spiritual father to the narrator, Gregory, and as such arranges for the latter to be granted two extended visions of the afterlife, one instructing him in the fate of the individual soul after death, and the other giving a detailed preview of the Last Judgment and the rewards and punishments that are in store for all sections of humanity at the end of the world. The whole story is made real for the Byzantine reader and very interesting for the modern historian of Byzantium, as it is set in a specific, familiar time and place—Constantinople in the early-tenth century—with copious references to urban topography, major [End Page 903] political figures, and political events. An added bonus for the historian is the fact that so much of the action takes place in the social world of the Byzantine aristocratic household (oikos), both inside and outside Constantinople: the Life pays more attention to domestic slaves and to life on a rural domain (proasteion) than any other work of Byzantine hagiography or indeed of Byzantine literature in general. Does all this historical specificity reflect the historical reality of the saint and the historical identity of the author-narrator, Gregory? Or is it an artifice of literary illusionism that masks the real distance between the author and his subject? Does the appearance of a contemporary, eyewitness account, in fact, conceal the fictional invention of both saint and narrator by an author writing long after the age in which they are supposed to have lived? There are no easy answers to these questions, and the editors, in their thoughtful introduction, do not pretend otherwise, although they tend to give the text the benefit of the doubt. One argument for authenticity, or at least contemporaneity, which they do not make is the author’s partisanship with regard to political issues and figures of the early-tenth century, something that makes little obvious sense in a much later context. On the other hand, they note the discrepancies between the Life’s version of historical events and that contained in the chronicle accounts. They also note the highly constructed nature of the plot, including the didacticism of the narrator’s otherworldly visions, in which the Life strongly resembles a number of other, clearly fictional narratives that have been dated to the late-tenth century. But the dating of these texts and the milieu that produced them are still up for debate. They cannot be used for situating the Life of Saint Basil the Younger, but at least the latter’s relationship to them and other texts can be more effectively studied now...

Dall’Oriente all’Occidente: capitelli ad incrostazione di mastice a nord di Venezia

In the east chapel of the sanctuary dedicated to Saints Victor and Corona (Stefania), near Feltre, is preserved one of the most significant episodes, in the upper Adriatic area, of sculptures entirely decorated with the technique of mastic encrustation, better known as niello or champlevé. The architectonical structure of the martyrium, which still preserves the relics of the two byzantine saints, involves three steps overlapping, of which the median one is opening at the center of the apse with an elegant loggia with capitals decorated all over with motifs finely carved and filled with mastic blacks and reds. All of these works were designed in pairs, and each one was prepared according to a specific project, focused on the arch in the middle of the eastern side with the two capitals adorned by kufic decorations: in fact, in this place there is an opening that puts in communication the interior with the founder’s tomb of the sanctuary located outside. While in the Veneto there are at least two similar sets of capitals, in the Basilica of San Marco in Venice and in San Donato in Murano, is not sufficient to draw a cross-reference with the lagoon area to explain the case of Feltre. Only looking towards the lands of the Byzantine periphery, especially Mesopotamia, Osios Loukas and more generally the Greek mainland, it’s possible to trace the matrix of this strongly characteristic lexicon that distinguishes the workers of Saint Victor.

Simeón ‘el Loco’: los rasgos demoníacos de un monje aparentemente extraño*

This paper examines Byzantine fool saints, aiming to verify that the association of these ascetics with demons could be traced back to the first representative of this typology of saints, Symeon of Emesa. Through the study of the Life of Symeon the Fool, by Leontius of Neapolis, Symeon’s actions will be analyzed, trying to identify similarities with various characters linked with demons in Christian moral in order to point out the demoniacal characteristics of Symeon’s behavior.

Repentance as the Context of Sainthood in the Ascetical Theology of Mark the Monk

It seems fitting to begin with a tribute to the late Henry Chadwick, whose thorough, even-handed, and ever readable work contributed much to our understanding of the theme of sanctity in the early Church. In particular, his address at a conference on ‘The Byzantine Saint’ held in Birmingham in 1980 exemplified his capacity to identify and constructively pursue the broad issues at stake. In speaking of the early saints and the content of their lives, Chadwick explains, ‘we are tempted either to tell the stories of their mortifications and then, as was said of Lytton Strachey, ostentatiously refrain from laughing, or we go in search of trendy non-religious explanations of the social needs that created them’. He goes on to acknowledge, as most would, the importance of sociological interpretations and their potential for the study of sanctity, but warns that ‘a stripping away of their religious motivation will leave the historian with a distorted picture’. It is along this route of keeping the religious or theological motivations and presuppositions of sanctity in mind, that the present essay will proceed. It focuses on the neglected concept of μετάνoια or ‘repentance’ (lit. a ‘change of mind’) which dominates much of the ascetic theology of the early Christian East, particularly as expounded by the influential fifth-century theologian Mark the Monk (or ‘the Hermit’ / ‘the Ascetic’).

What Nature Does Not Teach: Didactic Literature in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods (review)

Reviewed by: What Nature Does Not Teach: Didactic Literature in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods Tomas Zahora Ruys, Juanita Feros, ed., What Nature Does Not Teach: Didactic Literature in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods (Disputatio, 15), Turnhout, Brepols, 2007; hardback; pp. xiv, 530; 3 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €90.00; ISBN 9782503525969. In his Epistle 94, Seneca writes that advice is important 'because nature does not teach what ought to be done in every specific circumstance.' Following this theme, a conscious choice was made in this volume to focus not on a specific period or place but on the longue durée of didactic literature, and to include a variety of sources, provided that they were 'created, transmitted, or received' with a design 'to teach, instruct, advise, edify, inculcate morals, or modify and regulate behaviour' (p. 5). Juanita Feros Ruys' introduction serves as a programmatic foundation and guide to the volume. Ruys locates didacticism at the intersection of authorial intent, transmission and reception by the audience, and poses a series of questions centred on the creation of meaning in the didactic process. Correspondingly, the volume emphasizes the social context of teaching, the role of gender and the intimate aspects of the exchange of knowledge. The essays are divided into five thematic sections. The first, 'Constructing Didactic Intent and Persona', opens with Steven J. Williams' study of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets, which reveals both the flexibility and limitations of a well-known medieval didactic text. Kathleen Olive introduces a fascinating example of the zibaldone genre of Italian middle-class didactic literature, in this case a commonplace book of religious, classical and vernacular extracts and personal advice set against (mostly) Florentine architectural topography and pride. In focusing on the migrant nature of Christine de [End Page 243] Pizan's authorial voice, Louise D'Arcens explores the layers of authority, objectivity and didactic force that come with an outsider's status – and finds in this 'neglected weapon in her literary armoury' a source of authorial and didactic strength. 'Children and Families', the second section of the volume, moves the emphasis to the intimacy of the household. Maria Nenarokova's essay on Vladimir Monomakh's Instruction is an exploration of theological, political and moral characteristics of an ideal Christian ruler in a didactic text that also allows for an attempted reconstruction of its impact. Juanita Feros Ruys uses parental advice to children as a foundation to suggest the movement toward a greater acceptance of personal experience as a didactic method, and offers a revision of the accepted relationship between gender and teaching by example. Catherine England's essay is a study of the pragmatic Florentine approach to education where children were viewed as a precious commodity whose education was expected to secure successful continuation of family lines. The third section, 'Women, Teaching, Gender', stands out both by its length and by the centrality of its themes to the volume's core aims. Stavroula Constantinou's contribution looks at the interplay of rhetoric and exemplarity in the didactic performance of female Byzantine saints using texts written by their followers as testimony of their success. Albrecht Classen examines views on marriage and gender relations in the works of Thomasin von Zerclaere and Hugo von Trimberg, and discovers a considerable degree of equality and respect for women within an otherwise predictably patriarchal discourse. Julie Hotchin offers a nuanced study of male perspectives on governing cloistered women, supported by the personal experience of an author of a manual for male ecclesiastics. Ursula Potter deftly shows that the true embodiment of a particular male ideal of woman is a 'flat, emblematic character' (p. 281), enough of a foundation for Shakespeare to create vivid characters as its antithesis. Alexandra Barratt carries forward the theme of female captivity to male models of behaviour in her survey of translations of literature made into English for the use of women. The section titled 'Literacy, Piety, Heresy, Control' begins with John O. Ward's insightful analysis of a text located midway between oral and written culture where he captures some of the richness of allusions and non-textual clues that made up the full context of medieval didactic...

Byzantine Saints in Early Islamic Syria

Les historiens ont tendance a considerer la Syrie islamique des premiers temps a travers la perspective de ses gouvernants arabes, en reservant peu d’attention a la population chretienne assujettie, qui resta longtemps majoritaire. Sur cette derniere, les sources traditionnelles apportent peu d’elements d’information, mais les Vies de saints qui subsistent fournissent un certain nombre de renseignements fiables et detailles. Parmi celles-ci, la Vie de Timothee de Kākhushtā, qui vecut dans un village du Nord de la Syrie a la fin du viiie s. / debut du ixe s., occupe une place particuliere. Ce recit atteste la persistance d’un mode de vie byzantin, dans lequel l’Eglise etablie et les saints renommes jouent un role majeur. D’autres Vies refletent les conditions differentes qui existent dans les villes et dans les regions ou chretiens et musulmans furent en contact etroit et temoignent parfois, bien que rarement, de rapports hostiles.

Symeon the New Theologian's Hymns of Divine Eros : A Neglected Masterpiece of the Christian Mystical Tradition

he Byzantine saint and poet Symeon the New Theologian (949‐1022) 1 is one of the Christian world’s greatest mystics, if such a term can properly be used of ancient writers. It is here applied for the sake of convenience, and for the purpose of unveiling the author, as it were, who is not only a visionary of the highest order within the Eastern Orthodox tradition, but equally one of the Christian world’s most lyrical and rhapsodic writers. It is a startling fact that it is only in recent years that his works have become available in English translation, and a sadder one that his name is still largely unknown to a wider public who would otherwise undoubtedly be interested in a spirituality suffused with light and hope and one of the most profound senses of the mercy and compassion of God. The situation of neglect is comparable to finding something of the quality of the works of San Juan de la Cruz still awaiting an edition. The commentator is torn between excitement at the possibility of revealing “new” literary and theological treasures, and wonder at how large the task is to contextualize the deep traditions of medieval Greek (Byzantine) spirituality in an environment of western Church history and theology within which spirituality at large has frequently been marginalised or exiled, and from which even a rudimentary awareness of Greek medieval literature has customarily been missing. It is partly to fulfill that task of reintroduction that the present essay sets out to give a brief background history of this medieval poet, monk, and controversialist, and then to introduce aspects of one of his most extraordinary works, the Hymns of Divine Eros. 2 In this remarkable figure we find combined the vocations of radical prophet and ecstatic visionary: of poet and soul-friend. His work brings to the fore the pressing need for the Christian Church to theologize primarily from its living experience of God: the need for each believer to accept the highest vocation as “friend of God,” and prophet of the presence of God.

REHABILITATING THE GREAT ESTATE: ARISTOCRATIC PROPERTY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE LATE ANTIQUE EAST

This article argues that recent emphasis on late antique economic expansion in the eastern Mediterranean and the prosperity of the peasantry of the East Roman empire has led historians to underestimate the economic importance of great estates owned by members of the imperial service aristocracy. This tendency has been exacerbated by the misleading testimony of early Byzantine saints’ lives, and an assumption that great estates were inherently autarchic and economically regressive. Rather, the evidence of the papyri and imperial legislation on the colonate would suggest that such great estates were highly commodified and monetised enterprises that contributed to economic growth.

St. Eustace and St. George: Crusading Saints in the Sculpture and Stained Glass of Chartres Cathedral

The writer discusses two 13th-century statues of military saints at the Martyrs Portal at Chartres Cathedral in Chartres, France. He suggests that the figures of St George and St Eustace (the latter long misidentified as St Theodore) represent the imposition of interests related to private devotion, and shows that the figures of the Crusading saints appropriate iconographic attributes of Byzantine military saints. He builds his iconographic argument by considering the sculpture and stained glass at the cathedral together. He concludes that the images of the military saints not only evince new social attitudes toward Crusading, toward knightly identity, and toward private devotion, but also provide evidence that the cathedral was ready to accommodate these new attitudes.

Gregory the cellarer. The life of Lazaros of Mt. Galesion. An eleventh-century pillar saint. Introduction, translation and notes by Richard P. H. Greenfield. (Byzantine Saints' Lives in Translation, 3.) Pp. xxi+423. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2000. $50. 0 88402 272 2

Gregory the cellarer. The life of Lazaros of Mt. Galesion. An eleventh-century pillar saint. Introduction, translation and notes by Richard P. H. Greenfield. (Byzantine Saints' Lives in Translation, 3.) Pp. xxi+423. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2000. $50. 0 88402 272 2 - Volume 53 Issue 2