Download PDF | (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 54) Anthony Kaldellis_ Ioannis Polemis - Saints of Ninth- and Tenth-Century Greece-Harvard University Press (2019).
353 Pages
Introduction
The saints’ lives translated in this volume are not among the best known, but they have at least two features that compel broader attention: first, they concern a poorly documented but hotly debated period in the history of medieval Greece, the ninth and early tenth centuries; and, second, as a collected corpus they exhibit a great deal of literary variety, presenting students of hagiography with a compact dossier of texts that feature a range of literary modes and tropes. The texts are individually fairly short and have not been previously translated into English.’
On the historical side, “Dark Age” Greece is always a topic of interest and even fascination,” but the materials for its study (textual and archaeological) are scanty. Major topics have long included the barbarian invasions (Slavic, Avar, and Bulgar); changes in settlement (and resettlement) patterns; the postclassical history of cities, towns, and villages; Arab and pirate raids in the ninth and tenth centuries; ecclesiastical history; and monasticism. The texts included here touch on every one of these themes. They do not provide a sufficient basis for a comprehensive history of the period, but their evidence, which is still generally unknown, fills in crucial parts of the overall picture. Arguably, some of our texts are more historically oriented than others, especially the Life of Peter; Bishop of Argos, which is important for understanding episcopal authority and Church welfare in medieval Greece, and the Life of Theodore of Kythera, the most important source for the Byzantine history of that island.3 The account in the Martyrdom of Nicholas the Younger stands between invention and history, possibly combining narrative layers from different periods.
The volume will also be a crucial source for the cult of saints in Greece itself and the topographies of holiness (including holy mountains and the practice of piety in cities). For example, even if it is quasi-fictional, the story of the governor of Thessalonike, who seeks a cure for his leprosy and (vainly) turns to the other saints of Greece before track ing down the body of Nicholas the Younger, shows how new cults sought to establish themselves on the backs of others.
On the literary side, the corpus presents a great variety of approaches, making it a useful instrument for studying and teaching different literary aspects and conventions of hagiography. Along with the traditional vita format, there is a hagiographic funeral oration (for Athanasios of Methone) and an encomium (for Nicholas the Younger). Some texts are more historical and others more rhetorical in approach, especially the Life and Miracles of Theokletos, Bishop of Lakedaimon, which follows a fairly generic rhetorical template, though its author exhibits a love of metaphor and makes good use of vivid imagery and proverbs. There are also miracle stories of both living and dead saints, and novelistic elements. One text (on Athanasios of Methone) offers multiple comparisons to figures from ancient Greek history and mythology, whereas another, the Life of Peter, Bishop of Argos, uses as a template the Life of Proklos by his student Marinos, a rare instance of the recasting of “Neoplatonic hagiography” by a Christian writer. There are also texts associated with the saints’ feast days. This collection, therefore, is ideal for studying the varieties of hagiographic rhetoric and aspects of its narrative inventions.
In addition, the Lives presented in this volume are composed in a variety of styles, representing the main stylistic tendencies of Byzantine hagiographic prose. The Life of Peter, Bishop of Argos is written in an elevated style. Its author, Theodore of Nicaea, a prominent member of the literary circle around the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (r. 945-959), was clearly addressing a demanding audience able to appreciate the impeccable syntax of his text and its Attic diction. Written in the first half of the tenth century, this text follows the classicizing tendencies of the ninth century, as represented by the great hagiographic works of the patriarch Methodios and Ignatios the Deacon. The works on Athanasios of Methone, Theokletos of Lakedaimon, and Theodore of Kythera were by contrast written by provincial scholars according to the rules of elevated Byzantine style: good Greek, but clearly inferior to that of the Life of Peter, Bishop of Argos. The Martyrdom of Nicholas the Younger and the encomium for the same saint written by the priest Achaikos belong to another category, being representative of low-level, provincial hagiography. Their authors tried to imitate the elevated style of the more ambitious hagiographic works written in their time but were unable to keep their texts under control: their syntax is loose, and grammatical and other mistakes are frequent. Finally, the Commemoration of Arsenios, Archbishop of Kerkyra is from a synaxarion (a collection of brief readings about individual saints, arranged by their feast dates in the calendar). This short text was probably read on the saint’s feast day. Therefore, this selection of texts nicely illustrates the differences among the main branches of Byzantine hagiography.
As a principle of selection, “Greece” is a valid Byzantine rubric. The region retained its ancient geographical name in Byzantine times and lent it to the military province (or “theme”) of Hellas, which was at times combined with the theme of the Peloponnese. Byzantines from Greece were known as Helladikoi, “Helladics,” rather than Hellenes, which in Byzantine times meant “pagans.” All the saints in this volume were active in those themes, except for Arsenios of Kerkyra (which was either its own minitheme or belonged to that of Kephallenia). We have decided, however, to exclude the Lives of two more famous saints of tenth-century Greece, Loukas of Steiris and Nikon Metanoeite, because these have already been translated and are much longer (each one filling a separate volume);‘ also the Life of Athanasia of Aigina, because it is included in the Holy Women of Byzantium volume published by Dumbarton Oaks; and the two Lives of Meletios the Younger that are also much longer, later than our period, and are about to be published separately in translation as well.¢
We have retained the chapter numbering of texts in the edition by Ioannis Polemis and Evelina Mineva but subdivided them into paragraphs; texts not included in PolemisMineva have new chapter numbering,’ In the Notes to the ‘Translations we cite passages from both classical and scriptural sources for the quotations and allusions that appear in our texts. Unless otherwise noted, all classical Greek references are to the Loeb Classical Library edition. Our bibli-cal citations are to the Rahlfs edition of the Septuagint and the Nestle-Aland edition of the New Testament; all translations of scriptural passages are our own. We do not wish to imply that our authors always had those passages in mind or on their desk when writing these texts (though in many cases they clearly did). The sayings, phrases, and ideas in question would often have been known more generally, from their general circulation in Byzantine oral and literary culture (for example, in the liturgy, or anthologies), so we are content to cite here what was likely only their ultimate sources. The mechanics of their diffusion, circulation, and allusion thereafter are too complex to render in our notes.
In the spelling of Byzantine Greek names and placenames, we have generally followed the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium.
Saint NICHOLAS THE YOUNGER
According to the anonymous Martyrdom, Nicholas, a virtuous military man and associate of the emperor Leo VI (c. 886-912), was sent by him to Thessaly to protect the area from the “Avars,” who, taking advantage of the emperor’s expedition to Asia Minor, had invaded Greece. The saint and his companions arrived at Larissa, Thessaly’s main city, but decided to abandon it, retreating to the nearby mountain of Ternavon, where he lived as an ascetic. A short time afterward an angel ordered him to attack the Avars. The companions of the saint were taken prisoner by the Avars, who killed the ascetics after torturing them, but Nicholas managed to escape to Mount Vounaina. There he lived as a hermit for some time, but in the end he, too, was captured by the Avars and killed. Philip, the bishop of Larissa,? found the bodies of Nicholas’s companions, who were buried on ‘Ternavon, while sometime later a governor of Thessalonike named Euphemianos, prompted by a dream, discovered the body of Nicholas on Vounaina, where he built a church after being miraculously cured of his leprosy.
It is difficult to determine the historical basis of these events. Several persons mentioned in the text, especially Nicholas and his companions, the governor Euphemianos, and his companion named Horation, are not mentioned in any other source. Also unrecorded is the expedition of the emperor Leo VI to Asia Minor.” Scholars disagree about the identity of the Avars referred to in the text. The Byzantines sometimes used that name for the Bulgars; however, the latter had already converted to Christianity by the time of Leo VI. Some scholars have claimed that they were Arabs changed to Avars by a scribal error, Hungarians, or Slavs settled in Macedonia.”
The whole story, moreover, is an agglomeration of two distinct narratives: the story of the group martyred on Mount Ternavon and that of the solitary martyr Nicholas on Mount Vounaina. The miraculous discovery of two groups of relics gave rise to each story, and the two were combined at a later stage, possibly by the author of the anonymous Martyrdom." Attention has also been drawn to acanon dedicated to Saint Ardomios, written by an Arsenios called Xenos (“the foreigner”) in the second half of the ninth century.'4 Ardomios and his four companions (Gregory, John, Michael, and Paul) suffered martyrdom at an unspecified time because they refused to bow to idols. This group was certainly related to the group of Saint Nicholas the Younger: all these names (except for Paul) are recorded in the anonymous Martyrdom. Yet if Ardomios was among the companions of Saint Nicholas the Younger, the author of the canon for Saint Ardomios does not mention Saint Nicholas at all. Also, the anonymous Martyrdom lists eight more male names and two female ones, and the martyrs referred to in the canon for Ardomios are neither monks nor soldiers, as is the case in the anonymous Martyrdom.
Moreover, there exists another witness to the second story, that of Saint Nicholas the lonely soldier. Manuscript 81 of the Transfiguration Monastery of Meteora also preserves an office for the saint containing a synaxarion for him. According to this short text, Saint Nicholas was a military man who, at the time of a persecution by a tyrant and some unspecified heretics, was tortured and then exiled. The saint sought refuge on Vounaina, but his torturers followed him and killed him there. His relics were not discovered by a governor named Euphemianos, but .by an unnamed barbarian from the east Ex tv dvatoAtK@v pep@v) who was ill and was cured after discovering the saint’s relics on Mount Vounaina.5 No mention of any companions is made in this short text. The heretics mentioned in the synaxarion could be identified with iconoclasts, the only heretics who persecuted the orthodox in this period. Unfortunately, the date of the synaxarion’s composition is unknown, but it must have been written long before the fifteenth century, when the manuscript was copied. What is more important for our purposes is that there existed a tradition in which Saint Nicholas the Younger had no companions.
Thus, different versions of this story were circulating and different historical circumstances were invented to frame the saint’s life. It is possible that the story’s origins go back to the eighth century when emperor Leo III (t. 717-741) had to deal with both the Arabs in the east and the Bulgars in the Balkans, before they converted to Christianity. A hagiographer who wished to conceal the saint’s connection to a heretical emperor perhaps decided to place the events in the tenth century under the reign of another Leo. It is difficult to prove such a hypothesis, and it is also difficult to date the Martyrdom. It seems to have been written before the occupation of Larissa by the Bulgars in 986, as the relics of Saint Achilleios were still to be found there at this time.'* The combination of the two stories into one continuous narrative also required that the ascetics of Ternavon become military men, like Nicholas.
The Encomium was written by an obscure priest called Achaikos and is preserved in a twelfth-century manuscript, though it was composed after the anonymous Martyrdom on which it is clearly based. It is interesting that Achaikos takes liberties with his model, reworking embarrassing details, as, for example, the reason for Nicholas’s abandonment of Larissa to the mercy of the Avars.
SAINT ATHANASIOS OF METHONE
The Funeral Oration for Athanasios, Bishop of Methone, by Peter of Argos is based on a lost Life of the saint whose author is unknown.” According to the text, Athanasios was born in Catania, Sicily. His family was forced to seek refuge in Patras in the Peloponnese after the invasion of Sicily by the Arabs in 827/8.® Considering that the saint was young at the time, his birth has been placed around 818/r19.° At Patras, he joined a monastery, but later abandoned it to live as a hermit. However, he was forced to return to the monastery to become its abbot. Against his will he was then ordained bishop of Methone,”° where he led an exemplary life and died in old age. His death must be placed after 879, because the saint took part in the council of 879, which rehabilitated Photios.”! His cult was limited and he was soon forgotten, like most of the Peloponnesian saints of our collection, excepting Theodore of Kythera.””
One of the sources used by Peter of Argos in writing the Funeral Oration was the Graecarum affectionum curatio (Remedy for the Hellenic Afflictions) of Theodoret of Cyrrhus.”
SAINT PETER OF ARGOS
The Léfe of Peter, Bishop of Argos, author of the Funeral Oration for Athanasios, Bishop of Methone, was written by his disciple Theodore of Nicaea, a well-known figure of the tenth century,” and has been convincingly interpreted as a case of the reemergence of bishops as the subjects of hagiographic literature.25 The name of the author is preserved only in the manuscript Atheniensis graecus 278, but the attribution may be considered safe: twice in his extant letters, Theodore refers to his saintly spiritual father.** Moreover, at the end of the Life the author thanks Peter for saving him from the wrath of the emperor. Theodore often refers in his letters to his bad relations with Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos.”’ According to Theodore, Peter was the scion of a Constantinopolitan aristocratic family renowned for its piety. The eldest son, Paul, became a disciple of a famous ascetic, also named Peter. His example was followed by Dionysios, the second son. Later on, the entire family joined Paul’s monastic community, and he became the spiritual father of his own parents and younger sister. His younger brothers Peter and Plato also became monks. The patriarch Nicholas I (901-907, 912-925) appointed Paul as bishop of Corinth,?8 which at the time was the capital of the administrative district of the Peloponnese. He pressured Peter to become a bishop too, but the saint was adamant in refusing and followed his brother Paul to Corinth, where he lived in a monastery outside the city, writing panegyrical accounts of various saints. After the death of the bishop of Argos, the inhabitants of that area asked Paul to persuade his brother to become their new bishop. After considerable reluctance, Peter yielded to his brother’s entreaties and was ordained a bishop of that important city shortly after 912.2? During his episcopate, he devoted himself to charity. He managed to save many lives during a famine by offering wheat to its victims.?? Even some barbarians were persuaded by his example to accept Christianity! He also liberated people captured by the Arabs who were plundering the coastal areas of the Peloponnese.
Peter had prophetic powers as well and predicted the invasion of some unidentified barbarians, which took place after his death: more precisely, he said that the Peloponnese would perish at the time of the death either of a certain Theophylaktos or “a man guarded by God” (depending on whether it is a proper name or a descriptive adjective). Scholars have identified this event with an invasion by Symeon’s Bulgarians (possibly in 924-927), alternatively with an invasion of Slavic tribes,*> or with a revolt by unspecified Slavic tribes inhabiting the Peloponnese, put down by the general Krinites Arotras (possibly in 922—924/5).4
A later source, the Life of Theodostos the Younger written by Nicholas Malaxos (sixteenth century), refers to a journey of Peter of Argos to Constantinople.* In all probability, he took part in the Council of 920 that condemned the fourth marriage of the emperor Leo VI. The saint must have died in 921 or 922. According to his Léfe, he was then seventy years old.
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق