Narrative, Imagination and Concepts of Fiction in Late Antique Hagiography 9004685073, 9789004685079

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Narrative, Imagination and Concepts of Fiction in Late Antique Hagiography

Mnemosyne Supplements late antique literature

Series Editor David Bright (Emory) Scott McGill (Rice) Joseph Pucci (Brown)

Editorial Board Laura Miguélez-Cavero (Oxford) Stratis Papaioannou (Brown) Aglae Pizzone (Geneva) Karla Pollmann (Reading)

volume 478

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mns‑lal

Narrative, Imagination and Concepts of Fiction in Late Antique Hagiography Edited by

Julie Van Pelt Koen De Temmerman

With the collaboration of

Klazina Staat

leiden | boston

Cover illustration: Life of Euphrosyne of Alexandria, Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana g 63 sup. (Martini-Bassi 405), f. 152v. With permission. © Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Fictionality in Late Antique Hagiography (Workshop) (2017 : Rome, Italy), author. | Pelt, Julie Van, 1992- editor. | De Temmerman, Koen, editor. | Staat, Klazina, 1988Title: Narrative, imagination and concepts of fiction in late antique hagiography / edited by Julie Van Pelt, Koen De Temmerman ; with the collaboration of Klazina Staat. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2024] | Series: Mnemosyne supplements, 2214-5621 ; volume 478 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2023039872 (print) | lccn 2023039873 (ebook) | isbn 9789004685079 (hardback) | isbn 9789004685758 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: Religious biography–History and criticism–Congresses. | Hagiography–Congresses. | Literature, Ancient–History and criticism– Congresses. | Fiction–History and criticism–Theory, etc.–Congresses. | Narration (Rhetoric)–Congresses. Classification: lcc bl71.5 .f53 2017 (print) | lcc bl71.5 (ebook) | ddc 202/.13–dc23/eng/20231010 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023039872 lc ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023039873

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill‑typeface. issn 2214-5621 isbn 978-90-04-68507-9 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-68575-8 (e-book) doi 10.1163/9789004685758 Copyright 2024 by Julie Van Pelt and Koen De Temmerman. Published by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Acknowledgements vii Note on Editorial Choices and Abbreviations viii

part 1 Concepts and Contexts 1

Narratives of Imagination and Fiction in Late Antique Hagiography: Scholarship and Ways Forward 3 Koen De Temmerman and Julie Van Pelt

2

The Cultural Politics of Imagination On Fictionality in Late Antique and Early Byzantine Christian Contexts (Origen, the Apocryphal Acts, Hagiography) 27 Panagiotis Roilos

3

From Cyclops to Unicorn: Fiction and the New Communitas of Middle Byzantine Hagiography 51 Christian Høgel

part 2 Reality and Representation 4

The Fictionality of Literary History in Syriac: Thomas of Marga and Abdisho Bar Brikha 69 Scott Fitzgerald Johnson

5

At the Margins of the World The Desert as a Fictionalized Space in Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations and the History of the Great Deeds of Bishop Paul of Qentos and Priest John of Edessa 94 André Binggeli

6

The Literary Construction of a Post-Iconoclast Saint: Gregorios Dekapolites between Biography and Fictionalization 108 Óscar Prieto Domínguez

vi

contents

part 3 Invention and Truth 7

Thinking Characters: Fictionalization and Claims of Truth in Syriac Hagiography 129 Flavia Ruani

8

Focalization, Immersion and Fictionality: Shifts between Female and Male Pronouns in Greek Lives of Cross-Dressers 151 Julie Van Pelt

9

Truth, Authentication and History-Writing in the History of the Armenians by Agathangelos 181 Valentina Calzolari

part 4 Models and Intertexts 10

Malchus, the Not So Good Shepherd: Biblical Stylization, Generic and Moral Ambiguity in Jerome’s Vita Malchi 209 Danny Praet

11

Ritual Fictions, Liturgical Truths in the Hymns of Romanos the Melodist 234 Derek Krueger

12

Modelling Prophets: Alexander the Great as a Proto-Sufi Saint-King in Thaʿlabi’s Lives of the Prophets 253 Ghazzal Dabiri

13

A Scene Played Out Again: Ardashir and Constantine, Sargon and Cyrus 283 Matthew O’Farrell Index

307

Acknowledgements This book originates from a workshop entitled ‘Fictionality in Late Antique Hagiography’, which was organized by the editors and Klazina Staat in 2017. All chapters were originally presented and discussed at the workshop, with the exception of one (Matthew O’Farrell). We thank all participants and look back with gratitude at inspiring presentations and conversations. Our thanks also go to the Academia Belgica in Rome, whose beautiful venue was the setting for the workshop, and to Charles Bossu in particular for practical support. We wish to extend our warmest thanks to Klazina Staat, who has contributed to the editorial work for this book in its early stages, and to all contributors for their work and the pleasant collaboration. We are grateful to Kristoffel Demoen and Marc Van Uytfanghe for advice, to Robbe Van de Velde for help in preparing the bibliography, to Anne Lanckriet for support with indexing, and to Anke Timmermann for proofreading and language-editing. Finally, we thank the series editors and the academic board of Mnemosyne Supplements: Late Antique Literature, and Mirjam Elbers and Giulia Moriconi at Brill Publishers for their support and interest in our work. For both this book and the workshop from which it originates, Koen De Temmerman received generous financial support from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (Starting Grant nº 337344) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Consolidator Grant nº 819459). The book also benefitted from the Junior Postdoctoral Fellowships awarded by the Flemish Research Council (F.W.O.-Vlaanderen) to Klazina Staat (grant agreement nº 1232820N) and Julie Van Pelt (grant agreement nº 1206221N). JVP, KDT Ghent, May 2023

Note on Editorial Choices and Abbreviations In order to distinguish the two current meanings of the word ‘life’ (both ‘the period from birth to death’ and ‘biography’), we capitalize it (Life, plural Lives) when it is a synonym of ‘biography’ or ‘description of one’s life’. We similarly disambiguate ‘martyrdom’/‘passion’ (the event or concept) and ‘Martyrdom’/‘Passion’ (the account). References to titles of specific works (or parts thereof) are not only capitalized but also italicized (e.g. Passion of Babylas, Life of Theodora). For reasons of internal consistency across the book, English spelling is used for names of places, persons and literary works where common (e.g. Jerome). If there is no common English spelling, Latinized spelling or Greek transcriptions are used depending on the context of the literary tradition in question (e.g. Athanasios of Alexandria, Sulpicius Severus). The abbreviations of Greek/Byzantine Christian texts are derived from Lampe’s A Patristic Greek Lexicon (PGL). Other Greek and Latin texts and authors are abbreviated using the conventions of the fourth edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD) or otherwise the Greek–English Lexicon edited by Liddell, Scott, Jones, and McKenzie (LSJ, for Greek) and the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (for Latin). Books of the Bible (Old Testament, New Testament, and apocrypha) are abbreviated according to the Society of Biblical Literature Handbook of Style, 2nd edition (Atlanta, 2014). In the bibliography, abbreviations of periodicals used are those of L’Année Philologique. Other abbreviations will be explained in the context. In addition, this book uses the following abbreviations: AFLN AJS BGdSL BHG BKiS BMGS CCSL CO CHRC DOHD GEDSH

Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Napoli American Journal of Sociology Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca Beiträge zur Kunde der indogermanischen Sprachen Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Corpus Christianorum Series Latina Cahiers d’Orientalisme Church History and Religious Culture Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database Brock, S.P., Butts, A.M., Kiraz, G.A. & van Rompay, L. (eds.) 2011. The Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Piscataway, NJ).

note on editorial choices and abbreviations HUS IranStud JAJ Jerus. Stud. Arab. Islam JMEMS JMH JNES JNT JPS JSNT MiscAr NLH NPNF

ODLA PBE PG PmbZ QSA RRAL SC SHG SLA YFS ZAVA

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Harvard Ukrainian Studies Iranian Studies Journal of Ancient Judaism Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Journal of Modern Hellenism Journal of Near-Eastern Studies Journal of Narrative Technique Journal of Persianate Societies Journal for the Study of the New Testament Miscellanea Arabica New Literary History Schaff, P. & Wace, H. (eds.) 1886–1889. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 28 vols. in 2 series (Edinburgh). Nicholson, O. (ed.) 2018. Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (Oxford). Martindale, J. et al. 2001. The Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire. i: 641–867 (Aldershot). (CD Rom) Migne, J.P. (ed.) 1857–1866. Patrologiae cursus completus. Series graeca (Paris). Lilie, R.J. et al. 1999–2013. Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit, 16 vols. (Berlin). Quaderni di Studi Arabi Rendiconti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche Sources Chrétiennes Studia Hagiographica Graeca Studies in Late Antiquity Yale French Studies Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie

part 1 Concepts and Contexts

∵

chapter 1

Narratives of Imagination and Fiction in Late Antique Hagiography: Scholarship and Ways Forward Koen De Temmerman and Julie Van Pelt

According to a recent authoritative dictionary of Late Antiquity, ‘hagiography’ is ‘a broad designation encompassing a variety of literary forms in both prose and verse that take the life and the actions of a holy person as their subject’.1 This definition highlights the incredible variety within late antique hagiography, a fact that is often obscured because scholars tend to sort these texts into a limited number of subgenres (e.g. saints’ Lives, martyr acts, miracle collections, and edifying tales). In addition to the difference between prose and verse mentioned in the definition cited above, there are differences, among many others, in length, style, and narrative form. In modern editions, some texts cover only a few paragraphs, while others run for hundreds of pages; some take the form of letters, others are orations; some are written in a simple, unadorned style, others adopt a higher register; some are presented as third-person narratives, others as first-person accounts; some present themselves as a simple record of facts, while others more evidently elaborate in the narrative; some recount lives straightforwardly and chronologically, others contain embedded narratives and thus build a labyrinth of pro- and analepses.2 Yet for all their diversity, what many of these narratives have in common is that they present themselves, in one way or another, as truthful. Not only do they purport to relate actual events from a more or less distant past, but also, by doing so they claim to convey profound religious, moral or philosophical truths. Turner therefore describes hagiography as a ‘truth-telling genre’, ‘whose 1 ODLA, s.v. ‘saints’ Lives’, pp. 1320–1322 (Insley). Over time, different definitions of hagiography have been suggested, ranging from the restrictive (e.g. Delehaye 1905: 2) to the more loose and inclusive (see e.g. Brunhorn, Gemeinhardt & Munkholt Christensen 2020: 3). For a discussion and bibliography, see De Temmerman (2023: 15–18). This chapter was written with the support, for KDT, of European Research Council Starting (no. 337344) and Consolidator (no. 819459) Grants, and for JVP, of the Flemish Research Council (FWO). 2 On this particular type of formal characteristic of hagiography, see Praet (2020: 370–372).

© Koen De Temmerman and Julie Van Pelt, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004685758_002

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principal focus are religious or philosophical truths’.3 This description is more radical than it may appear to be at first sight. Although such a designation would generally seem self-evident for a genre that has a claim to veracity at its core, hagiography has, in fact, developed a reputation of being anything but a ‘truth-telling’ genre.

1

Authentication, Truth, and Invention

Like many ancient and late antique historiographers and biographers, hagiographers deploy an extensive apparatus of so-called authentication strategies with the aim to both prove the veracity of the recounted events and to demonstrate the reliability of their accounts.4 These strategies include explicit assurances of truth,5 stylistic choices,6 the inclusion of paratexts emphasizing authenticity, reference to historical persons and events, claims of personal observation (autopsy), references to eyewitnesses and the inclusion of their accounts in the text,7 and references to written sources (e.g. transcripts of interrogations in the case of martyr acts) or (auto)biographical documents.8 At the same time, for all their insistence on their own truthfulness, hagiographical narratives are also interspersed with legend, invention, and imagination, and famously so. Significantly, modern scholarship associates hagiography above all other late antique narrative genres with fiction. The claim that much late antique hagiography is ‘novelistic’ has become a topos among scholars, and by this they usually mean that it prominently features invention, legend, imagination, and other elements that we presently associate more with fiction than with the (factual) narration of truth as envisaged by the hagiographical narratives.9 But while there has been much scholarly comment on 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Turner (2012: 4). See also Bray (2010) on similar concepts of moral and historical truth (there in early Arabic sources). On such devices in ancient biography and for further reading, see De Temmerman (2016: 16–17). On historiography, see, among others, Pitcher (2009: 57–64). See Turner (2012: 25–34), where examples are given. See Rapp (1998: 438) for hagiography that uses stylistic simplicity as a means to present ‘the unadorned truth’. On eyewitness accounts in early Christian narrative, see Walsh (2021: 155–169) and Rapp (1998: 439). See Rebillard (2020: 80–84) on documents as authentication devices. On the language of fiction in scholarship on late antique Latin hagiography, see Staat (2018). See Conermann & Rheingans (2014: 308) on the distinction between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ in hagiography; the authors refer to miracles and visions in this context. See Moss (2013: 88, 85) specifically on martyr acts that may have ‘a kernel of truth buried deep in

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the discrepancy between what hagiographical narratives say they do and what they actually do, the apparent antithesis has not yet been investigated properly. Scholarship is yet to provide a detailed analysis of how concepts of fiction(ality), invention, and imagination operate in late antique hagiographical narrative, or how they relate to its truth-oriented discourse and objectives. One possible explanation for this lacuna is that theoretical discussions of fiction and fictionality, a highly active field with a fast-paced output of scholarly work,10 was traditionally and is still primarily pursued by scholars of modern literature. Ancient and late antique literature has been slow to appear in theoretical discourse on fiction, which often does not take any narrative predating the high Middle Ages into account.11 At the same time, models and paradigms taken from modern literary theory have long been useful in the analysis of classical narrative.12 In recent decades, incisive work has been done by classicists, Byzantinists, and medievalists of the Latin West, in particular on fictionality (and related concepts).13 These, however, have not paid much attention to hagiography. While there are, of course, article-length studies that deal with fictionality in specific hagiographical texts, book-length studies of late antique and medieval fictionality tend to bypass hagiography as a relevant corpus altogether.14 The many examples for this include Feddern (2018), which investigates concepts of fiction in Greek and Latin literature from the

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the story’ but are overall ‘romantic, exciting, interesting, and completely untrue’. Similarly, Grig (2004: 4) stresses the need to approach martyr accounts as constructions that imply processes ‘of construction, of fictionalisation’. See also Rebillard (2020: ch. 4) on ‘the now common discourse about the blurring of boundaries between fiction and history in ancient texts’. See e.g. Henrich & Iser (1983); Cohn (1999); Zipfel (2001); Skalin (2005); Bareis (2008); Eder, Jannidis & Schneider (2010); Schütte, Rzehak & Lizius (2014); Klauk & Köppe (2014); Cullhed & Rydholm (2014); Nielsen, Phelan & Walsh (2015); Zetterberg (2016); Fludernik & Ryan (2019). Fludernik (2018) and Lavocat (2016) are two recent examples for this. See also Kiening’s valid criticism (2012: 116): ‘Noch immer laufen die generelle, theoriegeleitete Diskussion des Fiktionalen und die speziellere, historische Beschäftigung mit mittelalterlichen Kategorien wie fictio und fabula weitgehend unverbunden nebeneinander her’. See e.g. de Jong (1987); Grethlein (2015; 2017). See e.g. Finkelberg (1998); Peters & Warning (2009); Gumbrecht (2009); Agapitos & Boje Mortensen (2012); Bréchet, Videau & Webb (2013); Althoff (2014); Knapp (2014); Rösler (2014); Glauch (2014); Blaschka (2015); Cupane & Krönung (2016). Examples of article-length studies are Morgan (2015) and De Temmerman (2022) (both on Pseudo-Neilos’Narrations). Roilos (2014) forms an exception among the book-length studies on medieval fictionality: it includes three contributions on hagiography (Hägg on the Life of Antony, Dirkse on early Byzantine hagiography, and Insley on the Life of Matrona of Perge).

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earliest times to Late Antiquity; Cullhed (2015), a detailed study of notions of fiction in the late antique Latin tradition from philosophical meditations and exegetic theory to commentaries, sermons, allegorical narrative, and didactic, epic, and lyric poetry; Peters’ and Warning’s (2009) twenty-one chapters on fiction and fictionality in medieval literature, including a five-chapter section on ‘Religiöse Rede’ (religious discourse) that nevertheless does not consider hagiography; and Cullhed and Rydholm (2014) and Cupane and Krönung (2016), both, like the present volume, focussing on fictionality as well as following a cross-cultural approach (on this more below). All these works deal with fictionality in the ancient Mediterranean in some form, but none of them includes even a single page-length passage on hagiographical writing. Another possible reason why hagiography has been slow to enter into discussions of late antique and medieval fictionality is scholars’ long-standing realization that much of hagiography was probably accepted as the truth, or at least as a truth-based narrative, by late antique audiences, whose religious outlook may have encouraged this belief.15 The presence of miracles is a good example: they are ‘something of an embarrassment’ in modern scholarship, as Moss observes,16 but were quite possibly believed to have actually happened.17 As several chapters in this volume show, the ways in which audiences responded to narrative invention and imagination are contingent on different types of contexts in which the stories circulated. Therefore, while most modern audiences would identify certain elements in hagiographical narrative as the product of invention and consequently as potential signs of fictionality, late antique audiences may not have done so. But there are other factors at play besides the differences between the modern and premodern contexts. First, the audience response depends on narrative and textual contexts. Scott Johnson (Chapter 4) discusses two authors who depict saints who were writers themselves, and observes that sometimes their

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As Kaldellis (2014: 116), for example, suggests, much of the imaginative content of hagiography was likely taken at face value by late antique readers. See also Roilos (2014) on the topic of audiences not always recognizing fictional elements in hagiography, and the fact that hagiographical narratives did not necessarily encourage their audiences to recognize them. According to Schaeffer (2010: 124–125), the very notion of fiction is particularly incompatible with religious representations. Dagron (1992) nonetheless proposes to ‘faire la part des doutes, des réticences, des résistances’ (59) and points out that hagiography adopted ‘un système de double causalité, des causes naturelles se superposant, sans la contredire, à une économie miraculeuse’ (61). Moss (2013: 283). On miracles and credibility in the ancient Mediterranean, see also Nicklas & Spittler (2014) and Roilos (this volume).

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writings play a role for the hagiographers that is structural to the overall work— an example of how immediate textual context affects narrative representation. Derek Krueger (Chapter 11), for his part, focusses on narrative traditions as a factor crucial in triangulating notions of truth and fiction: he observes that narrative traditions like the gospels are an integral part of the truth behind the stories recounted in the hymns of Romanos the Melodist, so that room for fictionality opens up in instances where the hymns establish intertextual relations with biblical narrative, deviate from it, expand on it, or harmonize it. Similarly, in her analysis of Alexander the Great as a proto-Sufi saint-ruler in Tha‘labi’s Lives of the Prophets, Ghazzal Dabiri (Chapter 12) highlights specific additions to the text that are not based on the Quran verses that are explained in it. Second, the concrete context in which narratives are used affects the way in which they are interpreted. One relevant example for hagiography is liturgical context. According to Krueger, since truth depends on representations that are ingrained in narrative traditions, fictionality is inevitably fluid and an object of socialization through liturgical practice: what starts as a fictional deviation may, over time, become ‘a narrative truth about which harmonization and liturgical experience had socialized a broad consensus in the minds of listeners’ (p. 246). Hymnography again illustrates the principle. Taking into account the liturgical context in which Romanos’ hymns were performed, Krueger suggests that they were also impacted by other narratives performed in the same context. In other words, intertextual relations are enforced, and dissonances with the canonical works rendered meaningful. Third, there are societal contexts, and Christian Høgel (Chapter 3) draws attention to them in his analysis of the articulation of culturally informed notions of both fictionality and fictiveness (on the distinction between the two, see below) in the hagiography embedded in Byzantium’s aristocratic circles. Similarly, Dabiri (Chapter 12) reflects on the relevance of historical, local knowledge about Alexander the Great to our interpretation of his role as a model for the figure of Dhu al-Qarnayn in Tha‘labi’s Lives. And Óscar Prieto Domínguez (Chapter 6) demonstrates that the social context (of the post-Iconoclast period) informed the way in which audiences read inventions in Lives of, notably, contemporary holy heroes such as Gregorios Dekapolites. In all these examples it was not so much the narratives themselves, but the contexts in which they were written, read and performed that determined how their use of invention and imagination was understood, and how these interpretations were open to change over time. The present volume is an attempt to explore concepts of fiction, the use of invention, and late antique hagiographers’ penchant for imagination and fictionality; to investigate how these

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concepts relate to hagiographical discourses of truth and the religious notion of belief; and thereby to pay due attention to the various and complex factors and contexts that impact readers’ responses. We do not approach late antique hagiography restrictively but cast a wider net by including Greek, Latin, Syriac, Armenian, and Persian sources. By doing so, we hope to facilitate cross-cultural comparison between similar texts from different linguistic and cultural traditions.

2

Concepts of Fiction

Any study of fiction(ality), invention, and imagination inevitably raises questions of conceptualization, especially when, like ours, it deals with a corpus of texts that are at some historical and linguistic remove. As is well known, there is no ancient or late antique term that presents a straightforward equivalent to our modern notion of ‘fiction’, a term that first appears in the English (and French) language in the fourteenth century.18 Nor are any comprehensive ancient or late antique theories of fiction extant.19 In response to this lack of ancient theorization, some scholars have turned to the extant narratives to examine how these employ concepts of fiction in practice.20 One approach has tried to shed light on the ‘origins’, the ‘invention’, or the ‘discovery’ of fiction by identifying and examining its supposedly first instantiation. In a related approach, attempts have been made to determine how exactly ancient fiction should be defined, and to establish to what extent our modern and any ancient concepts of fiction overlap.21 Scholars have pointed out, undoubtedly correctly, that specific aspects and associations of the concept of fiction are culturally determined—such as plausibility, verisimilitude, and readers’ expectations— and that a simple transposition of modern associations onto an ancient context would not be useful.22 At the same time, as Whitmarsh sensibly argues, story-

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Feeney (1993); Wood (1993: xiii–xiv). See Manieri (1998: 17) on the similar lack of ancient theories of phantasia. See, for example, Ioli (2018) on archaic and classical Greek narrative (despite the fact that its title suggests a broader focus) and Jackson (2016) on ancient Greek novels. Gill & Wiseman (1993), for example, examine ancient definitions of fiction in a variety of authors. See ní Mheallaigh (2014: 28–29) on the dominance of the two tropes of ‘invention’ and ‘definition’ in scholarship on ancient fiction. Feeney (1993) maintains that the concepts of fiction in any two cultures can never be exactly the same. Gill’s (1993) claim that our modern sense of fiction, with its connotations of invention, does not have an equivalent in the ancient world is more specific. Rebillard (2020: ch. 4) also shows how ancient texts challenge modern definitions of fiction.

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telling itself is an intuitive human activity and the essence of fiction—i.e. the telling of stories that are made up—a cultural universal.23 Hence a search for origins is ultimately futile. In Whitmarsh’s view, the question is how fiction was ‘differently inflected over time’.24 One of the aims of this book is to do precisely that: to examine such inflections in late antique hagiographical narrative. One observation to start from is that, although (as mentioned) no ancient theories of fiction are extant, ancient philosophical and rhetorical traditions do discuss a number of concepts that are related to our notion of fiction to differing extents. Phantasia is one of these, and it denotes the ability to represent mentally what is factually absent or beyond the scope of normal human experience.25 Panagiotis Roilos (Chapter 2) explores early Christian articulations of this concept (in Origen, the apocryphal acts of the apostles, and hagiography) and shows how it was used to think about instances that rendered early Christian notions of truth problematic. He also explores what such instances reveal about authors’ and readers’ appreciations of the invented and imaginary nature of hagiographical writings. Another relevant concept is the ancient rhetorical triad of mythos (Lat. fabula; events that have not taken place and are not credible), historia (events that have or are believed to have taken place), and plasma (Lat. argumentum; events that have not taken place but are credible).26 The last concept perhaps comes closest to our modern notion of fiction (on which see below). Despite the fact that these concepts existed, and even if the philosophical and rhetorical traditions in which they developed remained influential in Late Antiquity and beyond, there is not one single or unified (Christian) perspective on fiction, as will become clear.27 If we wish to describe how concepts of fiction, invention, and imagination operate in hagiographical narrative, we must necessarily make use of a terminology that derives from a modern framework. It is therefore essential to first clarify a few key terms that, at first sight, may

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Whitmarsh (2013: 12): ‘All literature is to an extent fictional. […] there is […] never a point in any culture’s history when fiction is “yet to be invented”. […] fiction is not “invented” like the process of uranium enrichment or “discovered” like the moons of Jupiter’. Whitmarsh (2013: 32). Webb (2016: 216). On the etymology and semantics of the term from Plato onwards, see Manieri (1998: 17–26) and Sheppard (2014: 2–13). This tripartition is first found in the Rhetorica ad Herennium 1.13, and it has been very influential in ancient and medieval narrative theory (and beyond, as in Iser’s (1993) division between the real, the fictive, and the imaginary). See Feddern (2018: 259–379) for an extensive discussion of this and also related distinctions and concepts in a number of ancient and late antique authors, including the major rhetoricians. See also Nicklas & Spittler (2014: vii) on the various perspectives on miracles.

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seem unproblematic but actually have vastly different meanings in different branches of scholarship. One of these is the term ‘fiction’ itself, which is often used in scholarship quite simply to denote an untruth or a kind of discourse that does not correspond to historical reality; one of the present authors has suggested elsewhere that this might be termed ‘fictiveness’ rather than ‘fiction’ for clarity.28 Such notions of untruth are important to ancient and late antique authors, who frequently refer to them as inventions, lies, or forgeries.29 Accordingly, scholarship has paid much attention to the ways in which ancient literature incorporates these concepts.30 Another important part of scholarship has tried to find ways to extract historical truth from narratives riddled with invention and imagination. This approach has traditionally been extremely popular with students of hagiography in particular, who have been concerned with ‘separating the historical wheat from the fictional chaff’ since the study of hagiography as a scholarly discipline first emerged at the time of the Counter-Reformation.31 Indeed, scholarship on hagiography was driven almost exclusively by a distinctly historical interest for a long time and showed a strong tendency to examine texts as sources for information about cults or liturgical practices.32 In this scholarly context, the texts’ narrative and imaginative qualities tended to be either neglected or viewed with suspicion. In his famous classification of martyr accounts, Hippolyte Delehaye,33 for example, contrasts official transcripts of interrogations—straightforward accounts with barely any narrative character—with more elaborate stories that he calls ‘falsities’ (‘les faux qui n’ont ni fonds historique, ni fonds cultuel’).34 His use of miraculous elements and narrative embellishment as indications for a text’s (lack of) historicity has

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De Temmerman (2016: 3–7). See also Zipfel (2001). Bowersock (1994: 1–27), by contrast, adopts a very broad notion of ‘fiction’, ranging from novels via fictionalized biographies to legendary material. See, for example, Cullhed (2015: 123–158, 313–327) on Christian commentators of pagan myths. On fiction as invention, see Wood (1993: xvi–xvii). Martínez’ work (2014) aims to understand forgery as a creative feature of classical and late antique literature. See, for example, Feddern (2018) on passages dealing with truth, untruth, and lies from Homer onwards; Cullhed (2015: 83–300) on ficta in Augustine; Ehrman (2013: 534–548) on lies and deception in early Christianity; and Gill & Wiseman (1993) on the extent to which ‘lying’ was distinguished from ‘fiction’ in different periods and genres of antiquity. The phrase is quoted from Corke-Webster & Gray (2020: 2). On this tendency, see e.g. Rapp (1993: 181) and Walker (2006: 115; 2010: 31–32). On the Bollandists’ search for truth, see Moss (2013: 89–91; 91–125 on the so-called ‘authentic accounts’). Delehaye (1905: 125–130). His later revision (1921: 11–182, 236–315) also essentially distinguishes once more between

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inspired relatively recent scholarship.35 Pratsch (2003) similarly examines how one might separate fact from invention in Byzantine hagiography, a corpus he has found as impenetrable and as unwelcoming to this endeavour as a ‘jungle’. In his view, elements traditionally regarded as signalling invention (such as topoi, chronological distance between the narrative and the reported events, or ideological colouring) do not necessarily imply that the text does not report historical events. Ironically, the search for historically reliable information has thus led to the realization that there are, in fact, very few ways of distinguishing between fact and fictiveness in hagiographical narrative since narrativity is characteristic of both historical and non-historical texts alike. Our book, by contrast, aligns with a radically different, relatively recent trend in scholarship. It departs from the traditional idea that hagiography at best offers perspective (more or less distorted) onto historical reality as long as one navigates the narrative aspects of the stories with sufficient caution.36 Rather, we aim to approach imaginative narrative as an inherent element of the genre that deserves to be studied in its own right.37 Both the late antique material itself and its context encourage this approach: as far as we can tell from ancient rhetorical practice and theory, sharp distinctions between historicity and invention may not have been as important to late antique authors and readers as they are to modern scholars; and they were certainly not as important as more flexible concepts, such as verisimilitude and plausibility, that form part of ancient narrative and literary criticism. As Rapp suggests, ‘as long as the story is inherently plausible and serves the purpose of illustrating important aspects of the character and motivation of its protagonists, the actual truthful-

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historically reliable stories (‘passions historiques’) and more imaginative ones (‘passions épiques’). For example, Barnes (2010). A recent example is Déroche, Ward-Perkins & Wiśniewski (2020) on hagiography as a ‘miroir déformant’ (distorting mirror) of cultic practice. See Rebillard (2020: 86–87) on the necessity to adopt such an approach specifically for martyr acts: they ‘should not be assessed with traditional criteria pro or against their authenticity. […] I propose an understanding of fiction that better fits ancient texts, one that […] allows for other cues, such as topoi, to establish a complicity with the audience’. Similarly, Grig (2020: 335): ‘rather than trying to extract the historical or “truthful” core from hagiographical texts we should instead seek to understand “fictive” elements as essential aspects in themselves, and to appreciate hagiography’s “fictiveness” as constitutive’. See also Dirkse (2014) on fictionality in hagiography as conveyed by literary motifs. Other recent scholarship concerned with hagiography as narrative includes Gray & Corke-Webster (2020); Brunhorn, Gemeinhardt & Munkholt Christensen (2020); Papavarnavas (2021); De Temmerman, Van Pelt & Staat (2023); (four chapters in) Messis, Mullett & Nilsson (2018).

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ness of the account is only of secondary concern’.38 In other words, it mattered little if an account presented historical truth as long as it was ‘true enough’.39 Not only does this explain why it is so difficult to penetrate the hagiographical ‘jungle’ in search of historical data; but also, arguably, if historicity in any strict sense of the word was not the late antique hagiographers’ primary concern, then perhaps it should not be that of modern interpreters, either. Therefore, our book’s premise proposes that it is beneficial for scholarly interpretation to go beyond the binary opposition between truth and fictiveness/invention. Indeed, ‘invention’ is only one interpretation of the notion of ‘fiction’. When we say, for example, that Heliodoros’ Aithiopika or Cervantes’ Don Quixote are works of fiction, we do not simply mean that they are ‘untrue’ or ‘invented’, but rather that they are ‘untruth that is intended not to be believed as truth but rather to be acknowledged as untruth’.40 Crucial to fiction in this sense, then, is a contractual agreement between its sender (the author, storyteller, etc.) and recipient (the reader, listener, etc.).41 As Kaldellis specifies, it is ‘the mode of writing and reading in which it is understood on all sides that a particular work is not meant to be evaluated by criteria of historical accuracy’.42 In other words, an assessment of isolated, specific details of fictional narratives with regard to their truth value would be missing the point, since such narratives are (meant to be) understood by the audience to have been entirely invented, even if the created invention makes use of historical details that are more or less accurate (in historical novels, for example, this happens to a great extent). The idea of a contractual agreement of fictionality between author and reader extends back all the way to antiquity. Ancient authors such as Ovid (Amores 3.12) and Lucian playfully but unmistakably thematize it,43 and ancient novels are self-referential and comment on their own status as fiction in

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Rapp (1998: 442). Idem (443). De Temmerman (2016: 6). See Green (2002: 4) for a more elaborate definition built upon the same premise, Morgan (2015: 186–187) on fiction as ‘untruth not intended to deceive, acknowledged as untruth by sender and recipient’, and Wood (1993: xvi) on fiction as invention which ‘is known to be invention’ (italics original). See also Ryan (1997: 167); Mihailescu & Hamarneh (1996: 8); Cohn (1999: 3). On the idea of a ‘contract’, see among others Frye (1976: 17); Morgan (1993: 180); Olsen & Lamarque (1994); Walsh (2007: 36). Kaldellis (2014: 115). On Ovid, see Feddern (2018: 482–494). On Lucian’s emphasis on the importance of the reader’s psychology for understanding fiction, see ní Mheallaigh (2014: 30, 42, 72–107).

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this sense of the word.44 This conceptualization of fiction works very well as long as (and precisely because) we, as readers, are aware that we are reading fiction. Indeed, for most modern fiction it is evident that it is ‘make-believe’ from paratextual elements (such as titles, book covers, blurbs, or even the positioning of specific books on specific shelves in bookshops and libraries).45 But for late antique hagiographical narratives, the identification or reconstruction by modern scholars of any author–reader pact, whether fictional or not, is often a much more tentative endeavour, not least because many hagiographical narratives are so-called ‘living texts’: their contents change over time, different versions circulate in different cultures, and original versions and authors are often difficult or even impossible to identify.46 In some cases—referred to as ‘prescriptive fiction’ by Johnson (Chapter 4)— textual signals encourage the reader to recognize the text’s fictional intent. In our view, the Byzantine Life and Martyrdom of Galaktion and Episteme (BHG 665–666) is a good example. Its male protagonist is presented as the son of Kleitophon and Leukippe, the hero and heroine of Achilles Tatios’ novel from the middle of the first century,47 and therefore literally presented as the product of a piece of fiction. André Binggeli (Chapter 5) discusses Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations, another story that was likely understood as largely fictional in this sense.48 And yet, Binggeli’s analysis immediately reminds us of the porosity of the boundaries that one might be tempted to apply to the hagiographical corpus. In Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations, Binggeli observes, geographical space plays a crucial role in conveying deeper, religious truths. This observation is reminiscent of Valentina Calzolari’s discussion (Chapter 9) of the Hṙip‘simē episode in Agathangelos’ History of the Armenians, a story that plays an important role in the formation of a Christian Armenian identity and that late antique audiences may very well have largely believed to be true: just as in Pseudo-Neilos, space— in this case, the church as a symbol of the virginal body—is used to construct meaning and convey fundamental notions of religious truth. In most cases, there is no clear signalling of fictionality in hagiography. Nor, we should add, is it always present in modern fiction, since fictional texts do 44 45

46 47 48

See Jackson (2016) on the operative function of concepts of fiction in the Greek novels. See Walsh (2005: 151; 2007: 13–37) on the crucial role of this awareness in reading processes: we read and react to Kafka’s The Trial the way we do ‘because we found the book in the fiction section of the bookstore, or we are reading it for a course on the modern novel, or we have a prior general knowledge of Kafka’ (2005: 160). Rebillard (2020: 86–87) reminds us of this. Robiano (2009). On Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations and the ways in which it is modelled on Achilles Tatios’ novel Leukippe and Kleitophon, see also Morgan (2015) and De Temmerman (2022).

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not always show formal differences from non-fictional texts, nor do they need to;49 indeed, due to the modern paratextual framework, which distinguishes clearly between fiction and non-fiction, a text’s fictional intent does not need to be expressed in or emerge from the text itself to be understood by readers. For the late antique context, however, there is no such clear paratextual framework. Regarding the question of how to establish author–reader pacts if they are not made explicit or cannot be derived from the context in which texts circulate, some scholars propose taking the authentication strategies in hagiographical narrative—which do sometimes take the form of explicit statements—at face value. However, such a straightforward reading is not useful, since the same strategies are also used, precisely, by authors of fiction, which tends to deny its own fictionality.50 Indeed, one of the most common tropes of fiction from antiquity onwards is its explicit declaration and thematization of its own truthfulness.51 Examples among ancient novelists are legion: there is Chariton who, in the opening line of his novel, situates his (invented) plot and characters in the time of the fifth-century Syracusan leader Hermocrates; Achilles Tatios, whose protagonist-narrator explicitly states that his story is ‘like mythoi’ but nevertheless true; and Longus, whose narrator claims to have found a painting depicting the entire story he recounts in the novel.52 Jerome’s Life of Malchus, which is discussed in this volume by Danny Praet (Chapter 10), is another good example. It shows that author–reader pacts are usually implicit and need to be reconstructed largely from the text itself. Scholars disagree on the historicity of the Life and even on the question of whether Malchus existed in the first place.53 For Praet, the story is ‘a novel or, given its size, a novella’ (p. 212), i.e. it is fiction and probably (meant to be) recognized as such by late antique readers. At the same time, like most authors of fiction, Jerome strongly suggests that his story of Malchus is truthful. The problem is especially pressing in studies that adopt and build upon straightforward readings of authentication strategies. Ehrman’s (2013) recent study on forgery in early Christian writings is a good example. Ehrman defines 49 50 51 52 53

See De Temmerman (2016: 3). See Ryan (1997: 168) on this ‘paradox of fiction’. On the topos of the found manuscript in different (European) literary traditions, see Herman & Hallyn (1999). See Morgan (1993) on such strategies in ancient fiction. Cohn (1989: 10) and Genette (1991: 77) provide relevant theoretical considerations. See Gray (2015: 8–10) on the debated authenticity. Another example is another Life by Jerome, i.e. that of Paul the First Hermit. Weingarten (2005: 19–20) suggests that Jerome thought of Paul as a historical figure, but Rebenich (2009) considers him an ‘invention’.

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‘forgery’ as the false claim by which authors present themselves as someone else, and he discusses the ‘validation techniques’ or ‘techniques of authentication’ used in the narratives to uphold such a false identity.54 One such technique is the eyewitness account. But since this technique is also widely used by authors of fiction, how can we tell whether it signals forgery or fiction? This question also arises when Ehrman reads the use of material and literary prophylaxes, i.e. the ‘inclusion of seal or sign’—which is exactly how Heliodoros concludes his novel Aithiopika—as a sign of forgery.55 Similarly, Speyer identifies first-person narratives (‘Ich- oder Wir-Berichte’) as another authentication device typically used by forgers.56 He provides an overview of such narratives in Passions, identifying, for example, the Passion of Galaktion and Episteme as a work of forgery. But first-person narratives, too, were common in ancient literature, starting with the Odyssey and constituting the narratological lay-out of some of the most celebrated pieces of ancient fiction, such as Apuleius’ Metamorphoses and Achilles Tatios’ Leukippe and Kleitophon. Both Speyer and Ehrman state the necessity of distinguishing clearly between forgery on the one hand (which is meant to deceive) and fiction on the other (which is meant to be read as such),57 but ultimately the presence of authentication devices in itself will not aid in making this distinction.58 Consequently, Dictys of Crete’s Ephemeris Belli Troiani, which presents itself as an eyewitness account of the fall of Troy and was widely read as an authentic account during the Middle Ages, is considered a piece of fiction by some, but a piece of forgery by others, depending on their assessment of what it was that this text was supposedly ‘meant to do’.59 The same applies to the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, which famously presents itself as a first-person narration by Clement of Rome.60 Since authorial pacts remain elusive in most cases and reader responses are by definition variable, this book, rather than arguing for any exclusive readings, pays detailed attention to the narrative complexities at work. As several contributions to this volume point out, another good reason not to read authentica-

54 55 56 57 58 59 60

See esp. 121–128. Ehrman (2013: 127–128). On the sphragis concluding the novel, see among others Hilton (2012). Speyer (1971: 54–55). See also Speyer (1971: 44–84) for his inventory of authentication devices (‘die Mittel der Echtheitsbeglaubigung’). Speyer (1971: 21–31); Ehrman (2013: 43–67). The same problem presents itself in Speyer (1971: 54–55), where the identification of a ‘Fälschung’ similarly relies on an assessment of authorial intent. See Ehrman (2013: 123) on this text as an example of forgery. On the Pseudo-Clementines as a novel, see De Vos & Praet (2022), and as a forgery, see Ehrman (2013: 312–321).

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tion devices as straightforward articulations of authorial pacts is that they are intrinsically complex and, indeed, paradoxical: as we have seen, they purport to support the reliability of a given narrative; but by doing so, they inevitably draw attention to the fact that the narrative they claim to authenticate is a textual construct, both premeditated and mediated by an author or narrator whose knowledge may be limited and whose mediation is, indeed, limited by the nature of language itself.61 Authentication devices do not simply authenticate; their very presence creates the possibility for contemplating the less authentic aspects of the narration. Johnson (Chapter 4), for example, engages with the concept of list-making in the context of literary history as a rhetorical device that ‘encourages the reader’s trust’ but is ‘destabilizing’ at the same time: through its very form, the list presents the author’s (purported) knowledge as complete, accurate, and historically verifiable, but this also makes it subject to external verification or contestation. Calzolari (Chapter 9), in turn, focusses on claims of autopsy as authentication devices (in Agathangelos’ History of the Armenians) and emphasizes how these at times invite readers to deconstruct rather than straightforwardly believe the account, for instance when such claims betray that they were modelled on literary sources or when they are simply not feasible from a historical point of view. Similarly, Flavia Ruani (Chapter 7) discusses the hagiographical motif of the doubting informant and observes that it injects both authentication—the informant as a reliable source from which the narrative that we read originates—and uncertainty—through the representation of that informant’s doubts—into the narrative. All these contributions therefore point to the narrative complexity and ambiguity inherent in authentication devices. Such complexities forestall straightforward readings, and at the same time they define a range of possible interpretations. In this vein, Johnson calls fictional aspects of hagiography ‘descriptive’. Rather than actively signalling a specific, fictional intent (‘prescriptive’), the texts use fictionality in the service of a larger rhetorical purpose that is bound up in the protocols of hagiography itself. He sees this descriptive fiction as operative in the deployment of literary history within hagiography, but the concept is also relevant for the study of hagiography at large. As Høgel (Chapter 3) shows for the Life of Basil the Younger, hagiography itself questions the fundamental categories underpinning the rules of the genre, including its conceptualization of fictionality.

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See also Feeney (1993: 238–239) on the ‘two-edged’ nature of authentication devices.

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Narrative Complexities: Representation, Rhetoric, and Literary Modelling

In addition to authentication devices, other techniques also point primarily to the constructedness and artfulness of the texts, for example by making reference to their own qualities as narrative.62 They are examined in the various parts of this book as approaches to the study of concepts of fiction, invention, imagination, and truth in hagiography (and, in one instance, hymnography). More often than not, the use of these concepts implies (or even actively points to) deviations from observable reality that are inherent in narrative representation.63 Such deviations are central to the second part of this book, which is preceded by an introductory part with contributions by Roilos on phantasia in early Christian literature, which predates the period under scrutiny in this volume, and Høgel on the tenth and eleventh centuries, which postdate it. They involve not just the possible manipulation of the chronological order of the events (for example via ellipses, as discussed by Binggeli in Chapter 5), but also the introduction of (causal and other) relationships between events;64 there may also be an often more implicit application of expectations of completeness or accuracy to a body of material that may, in fact, be more complex. Johnson (Chapter 4) observes that the use of lists both implies comprehensiveness and applies a certain order to the source material, and that this opens up the possibility of destabilizing the readings of their implied claims. Prieto Domínguez (Chapter 6) examines techniques used by Ignatios the Deacon in his Life of Gregorios Dekapolites. These techniques demonstrate the author’s rhetorical inventiveness as he strives not to contradict events in recent history, which his audience likely remembers well, while honouring the obligation to boost his biographical subject’s reputation as an orthodox hero and Iconodule saint. In hagiography, the space between reality and representation is often occupied by idealization, since the genre is significantly oriented towards purposes of veneration and edification. Another facet of hagiographical narrative that creates room for fictionality is the representation of areas in which the narration is heuristically problem62 63

64

See, for example, Rapp (1998) on the connotations of the term ‘diēgēsis’ in late antique hagiography. See Morgan (1993: 215–224) on the use of these techniques in ancient novels. De Temmerman (2016: 16–25) discusses the use of these techniques in ancient biography. Rebillard (2020: 65–80) also explicitly discusses their value for the study of hagiography. See also Feddern (2018: 79–88) on ‘Fiktionssignale’ (markers of fiction). White (1978) proposes that any kind of narrative is inevitably fictional to some extent (‘emplotment’); see also Walsh (2005: 152): ‘all narrative is artifice, and in that very restrictive sense fictive’.

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atic, such as episodes of birth and childhood, monologues or prayers uttered in isolation, or indeed death scenes, which are a common element in ancient biography and hagiography but often not more heuristically accessible than birth scenes.65 Two contributions in the third part of this book focus on one related area, i.e. the representation of inner processes such as thoughts and emotions. Narrators of hagiographical accounts represent their characters’ thoughts in varying degrees of detail, but arguably, only fiction can offer an unmediated access to and omniscience about a character’s inner thoughts and personal, subjective experiences.66 Those contributions that discuss instances of interiority in hagiography (Ruani in Chapter 7 and Julie Van Pelt in Chapter 8) reveal the role of fictionality in narrative that is, nonetheless, serious about its truth claims—an apparent paradox that is resolved when the distinction between truth and verisimilitude is regarded as minimal. In another chapter in this part (Chapter 9), Calzolari discusses truth claims and various narrative devices that draw attention to the narrative nature of the account, among them the dialogue. One narrative technique that was already known for its fictionalizing potential in ancient rhetoric is ēthopoiia or ‘characterization through speech’, which is commonly accepted to have been written and read as indicative of a speaker’s character in ancient narrative rather than as a factual reproduction of his or her utterances.67 Identifying topoi in ascetic literature, tropes common to ancient novels, and intertextual connections with other Christian works, Calzolari’s chapter also introduces questions that are central to the chapters of the fourth and final section of this volume. The chapters that form the fourth part of this book all explore how texts dynamically use models and reference other texts to build and enhance particular representations of reality. They not only show where hagiographical (and hymnographical) narratives reuse preexisting narratives, and to what effect, but also how they integrate them creatively. Two chapters focus on biblical narrative, i.e. Chapter 10 by Praet and Chapter 11 by Krueger, who also examines instances of ēthopoiia in Romanos the Melodist and observes that these instances are exactly the occasions for theological instruction. Again, these narratives turn out to build on complex literary processes where the sacred 65

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See Pelling (2002: 154) on the ‘creative reconstruction’ of ancient biographers to narrate childhood episodes, retrojecting adult behaviour of the biographees. On the representation of the unknown as fictionalization, see De Temmerman (2016: 17–20). Hamburger (1957: 27–72); Booth (1961: 3–4); Cohn (1990: 784–791; 1999: 18–37). See Hägg (2014: 33–35) on the fictionalizing impact of thought representation in Athanasios’ Life of Antony. See De Temmerman (2016: 14); Wiseman (1993: 132–135); Ehrman (2013: 45). See Speyer (1971: 32–33) more generally on rhetorical education as a context for fictionalization.

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and authoritative character of hypotexts infuses the hypertexts with truthfulness and meaning, even if intertextuality simultaneously draws attention to the hagiographer’s literary craft or to deviations from the models. Another technique frequently used in hagiography which also transcends factual representation is the application of narrative layers to recounted events, so that a network of associations and similarities emerges which generates additional meanings. Matthew O’Farrell (Chapter 13) analyses how stereotypical narrative patterns were superimposed over recounted events concerning both Ardashir and Constantine, and thus supported the legitimacy of change. He discusses court scenes as fictionalizing templates that are ‘eternal’ and ‘selfreplicating’.68 Often the evocation of such patterns centres on the depiction of characters who are either implicitly or explicitly associated with literary, mythological, historical, or biblical paradigms.69 Again, such associations are not factual representations of an extra-literary reality but rather textual constructs constructed by narrators for specific purposes. Dabiri (Chapter 12), who, like O’Farrell, deals with ruler-saints, demonstrates that both Moses and Solomon act as models that help Thaʿlabi characterize Dhu al-Qarnayn as a fallible rulerprophet; and as Praet (Chapter 10) shows, Jerome’s Life of Malchus sets up another Old Testament paradigm, King David, also in order to establish the fallibility of the protagonist. We do not wish to say, of course, that the use of any of these techniques automatically turns a given narrative as a whole into a piece of fiction;70 nor are we just looking for ways in which hagiography shares techniques with fictional narrative (and perhaps with any narrative, including historiography).71 Rather, in the absence of explicit contracts between authors and readers of hagiography, the chapters in this book explore how these techniques operate within individual narratives to create meaning and interpretative depth, and how they may relate to doctrinal truth—in short, how they make the stories function as narratives.72

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See also Ash (2016) on assassination scenes in ancient biography using similar templates. Famously, martyrs are aligned with Christ himself in martyr acts, for example; see Moss (2010: 45–73). On the depiction of saints, see also Scorza Barcellona (1994); Consolino (1994); Parrinello (2008). Surely some of the early Christian corpus has been read as such, see for example Sowers (2012) on the Acts of Paul and Thekla as narrative fiction. See also Van Pelt (2020: 71) on fictionalization as ‘the hagiographer’s deliberate shaping of the narrative according to criteria other than historicity, his literary fashioning’, which does not automatically turn the whole narrative into fiction. On Christian writers sacrificing fictionality altogether on the altar of doctrinal truth, see Cullhed (2015: 605).

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Of course, due to the variety of the extant material, it is difficult to make general claims about hagiographical narrative.73 Instead, this book offers detailed analyses of specific texts. More specifically, it pays attention not only to Lives and martyr acts, but specific chapters cover the hagiographical corpus more broadly by exploring connections with apocryphal acts of the apostles, early Christian philosophy, literary history, hymnography, and generically hybrid texts. The book seeks to achieve a reasonable balance between breadth and depth by including chapters that trace patterns across multiple texts or subcorpora (e.g. Chapters 2, 3, 7, and 8) as well as chapters that examine one or two individual texts in depth (e.g. Chapters 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, and 12).

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Cohn, D. 1989. ‘Fictional versus Historical Lives: Borderlines and Borderline Cases’, JNT 19.1, 3–24. Cohn, D. 1990. ‘Signposts of Fictionality: A Narratological Perspective’, Poetics Today 11.4, 775–804. Cohn, D. 1999. The Distinction of Fiction (Baltimore). Conermann, S. & Rheingans, J. 2014. ‘Narrative Pattern and Genre in Hagiographic Life Writing: An Outlook’, in S. Conermann & J. Rheingans (eds.), Narrative Pattern and Genre in Hagiographic Life Writing: Comparative Perspectives from Asia to Europe (Berlin), 305–309. Consolino, F.E. 1994. ‘La santità femminile fra iv e v secolo: Norma, esempi e comportamenti’, in G. Barone, M. Caffiero & F. Scorza Barcellone (eds.), Modelli di santità e modelli di comportamento: Contrasti, intersezioni, complementarità (Turin), 19–42. Corke-Webster, J. & Gray, C. 2020. ‘Introduction’, in C. Gray & J. Corke-Webster (eds.), The Hagiographical Experiment: Developing Discourses of Sainthood (Leiden), 1–26. Cullhed, A. 2015. The Shadow of Creusa: Negotiating Fictionality in Late Antique Latin Literature (Berlin). Cullhed, A. & Rydholm, L. (eds.) 2014. True Lies Worldwide: Fictionality in Global Contexts (Berlin). Cupane, C. & Krönung, B. (eds.) 2016. Fictional Storytelling in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond (Leiden). Dagron, G. 1992. ‘L’ombre d’un doute: L’hagiographie en question, vie–xie siècle’, DOP 46, 59–68. Delehaye, H. 1905. Les légendes hagiographiques (Brussels). Delehaye, H. 1921. Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires (Brussels). de Jong, i. 1987. Narrators and Focalizers: The Presentation of the Story in the Iliad (Amsterdam). Déroche, V., Ward-Perkins, B. & Wiśniewski, R. (eds.) 2020. Culte des saints et littérature hagiographique: Accords et désaccords (Louvain). De Temmerman, K. 2016. ‘Ancient Biography and Formalities of Fiction’, in K. De Temmerman & K. Demoen (eds.), Writing Biography in Greece and Rome: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization (Cambridge), 3–25. De Temmerman, K. 2022. ‘A Desire (Not) to Die for: Narrating Emotions in Pseudo-Nilus’ Narrations’, in M. de Bakker, B. van den Berg & J. Klooster (eds.), Emotions and Narrative in Ancient Literature and Beyond: Studies in Honour of Irene de Jong (Leiden & Boston), 682–696. De Temmerman, K. 2023. ‘Saints, Narratives, and Hero(in)es: Scholarship, Definitions, and Concepts’, in K. De Temmerman, J. Van Pelt & K. Staat (eds.), Constructing Saints in Greek and Latin Hagiography: Heroes and Heroines in Late Antique and Medieval Narrative (Turnhout), 11–32. De Temmerman, K., Van Pelt, J. and Staat, K. (eds.) 2023. Constructing Saints in Greek

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and Latin Hagiography: Heroes and Heroines in Late Antique and Medieval Narrative (Turnhout). De Vos, B. & Praet, D. (eds.) 2022. In Search of Truth in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies: New Approaches to a Philosophical and Rhetorical Novel of Late Antiquity (Tübingen). Dirkse, S. 2014. ‘Τελωνεῖα: The Tollgates of the Air as an Egyptian Motif in Patristic Sources and Early Byzantine Hagiography’, in P. Roilos (ed.), Medieval Greek Storytelling: Fictionality and Narrative in Byzantium (Wiesbaden), 41–54. Eder, J., Jannidis, F. & Schneider, R. (eds.) 2010. Characters in Fictional Worlds: Understanding Imaginary Beings in Literature, Film, and Other Media (Berlin). Ehrman, B. 2013. Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (Oxford). Feddern, S. 2018. Der antike Fiktionalitätsdiskurs (Berlin). Feeney, D.C. 1993. ‘Towards an Account of the Ancient World’s Concepts of Fictive Belief’, in C. Gill & T.P. Wiseman (eds.), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Austin), 230–244. Finkelberg, M. 1998. The Birth of Literary Fiction in Ancient Greece (Oxford). Fludernik, M. 2018. ‘The Fiction of the Rise of Fictionality’, Poetics Today 39, 67–92. Fludernik, M. & Ryan, M.L. 2019. Narrative Factuality: A Handbook (Berlin). Frye, N. 1976. The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance (Cambridge, MA). Genette, G. 1991. Fiction et Diction (Paris). Gill, C. 1993. ‘Plato on Falsehood—Not Fiction’, in C. Gill & T.P. Wiseman (eds.), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter), 38–87. Gill, C. & Wiseman, T.P. (eds.) 1993. Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter). Glauch, S. 2014. ‘Fiktionalität im Mittelalter’, in T. Klauk & T. Köppe (eds.), Fiktionalität. Ein Interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Berlin), 385–418. Gray, C. 2015. Jerome, Vita Malchi (Oxford). Gray, C. & Corke-Webster, J. (eds.) 2020. The Hagiographical Experiment: Developing Discourses of Sainthood (Leiden). Green, D.H. 2002. The Beginnings of Medieval Romance: Fact and Fiction, 1150–1220 (Cambridge). Grethlein, J. 2015. ‘Is Narrative “the Description of Fictional Mental Functioning”? Heliodorus against Palmer, Zunshine, & Co.’, Style 49.3, 257–284. Grethlein, J. 2017. Aesthetic Experiences and Classical Antiquity: The Significance of Form in Narratives and Pictures (Cambridge). Grig, L. 2004. Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity (London). Grig, L. 2020. ‘Postscript’, in C. Gray & J. Corke-Webster (eds.), The Hagiographical Experiment: Developing Discourses of Sainthood (Leiden), 333–338. Gumbrecht, H.U. 2009. ‘Silly Suspension of What? “Medieval Fiction” and the Catalogue

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of Arthurian Knights in Chrétien’s Erec et Enide’, in U. Peters & R. Warning (eds.), Fiktion und Fiktionalität in den Literaturen des Mittelalters. Jan-Dirk Müller zum 65. Geburtstag (Munich), 235–242. Hägg, T. 2014. ‘Fiction and Factography in the Life of St Antony’, in P. Roilos (ed.), Medieval Greek Storytelling: Fictionality and Narrative in Byzantium (Wiesbaden), 31–40. Hamburger, K. 1957. Die Logik der Dichtung (Stuttgart). Henrich, D. & Iser, W. (eds.) 1983. Funktionen des Fiktiven (Munich). Herman, J. & Hallyn, F. (eds.) 1999. Le topos du manuscrit trouvé (Louvain & Paris). Hilton, J.L. 2012. ‘The Sphragis of Heliodorus, Genealogy in the Aithiopika, and Julian’s Hymn to King Helios’, Ágora 14, 195–219. Ioli, R. 2018. Il felice inganno: Poesia, finzione e verità nel mondo antico (Milan). Iser, W. 1993. The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology (Baltimore). Jackson, C.R. 2016. Fraud, Forgery, and Falsehood: Theories and Practices of Fiction in the Ancient Novel (Cambridge). [unpublished Ph.D. diss.] Kaldellis, A. 2014. ‘The Emergence of Literary Fiction in Byzantium and the Paradox of Plausibility’, in P. Roilos (ed.), Medieval Greek Storytelling: Fictionality and Narrative in Byzantium (Wiesbaden), 115–130. Kiening, C. 2012. ‘Review of Peters & Warning 2009’, BGdSL 134.1, 116–118. Klauk, T. & Köppe, T. (eds.) 2014. Fiktionalität: Ein Interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Berlin). Knapp, F.P. 2014. ‘Historizität und Fiktionalität in narrativen Texten des Mittelalters— eine historische Standortbestimmung der Intention der Autoren’, in M.M. Schütte, K. Rzehak & D. Lizius (eds.), Zwischen Fakten und Fiktionen: Literatur und Geschichtsschreibung in der Vormoderne (Würzburg), 183–195. Lavocat, F. 2016. Fait et fiction: Pour une frontière (Paris). Manieri, A. 1998. L’immagine poetica nella teoria degli antichi: Phantasia ed enargeia (Pisa). Martínez, J. (ed.) 2014. Fakes and Forgers of Classical Literature: Ergo Decipiatur! (Leiden). Messis, C., Mullett, M. & Nilsson, i. (eds.) 2018. Storytelling in Byzantium: Narratological Approaches to Byzantine Texts and Images (Uppsala). Mihailescu, C.A. & Hamarneh, W. (eds.) 1996. Fiction Updated: Theories of Fictionality, Narratology, and Poetics (Toronto). Morgan, J.R. 1993. ‘Make-believe and Make Believe: The Fictionality of the Greek Novels’, in C. Gill & T.P. Wiseman (eds.), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter), 175–229. Morgan, J.R. 2015. ‘The Monk’s Story: The Narrationes of Pseudo-Neilos of Ankyra’, in S. Panayotakis, G.L. Schmeling & M. Paschalis (eds.), Holy Men and Charlatans in the Ancient Novel (Groningen), 167–194.

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Moss, C.R. 2010. The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom (Oxford). Moss, C.R. 2013. The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians invented a Story of Martyrdom (New York). Nicklas, T. & Spittler, J.E. (eds.) 2014. Credible, Incredible: The Miraculous in the Ancient Mediterranean (Tübingen). Nielsen, H.S., Phelan, J. & Walsh, R. 2015. ‘Ten Theses about Fictionality’, Narrative 23.1, 61–73. ní Mheallaigh, K. 2014. Reading Fiction with Lucian: Fakes, Freaks and Hyperreality (Cambridge). Olsen, S.H. & Lamarque, P. (1994). Truth, Fiction, and Literature: A Philosophical Perspective (Oxford). Papavarnavas, C. 2021. Gefängnis als Schwellenraum in der byzantinischen Hagiographie (Berlin). Parrinello, R.M. 2008. ‘Agiografia studita e direzione spirituale: modelli di padri spirituali a confronto’, in M. Catto, I. Gagliardi & R.M. Parrinello (eds.), Direzione spirituale e agiografia: Dalla biografia classica alle vite dei santi dell’età moderna (Alessandria), 167–206. Pelling, C.B.R. 2002. ‘Truth and Fiction in Plutarch’s Lives’, in C.B.R. Pelling, Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (Swansea), 143–170. Peters, U. & Warning, R. (eds.) 2009. Fiktion und Fiktionalität in den Literaturen des Mittelalters. Jan-Dirk Müller zum 65. Geburtstag (Munich). Pitcher, L. 2009. Writing Ancient History: An Introduction to Classical Historiography (London). Praet, D. 2020. ‘Holy Men: Lives of Miracle Workers, Apostles, and Saints’, in K. De Temmerman (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Biography (Oxford), 363–374. Pratsch, T. 2003. ‘Exploring the Jungle—Hagiographical Literature between Fact and Fiction’, in A. Cameron (ed.), Fifty Years of Prosopography (London), 58–72. Pratsch, T. 2005. Der hagiographische Topos: Griechische Heiligenviten in mittelbyzantinischer Zeit (Berlin). Rapp, C. 1993. ‘Epiphanius of Salamis: The Church Father as Saint’, in A.A.M. Bryer & G.S. Georghallides (eds.), “The Sweet Land of Cyprus.” Papers Given at the Twenty-fifth Jubilee Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies (Nicosia), 169–187. Rapp, C. 1998. ‘Storytelling as Spiritual Communication in Early Greek Hagiography: The Use of diegesis’, JECS 6.3, 431–448. Rebenich, S. 2009. ‘Inventing an Ascetic Hero: Jerome’s Life of Paul the First Hermit’, in A. Cain & J. Lössl (eds.), Jerome of Stridon: His Life, His Writings and Legacy (Farnham/Burlington), 13–27. Rebillard, É. 2020. The Early Martyr Narratives: Neither Authentic Accounts nor Forgeries (Philadelphia).

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Robiano, P. 2009. ‘Pour en finir avec le christianisme d’Achille Tatius et d’Héliodore d’Émèse: la lecture des Passions de Galaction et d’Épistémè’, AC 78, 145–160. Roilos, P. (ed.) 2014. Medieval Greek Storytelling: Fictionality and Narrative in Byzantium (Wiesbaden). Rösler, W. 2014. ‘Fiktionalität in der Antike’, in T. Klauk & T. Köppe (eds.), Fiktionalität. Ein Interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Berlin), 363–384. Ryan, M.-L. 1997. ‘Postmodernism and the Doctrine of Panfictionality’, Narrative 5.2, 165–187. Schaeffer, J.-M. 2010. Why Fiction? Transl. by Dorrit Cohn (Lincoln & London). Schütte, M.M., Rzehak, K. & Lizius, D. (eds.) 2014. Zwischen Fakten und Fiktionen. Literatur und Geschichtsschreibung in der Vormoderne (Würzburg). Scorza Barcellona, F. 1994. ‘Dal modello ai modelli’, in G. Barone, M. Caffiero & F. Scorza Barcellone (eds.), Modelli di santità e modelli di comportamento. Contrasti, intersezioni, complementarità (Turin), 9–18. Sheppard, A. 2014. The Poetics of Phantasia: Imagination in Ancient Aesthetics (London & New York). Skalin, L.Å. (ed.) 2005. Fact and Fiction in Narrative: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Örebro). Sowers, B. 2012. ‘Thecla Desexualized: The Saint Justina Legend and the Reception of the Christian Apocrypha in Late Antiquity’, in L.M. McDonald & J.H. Charlesworth (eds.), “Non-canonical” Religious Texts in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (London), 222–233. Speyer, W. 1971. Die literarische Fälschung in heidnischen und christlichen Altertum: ein Versuch ihrer Deutung (Munich). Staat, K. 2018. ‘Late Antique Latin Hagiography, Truth and Fiction: Trends in Scholarship’, AC 87, 209–224. Turner, P. 2012. Truthfulness, Realism, Historicity: A Study in Late Antique Spiritual Literature (Farnham). Van Pelt, J. 2020. ‘The Hagiographer as Holy Fool? Fictionality in Saints’ Lives’, in C. Gray & J. Corke-Webster (eds.), The Hagiographical Experiment: Developing Discourses of Sainthood (Leiden), 63–92. Walker, J. 2006. The Legend of Mar Qardagh: Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq (Berkeley). Walker, J. 2010. ‘A Saint and his Biographer in Late Antique Iraq: The History of St. George of Izla (†614) by Babai the Great’, in A. Papaconstantinou (ed.), Writing ‘True Stories’: Historians and Hagiographers in the Late Antique and Medieval Near East (Turnhout), 31–41. Walsh, R. (Richard) 2005. ‘The Pragmatics of Narrative Fictionality’, in J. Phelan & P.J. Rabinowitz (eds.), A Companion to Narrative Theory (Oxford), 150–164. Walsh, R. (Richard) 2007. The Rhetoric of Fictionality: Narrative Theory and the Idea of Fiction (Columbus).

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Walsh, R.F. (Robyn Faith) 2021. The Origins of Early Christian Literature. Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture (Cambridge). Webb, R. 2016. ‘Sight and Insight: Theorizing Vision, Emotion and Imagination in Ancient Rhetoric’, in M. Squire (ed.), Sight and the Ancient Senses (Routledge), 205– 219. Weingarten, S. 2005. The Saint’s Saints: Hagiography and Geography in Jerome (Leiden). White, H. 1978. Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore). Whitmarsh, T. 2013. ‘The “Invention of Fiction”’, in T. Whitmarsh, Beyond the Second Sophistic: Adventures in Greek Postclassicism (Berkeley), 11–34. Wiseman, T.P. 1993. ‘Lying Historians: Seven Types of Mendacity’, in C. Gill & T.P. Wiseman (eds.), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter), 122–146. Wood, M. 1993. ‘Prologue’, in C. Gill & T.P. Wiseman (eds.), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter), xiii–xviii. Zetterberg, G.S. 2016. ‘A Novel History of Fictionality’, Narrative 24.2, 174–189. Zipfel, F. 2001. Fiktion, Fiktivität, Fiktionalität: Analyse zur Fiktion in der Literatur und zum Fiktionsbegriff in der Literaturwissenschaft (Berlin).

chapter 2

The Cultural Politics of Imagination On Fictionality in Late Antique and Early Byzantine Christian Contexts (Origen, the Apocryphal Acts, Hagiography) Panagiotis Roilos

My discussion in this chapter focuses on the infiltration of the ‘phantoms’ of imagination and fictionality into the ethical and cognitive territory of Christian truth, as this was articulated in examples of apologetic and hagiographic literature. My main topic is the ambiguity of the cognitive function of phantasia and its products, and the relevance of this ambiguity to fictionality in Origen, the apocryphal acts of the apostles, and in hagiographical narratives.1 Emphasis is placed on what I would call the ‘cultural political’ manipulation of ‘miraculous’ acts by agents of different religious and ideological allegiances; in this chapter, ‘cultural politics’ does not necessarily or primarily refer to practices established or implemented by official representatives of political or ecclesiastical power. Following a brief, introductory overview of phantasia’s ethical and epistemological connotations in Byzantine hagiography, the first part of the chapter focuses on Origen’s response to Celsus’ critique of the gospels and similar narratives—one of the earliest and most interesting attempts at exposing, from a pagan perspective and on the basis of the ambivalent epistemological value of phantasia, the alleged fictionality of sanctioned Christian texts. In the second part, I explore the perception or interpretation of miracles performed by Christ and his disciples on the part of Christians’ rivals, like Celsus, as products of deceptive fabrication that allegedly blurred the boundaries between unreliable, inflated phantasia and truth.2 My discussion centres upon allegations of sorcery against miracle workers, including Christ himself, in the apocryphal acts, which, despite their condemnation by the official Church, exerted note-

1 For relevant methodological issues, see Roilos (2014: 1–30), where different examples of hagiography are discussed. A detailed study of the miraculous and phantasia in early Christian and Byzantine contexts is provided in my forthcoming book Byzantine Imaginaries: A Cognitive Historical Anthropology of Medieval Greek Phantasia. 2 The term phantasia may refer to the faculty/capacity, function, and product of that which this term signifies. The rendition of phantasia as ‘imagination’ is not always accurate; see Frede (1995: 279–295).

© Panagiotis Roilos, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004685758_003

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worthy influence on later fictional topoi or strategies of Byzantine hagiography. In the last part, I discuss fictionality and its relevance to exaggerated accounts of miracles as a socio-aesthetic3 and socio-ethical rather than a merely literary/narratological category, which to a great extent was defined by tensions between official and popular religion.4 Inherited as they were mainly from the Greek cultural past, the discursive and conceptual categories of phantasia and fictionality were as a rule suppressed and treated with suspicion in canonical religious Christian contexts on the basis of a reasoning that goes as far back as Christ’s statement ‘I am the way and the truth and the life’ (John 14:6; my emphasis). Yet, the ‘regression’ to modes of fictionality in hagiographical texts indicates that at times authorial (or broader cultural) claims to historical truth in such contexts should be taken with a grain of salt. Fictionality in hagiographical texts—that is, in narratives that were expected to recount actual events and adopt a truthful approach to reality—was most probably shaped and manipulated, I argue, also in conjunction with more or less habitually assimilated and reactivated modes of thought related to the ambivalent and volatile cognitive function of phantasia, as this was reinterpreted in broader Christian contexts. In hagiographical texts, the fluidity of the boundaries between the imaginary and the real, truth and phenomenological falsity, the miraculous and illusion, is often reflected in the uncertainty about the origins and the ontological nature of the phenomena experienced by the characters in those stories. The Life of St. Mary of Egypt provides a representative case in point. At his first encounter with the female saint, Zosimas, the male protagonist, reacts with a great deal of mistrust and suspicion as to the real origins of the figure he sees: he thinks that she is ‘a demonic phantom’ (φάσμα δαιμονικόν; PG 87.3705).5 In the narratologically convoluted Life of St. Theoktiste, 3 ‘Socioaethetics’ is a concept introduced by Dimitrios Yatromanolakis in his influential studies of archaic and classical Greek cultural history; see especially Yatromanolakis (2007). 4 ‘Fictionality’ as understood in this paper, transcends the discursive limitations implied by the term and concept of ‘novelization’, which focuses primarily on connections of hagiography with a specific genre (the novel/romance); on aspects of ‘novelization in hagiography’, see the informative discussion in Messis (2014: 313–341); also Alwis (2011: 40–45, 140–143). In my discussion, fictionality refers, instead, to the complex problematization of sanctioned epistemological criteria of truth and its broader cognitive and ethical ramifications as well as to the corresponding manipulations of relevant levels and modes of vraisemblance in religious narratives. 5 The Life of St. Mary of Egypt was most probably written in the seventh century. Manuscripts attribute it to Sophronios, Patriarch of Jerusalem between 634 and 638; however, his authorship has been contested in modern scholarship. For an English translation of the text, see Kouli (1996).

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the man who recounts the story to the ascetic who eventually reports it to the narrator of the text feels fear at the sight of the emaciated holy woman, who eventually convinces him that she is a real human being, not a specter (a phantasma).6 In hagiography, the faculty of phantasia is often held responsible for the perception of ontologically problematic entities and phenomena, while its products are attributed to the devil’s deceiving intrusion into human life. In his Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa proposes a noteworthy definition of falsity that foregrounds phantasia’s relevance for broader ontological issues. In a way that recalls Plato’s similar discussion in the Sophist,7 pseudos is described as a phantasia presenting non-being as being.8 This is a frequent topos in several early Christian discourses, including, of course, non-Greek ones. In a memorable passage, the late fourth-fifth-century Egyptian ascetic Shenoute, an expert in demonology, illustrates Satan’s insidious infiltration into human life by emphasizing the problematic ontology and deceptive phenomenology of the archetypal evil: although not lacking some kind of identity, at least if twistedness can be viewed as the most fundamental constituent of Satan’s essence, this ‘identity’ remains always in flux. Utter liminality seems to be the most characteristic quality of that inherently deceptive entity: You are not male, nor are you female […] You are not a mountain or a plain. You are not rich or a beggar. For you assume the likeness of these things and of more things than these, but you do not belong to any one of them. Your form is unchanging, and you are always the same, you ‘thing’ entirely twisted upon itself and from itself. And you do not have a small share of a member of anything, neither you nor your demons. Every shape into which you change yourself is foreign to you, and they are all illusions (phantasiai).9 Examples of the association of phantasia’s deceptive function with the devil in later hagiography are all too many, but, to my mind, one of the most compelling and theologically inflected articulation of this connection in Byzantine literature is found in Michael Glykas. In his Proverbs, he puts forward an interesting

6 AASS Nov. vol. 4 (1925: 224–233, col. 228E). According to Westerink (1973: 41–46), the Life of St. Theoktiste of Lesbos was most probably written by Niketas Magistros, a tenth-century official. For an English translation of this Life, see Hero (1996). 7 See Sophist 239d–241a, 260b–268d. 8 Ed. Danielou (1968: 2.23.3–5). 9 Passage quoted in Brakke (2006: 105).

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differentiation between the humility of the divine Logos, who was incarnated to save humanity, and the superciliousness of Satan, who allures ‘the slaves of passions and the base ones’ by assuming the appearance of a majestic lord. In fact, Satan, Glykas asserts, is the very embodiment of ‘false’ and ‘empty’ phantasia (Proverbs 122–127: Ὁ δὲ σατὰν ὁ πονηρός, ἡ ψευδοφαντασία […] / τὴν φαντασίαν τὴν κενήν, τὴν ψευδοφρεναπάτην / ὁ δυνατὸς [ὁ Λόγος] κατῄσχυνε πανσθενεστάτῳ κράτει).10 In hagiography, demonic spirits create all kinds of illusions (phantasiai), even fake images of a person’s relatives or acquaintances (e.g. in the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto).11 Often the devil’s works are discerned from those of God and exposed for what they truly are with the help of the sphragis of Christ, the sign of the cross. This, for instance, is clearly illustrated already in the paradigmatic Life of St. Antony.12 Many centuries later, in Michael Psellos’Life of St. Auxentios, it is said that a safe criterion for the determination of the divine or deceptive nature of a supernatural phenomenon is the emotional and spiritual state of the person who experiences it.13 Psellos emphasizes that Auxentios had achieved such a degree of spiritual perfection that ‘his sensory perception (ἡ αἴσθησις) did not produce false impressions (ἐψεύδετο) through images/representations of phantasia (τοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς φαντασίας εἰδώλοις)’.14

10 11 12

13 14

Eustratiades (ed. 1906: ρςβʹ-ρπγʹ). Festugière (ed. 1971: 1, lines 396–405). Another example is found in the Conversio Cypriani (BHG 452), where the maiden Justina uses the sign of the cross several times to defeat the demons sent by the magician Kyprianos to corrupt her (Radermacher ed. 1927). Prayer is another effective weapon against the devil’s attempt to mislead a Christian through false appearances. Relevant examples are countless; see, for instance, ‘Paralipomena (seu Ascetica) de Sanctis Pachomio et Theodoro (e codice Atheniensi 1015 collato Ambrosiano D 69 sup.)’, in Halkin (1982: 73– 93, section 24); Life of St. Alypios the Stylite, in Delehaye (ed. 1923: 157), where St. Alypios resorts to prayers and the ‘great spear of the cross’ to fight the demonic phantasmata; Life of St. Daniel the Stylite, ibid. (15–16, 18.3–5), where the saint’s prayers dispel similar phantasiai. In his Life of St. Sabas, Kyrillos of Skythopolis narrates how the holy man’s prayers and fasting defeated the demons who attacked him through deceptive phantasiai; see Schwartz (ed. 1939: 110.13–26). The misleading ambiguity of the function and products of phantasia is extended also to the territory of prognostication, notably in dreams; see, e.g., Psellos’ short essay on dreams in Duffy (ed. 1992: 38, esp. lines 12–23). For the deceptive function of imagination as an instrument of demonic powers in the Life of St. Antony, see Brakke (2006: 39–40). Ed. in Fisher (1994: Γ.113–131); cf. ibid. (395–400). Fisher (1994: Γ).

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Phantasia’s Liminality: Origen against Celsus

In his polemical treatise True Discourse, the pagan philosopher Celsus (second century) undertook to undermine the validity of fundamental Christian dogmas and to expose what he considered to be untrue in sanctioned narratives about Christ’s life and miracles, including his resurrection. According to Celsus’ arguments, as they are preserved in Origen’s apologetic treatise against him,15 the story about Christ’s resurrection was created by a false announcement that someone, under the influence of a dream or misled by his/her imagination, conveyed to others, who were ready to believe it. In fact, Celsus contends, misconceptions and misrepresentations of reality happen very often.16 Here it is worth recalling that imagination and dreams are closely related in the Greek tradition—not always in negative ways, as, for instance, Plato’s Timaios and Synesios of Cyrene’s much later treatise on dreams indicate.17 What I find especially interesting in this part of Celsus’ critique of claims to truth in canonical Christian texts (most notably in the gospels) is his use of a marked terminology, whose origins go back to Platonic and Aristotelian epistemology: the alleged originator of that false idea about Christ’s resurrection is described as someone who experienced the formation of a certain (visual) impression in his mind (φαντασιωθείς) due to a mistaken belief (δόξῃ πεπλανημένῃ). Although the precise connotations of the term and the concept of phantasia in ancient Greek philosophical contexts have been the subject of many scholarly debates, it is important to keep in mind that already in Plato and Aristotle, doxa and phantasia were closely (albeit differently) connected. In fact, Plato tended to perceive phantasia in terms of δόξα δι᾽ αἰσθήσεως (belief formed through sensory perception), a definition that Aristotle criticized in his work On the Soul.18 As Against Celsus and other works of his indicate, Origen was deeply familiar with earlier philosophical discussions of phantasia (mainly in Aristotle and the Stoics) and its different epistemological and, of course, broader notional connections and ramifications.19 For instance, in his essay On Prayer, he seems to understand phantasia’s operation as a process mediating between the senses

15 16 17 18 19

In his Against Celsus; ed. Borret (1967). Translations are taken from Chadwick (1953). Borret (1967: 2.60). Roilos (2014: 12). See Pl. Soph. 264a; Aristotle stresses that phantasia differs not only from aisthēsis but also from doxa (De an. 427b). Origen’s familiarity with ancient Greek philosophy is insightfully discussed in Chadwick (1966: 100–119), where, however, his understanding and use of phantasia are not taken into account.

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and the mind.20 Elsewhere, in the context of a discussion of prophetic dreams and visions, he refers to phantasia’s power to create simulacra of future situations—an idea to which I shall return below in this section.21 In On Principles, Origen, drawing especially on Aristotle’s On the Soul, discusses the ways in which phantasia functions in non-rational creatures and in humans. In spiders and bees, phantasia creates instinctual patterns of specific acts (weaving and wax-making, respectively) that are precisely allotted to them by nature; in their turn, these patterns produce relevant urges that cause the performance of acts that pertain to each species. By contrast, humans, who are endowed with the faculty of logos, are ethically responsible for their deeds, which cannot be merely attributed to a pre-programmed, as it were, function of imagination: they are expected to judge the possible merits or risks of the acts that their phantasia visualizes and to decide whether they wish to follow the concomitant urges or not, on the basis of logical reasoning.22 In his refutation of Celsus’ arguments against the veracity of sanctioned Christian accounts about Christ and especially his resurrection, Origen makes an intriguing and rather convoluted use of terms and notions directly connected to phantasia. Celsus’ statement, he maintains, in fact confirms the validity of the doctrine about the immortality of the soul. Origen adduces relevant ‘evidence’ also from Plato, who speaks about the appearance of ghosts (phantasmata): the latter, according to Origen, exist only because they are created by some real substance (i.e. the immortal soul): ‘The apparitions round about the tombs of dead men (τὰ μὲν οὖν γινόμενα περὶ ψυχῆς τεθνηκότων φαντάσματα) are caused by the fact that the soul is subsisting in what is called the luminous body’.23 Although, Origen continues, Celsus prefers to view the accounts about the resurrection of Christ and those who witnessed it as belonging to the same categories as other phantasmata and the people who have imagined them (φαντασθέντας), respectively, those who are willing to examine things carefully will no doubt accept the miraculous nature (τὸ παραδοξότερον) of that event.24 One discerns here, as in other passages of this treatise, an almost amphoteroglossic (‘double-tongued’, equivocal)25 understanding of ideas and terms directly related to phantasia, which, as a whole, is not in discord with inherited philosophical theories about it: in the first case, phantasma is viewed as a phantom,

20 21 22 23 24 25

Ed. Koetschau (1899: 20.2.13–16). Selecta in Ezechielem, PG 13.801.49–55. Ed. Görgemanns & Karpp (1976: 3.1.1–3); cf. Arist. De an. 431a–b; 433a. Ed. Borret (1967: 2.60.12–14). Ed. Borret (1967: 2.62.23–27). For the concept of amphoteroglossia, see Roilos (2005).

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a trace, as it were, or even a proof, of the existence of a real entity (which, it might be added, is itself not perceptible through sensory organs), whereas in the second, it is used in the context of misleading, false perception. Origen employs similar discourse and concepts at several other points of his refutation of Celsus’ attacks against the veracity and validity of Christian narratives and dogmas. Particularly illuminating for the ambivalent, at times, conceptualization of imagination and the tension between truth and fictionality in Christian contexts is the part of Origen’s treatise in which he contests Celsus’ characterization of the gospel account of the appearance (phasma) of the Holy Spirit at Christ’s baptism in the form of a dove as a mere figment (plasma).26 Once more, Origen’s words are carefully chosen: he describes the relevant canonical Christian narratives in terms of ‘history (ἱστορία)’, which he clearly sets against Celsus’ description of them as fabricated accounts (πλάσματα). Origen’s counter-argument begins with a remarkable statement: it is very hard for someone, he stresses, to prove that any story (ἱστορία), even if it is true, actually happened, and to visualize and comprehend it in an accurate and precise way (καταληπτικὴν ἐμποιῆσαι περὶ αὐτῆς φαντασίαν).27 For instance, he asks, how could one argue for the actuality of the Trojan war, if the general belief (δόξα) about its historicity is undermined by the fact that in the story about it there are interwoven certain impossible narratives (ἀδύνατον προσπλέχθαι λόγον) and figments (παρυφανθέντος πλάσματος) such as those concerning the birth of Achilles from Thetis, an alleged goddess of the sea, or of Aeneas from Aphrodite?28 Here, the reference to examples of heathen plasmata (a word that, perhaps not fortuitously, denoted also the genre of the novel in Late Antiquity) is indirectly contrasted to Celsus’ own description of sanctioned Christian narratives as imaginary discourses. Interesting is also the subtly ambivalent way in which ἱστορία, meaning both ‘history’ and ‘story’, is employed in this context. One cannot help recalling here the distinction between historia and plasma (and mythos) that had been proposed a few generations before Origen by Sextus Empiricus in his critique of teachers.29 To my mind the most intriguing concept adduced by Origen in this section is that of kataleptikē phantasia, an, in general, positively charged epistemological category developed by the Stoics (with whom he was very familiar, as is indicated also in other parts of his work) and related to cognitive perception. This Stoic notion could be understood in both a more active and a more pass26 27 28 29

Ed. Borret (1967: 1.40–48). Ed. Borret (1967: 1.42.3–4). Ed. Borret (1967: 1.42.11). Adversus mathematicos 1.263–269, in Mau & Mutschmann (1914). On the distinction, see the Introduction to this volume p. 9.

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ive sense, since it could refer to a mental (re)presentation (phantasia) that is (passively) caused by the senses or to an (active) mental response to the senses that assesses the accuracy of sensory perception.30 Apparently, Origen is here interested in the ability of phantasia as an active, creative and potentially reliable cognitive function to produce (in discourse) accurate representations that can ‘grasp’ (katalambanein) the essence of true events.31 Origen’s positive stance towards phantasia’s broader semantic spectrum is alluded to a few paragraphs later as well, in his examination of the fact that many people were converted to Christianity thanks to some dream or vision, during which ‘some kind of spirit (πνεύματός τινος)’, i.e. the Holy Spirit, ‘brought to them [appropriate] representations (φαντασιώσαντος)’.32 Origen introduces this part of his discussion with an observation that bespeaks his awareness of the uneasiness and suspicion that such arguments are bound to cause to nonbelievers, who may deride him, thinking that he, too, like the people who invent stories, makes up fictions, although he has witnessed several such cases himself. Apparently due to the supernatural character of this kind of facts, whose actuality he defends, Origen swears to God that what he says is not untruthful; it is only on the basis of ‘manifold manifest facts’ that he wishes to prove the divinity of Christ’s teaching: Πολλὰ γὰρ καὶ τοιαῦτα ἱστορήσαμεν, ἅτινα ἐὰν γράφωμεν, αὐτοὶ αὐτοῖς παρατυχόντες καὶ ἰδόντες, γέλωτα πλατὺν ὀφλήσομεν τοῖς ἀπίστοις, οἰομένοις ἡμᾶς ὁμοίως οἷς ὑπολαμβάνουσι ταῦτ᾽ ἀναπεπλακέναι καὶ αὐτοὺς πλάσσειν. ἀλλὰ γὰρ θεὸς μάρτυς τοῦ ἡμετέρου συνειδότος, βουλομένου οὐ διὰ ψευδῶν ἀπαγγελιῶν ἀλλὰ διά τινος ἐναργείας ποικίλης συνιστάνειν τὴν Ἰησοῦ θείαν διδασκαλίαν. We have known many instances like this. But if we were to commit them to writing, although we were eyewitnesses present at the time, we would bring upon ourselves downright mockery from the unbelievers, who would think that we were inventing the stories ourselves like those whom they suspect of having invented such tales. But as God is witness of

30 31

32

See Watson (1988: 45–47); Sedley (2002). We encounter rather positive conceptualizations of phantasia in other Christian authors as well. For example, St. Basil the Great views phantasia also in terms of a creative visualization upon which the creation of an object is modelled; see his treatise On the Holy Spirit; ed. Pruche (1968: 3.22–24). Similar examples are discussed in detail in Roilos (forthcoming). Ed. Borret (1967: 1.46.19–21).

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our good conscience, we want to lend support to the divine teaching not by any false reports, but by definite facts of various kinds.33 Such emphatic declarations of sincerity and truth on the part of Christian authors, which were articulated as a deterrent against possible suspicions that the supernatural character of the narrated events and the potentially blurred boundaries between imagination and reality could cause to sceptics or antiChristians like Celsus, go back to John’s metanarrative comment on his account as an eyewitness testimony in his gospel (19:35) and they will become frequent in many later hagiographical texts.34 For instance, like Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, too, would later stress in his Life of St. Gregory the Wonderworker that his narrative omits numerous miracles of the saint lest a detailed account of them should cause uneasiness and serious doubts among his readers.35 Two paragraphs after his declaration of the veracity of his arguments and evidence, Origen provides an inchoate psychology, as it were, of supernatural sensory perceptions, which clearly bespeaks an understanding of phantasia as a rather liminal cognitive faculty: on the one hand, the verb φαντασιόω is employed again here, this time in the passive voice, to convey the significance of the (straightforward or enigmatic) manifestation of divine truths to biblical prophets in dreams; on the other, phantasia is associated with the impression one has in a dream that one senses something, although it is actually not the sensory organs but the mind that experiences such things. If the latter happens, Origen stresses, then one could not deny the reality of the former either.36 The close association between phantasia and the predictive potential of dreams had already been supported, from a different but comparable perspective, by Plato: in Timaios (71d–72a), the ancient philosopher had tried to explain this phenomenon by relating it to the workings of phantasis through the liver during sleep, when the rational part of the soul is not active. Phantasia’s importance for the production of prophetic dreams would be further explored by Synesios of Cyrene in his treatise on dreams almost two centuries after Origen. In the passage discussed here, Origen also puts forward

33 34

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Ed. Borret (1967: 1.46.22–28). It is intriguing that in many hagiographies the narrators’ strong affirmations of their veracity in fact function as discursive alibis for the fictionality of their accounts and personas. The examples are numerous, but a particularly telling case in point is the Life of St. Andrew the Fool; see Roilos (2014: 23–24); see also the discussion of ‘fictional’ narrators in Byzantine hagiography in Rydén (2002: 547–552). PG 46.957.48–53. Borret (1967: 1.48.5–20).

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the idea that there is a special sensory perception which is ‘divine’ (θεία αἴσθησις) and which surpasses usual sensory perception. He employs an oxymoron to describe it: it is, he says, a ‘non-sensible form of sensory perception (αἰσθήσει οὐκ αἰσθητῇ)’.37 This new, Christian psychology/epistemology as put forward by Origen is related to the (essentially cognitive) power of faith (πίστις) as well, which helps men to get hold of logos. These additional, quasi-gnosiological categories (faith and the ‘non-sensible’, ‘divine’, form of sensory perception) markedly differentiate Christian epistemology from relevant pagan, philosophical systems of thought. Origen’s approach to phantasia in terms of an ambivalent or neutral epistemological function is further illustrated by some comments of his on Proverbs 4:23. This faculty, or rather the part of the human soul that is associated with it (the phantastikon) can be infiltrated, he maintains, by some demonic power or occupied by the spirit of God; believers should pray that the latter may happen to them.38 Clement of Alexandria, an older contemporary of Origen, approached imagination, the function of external spiritual forces, reason, and ethical responsibility in similar terms: in humans, by contrast to non-rational beings, rational thinking (logikē dynamis) is responsible for discerning the different kinds of phantasia and prompting corresponding forms of behaviour, he contends. However, not rarely evil spiritual forces manage to imprint tempting illusory impressions (phantasiai) of different forms of pleasure (e.g. beauty, glory, sexual encounters) on weak souls, thus taking charge of them.39 One may discern in these statements, I argue, some echoes of Aristotle’s discussion of phantasia’s importance for determining which envisaged things or actions should be pursued or avoided.40 The main difference between Aristotle’s ‘pagan’ epistemological approach to phantasia and its ethical implications, on the one hand, and Christian reinterpretations of that approach, on the other, is that the latter allow for the manipulation of phantasia’s inherent gnosiological liminality by external forces like evil spirits.41 On his part, Celsus had manipulated the ambivalence of phantasia’s epistemological functions and creations also with a view to substantiating his 37 38 39 40 41

Borret (1967: 1.48.42). Ed. Robinson (1893: 20.22.18–25). Stromateis 2.20.111.2–4. De an. 431b; cf. Moss (2012). The figure of the salos, the holy fool, was the embodiment par excellence of the ambiguity of the miraculous in Byzantium. Not rarely the holy fool was perceived by his contemporaries as an instrument of Satan’s detrimental interference with human affairs; in Lennart Rydén’s words, the salos operated in a ‘no man’s land between the realm of the angels and the realm of the demons’, Rydén (1981: 106–113).

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exposure of Christ as a magician rather than God—an accusation that was also systematically refuted by Origen. Even if one accepts that Christ performed those things that his disciples report as miraculous (e.g. the cures of illnesses, the multiplication of the loaves, and, most notably, his resurrection), these, according to Celsus, were in fact not different from the tricks of illusionists. If one pays any charlatan of their kind, Celsus contends, he will perform similar fake cures, evoke the souls of dead heroes, and make things that are mere manifestations of phantasia to appear as real (μέχρι φαντασίας φαινόμενα τοιαῦτα). Here, Celsus, by contrast to other passages of his treatise, calls into question not necessarily the phenomenology of Christ’s extraordinary acts that were reported in the gospels but their very ontology, as it were: those events might have happened but they were not miracles; rather, they were the results of a deceptive manipulation of phantasia’s inherently problematic relation to reality. No doubt, Celsus’ argument should be viewed against the background of major ancient philosophical approaches to phantasia that highlighted its unreliability as a cognitive faculty and questioned its contribution to accurate, true knowledge. In a similar vein, at a different point of his diatribe, Celsus maintains that if people, like the Christians, accept dogmas without reasoning rationally about them, it is as though they believe in the ‘phantoms (φάσμασιν)’ of Hekate or some other demon.42 Interestingly, in his response to Celsus, Origen does not deny that magicians have the power to perform certain acts that appear to be marvellous. Instead, he focuses on the moral flaws of their activity: illusionists are not interested in bringing humans to God’s path. By contrast, Christ’s life on earth and extraordinary, beneficial deeds are clear indications that he was God indeed, Origen contends.43 At another point of his discussion, he resorts to the problematic epistemological function of phantasia—as Celsus does in his own treatise—with a view to underlining the difference between Christ and magicians: it was Christ himself, Origen stresses, who warned his disciples against such impostors, who may employ illusionary phenomena (phantasias) in order to present themselves as Christs and mislead followers of the real Christ.44

42 43 44

Borret (1967: 1.9.1–9). Borret (1967: 1.68). Borret (1967: 2.49.1–19).

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Miracle vs. Magic

Accusations of sorcery against workers of extraordinary acts are encountered in both pagan and Christian contexts. In the introduction to his Life of Apollonios of Tyana, Philostratos stresses that one of the major aims of his biography is to rebut unsubstantiated claims that Apollonios was a mere sorcerer rather than a true philosopher.45 Such allegations, Philostratos explains, were largely based on the fact that Apollonios was familiar with the art and teachings of Babylonian magicians, the ‘Naked Men of Egypt’, and Indian Brahmans. Several other ancient philosophers (such as Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Empedokles, Demokritos, even Plato), Philostratos stresses, were associated with magicians or peoples well-known for their achievements in the field of magic, but none of them was subjected to the unjust slanders that Apollonios was. Prompted by a comparison between Apollonios and Christ by Hierokles—a fervent antiChristian high official of the Roman empire in the late third and early fourth century who advocated the veracity of the Life of Apollonios while refuting the validity of Christian accounts about Christ’s miracles as fabrications of liars and magicians—Eusebios, a contemporary of Hierokles, took upon himself to expose Apollonios as an illusionist and to prove Philostratos’ alleged mendacity.46 As for Christian contexts, the apocryphal acts (which, despite their eventual exclusion from the religious canon, were read by faithful Christians and shared common themes with mainstream hagiographical narratives)47 include many episodes in which Christ himself but especially his disciples are accused by their pagan enemies of practising sorcery.48 The Martyrion of Bartholomew

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46

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Philostr. VA 1.2.2. A similar case in point is the story of Peregrinos of Parion, the Cynic philosopher who at some point in his life was closely associated with Christians. Lucian provides a delightful and interesting account of Peregrinos’ life in his homonymous work. Lucian focuses on the last days of the Cynic in Olympia, where he burned himself at the Olympic Games in 165 ce. For a discussion of Lucian’s text and the issue of its historical accuracy, see Jones, ‘Peregrinus of Parion’ (1986: 117–132). Most probably Eusebios’ reply to Hierokles was written after the declaration of religious freedom in the Roman empire in 313ad. For the Greek text and an English translation of Eusebios’ work, see Jones (2005: 154–257). For some interesting remarks on the familiarity of later Byzantine authors with the apocrypha, see Beck (1977: 402–413); Patlagean (1991: 155–163); Bovon (1999: 87–98); see also the discussion of the connections of Life and Miracles of Thekla with the apocryphal acts in Johnson (2006). It should be recalled that similar accusations against Christ are mentioned already in the gospel of Mark: Christ’s enemies claimed that he performed miracles with Satan’s and Beelzebub’s help (Mark 3:22–26).

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focuses on that apostle’s miraculous victories over demons in India. The largest part of the text is dedicated to Bartholomew’s activities at the temple of Astarouth. Demonic figures (mainly Becher) are presented as interacting directly not only with Christ’s disciple but also with native people, to whom they eventually admit the invulnerable power of Christ. Bartholomew is of course victorious in his battles against the demons and succeeds also in converting the king of the region Polymios along with his family and all his subjects to Christianity. As a result, Bartholomew’s enemies report allegations of sorcery against him to the king’s brother Astreges,49 who orders the beheading of the apostle. Similar is the story of Philip, as narrated in the apocryphal account of his Acts in Greece. The story revolves around the visit of the apostle to Athens, his dialogue with no less than three hundred Athenian philosophers (!), and the rather unusual alliance of the latter with Ananias, the high priest of the Jews in Jerusalem. In their letter to Ananias, the Athenians describe the extraordinary deeds of the unusual ‘philosopher’ who has caused huge turmoil to their city, as follows: ‘he performs miraculous things […], he has expelled demons who possessed men for many years, he makes deaf people to hear and blind to see. But what is most miraculous is that he even raises people from the dead’.50 Ananias, being possessed by the devil, comes to Athens, accompanied by an impressive entourage of five hundred people, to face Philip. The rest of the narrative dwells on the contest of words and deeds between Philip and Ananias. The latter refuses to admit the superiority of Christ (who, responding to Philip’s invocation, makes an impressive miraculous appearance), and accuses, instead, the apostle and his teacher of sorcery. In fact, ‘sorcerer and magician (φαρμακὲ καὶ μάγε)’ were the very first words that Ananias addressed to Philip, when he met him in Athens, while in all his encounters with the Athenians he tries to convince them that Jesus and his disciple deceive simpleminded people ‘by means of the art of magic’.51 Philip eventually punishes his stubborn rival by throwing him into ‘the abyss’, and the narrative concludes with the conversion of the witnesses (including Ananias’ entourage) to Christianity. Jesus is the target of allegations of sorcery also in the Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the Land of the Anthropophagi. What makes the use of that theme in this specific text particularly interesting is the very convoluted narratological context in which it occurs, which is marked by inflated (even for the standards of the apocrypha) fictionality. Andrew, following the Lord’s orders, sets off for the city of the Anthropophagi in order to rescue Matthias, who is imprisoned 49 50 51

Ed. Bonnet (1891–1903: 2/1.147.28–30). Ed. Bonnet (1891–1903: 2/2.6.18–7.4). Bonnet (1891–1903: 2/2.8.3); see also ibid. (12.5–23, 13.2, 15.10–11).

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there. He embarks on a ship and soon engages in conversation with the helmsman and recounts some of the miracles that Christ had performed. The most memorable one is when he commanded the sculpture of a sphinx to come down from the temple that it decorated and to preach to the priests of the Jews about his divinity. The sphinx obeyed and delivered a powerful oration, but the priests were not convinced. They attributed the miraculous performance of the inanimate stone artefact to some magical trick (ἐν μαγείᾳ οἱ λίθοι οὗτοι λαλοῦσιν).52 Christ once more ordered the sphinx to go to Canaan, to resurrect Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and bring them to the temple, so that the priests would see them and admit that Christ was God’s son indeed. The sphinx performed this task too, but the priests remained unpersuaded. What Andrew ironically does not know, but the readers are well aware of, is that the helmsman to whom he narrates Jesus’ miracles is in fact Jesus himself, who has been metamorphosed to help him on his journey to the land of the Anthropophagi. Later in the text, Christ appears again to Andrew, this time in the form of a boy. In the apocryphal narrative about Matthew’s acts, which seems to be related by a purported eyewitness (like, for instance, the apocryphal stories about the acts of Andrew, Barnabas, and Thomas), as the discrete use of the first plural person later in the narrative indicates, the apostle faces repeated accusations of sorcery during his visit in the land of the Anthropophagi as well. As a result of those allegations, the king of the country puts Matthew to death by fire, which is followed by the Evangelist’s resurrection and a series of additional miracles.53 In a different text that shares several discursive elements with the apocrypha, the Pseudo-Clementines, Simon, the main evil protagonist in the text, does not hesitate to spread slanderous rumours against the apostle Peter, presenting him as a deceptive magician.54 However, the story informs readers that, instead, Simon was a notorious magician and caused huge turmoil all over the city of Tyre by producing a series of illusory phenomena (phantasmata): for instance, when he walked through the city, he would make statues move or he would somehow create the impression that he was accompanied by shadows, which he presented as souls of dead people.55 The theme of similar accusations against saints recurs in several later hagiographical texts, but here I would like to single out the Martyrion of St. Hypa-

52 53

54 55

Bonnet (1891–1903: 2/2.81.17); cf. ibid. (97.6–8). The apocryphal Acts of John, too, mention accusations of magic against the apostle (Bonnet 1891–1903: 2/2. 156–157. v8); it is worth noting that the term phantasia is also used in this context. Pseudo-Clementina: Epitome altera auctore Symeone Metaphrasta 44, in Dressel (1873: 32). Pseudo-Clementina: Epitome altera auctore Symeone Metaphrasta 45, in Dressel (1873: 32).

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tios of Gangra.56 In his Martyrion, by contrast to his Life, which is more elevated in terms of both style and content, it is allegations of sorcery prompted by his very many miracles that initiate for Hypatios a long series of sufferings and tortures. In the end, of course, the saint and Christianity emerge overwhelmingly victorious.57 We know that Hypatios was a historical figure; he participated in a council in Gangra in 324 but it is not confirmed that he attended also the Council of Nicaea (325), as it is mentioned in his Synaxarion. According to Silvio Ferri, the editor of the canonical version of the Life of St. Hypatios of Gangra and his Martyrion, the Life predates the Martyrion: the former may have been composed in the mid-fifth century, and the latter between the early sixth and the early eighth centuries—but, as usually happens with these texts, dating remains open to debate. Alexander Kazhdan maintains that Hypatios’ ‘story’ was most probably composed after the second half of the seventh century.58 Even a cursory reading of the two narratives, which have not yet received the attention they deserve, makes it clear that they are the products of, and were intended for, different religious ‘worlds’: in addition to obvious stylistic dissimilarities, the Life, despite its expected emphasis on the saint’s miraculous acts, is substantially more restrained than the Martyrion, when it comes to the description of extraordinary events. As Silvio Ferri notes, the narrator in the first text seems to be a native of the region where saint Hypatios was active. He takes pride in the religious tradition of his town and quite often he provides 56

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For a discussion of this theme mainly in the Life of Symeon Stylites the Younger, the Life of St. Martha (the mother of Symeon Stylites the younger), and the Life of St. Gregory Bishop of Agrigento, see Dickie (1999: 92–96), where, however, no discussion of the apocrypha is provided. On the ambivalence between magic and miracles in Byzantine hagiography, see Kazhdan (1995: 72–82). On magic in early Byzantine hagiography, cf. Magoulias (1967: 228–269). Kazhdan provides also a basic, useful classification of miracles in Byzantine hagiography; however, a systematic study of the terms and different conceptualizations of the miraculous in this ‘genre’ and of its different ‘types’ along the lines, for instance, of Le Goff’s, Meslin’s or Poirion’s investigations of the marvellous and the miraculous in the Western European Middle Ages remains a significant desideratum in Byzantine studies (cf. Poirion (1982); Meslin (1984); Le Goff (1988: 27–44)). Kee (1983) remains a useful, albeit not always sufficiently nuanced, exploration of the cultural ramifications of the miraculous in late antique pagan and Christian texts, including some discussed in this section; however, it ignores the role of phantasia in the epistemological ambiguity of the ‘miraculous’ and in its socio-aesthetic manipulations, while it prefers to lump together all types of pagan and Christian ‘romances’, thus unjustifiably ignoring important differences with regard to distinctive strategies of vraisemblance in different groups of those works and the specificities of their socio-cultural and ideological implications. Kazhdan (1999: 24).

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architectonic and other details, which, by bespeaking his familiarity with the area and attesting to the activities of the saint, contribute to the veracity of his account. He also underlines the fact that Hypatios was well-educated and the author of a number of sophisticated works. Indicative perhaps of the comparatively austere style of the Life is that the first extraordinary act of Hypatios that it reports is the miraculous silencing of some young women neighbours of his, who, while working at the loom, used to sing ‘lewd songs that excited young men’.59 The narrator confines himself to the description of a few other major miracles, most notably his clearing a rural area of blind rats; his granting healing power to the waters of a river; his killing of a dragon that was threatening the imperial treasury during the reign of the Arian emperor Constantius ii; the miraculous glare and an angel’s singing over his corpse. Most of these miracles are mentioned also in the canonical version of St. Hypatios’ Life edited by Theophilos Ioannou.60 In both versions of the Life, emphasis is placed on the saint’s fights against Arianism. By contrast, in the Martyrion, the narrator indulges in the account of numerous miracles; most of them have to do with the saint’s triumphal surviving different tortures, which hardly can be matched by the most sadistic episodes in any kitsch, Hollywood movie. At the same time, there is no mention of Hypatios’ fights against Arianism. The fictional character of the narrative becomes obvious to well-informed (both medieval and especially modern) readers, but most probably not to its intended audience, from the very beginning: it is said that Hypatios was archbishop of Gangra during the reign of Thelkianos, a fictitious emperor. The narrative begins in medias res in a way that sets the tone for the whole Martyrion: a few lines after the reference to the imaginary emperor, the narrator mentions the accusations of sorcery against Hypatios that his enemies reported to the idolater local ruler of Galatia, Kyprianos. The allegations are supported by the enumeration of a series of extraordinary acts that the saint’s rivals describe in terms of magic, but Christians no doubt would have admired as miracles.61 Immediately after this, the story-teller informs his audience by means of a proleptic summary of what will happen to Hypatios as a result of those accusations: in a vision, Christ himself reveals to the holy man that the latter will defeat the local ruler, baptize the emperor, and be victorious over the idolaters for twelve years; after that period, he will be subjected to numerous tortures and will die and be resurrected no less than seven times. Among the remarkable number of miracles that the Martyrion recounts only a 59 60 61

Ferri (1931: 77); cf. the version of St. Hypatios’ Life edited in Ioannou (1884: 257). Ioannou (1884: 251–268). Ferri (1931: 88); see also ibid. (89, 90–91, 97, 100).

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few are encountered in the Life: the killing of the dragon, the elimination of the blind rats, and a version of the miracle following his death. In the Martyrion, the first two of these three events are incorporated, in a different order, into a colourfully convoluted plot that preserves nothing of the discursive self-restraint of the Life. However, of greater interest for my discussion in this chapter are those miracles in the Martyrion that involve the ‘humanization’ of inanimate or non-human entities. Hypatios asks a wild horse to assume human voice twice and to preach to the idolaters who the real God is. The animal’s religious instructions are complemented by the similar performance on the part of the stone fetters that the torturers of the saint had attached to his head and legs. The talking horse and stones recall Christ’s miracle with the stone sphinx in the Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the Land of the Anthropophagi.62

3

Religious Establishment and Fictionality

Despite the triumphant proclamation of the Christian faith against allegations of sorcery in those texts, their recurrent use of exaggerated fictional topoi such as metamorphosis (even of Christ!) and animation of lifeless things may have caused perplexity and uneasiness to sophisticated guardians of religious orthodoxy.63 Indeed, in his discussion of a book including versions of the apocryphal 62 63

On animals in the apocrypha in general, see Mathews (1999); Spittler (2008). Modern scholars, too, seem to experience comparable perplexity at their encounters with the apocrypha and their ‘generic’ status. Indicative of the perception of these texts in scholarship in terms of generic liminality is the fact that they are often associated with the novel. Already in 1932 Rosa Söder explored thematic connections between these two groups of texts, although she refrained from classifying the apocrypha explicitly as novels (see Söder 1932). Richard Pervo considers the apocryphal as well as the canonical acts historical novels (see Pervo 1987: esp. 121–135). Christine Thomas, too, characterizes the apocryphal acts as ‘historical novels’. However, her understanding of this term differs from its established use in literary theory and history, since she emphasizes the reception of those works by their ‘implied and ideal reading audiences’ as histories (Thomas 2003: 102; see also 10–12). To my mind, the ‘genre’ question of these texts (as well as of other religious narratives, including hagiography) should be approached in terms of ‘generic modulations’ or (even more promisingly) of ‘interdiscursivity’ rather than of clear-cut generic classifications (for an exploration of ‘generic modulations’ in secular Byzantine literature, cf. Roilos (2005); ‘interdiscursivity’ as a methodological category in the study of ‘genre’ has been put forward by Dimitrios Yatromanolakis (see especially Yatromanolakis 2004; 2007)). Comparisons of the apocrypha with other groups of texts should not resort only or primarily to morphological criteria; instead, they should take into account also the ways in which different levels of vraisemblance are constructed and manipulated in them; cf. below note 71.

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acts of Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas, and Paul, and attributed to a certain Leukios Charinos, in cod. 114 of his Bibliothēkē, Photios vehemently criticizes such writings for stylistic but mainly for religious/theological reasons.64 The style of the book, he says, is ‘uneven and volatile’; the structure of the sentences and the diction are occasionally wrought with some care but as a rule are vulgar. But of course, it is the content of those stories that enrages the erudite patriarch: ‘they are replete’, he stresses, ‘with nonsense and contradictions (γέμει δὲ μωρίας πολλῆς καὶ τῆς πρὸς ἑαυτὸν μάχης καὶ ἐναντιώσεως)’. Particularly significant for my discussion here is that, in addition to some issues of theological interest (concerning, e.g., Christ’s incarnation and crucifixion), it is Christ’s transformations that Photios finds especially repulsive. In those narratives, he adds, many times Christ appears to his disciples in various forms: he is metamorphosed into a child or into an old man, and then back into a child and again into an old man, etc.; or he assumes such gigantic dimensions that his head reaches the sky. They also make up alleged instances of ‘childish and absurd’ resurrections of men and animals (νεκρῶν δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων καὶ βοῶν καὶ κτηνῶν ἄλλων παραλογωτάτας καὶ μειρακιώδεις τερατεύεται ἀναστάσεις). All in all, Photios concludes, that book ‘contains thousands of things that are childish, unlikely, ill-conceived, mendacious, idiotic, self-contradictory, irreverent, and godless. And one would not be wrong, if one argued that it is the source and mother of any sort of heresy (καὶ ἁπλῶς αὕτη ἡ βίβλος μυρία παιδαριώδη καὶ ἀπίθανα καὶ κακόπλαστα καὶ ψευδῆ καὶ μωρὰ καὶ ἀλλήλοις μαχόμενα καὶ ἀσεβῆ καὶ ἄθεα περιέχει. ἣν εἰπών τις πάσης αἱρέσεως πηγὴν καὶ μητέρα οὐκ ἀν ἀποσφαλείη τοῦ εἰκότος)’. As the short passages that I have quoted suggest, Photios was critical not only of misrepresentations of dogmatic orthodoxy in those texts, but also of their inflated fictionality that verged, as he would say, upon absurdity. Elsewhere, in his summary of the Life of John Chrysostom by George, bishop of Alexandria (cod. 96), he appears more lenient toward less exaggerated inaccuracies and erroneous accounts. Commenting on the content of George’s narrative, he mentions that there are many factual mistakes in it, but still, one could profit from the work as a whole, if one focused on its useful elements and ignored the rest (ὁ δὲ συγγραφεὺς οὗτος οὐκ ὀλίγα φαίνεται παριστορῶν. Ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲν κωλύει τοὺς ἀναγινώσκοντας ἐκλεγομένους τὰ χρήσιμα τὰ λοιπὰ παρορᾶν). Some decades before Photios, Nikephoros the Confessor, Patriarch of Constantinople in 806–815, had condemned certain hagiographical and other reli-

64

For Photios’ attitude to hagiography in general, see Hägg (1999: 43–58). On the writings attributed to Leukios Charinos, see Schäferdiek (1989: 81–93).

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gious writings in his canons. More specifically, he refers to the Apocalypse of John, the Apocalypse of Zosimas, the Apocalypse of Esdra, the Martyrion of Sts. Kerykos and Ioulitta, the Martyrion of St. George, the book of Markos and of Diadochos, and ‘the so-called brontologia, selenodromia, or kalendologia, and zoodologia, since they are profane (βέβηλα)’.65 In the tenth century, Niketas David Paphlagon, who was born most probably around the time of Photios’ death, in the introduction to his own version of the Martyrion of St. George (which Symeon Metaphrastes included in his Mēnologion), stresses that, while he was trying to collect as many narratives about the saint as possible, he came upon a ‘purported Martyrion raving about monstrous things and replete with twaddle’.66 Niketas justifies his criticism by adducing a few examples of the incredible, fictional elements of that text (ἐπλάττετο): it refers, he says, to seventy-two fictitious emperors, who, of course, never existed; it invents fanciful (ξένας) types of punishments inflicted upon the saint; it recounts that St. George died and was resurrected three times. Those fictions (ἀναπλάσματα), Niketas stresses, are the products of ‘the father of untruth (ὁ τοῦ ψεύδους πατήρ)’, i.e. of the devil. Niketas’ comments are indicative of the painstaking philological work that conscientious guardians of orthodoxy had to perform in order to arrive at the ‘authentic’ account of a saint’s life.67 According to Karl Krumbacher, the Passion that Niketas vehemently condemns was the same that Nikephoros i had excluded from the corpus of ‘canonical’ hagiographical texts several decades earlier. Fictional hagiographical stories were so widespread in the first centuries of Byzantium that the Church had to take strict measures against their circulation and proliferation. At the end of the seventh century, the Council in Trullo (692) addressed this problem. In one of its canons it castigated the reading of Martyria ‘falsely fabricated by the enemies of truth’ (τὰ ψευδῶς ἀπὸ τῶν τῆς ἀληθείας ἐχθρῶν συμπλασθέντα μαρτυρολόγια; Canon 63) in the churches, and anathematized those who endorsed them as true. Commenting on this canon in the twelfth century, both Ioannes Zonaras and Theodoros Balsamon approved of its sanctions, since, as they stressed, such fictional narratives presented saints

65 66

67

See Canons 12 and 13 of his Constitutiones Ecclesiasticae in Pitra (1858: 390–391). Krumbacher (1911: 181); see more recently Paschalides (1999: 189–191); Detoraki (2014: 72). It is worth noting that as late as in the fifteenth century Markos Eugenikos would praise Symeon Metaphrastes for the high standards of his exemplary ‘metaphrastic’ enterprise, which eliminated many stylistic flaws of earlier hagiographical works and corrected the abundant false information included in them (see Papadopoulos-Kerameus 1884: 101; cf. Paschalides 1999: 188). Krumbacher (1911: 182).

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saying or doing ‘bizarre or ridiculous things’ (ἀλλόκοτα ἢ καὶ γελοῖα; Zonaras).68 Balsamon, after praising Metaphrastes for his laborious work, mentions that the Patriarch Nikolaos Mouzalon ordered the burning of a Life of St. Paraskeuē the Younger, because it had been composed by a villager in a ‘vulgar manner’ that was inappropriate for the depiction of the saint’s ‘angelic way of life’ (συγγραφέντα τὸν βίον […] παρά τινος χωρίτου ἰδιωτικῶς καὶ ἀναξίως τῇ ἀγγελικῇ διαγωγῇ τῆς ἁγίας).69 These examples of authoritative censorship of products of popular religious imagination attest to a phenomenon that is very often tacitly acknowledged but much less often systematically addressed in Byzantine cultural history: a deep rift between official and popular religion.70 Despite the fact that, as a rule, in premodern societies there were no watertight boundaries between ‘low’ and ‘high’ cultures, agents at least of religious and political authority would oppose ‘non-orthodox’ or not authorized modes of thought and behaviour widely espoused by people who had no access to centres of ideological, spiritual, intellectual, or political power. Beliefs and practices inherited from paganism and often categorized as belonging to the field of magic, or folktale-like manifestations of unconstrained fictionality were the target of strict castigations on the part of representatives of official religion. It is mainly by means of such ideologically and politically charged approaches to fictionality that this acquired the status also of a socio-ethical rather than a merely narratological/literary category.

4

Conclusion

By way of a brief and tentative conclusion, I would like to stress the importance of phantasia for the development of the discursive and broader conceptual patterns that contributed to the exploitation of modes of fictionality in late antique and early Byzantine Christian contexts. Phantasia, which had a liminal status already in ancient Greek psychology (I mean its status as a cognitive 68 69 70

Rallis & Potlis (1852: 452); Balsamon also refers to those authors’ fabrication of ‘false and bizarre’ accounts (συνεπλάσαντό τινα ψευδῆ καὶ ἀλλόκοτα; ibid. 453). Rallis & Potlis (1852: 453); cf. Roilos (2005: 77). Comparable is the attitude of the official Church toward ambiguous manifestations of sainthood such as the behaviour of monks who simulated the manners of holy fools. Canon 60 of the Council in Trullo had already condemned those Christians who pretended to be possessed by the devil; commenting on this Canon, Balsamon refers to the case of a certain Staurikios Oxeobaphos, who pretended to be a fool (PG 137.716); see discussion in Magdalino (1981: 59–60).

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‘movement’ mediating between aisthēsis and thought; ‘low’ sensory processes and ‘high’ intellectual ones; bodily immediacy and cerebral abstraction), not rarely functioned as a mediatory/liminal cognitive category also in late antique and Byzantine Christian discourses that allowed pre-Christian conceptualizations of truth and fictionality/fabrication to transgress discursive and cultural boundaries and to infiltrate the works of Christian authors, including hagiographers. The potential discursive liberty provided by those conceptualizations contributed to authors’ manipulation of widely accepted synchronic criteria of vraisemblance,71 which promoted an ‘epistemology of faith’ and allowed considerable interpenetration between the real, the miraculous, and the believable fictional.72

Bibliography Alwis, A. 2011. Celibate Marriages in Late Antique and Byzantine Hagiography: The Lives of Saints Julian and Basilissa, Andronikos and Athanasia, and Galaktion and Episteme (London). Beck, H.-G. 1977. Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich). Bonnet, E. (ed.), in R.A. Lipsius & E. Bonnet (eds.) 1891–1903, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, vol. 1–2.2 (Leipzig). Borret, M. (ed.) 1967. Origène, Contre Celse (Paris). Bovon, F. 1999. ‘Byzantine Witnesses for the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles’, in F. Bovon et al. (eds.), The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (Cambridge, MA), 87–98. Brakke, D. 2006. Demons and the Making of the Monk (Cambridge, MA). Chadwick, H. (transl.) 1953. Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge). Chadwick, H. 1966. Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition (Oxford). Culler, J. 1975. Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca, NY). Danielou, J. (ed.) 1968. Grégoire de Nysse: La vie de Moïse, 3rd ed. (Paris). Delehaye, H. (ed.) 1923. Les saints stylites (Brussels). Detoraki, M. 2014. ‘Greek Passions of the Martyrs in Byzantium’, in S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, Volume ii: Genres and Contexts (Farnham), 61–101. 71

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I refer here to the first three types of Jonathan Culler’s fivefold schema of vraisemblance: ‘the real world’, ‘a general cultural text’, ‘texts or conventions of a genre, a specifically literary and artificial vraisemblance’; see Culler (1975: 140). This chapter was completed in the summer of 2019. It is based on research partially supported by a Loeb Faculty Research Grant from the Department of the Classics, Harvard University. I dedicate this chapter to Hélène Glykatzi Ahrweiler, dearest mentor and friend.

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Dickie, M. 1999. ‘Narrative-Patterns in Christian Hagiography’, GRBS 40, 83–98. Dressel, A.R.M. (ed.) 1873. Clementinorum epitomae duae, 2nd ed. (Leipzig). Duffy, J. (ed.) 1992. Michaelis Pselli philosophica minora (Leipzig). Eustratiades, S. (ed.) 1906. Μιχαὴλ τοῦ Γλυκᾶ: Εἰς τὰς ἀπορίας τῆς Θείας Γραφῆς (Athens). Ferri, S. (ed.) 1931. ‘Il Bios e il Martyrion di Hypatios di Gangrai’, in S.G. Mercati (ed.), Studi bizantini e neoellenici iii (Rome), 71–103. Festugière, A.-J. (ed.) 1971. Historia monachorum in Aegypto (Brussels). Fisher, E. (ed.) 1994. Michael Psellus, Orationes hagiographicae (Stuttgart). Frede, D. 1995. ‘The Cognitive Role of Phantasia in Aristotle’, in M. Nussbaum & A.O.Rorty (eds.), Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima (Oxford), 279–296. Görgemanns, H. & Karpp, H. (eds.) 1976. Origenes vier Bücher von den Prinzipien (Darmstadt). Hägg, T. 1999. ‘Photius as a Reader of Hagiography: Selection and Criticism’, DOP 53, 43–58. Halkin, F. (ed.) 1982. ‘Le corpus athénien de saint Pachome’, CO 2, 73–93. Hero, A.C. (transl.) 1996. ‘Life of St. Theoktiste of Lesbos’, in A.-M. Talbot (ed.), Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation (Washington, DC), 101– 116. Ioannou, T. (ed.) 1884. Μνημεῖα ἁγιολογικά (Venice). Johnson, S.F. 2006. ‘Late Antique Narrative Fiction: Apocryphal Acta and the Greek Novel in the Fifth-Century Life and Miracles of Thekla’, in S.F. Johnson (ed.), Greek Literature in Late Antiquity: Dynamism, Didacticism, Classicism (Aldershot), 189– 207. Jones, C.P. 1986. Culture and Society in Lucian (Cambridge, MA). Jones, C.P. (ed.) 2005. Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana, vol. 3 (Cambridge, MA). Kazhdan, A. 1995. ‘Holy and Unholy Miracle Workers’, in H. Maguire (ed.), Byzantine Magic (Washington, DC), 73–82. Kazhdan, A. 1999. A History of Byzantine Literature, vol. 1 (Athens). Kee, H.C. 1983. Miracle in the Early Christian World (New Haven). Koetschau, P. (ed.) 1899. Origenes, Werke, vol. 2 (Leipzig). Kouli, M. (transl.) 1996. ‘Life of St. Mary of Egypt’, in A.-M. Talbot (ed.), Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation (Washington, DC), 70–93. Krumbacher, K. 1911. Der heilige Georg in der griechischen Überlieferung (Munich). Le Goff, J. 1988. ‘The Marvelous in the Medieval West’, in J. Le Goff (ed.), Medieval Imagination (Chicago), 27–44. Magdalino, P. 1981. ‘The Byzantine Holy Man in the Twelfth Century’, in S. Hackel (ed.), The Byzantine Saint (London), 51–66. Magoulias, H.J. 1967. ‘The Lives of Byzantine Saints as Sources for the History of Magic in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries A.D.: Sorcery, Relics and Icons’, Byzantion 37, 228– 269.

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Mathews, C.R. 1999. ‘Articulate Animals: A Multivalent Motif in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles’, in F. Bovon et al. (eds.), The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (Cambridge, MA), 205–232. Mau, J. & Mutschmann, H. (eds.) 1914. Sexti Empirici opera, vol. 2 (Leipzig). Meslin, M. 1984. Le Merveilleux: L’imaginaire et les croyances en Occident (Paris). Messis, C. 2014. ‘Fiction and/or Novelisation in Byzantine Hagiography’, in S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, Volume ii: Genres and Contexts (Farnham), 313–341. Moss, J. 2012. Aristotle on the Apparent Good: Perception, Phantasia, Thought, and Desire (Oxford). Papadopoulos-Kerameus, A. 1884. Μάρκου Εὐγενικοῦ συγγραμάτια διάφορα (Constantinople). Paschalides, S.A. 1999. Νικήτας Δαβίδ Παφλαγών: Το πρόσωπο και το έργο του. Συμβολή στη μελέτη της προσωπογραφίας και της αγιολογικής γραμματείας της προμεταφραστικής περιόδου (Thessaloniki). Pervo, R. 1987. Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia). Pitra, J.B. (ed.) 1858. Spicilegium Solesmense, vol. 4 (Paris). Patlagean, E. 1991. ‘Remarques sur la diffusion et la production des apocryphes dans le monde byzantin’, Apocrypha 2, 155–163. Poirion, D. 1982. Le Merveilleux dans la littérature française du Moyen Age (Paris). Pruche, B. (ed.) 1968. Basile de Césarée: Sur le Saint-Esprit, 2nd ed. (Paris). Radermacher, L. (ed.) 1927. Griechische Quellen zur Faustsage: der Zauberer Cyprianus, die Erzählung des Helladius, Theophilus (Vienna). Rallis, G. & Potlis, M. (eds.) 1852. Σύνταγμα τῶν ἱερῶν καὶ θείων κανόνων, vol. 2 (Athens). Robinson, J.A. (ed.) 1893. The Philocalia of Origen (Cambridge). Roilos, P. 2005. Amphoteroglossia: A Poetics of the Twelfth-Century Medieval Greek Novel (Washington, DC & Cambridge, MA). Roilos, P. 2014. ‘Phantasia and the Ethics of Fictionality in Byzantium: A Cognitive Anthropological Approach’, in P. Roilos (ed.), Medieval Greek Storytelling: Fictionality and Narrative in Byzantium (Wiesbaden), 9–30. Roilos, P. forthcoming. Byzantine Imaginaries: A Cognitive Historical Anthropology of Medieval Greek Phantasia. Rydén, L. 1981. ‘The Holy Fool’, in S. Hackel (ed.), The Byzantine Saint (London), 106– 116. Rydén, L. 2002. ‘Fiction and Reality in the Hagiographer’s Self-Presentation’, in Mélanges Gilbert Dagron (Paris), 547–552. Schäferdiek, K. 1989. ‘Die Leukios Charinos zugeschriebene manichäische Sammlung apokrypher Apostelgeschichten’, in W. Schneemelcher (ed.), Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, 5th ed. (Tübingen), 81–93.

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Schwartz, E. (ed.) 1939. Kyrillos von Skythopolis (Leipzig). Sedley, D. 2002. ‘Zeno’s definition of phantasia kataleptike’, in T. Scaltsas & A.S. Mason (eds.), The Philosophy of Zeno: Zeno of Citium and His Legacy (Larnaca), 135–154. Söder, R. 1932. Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und die romanhafte Literatur der Antike (Stuttgart). Spittler, J. 2008. Animals in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: The Wild Kingdom of Early Christian Literature (Tübingen). Thomas, C. 2003. The Acts of Peter, Gospel Literature, and the Ancient Novel (Oxford). Watson, G. 1988. Phantasia in Classical Thought (Galway). Westerink, L.G. 1973. Nicetas Magistros, Lettres d’un exilé (928–946) (Paris). Yatromanolakis, D. 2004. ‘Ritual Poetics in Archaic Lesbos: Contextualizing Genre in Sappho’, in D. Yatromanolakis & P. Roilos (eds.), Greek Ritual Poetics (Washington, DC), 56–70. Yatromanolakis, D. 2007. Sappho in the Making: The Early Reception (Washington, DC & Cambridge, MA).

chapter 3

From Cyclops to Unicorn: Fiction and the New Communitas of Middle Byzantine Hagiography Christian Høgel

In the Life of Basil the Younger, probably written around the middle of the tenth century, appears an episode which may seem of minor importance in the Life, but which in its narrative form and perspective, as well as in its staging of imperial and saintly roles, encompasses the themes that will be of importance in this study.1 After telling of Basil’s arrival in Constantinople (no account is given of his origin or early life), of his involvement with imperial persons and with many others, and after displaying exuberantly his gift of clairvoyance or simple foresight, the narrator—Gregory—suddenly becomes a character in his own narrative. Becoming a real person—rather than an anonymous voice— Gregory discloses to us in detail how he met the saint, and how he experienced subsequent meetings and surprising predictions from him. On one of these occasions Gregory has gone to pay the saint a visit, and the narration of this is the scene in focus here, ch. i.45, which goes as follows: Another time when I went to the saint, I found there a visitor who was conversing with him in riddles. For his mind was deranged, since the dark demons were deceiving him into thinking that he was destined to become emperor in this God-protected city, as I understood finally from his conversation. The blessed man wished to convince him that his aim was futile, so that the man might desist from it and cleave closely to the Lord with all his heart. Looking up at me sitting near him, the holy man stared intently for a long time. For he usually had a kindly look in his eyes, as he always had them fixed without distraction on the heavenly and divine things. While he gazed at me intently, as mentioned, my heart was filled with a divine fire which instilled in it joy and happiness and incomprehensible exaltation. I immediately opened my mouth and began to converse with his visitor, saying not what I knew (for I had never before seen the man), but what that divine fire suggested to my heart. For a long

1 Text and translation are found in Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath (2014). On its date, see 7–11.

© Christian Høgel, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004685758_004

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time therefore I talked with him about what he had done since his youth and about his goal of becoming emperor, and he listened to me amazed in deep silence and attention. I told him not to aspire to be an earthly emperor, for such an aim comes not from God, but from the wiliness of demons. ‘You ought rather to become a monk and through the fairest asceticism become worthy of the kingdom of heaven. And whenever you come here, you should not stand in a contemptuous manner, but come in fear of God, and on entering prostrate yourself on the ground, and kiss with fervent faith the revered feet of the God-bearing father, so that making supplication to the Lord on your behalf he may facilitate your progress to Him.’ When I advanced these and many other suggestions, the man was pierced through by divine grace and began to moisten his face with tears. Contemplating my words he groaned deeply within and was beside himself with astonishment. When I arose to depart from there, he too arose and followed behind me. After catching up with me at the phiale of the church of the Archangel there, he earnestly entreated me to explain to him more clearly my previous recommendations. But as the grace had departed from me, I forgot even what I had just told him. I only said to him, ‘Do not be deceived, sir, my brother; I do not know you, nor do I know who you are nor from where, nor do I know what I said to you, but it was our holy father Basil who enigmatically spoke all these words said to you through me. Henceforth, my dear brother, carry out what you have heard and cleave to the Lord with all your soul, abandoning your vain notions for the sake of your well-being both in this present time and in the hereafter. For our father, wishing to correct you because you have faith in him, gave you all this advice through me. It remains for you to do what you wish.’ When that man heard these words, he embraced me and departed. And to give a brief summary, he became a monk and journeyed to a rugged mountain near Nikomedia, where he practiced the contemplative life all the rest of his days as a solitary in a very small hut. He used to visit the city once every three years and obtain the blessings of the honored old man, and then return to his cell, giving thanks to God and the holy father and to me the least of all men and a sinner, since with the help of the Lord and our joint efforts he obtained the divine habit and enjoyed the fairest contemplative life and was numbered among the saved. His name was Kosmas.2

2 Transl. Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath (2014: 159–163); for the Greek text, see my appendix below.

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Gregory, our humble narrator, thus becomes the medium of salvation of poor deranged Kosmas, even if insisting that the words spoken only came from Basil, the protagonist saint. Gregory’s participation in the small miracle is, however, in the Life soon to be followed up by his own visions, which over long passages will take the reader past heavenly toll-stations of the vices into paradise, the celestial Jerusalem, the preparation of the throne of God, and a witnessing of the resurrection of the dead. Gregory feels justified in narrating these visions since Basil has insisted he should do so.3 Nevertheless, this acquiring of healing powers and prophetic gifts is surprising when surfacing in a person, Gregory, who seems to be a sort of secular celibate, living with a spiritual brother (or more) near the Forum Bovis in Constantinople, and who is the owner of a (probably modest) estate in Rhaidestos.4 Scholars have questioned whether this narrator/writer called Gregory, and in fact the whole story of Basil, is simply a fiction, and certain anti-clerical stances in the text may suggest that the producer of the text would prefer to remain unknown.5 Still, one important aspect of the narrative construct (based on whatever reality) is the strong participation of the secular author/narrator in visions and miracles, as well as in the writing of a saint’s Life. Another prominent aspect of the quoted episode is the multi-faceted narrative perspective. We see the narrator arriving, overhearing the deranged guest talk of his imperial ambitions, and observing how the saintly person perhaps initially makes some attempt to guide the poor man but soon distracts himself from the scene, gazing. And it is this gaze, now directed at our narrator, that animates him. The sequence is then told very much from the narrator’s perspective. He does not know the visitor, only gradually understands his condition, and is at first ready to give advice. When Gregory leaves, the stranger also leaves and like a bur catches up with him at a place in the city that is pointed out, at the phiale, or fountain in the forecourt, of the church of the Archangel. Here, as in many other stories in the Life of Basil the Younger, locations in the city are made explicit, often with apparently no symbolic reason other than mapping the city, even if Basil’s initial entry into the city mirrors that of a triumphal adventus (ch. i.10). The city has become a landscape of importance in

3 The two long visions take up sections ii, iv and v of the altogether six sections into which the Life is subdivided in the edition of Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath. For Basil’s prediction, or injunction, that Gregory will write his Life and his own visions: Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath (2014: 276). 4 See Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath (2014: 15–19). 5 On the implicit criticism, see Magdalino (1999: 93–96).

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itself, and the urban setting has become the locus of the coincidental meeting.6 The narration further develops this feature of coincidence by making agency hard to determine (Gregory is suddenly transformed from onlooker to main participant in the Life; Basil transfers speech through his gaze; Kosmas is active in catching up with Gregory in the street). A third aspect that meets our eyes from the start is the imperial ambition. Kosmas wants to become an emperor. Some persons of humble origin certainly managed to rise to the Byzantine throne. It is nevertheless almost comic to witness Kosmas’ visit to Basil with this aim. At the same time, the whole Life is set as a sort of counter-Life to that of the emperor Basil i, whose dynastic worries concerning his sons are narrated in ch. i.3, right after the first introduction of Basil, the saint. Saint Basil not only shares his name with the emperor; echoes may actually be heard of the almost saintly version of the emperor’s life narrated in the Life of Basil, also written around the mid-tenth century.7 A strong interest in imperial power, so intimately connected with issues as justice and legitimate power, is not uncommon in hagiography, but the open discussion of which roles to adopt, even if concerning a purportedly demented person, is new, as is the direct correlation of the choice of becoming emperor with that of becoming monk and worthy of a different and more celestial kingdom. Despite saint Basil’s stays at various houses of influential people, he clearly constructs no institutional sphere around himself; his presence is in the city, with coincidental meetings. The writing of saints’ Lives was commonly done to promote or consolidate cult, with which we may primarily understand liturgical commemoration, but also to retain some of the blessings and activities that had accrued in a certain place. It therefore seems surprising that Gregory, later in the text, is quite frank with how disconnected he was from the death scene and burial of Basil.8 Also, a number of chronological inconsistencies offer room for doubt.9 All this has added to the conviction that the story is fundamentally fictitious. But how much, then, is fiction? Inconsistencies could be the result of a lack of precision, and the fact that neither saint nor author is mentioned elsewhere for at least a century may only mean that little atten-

6 Magdalino (1999: 87–88); Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath (2014: 21–22). 7 See Magdalino (1999: 108–110), who suggests that the recurrence of the name Basil can depend on either the birth of the future Basil ii in 958, or on the powerful Basil the Parakoimomenos being the commissioner of the text (or both). On the patronage, see also Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath (2014: 11). 8 See the intricate narrative in ch. iv.15–21 (Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath 2014: 726–740). 9 Rydén (1995: 571–577); and Magdalino (1999: 89–91).

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tion was paid to them, or that the evidence has been lost. In any case, we need to be clear whether we are searching for factual information of value for historical research, or whether, by deeming a piece of hagiography fictitious—or rather, fictional—, we ascribe it to a sphere where authors and audience accepted less than factual information, e.g. welcoming a story that even if simply invented is found pleasant, morally valuable, or at least convincing enough to be included in the hagiographical discourse. Byzantine hagiography is elusive; we do not find any precise criteria for acknowledging texts, and many texts would circulate with unclear status.10 In terms of take on reality, the Life of Basil the Younger seems mostly to want to convince its reader through being all-inclusive, by offering visions plus miracles, and not least in taking a secular narrative perspective, unconnected to any religious institution or by being in some sort of vague opposition to contemporary church authorities.11 To further discuss these four issues—secular propensity, multi-faceted narrative perspective, imperial interests, and fictional saints—each of them will be taken under separate and wider consideration in the perspective of tenthcentury Byzantium, with a few explorations into the eleventh century. Other hagiographical writings from the period will serve as support and parallels, primarily hagiographical collections (the Synaxarion and the Metaphrastic mēnologion), the Life of Theoktiste, the Life of Andrew the Fool, as well as the Life of Barlaam and Ioasaph.

1

Secular Perspectives on Hagiography

It has been stated that the secular status of our author/narrator Gregory is uncommon in Byzantine hagiography,12 but this is to overlook who is gradually gaining control over the religious genre from the middle of the tenth century and well into the eleventh. With the composition of the Synaxarion, Evaristos, deacon and librarian, created the first Byzantine collection of saints’ Lives produced under imperial commission, namely at the behest of emperor Constantine vii Porphyrogennetos.13 Constantine had other hagiographical enterprises, not least in taking over the body of texts concerning the translation of

10 11 12 13

Much more scholarship is needed on this, but see Høgel (2002: 36–51). Magdalino (1999: 92–96). Efthymiadis (1996: 63). Luzzi (2014).

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the Mandylion from Edessa, organized by his predecessor and father-in-law, Romanos i Lekapenos.14 But translations of relics had long been an imperial prerogative.15 Less so was the writing—or rewriting—of saints’ Lives. This interest may also have affected Constantine’s wish to have his grandfather Basil I portrayed as basically a saint in the Life of Basil, to which we may believe that the Life of Basil the Younger responded, as stated above. The writing of hagiography by secular authors culminated at the end of the tenth century with the composition of the Metaphrastic mēnologion. Symeon Metaphrastes, as logothetēs tou dromou, a highly placed imperial employee, worked under the commission of Basil ii around the 980’s, though later falling from grace.16 In the beginning of the eleventh century imperial mēnologia and also the so-called Mēnologion of Basil ii, which may better be characterized as an illuminated synaxarion, display the clear secular and imperial imprint on, if not control over, the whole genre.17 But the starting point of this secularization of Byzantine hagiography seems in general to go back to the reign of Constantine vii Porphyrogennetos. In this period (more specifically the years of full rulership 945–959ce) appeared the Synaxarion by Evaristos, possibly both the Life of Basil the Younger and of Andrew the Fool (more on this below), but also, it seems, the Life of Theoktiste.18 Written by Niketas Magistros, the loyal brother-in-arms of emperor Romanos i Lekapenos, this text also strikes us as written by a most secular person. If adopting a late date, Niketas may have written it after being forced into adopting the monastic habit and living in seclusion on one of his estates near the Marmara Sea.19 If so, Niketas was actually a monk when composing the text and not a secular person, and this of course calls into question what we mean by secular writers. To assess this, we may take a look at another example of a most secular writer of hagiography. The court rhetor and polyhistor Michael Psellos wrote his Life of Auxentios when forced into exile from court and becoming a monk.20 But Psellos, as many others, was able to return from this monastic exile and return to the secular circles of the capital, and we therefore have to be care14

15 16 17 18 19 20

We still lack a general survey of the collected hagiographical production under Constantine vii. See e.g. Efthymiadis (2011: ch. 3, ‘Hagiography from the ‘Dark Age’ to the Age of Symeon Metaphrastes’), who separates the writing of Lives of new saints from rewriting. On imperial translation of relics, see Klein (2006). Høgel (2002). On these, see D’Aiuto (2013 and 2008). The Mēnologion of Basil ii is also found online: http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1613/. Edition: Delehaye (1925). English translation: Hero (1996). This is argued in Høgel (2018). Kazhdan (1983).

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ful when distinguishing between secular and non-secular authors. In any case, secular authorship of hagiography first made its appearance, and seems to have abounded, in tenth-century Byzantium. The secular propensity in the Life of Basil the Younger is therefore part of a general trend. This trend included secular authors, in some cases clearly appearing through imperial support, and in the case of Basil and his secular author/narrator Gregory this is further stressed through some sort of (soft) opposition to religious institutions.

2

The Multi-Faceted Perspective and the Urban Setting

In the Life of Basil the Younger, our narrator Gregory employs narrative tension, based on his own participation in depicting scenes that has ultimately brought him from secular to saintly spheres. This happens in a very urban setting. A similar tension, but now in a very provincial and almost non-urban setting, takes place in the more or less contemporaneous Life of Theoktiste, which definitely here paves new ground for the composition of Byzantine hagiography. The Life of Theoktiste introduces a secular author/narrator, an envoy of Leo vi to the Cretan Arabs during the campaigns of general Himerios around the year 911. In this case, narrative multiplicity is achieved by having a row of subordinate narrators take over, so that finally the saint herself is able to narrate her own story as the fourth subordinate narrator (telling her story to a hunter, whose words are included in the account that a monk/priest Symeon gives to our primary narrator).21 This Chinese box narration not only allows for variation and change of perspective (as well as less commitment to factual truth). It also gives two very secular narrators important positions: the primary narrator, who in all details seem to match those of Niketas Magistros, the author; and the hunter, whose bumpkin approach to saintliness allows the story to speak of gain, thematically combining the hunter’s search for prey with the primary narrator’s claim that his story will convey reward. But the perfect blend of secular and holy is perceived in the central character, Symeon, ascetic and priest, who despite appearing first to Niketas and his fellows as an almost monstrous Cyclops, soon turns out to be a kindly narrator of holy tales, set among the devastated church on Paros.22

21 22

See Nilsson (2010) on the levels of narration in the Life of Theoktiste. Niketas actually copied the basic story of Theoktiste from the Life of Mary of Egypt, a fact that most contemporary readers and listeners must have recognized. On the many literary allusions and intertextuality, including Homeric, found in the story, see the close analysis offered by Jazdzewska (2009).

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If the Life of Theoktiste offers narrative variety and subordination far beyond anything formerly known in Byzantine hagiography but only in far-off and idyllically painted Paros, the Life of Andrew the Fool, probably also written close in time to the Life of Basil the Younger, has an urban aspect in common with this.23 Andrew’s performance as holy fool takes place in various named and unnamed places of the capital, where he is found lying in the streets and porticos (e.g. ii.97). In the well-known scene where he relieves himself behind a tavern in front of passers-by (ii.95), we see another example of how the saint roams the urban landscape in his very own way, and we soon hear how he receives beatings and various reactions from passers-by, quoted in direct speech. This attempt to stage the saint’s urban context is not the only point of similarity with the Life of Basil the Younger. Rydén has a whole list of parallels:24 the texts do not offer any family background for any of the saints; Basil also occasionally acts as a holy fool, in the manner of Symeon; they both share an involvement with the rich and influential; and both have rich apocalyptic visions. Rydén adds that Andrew also bears close resemblances to the emperor Basil i, as we saw Basil the Younger did. Rydén concludes that the authors of the two Lives came from the same milieu and wrote at the same time, making it perhaps pertinent to ask whether they were not one and the same author.25 In any case, they share the use of multiple voices and a very urban setting, with the protagonist almost continuously on the move.

3

Imperial Power

The deep interest in discussing, if not even in usurping, imperial power, which we witnessed in Kosmas’ talk with Basil and Gregory, shows how connected to empire the hagiographical genre had become by the mid-tenth century. We listed above the many hagiographical initiatives taken by emperors, beginning with Constantine vii Porphyrogennetos, with the clearest new development being the imperial intervention into the field of hagiographical collections. But the mechanisms in this imperial glory may have reached beyond the ruling families. The Metaphrastic collection was, at least from the middle of the eleventh century, to be produced for a larger, probably aristocratic audience. This we may infer from the simple fact that hundreds of volumes of this collection are 23 24 25

A clear parallel is found in Andrew’s visit to the house of the father of Epiphanios (Rydén 1995: i.78–80). Rydén (1995: i.53–54). See also Magdalino (1999: 96–97).

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extant, and few others than the rich could afford to buy them. The phenomenon can hardly be seen as disconnected from the contended rise in private religious institutions, leading to the controversy over the charistikē system.26 Certain hagiographical Lives, such as the Life of Eudokimos, clearly support aristocratic houses.27 We know that the aristocrat Eustathios Boilas had three volumes of the Metaphrastic mēnologion among his earthly possessions.28 At his death an estate of his was to be converted into a monastery, and bequeathing his books and other valuables to this meant that his family members would have access to them and perhaps even find a financial safeguard through it. In the mass production of liturgical manuscripts, not least mēnologia, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, we see a meeting of imperial glory (the editorial origin of the collection), aristocratic interests (the commissioners and buyers of the manuscripts), and a (possibly private) monastic institutional frame (for which the liturgical texts were destined). We can identify certain protagonists in this aristocratic development, e.g. Paul, the founder of the Evergetis monastery outside Constantinople.29 According to the typikon of this monastery, Metaphrastic texts were to be read throughout the year at orthros service. A sort of imperially sanctioned version of a liturgical text would serve a pious aristocracy. In this way, the imperial origin of the religious literature could be part of a means of exculpating the use of religious institutional frames for partly private aristocratic purposes. Judging from the case of the Life of Basil the Younger, it seems that imperial involvement in the production of hagiography was now paving the way for aristocratic activity in the same sphere. This may have further spurred other secular and aristocratic persons to become active in the hagiographical literary sphere. The production of hagiography was seeping out into a larger part of society. Given the high status that had clearly accrued to hagiography at this point in Byzantine literary history, this need not surprise us, and aristocratic involvement in imperial issues should of course not surprise us in a context where aristocratic families and members would often see themselves as likely heirs to the throne.30

26 27 28 29 30

See Thomas (1987: 149–185). Métivier (2012). Vryonis (1957). Jordan & Morris (2012: 83–89, 217–240). See the chapter on ‘Pratique de la révolte’, in Cheynet (1990: 157–176).

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Fictitious or Fictional Saints

The possible fictitious nature of saints such as Andrew the Fool and Basil the Younger has been much debated, and while some decades ago the scholarly interest was more inclined toward the endeavour to search for historical truth, the tendency is now rather to see the issue within an increasing novelization of hagiography in the middle Byzantine period.31 The latter approach suggests that the possible fictional, rather than fictitious, nature of these large-scale saints’ Lives should be taken into account. Fact and fiction are always difficult terms to handle when dealing with a genre that allows for or, rather, is founded on miracle. But if searching for the origins of not only fictitious (nonexisting but believed by an audience to have existed) but also fictional saints (non-existing and to some degree accepted as such among at least parts of an audience), a good place to look would be the aristocratic milieus of Constantinople and not least those involved in the production of the texts. Among the writers and rewriters of hagiography, of whom some must have known of each other, a common perception of the free working conditions when dealing with the genre must have arisen. The very collation work that went into producing collections such as the Synaxarion or the Metaphrastic mēnologion will have made rewriters and their staff aware of the many inconsistencies between versions and of the substantial reuse that had clearly taken place between various texts. The acknowledgment of this must have led to revealing insights into the mechanisms of the genre. We must therefore suppose that a distinction arose between what these people thought and believed in, and what an ordinary reader or listener would have thought. Perceptions of genre cannot be judged only on the general standards of a given age or culture. A different perception may probably be ascribed to those actually involved in its production. What we witness in the novelization process in Byzantine hagiography could therefore be how aristocratic persons involved in its production were now seeking to balance their search for religious meaning with their ambitions and personal wishes, accommodating new images of life, death and the world beyond with social rules and societal mechanisms that guarded the required consensus. Or, to put it more simply, aristocratic values seem to have been taking some share in hagiography through the direct involvement of enterprising writers, rewriters, and commissioners, who could do this as long as it did not transcend notions of orthodoxy and credence.

31

Mullett (2006) and Messis (2014).

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And these secular/aristocratic writers had success. The Life of Theoktiste may by its immediate audience have been taken to be a charming tale rather than an actual saint’s Life, but it was soon accepted as such, Theoktiste was raised to sainthood, and a short version of her Life included in the Synaxarion. There was an audience for hagiography of high literary quality, and somewhere in the process, saints could be accepted ultimately on this basis. Another example of aristocratic hagiography is the story of Barlaam and Ioasaph, translated in the late tenth century by the Georgian Euthymios the Athonite (or the Iberian).32 Euthymios was part of a new Byzantine aristocratic group, composed of Georgians, that gained influence in Constantinople at the end of the tenth century, mainly through the military support that the Georgian general Tornik offered to Basil ii.33 And it is not only this Georgian background that makes the Barlaam story remarkable. Being originally a Buddha Life that had travelled west through a sequence of translations (and transformations in terms of religious outlook), Euthymios’ translation most definitely presented a new saint to the Greek reading audience. Not only was the story of a slow conversion of a teenage prince a very new feature in Byzantine hagiography, but the many inserted tales, featuring a plethora of animal tales about everything from apes to unicorns, gave enchanting room for literary pleasure. And even if the Buddha may seem to us a historical person, his appearance as Ioasaph to the Greek world would have been as unsupported as that of those saints whose factuality we discuss. Based on the example of Barlaam and Ioasaph, we may conclude that lovely saintly stories, however factually unsupported, had a good chance of getting accepted as long as they were not deemed heretical. Again, we see a phenomenon similar to that observed in the case of the Life of Basil the Younger, namely that aristocratic influence and interests had entered the field of hagiography. And one of the observable features of this new development is the inclusion and dependence on narrative features that would enthral an audience, i.e. on fiction.

5

Conclusion

In the scene from the Life of Basil the Younger with we which we commenced this study, the narrator Gregory became involved in the action through Basil’s gaze. Instead of looking at his interlocutor—the demented Kosmas—Basil

32 33

Volk (2006). Volk (2006: 77–81).

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looked at Gregory with a ‘kindly look in his eyes, as he always had them fixed without distraction on the heavenly and divine things’.34 Though there clearly is a fusion of description taking place here—Basil looks in a friendly manner at Gregory, and this friendliness comes from usually gazing at the divine—a sharper thread of action suggests itself: Basil empowers Gregory with some divine energy, which is why Gregory’s ‘heart was filled with a divine fire’, leading to ‘joy, happiness and incomprehensible exaltation’.35 The aristocratic narrator receives a saintly gift, and all this takes place at the house of Constantine, who we are told had a high position as primikērios at court.36 Gregory—whether in any way displaying true features of the unknown author of the Life of Basil the Younger or not—generally reflects the aristocratic interests that now went into the production of Byzantine hagiography, with a propensity for city life, an interest in saintly interactions with aristocrats, listening to persons who presented themselves as pretenders to the throne—a feature also often related to aristocracy. Whether purely fictitious or reflecting some original features, Gregory is also the type of author/narrator who would acknowledge that the position of author or rewriter allowed for substantial intervention in the text. When the author of the Life of Andrew the Fool decided to have his autograph—this is the opinion of Rydén37—written out in majuscules to make the text look as old as it was supposed to be, he was either committing a fraud or addressing a very delicate literary taste. And whoever copied whom, either the writer of this text or that of Basil the Younger must have been able to see that more constructs could be made.38 With the many points in common between these writings of secularly oriented, large-scale, encyclopaedic, narratively multi-faceted, imperially aristocratic hagiography, all these writers seem to be in some sort of close discussion, if not with each other, then at least with an awareness of each other, and of the basic rules of the genre. And in the late tenth century and well into the eleventh this included a suitability for a new educated and aristocratic audience, who could use and enjoy the many possibilities offered by a genre halfway between secular and holy that offered what we may see as fictitious features from Cyclops to unicorn, but who were ultimately guided towards employing a genre for purposes 34 35

36 37 38

Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath (2014: 158–159): ‘Ἦν γὰρ καὶ τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς εὐμενῶς βλέπων, ὡς ἀεὶ πρὸς τὰ ἄνω καὶ θεῖα ἀμετεωρίστους τούτους ἔχων’. Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath (2014: 158–159): ‘Ὡς οὖν εἴρηται, ἀτενῶς πρός με βλέποντος, ἐπλήσθη ἡ καρδία μου θείου τινὸς πυρὸς στάζοντος ἐν αὐτῃ χαρὰν καὶ εὐφροσύνην καὶ ἀγαλλίασιν ἀνερμήνευτον’. See text and notes in Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath (2014: 117–119). Rydén (1995: i.49–50). See Magdalino (1999: 100), speaking of co-ordinated authorship.

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somewhere between their own interests and more general demands prescribed by established generic notions and institutions.39

Appendix: Life of Basil the Younger Ch. 45 (Sullivan, Talbot & McGrath 2014: 158–162) Ἄλλοτε δέ ποτε πορευθέντος μου πρὸς τὸν ἅγιον, εὗρον ἐκεῖσέ τινα πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐληλυθότα καὶ παραβολικῶς αὐτῷ ὁμιλοῦντα. Οἱ γὰρ λογισμοὶ αὐτοῦ παρετράπησαν τῶν ζοφερῶν δαιμόνων ἐξαπατῶντων αὐτόν, ὅτι βασιλεῦσαι αὐτῷ πρόκειται ἐν τῇ θεοφυλάκτῳ ταύτῃ πόλει, ὡς ἐπὶ τέλους ἐκ τῆς ὁμιλίας αὐτοῦ συνῆκα. Ὁ οὖν μακάριος, βουλόμενος αὐτὸν πληροφορῆσαι ὅτι ματαίος αὐτοῦ ἐστιν ὁ σκόπος, ἵνα ἀποστῇ ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ ὅλῃ καρδίᾳ προσκολληθήσεται τῷ Κυρίῳ, ἀναβλέψας πρός με πλησίον αὐτοῦ καθεζόμενον ἐπὶ πολλὴν ὥραν ἀτενῶς ἑώρα. Ἦν γὰρ καὶ τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς εὐμενῶς βλέπων, ὡς ἀεὶ πρὸς τὰ ἄνω καὶ θεῖα ἀμετεωρίστους τούτους ἔχων. Ὡς οὖν εἴρηται, ἀτενῶς πρός με βλέποντος, ἐπλήσθη ἡ καρδία μου θείου τινὸς πυρὸς στάζοντος ἐν αὐτῇ χαρὰν καὶ εὐφροσύνην καὶ ἀγαλλίασιν ἀνερμήνευτον. Εὐθέως οὖν ἀνεῳχθέντος μου τοῦ στόματος, ἠρξάμην ὁμιλεῖν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἐκείνῳ, λέγων οὐχ ἅπερ ἐγίνωσκον (οὐδέπω γὰρ ἤμην αὐτὸν θεασάμενος), ἀλλ᾽ ἅπερ ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ μου τὸ πῦρ ἐκεῖνο τὸ θεῖον ὑπετίθετο. Ἐπὶ πολλὴν τοιγαροῦν ὥραν ἅπερ ἐκ νεότητος αὐτοῦ εἰργάσατο καὶ περὶ τοῦ σκοποῦ αὐτοῦ ὃν εἶχε περὶ τῆς βασιλείας διαλεχθέντος μου αὐτῷ, ἐν σιωπῇ μεγίστῃ καὶ προσοχῇ θαυμάζων ἐπηκροᾶτό μου. Εἴρηκα δὲ αὐτῷ μὴ ἔχειν καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν σκοπὸν βασιλεῦσαι ἐν τῇ γῇ· οὐ γάρ ἐστι ἐκ Θεοῦ ὁ τοιοῦτος σκοπός, αλλ᾽ ἐκ δαιμόνων μεθοδείας. ‘Ὀφείλεις δὲ μᾶλλον γενέσθαι μοναχὸς καὶ διὰ τῆς καλλίστης ἀσκήσεως τῆς τῶν οὐρανῶν βασιλείας ἀξιωθῆναι· ὁπόταν δὲ ἥκῃς ἐνθάδε, οὐκ ὀφείλεις καταφρονητικῶς ἵστασθαι, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν φόβῳ Θεοῦ παραγίνεσθαι, καὶ εἰσερχόμενος πρηνῆ ῥίπτειν ἑαυτὸν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, καὶ τὰ τιμία ἴχνη τοῦ θεοφόρου πάτρος ἐν πίστει θέρμῃ κατασπάζεσθαι, ὅπως ὑπέρ σου πρὸς Κύριον τὴν ἱκεσίαν προσάγων εὐοδώσῃ σου τὰ πρὸς Αὐτὸν διαβήματα.’ Ταῦτα καὶ ἕτερα πλεῖστα προδιαλεχθέντος μου, κατανυγεὶς ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὑπὸ τῆς θείας χάριτος δάκρυσιν ἤρξατο βρέχειν τὸ πρόσωπον. Καὶ ἐν ἑαυτῷ περιστρέφων τὰ παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ ῥηθέντα, ἔστενε ἐκ βαθέων καὶ ἐξίστατο ἐκπληττόμενος. Ἀναστάντος δέ μου τοῦ πορευθήναι ἐκεῖθεν, ἀναστὰς καὶ αὐτὸς ἠκολούθησέ μοι κατόπιν. Καὶ ἐν τῇ φιάλῃ τοῦ ἐκεῖσε ναοῦ τοῦ Ἀρχανγγέλου φθάσας με, ἐξελιπάρει σαφέστερον εἰρηκέναι αὐτῷ περὶ ὧν προενουθέτησα αὐτόν. Ἐγὼ δὲ τῆς χάριτος ἀπαρθείσης ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ καὶ τῶν πρώην παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ ῥηθέντων αὐτῷ ἐπελαθόμην. Τοῦτο δὲ μόνον εἴρηκα αὐτῷ· ‘Μὴ ἀπατήθῃς, κῦρι ἀδελφέ· ἐγὼ οὐ γινώ-

39

On aristocratic values in tenth-century hagiography, see further Magdalino (1999: 106– 108); and in general, Cheynet (1990).

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σκω σε, οὐδὲ συνίημι τίς καὶ πόθεν εἶ, οὔτε τί σοι εἴρηκα ἐπίσταμαι, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ ὅσιος πατὴρ ἡμῶν Βασίλειος τὰ λαληθέντα πάντα δι᾽ ἐμοῦ σοι ᾐνίξατο. Τὸ λοιπόν, ἀγαπητέ μου, ἅπερ ἀκήκοας ἐπιτέλεσον καὶ προσκολλήθητι τῷ Κυρίῳ ὁλοψύχως, τὰς ματαίας σου ἐνθυμήσεις καταλείψας ἵνα εὖ σοι γένηται καὶ ἐν τῷ νῦν αἰῶνι καὶ ἐν τῷ μέλλοντι. Ὁ γὰρ πατὴρ ἡμῶν θέλων σε διορθώσασθαι ἀνθ᾽ ὧν κέκτησαι πίστιν πρὸς αὐτὸν, πάντα ταῦτα δι᾽ ἐμοῦ σοι νενουθέτηκε. Σὸν οὖν ἐστι το λοιπὸν ὃ βούλει πράττειν.’ Ταῦτα ἐκεῖνος ἐνωτισάμενος, ἀσπασάμενος με ἀνακεχώρηκε. Καὶ ἵνα συνελὼν εἴπω συντόμως γέγονε μοναχὸς, καὶ πορευθεὶς ἐν ὄρει τινὶ δυσβάτῳ πλησίον Νικομηδείας, κἀκεῖσε μονάσας ἐν στενωτάτῃ καλύβῃ τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον τῆς ζωῆς αὐτοῦ ἡσύχασε. Κατήρχετο δὲ καὶ εἰς τὴν πόλιν κατὰ τρεῖς ἐνιαυτοὺς ἅπαξ καὶ ἐκομίζετο τὰς τοῦ τιμίου γέροντος εὐχάς, καὶ οὕτως ἀνεχώρει εἰς τὴν καλύβαν αὐτοῦ εὐχαριστῶν τῷ Θεῷ καὶ τῷ ἁγίῳ πατρί, κἀμοὶ τῷ ἐλαχίστῳ καὶ ἁμαρτωλῷ, ὡς τῇ τοῦ Κυρίου βοηθείᾳ καὶ τῇ ἡμῶν συνεργίᾳ τοῦ θείου τετυχηκὼς σχήματος καὶ τῆς καλλίστης ἡσυχίας ἀπολαύσας καὶ τῇ τῶν σωζομένων μερίδι συναριθμηθείς. Κοσμᾶς δὲ ἦν αὐτῷ τὸ ὄνομα.

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getis, Constantinople (11th–12th Centuries): Introduction, Translation and Commentary (London). Kazhdan, A. 1983. ‘Hagiographical Notes: An Attempt at Hagio-autobiography: The Pseudo-Life of “Saint” Psellus?’, Byzantion 55, 546–556. Klein, H.A. 2006. ‘Sacred Relics and Imperial Ceremonies at the Great Palace of Constantinople’, in F.A. Bauer (ed.), Visualisierungen von Herrschaft (Istanbul), 79–99. Luzzi, A. 2014. ‘Synaxaria and the Synaxarion of Constantinople’, in S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, Volume ii: Genres and Contexts (Farnham), 197–208. Magdalino, P. 1999. ‘“What We Heard in the Lives of the Saints We Have Seen with Our Own Eyes”: The Holy Man as Literary Text in Tenth-Century Constantinople’, in J. Howard-Johnston & P.A. Hayward (ed.), The Cult of the Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (Oxford), 83– 112. Messis, C. 2014. ‘Fiction and/or Novelisation in Byzantine Hagiography’, in S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, Volume ii: Genres and Contexts (Farnham), 313–341. Métivier, S. 2012. ‘Aristocrate et saint, le cas d’Eudokimos’, in B. Caseau (ed.), Les réseaux familiaux: Antiquité tardive et moyen âge. In memoriam A. Laiou et E. Patlagean (Paris), 95–112. Mullett, M. 2006. ‘Novelisation in Byzantium: Narrative after the Revival of Fiction’, in J. Burke et al. (eds.), Byzantine Narrative: Papers in Honour of Roger Scott (Melbourne), 1–28. Nilsson, i. 2010. ‘The Same Story, but Another: A Reappraisal of Literary Imitation in Byzantium’, in A. Rhoby & E. Schiffer (eds.), Imitatio—aemulatio—variatio: Akten des internationalen wissenschaftlichen Symposions zur byzantinischen Sprache und Literatur (Wien, 22.–25. Oktober 2008) (Vienna), 195–208. Rydén, L. 1995. The Life of St Andrew the Fool, 2 vols. (Uppsala). Sullivan, D., Talbot, A.-M. & MacGrath, S. 2014. The Life of Saint Basil the Younger: Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of the Moscow Version (Washington, DC). Thomas, J.P. 1987. Private Religious Foundations in the Byzantine Empire (Washington, DC). Volk, R. 2006. Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos. Historia animae utilis de Barlaam et Ioasaph (Berlin). Vryonis, S. 1957. ‘The Will of a Provincial Magnate, Eustathius Boilas (1059)’, DOP 11, 263–277.

part 2 Reality and Representation

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chapter 4

The Fictionality of Literary History in Syriac: Thomas of Marga and Abdisho Bar Brikha Scott Fitzgerald Johnson

1

Introduction

Syriac hagiographers, like those in other languages in Late Antiquity, tended to focus on the character of the subject. Their holiness, their miracles, their bravery in the face of martyrdom: these are the material of the majority of hagiographical accounts.1 Indeed, in many ways it is definitive of hagiography to focus on the hagios, the saint or holy figure. Many scholars have drawn attention also to the holiness imparted to the writer of such accounts, and thus hagiography often became a practice of holiness: by dwelling on a saintly figure, by paying attention to his or her angelic life in the world, by publicizing the saint’s conduct and actions, the author became attached to the holiness of the subject and grew in holiness himself.2 Within this well-explored matrix between author and subject—approached over time in various ways from an anthropological, social, religious, and biographical or literary mode—one feature of hagiography that seems less well studied is the role that literary history plays, internal to hagiographical accounts. The saints described by these devoted authors were often writers themselves, and their writings sometimes play a role for the hagiographer. This role, in certain cases, is in fact structural to the overall work. In this chapter I consider two works in Syriac for which this is the case. The first is a ninth-century collective history of the founders of monasteries in Iraq, written by Thomas, East Syrian bishop of Marga, and finished sometime around 850.3 The book, entitled the Book of the Governors or, colloquially but less accurately, the Historia Monastica, concentrates, as we will see, on saints from the sixth and seventh centuries while laying particular emphasis on monastic founders in the Church of the East throughout its whole history, up to 1 For a survey of Syriac hagiography see GEDSH, 185–186, s.v. ‘Hagiography’; Brock (2011); and Fiey (2004). See also http://syri.ac/hagiography. 2 Rapp (2007); Rapp (1995); Krueger (2004). 3 See GEDSH, 417, s.v. ‘Toma of Marga’.

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Thomas’ own day.4 Recent scholarship has highlighted the characteristic, perhaps even unique, blend of historiography and hagiography that marks the East Syrian hagiographical tradition.5 This is in opposition to the West Syrian tradition, which is generally known for its more traditional historiography and chronicles, extending from the Chronicle of Edessa (sixth century) through Michael the Syrian (twelfth century) and Barhebraeus (thirteenth century).6 I draw this broad assessment from Muriel Debié’s magisterial work on Syriac historiography, published in 2015, though there are many nuances to both traditions, and indeed cross-pollination between them, which she explores in her book.7 Suffice it to say that Thomas of Marga is one of the prime examples of the East Syrian blend of historiography and hagiography. In this chapter I would like to emphasize the observation that literary history, whether we take that as a mode of writing or a genre unto itself, plays an important structural role in his writing about East Syrian saints. I think, to date, this aspect has been undervalued in studies of his work. The second text, which I will discuss briefly at the end of the chapter, is the fourteenth century Catalogue of Books by the East Syrian Abdisho bar Brikha (d. 1318).8 While the work is chronologically far outside the remit of this volume, Abdisho bar Brikha is nevertheless relevant to this chapter for multiple reasons. First, he is the prime source of literary history for Syriac writing: without his incredible metrical catalogue of Syriac authors and texts from the beginning to his own day, we would know much less about the history of the language and its speakers. Second, he too comes from the East Syrian tradition and is familiar with the blend of historiography and hagiography mentioned above.9 Finally, like Thomas, he focuses on the late antique period (fourth-eighth centuries) and thus provides an interesting comparandum for the way in which Thomas incorporates the literary history of this period. Indeed, at many points he provides different information than Thomas about specific authors.

4 Ed. and transl. Budge (1893). I have used Budge’s translation throughout, but I have adjusted his translation in every case with reference to his Syriac edition of the text. I have also harmonized Budge’s transliteration of Syriac names and titles. 5 Debié (2010). 6 Debié (2009). 7 Debié (2015). 8 See GEDSH, 3–4, s.v. ‘‘Abdisho‘ bar Brikha’. Syriac text: Assemani (ed. 1719–1730: 3.1.3–362). For the purposes of readability, I have preferred not to transliterate Syriac letters in Abdisho’s name and in other Syriac names that follow which would require diacritics. 9 Interestingly, he does not mention Thomas of Marga in his catalogue.

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Fiction

This disjuncture between their accounts of Syriac literary history is seemingly inevitable—after all, they wrote five hundred years apart. However, the differences between them in covering similar material do beg the question of how accurate their reporting is. With this in mind, and in terms of the language of this volume, is there a sense in which Syriac literary history when used in a biographical mode can be ‘fictive’ or ‘fiction’? Fictive in this case would mean that the literary histories are falsified in the context of what appears to be an otherwise trustworthy biographical narrative. Fiction would mean that there is a contract between writer and reader that assumes what is being told is not true but is nevertheless coherent in its untruth according to literary expectations. Both terms have a role to play, but I do not think either of them is on its own sufficient for this study. At a basic level, there is an imaginary and creative element to the incorporation of literary history into Syriac hagiography. The reader is invited to envision a matrix of authors and books linked in various ways to the biographies of saints and even monasteries. This will be demonstrated below. However, creativity in historical reporting about authors and books, even when incorporated into hagiography, does not automatically entail that the accounts are either falsified (fictive) or part of an acknowledged imaginary narrative (fiction). On the ‘fictive’ side, how would one prove falsification? In hagiography there is often no way to triangulate the author’s account with a history known to be unbiased or scientific in the modern sense. Indeed, fictiveness (i.e. fictitiousness) as a concept is moot in the absence of comparative sources. There are very few opportunities for triangulation in the texts under investigation here. On the ‘fiction’ side, one must carefully explain the author’s mode of writing and, if present, stated goals. With this in mind, I would suggest that, if there is a fictional aspect to the deployment of literary history within hagiography, then it is ‘descriptive’ rather than ‘prescriptive’. By ‘descriptive’ I mean that the recounting of authors and books serves a larger rhetorical purpose bound up in the mechanics of biography and hagiography itself. In this ‘descriptive’ sense, no single rhetorical element—such as literary history—can be labelled as patently false. By contrast, ‘prescriptive’ would mean that these elements are signalling in and of themselves that they are not observably true and are, further, inviting the reader to see them as such. Prescriptive fiction is not the same as ‘fictiveness’ since in fiction it is never the reader’s job to ascertain whether an account is falsified: this is communicated directly. Prescriptively, the author would be actively encouraging a suspension of disbelief. In the present study I prefer the idea of descriptive fiction since literary history within hagiographical narrative

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is never signalled as fictional or even difficult to believe. That does not mean these texts do not entail a contract between writer and reader. Examples of this distinction abound in the investigation below, but I would reiterate that neither fictiveness nor fiction is sufficient for understanding how literary history works within these texts. Literary history in Syriac hagiography is reported as useful, factual information and is couched in terms that show it is meant to be trusted. That is not to say there is no nuance, but literary history in these narratives, as one narrative device among others, can thus be called fiction only under the umbrella of assessing the purposes of the author for his work as a whole. As we will see with Thomas, he is very critical of his sources, which brings to the fore the nuance in how literary history is deployed. Certain literary devices are used by these authors that speak to their creativity in organizing received biographical knowledge. The use of lists, for example, is one of these. Abdisho’s materials are arranged in lists; much of Thomas’ materials are also arranged in lists. Elsewhere I have explored the role of listmaking in historiography and hagiography: there is a fundamental rhetorical role to lists, wherever they occur in ancient literature, but they are especially significant in the deployment of literary history within narrative.10 Lists play the role of library catalogue and encourage the reader’s trust. At the same time, they are also destabilizing: they reveal the author’s knowledge, or purported knowledge, which can, notionally, be contested by reference to external reality—either the reality of what the reader already knows, or what the reader can check for himself on a library shelf.11 Given the familiar vicissitudes of ancient book distribution and preservation, lists of literary history can easily either result in a coherent (possibly fictional) reality, with necessary verisimilitude, or they can undercut the reader’s trust in the author—if in fact the reader can dispute the literary-historical claims. Such disputes do not go as far as to entail fictitiousness. The willingness to incorporate literary history is simply a risk on the part of a hagiographer, a risk that is greater than reporting a miraculous deed or vision which submits less easily to external verification.12 Thus, the relationship, within hagiographical texts, between literary history and fictionality is tinged with all of the same trust issues as external biographical facts

10 11 12

See Johnson (2019) on lists as an organizing principle in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History. On the literary aesthetics of lists and their rhetorical value, see Eco (2009). Compare De Temmerman (2016: 7). Belief or non-belief in the supernatural in hagiography is a red herring. Despite rhetorical tropes about autopsy or verification, it really did not seem to matter to late antique hagiographers or their readers if these holy stories were verifiable. It seems to me that literary history is a different category.

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within ancient biography. Moreover, along the spectrum of rhetorical devices available to biographical literature, it is on the more destabilizing or indeterminate end in terms of the contract between writer and reader.13 Thus, these two texts—with the main emphasis on Thomas of Marga—well known in Syriac-studies circles but less well known outside of them, provide the opportunity to explore how late antique hagiography, within the larger framework of ancient biographical discourse, often ran into fictional problems, though in subtle ways. This subtlety will become more apparent with examples. There is one hesitation, however, that should be stated up front. The literary history represented in these works is so precious and so fundamental to the reconstruction of the Syriac tradition by modern scholars that there is a natural tendency to read all of it as mere reportage. Acknowledging this, I will nevertheless try to underline that what Thomas of Marga in particular does with literary history is part of a much larger hagiographical enterprise.

3

Thomas of Marga

Thomas of Marga’s Book of the Governors recounts a narrative of continuous historical activity on the ground in late antique Iraq by founders of monasteries, from approximately the sixth to ninth centuries. Importantly for my argument, this continuous monastic narrative is paralleled by a more or less continuous narrative of literary activity, both by the founders themselves and by those who supported and observed them.14 According to his own account Thomas trained at and was later attached to the monastery of Beth Abe, the ‘Forest Monastery’, in northern Iraq.15 This monastery was founded in 595/6 by Rabban Jacob, who had come from the ‘Great Monastery’ on Mount Izla (near Nisibis), which, in turn, had been founded by Abraham of Kashkar earlier in the sixth century. The founding of Beth Abe was, on some accounts, the result of a controversy at Mt. Izla, which led to the abbot Babai expelling Rabban Jacob from the Great Monastery. (Thomas discusses this animosity between the monasteries numerous times.) The monastery of Beth Abe grew in importance over the next two centuries, peaking at a population of around three hundred monks in the mid-seventh century. Indeed, it seems to have been at the centre of Church of the East controversies and reforms throughout that tumultuous 13 14 15

Compare De Temmerman (2016: 6–7, 13–14). Also De Temmerman (2016: 4): ‘biography seems positively conducive to slippages into the realm of fiction’. On literacy and book culture in the East Syrian tradition, see Walker (2010). See GEDSH, 70, s.v. ‘Beth ‘Abe, Monastery of’.

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century. Thomas devotes a large part of his narrative to figures in that period. The monastery enjoyed special favour under the Patriarch/Katholikos Ishoyahb iii (d. 659). At Beth Abe Thomas had access to an impressive monastic library that included historical, hagiographical, and theological texts from across the East Syrian tradition. He also was, for a time, the secretary of the Church of the East Katholikos (Abraham ii, sed. 837–850) and thus had access to the patriarchal archive, which he makes use of at various points in the narrative.16 There are three areas in which I would like to consider Thomas of Marga’s use of literary history as a device in his hagiographical account of the monks and monasteries of Iraq. The first is how he cites his written sources for his own history. The second is how he engages in literary criticism of specific works— it may come as a surprise that a hagiographer would analyse and critique the literary style of works which he cites. This second category includes his own attempt at verse in an embedded metrical Life of Mar Maranammeh, having given, immediately prior, a lengthy hagiographical account of this same saint in prose. The third use of literary history is the most common in Thomas, the lists of all the known works of a specific monk. There are various modes of the latter throughout the work: most often plain lists occur, without much of a comment, but at other times Thomas dwells on specific works and compares them to others. This is especially true in the case of the funeral orations for Rabban Jacob, the founder of Beth Abe.17 I will concentrate on the more complex lists of authors and works. 3.1 Thomas’ Sources Thomas’Book of the Governors is in five books with a sixth book appended to the end. This sixth book, a history of the monastery of Rabban Cyprian, was written first and deals with the earliest material (fourth-fifth centuries, i.e. earlier than Abraham of Kashkar). Thomas refers to this work in the main narrative, and it seems to have circulated independently of the larger collection, which in its conception is clearly in five books. At the beginning of the fourth book of the Book of the Governors Thomas gives a summary of how he used written and oral sources in his text: 16

17

It was traditionally assumed that Thomas of Marga was also metropolitan of Beth Garmai and the brother of Katholikos Theodosios (sed. 853–858). It is now known that these were two different people named Thomas: see Fiey (1965). A note on honorific titles: ‘Mar’ is the ubiquitous Syriac title for a monk, priest, saint, writer, basically any figure worthy of honour. ‘Abba’ seems to be reserved in Thomas for the Abbot of his home monastery of Beth Abe, but it is not used consistently for all of the abbots. ‘Rabban’ in Thomas is an honorific title for the founder of any monastery, not just his home monastery.

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In the three books which precede this, which is the fourth, the matter of our discourse has undertaken to relate the histories of holy men, some of which have been written down by skilled writers, and some of which have not been set down. Of those histories which exist in writing we have written that which they omitted and that which we either found in the histories of others or which was handed down to us by hearsay. But those histories which do not exist in writing, and which are inscribed neither in works specially devoted to them, nor in other places, I have learned from the very old men who were to be found in this monastery. As Christ our Lord has aided me I have made them to possess consecutive order, and have placed them before you [his patron, an ‘Abdisho’].18 This statement comes at the end of three books in which he wrote about times outside of living memory. He thus closes that section and begins his fourth book by dwelling on the fact that he now had living sources, even if advanced in age, people who knew personally some of the holy people he describes. The rhetoric of combining written and oral sources is of course not new to Thomas, but two points deserve emphasis: first, how he highlights the desire to keep events in consecutive order, which at times requires divine help (!), and second how he has endeavoured to fill gaps of the hagiographical sources he has read. This is Thomas in his more historiographical mode: he pictures himself as a researcher of hagiographical narratives, which he recombines into a consecutive narrative history. Nevertheless, Thomas anticipates that his readers will have some expert knowledge of the material he relates. He defends himself, therefore, at multiple points where he knows that hagiographical material he relates is out of order, contravening the tradition or other written narratives: I entreat the wisdom of discerning readers, that as they advance in the study of this book, they may hold me entirely free from blame should it appear to them that one narrative is in advance of its correct position, and another is after. For not all narratives allow for being set down in chronological order, lest when the root of the history is severed, it should lean to one side and become like an animal which tries to walk upon two [of its four] legs, a thing which it is not at all able to do.19

18 19

Budge (ed. 1893: 1.193); ibid. (transl.: 2.377–378). Budge (ed. 1893: 1.94); ibid. (transl.: 2.217).

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The metaphor here is perhaps somewhat forced, but the sense of what he defends is that, on occasion, the completeness of his hagiographical account requires him to stay with specific monks or monasteries even as it advances the narrative chronologically beyond where it should be. If he were to stick merely to the chronological, then the completeness of themes or biographies would not be balanced, and the reader might become disoriented. This, in fact, is a very important observation for collective biography as a genre and it reinforces the impression that Thomas is actually writing collective biography rather than history. Indeed, the literary unity he strives for, despite all of his historiographical rhetoric about consecutiveness, is the unity of individual lives, themes, and locales. Chronology here is only a handmaiden to his hagiographical enterprise. Previously in his work he alludes to the source of the many books which he cites: the library of his home monastery, Beth Abe. This library seems to have possessed a significant collection of hagiography. The collection, Thomas notes, grew partly through the donations of books made by some of the same holy men whom he describes. Thus, he says: Now Abba Ananisho, of whom I have written above, had a nephew whose name was John, and he was a disciple in this monastery during the lifetime of his uncle. And after the death of Abba Ananisho, together with the inheritance of his manner of life and his teaching, he inherited his cell and all his possessions. Now all the books which Ananisho and Ishoyahb his brother wrote and left behind them, this John made to pass into the library [of this monastery].20 The nephew John, inheriting the books of his two uncles Ananisho and Ishoyahb deposited these books in the monastery library. Thomas is clear that this is not an isolated event but occurred with some regularity. A bit further along he says the following about this same monk John when he had become abbot of the monastery, like his uncle before him: Now holy Mar John had a companion in his cell whose name was Dindowai, and he appointed him Bishop of Maaltha and Hanitha. He was a venerable and holy man, and was also a disciple in this monastery. There are many books in the library [of this monastery] belonging to him which bear witness to the love and affection which he bore to this holy house.21

20 21

Budge (ed. 1893: 1.106); ibid. (transl.: 2.236). Budge (ed. 1893: 1.107–108); ibid. (transl.: 2.238–239 (adjusted)).

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The habit of depositing books can be seen, for Thomas, as typical of the holy men of his monastery. Their ‘love and affection’ for the monastery was part and parcel of their holy biography and manifested itself in caring for and expanding the library. For Thomas there is a reinforcement of their holiness in the deposition of books because they see the value of, particularly, written Lives of holy men for the future sanctity of the monastery. Thomas is making use of these books, however, not primarily as a devotional act—at least, not in the manner he describes his own work—but as a historian. The publication, alignment, and re-presentation of these accounts is his task, which is assisted by the holy act of donation characteristic of the holy men he is describing. There are two other types of sources he mentions beyond hagiographical accounts: historiography and letters. At a number of points Thomas cites ‘Ecclesiastical Histories’ as the sources (and indeed comparanda) for his endeavour. All these things, O beloved Mar Abdisho [his patron], I have learned from the ecclesiastical histories of the revered Mar Athken, who was called ‘Plucker Out of His Beard’, of the Great Monastery [of Mount Izla].22 Unfortunately, Thomas does not lay out for us a careful distinction between ‘ecclesiastical history’ and the more generic ‘history’, ‘account’, or ‘books’, but suffice it to say that he does use the specific phrase ‘ecclesiastical history’ on occasion and applies it to specific books, such as this by Mar Athken, suggesting that perhaps those authors themselves titled their work as ecclesiastical histories or otherwise signalled they were written in that genre.23 Finally, on several occasions Thomas mentions that he had access to patriarchal letters and combs them for interesting stories and figures in his narrative. And I affirm and bear witness, as before God, that I learned this from Narsai the Elder, who was called son of Dadisho, from the village of Ain Barke, and also from an Elder who belonged to the monastery of Beth Hazqiel, when in the days of my youth I was transcribing epistles before the Patriarchal throne of the holy Mar Abraham [ii], the Katholikos and Patriarch.24

22 23 24

Budge (ed. 1893: 1.85); ibid. (transl.: 2.186 (adjusted)). On Syriac titles of historical works, see the very useful chronological table of surviving and lost Syriac histories in Debié (2015: 489–492). Budge (ed. 1893: 1.59); ibid. (transl.: 2.103). The word for epistles (kthibatha) can also mean alphabetical letters, but it is unlikely that Thomas was practising his ABC s at the feet of the patriarch.

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Elsewhere in his narrative Thomas quotes from the letters of Katholikos Timothy I regarding bishoprics established or reorganized throughout Iran, Central Asia, and western China.25 In his role as secretary for the Katholikos he had access to many first-hand accounts of the spread and organization of the Church of the East. Again, his emphasis throughout is on the biographies of specific monks and monastic founders, emphasizing their holy lives and activity in specific locales throughout Iraq. In other words, he has access to many sources of ecclesiastical history which he does not make use of in the Book of Governors because they do not fit his theme. But it does serve his purpose rhetorically to ground some of his accounts in what we might call documentary sources for the hagiographical accounts. 3.2 Thomas’ Literary Criticism On occasion through his narrative, Thomas uses literary history to critique the quality of specific works which he names. One remarkable case of this is when he compares the memorial orations on the life of Rabban Mar Jacob, founder of his monastery of Beth Abe. He writes: And it came to pass that, on the day of the commemoration of Rabban [Jacob], Mar Gabriel heard certain scholars complaining, and saying, ‘Would it not be more fitting for this wholly famous congregation that one of them should compose a special oration (memra) for the holy Mar Jacob, rather than borrow this one which was composed by Micha the Teacher for someone else and recite it for Mar Jacob as if we were truly paupers?’ And Mar Gabriel, who on account of his luxuriousness was called the ‘Dancer’ [who was Metropolitan of Karka de Beth Slokh, or Kirkuk],26 went straightway into the place where the deacons were, during the first session of the Psalms, and he took tablets and wrote down the oration which is now read for Rabban [Jacob]. And if you consider the sequence of its composition, and the style of its language, you will not find in it one example of the elegance of diction which the art of speaking requires. And beginning first of all with prayer, the discourse continues with the words, ‘let us place in the midst one of the ranks of those who love their Lord’, and so forth. Then attacking the holy Mar Babai and all that congregation from which Jacob went forth, it says, ‘Mad men who were exceedingly furious envied him with the evil imagination of their 25 26

See Johnson (2016: 115–116). See Budge (transl. 1893: 2.213), where Thomas distinguishes this Gabriel from the more famous Gabriel ‘the Cow’. See also Johnson (2016: 126–127).

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hearts’, and so forth. Now we do not think that Mar Babai was stirred up to become the cause of the going forth of many from that monastery without the will of God, for if it had been so, not one of the holy men would willingly have taken upon himself the labor of founding a monastery. Moreover, Sahdona, who lived at a time nearer to that dispute, in his history of Rabban Jacob, praises and magnifies and glorifies that holy monastery. And behold, this also we would make known, that though the blessed Rabban Kamisho, and the holy Mar Jacob, and Rabban Aphni-Maran, and Emma [i.e. Abbess] Leontius Zinaya, and Rabban Joseph went forth from the monastery in like manner by reason of a dispute, and became heads and governors in other monasteries, they neither called nor named this monastery a ‘monastery of madmen.’27 This long meditation on Mar Gabriel’s commemorative speech in honour of Rabban Mar Jacob serves many purposes at the same time. First it undercuts the value and validity of what, it would seem, had in Thomas’ day become the standard panēgyris speech read on the annual memorial of Jacob’s death. It does so, interestingly, by voicing in imagined speech the reasoning of Gabriel, namely, his presumptuousness. It also critiques the rhetorical style of the speech, appealing to the reader’s knowledge of the rules of composition. It further gives the incipit of the speech, so that a reader may recognize it among others, as if anticipating that readers may come across the speech in a library catalogue. It then turns to a larger controversy in the history of the Church of the East, which would have been familiar to many of his readers, and in fact which he recounts in detail at an earlier point in his narrative. He disputes the assertion made in the panēgyris that Mar Babai and other leaders were somehow acting against the will of God in this separation that led to the founding of the monastery of Beth Abe. He specifically disputes the idea, lifted from the speech, that the monks of Mt. Izla called Beth Abe a ‘monastery of madmen’. Also significant in this example is the citation of other memorial speeches on Rabban Jacob. Thomas notes that the famous monk Sahdona (also called Martyrius), who lived closer in time to the dispute, does not speak poorly about Mt. Izla, suggesting that others saw harmony where Gabriel, the author of the present speech, saw dissension and controversy. It is important to note that Thomas is here discussing, effectively, an origins narrative for his own monastery, which is a theme he comes back to multiple times throughout his work. As has been noted, the Book of the Governors is both a collective biography of

27

Budge (ed. 1893: 1.112–113); ibid. (transl.: 2.246–247 (slightly adjusted)).

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Church of the East monastic founders throughout Iraq and a dedicated attempt to fit the monastery of Beth Abe into that larger narrative. The result is, to a certain degree, that his work reads as a biography of the monastery itself, since he attempts to tie many different individuals and historical events to his home monastery. Before considering how Thomas integrates the bibliography of individual writers into his biographies—in which Sahdona will be a prime example—it is worth noting that Thomas is aware of genres outside of prose and incorporates that knowledge into his work. In the course of discussing Babai’s talents as a writer of metrical treatises, Thomas dwells upon the important work done by Katholikos Ishoyahb iii of Adiabene (sed. 647–658) to unify the hymnody and liturgical poetry of the Church of the East, resulting in a revised and official Hudra, the Church of the East’s service book.28 As Thomas makes clear, this was an extension of the work begun by Babai himself: When [this] blessed man had come to the country of Marga, he first of all gathered together the scholars, founded the Hudra, and amended the codices.29 Thomas goes on to list all of the schools that Babai founded throughout Iraq and in which he established his system of liturgical reading and recitation: Now some say that he had sixty disciples [who were] teachers, and that he founded sixty schools, and appointed a master to each one of them, and that through the zeal of believing and God-loving men, who made the instruction [of children] in divine things their care, he set apart for them property and funds for their maintenance. And he came back to Kephar Uzzel, and twice a year he visited all the schools, in order that laxity of discipline might not enter [into them], and that the musical training and canons and orders of services which he had made his disciples acquire might not be destroyed; and thus this manner of singing was called the ‘musical system of Rabban Babai.’30 Thomas himself was no stranger to metrical writing. Following his long prose biography of Mar Maranammeh, he retells the whole story in verse.31 The met28 29 30 31

Budge (transl. 1893: 2.293). Budge (ed. 1893: 1.143); ibid. (transl.: 2.296). Budge (ed. 1893: 1.144); ibid. (transl.: 2.297). Budge (transl. 1893: 2.345–375).

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rical pattern is a simple one but very familiar throughout the history of Syriac verse: it is in form a long memra, made up of couplets of twelve-syllable lines. The combination of prose and verse in Syriac hagiography is somewhat unusual. There are, of course, many prose biographies of saints in Syriac, and also many verse homilies of holy figures, but this prosi-metric approach is distinctive, especially in the form of a recapitulation of previous stories. Indeed, the sections on Mar Maranammeh taken together represent a large portion of Book 3 and are a centrepiece of the work as a whole. Before I move on to his use of lists, one final example of Thomas’ mode of composition will suffice to demonstrate his use of literary sources. Early in Book 1 Thomas recounts the following mini-biography: There was a solitary brother whose name was Solomon Bar Garaph, from the Monastery of Bar Tura. The period in which he lived is found to have been in the days of the holy Mar Henanisho the Katholikos. Now this man—[as we know] from careful investigations and from the reports of trustworthy men who lived in his days, and from the traditions of those who lived before his time—compiled histories, graceful of speech and elegant of diction, concerning the anchorites and recluses who lived before his time in various places. In these [histories] he also speaks concerning our holy Mar Jacob of Beth Abe. This history says concerning him that—as is known from those who knew [him]—after he went forth from the Great Monastery, he departed to the Mountains of Kardo. We are certain concerning [the time of] his expulsion and his return there afterwards. But before I set down in writing that history of our Rabban [Jacob], I will write in this book another history which Solomon Bar Garaph compiled concerning the blessed Maryahbh and a virgin, from which is made known how he returned to his cell in the Great Monastery.32 Here Thomas is combining all the techniques outlined thus far: he speaks of Solomon Bar Garaph as a source for his own work while also complimenting his style of composition. This mode of incorporating the writings of the figures he describes is typical of Thomas’ work. He is often careful to mention his sources and he praises or critiques their style alternately, but, in the end and most crucially, he includes their bibliography as part of the biography.

32

Budge (ed. 1893: 1.41–42); ibid. (transl.: 2.72–73).

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3.3 Thomas’ Lists By far the most frequent example of literary history in Thomas of Marga is the listing of works by specific figures throughout his collection. Such lists occur across the whole work, from the earliest periods to nearer his own day. Often Thomas presents lists of works, even listing just single works, without comment. On two occasions in particular, with regard to Sahdona and Ananisho, the literary history seems to be the backbone of his biographical narrative. Sahdona, as already mentioned, is adduced at various points throughout the work. Early in the Book of Governors he is cited as an authority on Rabban Jacob, as he is later (as quoted above) with regard to Gabriel ‘the Dancer’. In the earlier mention, however, Sahdona’s work is nevertheless criticized as having omitted many details from Rabban Jacob’s life. When he comes to narrating Rabban Jacob’s life, Thomas names several other individual writers whose narratives fill the gaps in Sahdona’s memorial account. Sahdona was the bête noire of the early seventh-century Church of the East.33 He was a prolific Syriac writer who went from being a blue-blood scion of the Church of the East, to joining the famous embassy to Heraclius in 630, to converting to Chalcedonianism, and finally dying in apparent ignominy in a cave outside of Edessa. Sahdona’s persona haunts the narrative of Thomas of Marga and, to a lesser degree, the slightly later Book of Chastity by Ishodnah of Basra, in addition to later ecclesiastical histories.34 When recounting Sahdona’s biography, Thomas, typically, starts with his sources, relying upon writers contemporary to the events for the account of Sahdona’s origins and training. He tells the history of Sahdona’s education in the school of Nisibis and the monastery of Beth Abe. He praises Sahdona’s ‘venerable ascetic life’. He then recounts the works of Sahdona known to him, including the funeral oration for Rabban Jacob, for which he gives the incipit. Regarding this oration Thomas says, Everyone who reads it will perceive the high character of his intellect and the power of his language, and he will find that [Sahdona] was a mighty man among those who compose books. He did not continue to write to the end, for he went out of his mind. How his understanding was destroyed I will relate afterwards in the place where his story requires it to be written.35

33 34 35

See GEDSH, 356, s.v. ‘Sahdona (Martyrius)’. On Thomas and Ishodnah on Sahdona, see Johnson (2016: 126–127). Budge (ed. 1893: 1.62); ibid. (transl.: 2.112).

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Interestingly, Thomas keeps separate the doctrinal dalliances of Sahdona and his ‘mighty’ and useful books, which Thomas admires and enumerates. He wrote two volumes on the various exercises of the monastic life, and a book of ‘Consolations’ is also attributed to him, and other works on various matters. He also composed a history of Rabban [Jacob], and of the triumphs of the ascetics who lived in the country of the East.36 He refuses at this point to tell of Sahdona’s later blackened history of rejecting the Church of the East, and instead saves it for a later point in his narrative. In this regard, Thomas’ willingness to praise and enumerate the works of Sahdona, while putting the emphasis on his training at Beth Abe, is significant. He separates out the more infamous history of this holy figure and by so doing allows for a more nuanced picture of Sahdona, while also protecting Beth Abe from the larger controversy, of which his readers were no doubt aware. The other major figure in the Book of the Governors for whom literary history makes up a major part of his biography is Ananisho.37 As with Sahdona, Thomas presents his life on the background of Ananisho’s education. Like Sahdona, Ananisho was educated at the School of Nisibis, under Ishoyahb iii of Adiabene. Ananisho and his brother, also named Ishoyahb, took their monastic formation in the Great Monastery of Izla. It was noted above that their nephew John deposited their books in the library: Thomas says these were books ‘written by their own hands’. Since Syriac scribes had a long and early custom of including colophons at the end of manuscripts, this does not necessarily mean that Thomas could recognize their handwriting at two centuries’ distance. The colophons would include mention of the scribe who wrote the book and often the circumstances of its copying. That said, and given Thomas’ familiarity with the books and libraries of Iraq, he could also have become visually familiar with their handwriting. Ananisho was one of the monks who left Izla after the dispute between Babai and his disciple Narsai, ending up at Thomas’ own monastery of Beth Abe as one of the founding cohort. As in Sahdona’s biography, Thomas takes pains to emphasize that Babai was not at fault for this split and that the two monasteries are in harmony, contrary to certain dominant interpretations of the episode in Thomas’ own day, as discussed above. When it comes to Ananisho’s own writings, composed after he had entered Beth Abe, Thomas gives a very interesting account.

36 37

Budge (ed. 1893: 1.62); ibid. (transl.: 2.111). See GEDSH, 144, s.v. ‘Enanisho’.

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Now when they came to this monastery, and dwelt in silence according to the rule of ascetics, Rabban Ananisho, the wise of understanding, labored so hard in the study of books, that he surpassed in his knowledge all who came before and after him. When Mar Ishoyahb was Metropolitan of Arbel (Arbela) and he wished to draw up in order a book (penqitha) of the canons—so that he might send copies of it to all the countries of his patriarchate—he made the wise Abba Ananisho, the love of whom is very dear and sweet to me, to sit with him during the drawing up of the canons. [This was] because of the institutes and rules which Ananisho had composed, and because Ishoyahb found that he alone possessed in a sufficient measure a clear mind, a natural talent for the art of chanting, and a sense [for the meaning of words]. Now the excellent man, and elect of God, Ishoyahb, the brother of Ananisho, was appointed Bishop of Kardilabad, that is Shenna, a city of Beth Ramman. And the noble Ananisho composed definitions and divisions of various things, which were written upon the walls of his cell.38 And when his brother Mar Ishoyahb came to pray in this monastery, and saw the divisions of the science of philosophy of his brother Ananisho, he begged him to write a commentary on them for him, and to send it to him, which Ananisho did. He wrote to him a clear exposition in many lines, and everyone who reads them will perceive the greatness of his wisdom. Now the title of this work is, ‘A letter which a brother wrote to his brother; to the excellent and holy Mar Ishoyahb the Bishop, Ananisho, greetings in our Lord.’ He also wrote a work on the correct pronunciation of the words and of the difficult [or obscure] words which are used with different significations in the writings of the Fathers.39 This exists among the books in the library of this monastery and surpasses all other collations in its accuracy. According to what I have learned concerning these [books] of his from the aged Elders, they were completed and given to us by him.40 This vignette is interesting for a number of reasons—that Ananisho was writing on the walls of his cell, that he was engaged in scientific work (or at least the cataloguing of scientific and philosophical, presumably Aristotelian, know-

38 39

40

Writing on the walls of a cell is attested for several other monks, though usually just simple prayers: see Walker (2010: 327). This is a work on homographs for key terms in Syriac (ed. Hoffmann 1880: 2–49). In the Church of the East, Joseph Huzaya had already written a similar work, and after Ananisho, Jacob of Edessa would compile one for the Syrian Orthodox. Budge (ed. 1893: 1.79–80); ibid. (transl.: 2.176–179).

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ledge), that he produced works in Syriac which aided monastic scholarship— but overall, for the purposes of this chapter, I would emphasize that his discussion of Ananisho’s literary output is typical of how Thomas incorporates the literary endeavours of holy figures into his narrative, including, for instance, the use of incipits to demarcate individual works in the library. Despite certain typical characteristics in the reporting, Ananisho is clearly a special figure in the history of the Church of the East and he ended up having a major influence on Syriac literature. In a later chapter Thomas deals with what is today the most famous work of Ananisho, the Paradise of the Fathers. And with an enlightened mind, and a wise understanding—especially as the Spirit had manifested in him the efficacy of His gift—he arranged and fitted together in smooth order, six hundred chapters, [divided] into fifteen Canons, each containing forty sections. Each chapter was [followed by] a question having direct reference to the contents of the chapter which it followed—so that if a brother was laboring in any spiritual warfare whatsoever and wished to take consolation or to gain counsel on the matter which vexed him, he might find it ready close at hand; and the counsels were placed in consecutive order so that he might be very quickly consoled in his affliction and relieved, that he might lay soothing plaster on his suffering wound—and four hundred and thirty other chapters, which treat generally of all kinds of excellence, and many others to which he did not affix numbers nor did he arrange them in order. He took, from the Commentary on the blessed Matthew the Evangelist, the discourse which was composed by Mar John Chrysostom on the praises of the Egyptian ascetics.41 He also took the Questions of the blessed Mar Abraham of Nathpar, and other examples and narratives which father Ananisho collected from the writings of the Fathers. He arranged the whole work in two volumes. In the first part were the histories of the holy Fathers composed by Palladius and Jerome, and in the second part were the questions and the narratives of the fathers which he added to them. He called this book ‘Paradise’, and thus it is handed down and received in all the monasteries of the East, and the fathers everywhere praise his ability and applaud his work. And being inflamed by love for him I have written down his honorable memorial among the histories of the holy men who were his fellow workers and associates.42 41 42

This is extant as part of a Paradise manuscript from 929, enumerated by Wright as Part 2, Chapter 5: BM Add. 17.174 (Wright 1870–1872: 3.1075, col. 2). Budge (ed. 1893: 1.87–88); ibid. (transl.: 2.190–192).

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The Paradise of the Fathers, surviving today, is a massive compilation of hagiographical lore, which incorporates much of Palladius’ Lausiac History and the History of the Monks in Egypt on the western ascetical tradition.43 It also incorporates similar works by Abraham of Nathpar and, apparently, other East Syriac collections.44 In his other works, namely the book of homographs mentioned above, Ananisho seems to have been influenced by Joseph Huzaya (c. 500), who was a head of the School of Nisibis, sometime after the death of its founder, Narsai. Ananisho had travelled to Egypt and had been a member of the School of Nisibis, the monasteries of Mt. Izla and Beth Abe, and in many ways Thomas sees Ananisho as the spiritual and literary predecessor for his own work. Incorporating here the literary history of Ananisho’s impressive output further authenticates Thomas’ endeavour. Thomas respects both the subject matter and the attention to organization and sources that Ananisho demonstrated.

4

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like briefly to consider the fourteenth-century metrical literary history of Abdisho Bar Brikha. In some ways a very different work than Thomas of Marga’s Book of the Governors, it nevertheless covers much of the same territory, is dependent on similar sources, and seeks creatively to incorporate literary history into a larger framework of biography. Abdisho’s Catalogue of Books is much later in composition than the period this volume addresses, but there are good reasons for seeing it as of a piece with late antique biographical literature, not least because Abdisho is clearly aware of the tradition represented by the magisterial hagiographical works from Late Antiquity. In some cases he cites these works directly, so we know he had them at hand. In terms of genre, however, the resemblance to Thomas is striking, particularly in how Thomas incorporates lists of works within his collective biography. Indeed, rather than Catalogue of Books, a more appropriate title for Abdisho’s work would be ‘Catalogue of Authors’, with the literary output of the figures he includes being the central point of reference for his biographical catalogue.45 Before re-introducing the concept of fiction, let me offer just a brief summary of Abdisho’s work and a few salient examples. Abdisho begins his cata43 44 45

Ed. and transl. Budge (1904). See GEDSH, 9, s.v. ‘Abraham of Nathpar’. Text of the catalogue can be found in Assemani (ed. 1719–1730: 3.1.3–362; Syriac text, Latin translation, and Latin commentary). All translations from Abdisho are mine.

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logue with the Bible, enumerating all the books in the Old and New Testaments, including some well-known Old Testament apocrypha, such as Joseph and Asenath. He also includes mention (without any negative comment) of the Diatessaron by Tatian.46 He then moves to the western patristic writers— Athanasios, the Cappadocians, John Chrysostom, etc.—among whom he includes one Latin writer, Damasus bishop of Rome. In this section he gives a long summary of the works of Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, the exegetical founders of the Antiochene tradition, from which the Church of the East arose. He then begins his enumeration of the Syrian fathers. As expected, he focuses on the East Syriac tradition here, but he also includes all Syriac writers known to him from before the Christological councils—that is, the shared patrimony of all Syriac churches. For instance: Ephrem the Great, called the Prophet of the Syrians, published commentaries on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Joshua son of Nun, Judges, Samuel, the Book of Kings, David (the Psalms), Isaiah, the Twelve (Prophets), Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and blessed Daniel. He wrote [lit. has] also books and epistles on the faith of the Church. In addition, metrical sermons, hymns with songs, and all the songs for the Anaide [services for the dead] survive. He wrote [lit. has] also treatises on the alphabet, a disputation with the Jews, as well as against Simon and Bardaisan, and also against Marcion and the Ophites, and an answer to the blasphemy of Julian.47 Ephrem, the most renowned of all Syriac poets, wrote in the fourth century. Interestingly, though Abdisho calls him the ‘Prophet of the Syrians’, his poetry is somewhat deemphasized here. Prose, particularly exegetical and polemical works, seems to be most prominent. Regardless, for Abdisho Ephrem is primarily remembered as an exegete. The list of the biblical books on which he wrote commentaries is significant, I would suggest, in light of the enumeration of biblical books at the beginning of the treatise. Abdisho himself was an exegete, as we will see in a moment, though most of his exegetical work has been lost. As with Ephrem, Narsai, the earliest major poet of the East Syriac tradition, is described first as an exegete:

46

47

This gospel harmony was, in the earliest Syriac churches, the dominant version of the gospels in use, though one which in the fifth century was proscribed and removed from churches especially in the West Syrian milieu. See Johnson (2012). Assemani (ed. 1719–1730: 3.1.62–63).

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Narsai, the Harp of the Spirit, wrote commentaries on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, [Joshua] son of Nun, the books of Judges, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, the Twelve [Prophets], Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the prophecy of Daniel. Further, twelve other books of orations (memre), which are in number three hundred and sixty. He wrote [lit. has] a liturgy, an exposition of the sacraments and baptism, sermons of consolation, hymns of praise, litanies, exhortations, and a treatise concerning the disgraceful manner of life.48 Prose here seems to be primary for Abdisho. Nevertheless, by contrast with Ephrem, the poems of Narsai are accounted for with precise numbers, even if their contents are not described in detail. Presumably the poems of Narsai were better known to Abdisho in independent collections. What is important for the comparison with Thomas is the role of the list. The list, in both Ephrem and Narsai’s case, is potentially complete, though we know, from manuscript history and from other literary historical sources, that it is not. Is this, therefore, fiction? The assumed rhetoric of any list is one of comprehensiveness. If the lists of works in Abdisho’s biographical catalogue are incomplete, then how do we read this text? To ask this is not to unfairly criticize an ancient author for a lack of scientific clarity: modern historians are greatly in Abdisho’s debt that he wrote his amazing catalogue in the first place. Nevertheless, even a reader in the fourteenth century might reasonably ask questions. Questions such as, which of these exegetical and polemical treatises by Ephrem are in verse? Or, what subjects did Narsai write poetry on? The text glides over such queries, at least in these two cases, yet the natural way to read such a text as Abdisho’s catalogue is with a contract of trust and with a presumption of comprehensive accounting. I would even argue that the genre of collective biography brings such problems to the fore. There is no question that Abdisho holds the authors of the Syriac tradition in great honour—he does not appear to be intentionally shortchanging them; he employs their traditional honorific epithets and signals to his readers the reputation they hold within his tradition. But he is not comprehensive. Further into the collection, the consecutiveness and chronology become rote at certain points in Abdisho’s list. Many writers about whom Abdisho seems to know less, we know were in fact prolific. Despite a lack of information Abdisho includes them anyway, as entries in his catalogue, seemingly for the sake of completeness. For instance:

48

Assemani (ed. 1719–1730: 3.1.63–66).

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John of Dalyatha. He composed two books, along with epistles on penitence [lit. groaning] which concern the monastic life. Isaac of Nineveh wrote seven volumes concerning the spiritual manner of life, concerning the divine sacraments, and [concerning] judgments and stewardship. Abraham of Nathpar wrote [lit. has] various compositions. Jacob of Edessa wrote annals and chronicles.49 All of these authors wrote much more than Abdisho lists here. As mentioned above, we know from Thomas of Marga that Abraham of Nathpar wrote a very important collection of hagiography which Ananisho used, but which Abdisho does not mention. Jacob of Edessa, a prolific West Syrian writer, is known here only for his work as a chronicler. Abdisho includes some writers apparently because he knows they existed, with very little information given about their literary works: Abraham Katina wrote opinions and questions. Simeon of Kurdlah wrote metrical sermons (memre) along with interpretations. Father Yazidad wrote [lit. has] a book which is called ‘a gleaning’. Bar Jacob wrote [lit. has] a book. Damniyas wrote [lit. has] metrical sermons (memre). Susai of Shus composed a book of thanksgivings. Abraham Saba wrote [lit. has] a book of various questions.50 In many such cases these are authors who are otherwise lost to us today. We would not even know their names unless Abdisho had included them. Of course, we are very grateful to have such a catalogue. But the issue remains whether the genre of the catalogue and, especially, the literary device of the list imposes an order and comprehensiveness that is belied by a lack of information.

49

50

Assemani (ed. 1719–1730: 3.1.103–104, 104, 191, 229). John of Dalyatha: GEDSH, 441–442, s.v. ‘Yohannan of Dalyatha’; Isaac of Nineveh: GEDSH, 213–214, s.v. ‘Ishaq of Nineveh’; Abraham of Nathpar: GEDSH, 9, s.v. ‘Abraham of Nathpar’; Jacob of Edessa, GEDSH, 432–433, s.v. ‘Ya‘qub of Edessa’. Assemani (ed. 1719–1730: 3.1.225–227).

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Because of the wide spread of the Church of the East throughout Central Asia, India, and China, some of these authors were living and writing in cultural contexts very different from both the ancient Fathers and from Abdisho himself. It is impressive that he knew them at all, much less that he was able to incorporate them among the more familiar authors. For instance: Bod Peryadeutha [Periodeutes] wrote [lit. has] metrical sermons (memre) on the Faith, and against the Manicheans, and against the followers of Marcion. [He wrote] also questions in Greek, entitled ‘Aleph-Migin’. And he translated from Indian [i.e. Sanskrit?] the book of ‘Kalilag and Damnag’.51 Abdisho thus gives very important evidence for the multilingual and multicultural matrix of the Church of the East and is in that sense more comprehensive than any comparable text from the West Syrian tradition. The East Syrian tradition was in direct contact with literature in Persia and further east. Abdisho is aware that Syriac authors were working with multiple languages in different contexts and offers precious information about these authors when he can. Finally, at the end of his treatise Abdisho includes himself among the catalogue of authors: The books which I myself, the humble Abdisho from Sauba, composed: a book of exposition on Scripture, both Old and New [Testaments]; a catholic book on the amazing dispensation; a book of psalms (moushhatha), which is entitled ‘Paradise of Eden’; a short collection of the canons of synods; a book Shah Marourid, which I composed in Arabic; a book Marganitha [the Pearl], which concerns the true faith; a book of obscure mysteries from the philosophy of the Greeks; a scholastic book on the repudiation of all heresies; a book of the organisation of judgments and church laws; and a book containing twelve metrical sermons (memre) comprising

51

Assemani (ed. 1719–1730: 3.1.225–227). The work known as Kalila and Dimna, a collection of animal and other stories, originated in Sanskrit but found its way into Middle Persian in the sixth century, translated by Burzoy (Barzaway). The first Syriac translation seems to have been made soon thereafter from the Middle Persian. The second Syriac translation was made from a ninth-century Arabic translation. The original Sanskrit, the Middle Persian, and the ninth-century Arabic are lost. But the two Syriac translations (among other languages) survive, and the later one includes an autobiography of Burzoy, including a narrative of his travels to India. See GEDSH, 241–242, s.v. ‘Kalila and Dimna’; de Blois (1990); and Rundgren (1996).

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all disciplines of knowledge; interpretations with consolations and metrical sermons (memre) concerning diverse subjects; a commentary on the great letter of the admirable Aristotle which he wrote to Alexander on the great art; various letters which concern demonstrations of multiple arguments; a resolution for difficult questions; and riddles, titles, and parables.52 He treats his own works very much like those of other authors. It is similar in tone to how Thomas of Marga mentions his previous hagiographical work on the monastery of Rabban Cyprian, appended as Book 6 of the Book of Governors (quoted above). This notice by Abdisho follows a more streamlined schema than Thomas’, adhering to his list-making habit exemplified above. There is no sense that Abdisho sees himself as the teleological culmination of the history of Syriac literature he presents. Rather, he inserts himself into the proper chronological location in his, seemingly complete, history of Syriac literature, up to his own day in the fourteenth century. So where does that leave us with the role of literary history and fictionality in Syriac hagiography? In this chapter I have investigated how the rhetorical device of literary history is employed in hagiographical writing, particularly in the mode of collective biography. The lists offered by Thomas of Marga and Abdisho Bar Brikha impose a certain order on their source material. Thomas is much more communicative about where he found his sources and is even willing at times to critique them in comparison with other works he has read. To a great degree he lays bare his own process of writing hagiography and is willing to make value judgments on the quality, style, and polemical aims of his sources. Abdisho does not provide this transparency, but he similarly makes use of lists as the primary materials for biographical writing about late antique saints. For both authors the writings that the holy figures of the church produced are essential data for the reconstruction and memorialization of their sanctity. Both authors attempt to guide their readers into an appreciation and, perhaps even, imitation of the lives they record. For the knowing reader, however, the imposition of consecutiveness, in the form of chronology, and completeness, in the form of the list, can at times be destabilizing. Thomas has more freedom in his narrative to counteract this destabilization, and he does so by comparing multiple works and by commenting programmatically on the order of his narrative: indeed, he anticipates many potential complaints among his readers. Abdisho is less transparent in his methodological choices

52

Assemani (ed. 1719–1730: 3.1.325–361).

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but, at the same time, more committed to a strict form of collective biography. Abdisho’s Catalogue of Authors, I would argue, is clearly written (even in the fourteenth century) in the late antique tradition of the hagiographical compendium. The conundrum posed by the Catalogue for modern scholars is that it is truly priceless in its reporting on authors and works that have no longer survived. That very pricelessness, however—as much for Thomas as for Abdisho— requires that we read these two as literary works and try to understand how the structure and rhetoric they employ impose expectations on both author and reader.

Bibliography Assemani, J.S. (ed.) 1719–1730. Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana […], 3 vols. (Rome). Badger, G.P. 1852. The Nestorians and Their Rituals: With the Narrative of a Mission to Mesopotamia and Coordistan in 1842–1844, and of a Late Visit to Those Countries in 1850: Also, Researches into the Present Condition of the Syrian Jacobites, Papal Syrians, and Chaldeans, and an Inquiry into the Religious Tenets of the Yezeedees. Ed. by J.M. Neale, 2 vols. (London). Blois, F. de 1990. Burzōy’s Voyage to India and the Origin of the Book of Kalīlah Wa Dimnah (London). Brock, S.P. 2011. ‘Syriac Hagiography’, in S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, Volume i: Periods and Places (Farnham), 259– 283. Budge, E.A.W. (ed.) 1893. The Book of Governors: The Historia Monastica of Thomas, Bishop of Marga, a.d. 840, 2 vols. (London). Budge, E.A.W. (ed.) 1904. The Book of Paradise, Being the Histories and Sayings of the Monks and Ascetics of the Egyptian Desert by Palladius, Hieronymus and Others: The Syriac Texts, According to the Recension of ʿAnân-Îshôʿ of Bêth ʿÂbhê, 2 vols. (London). Debié, M. 2009. ‘Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation’, CHRC 89, 93–114. Debié, M. 2010. ‘Writing History as “Histories”: The Biographical Dimension of East Syriac Historiography’, in A. Papaconstantinou, M. Debié & H. Kennedy (eds.), Writing ‘True Stories’: Historians and Hagiographers in the Late Antique and Medieval Near East (Turnhout), 43–75. Debié, M. 2015. L’Écriture de l’histoire en syriaque: Transmissions interculturelles et constructions identitaires entre hellénisme et islam: avec des répertoires des textes historiographiques en annexe (Louvain). De Temmerman, K. 2016. ‘Ancient Biography and Formalities of Fiction’, in K. De Tem-

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merman & K. Demoen (eds.), Writing Biography in Greece and Rome: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization (Cambridge), 3–25. Eco, U. 2009. The Infinity of Lists: From Homer to Joyce. Transl. by A. McEwen (London). [Original Italian edition: Vertigine della lista (Milano, 2009)] Fiey, J.M. 1965. ‘Thomas de Marga: Notule de litterature syriaque’, Muséon 78, 361–366. Fiey, J.M. 2004. Saints syriaques. Ed. by L.I. Conrad (Princeton). Hoffmann, G. (ed.) 1880. Opuscula Nestoriana (Keil & Paris). Johnson, S.F. 2012. ‘Diatessaron’, in R. Bagnall et al. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Ancient History (London). Johnson, S.F. 2016. Literary Territories: Cartographical Thinking in Late Antiquity (Oxford & New York). Johnson, S.F. 2019. ‘Lists, Originality, and Christian Time: Eusebius’ Historiography of Succession’, in W. Pohl & V. Wieser (eds.), Historiography and Identity 1: Ancient and Early Christian Narratives of Community (Turnhout), 191–217. Krueger, D. 2004. Writing and Holiness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East (Philadelphia). Papaconstantinou, A., Debié, M. & Kennedy, H. (eds.) 2010. Writing ‘True Stories’: Historians and Hagiographers in the Late Antique and Medieval Near East (Turnhout). Rapp, C. 1995. ‘Byzantine Hagiographers as Antiquarians, Seventh to Tenth Centuries’, in S. Efthymiadis, C. Rapp & D. Tsounkarakes (eds.), Bosphorus: Essays in Honour of Cyril Mango (Amsterdam), 31–44. Rapp, C. 2007. ‘Holy Texts, Holy Men, and Holy Scribes: Aspects of Scriptural Holiness in Late Antiquity’, in W.E. Klingshirn & L. Safran (eds.), The Early Christian Book (Washington, DC), 194–222. Rundgren, F. 1996. ‘From Pancatantra to Stephanites and Ichnelates: Some Notes on the Old Syriac Translation of Kalila wa-Dimna’, in Leimōn: Studies Presented to Lennart Rydén on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Uppsala), 167–180. Walker, J.T. 2010. ‘Ascetic Literacy: Books and Readers in East-Syrian Monastic Tradition’, in H. Börm & J. Wiesehöfer (eds.), Commutatio et Contentio: Studies in the Late Roman, Sasanian, and Early Islamic Near East. In Memory of Zeev Rubin (Düsseldorf), 307–345. Wright, W. 1870–1872. Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum Acquired Since the Year 1838, 3 vols. (London).

chapter 5

At the Margins of the World The Desert as a Fictionalized Space in Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations and the History of the Great Deeds of Bishop Paul of Qentos and Priest John of Edessa André Binggeli

The desert is at the centre of early monastic life and therefore constitutes an important literary space in Christian hagiography of Late Antiquity.1 This can be seen from its first appearance in Athanasios of Alexandria’s Life of Antony, a formative model for all subsequent ascetic hagiographies: But the voice said to him, ‘[…] If you really wish to live quietly, depart now for the inner desert.’ Antony said, ‘Who will show me the way? For I do not know it.’ Immediately the voice showed to him Saracens about to travel on that way. Therefore, Antony approached, drew near to them, and asked to go with them into the desert. And they, as if commanded by Providence, welcomed him enthusiastically. After he had travelled with them three days and three nights, he came to a very high mountain. Below the mountain there was a very clear spring of water, sweet and very cold, and farther off there was a plain with a few neglected palm trees.2 Although this passage describes the desert only minimally, several thematic elements that prove central to the evolution of this literary motif in hagiography are already evident: the representation of the desert as an idealized site of seclusion and peacefulness; the apparition of the paradisiacal garden in the middle of an arid landscape; and the presence of the ambivalent couple of monk and Saracen, the only inhabitants of this hostile environment.3 Moreover, certain narrative techniques turn this environment into a literary space as well, and in this passage we also find early traces of one such technique, which late antique hagiographers would later deploy to shape their 1 This chapter was translated from French by Julie Van Pelt with support from Academic Language Experts. 2 Life of Antony 49.4–7, transl. Brakke (2000: 17). Edition and French transl. by Bartelink (1994). 3 For the representation of the desert in late antique monasticism, see Guillaumont (1975).

© André Binggeli, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004685758_006

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depictions of the desert: narrative ellipsis. Breaking the continuity of the narrative, ellipsis—which is achieved here by summing up a three-day journey in one sentence—conjures up the Garden of Eden’s unexpected apparition in the middle of the desert, as if it were a mirage or a delusion, thus endowing this environment with a quasi-fictional character. Jerome developed this hagiographical motif much further a decade or two later. In the Life of Paul of Thebes, the hermit ‘conceived a wish to go, although he did not know where’.4 With the protagonist’s (and, hence, the reader’s) temporal and spatial landmarks thus rendered ambiguous, we enter the realm of fiction where an encounter can take place between two imaginary creatures, a faun and a centaur, who seem taken from Greek mythology.5 According to Joëlle Soler, Jerome uses here the classical imaginary to show the subjugation of pagans by converting their culture through literature.6 By thus adopting the ancient world’s imaginative tropes and the motif of the desert as a place beyond the known world’s borders, populated by mythical creatures, Jerome creates an otherworldly setting, a space where the divine and the miraculous are more likely to manifest themselves. From there, the narrative opens out into a literary space in which the boundaries between the real and the fictive have been obscured. In ascetic hagiography, a retreat into the desert is associated with the desire to flee the world and seek seclusion in order to recover a special connection to God. If the desert initially appears home to the marvellous and is cut off from the real and inhabited world, it inevitably becomes populated by the monk’s arrival, and therefore this space, which is also the spiritual battlefield between monk and demon, is tamed and domesticated. To cite the Life of Antony, ‘the desert was made a city of monks’.7 A distinct late antique literary tradition, which is positioned at the intersection of ascetic hagiography, travelogue, and ancient novel, perpetuates this representation of the desert as an otherworldly and almost fantastical space where anything becomes possible. Adopting tropes from the ancient novel— a dramatic strand of which is the voyage of initiation into a pirate-infested sea followed by a dramatic abduction and the separation of the heroes— several late antique hagiographies depict protagonists roaming deserts riddled with bloodthirsty barbarians. The Narrations of Pseudo-Neilos, an atypical and sophisticated work, one of a kind within Greek hagiography, is probably

4 5 6 7

Life of Paul of Thebes 7.2, transl. White (1998: 78). Life of Paul of Thebes 7.2–8.6. Soler (2011: 4–7); see also Cox Miller (1996) and Wiśniewski (2000). Life of Antony 14.7, transl. Brakke (2000: 14). All these issues are discussed by Guillaumont (1975).

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one of the most famous examples of this literary tradition. The story begins in medias res with the scene of a distraught father whose son has just been abducted by barbarians, after they had both come to Sinai to experience monastic asceticism. Much of the narrative then traces how the narrator, Neilos, wanders through the dangerous desert seeking his son, Theodoulos, before they are eventually reunited. Heussi and others after him have demonstrated what Pseudo-Neilos owes to ancient Greek novels, especially Achilles Tatios’ Leukippe and Kleitophon, as well as to other literary models. They have reaffirmed that the work belongs squarely to the domain of literary fiction.8 For indeed, a question debated for almost a century now concerns the historicity of the work, and much has been said in particular about the historical value of the ethnological description of the Bedouin desert dwellers and their customs.9 However, the present chapter leaves these debates aside and explores instead the narrative devices the author uses to fictionalize the desert. The History of the Great Deeds of Bishop Paul of Qentos and Priest John of Edessa offers an interesting counterpoint for examining these devices. Although it is not of the same literary quality or ambition as Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations, this odd tale has many points in common with it. While it was certainly composed in the fifth or sixth century, the story’s source and the circumstances in which it was composed remain obscure. Even the question of whether it was originally composed in Syriac or Greek has not been answered definitively.10 More a tale of adventure than a traditional saint’s Life, it relates the meeting of its protagonists, Bishop Peter and the Priest John, in Edessa during the Episcopate of Rabbula (411–435 ce). Their pilgrimage to Mount Sinai and many desert exploits follow, from their abduction by the barbarian Himyarites, who wish to sacrifice them to their deity, to their encounter with solitary desert dwellers whose ascetic feats cannot fail to stir the reader’s imagination since they are in some ways reminiscent of the fantastical creatures in Jerome. Both in Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations and the History of Paul and John, the desert surrounding Mount Sinai is removed from the inhabited world and its prevailing order and thus appears as a special locus of fictionalization (unlike the Egyptian desert, which is located at the margins of the inhabited regions along the Nile and is not clearly separated from them). Other contemporary hagiographies portraying the Sinai desert, such as Ammonios’ Report on the

8 9 10

Heussi (1917: 139–144); Conca (1983); Caner (2004); Link (2005: 8–24); Morgan (2015). See, for example, Mayerson (1975). I refer here to the Syriac version edited by Arneson et al. (2010), which is complete, while the Greek version edited by Papadopoulos-Kerameus (1888) has been preserved only from a single fragmentary manuscript.

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Slaughter of the Monks of Sinai and of Raithou, can be taken into account here as well. Indeed, Ammonios’ Report bears similarities with the works studied here, especially the Narrations. Nonetheless, it is not a tale of desert roaming: the barbarians who massacre the monks indeed emerge from the desert, but the narrator himself, Ammonios, remains in the ‘civilized’ space of the monastic community at the foot of Mount Sinai and hardly ventures into the inner desert. Yet, it is precisely this entirely otherworldly literary space in which I am interested here. By following the heroes’ journeys from the inhabited world to the desert as it is depicted in the Narrations and the History of Paul and John, I will examine how the desert is rendered alien and fictionalized through three narrative devices: imaginative projection, narrative ellipsis, and obfuscation of narrative voice.

1

Imagining the Desert: Imaginative Projection

The first narrative technique that facilitates the fictionalization of desert space in the hagiographical narratives examined here is its anticipated representation in the characters’ imagination. This projection of the desert occurs quite early in the narrative, before the characters (and, thereby, the reader) are exposed to it directly. In itself, this imaginative representation is mostly a literary topos and conveys the familiar desert-related tropes that have been mentioned above. At the same time, it immediately constructs the desert as an imagined concept by first presenting it as a space in the characters’ minds before they experience it in reality. This treatment is all the more noteworthy given the fact that the desert is one of the few spatial settings from late antique hagiography that is dealt with in this manner. For instance, the city, as the main space in which the saint moves, is undoubtedly much more fertile literary terrain, and depictions of it borrow largely from literary commonplaces that tend to contrast with idealizing descriptions of the desert. It may be the object of visions or pieces of rhetorical bravura that celebrate it as the birthplace of a hero.11 And yet, despite all this, it is rarely the object of anticipated representation in characters’ imaginations. In our two tales, the desert is first and foremost a perilous space in the characters’ imaginations:

11

On the representation of the city in hagiography, see, for example, Saradi (2014).

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Some time later, Paul stood up in the midst of his brothers asking them, saying: ‘My brothers, I ask you to beseech God with me that, if it should be his will, I might go and see the holy place where the divine presence descended upon Mount Sinai.’ One of the twelve blessed men with him, a man named Zenobius, said to him: ‘If you go, you will surely be taken captive and a band of Arabs will come upon you. After the Arabs inflict many evils upon you, your faith will prosper among their camps like a cloud of light.’12 When Paul announces his intent to leave for Sinai, nothing indicates at the outset that the words uttered by Paul’s fellow ascetic are prophetic. They appear at first only a warning, attesting to the fact that the Edessans imagine the Arabian desert around Mount Sinai as an environment roamed by faithless, lawless brigands, where one will inevitably be taken captive. However, the chain of events that Zenobius announces next culminates in the conversion of populations beyond the Christianized world and transforms the character of his words: they no longer simply reference an intimidating reality—or at least one imagined to be such—but take on a prophetic quality. Paul himself recognizes them as such, and they will indeed materialize as the rest of the story unfolds. Zenobius’ prophecy, by anticipating the events to follow, thus creates a mise en abyme, a structure whereby the story is fictionally embedded within itself.13 In Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations, the first representation of the desert is staged in a slightly different way. From the opening sentence—‘Wandering after the Barbarians’ attack, I came to Pharan […]’14—the protagonist is already wandering in the desert, and his exploits are already underway. From a narrativetechnical perspective, this opening in medias res should preclude the anticipated representation of the desert through a character’s imagination. Even so, it is thanks to this structuring device that the author manages to reach the same effect. The desert appears as the offstage-setting where the narrator/Neilos was found before the narrative began, while its first five episodes are actually taking place in Pharan, a small Roman garrison town near Mount Sinai and its monastic community. Thus, throughout the early narrative, the inner desert exists only as a more-or-less hostile backdrop, from which news and characters emerge occasionally. Readers are not exposed to the physical desert until the sixth episode, when they follow the caravan the narrator/Neilos has joined in

12 13 14

History of Paul and John 22, edited and transl. by Arneson et al. (2010: 48). On similar narrative schemes in the Greek novels, see Puccini-Delbey (2001: 94). Pseudo-Neilos, Narrations i.1, edited by Conca (1983: 1.6), transl. Caner (2010: 84).

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order to cross it. This narrative design allows the author/narrator to offer his reader two instances of a projected representation of the desert. The first occurs with the initial threnody. The inclusion of this long, contrived rhetorical piece is, in itself, a fictionalization device, and the author incorporates into it the first representation of the desert, directly appealing to the reader’s imagination through a series of rhetorical questions: Where was [the place] that received your fall? What the beasts that tore at your limbs? What the birds that feasted on your flesh? Which luminous star now knows the secrets of your stomach, having risen to view your vitals spilled out in the air? Did anything survive the beasts’ savage teeth? […] If so, it lies out in the open, exposed to the sun, deprived of the dignity of a hallowed burial, this being the desert.15 It is the fate of his child that the narrator ponders in his funeral lamentations. However, as the end of the quotation indicates, underneath it hides a rhetorical representation of the desert, a hostile, dangerous, disorienting place ruled by wild beasts. The second instance of representation of the desert prior to the narrator physically experiencing it uses another rhetorical device. It takes the form of a long excursus that takes up the Narrations’ entire third episode. Even if these words are spoken by Neilos, the character-narrator, who claims to give the reader the necessary keys for understanding the rest of the tale, his voice is here in fact supplanted by that of the omniscient author, as he describes the desert inhabitants’ way of life in two accounts, first of the Bedouins and then of the monks, whereby the second runs parallel to the first but inverts it.16 Scholars have not identified the source of this diptych—which begins: ‘The aforesaid nation [of Barbarians] inhabits the desert extending from Arabia to Egypt’s Red Sea and the River Jordan’17—but it appears as though taken from an ancient geographical work in the style of Herodotos.18 Rather than fictionalizing the account, this borrowing from a starkly contrasting genre that claims to describe the inhabited world as it is, ostensibly reinforces the historical veracity

15 16

17 18

Pseudo-Neilos, Narrations i.6, edited by Conca (1983: 3.20–24.2), transl. Caner (2010: 87). Pseudo-Neilos, Narrations ii.16, edited by Conca (1983: 11.20–24), transl. Caner (2010: 94): ‘But at this point I must take the opportunity my narrative affords to describe how the holy ones in those places formerly lived, and to tell how the Barbarians who attacked them exist, so that the substance of my story might achieve a harmonious balance.’ Pseudo-Neilos, Narrations iii.1–4, edited by Conca (1983: 12.3–4), transl. Caner (2010: 94). For example, see the parallel with Herodotos, History 2.32 and 4.99.

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of the description of the desert dwellers’ customs. However, given the narrative’s overall configuration, the stylistic break caused by the excursus, the shift from narrator to author, and its evidently digressive character all immediately cast doubt on its historicity. Even if it does not use exactly the same mechanisms as imaginative projection, the episode is intended to stir readers into the same kind of imaginative speculation that leads them into a perilous fictional space, where anything seems possible.

2

At the Desert’s Edge: Narrative Ellipsis

The second device at work in both texts under consideration is narrative ellipsis, that is, the omission of aspects of the journey to the desert from the narrative, a technique that was already raised in relation to the Life of Antony. In the History of Paul and John, the two protagonists begin their pilgrimage to Mount Sinai after taking leave of their fellow ascetics in Edessa: Paul and John traveled courageously to the mountain of God. And it came to pass when they had arrived at the base of Mount Sinai, that a band of Arabs came upon them. They seized them and brought them captive to a certain place that was named ‘of the Himyarites’.19 This passage contains a narrative ellipsis since the journey from Edessa to the Sinai is entirely left implicit. This acceleration of narrative rhythm means that the protagonists find themselves immediately at the desert’s border. Right away, they are taken prisoner and their adventures begin. What increases this obfuscation of narrative space is the fact that the prisoners are taken—if we accept the cited toponym—to a place several thousand kilometres away. They are taken to the Arabian Peninsula’s south, to the land of Himyar (i.e., of the Homerites), which is a location familiar from other contemporary hagiographies, especially those related to the massacre of the Christians of Najran.20 The narrative ellipsis forcefully presents to the reader a fictionalized space at the known world’s margins, where spatial landmarks have been eliminated. It is no coincidence that the barbarian kidnapping occurs precisely at this narrative turn. The device feels even more effective if one considers that the work was most certainly composed in Edessa and likely intended initially for a local audi-

19 20

History of Paul and John 23, edited and transl. by Arneson et al. (2010: 50). On the texts connected to this event, see the studies collected in Beaucamp et al. (2010).

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ence.21 Thus, the intended reader would have been abruptly launched from the known world of Edessa to the unknown one of the desert. In itself, narrative ellipsis merely signals the author’s intervention in fashioning the narrative and choosing which events to represent. However, since it is deployed exactly when the characters enter another world—the desert—it can be argued that it adds to the fictionalization of this space by insinuating that one can only enter it through some sort of magic. The effect is all the more striking when we compare the account of the journey of the two pilgrims from Edessa to two contemporary pilgrimage accounts belonging to a different and non-fictional literary genre: the Itinerary of Egeria, who travels to Sinai at the end of the fourth century, and the account of the Pilgrim of Piacenza from the second half of the sixth. Both describe in painstaking detail their timeconsuming journey toward their final destination, citing the names of each of their resting points, insofar as they make stops, the distances between them, and the changes in the landscape. Thus, their entry into the desert seems to be their journey’s natural endpoint. Paul and John, by contrast, find themselves in the desert straight out of Edessa in the blink of an eye. In Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations, the desert crossing is not linked to pilgrimage, although the journey takes place under similar circumstances. When the narrator ventures into the desert in the sixth episode, it is in the company of a Pharanite delegation to the camp of Ammanes, the barbarian king, to sue for peace. Neilos hopes to find his son there, who, he has learned, is still alive: […] the next day […] we set out as well—for now, you see, we had real hope. The journey took twelve days in all. On the eighth day, our water ran out. Driven by great thirst, we soon expected to meet the death that lurks wherever there is scarcity. But those familiar with the region said there was a spring nearby.22 If at first glance the narrator appears to give a detailed report of his desert crossing, in the fashion of late antique pilgrims such as Egeria and the Piacenza pilgrim, a closer look forces us to observe that his (and, hence, the reader’s) bearings are completely lost: the desert is nothing more than a vast expanse, idealized yet menacing, where death lurks everywhere. The narrative ellipsis here concerns not the entire journey but only the crossing itself; this facilit-

21 22

See Arneson et al. (2010: 19). Pseudo-Neilos, Narrations vi.12, edited by Conca (1983: 38.19–24), transl. Caner (2010: 122).

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ates the dramatic plot twist that is introduced with the motif of water shortage. The discovery of a nearby spring then engenders general confusion among the thirsty travellers: everyone starts running in every direction to find a drop of water. When the spring finally appears, it is behind a hill, like a mirage, but it is also found to be riddled with barbarians: The spring happened to be in the direction in which I was heading, but it was obscured by a hilltop in front of me. Leaving the others here and there, I advanced up the hill, guessing I would soon discover the spring in one spot or another nearby. As soon as I got over the hill and reached the other side, I was the first to see it—but then I saw Barbarians spread out around it.23 Compare this with the Piacenza pilgrim’s story, which seems to follow the same route through the Sinai Desert in similar conditions, and one senses the degree of the dramatization in which Pseudo-Neilos engages: For five or six days we travelled on through the desert. Our camels carried our water, and each person was given a pint in the morning and a pint in the evening. When the water in the skins had turned bitter like gall we put sand in it, and this made it sweet. Some of the servants and wives of the Saracens came from the desert and sat weeping by the road. They spread a mantle out in front of them and asked the passers-by for bread.24 This pilgrim’s testimony of his slow journey through the desert, the water rationing, and sporadic encounters with Bedouin beggars contrasts starkly with Pseudo-Neilos’ highly condensed and dramatized account. If ellipsis positively contributes to the narrative dynamics of the two hagiographies here examined by sparing the reader a tiresome account of the protagonists’ journeys, it also tills fertile ground for fictionalization. After having fostered the desert as a perilous place where dangers could spring from anywhere in any form in the readers’ imagination, both narratives use this device to project them suddenly, in a heedless and disorienting manner, to that location.

23 24

Pseudo-Neilos, Narrations vi.14, edited by Conca (1983: 392.12–18), transl. Caner (2010: 122). Pilgrim of Piacenza, Itinerary 36, edited by Milani (1977: 202), transl. Wilkinson (1977: 87).

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Between Autobiography and Embedded Narrative: Obfuscation of Narrative Voice

The third technique that endows the desert setting with a fictional character is the obfuscation of narrative voice, or ambiguity surrounding the question ‘who speaks’—something that scholars have identified as a marker of fictionalization.25 That Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations borrows its autobiographical form from the Greek novel has long been recognized. The work is entirely narrated in the first person. That said, the narrative perspective is complicated from the start because the narration of the most essential events is embedded in the main narrative.26 When the narrator recounts the barbarians’ kidnapping of his son, he no longer directly addresses the reader but an intradiegetic Pharanite audience.27 Using a technique widely attested in the Greek novel, Neilos then gives the floor to other characters, who recount the events from their perspectives. This is particularly evident in the fifth episode, when a slave who had been kidnapped by the barbarians together with Theodoulos but had managed to escape, recounts his story to the Pharanites. Furthermore, the primary narrator himself seems to occasionally hand over the narrative to the author—I have already indicated a duplication of the narrator and the author in the third episode’s long geographical digression. There, the narrator no longer addresses a Pharanite audience but the readers directly, to lead them to imagine the desert as the author wants them to believe it to be. Thus, Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations have a complex narrative structure, like a Chinese box, with voices constantly changing as speech acts and narratives are embedded in one another, all within the primary narrator’s overarching account. The use of embedded narratives brings about a narrative incoherence of particular interest to us here. Indeed, at the very moment when Neilos finds himself face to face with the barbarians at the spring in the middle of the desert and is about to be taken prisoner, a troop of armed Pharanites appears on the hilltop, frees Neilos, and routs the barbarians: ‘Not much time had passed in these circumstances when behold! the warriors of your forces arrived’ (italicization mine).28 The incongruity of this timely desert apparition of a troop not

25 26 27 28

On this technique, for example in the Life of Theoktiste of Lesbos, see Høgel’s chapter in this volume, ‘From Cyclops to Unicorn’. On the narrative complexities of the Narrations, see De Temmerman (2022). Pseudo-Neilos, Narrations i.3, edited by Conca (1983: 2). Pseudo-Neilos, Narrations vi.16, edited by Conca (1983: 40.14–15), transl. Caner (2010: 123). See also Caner (2010: 123, n. 183).

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previously mentioned is reinforced by the unheralded usage of the second person here. Nothing seems to warrant its use, given that the narrator is no longer addressing the Pharanites. This incongruity could simply be deemed an error in the narrative’s textual transmission if similar signs of voice obfuscation were not found elsewhere. Overall, the History of Paul and John is narrated by an omniscient, thirdperson narrator. As with the Narrations of Pseudo-Neilos, the tale has a significant number of embedded narratives, which all emerge while the two protagonists traverse the desert. In these cases, we also find shifts in discursive situation at moments where one narrator takes over from another. Thus, when Paul and John, on the way back from Mount Sinai to Edessa, encounter an ascetic who is perched up a tree on a desert mountain peak and tells them his story, the narrative suddenly shifts to the first person plural, and the two protagonists become narrators: ‘It came to pass, after we remained with him for three days, that he surrendered his soul to God’ (italicization mine).29 Thereafter, the narrative repeatedly alternates between the first and third persons. Toward the end of the tale, John assumes the role of sole narrator before we return to the original third-person narrative voice.30 Shifts between several seemingly contradictory narrative perspectives only happen in episodes taking place deep in the desert, where the most significant events occur. By thus disorienting the reader at moments when the narrative shifts from one embedded layer to another, moreover, the device contributes even further to the fictionalization of this space. At the same time, we must be careful when attributing intentionality to the use of this fictionalizing device. The Greek version of the History of Paul and John does not seem to contain any of the disjunctions of voice attested in the Syriac version, at least as far as we can judge based on its fragmentary transmission. Since the question of the work’s original language remains unresolved,31 these inconsistencies must either have been resolved in translation, if Greek is the secondary language, or introduced over time, either as a result of transmission errors or as a deliberate intervention of the Syriac translator, if Syriac is the secondary language. The fact remains that this continual obfuscation of narrative voice creates an effect whereby reality is placed at a distance. What is furthermore particularly salient is that these shifts all occur when the narrative is set in the desert and, more precisely, at times when the device reinforces its dramatization. 29 30 31

History of Paul and John 32, edited and transl. by Arneson et al. (2010: 60). See, for example, Arneson et al. (2010: 68, n. 68), but there are numerous examples in the last part of the story. Arneson et al. (2010: 19); Smith (2009: 122–123).

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Conclusions: Creating an Imaginary Space

In the two examined hagiographical narratives, each of the three techniques that I have discussed contribute in their own way to the representation of the desert as a distinct literary space where imagination can unfold more freely. Removed from the known world, the desert is a place where space enlarges, time accelerates, and exploits multiply, often in unlikely ways. It can therefore be equipped with a fabulous character, as in Jerome’s Life of Paul of Thebes. This infiltration of the fabulous is particularly evident in the following episode from the History of Paul and John: It happened that, when they were walking along the way at evening time, they reached a mountain on top of which stood a tall tree. And, lo, there was the shadow of a man standing in the tree.32 On this tree lives the dendrite monk to whom I have already referred, the one who recounts his story and dies before the very eyes of Paul and John, who then bury him. It is not the first tree to appear in the middle of the desert in this way. The two protagonists had already encountered a palm tree in the barbarian encampment where they had been taken. It embodied a divinity and was venerated by their captors.33 This Leitmotif has undoubtedly a symbolic power of its own in this tale.34 However, just like the spring that appears in the desert in Pseudo-Neilos’ Narrations, what is immediately striking is the way in which the tree’s apparition is staged as if it were a mirage rising out of nowhere in the arid desert’s midst.

Bibliography Primary Sources Ammonios, Report on the Slaughter of the Monks of Sinai and of Raithou: Combefis, F. (ed.) 1660. Illustrium Christi Martyrum Triumphi (Paris), 88–132; Caner, D.F. (transl.) 2010. History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai (Liverpool), 149–171. Anonymous, History of the Great Deeds of Bishop Paul of Qentos and Priest John of Edessa (Syriac): Arneson, H. et al. (eds. & transl.) 2010. The History of the Great Deeds of Bishop Paul of Qentos and Priest John of Edessa (Piscataway). 32 33 34

History of Paul and John 31, edited and transl. by Arneson et al. (2010: 58). History of Paul and John 26, edited by Arneson et al. (2010: 55.4–7). Smith (2009).

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Anonymous, History of the Great Deeds of Bishop Paul of Qentos and Priest John of Edessa (Greek): Papadopoulos-Kerameus, A. (ed.) 1888. Ἀνάλεκτα Ἱεροσολυμιτικῆς Σταχυολογίας, v (St. Petersburg), 368–383. Athanasios of Alexandria, Life of Antony: Bartelink, G.J.M. (ed. & transl.) 1994. Athanase d’Alexandrie, Vie d’Antoine (Paris); Brakke, D. (transl.) 2000. ‘Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of St. Antony of Egypt’, in T. Head (ed.), Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology (New York), 1–30. Egeria, Itinerary: Maraval, P. (ed. & transl.) 1982. Égérie. Journal de voyage (Itinéraire) (Paris). Jerome, Life of Paul of Thebes: Leclerc, P. & Morales, E.M. (eds. & transl.) 2007. Jérôme, Trois Vies de moines (Paul, Malchus, Hilarion) (Paris); White, C. (transl.) 1998. ‘Life of Paul of Thebes by Jerome’, in Early Christian Lives (London), 75–84. Pilgrim of Piacenza, Itinerary: Milani, C. (ed.) 1977. Itinerarium Antonini Placentini. Un viaggio in terra santa del 560–570 d. C. (Milan); Wilkinson, J. (transl.) 1977. Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades (Warminster); Maraval, P. (transl.) 2002. Récits des premiers pèlerins chrétiens au Proche-Orient (ive-viie siècle) (Paris), 205– 235. Pseudo-Neilos, Narrations: Conca, F. (ed.) 1983. Nilus Ancyranus Narratio (Leipzig); Caner, D.F. (transl.) 2010. History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai (Liverpool), 84–135.

Secondary Sources Arneson, H., Fiano, E., Luckritz Marquis, C. & Smith, K.R. 2010. The History of the Great Deeds of Bishop Paul of Qentos and Priest John of Edessa (Piscataway). Beaucamp, J., Briquel-Chatonnet, F. & Robin, C.J. 2010. Juifs et chrétiens en Arabie aux ve et vie siècles: Regards croisés sur les sources (Paris). Caner, D.F. 2004. ‘Sinai Pilgrimage and Ascetic Romance: Pseudo-Nilus’ Narrationes in Context’, in L. Ellis & F.L. Kidner (eds.), Travel, Communication and Geography in Late Antiquity (Bodmin), 135–147. Caner, D.F. 2010. History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai (Liverpool). Conca, F. 1983. ‘Le Narrationes di Nilo e il romanzo greco’, Atti del iv Congresso Nazionale di Studi Bizantini (Lecce), 349–360. Cox Miller, P. 1996. ‘Jerome’s Centaur: A Hyper-Icon of the Desert’, JECS 42, 209–233. De Temmerman, K. 2022. ‘A Desire (Not) to Die for: Narrating Emotions in Pseudo-Nilus’ Narrations’, in M. de Bakker et al. (eds.), Emotions and Narrative in Ancient Literature and Beyond: Studies in Honour of Irene de Jong (Leiden), 682–696. Guillaumont, A. 1975. ‘La conception du désert chez les moines d’Egypte’, RHR 188, 3–21. [reprinted in 1979. Aux origines du monachisme chrétien: pour une phénoménologie du monachisme (Bégrolles en Mauges), 69–87] Heussi, K. 1917. Untersuchungen zu Nilus dem Asketen (Leipzig).

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Link, M. 2005. Die Erzählung des Pseudo-Neilos—ein spätantiker Märtyrerroman (Leipzig). Maraval, P. 2002. Récits des premiers pèlerins chrétiens au Proche-Orient (ive–viie siècle) (Paris). Mayerson, P. 1975. ‘Observations on the ‘Nilus’ Narrationes: Evidence for an Unknown Christian Sect?’, JARCE 12, 51–74. [reprinted in 1994. Monks, Martyrs, Soldiers and Saracens. Papers on the Near East in Late Antiquity (1962–1993) (Jerusalem), 105–128] Morgan, J.R. 2015. ‘The Monk’s Story: The Narrationes of Pseudo-Neilos of Ankyra’, in S. Panayotakis, G. Schmeling & M. Paschalis (eds.), Holy Men and Charlatans in the Ancient Novel (Groningen), 167–194. Puccini-Delbey, G. 2001. ‘Figures du narrateur et du narrataire dans les œuvres romanesques de Chariton d’Aphrodisias, Achille Tatius et Apulée’, in B. Pouderon (ed.), Les personnages du roman grec (Lyon), 87–100. Saradi, H.G. 2014. ‘The City in Byzantine Hagiography’, in S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, Volume ii: Genres and Contexts (Farnham), 419–452. Smith, K. 2009. ‘Dendrites and Other Standers in the History of the Exploits of Bishop Paul of Qanetos and Priest John of Edessa’, Hugoye 12.1, 117–134. Soler, J. 2011. ‘La conversion chrétienne du récit de voyage antique dans les Vies de moines de Jérôme’, IJCT 18, 1–17. Wiśniewski, R. 2000. ‘Bestiae Christum loquuntur ou des habitants du désert dans la Vita Pauli de saint Jérôme’, Augustinianum 40, 105–144.

chapter 6

The Literary Construction of a Post-Iconoclast Saint: Gregorios Dekapolites between Biography and Fictionalization Oscar Prieto Domínguez

There is no doubt that the incorporation of fictionalized elements or events in a hagiographical text was a delicate matter. It was particularly complicated in those accounts which claimed to be true and were aimed at a contemporary audience that could well have known the protagonist. In these cases there was a greater need to depict biographees according to their historical character and behaviour, as it was known to their friends, followers or mere acquaintances.1 Evidently, hagiographers could present their subjects in various ways, either remaining close to the ideal paradigm of what a saint should be or adhering closely to the historical accuracy of who the hero actually was.2 This contradiction between the need to portray an ideal model and the task of writing about a specific individual is evident in the Life of Gregorios Dekapolites written by Ignatios the Deacon (BHG 711).3 Apart from his work on Gregorios, Ignatios the Deacon was responsible for writing the encomiastic biographies of two distinguished patriarchs of Constantinople, Nikephoros (BHG 1335)4 and Tarasios (BHG 1698),5 and of an important bishop, Georgios of Amastris (BHG 668).6 As all three of them 1 See the instances analysed by Coon (1997); Talbot (2004); Insley (2014); Kosinski (2016). 2 See the methodological reflections of Alexander (1940); Goddard Elliott (1987); Pratsch (2005); Mullett (2010); Messis (2014). 3 The first edition of the Life of Gregorios Dekapolites was prepared by Dvornik (1926), and a more recent edition was prepared by Makris (1997). In the absence of any mention to the contrary, the references correspond to the latter edition. 4 Edited by De Boor (1880: 139–217). There is an English translation by Fisher (1998). See also Costa-Louillet (1954/1955: 245–256); Mango (1997: 8–12); Kazhdan (1999: 352–356). 5 On this Life see Efthymiadis (1998); Costa-Louillet (1954/1955: 217–229); Efthymiadis (1991: 73– 83); Kazhdan (1999: 343–366). 6 PmbZ # 2183; PBE Georgios 2; Costa-Louillet (1954/1955: 479–492). This Life was edited by Vasilevskij (1893: vol. 2, 1–73). There has been much debate on the date of composition: Vasilevskij (1915: lxxvii–cviii), Ševčenko (1977b: 150–173), and Treadgold (1988–1990) argue that it dates from 820–842. For his part, Kazhdan suggests that it was written in the late tenth century or even later (see DOHD ‘Introduction’ 1998: 44). Some authors do not accept

© Oscar Prieto Domínguez, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004685758_007

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were public figures well known to a wide audience, Ignatios’ possibilities were restricted as he had to be more faithful to reality and limit his imagination. This was due not only to requirements and expectations of the hagiographical genre, commissioners, and audiences, but also to a social need. After all, the Byzantine literature of the ninth century emerged from a polarized society after the end of Iconoclasm in 843. It had to justify Iconodule Orthodoxy and show its correctness in order to legitimate the new political and ecclesiastical order and promote the sanctification of the Iconophile leaders.7 When the biographee was an anti-Iconoclast patriarch such as Nikephoros or Tarasios, a historical and argumentative approach was required to achieve these goals.8 It should be remembered that the Iconoclast crisis (730–843) involved not only a theological dispute among the Byzantines but also a shift in models of sanctity and their forms of representation (both visually and literarily). Social changes were quickly reflected in Christian hagiography, which meant that Iconodule authors disassociated themselves from the writers of the first Martyrdoms of early Christianity and rather promoted a new construction of holiness, which implied a particular characterization of the Christian hero/heroine as a confessor—someone who had merely suffered for his faith and had a strong monastic background and a reputation for having defended icons in public.9 The saint par excellence of the second Iconoclasm (815–843) is the hēgoumenos Theodore of Stoudios,10 who confronted several emperors and patriarchs in the name of Orthodoxy and played a major role in the fight to defend images. He was the protagonist of at least five Lives and established a welldefined type for Iconodule heroes, becoming the ideal model of this period.11 At the same time, there were religious leaders or other relevant persons whose cult was actively promoted but who did not match the type of the confessor. For instance, the members of the military-bureaucratic elite did not always behave piously and some individuals of relevance in the new Iconod-

7 8 9 10 11

that Ignatios the Deacon was the author of this hagiography, see Costa-Louillet (1940/ 1941); Wolska-Conus (1970); Auzépy (1992); Efthymiadis (1991: 75–80); Kazhdan (1999: 356– 366). For Markopoulos (1979), an interpolation could explain most of the issues raised. Beck (1959: 473–519); Bryer & Herrin (1977); Kazhdan (1999: 169–407); Brubaker & Haldon (2001; 2011); Auzépy (2007); Brubaker (2012); Prieto Domínguez (2020). Fisher (1998); Efthymiadis (1998). Ševčenko (1977); Kazhdan (1999: 384–407); Brubaker & Haldon (2001: 199–232); Efthymiadis (2011: 95–142); Humphreys (2021). Bibliography on the future saint Theodore of Stoudios is abundant; see PmbZ # 7574; PBE i Theodoros 15; Pratsch (1998) with previous bibliography; Cholij (2002). Jordan & Morris (2021); Krausmüller (2006; 2013); Matantseva (1996); Delouis (2014).

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ule society had a rather problematic Iconoclast past.12 In such cases, Lives were required to meet liturgical needs and to justify their subject’s sanctity. To that end, narrative resources and rhetorical strategies were actively used in order to compensate for or balance historical reality, as this chapter sets out to demonstrate. Contrary to the other hagiographical enterprises embarked upon by Ignatios,13 the Life of Gregorios Dekapolites enabled and indeed obliged him to reformulate many aspects of his protagonist’s life story according to socio-political expectations. Gregorios Dekapolites was not a preeminent Iconophile and kept a low profile in contemporary politics: he was a simple monk not particularly interested in theological matters or in finding a position in the hierarchy.14 Nothing is known about his public defence of the icons and he does not appear to have been involved in any controversy with the Iconoclasts. Obviously, this situation represented a challenge for the hagiographer in terms of reconciling his actions with the ideal model which he was supposed to embody. Although it was a challenge, it was also an opportunity for an experienced author such as Ignatios the Deacon, who—having an Iconoclast past15—was well known for his ability to omit or emphasize actions of his hero to his own advantage. In the following pages, I will attempt to reconstruct the techniques that Ignatios the Deacon used to this end in his Life of Gregorios Dekapolites, by means of a thorough analysis of several examples from the text.

1

Gregorios Dekapolites and his Life (BHG 711)

According to surviving sources Gregorios died in 842, although it may also have been a year earlier.16 In any case, it was before the restoration of icons. His Life

12 13

14 15

16

Prieto Domínguez (2019). On this Byzantine author and his work, see PmbZ # 2665; Papadopoulos-Kerameus (1902); Wolska-Conus (1970); Mango (1997); Makris (1997: 16–19); Efthymiadis (1991); Lauxtermann (1998: 397–401); Pratsch (2000); Efthymiadis (2002). On the personality of Gregorios and his sources, see PmBZ # 2486; PBE i Gregorios 79; Mango (1985); Malamut (2004); Prieto Domínguez (2020: 168–224). Although Ignatios entered the patriarchal household under the orthodox Tarasios and became a member of the clergy of St. Sophia under the Iconophile Nikephoros, he became metropolitan bishop of Nicaea during the Second Iconoclasm and supported the Iconoclasts. Around the time of the Triumph of Orthodoxy (843) he apparently recanted from his heretical position. The year 842 has been determined by Dvornik (1926: 26) while Mango (1985: 643–644) proposed 841 or even 840.

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was written shortly after his death. Even if he never defended holy images or took part in the actions of the monastic resistance against the Iconoclast rulers, the manner in which he was depicted in his Lives turned him into an orthodox hero and an Iconodule saint thanks to the fictionalization17 of the grey areas of his life.18 In the first place, Ignatios does not deny the evidence and accepts that his hero never suffered on account of icons. To enhance credibility and avoid the accusation that Gregorios was neither imprisoned nor exiled nor tortured for his faith (in contrast to the major saints of the second Iconoclasm), the hagiographer describes him as a ‘proclaimed martyr without bruises’ (μάρτυς ἀναδειχθεὶς ἄνευ μώλωπος).19 The only mention of physical punishment that can be found refers to a time not long after he took holy orders, when he publicly opposed the hēgoumenos of his monastery.20 An attempt is made to justify the lack of discipline of the young Gregorios by means of the abbot’s Iconoclastic contacts, but at no time does the author claim this to be a defence of images. Since the kathēgoumenos of the monastery had mingled with the heretics (τοῖς αἱρεσιώταις) without discrimination and was possessed by their shamelessness and association (τῆς αὐτῶν βδελυρίας καὶ κοινωνίας), Gregorios, as a warder of the warder who dissimulates nothing, facing the brothers’ holy assembly refuted the shepherd’s ill-fated labour and reproved him for having carried out the angelic profession contemptibly. (Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 5.1–6) This passage gives the impression that the argument of the Iconoclast abbot has been created to justify Gregorios’ flight from the monastery, even if the ecclesiastical rules prohibited it.21 Gregorios’ lack of commitment to defending the cause of the icons is compensated by the emphasis on the Iconoduly of those around him. For example, the first ecclesiastic whom he meets after fleeing from home on the eve of his 17

18

19 20 21

For the purposes of this study, we will understand fictionalization as the providing of an imaginative version of a life of a historical figure (see Iser 1990 and Vargas Llosa 1990: 5– 20). The literary portrait created by Ignatios the Deacon is corroborated and expanded in the vita by Ioseph Hymnographos, Gregorios’ disciple (BHG 944–947D). On the latter, see Van de Vorst (1920); Tomadakes (1971); Stiernon (1973); Colonna (1953); Costa-Louillet (1957: 812–823); PmbZ # 3454 and 23510; PBE i Ioseph 12. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 73.25–26. PmbZ # 11652; PBE Anonymous 284. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 17.1–2, n. 17.

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wedding day is said to have been a former bishop who had abandoned his see to escape the Iconoclasts. The brief presentation of this figure is used to attack the whole heresy with strong conviction: A certain shepherd of the spiritual flock amongst those living in the aforementioned Dekapolis, who had recently given up the episcopate and now lived in the mountains due to the ill-advised and destructive revolt of the dominant heresy (διὰ τὴν τῆς ἐπικρατούσης αἱρέσεως κακόβουλον καὶ φθοροποιὸν ἐπισύστασιν) after the mind of the enemies of icons (εἰκονομάχων), or rather of the enemies of Christ (χριστομάχων). (Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 3.9–13)22 Secondly, the recurrent presence of his uncle Symeon, the hēgoumenos of the monastery where he spent fourteen years and an archimandritēs (i.e. he was in charge of the monasteries of all the Dekapolis in Isauria),23 is another element in the strategy of associating Gregorios with Iconoduly without contradicting reality. On one occasion Symeon is even thrown into prison in Constantinople by Emperor Theophilos for his Iconophile beliefs.24 The scene narrated immediately afterwards is difficult to interpret. In prison Symeon becomes aware that Gregorios (who is in Thessaloniki) is seriously ill. Nevertheless, he asks Gregorios to visit him.25 Gregorios’ arrival coincides with Symeon’s liberation and is followed by Gregorios’ death. The meeting between the newly released uncle and the sick nephew is logically problematic in that Gregorios is asked to travel unnecessarily while being sick, and his journey was likely to accelerate his passing away. What is the objective of this scene? In my view, Ignatios made an active attempt to assimilate the image of Gregorios to that of his uncle Symeon, so that the audience/readers could identify their different stances on the fight against Iconoclasm as if they were the same. Gregorios suffered as a result of this final effort to visit his imprisoned uncle,26 and he also showed his willingness to enter jail even if it cost him his life, as was eventually the case. The result is a pathetic crescendo that parallels the final weeks in the accounts of martyrs or other confessors of 22 23

24 25 26

On this Iconophile, see PBE i Anonymous 283. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 5.12–13: ‘the monasteries belonging to Dekapolis had him as archimandrites at that time’. On the duties of the archimandritēs, see Meester (1949); Ruggieri (1991: 117–123). On his uncle Symeon, see PmbZ # 7199; PBE Symeon 14. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 77.2–4: ‘Symeon was imprisoned by the current emperor due to his right and blameless faith’. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 76–77. Cf. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 76.15–20.

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the Iconoclast period. This presentation of the historical events (there is no doubt that Gregorios Dekapolites passed away in Constantinople and that Symeon outlived his nephew) creates the impression that Gregorios was a member of the Iconophile faction. The projection of Gregorios’ Iconoduly is very strong because it relies on the religious ideology of two figures who both formed crucial models for the saint in his life and on his path to sanctity, and who incarnated his moral benchmark: his spiritual guide, the bishop, and his uncle Symeon, who was also his superior in a monastery for fourteen years.27

2

Balancing Reality and Fiction

As the balance between reality and fiction is complicated, our writer sometimes prefers to say nothing rather than lie; his silences, dissimulations, attenuations and diminishments also constitute a form of fictionalization. A good example can be found in chapters 14–16, which include Gregorios’ exchange of letters with Symeon. In itself, the inclusion of the letters in the narration is an example of ēthopoiia or ‘characterization through speech’, a fictionalizing technique that was commonly used to (re)construct the personality of the protagonists rather than to reproduce their exact words. Indeed, it would have been credible and realistic for an Iconophile such as Symeon to have defended the veneration of icons both orally and in writing. But his correspondence does not bear this out. Possibly it was felt not to be consistent with Gregorios’ image as it was known to his contemporaries—not only his followers but also his detractors: the Iconodule positioning of Symeon could have made Gregorios look like an Iconoclast to his contemporaries by contrast. This was to be avoided at all costs. At the same time, the author faced some restrictions in the representation of Gregorios. Gregorios was a well-known member of society during the Iconoclast period and his good relationships with Iconoclastic leaders are, in fact, clearly documented throughout his Life. He arrived in Syracuse, for instance, whose community was guided by Theodoros Krithinos, the former oikonomos of St. Sophia and a committed defender of Iconoclasm, in two successful embassies in the West in 824 and 827.28 After that he arrived in Otranto, 27 28

Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 5.13–18. PmbZ # 7675; PBE i Theodoros 66; Gouillard (1961); McCormick (1994: 148–153). It is probable that it was during this stay that Krithinos commissioned the translation of the vita of Anastasia; see Gounelle (2005: 65–68). We know very little about the implementa-

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whose bishop was an Iconoclast29 who prevented the mob from continuing to strike Gregorios accused of betraying Christians, and from executing him; he even ordered the whipping of those who had assaulted him. In Thessaloniki, furthermore, such contacts are developed to the highest level. Gregorios had dealings with the monk Anastasios, the companion of the prōtokankelarios Georgios, the representative of the (Iconoclast) stratēgos of Thessaloniki.30 And finally, Gregorios declares that he has always travelled with ‘the imperial seal of approval’,31 which could only have been issued by the Iconoclast Theophilos. It is impossible to know to what extent Gregorios Dekapolites and his disciples accepted heresy, but the writer avoids the question and obscures the fact that his alleged involvement in the defence of icons was only limited. This strategy is complemented by typical Iconodule arguments in favour of venerating icons. They are gathered in the proem of the Life, the epilogue and a central excursus in chapter 73. Even though these are clearly the words of the hagiographer, the audience may identify them with the protagonist through association and specifically intertextuality. 2.1 The Proem and Epilogue as Written Diptych In the preface to the Life the saint is the subject of a comparison (synkrisis) with King David,32 who is described as ‘the image of the heart of God (τῆς καρδίας θεοῦ εἰκόνα)’.33 Ignatios the Deacon explicitly uses the term εἰκών to reclaim a narrative technique from Iconoclastic hagiography. Since Iconoclasm postulated that it was in man’s exemplary behaviour that the image of God could be found and not in soulless pictorial representations (ἀψύχοις εἰκόσι),34 the Lives of Iconoclast heroes (such as Georgios of Amastris, Eudokimos, Philaretos, and

29 30 31 32 33 34

tion of Iconoclasm in the provinces; see Ahrweiler (1977). In the Peloponnese the attitude towards this heresy was rather ambiguous; see Konti (1999). For its dissemination in Palestine and the Orient, see Griffith (1985); Auzépy (2001); Reynolds (2017). For the situation of Iconoclasm in Anatolia, see Signes Codoñer (2014: 20–25). On its dissemination in Byzantine Italy, see Guillou et al. (1983: 207–211); Falkenhausen (1989); Carile (1986); Dell’Acqua (2020). Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 33.12–13. See PmbZ # 11688. See PmbZ # 2233. On the peculiarities of the city of Thessaloniki at that time, see Malamut (2005). Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 49.13–15 (σφραγίδος καὶ νεύσεως βασιλικῆς). See Malamut (2004: 1206–1214). See also Praet in this volume. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites, Proem 18–24. Cf. Acts 13.22; Life of Georgios of Amastris 37. Alexander (1953) and (1958); Anastos (1954) and (1955); Sansterre (1994); Magdalino (2015).

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Leo of Catania) modelled them according to this principle and favoured their comparison with biblical figures, in particular from the Old Testament.35 In keeping with this tradition, a number of models of holiness from the Scriptures, mainly the Patriarchs of Israel, can also be found in the Life of Gregorios Dekapolites: Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Jacob, King David, the prophet Elijah, and even Job.36 The inclusion of biblical quotes known to all emphasizes the association between the hero and figures such as King David, stressing that both were chosen by God.37 The accumulation of all these comparisons strengthens the sanctity of the protagonist. Being part of the proem, they form a declaration of intent on the part of the hagiographer, who then concludes his text by granting Gregorios the recognition and power that he deserves as a real saint. Structurally, therefore, the epilogue operates as the other leaf of a diptych, in which the best proof of his sanctity is Gregorios’ ability to prevent the potential return of heresy (i.e. Iconoclasm). In the peroration the author addresses his hero directly so that he may intercede before the Lord on his behalf and on that of Gregorios’ entire flock and all his suppliants.38 The intertextual allusions and internal references highlight the literary dependence of these two parts of the text as if it were a written diptych. In the proem, Gregorios is described as a prophet during his lifetime: Such is also the remaining beehive of the Prophets that resounded with the Holy Spirit (ὁ τῶν προφητῶν ἐπίλοιπος μελισσὼν τῷ θείῳ πνεύματι καταυλούμενος), which is flooded by the meadow of the prophetic watering and gathers the valuable flowers that carry it to excellence and before the honey and honeycomb set the table, where he always welcomes the starving for justice and fills them with plenty of all kinds of food. (Life of Gregorios Dekapolites, Proem 25–29) With the aim of completing this description, in the epilogue he is presented as one of the blessed who finally did see and hear the mysteries of God:

35 36 37 38

Ševčenko (1977: 121–127) and Auzépy (1992) study the vitae of Georgios of Amastris, Eudokimos, Philaretos, and Leo of Catania. The only non-Old Testament figure is the proto-martyr Stephen (Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 20.7), who owing to his early date could be included as a member of the apostles. E.g. Acts 13.22: Εὗρον Δαυὶδ τὸν τοῦ Ἰεσαὶ ἄνδρα κατὰ τὴν καρδίαν μου = Life of Gregorios Dekapolites, Proem 23–24. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites, Epilogue 14–19.

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For you have lodged in the Lord’s fire and in the inviolate monastic cells and tents, guarding sleepless the lamp of purity with the oil of the ascetic good, and enjoying the company of those eternally well pleasing to God of those good people, whom eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man (ἃ ὀφθαλμὸς οὐκ εἶδε καὶ οὗς οὐκ ἤκουσε καὶ ἐπὶ καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἀνέβη), you are always strong in Christ who strengthens you. (Life of Gregorios Dekapolites, Epilogue 19–24)39 Biblical quotations are numerous in both the proem and the epilogue, but it is also worth noting that both include a self-citation taken from Ignatios’ liturgical canon in honour of St. Markellos: Into the meadow of the trials, oh Father, you have wisely entered and after collecting the extraordinary among the flowers of excellence have showed your heart as a beehive of self-control. (Ignat. Diac., Canon in s. Marcellum 3.3, cf. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites, Proem 25–29)40 You poured out compassion to those in need, oh saint, and guarding watchful the lamp of your soul with the fire of the Spirit, you have attained heavenly life and the torch-bearing cortege. (Ignat. Diac., Canon in s. Marcellum 5.5, cf. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites, Epilogue 19–24)41 It is no coincidence that the writer has chosen to include echoes of this figure, as Markellos Akoimetes was important for the origin of the monastic movement in Constantinople and one of the most distinguished hēgoumenoi of the Byzantine capital in the fifth century.42 The association with this holy man emphasizes Gregorios Dekapolites’ religious and charismatic authority in monastic circles. Moreover, references to Ignatios’ Life of the patriarch Nikephoros stress his alleged Orthodoxy and favour of icons. Indeed, in the epilogue we find a number of intertextual references (in fact, near self-quotations) which are mainly (though not exclusively) taken from his Life of that patriarch:

39 40

41

42

Cf. 1Cor. 2:9. Ἐν τῷ λειμῶνι, πάτερ, τῶν ἀγώνων ἐμφρόνως εἰσελήλυθας καὶ ἐξ ἀνθέων τῶν ἀρετῶν τὰ ἐξαίσια συλλέξας ὡς σίμβλον τὴν καρδίαν σου τῆς ἐγκρατείας ἔδειξας (Kominis & Schirò 1960–1983, vol. 4: 707.97–102). Τὸν ἔλεον ἐπήγασας τοῖς ἐνδεέσιν, ὅσιε, καὶ τὴν λαμπάδα τῆς ψυχῆς σου ἀνύστακτον τηρήσας τῷ πυρὶ τοῦ πνεύματος, εἰς τὴν ἄνω ἔφθασας δᾳδουχίαν καὶ ζωήν (Kominis & Schirò 1960–1983, vol. 4: 713.179–185). Dagron (1968); Baguenard (1990); Kosinski (2016: 211–232).

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Expel the heresies with the currently haughty wand of your prayers like dumb dogs that bite surreptitiously (Τὰς αἱρέσεις σὺν τῇ νυνὶ φρυαττομένῃ τῇ βακτηρίᾳ τῆς σῆς προσευχῆς ὡς κύνας ἐνεοὺς καὶ λαθροδήκτας ἀπέλασον). (Life of Gregorios Dekapolites, Epilogue 18–19) The passage is reminiscent of several passages in the Life of Nikephoros 212.17: φρυαττομένων αἱρετικῶν γλωσσῶν, Life of Tarasios 67.14: δι᾽ αὐτῶν μηνυθήσεσθαι φρυαττόμενος, cf. Life of Nikephoros 153.6–7: τῇ τῶν λόγων βακτηρίᾳ τοὺς λύκους ἀποσοβῶν, Life of Nikephoros 156.4–5: βακτηρίαν τὸν αὐτοῦ σταυρὸν πρὸς ὀρθοτομίαν τὴν ποίμνην ἐρείδουσαν, Life of Nikephoros 156.23–24: τῇ μὲν βακτηρίᾳ τὸ πλεῖον διδοὺς ἐπαναγούσῃ, Epist. 3.3–4: καὶ βακτηρίᾳ τὸ χωλὸν ὑπερείδων, Epist. 17.25: βακτηρίᾳ διδασκαλίας, Epist. 18.12: ὡς ῥάβδῳ καὶ βακτηρίᾳ, Epist. 33.20– 21: τῇ βακτηρίᾳ τὸ ἐν ὑμῖν ποιμαίνετε ποίμνιον, Life of Tarasios 10.41: ποιμαντικῇ βακτηρίᾳ εἰσελάσαι. Vid. et. Canon in transl. Nicephori patr. 3.3 (Menaeum Eccl. Graecae vii); cf. Life of Nikephoros 141.17: κυνῶν ἐνεῶν δίκην τοῦ ἁγίου καθυλακτεῖν. There are similar echoes in the Life of Gregorios Dekapolites, Epilogue 23–24: σὺν τοῖς ἀπ’ αἰῶνος τῷ θεῷ εὐαρεστήσασιν ἀπολαύων ἰσχύεις πάντα ἐν τῷ ἐνδυναμοῦντί σε Χριστῷ, ‘enjoying the company of those eternally well pleasing to God, you are always strong in Christ who strengthens you’. These are reminiscent of the Life of Nikephoros 145.22–23: τῶν ἀπ᾽ αἰῶνος αὐτῷ εὐαρεστησάντων ἁγίων σωματικὰ ἀπομιμήματα χράναντες. In the case of an author as prolific as Ignatios the Deacon, the inclusion of references to his previous works and in particular to his Life of Nikephoros is not an unintentional proof of his lack of creativity but rather a strategy to associate Gregorios to the Iconodule patriarch par excellence. It is yet another strategy, in other words, to emphasize the Iconodule qualities of Gregorios. 2.2 The Excursus—and What of Iconoclasm? Ignatios also inserted an excursus on the theology of images in his Life of Gregorios, even if it is unrelated to his narration about the saint.43 Unlike other post-Iconoclast Lives, in which the question of the images plays a prominent role, and in contrast to the remainder of the hagiographies by Ignatios himself, reflection on the icons and their worship is in this case not motivated by the confrontation of the hero with an Iconoclastic heretic but merely by the need to follow the dogma in defence of the veneration of icons resulting from

43

Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 73.

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the Council of Nicaea ii (787). This excursus is located between the consecration of Gregorios as a priest and the moment when he falls ill. Although the author does not justify its inclusion, the situation in the account does not seem random. It may be a simple literary intervention to interrupt the action and prolong the emotion after the consecration of the hero, thus downplaying his illness and imminent death, but in narratological terms, there is also the possibility that it can be interpreted as a reaffirmation of Gregorios in his (Iconodule) faith, as a kind of implicit ‘conversion’ before his death. Whatever the case, the excursus reinforces the impression that it is Ignatios’ intention to fictionalize the biography by creating the appearance of a standard Iconophile saint. In this sense, one last element in the narrative is extremely significant: the split in the biographee’s personality. Without any explanation, Ignatios records an episode in which Gregorios calls himself Georgios, until he was discovered by a man possessed by the devil. This strange event takes place in Thessaloniki, where he has settled c. 834, acquired disciples, and become the head of the monastery of St. Menas.44 The more his fame spreads and his miracles are multiplied, the better his relationship with the (Iconoclast) ruling classes of the city. On one occasion a monk possessed by a demon happens to meet Gregorios, who points his finger at him in order to heal him. However, the possessed man cries out and insults the saint by revealing his true name, causing ‘those who knew Gregorios to retort to the demon: “Unclean and evil spirit, why do you call Georgios Gregorios?” The demon replies, “He is pretending to be called Georgios when his name is Gregorios”’.45 According to Ignatios, then, the saint is known by the assumed name of Georgios in Thessaloniki. Why? There is no reason to think that Georgios was his birth name and that he changed it to Gregorios when he took holy orders, retaining the initial of his name. This is a later practice that seldom occurred in ninth-century Byzantium.46 According to Mango,47 the saint lived in that city under an assumed name because he had previously been involved in some kind of espionage or secret diplomatic activities and he needed to remain unnoticed for a time. However, another option (as has been incipiently suggested by Malamut)48 is to see in this period of living under a false name a fictionalizing tool

44 45

46 47 48

Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 36. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 61.6–9. Likewise, the saint made himself invisible twice so as not to be seen by his disciple Ioannes nor by his uncle Symeon, see Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 62–63. Talbot & McGrath (2006). Mango (1985: 637–638). Malamut (2004: 1219): ‘Grégoire s’est fait appeler Georges à Thessalonique. La dualité du

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used by Ignatios with the objective of creating a deliberate division, separating the historical Gregorios from the ideal saint. Thanks to this duality, the historical hero is properly recorded, but his acquaintance with the leading Iconoclast officials under the name of Georgios does not tarnish his orthodox sanctity under the name of Gregorios. This narrative resource is used recurrently throughout the Life in an implicit manner. A good example is Gregorios’ physical transformation because of his illness to the point of his becoming unrecognizable:49 For thus Gregorios had swollen his whole body and led himself into fatness, thus being only recognisable by his acquaintances thanks to his voice (ὡς μόνῃ φωνῇ τοῖς εἰδόσι γνωρίζεσθαι): he who was previously adorned by thinness was completely assimilated by the full spiritual skin. And these things happened to the saint while he was around the city of Thessaloniki in the region of the Illyrians. (Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 76.1–5) The hagiographer remarks that Gregorios could only be recognized by his voice.50 In the context of the duality of the saint’s personality and my interpretation of it above, the opposition unrecognizable/recognizable can be understood as parallel to the opposition unorthodoxy/orthodoxy: Gregorios could be seen as an Iconoclast and, being Georgios, his actions could seem so as well, but, as the hagiographer shows, in truth he was an Iconophile and was admired as such by his disciples and by his uncle, the archimandritēs Symeon, who asked the saint to visit him. The fact that Gregorios is twice accused of being a traitor (προδότης) is particularly interesting from this point of view as well. On the first occasion, a youth in Ainos inquires about his identity and immediate plans.51 On the second, the inhabitants of Otranto accuse him of having travelled to the town with the sole

49

50 51

héros hagiographique apparaît fondée: d’un côté le thaumaturge Grégoire, de l’autre le moine Georges s’accommodant trop bien de l’iconoclasme. Progressivement le thaumaturge va éliminer Georges’. Unrecognizability is a literary motif that is fairly frequent in Byzantine hagiography: for instance, John Kalyvites (BHG 868) was taken for an anonymous beggar when sitting on his parents’ doorstep, as a result not of illness but of extreme ascetism that led him to his death; see Baguenard (1990: 203–215). The topos of recognition by voice is shared by the ancient Greek love novels (Montiglio 2013: 16–30). Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 20.1–5.

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aim of betraying the Christians (ὡς ἐπὶ προδοσίαν χριστιανῶν ἥκειν).52 The resolution of the dispute is similar in both cases: Once the young man had heard them he abandoned his angry manner (τὸ ἀγριαῖνον ἦθος) and as a suppliant came before the saint and asked forgiveness for his misdemeanour. (Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 20.10–12) The saint, after appeasing the anger of the mind (τὸ ἀγριαῖνον τῆς γνώμης) of the mischievous, persuades them by inner prayer to do nothing to him. (Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 33.8–10) Both passages mention the anger of the saint’s opponent(s) (τὸ ἀγριαῖνον). It is reasonable to assume that the repetition results from a conscious desire on the hagiographer’s part to link both events, rather than from an involuntary lapse. Moreover, the only context in which a similar expression is used (betraying the Christians) in Greek medieval literature is precisely the account of the betrayal of Alexios Mousele included in the series of chronicles by Symeon Logothetes.53 According to the historiographical account, around the year 838 Emperor Theophilos sent the Iconoclast Alexios to Sicily as a duke (δοῦκα Σικελίας), but the islanders accused him of conspiring against the emperor and of attempting to seal an alliance with the Arabs.54 The intertextual allusion reveals an analogous reality that goes beyond the contacts between Alexios and the saint. However, these betrayals do not concern Gregorios Dekapolites but the dark side of his literary character, Georgios. It is Georgios who enjoys the assistance of the Iconoclast bishop of Otranto. The second self of the hero, the Doppelgänger Georgios,55 is mistaken for a traitor in Ainos and had to endure the death threat from the inhabitants of Otranto. Through this strategy, Gregorios Dekapolites’ image as an ideal saint remains intact and his sympathisers are free to promote his sanctity and foster liturgies devoted to him.

52 53 54

55

Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 33.5–6. See Symeon Logothetes (Wahlgren 2006: 219, ch. 11): ‘Since they betrayed (προδίδωσιν) the Christians in favour of the Agarenes’; Ps.-Symeon (Bekker 1838: 668.15–17). As the stratēgos of Sicily he was one of the most important officials in the whole of the empire during this period and it is easy to understand the attempt at usurpation. A few years previously during the reign of Michael ii, Euphemios proclaimed himself emperor precisely in Sicily; see Prigent (2006); Michanian & Prigent (2003). For this literary technique, see Webber (1996) and Vardoulakis (2010). For a hagiographical parallel, a Doppelgänger in the Life of Nicholas, see Dendle (2001: 43–45). At the end of the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, Clement’s father’s face changes beyond all recognition and he is confused with Simon Magus himself; see De Vos (2018).

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Conclusion

According to his hagiographer, Gregorios’ behaviour was actually that of a hesychast saint who travelled following the model of Paul the Apostle, whose journeys from the Orient to Rome he imitated.56 Rhetorical strategies are incorporated into the narrative to establish an analogy between Gregorios’ geographical movements and his inner journey to achieve sanctity. His trip to Rome is thus not only a stage but also a metaphor for his growth in faith, since it features his first miracle in the strict sense, i.e. one of the most important events in Gregorios’ life as a saint. It was in the holy city where his first healing occurred, when he exorcised a demon from a possessed person.57 Immediately afterwards he continued to heal people in Southern Italy: a possessed woman in Syracuse,58 a man who had a devil inside him,59 a man with a withered hand,60 and a man possessed by a demon in Otranto.61 This accumulation not only testifies to the saint’s powers and charisma (he was a healer, not a wonderworker), but also his progress in approaching God. The veneration of Gregorios began shortly after his death.62 In this process a hagiography needed to be written to remember the good deeds and miracles of Gregorios together with other evidence of his holiness.63 Thanks to the narrative skills of Ignatios the Deacon (a repentant Iconoclast) and his learned use of rhetorical strategies, his cult could be cultivated perfectly in a situation as complicated as that existing after the 843 restoration of Orthodoxy. Indeed, post-Iconoclastic society only admitted the existence of supporters of icons or their detractors, who were roundly condemned, so it was necessary to silence some aspects of the saint’s life and fictionalize others, as we have seen. Gregorios Dekapolites was therefore presented as a kind of Iconodule saint, allowing Gregorios’ memory to be protected and more importantly the lives of his disciples to be shielded from possible accusations of sympathy for the now defeated Iconoclasm.

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Malamut (1993: 247–248; 2004: 1202–1206). Cf. Flusin (1993). Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 25.3–5. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 32.1–3. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 33.1–3. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 34. Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 35.1–5. Prieto Domínguez (2020: 168–224). On the function of the hagiographical texts in contributing to the sanctification process, see Kaplan (2000); Pratsch (2005: 413–421); Efthymiadis (2011: 1–14).

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part 3 Invention and Truth

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chapter 7

Thinking Characters: Fictionalization and Claims of Truth in Syriac Hagiography Flavia Ruani

As readers of novels or other narratives, we have all shared the experience of being moved upon gaining access to a character’s inner life.1 Who among us has not found themselves feeling bored with Madame Bovary, angry with Dmitrij Karamazov, laughing at Don Quixote’s reasoning, or in tears at the thought of Heathcliff’s desperate love? Empathy, but also pride and curiosity, or even repulsion and embarrassment, are among the feelings that readers experience upon discovering the most secret emotions of protagonists or cruel intentions of antagonists. Whether we feel touched or disturbed by the direct access to a character’s inner state of mind, as we become guests to the private world of a literary character, we feel as if we are encountering a real-life person. Literary theory has extensively analysed the powerful impressions our readings leave upon us. Modern narratological studies agree that the representation of the inner life of characters represents a major ‘symptom of fictional narrative’.2 Both the traditional approach in this field, which conceives of fictionality in a semantic way (i.e. as a characteristic feature of the genre ‘fiction’),3 and more recent approaches, which define fictionality in pragmatic terms (i.e. as a rhetorical technique also found outside fiction),4 while contesting each other in many respects, nonetheless agree in considering the repres1 This research has been conducted within the framework of the project ‘Novel Saints. Ancient Novelistic Heroism in the Hagiography of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’ at Ghent University, funded by the European Research Council (ERC, Grant Agreement 337344), to which I express my sincere thanks. I am grateful to the editors of this volume for their expert feedback, remarks and suggestions, in particular to Julie Van Pelt, who also helped me with previous drafts of this chapter. Finally, I wish to thank wholeheartedly Eduard Iricinschi for proofreading and improving the English of these pages. 2 This expression is used by Hägg (2014: 34). Zetterberg Gjerlevsen & Nielsen (2020: 25) list other, similar terms that denote the ‘signs that point to the fictional status of an utterance’, such as ‘signposts’, ‘signs’, ‘indices’, ‘markers’, or ‘signals’ of fiction(ality). See also De Temmerman (2016: 17). 3 This approach is famously represented by Dorrit Cohn (1999), who is the author of the most extensive analysis of modes for presenting consciousness in fiction (Cohn 1978). 4 Zetterberg Gjerlevsen & Nielsen (2020: 20–24).

© Flavia Ruani, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004685758_008

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entation of consciousness as a sign of fictionality, namely as something which signals the invented nature of the discourse.5 This is especially so in the case of third-person narrators who describe the thoughts and feelings of a character. While literary scholars developed their theories of the representation of the mind mostly based on examples taken from modern literature,6 their colleagues specializing in Antiquity lately recognized the value of studying these representations for the field of ancient literature. They have identified and analyzed instances in the ancient epic tradition,7 the Greek novels,8 late antique biography9 and historiography.10 This approach, however, has not been adopted in the study of hagiography, with the notable exception of two works, as far as I know: the fourth-century Greek Life of Antony11 and the fourteenth-century Scottish Legendary.12 The occurrence of signs of fictionality, in this case, mental representations, in hybrid literary genres, such as hagiography, which cannot be defined exclusively either in terms of fiction or historicity, invites us to explore in depth the construction of the narrative. As for hagiography, moreover, this approach enables us to examine the modes in which, and the reasons why, an author chose to resort to a fictionalizing device while promoting a religious truth. This examination provides new insights for two complementary fields, one engaging with the past and the other oriented towards the future. On the one hand, it contributes to our understanding of the literary construction of ancient hagiographical narratives; on the other, it refines our modern definition of the representation of consciousness through new examples which could, in turn, enrich our knowledge of its functioning and meaning. With this chapter, I hope to open a new line of research, tentatively called ‘the representation of the saints’ inner lives’. The aim is to conjure further theoretical reflection out of the analysis of a specific tradition within hagio-

5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12

Zetterberg Gjerlevsen & Nielsen (2020: 28, 34). A notable exception is Scholes & Kellogg (2006 [1966]: 160–206, 337–346) who pay attention to the historical evolution of inward representation of characters in narratives, including examples from epic (Homer, Virgil), Ovid, the Icelandic family saga and ancient Greek and Latin novels. De Jong (2004 [1987]: 102–123), for the Iliad. Doody (2007). See De Temmerman (2016: 18–20) and the quoted bibliography there, related to Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and the Life of Aesop, for example. See for instance Tsitsiou-Chellidoni (2009) on Livy’s Ab urbe condita, and Grethlein (2015) on Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. Hägg (2014). von Contzen (2016: 150–179).

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graphy and on a particular narrative scenario. This contribution will examine the representation of minds in relation to explicit claims of truth in Syriac hagiography. As the next pages will show, hagiography tends to combine the narrator’s psychic omniscience with claims of historical accuracy, something which, outside of works of fiction, would strike the reader as contradictory. Indeed, how could third-person narrators grant their readers access to the thoughts of their story’s characters and, at the same time, describe their account as trustworthy and accurate, without even explaining how they came to know about these private, mental affairs? This potential contradiction invites the question as to how late antique hagiographers coped with it and solved it—that is, if they reached a solution—, or whether they even perceived it as a contradiction.

1

Method, Aims, and Structure of the Present Chapter

Of the numerous features that the notion of ‘characters’ minds’ presents, such as emotions, perceptions, and thoughts, I will solely focus on thoughts and mental processes here, for reasons of convenience. Formally, these appear in the texts discussed below as either direct citations or indirect representations of characters’ thoughts.13 I will not pay attention to other components of the characters’ inner life, such as prayers, which are very frequent in hagiography. While similar to inner monologues in some ways (they can also be inventions of the author, for example), internal prayers constitute, in my view, a different area of investigation altogether. This is due to the fact that they are often dependent upon shared formal conventions and, unlike thoughts, they are not meant to be addressed to the self, but to an external (divine) interlocutor. By ‘claims of truth’, I mean the various ‘guarantees of truthfulness’, usually found in prologues and/or epilogues of hagiographical narratives, as identified and discussed by Peter Turner.14 They range from familiar cases, in which the author claims to be an eyewitness to the events, or a recipient of information 13

14

The most common narratological labels are ‘quoted monologue’, ‘psycho-narration’ (Cohn 1978: 11–14), ‘reported speech’ (‘discours rapporté’) and ‘narrativized speech’ (‘discours narrativisé’) (Genette 1972: 191–193). Genette (1983: 40) establishes the correspondence between his terms and Cohn’s. Turner (2012: 26–74). Moreover, Turner (2012: 34) considers claims of truth as ‘part of the definition of hagiography as a literary genre’, which he defines more explicitly as a ‘truthtelling genre’. See also the Introduction to this volume. De Temmerman (2016: 16–17) gives an overview of authentication strategies in ancient biographies, and the chapters in that volume analyse specific case-studies.

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from a trustworthy source, such as eyewitnesses, civic archives, autobiographical documents penned by the saint, etc., to the less straightforward and yet commonplace strategies which establish plausibility, such as the author admitting his own inadequacy to represent the greatness of the saint’s exploits. Usually, this strategy is accompanied by feigning the lack of literary pretentions, and also by the urgency of writing down those exploits without references to any literary tradition except the accounts of biblical figures. The narratives that I have selected for this chapter chronologically range from the fourth to the seventh centuries and roughly cover two main geographical areas: the Roman/Byzantine empire, and more particularly the city of Edessa, the ancient capital of Osrhoene and cradle of Syriac literature; and the Persian empire, where the Christian Persian Martyr Acts originated.15 The selection is, of course, arbitrary in the sense that it depends upon my personal readings and could be extended to other texts. Nonetheless, it is as wide and varied as possible: I considered texts from different epochs and regions precisely to develop the analyses based on a variety of sources and case-studies that help, in turn, to better understand the phenomenon of mind representation and discover possible patterns in these narratives. There is, indeed, a ‘narratological’ criterion that allows us to organize these stories: the connection or disconnection between thought representation and truth claims. I use this criterion to structure the chapter in two main parts, each illustrating one of two opposite situations. In the first part, I discuss how the connection between mind representation and truth claims resolves the apparent contradiction mentioned above. In the second part I deal with the opposite case, namely with stories in which this contradiction does not seem to be acknowledged as such in the text, since the two elements (mind representation and truth claims in third-person narration) still occur concomitantly but their mutual inconsistency simply remains unaddressed. In these cases, questions arise concerning the literary and conceptual functions of mind representation in the analysed narratives, which claim accuracy and authenticity. Accordingly, I will focus on some formal features, asking questions such as: Who is the thinking subject? When, i.e. in which moment of the story, does the process of thinking occur? What is the content of the thoughts? I will finally suggest possible interpretations as to why hagiographers gave their audiences access to the inner thoughts of the protagonists. While showing the literary interplay 15

While all Persian Martyr Acts depict the vicissitudes of Syriac Christians living under Persian rule, some of them may have been composed within the territory of the Roman empire: see Brock (2008: 5).

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between strategies of authentication, characterization and plot-construction, these case-studies highlight ancient (Syriac) hagiographical perspectives on fictionality.

2

Thoughts and Claims of Truth: Enhancing Truthfulness

2.1 Thinking Informants Some of the selected texts address the potential danger of contradiction deriving from the concomitant occurrence of truth claims and mind representation. The texts draw on informants who both authenticate the story and become the object of thought representation. In other words, the hagiographers claim that their accounts repeat what a trustworthy informant either told them or publicly proclaimed or just wrote down in a document which came into their hands. This informant is generally someone who is presented either as having taken part in the narrated events or as having personally received the narration of the events directly from the saint.16 In these stories, the hagiographers hold that they report solely the thoughts of the informant. The History of the Man of God, written probably in Edessa in the fifth century, ends with these words: Now this narrative about the man of God which we told above was publicly proclaimed by that custodian (‫ܐ‬犯‫ܢ‬熏‫ܡ‬犯‫ܦ‬, παραμονάριος)17 who was the friend of the blessed one. It was also written down by him for a record. For he took care and interrogated the saint with oaths and curses and [the saint] made known to him all his former exalted life and his later abased life and did not conceal anything from him.18 The trustworthiness of the custodian as an informant is highlighted in multiple ways. First, the text presents him as the friend of the saint, thus as a person close to him. Secondly, the text indicates that the informant has already widely spread the deeds of the saint both orally and in writing, something which con-

16 17 18

This figure has been called ‘le témoin bien informé’ in scholarship on hagiography. See Delehaye (1966: 182–183). i.e. the minor Church official, guardian of the church in Edessa where the saintly protagonist used to linger. Transl. Doran (2006: 25). The text displays other strategies of authentication in the prologue: biblical parallels with Esau and Abraham and inadequacy to express the extreme perfection of the saint (Doran 2006: 17–18). The text is edited by Amiaud (1889).

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firms his public reputation. Thirdly and lastly, the text suggests that the informant was so close to the saint that he became his confidant. From this position he found out the whole story of the saint’s life, not only about his being a beggar in the city of Edessa, but also about his earlier years when, as the son of a wealthy and noble Roman family, he escaped marriage, abandoned everything, and turned to asceticism. The final hyperbolic expression ‘[the saint] did not conceal anything from him’ (my emphasis) settles the representation of the custodian as the most trustworthy source, second possibly only to the saint himself. From this sentence, the reader could also expect to have access to the saint’s own thoughts, but this is not the case here, at least not explicitly.19 Instead, the audience hears the thoughts of the custodian, who appears to be the only thinking character in the entire narrative, which is of considerable length. Moreover, even his thoughts are explicitly quoted only once: From then on, that custodian, although he had been doing his work well, improved himself by austere practices. He trained his body more than previously until even his appearance bore witness to his austere practices as he said to himself (literally ‘in his soul’, 煿‫ ܗܘܐ ܒܢܦܫ‬犯‫ ܐܡ‬煟‫)ܟ‬, ‘If this one [i.e. the man of God] who used to live in great luxury does these things, what ought we wretches not do for our redemption?’20 This thought occurs just after the first conversation between the custodian and the saint. Following explicit requests, and under the threat of oaths and curses, the saint tells him the whole ‘truth’21 about his life. After listening to him, the custodian intensifies his own ascetical practices. It is only through the quotation of his thought that we learn about the motivations which prompted him to engage in harder ascetical practices. The custodian’s choice is not explained otherwise; the reader only discovers that he is so impressed by the saint’s way of life that he decided to imitate him and follow him on the ascetical path. 19

20

21

The saint’s thoughts are never explicitly quoted. There are, nevertheless, many instances in the text which may be comparable to a free indirect representation of his emotions and thoughts. Transl. Doran (2006: 22–23). In the later Syriac expanded version of this story, the custodian’s thought is no longer disclosed. Since the expanded text is presented as being based on a written autobiography from the saint himself, leaving it out is coherent with the new literary context. Transl. Doran (2006: 22). Mentions of ‘truth’ in the development of the story are, of course, an essential part of the authenticating strategy that underlines the trustworthiness of the account.

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From a formal point of view, we can observe two elements that also occur in other examples and in thought representation in hagiography more generally. The first is the position of the thought, occurring immediately before or after the narration of an action for which it provides an explanation and/or a motivation. The second is the syntactical construction of the content of the thought through an ‘if-then’ clause, or an ‘if-question’ / ‘if-exclamation’, in which two opposed pieces of information occur concomitantly. In this case, the custodian’s decision to harden his ascetical practices relies on his consideration about the social gap between the man of God and himself, as reflected by the opposition between ‘great luxury’ and ‘wretches’. This ‘if’-construction emphasizes one item of the dichotomy, usually the one that casts a positive light on the saintly protagonist. In this case, the custodian’s thought highlights the holiness of the man of God. Given the latter’s noble origins, the custodian considered that it must have been very difficult for the saint to renounce wealth and live in abstinence, much more than for ordinary people, such as the custodian, who, in addition, did not excel in saintly practices. This thought therefore indirectly contributes to the characterization of the saint. At the same time, it also describes the custodian himself. It does so not by highlighting the way in which he conceives his thoughts, which is rhetorical rather than personalized, as it is the case with modern literature,22 but through what he thinks. By having access to this thought, the reader appreciates both the modesty of the custodian and his reverence towards the saint. Moreover, the thought enhances the belief in his reliability as informant of the whole account. The clergyman is not only the confidant of the saint, but he is himself trained in severe asceticism, and, what is more, he is inspired by the saint’s lifestyle to advance along the same spiritual path, striving to imitate the saint himself. This example shows how the representation of the informant’s thought not only stands in harmony with the strategy of authentication chosen for this story, but also participates in the characterization of the saint, and ultimately in that of the informant himself, modelled after the image of the saint. In other words, the technique of mind representation becomes an active component of the strategy of claiming truth by enhancing the reliability of the informant as an authoritative source of the story, anchored in the very holiness of the protagonist of that story.23

22 23

See Scholes & Kellogg (2006 [1966]: 177–189, esp. 180–181). See Krueger in this volume, who argues that fictionalization can also have the aim of highlighting the truth of a hagiographical account.

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2.2 Doubting Informants In the example just analysed, the connection between thought representation and truth claims is realized through the figure of the informant, who is both the source of the story and the only thinking character. The next set of texts included in our analysis intensifies this connection, and, as a result, increases the reliability of the informant by resorting to a particular kind of thought. These texts too perform a self-supported circularity since they portray only the thoughts of the informant upon whom the story is based. Yet they differ from the previously analysed text by presenting the informant as temporarily doubting the miracle of which he will become the herald later.24 The Story of Euphemia and the Goth, another Edessene fifth-century text, contains a prologue in which the narrator authenticates the story. He explains that he received it from a trustworthy custodian—we encounter again the same topos—, who heard it directly from the mouth of Euphemia, the protagonist.25 The story itself recounts how Euphemia marries a Goth in Edessa and leaves with him to his country, only to find out that he already has a wife. She ends up being locked up in a tomb, the shrine of saints Shmuna and Gurya, from which she is miraculously rescued and transported back to Edessa. The meeting between her and the custodian of the shrine occurs at this point of the narrative. He approaches her and inquires about her identity. Instead of giving him a straightforward answer, she tells him her story: But the believing one repeated before him all the deed that God had done by her from the beginning even unto the end. And when the custodian heard these things, he was astonished at the greatness of the matter so as even to doubt (焿‫ܦܠ‬狏‫ ܕܐܦ ܢ‬焏‫ܡ‬煟‫)ܥ‬, and he sought to be assured of the truth and he wished to learn the abode of her mother, and with much diligence he sent and brought her mother that he might learn from her whether the matter was as her daughter said. (My emphasis)26 The first reaction of the custodian is incredulity and amazement. The author of the text skillfully multiplies the actions that the custodian undertakes to verify Euphemia’s story, something which further accentuates his incredulity, making it realistic. The doubt is resolved when Sophia, Euphemia’s mother, validates one part of her story, which seems sufficient to lift the doubts also regarding 24 25 26

On doubt, scepticism, and disbelief in Byzantine hagiography, see Kaldellis (2014). The custodian is presented as ‘faithful and true and worthy of good remembrance’, an ‘excellent old man’ (Burkitt 1913: 129–130). Transl. Burkitt (1913: 144).

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the other parts, including the miracle. The doubt and its resolution reinforce the authenticity of the miracle. A similar moment of doubt occurs in the Story of the Merchant in Constantinople, a text that remains difficult to date with accuracy. The prologue introduces the protagonist as the original source of the account: Folk used to tell then and say that there was a certain man from Paddana, a village in the district of Harran—now these very persons received this story from the merchant himself […]. (My emphasis)27 The story relates how this anonymous merchant, who used to go every year to Constantinople for business, was asked by a friend’s wife to bring her from Harran, on his next trip, a particular stone which had the miraculous power of healing female sterility. The merchant promised, but when the time came, forgot about it. Therefore, instead of the requested stone, he brought her an insignificant pebble, which the lady received believing it was the true one.28 Thanks to her faith, she became pregnant nonetheless and informed the merchant about this prodigy: Now the merchant when he heard, his heart was stupefied and trembling took possession of his limbs, and he believed in his heart and said (to himself): ‘It is established for me that great is the God of the Christians, and there is no faith except theirs! For lo, this business—if anyone else had told it me, perchance I should have doubted (焿‫ܦܠ‬狏‫ ܡ‬狏‫ )̇ܗܘܝ‬it was not true, but lo, through my hands it came to pass and was performed! For if a bit of common stone through the woman’s faith can give her a son, how much more if I had brought her some of that very stone which she asked for!’ (My emphasis)29 What follows is a chain of transmission that reinforces the truth claim of the account: the miracle is spread widely through a chain of oral representations involving the major personalities of the city, from the noble Patrikios, husband of the pregnant lady, to the emperor and the patriarch, who ends up baptizing on the same day both the baby boy and the merchant.30

27 28 29 30

Transl. Burkitt (1913: 155). On the narrative role played by the stone in this story, and in general by objects in Syriac hagiography, see Ruani (2021). Transl. Burkitt (1913: 157). Burkitt (1913: 158).

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In my examples, the custodian and the merchant embody a stock character of hagiographical texts: the doubter. As Gilbert Dagron has shown, several Byzantine hagiographical narratives written between the sixth and the eleventh centuries include episodes featuring this character to neutralize a ‘diffuse skepticism’ about the cults of saints, in particular their miraculous performances.31 Indeed, the character of the doubter features more in miracle accounts than in other hagiographical genres.32 She/he enters the narrative after the miracle occurs; and she/he both incarnates and defuses the reader’s scepticism about the episodes defying rational explanation in the story. In this regard, the doubt ultimately serves the ideological agenda of the hagiographer as an authenticating device.33 We may take a further step and argue that the truth claim receives higher reinforcement in cases in which the doubt is ascribed to the character who is also presented as the very informant of the story. The informant himself gains reliability if he is portrayed as having first doubted something which common experience and logic would have rejected as impossible—in other words, if he acts and thinks as anyone, including an ordinary reader, would do. The greater the initial scepticism, the greater becomes the degree of reliability of the sceptical character.34 There is, in other words, a circular argument35 at work in these hagiographies. The introduction of an informant, as a mean of authentication, is followed by the representation of their thoughts, and especially doubts, and finally by the validation of the story once the doubt is solved. This self-standing, closed circuit is particularly clear when the end of the story makes manifest that the act of dispelling scepticism in itself constitutes the aim of the text. The epilogue of the Story of the Merchant in Constantinople offers a telling example: Now these things, O brethren of ours, we have related before you that no man may doubt about the true faith of Christians, as if it were a weak thing in its nature, and not able to perform miracles for us as for them of old time […]. (My emphasis)36

31 32 33 34 35 36

Dagron (1992, esp. 60). See also Kaldellis (2014). See Kaldellis (2014: 454). See Kaldellis (2014: 458–459) and Turner (2012: 41). I would like to thank Maria Conterno for the fruitful conversations we had on this topic. On this fundamental tautological character of hagiography, see Dagron (1992: 65). Transl. Burkitt (1913: 159). Some examples of Byzantine hagiographers who explicitly address their readers’ doubts are offered by Kaldellis (2014: 463). They include the Life of Antony, the Life of Mary of Egypt and the Life of Ioannikios.

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139

Thoughts Disconnected from Truth Claims: Other Purposes

Several Syriac hagiographies show a scenario different from that outlined above (§2): one in which the representation of thoughts does not interact with authentication strategies. Now the former is no longer at the service, so to speak, of the latter. Thought representations serve other purposes, which mostly relate to the construction of the plot. 3.1 Thoughts Triggering Plot Development: Thinking Protagonists A first telling example presents the specific situation that was at play in the stories analysed in the second section of the previous part, namely, those in which claims of truth, thoughts, and miracles appear in conjunction. Rather than providing an explanation, however, for the otherwise unbelievable event which is the miracle, as was the case above, the thoughts conveyed in this text, while still occurring after a miracle, have nothing to do with it. Shirin, a Persian martyr whose account, originally composed in Syriac around 560/570, only survived in a Greek version, witnesses the miracle of her own healing after she touched a priest’s clothing. The text continues: But this led her to a better path, for because of her stupefaction at the miracle, she desired total reunion (οἰκείωσις) with Christ. ‘For if by his servants,’ she said (to herself) (φησι), ‘such a deliverance is brought forth, what kind of helping power lies within the Master?’ Thus she reckoned (λογίζεται) to be deemed worthy from then on of being united with him through the holy baptism and to no longer stay away from the mysteries.37 This passage is the only one in the text that explicitly quotes Shirin’s thoughts. Thought representation through direct speech brings the character closer to the reader, even more so than the representation of Shirin’s inner life through the description of her feelings and intentions does. The reader entertains the illusion of being given direct access to the character’s thinking. Moreover, the very narrative moment in which the thought occurs illuminates the choice for direct citation. In the previous pages, the reader had learned that Shirin, born and raised Zoroastrian, gradually increased her connections to Christianity after meeting pious women and following several visits to the church. Yet Shirin did not dare to openly manifest her faith for fear of the Zoroastrians’ reac-

37

My translation. Ed. Devos (1946: 116), French transl. Devos (1994: 20).

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tion. The miraculous healing constitutes the first step in her decision to openly become a Christian, a resolution further reinforced by two divine dreams. The healing and the visions incite Shirin to visit the bishop and ask him to baptize her. This episode sets up the plot and puts in motion the events which lead to her final martyrdom. The representation of thought occurs at the turning point of the plot, thus signalling the forthcoming change. It has, in other words, a proleptic function. Another Persian ‘passion historique’,38 the History of Mar Abba, written in the sixth century, also displays the representation of thoughts in a conversion context.39 This time, however, the thought does not trigger the protagonist’s confession of faith but contributes to the protagonist’s new desire to convert. Like Shirin, Abba, a member of the Zoroastrian elite, wishes to cease being a Zoroastrian to become a Christian.40 Unlike her, Abba is not martyred, but receives the highest ecclesiastical title of the Church of the East, the katholikos. Once again, his thoughts are explicitly cited only once, in the beginning of the narrative, just after the introduction of the protagonist as a learned and important figure of the Persian government. Abba meets a monk, who will inspire in him the desire of conversion, as he is about to cross the Tigris River on a boat. The Christian ascetic, referred to in the text as ‘the son of the Covenant’,41 also embarks but Abba hits him and forces him to leave the boat. The boat begins the crossing, but a sudden and violent storm forces it to return. The tempest abides only after the Christian ascetic is allowed back on the boat. The episode is repeated, however. Abba again rejects the ascetic, the storm resumes afresh, and the boat arrives once more at its departure point. It is at this moment that the narrator invites the reader to Abba’s mind and makes plain his thoughts: As the Blessed one was considering his clothing (i.e. the clothing of the ascetic), which was modest and different, he wondered in his mind (‫ܗ‬狏‫ܪܥܝ‬狏‫ ܒ‬焏‫ܒܢ‬熏‫ ܗܘܐ ܛ‬焿‫)ܐܬܦܠ‬: ‘Isn’t he perhaps a son of the Covenant of the Christians? But maybe he is a Marcionite, or a Jew.’ And he 38

39

40 41

This term belongs to the famous categories created by Hippolyte Delehaye to define the degrees of historical reliability of hagiographical texts, which Paul Devos subsequently applied to the Syriac Persian Martyr Acts. For the Martyrdom of Shirin and the History of Mar Abba as ‘passions historiques’, see Devos (1966: 213). This text has probably been composed by one of Abba’s disciples and several passages and expressions reflect this familiarity, which we may therefore consider as signs of truth claiming. See Devos (1966: 215). On this common theme among the Acts of the Persian Martyrs, see Debié (2010). For this ascetical movement typical of Syriac Christianity, see Pierre-Beylot (2010: 11–36).

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asked him saying: ‘Are you Jewish?’ He replied: ‘Yes.’ He asked again: ‘Are you Christian?’ And he said: ‘Yes.’ He asked further: ‘Do you fear Christ?’ He said: ‘Yes.’42 The thought itself denotes Abba’s curiosity about the ascetic man. After having violently rejected the Christian man, and after the strange storm, Abba fully dedicates his reflections to him. His thought anticipates the questions that Abba next addresses to the Christian ascetic. It is not so much the experience of a prodigious event, as the righteous attitude of the Christian, that makes Abba think of becoming a Christian: ‘After the saint saw the virtue of that Scholar, and considered greatly his words, he decided in his mind (‫ܗ‬狏‫ܪܥܝ‬狏‫ ܒ‬爟‫ )ܣ‬to convert to the friendship with Christ’.43 The representation of Abba’s thought is not relevant for the message it carries, since the subsequent questions repeat it and would have anyway portrayed the encounter between the future katholikos and the ascetic. Its added value resides in the characterization it provides. The Christian ascetic is symbolically important exactly because he illustrates the kind of Christian Abba himself will become. Abba’s own thoughts, made transparent by the author, precisely relate to this topic and they convey an effect which a report of the conversation alone would not have achieved. Now the reader is not only alerted about the development of the plot, centered upon Abba’s conversion, but also about the precise Christian practices that Abba is likely to adopt, i.e. the lifestyle of a son of the Covenant, learned in the Scriptures.44 The importance of representing inner life at specific turning points in the narrative is also highlighted by the opposite strategy, i.e. not by depicting personal thoughts but by stressing their absence. From a narratological point of view, nothing changes since the reader still encounters the representation of the inner world of one of the characters. How would the narrator know

42 43 44

History of Mar Abba §3 (ed. Jullien 2015, i: 7). English translations of this text are mine, French transl. in Jullien (2015, ii: 7). History of Mar Abba §5 (ed. Jullien 2015, i: 8; French transl. ii: 8). Another example of the proleptic function of thought representation is found in the fourth-century Martyrdom of Ḥabbib the Deacon, in which the protagonist’s thought is quoted just before he delivers himself to the governor who will put him to death (transl. Doran 2000: 417). A comparable case taken from the Greek hagiographical tradition is the Life of John Kalyvites §4, in which the saint’s planned actions are represented as a direct quotation of his thoughts, which will eventually impact the plot. Before leaving his family’s house and entering a monastery, John decides to ask his parents for a copy of the gospels. It will be this very object which, at the end of the narrative, will allow for John, now disguised as a beggar, to be recognized by his parents.

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what the character is not thinking? One example of it is offered by the Martyrdom of Simeon Bar Ṣabbaʿe, the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon executed by King Shabur ii around 339 ce, whose acts, likely written down in the early fifth century,45 proved very influential for the composition of other Persian martyr accounts.46 The night before his execution, significantly also Good Friday, Simeon is described in the following terms: In that night at the dawn of the fourteenth day of the passion of Our Saviour, sleep did not overcome him with its troubles, nor did thoughts ̈ hinder him with their emptiness (煿‫ܐ ܒܒܛܠܢܝ‬狏‫ܢܝ‬犯‫ܗ ܡ‬狏‫ܟ‬熏‫ ܥ‬焏‫)ܠ‬. Rather, this is what he asked and sought: ‘Jesus, make me worthy […].’ (My emphasis)47 The absence of thoughts characterizes here the disposition of the saint who is ready for his martyrdom. This is a solemn moment of the story in general, and of the destiny of the protagonist in particular, and the representation of inner life underscores precisely this solemnity.48 The depiction of the saint free from thoughts at decisive moments of his life corresponds both to a religious and a rhetorical ideal. Simeon’s description as an unperturbed saint seems akin to the description of a mystic, who can master his body by keeping vigils, and his

45 46

47

48

Smith (2014: xxxi). Smith (2014: xix–xx). The claim of truth in this text is found in the prologue and takes the form of a very elaborate parallel between present hard times and biblical difficult times, especially endured by the Maccabees (Martyrdom of Simeon Bar Ṣabbaʿe § 1–6, transl. Smith 2014: 6–14). Martyrdom of Simeon Bar Ṣabbaʿe §37. Transl. Smith (2014: 50). The History of Simeon Bar Ṣabbaʿe, a later version of Simeon’s martyrdom, describes this moment in a slightly different way: ‘neither did sleep overcome them by making them miserable, nor did anxiety hinder them with its worry’ (§76, transl. Smith 2014: 172). The author of the History of Simeon Bar Ṣabbaʿe claims at the end that he based his account on trustworthy sources: on ‘the abundant materials that we found from the acts that painstaking men narrated before us, (and which) we summarized’ (§99, transl. Smith 2014: 210). Another example of the importance of mind representations for the vivid depiction of the moments preceding the death scene, is found in the Martyrdom of Narseh, which took place under the Sasanian king Yazdgird i (399–420), but was probably composed a bit later, towards the mid-fifth century, and is narrated as an eyewitness report. In the final scene, when Narseh is approaching the place of his execution, the narrator emphasizes Narseh’s desire to be martyred, temporarily in danger of not being fulfilled, by recurring to the exposition of his thoughts: ‘The blessed Narseh, when he saw that the Magus (i.e. the Zoroastrian) was turning him around, became gloomy and distressed, because he thought (犯‫ )ܣܒ‬that he was being diverted towards the prison, and his martyrdom was not to be crowned by the sword, as was his desire’ (ed. and transl. Herman 2016: 18).

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soul by emptying his mind and controlling his emotions, and thus adequately prepare himself to meet the divine.49 Indeed, the death of a martyr is often depicted as the departure of the saint for the much-yearned encounter with the beloved Christ. Oftentimes martyrs decide to fast before their death.50 Moreover, representing the spiritual disposition of a virtuous character is prescribed in the Syriac rhetorical tradition, at least judging from the only existing rhetorical handbook known in this language, penned by Antony of Tagrit, a ninth-century West Syrian author, titled On Rhetoric. In the first book of his tractate, Antony provides guidelines for composing a laudatory speech. Following Aristotle and the subsequent late antique encomiastic tradition, he distinguishes between physical descriptions and descriptions of personality (‘inner characteristics’).51 Among the internal characteristics, he counts those spiritual qualities which represent the virtuous man as a ‘mystical philosopher’:52 He would gather together and bring to his control all the thoughts; (he would practice) the abstinence from intercourse, and chastity—its fruit—, the exercise of vigils, and the extension and ascent of the mind towards El, namely God.53 In short, the portrayal of the saint’s mind as we have seen it, specifically in these particular terms, is expected and even recommended by the Syriac rhetorical rules for composing a proper laudatory speech. As such, this technique becomes a further strategy for authors to enhance the verisimilitude of the story and its protagonists, as they adhere to literary expectations. 3.2 Thoughts Justifying the Plot: Thinking Antagonists Perhaps unsurprisingly, the quoted thoughts of antagonists mostly consist of subterfuge and conspiracies.54 Contrary to those of the protagonists, most of 49 50

51 52 53

For a collection of essays on Syriac mysticism, where the mystical ideal of the concept of ‘stillness’, for example, is prominent, see Desreumaux (2011). For example, Shabur, another Persian martyr at the hand of Yazdgird i, replies to his brothers who want to partake with him in the last meal: ‘God forbid that I break the fast before I shall pass on to the harbor of Christ […]!’ (transl. Herman 2016: 52). See Eskenasy (1991: 46). Eskenasy (1991: 58). Eskenasy (1991): Harvard University, Houghton Ms. Syr. 25, fol. 14a, 12–14: ̈ .‫ܬܐ‬熏‫ܬܦ‬熏‫ ܫ‬爯‫ܘܬܐ ܕܡ‬犯‫ܝ‬熟‫ܐ ܘܢ‬煟‫ܐ ܐܟܚ‬狏‫ ܡܚܫ̈ܒ‬爯‫ܝ‬煿‫ܗ܆ ܟܠ‬煟‫ܝ‬焏‫ ܘܐܬ̈ܝ ܠ‬爯‫ܠ‬煿‫ܘܐܬܩ‬ .爏‫ܬ ܐܝ‬熏‫ ܕܠ‬焏‫ ܕܗܘܢ‬焏‫ܠܩ‬熏‫ ܘܣ‬焏‫ܚ‬狏‫ܪܐ܆ ܘܡ‬煿‫ܬܐ ܕܫ‬熏‫ܝ‬熏‫ ܥܢ‬.‫ܪܿܗ ܕܗܕܐ‬焏‫ܬܐ ܦ‬熏‫ܝܫ‬煟‫ܘܩ‬

‫ܐ ܀‬煿‫̄ܗ ܐܠ‬

54

The translation is mine. Compare with the ‘heresiarch’ Mani as portrayed in the fourth-century polemical account

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their thoughts are narrated after a key event and thus provide an explanation post factum.55 This prevents the reader from identifying with the thinker, since they can no longer claim foreknowledge of the hidden forces driving the story, as these forces are revealed to them after the action has already taken place. For example, here is a thought of the Persian king Shabur ii, persecutor of Simeon Bar Ṣabbaʿe: ‘Then the king commanded that he (i.e. Simeon) be bound until the morning, for he said (to himself ) (犯‫)ܐܡ‬, “Perhaps he will be convinced and obey us”’ (Martyrdom §26; my emphasis). The story of Gushtazad, a prominent side character in Simeon’s narratives, offers us insights into the narrator’s motivations for representing the mind of his literary characters. Gushtazad is a eunuch in the faithful service of king Shabur who converted to Zoroastrianism from Christianity. After Simeon’s incarceration, he desires to convert back and longs for martyrdom. Before his death, he asks the king to publish an edict announcing his intention to die as a martyr of the Christian faith. The narrator reveals the reasons for Gushtazad’s request by quoting his thoughts: For the illustrious one thought (to himself) (‫ܗܘܐ‬ ̱ 營‫)ܐܬܪܥ‬, ‘Now the rumor “Gushtazad has apostatized” has already gone out about me, and I know that many have lapsed because of me, and if I die now, they will not know why I die (which would allow them) to know and see and be comforted. So now I will leave behind a good deed in order that all Christians will hear that I am being killed for Christ and (thus) be comforted’.56 The reader discovers that Gushtazad intended not only to annul his own apostasy and restore his reputation as a faithful Christian, but also to provide an example for reinforcing the faith in the Christian community. The narrator comments on such generosity: ‘This is the good thought (‫ܐ‬狏‫ܐ ܛܒ‬狏‫)ܡܚܫܒ‬ that was sent out by the wise old man for the benefit of the community! This is

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Acta Archelai §4.1: ‘He debated with himself very seriously as to how he could ensnare him [the first Christian citizen Marcellus] in the nets of his own doctrine’. In narratology, this is called ‘motivation from behind’: see von Contzen (2015: 10). Martyrdom of Simeon Bar Ṣabbaʿe §32 (transl. Smith 2014: 44). The History contains an almost identical thought quotation: ‘For the wise old man thought (營‫)ܐܬܪܥ‬: Now, the rumor “Gushtazad denied his God” has gone out about me, and many have lapsed because of me. And now, if I am killed, my death will not be able to compensate for the damage I have done on account of the scandal that I have wrought. But, if this is made known to everyone about me through the herald, then those who fell away will take courage because of me, and those who became weak will be strengthened, and everyone will know that I am killed for Christ’ (§59, transl. Smith 2014: 144).

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the horn of preparedness held up by an experienced man as instruction for the security of the church so that those strong in justice might be awakened and armed for battle!’57 The narrator’s commentary upon Gushtazad’s thoughts lengthens in the History, where it takes several paragraphs in which the thought itself is referred to as a ‘wise and holy plan’ (焏‫ܫܒ‬熏‫)ܚ‬.58 The narrator quotes and interprets Shabur’s thoughts at the request of Gushtazad, and he also compares them with Gushtazad’s previous thoughts. The following fragment is a very rare example of such an intervention on the part of the narrator, who does not indicate how he would know such inner reasoning, and therefore would not technically be in the position to quote it, let alone comment on it, while claiming to present the facts as they happened:59 §60. ‘Consider the wise old man! […] This wise man devised this wise and holy plan that befits the wisdom of his witness. For he determined: “There are many things that bring death to those who stand in this high-ranking position in which I stand, one that is full of risk. But let everyone learn that I am killed for the faith of Christ!” O prudent old man who thought such a good thought (焯‫ܐ ܐܬܚܫ‬狏‫ܐ ܛܒ‬狏‫ !)ܡܚܫܒ‬O wise old man who gave such a gift to the people of God! […] The free will of his progeny denied him (offspring) and his own free will gave him offspring instead. For the free will of his parents denied him (offspring) and his own free will gave him offspring instead. This is the philosopher and the philosopher of truth, who added a deed of marvel to the findings of his philosophy, and who prepared life for those who heard and heeded him. His philosophy was used not only unto thought and word, but unto the realization of deeds!’ § 61. Then the king, when he heard these things from Gushtazad, became exceedingly glad because he thought: ‘Many will hear, and, from hearing about his killing, will fall away from the opinion of the Christians and do my will.’ Gushtazad devised these former thoughts, and the latter are what the king had in mind. The thought of the wise old man brought to naught the thinking of the stupid king! (My emphases)60 The final sentences of §60 and of §61 show the narrator’s reasons for representing the thoughts of his characters. Thoughts are action-oriented; they serve 57 58 59 60

Martyrdom of Simeon Bar Ṣabbaʿe §32 (transl. Smith 2014: 44). History of Simeon Bar Ṣabbaʿe §60 (transl. Smith 2014: 146). See note 47 above. Ed and transl. Smith (2014: 146–149).

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the plot’s actions in a direct and decisive way. They are quoted to justify the actions that just happened, such as the edict, to explain them retroactively, implying that thoughts, words, and deeds are just equivalent expressions of the same ideology. They are also quoted to explain or even influence subsequent actions—such as the reinforcement of the Christian faith in the crowd after Gushtazad’s request—, through the narrator’s explicit intervention and interpretation. In this case, the narrator is almost imagining a mind battle between the two thinkers over the destiny of the Christian population. This example shows too that the representation of thoughts is invested with a particular meaning and a driving role for the construction of the plot, regardless of its logical consistency or inconsistency with other parts of the narrative, in particular claims of truth and historical accuracy.

4

Conclusion

This chapter started with a question that originated in our modern understanding of fiction and our notion of logical contradiction: How can narrators claim their accounts as factual and true and, at the same time, assert to have access to the minds of the persons about whom they relate? The chapter presented varied answers provided by some late antique hagiographical texts in the Syriac tradition. Since hagiography represents a literary genre where fact and fiction are intertwined in sophisticated ways, these varied answers illustrate a range of usages of thought representation, and of its relation to truthfulness and claims for accuracy and historicity. In some of the selected stories, thought representation supports authentication through the character of the informant. This is especially true when the thought is a doubt about the very events for which the informant later serves as a guarantor, once the doubt is resolved. Thought representation also serves other purposes, such as plot construction and characterization, often serving the narrative’s ideological goals, such as the promotion of conversion or martyrdom, and encouraging the audience to identify—or not—with specific characters. These various responses deepen our understanding of the literary construction of hagiographical texts and, in particular, prove that mind representation plays an important part in it. At the same time, they offer examples that broaden our knowledge of the ways and purposes of consciousness representation in ancient sources, contributing thus to the history of this literary mode. Just as in ancient epic, historiographical and novelistic literature,61 the representation of the mental process in hagiography vivifies the characters and 61

Scholes & Kellogg (2006 [1966]: 179); De Jong (2004 [1987]: 113); Grethlein (2015).

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invites the audience to become deeply involved in the story.62 Especially when the thoughts are quoted in a direct mode—a rather infrequent form—the authors give their readers the illusion of having direct access to the minds of characters. At the same time, this device does not individualize the characters as it tends to do in modern literature, since their thinking remains formulaic. Yet, in using the display of thoughts, ancient authors lent a rationalized outlook to unusual turns of events and, indeed, to the exceptional position of the saint and the martyr within social and political pre-established structures. We have also reviewed stories without the acknowledged clash between the omniscient narrator and the claims of truth. This ‘quiet’ scenario somehow defies our modern sensibilities about writings not clearly defined as works of fiction. It also invites us to rethink our most widespread classification of hagiographical sources based on the degree of historical reliability, since unhistorical scenarios of this kind are, in fact, shared by texts that have been categorized as ‘passions historiques’. Far from being problematic, the representation of thoughts in these texts constitutes an important part of a loose narrative structure in which actions and speech intermingle with thoughts at specific moments. In an essentially action-based genre, such as hagiography, the thoughts meaningfully intervene in the development of the plot; despite their formulaic nature, they both drive the plot forward and justify it retroactively.63 Furthermore, this flexible structure allows for replacements and modifications that suit the two main goals of the text, that is, on the one hand, maintaining the overall narrative coherence and its potential to convey specific spiritual messages, and, on the other hand, preserving the individual narrative coherence of the thinking characters. The latter is brought to the fore and is expected to fulfill the new tasks the author assigned to them by depicting them as thinking. The rhetorical tradition also provides help in this matter by illuminating the reasons why the narrator’s omniscience and the truth claim might not have been perceived as contradictory by the readers of these texts. It is perhaps the notion of conformity that fundamentally conveys the ancient hagiographical perspectives on fictionality, in the Syriac tradition and beyond it. Ancient hagiographers resorted to fictionality for the sake of con-

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Same conclusions in von Contzen (2016: 173), analysing the medieval Scottish Legendary. In this respect, hagiography differs from ancient epic concerning the content of the thoughts, for example: in the latter, the inner monologues mainly take the form of interior debates, portraying a dilemma faced by the character (Scholes & Kellogg 2006 [1966]: 184).

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formity to common human reality, conformity to specific and culturally determined rhetorical schemes; and conformity to biblical models but also to previous accounts of glorious deeds, etc. What made these texts enduring was probably not the respect for the norms of logical consistency, but the plausibility of the account and whatever it took to achieve it. The prologue of the Martyrdom of Shirin says just as much: ‘the past is consolidated once it is signified by the acts, and the present is illustrated once it has been made conformed to what precedes’,64 and not to the laws of factual and logical representation.

Bibliography Primary Sources Acta Archelai: Vermes, M. (transl.) 2001. Hegemonius, Acta Archelai (The Acts of Archelaus), with Introduction and Commentary by S.N.C. Lieu (Turnhout). History of the Man of God: Amiaud, A. (ed.) 1889. La légende syriaque de saint Alexis, l’homme de Dieu (Paris), 3–14; Doran, R. (transl.) 2006. Stewards of the Poor: The Man of God, Rabbula and Hiba in Fifth-Century Edessa (Kalamazoo). History of Mar Abba: Jullien, F. (ed. & transl.) 2015. Histoire de Mār Abba, catholicos de l’Orient; Martyres de Mār Grigor, général en chef du roi Khusro ier et de Mār Yazdpanāh, juge et gouverneur (Louvain), i, 3–41 T; ii, 3–43 v. Life of John Kalyvites: Lampsides, O. (ed.) 1966. “Βατικανοί κώδικες περιέχοντες τον βίον αγίου Ιωάννου του Καλυβίτου”, Archeion Pontou 28, 3–36; Baguenard, J.-M. (transl.) 1988. Les Moines acémètes. Vies des saints Alexandre, Marcel et Jean Calybite (Bégrolles-en-Mauges), 203–315. Martyrdom of Ḥabbib the Deacon: Doran, R. (transl.) 2000. “Martyrdom of Habbib the Deacon”, in R. Valantasis (ed.), Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice (Princeton), 413–423. Martyrdom of Narseh and Martyrdom of Shabur: Herman, G. (ed. & transl.) 2016. Persian Martyr Acts under King Yazdgird i (Piscataway). Martyrdom and History of Simeon Bar Ṣabbaʿe: Smith, K. (ed. & transl.) 2014. The Martyrdom and the History of Blessed Simeon bar Ṣabbaʿe (Piscataway). Martyrdom of Shirin: Devos, P. (ed.) 1946. ‘Sainte Šīrīn, martyre sous Khusrau 1er Anōšarvān’, AB 64, 87–131; Devos, P. (transl.) 1994. ‘La jeune martyre perse sainte Širin’, AB 112, 5–31. Story of Euphemia and the Goth: Burkitt, F.C. (ed. & transl.) 1913. Euphemia and the Goth,

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with the Acts of Martyrdom of the Confessors of Edessa (London & Oxford), 煟‫ܥ‬-煟‫ܡ‬ T, 129–153 v. Story of the Merchant in Constantinople: Burkitt, F.C. (ed. & transl.) 1913. Euphemia and the Goth, with the Acts of Martyrdom of the Confessors of Edessa (London & Oxford), 熟‫ܥ‬-焏‫ ܦ‬T, 154–159 v.

Secondary Sources Brock, S.P. 2008. The History of the Holy Mar Maʿin With a Guide to the Persian Martyr Acts (Piscataway). Cohn, D. 1978. Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction (Princeton). Cohn, D. 1999. The Distinction of Fiction (Baltimore & London). Dagron, G. 1992. ‘L’ombre d’un doute: L’hagiographie en question, vie–xie siècle’, DOP 46, 59–68. Debié, M. 2010. ‘Devenir chrétien dans l’Iran sassanide: La conversion à la lumière des récits hagiographiques’, in H. Inglebert, S. Destephen & B. Dumézil (eds.), Le problème de la christianisation du monde antique (Paris), 329–358. De Jong, I.J.F. 2004 [1987]. Narrators and Focalizers: The Presentation of the Story in the Iliad (New York). De Temmerman, K. 2016. ‘Ancient Biography and Formalities of Fiction’, in K. De Temmerman & K. Demoen (eds.), Writing Biography in Greece and Rome: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization (Cambridge), 3–25. Delehaye, H. 1966. Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires (Brussels). Desreumaux, A. (ed.) 2011. Les mystiques syriaques (Paris). Devos, P. 1966. ‘Les martyrs persans à travers leurs actes syriaques’, in Atti del convegno sul tema La Persia e il mondo greco-romano (Roma), 213–225. Doody, M.A. 2007. ‘The Representation of Consciousness in the Ancient Novel’, in J. Mander (ed.), Remapping the Rise of the European Novel (Oxford), 35–45. Eskenasy, P.E. 1991. Antony of Tagrit’s Rhetoric Book One: Introduction, Partial Translation, and Commentary (Harvard University). [Ph.D. diss.] Genette, G. 1972. Figures iii (Paris). Genette, G. 1983. Nouveau discours du récit (Paris). Grethlein, J. 2015. ‘Social Minds and Narrative Time: Collective Experience in Thucydides and Heliodorus’, Narrative 23.2, 123–139. Hägg, T. 2014. ‘Fiction and Factography in the Life of St. Antony’, in P. Roilos (ed.), Medieval Greek Storytelling: Fictionality and Narrative in Byzantium (Wiesbaden), 31–40. Kaldellis, A. 2014. ‘The Hagiography of Doubt and Scepticism’, in S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, Volume ii: Genres and Contexts (Farnham), 453–477.

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Pierre-Beylot, M.-J. 2010. ‘Les “membres de l’Ordre”, d’Aphraate au Liber Graduum’, in F. Jullien (ed.), Le monachisme syriaque (Paris), 11–35. Ruani, F. 2021. ‘Objects as Narrative Devices in Syriac Hagiography’, in S. Minov & F. Ruani (eds.), Syriac Hagiography: Texts and Beyond (Leiden/Boston), 89–109. Scholes, R. & Kellogg, R. 2006 [1966]. The Nature of Narrative (Oxford). Tsitsiou-Chellidoni, C. 2009. ‘History beyond Literature: Interpreting the “Internally Focalized” Narrative in Livy’s Ab urbe condita’, in J. Grethlein & A. Rengakos (eds.), Narratology and Interpretation. The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature (Berlin & New York), 527–554. Turner, P. 2011. ‘Methodology, Authority and Spontaneity: Sources of Spiritual Truthfulness in Late Antique Texts and Life’, in P. Sarris, M. Dal Santo & P. Booth (eds.), An Age of Saints? Power, Conflict and Dissent in Early Medieval Christianity (Leiden), 11–35. Turner, P. 2012. Truthfulness, Realism, Historicity: A Study in Late Antique Spiritual Literature (Burlington). von Contzen, E. 2015. ‘Why Medieval Literature Does Not Need the Concept of Social Minds: Exemplarity and Collective Experience’, Narrative 23.2, 140–153. von Contzen, E. 2016. The Scottish Legendary. Towards a Poetics of Hagiographic Narration (Manchester). Zetterberg Gjerlevsen, S. & Nielsen, H.S. 2020. ‘Distinguishing Fictionality’, in C. Maagaard, D. Schäbler & M.W. Lundholt (eds.), Exploring Fictionality: Conceptions, Test Cases, Discussions (Odense), 19–39.

chapter 8

Focalization, Immersion and Fictionality: Shifts between Female and Male Pronouns in Greek Lives of Cross-Dressers Julie Van Pelt

The Life of Theodora of Alexandria narrates the story of a woman who commits adultery, repents of her sin and is eventually recognized as holy.1 Her spiritual transformation is reflected in a physical transformation, as she seeks repentance in a male monastery, which she enters disguised as a man. From that moment until the end of her life, she manages to keep her true identity a secret, successfully presenting herself to the other brothers as a man named Theodoros.2 After having cut her hair and dressed in her husband’s clothes, she travelled for about eighteen miles (ἀπῆλθεν ὡς ἀπὸ μιλίων δέκα ὀκτώ) and found (εὑροῦσα) a monastery, knocked (ἔκρουσεν) and said to the doorkeeper (εἶπεν τῷ πυλωρῷ): ‘let me in’. (27.11–12)3 If we continue reading, we learn that the doorkeeper reports the matter to the abbot, who calls the other brothers. Next,

1 I am grateful to Koen De Temmerman, Klazina Staat, Flavia Ruani and Ghazzal Dabiri for their support and intellectual guidance in the period during which this paper was written and for their invaluable feedback on earlier drafts. I also wish to express my gratitude to the European Research Council (grant n° 337344) and the Flemish Research Council (fwo) for supporting this research financially. 2 During her life in disguise, Theodora undergoes subsequent trials that test her faith, among which punishment for a sin she is falsely accused of and could not possibly have committed: fathering a child. When her entourage at the monastery finds out upon her death that she is a woman, they understand the profoundness of her suffering. For analyses of the Life of Theodora, see Papaconstantinou (2004), Constantinou (2005: ch. 3) and Capron (2013: 125– 169). 3 For the Life of Theodora, I quote from the text provided at the top of the page in Wessely’s edition (1889), unless stated otherwise. This text is based on one manuscript: Par. gr. 1454. References to primary texts take the form of (page number and) line number in the used edition. All translations are my own, unless stated otherwise.

© Julie Van Pelt, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004685758_009

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they all decided that this person should remain outside (ἔκριναν πάντες ἵνα μείνῃ ἔξω)4 until nightfall, saying: ‘If the wild animals that usually dwell here do not approach him (μὴ ἐγγίσωσι αὐτόν) we shall receive him (δεχόμεθα αὐτόν) because that person is from God (ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν)’. After the sun had set, the animals came out, grinding and gnashing their teeth, but when the wild beasts saw her ([ε]ἰδόντα αὐτήν) they went away. When the monks saw that the saint was not harmed by the animals (ὅτι οὐκ ἐβλάβη ἐκ τῶν θηρίων) they opened the door for him (ἤνοιξαν αὐτῷ), and he entered and greeted them all (εἰσελθὼν προσεκύνησεν ἅπαντας) and the abbot took him (ἔλαβε δὲ αὐτὸν ὁ ἀρχιμανδρίτης) into his cell and said to him (εἶπεν αὐτῷ): ‘Child, why did you come here?’ (28.2–9) There is something remarkable about this passage: it uses male forms of pronouns and participles to refer to the female protagonist. Of course, it is not surprising that the brothers in the monastery, i.e., the other characters in the story to whom the saint presents herself in male disguise, refer to the saint as ‘him’ in their direct speech (cf. the italicized forms in the citation above). In fact, that they do so indirectly suggests that Theodora’s disguise has worked. It is more striking, however, that we also find male pronouns referring to Theodora in so-called ‘narrator-text’.5 These forms stand out because most of the time the primary narrator uses female pronouns in reference to Theodora’s deeds and adventures, even when she is disguised as a man. Indeed, in the first passage quoted above, the narrator uses female forms to portray Theodora as she dresses herself in male clothes and travels to the monastery (cf. εὑροῦσα). In the second passage, however, when she interacts with the monks, the narrator suddenly refers to Theodora as ‘him’ (cf. the forms in bold in the citation above), using a female pronoun only once ([ε]ἰδόντα αὐτὴν τὰ ἄγρια θηρία). Afterwards, he switches back to female forms (29.1–2: ‘ἡ δὲ δεξαμένη τοὺς λόγους μετὰ χαρᾶς τοῦ τιμίου γέροντος λέγει …’). This passage is not the only instance in the Life of Theodora where the narrator suddenly uses male forms to refer to the protagonist. Moreover, the same phenomenon is found in other Lives of so-called ‘cross-dressers’ or ‘transvestite saints’.6 4 I translate the subject of μείνῃ as ‘this person’ in order to preserve the gender-neutrality that characterizes the Greek form. 5 By ‘narrator-text’ I mean text accountable to the primary narrating instance. This excludes both a character’s direct speech and indirect speech. Indirect speech, even if it is technically ‘uttered’ by the primary narrator, represents a character’s speech and is therefore not regarded as narrator-text. 6 These are the most common terms used in scholarship to refer to these hagiographical characters. Recently, Roland Betancourt (2020: 90) proposed to use ‘transgender saint’ instead

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Greek hagiography knows a number of narratives dated between the fourth and the fourteenth centuries in which the saint, a woman, hides her female nature under male clothing and passes as a man or a eunuch. Many of them, as we will see, include instances where the primary narrator refers to the protagonist in male terms (even if both he and his audience know that she is, in fact, a woman). This phenomenon is analysed in the present chapter. First, I will present the occurrence (or absence) of such male forms in thirteen Lives of cross-dressers, paying attention to the role of the scribe and the narratives’ transmission history. These narratives are: the Life of Susanna (BHG 1673; fourth/fifth century), the Life of Pelagia (BHG 1478; fifth century), the Life of Theodora of Alexandria (BHG 1727; fifth/sixth century), the Life and Martyrdom of Eugenia (BHG 607w–z; fifth/sixth century), the Life of Andronikos and Athanasia (BHG 120–123 and 123a; sixth century), the Life of Anastasia Patrikia (BHG 79–80; sixth century), the Life of Apolinaria (BHG 148; sixth century), the Life of Matrona of Perge (BHG 1221; sixth century), the Life of Euphrosyne of Alexandria (BHG 625; sixth/seventh century), the Life of Mary called Marinos (BHG 1163; sixth/seventh century), the Life of Anna the Younger (or ‘Anna called Euphemianos’, BHG 2027; tenth century), the Life of Marina of Skanio (BHG 1170; eleventh/twelfth century), and finally the Life and Miracles of Euphrosyne the Younger (BHG 627; fourteenth century).7 The Lives of cross-dressing saints have been studied widely and from various angles.8 However, scholars have paid very little attention to the phenomenon of shifts between female and male pronouns referring to the saint. I know of only one exception: in the fourth chapter of her book Early Christian Dress (2011), Kristi Upson-Saia discusses the use of male forms to refer to the cross– because the existing terminology is in his view pejorative. I have expressed my own position with regard to this argument elsewhere (Van Pelt 2024/forthcoming: Introduction, n. 13). 7 This corpus corresponds largely to the list of cross-dressers’ narratives given by Évelyne Patlagean in her seminal article from 1976. From the twelve texts she mentions, I take into account all but one, the Life of Hilaria, because it only survives in Coptic. The corpus is then completed with two other Greek Lives included by Stavroula Constantinou in her chapter on the female cross-dresser (2005), namely the Life of Susanna and the Life of Euphrosyne the Younger. Hence, I follow the current scholarly consensus regarding the extant corpus of Greek Lives of cross-dressers. This means that I do not take into account stories which are generally not counted among this corpus because cross-dressing does not play a central role in them (e.g. the Acts of Paul and Thekla, the Life of Adrian and Nataly (BHG 27), the Life of Eusebia/Xene (BHG 633), the Martyrdom of Alexander and Antonina (BHG 50–50e) and the Martyrdom of Theodora and Didymos (BHG 1742)). 8 Key publications are: Delcourt (1961); Anson (1974); Patlagean (1976); Hotchkiss (1996); Davis (2002); Constantinou (2005); Lubinsky (2013); and Constantinou (2014). Although tales about cross-dressers are attested in other languages as well, it appears they are particularly important in the Greek hagiographical tradition (see for example Hotchkiss 1996: 14).

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dressing saint in Greek Lives and claims that their effect is the blurring of gender identity.9 Interestingly, the phenomenon of pronoun switches is also observed by Eva von Contzen in later, vernacular hagiography. She discusses its presence in the stories of Theodora, Eugenia and Pelagia appearing in the fourteenth-century Scottish Legendary.10 Instead of seeing them as generating blurred gender identities, von Contzen interprets the male forms in narratortext as instances of focalization. In the second part of this chapter, I will engage with both views as I reflect on the usage and (intended) effects of the phenomenon in question. Where in the narratives do male forms occur, and why do they occur, or to what effect? I will argue that the narrator’s use of male pronouns to refer to a crossdressing saint in Greek Lives represents instances of internal focalization, just as von Contzen suggests with regard to the Scottish Legendary. As we will see, using techniques of internal focalization, the narrator portrays the consciousness and (strictly personal) experience of the characters of his story. As a result, I will argue, he resorts to narrative processes that have certain affinity with fiction. ‘Fiction’ is here understood not as that which is false or untrue but as the silent agreement between an author and an audience that a narrative is not liable to truth-judgement in the real world.11 Consequently, I understand ‘fictionality’ not as the misrepresentation of historical or factual truth but as narration that expects readers to enter such a ‘fictional contract’ and attach belief to what is narrated while, at the same time, recognizing that a certain level of invention is involved.12 This notion of ‘fiction’ has been regarded as incompatible with the genre of hagiography, which usually contains a fair amount of invention (as do Lives of cross-dressers)13 but is nevertheless a truth-oriented genre: stories about saints and martyrs have a strong commitment to communicating religious truth.14 Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that they 9 10

11 12 13

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In the chapter, Upson-Saia elaborates on arguments she put forward in a short article from 2010. von Contzen (2016: 169–172). I should also note that some scholars have paid attention to the use of male forms in the thirteenth-century Roman de Silence and to the linguistic aspect of gender disguise in this text (e.g. Bloch 1986, Hotchkiss 1996: 106–107, and Bullough 1996: 231). See p. 12–13 in the Introduction to this volume for more discussion and references. The duality in the state of mind of the consumer of fiction is disclosed by Schaeffer (2010). See below, p. 172–174, for more details. With the exception of the Life of Matrona of Perge, all cross-dressing saints are believed to be non-historical characters. See, among others, Zlatkova (2014: 39–40) and Insley (2014: 65, 66 and 67). See also below, p. 175. See Turner (2012), who calls hagiography a ‘truth-telling genre’ for this reason, and Kaldellis (2014).

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functioned in a somewhat different way than modern fiction does today. In particular, it is doubtful whether (and impossible to affirm that) hagiographical audiences were combining their belief in the portrayed events with a simultaneous recognition of (levels of) invention. In other words, even if hagiography was to some extent based on invention, it is likely that hagiographical audiences did not (always) recognize the invention, and that hagiographers did not necessarily expect their audiences to recognize that invention. However, even if hagiography is arguably not generic fiction for that reason, fictionality can still have a role to play in it. Recent developments in fictional theory demonstrate that fictionality does not have to pertain to a text/discourse in its totality but can be ‘local’.15 Irony is an example of how fictionality may operate in non-fictional discourse.16 In other words, while fictionality is a property of generic fiction, it is not limited to it. Hence, fictionality can be explored as a property of hagiography even if the texts are not generic fiction—i.e. even if they do not adhere to the principles of fictionality overall. When referring to the protagonist in male terms, I argue, the narrators17 of cross-dressers’ Lives implicitly invite their audiences to recognize a level of invention on their part, namely regarding their characters’ personal point of view. Indeed, such internal focalization represents those characters’ consciousness, which should be inaccessible to the narrator. Therefore, the narrator’s use of male pronouns for the female saint arguably involves fictionality; it requires an attitude from the audience which resembles that of audiences of fiction.18 This does not necessarily turn the Life as a whole into a piece of fiction. Indeed, many critics agree that there are no narrative techniques that are strictly ‘distinctive of fiction’ and therefore ‘create fiction’ when used.19 In fact, I will argue 15 16 17

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Nielsen, Phelan and Walsh (2015: 67) distinguish between ‘global and local fictionality’ in their seventh thesis on fictionality. On which, see Nielsen, Phelan and Walsh (2015: 67–68). While irony and fictionality are not the same, they work in similar ways. For reasons explained in the previous paragraph, these narrators are not ‘fictional’ narrators and are therefore not distinguished from the narratives’ authors (a distinction that is made only for narrators in fiction). When the term ‘narrator’ is used in this chapter, it may be understood as ‘narrator-hagiographer’, referring to an implied authorial entity. Recent contributions in fictionality theory focus on ‘a radical separation of fictionality from fiction’ (Zetterberg Gjerlevsen & Nielsen 2020), which is a reasonable first step when exploring new theoretical territory and recovering a concept from long-lasting conflation with another. However, in my view, it might be an overstatement to regard fictionality as ‘radically’ different from fiction. I rather see fictionality as a quality of fiction though it is not restricted to fiction. Nielsen, Phelan and Walsh (2015: 66) state that, even if ‘certain textual features can become strong conventional indices of a fictive communicative intent’, ‘no technique is found in all fiction and/or only in fiction’. See also the definition of fictionalization by De

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that narrators of Lives of cross-dressers may have resorted to the technique of portraying the cross-dresser in male terms to generate immersion. The immersive effect could ultimately heighten the narrative’s authority and the audience’s commitment to its truthfulness in the real world.

1

Presentation of the Texts

Among the thirteen Lives examined in this chapter, only a minority have received a modern critical edition. This complicates the study of gendered language referring to the saint considerably, given that Lives of cross-dressers are often preserved in a high number of manuscripts with significant textual variation and since details such as gendered pronouns particularly tend to vary across witnesses. Nonetheless, in order to keep my contribution within the boundaries of feasibility, I initially relied on the texts’ standard editions20 for a general assessment of the presence of male forms referencing the saint and only consulted other versions where an ambiguous narrative situation prompted me to do so (I expand on this in what follows). On the whole, the editions allow one to sketch a general picture of the distribution, frequency and various degrees of continuity with which male forms appear in narrator-text. Based on this evidence, five among the thirteen Lives do not display the phenomenon in question: in those texts, the primary narrator never uses male forms to refer to his female protagonist. They are the Life of Susanna, the Life of Matrona of Perge,21 the Life of Anna called Euphemianos,22 the Life and Martyr-

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Temmerman (2016: 14): ‘the use of narrative techniques that interrogate, destabilize or challenge, if only for a minute, the narrative’s intention to be believed or its claim to be truthful’ (my emphasis). The Lives of cross-dressing saints are available in Migne’s Patrologia graeca, in the Bollandists’ Acta Sanctorum volumes and, in some cases, in modern critical editions. The editions I used for each Life or Martyrdom are listed in the bibliography below. According to Upson-Saia (2011: 99) the author of this narrative at one point ‘inadvertently slips, using masculine participles to describe the ascetic practice and virtue of the monk’. However, these masculine forms correspond to ἀνήρ in the following sentence, which represents the thoughts of the other brothers and is therefore a form of indirect speech: ‘τὸ τῶν ἀδελφῶν πλῆθος λογιζόμενον, ὡς εἰκός, ὅτι εὐνοῦχος ἀνήρ […]’ (AASS Nov. iii Col. 0792E). Since I only consider male pronouns in ‘narrator-text’, from which indirect speech is excluded (cf. note 5), I do not consider this passage to be an instance of the phenomenon here of interest. It should be noted that this text is preserved only in a summarized version in the tenthcentury Synaxarion of Constantinople. Hence, we do not know whether the original Life had only female or also male forms in narrator-text. On the Synaxarion of Constantinople, see Luzzi (1995 and 2014). On the Life of Anna called Euphemianos, see Delierneux (2002)

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dom of Eugenia, and the Life of Marina of Skanio. It remains possible that other versions of these narratives have been transmitted in which the phenomenon occurs but which I did not access. However, among thirteen texts, five is a significant enough number to safely conclude, even without checking all the extant variants for each text, that it was a legitimate and established option to write the story of a female cross-dresser while persistently referring to her as ‘her’.23 As contradictory as that may sound, it is an important observation, because it confirms that the appearance of male pronouns in narrator-text in the other Lives is indeed a remarkable phenomenon that deserves to be examined in more detail. At the same time, this also means that eight Lives, i.e. the majority of Greek cross-dressers’ Lives, display male forms in narrator-text. Hence, the phenomenon is a substantial feature of that narrative tradition. If one possibility is that the narrator never refers to the protagonist in male terms, another possibility is that he consistently refers to the saint as a male character. By ‘consistently’ I mean (roughly) from the moment she takes on male guise and a new name until the moment her female nature is discovered (usually at her death). Throughout the corpus, male forms referring to the saint in narrator-text are always confined to the narration of the saint’s life in disguise. They are never found in those parts that precede or follow it. This is another important observation, to which I will have occasion to return. A straightforward case of this scenario is the Life of Mary called Marinos. After the saint has taken on male disguise and entered the monastery, the narrator consistently speaks of ‘Marinos’ and no longer calls the saint by her former (and ‘real’) name ‘Mary’. He uses male forms of pronouns and participles.24 Only after her real identity has been discovered does he call the saint ‘Mary’ again.25 A similar case is the Life of Andronikos and Athanasia. Initially, the narrator speaks about Athanasia in female terms, also when she first appears in the guise of a man (lines 229–232: ‘And he [Andronikos] sat under a tree to rest for a

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and Marinis (2009–2010), who reproduces the Greek text from Delehaye’s edition of the Synaxarion (Synaxarium ecclesiae constantinopolitanae, 1902) and provides an English translation. If we assume that the editions I used represent a stable textual situation, then the nonoccurrence of the phenomenon is attested throughout the corpus in some of the earliest (Life of Susanna) and some of the latest (Life of Maria of Skanio) cross-dressers’ Lives. The first time the narrator uses a male name and male pronouns is at line 51: ‘προσκαλεσάμενος ὁ ἡγούμενος τὸν ἀββᾶν Μαρῖνον, λέγει αὐτῷ’. At lines 144–150: ‘Προσέταξε δὲ κηδευθῆναι αὐτόν. Καὶ ὡς ἦλθον ἀπολοῦσαι αὐτόν, εὗρον ὅτι γυνή ἐστι […] ἰδὼν ἔρριψεν ἑαυτὸν χαμαὶ εἰς τοὺς πόδας αὐτῆς’. Richard’s edition takes into account four manuscripts, and his discussion of variants in other witnesses does not mention differences with regard to male and female pronouns.

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while. And behold, by God’s dispensation, he saw his wife coming (ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ ἐρχόμενη) in the garments of a man, as she herself was also travelling (αὐτὴ ὁδεύουσα ἦν) to the Holy Land’, etc.).26 At the start of the next paragraph, the narrator starts speaking of ‘brother Athanasios’ and referring to ‘him’ with male pronouns.27 He continues to do so until the recognition scene at the end.28 However, we must distinguish between the Story of Andronikos the MoneyDealer and His Wife Athanasia (BHG 120–123) contained in Ps.-Daniel’s Narrations, a collection of edifying stories from the sixth century, and the longer Life of Andronikos and Athanasia (BHG 123a), which is a later rewriting of the story that has been published by Anne Alwis. In the latter, the narrator briefly resumes female forms twice.29 In both cases, the point he wants to address is precisely that some character does or does not have knowledge about the true identity of the protagonist. Such a context naturally triggers the reference to the female nature of the protagonist. The male forms are, however, immediately resumed in each case. The narrator of the Life of Euphrosyne of Alexandria is also inconsistent in the way he refers to his holy protagonist during her life in disguise. But whereas Athanasia’s narrator comes close to consistency with the male perspective predominant, Euphrosyne’s narrator alternates between female and male forms more often in the course of his narration, and they are distributed more evenly as well. Again, these switches do not seem arbitrary. Rather, they follow more or less naturally the logic of the story. The narrator refers to Euphrosyne in male terms fairly consistently in those parts of his narration that describe events taking place in the monastery (e.g. §§x–xi),30 but he uses female forms when referring to her in a narrative context that relates to life outside the monastery (e.g. §§ xii–xiii, when the narrative turns back to Euphrosyne’s home, and her disappearance is discovered by her father Paphnoutios; 201.14: ‘ὁ δὲ πατὴρ αὐτῆς’). It is when these two narrative threads converge during an unforeseen encounter between Paphnoutios and his disguised daughter in the monastery (§ xiv), that the two perspectives, male and female, are combined.31 In the 26 27 28 29 30

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Alwis (transl. 2011: 260). Line 252 in Alwis’ edition and line 139 in Dahlman’s text. Line 315 in Alwis’ text and line 165 in Dahlman’s text. Lines 271–272: ‘τὰ κατὰ τὴν μακαρίαν Ἀθανασίαν […] μηδὲν τῶν κατ᾽ ἐκείνην’ and line 281–282: ‘ὡς ἡ σοφὴ τῷ ὄντι Ἀθανασία γυνὴ αὐτοῦ οὖσα ἐτύγχανε’. The first time the narrator uses a male pronoun to refer to the saint is right after she has presented herself to the abbot of the monastery as Smaragdos: ‘Λέγει αὐτῷ ἡ Εὐφροσύνη· Σμάραγδος. Καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ […]’ (200.21–22). For more details, see Van Pelt (2024/forthcoming: ch. 6). 203.4: ‘ἀπήγαγε πρὸς αὐτόν […]’, 203.5–8: ‘τὸν ἑαυτῆς πατέρα […] οὐκ ὲγνώρισεν αὐτήν […] τὸ

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following two paragraphs (xv–xvi) the male perspective is resumed by the narrator when he tells of the subsequent meetings between Paphnoutios and his daughter, whom he fails to recognize. Finally, right before Euphrosyne reveals her identity to her father on her deathbed (§ xvii), the narrator switches again to female pronouns (204.2: ‘προσκαλεῖται τὸν ἑαυτῆς πατέρα’). Compared to narratives in which the male perspective is (quasi-) predominant throughout the narration of the saint’s life in disguise, it seems in this case likelier that the text offered in the edition would differ from other textual witnesses regarding gendered pronouns, given the frequent alternation between female and male.32 In order to assess whether the situation observed above is roughly representative of the story’s larger textual tradition, I consulted a sample of sixteen other witnesses transmitting the Life of Euphrosyne.33 With the exception of a few minor details, I found that the overall pattern sketched above corresponds to all consulted text witnesses.34 We have thus far observed four scenarios for the narration of the saint’s life in disguise: the narrator never/always uses male forms, he nearly always

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κάλλος αὐτῆς […] τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτῆς’. The reason to interrupt the male perspective, much as in the Life of Andronikos and Athanasia, is that the narrator wants to say something about the protagonist being or not being recognized, which forces him to reference the true, female identity of the saint (cf. above). At the beginning of the next paragraph which follows immediately, ‘ἤρξατο λαλεῖν ὁ Σμάραγδος’ (203.10) resumes the male perspective. The edition by Boucherie presents the text from one manuscript: Par. gr. 1454 (tenth century). These are: Hagion Oros, Monê Megistês Lauras Δ 050 (eleventh century, fol. 93v–100r), Hagion Oros, Monê Karakallou 14 (twelfth century, fol. 268v–277r), Hagion Oros, Monê Philotheou 9 (eleventh century, fol. 312r–314v, 315r–316v, 265), Milan, Bibl. Ambr. D 092 sup. (tenth/eleventh century, fol. 128r–132r), Milan, Bibl. Ambr. G 063 sup. (eleventh/ twelfth century, fol. 149r–156r), Ohrid, Naroden Muzej 004 (tenth century, pp. 36–47), Oxf. Bodl. Barocci 148 (fifteenth century, fol. 53r–61r), Par. gr. 1506 (tenth century, fol. 40r– 51r), Saint-Petersburg, Ф. № 906 (Gr.) 213 (twelfth century, fol. 86r–94r), Sinai gr. 497 (tenth/eleventh century, fol. 87v–94r), Sinai gr. 519 (tenth century, fol. 34r–37v), Sinai gr. 526 (tenth century, fol. 42r–47v), Vat. Chig. R. vi. 39 (twelfth century, fol. 53r–59r), Vat. gr. 797 (eleventh century, fol. 105v–115v), Vat. gr. 866 (eleventh/twelfth century, fol. 33v–36r) and Vat. gr. 1987 (twelfth century, fol. 24r–40r). These manuscripts were consulted either on the basis of online digitalizations or on microfilm at the IRHT (Paris). I thank André Binggeli for his hospitality and guidance during my work at the IRHT, and I am grateful to the Flemish Research Council (FWO) for funding my stay in Paris. The Life of Euphrosyne is transmitted in approximately fifty witnesses according to the BHGms/Pinakes database (https://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/oeuvre/14287/; access date: 11 May 2021). Because the usage of gendered language for the saint in narrator-text in the Life of Euphrosyne appears rather stable across the sixteen witnesses, I do not deem it necessary to consult more witnesses. For more details about these small differences, see Van Pelt (2024/forthcoming: ch. 6).

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uses male forms, or he alternates between female and male. Another scenario is found in the Life of Euphrosyne the Younger. Here, the protagonist is nearly always portrayed as a woman, and only in certain instances does the narrator resort to male forms, speaking of ‘John’ and referring to ‘him’. In each of those instances, the female forms are quickly resumed.35 The narrator’s use of male terms is therefore limited to a couple of brief occurrences, inverting the situation from the Life of Andronikos and Athanasia. As a result, the appearance of male forms in narrator-text is less straightforward than in the previous cases— why does the narrator suddenly refer to his disguised protagonist with male forms, when he uses female forms immediately before and after, i.e. in the majority of his narration of the saint’s life in disguise? Moreover, these sudden and brief switches to male forms may even generate confusion as to who is referred to. Such confusion is avoided in the Life of Euphrosyne the Younger because the narrator explicitly signals the switch to male forms at the first occurrence (‘[…] John—for this was how Euphrosyne was called as I just mentioned’).36 This makes their appearance (both here and later on) less abrupt. The narrator’s use of the male name of the saint likewise facilitates his use of male pronouns referring to the protagonist,37 a strategy that is also found in the Life of Apolinaria, for instance. In the latter text, the narrator temporarily switches to a male perspective at a few different places in the narrative, but he usually mentions the saint’s male name, which makes the appearance of the male pronouns feel natural.38

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E.g. AASS Nov. iii, Col. 0865E–0865F: ‘ὁ μέντοι θεῖος ἐκεῖνος ἀνὴρ τὸν Ἰωάννην ὁρῶν […] Ὡς δὲ ἐκεῖνος τὴν πατρίδα δῆθεν ἔλεγε καὶ τῆν κλῆσιν ὅτιπερ Ἰωάννης καλοῖτο […] τὸν Ἰωάννην μετ εὐφροσύνης εἰσδέχεται. Πλὴν ἀλλ ἀρετῆς οὕτω καὶ τελειότητος ἔχουσα […]’. Other instances where the narrator refers to the saint in male terms are found in § 10, 13 and 15. AASS Nov. iii, Col. 0865C–0865D: ‘Ὡς γὰρ πᾶσαν ἦν ὁ Ἰωάννης […]—οὕτω γὰρ ἡ Εὐφροσύνη ὥσπερ φθάσαντες ἔφημεν ὠνομάζετο—[…] τιμῶντες ἦσαν αὐτόν […] ὡς δὲ οὐκ ἦν ἐκείνην’. Namely in §11 and 15. However, in §13 the male ὅς to refer to Euphrosyne appears quite abruptly. 157.9–159.23: ‘ὑπήντησεν αὐτὴν ὁ ἅγιος μακάριος […] ἐπερώτησεν αὐτον δωρόθεος […] παρέσχεν αὐτῷ κελλίον […] ἤρξατο πειράζειν αὐτὴν ὁ διάβολος’; ‘ἤνεγκεν αὐτὴν πρὸς τὸν ἀββᾶν δωρόθεον καὶ λέγει αὐτοῦ [sic] […] ἀκούσασα δὲ ταῦτα’; ‘ὁ δὲ μακάριος δωρόθεος ἐπὶ πλέον ἐταπείνωσεν’; ‘ὁ δὲ ἅγιος τοῦ θεοῦ δωρόθεος τούτων ἀκούσας […] ἔρριψεν ἑαυτὸν εἰς τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ ὁ ἀββᾶς δωρόθεος […] ὡς ἀπῆλθον κατιδίαν αὐτῆ καὶ οἱ γονεὶς αὐτῆς […] δωσάντων λόγον αὐτῇ’ (my italics). Drescher’s edition presents the text from Vat. gr. 819 with variants from Oxf. Barocci 148. For more details about the variation of gendered pronouns across these different witnesses, see again Van Pelt (2024/forthcoming: ch. 6).

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This is different in the Life of Theodora, to which I have referred at the beginning of this chapter. There, the narrator sporadically switches from female to male pronouns in a brief and sudden fashion. In some of these instances, the narrator uses the male name of the saint (e.g. 32.3: ‘Because the abbot saw that Theodoros was worthy of grace (ἰδὼν δὲ ὁ ἀρχιμανδρίτης ὅτι χάριτος ἠξιώθη Θεόδωρος) he said to him (εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτόν) […]’). In sentences like these, the male pronoun (αὐτόν) follows naturally since the narrator already refers to the protagonist as ‘Theodoros’. Compare, however, the following phrase, where Theodora’s narrator begins a new sentence with a male pronoun, without using a proper name: ‘he went away (ὁ δὲ ἀπελθών) […]’ (32.4). It is one thing to have male pronouns follow the saint’s male name. It is quite another to reference the cross-dressed protagonist with male pronouns alone, especially when elsewhere she tends to be referenced in female terms. Such non-signalled use of male forms could indeed generate confusion as to who exactly is meant. This is even true for texts where the male forms are more widespread. Anne Alwis’ translation of the Life of Andronikos and Athanasia attests to the possibility of such confusion when it explicitly indicates between brackets who is meant by ‘he’ (e.g. lines 260–263: ‘αὐτὸς δὲ προσμένων’ is translated as ‘while he himself (Athanasia) waited’).39 Especially with cases like the ones we find in the Life of Theodora, where the occurrence of male forms in narrator-text is brief and isolated, it is both more difficult to arrive at an interpretation of their function and effect, and more problematic to rely only on one textual witness to do so (cf. above, note 3). When male forms are used throughout (i.e. from the moment of disguise to the moment of recognition), there is little doubt that those were originally part of the narrative’s design or that they are a stable element across the text’s tradition. In the case of Theodora’s Life, the question arises whether the male forms found in the edition are representative of the rest of the tradition. Could they even be the result of a corrupted textual transmission? Perhaps the scribe got confused as to who is speaking—a character or the narrator? Or maybe the occasional use of the saint’s male name elsewhere prompted him to change female forms into male forms. That scribes would sometimes get confused, is 39

In full: ‘συνθεμένου δὲ τοῦ θαυμαστοῦ Ἀνδρονίκου ταῦτα ποιῆσαι, τὸν μὲν εὐθύμως ἄγαν εἰς τὴν Σκῆτιν παραπέμπει ὁ ἀδελφός· αὐτὸς δὲ προσμένων ἦν τοῦτον ἐκεῖσε’ is translated at p. 261 as ‘The remarkable Andronikos agreed to do these things and the brother very cheerfully dispatched him to Sketis, while he himself (Athanasia) waited for him there’. Another example is lines 291–292, where a male pronoun in the text is substituted with the male name in the translation: ‘ὑποστρέψας τοίνυν ὁ γέρων, εὑρίσκει τοῦτον ἀνιαρῶς τοῦ σώματος ἔχοντα’ is translated as ‘when he went back, the old man found that ⟨Athanasios⟩ was in physical pain’.

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figure 8.1 Vat. gr. 2048, fol. 15r © [2023] biblioteca apostolica vaticana, reproduced by permission of biblioteca apostolica vaticana, with all rights reserved

shown in Figure 8.1, where the ending of a gendered pronoun appears to have been corrected.40 In brief, the complexity of the narrator’s use of gendered pronouns attested in the Life of Theodora requires a deeper investigation of its textual tradition at large. Wessely’s edition offers access to only three witnesses.41 I therefore consulted thirty additional witnesses (among approximately sixty witnesses preserving the work).42 I present a complete overview of the occurrence of male pronouns referencing the cross-dresser in narrator-text for all thirty-three consulted witnesses in another publication.43 The general picture that emerges from this partial but significant view of the text’s manuscript tradition is a highly diversified one. Only two of the thirtythree witnesses present the exact same situation when it comes to the narrator’s use of gendered language for the saint. However, none of the versions

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The part of the text that is visible on the image corresponds to the text I quote at the beginning of this chapter (i.e. 28.2–9). The confusion arises concerning the female αὐτήν in ‘(ε)ἰδόντα αὐτὴν τὰ ἄγρια θηρία’ (‘the wild animals saw her’). See p. 167–168 below for further discussion of this phrase. The oldest witness is the text from Par. gr. 1454, which he writes in full on the top half of each page. In the middle of each page, he gives the variants from Par. gr. 1486, which breaks off at about three quarters of the narrative. On the bottom half of each page, the text from Par. gr. 1506 is written in full. See the BHGms/Pinakes database: https://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/oeuvre/17925/ (access date: 11 May 2021). It lists sixty-eight witnesses, some of which, however, appear to contain the metaphrastic text. Van Pelt (2024/forthcoming: Appendix 2).

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I consulted (and which were randomly chosen based on availability) is entirely free of male pronouns in narrator-text. Hence, such male forms are a legitimate part of the text’s tradition. Moreover, despite great variation, in each of the consulted witnesses the narrator’s use of male forms always occurs in the same type of narrative context, as I will explain further below. The question why these male pronouns appear in certain places in the narrative, and to what purpose or narrative effect, is therefore valid as well. Put differently, complexity and variation notwithstanding, even in the Life of Theodora, the occurrence of male forms appears not to be random or accidental. It therefore seems less likely that they resulted merely from confusion, or even induced it. There is no way of deciding whether the male forms were originally intended by the author of the text or were gradually introduced later on by scribes, who were also readers and often intervened in the texts they were copying. But arguably we do not have to. Hagiography was a dynamic genre: hagiographers often remain anonymous, just as the author of Theodora’s Life, and the ‘text’ exists in the sum of its extant versions.44 It is therefore sufficient that male pronouns appear in a large part of the text’s transmission history, which means they were part of the story as it was written down by scribes and used by medieval audiences. The occurrence of male forms to refer to the saint in narrator-text can be treated as meaningful, without necessarily being original or (always) intentional. Consequently, there is mileage in pursuing an interpretation of their function and effect. The question then becomes: what are the effects they target (if they were intentional) or what reading dynamics hide behind their occurrence (if they were introduced gradually)? But before we proceed to the second part, where such matters of interpretation are discussed, let us briefly look at the two texts which have not been treated thus far, the Life of Pelagia and the Story of Anastasia Patrikia. Both have male pronouns referring to the saint in narrator-text, but their narrative situation is slightly different from that of the other Lives. In the Life of Pelagia, the story is not told by a heterodiegetic narrator, as in the other Lives, but by a homodiegetic narrator named Jacob the Deacon.45 Jacob tells his story after the events have happened, at a time when he already 44

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This phenomenon has been termed ‘mouvance’ by Paul Zumthor (1972). Rebillard (2020: 57–58) describes this for hagiography in particular: ‘the “original text” of many modern editions is just another Expression of the Work, and not the Work itself […] martyrdom accounts are not the kind of texts that are reducible to an “original” form’. A heterodiegetic narrator does not participate in the story he is telling, whereas a homodiegetic narrator does. This distinction was introduced by Genette as a replacement for the more common distinction between a third-person narrator and a first-person narrator (1972: 255–256).

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knows how they turned out. In other words, we may distinguish between Jacob the narrator, who knows about the real identity of the disguised saint and is similar to the heterodiegetic narrators in the other cross-dressers’ Lives, and Jacob the character, his ignorant self from the past, about whom he is now telling a story and who did not know at the time that Pelagios was a woman. As a result, Jacob can allude to his own ignorance and inform the reader of the actual state of affairs: He (Nonnos) said to me: ‘Brother deacon, if you go [to Jerusalem], look for a eunuch monk named Pelagios […]’ This he told me with regard to that servant of God (τῆς δούλης τοῦ θεοῦ), but he did not make it known to me. (90.299–303) Speaking from a later perspective, Jacob generally refers to the disguised saint with female pronouns in the rest of the narrative. However, at certain moments, he switches to male pronouns.46 The situation therefore appears similar to that in the Lives of Theodora, Apolinaria and Euphrosyne the Younger. At the same time, we will see that, with regard to fictionality, the difference between a heterodiegetic and a homodiegetic narrator may well be significant. Finally, the story of Anastasia Patrikia (one of the edifying stories from the Daniel-collection) differs from all other cross-dressers’ narratives because it does not relate the saint’s life in a chronological fashion but starts in medias res. The covert narrator relates how Daniel and his disciple used to provide water for a solitary monk, a eunuch, who lived in the desert. It is only when the disciple buries the eunuch after his death and finds out that he is actually a woman, that the reader is informed of the saint’s secret identity as well. Next, the woman’s previous life is told in an embedded narration by Daniel, who apparently knew about her secret all along. In this narrative configuration, the reader, just like the disciple in the story, is initially made to believe in the truth of the saint’s male identity. The covert narrator consequently uses male pronouns to refer to the saint from the very beginning, and switches to female pronouns after the true identity of the saint is discovered. The story’s beginning in medias res thus shifts the dynamics, and gendered pronouns serve a surprise effect.

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90.305–306: ‘Καὶ τῇ ἐπαύριον ἐζήτησα τὸν ἅγιον Πελάγιον καὶ εὑρὼν ἐπέστην τῇ κέλλῃ αὐτοῦ’; 92.336: ‘εἶδον αὐτὸν τεθνηκότα’; 92.342: ‘λείψανον τοῦ ἁγίου’; 93.345: ‘σχηματίζειν αὐτὸν προς τὴν κηδείαν’.

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Interpretation

2.1 Focalization The narrator’s use of male pronouns for the saint in the Lives discussed above appears meaningful in the light of scholarship that approaches cross-dressing saints from a gender perspective and emphasizes the desexualization and defeminization of these women. It has been argued that Lives of cross-dressers cancel the female nature of the saints, who embody quite literally the metaphors of masculinity for virtue and of femininity for sin: to reach holiness, the saint must renounce her sexuality and her femininity.47 The cross-dresser, therefore, is likened to eunuchs or angels, sexless creatures that indeed oscillate, like the pronouns in these Lives, between female and male.48 The instability in the use of gendered language could thus communicate the saint’s transgression of gender boundaries, as Upson-Saia suggests (cf. above).49 Although, generally speaking, the question of gender bending could be a fruitful approach for the interpretation of gendered pronouns in cross-dressers’ Lives, it is not the course that I will take in this chapter. This is, first and foremost, because I believe that this particular interpretation does not adequately explain the author’s or scribe’s underlying reasons (be they conscious or unconscious) for writing male pronouns. In other words, while the blurring of gender identity may be an effect of the text, I do not think it is the only possible effect nor, even, the one with the most explanatory potential. First, the scholarship that would support this view is recently being criticized. Scholars are increasingly defending a reaffirmation of the cross-dresser as holy woman underneath layers of masculinity.50 In fact, Upson-Saia enumerates several convincing arguments herself which counter the idea that the cross-dresser is (presented as) a genderless creature, blurring gender categories.51 Second, and more 47 48

49 50

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E.g. Bullough (1974); Aspegren (1990); Castelli (1991); and Lowerre (2005). For the connection between cross-dressers and eunuchs, see in particular Patlagean (1976: 606) and Davis (2002: 21–24). The idea is not uncontested; see for instance Cox-Miller (2003: 427). Upson-Saia (2011: 97): ‘The oscillation between gendered terms no doubt contributed to readers’ understanding of the saints’ liminal gender identity’. Apart from Upson-Saia (2011), see also Cox Miller (2003) and in particular Lubinsky (2013), who argues that the women’s femininity always remains key to an understanding of who they are and of their holiness. First, scenes highlighting the dressing act of the saint mark her masculinity as a disguise and lead the narratee to ‘believe that the saint’s real gender is not consonant with the gender of her disguise’. Second, the portrayal of the threat of discovery equally contributes to this perception. Third, the motif of false accusation of rape and paternity hinges precisely on the reader’s awareness of the female (and ‘true’) nature of the saint. And finally,

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importantly, the switches between female and male occur much less randomly than one might expect if they served to portray a genderless saint. As I note above, the male forms are always confined to the narration of the saint’s life in disguise, also when the male perspective is dominant. In addition, when the narrator alternates between female and male forms, the latter are consistently found in contexts in which the saint is portrayed as interacting with ignorant others. In the Life of Theodora, for instance, male forms first appear when she arrives at the monastery and interacts with the monks, later when she meets soldiers on the road, and another time when she is found by shepherds in the desert. In the Life of Euphrosyne, male forms take over in those parts of the story where Euphrosyne’s life in the monastery is portrayed. In the Life of Andronikos and Athanasia, the saint is nearly always portrayed as a man, but we must not forget that she is never portrayed alone and always in the company of her ignorant husband. Finally, in the Lives of Apolinaria and Euphrosyne the Younger, the male forms also appear precisely in scenes where the disguised saint encounters another character. At the end of such scenes, when the saint is alone again, the narrator shifts back to female forms. In brief, the first conclusion my research has allowed me to draw is that the phenomenon of male forms referring to the cross-dresser in narrator-text always occurs in the same type of narrative context: scenes where the disguised saint interacts with other characters who are ignorant about her true, female identity. Male forms never occur outside of such scenes of interaction. This observation holds true both across the narrative tradition of different cross-dressers’ Lives (with just one exception, on which more below) and across the manuscript tradition of one of them, the Life of Theodora. The latter is especially significant given the overall variation among the examined witnesses: all 33 witnesses use gendered pronouns in a slightly different way, but they never differ on this general point. As a result, it is safe to say that a certain narrative logic governs the appearance of male forms in narratortext. Quite often, the appearance of male forms in such contexts goes hand in hand with markers of perception. In the passage from the Life of Theodora cited at the beginning of this chapter, for instance, the narrator explicitly mentions that the monks ‘see’ the saint (εἰδόντες) before referring to her as ‘him’.52 My

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all cross-dressers are eventually ‘recognized’, i.e. exposed to be women in a scene that casts their femininity as a truth that is rightly discovered (Upson-Saia 2011: 88–96). Other examples are εἰδόντα (28.5) and ἰδόντες (39.14) in the Life of Theodora, and ὁρῶν (AASS Nov. iii, Col. 0865E) in the Life of Euphrosyne the Younger.

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second conclusion, then, is an argument: when referring to the saint in male terms, the narrator adopts the perspective of the other characters in the story who believe that she is a man (or eunuch, in some cases). Such ‘selection or restriction of narrative information’ is generally called focalization in narratology.53 The term focalization was coined by Gérard Genette as an alternative to the terms ‘point of view’ and ‘perspective’.54 His central claim is that ‘point of view’ (who ‘sees’ the events that are being narrated) must be distinguished from narration (who is speaking and narrating the events).55 Who sees and who speaks are not necessarily one and the same. I believe that, when Theodora’s narrator suddenly refers to the disguised saint as ‘he’, he presents the events at that moment according to what the other characters in the story—who do not know that the saint is a woman and are confronted with a man in appearance— ‘see’. Moments in which characters are said to ‘see’ something therefore function as markers of focalization in this text.56 Such cases, where the adopted focus conforms to that of a character in the story (a ‘limited observer’, in the words of Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan)57 are more specifically called instances of ‘internal focalization’. They are distinguished from ‘external focalization’, where the perspective taken is situated outside any character.58 As a result, the switches between female and male forms appear to be a strategy to represent the effects of the disguised appearance of the saint in the story world: they foreground the saint’s false identity as it is perceived by other characters, who believe ‘she’ is ‘he’. This interpretation is further supported by the fact that Theodora’s narrator does not use a male pronoun when referring to

53

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This is how Niederhoff defines ‘focalization’ in the Living Handbook of Narratology. See also Genette’s definition in his Nouveau discours du récit (1983: 49): ‘Par focalisation, j’entends donc bien une restriction de « champ », c’est-à-dire en fait une sélection de l’information narrative par rapport à ce que la tradition nommait l’omniscience’. Genette (1972: 183–224). Genette (1972: 203). I thank Berenice Verhelst for this remark. However, focalization is not restricted to the visual only. Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 77–82) distinguishes between different ‘facets of focalization’. One of them is indeed the ‘perceptual facet’ and has to do with the visual. The perceptual facet is clearly relevant in our case: the character, who is the so-called ‘focalizer’, sees the appearance of a man, not a woman. At the same time, our scenario also corresponds to what Rimmon-Kenan calls the ‘cognitive component’ of the ‘psychological facet’, i.e. the focalizer has restricted knowledge, in this case concerning the real sex of the focalized. She further distinguishes among the ‘emotive component’ of the ‘psychological facet’ and finally the ‘ideological facet’. Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 77). Genette (1983: 50): ‘En focalisation externe, le foyer se trouve situé (…) hors de tout personnage’.

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her in one phrase from the passage cited at the beginning of this chapter: when the wild animals ‘see her (εἰδόντα αὐτήν)’, they pass her by.59 Indeed, according to hagiographical conventions, these animals are agents of God and, perceiving the true and holy identity of the saint, they do not attack her.60 That the narrator now uses ‘her’ may then be explained by the fact that he does not focalize his account through the eyes of ignorant spectators. Focalization can occur in different degrees of persistency: it can remain fixed throughout the narrative but it can also shift freely between different focalizers.61 This accounts for the variation between the different Lives discussed above. In some, the narrator more or less continuously represents the ignorant characters’ perspective in his narration of the saint’s life in disguise, whereas in others, he alternates between his own informed perspective and the characters’ limited viewpoint. As I mentioned above, there is one exception to the observation that male forms for cross-dressers always occur in scenes of interaction with ignorant others, namely, in the Life of Mary. Mary’s narrator continues to refer to the protagonist as ‘Marinos’ after the saint has been banned from the monastery in response to false charges. All alone in the desert, not seen by anyone, the saint is still referenced as male.62 Moreover, the narrator promotes the saint’s performed masculinity even further when he says that Marinos takes care of the little child, whom it was falsely claimed he had begotten, ‘like a father’.63 Here, the gender reversal is supported in a way that is symbolic for the narrative as a whole, as it reintroduces the motif of a father-child relationship which initiated the saint’s story.64 This casts doubt on whether we are dealing, in fact, with internal focalization after all. The narrator’s full commitment to the male perspective generates the impression that he himself takes the saint’s performed masculinity as her(/his?) real identity. At the same time, I agree with Upson-Saia and Lubinsky

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Among the thirty-three witnesses I consulted, only two witnesses have a male pronoun instead of a female pronoun in this sentence. For details, I refer to Van Pelt (2024/forthcoming). On this topos, which is known from the Acts of Paul and Thekla, for instance, see Elliot (1987: 144–167). Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 76–77). See also Genette (1972: 208). Lines 102–108. Mary is actually accompanied by the child, about which it was falsely claimed she was the father. However, her perceived gender would arguably not be an issue from the viewpoint of such a little infant. Line 106: ‘Ἤρξατο οὖν ἐκ τῶν ποιμένων λαμβάνειν γάλα καὶ τρέφειν τὸ παιδίον ὡς πατήρ’. The reason for Mary’s cross-dressing is that she followed her father, to whom she was greatly attached, into the monastery.

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that the saint’s female nature is never thrown overboard. Just like other crossdressers’ narratives, the Life of Mary eventually entails a return to the female perspective with the recognition at the end.65 The audience, acquainted with this type of tale, expects this. Thus, the saint’s female identity is always latently present in the background, even if only in the mind of the reader. Moreover, the motif of false accusation of fathering a child and its intended effect—namely, enhancing the humility of the saint, who willingly undergoes punishment— depends precisely on the fact that the reader knows that the saint is in reality a woman and therefore innocent, another point that is raised by these scholars.66 The plot of disguise, which creates all the narrative suspense, is lost if the female nature of the saint is negated.67 Nonetheless, the case of the Life of Mary remains debatable. For all other cross-dresser’s narratives, however, it is reasonable to assume that, when the narrator refers to the saint in male terms, this may be interpreted as an instance of internal focalization, which makes the effects of the saint’s male disguise tangible for the reader by adopting the viewpoint of the ignorant characters. It is true that, as Upson-Saia suggests, the use of shifting gendered language may contribute to ‘a reader’s understanding of the saints’ liminal gender identity’ (cf. note 49), but such effects (in this case, the blurring of gender identity) must be distinguished from the narrative strategies or reading dynamics that may lie at the basis of the attestation of male forms. From a narrative-technical point of view, the switches appear related to focalization and primarily motivated by the goal of representing the effects of the disguised appearance of the saint. 2.2 Fictionality In an article from 1990, Gérard Genette calls attention to the fact that the discipline of narratology, which supposedly concerns itself with all types of narrative, has in fact favoured fictional narrative as its main object of study. He therefore undertakes to reassess the core concepts of his own narratological universe in order to determine whether they indeed apply to an analysis of fictional and factual narrative alike, or whether they are a distinctive feature of the one or the other. He considers focalization a point of narratological divergence between fictional and factual narrative, being typical of the former.68 Dorrit 65 66 67 68

Upson-Saia (2011: 94–96); Lubinsky (2013: 110). E.g. Upson-Saia (2011: 93). See Lubinsky (2013: 80–92) for discussion. Genette (1990: 763). He builds on the work of Käte Hamburger, who identified linguistic processes which she considered typical of fiction (Die Logik der Dichtung, 1957). Hamburger already points at processes linked to internally focalized heterodiegetic narrative, such as free indirect discourse.

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Cohn expresses similar views in her article ‘Signposts of Fictionality’, published in the same journal issue.69 As I state in the introduction to this chapter, it has been widely recognized that the presence of narrative techniques that may be typical of fiction do not necessarily turn an entire work into a piece of fiction. Nonetheless, Simona Zetterberg Gjerlevsen and Henrik Skov Nielsen, who distinguish ‘fiction’ from ‘fictionality’, agree that internal focalization can be taken as a sign of fictionality.70 Leaving aside the case of external focalization (which Genette also regards as an index of fictionality), I will focus on internal focalization and explore the link between fictionality and the narrator’s use of male pronouns in the Lives of cross-dressers. What characterizes internal focalization is that it grants the reader access to a character’s subjectivity by presenting the events from their (strictly personal) point of view. According to Monika Fludernik, what is really at stake with what has traditionally been called ‘internal focalization’ is the presentation of consciousness and experientiality.71 It creates a window into a character’s inner thoughts and feelings (whereas external focalization precisely ‘consists of avoiding any intrusion whatsoever into characters’ subjectivity’).72 It is on this basis that Genette and Cohn conclude that internal focalization is typical of, and even ‘signals’, fictional narrative: the representation of an individual’s inner state of mind is possible only for the narrator of fiction because it presupposes a kind of knowledge that can only be accounted for by the fact that fictional narration reports what the author is inventing him-/herself.73 In other words, in fiction, the narrator knows and is able to report on the mental states of the characters because the characters (and their mental states) are invented. In non-fictional narrative, internal focalization, if it occurs, is usually signalled and even justified.74 Zetterberg Gjerlevsen and Nielsen follow

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Cohn (1990: 784–791). Zetterberg Gjerlevsen & Nielsen (2020: 28). Fludernik (1996: 346). Henrik Skov Nielsen also writes that the study of consciousnessrepresentation in fiction and the study of focalization, even though they have been conducted almost totally separately, are in fact two sides of the same coin (2013: 70). Genette (1990: 762). What Henrik Skov Nielsen calls a ‘world-creating author’ (2013: 85). Cf. Genette (1990: 762–763): ‘[factual narrative] does not a priori deny itself psychological explanation, but it does have to justify each explanation with some indication of source (‘We know from the Memorial de Sainte-Hélène that Napoleon thought that Kutuzov …’), or to attenuate and modalize it by some circumspect marker of uncertainty and supposition (‘Napoleon probably thought that Kutuzov …’), while the novelist, fictionalizing his character, can afford a peremptory, ‘Napoleon thought that Kutuzov …’ ’.

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the same reasoning but conclude that internal focalization is therefore only a sign of fictionality (which is potentially local) and not necessarily of generic fiction. In my view, it follows that the instances of internal focalization in the Lives of the cross-dressers also signal fictionality. The question is whether it is indeed the other characters’ subjectivity that is represented by the narrator when he refers to the saint as ‘he’. One could argue that, when the narrator uses male forms to refer to the saint, he is simply representing what he assumes to be their perspective. However, can he indeed safely assume that what they see is a man? There is always the possibility that the other characters see right through the saint’s disguise and are simply playing along. This is not an altogether unlikely scenario if we consider that the abbot of the monastery in the Life and Martyrdom of Eugenia (a text that does not use male pronouns for the cross-dresser) suddenly confronts the saint, who presents herself as ‘Eugenios’, by saying that he knows all about her true identity,75 or if we consider that Matrona’s pierced ears (another Life that does not display the phenomenon) raise suspicion in one of her fellow monks.76 If the narrator cannot know for certain whether the people in the saint’s environment really believe she is a man, he acts like an omniscient narrator when he refers to the saint in male terms and thereby represents their perspective. In other words, in these instances, he silently invites his audience to accept his narration even if it must to some extent rely on invention. In this respect, the Life of Pelagia is different. When Jacob the Deacon, a homodiegetic narrator, refers to Pelagia in male terms, he does not represent the perspective of another character, but of his former self (cf. above). Jacob is of course perfectly capable of knowing what he thought and felt at the time when he encountered the disguised saint. So, unlike the heterodiegetic narrators of the other Lives, Jacob has the narrative authority to represent the perspective of the saint’s interlocutor since it is him. Put differently, because the story is told by a homodiegetic narrator, referring to the saint in male terms does not openly signal invention as it does in the other Lives. There is one more step in my argument. Apart from the fact that the primary (heterodiegetic) narrator’s use of male forms to represent the perspective of

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298.18–20 and 340.5–9. Note that in the metaphrastic rewriting of the Life the saint presents herself as ‘Eugenios’ while blushing like a virgin (Papaioannou ed. & transl. 2017: 202–203: ‘μετὰ τῆς φίλης αἰδοῦς καὶ τοῦ παρθένῳ μάλιστα προσήκοντος ἐρυθήματος’). Aspects of the saint’s outward appearance that are not in line with her performed masculinity may always give away her secret. AASS Nov. iii, Col. 0792F–0793A.

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the saint’s interlocutors conflicts with what he is capable of knowing, another conflict is created by it: the male forms are in contradiction with what the narrator actually knows, that is, with the knowledge he has displayed in the narrative thus far. The exception here is the Story of Anastasia Patrikia, where this is not the case due to its start in medias res. The entire narration is focalized through the ignorant disciple of Daniel and keeps the reader in the dark about the hidden identity of the saint from the very beginning. In the other Lives, the reader is informed about the hidden identity of the saint by the narrator, but this knowledge is disregarded when the latter adopts male forms to refer to the saint and commits to the characters’ ignorant viewpoint. A certain clash thus occurs between two incompatible perspectives, the informed and the uninformed, as the male and female pronouns, the verbal indicators that signal the focalization, represent mutually exclusive views in this context. This is not usually the case. Consider for instance Rimmon-Kenan’s example from War and Peace, where focalization is signalled by the technique of ‘naming’, i.e. by a switch between the names ‘Napoleon’ and ‘Bonaparte’.77 Whether the narrator uses one name or the other makes less of a difference: both are at his disposal because both unambiguously refer to the same character, but they simply carry a different connotation. However, when focalization is indicated only by a switch from female to male pronouns, the situation is different. By referring to the disguised saint as ‘he’ and thereby adopting the viewpoint of the uniformed characters, the narrator ignores his own knowledge and that of his audience concerning the real identity of the saint. Referencing a male saint, it seems as though he suddenly ‘forgets’ about it, inviting his audience to forget about it as well. Of course, the audience does not forget about the real identity of the saint, nor did the narrator (that would seem particularly inconsistent when male forms are used only sporadically, e.g. in the Lives of Theodora and Apolinaria).78 Hence, male forms invite the audience to accept the illusion of the saint’s male persona while they are simultaneously aware that it does not correspond to the truth. Thus, the narrator makes the reader complicit in a game of ‘doing-as-if’— as if the saint were male. Again, in such instances the position of the audience is therefore similar to that of audiences of fiction.79 As Schaeffer describes it,

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Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 83). I therefore disagree with Upson-Saia (2011: 99): ‘We see that performances of masculinity even within a discursive story can be compelling, even enough for the authors themselves to be forgetful of the rules of narrating the protagonists’ gender’. According to Schaeffer (2010: xii), ‘doing-as-if’ is a fundamental mechanism of fiction. This

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the state of mind of readers of fiction is characterized by a cognitive split: they may lose themselves in the fiction but simultaneously do not lose grip of reality through a conscious control.80 Similarly, the reader may go along with the textual representation of the saint as a male monk but simultaneously does not forget about the underlying truth. In conclusion, male forms in narrator-text can be taken as instances of fictionality for two reasons. First, since the narrator cannot know about the inner state of mind of those who interact with the disguised saint, representing their perspective openly signals invention. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the hagiographer expects his audience to recognize that invention. Second, since the characters’ perspective is irreconcilable with his own position, the narrator temporarily dissimulates his position as narrator outside the story. The gap between the world of the narration and the world of the narrated is briefly ignored and cancelled as he denies his own mediation of the reported events. As a result, male forms destabilize his reliability as a historical narrator and draw further attention to the invention. Furthermore, the male forms are at odds with the knowledge of the reader (except in the Story of Anastasia Patrikia). The latter is therefore invited to adopt a dual mental state, accepting the text’s representation of a male saint when they know the saint to be a woman, just as readers of fiction accept the narrated events while they are simultaneously aware of their invention. This raises another question. If hagiography is generally a ‘truth-telling genre’ that is committed to communicating (religious) truth (cf. above, note 14), and if referring to a cross-dressing saint in male terms discredits the narrator’s reliability by signalling invention, then why does the phenomenon occur? What may be the intended effects or—if it is not an intentional strategy—why do male forms occur in the texts’ tradition and what does their occurrence suggest about how these narratives were read? 2.3 Immersion If the narrator’s use of male pronouns to refer to the cross-dresser involves internal focalization (making the reader see the events through the eyes of the

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view of fiction builds on the notion of fiction as a game of ‘make-believe’, coined by Walton (1990). Schaeffer (2010: 133–134, 156 and 163–167). Webb (2008: 17), who discusses Schaeffer’s view on immersion and fiction, suggests that the duality he describes accounts for the fact that a reader may be overcome by real emotions when reading a fictional text but also knows that acting on those emotions would be inappropriate.

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ignorant characters in the story), then the ultimate effect is that it ‘immerses’ the reader into the world of the narrated events.81 The concept of ‘immersion’ consists of the reader’s feeling of being present in the story world. It builds on the idea that reading a narrative text generates the creation of a ‘world’ in the mind of the reader in which the story takes place.82 When the male perspective is (nearly) consistent, it is not difficult to imagine that the reader would be taken along into the world inhabited by the saint: the reader is continuously presented with a concrete reality that belongs to the other characters in the story, a reality in which the saint is indeed ‘he’ in appearance. The saint’s male disguise and performed masculinity thus become tangible and realistic for the audience, who no longer experience the events from a critical distance, so to speak, but as if they were experiencing what everyone in the story world is experiencing. It may appear more difficult to reconcile the effect of immersion with narratives where the male perspective is sporadic. However, according to Schaeffer, immersion (much like fictionality) casts the reader in a divided mental state: the feeling or ‘illusion’ of being present in a narrative world usually goes together with an awareness of one’s everyday surroundings, just as committing to a fictional world does not cancel our knowledge of the truth.83 Consequently, the frequency with which the narrator switches between the female and male perspectives (the informed and the uninformed, the critically distanced and the immersed) is not an issue. Moreover, since the shifts follow the narrative logic of the story, occurring in specific contexts of interaction, immersion as the intended effect seems plausible enough. And if the occasional occurrence of male pronouns in narrator-text is the result of scribes introducing male forms as the text was transmitted, their own immersion as readers could still be the reason why a sudden use of male forms is attested.

81 82

83

For a more elaborate treatment of this argument, Van Pelt (2024/forthcoming: ch. 6). A good introduction is Ryan (2001). See also Nell (1988) and Gerrig (1993). While immersion is often connected to fictional narrative, it is not limited to it (Ryan 2001: 94–95). At the same time, Ryan (2001: 95) admits that ‘imaginative participation is much more crucial to the aesthetic purpose of fiction than to the practical orientation of nonfiction’. Schaeffer (2010: 153) also maintains that immersion is central to the working of fiction. This connection is arguably also present in ancient literary discourse with the concept of enargeia, which denotes an effect similar to immersion and has also been linked to fiction. As Webb (2009: 168) explains, ‘in its fundamental like-ness, enargeia is intimately related to fiction; it evokes sights, sounds and sensations of absent things that, moreover, have the power to make us feel ‘as if’ we can perceive them and share the associated emotions’. Schaeffer (2010: 164).

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As I argue above, this suggests that scribes—and, perhaps, readers in general—were able to approach these narratives with what we may call a ‘fictional mind-set’: they allow a narrator to have mind-reading abilities and to freely abandon his own persona, as it were, to enter the world inhabited by the characters in order to immerse his audience in it as well. However, as I have suggested above, such instances of fictionality do not (have to) turn the work into a piece of fiction overall. In this case, instances of fictionality have an immersive effect. It is not surprising that immersion was an (intended) effect of hagiographical narrative, which relies on its audience’s imaginative engagement with the story to enhance its edifying effects. According to recent scholarship, in hagiography, edification and entertainment tend to go hand in hand, as the latter benefits the former.84 Ultimately, the immersive effect of pulling the reader into the story world raises suspense and dramatic effect.85 Here, it enhances the dramatic effect of the saint’s disguise, who appears different on the outside from who she is underneath. Immersion therefore serves hagiography’s goal of captivating the audience with a pleasurable story and, accordingly, making them commit to its edifying message. As such, male pronouns, which represent instances of fictionality and target immersion, can help hagiographers to reach the religious goals which preclude us from seeing their texts overall as generic fiction.

3

Conclusion

In her chapter on the Life of Matrona, Sarah Insley discusses the corpus of Lives of cross-dressers and their ‘fictional character’.86 When she writes that ‘the fictional character of these narratives is clear’, she refers to the fact that they deal with legendary heroines who (unlike Matrona herself) are not based on historical persons. ‘Fictional’ therefore refers to the fact that these narratives largely consist of invented material. This is different from saying that they function as ‘fiction’, if ‘fiction’ is understood as narrative that falls (entirely) under a ‘fictional contract’ between author and reader who both agree to a game of make-believe. Although the latter, holistic understanding of fiction may not be compatible with hagiography, which is, after all, a ‘truth-telling genre’, it has

84 85 86

See for example Kazhdan (1990: 131); von Contzen (2016: 15–19); and Cameron (1991: 47– 119). Nell (1988) connects immersion to reading pleasure. Insley (2014: 65–67).

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been my goal to argue that fictionality, understood precisely as a game of makebelieve, but which does not have to pertain to the text as a whole, may be at play in the cross-dressing saints’ corpus. I have examined a particular narrative manoeuvre, widely attested in Lives of cross-dressers, that creates instances of internal focalization and targets immersion. I argued that this manoeuvre goes against the narrator’s reliability as historical narrator by locally signalling his invention and making the reader complicit in a game of ‘doing-as-if’, and that it is therefore indicative of the fact that audiences of these Lives were capable of dealing with narratives that require a certain ‘fictional mind-set’ to take aesthetic and moral effect. Put differently, in order to benefit from these stories, be it from their pleasurable or edifying dimensions or both, the audience must have been able or willing, at least at times, to play according to certain rules that do not look anything like those of what we would call non-fiction or historical narrative today. This does not say anything about the belief the audience could or would have attached to the stories on the whole. On the contrary, the technique of representing the disguised saint in male terms allows for a lively portrayal of the reality of the story world, heightening the story’s authority and realism in another way, even if this also implies that the audience must suspend their disbelief concerning the narrator’s mind-reading capacities. Therefore, the occurrence of male pronouns in narrator-text referring to the saint reminds us that fictionality in hagiography merits further attention and suggests that it may be used in this genre in the service of truth, namely, to get the message across more forcefully. The presence of fictionality in hagiographical narratives—even if they are not fiction—may call into question the famous claim that Late Antiquity is the dark age of Greek fiction.87

Bibliography Primary Sources Life of Anastasia Patrikia: Dahlman, B. (ed. & transl.) 2007. Saint Daniel of Sketis: A Group of Hagiographic Texts. Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Uppsala), 180–187. Life of Andronikos and Athanasia: Alwis, A.P. (ed. & transl.) 2011. Celibate Marriages in Late Antique and Byzantine Hagiography (London & New York), 249–277.

87

This view was promoted by Ramsey MacMullen among others (1986). For further discussion, see Johnson (2006: 192, n. 8).

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Life of Anna the Younger: Marinis, V. (ed. & transl.) 2009–2010. ‘The Vita of St. Anna/Euphemianos: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary’, JMH 27–28, 53–69. Life of Apolinaria: Drescher, J. (ed.) 1947. Three Coptic Legends (Cairo), 152–162. Life and Martyrdom of Eugenia: Apserou, S. (ed.) 2017. Το Αγιολογικό dossier της Αγίας Ευγενίας (BHG 607w–607z) (Ioannina). [Ph.D. diss.] Life and Martyrdom of Eugenia (metaphrastic): Papaioannou, S. (ed. & transl.) 2017. Christian Novels from the Menologion of Symeon Metaphrastes (Cambridge, MA & London), 183–261. Life of Euphrosyne of Alexandria: Boucherie, A. (ed.) 1883. ‘Vita Sanctae Euphrosynae’, AB 2, 196–205. Life and Miracles of Euphrosyne the Younger: Delehaye, H., Van Ortroy, F., Poncelet, A., Carnandet, J.-B., Peeters, P. & De Smedt, C. (eds.) 1910. Acta Sanctorum Novembris Tomus iii (Brussels), 861–877 Life of Mary called Marinos: Richard, M. (ed.) 1975. ‘La Vie Ancienne de Sainte Marie surnommée Marinos’, in E. Dekkers (ed.), Corona Gratiarum vol. i (Paris), 87–94. Life of Marina of Skanio: Rossi Taibbi, G. (ed.) 1959. Martirio di Santa Lucia. Vita di Santa Marina (Palermo), 79–107. Life of Matrona of Perge: Delehaye, H., Van Ortroy, F., Poncelet, A., Carnandet, J.-B., Peeters, P. & De Smedt, C. (eds.) 1910. Acta Sanctorum Novembris Tomus iii (Brussels), 790–813. Life of Pelagia: Flusin, B. (ed.) 1981. ‘Les textes grecs’, in P. Petitmengin et al. (eds.), Pélagie la Pénitente. Métamorphoses d’une légende. Tome i. Les textes et leur histoire (Paris), 39–131. Life of Susanna: Vander Plassche, B.A. (ed.) 1757. Acta Sanctorum Septembris Tomus vi (Antwerp), 153–159. Life of Theodora of Alexandria: Wessely, K. (ed.) 1889. ‘Die Vita S. Theodorae’, in Fünfzehnter Jahresbericht des K.K. Staatsgymnasiums in Hernals (Vienna), 24–48. Story of Andronikos the Money-Dealer and His Wife Athanasia: Dahlman, B. (ed. & transl.) 2007. Saint Daniel of Sketis: A Group of Hagiographic Texts. Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Uppsala), 166–179.

Secondary Sources Anson, J. 1974. ‘The Female Transvestite in Early Monasticism: The Origin and Development of a Motif’, Viator 5, 1–32. Aspegren, K. 1990. The Male Woman: A Feminine Ideal in the Early Church (Uppsala). Barnes, T.D. 2010. Early Christian Hagiography and Roman History (Tübingen). Betancourt, R. 2020. Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages (Princeton & Oxford). Bloch, R.H. 1986. ‘Silence and Holes: The Roman de Silence and the Art of the Trouvère’, YFS 70, 81–99.

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Bullough, V.L. 1974. ‘Transvestism in the Middle Ages: A Sociological Analysis’, AJS 79, 1381–1394. Bullough, V.L. 1996. ‘Cross Dressing and Gender Role Change in the Middle Ages’, in V.L. Bullough & J.A. Brundage (eds.), Handbook of Medieval Sexuality (New York & London), 223–242. Cameron, A. 1991. Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London). Capron, L. 2013. Codex hagiographiques du Louvre sur papyrus (P. Louvre Hag.) (Paris). Castelli, E.A. 1991. ‘‘I Will Make Mary Male:’ Pieties of the Body and Gender Transformation of Christian Women in Late Antiquity’, in J. Epstein & K. Straub (eds.), Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity (London & New York), 29–49. Cohn, D. 1990. ‘Signposts of Fictionality: A Narratological Perspective’, Poetics Today 11.4, 775–804. Constantinou, S. 2005. Female Corporeal Performances: Reading the Body in Byzantine Passions and Lives of Holy Women (Uppsala). Constantinou, S. 2014. ‘Holy Actors and Actresses: Fools and Cross-Dressers as the Protagonists of Saints’ Lives’, in S. Efthymiadis, S. (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, Volume ii: Genres and Contexts (Farnham), 343–362. Miller, P.C. 2003. ‘Is There a Harlot in This Text? Hagiography and the Grotesque’, JMEMS 33.3, 419–435. Davis, S.J. 2002. ‘Crossed Texts, Crossed Sex: Intertextuality and Gender in Early Christian Legends of Holy Women Disguised as Men’, JECS 10.1, 1–36. Delcourt, M. 1961. Hermaphrodite: Myths and Rites of the Bisexual Figure in Classical Antiquity (London). Delierneux, N. 2002. ‘Anne-Euphemianos, l’épouse devenue eunuque: continuité et evolution d’un modèle hagiographique’, Byzantion 72, 105–140. De Temmerman, K. 2016. ‘Ancient Biography and Formalities of Fiction’, in K. De Temmerman & K. Demoen (eds.), Writing Biography in Greece and Rome: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization (Cambridge), 3–25. Fludernik, M. 1996. Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology (London & New York). Genette, G. 1972. Discours du récit. Figures iii (Paris). Genette, G. 1983. Nouveau Discours du récit (Paris). Genette, G. 1990. ‘Fictional Narrative, Factual Narrative’, Poetics Today 11.4, 755–774, transl. by N. Ben-Ari and B. McHale. Gerrig, R.J. 1993. Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Activities of Reading (New Haven). Goddard Elliott, A. 1987. Roads to Paradise: Reading the Lives of the Early Saints (Hanover). Hamburger, K. 1957. Die Logik der Dichtung (Stuttgart). Høgel, C. 2002. Symeon Metaphrastes: Rewriting and Canonization (Copenhagen).

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Hotchkiss, V.R. 1996. Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe (New York & London). Insley, S. 2014. ‘Dressing up the Past: Fictional Narrative in the Life of Matrona of Perge’, in P. Roilos (ed.), Medieval Greek Storytelling: Fictionality and Narrative in Byzantium (Wiesbaden), 55–85. Johnson, S.F. 2006. ‘Late Antique Narrative Fiction: Apocryphal Acta and the Greek Novel in the Fifth-Century Life and Miracles of Thekla’, in S.F. Johnson (ed.), Greek Literature in Late Antiquity: Dynamism, Didacticism, Classicism (Aldershot), 189– 207. Kaldellis, A. 2014. ‘The Emergence of Literary Fiction in Byzantium and the Paradox of Plausibility’, in P. Roilos (ed.), Medieval Greek Storytelling: Fictionality and Narrative in Byzantium (Wiesbaden), 115–130. Kazhdan, A. 1990. ‘Byzantine Hagiography and Sex in the Fifth to Twelfth Centuries’, DOP 44, 131–143. Lowerre, S. 2005. The Cross-dressing Female Saints in Wynkyn de Worde’s 1495 Edition of the Vitas Patrum: A Study and Edition of the Lives of Saints Pelage, Maryne, Eufrosyne, Eugene and Mary of Egypt (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Brussels, New York, Oxford & Vienna). Lubinsky, C.L. 2013. Removing Masculine Layers to Reveal a Holy Womanhood: The Female Transvestite Monks of Late Antique Eastern Christianity (Turnhout). Luzzi, A. 1995. Studi sul Sinassario di Costantinopoli (Rome). Luzzi, A. 2014. ‘Synaxaria and the Synaxarion of Constantinople’, in S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, Volume ii: Genres and Contexts (Farnham), 197–208. MacMullen, R. 1986. ‘What Difference Did Christianity Make?’, Historia 35, 322–343. Messis, C. 2014. ‘Fiction and/or Novelisation in Byzantine Hagiography’, in S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, Volume ii: Genres and Contexts (Farnham), 313–341. Nell, V. 1988. Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure (New Haven). Niederhoff, B., ‘Focalization’, in P. Hühn et al. (eds.), The Living Handbook of Narratology (Hamburg). [URL = https://www‑archiv.fdm.uni‑hamburg.de/lhn/node/18.html] Nielsen, H.S., Phelan, J. & Walsh, R. 2015. ‘Ten Theses about Fictionality’, Narrative 23.1, 61–73. Papaconstantinou, A. 2004. ‘«Je suis noire, mais belle »: le double langage de la Vie de Théodora d’Alexandrie, alias abba Théodore’, Lalies 24, 63–86. Patlagean, E. 1976. ‘L’histoire de la femme déguisée en moine et l’évolution de la sainteté féminine à Byzance’, StudMed 3.17, 597–623. Rebillard, É. 2020. The Early Martyr Narratives: Neither Authentic Accounts nor Forgeries (Philadelphia). Rimmon-Kenan, S. 1983. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (London & New York).

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Ryan, M.-L. 2001. Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media (Baltimore). Schaeffer, J.-M. 2010. Why Fiction? Transl. by Dorrit Cohn (Lincoln & London). Turner, P. 2012. Truthfulness, Realism, Historicity: A Study of Late Antique Spiritual Literature (Farnham). Upson-Saia, K. 2010. ‘Gender and Narrative Performance in Early Christian CrossDressing Saints’ Lives’, in J. Baun, A. Cameron, M. Edwards & M. Vinzent (eds.), Ascetica, Liturgica, Orientalia, Critica et Philologica, First Two Centuries (Louvain), 43–48. Upson-Saia, K. 2011. Early Christian Dress: Gender, Virtue, and Authority (New York & London). Van Pelt, J. 2024/forthcoming. Saints in Disguise: Performance, Illusion and Truth in Early Byzantine Hagiography (Louvain). von Contzen, E. 2016. The Scottish Legendary: Towards a Poetics of Hagiographic Narration (Manchester). Walton, K. 1990. Mimesis as Make-believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts (Cambridge, MA). Webb, R. 2008. Demons and Dancers: Performance in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA & London). Webb, R. 2009. Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice (Surrey) Zetterberg Gjerlevsen, S. & Nielsen, H.S. 2020. ‘Distinguishing Fictionality’, in C.A. Maagaard, D. Schäbler & M.W. Lundholt (eds.), Exploring Fictionality: Conceptions, Test Cases, Discussions (Odense), 19–39. Zlatkova, J. 2014. ‘Legendary and Semi-Legendary Female Characters in Late Antique Hagiography: Repentant Harlots, Cross-Dressing Ascetics and Holy Fools’, Initial 2, 31–45. Zumthor, P. 1972. Essai de poétique médiévale (Paris).

chapter 9

Truth, Authentication and History-Writing in the History of the Armenians by Agathangelos Valentina Calzolari

In memory of Prof. R.W. Thomson (†2018)

∵ The History of the Armenians attributed to Agathangelos is most likely dated, as we can read it today, to the second half of the fifth century.1 It contains the traditional account of the conversion of the Armenian kingdom from Mazdeism to Christianity, under the rule of King Trdat the Great, and of the establishment of the Armenian Church by Gregory Pahlawuni at the beginning of the fourth century. Many contemporary historians approach this well-known Armenian work focusing on the realia and attempting to give their reconstructions of the events on the basis of the evidence offered by the text. Various philologists endeavoured to discover ‘the secret of [its] genesis and its successive reworkings’.2 Admittedly, the History of the Armenians is the result of the compilation of parts of different origin and nature by an anonymous author. However, together these parts represent a work conceived as unitary, in which each episode finds its place and function. By his account, Agathangelos aimed to give a coherent portrait of the Armenian past and to show that the Armenians are part of the plan of God. In 1942, Paul Peeters wrote: ‘Whether the editor of Agathangelos’ [book] worked with pre-existing narratives, or whether he himself fabricated, through plagiarism, counterfeits or otherwise, the pieces assembled in his rhapsody (these are: the actions of Trdat, the Acts of S. Gregory and the novel of St. Hṙip‘simē) were shaped to fit into each other and thus create the illusion that

1 Thomson (1976 and 2010); Winkler (1980). The Armenian text is available in Tēr-Mkrtč‘ean & Kanayeanc‘ (1909). 2 Peeters (1942: 101); my translation.

© Valentina Calzolari, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004685758_010

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they belong to the same cycle and form the vicissitudes of a tragedy marching towards the same denouement’.3 These considerations could be read as an implicit invitation to pay attention to the redactional strategies and the arrangement of the different sections of the work that contribute to such unity. It is also interesting to remark the vocabulary used by Peeters, alluding to a literary nature of such sections (e.g. rhapsody, novel, and tragedy). In fact, the History of the Armenians may (also) be read as a narrative construction (in addition to being a historical work that commemorates the Armenian past). This chapter will highlight narrative devices of the work, paying attention particularly to a long hagiographical episode included at the core of the History.4 First, I provide some general information about the work itself and its main purpose.

1

The History of the Armenians

The History of the Armenians is based on the belief of the presence of God in human, and especially Armenian, history. Moreover, for Agathangelos, the Armenians can be considered as a chosen people like the people of Israel, having a privileged relationship with God.5 This is the main idea of the work and the main message that Agathangelos wants to deliver to the Armenians. At the very end of the work, he reports verbatim the exchange of replies by which God and the Armenians will renew their mutual engagement of trust and loyalty: ‘You are our Lord God’—the Armenians will say—; ‘You are my people’, will be the answer of God (§900).6 The renewal of this mutual engagement is considered the result of the entire chain of events as they are related in the History of the Armenians; it is also considered the result of the Armenians’ awareness of their own history made possible by the reading of the account of their past.

3 Peeters (1942: 102–103): ‘Que le rédacteur [du livre] d’Agathange ait opéré sur des récits préexistants, ou qu’il ait fabriqué lui-même à coup de plagiats, de contrefaçons ou autrement, les pièces assemblées dans sa rhapsodie, ces pièces: la geste de Tiridate, les Actes de S. Grégoire et le roman de Ste Hripsimé ont été façonnés pour s’emboîter les uns dans les autres et créer ainsi l’illusion qu’ils appartiennent au même cycle et forment comme les péripéties d’un drame marchant vers le même dénouement’. 4 In this paper I use the concepts of ‘fiction(-al)’, ‘techniques of fictionalization’, and the related notions (authentication, reader expectation, etc.) of De Temmerman 2016. Thanks are due to Koen De Temmerman, Klazina Staat, Julie Van Pelt, and Tamara Pataridze for their insightful comments on a preliminary version of my chapter. 5 Calzolari (2003–2004); Mahé (1992). 6 Thomson (1976: 427); Calzolari (2003–2004).

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As I explained elsewhere, Agathangelos trusts in the power of writing history as a means to build the Armenians’ collective memory.7 The historians, according to him, must recall all the past events, the good and the bad ones, in order to show the faithful presence of God alongside the Armenians, and consequently to make them aware that they are included in the plan of God. On the other hand, the Armenians must remember the past by reading the ‘books of the fathers’, an expression by which Agathangelos means the Bible and his own work (see esp. the Epilogue). The ‘books of the fathers’ must be transmitted from one generation to the following, as the Bible prescribed.8 The work of the historian is the response to the divine commandment given to Moses ‘to write of everything that occurred and of the divine sayings handed down, and to preserve them for the ages to come’ (§893).9 In other words, the memory of the past is, for Agathangelos, a legacy. Every time the Armenians read the books of the fathers—the Bible as well as the work of Agathangelos itself— they will receive this legacy. Therefore, they will confirm forever and ever their trust in God, and the response of God to their trust will be the renewal of his own engagement with the Armenians. Writing the history of the Armenians meant, for Agathangelos, giving to the Armenians a powerful instrument to renew their covenant with God and to assess their position as chosen people.10 The legacy of the past contains several chapters worthy to be remembered as main manifestations of the plan of God and of his presence amongst the Armenians. For Agathangelos, this plan had certain agents, and amongst these agents, there were martyrs: Gregory, a martyr who did not die by the will of God, and consecrated foreign virgin women, Hṙip‘simē, Gayianē, and their companions, who arrived safely from Rome to Armenia, where they died.11 The death of these women is presented as the beginning of the conversion of the Armenian kingdom and the necessary blood sacrifice for the salvation of the Armenian people itself before the teaching of Gregory, the future evangelizer of Armenia.12 In what way did Agathangelos portray this pivotal moment in Armenian history? As we will see, this long episode features many symbolic aspects and 7 8 9

10 11 12

Calzolari (2003–2004). Agathangelos makes this point explicit, having in mind Ps. 78 and Deut. 31–32: see Calzolari (2003–2004). Thomson (1976: 421); cf. Deut. 31:19–24. Several other passages recall such commandments (§893–896), on the basis of Koriwn, Life of Maštoc‘ 11 (Abełyan 1941). On the links between the works of Koriwn and Agathangelos, see Calzolari (2014). Calzolari (2003–2004). On Hṙip‘simē, see Ananian (1968); Mahé (2008); Pogossian (2003 and 2012). More in Calzolari (2011a and 2022a).

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metaphors, as well as some common topoi of hagiographical literature, and especially of the literary traditions on martyrdom and on asceticism. Some passages also attest tropes common to ancient novelistic literature and intertextual relationships with other works. My analysis pays attention to such literary models and topoi, fictional tropes, and authentication devices. It explores the text as a narrative construction, which can lead to a better understanding of the work and of its purpose. As we will see, narrative techniques are not subsidiaries but rather contribute to expressing the above-mentioned main idea of the work itself. I will focus first on the work’s claims of truth; then, on the verbal fight between Gregory and the king; and finally, on the martyrdom of Hṙip‘simē and the king’s metamorphosis into a wild boar, which occurs after the death of the virgins, as a punishment for his crime and his profanation of the virginal body, considered a Temple of God and a metaphor of a sacred space.

2

Pretended Autopsy and Claims of Truth

The History of the Armenians includes a long prologue that introduces the subject matter and the author himself and explains the purpose of the work. This is a common feature both of ancient historiography and hagiography. The same prologue includes another common device aiming to guarantee the truthfulness of the chronicle as a whole:13 Agathangelos pretends to be a witness of the facts that he relates. He introduces himself as coming ‘from the great city of Rome, trained in the art of the ancients, proficient in Latin and Greek and not unskilled in literary composition’ (§12).14 He relates also that the Armenian king Trdat himself invited him to come to Armenia in order to ‘compose a narrative from literary historical sources’ (§13).15 Nevertheless, in the following paragraph, Agathangelos stresses that he wrote his account on the basis not of written sources but of autopsy: We have not composed our book by taking our information from ancient reports but after seeing with our own eyes the persons involved and the accompanying spiritual deeds and the illuminating and graceful teaching which followed the precepts of the gospel. (§ 14)16

13 14 15 16

On this topic, see Ruani’s chapter in the present volume. Thomson (1976: 21). Thomson (1976: 23). Thomson (1976: 25). The same claim is stressed in the epilogue: ‘So, to bring to completion our narrative in the proper fashion, we have not set all this in writing by deriving it

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This instance of autopsy, ostensibly an authenticating device, at the same time fictionalizes this episode, as it is, in fact, a quotation from a previous historiographical Armenian work: the Life of Maštoc‘ by Koriwn (§ 28, cf. 2 Pet. 1:16).17 Moreover, the autopsy itself is, of course, chronologically impossible: Agathangelos wrote in the fifth century—after the invention of the Armenian alphabet by Maštoc‘ at the beginning of that century—about facts that happened a century earlier. In addition to the claim of being an eyewitness, Agathangelos uses another device that aims to lend authority to his account but at the same time again draws attention to the fact that this account is a narrative construction rather than a factual, historical representation: he puts his story under the patronage of the secular power: For the command of kings has imposed on the poor stores of our intelligence and has demanded tribute from us in the form of historical writing about past events, lucid histories of what has been done in our time. (§7)18 The excerpt contains an understatement, highlighted by the opposition between the unworthiness of the narrator and the greatness of the Armenian king, expressed in a hyperbolic way: Now a command came to me […]. Thus we came to the Arsacid court in the reign of the brave, virtuous, mighty and heroic Trdat, who has surpassed all his ancestors in valor and who has done deeds in battle worthy of champions and giants. (§12)19 The greatness of the king and the trust that he gave to Agathangelos guarantee, so the author claims, the trustworthy endeavour of the historian. In this respect, one may notice, in the rest of the passage, the statement that it is impossible ‘to oppose royal commands’, despite the ‘great and difficult task […] to recount in order the history of succeeding centuries’ (§ 7). It is the same Trdat who

17 18 19

from old tales but from the spiritual deeds that we ourselves saw with our own eyes and were present at’ (§897; Thomson 1976: 423). All the passages of the History of the Armenians are quoted following the English translation by Thomson (1976: 716–900; § 1–258) and Thomson (1979; §259–715). On Koriwn, see Calzolari (2014); Mahé (1992, 2005–2007 and 2018). Thomson (1976: 13). Thomson (1976: 23).

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‘ordered [to Agathangelos] to narrate, not a falsified account of his own brave deeds, not unworthily to elaborate capricious fables, but what really occurred in various times […]’ (§12). The modesty topos and the profession of unworthiness to write are also common authentication strategies. As Peter Turner explains in reference to the Religious History of Theodoret of Cyrus (fourth-fifth century), the ‘admission of these limitations’ is ‘a crucial aspect’ of the insistence on truthfulness.20 The writing tools used to adequately represent the greatness of the subject matter are limited; this pushes the author to seek a way to deal with such a great and prodigious subject. Moreover, Theodoret, Turner argues, rejected the literary secular tradition and claimed as the only possible model of writing the plain style of the evangelists. So does Agathangelos in the epilogue (§ 898), where he alludes to the ‘easy and delightful and apostolic practice’ of Luke, ‘who passing over the many various deeds of the saints omitted the details and narrated (only) the most important and most profitable points’ and presents him as a model for his own narrative.21 This is the continuation of the tacit borrowing from Koriwn mentioned above. The claim of being proficient in Latin and Greek and of being a learned connoisseur of the literary tradition may be read just as Turner reads Theodoret. Despite his (proclaimed) training, Agathangelos chooses a different model for his work and rejects the secular literary tradition; this is a way to stress the need to find a more suitable pattern of writing to relate the new turn of the Armenian history: the conversion to Christianity. In the prologue, Agathangelos introduces the topos of writing accurately, as a result of personal critical inquiry and of chronological disposition among other things: We offer for sale a well-composed and historical narrative, having submitted the history of men to research and critical investigation, according to the command, in a historical manner, rigorously, chronologically, and accurately. (§7)22 This is the way Agathangelos has ‘set sail on the sea of wisdom’, as he metaphorically stresses (§6).23

20 21 22 23

Turner (2012: 28–29). Thomson (1976: 425). Thomson (1976: 13). Thomson (1976: 11). Cf. Koriwn, The Life of Maštoc‘ 1, 2 (cf. Job 26:12 arm.); see Thomson (1976: 452, n. 1 to §6), quoting Louis (1945: 50–51).

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3

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Two Complementary Forms of Agency: Gregory’s Speech …

As I have already mentioned, for Agathangelos, the plan of God for the Armenians has specific agents, especially Gregory and Hṙip‘simē. The agency of each of them is displayed in a different manner. Both contribute in a complimentary way, ‘to bring (Armenians) near to God’ (§720), but the former does so by his word (teaching) and the latter by her actions and, ultimately, her death. It is interesting to explore how the History of the Armenians constructs this combined agency by narratological devices. The first actor on stage is Gregory. In § 48–124 we see him confessing his Christian faith, engaging in a verbal contest with the pagan king, and suffering martyrdom.24 But the real agency of Gregory is displayed only after the death of the second actor, Hṙip‘simē, and after the punishment of the king, who is guilty of her martyrdom. It is at that point of the narrative that Gregory’s teaching starts (§226–715). The introduction of Hṙip‘simē in the narrative implies the temporary disappearance of Gregory. Before that, he was thrown in a pit, where he stayed until her martyrdom. It is only after her death that he emerges again, in order to explain the role of the sacrifice of Hṙip‘simē for the redemption of the Armenians. The temporary disappearance of Gregory in the pit is a narrative tool to shift the readers’ attention to the holy Roman virgins and introduce a long hagiographical excerpt relating their arrival in Armenia and their struggle for the defence of their faith and of their virginity until death. I first deal with Gregory, who is represented as a mediator between God and the Armenians: (I will tell) how God had mercy and visited this land of Armenia, and showed great miracles through one man, who endured many and various torments and afflictions in prison, as in his solitary struggle he triumphed for Christ over a double tyranny in the city of Artashat […]. (§ 13)25 During a royal pilgrimage to the temple of Anahit (the patroness and guarantor of the legitimacy of the Armenian kingship),26 Gregory is sentenced to be martyred for refusing to sacrifice to the goddess and for confessing to be a Christian. Reporting a long dialogue between Gregory and the king, Agathangelos opposes the new, Christian religion to the Zoroastrian past.27 Dialogue is supposed to give the exact report of the words of the two figures. This nar24 25 26 27

Thomson (1976: 61–137). Thomson (1976: 25). Calzolari (2014). Calzolari (2011b and 2013).

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rative tool is employed by the historian to contrast and oppose not only the two religions, but also the socio-political and ethical values embodied respectively by the king and Gregory. Besides, the dialogue is full of biblical references. Gregory is punished for his opposition to the king—considered as a crime of lèse-majesté28—with the most atrocious tortures. After the first tortures, he addresses a long prayer to God, which is, at the same time, the first profession of faith in the work (§75–98). At the end of the description of the martyrdom and of the prayer, Agathangelos adds a detail that is supposed to provide authenticity to the long excerpt as a whole: All this he said while hanging thus suspended. And the scribes of the tribunal wrote it down […] And he said many more things while he was hanging upside down, and they wrote them down and brought them before the king, since he was hanging for seven days from one foot. (§99)29 The allusion to scribes and stenographers is one of the topoi of the so-called ‘passions épiques’30 and aims to create the illusion of truthfulness. Another narrative strategy which intends to give such an account of the events is the inclusion of chronological markers (e.g. §74: ‘he remained suspended thus for seven days’; §107: ‘he remained thus for six days’; see also § 113; 115–116; etc.). Gregory is locked up in a deep pit from where no-one had ever escaped. According to the text, he stays there more than thirteen years (§ 122) but, with God’s help, does not die. He has a mission to accomplish amidst the Armenians by his teaching and his pastoral activity: (He) came as far as death yet by God’s will returned from there and was raised up again to life in this land of Armenia. He entered the gates of death but returned by the will of God; he became the messenger of Christ’s teaching, after God’s miraculous and merciful punishment. (§13)31 28

29 30 31

Calzolari (2011b and 2013). The severity of the crime is associated with the special locus where it was committed, namely at a banquet, which is, according to the conception of the regality of the Armenian Arsacid society (to which Trdat belonged), one of the places where the link between the king and the gods was considered the strongest. See also, below, the locus of the hunting. Thomson (1976: 115–117). Delehaye (19662). Thomson (1976: 25).

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Before the beginning of the teaching of Gregory and of the consequent conversion of the Armenians, something else happens: the martyrdom of the Rhipsimian virgins and the consequent punishment of the king.

4

… and Hṙip‘simē’s Actions32

With Gregory being trapped in the pit, the story focuses on events in the Roman empire that will have consequences for the Armenian kingdom. As Agathangelos tells us, the emperor Diocletian is looking for a wife. To find her, he asks some painters to wander in the various regions of his empire and bring him portraits of the most beautiful girls (§137). The description of this search follows a fictional topos from Byzantine literature.33 One of the painters finds and paints a young nun of royal blood in a monastery in Rome whose name is Hṙip‘simē. Diocletian sees the portrait, falls in love with the girl, and wants to marry her. But Hṙip‘simē, determined not to break her vow of chastity, escapes from Rome. With the abbess Gayianē and many other nuns, she arrives in Armenia. Diocletian sends a letter to King Trdat, his ally, asking him to find Hṙip‘simē and send her back to him. At the end of the letter, he adds a surprising post-scriptum: ‘If her beauty pleases you, then keep her for yourself’ (§156).34 After two days, Hṙip‘simē is found and the report of her wonderful beauty becomes known to everybody. A great and confused crowd gathers to see her, nobles and common people, all full of passion and lust, which forms a great and perilous threat to Hṙip‘simē’s vow of chastity. The king is informed of the beauty of the girl and plans to take her as his wife. The account is authenticated once again by the presence of secretaries:35 Some of the noble servants of the court ran to tell the king all their words, because there were there secretaries who wrote down all that was said, and they read it before the king. (§176)36 32

33 34 35

36

On this topic see also Calzolari (2011a, 2017a, 2022a and 2022c), from which I borrow some quotations, considerations, information and results relevant to the purpose of this chapter. Diehl (1959: 13); Dvornik (1933: 19–22); Thomson (1976: 469). Thomson (1976: 167). There is an emphasis on the theme of the words gathered by some witnesses also in the description of the struggle of Hṙip‘simē with Trdat (§ 189–190): ‘Now saint Gaianē said all this in Latin to her protégée through the door of the chamber, while the king was struggling with saint Rhipsimē. But there were there some of the palace servants who heard all this in Latin. And when they heard everything that Gaianē had said to her protégée, they took her away from the door’ (Thomson 1976: 197). Thomson (1976: 185).

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Hṙip‘simē refuses to become queen of Armenia and prefers to stay faithful to her divine bridegroom, Christ. Trdat then tries to take her by force. However, the supposedly fragile maiden reveals an unexpectedly powerful strength, which comes straight from God: she fiercely resists the king’s titanic strength and after several hours wins the fight (§191). As Corrington-Street points out, ancient Christian literature, and especially martyrologies, ‘often pointed to the ability of women to transcend the limits of their supposed weaker nature and bodies through the superhuman strength granted them by God because of their fidelity to him’.37 In this particular instance, the text says, indeed, that Hṙip‘simē fights ‘like a man’ and it thus employs an image widespread in martyrologies to depict women.38 At the end of the king’s second assault, Hṙip‘simē overcomes him and throws him on the ground, naked. When she runs out of the palace, nobody is able to stop her. When she is found at last, the king is infuriated. He sentences Hṙip‘simē and all her companions to be tortured to death. A long description of the tortures follows. The description of the fight of Hṙip‘simē and the king merits closer attention: The maiden was strengthened by the holy Spirit; she struck him [i.e. the king], chased him and overcame him; she wore the king out, weakened him and felled him. She stripped the king naked of his clothes; she tore his robes and threw away his royal diadem, leaving him covered with shame. And although her own clothes had been torn to shreds by him, yet when she went out she still victoriously retained her purity. (§ 191)39 The passage has realistic details alongside intertextual associations. It harks back to Thekla, the disciple of the apostle Paul in the apocryphal Acts of Paul (written in Greek in the second century and translated into Armenian, from Syriac, in the fifth century): And straightway she attacked Alexander and rent his raiment, and tore off the golden crown of the figure of Caesar, which he had on his head, and

37 38

39

Corrington-Street (1999: 349). Cf. for instance Gospel of Thomas, Logion 114 (Layton 1989: 92–93); Gospel of Mary 9, 20 (Pasquier 20072: 34–35); Ambrose, On virgins 1, 2, 5–9 (PL 16: 200–202); Passion of Perpetua and Felicity 10, 7 (Heffernan 2012: 112 and 450). See Aspegren (1990); Castelli (2004); Cobb (2008); Cooper (2013); Marjanen (2009); Vogt (19952); and, for the Jewish tradition, Boyarin (2006: 75–81). See also the chapter of Van Pelt in this volume. Thomson (1976: 199).

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dashed it to the ground, and left him naked, destitute, and full of shame. (Acts of Paul, §26 arm.)40 In Christian literature from the fourth century, Thekla, a model of the saint virgin in both western and eastern Christianity, was very popular in Armenia too, where there is evidence of the spread of her legend from the fifth to the fourteenth century.41 The implicit parallel with Thekla enhances the image of Hṙip‘simē as a virgin, and particularly of the heroic virago who, like Thekla, stands up against an aggressor in a manly way. Thekla was also considered as the first female martyr. The parallel between the two figures stresses the paradigm of holiness of Hṙip‘simē as a virgin ready to die for the defence of her vow of chastity. Hence, while the intertextual connection points to Agathangelos’ narrative fashioning, it builds up the authority of this character at the same time.

5

The Martyrdom of Hṙip‘simē42

The martyrdom of Hṙip‘simē and her companions is described by Agathangelos as a sacrifice that saves the Armenians. This central message is articulated by Gregory who miraculously escapes from the pit. In order to explain the meaning of the death of the holy women, and to convert the king and the Armenians, he states: So now, on account of the death of these blessed saints, whose blood was poured on your [scil. the Armenians’] land and who became worthy of divine grace and were sacrificed, therefore you have been visited and this land of Armenia has been heeded. (§249)43 In another passage, we find the same insistence on the shedding of blood and the consequences of this sacrifice for the Armenians, not only for a community of believers—an idea usually stressed in martyrdom accounts—but also for the Armenian people as a whole. The fact that this connection between martyrdom and collective salvation44 is applied not only to a religious community

40 41 42 43 44

Calzolari (2017a: 325–327 and 2022a: 111–112). Calzolari (2017a: 47–163 and 2017b); cf. Calzolari (2022c). On this topic, see also Calzolari (2011a and 2022a). Thomson (1976: 245–247). On the collective soteriological value of martyrdom, see for example Streete (1999).

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but also to an ethnic group is one of the most original aspects of the account of Agathangelos: And these martyrs through his mercy will be for you a strong fortress and mighty tower, your protectors by intercession. They were valiant in the shedding of blood, so that by their martyrdom they might bring you [scil. the Armenians] near to God. (§720)45 How can virgin women martyrs bring a people close to God by the shedding of blood? In order to understand this core question in all its implications, it is necessary to turn to late antique accounts both of martyrdoms and of asceticism and virginity. On both topics, much important work has been done by modern scholars.46 Although they do not deal with Armenian history and literature specifically, they offer important clues and parallels useful for a better understanding of our text, and for appreciating its originality in comparison with similar literary sources in other eastern and western Christian literatures.

6

Women and Virginity in Christian Literature

In Late Antiquity, virginity and chastity were considered ideals of Christian perfection. These ideals were developed in different ways in many ascetic and monastic circles, inside and outside the Great Church. The question of the superiority of celibacy over marriage was already addressed at the time of the apostles (cf. 1Cor. 7). In the fourth century, some Christian circles prescribed as a rule to live in absolute continence. They condemned marriage, childbearing, eating meals and drinking wine. These circles (called encratites) were considered as heretical by the Church but had numerous followers especially in Asia Minor, Syria, and Armenia.47 Still in the fourth century, the Fathers of the Church wrote the first treatises and the first exhortations On Virginity, mostly addressed to women. Many of these exhortations introduced, as a model of

45 46

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Thomson (1976: 263), with a few changes. On virginity and continence in the late Jewish tradition and in the first Christian centuries, see for example Angelidi (2006); Beatrice (1976); Consolino (2006); Coyne Kelly (2000: ch. 2); Elm (1994); Sfameni Gasparro (1984). Although we do not know too much about asceticism in early Armenia, we have reasons to believe that these ascetic circles, with their practices, had some followers also in Armenia: Garsoïan (1983: 164–169).

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saintly virginity, the figure of Thekla.48 In many Lives of holy virgins, Christian writers began to describe the struggle for the preservation of chastity and virginity as a form of endurance comparable to martyrdom. In this respect it is important to recall that in the Christian literature from the fourth century, virgins and renunciators were considered equal to angels (isangelia), and virginity and chastity were considered as the privileged ways to meet God.49 The condition of the virgins was also considered to be similar to the condition of Adam and Eve before the sin, when humankind was created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, the virgins are the closest to God and primordial purity. If we focus on the long section concerning the Roman nuns in Agathangelos’ account, we find some of these important concepts. First, the struggle until death was above all a struggle for the defence of virginity and purity: Then Gaianē and her protégée Rhipsimē and their group of chaste companions decided to flee to a distant land in order to preserve themselves in purity from those swinish, sin-stained pernicious, impious and devilish men [scil. Diocletian and Trdat]. (§149)50 Several passages of the Armenian account emphasize Hṙip‘simē’s virginity, which stresses the special relationship between the virgin and God/Christ. The virgins are called the ‘brides of Christ’. In this section, we can find erotic vocabulary borrowed from the Song of Songs, with many allusions to the love and the desire of the virgins for their divine bridegroom, Christ, to whom they have dedicated their virginity.51 Hṙip‘simē and the others are compared to the wise virgins of the parable (cf. Matt. 25:1–10), who were ready, with their lamps, and were admitted to the wedding banquet, considered as an anticipation of entering the kingdom of heaven.52 In other excerpts, Agathangelos opposes the purity of the virgins to the impurity of their aggressors who, as the text recalls, were heathen. Paganism and impurity are associated and are described with negatively connoted words such as ‘stain’, ‘pollution’, and ‘luxurious obscenity’. ‘Impious’ is the lust of the 48 49 50 51 52

See especially Methodios of Olympos, The Banquet (Musurillo & Debidour 1963). See inter alia Sfameni Gasparro (1984: passim); Lane Fox (1986: 347–388). On the proximity of the virgins to God, see Rousselle (1983: 83); Streete (2006). Thomson (1976: 159). On the erotic vocabulary describing the relationship between the virgin and Christ in the ascetic literature, see Cameron (1989: 200–201). Cf. 2Cor. 11:2 and Eph. 5:27. On the metaphor of the wedding, see for instance Brown (1988: 259, 275–276).

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heathens and ‘impious’ is their religion. In one passage, the contrast between purity and impurity is reinforced by the idea that the defence of purity until death is a defence of the Christian faith itself: ‘It is better for us to die in our purity rather than extend our hands to foreign gods that do not exist’ (§ 194).53 At the same time, there is an implicit link between the virginal body and the Church: Lord, […] let us not be joined to the degradation of pagan filthiness. Permit not the chastity of our holiness to be a brothel for those obscene dogs; give not the pearl of the virginity of our faith to their impious and swinish ways. Let not the torrent of the voracious floods of error and deceit shake the foundations of your holy church, which was built with many true stones on the firm rock. (§147)54 If the pagan kings (Diocletian and Trdat) were able to take possession of the virgin, the foundations of the Church itself would be shaken. The connection between the virginal state of the bodies of the women and the Church itself is crucial. Through subtle semantic shifts in several passages the body of the virgin, whose chastity is considered to be the foundation of the Church, is called a ‘receptacle of the divinity’, ‘Temple of God’, and ‘Temple of divinity’. This is a biblical motif (cf. 1Cor. 6:18–19), attested in the Acts of Paul as well (§ 5), where Paul says, ‘Blessed are they that keep themselves chaste, because they shall be called the temple of God’ (see also below). Consequently, the nature of the virginal body (the temple of God) cannot but be incorruptible. The mutilated bodies, to which the king had refused to give burial (cf. § 201: ‘They dragged out their bodies and threw them as food for the dogs of the city and beasts of the land and birds of the sky’)55 are preserved: They saw that the power of God had preserved their bodies, for it was the ninth day and ninth night that their bodies had been lying outside, and no animal or dog had approached […], nor had any bird harmed them, nor did their bodies stink. (§223)56 The realistic details in this passage counterbalance its intertextual use of a well-known biblical text, Ps. 79 [78], which deals with the invasion and the 53 54 55 56

Thomson (1976: 201). Thomson (1976: 155–157). Thomson (1976: 207). Thomson (1976: 225).

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profanation of God’s inheritance by the nations (see in particular v. 2: ‘They have left the dead bodies of your servants, as food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your own people for the animals of the wild’). Moreover, this biblical allusion enhances the metaphor of the body of the virgins as Temple of God, given the fact that the first verses of the Psalm mention the defilement of the Temple of Jerusalem. The inviolability and incorruptibility of the body of the virgin martyrs is a further manifestation of the privileged contact they have with the divine. Thanks to this privileged contact, they deserve the role of intercessors—a power that the relics also have (§241). The presence of their bodies, which are presented as temples of God, constitutes the only guarantee for the Armenians to be able to come near to God: Their bodies and their bones are temples of God in your midst, for in no other way can you reconcile God with yourselves and approach God, except by the intercession of their prayers […]. (§ 564)57

7

The Profanation of the Temple of God by the King and His Expiation; the New Birth of the Armenian People

All the considerations above allow us to understand the true nature of the crime of Trdat: the tortures inflicted on the Christian virgins are a profanation of the Temple of God, the virginal body, considered as a metaphor of a sacred space, a church. After the murder of Hṙip‘simē and their companions, the king is metamorphosed into a wild boar, thus losing his human nature. Whereas the virgins have the same uncontaminated nature as humankind before it started sinning, the king, by injuring their sacred bodies, removes himself as far as is possible from human nature. Metamorphoses are common both in classical and Christian literature. One may consider, for instance, the Metamorphoses by Ovid (first century bce-first century ce) or The Golden Ass by Apuleius (second century ce), the latter of which relates the transformation of Lucius into an ass. In Agathangelos, the king’s metamorphosis is explicitly explained on the basis of the example of Nebuchadnezzar, which requires clarification:

57

Thomson (1970: 135).

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And in the likeness of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, he [scil. King Trdat] lost his human nature for the likeness of wild pigs and went about like them and dwelt among them. (§212)58 In Daniel 4, the Babylonian king has a dream, which is interpreted by Daniel. He explains that the king will be driven from among men; his dwelling will be with the beasts of the field, and he will be made to eat grass like an ox for seven seasons (Dan. 4:22).59 Twelve months later, a voice coming from heaven confirms Daniel’s prediction and the word is fulfilled (Dan. 4:28–29): ‘The king is driven from among men and eats grass like an ox; his body is wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws’ (Dan. 4:30). If Agathangelos refers to the biblical example, which mentions an ox, nevertheless, as Nina Garsoïan claims, the particular choice of the wild boar has a symbolic and religious value not only related to the Old Testament60 but also to Zoroastrianism (the religion professed by King Trdat before his conversion), where the boar was often associated to Vahagn, the god of war and bravery. This religious symbol is ridiculed especially in the passages of the History of the Armenians where the boar-king is called ‘pig’. The Zoroastrian symbol is similarly ridiculed when the transformation of the king from man to animal happens while he is hunting in the plain of Pʿaṙakan Šemak (§ 211). In IranoArmenian Arsacid society, hunting was considered one of the activities where the king displayed his privileged relation with the gods, and especially with Vahagn. Moreover, as Thomson points out, the plain of Pʿaṙakan Šemak was a famous hunting resort.61 The coexistence of multiple meanings and symbolic values enriches the semantic value of the episode. Moreover, the transformation into a monster as a consequence of hybris (in the classical literature) or sin (in the Christian tradition) is a common narrative topos. This is the case for the transformation of Trdat as well: But when the king, having mounted his chariot, was about to leave the city, then suddenly there fell on him punishment from the Lord. An

58 59

60 61

Thomson (1976: 217); full quotation below. There are different interpretations of this passage, addressing the issue of whether Nebuchadnezzar is portrayed as actually undergoing a physical metamorphosis into an animal or not. On this topic, see, recently, Atkins (2023). Garsoïan (1982: 153–164); Garsoïan (1997: 27–33). Thomson (1976: 475, n. 2 to §211).

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impure demon struck the king and knocked him down from his chariot. Then he began to rave and to eat his own flesh. And in the likeness of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, he lost his human nature for the likeness of wild pigs and went about like them and dwelt among them. Then entering a reedy place, in senseless abandon he pastured on grass, and wallowed naked in the plain. (§212)62 The theme of eating one’s own flesh is another topos of hagiography.63 The mention of the nakedness of the boar-king seems to be an allusion to a status considered not proper to humans. It is at this point of the account that Gregory appears again as a consequence of a prodigious vision. The first act he accomplishes is to kneel in prayer and command that the body of the king be covered; at that time, Trdat still had the form of a wild boar.64 The intervention of Gregory at this point of the account is much needed: with the metamorphosis of the king, ‘terrible ruin fell upon the country’ (§213).65 As we will see, Gregory will bring about healing not only for the king, but for the Armenian people as a whole. The first thing that the pig/boarking has to do to regain his human form is to bury the bodies of the virgins and build chapels over their shrines. Their bodies become both literally and figuratively the foundations of a divine house, given that the chapels of the holy virgins were actually the first churches built in Armenia. In the History of Agathangelos, the metaphor of the bodies of the virgins as Temple of God, so common in the ascetic literature,66 receives a totally new dimension in the context of the story of the foundation of the Church of a newly converted country, Armenia. Only after completing the building of the chapels, which is described

62 63 64

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Thomson (1976: 217); cf. §727, Thomson (1976: 269). Thomson (1976: 475, n. 2 to §212, based on Delehaye 19662: 197) mentions a possible parallel with the history of St. Christopher. The image of the covered boar-king listening to the teaching of Gregory struck the imagination of Vardan from Baghesh, the Armenian painter who depicted this scene in the famous MS 1920 (Baghesh, 1569–1570) of the Matenadaran of Yerevan (fol. 55v): Kouymjian (2007: 164–171, esp. 169). Thomson (1976: 219). Acts of Thomas 1.12 (Lipsius & Bonnet 1903: 116–117); Athanasios, Apology to Constantius 33 (Szymusiak 19872: 128); Origen, Against Celsus 4, 26 (Marcovich 2001: 239–240); Basil of Ancyra, On Virginity 27 (PG 30, 725B); Eusebios of Emesa, On Virginity 25 and 27 (Buytaert 1953: 192 and 194), Homily 6 On the Martyrs 24 (ibid.: 166–168) and Life of Saint Melania 19 (Gorce 1962: 182); Ps.-Basil, On Virginity 2, 41 (Amand de Mendieta & Moons 1953: 18– 69, 211–238). On the virgins’ body as representing the ‘body of the Church’, cf. Cameron (1989); Clark (1999: 259–329); Coyne Kelly (2000: 41–42); MacDonald (1996: 242–243); Wehn (2000).

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in detail, and thus paying due respect to the holy virginal body, does Trdat cast off the thick boar skin and recover his human appearance. Just before the description of this second metamorphosis, Agathangelos describes in detail the boar-king, thus effectively contrasting his two antithetic appearances: Now King Trdat was still in the form of a pig, save only that he could speak in human fashion. The claws of his hands and feet were those of a pig, his face was like a snout, he had great teeth like a boar, and he was hairy all over his body. He stood covering his face and head, wrapped in a hair shirt. (§763)67 When turning back into a human, Trdat first recovers his hands. The idea that the process of expiation and of turning back into a human may be achieved only step by step is expressed in a stylized and fictionalizing way, strictly associated with the details of the building of the chapels dedicated to the holy martyrs: [Gregory] turned to the king and by the grace of Christ cured his feet and hands: the claws of his feet and hands fell off, so that he could play a small part in the holy work [scil. the building of the chapels], laboring with his own hands. (§764)68 Subsequently, he makes ‘a seven-day journey to the great and lofty mountain Masis’ (the Armenian name for the Ararat): From the summit of the mountain he took solid stones, unworked, unhewn, immense, solid, wide, enormous and huge, which no single person could ever move, not even a great number of men. But he with giant strength like Hayk’s [scil. the eponymous hero of the Armenians] picked up eight blocks and carried them on his own back to the chapels. (§ 767)69 The second transformation of the king is complete at the end of the construction of the chapels and of the burials of the holy martyrs. It is represented in terms of a new birth: And the king, while he was standing among the people with the appearance of a pig, suddenly trembled and threw off from his body the pig– 67 68 69

Thomson (1976: 301–303). Thomson (1976: 303). Thomson (1976: 307).

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like skin with its tusk-like teeth and snout-like face, and he cast off the skin with its pig-like hair. His face returned to its own form and his body became soft and young like that of a newly born infant; he was completely healed in all his limbs. (§773)70 Just as Lucius in Apuleius’ Golden Ass recovers his human shape and is initiated into the mystery cult of Isis, Trdat too is now ready to be initiated into the Christian doctrine by the preaching of Gregory, and to receive baptism. The same imagery continues when, according to the text, the healing of the king is followed by the healing of the Armenians. The rebirth of the king anticipates the new birth of the Armenians in the water of the Euphrates, where, through the ‘womb of the Spirit’ and the seal of the baptism, ‘one people of the Lord’ is born (§830).71 In this passage, for the first time Agathangelos employs the term ‘people’ to denote the Armenians. The message is clear: the Armenians were born as a people only after their conversion. This is the ultimate reason for the noble death of the virgins: it allows the Armenians to be born as a people (people of the Lord and people tout court).

8

Hṙip‘simē, Eve, and the Plan of God

The redemptive function of the martyrdom of the virgins is firmly connected to another aspect: the story of the creation of Adam and Eve. Humankind was originally created immortal but because of their disobedience, Adam and Eve, and especially Eve, plunged mankind into death. In ascetic literature, sexuality and procreation are associated with that sin of Adam and Eve: they are a means to fight against death but at the same time can be considered as the perpetuation of mankind’s mortal condition. This is indeed the interpretation given by some ascetic movements, which considered the choice of virginity as the highest attempt to return to the life in Eden, namely the life that God planned for man, and which was lost by the sin of Eve. Virgins and renunciators are those who are closest to the state of man before the fall. The function of the virgins in late antique Christian literature is to transcend the weakness of the first woman. Since the fall of humanity was caused by a woman who was a virgin at the time of creation, it is considered necessary that another virgin accomplishes the plan of the salvation: this is the basis of the dogma of the

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Thomson (1976: 311–313). Thomson (1976: 365–367).

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virginity of Mary, who in Christian literature is considered as the antithesis of Eve.72 In Agathangelos, Hṙip‘simē embodies the same prototype and is similarly presented as an anti-Eve. The text compares Hṙip‘simē’s trial under Emperor Diocletian to that of Eve in the Garden of Eden. The pagan ruler is called the ‘enemy’, which is a common expression to denote the Devil in Christian literature: But when the pious women saw the hidden arrows of the enemy, who is accustomed to shoot secretly at the saints who love Christ, they found that the emperor (had become) a vessel of evil, and that just as in the garden he had used the snake as a vehicle for causing the forgetting of the commandment, entering into the foolish ear of the first woman, so here too he had used the lawless emperor as a mask through which he could fight with the church built by God […] (§143) But the blessed and chaste Gaianē, with the saintly Rhipsimē and their other companions, remembered the covenant of the holiness, the religious rule of chastity into which they had entered […] They fervently prayed, seeking help from the all-merciful Lord, that he would save them from the trial which had come upon them. (§141)73 Unlike Eve, Hṙip‘simē does not fall into the nets of Satan but rather avoids fault. She is responsible for preparing the redemption of the Armenian people, and her martyrdom leads the Armenians to God (§ 720). Just as from the virginal body of Mary is born the redeemer of humanity, the first church/Church of Armenia is built over the virginal body of these martyred virgins, which is the necessary condition for the redemption of the Armenian people and the guarantee of their reconciliation with God. The metaphor of the church is essential to understand the plan of the redemption reserved to the Armenians. As we have seen, in Agathangelos’ account the virgin martyrs play an essential role in the history of the conversion of the Armenian kingdom and, therefore, in the history of the salvation of the Armenians. This is why the episode plays a crucial narrative role and is positioned at the core of the History. Other passages confirm this interpretation. They stress that the martyrdom of the virgins corresponds to the plan that God has reserved for the Armenian

72 73

For this theme in Armenian literature, see Calzolari (2019). Thomson (1976: 151–153).

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people. If the martyrdom of the virgins leads the Armenians to God, this is because God himself wants it so, as He says to the Hṙip‘simē: Be strong, stand firm, be of good cheer, because I am with you, and I have preserved you in all your journeys and led you safely in purity and have brought you to this place so that here my name might be glorified before the heathens of the Northern regions [scil. Armenia]. (§ 175)74 This passage points out that the Roman virgins are in charge of a mission, the aim of which is chosen by God himself. This characterizes the virgins as apostles. Elsewhere, Agathangelos uses, in fact, the words with which Christ refers to the mission of the apostles in the Gospel of Matthew 5:15–16 (cf. Mark 4:21; Luke 8:16, 11:33): It was not right for the truth and virtue of the martyrs to remain hidden, nor for the light of a torch to be hidden under a bushel or under the shadow of a chair; but on candlesticks ornamented in gold […] (Matt. 5:15; Mark 4:21; Luke 8:16, 11:33). As they too had asked in their earlier prayer, and as the Lord said to his beloved: ‘They will see your good works and will glorify your Father in heaven’. (Matt. 5:16) (§ 159)75 It is with the epithet of ‘apostle’ that Gregory refers to the holy virgins in his teaching, in a passage where he explains to the Armenians the meaning of the martyrdom of the virgins. To them he attributes the power to show the presence of the divine in the world by their mediation and intercession: By their [scil. of the Rhipsimian virgins] intercession you will be reconciled with God according to the instruction of the companion apostle to these apostles of yours, the great Paul. (§572)76 This passage, which presents the Rhipsimian virgins as apostles and agents of the conversion of Armenia, contains another meaningful intertextual parallel. The link between these virgins/apostles and Paul may be read as an allusion to the link between Thekla, ‘the first woman apostle’, and Paul, in the abovementioned apocryphal Acts of Paul.77 74 75 76 77

Thomson (1976: 183–185). Thomson (1976: 167–169). Thomson (1970: 138). On the importance of Thekla as apostle in the Armenian tradition, see Calzolari (2015 and 2021b).

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Conclusion

In this chapter I offer a preliminary reading of the History of the Armenians not as an unproblematic representation of an extra-textual, factual reality but rather as a narrative construction. This text, I have argued, adopts various devices that serve the purpose of authentication but at the same time, because of their specific configuration, draw attention to the account as a narrative, and in some cases fictionalized, construction: truth claims (e.g. autopsy, records of the events and words by witnesses, and reported dialogues); topoi of ascetic literature (especially the female virginal body as a metaphor of the Church); tropes common to ancient novels (e.g. the metamorphosis as a tool to express the initiation of the hero); intertextual connections with other Christian works (e.g. Acts of Paul) or previous Armenian historiographical works (e.g. the Life of Maštoc‘). As we have seen, the hagiographical section on the Rhipsimian virgins situated at the core of the History of the Armenians is essential to understand the chain of events and their significance in Agathangelos’ account, and, ultimately, to disclose the plan of God for the Armenians. All these devices show the porous boundaries between historiography and hagiography (for Agathangelos, the hagiographical narrative on the Rhipsimian martyrs is an integral part of the account of the history of the Armenians) and demonstrate that the final redaction of the work has been conceived by Agathangelos as a narrative and ideological construction, with a unity corresponding to the progressive path of the Armenians in the Historia Sacra.

Bibliography Abełyan, M. 1941. Koriwn, Varkʿ Maštoc‘i (Yerevan) [repr. Delmar 1985]. Amand de Mendieta, D. & Moons, M.-Ch. 1953. ‘Une curieuse homélie grecque inédite sur la virginité adressée aux pères de famille’, RBen 63, 18–69. Ananian, P. 1968. ‘Ripsima, Gaiana e compagne, sante, martiri in Armenia’, Bibliotheca Sanctorum, vol. 11 (Rome), 206–212. Angelidi, C. 2006. ‘Virginité ascétique: choix, contraintes et imaginaire (4ème-7ème siècles)’, in Comportamenti e immaginario della sessualità nell’Alto Medioevo (Spoleto), 675–695. Aspegren, K. 1990. The Male Woman: A Feminine Ideal in the Early Church (Uppsala & Stockholm). Atkins, P.J. 2023. The Animalising Affliction of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4: Reading Across the Human-Animal Boundary (London).

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Beatrice, P.F. 1976. ‘Continenza e matrimonio nel cristianesimo primitivo’, in R. Cantalamessa (ed.), Etica sessuale e matrimonio nel cristianesimo delle origini (Milan), 3–68. Boyarin, D. 2006. ‘Thinking with Virgins: Engendering Judaeo-Christian Difference’, in A.-J. Levine with M. Mayo Robbins (eds.), A Feminist Companion to the New Testament Apocrypha (London & New York), 216–244 [= Boyarin, D. 1999. Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford), ch. 3]. Brown, P. 1988. The Body and Society: Men, Women and sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York). Buytaert, É.M. 1953. Eusèbe d’Émèse, Discours conservés en latin (Louvain). Calzolari, V. 2003–2004. ‘La citation du Ps. 78 [77], 5–8 dans l’épilogue de l’Histoire de l’Arménie d’Agathange’, REArm 29, 9–27. Calzolari, V. 2011a. ‘Le sang des femmes et le plan de Dieu: Réflexions à partir de l’historiographie arménienne ancienne (ve siècle ap. J.-C.)’, in A.A. Nagy & F. Prescendi (eds.), Victimes au féminin (Actes du colloque de l’Université de Genève, 8–9 mars 2010) (Geneva), 178–194. Calzolari, V. 2011b. ‘Une page d’histoire religieuse arménienne: L’affrontement entre le roi mazdéen Tiridate et Grégoire l’Illuminateur près du temple de la déesse Anahit en Akilisène’, in F. Prescendi & Y. Volokhine (eds.), Dans le laboratoire de l’historien des religions. Mélanges offerts à Philippe Borgeaud (Geneva), 45–61. Calzolari, V. 2013. ‘Le banquet de Tiridate (Agathange, Histoire, § 48–68)’, REArm 35, 109–131. Calzolari, V. 2014. ‘Écriture et mémoire religieuse dans l’Arménie ancienne (ve s. ap. J.C.)’, in D. Barbu, P. Borgeaud, M. Lozat, N. Meylan & A.-C. Rendu Loisel (eds.), Le savoir des religions: Fragments d’historiographie religieuse (Gollion), 375–394. Calzolari, V. 2015. ‘Les Actes de Paul et Thècle et le Martyre de Thaddée et Sanduxt arméniens: phénomènes d’intertextualité et rôle des femmes’, Muséon 128, 381– 414. Calzolari, V. 2017a. Apocrypha Armeniaca i: Acta Theclae, Prodigia Theclae, Martyrium Pauli (Turnhout). Calzolari, V. 2017b. ‘The Legend of St Thecla in the Armenian Tradition: From Asia Minor to Tarragona through Armenia’, in J.W. Barrier, J.N. Bremmer, T. Nicklas & A. Puig i Tàrrech (eds.), Thecla: Paul’s Disciple and Saint in the East and West (Louvain), 285–305 [reprinted and updated in V. Calzolari 2022. The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in Armenian (Louvain), 83–103]. Calzolari, V. 2019. ‘Mary and Eve: The Permanence of the First Mother in Armenian Apocryphal Infancy Gospels’, in C. Gislon Dopfel, A. Foscati & Ch. Burnett (eds.), Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Premodern World: European and Middle Eastern Cultures, from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (Turnhout), 193–212. Calzolari, V. 2022a. ‘Martyrdom and Collective Rescue: The Acts of Thecla and the His-

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tory of Armenia by Agat‘angełos’, in V. Calzolari, The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in Armenian (Louvain), 104–124. Calzolari, V. 2022b. ‘Holy Women Preachers and Apostles: The Acts of Thecla and the Martyrdom of Thaddaeus and Sanduxt in Armenian’, in V. Calzolari, The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in Armenian (Louvain), 148–178. Calzolari, V. 2022c. ‘The Reception of the Acts of Thecla in Armenia: Thecla as a Model of Representation for Holy Women in Ancient Armenian Literature’, in G. Dabiri & F. Ruani (eds.), Thecla and Medieval Sainthood: The Acts of Paul and Thecla in Eastern and Western Hagiography (Cambridge), 110–141. Cameron, A. 1989. ‘Virginity as Metaphor: Women and Rhetoric of Early Christianity’, in A. Cameron (ed.), History as Text: The Writing of Ancient History (London), 184–205. Castelli, E. 2004. Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (New York). Clark, E.A. 1999. Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton). Cobb, L.S. 2008. Dying to Be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts (New York). Consolino, F.E. 2006. ‘La sessualità nella tradizione patristica’, in Comportamenti e immaginario della sessualità nell’Alto Medioevo (Spoleto), 85–134. Cooper, K. 2013. ‘The Bride of Christ, the “Male Woman”, and the Female Reader in Late Antiquity’, in J. Bennet & R. Karras (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (Oxford), 529–544. Coyne Kelly, K. 2000. Performing Virginity and Testing Chastity in the Middle Ages (London & New York). Delehaye, H. 19662. Les Passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires (Brussels). De Temmerman, K. 2016. ‘Ancient Biography and Formalities of Fiction’, in K. De Temmerman & K. Demoen (eds.), Writing Biography in Greece and Rome: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization (Cambridge), 3–25. Diehl, C. 1959. Impératrice de Byzance (Paris). Dvornik, F. 1933. Les légendes de Constantin et de Méthode vues de Byzance (Prague). Elm, S. 1994. Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford). Garsoïan, N.G. 1982. ‘The Iranian Substratum of the ‘Agat‘angełos’ Cycle’, in N.G. Garsoïan et al. (eds.), East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period (Washington, DC), 151–189 [= Garsoïan, N.G. 1985. Between Byzantium and the Sasanians (London), nº xii]. Garsoïan, N.G. 1983. ‘Nersês le Grand, Basile de Césarée et Eusthate de Sébaste’, REArm 17, 145–169 [= Garsoïan, N.G. 1985. Armenia between Byzantium and the Sasanians (London), nº vii]. Garsoïan, N.G. 1997. ‘Les éléments iraniens dans l’Arménie paléochrétienne’, in N.G. Garsoïan & J.-P. Mahé (eds.), Des Parthes au Califat: Quatre leçons sur la formation de l’identité arménienne (Paris), 9–37.

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Gorce, D. 1962. Vie de sainte Mélanie (Paris). Heffernan, T.J. 2012. The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (Oxford). Kouymjian, D. 2007. ‘Recueil de textes sur la fondation et l’histoire de l’Église arménienne’, in V. Calzolari (ed.), Illuminations d’Arménie: Arts du livre et de la pierre dans l’Arménie ancienne et médiévale (Geneva), 164–171. Lane Fox, R. 1986. Pagans and Christians (Harmondsworth). Layton, B. 1989. Nag Hammadi Codex ii, 2–7 (Leiden). Lipsius, R.A. & Bonnet, M. 1903. Acta apostolorum apocrypha, vol. ii.2 (Leipzig) [repr. Hildesheim 1959]. Louis, P. 1945. Les métaphores de Platon (Paris). MacDonald, M.Y. 1996. Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion: The Power of the Hysterical Woman (Cambridge). Mahé, J.-P. 1992. ‘Entre Moïse et Mahomet: réflexions sur l’historiographie arménienne’, REArm 23, 121–153. Mahé, J.-P. 2005–2007. ‘Koriwn, La Vie de Maštoc‘, traduction annotée’, REArm 30, 59– 97. Mahé, J.-P. 2008. ‘Hṙip‘simē “jetée de la mort vers la vie”’, in C. Stavrakos, A.-K. Wassiliou & M.K. Krikorian (eds.), Hypermachos: Studien zu Byzantinistik, Armenologie und Georgistik. Festschrift für Werner Seibt zum 65. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden), 235–241. Mahé, J.-P. 2018. L’alphabet arménien dans l’histoire et dans la mémoire (Paris). Marcovich, M. 2001. Origenes, Contra Celsum, libri viii (Leiden, Boston & Cologne). Marjanen, A. 2009. ‘Male Women Martyrs: The Function of Gender-Transformation Language in Early Christian Martyrdom Accounts’, in T.K. Seim & J. Økland (eds.), Metamorphoses. Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity (Berlin), 231–247. Musurillo, H. & Debidour, V.-H. 1963. Méthode d’Olympe, Le Banquet (Paris). Pasquier, A. 20072. L’Évangile selon Marie (BG 1) (Quebec). Peeters, P. 1942. ‘S. Grégoire l’Illuminateur dans le calendrier lapidaire de Naples’, AB 60, 91–130. Pogossian, Z. 2003. ‘Women at the Beginning of Christianity in Armenia’, OCP 69, 355– 380. Pogossian, Z. 2012. ‘Female Asceticism in Early Medieval Armenia’, Muséon 125, 169–213. Rousselle, A. 1983. Porneia. De la maîtrise du corps à la privation sensorielle: iie-ive siècles de l’ère chrétienne (Paris). Sfameni Gasparro, G. 1984. Enkrateia e antropologia: Le motivazioni protologiche della verginità nel cristianesimo dei primi secoli e nello gnosticismo (Rome). Streete, G.C. 1999. ‘Women as Sources of Redemption and Knowledge in Early Christian Traditions’, in R.S. Kraemer & M.R. D’Angelo (eds.), Women & Christian Origins (New York & Oxford), 330–354. Streete, G.C. 2006. ‘Buying the Stairway to Heaven: Perpetua and Thecla as Early Chris-

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tian Heroines’, in A.-J. Levine with M. Mayo Robbins (eds.), A Feminist Companion to the New Testament Apocrypha (London & New York), 186–205. Szymusiak, J.-M. 19872. Athanase d’Alexandrie, Apologie à l’empereur Constance, Apologie pour sa fuite (Paris). Tēr-Mkrtč‘ean, G. & Kanayeanc‘, S. 1909. Agat‘angełay, Patmut‘iwn Hayoc‘ (Tiflis 1909) [repr. Delmar 1980 & Yerevan 1983]. Thomson, R.W. 1970. The Teaching of Saint Gregory (Cambridge, MA) [revised New York 20012]. Thomson, R.W. 1976–1979. Agathangelos, History of the Armenians (Albany). Thomson, R.W. 2010. The Lives of Saint Gregory (Ann Arbor). Turner, P. 2012. Truthfulness, Realism, Historicity: A Study in Late Antique Spiritual Literature (London & New York). Vogt, K. 19952. ‘“Becoming Male”: A Gnostic and Early Christian Metaphor’, in K.E. Børresen (ed.), The Image of God: Gender Models in Judaeo-Christian Tradition (Minneapolis). Wehn, B. 2000. ‘“Blessed Are the Bodies of Those Who Are Virgins”: Reflections on the Image of Paul in the Acts of Thecla’, JSNT 79, 149–164. Winkler, G. 1980. ‘Our Present Knowledge of the History of Agat‘angełos and Its Oriental Versions’, REArm 14, 125–141.

part 4 Models and Intertexts

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chapter 10

Malchus, the Not So Good Shepherd: Biblical Stylization, Generic and Moral Ambiguity in Jerome’s Vita Malchi Danny Praet

1

Introduction1

Jerome’s De monacho captivo, commonly known as the Life of Malchus, is one of three surviving so-called Lives of the hermits. The Sources Chrétiennes series published them in one volume under the modern title of ‘vies des moines’.2 The Life of Paul of Thebes, the First Hermit was presumably written first, probably in 376. Jerome refers to it in the prologue of the Life of Hilarion, where he reacts to real or imaginary critical reader responses to the Vita Pauli. There is some debate about whether the Vita Malchi was written before or after the Life of Hilarion, but most scholars believe Jerome was living in Bethlehem when he published De monacho captivo.3 Jerome claimed he had met Malchus and an unnamed woman in Maronia in Syria. He was curious about the nature of the relationship between these two aged and devout Christians. Malchus then told Jerome how he had become the ‘captive monk’ to which the actual title of the work refers. The narrated ‘life of Malchus’ started when he refused a marriage arranged by his parents and he decided to become a monk in the desert near Chalcis. When news of his father’s demise reached him, 1 I thank Koen De Temmerman, Klazina Staat and Julie Van Pelt for organizing the conference from which the present volume emerged and for their useful remarks on the first draft of this chapter. 2 Leclerc, Morales & de Vogüé (2007). See also the editions by Degòrski (2014) and Gray (2015), whose edition and translation are offered here. Rebenich (2002: 85–92) offers another translation: ‘The biographer: The Life of Malchus the captive monk’, but he clearly calls the text a ‘monastic romance’ and a ‘novella’ (2002: 85). 3 Gray (2015: 5–6) dates the Vita Malchi to around 391–392. Leclerc, Morales & de Vogüé (2007: 91–92) have between 389 and 392: probably in 390–391. Bastiaensen (1994: 106) also has around 390. Earlier dates are proposed by de Vogüé (1993: 77): the spring of 386, followed by Williams (2006: 281) and Cain & Lössl (2009: 220). The Vita Pauli was written in the desert of Chalcis, between 374–382, see Bastiaensen (1994: 106, n. 32). Van Uytfanghe (2001: 1052– 1254) discusses the three ‘Mönchsbiographien’ and dates (2001: 1236) the Vita Malchi around 391–392.

© Danny Praet, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004685758_011

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Malchus refused to listen to his superior and left the monastery to arrange the inheritance. On his way home, he was captured by brigands and taken to another desert as a slave. Here he found a certain happiness working as a solitary shepherd. His Saracen master thought he was rewarding Malchus for his services by offering him a female slave as his consort. Malchus did not dare to reject this second arranged marriage but, to his relief, the woman proposed to mislead their master by keeping the marriage sexless. The chaste couple eventually escaped, surviving both lions and the pursuing Saracens. Once returned to the Roman world, they decided to live separately but Jerome recognized them as a couple and so the narrative has reached its point of origin. In the Vita Malchi Jerome tries hard to suggest that one is reading the truthful account of an autobiographical testimony by Malchus. In the prologue Jerome announces that he is preparing a wider history of the Church and that this short piece is a writing exercise, ‘to scrape off, as it were a certain patina from my tongue’ (et veluti quamdam rubiginem linguae abstergere, ut venire possim ad historiam latiorem; 1.2). This at least suggests—although he does not claim so explicitly—that the short text at hand is akin to historiography. Christa Gray and previous commentators have identified ‘phrasal borrowings from Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, as well as a number of details and phrases shared with Ammianus’.4 Jerome also says explicitly that this Life is a small biographical-historical exercise leading to a large-scale history of the Church ‘from the coming of the Saviour down to our time’ (ab adventu Salvatoris usque ad nostrum aetatem; 1.3) (which he in fact never wrote). Jerome, as primary narrator, lists his sources, gives specific place-names (e.g. Maronia, also spelled Maronias), and refers to his friend Evagrius of Antioch. There is a stark contrast with the later episode set in the desert, where the barbarians and the captive female companion of Malchus all remain nameless, yet the insistence on names and other authenticating details returns when Malchus and the woman make it back to the Roman empire. In 10.2 Malchus tells us the name and rank of the highest Roman official who welcomed them: ‘we were passed on to Sabinianus, the dux of Mesopotamia’ (transmissi ad Sabinianum Mesopotamiae ducem).5 At the end (11), the primary narrator, Jerome, calls his literary exercise a historia castitatis. The word ‘historia’ is thus used in a ring-composition but its meaning has by then become ambiguous. In the prologue it is clearly used in a

4 Gray (2015: 30). 5 See Gray (2015: 302) for prosopographical and chronological details and discussion: Sabinianus held the even higher rank of magister militum.

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historiographical sense for the Church history which was supposed to describe the growth of the Church through persecutions and martyrdoms up until its current position of political and financial power but moral decline (1.3: ‘but lesser in virtues’, sed virtutibus minor facta sit). At the end of the Life, the word historia, in its combination with castitas, no longer refers to a historiographical account of Christian asceticism. There is a link between martyrs and ascetics, often presented as the moral successors to martyrs. Jerome started the Vita Pauli with two vignettes of martyrdoms. And he has the character Malchus say: ‘The preservation of chastity also has its own martyrdom’ (habet et pudicitia servata martyrium suum; 6.5). But the combination historia castitas in 11 refers to the short story told by Malchus and Jerome about the exotic adventures of one monk trying to preserve his chastity. There are, in fact, a number of reasons why an educated reader would have been tempted to interpret the word historia as non-historical. First, there are some discrepancies between what Malchus tells us and what the frame story tells us; they can make the reader wonder what to believe. Second, the word historia often referred to invented stories and to novels. The Vita’s narrative form, with its embedded first-person narrative and other generic markers, probably reminded educated readers of the novel.6 The reader constantly receives generically mixed signals—some words and phrases are even reminiscent of Roman comedy.7 The main character is less than perfect from a moral point of view or at least his personal story is not without its setbacks and ambiguities. On the captive monk is therefore certainly not a typical product of hagiography.8 Nevertheless, it was probably written to serve a religious purpose. The combination of historia with castitas, therefore, stresses the parenetic character of the text and could indicate it was an invented ‘story’: an exemplum made up for the moral purpose of promoting sexual austerity to a Church virtutibus minor facta. Modern scholars have long debated the question of the historicity of the Vita Malchi.9 Jerome uses some of the structural elements of the love romance but inverts them. Soler has pointed out that in such romances the lovers are separ6

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The only first-person narrative in Jerome’s Bible is the Book of Tobit, which he translated quite late and, it would seem, reluctantly. Shanzer (2009: 102) concludes: ‘He was not a fan of Tobit’. So the first-person narrative in the Vita Malchi points to the influence of secular literature. Gray (2013; 2015: 34–36). See de Vogüé (1993: 86). See Prädicow (2020: 38–40 and 102–125) for imitatio of and variatio on the Vita Antonii in the Vita Malchi. Bastiaensen (1994: 110–116) for a full overview. See also Leclerc, Morales & de Vogüé (2007: 33–73), Gray (2015: 8–10). Kelly (1975: 172) claimed ‘there is no reason to question the substantial truth of the tale’.

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ated by brigands, and they have to overcome all sorts of dangers before they are romantically reunited.10 The chieftain of the group of pirates or brigands typically poses a threat to the chastity of the female protagonist. In the Vita Malchi, by contrast, the two protagonists are not separated but brought together by the raid of the Ishmaelites (4), and they are forced to marry (6), not an evil chieftain, but each other. The narrative focus is on the threat to the chastity of the male, not the female, protagonist. Finally, the rejection of a sexual relationship between the protagonists creates a different erotic tension in this historia castitatis. We have no other source besides Jerome documenting the historicity of Malchus. I believe that the Vita Malchi is a novel or, given its size, a novella, to a large extent made up of elements found in the Bible. This chapter will engage more thoroughly than has been done before with such biblical stylization, while also discussing various other intertexts of the Vita Malchi, which further contribute to its generic ambiguity. The connection with the biblical book of Kings is relevant for the moral ambiguity of Malchus.

2

The Name Malchus

Jerome introduces the character Malchus as a Syrian native (Syrus natione et lingua) and immediately explains that this name means ‘King’ (quem nos Latine ‘Regem’ possumus dicere; 2.2). Why does Jerome offer this translation? Was it just to show off his wide knowledge of Near Eastern languages such as Syriac and Hebrew? In his letters and in the prefaces to his Bible translations he comments on how and when he learned Greek, Syriac, Hebrew and some Aramaic.11 Between 389 and 391 Jerome had published his Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum, and the De situ et nominibus locorum hebraicorum. Between 391 and 392 he wrote the Hebraicae quaestiones in libro Geneseos. In 390 he published his translation of the four Books of Kings, which now are commonly called 1 and 2Samuel and 1 and 2Kings, commenting that the correct Hebrew title is ‘Malachim’ and not ‘Malachoth’, which means ‘kingdoms’. In this famous prologus galeatus he celebrated the Hebraica veritas, and because he had translated these books directly from Hebrew, he called them Samuhel et

10 11

Soler (2011: 7–10) for elements from travel-literature. See also González Marín (1986: 112– 116) for a literary analysis. See King (2009: 217, 221–223) on Syriac versions of the Vita Malchi; Fürst (2016: 79–83) on Jerome’s knowledge of languages.

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Malachim meum; meum, inquam, meum.12 Jerome had a very strong connection to the Books of Kings and we will try to show that the Vita Malchi is partially inspired by them. But the name Malchus is not Hebrew; it is Syriac. We do not read in which language the protagonist allegedly told his story to the primary narrator, but we can assume that Malchus did not speak Latin. Many Syrians were bilingual, but Syrus natione et lingua suggests that the story was also not told in Greek, so the narrative persona of Jerome is suggesting that he translated or paraphrased the embedded story from Syriac into Latin. Still, we need to ask ourselves why he chose to translate the character’s name as well. If Jerome wanted to underline his fame as a translator of Greek treatises and of the Hebrew Bible, and as a polyglot, he could have translated other words. It is true that Jerome liked to use and to explain exceptional, exotic words. Towards the end, at 10.1, the character Malchus suggests a Greek etymology for dromedarios: ‘because of their great speed’ (ob nimium velocitatem). The implicit etymology (from the Greek dromos) is incorrect, but the word was exotic to Jerome’s readers.13 This specific translation of a Syrian name has made commentators think of what Porphyry of Tyre wrote in his Life of Plotinus 17.14 Porphyry explains that his own real name was ‘Malchos’ and that this can be translated into Greek as basileus. The name ‘Porphyrius’ is thus actually a nickname indirectly referring to his real, ‘royal’ name. Although Jerome certainly knew the works of Porphyry and even had some of his books in his private library,15 it is hard to believe that the name of Jerome’s character was inspired by this fierce opponent of Christianity. Two other explanations of the name have been given. Ammianus Marcellinus’ Res Gestae 24.2.4 mentions a Saracen chieftain, also known from other sources, named ‘Malechus’. Christa Gray writes: ‘In the case of a story about a captive of the Saracens, this parallel may not be a coincidence’.16 A third possible explanation was suggested by Sirago, who connected the meaning of the name to the Stoic ideal of having a sovereign command over the passions.17 Gray explains: ‘Malchus “the King” may be named thus to provide a similar 12 13 14 15 16 17

Fürst (2016: 332–333) for text and German translation. Gray (2015: 299). Gray (2015: 119, s.v. ‘nomine Malchus …’). Williams (2006: 147, 163) talks of ‘an extensive collection’ and refers to Courcelle and other scholars. Gray (2015: 119). Sirago (1995: 524–525): ‘Malchus […] è un ‘rex’ nel suo genere di vita, […] secondo l’antico concetto stoico che il vero “rex” è colui che domina le passioni’. He refers to Hor. C. ii.2.9– 12.

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paradigm: he enjoys the “regal” status of a philosopher because he has overcome his desire for possessions and sex and is therefore in a position to rule himself and to instruct others’.18 But this can only be said of the old Malchus living in Maronia. In the embedded narrative he is characterized by materialism, disobedience and cowardice. He is an anti-hero rather than a sage in perfect command of his thoughts and desires. Even in the frame narrative, the discrepancies between what the primary narrator and Malchus say shed doubt on the reliability of the central hero or anti-hero. Malchus is also attested as a Christian name, even that of a Christian martyr. In his Ecclesiastical History (7.12), Eusebios mentions three martyrs in Caesarea, Palestine, during the persecution of the emperor Valerian: Priscus, Malchus and Alexander. There is no apparent link with the story told by Jerome, but it does add to the realistic characterization of the captive monk. Finally, biblical inspiration has been put forward by others. The story of the arrest of Jesus in the canonical gospels refers to a servant of the high priest whose ear is cut off by one of the apostles (Matt. 26:51–53; Mark 14:47–48; Luke 22:49–51). The Synoptic gospels do not mention the name of this servant, and neither do the first two evangelists mention that Jesus healed the ear (a detail added by Luke). The gospel of John (18:10–12) adds the characters’ names. The apostle drawing his sword is identified by John as Peter, and the servant is called Malchos.19 De Vogüé sees this Malchus resurfacing in Jerome’s exegetical work.20 In his commentary on the gospel of Matthew (written in 398, so a few years after On the captive monk), he points out, Jerome again translated the name ‘Malchus’ before he offered an allegorical reading of the healing of the right ear. The biblical character of Malchus, the servant of the high priest, represented the Jewish people who were enslaved and did not listen to the message brought by Christ. The healing of the right ear means that the Messiah has given the Jews the opportunity to be liberated. This general movement towards salvation, away from an initial refusal to listen to the teachings of Christ, was taken by de Vogüé as a parallel for the story of the captive monk. I will propose a different explana-

18 19

20

Gray (2015: 119). John 18:10: ‘Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus’ (Simon ergo Petrus habens gladium eduxit eum et percussit pontificis servum et abscidit eius auriculam dextram erat autem nomen servo Malchus). See de Vogüé (1993: 82, n. 24). See Jerome, lib. 4.l (ed. Hurst & Adriaen 1969: 1327). See also Gray (2015: 120): ‘It is possible that even the name of Malchus is taken from the High Priest’s servant of John 18:10’.

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tion of why Jerome chose the name ‘Malchus’ and why he immediately explains to the reader what this name means in Latin.

3

Double Occurrences

Jerome’s text is structured on the principle of double occurrences. There are two episodes in which Malchus faced temptation, two attempts to force him to marry, and two important passages are set in two separate caves with different literary allusions. In the first cave scene references have been noted to the love-scene between Dido and Aeneas in Aeneid 4.165–172 and to Xenophon of Ephesos’ novel, Ephesiaka.21 The second cave scene alludes to Cacus in Aeneid 8.193–261 and offers an almost identical verbal parallel to Seneca, Troades 510–512.22 We cannot discuss all the doublets here but will focus on those with strong biblical influences.23 The first temptation scene is when Malchus decides to leave his monastery. Echoes of the Bible are ‘clustered’, as Gray has phrased it,24 in the speech by the abbot. He is said to have used many examples from Scripture to dissuade Malchus from leaving, but the narrator only explicitly refers to Adam and Eve: ‘He put before me a great many examples from Scripture, among them the story that in the beginning he also tripped up Adam and Eve through the hope of divinity’ (proponebat mihi exempla de Scripturis plurima, inter quae illud, ab initio quod Adam quoque et Evam spe divinitatis supplantaverit; 3.6). The explicit reference to Adam and Eve makes the reader interpret this first temptation as a Fall: Malchus leaves his monastery because he has given in to greed as the primeval sin and, as a consequence, he has become disobedient. Malchus finds a new ascetic paradise when he is captured by the Ishmaelites and when he lives a solitary life as a shepherd in the desert. He is given a flock of sheep by his captor (5.2: pascendae oves) and he compares himself to biblical pastors like Jacob and Moses (6.2), as we will see. This pastoral theme is prepared implicitly by the abbot’s speech. The biblical quotes and allusions in this speech have been identified but their meaning for the rest of the story has not always been thought through. The final words of the abbot are: ‘the sheep which leaves the fold is immediately exposed to the fangs of the wolf’ (ovis quae de ovili egreditur lupi statim morsibus patet; 3.8). This alludes to John 10 where 21 22 23 24

See Gray (2015: 213–216). See Duckworth (1948: 29), Hagendahl (1958: 118) and Gray (2015: 282). De Vogüé (1993: 100) gives a full list of the doublets and couples. Gray (2015: 20).

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Jesus reveals himself as the Good Shepherd and talks about the sheepfold and the wolf snatching the sheep.25 In John 10:1 Jesus had said: ‘Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit’ (Amen, amen dico vobis: qui non intrat per ostium in ovile ovium, sed ascendit aliunde, ille fur est et latro). And in John 10:11–13: ‘I am the good shepherd (pastor bonus). The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them’. Malchus is the metaphorical sheep who has left the fold. By running away from the monastery and his spiritual pastor, he was captured and became literally a shepherd in his captivity and the solitude of the desert. His own greed and disobedience, but also the Saracen chieftain and the second marriage he proposes, become wiles of the devil. In 6 Jerome quotes Ephesians 6 twice but in reverse order. ‘But how nothing is ever safe with the devil! How manifold and unspeakable is his treachery! Even so, when I was hiding, his envy found me’ (o nihil umquam tutum apud diabolum! o multiplices et ineffabiles eius insidiae! sic quoque me latentem inuenit inuidia; 6.1) echoes Ephesians 6:11: ‘Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil’ (induite uos arma Dei ut possitis stare aduersus insidias diaboli). And 6.2 (‘My master saw his flock increasing and did not discover any deceit in me (for I knew that the Apostle had given the instruction that one must serve masters faithfully, like God)’, dominus uidens gregem suum crescere nihilque in me deprendens fraudulentiae—sciebam enim Apostolum praecepisse dominis sic quasi Deo fideliter seruiendum) refers to Ephesians 6:5: ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ’ (serui oboedite dominis carnalibus cum timore et tremore in simplicitate cordis uestri sicut Christo). The latter phrase legitimizes the obedient service of Malchus towards his captor and earthly dominus, whereas the first phrase suggests this dominus is doing the work of the devil. In the second cave scene, in chapter nine, the play will become even more clear between the barbarian dominus, who wants to kill the two fugitives, and the true Dominus who will save them through the lioness. But let us return to the pastoral allusion which announces both the capture of Malchus and his life as ‘the captive monk’ who became literally a shepherd for the flock of his captors. Malchus is content with his pastoral life but again the situation will change and this second time, the semi-anchorite pastor is convinced that the devil seeks to expel him from his own private paradise. This

25

Gray (2015: 163–165) for the biblical intertext and parallels in Greco-Roman fables.

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time a woman is the devil’s instrument: the woman the Saracen chieftain will offer Malchus as a companion is part of a Satanic stratagem. This is when Malchus, in despair, exclaims: ‘But how nothing is ever safe with the devil!’ (o nihil umquam tutum apud diabolum; 6.1). We will return to this temptation later. First, we need to discuss the relative importance of biblical or classical influences.

4

Biblical Stylization and Classical Intertexts: the Ants Episode

Stefan Rebenich rightly observes that Jerome ‘drew on the rich repertoire of pagan as well as Christian and Jewish tradition when choosing his narrative’.26 The discussion about the literary form and the generic influences on the Life of Malchus was given a strong impetus by Manfred Fuhrmann but is still ongoing.27 Jerome famously ‘promised’ he would no longer be a Ciceronianus but only a Christianus (Ep. 22.30), but clearly he never forgot his classical training. In the debate whether the Bible or classical literature is the most important influence in the Vita Malchi, Sirago takes an extreme position.28 He claims that its structure is entirely classical, based upon Virgil, Plautus, and other classical sources, whereas the biblical references are merely superficial and only add some Christian varnish.29 I argue below that the biblical references are more important for the text’s interpretation than Sirago admits. The famous ants episode is a good example. After the mutual decision by Malchus and the woman to live together in a spiritual mock-marriage, he often finds himself alone in the desert with the flock of the chieftain. Sometimes he is alone for a whole month (6.9). During such a solitary stay in the desert, he observes the behaviour of a ‘colony of ants’ ( formicarum gregem; 7.2). In this context, Malchus explicitly refers to Solomon: ‘As a result, remembering Solomon, who points us to the ingenuity of the ant and rouses sluggish minds by their example’ (unde recordatus Salomonis, ad formicae solertiam nos mittentis, et pigras mentes sub tali exemplo suscitantis; 7.3). This is the most explicit reference to another literary work in the Vita Malchi.30 It is not an exact quote

26 27 28 29

30

Rebenich (2009: 18). Fuhrmann (1977). Sirago (1995). Sirago (1995: 521): ‘Uno schema narrativo semplice ma articolato negli espedienti tradizionali, derivati della cultura classica sopratutto, e solo in superficie dai testi biblici’; and ‘[…] ha aggiunto solo in superficie la patina dell’ impostazione biblica’. Gray (2015: 20).

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but a clear allusion nevertheless to Proverbs 6:6, attributed to the wise King: ‘Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise’ (vade ad formicam o piger et considera vias eius et disce sapientiam). But there is also an implicit reference to Virgil. As noted by Lübeck and repeated by many others, the description of the ants echoes the comparison in Aeneid 4.402–407 between ants and the Trojans hurrying back to their ships after the amorous encounter of Dido and Aeneas.31 This reinforces the Dido subtext of the first cave scene and the inverted eroticism between Malchus and the woman.32 Consequently, one expects that, just as Aeneas followed his higher calling and left Dido behind, so Malchus will leave his spiritual wife behind and go back to his monastery. But this is not exactly how things will play out for Malchus and his chaste wife. The ants episode is, in fact, even more complex. The explicit association made by Malchus between the ants and the monastery is also destabilized by the biblical intertext. Proverbs 6:7, which immediately follows the line cited by Malchus and thus will have entered the mind of readers who know their Bible, says that ants do not have any leaders. The full passage of Proverbs 6:6–8 reads: vade ad formicam o piger et considera vias eius et disce sapientiam / quae cum non habeat ducem nec praeceptorem nec principem / parat aestate cibum sibi et congregat in messe quod comedat. Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise. Without having any chief or officer or ruler, it prepares its food in summer, and gathers its sustenance in harvest. Pastoral supervision was very much present in monasteries, so ants without leaders are a strange choice for the only overt biblical comparison. In 7.1 Malchus is thinking of his monastic father, the abbot, with whom he had a conflict earlier in the story, when he left the monastery. But it seems he never returned to the monastery; it seems rather as if he followed the second line of the passage in Proverbs, preferring a life without ‘chief or officer or ruler’. Scholars have noted a discrepancy between what Malchus claims that he has done, and what the primary narrator tells us, observing Malchus and the woman together in the town of Maronia, and wondering what their relationship is. In 10.3 the narrator Malchus tells us the abbot had died. Nevertheless, he

31 32

Lübeck (1872: 183). Gray (2015: 213–216).

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tells the primary narrator and the reader that he returned to the monks and that he handed the woman to a group of virgins. De Vogüé suggested the following solution: Malchus and the anonymous woman first went to a male and female monastery respectively, but later returned to live together in a single house at a very old age to support each other.33 This is gratuitous: it is based neither on any element in the Vita Malchi, nor on logic. How and why did they keep in touch? Why would the support of their fellow monks not have been better than the cohabitation with a very old individual? It is clear that some scholars will go to extreme lengths to ‘explain’ the moral and generic ambiguities of the Vita Malchi. Malchus seems to have continued to live in a ‘spiritual’ marriage with the nameless woman, an ascetic cohabitation without dux, praeceptor or princeps. This much is silently suggested by the second line of the biblical allusion to Solomon, being at the same time supported by the inversion of the Virgilian substructure.

5

Zechariah and Elisabeth

The Life of Malchus offers only a few explicit comparisons with biblical figures. The Life begins by the narrator’s encounter with Malchus and his anonymous consort in Maronia and his curiositas as he wants to understand the exact nature of their relationship. He offers three possibilities: ‘When I enquired with curiosity about them among their neighbours and asked what their relationship was—one of marriage, kinship, or spiritual’ (De his cum curiose ab accolis quaererem quaenam esset eorum copula: matrimonii, sanguinis, an spiritus; 2.3). The first possibility (marriage) implies a sexual relationship; the second (blood) means that they live together as biological brother and sister, naturally without incestuous implications; the third option (spiritus) makes them brother and sister in the faith and their relationship a spiritual marriage, again without carnal relations. Jerome claims that he asked the old man himself and this question will trigger Malchus’ embedded narrative. But before Malchus is allowed to tell us his story, it should be recalled, the primary narrator explains that ‘Malchus’ means ‘King’. Next, he offers a comparison taken from Luke 1:5–80 (2.2): Tam studiose ambo religiosi et sic ecclesiae limen terentes, ut Zachariam et Elisabeth de evangelio crederes—nisi quod Ioannes in medio non erat.

33

De Vogüé (1997: 83).

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The two had such religious devotion and wore out the threshold of the church to such an extent that you would have believed them to be Zechariah and Elizabeth from the Gospel, except that John was not in their midst. Jerome explicitly stresses that Malchus and the old woman do not have any children (nisi quod Ioannes in medio non erat). The difference with the biblical couple is important.34 They evoke the transition of sexual morals from the Old to the New Testament. Zechariah and Elisabeth saw children as a blessing and the absence of children as a curse brought about by God. In the Hebrew Bible, the barrenness of a woman is seen in this negative way and Jahweh opening the womb, especially the womb of an older woman, is seen as a divine blessing. Gabriel announces to Zechariah in the Temple that his prayer has been heard and Elisabeth says: ‘This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favourably on me and took away the disgrace (opprobrium) I have endured among my people’ (Luke 1:25). The comparison is thus between Zechariah and Malchus, and his anonymous chaste consort and Elisabeth. For a monk, John the Baptist would be the more obvious comparison but the child of Zechariah and Elisabeth, conceived by the grace of God, is recalled, paradoxically, only through his absence: by stressing the chaste couple in Maronia did not have any children. Jerome brings to mind John the Baptist, the prototype of the Christian ascetic, by pointing out his absence in the early comparison with the biblical couple used to describe how he met the main characters of the story yet to come. The miraculous birth of John stands in a typological relationship to the birth of the prophet Samuel to his parents, Elkanah and the barren Hannah, in 1Samuel 1. John announced the Messianic age in which a new ideal, of asceticism and chastity, became central to the Christian lifestyle. Or perhaps we should say that in Jerome’s interpretation of Christianity virginity and asceticism were paramount. In the beginning of the frame story, this new message is implied. Jerome will repeat it explicitly at the very end of the Vita Malchi (11) when he writes ‘For the chaste I set out a history of chastity; virgins I admonish to guard their virginity’ (Castis historiam castitatis expono. Virgines virginitatem custodire exhortor). The figures of Zechariah and Elisabeth are unique to the gospel of Luke. This gospel presents itself consciously to the reader as a historiographical work. The prologue uses technical terms like diēgēsis and akribōs to inspire confidence in its historical reliability. It claims to have used and compared sources. Just one

34

Gray (2015: 127–128).

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chapter earlier, Jerome presented his own text as an exercise for a larger history of the Church ‘from the coming of the Saviour down to our time’ (ab adventu Salvatoris usque ad nostram aetatem; 1.3). Both the reference to Zechariah and Elisabeth and the paradoxical evocation of their absent son reinforce this evangelical and more specifically this Lukan undertone of the Life of Malchus. As is well known, in the third gospel, the ‘adventus Salvatoris’ is witnessed by pastores: ‘In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night’ (et pastores erant in regione eadem vigilantes et custodientes vigilias noctis super gregem suum; Luke 2:8). The pastoral theme of the Vita Malchi is present implicitly, by association, from the very beginning.

6

Jacob and Moses

The pastoral theme is continued by two other explicit comparisons between Malchus and biblical figures—this time they are not part of the primary narrator’s text but of Malchus’ own. In 5.4 Malchus, when put to work as a shepherd, reflects on his situation and says: Videbar mihi aliquid habere sancti Iacob, recordabar Moysi, qui et ipsi in eremo pecorum quondam fuere pastores. I thought that I had something of the holy Jacob and I remembered Moses, a pair who were also themselves once guardians of flocks in the desert. The references to Jacob and Moses as shepherds also bring to mind their wives. Gray comments that Jacob and Moses ‘work as shepherds in return for wives’ and that this ‘may foreshadow the impending reward for Malchus’ shepherding at chapter 6.1–2’.35 Malchus never had the intention of winning a wife through his work as a pastor. The Saracen chieftain forces Malchus to marry in order to keep him happy as a captive shepherd. Nevertheless, the biblical figures are well chosen because they found their wives in the desert. Jacob (Gen. 29:15– 28), who was working for Laban, even found two wives: Lea and Rachel, and two slave-concubines, Bilha and Zilpa, giving him the twelve sons who headed the twelve tribes. The setting of Gen. 29 is also generally reminiscent of the Vita Malchi: Harran or Carrhae in Syria. The second comparison is with Moses, who fled from Egypt after he had killed an Egyptian. He met his future wife when he

35

Gray (2015: 196).

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protected some shepherd girls against aggressive male shepherds. Moses married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian, a desert region on the Arabian Peninsula (Ex. 2:21–3:1). There is an additional link with Zechariah and Elisabeth. Both Jacob’s parents, Isaac and Rebecca (Gen. 25:21), and his grandparents, Abraham and Sarah (Gen. 17–21), remained childless until old age and begot children as a special blessing from God. Jerome’s story promotes virginity and chastity as divine blessings and thus inverts the Old Testament sexual morals. The stories about the marriages of the biblical patriarchs offer a further inversion. Both Abraham and Isaac at given points in their histories chose to dissimulate the true nature of their relationship with their wives. Abraham lied to Pharaoh pretending Sarah was his sister (Gen. 12:10–20). And Isaac told a similar lie to Abimelek, king of the Philistines in Gerar (Gen. 26:1–11). In both cases the patriarchs lied because their wives were sexually attractive women and they feared they would be killed by the jealous rulers if they told the truth. The marriage of Malchus and the unnamed woman is an inversion of these Old Testament stories, reflecting Jerome’s obsession with chastity: the patriarchs wanted to deceive foreigners and therefore claimed that their wives were their biological sisters, while Malchus claims that his spiritual ‘sister’ is his wife in the physical sense of the word. Whereas Jacob and Moses were shepherds, spent time in the desert and married, Malchus is a shepherd in the desert and ‘earns’ a wife, but this marriage is arranged against his will, and it will not only remain childless but also sexless. In Jerome’s time the word ‘sister’ had received the Christian connotation of sister in the faith, but it also had an erotic connotation from both Latin love poetry and from the Song of Songs, with its long tradition of Jewish and Christian allegorical interpretations. Jerome translated two Homilies on the Canticle by Origen of Alexandria for Pope Damasus in 383–384. He translated both the Psalms and the Canticle between 386 and 391. The words ‘sister’ and ‘bride’ are frequently used as synonyms in Canticum Canticorum 4:9–11 and 5:1–2 (soror mea sponsa). The word is very ambiguous. Add to this the literary character of the King or Rex in the Canticum (e.g. 1:3: ‘the king has brought me into his chambers’, introduxit me rex in cellaria sua) and the play on a spiritual marriage between Malchus and a ‘sister’ can point to different layers of meaning of the novella. The combination of the classical with the biblical echoes of these dissimulated marriages evokes the ambiguity of what Malchus tells us in 10.3. His non-carnal marriage was seen as a physical relationship by outsiders, but he pledges: ‘I never looked upon her naked body, I never touched her flesh’ (numquam tamen illius nudum corpus intuitus sum, numquam carnem tetigi; 6.8). In the final sentence of the embedded narrative (10.3) Malchus plays with the dif-

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ferent meanings of ‘sister’: ‘loving her as a sister but not entrusting myself to her as to a sister’ (diligens eam ut sororem, non tamen me ei credens ut sorori). The arranged marriage of Malchus, the desert shepherd, had become a sexless spiritual marriage with his ‘sister’.

7

Joseph and the Wife of Potiphar

De Vogüé and others have suspected another, implicit biblical parallel.36 Just as Joseph, the son of Jacob, was sold to the Ishmaelites, so Malchus is captured by Ishmaelites. The detail given by Jerome of the approximate number of people in Malchus’ caravan (numero circiter septuaginta; 4.2) is taken by Susan Weingarten as a learned allusion to the number of Israelites migrating to Egypt in the time of Joseph (Gen. 46:27).37 Modern authors have also connected the marriage of Malchus with the story of Joseph and the wife of Potiphar in particular, through which Joseph became a paradigm of Christian chastity. The fact that the story does not mention the name of the wife of Potiphar is an interesting small parallel with the anonymous woman in the Vita Malchi. But there is also an important difference: the captured woman is only a source of temptation in the anticipation or imagination of Malchus; she does not, in fact, try to seduce him. On the contrary, in 6.7 she takes the initiative to live a secretly sexless married life. De Vogüé and the other commentators fail to point out that Joseph is sold to the Ishmaelites by his brothers because they were envious of him and found his dreams pretentious. They accused him of regal aspirations: ‘His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? (rex noster eris?) Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words’ (Gen. 37:8). In Egypt Joseph did become a sort of king or viceroy, second only to Pharaoh (Gen. 41:40). This brings us to an even more important implicit biblical parallel which, as far as I know, has never been observed and which may shed new light on the question of why Jerome offers his reader a translation of Malchus’ name (see above). Malchus is called ‘King’ because his story stands in a typological relation to another biblical shepherd: King David.

36 37

De Vogüé (1993: 88). Gray (2015: 20, see also 171, 174) wrote: ‘An Old Testament narrative which underlies many aspects of Malchus’ story is that of Joseph at Gen. 37–46’. Weingarten (2005: 177).

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King David

The figure of David comes to mind in the sentence immediately after the comparisons with Jacob and Moses (qui et ipsi in eremo pecorum quondam fuere pastores). Malchus is a happy, solitary shepherd who combines his bucolic bliss with a daily practice of taking only fresh cheese and milk as sustenance for his body. He describes his own spiritual practice as follows (5.4–5): Orabam iugiter canebamque psalmos, quos in monasterio didiceram. Delectabat me captivitas mea agebamque dei iudicio grates, quod monachum, quem in patria fueram perditurus, in eremo inveneram. I prayed continuously and sang the psalms which I had learned in the monastery. My captivity came to delight me, and I gave thanks to the judgment of God because the monk whom I had been about to lose in my homeland I had found in the desert. Malchus does not refer to either David or Solomon here, the two most famous composers of Psalms. As we said, King Solomon is mentioned in the antepisode (7.3). But Solomon was never a pastor, whereas King David was. Almost half of the psalms (74 out of 150) are traditionally attributed to King David, so in a sentence in which a shepherd singing psalms compares himself to biblical shepherds, King David is almost conspicuous by his absence. We have an interesting late antique reader response to this passage in the Greek translation of the Vita Malchi. This Greek version has been dated between the early fifth and the middle of the seventh century. In some respects, it is better to call it a metaphrasis.38 The Greek translator rephrases and expands Jerome’s text. By leaving the woman out of the frame story, he reduces the tension between what the frame story and the embedded narrative tell us regarding where Malchus and the anonymous woman ended up: Malchus lives alone in the Greek version. The comparison with Zechariah and Elisabeth has disappeared, as has the translation of the name ‘Malchus’ in that same paragraph. On the other hand, the Greek version also makes certain implicit biblical references more explicit and adds biblical comparisons. In chapter five, for example, where Malchus compares himself to Jacob and Moses, the Greek version adds Abel as another biblical shepherd in addition to Jacob. It also mentions the sons of Jacob and that one pastor who was the author of so many psalms: King David. 38

Gray (2016); Staat, Van Pelt & De Temmerman (2020).

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Οὐ μόνον δὲ τοῦτο τὸ μέρος πρὸς παράκλησιν εἶχον ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν ἅγιον Ἄβελ καὶ τὸν πατριάρχην Ἰακὼβ καὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸν ἅγιον Μωϋσῆν, καὶ Δαυὶδ τὸν βασιλέα ποιμένας εἶναι προβάτων λογιζόμενος ἔχαιρον ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ νέμων τὰ πρόβατα καὶ προσευχόμενος καὶ ψάλλων τοὺς ψαλμοὺς οὓς ἔμαθον ἐν τῷ μοναστηρίῳ.39 This new destiny of mine was not my only source of exhortation. I also considered that holy Abel and the patriarch Jacob and his sons, and holy Moses, and King David were shepherds of sheep and I rejoiced in the desert being a sheep shepherd, and I prayed and sang the psalms which I had learned in the monastery. Why did the Greek translator make these specific additions? I believe they indicate he was reading the Latin text in a typological way. The shepherds whom he added all have in common that they were seen as types of Christ. Abel, whose offering of a lamb was accepted and who was killed by his brother, was interpreted by Jesus himself as the first martyr and as a type of those who suffered and of the just who were persecuted (Matt. 23:35). Abel is similarly seen as a type of Christ in the Letter to the Hebrews 12:24: ‘and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel’ (et testamenti noui mediatorem Iesum et sanguinis sparsionem melius loquentem quam Abel). Jacob is already mentioned in the Latin original, but the Greek translator emphatically adds the sons of Jacob, probably because the twelve sons would make the reader think of the twelve apostles. These additions lead us to the conclusion that King David is not only there because of the psalms he composed, but also because of his typological relation to Jesus Christ. This also gives a new level of meaning to the opening chapters of the Life of Malchus, where the advent of the Lord was mentioned explicitly and the gospel of Luke was suggested. The name ‘Malchus’ and the emphatic way Jerome gave the Latin translation of ‘Rex’ now also make more sense. It is strange that the Greek translator leaves out the translation of the name, but then again he leaves out the entire paragraph in which the name is explained. It is therefore not incomprehensible that he adds King David and several other names linked to Jesus Christ but no longer explains the meaning of the name. The presence of David also ties in with the presence of Zechariah and Elisabeth discussed earlier and with how the paradoxical absence of their son, John, made the reader think of Elkanah and Hannah and their son Samuel.

39

Van den Ven (1901: 26); §iv, lines 13–19.

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Samuel was sent by God to Jesse the Bethlehemite to anoint one of his children as the new king over Israel. The prophet was presented with seven sons of Jesse. But the prophet accepted none. David, the youngest, was absent. His father explained: ‘he is keeping the sheep’ (pascit oves; 1 Sam. 16:11). After David was anointed, Saul became tormented by an evil spirit, and he sent for David ‘who is with the sheep’ (1Sam. 16:19) as a skilful lyre player to make Saul feel better. But David returned to the flock of his father in Bethlehem (ut pasceret gregem patris sui in Bethleem) on a regular basis according to 1 Sam. 17:15. In the context of the fight against Goliath, David recalls how, as a shepherd, he was saved by God on several occasions from lions and bears who tried to attack the flock (cf. 1Sam. 17:37; see also 17:34–35). After the episode of David and Goliath, Saul becomes envious of his fame, and he plots his downfall through an arranged marriage. David declines, declaring himself unworthy, but Saul insists. His oldest daughter, Merob, is already betrothed to someone else. David is forced to marry Michol (1Sam. 18:17–28). The condition is that David kills two hundred Philistines and brings their foreskins before the king. Saul was convinced David would not survive this challenge. The intentions of the chief of the Saracens, forcing Malchus to marry, are similar: they are not as deadly, at least not from his perspective, but Malchus interprets them as a device of the devil to bring about his downfall (6.1): O nihil umquam tutum apud diabolum! O multiplices et ineffabiles eius insidiae! Sic quoque me latentem invenit invidia. But how nothing is ever safe with the devil! How manifold and unspeakable is his treachery! Even so, when I was hiding, his envy found me. After Saul tried to kill David with a spear, he fled. The vicissitudes between Saul and David are long and complex, but a famous episode of David fleeing the wrath of Saul is when he and his men hid in a cave, in the desert of Engedi in 1Sam. 24:1. Saul entered this cave to relieve himself, not noticing David who was hiding in the cave. David could have killed Saul then and there, but he only cut a piece of Saul’s cloak, without Saul noticing anything. There is no lion in this episode, but it has inspired several psalms which elaborate on the emotions felt by David in that cave. The most interesting is Psalm 57, the title of which mentions the dramatic setting: ‘of David. A Miktam, when he fled from Saul in the cave’. David prays to God to be merciful and line 4 reads: ‘I lie down among lions that greedily devour human prey’ (anima mea in medio leonum dormivit ferocientium). These lions are a metaphor for David’s enemies

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in this psalm, but his enemies will be destroyed. Psalm 57:6 reads: ‘They set a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my path, but they have fallen into it themselves’ (laqueum paraverunt pedibus meis, et incurvaverunt animam meam. Foderunt ante faciem meam foveam, et inciderunt in eam). Jerome gave an allegorical interpretation of this cave episode in his Fifty-nine Tractates on the Psalms, commenting on Psalm 141–142, which is also set ‘in the cave’ and where David asked: ‘save me from my persecutors for they are too strong for me’ (libera me a persecutoribus quoniam confortati sunt super me; Psalm 142:6).40 Jerome explains that David stands for the Lord and that Saul should be understood as the devil. The cave is the world and Saul relieving himself in the cave means the devil does not bring anything good into the world: only manure and putrid things. As David was hiding in the cave facing persecution, so the Lord has entered the world and has suffered persecution. As we have mentioned, the second cave scene alludes to the monster Cacus, son of Vulcanus, in Book 8 of the Aeneid (193–261).41 A detail which has not been noticed is that Cacus had tried to cover his tracks to his cave by dragging the bulls by their tails in Aeneid 8.209–211: atque hos, ne qua forent pedibus vestigia rectis, / cauda in speluncam tractos versisque viarum / indiciis raptor saxo occultabat opaco. And that there might be no tracks pointing forward, the rustler dragged them by the tail into his cavern, and, with the signs of their course thus turned backwards, he hid them in the rocky darkness.42 Cacus was found out and killed in his lair by Hercules. What the good and the bad do and do not do, is inverted in the Vita Malchi. Malchus and the woman did not cover their tracks: ‘While we […] realized that we had been betrayed by our footprints through the sand, there appeared a cave on our right which stretched far below the earth’ (vestigiis per arenas nos proditos intellegimus, offertur ad dexteram specus longe sub terram penetrans; 9.1). They were found 40

41 42

Jerome, Tractatus lix in psalmos (ed. Morin 1958), Psalm 141, line 1 (CCSL, 78), 3–352: ‘debemus spiritaliter intellegere psalmum. accipitur quidem et in Dominum uerum Dauid iste psalmus; et intellegitur Saul in diabolum, spelunca autem in hunc mundum, et quod diabolus non inmittit in hunc mundum aliquid boni, sed stercus, et si quid putridum. spelunca autem intellegitur iste mundus, […] ergo sicut Dauid intrauit in speluncam abscondens se a Saul, ita et Dominus ingressus est in hunc mundum, et persecutionem passus est’. See Gray (2015: 213). Rushton Fairclough (ed. & transl. 2000: 74–75).

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by the chieftain and his servant, but then these two servants of evil were both killed by a lioness hiding in the darkness of the cave. As the fugitives entered the cave, the words spoken by Malchus echo Seneca, Troades 510–511: fata si miseros iuvant. Jerome replaces the Stoic fata with the Christian God in 9.2: si iuvat Dominus miseros. In the next section the dominus is the worldly lord: the chieftain and his servant. The mixture of classical Latin and of biblical elements continues, and again the explicit and the implicit reinforce each other. The second cave scene also continues the allusion to persecution and martyrs. The servant shouted, ‘come out to meet your death’ (exite morituri; 9.6), which has been interpreted as an echo of morituri te salutant in Suetonius, Claudius 21.6.43 And when the two Saracens were killed by the lioness, Malchus points out the incredible role reversal: ‘Who would ever believe this, that right before our eyes a wild animal was fighting on our behalf?’ (Quis hoc umquam crederet ut ante os nostrum bestia pro nobis dimicaret?; 9.9). Lions are associated with the persecution of Christians since Tertullian’s famous Christianos ad leonem in his Apologeticum 40.2, but the reversal of roles in the Life of Malchus has a parallel in chapter 33 of the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thekla, where Thekla was protected in the arena in Antioch by a fierce lioness against other wild beasts.44 I argue that the biblical elaborations of David hiding in the cave are yet another source of inspiration for Jerome in his second cave episode. The parallel is not complete. Malchus runs away with his wife and hides with her in the cave. The wife of David, by contrast, only helped to disguise his flight by putting an idol in his bed and covering it with goats’ hair to suggest that he was sleeping (1 Sam. 19:11–17). David hides from Saul in the desert of Ziph and hides in several caves. In the Life of Malchus, the chieftain does the work of the devil by forcing Malchus to marry. While Malchus and the woman flee through the desert, they are afraid of ‘ambushes of the Saracens ranging far and wide’ (insidias late vagantium Saracenorum; 8.5). And these real ambushes or snares are a verbal echo of the metaphorical wiles of the devil in 6.1 (multiplices et ineffabiles eius insidiae). Psalm 141:4 uses laqueus and not insidiae, but the situation is comparable: ‘In the path where I walk they have hidden a trap for me’ (In via hac

43

44

As Gray (2015: 289) points out, this was ‘an exclamation by naumacharii […] convicted criminals destined to die in the staged naval battle, unlike gladiators in the arena’. We might add that this little detail brings to mind the opening words in the prologue 1.1, qui navali proelio dimicaturi sunt […], ‘Those who intend to fight in a naval battle […]’, although Jerome has put his protagonists, perhaps not without humour, in the middle of the desert. Gray (2013) discusses echoes from Plautus. Gray (2015: 290–291) for this and other parallels.

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qua ambulabam absconderunt laqueum mihi). The last two verses (6–7) read: ‘Save me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me. Bring me out of prison, so that I may give thanks to your name’ (Libera me a persequentibus me, quia confortati sunt super me. Educ de custodia animam meam ad confitendum nomini tuo). The barbarian chieftain pursues Malchus and the woman into the cave, but the cave becomes his grave and that of his servant, not of the fugitives. When David hiding from Saul in Psalm 57 sings ‘I lie down among lions that greedily devour human prey’, these lions represent a threat from which he prays God to save him. In Jerome’s novella, the lioness is the instrument of God, saving Malchus and the woman, from their enemies who are represented as minions of the Enemy. In 9.7 Jesus and the dominus of the dead Saracen are mentioned in one sentence: ‘Dear Jesus, what terror then was ours, what joy! We were watching our enemy perish, unknown to the master’ (Iesu bone, quid tunc nobis terroris, quid gaudii fuit! spectabamus hostem nostrum perire domino nesciente). Hence, I believe that the second cave scene was inspired by the story of David hiding from persecution by Saul in a cave, by the Psalms which dramatically elaborated on this scene, and by the typological reading of David and Saul in the cave as Christ and the devil in this world. King David is a type for Jesus, but he was far from perfect. He was covetous and arranged for the death in battle of Uriah the Hittite because he lusted after his wife Bathsheba (2Sam. 11). The prophet Nathan confronts King David by telling a parable of a rich man who is envious of the one little lamb a poor man owns. The rich man steals the lamb to prepare a meal for a stranger (2 Sam. 12). Nathan explains that the theft of property stands for the sexual desire David had for another man’s spouse. The situation is only partially comparable to that in the Vita Malchi. The husband of the nameless woman is taken away by one of the other Saracens, and Malchus is innocent of this. As we know, he was forced to marry another man’s wife and his spiritual marriage is a chaste form of adultery. Malchus tells the Saracens that his Christian religion forbids him to take another man’s wife. This was just as much a rule in the time of King David. Malchus therefore does not covet this woman, as David had coveted the wife of Uriah. It should be said that his mental state is somewhat unclear; it appears he did see her as a temptation, since he threatened to kill himself before giving in to this temptation. The narrative does not make it clear whether this temptation is something he feels internally or whether he projects his own fears onto the woman. In short, the situation is somewhat ambiguous, but he did not covet the woman as David did Bathsheba, let alone arrange for the death of her husband. At the same time, Malchus, like King David, is not perfect. He describes how, in the monastery, he aims at ‘restraining the wantonness of the flesh by fasting’

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(lasciviamque carnis refrenans ieiuniis; 3.4), and he claims to have preserved his virginity, yet he was unable to overcome his materialism and his disobedience, which he phrases as ‘infidelity’ in 3.5: ‘why do I blush to confess my infidelity?’ (quid erubesco confiteri infidelitatem meam?). Gray has remarked that the ant-comparison stresses the economic aspects of ant-society and of monasticism.45 Malchus remains interested in money throughout his life: even at the very end, the escaped captive monk mentions he got money for the camels they took from the dead Saracens: ‘we received the price of the camels’ (camelorum accepimus pretium; 10.2). With regard to his sexual self-restraint, he does not trust himself with his ‘sister’ whose body he has never seen naked or touched. It remained a historia castitatis and a spiritual marriage pointing rather to the son of David and Bathsheba: King Solomon and the spiritual interpretation of the Song of Songs.

9

Conclusion

Jerome probably wrote the De monacho captivo in Bethlehem: in the city of King David. Jerome explains that the name ‘Malchus’ means ‘King’ in the beginning of the narrative, comparing his main character with Zechariah known from the opening of the gospel of Luke. I have discussed the intertextual links with King David and the typological interpretations of David as Christ. The references in the prologue and the frame narrative to the birth of the Saviour, to the gospel of Luke, to sheep and shepherds, and the characterization of this novella as a probatio pennae for a full history of the Church all receive a new and deeper meaning. The moral ambiguities in the character of Malchus are parallels for the similarly less-than-ideal character of the King of the Jews in the Old Testament. They also suggest that the not so good shepherd is not the ideal imitator Christi: Malchus tries to be a good Christian (and the best Christian for Jerome is an ascetic Christian) but the road towards perfection is hard to travel, even well into old age. De Vogüé and others certainly have a point when they read the story as a veiled autobiography,46 and the couple as a double for Jerome and Paula the Elder, who travelled with him and her daughter Eustochium through Syria and Egypt for almost a year, but the story also has a wider meaning. Malchus is a metonymical character for the development of the Church, combining the consecutive ideals of bloody martyrdom during the

45 46

Gray (2015: 252). De Vogüé (1993: 91).

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persecutions and of bloodless martyrdom in the different forms of asceticism. He symbolizes the Church’s struggle with power and with wealth, and the ambiguity achieved by Jerome through his narrative choices about whether or not the old Malchus had achieved total obedience and complete chastity is to be read in combination with the criticism in the prologue of a Church potentia quidem et diuitiis maior, sed uirtutibus minor facta. Malchus became a saint in Christian tradition, on the sole reputation of Jerome’s novella, but this text is not straightforwardly hagiographical. It shows a less than ideal Christian, someone who develops and improves over time but who is aware of his shortcomings. If he deserves to be a saint, then it is because of his humility, and this seems to be one of the virtues Jerome claims the Church of his times had lost. From a literary perspective, Jerome has proven to be both a Ciceronianus and a Christianus. Although the quotations and allusions to classical literature are many and diverse, they are never made explicit. Such phrases and episodes from pagan literature are constantly combined, in a very original way, with explicit and implicit elements taken from the Bible and from Christian narrative literature. On the captive monk is full of inversions. Ancient bucolic themes are set in the desert. The genre of the love novel is a source of inspiration for a story about a sexless couple. Seneca and Virgil merge with the Book of Samuel, Psalms and Acts of the Martyrs. Jerome’s text is short but very dense, and it combines all these biblical and ‘secular’ elements into a thrilling new narrative. He called it a historia castitatis and we hope to have proven that the Bible is equally strong as an influence on Jerome’s writing as was his classical upbringing. As a biblical scholar, Jerome knew that historia also refers to the literal, historical level of meaning in biblical texts, as opposed to the spiritual levels of meaning. His De monacho captivo can and has been read on a literal level, but I believe the carefully constructed network of allusions to the Bible makes a spiritual, typological reading possible if not plausible. The story of the captive monk is a small masterpiece of Christian literature. It is a moral tale written by a man whose moral character was far from ideal. It is the tale of the not so good shepherd.

Bibliography Bastiaensen, A.A.R. 1994. ‘Jérome hagiographe’, in G. Philippart (ed.), Hagiographies: Histoire internationale de la littérature hagiographique latine et vernaculaire en Occident des origines à 1550. Volume i (Turnhout), 97–123. Cain, A. & Lössl, J. 2009. Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy (Farnham).

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Degórski, B. (ed. & transl.) 2014. Opere di San Girolamo. Opere storiche e agiografiche xv (Rome). De Vogüé, A. 1993. Histoire littéraire du mouvement monastique dans l’Antiquité. 1: Le monachisme latin. Volume 2: De l’Itinéraire d’Egérie à l’éloge funèbre de Népotien (384– 396) (Paris). De Vogüé, A. 1997. Histoire littéraire du mouvement monastique dans l’Antiquité. 1: Le monachisme latin. Volume 4: Sulpice Sévère et Paulin de Nole (393–409), Jérôme, homéliste et traducteur des Pachomiana (Paris). Duckworth, G.E. 1948. ‘Classical Echoes in St. Jerome’s Life of Malchus’, CB 24, 28–29. Fürst, A. 2016. Hieronymus: Askese und Wissenschaft in der Spätantike (Freiburg im Breisgau). Fuhrmann, M. 1977. ‘Die Mönchgeschichten des heiligen Hieronymus: Formexperimente in erzählender Literatur’, in M. Fuhrmann (ed.), Christianisme et formes littéraires de l’antiquité tardive en occident: huit exposés suivis de discussions (Geneva & Bern), 41–99. González Marín, S. 1986. ‘Análisis literario de tres Vitae de San Jerónimo’, EClás 28.90, 105–120. Gray, C. 2013. ‘The Monk and the Ridiculous: Comedy in Jerome’s Vita Malchi’, in M. Vinzent (ed.), Studia Patristica: Papers Presented at the Sixteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2011 (Louvain), 115–121. Gray, C. 2015. Jerome, Vita Malchi: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary (New York & Oxford). Gray, C. 2016. ‘The Emended Monk: The Greek Translation of Jerome’s Vita Malchi’, in K. De Temmerman & K. Demoen (eds.), Writing Biography in Greece and Rome: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization (Cambridge), 117–132. Hagendahl, H. 1958. Latin Fathers and the Classics: A Study on the Apologists, Jerome and Other Christian Writers (Gothenburg). Hurst, D. & Adriaen, M. (eds.) 1969. Hieronymus: Commentariorum in euangelium Matthaei libri iv (Turnhout). Kelly, J.N.D. 1975. Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London). King, D. 2009. ‘Vir quadrilinguis? Syriac in Jerome and Jerome in Syriac’, in A. Cain & J. Lössl (eds.), Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy (Farnham & Burlington), 209–223. Leclerc, P., Morales, E.M. & de Vogüé, A. (eds.) 2007. Trois vies de moines: Paul, Malchus, Hilarion (Paris). Lübeck, A. 1872. Hieronymus quos noverit scriptores et ex quibus hauserit (Leipzig). Morin, G. (ed.) 1958. S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Opera Homiletica (Turnhout). Prädicow, S.-T. 2020. Intertextualität in den Mönchsviten des Athanasios und des Hieronymus: Eremiten zum Dialog bestellt (Berlin). Rebenich, S. 2002. Jerome (London).

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Rebenich, S. 2009. ‘Inventing an Ascetic Hero: Jerome’s Life of Paul the First Hermit’, in A. Cain & J. Lössl (eds.), Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy (Farnham & Burlington), 13–27. Rushton Fairclough, H. (ed. & transl.) 2000. Virgil, Aeneid: Books 7–12. Appendix Vergiliana. Volume 2. Revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA). Shanzer D. 2009. ‘Jerome, Tobit, alms, and the Vita aeterna’, in A. Cain & J. Lössl, Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy (Farnham & Burlington), 87–104. Sirago V.A. 1995. ‘Sulla composizione della Vita Malchi di San Girolamo’, in La narrativa cristiana antica: Codici narrativi, strutture formali, schemi retorici. xxiii Incontro di studiosi dell’Antichità cristiana, Roma, 5–7 maggio 1994 (Rome), 521–528. Soler, J. 2011. ‘La conversion chrétienne du récit de voyage antique dans les “Vies de moines” de Jérôme’, IJCT 18.1, 1–17. Staat, K., Van Pelt, J. & De Temmerman, K. 2020. ‘The Greek Vita Malchi: Translating and Rewriting Jerome’, in S. Constantinou & C. Høgel (eds.), Metaphrasis: A Byzantine Concept of Rewriting and its Hagiographical Products (Leiden), 92–106. Van den Ven, P. 1901. Saint Jérôme et la vie du moine Malchus le captif (Louvain). Van Uytfanghe, M. 2001. ‘Biographie 2 (spirituelle)’, in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum: Supplement (Stuttgart), 1088–1364. Weingarten, S. 2005. The Saint’s Saints: Hagiography and Geography in Jerome (Leiden). Williams, M.H. 2006. The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship (Chicago).

chapter 11

Ritual Fictions, Liturgical Truths in the Hymns of Romanos the Melodist Derek Krueger

Early in a lengthy narrative hymn, or kontakion, on a harlot’s encounter with Jesus in the home of Simon the Leper, the great sixth-century liturgical poet Romanos the Melodist signals a departure from scripture into the realm of perhaps. Straying from the contours of the spare biblical narrative, Romanos enters speculative territory by foregrounding his own curiosity. He writes, I would like to search the mind of the wise woman and to know how Jesus came to shine in her. (10.4.1–2; 78)1 Reflecting on the harlot’s story demands an investigation that moves beyond formal exegesis and requires expanding the narrative. What follows are more than four stanzas of interior monologue where the sinful woman articulates her intention to slather her saviour with precious fragrant oil. She explains to herself her motivation for repentance (10.4.9–8.11). In Romanos’ imagination, the harlot casts her desire in terms continuous with her profession. I anoint and caress him, I weep and I groan and I urge him fittingly to long for me. I am changed to the longing of the One who is longed for, and, as he wishes to be kissed, so I kiss my love. (10.5.3–6; 79) Others have remarked the hymn’s complex erotics, the harlot’s plan to seduce Christ,2 and I have elsewhere discussed how Romanos provides her, as so many of his other biblical characters—the hemorrhaging woman and the leper, for example—with a penitent subjectivity which is not always clear or even

1 Translations of Romanos’ kontakia cited in this chapter are taken from Lash (1995). References cite the Greek edition of Maas and Trypanis followed by the page number in Lash’s translation. 2 Harvey (2002); Arentzen (2017: 49–51).

© Derek Krueger, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004685758_012

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present in the biblical narrative.3 For Romanos, as for late ancient Christian liturgists generally, fictionality offered a tool for presenting truths. In rhetorical terms, Romanos has provided his heroine with a speech-incharacter, employing ēthopoiia, a formal technique taught through exercises in early Byzantine schools and likely also absorbable through frequent attendance at public performances, including those of the Christian liturgy. Romanos has excelled in his execution of this technique, which to some extent functioned as a hallmark of fictionality for late antique writers. In keeping with the school prompt familiar from Aphthonios’ book of preliminary rhetorical exercises (Aphth. Prog. 11), Romanos has asked himself the question, ‘How might a harlot speak or think about her relationship with a fleshly Christ?’ In configuring Jesus as the object of her desire, and as her ultimate or final client, the poet has maintained the continuity of her character. She remains a harlot, but in a paradoxical reversal of the sort Romanos most loves, her whoring after Christ becomes exemplary. Romanos does not limit his inventiveness to the harlot’s monologue but expands the narrative with a scene in which the woman rushes off to a myrrhseller and they engage in market banter. She asks for perfume ‘worthy of a friend […] who has set [her] inward parts aflame’ (10.9.4, 6; 81), and he asks her for more information about this beloved who ‘has charmed [her] to buy this love potion’ (10.10.3; 81). In expanding the biblical narrative thus, Romanos engages another rhetorical practice, namely story-telling, or diēgēsis, another of Aphthonios’ rhetorical forms, ‘the exposition of an action that has happened or as though it had happened’ (Aphth. Prog. 2).4 The scene with the myrrh-seller employs dramatic irony to cast the love of God as urgent and overwhelming, expressible in carnal terms even as it distances itself from worldly lust. The penitent harlot explains that this Son of David and Son of God is ‘fair to look on’, and ‘wholly lovely’ (10.11.1, 2; 81), and for this reason she will exchange her ‘illgotten wealth and purchase sweet myrrh’ to present to the man who ‘cleanses [her] soul of / the filth of [her] deeds’ (11.10–11; 82). This episode, of course, does not appear in scripture, and so in some sense, it also engages in fictionality, although as we shall see, the episode presents challenges in understanding Romanos’ method. Scripture did not in itself define the narrative truth from which the poet deviated. Rather liturgical history and the ritual context for performing the hymn had already added to the outlines of the story.

3 Krueger (2014: 46–48). 4 Transl. Kennedy (2003: 96). On the importance of diēgēsis for Romanos, see Eriksen (2017 and 2013).

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From a modernist, enlightenment, or Protestant perspective, it may be surprising to note the relish with which Romanos departs from what the biblical text says. It is helpful to remember that many Christian exegetes disinvested themselves from the literal sense of the text. According to Origen in the fourth book of On First Principles, the whole of scripture invited the reader to discover mystical meanings. In part to highlight the need for allegorical interpretation, the Holy Spirit included in scripture things that in some sense—that is in a literal sense—were not true. There were places where ‘the recorded actions of a specific person did not fit the account of the inner coherence of intelligible realities’. Therefore, ‘scripture has woven into the historical narrative some features which did not happen; sometimes an event is an impossibility; sometimes, though possible, it actually did not happen’.5 Origen explained that ‘sometimes only a few phrases that are not true (οὐκ ἀληθευόμεναι) in the bodily [i.e. literal] sense are inserted, sometimes more’ (On First Principles 4.2.9). While this allowed Origen to dismiss the practice of the Jewish law as a slavish adherence to the literal sense of the text with its ‘offensive features, stumbling blocks, and impossibilities (σκάνδαλα καὶ προσκόμματα καὶ ἀδύνατα)’ (4.2.9),6 it also credited the Holy Spirit with a liberal employment of fictionalization as a strategy for communicating the truth. Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzos included this chapter of On First Principles in their anthology of the works of Origen, recommending it as a guide to scriptural interpretation.7 Such an approach to scripture served Gregory particularly well when he needed to refute Arian readings of the words of Jesus himself which, in their plainest sense, would seem to indicate not only that the Father and the Son were distinct characters in the gospel narratives with different personalities, wills, and desires, but that Jesus was not himself God, as we find famously in the fourth of his Theological Orations (Gr. Naz. Or. 30). Scripture was true, but not in a way that bound the reader to a firm notion that the stories told the literal truth in all their parts. As a result, Romanos may in fact reinforce what the biblical text means by signalling that he is about to depart from what the biblical text says. Exegesis implied a great deal of freedom with the text. Modern scholarly investigation of fictionality as a literary practice depends to some degree on understanding a late ancient author’s and audience’s shared

5 [Σ]υνύφηνεν ἡ γραφὴ τῇ ἱστορίᾳ τὸ μὴ γενόμενον, πῇ μὲν μηδὲ δυνατὸν γενέσθαι, πῇ δε δυνατὸν μὲν γενέσθαι, οὐ μὴν γεγενημένον. 6 For more, see Drake (2013: 42–45). 7 Origen, Philokalia. Whether this compilation is Basil’s and Gregory’s work has been contested. We know that Gregory recommended the work to a correspondent.

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assumptions about the gap or division between the historical and the fictive. That is, assessing how fictionality works in a text depends on establishing a conception of the extra-literal realities governing the text’s slippage in and out of fictionalization.8 The rhetorical tradition reinforced the idea that a subject’s speeches, whether audible or interior, offered occasions for literary invention. The exercises teaching ēthopoiia by their very nature strove for expertise in fictionalization. At the same time, author and audience shared the sense of a true narrative as true. A scholar’s control over a previous and shared notion of the historical—or the true—benefits from identifying a text’s own employment of other sources previously extant, either acknowledged or unacknowledged. Source criticism permits an appreciation of a text’s intertextual playfulness and of its intertexts’ authority. The hymns of Romanos the Melodist reveal early Byzantine liturgy as a narrative environment deft in employing techniques of fictionalization and fictionality. In expanding biblical stories, Romanos departs from their confines and contours to develop a richer script. He engages in ‘the intentional use of invented stories’ to perform exegesis, teach theology, and cue appropriate responses to scripture.9 The complexity of the liturgical environment, however, raises questions about how to employ the insights of ongoing conversations about fictionality in late antique narrative literatures to illuminate early Byzantine liturgy and the hymns and sermons composed to adorn or elaborate it. What can the concept and analysis of fictionality teach us about Romanos’ work? What insights can it offer about the interplay of truth and fiction in early Byzantine liturgy? Recent scholarly conversations about fictionality in ancient biography, either secular or sacred, have explored the mechanisms by which authors crossed borders between historicity and fictionality in their compositions with particular attention to ‘slippages into the realm of fiction’.10 While this scholarship eschews a positivist certainty about what happened in fact, it nevertheless rests, reasonably, on the assumption that late ancient authors and audiences understood that texts moved across boundaries between what was commonly accepted as fact and what could be understood as invented. Academic discourse about fictionality in literature requires a polarity between fact and fiction even when it acknowledges that the boundary between such categories remains blurry and is frequently crossed. A parallel distinction between truth

8 9 10

De Temmerman (2016: 7). Nielsen, Phelan & Walsh (2015: 62). De Temmerman (2016: 4).

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and fiction also held meaning for late ancient audiences. But scholarly assessment of fictionality and fictionalization in a liturgical environment depends on a richer and likely fuller conception of truth itself within Christian ritual practice and its discourses. Understanding fictionalization in this context depends on having a coherent answer to another biblical question, namely, ‘What is truth?’ (John 18:38).

1

Fictionality and the Lectionary

Early Byzantine liturgy would seem a fruitful venue to extend an analysis of fictionality. Its performances were full of narrative, particularly in sermons and hymns. These narratives derived ultimately from the Bible, a text accorded a status as true or containing truth. Romanos, perhaps even more than other liturgical authors, engaged in much embellishment. Like other homilists and hymnographers, he retold the story of Christ, and thus engaged in a kind of biography. In order to appreciate fictionality in the liturgy, it helps to determine what an author has departed from. In contrast to many biographical texts, the performance contexts and audiences for Romanos’ hymns are clear or at least clearer. He composed his lengthy and dramatic hymns, of which some sixty survive, while a deacon on the staff of the Church of the Theotokos in the Kyrou district of Constantinople in the second quarter of the sixth century.11 A cantor performed them during the Night Vigil (παννυχίς), a service popular with the urban laity. Perhaps Romanos himself sang them in their first instance, while the entire congregation—or perhaps a church choir—joined in the refrain.12 Within a century, the hymns had become part of a canonical cycle of hymns for the Night Vigil.13 Most of Romanos’ hymns respond to biblical stories and were keyed to the emerging lectionary cycle for the liturgical year as celebrated in the capital.14 Roughly half of the extant hymns of Romanos deal with stories from the gospels, exploring episodes in the life of Christ. In effect, Romanos’ corpus of hymns generates a hagiography of Christ spread out over the course of the annual liturgical calendar.15

11 12 13 14 15

Arentzen (2017: 1–6). Münz-Manor & Arentzen (2019); Koder (1997–1999: 63–69); Koder (2008: 288–290). Cf. Miracles of Artemios 18; Krueger (2014: 65). Krueger (2014: 67–105); Krueger (2024). Krueger (2004: 13).

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One way to think about Romanos’ work of fictionalization would be to compare his hymns with their gospel bases, thus attempting to establish the intertexts from which Romanos deviates. In liturgical performance the proximate ground of the narrative’s truthful elements derived from the lection appointed for the day. In the hymn On the Man Possessed by Demons, Romanos himself describes the placement of his lengthy hymns at the Night Vigil among the laity. The cantor performed these compositions after the congregation’s singing of psalms and odes and after the ‘well-ordered reading (ἀναγνώσει εὐτάκτῳ) of scripture’ (11.1), that is, after the reading of a biblical passage or passages according to the lectionary’s arrangement. Comparison with the assigned pericopes provides a preliminary way to gauge what Romanos has invented and what he has adopted or adapted from earlier traditions, including the text of the Bible itself. The three middle Byzantine manuscripts that contain On the Harlot assign the hymn to the Wednesday of Holy Week, an ascription that is likely original and which accords with its vivid penitential content. Mark and Matthew place the episode shortly before Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.16 The Armenian witness to the late antique lectionary of Jerusalem assigns Matt. 26:3–16 for Wednesday of Holy Week, part of a sequence of readings from Matthew beginning on Palm Sunday.17 The eighth-century Georgian witness to Jerusalem’s lectionary confirms this assignment.18 For Constantinople, the Typikon for Hagia Sophia records the same pericope in the early tenth century.19 While we cannot be certain, it seems most probable that the lectionary indication for Holy Wednesday in the capital in Romanos’ own day was also this passage from Matthew. That is, it is likely that Romanos’ audience heard Matthew’s version of the story shortly before the cantor began to sing this hymn. Romanos’ departure from the lection would be easy for congregants to detect. An attentive but uninformed congregant might notice that most of the important elements of the hymn have no basis whatsoever in Matthew’s text, where the woman is not even described as a sinner, let alone a prostitute, and she never goes shopping. This absence in the lection, however, is not the basis from which to judge a common understanding of fictionality between author and audience. The audience likely knew more

16

17 18 19

The manuscripts, each a kontakarion, containing hymns for the Night Vigil of the liturgical calendar’s moveable cycle, are Patmiacus 213 (first half of the eleventh century); Corsinianus 336 (eleventh century); and Vindobonensis Suppl. gr. 96 (twelfth century). On the Patmos Kontakarion, see Arentzen & Krueger (2016); Krueger (2024). Renoux (1969: 1.123–128; 1971: 2.265). Tarchnischvili (1959: 1.89 [lection 623]). Mateos (1963: 2.70–71). On the Byzantine Orthodox lectionary, see Getcha (2012: 55–66).

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than was in the reading. Indeed, the very exercise of liturgical reading implied a fictional contract, that is, an agreement between the reader and the congregant that the lection did not and would not define the limits of the story or strictly bound the shape of its truth.

2

Harmonizing the Truth

Romanos’ story of the harlot, of course, reflects a harmonization of disparate gospel texts that earlier Christian authors and clergy had already effected. Mark 14:3–9 places Jesus in the house of Simon the Leper in Bethany in the days before his entry into Jerusalem. ‘As he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head’ (14:3). Although Matt. 26:6–13 follows this narrative closely, the expanded version in Luke 7:36–50 adds a new detail to its Markan source: the woman is identified as a sinner (ἁμαρτωλός) even as Luke displaces the episode to a much earlier moment in Jesus’ life. None of the lectionaries for Jerusalem or Constantinople assign the Lukan passage during Holy Week.20 Yet Luke’s account of a sinful woman governs nearly all subsequent treatment of the story in sermons, commentary, and hymnography.21 She was known commonly as ‘the sinful woman’. Romanos’ departure from the text of Matthew, identifying the woman as a sinner and working with this theme consistently within the text, turns her into a model for the early Byzantine penitent. Romanos invokes the truth from the unread text of Luke. Long before Romanos’ time, her status as sinner had become the truth of the story. When Romanos imposes this angle on the story, he is not engaging in fictionality. He is assuming harmonization in the mind of the listener. Significantly, however, Luke never says what the woman’s sin is or was. A similar story appears in John 12:1–8, where Mary of Bethany, Lazarus’ sister, pours nard on Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair. This Mary is never described a sinner and is not conflated with Mary Magdalene in late antique Byzantine or Syriac sources. Nevertheless, the commentarial and liturgical tradition identified the woman’s sin as prostitution. This received tradition was also part of the story’s truth. Understanding Romanos’ resorts to fictionality thus requires acknowledgement that the truth from which he might deviate relied on both a 20

21

In middle Byzantine Constantinople, Luke 7:36–50 was read on the Saturday after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (i.e. after 14 September) and apparently repeated on 11 July (Mateos 1962: 34–35, 337). Harvey (2002).

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harmonization of the gospels and a grounding in conventional understandings of them. Romanos’ fictionality departed only from a common-sense construal of the narrative. This sense is ‘common’ in the sense of ‘social’. As Kathryn Tanner observes, ‘The plain sense of a scriptural text in specific would consequently be what a participant in the community automatically or naturally takes a text to be saying on its face insofar as he or she has been socialized in a community’s conventions for reading that text as scripture’.22 Romanos relies precisely on these conventions. Understanding the text in this way is a religious practice that helps specify the hearers’ identities and membership. The skill with which Romanos weaves between the gospels, borrowing and gathering not just narrative elements but vocabulary led William Petersen (1985a, 1985b) to suggest that Romanos was directly dependent on the Diatessaron. That one-volume harmony of the gospels produced a single continuous narrative. It was executed in the second century by the Christian teacher Tatian and used liturgically in Syrian churches into the fifth century.23 While this account of Romanos’ sources of inspiration has largely been rejected, it is clear that Romanos inherited a conception of many gospel stories as already harmonizable or harmonized from a broad liturgical tradition in both Syriac and Greek. Moreover, he likely had access to the Canon Tables of Eusebios, which charted the parallels between and among passages in the four gospels.24 These tables appeared together with other apparatus in manuscripts of the gospels. They would have been easy to consult if Romanos wanted to weave vocabulary and narrative elements from different gospels. In the Christian liturgical culture of Late Antiquity, the sense of the true story relied not on the plain text of any single scripture. Rather, a common sense or socialized understanding of the gospel routinely resulted from the harmonization of the disparate accounts, such that both Matthew’s Magi and Luke’s shepherds attend the infant Christ. Thus the prelude that opens Romanos’ hymn On the Nativity i declares: Angels with shepherds give glory, and magi journey with a star. (1.prel.3–4; 3) In this instance, however, both accounts of the nativity of Christ may have been read in Constantinople’s lectionary cycle. The Georgian lectionary for Jerusalem assigns Luke’s annunciation to the shepherds (Luke 2:8–20) to the 22 23 24

Tanner (1987: 63). Petersen (1994). Crawford (2015); Parker (2008: 24).

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sixth hour on Christmas Eve and Matthew’s account of the visit of the Magi (Matt. 2:1–12) to the Divine Liturgy on Christmas Day.25 The tenth-century Constantinopolitan witness assigns Luke 2:1–20 to the Christmas Eve Vigil and Matt. 2:1–13 to the Divine Liturgy on Christmas Day.26 Romanos’ hymn is primarily interested in the interaction between the Magi and the Virgin. Its likely performance during the Vigil on Christmas Eve means that the hymn anticipates the expected story of the Magi to be read out during the services on the following day. Romanos’ hymn both is and is not an exegesis and expansion of the Lukan pericope. Or perhaps it responds to Luke’s gospel by turning it into Christmas. If the hymn was instead chanted on Christmas day, after a reading from Matthew, the performance effected and reinforced the harmonization of the two texts. When Romanos deviated from the intertext of the proximate lection, harmonization was not a form of fictionalization in the sense of a deviation from the truth of what happened or what could be known; rather it was a movement toward the truth.

3

Marking Fictionality

If the plot of the harlot’s story was in essence non-fiction, regardless of how far it may seem to have strayed from the lectionary reading, Romanos’ approach to the harlot’s thoughts and speech employs standard markers of fictionalization. Late ancient authors and their audiences understood the departure into a different sort of creativity when a text addressed a subject’s interiority, her mental actions and reactions.27 Romanos signals precisely this when he expresses his desire and then enters the woman’s mind. He presents her interior speech as the result of an investigation, but his own self-referential cue establishes both that this is the work of the author and that it is hypothetical. We find an even clearer marker of Romanos’ intent to communicate to his audience that he is crossing a boundary into fictionalization in other hymns. On the Samaritan Woman explores the story in John 4:4–42 where Jesus encounters a woman drawing water at a well and asks her for a drink. Romanos extends the

25

26 27

Tarchnischvili (1959: 1.9, 13–14; lections 5, 30). A tenth-century witness (Sinai Georgian 37, dated 982), assigns both readings to the Feast of the Nativity (Tarchnischvili 1960: 92, lection 9). The Armenian lectionary, which follows an older tradition in which Christ’s birth is celebrated on Epiphany assigns Matt. 2:1–12 to this celebration (Renoux 1971: 2.215; see also Renoux 1969: 2.75–78). Renoux (1969: 154–155, 158–159). De Temmerman (2016: 4).

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gospel’s richly allusive dialogue and its theological double entendres to ponder the woman’s own understanding. Late in the hymn, after conversations about living water and the identity of the Messiah, Romanos marks a slippage from an inventive treatment of the historicity of the conversation as recorded in the gospels to the fictionality of interiority: When the holy woman understood the dignity of the Saviour from what had been revealed, she longed even more to discover what and who was the one at the well and perhaps was in the grip, not unreasonably, of thoughts like these (καὶ τάχα τοῖς τοιούτοις συνείχετο εἰκότως ἐνθυμήμασιν). (15.1–4; 69) Romanos then embarks on an interior monologue in which the Samaritan woman ponders the identity of Christ, modelling for the congregation appropriate trajectories for theological reflection.28 The abverbs τάχα, ‘perhaps’, and εἰκότως, ‘suitably; reasonably’, indicate a boundary for fictionalization. They qualify the content of the women’s musing as something other than hard truth. In On the Hemorrhaging Woman Romanos offers similar markers to highlight his speculations about interior speech. When she approaches Christ intending to touch the hem of his garment, the poet introduces her thoughts thus: ‘Most likely (εἰκός) the bleeding woman not only was reasoning [in this way] but said to herself’ (12.5.1). And later when the crowd jeers at her for having touched Jesus’ garment in her state of ritual impurity, he writes, ‘the bleeding woman, perhaps (τάχα), spoke such speeches to those who wanted to scare her away’ (12.12.1). By qualifying his speculations, Romanos demonstrates an interest in clarifying for himself and for his audience a difference between historicized events and fictive thoughts. Romanos also uses τάχα to introduce hypothetical audible speech. In On Doubting Thomas, he reconstructs the sceptical disciple’s response to the rest of his cohort who claim to have encountered the risen Christ: But Thomas said, perhaps (τάχα), to them ‘You have seen?’ (Hymns 30.4.8) In the following two stanzas, Romanos furnishes Thomas with a fitting speech, the substance of which is consistent with the drama of the biblical event: ‘How shall I be able to believe you, for I hear unbelievable words?’ (30.6.1). And in

28

Krueger (2014: 49).

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On the Ascension, Romanos introduces three stanzas of the grief-stricken disciples’ imagined speech, when they had just learned that Jesus would be leaving them: Perhaps (τάχα) they wept and groaning deeply, said to the teacher, ‘Are you leaving us, O Compassionate? Parting from those who love you?’ (Hymns 32.4.3)29 Although Romanos provides no marker to suggest he is speculating—or wants to be understood to be speculating—about whether the woman who anoints Jesus in On the Harlot is a sinner, or indeed a prostitute, he signals frequently that he is entering into fictionalization when inventing speech. This accords with rhetorical practice, but it also throws into higher relief the degree to which many of the unmarked but non-biblical elements of the story are neither speculative nor fictional.

4

The Truth of the Liturgical Tradition

While Romanos’ hymns functioned in performance in part as responses to lections, his compositions participated in a more complex intertextual environment. A return to the hymn On the Harlot and the figure of the myrrh-seller raises additional questions about conceptions of truth that the poet and congregation might share. Susan Harvey (2002) has placed Romanos’ On the Harlot within a rich corpus of sermons and hymns composed on this theme between the fourth and the sixth centuries (and perhaps beyond) primarily in Syriac by authors including Ephrem the Syrian and Jacob of Serugh. At least one of these sermons, attributed problematically to Ephrem, was significantly reworked in a Greek version.30 Later hagiographical accounts relate that Romanos was born in Emesa and educated in Beirut before he arrived in Constantinople. Because of this narrative and because of numerous parallels between his works and those of Syriac authors, scholars have debated the degree of Romanos’ familiar-

29

30

Τάχα could also mean ‘speedily’, and in this instance, Lash (1995: 197) translates it as ‘at once’. But given its place introducing hypothetical discourse elsewhere in the corpus, I suspect Romanos here also means ‘perhaps’. For the Syriac version, see Sermon 4 in Beck (1970: 78–91); transl. NPNF (13.336–341). For the Greek, see Ephrem Graecus, On the Sinful Woman, ed. Phrantzoles (1998 7: 86–111). For doubts about Ephrem the Syrian’s authorship, see Brock (1987: 142).

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ity with and dependence on Syriac sources.31 His debt to extant Greek sermons, including this one On the Sinful Woman counted among the corpus of Ephrem Graecus, is clear. Moreover, he was not the only early Byzantine author to work from this sermon, as a sermon assigned to Ps.-Chrysostom (PG 59.531– 536) attests. Dating this inflorescence of falsely attributed sermon literature is difficult, although most scholars point to the later fifth century and the sixth century as a period of classic sermon production.32 At some point, such homilies were collected in canonical cycles assigned to be read over the course of the liturgical year after the lection during the Divine Liturgy. Romanos’ own hymns were similarly assigned to the previous evening’s Night Vigil, an arrangement reflected in the Middle Byzantine service books that contain them.33 This raises the possibility not only that Romanos drew on Ephrem Graecus when composing his hymn On the Harlot, but that this sermon (or one closely related to it) would have been read in the same church the next day. An enthusiastic and attentive church goer might appreciate Romanos’ adaptation of the sermon, or at least note the difference of his hymn’s treatment of the story from that of the homilists, but only in retrospect, recalling things that the hymnographer had done with the harlot that the homilist had not. Previous homilies and hymns offered intertexts for Romanos’ composition beyond the harmonization that emerged from the gospels. Kevin Kalish (2016, 2022) has drawn attention to the invention of the myrrh-seller locating him in a Syriac memre hymn attributed (probably accurately) to Ephrem the Syrian and likely composed in the fourth century and in the Greek homily attributed to Ephrem Graecus, both probably—although not certainly—earlier then Romanos’ composition. The Greek Ephrem homily shares with Romanos’ composition an interesting detail: Mary’s own self-acknowledgement of the ‘filth (βόρβορος)’ of her sinfulness. This peculiar term is the basis for Romanos’ hymn’s refrain: ‘the filth of my deeds’. In casting the myrrh-seller and crafting the harlot’s visit to his shop, Romanos was operating within an established story world. While surely aware that his narrative departed from the biblical lection in Matthew and from its confla-

31

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Among those arguing for a high level of dependence on Syriac sources, see Petersen (1985a and 1985b); Papoutsakis (2007). Grosdidier de Matons (1977: 16–27) argued for little direct influence from Syriac hymnography and sermons. Brock (1985 and 1989) suggested a more fluid environment where ideas and images could flow regardless of direct literary borrowing. Cunningham (1996); Allen (1996). Arentzen & Krueger (2016); Krueger (2024).

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tion with the sinful woman of Luke 7:36–50, he was also aware that his elaboration of the story followed a previously extant narrative trajectory. Within this context, to what extent is the purveyor of perfume fictional? His speeches are new, but his scenario is inherited. While he does not derive directly from the scriptural intertext, he already exists in the reality of liturgical observance. He does not fit the criteria for being a ‘purely fictional character’, one who ‘does not exist before [his] invention in a specific literary work’.34 He has a broad context outside Romanos’ text. To what extent would his audience understand the poet to deviate from a previously known version of the story? While the first person to imagine the myrrh-seller engaged in fictionality, the episode thereupon became part of a convention, a narrative truth about which harmonization and liturgical experience had socialized a broad consensus in the minds of listeners. The story about the perfume seller qualifies to some significant extent as nonfictive, not merely because Romanos and his audience can reasonably assume that the harlot went shopping but because in the world of liturgical celebration, she already had. Of all of Romanos’ hymns, On the Harlot has perhaps received the most scholarly attention identifying other extant and related work in Syriac and Greek.35 In fact, in their introductions to each hymn, Grosdidier de Matons (1965–1981) and Carpenter (1970–1973) have identified late antique sermons related to many of Romanos’ hymns and have assumed that the dependence flows from prose to poetry. This sequence of composition is, however, by no means self-evident in every case and needs systematic treatment. Nevertheless, it is clear that Romanos composed in and contributed to an environment where the patterns for narrative elaboration on given biblical stories was already broadly entrenched. Romanos wrote within reliable contours and employed predictable elements. He engaged tradition as much as fictionality. Much of what deviates from scripture had already become true, reinforced by traditions of reading, preaching, and celebrating the sacred narratives. Only further research will reveal the extent and the limits of Romanos’ invention.

5

Fictionality, Exegesis, and the Communication of Truths

Scholarly understanding of Romanos’ authorial practice continues to evolve. I once described his method ‘to expound the biblical stories in the manner of

34 35

De Temmerman (2016: 8). Harvey (2002); Kalish (2016).

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midrash, reading the story by retelling the story, supplying additional detail in the process of interpretation, revealing the meaning of the narrative by supplementing it’.36 But what R.J. Schork described as Romanos’ ‘frequently midrashic mode of interpretation’,37 in fact, has more in common with Syriac Christian memre and medrosho and Jewish Aramaic and Hebrew piyyut. Much of the midrash that resembles Romanos’ work is homiletic; and Jewish and Christian hymns and homilies engage in similar techniques to expand and interpret biblical stories. That is, Romanos’ methods and techniques for constructing exegetical narrative are consistent with widespread late antique liturgics.38 Romanos uses fictionality to convey truth. The ostensibly fictionalized elements of the story—the interior monologues, the imagined dialogues, the extensions of the biblical story—are precisely the places where he engages in theological instruction, teaching his audience doctrine in metrical patterns and melody, with simple diction and startling juxtaposition.39 Of late ancient Syriac and Greek hymns and homilies on the harlot, Harvey observes, ‘[T]he method of exegesis lies in telling a story. Narrative itself—the playing out of the woman’s story—becomes the didactic vehicle rather than the explication of symbols, terms, or the gospel text’.40 When we look again at the Samaritan Woman’s thoughts, those that are marked as the author’s speculation, we discover that the thoughts themselves are not fictive at all. During her encounter with Christ she reasons through the paradox of the incarnation: ‘Is this God or man at whom I am looking? A being of heaven or of earth?’ (9.15.5). The audience already knows the answer, and in portraying her confusion Romanos employs dramatic irony to remind the congregation of the proper doctrine. A final example underscores the richness of Romanos’ use of fictionality, often in multiple layers, in his exegetical endeavour. In The Lament of the Mother of God, a dialogue between Christ and his mother Mary while he is on the way to the cross, Romanos employs an imagined dialogue so that Christ himself teaches the reason for the incarnation. Adam and Eve, as stand-ins for all humanity, are very sick; it must have been something they ate:

36 37 38 39 40

Krueger (2004: 160). Schork (1995: 5). For a comparative approach to Jewish and Christian hymnography in Late Antiquity, see Münz-Manor (2010); Lieber (2016). For a study of Romanos’ talent for theological instruction, see Gador-Whyte (2017). For the power of symbol and metaphor in Romanos, see Mulard (2016). Harvey (2002: 84).

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By intemperance, by gluttony Adam became ill and was borne down to the lowest hell. While Eve, who once taught him disorder, groans with him, for with him she is ill, that together they may learn to keep the physician’s order. (19.10.1–6; 147) Jesus will play the role of the good doctor and descend to Hell to make a house call: Be patient a little longer, Mother, and you will see how, like a physician (καθάπερ ἰατρός), I undress and reach the place where they lie and I treat their wounds cutting with the lance (λόγχη) their calluses and their scabs. And I take vinegar (ὄξoς), I apply it as astringent to the wound, when with the probe of the nails I have investigated the cut, I shall plug it with the cloak. And, with my cross as a splint, I shall make use of it, Mother, so that you may chant with understanding, ‘By suffering he has abolished suffering, my Son and my God’. (19.13; 148) Romanos rereads the crucifixion as a surgical procedure. The instruments of the passion, the lance, the vinegar, the nails, the cloak, and even the cross become salvific agents restoring humanity to health. The dialogue is fictional; its content, fanciful. The metaphor hinges on the double meaning of sōzō (σῴζω), both ‘to heal’ and ‘to save’. Elsewhere in the poem, Romanos has Christ say, ‘in this [flesh] I suffer (πάσχω), and in this [flesh] I save (σῴζω)’ (19.6.7). It is unclear to me whether this elegant and jarring conceit, this fictive recasting of Christ as a medical doctor to explain the operation of salvation, fits a definition of fictionality. The actual and the non-actual no longer remain distinct; diegetic narrative has combined them. Fictionality and the true story collapse into one.

6

Conclusion

In the liturgical hymns of Romanos the Melodist, the conception of truth and truthfulness is multilayered and complex. For this reason, the fictional is both

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elusive and ever present. His poetry combines scripture, tradition, and exegesis. Rhetorical markers indicate some departures into fictionality, especially in the case of interior monologue. Elsewhere Romanos slips into an imaginative exercise where his audience surely knows he is venturing. The liturgical environment always already provided a rich culture in which a long history of alternate tellings of stories with a scriptural basis had blurred the boundaries between intertexts and accepted realities. The lectionary initiated but no longer bounded the liturgical truth, the way that the liturgy’s participants knew the story.

Bibliography Primary Sources Aphthonios, Progymnasmata: Rabe, H. (ed.) 1926. Rhetores graeci 10 (Leipzig). Ephrem Graecus, On the Harlot: Phrantzoles, K.G. (ed.) 1998. Hosiou Ephraim tou Syrou Erga, Volume 7 (Thessaloniki), 86–111. Origen, On First Principles: Görgemanns, H. & Karpp, H. (eds.) 1976. Origenes vier Bücher von den Prinzipien (Darmstadt), 462–560, 668–764. Origen, Philokalia: Harl, M. & De Lange, N.R.M (eds.) 1983. Sur les Écritures: Philocalie, 1–20 et La lettre à Africanus sur l’histoire de Suzanne (Paris). Ps.-Ephrem, On the Sinful Woman: Beck, E. (ed.) 1970. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers, Sermones ii (Louvain), 78–91. Romanos the Melodist, Hymns: Maas, P. & Trypanis, C.A. (eds.) 1963. Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica: cantica genuina (Oxford). Romanos the Melodist, Hymns: Grosdidier de Matons, J. (ed.) 1965–1981. Romanos le Mélode: Hymnes, 5 vols. (Paris). Romanos the Melodist, Hymns: Lash, E. (transl.) 1995. On the Life of Christ: Kontakia (San Francisco). Romanos the Melodist, Hymns: Carpenter, M. (transl.) 1970–1973. Kontakia of Romanos, Byzantine Melodist, 2 vols. (Columbia, MO). Romanos the Melodist, Hymns: Schork, R.J. (transl.) 1995. Sacred Song from the Byzantine Pulpit: Romanos the Melodist (Gainesville).

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Secondary Sources Allen, P. 1996. ‘Severus of Antioch and the Homily: The End of the Beginning?’, in P. Allen & E. Jeffreys (eds.), The Sixth Century: End or Beginning (Brisbane), 163–175. Arentzen, T. 2017. The Virgin in Song: Mary and the Poetry of Romanos the Melodist (Philadelphia). Arentzen, T. & Krueger, D. 2016. ‘Romanos in Manuscript: Some Observations on the Patmos Kontakarion’, in B. Krsmanović, L. Milanović & B. Pavlović (eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Belgrade, 22–27 August 2016: Round Tables (Belgrade), 648–654. Brock, S. 1985. ‘Syriac and Greek Hymnography: Problems of Origin’, in E.A. Livingstone (ed.), Papers Presented to the Seventh International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford, Studia Patristica xvi (Berlin), 77–81. Brock, S. 1987. ‘Dramatic Dialogue Poems’, in H. Drijvers et al. (eds.), Symposium Syriacum iv (Rome), 135–147. Brock, S. 1989. ‘From Ephrem to Romanos’, in E.A. Livingstone (ed.), Studia Patristica xx (Louvain), 139–151 [repr. Aldershot 1999]. Crawford, M. 2015. ‘Ammonius of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea and the Origins of Gospels Scholarship’, NTS 61, 1–29. Cunningham, M. 1996. ‘The Sixth Century: A Turning Point for Byzantine Homiletics?’, in P. Allen & E. Jeffreys (eds.), The Sixth Century: End or Beginning (Brisbane), 176– 186. De Temmerman, K. 2016. ‘Ancient Biography and Formalities of Fiction’, in K. De Temmerman & K. Demoen (eds.), Writing Biography in Greece and Rome: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization (Cambridge), 3–25. Drake, S. 2013. Slandering the Jew: Sexuality and Difference in Early Christian Texts (Philadelphia). Eriksen, U.H. 2013. Drama in the Kontakia of Romanos the Melodist: A Narratological Analysis of Four Kontakia (Aarhus). [Ph.D. diss.] Eriksen, U.H. 2017. ‘Hymnography and Narratology’, in B. Krsmanović, L. Milanović & B. Pavlović (eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Belgrade, 22–27 August 2016: Round Tables (Belgrade), 661–665. Gador-Whyte, S. 2017. Theology and Poetry in Early Byzantium: The Kontakia of Romanos the Melodist (Cambridge). Getcha, J. 2012. The Typikon Decoded: An Explanation of Byzantine Liturgical Practice. Transl. by P. Meyendorff (Yonkers, NY). Grosdidier de Matons, J. 1977. Romanos le Mélode et les origines de la poésie religieuse à Byzance (Paris). Harvey, S.A. 2002. ‘Why the Perfume Mattered: The Sinful Woman in Syriac Exegetical Tradition’, in P. Blowers et al. (eds.), In Dominico Eloquio/ In Lordly Eloquence: Essays on Patristic Exegesis in Honor of Robert Louis Wilken (Grand Rapids, MI), 69–89.

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Kalish, K.J. 2016. ‘The Sinful Woman in Homilies and Hymns’, in B. Krsmanović, L. Milanović, & B. Pavlović (eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Belgrade, 22–27 August 2016: Round Tables (Belgrade), 666–670. Kalish, K.J. 2022. She Who Loved Much: The Sinful Woman in Saint Ephrem the Syrian and the Orthodox Tradition (Jordanville). Kennedy, G.A. 2003. Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta). Koder, J. 2008. ‘Imperial Propaganda in the Kontakia of Romanos the Melode’, DOP 62, 275–291. Koder, J. 1997–1999. ‘Romanos Melodos und sein Publikum: Überlegungen zur Beeinflussung des kirchlichen Auditoriums durch das Kontakion’, Anzeiger der philos.histor. Klasse 134, 63–94. Krueger, D. 2004. Writing and Holiness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East (Philadelphia). Krueger, D. 2014. Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium (Philadelphia). Krueger, D. 2024. ‘The Ninth-Century Kontakarion as Evidence for Festive Practice and the Liturgical Calendar in Sixth- And Seventh-Century Constantinople’, in S. Alexopoulos & H. Buchinger (eds.), Towards the Prehistory of the Byzantine Liturgical Year: Festal Homilies and Festal Liturgies in Late Antique Constantinople (Münster). Lieber, L. 2016. ‘On the Road with the Mater Dolorosa: An Exploration of Mother-Son Discourse Performance’, JECS 24, 265–291. Mateos, J. 1962–1963. Le typicon de la Grande Église, 2 vols. (Rome). Mulard, C. 2016. La pensée symbolique de Romanos le Mélode (Turnhout). Münz-Manor, O. 2010. ‘Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East: A Comparative Approach’, JAJ 1, 336–361. Münz-Manor, O. & Arentzen, T. 2019. ‘Soundscapes of Salvation’, SLA 3, 36–55. Nielsen H.S., Phelan, J. & Walsh, R. 2015. ‘Ten Theses about Fictionality’, Narrative 23, 61–73. Papoutsakis, M. 2007. ‘The Making of a Syriac Fable: From Ephrem to Romanos’, Muséon 120, 29–75. Parker, D.C. 2008. An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and their Texts (Cambridge). Petersen, W. 1985a. The Diatessaron and Ephrem Syrus as Sources of Romanos the Melodist (Louvain). Petersen, W. 1985b. ‘The Dependence of Romanos the Melodist upon the Syriac Ephrem: Its Importance for the Origin of the Kontakion’, VChr 29, 171–187. Petersen, W. 1994. Tatian’s Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance and History in Scholarship (Leiden).

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Renoux, A. 1969–1971. Le codex arménien Jérusalem 121, 2 vols. (Turnhout). Tanner, K.E. 1987. ‘Theology and the Plain Sense’, in G. Green (ed.), Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation (Philadelphia), 59–78. Tarchnischvili, M. 1959–1960. Le grand lectionnaire de l’église de Jérusalem (ve-viiie siècle), 4 vols. (Louvain).

chapter 12

Modelling Prophets: Alexander the Great as a Proto-Sufi Saint-King in Thaʿlabi’s Lives of the Prophets Ghazzal Dabiri

In one of the more enigmatic passages of the Qurʾān (18:83–101), God tells the prophet Muhammad that he will be asked about Dhu al-Qarnayn (‘the twohorned one’).1,2 Herein follows a synopsis of what Muhammad is to say when asked: Dhu al-Qarnayn was called upon by God, and he followed a way. He travelled as far west and then as far east. In the west, he was given a mandate to deal with the people as he willed. He punished those who were not good and was merciful to those who were. In the east, he encountered a people with no shelter from the blazing sun. Then he came to a mountain pass where a people, who did not understand his speech, asked him to build a wall to keep the chaotic forces of Gog and Magog at bay. Dhu al-Qarnayn built the wall and informed the residents that it would stand only until Judgement Day as a covenant from God. These verses suggest that Muhammad will be tested by someone (a group?) who presumably questions his prophethood.3 They are thus offered as a proof

1 I would like to thank the European Research Council (grant nº 337344) and Ghent University for the time and space to research and write this article. I would like to thank the editors of the volume for inviting me to participate. I also would like to express my gratitude to Joel Walker who read a preliminary draft of the paper for the workshop. I owe a debt of great gratitude to Maarten De Backer, a librarian at Ghent University who, with immense patience, gathered from far and wide the sources used in this chapter. Where would any of us be without dedicated librarians? 2 A note about the system of transliteration used in this chapter: I have adopted the romanization tables by the Library of Congress for Arabic and Persian with some modifications for the sake of simplicity. The initial ‘al-’ for personal names and all diacritical marks are omitted except for the long vowel ā. 3 Peppered throughout the Qurʾān are phrases about those who doubt Muhammad’s claim to prophethood. As this is a Meccan sura, the doubters could be members of his own tribe as well as other groups since Mecca was a major trading city. Exegetes understand this verse similarly: Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (702–767) interprets this passage as a response to the Meccans, disbelievers from his own tribe (1983: 599). Tabari (838–923) notes that it was either the Meccans or a group from among the People of the Book, meaning Jews and Christians

© Ghazzal Dabiri, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004685758_013

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or a sign. As later readers/hearers of the Qurʾān, we are put in the position of Muhammad’s immediate audience. We are invited to imagine that Muhammad will (and did) encounter this person/group as we quickly recognize the obvious: the doubters will test the prophet on knowledge that is not common.4 In fact, it is so obscure that the prophet has to receive the answer in a revelation.5 The centuries fold upon one another as we continue to read, collapsing time, and we learn of the revelation just as his audience did. From then on and for all posterity, Dhu al-Qarnayn’s activities are known. But no one apparently (except maybe the doubters) is privileged enough to know precisely who Dhu al-Qarnayn was, as the Qurʾān tells us nothing of his identity.6 If we were to go by one of the earliest and best-known Qurʾānic commentaries, specifically the exegesis by one of Muhammad’s cousins and companions, Ibn ʿAbbās (619–687),7 it might seem that there was no pressing concern regarding Dhu al-Qarnayn’s given name or even the meaning of his epithet—dhu means to possess something and qarn can mean ‘horn’, ‘ray’, and even ‘era’.8 Some later commentators show some concern but (for lack of evidence?) train their focus on Dhu al-Qarnayn’s status. Specifically, their concern is centred on whether or not he was a king or a prophet, likely because many exemplary figures in the Qurʾān are either one or the other, with a special, third category of individuals who are ruler-prophets.9 For example, Māwardi (974–1058), the

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(2001: v. 15, 368). Ibn Kathir (2009: 189), a fourteenth-century commentator, doubles down and notes that the disbelievers ‘of Mecca asked the People of the Book for something with which to test the prophet’. (Translation is mine.) For more on allusions to figures and narratives in the Qurʾān and audience reception, see Lassner (1996: 36–46) and Neuwirth (1998). See Chism (2016: 54–62) for a perceptive analysis of this revelation and for its background. See Tottoli (2002: 17–70) for the Qurʾān’s general lack of concern for precise identifications. Ibn ʿAbbās and Firuzābādi (1992: 317). The suffix -ayn represents the dual in the genitive case. In the text under discussion here, the Lives of the Prophets, a summary of Islamic exegetical tradition on the meaning of dhu al-qarnayn in the context of Alexander is provided: he ruled over both his home and Persia; he came from nobility on both sides of his family; in a dream he had grasped at two rays [qarnayn] of the sun, which was interpreted to mean that he would rule over both the East and the West; on his forehead he had something similar to two horns of flesh; he had two beautiful locks of hair, and a lock of hair was called a horn (Thaʿlabi 2002b: 606 / 1994: 359– 360). On Alexander’s horns, see Anderson (1927). Moses, as is well known, is associated with horns due to the translation of the Hebrew word qaran—horn, ray of light—which appears in the passage in Exodus when Moses descends from Mt. Sinai. For the identification of Dhu al-Qarnayn with Alexander and Moses in early Islamic exegesis, see Wheeler (1998) and Tesei (2015). See below for more on what this identification means for Thaʿlabi’s version. In the Islamic tradition, most of the major figures of the Bible, such as Joseph and Job, are considered prophets. There is also a distinction between prophets and messengers. The

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famous Baghdadi judge who worked just outside Nishapur for a time, cites immediately a report by Muhammad’s cousin, son-in-law, and the fourth caliph, ʿAli ibn Abi Tālib (601–661), in which the latter states that Dhu alQarnayn was neither a prophet nor a king.10 The exegetical work by the Hanafi theologian from Samarqand, Māturidi (853–944), meanwhile, offers an excellent example of the contrasting opinions in circulation: in addition to the report by ʿAli, he states that some claim Dhu al-Qarnayn was a king and others claim that he was a prophet.11 Curiosity, however, seems to have only increased over time. Reading the reports compiled by others, it becomes demonstrably clear that among medieval scholars and historians there were not only those who understood Dhu al-Qarnayn as a king and/or a prophet but who also had a keen interest in the early reports which identified him as none other than Alexander the Great.12 This is understandable; in his brief appearance in the Qurʾān, Dhu al-Qarnayn is like an ideal-ruler type: he is mandated to be an arbitrator, he restores justice by meting out appropriate rewards and punishments, he builds necessary infrastructure, and protects the people from the chaos of outside (malignant) forces. Then there is the matter of his travels across the known world. The association with Alexander the Great, who travelled, was a builder and was Aristotle’s student (i.e., wise and just), and ruled across vast territories, therefore, is possible and even plausible.13 Thus, for instance, Thaʿlabi (d. c. 1036), the influential Nishapurian exegete,14 in interpreting verse 18:83, immediately notes that Dhu

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messengers (Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad) bring a new message from God while prophets are marked for their closeness to God and for upholding the current message among their respective peoples. In the category of ruler-prophets, a designation of modern Western scholarship, are figures such as David and Solomon. For a general survey and definition of prophets in Islamic literature, see Tottoli (2002). Māwardi (2012: v. 3, 337). Māturidi (2005: 204). ‘That point’ is presumably the place of the setting of the sun, his first destination. For an overview of the reception of the Ps.-Callisthenes and Alexander romance in early Islamic histories, see Voigt (2016). On how Dhu al-Qarnayn came to be identified as Alexander the Great, see Nöldeke (1890); van Bladel (2007a and b); Doufikar-Aerts (2010); Tesei (2013/2014 and 2015); and Moening (2016) and the sources therein. Doufikar-Aerts (2019: 9–11) offers a useful categorization of the Arabic Alexander tradition (Ps.-Callisthenes traditions), Arabic Alexander wisdom tradition (Alexander as Aristotle’s student), and the Dhu al-Qarnayn tradition (tales of the prophet), which is equally relevant for the Persian tradition. As Saleh notes (2004: 35–49), even though Thaʿlabi’s exegetical work would have a profound and lasting influence on Islamic exegesis, its standing in the community eventually waned due to his inclusion of materials from mystics and Shiʿites.

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al-Qarnayn was a prophet for being called by God to a mission.15 In connection with verse 18:84, he states that the latter was a king, since he was provided for by God, thus implicitly identifying him in that selective group of ruler-prophets.16 Then, at verse 18:94, which deals with the building of the wall, Thaʿlabi makes the link between Alexander and Dhu al-Qarnayn.17 Interestingly, however, Thaʿlabi reserves a detailed exploration of Dhu alQarnayn’s identity as Alexander for his other major work, the Lives of the Prophets (henceforth Lives).18 Indeed, in the Lives, Thaʿlabi expends considerable time and energy intertwining Alexander’s itinerary with the Qurʾānic account of Dhu al-Qarnayn’s activities to firmly establish Dhu al-Qarnayn’s status as a prophet and king of multiple heritages—biblical, Greek, and Persian.19 But, in a reversal of his exegetical work, he immediately makes the connection between Dhu al-Qarnayn and Alexander while slowly building up to his opinion that Dhu al-Qarnayn was both a king and a prophet. By intertwining their respective itineraries, Thaʿlabi produces what Saleh terms ‘fictive narrative’—the addition of extra-exegetical narratives that have no basis in the verses being explained.20 Though Saleh coined the term for Thaʿlabi’s exegetical work, with some adjustment, this is also applicable to the Lives. The Lives certainly does not include all the Qurʾānic verses related to Dhu al-Qarnayn. Nevertheless, they foreground and undergird the tale.21 In 15 16 17 18

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And he continues with a notice on the meaning of his nickname, which follows nearly what he reports in the Lives (cf. note 8 above). Thaʿlabi (2002a: 190). Thaʿlabi (ibid.: 194). This is the title Brinner chose for his translation. The full title in Arabic is ʿArāʾis al-majālis fi qisas al-anbiyāʾ (The Brides of Sessions about the Tales of the Prophets). For an analysis of Thaʿlabi’s version of these tales against the wider tradition, see Brinner’s introduction to his translation and Tottoli (2002: 146–151). In the Persian Alexander tradition, unbeknownst to both rulers, Alexander and Darius iii are half-brothers. ‘Persian Alexander variant’, here, refers not to language of composition, especially since Thaʿlabi’s text is in Arabic; it is in reference to Alexander’s supposed patrilineal descent whereby he is the son of the Persian king, Darius and the grandson of Philip. For a summary of Alexander the Great in the later medieval Persian (in reference to language) tradition, see Southgate (1977) and Rubanovich (2016), and for the contesting views (destroyer of the Iranian empire/model-adventurer king of Iranian descent) of Alexander the Great in the Iranian tradition, see Wiesehöfer (2011: 124–132) and Shayegan (2011: 292– 307). See Abel (1955: 55–89); Southgate (1977); Doufikar-Aerts (2010); and Zuwiyya (2011) for generalized discussions on the relationships between the Arabic and Persian Alexander romances. Abel’s study is the most comprehensive analysis of Thaʿlabi’s version as far as I was aware at the time of writing. Saleh (2004: 161). Interestingly, we do not find Alexander’s narrative interwoven with Dhu al-Qarnayn’s itinerary in Thaʿlabi’s exegesis. See below for more.

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effect, then, the Lives creates a richly layered imaginative world about Dhu alQarnayn/Alexander for an informed audience as similarities are recognized and differences are reconciled. In light of the aims of the present volume, questions arise when we consider the intertwining of the Qurʾānic account of Dhu al-Qarnayn and Alexander’s tale: was Alexander’s tale considered khurāfāt (fantastical tales, fiction)? Or did it not matter? These two questions resist easy answers as attitudes toward khurāfāt were nuanced, complex, and even paradoxical in medieval Islamicate society.22 On the one hand, ancient Persian and Greek tales and fables were known as khurāfāt and were dismissed or described disparagingly in certain scholarly circles. On the other hand, and as Drory masterfully illustrated,23 Muhammad himself may have set important precedents for the acceptance of khurāfāt. Moreover, Alexander was a well-known ruler from antiquity who was doubly famous for being Aristotle’s student. And he was clearly identified as Dhu al-Qarnayn by some of the most famous historians and exegetes. With his exegetical work generally classified as ‘encyclopaedic’,24 Thaʿlabi’s inclusion of Alexander’s tale in the voluminous Lives may be understood as equally paying due diligence. However, Thaʿlabi’s version of Alexander’s tale is quite truncated compared to other tales within the work as well as older and contemporary versions of Alexander’s tale in circulation. Significantly, his version does not include any of the details of Alexander’s adventures, including the (in)famous meetings with the pseudo-historical and fantastical rulers and peoples of the various lands he visits. Since Thaʿlabi’s Lives is a text that purports to be true and was likely received as such, as it is a contiguous history of prophets from Adam to Jesus, he may not have considered the basic outlines, at least, of Alexander’s tale as khurāfāt.25 Yet, as we will see below, Thaʿlabi impor-

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See Bonebakker (1992) for more on medieval attitudes toward the fantastical and supernatural. Drory (1994: 147–157). Saleh (2004: 17–19). Brinner (2002: xi) states in his introduction: ‘Its title, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, is the usual name of the Islamic literary genre that it represents, usually translated as tales, stories, or legends of the prophets. The English title for this book, Lives of the Prophets, was chosen primarily to distinguish it from other works of the same genre, but also to indicate that to many Muslims these are not mere tales or legends but actual historical accounts, relating what is known about the lives of the prophets. Whatever its name, this is one of the most important works in Arabic in this genre’. For more on the genre, refer to Nagel (2012). Similarly, Doufikar-Aerts (2016: 10) argues that the deeds of Alexander-Dhu al-Qarnayn were generally regarded as historical fact.

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ted some of the standards of authenticity and veracity that were first developed for the biographies of Muhammad, hadith (sayings of the prophet and his companions), and exegesis to establish the veracity of his version.26 And he also deployed tropes associated with literary texts ‘that do not pretend to be historical at all’.27 Though we will have occasion to return to the topic further on, it should be noted briefly here that the inclusion of such techniques and tropes were acceptable in adab (belles-lettres) literature, accordingly, as long as the narrative as a whole imparted meaning.28 And, indeed, the Lives is imbued with multiple layers of meaning: the Lives is about faith and salvation. It is also deeply ontological as it offers lessons on living a moral life. In addition, it offers Islamicized accounts of established ruler-prophets, such as Saul, David, and Solomon; hence, it is also an edifying work on the appropriate conduct of rulers leading a community of believers. Moreover, Thaʿlabi presents Alexander’s travel into the land of darkness as a parable told by none other than ʿAli, who was generally considered to possess vast sums of knowledge, and includes a judgment by Muhammad. Plausibility in the Dhu al-Qarnayn-isAlexander the Great paradigm, then, serves ‘as a proxy for truth-value’ in the Lives.29 As such, the questions that this chapter explores are: how, precisely, is the ‘Persian Alexander variant’ interwoven with the Dhu al-Qarnayn narrative in the Lives? And what meaning is ascribed to the narrative, which at every turn seems to be devoted to establishing his status as a king and prophet?30 The chapter first briefly explores the authenticating strategies and the tropes used across medieval Islamicate adab literature. This is to provide the appropriate context for Thaʿlabi’s Lives. Then, it will delve into how they are deployed in the construction of Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander as a ruler-prophet with a

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Thaʿlabi uses the same techniques for the majority of his work as well. Given the limits of time and space, the focus is on Alexander the Great’s tale, which also serves as one of many great bridges between East and West. For a general introduction to the development of hadith and exegetical literature in early Islam, see Robson (2012) and Rippin (2012). Kennedy (2005: xv). Meisami (2005: 152) astutely notes that ‘when medieval Islamicate historians, like their European counterparts, employed the stylistic and rhetorical techniques available to them and which they deemed effective and appropriate to their purpose, they were creating, not fiction, but meaning’. Cooperson (2005: 70). Zuwiyya (2011) briefly considers the characterization of Alexander/Dhu al-Qarnayn in Arabic texts as a means of dealing with the ambiguity of his status (king or prophet, both or neither). Here, we will explore the issue in detail in Thaʿlabi’s version.

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focus on Thaʿlabi’s selection of reports. A comparison of the reports of other popular and local versions, which will accompany the analyses, will help us better appreciate Thaʿlabi’s careful choice and organization of reports and techniques, and the meaning underlying them.31 Finally, this chapter discusses Moses and Solomon as models, paying attention to characterization, to highlight how Thaʿlabi views Dhu al-Qarnayn specifically as a fallible ruler-prophet. Here, I offer a note about how the term ‘model’ is understood and used in this chapter. First, it is in keeping with a variety of medieval Islamicate popular ethics literature which feature tales of Sufi saints, kings, prophets, viziers, and common folk as models of good conduct.32 Second, the term ‘model/modelling’, as it is understood in the social sciences, namely, using techniques to elicit certain behaviours, is used. Thus, I take the philologists’ approach as well and take qassa (to relate/narrate), the root word for qisah (tale, narrative), with one of its other meanings, namely, ‘following in the tracks of someone’. We may then, as has been done before, understand the title, and the entire genre, qisas al-anbiyāʾ (tales of the prophets; cf. note 25), as ‘following in the tracks of the prophets’. As I hope to demonstrate below, Thaʿlabi has 1) taken the essential characteristics of Moses, a messenger whose leadership and status as prince make him a ruler-prophet type, and Solomon, a fallible ruler-prophet, and 2) used various techniques and existing versions of the Alexander tale to shape his portrait of Dhu al-Qarnayn. The combination, including the intertwining of his Greco-Iranian heritage and prophetic genealogy, results in the affirmation that Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander is a fallible ruler-prophet along several well-established fronts.33 One last issue that should be raised before turning to our analyses is the choice to focus on Thaʿlabi’s Lives in a volume dedicated primarily to hagiographies. Like the vast majority of medieval Islamicate literature, the Lives adopts several generic stances. For instance, in its compilation and organization of materials from creation to Jesus, it adopts the universal-historical stance. In its detailed portraits of the prophets, it adopts the biographic. As a collection of edifying tales, it takes on the characteristics of popular practical

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These are Balʿami’s (d. c. 992–997) Tārikhnāmah (Book of History), which is a translation and adaption of Tabari’s Taʾrikh, Thaʿālibi’s (961–1038) Ghurar al-mulūk (The Splendor of Kings), which is also an adaptation of the latter, and Firdawsī’s (c. 940–c. 1020) Shāhnāmah. The works by Firdawsī, Tabari and Balʿami are of course well-known with the former two being among the most influential. Sufism is the predominant form of Islamic mysticism. See Chittick (2005) for an introduction and overview. Alexander’s multiple-heritage is discussed below.

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ethics. Yet, in its inclusion of Saint George, Khidr,34 and Luqmān the Wise,35 and in its treatment of Alexander the Great/Dhu al-Qarnayn, it evokes the hagiographical stance, thus situating us within the aims of the present volume.36 For indeed, in the Lives, Thaʿlabi has made use of the reports which claim that Alexander/Dhu al-Qarnayn is the descendant of the prophet, Abraham, with an emphasis on the latter’s epithet, God’s friend. God’s friend, unlike dhu al-qarnayn, is quite a well-known epithet. It is so well-known in fact, that Sufi saints, who are imbued with an innate charisma and propensity for being a lover of the divine and strive to model their conduct after the prophets, are known as God’s friends. Thaʿlabi’s Alexander/Dhu al-Qarnayn is structured similarly to the claims of Sufi masters evident in a wide variety of contexts; he is a descendent of prophets (Abraham) and models them (Moses and Solomon) in behaviour and strives to attain communion with the divine on his terms (see below). Thus, in addition to a ruler-prophet, this chapter argues that Thaʿlabi’s Alexander/Dhu al-Qarnayn may be considered a fallible Sufi ruler-prophet type as well.37

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To fully appreciate Thaʿlabi’s narrative gymnasium in establishing Dhu alQarnayn/Alexander’s multivalent status, it behoves us to briefly discuss the

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Khidr is an interesting liminal figure. Saint-like and prophet-like, he is also a spiritual guide to saints (God’s friends) and, as will be discussed below, to Alexander and Moses. See Omar (2010) for more. Technically, Luqmān is not a saint, prophet, or ruler. He appears in the Qurʾān and later Islamic literature as a wise figure. In the Lives, he is the only one able to turn down the burden of God’s command to be a ruler or ruler-prophet because he wisely and eloquently explains that he would rather not sin, and all kings sin (Thaʿlabi 2002b: 586–587 / 1994: 348). See the last section for more on the burden of prophethood. Cooperson (2005: 69) makes the astute observation that ‘[i]n early Christian writings, hagiographers refer to their compositions as diegesis or diegema, terms roughly equivalent to the Arabic khabar or akhbār [reports]’. Even though there are no verified eyewitness reports (in its most literal meaning) to either Dhu al-Qarnayn’s or Alexander’s activities, Thaʿlabi leverages a wide variety of reports to construct his portrait of Dhu alQarnayn/Alexander, thus, evoking the biographical/hagiographical on another level. In making this suggestion, it is not my intent to claim Thaʿlabi as a Sufi or to qualify his work as belonging to any of the genres of Sufi literature. For an overview of the debate regarding Thaʿlabi’s supposed Sufism because of his engagement with Sufi hermeneutics, see Saleh (2014: 53–66). For the narrative construction of ideal Sufi rulers in hagiographical type texts, see Dabiri (2018 and 2019) and Lingwood (2013).

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governing criteria and the circumstances from which authenticating strategies arose. This will allow us to better appreciate how Thaʿlabi employed these strategies while incorporating tropes commonly associated with works that do not purport to be true. We first turn to the Qurʾān, which plays an important role not only in the l/Lives of Muslims but also in Thaʿlabi’s Lives—as it both foregrounds and ornaments the latter. The Qurʾān itself makes many references to pre-Islamic Arab history and the dynamic socio-religious late antique scene that the Muslims were intricately a part of. These references drove certain members of the early Muslim community to research, collect, and authenticate a vast trove of oral and written materials. They methodically researched obscure terms in the Qurʾān and wrote important commentaries and documented Muhammad’s life in relation to revelation. The Qurʾān also prescribes certain laws. Since the Qurʾān, by turns, offers the universal view of history and the particular (Muhammad’s role in that history), the answers to the everexpanding middle ground—questions of how to live in the world as a Muslim on a day-to-day basis—became a major preoccupation in the formative years. After Muhammad’s death and with the expansion of the community into distant regions, it became a major imperative to collect reports of his sayings and deeds, what is known as prophetic hadith.38 As was perhaps bound to happen, inaccurate and spurious sayings attributed to the prophet and his companions were also circulating or became incorporated into reliable accounts. By the end of the seventh century, a critical approach to and study of the chains of transmission (isnād) were recognized as an immediate necessity. The governing principle behind the system that emerged—ʿilm al-rijāl (lit. the science of men)—was to have first-hand accounts of events transmitted by reliable figures. Each transmitter down the chain was also subjected to a rigorous study of their life and character to determine if they were reliable transmitters or not. Interestingly, for our purposes, the application of hadith-style reporting was adopted into Qurʾānic exegesis, historiography, biography, and other adab literature, including by Thaʿlabi in his Lives.39 Throughout the Lives, Thaʿlabi indeed makes extensive use of exegeses and prophetic hadith from numerous authoritative sources. He also relies on ijmāʿ (‘general consensus’ often noted by ‘it is said’ or ‘scholars say’ types of phra-

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For the canonization (and its complexities) of the two most influential collections of hadiths, see Brown (2011: 3–6), especially for the importance of Nishapur in this process during Thaʿlabi’s time. For Thaʿlabi’s methodology in his exegetical work, see Saleh (2004).

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ses).40 We also come across a number of prominent examples of story-telling techniques which abound in early Islamic adab and pietistic literature. We may list some of the more prominent techniques featured in these literatures and the Lives: objects—for instance, the way prophetic objects (Moses’ staff, Solomon’s signet, Alexander’s rocks) are understood and featured;41 space—an example is the way space is nominally depicted in the prophetic chapter (Dhu al-Qarnayn’s travels east and west) versus the comparatively rich depiction of the land of darkness where the water of life is located;42 ‘selecting one’s materials’;43 ‘embellishments with figurative language’;44 focusees—‘individuals serving as a focus for the attribution of narratives’;45 recasting or tinkering with narratives of historical persons for dramatic effect—for instance, including information (what was said, thought, or done) regarding extra-spatial characters; and elusiveness—use of phrases such as the ubiquitous distancing phrase, ‘but God knows best’, to either cast doubt on the veracity of an account or event or to acknowledge that which is unknowable, but possible.46 What emerges from studies on fictionality in the medieval period is that two aspects seem to govern the inclusion of such tropes and fantastical/supernatural47 elements in adab literatures (especially those that make use of authenticated reports). First, the tropes and elements in question already appear in the Qurʾān48 and/or in hadiths by the prophet and his companions. Second, as noted above, the tales impart meaning (religious, cultural, civic). As such, 40

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Ijmāʿ (unanimous consensus of the doctrine and legal opinion of recognized authorities) is a concept important in Islamic religious law. In other words, through consensus, scholars as a body hold valid claim to authority and authenticity. For an excellent analysis of the use of objects in ‘fictional’ and adab literature, see Beaumont (2005). See Bray (1998) for the implications of space/landscape in medieval geographical literature. For more on compiling and selecting narratives in medieval adab literature within the context of fictionalization, see Kilpatrick (1998) and Leder (2005). Meisami (2005: 152). Marzolph (1998: 123). Marzolph has other types of focusees in mind (such as the famous character Joha/Nasr al-Din whose stories offer invaluable insight into normative social mores and codes in amusing anecdotes that undercut those codes). We may use the term here with some adjustment: Dhu al-Qarnayn’s narrative is serving as the focus for the attribution of Alexander narratives. Refer to Günther (1998) for knowledge of private conversations and Hamori (1998) for tinkering in the context of other medieval Islamic texts and genres. See also Krueger’s contribution to this volume for tinkering with texts in the context of Christian hagiographies. The supernatural not only refers to creatures such as jinns, angels, and shaytāns (demons) but also to communing with the dead. Cf. note 60. Which features the aforementioned supernatural creatures.

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tinkering with reports for dramatic effect, embellishing them, choosing reports with only one witness to the event, and even unbelievable tales were more or less acceptable since they are imbued with meaning. Equally important for this latter, specifically for unbelievable tales or those with only one witness to the event, is that they uphold the contract on the soundness of reports developed over generations. In other words, narratives can indicate when they break or uphold the contract by destabilizing the report’s surface manifestations of veracity by including phrases such as ‘but God knows best’ or, conversely, by accentuating well-known figurative aspects.49 Here, we turn our attention specifically to the Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander narrative in the Lives. It should be recalled that earlier exegetical texts include reports from a wide variety of sources which offer conflicting opinions on Dhu al-Qarnayn’s status. Furthermore, many of these texts include the aforementioned report by ʿAli, who claimed that Dhu al-Qarnayn was neither a prophet nor a king. ʿAli is invoked frequently throughout the Lives as an authority figure.50 Surprisingly, though, when Thaʿlabi discusses the ambiguities surrounding Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander’s status, he first notes the lack of ijmāʿ— ‘[s]cholars have differed about his prophethood’—and then notes his doubts: It has been related that the Prophet said, ‘I do not know whether or not Dhū al-Qarnayn was a prophet.’ If that tradition is correct then dealing with this question is hypocritical.51 Thaʿlabi is covering his bases. He does not mention the source of the prophetic hadith here but rather states that it is quoted from ( fa-rawiya ʿan) the prophet. Interestingly, it is a report by Muhammad on which he casts doubt, not ʿAli’s more popularly cited one. But, as we can plainly see, he also backtracks from this slightly by noting that it would be hypocritical of him to deal with the issue if the report is in fact correct. Perhaps one could argue that using a report by Muhammad, who is considered infallible, is a way to distance 49 50

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Cf. Drory (1994) and Cooperson (2005). On the viability of postbiblical narratives in Islamic adab (belles-lettres) literature, see McAuliffe (1998). With the assassinations of ʿAli and his sons, the prophet’s only grandsons, during the first and second civil wars, the shiʿat ʿAli (party of ʿAli) emerged. As Saleh (2004: 19–23) argues, Thaʿlabi’s pervasive use of Shiʿite sources for his exegesis was to reconcile the Sunni (sunnah = tradition/orthodox) and Shiʿites. Essentially, including reports related by Shiʿites dismantles the arguments made by the latter that they alone loved the family of the prophet. The same may be applicable to the Lives, which uses ʿAli as a frequent source. Thaʿlabi (2002b: 609 / 1994: 361).

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ʿAli from the popularly cited report with which Thaʿlabi clearly disagrees (and which he does not cite). Then, without pause, Thaʿlabi offers his own opinion regarding Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander’s status before adding the reports by others on his ambiguous status (including one that claims he is an angel): ‘[t]he truth, God willing, is that he was a prophet not sent with a message, according to what Wahb [ibn Munabbih] and other people of the scriptures have said’.52 This passage appears in the third chapter, not where we might expect it, namely, the first chapter where other similar information is given about Alexander as Dhu al-Qarnayn.53 Thaʿlabi, as noted earlier, takes his time and builds up to his opinion about Dhu al-Qarnayn’s status. In fact, the first chapter is a synthesis of Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander’s extraordinary multi-heritage background and early life as a descendant of biblical prophets and Persian and Greek kings. Accordingly, ‘most scholars of biography’ claim that Alexander is ‘the son of Philip, son of Bāṭriyūs […] son of Hermes […] son of Japheth’ and ‘it is said that his genealogy goes back to Abraham, God’s friend’.54 Then Thaʿlabi adds that ‘some of the early ones [scholars] claim that he is the brother of Darius, son of Darius the Great, that being because Darius the Great […] had married the mother of Alexander, the daughter of the king of Rum’.55 The notion that Alexander is Dhu al-Qarnayn is articulated at the end of the first chapter in the easy transition between the meaning and reason for his name, Iskandar,56 and

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Ibid. On Wahb Ibn Munabbih, see below. Thaʿālibi (1900: 443) presents a very similar notice at the end of the tale, right before the notice of Dhu al-Qarnayn’s death. Thaʿlabi (2002b: 605 / 1994: 359). For summaries of the chapters, I will use the name (Alexander or Dhu al-Qarnayn) that the edited versions of the Lives give, as each chapter uses one name or the other as it relates to that figure’s known itinerary. For instance, in the first two chapters, which focus on Alexander’s background, the Lives only refers to him as Alexander while in the chapter on his prophetic mission, the Lives refers to him as Dhu al-Qarnayn. There is one notable exception: with regard to Alexander’s adventure into the land of darkness, the Lives calls him Dhu al-Qarnayn. It is unclear whether or not this is because Thaʿlabi is following the precedence of ʿAli’s report and/or if this is to solidify his dual identity further. Thaʿlabi (ibid. / ibid.). Rum refers to both the ancient Roman and Byzantine empires in the ancient Iranian and later medieval sources, respectively. On the significance of Alexander being identified as from ‘Rum’ in late antique Iran, see Shayegan (2011: 295–297 and 301–306) and (ibid.: 369–370) for the imitatio Alexandri in the Roman empire, especially among emperors. Iskandar, we are told, is a combination of sakan—the name of the herb that the physicians use to cure his mother of her bad odour—and dar(us) from his father’s name (2002b: 605– 606 / 1994: 359). Incidentally, even though she is cured of her foul odour, the king sends

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nickname (alter ego), dhu al-qarnayn. And, after a few more notices, the chapter ends with the distancing phrase, ‘but God knows best’. The second chapter, meanwhile, is on Alexander’s rise to kingship, and it is framed by verses 18:85–86: ‘God has said: Lo! We made unto him strong in the land and gave him unto everything a road. And he followed a road’.57 Following this, Thaʿlabi tells of Alexander’s conquest of the Persian empire and his encounters with his half-brother, King Darius, after he inherits the Greek throne.58 Clearly, Thaʿlabi understands Dhu al-Qarnayn as Alexander and thus as a king, hence his later stated doubt about the accuracy of the report by Muhammad. In other words, Thaʿlabi creates ‘fictive narrative’ in the way he orders Alexander’s and Dhu al-Qarnayn’s respective narratives; he circumnavigates the Qurʾānic verses and various reports in circulation and uses authentication strategies (‘but God knows best’; ‘the truth God willing’; and ‘scholars say’) to establish Dhu al-Qarnayn’s status as a king and, in the following chapters, as a prophet.59 Other important authenticating strategies that Thaʿlabi incorporates in the following chapters are dreams and private conversations with God.60 After Alexander has conquered the Persian empire, God calls him to his divine mission: Dhū al-Qarnayn, I have sent you to all the creatures between East and West, and I have made my argument against them. This is the interpretation of your dream: I am sending you to all the nations of the Earth—

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her back to her father, Philip, without ever knowing she is pregnant. This version appears in other texts as well; cf. Tabari (1987: 90–91 / 2010: v. ii, 696–697) and Thaʿālibi (1900: 398– 400). Thaʿlabi (2002b: 606 / 1994: 360). His version follows in outline what Tabari (1987: 89–93 / 2010: v. ii, 698) reports in his History and what Firdawsi (2007: 457–528 / 1987: v. 5, 529–560) (minus the reference to the genealogy going back to Abraham) reports in the Shāhnāmah. Thaʿālibi (1900: 400–411), in addition to this version, includes the episode where Alexander disguises himself as an ambassador and attends the Persian king’s banquet. Interestingly, both Balʿami and Thaʿlabi structure Alexander the Great’s and Dhu alQarnayn’s narratives similarly with only two major differences: Balʿami cites Alexander’s Greek heritage and does not include his travels in search of the water of life/land of darkness. Dreams, especially prophetic dreams and dreams people have of the prophet and his companions and saints, appear in a wide variety of adab literature as a means of legitimization. For the importance of dreams, in general, see Kinberg (1993), for dreams in communion with the dead, see Kinberg (1986), and for dreams of the dead and their use in promoting individuals and legitimating the major madhāhib (religious schools), see Kinberg (1985).

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they are seven nations with differing languages,—among them are two nations between whom is a width of the Earth, and three nations in the midst of the Earth. These latter are humankind, jinn, and Gog and Magog […].61 The dream referred to here is mentioned in the first chapter, specifically in the section that deals with the reason he was called Dhu al-Qarnayn, namely, ‘that he would encompass both the east and the west’.62 The dream, the conversation with God, and his divine mission firmly establish Dhu al-Qarnayn’s status as a prophet as well as a king, albeit the latter through Alexander. Interestingly, the report about the dream is mentioned twice. The first we already noted above. The second time is in a notice by Murtadā (967–1044), who was ʿAli’s direct descendant and a compiler of hadith. Strikingly, Thaʿlabi places Murtadā’s report in chapter three, just before the cautiously refuted report by the prophet regarding Dhu al-Qarnayn’s status. Including the contents of 1) an intimate conversation between God and his prophet and 2) a divinely inspired dream as related by specific authoritative figures (here Wahb ibn Munabbih and Murtadā) and strategically placing them are part of his aim to establish the veracity of his opinion about Dhu al-Qarnayn’s multivalent status and its underlying meaning. In all, it becomes abundantly clear from the start that great things are in store for Alexander/Dhu al-Qarnayn. He is not just any king. He is, by Thaʿlabi’s choice of reports and organization, an accomplished Greco-Iranian king (Iranian, doubly so, by birth and marriage since he honours King Darius’ deathbed request that he wed his daughter). He is also a prophet who communes with the divine and whose dreams are prescient. His greatness as a prophet is reaffirmed throughout the first few chapters, but especially at the start of the third chapter, which is mostly devoted to his divine mission (to travel west and east, mete out justice, and build a wall against Gog and Magog).63 In fact, the third chapter signals the coming of the divine mission by first listing all his accomplishments, which includes setting the world aright by calling the ‘people to Islam and monotheism’.64 But what, if anything, does it mean for a Greco-Iranian king of antiquity to be a prophet as well?

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Thaʿlabi (2002b: 610 / 1994: 361–362). Thaʿlabi (ibid.: 606 / ibid.: 359). On the identification of the walls in Darbent (modern-day Daghestan), which were built by the Sasanians, as Alexander’s wall separating civilization from Gog and Magog and as the divide between east and west in Syriac literature, see Rapp (2014: 134–140). Thaʿlabi (2002b: 609 / 1994: 361).

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Stripping the question down to focus on the question of ruler-prophets, namely, how can a ruler also be a prophet, the simple explanation is that it is possible in the way that Saul, Solomon, and David are ruler-prophets in the Islamic tradition, as noted above.65 They are prophets because they are rightly guided, imbued with God’s grace and favour, are called upon by God for specific tasks, and are rulers of the better parts of the known world. And these aspects are highlighted in the Islamic literary tradition, including the Lives. Take an episode from David’s narrative in the Lives for instance. The community decides to make David their king after Saul’s death. This is special, we are informed, because the community had not come together to elect a king for quite some time. And whenever he wanted to pass judgement as king, ‘one thousand prophets stood on his right and one thousand soldiers stood on his left’.66 These ruler-prophets, then, offer examples for others to follow as rightly guided rulers of a community of believers. Alexander, in the Lives, also falls into this latter category as a descendent of God’s first friend, as ruler of the known world, as Dhu al-Qarnayn (divine mission), and hence as someone who is imbued with God’s favour with a mandate to mete out justice. Now we turn to a more detailed response which revolves around his multiple heritage, namely, as a Greco-Iranian ruler-prophet.67 As for Alexander’s Greek heritage, it is an indisputable fact of history, as is the fact that he is one of the most prolific conquerors and Aristotle’s most famed student. As Aristotle’s rapt pupil, Alexander makes frequent appearances in Arabic and Persian wisdom literature. Thus, as a wise ruler, Alexander as Dhu al-Qarnayn is in keeping with the other ruler-prophets in the Islamic tradition. As for his Persian heritage, a number of ancient, historical Persian kings, such as Khosro i (501–579) and his grandson Khosro ii (d. 628), were considered model, just rulers and, like Alexander the Great, appear in a wide variety of contexts, but especially wisdom literature and more specifically mirrors-for-princes. One important development that may help us understand better how a ruler of Iranian heritage could be considered a prophet was the intertwining of the genealogies and tales of the ancient mytho-historical Iranian rulers and the prophets in certain popular Islamic universal histories. Indeed, early Islamic and medieval jurists and philosophers persistently inquired into the meaning

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Although Solomon and David are biblical figures. Thaʿlabi (ibid.: 467 / ibid.: 278). Even though the first chapter offers two different reports about his heritage, the second chapter focuses fully on the version that makes him the son of the Persian king and grandson of Philip.

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of legitimate rule, especially since the community experienced no less than four civil wars over the leadership of the community, which was inherently tied to questions about salvation.68 In addition to the example of the prophet, his companions, and their immediate successors, biblical, Greek, and ancient Iranian notions of rulership and the functioning of the state were methodically studied and adapted in various ways, especially where there were readily apparent parallels. To the point, in the ancient Iranian tradition, specifically Zoroastrianism, rulers supplicate to the deities for world dominion for the betterment of humanity—civilizational progress and the commonweal. When they rule according to the tenets of the religion and uphold their promise to the divine, society prospers. Medieval Islamic ideals of social stability run nearly parallel. The commonweal is maintained when a leader obeys God’s commands and does not deviate from the path set before him. When he deviates, society falls to ruin, and God removes him from power.69 This latter is, in fact, the case with the Iranian mytho-historical ruler, Jamshid, and the ruler-prophets such as David and his son Solomon, with a twist; their sovereignty is restored many times even after they transgress against God because they enjoy his favour.70 Moreover, when they are good rulers, they command demons (Iranian kings) and jinns (Solomon) and, as we will see below, are magnificent builders. Thus, several important histories, with the aid of prolific transmitters of extrabiblical and Iranian materials such as the aforementioned Wahb ibn Munabbih,71 make clear that Adam, the first man, prophet, and khalifat Allāh (God’s deputy) of the biblical tradition and his descendants are one and the same as Kayumars, the first man and king of the later Zoroastrian tradition, and his des-

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For more on the civil wars in the aftermath of Muhammad’s death, see Madelung (1997), and for what was at stake, namely, legitimacy and the meaning of leadership, during the civil wars, see Crone (2004). For instance, this causation runs throughout the body of Tabari’s entire History and is even the reason cited for the text’s composition (1989: 168 / 2010: v. i, 5). Relatedly, according to one report in Tabari’s History, Darius is not a just king, which means he is bound to lose his kingship. And, indeed, Alexander does come to set things right (Tabari 1987: 88–89 / 2010: v. ii, 693–694). Jamshid is an unparalleled ruler in the Iranian tradition but loses the kingship three times because of his sins until his most egregious sin—he believes he is God (according to later traditions) because of all the benefits his good rulership brings to the people. Here, it should be mentioned that Wahb ibn Munabbih (650–c. 738), a Yemeni of Iranian descent whose father converted to Islam, was a source for a considerable number of other writers of Arabic Alexander narratives. Some also give the ‘Persian variant’ of Alexander’s genealogy, whereas others, like Balʿami, maintain Alexander’s lineage through Philip.

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cendants.72 These texts also inform us that such intertwined genealogies were in wide circulation.73 Moreover, in such texts, much as in the Lives, Alexander is said to be related to the prophets through his genealogy, which is tied to Japheth and to Abraham and, by extension, thus to Adam/Kayumars.74 Therefore, the choice to include Wahb ibn Munabbih’s reports and those that establish Alexander’s Greco-Iranian heritage is an added textual layer that helps solidify Thaʿlabi’s understanding of Alexander/Dhu al-Qarnayn’s status as a prophet and a king along several well-established fronts, including through his extraordinary deeds to benefit humanity. With Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander’s kingly-prophetic genealogy firmly established and his divine mission complete, we come to the penultimate chapter, which details the famous search for the water of life and offers a poignant commentary on Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander’s character. Here, we will explore the meaning underlying the narrative gymnasium outlined above. In Thaʿlabi’s version, the tale is actually a hadith whose source is none other than ʿAli. ʿAli notes that after such a brilliant career, Dhu al-Qarnayn has time on his hands. He begins to ponder the bigger questions in life. After all, what is an all-conquering ruler, builder of walls and places of worship, and Qurʾānic prophet whose divine mission is accomplished, to do? According to ʿAli, then, Dhu al-Qarnayn asks the angel Rafael how God is worshipped in heaven.75 When Rafael tells him of the eternal worship of God in heaven, Dhu al-Qarnayn is inspired to worship God in the same way. After verifying Dhu al-Qarnayn’s intentions, Rafael tells him about a spring on earth from which anyone wishing eternal life may drink and never die. Dhu al-Qarnayn asks if Rafael knows where it is, and the latter responds that he and the other angels suspect that it is in a land of darkness where no human or demon can set foot. Dhu al-Qarnayn assembles his scholars and sages to find a possible location. One comes forward and states that he

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For instance, we may mention the texts we have been looking at here, namely, those by Balʿami, Tabari, and Thaʿālibi. Another prominent history that should be mentioned, though not studied here, is Dinavari’s (d. 895) al-Akhbār al-tiwāl (Lengthy Histories). For an excellent summary on the Islamicization of postbiblical narratives, see Lassner (1996). See Dabiri (2010) and (forthcoming) for the inclusion of the narratives of Iranian kings in universal Islamic histories. Tabari (1989: 326 / 2010: v. i, 154–155). Tabari (1987: 93–94 / 2010: v. ii, 700–701). Furthermore, Abraham, the first of God’s friends, through his son Ishmael (Ismāʿil), is claimed as the ancestor of Muhammad and thus, by extension Muslims. Akasoy (2016: 176) makes the astute observation that Alexander’s conversation with angels is ‘a mode of gaining knowledge in which Muhammad’s experience of revelation is conventionally described’, thus further solidifying his status as prophet.

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read in the Testament of Adam that there is a land of darkness which is located at the first ray of the sun. Dhu al-Qarnayn assembles a quest party, and they make the arduous journey toward this transcendental place. Dhu al-Qarnayn sends ahead his spiritual guide, and liminal figure, Khidr, who is also Moses’ spiritual guide.76 In the darkness, Khidr finds the ravine leading to the waters, but Dhu al-Qarnayn misses it altogether. Instead, Dhu al-Qarnayn comes across a castle in which a bird resides. The bird asks Dhu al-Qarnayn a series of questions about the state of affairs on earth in relation to the worship of God. In response to Dhu al-Qarnayn’s answers, the bird either inflates or deflates, and terrifyingly so. After the last question, the bird leads him to a trumpeter who gives him a stone. The stone apparently has special powers. The trumpeter tells him that if the stone is satiated, so will Dhu al-Qarnayn be. But if the stone is hungry, so too, again, will Dhu al-Qarnayn be. Dhu al-Qarnayn, mystified, seeks out all his scientists and philosophers to ask them to examine the stone. After exhausting every known scientific test, they are unable to come up with an answer about its miraculous properties. Khidr finally tells him that it is a parable from God: O king, what the trumpeter has set for you is a parable. God has given you power on Earth such as He has not given to any of His creatures, and He has made easy for you what He has not made easy for any other of His creatures, but you are not satisfied. Your soul obeyed its greed so that it acquired of God’s power what He has not made available to any human or demon. So, this is the parable that the trumpeter set for you: ‘Man is never satisfied until the Earth is spread over him, nor does anything fill his stomach but the Earth.’ Then Dhū al-Qarnayn wept and said, ‘You are right, al-Khiḍr, there was nothing wrong in setting this parable. After this journey I shall not seek influence on the Earth until I die’.77 On their way out, Dhu al-Qarnayn happens upon the ravine leading to the eternal waters but sadly turns away from it, though not before informing his men that they may take the soil. He cautions them, though, that whether or not they take it they will be miserable. And they are, for the soil too possesses the same properties as the stone and holds the same symbolic power. Before the tale closes out with the final chapter, which is about Alexander’s death and

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See also p. 274. Thaʿlabi (2002b: 620 / 1994: 370).

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burial, ʿAli quotes the prophet as saying that if Dhu al-Qarnayn had indeed reached the ravine where the water of life was located at the start, he would have taken it, brought it to the people out of his desire for the world, and taken possession of it. But since he came to it later, he ‘renounced this world, so he had no need of it’.78 Here, then, we have a hadith by ʿAli about Alexander the Great as Dhu alQarnayn, which is a parable with an embedded parable by God and a prophetic hadith. These multiple layers work in concert as authenticating strategies. Including a hadith version of Alexander’s transcendental escapades as Dhu alQarnayn bookends the entire section that began with a genealogy that links him to the prophets. It frames and lends authority to the ‘fictive narrative’ Thaʿlabi has created. Essentially, the prophetic hadith related by ʿAli reaffirms the doubt Thaʿlabi cast on the earlier report that claimed Muhammad was not sure if Dhu al-Qarnayn was a prophet or a king (and incidentally the popularly cited report by ʿAli in which he claims Dhu al-Qarnayn was neither a prophet or a king). For how could someone who is not a prophet speak to an angel, as Muhammad and Moses did, and then have it verified by ʿAli and Muhammad? The meaning imbued in the Lives’ version of Alexander (but here Dhu alQarnayn)’s search for the water of life is made clear: the prophet Muhammad, ʿAli, and ultimately Thaʿlabi in his selection of reports have taken a popular and open tale79 about the futility of excessive greed of rulers and infused it with spiritual meaning, namely, what it means to worship God as a human. When Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander trades in his world-conquering days for a humble life at the end of his escapade, Thaʿlabi is fine-tuning the characteristics of an ideal ruler of a community of believers. In other words, the meaning inscribed in the life of Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander operates on two levels: first, as someone who is a good ruler-prophet with the appropriate genealogy/heritage and strength (of character) to accomplish his difficult divine mission. And, secondly, as someone who, when made aware of his weaknesses, is open to learning invaluable lessons and relinquishing his desires for worldly things, which are prominent Sufi hagiographical tropes.80 These are traits all members of a functioning society should strive toward, not just prophets and rulers. The spiritual-religious meaning inscribed in Thaʿlabi’s version is especially palpable when compared with other local versions. In the version by his con78 79 80

Ibid. For the concept of popular (reception) and open texts (no authors), especially as it relates to the Alexander romance, see Konstan (1998). On the moment of awareness as a hagiographical trope, which ʿAttār adapts to include in the brief portraits of saints and (ideal Sufi) kings, including Alexander the Great, in his Book of the Divine, see Dabiri (2019).

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temporary, Firdawsi, who lived in the neighbouring city, Tus, the spiritualreligious dimension of Alexander’s desire to find the water of life is comparatively moderate.81 Firdawsi’s Alexander asks the residents of a city what wonders there are. In an echo of the Qurʾānic verses, they inform him that there is an area ‘with a unique body of water; when the shining sun reaches that place it plunges into the water’s depths. Beyond the water, the world is dark and things of the world become hidden’.82 When he reaches the edge of the waters, he is happy, and his thoughts turn to God. After Alexander’s encounter with the bird, he comes across an angry Isrāfil (Uriel), here the trumpeter, who berates him for his greed. Alexander gives up on seeking transcendental power but not worldly power. He continues on his way west, builds the wall between Gog and Magog, and then conquers the rest of the known world. In other words, Firdawsi places the adventure in the middle of his world-conquering agenda and likewise marks the mystical place where the water of life exists as a boundary, a liminal space, between east and west and Alexander’s journey. In the version by a contemporary fellow Nishapurian, Thaʿālibi, Alexander comes to the land of darkness, at the shores of the North Pole, likewise on his travels from east to west, when he simply decides to search for the water of life, without much contemplation of the divine. It is a part of his quest to know and conquer the whole world.83 The eleventh-century Persian Tales of the Prophets by Ibrāhim Nisāburi,84 like Thaʿlabi’s Lives, ends with Dhu al-Qarnayn85 giving up his world-conquering days when Khidr tells him the secret of the stones. However, like the aforementioned versions, it lacks the spiritual-religious dimension at the outset: Dhu al-Qarnayn, while on his way east, simply gathers his sages to ask if they know of any tricks/strategies to life86 when one claims to know of Adam’s Testament.87 81

82 83 84

85 86 87

Along these lines, it should be noted that Firdawsi’s Shāhnāmah is uninterested in the stories of the prophets. Nevertheless, Firdawsi’s Alexander does build a wall against Gog and Magog, and there is an allusion to verse 18:86 (see below). Firdawsi (2007: 513–514 / 1987: v. 6, 91). This is an echo of the first half of verse 18:86: ‘Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it [as if ] setting in a spring of dark mud’. Thaʿālibi (1900: 432–433). Even the stones are emeralds with no otherworldly aspects. Also known as Naysāburi. Not very much is known about the author, but his name suggests some strong affiliation to Nishapur. In addition, he is a contemporary of our other authors, thus his inclusion here. Like Thaʿlabi’s Lives, Nisāburi’s text does not reference Alexander directly in the quest for the water of life. Hilah-yi zindigāni. The contemporary American colloquialism, ‘life hack’, is probably the best idiomatic translation here. Zuwiyya (2011: 98) takes the incorporation of Alexander’s adventure into the land of darkness in various Arabic versions and distinguishes those that treat the episode as a religio-

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Leadership, Innovation, and Trepidation

Here, we turn to a fuller discussion of Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander’s character traits, specifically those that overlap with the characteristics of Solomon and Moses, which Thaʿlabi fleshes out by his selection and ordering of reports. Not surprisingly, perhaps, these characteristics—(fallible) leader, builder/innovator, anxious prophet—are most tangible in chapter three, on Dhu al-Qarnayn’s prophetic mission. In terms of general characteristics, Alexander and Solomon fall into the category of those kings who conquer the known world with ease, but they are also fallible rulers:88 in their mightiness and successes, they sometimes transgress the limits of humility.89 Solomon in the Lives (as well as in other contexts) loses his kingship and, worse, is rendered by God as inconsequential to the people over whom he rules as a punishment for his transgressions. Dhu alQarnayn/Alexander’s sense of purpose as a world-conqueror is deflated after his own transgression, namely, in seeking what is not meant for humans: divine knowledge (how God is worshipped in heaven) and objects (a stone imbued with mystical powers). The two, however, are related on a more fundamental level in the Lives. They are both the direct descendants of Abraham, God’s first friend. (Interestingly, not all the prophets in the Lives are explicitly stated to be descendants of Abraham.) The Alexander narrative signals Solomon in other, more robust ways as well. The first is quite unique—they are both gifted with the ability to understand and converse with birds, albeit Alexander’s experience in this regard is quite limited, in stark contrast to Solomon’s.90 In addition to being world-conquering ideal/fallible rulers, who can speak to creatures, they are builders. But not just any builders, for all rulers are known to build cities and places of wor-

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moralistic tale of personal growth—from haughty ambitious world-conqueror to ascetic king. I would qualify this by arguing that in the Lives, the tale is more prescriptive (edifying) than it is descriptive (of personal growth). For the treatment, in this volume, of fallible biblical rulers in Christian narratives, refer to Praet’s contribution. Thaʿlabi was, of course, not the only one to expand upon the connections between the two figures. In addition to notices on David and Moses, the anonymous fourteenth-century Iskandarnāmah (Book of Alexander) also contains several lengthy passages on Solomon. For Solomon as a model for Alexander (specifically sexual and military prowess and halfdemon/half-human consorts) in the Iskandarnāmah, see Rubanovich (2016: 226–227). For the direct comparison in ʿUmārā’s (767–815) version, see Zuwiyya (2012: 213). Though Alexander’s ability to speak to birds also appears in Firdawsi’s version, the point stressed here is in the selection among the different versions available.

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ship. Alexander and Solomon build in the same way—they are innovators: they use rare and precious materials in marvellous ways using creative techniques. Solomon, for instance, using demons and jinns to aid him, builds a city of glass that is ‘thicker than iron, but more transparent than water’ and has a white dome and beacon.91 His most famous building project, however, is the Temple, which in the Lives he declares a special place of worship, and which has a unique room that allows one to see through a man’s soul.92 The historical Alexander was not just a conqueror of empires, he founded many cities, including the wondrous Alexandria. In the Qurʾān, his Islamic alter ego, Dhu al-Qarnayn, is tasked by God with building a great wall, which, according to the medieval exegetical tradition, requires all sorts of rare materials and innovative techniques. However, in the Lives, before he embarks on his journey, he commands the people to build a place of prayer that is also made of special metals and precious jewels and for which he innovates impressive techniques.93 The richly layered relationship between Moses and Dhu al-Qarnayn is evidenced in several ways independently of Thaʿlabi’s treatment as well. First, Moses appears in the Qurʾān in verses 18:60–82,94 which directly precede Dhu al-Qarnayn’s verses. In these verses, Moses is in a parabolic tale of his own, complete with a wall. He is accompanied by Khidr, his spiritual guide, who restores a wall for Moses. Much like Dhu al-Qarnayn’s wall, Khidr’s wall is presented as a mercy from God to the people.95 Second, the Moses and Dhu al-Qarnayn narratives run parallel to one another in their plot outlines. They both receive a message from God to go out among a group of ‘foreign people’96 and set them aright. They mete out God’s justice and they separate one (oppressed) group from another (persecuting/harassing) group with a barrier (Dhu al-Qarnayn’s wall and Moses’ parting of the Red Sea). The two also wander in the desert and darkness, respectively, for their respective transgressions. In the Lives, Thaʿlabi ties Moses and Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander at the narrative level, by how he structures their stories, for not all the stories of the prophets in the Lives are structured according to a fixed formula. First, the 91 92 93 94 95 96

Thaʿlabi (2002b: 511 / 1994: 305). Thaʿlabi (ibid.: 519 / ibid.: 310). In the building of a place of worship, Abel (1955: 76) also noticed the similarity to Solomon’s building of the temple. These immediately precede the verses related to Dhu al-Qarnayn’s activities, and it is thus suspected that the latter is none other than Moses. For more, cf. note 8. Khidr stops to repair a crumbling wall, and he later reveals to Moses that it was for the sake of two orphans who are to find a treasure beneath it at an appropriate time (18:82). Even if Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s court as a prince, ultimately, he is not of their people.

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introductions to both stories run similarly: a notice about genealogies transitions into one about mothers, which turns into questions about names and nicknames,97 and ends on the evasive phrase, ‘but God knows best’, since the issue about names is unknowable. Second, and strikingly, Thaʿlabi chooses a notice by Wahb ibn Munabbih that tells of Dhu al-Qarnayn’s reaction to being called to a mission. In it, Dhu alQarnayn’s response recalls Moses’ famous yet plaintive conversation with God when he is called to prophesy: When God said this [his mission to travel east and west and to build a wall against Gog and Magog] to him Dhū al-Qarnayn said, ‘My God, You have entrusted me with a great task which only You can carry out. But tell me about these nations to whom You have sent me: With what power can I contend with them? With what troops or subterfuge can I outnumber them? With what patience can I stand up against them? With what tongue will I speak to them? How will I understand their language and with what hearing will I hear their words? With what sight will I examine them? With what argument will I dispute them, with what intellect will I outwit them, with what heart and wisdom arrange their affair, with what justice will I treat them justly […] when I, my God, have nothing of what I have mentioned which will resist them or strengthen me against them. But You are the One full of pity, the Merciful. You do not task a soul beyond its scope and you do not burden it above its ability, nor do You make miserable but You have mercy on it.’ God said, ‘I shall make you be able to do what I have burdened you with, and I shall enlarge your hearing and your breast so that you will hear and understand everything. I shall enlarge your perception and you will understand everything. I shall expand your tongue and you will speak everything, I shall open your sight so that you will look at everything, and I will mete out your sustenance for you so that nothing will lack for you […]’ When all this was said to him he resolved to journey forth. His people importuned him to remain, but he did not do that, saying, ‘I must obey God.’ Then he commanded them to build a palace of prayer, making its length four hundred cubits […] He ordered them to set up the enclosure for it.98

97 98

In the case of the Moses story, it is Moses’ mother’s name that is in question. Thaʿlabi (2002b: 609–611 / 1994: 362). In his exegetical work, Thaʿlabi (2002a: 194–196) begins the notice with a lengthier and rather different version of Wahb ibn Munabbih’s report.

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What is most striking about Moses’ and Dhu al-Qarnayn’s objections to the call to prophethood is their issue with communication. The circumstances might differ: Moses prefers his brother to speak on his behalf because of his speech impediment (and God obliges), whereas in the Lives, Dhu al-Qarnayn, with all his other fears, does not know how he is supposed to communicate with the various peoples he is to encounter. In any case, what is demonstrably clear is that they both feel the unbearable weight of prophethood. They claim that they are incapable of rising to the occasion and voice their objections.99 Indeed, the fear of buckling under the unbearable weight of prophethood or being chosen by God to lead one’s community is a recurrent theme in the Old Testament and Qurʾān. Prominent biblical figures initially balk at the trials and tribulations of being chosen by God. The extreme and memorable versions of this are Job and Moses. Their stories are marked by protestations regarding their inability to withstand the tasks (suffering in Job’s case) with which God has charged them. Nevertheless, prophets and messengers, after they raise their doubts about their abilities, acquiesce that God would never burden them with anything they cannot handle. And God comforts his prophets and messengers, a benefit Muhammad also receives during his trials and tribulations.100 In the Lives, like Moses, Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander receives and takes comfort in God’s words to become an extraordinary, albeit fallible, Greco-Iranian rulerprophet.

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Conclusion

In the Lives, much like his spiritual guide, Khidr, Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander is a liminal figure. He stands at multiple figural and literal crossroads; he is Persian and Greek. A descendent of prophets and rulers, he is a ruler and a prophet himself. He is a Moses-like figure and Solomonic, he is a model ruler-prophet and a fallible one, he begins his travels at the intersection between east and west in this world, the Greco-Iranian world, and travels to the transcendental land of darkness, replete with talking birds, angry angels, and mystical stones. It should come as no surprise then that such a multifaceted figure appears in

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It takes God four tries. When Moses first balks, God asks the sumac tree, then Gabriel, and then a host of angels to carry the tablets. None can bear the physical weight of the tablets and they too complain to God. He then lightens the weight of the tablets for Moses to be able to carry them (Thaʿlabi 2002b: 336 / 1994: 203). No other prophet stands closer to Muhammad in the Qurʾān than Moses in their struggles to convince their respective communities to surrender to God (islām) and worship him.

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an equally multivalent text. The Lives adopts the facets of many genres and is one of the finest examples of the plasticity of medieval Islamicate literature. In constructing such a liminal figure into the protagonist of a Life, Thaʿlabi effortlessly interweaves multiple strategies to authenticate the veracity of his version of Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander’s status as a descendant of one of God’s friends if not, arguably, one in his own right when we consider God’s words of comfort to him. In this, Thaʿlabi signals the ways in which the lives of God’s other friends, both fictional and historical Sufi saints, are constructed, where the particulars of a life are often subsumed into parabolic, edifying accounts. Only recently has attention been paid to the ways in which the ideal Sufi king is constructed in later Sufi allegorical literature.101 In the few that have thus far been studied, the reigns of ideal Sufi rulers are marked not only by social stability but also by love of the divine, hearkening to God’s will, and developing one’s soul to better know God. Sufis, in general, also seek the transcendental. These are all traits that the Lives’ Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander possesses. Specifically, Sufis seek communion and union with the divine in the corporeal world, the so-called death-before-death ( fanā billāh). And they nearly always fail in that endeavour and are humbled, even while ecstatic for the trying. Some express bitter disappointment, for union with the divine is not possible in the corporate world.102 In the Lives’ version, Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander’s venture into the land of darkness to reach the water of life is not so much about eternal life, but rather to understand how God is worshipped eternally in heaven. His failure is, thus, more complex than a ruler gone greedy. His venture into the land of darkness, a place in which Rafael claims no human or demon may step foot, may be equated to Sufi masters who fall unconscious for days at a time when approaching union with the divine and commune with angels (for the senses cannot withstand the presence of the divine).103 For, indeed, much like Sufis, what Alexander seeks is ultimately not for those of this world. Not even his spiritual guide Khidr can help with that. And a deep allegorical reading of Alexander’s endeavours in the land of darkness is fairly unnecessary. Much of it lies at or just beneath the surface, like the stones and soil in the land of darkness.104 And, thus, Thaʿlabi’s Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander stands at yet another

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See note 37. The disappointment is usually alluded to with the metaphor of a cruel beautiful beloved (the divine) rejecting a lover (the Sufi). These moments are described in detail by Sufis in autobiographical accounts and by their disciples as eyewitnesses in hagiographical accounts. And here the stark contrast between Thaʿālibi’s version and the subtle differences in Firdawsi’s further illuminate Thaʿlabi’s aims.

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crossroads, or rather a vortex in which he also encompasses the characteristics of God’s friends (in other words, Sufi saints) as well as fallible, yet repentant ruler-prophets of various heritages. Even if one argues that Thaʿlabi’s Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander is not a Sufi king proper, his narrative certainly anticipates later Sufi allegorical tales, such as those written by his fellow Nishapurian, ʿAttār.105 Given Thaʿlabi’s profound and lasting influence in both the tales of the prophets genre and the exegetical tradition, in which he included materials from Sufis, in addition to Shiʿites, it may not be far-fetched to read his Dhu al-Qarnayn/Alexander ruler-prophet as a Sufi saint-king. Nor are we totally off the mark when stating that the Lives may have been a source of inspiration for ʿAttār, an avid collector and author of saints’ tales whose own works impacted generations of Sufi writers and who also turned Alexander into a ‘focusee’, such that various anecdotes about Alexander, within and without the greater romance, become lessons on ideal Sufi kingship.106

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Kinberg, L. 1986. ‘Interaction between This World and the Afterworld in Early Islamic Tradition’, Oriens 29/30, 285–308. Kinberg, L. 1993. ‘Literal Dreams and Prophetic Ḥadīths in Classical Islam—A Comparison of Two Ways of Legitimation’, Der Islam 70, 279–300. Konstan, D. 1998. ‘The Alexander Romance: The Cunning of the Open Text’, Lexis 16, 123–138. Lambton, A.K.S. 1981. State and Government in Medieval Islam (London & New York). Lassner, J. 1996. Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam (Chicago & London). Leder, S. 2005. ‘The Use of Composite Form in the Making of the Islamic Historical Tradition’, in P. Kennedy (ed.), On Fiction and Adab in Medieval Arabic Literature (Wiesbaden), 125–147. Lingwood, C. 2013. Politics, Poetry, and Sufism in Medieval Iran (Leiden). Madelung, W. 1997. The Succession to Muḥmmad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge). Marzolph, U. 1998. ‘“Focusees” of Jocular Fiction in Classical Arabic Literature’, in S. Leder (ed.), Story-Telling in the Framework of Non-Fictional Arabic Literature (Wiesbaden), 118–129. McAuliffe, J.D. 1998. ‘Assessing the Isrāʾīliyyāt: An Exegetical Conundrum’, in S. Leder (ed.), Story-Telling in the Framework of Non-Fictional Arabic Literature (Wiesbaden), 345–369. Meisami, J.S. 2005. ‘Masʿūdī and the Reign of al-Amīn: Narrative in Medieval Muslim Historiography’, in P. Kennedy (ed.), On Fiction and Adab in Medieval Arabic Literature (Wiesbaden), 149–176. Moening, U. 2016. ‘A Hero Without Borders: 1 Alexander in Ancient, Byzantine, and Modern Greek Tradition’, in C. Cupane & B. Krönung (eds.), Fictional Storytelling in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond (Leiden), 159–189. Nagel, T. 2012. ‘Ḳiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573‑3912_islam_SIM_4401 (Accessed: 6 August 2018). Neuwirth, A. 1998. ‘Qurʾānic Literary Structure Revisited: Sūrat al-Raḥmān between Mythic Account and Decodation of Myth’, in S. Leder (ed.), Story-Telling in the Framework of Non-Fictional Arabic Literature (Wiesbaden), 389–420. Nöldeke, T. 1890. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alexanderromans (Vienna). Omar, I.A. 2010. ‘Reflecting Divine Light: al-Khidr as an Embodiment of God’s Mercy (rahma)’, in M. Tamcke (ed.), Gotteserlebnis und Gotteslehre: Christliche und islamische Mystik im Orient (Wiesbaden), 167–180. Rapp, S.H. 2014. The Sasanian World through Georgian Eyes: Caucasia and the Iranian Commonwealth in Late Antique Georgian Literature (Farnham). Rippin, A. 2012. ‘Tafsir’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden). Available at: http://​ dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573‑3912_islam_SIM_7294 (Accessed: 6 September 2018).

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Robson, J. 2012. ‘Ḥadīth’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden). Available at: http://​ dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573‑3912_islam_COM_0248 (Accessed: 6 September 2018). Rubanovich, J. 2016. ‘A Hero Without Borders: 3 Alexander the Great in the Medieval Persian Tradition’, in C. Cupane & B. Krönung (eds.), Fictional Storytelling in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond (Leiden), 210–233. Saleh, W.A. 2004. The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qurʾān Commentary of al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035) (Leiden). Shayegan, M.R. 2011. Arsacids and Sasanians: Political Ideology in Post-Hellenistic and Late Antique Persia (Cambridge). Southgate, M. 1977. ‘Portrait of Alexander in Persian Alexander-Romances of the Islamic Era’, JAOS 97.3, 278–284. Tesei, T. 2013. ‘The Prophecy of Ḏū-l-Qarnayn (Q 18:83–102) and the Origins of the Qurʾānic Corpus’, MiscAr 2013/2014, 273–290. Tesei, T. 2015. ‘Some Cosmological Notions from Late Antiquity in Q 18:60–65: The Quran in Light of Its Cultural Context’, JAOS 135.1, 19–32. Tottoli, R. 2002. Biblical Prophets in the Qurʾān and Muslim Literature (Richmond). van Bladel, K. 2007a. ‘The Alexander Legend in the Qurʾān 18:183–102’, in G.S. Reynolds (ed.), The Qurʾān in Its Historical Context (New York), 175–203. van Bladel, K. 2007b. ‘The Syriac Sources of the Early Arabic Narratives of Alexander’, in H.P. Ray (ed.), Memory as History: The Legacy of Alexander in Asia (New Delhi), 54–75. Voigt, C. 2016. Recherches sur la tradition arabe du Roman d’Alexandre (Wiesbaden). Wheeler, B.M. 1998. ‘Moses or Alexander? Early Islamic Exegesis of Qurʾān 18:60–65’, JNES 57.3, 191–215. Wiesehöfer, J. 2011. ‘The “Accursed” and the “Adventurer”: Alexander the Great in Iranian Tradition’, in Z.D. Zuwiyya (ed.), A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages (Leiden), 113–132. Zuwiyya, Z.D. 2011. ‘The Alexander Romance in the Arabic Tradition’, in Z.D. Zuwiyya (ed.), A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages (Leiden), 73–112. Zuwiyya, Z.D. 2012. ‘ʿUmāra’s Qiṣṣa al-Iskandar as a Model of the Arabic Alexander Romance’, in R. Stoneman, K. Erickson & I. Netton (eds.), The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East (Groningen), 205–218.

chapter 13

A Scene Played Out Again: Ardashir and Constantine, Sargon and Cyrus Matthew O’Farrell

‘Fate’, writes Borges, transforming the victim of a squalid and obscure murder into dying Caesar, ‘is partial to repetition, variants, symmetries’.1 His story, ‘The Plot’, is a compact photo of how narrative hardens into archetype and how what we recognize influences how we understand. Here a single line of surprised dialogue and a clever juxtaposition create an unexpected outcome. The enshrinement of Caesar’s death in literature, historical or otherwise, allows a simple coincidence to burden the fictional slaying of a nameless cattleman (gaucho) with a host of grandiose (and almost certainly misleading) readings. Under the weight of precedent the modern crime is absorbed into the ancient murder it superficially resembles, becoming, as Borges put it, merely a scene ‘played out again’. This chapter considers a narrative pattern of this kind, one that has for centuries shaped royal biographies across cultures: the youth of a ‘founding’ or ‘usurping’ king at the court of his unworthy predecessor. I will point to a number of specific similarities in outwardly ‘historical’ or ‘historicizing’ accounts that suggest that a stereotypical literary pattern, a fiction, was imposed over events. I will argue that such impositions were often considered as deliberate evocations of a literary topos, made by professionals and intended to argue for the legitimacy of change at times when the recent past was unstable and contested. This chapter focuses on two traditions whose context and evolution remain somewhat explicable. The first comprises two Persian language texts narrating the rise of Ardashir i (d.c. 242), the founder of the Sasanian empire (c. 224– 651): the Šhāhnāmeh of Firdawsī, an epic poem in New Persian completed in 1010, and the so-called Kārnāmag ī Ardašīr ī Pābagān (KNA), a Middle Persian work whose archetype was copied in Gujarat in 1322.2 This latter text is generally assumed to have roots in the Sasanian period itself and a closely related

1 Borges (1999: 307). 2 On this text see Cereti (2011).

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text appears to have been the ultimate basis of Firdawsī’s account of this king’s life.3 The second is a group of hagiographies of Constantine i that emerge in the ninth century but incorporate material found in much older polemic. It will be suggested here that while these Byzantine and Iranian traditions have no direct link, the appearance of extremely similar (and extremely unlikely) court scenes in both suggests a common subtext, implying in turn, derivation from a common root.

1

The Court Scene

With the caveat that cultural and situational needs have caused considerable variation across the iterations of this narrative, the court scene may be summarized as follows. A young man comes to the court of a king. Where this is a freestanding story, he is likely to be of humble origins. In the target traditions of this study the story has been grafted into another stereotypical narrative of royal birth and the subject is presented as a junior nobleman.4 Due to his beauty and great skill in courtly activities he becomes close to the ruler. At this point a number of components are common but are tightly interlinked and do not always appear in the same order. 1) The youth will a) engender a plot against the sitting king, usually at the instigation of a helper and/or some kind of encouraging omen, or b) be plotted against by the king who sees in him a threat to his rule. 2) A public display highlighting the inadequacy of the sitting king in comparison to the youth is present in some cases, often involving a confrontation or combat with an animal or animalistic opponent.5 3) A warning of some kind, again, usually some kind of omen, is almost always given to the king. The youth flees court for his father’s homeland or kingdom; his father is often portrayed as dying, ill or dead. He is pursued by the agents of the king and sometimes performs a trick of some kind to shake off his pursuers. He arrives safely, accepts the loyalty of his ‘countrymen’ (often his father’s retainers).

3 Firdawsī’s sources are obscure and controversial. See Qazvini (1953: 6–29); Davis (1996); Omidsalar (1996); Davidson (1994). 4 O’Farrell (2018: passim). 5 This kind of confrontation does not appear in extant Mesopotamian comparanda. It does, however, have biblical precedent and is a marked part of the Byzantine and Iranian material examined here; see below.

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Because it describes historical events the court scene has an unsettled relationship with historiography. Some of the earliest instances of this narrative are the only ‘history’ of certain events available. Conversely, in those cases where this pattern has lodged within a broader historical literature, its implausibility and stereotypical nature tend to cast it as an annex to ‘real’ history, a ‘romantic’ tale drawn from the collective unconscious of the host society. I find this interpretation insufficient; though the narrative was pervasive and widely recognized, its continuous re-emergence was generally not driven by the masses. Rather, it was often used to craft an argument about history in a particular set of circumstances. The political and historiographic contexts of the late antique case studies below highlight what arguments the court scene makes and how it makes them. Moreover, evidence for the attachment of this story to Constantine is relatively abundant and its origin can be placed with some certainty in Constantine’s own court. Here we may see in some detail processes that may be suspected to lie behind a number of other iterations of this sequence. Before looking at the late antique material in any detail, three much older accounts of unusual or irregular succession ought to be considered: the socalled Sumerian Legend of Sargon of Akkad, the History of David’s Rise, a hypothetical apologetic substrate in 1Samuel describing the interaction of David and Saul, and Ktesias’ account of the rise of Cyrus the Great. Between them these texts demonstrate the early association of the court scenes’ features with an influential and long-lived biographical literature, its popularity as a frame for the construction of royal apologetic literature (or apologia), and, finally, its translation to the Greco-Roman literary tradition.

2

Sargon and Urzababa

The origins of the pattern of the court scene almost certainly lie in the Sumerian and Akkadian speaking city-states of Mesopotamia. The oldest traces of it may be found in a pair of Sumerian texts associated with Sargon of Akkad (twenty-fourth—twenty-third centuries bce). The first is the Sumerian King List, a list of Mesopotamian rulers whose earliest layers may date to the turn of the second millennium bce.6 The List is terse and on first reading its entry for Sargon would appear to have little to do with the narrative examined here.

6 Jacobsen (1939: 128–138).

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In Agade Sharru(m)-kin— his […] was a date-grower— cupbearer of Urzababa(k), king of Agade, the one who built Agade became king and ruled 56 years;7 The significance of this entry becomes clear in the light of a later text; a fragmentary account of Sargon’s early life in Sumerian, the so-called Sumerian Legend known from two Old Babylonian (nineteenth-sixteenth centuries bce) tablets. The story opens with an edict from Enlil, the king of the gods, declaring that the reign of Urzababa, king of Kish, is to be brought to an end.8 The goddess Innana marks Sargon, Urzababa’s cupbearer, as a replacement while Urzababa is struck by a feeling of unease.9 While sleeping in a ‘temple’, Sargon has a nightmare in which he sees the goddess Innana drown either Urzababa or himself in a river of blood.10 Sargon’s cries attract Urzababa, who interrogates his servant and learns of his vision.11 Urzababa makes his own interpretation of the dream and sends Sargon on a strange, presumably dangerous, errand involving carrying bronze to a smith.12 Innana turns Sargon back from the temple because he is impure due to being covered in blood.13 Urzababa then dispatches Sargon to Lugalzagesi, the king of Uruk, with what looks like a letter designed to enrage the recipient or containing orders to kill the bearer.14 The statement that the letter was not sealed may indicate that Sargon became aware of the trick and escaped death via a ruse of his own, but unfortunately the end of the story is not preserved.15 As both texts know Sargon as Urzababa’s cupbearer, the Sumerian Legend may present a fuller version of traditions known to the creators of the King List.

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Jacobsen (1939: 111, col. vi, lines 31–36). Cooper & Heimpel (1983: TRS 73 obv, lines 6–9). Ibid. (3N T296, lines 3–7). The translation of this line varies but the dream would seem to make more sense if Sargon saw himself in a river of blood, cf. ibid. (3N T296, lines 12–14) and Foster (2016: 349). Cooper & Heimpel (1983: 3N T296, lines 16–24). Ibid. (3N T296, lines 30–45). In Foster’s translation the smith was supposed to kill Sargon by throwing him into a mould full of molten metal, see Foster (2016: 349). Cooper & Heimpel (1983: 3N T296, lines 40–43). This makes more sense if Foster’s translation is followed. Ibid. (3N T296, lines 49–56; TRS 73 rev. Commentary 82). See also Alster (1987). Or, not fooled by Urzababa’s invention, Sargon opens the envelope and reads the contents of the letter; see Alster (1987: 172–173).

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The Sumerian Legend ought not be taken as any kind of guide to Sargon’s social position or his rise to power.16 On the other hand, it is not a whole-cloth invention. While Urzababa is known only from historical literature, Lugalzagesi is attested in his own inscriptions and some Old Babylonian copies of Sargon’s.17 Thus, the Sumerian Legend features at least two real people. We also know that the story must have ended with Sargon’s ascension. If, as seems likely, there was a king of Kish called Urzababa, then Sargon’s rise is constructed here as a pair of personal confrontations in which a divinely ordained king faces rulers he had in fact (inferring from Sargon’s boast that he had conquered Lugalzagesi) destroyed in battle. The Sumerian Legend presents us with a tendentious dramatization of history, a suspiciously convenient vision of the rise of an outsider with many of the stereotypical features of Near Eastern apologia.18 Sargon was viewed as a model king in the Akkadian-speaking successor states of his empire.19 A biographical literature describing his life and conquests circulated for over a thousand years, travelling on the back of the Sumerian-Akkadian cultural system that his conquests did so much to establish. This literature permeated those linguistic and cultural groups that fell into the Mesopotamian orbit, continually reaffirming Sargonic models.20 The Sumerian Legend represents only a fraction of this literature and one should be wary of assuming that the extant text is representative of a stable or canonical tradition.21 It is to be suspected, however, that something like the Sumerian Legend lies behind a considerably better-known historicizing text from the ancient Near East.

3

David and Saul

In the second millennium bce Akkadian was used as a lingua franca from Egypt to Anatolia. Akkadian, albeit in a peculiar dialect, was known to Canaanite scribes and a number of biblical stories offer hints that what would become the

16 17

18 19 20 21

Kuhrt (2003: 356–357). For Lugalzagesi’s inscriptions, see Cooper (1986: 94–97) (Um.7.1–7.3). For the Old Babylonian tablet copies of Sargon’s inscriptions mentioning Lugalzagesi, see Frayne (1993: 9–20) (Sargon E2.1.1.1, lines 22–31, E2.1.1.2, lines 25–34, and E2.1.1.6, Caption 2 and Colophon 2). As defined in Knapp (2012: 57–67). Lewis (1980: 1, 102). Bacharova (2016: 166–198). Drews (1974: 392); Robson (2011: 571–572).

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Jewish tradition may have absorbed Sargonic biographical conventions in this period.22 Famously, the birth of Moses given in Exodus looks very much like an earlier Akkadian account of the birth of Sargon.23 Moreover, though scripture gives Moses’ youth at the court of Pharaoh a very cursory description, later Jewish writers made elaborate accounts of Moses as a persecuted child prodigy.24 Moses was not a historical figure and his biographies do not belong to the category of literature examined here. It is instructive however, that the mythological founder of the Jewish community appears to have attracted tropes associated with novel monarchy.25 A relevant case study might be found in the confrontation of Saul and David recounted in 1Samuel. David’s historicity is a vexed issue. Should we assume however, that the Bible’s David does reflect (in greatly exaggerated form) a real Israelite king, we may draw parts of the narrative of 1Samuel into our study.26 Though a synthetic and seemingly poorly harmonized collection of source material, many of the basic elements of the court sequence can be detected in this narrative. Significantly, some commentators claim that an apologetic production, dubbed the History of David’s Rise (HDR), stands behind a large chunk of this text.27 Should this assumption be correct it would suggest two things: that the HDR was a courtly production and that its roots may stretch back very far indeed.28 It is significant for this study that certain aspects of this hypothetical tradition offer intriguing parallels to the Sumerian Legend while also containing elements that appear in the late antique and medieval texts that are the subjects of this chapter. The Sumerian Legend opens with the gods withdrawing their patronage from Sargon’s master, Urzababa: Its King, the shepherd Urzababa rose like the sun over the house of Kish

22 23 24

25 26 27 28

Izre’el (1995). Lewis (1980: 93–97). On Philo’s Moses in particular see, Dvornik (1966: 280–281) and passim, and Goodenough (1969: 181–189). On Artapanos, a Hellenistic writer known to both Josephos and Eusebios, see fragment 3 in Holladay (1983: 189–193, 209). Generally see Obbink (1966); Meeks (1968); Matthews (2008: 17–36). Matthews (2008: 60–88). The evidence for David is reviewed in McKenzie (2000: 9–24). The precise nature and boundaries of this theoretical tradition are debatable, see Tsumura (2007: 15, 413–414) and the references contained therein. McCarter (1980a: 499–502). See also Dick (2004) and Knapp (2012: 133–191).

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(but) An and Enlil, by their holy command authoritatively [ordered] that his royal reign be alienated, that the palace’s prosperity be removed.29 Likewise, David is introduced to court after God abandons Saul: Now the spirit of Yahweh had withdrawn from Saul, and an evil spirit from Yahweh afflicted him with terrors.30 This parallel hardly proves anything; kings in general, and usurpers in particular, needed to claim some kind of heavenly mandate. Suspicions may be aroused, however, when one considers how events unfold from this point. Saul requests someone to sooth his troubled mind and his courtiers suggest the prodigious David who is tending sheep.31 Saul is pleased with David and he becomes Saul’s armour bearer.32 We may recall the Sumerian King List’s description of Sargon: his […] was a date-grower– cupbearer of Urzababa(k). Shepherding and gardening were common metaphors for kingship, and it is very likely that their use in these texts was symbolic.33 This aside, the parallel trajectory of each man’s career is of interest; a progression from countryside to court and thence the throne is most unlikely and emphasizes the theme of divine election that underwrites this narrative. Likewise, Saul’s fear of David involves both jealousy and prophecy.34 The similarity of HDR to the Sumerian Legend invites us to read backwards, to hypothesize that the older text was also an apologetic production and that its Sargon fled from Urzababa’s court. David’s fight with Goliath has no obvious parallel in extant Sargonic material and was originally unconnected to HDR.35 Yet it has been placed in a more or less logical position in the narrative (at the point at which Saul becomes jealous) and provides an indication of the sort of material that was attracted to this 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Cooper & Heimpel (1983: TRS 73 obv, lines 6–9). 1Sam. 16:14. Ibid. 16:19. Ibid. 16:21. Dvornik (1966: 266–268, passim); Bottéro (1992: 138–145, 149); McKenzie (2000: 47–50); Matthews (2008: 118). 1Sam. 18:8–12. McCarter (1980b: 295–298, 307–309); McKenzie (2000: 70–77).

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kind of biography. The bestial nature of the protagonist, and the clearly comparative nature of the duel in which Saul publicly delegates his role to David, is mirrored in a number of later texts that make use of a very similar scene of confrontation, albeit better integrated, within the frame of the court scene.36 1Samuel is a very useful text for understanding how the norms of the court sequence were established, in what circumstances they became viable frames for the representation of reality, and what they were intended to do. That the rise of a towering figure of Mesopotamian history should be echoed in the excuses made for a minor Levantine king is most telling. The biblical narrative may reflect a purposeful adaptation of a well-known story form whose political subtext was understood; a story impressed into the broader mindset of the region through its association with Sargon. This is, of course, a hypothetical link, resting on narrative similarities and a number of historical assumptions. Yet the fact that parts of 1 Samuel seem to be echoed in a number of disparate, unrelated works offering untenable versions of unusual succession strengthens the idea that all of these refer to a pattern of monarchical representation established in deep antiquity. The next text to be considered can be far more securely tied to Sargonic precedent but more than this, provides a striking example of how the quasi-historical nature of this narrative was the vector by which it infiltrated new cultures and languages.

4

Cyrus and Astyages

Some seventeen centuries after Sargon’s death, a minor king leading a hitherto peripheral people once again conquered all of Mesopotamia. Accounts of the early career of Cyrus ii (c. 600 bce-c. 530 bce) are far more abundant than those of his Akkadian forerunner, mostly because Cyrus’ image would be preserved in cultures external to his empire. In one of history’s more convoluted ironies, Cyrus was forgotten in his native land but was remembered fondly in Jewish, Greek and Roman historical traditions. Discounting a few inscriptions, brief entries in late Mesopotamian chronicles and a very few contemporary accounts of his actions, Cyrus’ image descends to us in two influential streams. In the biblical tradition he was literally a Messianic figure, in Hellenistic and Roman traditions he was considered a royal exemplar; an image largely established by three influential works in Greek: the Histories of Hero-

36

David’s refusal of Saul’s arms and armour may be particularly significant here, 1 Sam. 17:38– 40.

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dotos, the Persika of Ktesias and the Cyropaedia of Xenophon. Of interest here are the fragmentary accounts of Ktesias and his probable follower Dinon. Ktesias’ Cyrus is carried in a large fragment of the Syrian author Nicolaus of Damascus (first century ce) excerpted in a tenth-century compilation commissioned by Constantine Porphyrogennetos.37 On the basis of recurring themes within the Ktesian corpus and overlaps in other fragments, in particular Diodoros Sikeliotes’ account of the overthrow of the legendary Assyrian king Sardanapalus, this text is likely to be reasonably close to Ktesias’ original narrative.38 Nicolaus’ Cyrus displays many features of the court sequence yet unlike HDR, this account probably does not descend from an explicitly apologetic production. It is rather more likely to have arisen in Babylon as a confluence of coincidence and a powerfully paradigmatic historical sensibility. In this fragment the young Cyrus is the son of a man reduced to banditry.39 He attaches himself to a richer man by means of a Median law allowing self-enslavement.40 He comes into the service of two palace officials and is finally adopted by Astyages’ cupbearer where his grace and skill attract the king’s attention.41 After he becomes cupbearer, it is revealed that his pregnant mother saw a dream similar to that which Herodotos grants Astyages in his version of Cyrus’ life.42 An astrologer, known only as the ‘Babylonian’, foretells Cyrus’ rise.43 While travelling with the astrologer, Cyrus meets a lowly Persian called Oibares whose name, ethnicity and disposition are interpreted as good omens.44 Convinced of his destiny, Cyrus creates an anti-Median conspiracy among Astyages’ subjects. Then, with Oibares’ help, he engineers his escape from Astyages’ court claiming he needs to see his ailing father.45 His intentions are revealed to Astyages first by the now dead astrologer’s brother and next by a singer or concubine who casts the event in an animal metaphor.46 Cyrus tricks 37

38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Jacoby did not allot Nicolaus’ fragments to Ktesias. On the other hand, Lenfant’s edition of the fragments of the Persika and the Indika does. References will henceforth be given to both. The most relevant fragment here is FGrH 90 F66 = Lenfant (2004: F8d*). Cf. Diod. Sic. 2.23–25 and Lenfant (2004: F1pδ and F1pε*). Lenfant argued that the substance of Ktesias’ narrative has not been radically altered in its transmission, see Lenfant (2000: passim). In a start that does not inspire confidence, Ktesias/Nicolaus has mistaken the name of Cyrus’ father, here given as Ἀτραδάτος, FGrH 90 F66.3 = Lenfant (2004: F8d*.3). FGrH 90 F66.2–3 = Lenfant (2004: F8d*.2–3). FGrH 90 F66.4–5 = Lenfant (2004: F8d*.4–5). Herod. 1.107–108. FGrH 90 F66.6–9 = Lenfant (2004: F8d*.6–9). FGrH 90 F66.11–13 = Lenfant (2004: F8d*.11–13). FGrH 90 F66.14–23= Lenfant (2004: F8d*.14–23). FGrH 90 F66.24–26 = Lenfant (2004: F8d*.24–26). Cf. FGrH 690.9.

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those sent to pursue him before leading a revolt from Persia that ends with the capture and deposition of Astyages.47 It has been argued that this Cyrus was an essentially Greek construct.48 Moreover, Ktesias claimed that Herodotos was a liar and certain features of the narrative such as the strange redundancy of the astrologer and the name of Cyrus’ co-conspirator suggest some kind of literary riposte.49 On the other hand, the Sargonic precedent of something like the Sumerian Legend is strongly suggested by a number of parallels. Like the Sargon of the Sumerian King List, Cyrus is here an outsider. He too is made the cupbearer to the man he is to depose and just as in the Sumerian Legend the action pivots on a prophetic dream which leads the antagonist to attempt to kill the subject. While this Cyrus is far less passive than the Sargon of the Sumerian Legend, it is still made clear that his actions have divine approval; in another parallel to the Sargon of the Sumerian Legend, Cyrus’ mother’s prophetic dream appears to take place in a temple.50 Cyrus did not present himself in this way. Cyrus’ own inscriptions and a few contemporary Babylonian documents refer to him as the king of Anshan, and later Achaemenid epigraphy would continue to stress membership of this dynasty.51 This raises the question of what it is we are actually looking at in Nicolaus’ fragment, a question complicated by the controversial nature of Ktesias’ work. Ktesias was a doctor at the court of Artaxerxes ii (405/404–359 bc). Based in Babylon he was in a position to garner information from sources usually unconsidered in Greek historiography. Much modern scholarship holds that Ktesias wasted this opportunity and the fragments of this work have had a cold reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.52 Ktesias’ merits as a historian are of no interest here. What concerns us is his access to the literary and informal historical traditions current in Babylon in the fourth century bce.53

47 48 49 50 51 52 53

FGrH 90 F66.27–46 = Lenfant (2004: F8d*.27–46). Cizek (1975). Phot. Bibl. 72.105–106 (ed. Henry 1959). Oibares is the name of Darius’ groom at Herod. 3.85–87. On this name, see Panaino & Basello (2009: 395–396). Cf. FGrH.90 F66.9 = Lenfant (2004: F8d*.6); Herod. 1.107.1. Cooper & Heimpel (1983: 77, 3N T296, line 12). Achaemenid inscriptions are gathered and translated in Lecoq (1997). Ktesias does have his defenders, see Stronk (2007) and Llewellyn-Jones & Robson (2010). Cf. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (1987: 43) mentioning the decline theory presented at Drews (1973: 116): ‘[…] an unskilled informant who has preserved more of the literary tradition than of the factual history of Persia’; Murray (1987: 113–114): ‘[…] an account of Persian court life as the Persian aristocracy saw it’ (emphases added).

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There are good reasons to believe that the memory of Sargon was extremely visible on the eve of Cyrus’ conquest of Babylon and that some of his new subjects pressed the image of the ancient king over the new one. Though the story presented by Ktesias may have been ahistorical, there is a good chance that it reflects an unambiguously eastern account of Cyrus’ rise to the throne. Sargon was still known to the literate circles of Achaemenid Babylon.54 Moreover, he was a prominent part of the propaganda of Nabonidus, the king whom Cyrus deposed. Nabonidus was fascinated by the dynasty of Akkad and made conspicuous displays of reverence for their relics.55 This strategy may have backfired with the arrival of Cyrus.56 Robert Drews and Heleen SancisiWeerdenburg have argued that Ktesias’ story arose in the informal historical traditions of Babylon, and a modified version of this argument is accepted here.57 As Drews himself noted, it is extremely likely that the written and unwritten histories of Sargon had traded a great deal of material over the centuries and any informal historiography could not have been ‘purely’ oral or demotic.58 In Babylon, Cyrus’ memory passed out of his descendants’ control, and he was reshaped according to ideals enmeshed in an ancient tradition of historical literature. Unlike the other traditions considered here, Ktesias’ Cyrus was probably the result of a convergence of context and coincidence. Be this as it may, Ktesias’ rendition of the story into Greek remains a neat illustration of how this pattern replicated itself through time and across cultures.59 Tied to both a model king and a particular, recurrent circumstance, the court sequence re-emerged at points of dynastic change or unusual succession. When a subject was judged to be particularly remarkable, they became a new model apt for capture in literature, thereby renewing the argumentative power of the underlying pattern. Thus, the Babylonian Cyrus was a likely bridge between the Mesopotamian base of the court scene and two of its much later iterations that almost certainly were apologetic.

54 55 56 57 58

59

Another Sargonic legend was used as a school text in this period. See Fragment C of the Birth Legend, as described in Lewis (1980: 18–21). Beaulieu (1989: 141–143). Kuhrt (2003: 355–356). Drews (1974: 392). Ibid. (392–393). For interactions between oral and written literatures more generally, see Finnegan (1970: passim). For the serious problems inherent in the idea of a stable cuneiform ‘canon’, see Robson (2011: 571–572). It should be noted that Ktesias was much more widely read in antiquity than his scattered fragments would indicate, see Llewellyn-Jones & Robson (2010: 33).

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Ardashir and Ardawan

The first of the target traditions of this chapter arises from yet another conquest of Mesopotamia. Circa 224ce, Ardashir, the head of a minor aristocratic clan from the old Achaemenid homeland of Fars, toppled the nearly five-hundredyear-old Arsakid or Parthian dynasty. His dynasty, the Sasanians, would rule over Iran, Mesopotamia and much of Central Asia until the advent of Islam in the seventh century. Though, or perhaps because, the cultural and political consequences of Ardashir’s actions were momentous, his background remains unclear. The historiography of this period is extremely opaque; worse, different versions of dynastic origins appear to have circulated during the Sasanian period itself. Of these the most likely account is carried in Ṭabarī’s (839–923ce) History of the Prophets and Kings and (with some variations) some later works in Arabic.60 Reading between the lines we may reconstruct events as beginning with Ardashir’s clan revolting against their overlord, the king of Istakhr. Once successful the Sasanian clan continued to subjugate the petty kings of their region leading to a showdown with the Parthian king Ardawan iv. Though Ṭabarī’s narrative is centred on Ardashir, it is not at all clear that he was the instigator of the revolt; indeed, Ṭabarī all but states that Ardashir was a less favoured son who disposed of his brother Shapur to become head of the family.61 Because Shapur is attested in coins and mentioned in an early Sasanian inscription yet absent from historical literature, Ṭabarī must have had access to a source running counter to later Sasanian ideology. Thus, Ṭabarī’s History is provisionally accepted as the most likely account of Sasanian origins extant. A quite different version, henceforth referred to as the Kārnāmag, is given in two similar Persian texts: the eleventh-century New Persian epic Šhāhnāmeh of Firdawsī (ŠhN) and a Middle Persian tract copied in India in 1322, the Kārnāmag-ī Ardāšir-ī Pābagān (KNA). It is conjectured here that these share a common ancestor, a hypothetical Middle Persian Kārnāmag-ī Ardāšir-ī Pābagān (hKNA) whose date is difficult to fix. The episodic flavour of the narrative

60 61

See Widengren (1971). Ṭabarī: 8 (transl. Bosworth 1999). According to Bal’amī, Pabag, Ardashir’s father, preferred Shapur to Ardashir and Shapur was undone by a rebellion among his brothers who preferred Ardashir; see Bal’amī: 877–878 (ed. Gonbadi 1974/1975). Ṭabarī tells of a plot of Pabag’s sons against Ardashir after Shapur had been removed (see Ṭabarī: 9 and Bal’amī: 879).

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suggests that hKNA incorporated a number of sources into a longer account.62 One of these was a court sequence in which the conflict of Ardashir and Ardawan was cast not as a revolt on the periphery, but as a personal confrontation at the imperial centre. In the Kārnāmag, Ardashir’s father is Sasan, the scion of the Kayanid line deposed by Alexander, now disguised as a shepherd.63 Sasan’s identity and Ardashir’s birth are signalled to Ardashir’s maternal grandfather and adoptive father-to-be, Pabag, the sub-king of Pars, by a prophetic, solar dream.64 The court sequence proper begins fifteen years later when word of the young Ardashir’s precocity reaches Pabag’s overlord Ardawan iv, who demands the boy come to his court. Ardashir’s skill in hunting and polo impresses all until one of Ardawan’s sons attempts to claim credit for a remarkable shot Ardashir makes during a hunt.65 Demoted to stable boy, Ardashir attracts Ardawan’s concubine who tells him that Ardawan has been warned by astrologers that anyone who escapes from his court within three days will depose him.66 Ardashir flees to Fars, outpaces the pursuing Ardawan, collects the xwarrah, accepts the allegiance of the nobility, and defeats Ardawan.67 The details of Ardashir’s escape from court display a marked resemblance to the Cyrus known to Ktesias and Dinon. A series of oddly specific parallels can be discerned: Ardawan is warned by a group of astrologers of his deposition and is later given an exposition of the symbolism of the xwarrah by his minister. Astyages, it will be recalled, is warned twice, once by an astrologer and again by a singer or harpist. Like Cyrus, Ardashir has a helper. Ardashir’s escape comes (at least in the version offered by Firdawsī) after Pabag has died

62

63 64 65 66 67

Nöldeke (1878: 28): ‘Das Kârnâmak zerfällt in mehrere Abschnitte, die ziemlich lose miteinander verbunden sind, die aber darin ihre Einheit haben, das sie sich alle auf die Durchführung der staatlichen Einigung Irân’s beziehen’. See also O’Farrell (2018: 83–86). ŠhN 6.139–140, lines 87–98 (ed. Khaleghi Motlagh & Omidsalar 1987–2007) = KNA 1.6–7. ŠhN 6.140–142, lines 99–135 = KNA 1.8–20. ŠhN 6 143–146, lines 143–195 = KNA 2.4–20. ŠhN 6.148–151, lines 214–265 = KNA 3.1–12. ŠhN 6.151–156, lines 266–342 = KNA 3.13–5.13. The xwarrah, sometimes rendered as ‘glory’, is a difficult concept to translate. It is a supernatural entity originating in the fusion of old Iranian legend and Zoroastrian sacred myth. While it is associated with gods and Zoroaster himself it is particularly tightly bound to the mythical Kayanid dynasty and thus (especially in the Sasanian period) the concept of divine right to rule. While it appears to inhere in individuals it is both sentient and quasi-tangible (here for instance it is incarnated as a particularly impressive ram). It chooses its host and might be lost by misrule or immorality. For an overview, see Gnoli (1999), and a sense of the concept’s religious and royal function in sacred history can be found in the narrative of the Avestan Zamyād Yašt, see Hintze (1994).

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and Ardawan has disinherited Ardashir.68 Cyrus offers his father’s (faked) illness as an excuse to leave Astyages’ court. Ardashir, like Cyrus, flees towards his homeland. Like Astyages, Ardawan is pulled from his leisure to an abrupt realization of what is happening and orders a pursuit of the boy.69 Ardashir does not trick his pursuers, as the Ktesian Cyrus does, but the chase is staged, with Ardawan stopping to ask for directions only to be informed that Ardashir’s destiny, in the form of the xwarrah, is literally catching up with him.70 As if to emphasize the point, the fact is repeatedly recounted to him by passers-by and finally has to be explained by his minister.71 Ardashir, of course, reaches the sea and the safety of his homeland.72 A comparison of this section of the Kārnāmag with the account of Ṭabarī reveals the overall message of the narrative. In Ṭabarī the Sasanian clan’s political horizons were very constrained; Ardashir was fostered out to a subordinate of Ardawan’s underling, certainly not to the court of the Great King himself.73 Likewise, the revolt of Ardashir’s family would seem to have been a purely local affair that it took Ardawan some time to notice or respond to.74 On the basis of this account, it is most likely that Ardashir and Ardawan never actually met before the climactic battle in which Ardawan was killed. Why then does the Kārnāmag associate Ardashir so closely with his remote overlord? The question is doubly puzzling as highlighting Ardawan runs counter to the tendency of later Sasanian historiography to ignore and degrade the Arsakid dynasty as much as possible.75 Ṭabarī’s account suggests both the reason for this staging and the context of its likely emergence. Ardawan was no petty king but the representative of an imperial dynasty, the centre of an ancient system of powerful noble houses.76

68 69

70 71 72

73 74 75 76

ŠhN 6.149, lines 231–234. A sudden pulling of the antagonist from rest or leisure is a minor motif of the court scene, cf. FGrH 90 F66, 26 = Lenfant (2004: F8d*, 26); FGrH 690.9 (Dinon); ŠhN 6.153, line 280; KNA 3.14 and 4.1; Lactant. De mort. pers. 24.7. Gnoli (1999). KNA 4.24 = ŠhN 6.155–156, lines 325–329. Daniel Ogden considered the flight made by the Ktesian Cyrus and the Ardashir of KNA to be related to a complex of legends, one iteration of which was attached to Seleukos. He theorized that a key motif of these stories is the crossing of a water boundary, in this case, reaching the sea; see the summary and tables provided at Ogden (2017: 71–75), and the consideration of Ardashir in particular at 82–84. Ṭabarī: 6. According to Ṭabarī (11), it was the construction of the city of Gur that drew a response from Ardawan, see Huff (2008: 35–40). Yarshater (1983: 473–476). Pourshariati (2008: 37–43).

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By contrast, Ardashir headed an obscure family of gentry. Placing Ardashir in Ardawan’s court may have resurrected Ardawan’s memory in a way that is incompatible with later Sasanian historiography, but it also provided a recognizable staging in which Arsakid, or pro-Arsakid, claims could be negated. Victor and vanquished were brought together to contrast them, to juxtapose a prodigious youth with a jealous tyrant while giving a clear indication that the youth’s ascent was divinely ordained. Like the fanciful paternity with which it was fused, this account indicates a tension between the grand claims of the Sasanian state and the dynasty’s middling origins. Viewed in this light the meanings of certain features of the court scene come into sharper focus. Ardawan’s omen is an unsubtle signal of the inevitable. Like Urzababa, Ardawan resists a heavenly decree and on this account his actions have a subtext of futile impiety or hybris. The Kārnāmag’s court scene presents a past in which the Arsakids had lost the approval of the gods; something stated outright during Ardawan’s pursuit. The incident at the hunt, like 1Samuel’s Goliath episode, serves to underline this. Ardashir makes a public demonstration of skill in an aristocratic game serving as a symbol of kingship itself and does so in full view of the house of Arsakes and their retainers.77 The scene is a performance of the illegitimacy of Ardawan’s dynasty with Ardawan’s son claiming Ardashir’s kill. Ardawan’s anger simultaneously recognizes and refuses Ardashir’s claim.78 Given the historiographical context it is likely that the court sequences seen in KNA and the Šhahnāmeh descend from an apologetic text intended to argue a point in a contested historiography. The artificiality of this story, the suggestive precedent of its form and the existence of at least one critical take of Sasanian origins support this assertion. Yet, from the Iranian evidence we can elicit no further detail in support of this proposition. We may, however, find a very useful heuristic in the historiography of Constantine’s flight from the court of Galerius in 305. This incident presents a clear case of the reconstruction of reality according to the norms of the court scene and of all the texts reviewed here offers the most insight into its mechanics, propagation, and inherent meaning.

77 78

Note that David kills Goliath in front of Saul and the Israelite host; 1 Sam. 17:51–52. KNA 2.13–2.19 = ŠhN 6.145, lines 176–192.

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Constantine and Galerius

In 305 Constantine left the court of Galerius to join his father Constantius’ campaign in Britain.79 Constantine had recently been cut from the succession, and although Galerius probably saw him as a threat, he could not have refused a request for his return.80 Constantius died in York in 306, but his British campaign is confirmed by an inscription found in Tuscany dating to January 306 and is mentioned in a panegyric delivered to Constantine in 310.81 Though successful, this campaign would largely disappear from later historiography. In its place arose a story of Constantine’s race to his father’s deathbed. In this representation the campaign of 305 was discarded to shorten the timeline of Constantine’s exit. The result was a courtly narrative of plot and flight reminiscent of the Near Eastern stories reviewed above. This transformation was deliberate and must have occurred in Constantine’s own court at some point between 310 and 313–316. The resulting construct unfolds as follows: Constantine sparks fear in his host, who plots against him. The instigator of this plot varies as the two tetrarchs are often confused or elided.82 The plot involves arranging some kind of ‘accident’ to occur during a dangerous game, usually a combat against animals. Constantine, often with the aid of God, is warned of the plan and/or overcomes the beasts. He escapes court and flees to his father in Britain, evading pursuit by maiming, killing or leading off the post-horses behind him. Constantine receives the dying Constantius’ blessing and inherits his ‘kingdom’. Variants of this story appear in a large number of texts but only those with particular relevance to its development and the demonstration of its interior logic will be considered here. The earliest of these is Panegyricus latinus vi(7), a speech probably delivered to Constantine in Trier in 310.83 The author makes reference to Constantine’s exit from the court of Galerius in 305, his meeting with his father and their campaign against the Picts.84 His account supports the 79 80 81 82

83 84

Barnes (1982: 42). So argued at Barnes (2011: 61–63), largely followed by Bardill (2012: 82). The relevant inscription is recorded in the Epigraphic Database Heidelberg as HD032314. The identity of the plotter was Galerius according to Lactantius and (possibly) the Origo, never specified by Eusebios, Maximinus according to Praxagoras but Diocletian according to Philostorgios, Galerius according to Alexander the Monk (PG 87.3.4052B), sequentially Diocletian and Galerius according to Theophanes and the Guidi Vita (BHG 364), Diocletian in the Opitz Vita and Galerius again in the Halkin Vita (see below). A case for August 310 is made at Nixon & Saylor Rodgers (1994: 213–214). Origo 2 (ed. König 1987).

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information given in the Tuscan inscription and the version of events given in the Origo Constantini. In the latter text Constantine meets Constantius in Gaul before both cross the channel. Yet the Origo also contains statements that look like the transitional fossils of the more popular version of Constantine’s flight. Galerius puts ‘dangers’ before the young Constantine who throws a bestial ( ferox) Sarmatian at Galerius’ feet. In his flight he paralyzes the post-horses behind him.85 Thanks to Lactantius’ De mortibus persecutorum we know that a much more coherent and detailed account had arisen by 313–316. Lactantius describes how Galerius tried to kill the young man in ‘games and exercises’ involving dangerous animals. Thwarted, Galerius releases Constantine while planning to intercept him on his journey. Constantine discovers the plot and leaves early, making away with the post-horses as he goes. Galerius lingers in his tent and calls for Constantine to find him gone. Constantine reaches Britain just in time for his dying father to bequeath him his legions.86 We may be reasonably certain that Lactantius knew the stories circulating at Constantine’s court. The details of Lactantius’ life are unclear, but he may have met Constantine while he was serving under Diocletian in Nicomedia, where Lactantius taught rhetoric. In his old age Lactantius became the tutor of Constantine’s son Crispus and was probably associated with Constantine’s entourage in the 310s.87 Though De mortibus strongly suggests that this story circulated close to Constantine himself, Lactantius was certainly not its only conduit into posterity. By the mid 320s political developments had rendered De mortibus an awkward document and it seems to have been largely forgotten until its rediscovery in 1679, yet the flight from Galerius’ court was widespread by Constantine’s death in 337. Another iteration of the story, including an animal combat, appeared in the Life of the emperor composed by Praxagoras of Athens sometime after 324.88 Eusebios’ Life of Constantine (c. 337) included a cursory account of the escape and deathbed reunion missing an animal combat and bound up in 85 86 87

88

Ibid. Lactant. De mort. pers. 24.3–9. Jer. De vir. ill. 80. De mortibus persecutorum was written between 313 and 316. Lactantius is generally assumed to have been in Gaul with Constantine at some point in between 310 and 315; Odahl (1995: 336–337) put Lactantius at Constantine’s court in Trier in 313, Barnes(2011: 61) in 311 or 312, Digeser (2000: 32) as early as 310. A close personal and ideological relationship between the two men has been posited in Odahl (1995: 336–342), and DePalma Digeser (2000: passim). Phot. Bibl. 62. Praxagoras may have intended to present this work to Constantine himself; Smith (2007: 359–361).

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a comparison of the emperor to Moses.89 Two Latin epitomes of the fourth and fifth centuries contain Lactantian details and the anti-Christian historian Eunapios (337–414) probably reworked the escape in a derogatory fashion.90 We may suggest that Constantine’s court sequence began as a series of propagandistic claims emerging from Constantine’s court in the early 310s; claims directed against Galerius and intended to argue Constantine’s right to succeed his father. These may have originally stressed Constantine’s military service (as in the Origo) but by the composition of De mortibus had coalesced into a courtly staging; we might see in this shift a reference, knowing or otherwise, to the Ktesian Cyrus. Variations of this narrative were acceptable to the emperor and were adopted by his supporters and petitioners. The pull of stereotype is apparent even at this early point; Eusebios described Constantine, in 305 a married father in his mid-thirties, as a boy, while Praxagoras claimed that he was pursuing an education at Galerius’ court.91 Evidently something like the account given by Lactantius was enormously successful in shaping the reception of 305 in Byzantine historiography. Yet later texts tend to speak rather generally of a plot, Constantine’s escape and inheritance. That a more detailed account remained available in Greek can be deduced from two medieval hagiographical texts about Constantine: BHG 365 —the Opitz Vita (fragmentary ninth-eleventh centuries), and BHG 365n—the Halkin or Patmos Vita (twelfth-thirteenth centuries). Both describe a tetrarch’s attempt to kill Constantine in a staged combat with animals suggesting descent from a very old source. The Opitz Vita mentions the historian Philostorgios (late fourth century) by name, and its rendition of this episode has been associated with his fragments since the 1930s.92 While it cannot be conclusively proved that Philostorgios’ work is the base of this episode, he does seem the most likely candidate. Aside from offering a window on how the scene may have been portrayed in the fourth century, these Lives of Constantine once again used a public combat to emphasize a personal comparison. The Opitz Vita claims that the plot took place during ‘certain festivals’ at which the custom was for the emperor and his domestici to fight declawed and defanged animals.93 Diocletian instructs the

89 90 91 92 93

A comparison spelt out at Euseb. Vit. Const. 1.12. Aur. Vict. Caes. 40.2–3; Pseudo-Aur. Vict. Epitome 41.2; Zos. 2.8.3. Euseb. Vit. Const. 1.12.2 and 1.19, Phot. Bibl. 62.61. On Constantine’s age as a plastic fact, see Barnes (1982: 39–41; 2011: 2–3, 55–56). Amidon (2007: 239, n. 1). Bidez (1935: 421, section 2, line 19–422, section 2 line 1).

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handlers to substitute intact specimens during Constantine’s bout. God grants Constantine forewarning and he defeats the beasts. Diocletian pretends to be angry with the handlers, but Constantine catches on and escapes to Constantius.94 The plan backfires, becoming an affirmation of Constantine’s suitability that reflects very poorly on Diocletian. The episode ends with Constantine’s flight to his father’s deathbed, during which he is stated to have lamed posthorses behind him in order to avoid pursuit.95 In the Halkin Vita Galerius feigns illness and Constantine takes his place in a mock animal combat that is explicitly described as a ritualistic confirmation of the emperor’s virility performed before a crowd.96 The crowd, we are told, was expected to shout its approval by crying: Wonderful is the courage [τὰ ἀνδρείας] that fate [ἡ τύχη] has granted the emperor. Hooray for the fortune of the Romans!97 Here the author has merely sensed and strengthened the underlying grammar of the episode. Though it is not explicitly stated, the reader is supposed to imagine Constantine receiving this acclamation in Galerius’ place. In the Halkin Vita, Galerius miscalculates so badly that the staged display of kingly prowess becomes real; Galerius has play-acted his own deposition, and the potential means of Constantine’s murder have become a symbol of his right to rule. As the tetrarchic college disintegrated, claimants to the empire could return to older signifiers of legitimacy: hereditary right or displays of civic virtue, for example.98 In this atmosphere Constantine’s exit lent itself to a predetermined script drawn from the stock images of royalty. Constantine’s metamorphosis into the founder of imperial Christianity expanded what was once an argumentative, ad hoc reference into something more. The resulting combination of reference and reception directed writers towards a specific reading and a palette of appropriate details. The context provided by the historiography of Constantine’s flight allows a broader hypothesis of the court narrative as a pervasive species of historicizing representation, one with strongly situational triggers and a tendency towards

94 95 96 97 98

Ibid. (422, section 2, lines 1–39). Ibid. (422, section 2 lines 18–25). Halkin (1959: 77, section 3, line 33–35). Ibid. (77, section 3, lines 30–31). I am grateful to Prof. Samuel Lieu and Mark Vermes for their permission to use their unpublished translation of the Halkin Vita. Warmington (1974: 375); Rogers (1989); Van Dam (2011: 235–243); and Börm (2015).

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a courtly, apologetic, origin.99 We may note how broadly similar patterns in Ardashir’s accession and retrospective interpretation appear to have produced a very similar narrative. It is not at all unlikely that the court sequence seen in the Kārnāmag texts followed the same trajectory as Constantine’s. Extending the comparison further, we may suggest that these late antique examples offer a general insight into the reproduction, uses and behaviour of the court narrative throughout its long life.

7

Conclusions

Uses of the court scene collapse an assortment of historical figures into an eternal type; like Borges’ gaucho, these lives were dissolved into the terms set by an ancient literary model. These terms were insidious and self-replicating, informing the correct presentation of novel monarchy and creating fresh referents as they did so. The stuff of history is shot through with similarly repetitious and unrealistic patterns of representation. ‘Fictions’ like the court scene were, if not ‘realistic’, evidently meaningful to those who replicated them; a fact that at times presents modern historians with serious problems of categorization and interpretation. In attempting to understand this kind of narrative it is useful to concentrate not on the form itself but what it describes. It is my hope that the comparative approach used in this chapter, with its emphasis on situational factors and the importance of deliberate propagation has presented a useful meditation on this problem.

Bibliography Alföldy, G. & Witschel, C. (eds.) 1997. Epigraphic Database Heidelberg (Heidelberg). Accessible Online via: https://edh‑www.adw.uni‑heidelberg.de/home. Almagor, E. 2018. ‘Deinon of Kolophon’, in I. Worthington (ed.), Brill’s New Jacoby (Leiden). Alster, B. 1987. ‘A Note on the Uriah Letter in the Sumerian Sargon Legend’, ZAVA 77, 169–173.

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Indeed, further proof of this may be found in a biography of the emperor Basil i (r. 867– 886), compiled into a continuation of Theophanes Confessor made around 1000. This work contains a court narrative (lacking escape and battle) that pairs extensive use of the tropes outlined above with a character assassination of Basil’s predecessor, Michael iii. The providential nature of Basil’s rise is made explicit throughout. See Ševčenko (2011).

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Anklesaria, B.T. (ed.) 1935. Kâr-nâma-î Artakhsîr-î Pâpakân (Bombay). Amidon, P. (transl.) 2007. Philostorgius: Church History (Atlanta). Bacharova, M.R. 2016. From Hittite to Homer: The Anatolian Background of Ancient Greek Epic (Cambridge). Bardill, J. 2012. Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age (Cambridge). Barnes, T. 1982. The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Cambridge). Barnes, T. 2011. Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire (Chichester). Beaulieu, P.A. 1989. The Reign of Nabonidus King of Babylon 556–539 b.c. (New Haven). Bidez, J. 1935. ‘Fragments nouveaux de Philostorge sur la Vie de Constantin’, Byzantion 10, 403–437. Borges, J.L. 1999. Collected Fictions. Transl. by A. Hurley (London). Börm, H. 2015. ‘Born to be Emperor: The Principle of Succession and the Roman Monarchy’, in J. Wienand (ed.), Contested Monarchy: Integrating the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century ad (Oxford), 239–264. Bosworth, C.E. (transl.) 1999. Ṭabarī: The History of al-Ṭabarī Volume v: The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids and Yemen (New York). Bottéro, J. 1992. Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods. Transl. by Z. Bahrani & M. van de Mieroop (Chicago). Cereti, C. 2011. ‘Kār-Nāmag ī Ardašīr ī Pābagān’, in Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. xv, fasc. 6 (London), 585–588. Accessible online via http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/​ karnamag‑i‑ardasir (accessed: 30-05-2018). Cizek, A. 1975. ‘From the Historical Truth to the Literary Convention: The Life of Cyrus the Great viewed by Herodotus, Ctesias and Xenophon’, AC 44.2, 531–552. Cooper, J.S. 1986. Sumerian and Akkadian Royal Inscriptions, Volume i: Presargonic Inscriptions (New Haven). Cooper, J.S. & Heimpel, W. 1983. ‘The Sumerian Sargon Legend’, JAOS 103.1, 67–82. Davidson, O.M. 1994. Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings (Ithaca). Davis, D. 1996. ‘The Problem of Ferdowsî’s Sources’, JAOS 116.1, 48–57. DePalma Digeser, E. 2000. The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome (Ithaca). Dick, M.B. 2004. ‘The “History of David’s Rise to Power” and the Neo-Babylonian Succession Apologies’, in B.F. Batto & K.L. Roberts (eds.), David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of J.J.M. Roberts (Winona Lake), 3–20. Drews, R. 1973. The Greek Accounts of Eastern History (Washington, DC). Drews, R. 1974. ‘Sargon, Cyrus and Mesopotamian Folk History’, JNES 33.4, 387–393. Dvornik, F. 1966. Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy, 2 vols. (Washington, DC). Favuzzi, A. & Paradiso, A. (eds.) 2018. ‘Nikolaos of Damaskos’, in I. Worthington (ed.), Brill’s New Jacoby (Leiden).

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Index Abdisho bar Brikha 70, 72, 86–92 Catalogue of Books 70, 86–92 Abraham of Nathpar 85–86, 89 Abraham (biblical prophet) 40, 115, 133n18, 222, 260, 264, 265n58, 269, 273 and Sarah 222 Achilles Tatios, Leukippe and Kleitophon 13–15, 96 Acts of Andrew 40, 44 Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the Land of the Anthropophagi 39–40, 43 Acts of Barnabas 40 Acts of John 40n53, 44 Acts of Matthew 40 Acts of Paul 44, 190–191, 194, 201–202 see also Thekla, Acts of Paul and Thekla Acts of Peter 44 Acts of Philip in Greece 39 Acts of Thomas 40, 44, 197n66 Aesop, Life of 130n9 adab literature 258, 261–263, 265n60 Adam 257, 268–270, 272 and Eve 193, 199, 215, 247–248 story of their creation 199 Testament of 270, 272 Adrian and Nataly, Life of 153n7 Agathangelos, History of the Armenians 13, 16, 181–202 agency 54, 187 Alexander and Antonina, Martyrdom of 153n7 Alexander the Great 7, 91, 253–278, 295 Alexander the Monk 298n82 Alexios Mousele 120 ʿAli ibn Abi Tālib 255 allegory 6, 214, 222, 227, 236, 277–278 Alypios the Stylite, Life of 30n12 ambiguity 16, 27, 30n12, 36, 41n57, 46n70, 95, 103, 114n28, 156, 210, 212, 222, 229, 231, 258n30, 264 moral 212, 230 Ambrose, On Virgins 190n38 Ammianus Marcellinus 210, 213 Res Gestae 213

Ammonios, Report on the Slaughter of the Monks of Sinai and of Raithou 96–97 Anahit, goddess 187 analepsis 3 see also chronology Ananias, High Priest 39 Ananisho 76, 82–86, 89 Paradise of the Fathers 85–86 Anastasia Patrikia, Life/Story of 153, 163– 164, 172, 173 Anaxagoras 38 Andrew the Fool, Life of 35n34, 55–56, 58, 60, 62 Andronikos and Athanasia Life of 153, 157–158, 159n31, 160, 161, 166 Story of Andronikos the Money-dealer and His Wife Athanasia 158 animals 43, 44, 61, 90n51, 99, 152, 162n40, 167–168, 194–199, 228, 284, 291, 298– 301 ants 217–218 bird(s) 99, 194–195, 196, 270, 272, 273, 276, 278n105 boar 184, 195–198 as symbol of Vahagn 196 lion(s) 210, 216, 226, 228–229 speaking 43, 270, 273, 276 Anna the Younger called Euphemianos, Life of 153, 156 antagonist 129, 143–146, 292, 296n69 see also hero, anti-hero Antony of Tagrit, On Rhetoric 143 Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 235 Apocalypse of Esdra 45 Apocalypse of Zosimas 45 Apolinaria, Life of 153, 160, 164, 166, 172 apologia 285, 287 Apuleius, Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass) 15, 195, 199 Aramaic (language) 212, 247 Ardashir i, King 19, 283–284, 294–297, 302 Ardawan iv, King 294–297 argumentum 9 see also plasma Arianism 42, 236

308 Aristotle 31–32, 36, 84, 91, 143 as Alexander’s teacher 255, 257, 267 On the Soul 31–32 Armenian (language) 8, 181–202, 242n25 Armenians 181–183, 187–189, 191–192, 195, 198–202 as chosen people 182–183 plan of God for the 181–183, 187, 200, 202 Artapanos 288n24 Artaxerxes ii, King 292 asceticism 18, 29, 52, 57, 82–86, 96, 98, 100, 104, 116, 119n49, 134–135, 140–141, 156n21, 184, 192, 199, 211, 215, 219–220, 230–231, 273n87 ascetic literature 18, 94–95, 193n51, 197, 199, 202 Astyages, King 291, 292, 295–296 Athanasios of Alexandria 87 Apology to Constantius 197n66 Life of Antony 5n14, 18n66, 30, 94–95, 100, 130, 138n36, 211n8 ʿAttār 271n80, 278 Book of the Divine 271n80, 278n106 Logic of the Birds 278n105 audience 6–7, 11–13, 17, 42, 43n63, 55, 58, 60–62, 103, 108–109, 112, 114, 132, 134, 146–147, 153–156, 163, 169, 171–176, 236– 239, 242–243, 246–247, 249, 254, 257 expected by hagiographer to recognize invention 154–155, 173 Aurelius Victor, De caesaribus 300n90 authenticity 4, 10n32, 11n37, 14n53, 45, 132, 137, 188, 258, 260, 262n40 authentication 4, 14–17, 86, 131n14, 133– 138, 146, 182n4, 184–186, 188, 189, 202, 210, 258, 261–266, 271, 277 technique(s) of 4, 14–17, 131n14, 133, 134n21, 138, 139, 184–186, 258, 261, 265, 271, 277 see also history, historicity authority 19, 46, 55, 82, 116, 135, 156, 171, 176, 185, 191, 237, 261–263, 266, 271, 289 ecclesiastical 27, 55, 109, 111, 140 imperial 51, 56–59, 114 political 46, 109, 211 religious/spiritual 46, 55, 116 see also power authorship 62, 69, 90–92, 99–101, 103, 155n17, 163, 170n73, 244n30

index aristocratic 59–61 authorial pact 12–16, 19, 55, 72–73, 88, 237, 242, 263 see also fictional contract secular 53, 55–57, 62, 185–186 autobiography see biography autopsy 4, 16, 40, 72n12, 131–132, 184–185, 202 see also (eye)witness (report) Babai, Mar 73, 78–80, 83 Balʿami 259n31, 265n59, 268n71, 269n72, 294n61 Tārikhnāmah (Book of History) 259n31 barbarian(s) 95–99, 101–103, 105, 210, 216, 229 abduction by 96, 100, 103 Barhebraeus 70 Barlaam and Ioasaph, Life of 55, 61 barrenness 220 Bartholomew, Martyrion of 38–39 Basil i, Emperor 54, 302n99 Basil ii, Emperor 54n7, 56, 61 Basil of Ancyra, On Virginity 197n66 Basil of Caesarea (‘Basil the Great’) 34n31, 236 On the Holy Spirit 34n31 Basil the Parakoimomenos 54n7 Basil the Younger, Life of 16, 51–59, 60–63 Bathsheba see David belief 6, 8, 9, 13, 16, 31, 33, 37, 60, 72n12, 135, 137, 154–155, 164, 176, 211, 228, 243 Bible 87, 183, 211n6, 112–213, 215, 217–218, 220, 231, 238–239, 254n9, 288 as model 19, 114–115, 121, 148, 186, 240– 242, 259–260, 273–276 biblical motif 19, 194 biblical stylization 209–231 New Testament Apocalypse of John 45 Corinthians 116n39, 192, 193n52, 194 Ephesians 193n52, 216 Epistle to the Hebrews 225 Epistles of Peter 185 Gospel of John 28, 35, 214–216, 238, 240, 242 Gospel of Luke 201, 214, 219–221, 225, 230, 240–242, 246

index Gospel of Mark 38n48, 201, 214, 239– 240 Gospel of Matthew 85, 193, 201, 214, 239–242, 245 Old Testament Daniel 87, 88, 196 Deuteronomy 183n8, 183n9 Exodus 87, 88, 222, 254n8, 288 Ezekiel 32n21, 87, 88 Genesis 87, 88, 221–223 Isaiah 87, 88 Jeremiah 87, 88 Joshua 87, 88 Judges 87, 88 Kings 87, 212–213 Leviticus 87, 88 Proverbs 36, 218 Psalms 87, 183n8, 194–195, 222, 224– 229, 231 Samuel 87, 212, 220, 225–229, 231, 285, 288, 289n30, 289n34, 290, 297 Song of Songs 193, 222, 230 Tobit 211n6 Twelve Prophets 87, 88 biography 4, 10n28, 17n63, 18, 19n68, 38, 69, 71–73, 76–83, 86, 88, 91–92, 108, 118, 130, 131n14, 209n2, 209n3, 210, 237–238, 258, 259, 260n36, 261, 264, 283, 285, 287, 288, 290, 302n99 autobiography 4, 90n51, 103, 132, 134n20, 210, 230, 277n103 collective 69, 76, 79, 86, 88, 91–92 see also martyrdom, collective salvation through royal 283 ‘Books of the fathers’ 183 Borges, Jorge Luis 283–284, 302 Cacus (monster) 215, 227 captivity 39–40, 98, 100, 103, 112, 136, 187, 188, 210, 215–216, 221, 223– 224 see also barbarian(s), abduction by cave 82, 215, 218, 226–229, 284 celibacy 53, 192 Celsus 27, 31–33, 35–37 True Discourse 31

309 Cervantes, Don Quixote 12, 129 characterization 18, 19, 33, 109, 113, 133, 135, 141–142, 146, 201, 214, 230, 258n30– 259 Chariton (novelist) 14 chastity 143, 189, 191–194, 200, 210–212, 218, 220, 222–223, 229, 231 Christ 19n69, 27, 32, 37–40, 42, 44, 75, 112, 116–117, 143n50, 144, 187, 193n51, 198, 201, 225, 229, 235, 238, 241, 243, 247– 248 nativity of 241 Chronicle of Edessa 70 chronology 3, 17, 43, 54, 75–76, 85, 88, 91, 164, 185–186, 188, 284 chronological inconsistency 54 chronological narration 3, 75–76, 164 markers of 188 see also analepsis; prolepsis; in medias res Clement of Alexandria 36 Stromateis 36n39 Clement of Rome, Bishop 15 see also Pseudo-Clementine Homilies Cohn, Dorrit 129n3, 131n13, 169–170 Constantine i, Emperor 19, 284–285, 297– 302 Constantine vii Porphyrogennetos, Emperor 55–56, 58, 62, 291 Constantinople 44, 51, 53, 59–61, 108, 112– 113, 116, 137, 238–242, 244 see also urbanity Constantius, Emperor 298–299, 301 Constantius ii, Emperor 42 Conversio Cypriani 30n12 conversion 34, 39, 61, 82, 98, 118, 140–141, 144, 146, 181, 183, 186, 189, 191, 196, 197, 199–201, 268n71 court 19, 56, 62, 185, 189, 274n96, 283–302 credibility 6n17, 9, 111, 113 see also plausibility; reliability crucifixion 44, 248 cult 11n36, 109, 121, 199 curiosity 129, 141, 209, 219, 235, 255 Cyrus ii of Persia (‘Cyrus the Great’) 285, 290–293, 295–296, 300 Dagron, Gilbert 6n15, 138 Damasus i, Pope/Bishop of Rome 87, 222 Daniel of Sketis 164, 172

310 Daniel (biblical prophet) 196 Daniel the Stylite, Life of 30n12 Darius i, King (‘Darius the Great’) 256n19, 264 Darius iii, King 256n19, 264–266, 268n69 David (biblical king) 19, 114–115, 223–230, 235, 255, 258, 267–268, 273n89, 285, 287–290, 297 and Bathsheba 229–230 and Goliath 226, 289, 297n77 Debié, Muriel 70 deception 10, 15, 29, 39, 51, 222 see also lies; forgery; disguise Delehaye, Hippolyte 10, 133n16, 140n38, 188n30 De Matons, Grosdidier 245n31, 246 Demokritos 38 desert 94–105, 164, 166, 168, 209–210, 215– 217, 221–228, 231, 274 devil 29–30, 39, 45, 46n70, 118, 121, 200, 216– 217, 226–229 demon(ic) 28–30, 36–37, 39, 51–52, 95, 118, 121, 197, 239, 262n47, 268–270, 273n89, 274, 277 see also Satan de Vogüé, Adalbert 209n3, 214, 215n23, 219, 223, 230 Dhu al-Qarnayn 253–278 dialogue 18, 39–40, 187–188, 202, 243, 247– 248, 283 see also discourse, direct Dictys of Crete, Ephemeris Belli Troiani 15 diēgēsis 17n62, 220, 235, 260n36 Dinavari, Al-Akhbār Al-tiwāl (Lengthy Histories) 269n72 Dinon 291, 295–296 Diocletian, Emperor 189, 193–194, 200, 298n82, 299–301 Diodore of Tarsus 87 Diodoros Sikeliotes 291 discourse direct 58, 103, 131, 139, 141, 152, 182 see also dialogue free indirect 169n68 indirect 152n5 interior monologue 234, 242–243, 247, 249 see also speech

index disguise 141n44, 151–152, 154n10, 157–161, 163–172, 174–176, 228, 265, 295 of gender 151–152, 154n10, 157–161, 163– 172, 174–176 of identity 141n44, 228, 265n58, 295 see also deception; recognition doublet(s) (as structuring principle) 215 doxa 31 dream 30n12, 31–32, 34–35, 140, 196, 223, 254n8, 265–266, 286, 291–292, 295 see also vision Egeria, Itinerary 101 ego-narration see first-person narrative; narrative perspective, homodiegetic elaboration (of narrative account) 228, 246 Elisabeth (and Zechariah) 219–222, 224– 225 ellipsis (narrative) 17, 95, 97, 100–102 embedded narrative 3, 57, 103–104, 164, 211, 213–214, 219, 222, 224, 271 Empedokles 38 enargeia 174n82 entertainment hagiography as 175 reading pleasure 55, 61, 175–176 Ephrem Graecus 245 On the Sinful Woman 244n30, 245 Ephrem the Syrian 87–88, 244–245 ethics literature 259 ēthopoiia 18, 113, 235, 237 Eudokimos, St 114, 115n35 Life of 59 Eugenia, Life and Martyrdom of 153–154, 156–157, 171 Eunapios 300 Euphemia and the Goth, Story of 136–137 Euphemios 120n54 Euphrosyne of Alexandria, Life of 153, 158– 159, 166 Euphrosyne the Younger, Life and Miracles of 153, 160, 164, 166 Eusebia/Xene, Life of 153n7 Eusebios of Caesarea 38, 72n10, 214, 241, 288n24, 298n82, 299–300 Against Hierokles 38 Canon Tables 241 Ecclesiastical History 72n10, 214 Life of Constantine 299

index Eusebios of Emesa Life of Saint Melania 197n66 On the Martyrs 197n66 On Virginity 197n66 Eustathios Boilas 59 Euthymios the Athonite 61 Evagrius of Antioch 210 Evaristos, Synaxarion 55–56 Eve see Adam and Eve exegesis 6, 87–88, 214, 234, 236–237, 242, 246–247, 249, 253n3, 254–258, 261, 263, 274, 275n98, 278 (eye)witness (report) 4, 15, 32, 34–35, 39, 40, 53, 76, 77, 131–132, 134, 139, 142n48, 145, 184–185, 189n35, 202, 221, 260n36, 263, 277n103 as opposed to written sources 4, 131–132, 260n36 see also autopsy fabula 5n11, 9 see also mythos fact 3, 4n9, 11, 34–35, 60, 72, 145–146, 184– 185, 237, 257n25, 267, 300n91 factual(ity) 9, 44, 55, 57, 61, 72, 146, 154, 202, 292n53 factual narrative 4, 18–19, 148, 169, 170n74, 185 falsehood 15, 28–31, 33, 35, 45, 46n68, 71, 118, 151n2, 154, 165n51, 167–169, 186, 245 false identity 15, 167–169 see also disguise fantastical 95–96, 257, 262 fantastical creatures 96 see also animals fiction as ‘make-believe’ 13, 172n79, 175 as ‘suspension of disbelief’ 71, 176 fictional contract 12, 55, 71, 154, 175, 240 see also authorship, authorial pact fictional(ity) 5–7, 9n23, 10, 11n37, 12–14, 16–19, 27–28, 33, 35n34, 39, 42–47, 55, 71–73, 91, 95, 98, 103, 129–130, 133, 147, 154–155, 164, 169–176, 182n4, 184, 189, 235–244, 246–249, 262, 283 signs of 6, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17n63, 71–72, 101, 103–104, 129n2, 130, 169–173, 176, 234, 236, 242–244, 249, 277 local (vs. global) 155, 171, 175–176

311 fictionalization 5n9, 10n28, 18–19, 96–97, 99–104, 108, 111, 113, 118, 121, 130, 135n23, 155n19, 170n74, 182n4, 185, 198, 202, 236–239, 242–244, 247, 262n43 fictional saint 55, 60, 154n13, 175, 277 fictive(ness) 7, 9n26, 10–12, 17n64, 42, 45, 54–55, 60, 62, 71–72, 95, 155n19, 237, 243, 248, 256, 265, 271 as opposed to fiction(al) 10, 60, 71 generic fiction 155, 170–171, 175–176 see also invention Firdawsī 259n31, 265n58, 272, 273n90, 277n104, 283–284, 294–295 Shāhnāmah 259n31, 265n58, 272n81, 283, 294–297 first-person narrative 3, 15, 103–104, 163n45, 211 see also narrative perspective, homodiegetic Flavios Josephos 288n24 Fludernik, Monika 170 focalization 154–155, 167–173, 176 forgery 10, 14–15 Gabriel, Mar (Metropolitan of Karka de Beth Slokh) 78–79, 82 Gabriel (angel) 220, 276n99 Galaktion and Episteme, Life and Martyrdom of 13, 15 Galerius, Emperor 297–301 Gayiane, St 183, 189 gender 152n4, 153–154, 164–166, 168–169, 172 transgression of gender boundaries 153–154, 165–166, 169 genealogy 259, 264, 265n58, 267, 268n71, 269, 271, 275 Genette, Gérard 14n52, 131n13, 163n45, 167, 169–170 George, Bishop of Alexandria, Life of John Chrysostom 44 George, St 45, 260 Martyrdom of 45 Georgios, Bishop of Amastris 108, 114 Life of 108n6, 114n33, 115n35 Georgian (language) 239, 241–242 Gog (and Magog) 253, 266, 272, 275 Gospel of Mary 190n38

312 Gospel of Thomas 190n38 Greek (language) 5, 8, 27–47, 51–64, 90, 94– 105, 108–121, 139–140, 141n44, 151–176, 184, 186, 190, 212–213, 224–225, 234– 249, 290–293, 299–302 Gregory, Bishop of Agrigento, Life of 41n56 Gregory of Nazianzos, Theological Orations 236 Gregory of Nyssa Life of Gregory the Wonderworker 35 Life of Moses 29 Gregory Pahlawuni 181, 183–184, 187–189, 191, 197–199, 201 Guidi Vita (of Constantine) 298n82 Habbib the Deacon, Martyrdom of 141n44 hadith 258, 261–263, 266, 269, 271 Halkin or Patmos Vita (of Constantine) 298n82, 300–301 harlot 234–235, 239–240, 242, 244– 247 harmonization (of accounts) 7, 240–242, 245–246, 288 Harvey, Susan A. 244, 247 Hebrew (language) 212–213, 254n8 Heliodoros, Aithiopika 12, 15 hell 248 Hercules 227 heresy 44, 61, 110n15, 111, 112, 114–115, 117, 192 see also Arianism; Iconoclasm; Iconoduly Hermocrates 14 hero 7, 13, 17, 37, 95, 97, 108–111, 114–115, 117– 120, 175, 185, 191, 198, 202, 214, 235, 290 anti-hero 214 Herodotos 99, 291–292 Histories 99n18 Hierokles 38 Hilaria, Life of 153n7 historiography 4, 19, 70, 72, 75–77, 120, 130, 146, 183–185, 202, 210–211, 220, 261, 285, 292–294, 296–298, 300–301 chronicles 70, 89, 120, 184, 290 see also history history cultural 28n3, 46 ecclesiastical 71n10, 77–78, 79, 82, 85, 210, 214, 221, 230 historia 9, 33, 210–211, 231 Historia Sacra 202

index historical event/reality 4, 10–12, 17, 60, 71, 73, 80, 82–83, 108–110, 113, 154, 186, 192, 237, 257n25, 285 historical narrative 11, 74–75, 176, 184, 186, 236, 283, 287, 290, 293 historical person 4, 14n53, 41, 61, 111n17, 119, 175, 262, 267, 274, 277, 278n106, 288, 290, 302 historicity 10–12, 14, 19n71, 33, 38n45, 96, 99–100, 130–131, 146, 211–212, 237, 243, 288 see also authenticity Islamic 255n12, 258n28, 261, 267, 269n72 literary 16, 20, 59, 69–74, 78, 81–83, 86, 88, 91, 184 liturgical 235 pseudo-historical 257 see also historiography History of David’s Rise 285, 288–289, 291 History of Mar Abba 140–141 History of the Great Deeds of Bishop Paul of Qentos and Priest John of Edessa 96–98, 100–101, 104–105 History of the Man of God (Syriac) 133–135 History of the Monks in Egypt 30, 86 Homer 10n30, 57n22, 130n6 Odyssey 15 homily/-ies 81, 222, 238, 245, 247 see also sermon(s) Hṙip‘simē, St 13, 181, 183–184, 187, 189–195, 200–201 humility 30, 53, 90, 169, 231, 271, 273, 277 hymn(s) 7, 17–18, 20, 80, 87–88, 234–249 kontakion 234 kontakarion 239n16 Hypatios of Gangra, St Life of 41–43 Martyrion of 40–43 hypothetical (account) 242–243, 244n29 Ibn ʿAbbās 254 Ibn Kathir 254n3 Ibrāhim Nisāburi, Tales of the Prophets 272 Iconoclasm 7, 108–221 Iconoduly 17, 109–114, 117–119, 121 ideology 11, 27, 41n57, 46, 113, 138, 146, 167n56, 202, 294, 299n87 ‘if-then’ construction 135

313

index Ignatios the Deacon 17, 108–121 Life of Gregorios Dekapolites 7, 17, 108– 121 Life of Nikephoros 108–109, 116–117 illusion 28–30, 36–38, 40, 139, 147, 172, 174, 181, 182n3, 188 imagination 4–10, 17, 27–36, 46, 78, 96–100, 102–103, 105, 109, 223, 234, 254, 301 imaginative narrative 6n15, 10–11, 42, 71, 79, 95, 97, 100, 111n17, 146, 174n82, 244, 247, 249, 257 of characters 31, 35, 78, 97–98, 223 immersion 156, 173n80, 173–176 implausibility 285 see also plausibility; credibility informant 16, 133–138, 146, 292n53 in medias res 42, 96, 98, 164, 172 see also chronology interiority 18, 129n3, 130, 146, 147n63, 154– 155, 170–171, 234, 237, 242–243, 247, 349 emotions 18, 30, 118, 129–131, 134n19, 143, 173n80, 174n82, 226 representation of 16, 18, 120, 129–131, 134n19, 135, 138–142, 146–147, 171 see also thought; subjectivity intertextuality 7, 18–19, 57n22, 114–117, 120, 184, 190–191, 194, 201–202, 212, 216n25, 215–231, 237, 239, 242, 244–246, 249 intertextual modelling 7, 13n48, 16, 18– 19, 34n31, 94, 96, 108–110, 113–115, 121, 135, 148, 184, 186, 191–193, 240, 243, 256n19, 259–260, 267, 273n89, 276, 287, 293, 302 invention 4–12, 14, 17, 34, 45, 55, 130–131, 154–155, 170–173, 176, 211, 237, 239, 244– 246, 287 see also falsehood; fiction; forgery; lie; truth, untruth Ioannes Zonaras 45–46 irony 40, 155, 235, 247 dramatic 40, 235, 247 Isaac (biblical patriarch) 40 and Rebecca 222 isangelia 193 Ishmael (son of Abraham) 269n74 Ishmaelites 212, 215, 223 Ishodnah of Basra, Book of Chastity 82 Ishoyahb iii of Adiabene, Katholikos 74, 76, 80, 83–84

Iskandarnāmah (Book of Alexander) 273n89 Jacob (biblical patriarch) 40, 115, 215, 221– 225 Jacob of Edessa 84n39, 89 Jacob of Serugh 244 Jacob (founder of the monastery of Beth Abe) 73–74, 78–79, 81–83 Jamshid, King 268 Japheth (son of Noah) 264, 269 Jerome 14, 19, 85, 95–96, 105, 209– 231 De situ et nominibus locorum hebraicorum 212 Hebraicae quaestiones in libro geneseos 212 Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum 212 Life of Hilarion 209 Life of Malchus 14, 19, 209–231 Greek translation of 224 Life of Paul of Thebes, the First Hermit 14n53, 95–96, 105, 209, 211 Tractatus lix in psalmos 227n40 John Chrysostom 85, 87 Life of 44 John Kalyvites, Life of 119n49, 141n44 John, Mar 76, 83 John of Dalyatha 89 John the Baptist 220–221, 225 Joseph and Asenath 87 Joseph (son of Jacob) 115, 254n9 and Potiphar’s wife 223 Joseph Huzaya 84n39, 86 juxtaposition (in narrative) 247, 283, 297 Kafka, Franz, The Trial 13n45 Kaldellis, Anthony 6n15, 12, 136n24, 138n36 Kalila and Dimna 90 Kārnāmag-ī Ardašīr-ī Pābagān 283, 294– 297 Kazhdan, Alexander 41, 108n6 Kerykos and Ioulitta, Martyrdom of 45 khabar/akhbār 260n36 Khosro i, King 267 Khosro ii, King 267 Khidr, St 260, 270, 272, 274, 276–277

314 kingship 187, 265, 268n69, 268n70, 273, 278, 289, 297 Koriwn 183n9, 185–186 Life of Maštoc‘ 183n9, 185–186, 202 Krumbacher, Karl 45 Ktesias 285, 291–293, 295 Indika 291n37 Persika 291 Kyrillos of Skythopolis Life of Sabas 30n12 Lactantius 296n69, 298n82, 299–300 De mortibus persecutorum 296n69, 299 lament 99, 247–248 Latin (language) 4n9, 5–6, 8, 86n45, 87, 130n6, 184, 186, 189n35, 209–231, 298, 300 leadership 79, 109, 113, 218, 259, 268, 273– 276 lectionary 238–242, 249 Leo vi 57 letters/letter-writing 3, 39, 70n8, 77–78, 84, 91, 113, 189, 212, 225, 286 Leukios Charinos 44 lie(s)/lying 10, 113, 222 see also deception; falsehood, false identity; forgery; invention; truth, untruth liturgy 7, 10, 54, 59, 80, 88, 110, 116, 120, 234– 252 living texts 13 see also mouvance; open texts Livy 210 Ab urbe condita 130n10 logos 30, 32, 36 logikē dynamis 36 Longos 14 love 76–77, 78, 84–85, 193, 200, 215, 234, 235, 244, 260, 277 falling in love 189 love novel/romance 119n50, 211, 231 love poetry 222 see also marriage Lübeck, Aemilius 218 Lucian 12, 38n45 Luqmān the Wise 260 magic 30n12, 37, 46, 101, 241–242 allegations of 27, 38–43 Magog (Gog and) 253, 266, 272, 275

index Mango, Cyril 118 Marina of Skanio, Life of 153, 157 Markellos Akoimetes, St 116 Markos Eugenikos 45n66 marriage 134, 136, 189, 192, 209–210, 212, 215–217, 219, 221–223, 226, 228–230, 264, 266, 300 see also love Martha, Life of 41n56 martyrdom 69, 109, 140, 142, 144, 146, 163n44, 184, 187–189, 193, 199–201, 211, 30–231 bloodless 231 collective salvation through 191–192 Mary, mother of Jesus 200, 245, 247 Mary Magdalene 240 Mary called Marinos, Life of 153, 157, 168– 169 Mary of Bethany 240 Mary of Egypt, Life of 28, 57n22, 138n36 Matrona of Perge, Life of 5n14, 153, 154n13, 156, 171, 175 Māturidi 255 Māwardi 254, 255n10 Maximinus 298n82 memra 78, 81, 88–91, 245, 247 see also poetry Mēnologion of Basil ii 56 metamorphosis 40, 43–44, 61, 119, 151, 184, 195–199, 202, 298, 301 metaphor 76, 121, 165, 184, 186, 193n52, 195, 197, 200, 202, 216, 226, 228, 247n39, 248, 277n102, 289, 291 metaphrasis 45n66, 162n42, 171n75, 224 see also rewriting; translation Methodius of Olympus, The Banquet 193n48 Michael ii, Emperor 120n54, 302n99 Michael iii, Emperor 302n99 Michael Glykas, Proverbs 29–30 Michael Psellos, Life of Auxentios 30, 56 Michael the Syrian 70 mind-reading 175–176 see also thought, representation of miracle 3, 4n9, 6, 9n27, 10, 27–28, 31–32, 35, 36n41, 37, 38–43, 47, 53, 55, 60, 69, 72, 95, 118, 121, 136–140, 187–188, 191, 220, 270

index animation (of inanimate things) 40, 43 exorcism 121 healing 42, 53, 118, 121, 137, 139–140, 197, 199, 214, 248 prophecy 32, 35, 51, 53, 88, 98, 265n60, 289, 292, 295 see also vision resurrection 31–32, 37, 40, 42, 44–45, 53, 297 monologue see discourse Moses (biblical prophet) 19, 115, 183, 215, 221–223, 224–225, 254n8, 255n9, 259– 260, 262, 270–271, 273–276, 288, 300 motif (narrative) see topos mouvance 163n44 see also living texts; open texts Muhammad (prophet) 253–255, 257–258, 261, 263, 265, 268n68, 269n74–75, 271, 276 Murtadā 266 Muqātil ibn Sulaymān 253n3 mysticism 142–143, 255n14, 259, 272, 273, 276 mystical meaning of Scripture 236 myth 19, 267–268, 288, 295n67 pagan 10n29, 95 mythos 9, 14, 33 see also fabula Nabonidus, King 293 narrator/narrative voice 18–19, 29, 51, 53, 55, 58, 97, 103–104, 155n17 fictional 14, 35n34 heterodiegetic 163–164, 169n68, 171 historical 173, 176 homodiegetic 163–164, 171 multi-faceted 53, 55, 57–58, 62 obfuscation of 97, 103–104 of fiction 170 omniscient 18, 99, 104, 131, 147, 167n53, 171 primary 57, 103, 152–153, 156, 171–172, 210, 213–214, 218–219, 221 Narseh, Martyrdom of 142n48 Nathan (biblical prophet) 229 Nebuchadnezzar (biblical king) 195–197 Nicolaus of Damascus 291–292 Nikephoros the Confessor, Patriarch 44–45, 110n15, 116–117

315 Constitutiones Ecclesiasticae 44–45 Life of 108–109, 117 Niketas David Paphlagon, Martyrion of St. George 45 Niketas Magistros 29n6, 56–57 Life of Theoktiste of Lesbos 28–29, 55–58, 61, 103n25 Nikolaos Mouzalon, Patriarch 46 non-fiction(al narrative) 14, 101, 155, 170, 176, 242 non-fictive 246–247 see also history novel 28n4, 129, 170n74 ancient/late antique 8n20, 10n28, 12–15, 17n62, 18, 33, 43n63, 95–96, 98n13, 103, 119n50, 130, 181–182, 202, 211–212, 215, 222, 229–231 historical 12, 43n63 modern 13n45 novelistic 4, 146, 184 novelization 28n4, 60 object (material) 34n31, 137n28, 141n44, 262, 273 (magical) stone 40, 43, 137, 270, 272, 273, 276–277 see also miracle open texts 271n79 see also living texts; mouvance Opitz Vita (of Constantine) 298n82, 300 Origen of Alexandria 9, 27, 222, 236 Against Celsus 31–37, 197n66 Canticle 222 On Prayer 31 On Principles 32 Philokalia 236n7 Origo Constantini 299 orthodoxy 17, 43–46, 60, 84n39, 109, 110n15, 111, 116, 119, 121, 239n19, 263n50 Ovid Amores 12 Metamorphoses 195 Pabag 294n61, 295 pagan(ism) 10n29, 27, 31, 33, 36, 38, 41n57, 46, 95, 187, 193–194, 200–201, 217, 231 Palladius 85–86 Lausiac History 86

316 Panegyricus Latinus vi 298 Paradise 53, 85, 90 Garden of Eden 95, 200 paradox 14n50, 16, 18, 220–221, 225, 235, 247, 257 paraphrase 213 see also metaphrasis Paraskeuē the Younger, Life of 46 paratext 4, 13–14 Passion (account of martyrdom) 15, passim passion épique 11n34, 188 passion historique 11n34, 140, 147 passion (emotion) 30, 189 command over (as Stoic ideal) 213 Paul (apostle) 44, 121, 190, 194, 201 see also Acts of Paul; Thekla, Acts of Paul and Thekla Paul (of Thebes) 14n53, 95, 209 Paul (founder of Evergetis monastery) 59 Paul (of Qentos) see History of the Great Deeds of Bishop Paul of Qentos and Priest John of Edessa Peeters, Paul 181–182 Pelagia, Life of 153–154, 163–164, 171 Peregrinos of Parion 38n45 Perpetua and Felicity, Passion of 190n38 persecution 144, 211, 214, 225, 227–229, 231, 274, 288, 299 Persian (language) 8, 90n51, 253–282, 283– 297 Persian martyrs (acts of) 132, 139–140, 142, 143n50 phantasia 8n19, 9, 17, 27–37, 40n53, 41n57, 46 kataleptikē phantasia 33 phantastikon 36 Philaretos 114, 115n35 Philistines 222, 226 Philo 288n24 philosophy 3–4, 6, 9, 20, 31–32, 35–39, 84, 90, 143, 145, 214, 267, 270 Philostorgios 298n82, 300 Philostratos, Life of Apollonios of Tyana 38 Photios 44–45 Bibliothēkē (cod. 114) 44 Pilgrim of Piacenza 101–102 Itinerary 102n24 plasma 9, 33 see also argumentum

index Plato 9n25, 31–32, 38 Sophist 29 Timaios 31, 35 plausibility 8, 11, 132, 148, 174, 231, 255, 258 see also credibility; reliability; verisimilitude Plautus 217, 228n43 plot (narrative) 14, 43, 102, 169, 242, 274 construction of 133, 139–147 emplotment 17n64 plot (intrigue) 226, 284, 294n61, 298–300 poetry 6, 80, 87–88, 222 liturgical 80, 234–252 metrical hagiography 74 see also love, love poetry Polymios 39 Porphyry of Tyre, Life of Plotinus 213 power of Christ/God 39, 194 demonic 30n12, 36 ecclesiastical 27, 231 of faith 36 of magic/miracles 37, 42, 53, 137, 139, 270, 273 of phantasia 32 political 27, 46, 54, 58–59, 185, 211, 268, 270, 272, 287, 296 of relics 195 of saint(s) 115, 121, 190, 201 of speech/language 40, 82, 105, 129, 174n82, 183, 247n39, 293 transcendental 272 Pratsch, Thomas 11 Praxagoras 298n82, 300 prayer 18, 30n12, 36, 78, 84, 117, 120, 131, 188, 195, 197, 200–201, 220, 224–226, 229, 274–275 profanation 184, 195–199 progymnasmata 235 see also Aphthonios; rhetoric, rhetorical education prolepsis 42, 140, 141n44 see also chronology prologue 131, 133n18, 136–137, 142n46, 148, 184, 186, 209–210, 212, 220, 228n43, 230–231 prophet(hood) 19, 32, 35, 53, 87–88, 98, 115, 220, 226, 229, 253–282, 292, 295

index Pseudo-Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus 300n90 Pseudo-Basil, On Virginity 197n66 Pseudo-Callisthenes 255n12–13 Pseudo-Chrysostom 245 Pseudo-Clementine Homilies 15, 40, 120n55 Pseudo-Daniel, Narrations 158 Pseudo-Neilos, Narrations 5n14, 13, 95–107 Pseudo-Symeon 120n53 psychology 12n43, 35–36, 46, 167n56, 170n74 Pythagoras 38 Qurʾān 7, 253–257, 260n35, 262, 265, 269, 272, 274, 276 commentaries on 254, 261 Rafael (angel) 269, 277 Rapp, Claudia 11 reader expectation 8, 17, 28, 32, 41, 71, 87, 92, 109–110, 134, 143, 147, 154, 169, 182n4, 190, 218, 242, 264, 283 see also audience realism 113, 136, 174–176, 190, 194, 214 absence of 302 reality 10–11, 17–19, 28, 31, 35, 37, 53, 55, 72, 97–98, 104, 109–110, 112–113, 113–120, 148, 168–169, 173–176, 202, 246, 290, 297 Rebecca (and Isaac) 222 recognition of narrative features (by audience) 6n15, 13–14, 57n22, 79, 103, 154–155, 169–170, 173, 254, 257, 261, 283, 285, 297 in narrative (by characters) 98, 151, 210 of identity 119, 141n44, 158, 159n31, 161, 165n51, 169 absence of 119n49, 120n55, 159 by voice 119 redemption 134, 187, 199–200 reliability 4, 11, 16, 27, 34, 135–136, 138, 140n38, 147, 173, 176, 214, 220, 246, 261 absence of 37 see also plausibility; credibility; narrator/narrative voice rewriting 56, 60, 62, 158, 171n75 see also metaphrasis rhetoric ancient 9, 11, 17–18, 56 panegyric 79, 298

317 rhetorical education 18n67 rhetorical exercise 210, 235, 237 see also progymnasmata rhetorical practice 11, 235, 244 rhetorical purpose 16, 71–72, 78, 142 rhetorical style 79, 97, 99, 135 rhetorical technique 16, 72n12, 73, 75–76, 88, 91–92, 99, 110, 121, 129, 143, 148, 249, 258n28 rhetorical theory 11, 143, 299 rhetorical tradition(s) 9, 143, 147, 237 Rhetorica ad Herennium 9n26 Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith 167, 172 rituals 234–252, 301 Roman de Silence 154n10 Romanos i Lekapenos 56 Romanos the Melodist 7, 18, 234–252 On Doubting Thomas 243 On the Ascension 244 On the Harlot 235, 239, 244–247 On the Hemorrhaging Woman 243 On the Man Possessed by Demons 239 On the Nativity i 241 On the Samaritan Woman 242 The Lament of the Mother of God 247– 248 ruler-prophet 19, 254–256, 258–260, 267– 268, 271, 276, 278 ruler-saint 7, 19 Rydén, Lennart 58, 62 sacrifice 96, 183, 187, 191 Sahdona (Martyrius) 79–80, 82–83 Sallust 210 salvation 53, 183, 191, 199–200, 214, 221, 248, 258, 268 see also martyrdom, collective salvation through Samaritan the Samaritan woman 243, 247 Samuel (biblical prophet) 220, 225–226 Saracen(s) 94, 102, 210, 213, 216–217, 221, 226, 228–230 see also barbarian(s) Sarah (and Abraham) 222 Sardanapalus, King 291 Sargon of Akkad 285–290, 292–293 Satan 29–30, 36n41, 38n48, 200, 217 see also devil

318 Saul (biblical king) 226–229, 258, 267, 285, 287–290, 297n77 Schaeffer, Jean-Marie 6n15, 154n12, 172–174 Scottish Legendary 130, 147n62, 154 scribe 83, 153, 161–163, 165, 174–175, 188, 287 secrecy 99, 118, 129, 151, 164, 171n75, 181, 200, 223, 272 see also disguise Seleukos 296n72 Seneca 231 Troades 215, 228 sermon(s) 6, 87–91, 237–238, 240, 244– 246 see also homily/-ies Sextus Empiricus 33 Shabur ii, King 142, 144–145 Shabur, Martyr 143n50 Shapur 294 Shenoute 29 shepherd(s) 111–112, 210, 215–216, 221–226, 230–231, 241, 288–289, 295 Shirin 139–140 Martyrdom of 140n38, 148 shrine 136, 197 silence 42, 52, 84, 113, 121 Simeon Bar Ṣabbaʿe, St 142, 144 History of 145n58 Martyrdom of 142, 144n56, 145n57 Simon the Leper 234, 240 solitude 216 Solomon Bar Garaph 81 Solomon (biblical king) 19, 217, 219, 224, 230, 255n9, 258–260, 262, 267–268, 273–274 Sophronios, Patriarch of Jerusalem 28n5 source(s) 4, 8, 10, 16, 44, 96, 99, 110, 132, 146– 147, 192, 212–213, 217, 240 authors/narrators dealing with 70–72, 74–78, 81–82, 86, 88, 91, 132, 134–135, 136–137, 142n47, 170n74, 184, 237, 240– 241, 245, 261, 263, 264n55, 268n71, 269, 278, 284n3, 288, 292, 294–295, 300 comparing (as authentication) 71, 220 listing (as authentication) 17, 74, 77, 81–82, 210 oral 74–75 source criticism 237

index written 4, 10, 16, 74, 77–78, 81, 88, 142n47, 146, 184, 192, 240–241 speech 54, 58, 79, 81, 103, 131n13, 143, 147, 187–189, 215, 242–243, 246, 253, 276, 298 direct 139, 152 characterization through 18, 113, 235, 237 see also ēthopoiia imagined 244 indirect 152n5, 156n21 see also discourse; rhetoric Staurikios Oxeobaphos 46n70 Stephen, the proto-martyr 115n36 stereotype 19, 283–285, 287, 300 Stoicism 31, 33, 213, 228 see also philosophy storm 140–141 Story of the Merchant in Constantinople 137–138 structure (of a narrative) 92, 98, 103, 147, 215, 217, 219, 260, 265n59, 274 subjectivity (representation of) 18, 129–131, 134n19, 135, 138–142, 146–147, 154–155, 170–171, 234 see also thought; interiority Sufi 7, 259–260, 271, 277–278 Sumerian (language) 285–286 Sumerian King List 285–286, 289, 292 Sumerian Legend 285–289, 292 Susanna, Life of 153, 156, 157n23 Symeon Logothetes 120 Symeon Metaphrastes 40n54–55, 45–46, 56, 58, 162n42, 171n75 Mēnologion 45, 55–56, 59–60 Symeon Stylites the Younger, Life of 41n56 Symeon, uncle of Gregorios Dekapolites 112–113, 118n45, 119 Synesios of Cyrene 31, 35 Syriac (language) 8, 69–93, 96, 104, 129–150, 190, 212–213, 240–241, 244–247, 266n63 Tabari 253n3, 259n31, 265n56, 269n72–74, 296 History of the Prophets and Kings 265n58, 268n69, 294 Taʾrikh 259n31 Tacitus 210 Tatian, Diatessaron 87, 241

index Tarasios 108–109, 110n15 Life of 117 technical terms (as authentication in narrative) 220 temptation 36, 215, 217, 223, 229 Thaʿālibi 264n53, 265n56, 265n58, 269n72, 272 Ghurar al-mulūk (The Splendor of Kings) 259n31 Thaʿlabi 7, 19 Lives of the Prophets 7, 253–282 Thekla, St 190–191, 193, 201, 228 Acts of Paul and Thekla 19n70, 153n7, 168n60, 228 see also Acts of Paul Life and Miracles of 38n47 Theodora and Didymos, Martyrdom of 153n7 Theodora of Alexandria, Life of 151–154, 161–163, 164–168, 172 Theodore of Mopsuestia 87 Theodore of Stoudios 109 Theodoret of Cyrus, Religious History 186 Theodoros Balsamon 45 Theodoros Krithinos 113 Theodosios, Katholikos 74 Theophanes 298n82, 302n99 Theophilos, Emperor 112, 114, 120 third-person narrative 3, 104, 130–132, 163n45 see also narrator/narrative voice, heterodiegetic Thomas of Marga 69–93 Book of the Governors 69, 73–74, 79, 83, 86 Life of Maranammeh 74, 80–81 thought activity of reader or listener of narrative 28, 36, 46–47, 60 representation of (in narrative) 18, 129– 131, 132, 133–147, 156n21, 170–171, 210, 214, 221, 242–243, 247, 262, 272 absence of 141–142 doubt 16, 136–138, 146, 243 see also subjectivity; interiority Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 130n10 tomb 32, 136 see also shrine

319 topos/topoi (in hagiography) 11, 18, 28, 184, 202 animation of lifeless things 43 deceptive phenomenology 29 domesticated wild animal 152, 168, 194 eating one’s own flesh 197 found manuscript 14n51 imaginative representation 6n15, 10–11, 95, 97, 100, 111n17, 257 imposition of narrative pattern 283 lie as phantasia 29 metamorphosis 43, 196 modesty 135, 186 portrait of female beauty 189 recognition by voice see recognition scribes/secretaries/stenographers 74, 78, 83, 161–163, 174–175, 188–189, 287 trustworthy custodian 133–136, 138 unworthiness 185–186, 226 writing accurately 186 torture 41–43, 111, 188, 190, 195 translation of relics 55–56 of texts 61, 90, 104, 113n28, 190, 211n6, 212–214, 222–223, 224–225, 254n8, 259n31, 285 see also metaphrasis travel 86, 90n51, 94, 100–102, 112, 114, 119, 121, 151–152, 158, 230, 253, 255, 258, 262, 265n59, 266, 272, 275–276, 291 pilgrimage 96, 100–102, 187 travelling texts 61, 287 travel-literature 95, 212n10 Trdat the Great, King of Armenia 181, 184– 185, 188–190, 193–199 truth as shaped by narrative traditions 7, 235, 238–242, 246 claims of 4, 14, 18, 28, 31, 35, 129–150, 184–186, 202, 264 hagiography as telling truth 3–6, 8, 17, 131n14, 154, 173, 175–176 historical/factual 4, 10–12, 18, 27–28, 33, 57, 60, 154, 164, 165n51, 172–173, 211n9, 236, 243, 258 see also history illusion of 188

320

index

moral 3–4 philosophical 3–4 religious 3–4, 9, 13, 19, 27, 35, 130, 154, 201, 234–238, 244–249 truthfulness 3–4, 11–12, 14, 19, 28, 131, 133–138, 146, 156, 184, 186, 188, 210, 239, 248 absence of 34 untruth 10, 12, 45, 71 see also fiction; invention; lie Turner, Peter 3–4, 131, 186

Virgil 130n6, 217–219, 231 Aeneid 215, 218, 227 virginity 81, 171n75, 183–184, 187, 190n38, 191–195, 199–200, 219–220, 222, 230, 242 virginal body 13, 184, 194–195, 197–198, 200, 202 as church 13, 184, 194–195, 202 vision 4n9, 32, 34, 42, 53, 55, 58, 72, 97, 140, 197, 286–287 see also dream; miracle, prophecy

urbanity 39–40, 51–54, 57–58, 62, 84, 97, 114n30, 118–119, 121, 132, 134, 137, 184, 187, 194, 196, 230, 238, 253n3, 272, 274, 285, 296n74 desert as city 95 see also Constantinople Uriah the Hittite 229 Urzababa (king of Kish) 285–289, 297

Wahb ibn Munabbih 264, 266, 268–269, 275 Walsh, Richard 4n7, 12n41, 13n45, 17n64, 155n15, 155n19

Vahagn, Zoroastrian god 196 Valerian, Emperor 214 veracity 4, 32–33, 35, 38, 42, 99, 258, 260, 262–263, 266, 277 see also truth verisimilitude 8, 11, 18, 28n4, 41n57, 43n63, 47, 72, 143

Yazdgird i, King 142n4, 143n50

Xenophon of Athens, Cyropaedia 130n9, 291 Xenophon of Ephesos, Ephesiaka 215

Zamyād Yašt 295n67 Zechariah (and Elisabeth) 219–222, 224– 225, 230 Zoroastrianism 139–140, 142n48, 144, 187, 196, 268, 295n67