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Christian Novels from the Menologion PDF

343 Pages·2017·13.012 MB·English
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DUMBARTON OAKS MEDIEVAL LIBRARY Jan M. Ziolkowski, General Editor Alice-Mary Talbot, Byzantine Greek Editor Byzantine Greek Editorial Board Alexander Alexakis Charles Barber John Duffy Niels Gaul Richard Greenfield Anthony Kaldellis Derek Krueger Stratis Papaioannou Claudia Rapp Byzantine Greek Advisory Board Albrecht Berger Antony Littlewood Wolfram Brandes Margaret Mullett Elizabeth Fisher Jan OlofRosenqvist Clive Foss Jonathan Shepard JohnHaldon Denis Sullivan Robert Jordan John Wortley Christian Novels from the Menologion of Symeon Metaphrastes Edited and Translated by STRATIS PAPAIOANNOU <DUMBARTON OAKS Ji°EDIEVAL J:.!YRARY HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS LONDON, ENGLAND 2017 Copyright© 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Printed in the United States ofA merica Library ofC ongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Symeon, Metaphrastes, active 10th century, author. I Papaioannou, Stratis, editor, translator. I Container of (expression): Symeon, Metaphrastes, active 10th century. Works. Selections. I Container of (expression): Symeon, Metaphrastes, active 10th century. Works. English Selections. Title: Christian novels from the menologion of Symeon Metaphrastes / edited and translated by Stratis Papaioannou. Other titles: Dumbarton Oaks medieval library; 45. Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017.I Series: Dumbarton Oaks medieval library; 45 I Texts in Greek with English translations on facing pages ; introduction and notes in English. I Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016048602 I ISBN 9780674975064 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Christian hagiography. I Christian women saints. I Christian saints. I Orthodox Eastern Church-Liturgy. Classification: LCC BX380 .S96 2017 I DDC 270.3092'2 {B}-dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016048602 Contents Introduction vn LIFE, CONDUCT, AND PASSION OF SAINTS KYPRIANOS AND IouSTINA I LIFE AND CONDUCT OF SAINT PELAGIA OF ANTIOCH 61 LIFE, CONDUCT, AND PASSION OF THE HOLY AND GLORIOUS MARTYRS GALAKTION AND EPISTEME 85 MIRACLE CONCERNING EUPHEMIA THE YOUNG MAIDEN 117 PASSION OF THE HOLY AND TRIUMPHANT MARTYR OF CHRIST BARBARA 153 LIFE, CONDUCT, AND PASSION OF THE HOLY MARTYR OF CHRIST SAINT EUGENIA AND HER PARENTS 183 CONTENTS Abbreviations 263 Note on the Text 265 Notes to the Text 275 Notes to the Translation 283 Bibliography 3I3 Index JI5 Vl Introduction About four hundred years after his death, pilgrims in Con stantinople were paying their respects to the relics of Symeon Metaphrastes, the author of the six texts edited and translated into English for the first time in this volume. "You go east from St. Sophia toward the sea; on the right is the monastery called Hodegetria . . . The body of St. Symeon is in this church," we read in a late fourteenth century Russian guidebook to the capital of Byzantium, while Markos Eugenikos, writing some decades later, in forms us that Metaphrastes's body was preserved "intact and unmouldered."1 This miraculous preservation was just one more aspect, perhaps the most spectacular, of the long tradition of reverence and admiration for Symeon Meta phrastes, whose epithet means "reviser" in Greek. His pri mary, if not his only, saintly achievement was the composi tion of a menologion: a ten-volume liturgical collection of saints' lives and martyrdom accounts, mostly by earlier au thors, that he rewrote, revising their content and style. This grand effort merited Metaphrastes the fame of a rescuer who salvaged the biographies of the saints from oblivion. A landmark of orthodox Christianity, Metaphrastes's tenth-century Menologion could be regarded as -and we can say this without exaggeration-one of the most important Byzantine literary creations. It was the culmination of a vii INTRODUCTION long history of Christian storytelling in Greek, ensuring the popularity of certain stories that satisfied the need of Byz antines for moral edification as well as their appetite for en tertainment in the context of worship and beyond. It also represented a major Byzantine literary trend, that of rewrit ing in a rhetorical register (metaphrasis); this trend reflected the tastes and interests of the Constantinopolitan upper classes, which were formed during a period of revival for Byzantine political and cultural authority, in the ninth through the twelfth centuries. Given that the predilections of this social group were influential for the solidification of what we identify as Byzantine Christianity, Metaphrastes's rewriting project came to play a seminal role in the creation of a religious and cultural tradition with an immense appeal and longevity. Metaphrastes's Menologion enjoyed popularity for several centuries, surpassed only by the Bible and some of the great early Byzantine fathers of the Church and comparable to Jacobus de Voragine's hagiographical bestseller, the late me dieval Golden Legend, in Western Europe.2 All together, the manuscripts that preserve different parts of Metaphrastes's Menologion number well over seven hundred. Metaphrastes's work thus affected generations of Byzantine readers and lis teners as well as writers, even if it remains virtually unknown to the wider (even Byzantinophile) public. It is easy to state the importance of Metaphrastes in the Byzantine world. But how does one introduce him and his texts to modern readers? Several challenges await us. The details of Metaphrastes's own life and the precise context of his literary creation still elude clear comprehension. His viii INTRODUCTION wider socio historical setting is particularly complex: a whole series of projects that aimed at military, economic, and cul tural revival and expansion, not all of them successful or long-lasting, defined the politics of the Byzantine imperial court in the tenth century. Orienting Metaphrastes in literary history presents us with similar complexity, since the place of the Menologion's version of each hagiographical story requires an in-depth in vestigation into the multiple trajectories of Christian story telling. The enormous appeal of the stories would have been self-evident to Byzantine audiences, but to modern readers their emphasis on the supernatural and their devotion to certain recurrent motifs and character types may be puz zling. Equally, the sophistication of Metaphrastes's liter ary style would have been obvious to Byzantine (especially learned) audiences, but modern readers may be put off by his preoccupation with rhythm and wordplay or extravagant eulogy and descriptions that favor the melodramatic. Fi nally, since the Menologion survives in numerous manuscripts (more than one hundred for each of our texts), the re creation of the "original edition" as well as of its subsequent textual history poses a corresponding number of difficulties. None of these issues can be treated here satisfactorily.3 Yet a brief elaboration of these matters can provide the nec essary background so that some of the appeal of these texts may be restored as they search for new, dedicated readers. SYMEON METAPHRASTES Byzantine sources offer us only sparse biographical data about the creator of the Menologion, which is attributed by manuscript colophons, dedicatory poems, and Byzantine ix INTRODUCTION authors to a Symeon who is accompanied by the identifiers magistros, logothetes (tou dromou), and metaphrastes in various combinations.4 He was born in Constantinople into a well to-do family during the reign of Leo VI (r. 886-912) and re ceived a good education in both rhetoric (the art of dis course) and probably philosophy, which in Byzantium encompassed all forms of knowledge, from logic and the sci ences to metaphysics. From at least the late 950s, he was employed in the imperial court and bureaucracy under sev eral emperors, from Romanos II (r. 959-963) to Basil II (r. 976-1025), and held high titles and offices (magistros and logothetes were the last ones he acquired). In this capacity and at imperial behest, he authored several documents, texts, and collections, including the Menologion and a chron icle. He died (perhaps having become a monk in old age) on November 28 of an unspecified year, probably during the last decade of the tenth century.5 Almost none of this information can be confirmed with certainty; we know neither whether our biographical sources are accurate nor if they pertain to the same Symeon, the au thor of the Menologion. Even so, time of composition and his status at the imperial court seem incontrovertible. Internal evidence from the Menologion itself confirms that parts of its composition date to after 976 and that its author was cer tainly well-versed in the Byzantine tradition of learnedness. The consistent usage of the epithets magistros and logothetes in manuscripts of the Menologion, as well as details from a dirge composed soon after Metaphrastes's death by Nike phoros Ouranos (who died after 1007), also suggest that Metaphrastes was indeed a high functionary in the imperial court. Finally, the scale and type of the enterprise can be ex- X INTRODUCTION plained best if it was supported by either the emperor him self or by the highest echelons of Constantinopolitan soci ety-the powerful eunuch minister Basil Lekapenos, active from before 959 until 985 when he was deposed by Basil II, has been proposed as Metaphrastes's possible patron. 6 From the mid-eleventh century onward, Metaphrastes was certainly viewed as a towering figure of the recent past. His Menologion was copied in what was apparently mass pro duction (by premodern standards) and was imitated, further reworked, and expanded, though never supplanted or sur passed. He himself was considered an author-saint, on a par with early Byzantine authorities such as Gregory of Nazian zos andJohn Chrysostom-the two other most copied and studied authors in Byzantium.7 METAPHRASTES'S AfENOLOGION Due to the monumental work of Albert Ehrhard, we know a great deal about the so-called Menologion itsel£8 This mod ern designation refers to a liturgical book, usually in multi ple volumes, that included various texts on saints-mostly Passions (martyrdom accounts, or martyria) and Lives (biog raphies, or bioz)-arranged according to the sequence of feast days in the Byzantine liturgical year that began on Sep tember 1. Its primary purpose was the provision of a text dedicated to each saint on his or her feast day to be read aloud during liturgical services (usually vigils, especially in monasteries, but also in urban churches). Such collections had appeared in Byzantium by the end of the eighth century; yet the menologion was to reach its au thoritative form in the work of Metaphrastes. Metaphras- xi

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