The Afterlife of the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium between East and West in Medieval ...

377 Pages·2015·3.78 MB·English

Doctoral Dissertation

Martyr Memories:
The Afterlife of the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium between
East and West in Medieval Hagiographical Collections
(Eighth – Eleventh Centuries)

By Marijana Vuković

Supervisor: Marianne Sághy

Submitted to the Medieval Studies Department
Central European University, Budapest

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the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Medieval Studies
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Budapest
2015
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During this long and life-changing PhD journey in quest for the saint, I have encountered
a number of generous people who lent a helping hand in the process. I use this opportunity to
express my gratitude to everyone who supported me throughout the years of the doctoral studies.
First of all, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Marianne Sághy, for our long-
standing work, for her unceasing encouragement and endless trust in me during the years. I am
grateful to Volker Menze for the considerable commitment to my work, for his sharp and
meticulous, yet honest comments, and for his friendship. I also wish to express my sincere thanks
to Judith Rasson and Alice Choyke for polishing the English of my dissertation.
I am indebted to the following specialists for sharing their expertise and offering
guidance to my work: François Dolbeau, Guy Philippart, Francis J. Thomson, Robert Jordan,
Claudia Rapp, Gábor Klaniczay, Dimosthenis Stratigopoulos, Maximilian Diesenberger,
Anissava Miltenova, Margaret Dimitrova, Yavor Miltenov, Enriko Gabidzashvili, Temo Jojua,
Arpine Asryan, Liv Ingeborg Lied, Milena Milin, Péter Tóth, Andras Nemeth. I further thank to
my colleagues from CEU, Mihail Mitrea, Svetlana Tsonkova, Stanka Kuzmova and Otto Gecser,
for reading the dissertation in its pre-final stage.
I appreciate the financial support of the generous Reese Miller Scholarship from the
Telluride Association, thanks to which I studied at the Cornell University and lived in the
Telluride House. I owe my gratitude to the marvelous academic groups at the Medieval Studies
Program, Department of History, Department of Near Eastern Studies and Department of
Linguistics at Cornell, and particularly to Professors Paul Hyams, Wayles Browne, and Kim
Haines-Eitzen. I am further thankful to the American Research Center in Sofia, and particularly
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but several other research trips and stays abroad as well.
For the courtesy of allowing the access to medieval manuscripts and other resources, I
would like to thank to the following manuscript libraries: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
(Vienna), Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Venice), Bibliotheca Ambrosiana (Milan), Hill
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Museum and Manuscript Library, State Historical Museum (Moscow), Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences (Sofia), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Munich), Bibliothèque municipale (Rouen),
Trinity College Library (Dublin), British Library (London), Bibliothèque royale (Brussels),
Bibliothèque municipale (St Omer), Stadtbibliothek (Trier), State History Museum (Kutaisi), and
the Bollandist Society (Société des Bollandistes). I further wish to express my gratitude to the
Museum of Srem and the Archives of Srem in Sremska Mitrovica for allowing the access to the
materials of importance in their deposits.
I owe great debt to my colleagues for their contribution to my work. It has been my
pleasure to study together with Luka Špoljarić, Anna Adashinskaya, Roman Shlyakhtin, Mircea
Duluş, Elma Hašimbegović, Noel Putnik, Alena Kliuchnik, Trpimir Vedriš, and Linda Wheatley-
Irving. Thank you for exchanging ideas, sharing materials, helping me and making my days at
CEU memorable.
I would like to express my gratitude to Inge Decooman for being a supportive friend and
an excellent host on my several research visits to Brussels.
My deepest appreciation goes to my family, my mother and my brother with his wife and
children, whose love and constant encouragement helped me through the hard times. Finally, I
am sincerely indebted to Sandro Nikolaishvili for his both professional and personal involvement
with my work. My love goes to him and Salome.

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CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1
The Study of Martyrdom Literature .......................................................................................... 12
The Case Study.......................................................................................................................... 21
Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 27
Sources ...................................................................................................................................... 32
Scholarship ................................................................................................................................ 41
Chapter 1: .................................................................................................................................... 46
Mapping the Text: A Geography of Manuscripts Containing the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of
Sirmium. Contexts and Audiences ............................................................................................. 46
Latin manuscripts of the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium ................................................... 47
The Old Church Slavonic manuscript of the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium .................... 56
Byzantine manuscripts of the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium ........................................... 61
A Georgian manuscript of the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium .......................................... 69
Lack of networks and the origin of the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium ............................ 73
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 75
Chapter 2: .................................................................................................................................... 78
Wrapping up the Text: Manuscripts as Calendars and Other Miscellanies ......................... 78
Definitions ................................................................................................................................. 79
History of calendar development .............................................................................................. 82
Quantitative method .................................................................................................................. 89
Remembering and forgetting Irenaeus and other saints in Latin hagiographical collections ... 94
Remembering and forgetting Irenaeus and other saints in Byzantine and Slavonic hagiographic
collections................................................................................................................................ 102
Irenaeus’ feast day ................................................................................................................... 115
Other Miscellanies................................................................................................................... 118
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 121
Chapter 3: .................................................................................................................................. 125
Calendars, Texts and the Cult of Saints.................................................................................. 125
Scholarship .............................................................................................................................. 126
Archeological traces of Irenaeus of Sirmium .......................................................................... 129
n Spaces/places, calendars and the written testimonies ............................................................. 138
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“Numberless Ways to Tell a Story:” Transformations of the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of
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Structural analysis of BHG 948 .............................................................................................. 154
Differences among the manuscript variants of BHG 948 ....................................................... 157
Structural analysis of BHG 949e ............................................................................................. 162
Structural analysis of BHG 950z ............................................................................................. 166
Differing features of the three BHG variants .......................................................................... 168
Intertextuality of BHG 948 and 949e ...................................................................................... 175
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Intertextuality of BHG 950z .................................................................................................... 180
Intertextuality of BHG 951 ..................................................................................................... 184
Intertextuality of BHG 950 ..................................................................................................... 184
Greek Liturgical Canons ......................................................................................................... 186
Latin textual transformations .................................................................................................. 189
The Old Church Slavonic translation of the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium ................... 196
The Differences of the Latin, Greek and Old Church Slavonic Martyrdom of Irenaeus of
Sirmium ................................................................................................................................... 198
Georgian textual version ......................................................................................................... 205
Armenian textual version ........................................................................................................ 209
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 210
Chapter 5: .................................................................................................................................. 213
How Did Collections Transform Single Texts? The Martyrdom of Irenaeus in the Imperial
Menologia ................................................................................................................................... 213
Decoration ............................................................................................................................... 217
Use ........................................................................................................................................... 223
Commissioning hagiographical collections in Byzantium ...................................................... 227
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 234
Epilogue: .................................................................................................................................... 235
Remembering Irenaeus in Sremska Mitrovica Today .......................................................... 235
Irenaeus’ Bridge in Sremska Mitrovica .................................................................................. 236
Irenaeus’ Street ........................................................................................................................ 240
The Church dedicated to the Martyrs of Sirmium................................................................... 242
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 243
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 245
APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................ 252
Latin hagiographical collections containing the Martyrdom of Irenaeus as the calendars for the
months: .................................................................................................................................... 252
Latin hagiographical collections from 1st February – 6th April ............................................... 252
and their order of saints ........................................................................................................... 252
Greek hagiographical collections for March ........................................................................... 265
and their order of saints ........................................................................................................... 265
Greek hagiographical collections for August .......................................................................... 275
and their order of saints ........................................................................................................... 275
Venice, Marcianus gr. 360, 20, ff. 395r-398v (BHG 948) ...................................................... 284
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Martyrdom of Saint Irenaeus, bishop of Sirmium in .............................................................. 293
Moscow Syn. gr. 183 (My translation with the corrections by Robert Jordan) ...................... 293
Vienna, Hist. gr. 45, ff. 247v-248r (BHG 950): ...................................................................... 294
Irenaeus of Sirmium and Irenaeus of Lyon ............................................................................. 294
Entry on Irenaeus in Synaxarion of Constantinople ................................................................ 295
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Martyrdom of Irenaeus, Or et Oropseus (Latyšev) ................................................................. 295
Martyrdom of Irenaeus, Or et Oropseus in Milan, Ambrosiana, B 1 inf., ff. 70r-71v (BHG 951)
................................................................................................................................................. 296
Martyrdom of the holy and glorious martyrs Irenaeus, Or and Oropseus (My translation with
the corrections by Robert Jordan) ........................................................................................... 297
Entry on Irenaeus, Or et Oropseus in Synaxarion of Constantinople ..................................... 298
Canon 30 on St Irenaeus, Or and Oropseus, 30 August .......................................................... 298
Canon on Irenaeus (Sinaiticus gr. 614) ................................................................................... 305
Munich, Clm 4554, 8th century, ff. 89v-91 (BHL 4466) ......................................................... 312
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Lat. 371/Cod. 13. 712, ff. 77r-78v (BHL 4466)
................................................................................................................................................. 315
Passion of Saint Irenaeus bishop, Vienna 371 (My translation) ............................................. 317
Twelfth-century manuscripts: Brussels 9289 (basic text), Einsiedeln, Brussels 207-208,
London Nero C.VII ................................................................................................................. 319
Thirteenth-century Manuscripts: Dublin, London Harl, St-Omer 716, Trier.......................... 322
Paris, BnF lat. 5279, f. 125v .................................................................................................... 324
Martyrdom of Irenaeus in Suprasl Codex ............................................................................... 325
Martyrdom of Irenaeus in Suprasl Codex (My translation) .................................................... 327
Georgian Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium......................................................................... 329
Armenian Martyrdom of Saint Irenaeus the Bishop ............................................................... 331
Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 332
Latin Manuscripts .................................................................................................................... 332
Greek manuscripts ................................................................................................................... 333
Old Church Slavonic Suprasl Codex ....................................................................................... 333
Georgian manuscript ............................................................................................................... 334
Secondary Literature ............................................................................................................... 334

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List of Figures
Figure 1. Map of Sremska Mitrovica, indicating the two late antique cult places ..................... 129
Figure 2. The epigraphic inscription mentioning the basilica Erenei ........................................ 130
Figure 3. The site in Mačvanska Mitrovica ................................................................................ 132
Figure 4. The site of Zidine in 2010 ............................................................................................ 132
Figure 5. The four subsequent structures in the site Zidine. ....................................................... 135
Figure 6. The ostracon bearing the name of St Jonas ................................................................. 141
Figure 7. Munich Clm 4554, 90r, eighth century ....................................................................... 191
Figure 8. Rouen U 42, 212r, eleventh century ............................................................................ 192
Figure 9. Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium in Moscow Syn. 183, f. 242r, eleventh century .. 218
Figure 10. A miniature from the Walters manuscript (fol. 50v) ................................................. 219
Figure 11. Manuscript Vienna 371, tenth century ...................................................................... 220
Figure 12. Dublin, Trinity, thirteenth century, and Brussels 9289, twelfth century ................... 221
Figure 13. Suprasl Codex ............................................................................................................ 222
Figure 14. Vienna, Hist. gr. 45, eleventh century ....................................................................... 223
Figure 15. The bridge of Irenaeus from Sremska Mitrovica side ............................................... 237
Figure 16. The street of Irenaeus in Sremska Mitrovica ............................................................. 241
Figure 17. The Church of the Sirmian martyrs ........................................................................... 242

List of tables
Table 1. Distribution of Latin hagiographical manuscripts in the Middle Ages, Philippart’s
database ................................................................................................................................. 90
Table 2. The total numbers of the liturgy-related collections in the Byzantine world ................. 91
Table 3. Saint Irenaeus’ feast days in Latin hagiographical collections ....................................... 97
Table 4. Presence of different main characters of hagiography in Latin manuscripts .................. 98
Table 5. Irenaeus’ feast day in March Menologia ...................................................................... 105
Table 6. Different characters of hagiography in March Menologia ........................................... 106
Table 7. Irenaeus’ feast day in August Menologia ..................................................................... 112
Table 8. Different characters of hagiography in August Menologia .......................................... 114
Table 9. Irenaeus’ feast day in the calendars .............................................................................. 116
Table 10. The Prayer for the emperor in Moscow Syn. gr. 183 ................................................. 214
Table 11. The Prayer for the emperor in Jerusalem Taphou 17.................................................. 215
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Introduction

The phenomenon of dying for faith – martyrdom – hardly needs explanation in the
contemporary world. It has resurfaced from the past, becoming an actual, even burning issue in
the last decades. The world has witnessed lately the acts of many suicide bombers whose
ultimate sacrifice has often been described as martyrdom.1 This is especially the case because
they sacrifice their lives for a cause they believe in, ordinarily as the averred soldiers of religious
war, war for faith. Apart from suicide bombers, large numbers of other violent deaths connected
to various causes take place in our times. Discussing martyrdom, the American scholar Elisabeth
Castelli states:
Today, in the 21st century, one cannot help but notice how centrally the figure of
the martyr has emerged on a global stage – not only as a mythic frame for
embodied acts of political insurrection and terror, but also as a story that the state
tells about the casualties of its militarism, growing numbers of dead soldiers
eulogized as actors in one noble gesture after another of willing self-sacrifice,
martyrs to an abstraction – the nation, freedom, our way of life.2

The roots of martyrdom are a much-debated subject in contemporary scholarship. In
antiquity, as the power of Christianity advanced, gaining ground but not yet being recognized as
an official religion, a number of Christians forfeited their lives for their faith in defiance of the
persecuting Roman authorities. Even though the number of casualties and the length of the
persecutions are today a matter of debate, the very occurrence of persecutions is rarely
questioned.3 The last wave of the persecutions of the Roman authorities before the Edict of
Tolerance in 313 CE is of particular interest for this dissertation.
The last, “Great” persecution of Christians in the early fourth century (303–311 CE)
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1 For the latest contribution to the subject, see D. Janes and A. Houen, ed., Martyrdom and Terrorism: Pre-Modern
to Contemporary Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
2 E. A. Castelli, “The Ambivalent Legacy of Violence and Victimhood: Using Early Christian Martyrs to Think
With,” Spiritus 6 (2006): 1-24.
3 For the debates, see T. D. Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography and Roman History (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2010) (hereafter Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography); C. R. Moss, The Myth of Persecution: How Early
Christians Invented A Story of Martyrdom (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2013) (hereafter Moss, The Myth).
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Christians in the Roman Empire. While I may agree with the argument of the British ancient
historian Timothy D. Barnes that Christians actually enjoyed religious freedoms from the third
century CE, I nonetheless cannot overlook the fact that the persecution of the fourth century was
the last persecution of Christians administered by the Roman authorities before the Roman
Empire stopped hounding them for good and imposed religious toleration towards Christianity.4
The transitional period was characterized by the spread of Christianity. Followers of this religion
gradually outnumbered those people taking part in pagan religious rituals despite the huge losses
incurred by the multitude of Christians who suffered martyrdom.
“Martyr,” a category with manifold meanings, has transformed from its initial
signification reflecting an impartial witness to referring later to a more partial sufferer who is
convicted and dies for his faith. Following the general tenets of the fourth century transition, the
category of “martyr” necessitated reformulation in the post-persecution period. In the view of
some scholars, this category has always been problematic for the church.5 Yet, standing at the
threshold of Christianity as a tolerated religion, martyrdom deserves special attention. This
dissertation will not focus on the issues and problems concerning the category of martyr per se,
but rather on the narratives addressing martyrs’ suffering and death, which emerged out of
certain cultural contexts within early and medieval Christianity.6 It will spotlight one particular
martyrdom narrative, the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium as well as its afterlife in the post-
transition period.
“Martyrdom narratives” refer to an Early Christian genre and a sub-genre of
hagiography,7 often hailed as “acts and passions of the martyrs.”8 The common subject matter of

4 See Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography. On the subject of questioning the persecutions altogether, see Moss,
The Myth. See also K. Cooper, ”Martyrdom, Memory, and the ‘Media Event,’” in Martyrdom and Terrorism: Pre-
n Modern to Contemporary Perspectives, ed. D. Janes and A. Houen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 23-39,
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Colle E5 Dng. bLeorgad. e s, “Introduction,” in Martyrs and Martyrologies, ed. D. Wood (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), xv.
D 6 Here I invoke the conclusions of E. A. Castelli in her study Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture
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e Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004) (hereafter Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory).
U 7 Many scholars do not see martyrdom literature as part of hagiography and many studies on hagiography do not
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C include martyrdom narratives. In her article on martyr passions in the Oxford Handbook of the Early Christian
Studies, Susan Harvey admits that a large number of scholars take the Life of Antony as a real turning point and the
beginning of the literary genre of hagiography proper in the form of a saint’s vita. Robert Bartlett has recently
reasserted that hagiography was born with the Life of St Antony and Life of St Martin. The cutting-edge scholarly
work on Byzantine hagiography, The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography I, edited by
Stephanos Efthymiadis, excludes early martyrdom narratives. However, Efthymiadis includes “passions” as forms of
hagiographical narratives in his second volume of the Ashgate Companion. Martin Hinterberger refers to the
“passions” as the subgenre of hagiography in the same publication. M. S. Williams distinguishes a saint’s life, the
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vita, from the pagan lives as well as from the broader scope of hagiography. Timothy Barnes makes clear that he
employs the term “hagiography” to designate the study of the evidence relating to saints and martyrs, while he
exploits martyrdom narratives extensively in his study. In this dissertation, I understand hagiography in a broader
sense, where martyrdom literature is one of its constituent parts. Early Christian martyrdom narratives stand on the
threshold of medieval hagiographical genre and this dissertation considers them as part of the broader genre of
hagiography. See S. Efthymiadis, “New Developments in Hagiography: The Rediscovery of Byzantine
Hagiography,” in Hagiography in Byzantium: Literature, Social History and Cult (Burlington, VT: Ashgate
Variorum, 2011), I, 157-171 (hereafter Efthymiadis, “New Developments in Hagiography”), about the
commencement of the hagiographical genre with The Life of Antony in the fourth century. See also idem, ed., The
Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography I (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Variorum, 2011), 9; idem, ed.,
“Introduction,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography II: Genres and Contexts
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014) (hereafter Efthymiadis, “Introduction”), 4; G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and
Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) (hereafter Bowersock, Martyrdom), 39; C. Walsh, The Cult
of St Katherine of Alexandria in Early Medieval Europe (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), 8-9; M. van Uytfanghe,
“L’hagiographie: Un genre Chrétien ou antique tardif?” Analecta Bollandiana 111 (1993): 135-188; S. A. Harvey,
“Martyr Passions,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. S. A. Harvey, and D. G. Hunter
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 608 (hereafter Harvey, “Martyr Passions”); Barnes, Early Christian
Hagiography, IX; M. S. Williams, Authorized Lives in Early Christian Biography: Between Eusebius and Augustine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); R. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and
Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 19-22 (hereafter
Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?); M. Hinterberger, “Byzantine Hagiography and its Literary
Genres. Some Critical Observations,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography II: Genres
and Contexts (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 28.
8 The phrase “martyrdom literature/martyrdom narratives” refers to what scholars ordinarily address as “the acts and
the passions of the martyrs.” The proposed expression – martyrdom narratives – implies a text that ends in a
martyr’s death/martyrdom, the conventional mannerism characteristic of both the acts and the passions of the
martyrs. Additionally, the new-fangled expression does not necessitate further distinction between the two.
Previously, scholars have made attempts to demarcate differences between the acts and the passions. Delehaye has
suggested that the acta mainly contain interrogation, while the passio narrates events from the arrest up to the death
of the martyr. Hilhorst relies on several authors when highlighting that the acts/acta refer to the trial records on
which at least some of the martyrs’ acts were based. Tilley repeats that the acts focus on interrogation and are
grounded in the minutes of the trials. She departs from Delehaye’s definition of passions, asserting that they focus
on the suffering, tortures and death of the martyr. She notes the disadvantages of placing too strict a dichotomy
between the acts and the passions – there are simply too many pieces, which do not fit neatly into either category.
She rounds off her argument by stating that there cannot be a simple divide between the two. In accord with her
claim, no division is recognized between the acts and the passions in this dissertation, while calling these narratives
by a more general term, marked by the common event at the end of the narratives. Contemporary scholarly literature
predominantly uses the term martyrdom narratives/literature. Nevertheless, some scholars, such as Candida R. Moss,
still use more old-fashioned terms such as martyr acts. Lucy Grig once again confirmed that there were no secure
n methods to distinguish and clarify distinctions between the acts and the passions. In a very recent publication,
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cti Stephanos Efthymiadis uses the term “passions” to mark a complete corpus of both acts and passions from Late
olle Antiquity. The consensus over the terminology, as well as the clear definition of which texts belong to the group of
C acts and which to the group of passions has not yet been reached. I use the term martyrdom
D narratives/literature/martyrdoms in this dissertation to mark the full body of the texts which end their narratives with
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e the persecution of martyrs. See the literature on the subject: H. Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs et les genres
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littéraires (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1966), 173; H. Leclercq, “Actes des martyrs,” in Dictionnaire
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C d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie I, ed. F. Cabrol and H. Leclercq (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1907); G. Lanata,
Gli atti dei martyri come documenti processuali mentarii (Milan: Giuffré, 1973); G. A. Bisbee, Pre-Decian Acts of
Martyrs and Commentarii (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988); Bowersock, Martyrdom; M. Tilley, Donatist Martyr
Stories. The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996), xx-xxi
(hereafter Tilley, Donatist Martyr Stories); C. R. Moss, The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian
Ideologies of Martyrdom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) (hereafter Moss, The Other Christs); L. Grig,
Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity (London: Duckworth, 2004) (hereafter Grig, Making Martyrs); Efthymiadis,
“Introduction,” 1-21.
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