Mary’s parents in homilies before and after James Kokkinobaphos, Wonderful things, Byzantium through its art ( 42nd Symposium of Byzantine Studies, King’s College, London and Courtauld Institute, March 2009), Ashgate 2013 (original) (raw)

The manuscript of the twelfth-century homilies of the monk James from the Kokkinobaphus monastery in Bithynia (Par. gr. 1208, cat no 175) exhibited in the ‘Wonderful Things: Byzantium through its Art’ exhibition, is the earliest work of Constantinopolitan origin to include a fully expanded Mariological cycle (i.e. the illustrated life of Mary). On the occasion of its exhibition this manuscript will be used as point of reference not however to demonstrate its artistic value; We will instead discuss the homiletic activity on Mary’s early life before and after the twelfth century when the Kokkinobaphus homilies were produced. In particular, we will demonstrate the attitude of preachers towards Sts Anne and Joachim and the only source on Mary’s early life, the apocryphal Protevangelium of James, which dates from the second century but it consistently started to appear only after the eighth- century in Byzantine homilies.