Historiography and Hagiographic Texts The Syriac Versions of Palladius' Historia Lausiaca (original) (raw)
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In Margins of the Syriac Liturgical Manuscripts (text of the presentation)
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Syriac Liturgical manuscripts are not only distinguished with their rich diversity of texts (which still, many of these texts are unedited and even unidentified); but in addition, they include many marginal notes and colophons which provide some highly important historical records to inform us about: events, dates, names of places and persons, families, the life of the church community, endowments, wars, refugees, migrations, conflicts, letters, pandemics, etc… This paper will study several colophons from the Syriac liturgical manuscripts, to draw attention to the importance of these manuscripts in the daily life of the Syriac communities, since they were available with direct access inside their churches (the centers of their community life). Moreover, it will suggest constructing a comprehensive corpus to collect and analyze these colophons (written mainly in Arabic, Syriac, and Garshuni), which can contribute to providing new and further sources to be employed in systematic studies in social history.
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Alice-Mary Talbot, ed., Byzantine Defenders of Images. Eight Saints' Lives in English Translation
Speculum, 2002
In this second volume of the Dumbarton Oaks series Byzantine Saints' Lives in Translation, as in the first, Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints' Lives in English Translation, Alice-Mary Talbot capitalizes on the benefits of a unifying theme to produce a wonderfully useful volume. The eight saints' lives in this volume are divided evenly between the first period of iconoclasm (726-87), inaugurated by the Byzantine emperor Leo III, and the second (815-43), inaugurated by Leo V the Armenian. The contents of the two parts are very disparate in length and nature, however. Four brief notices from the Synaxarion of Constantinople (24 pages) represent the four saints of the first period: Theodosia of Constantinople (synaxarion for 18 July, Bibliotheca hagiographica Graeca [BHG] 1774e); Stephen the Younger (28 November); Anthousa of Mantineon (27 July, BHG Auctarium 2029h); and Anthousa, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Constantine V (12 April). By contrast, the second period is represented by extensive documents of diverse character: the life of Patriarch Nikephoros I by the repentant Ignatios, deacon and skeuophylax of the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople (BHG 1335, 102 pages); the anonymous life of Sts. David, Symeon, and George of Lesbos, in fact a composite of multiple sources about historically unrelated figures (BHG 2163, 102 pages); the life of Ioannikios by the monk Peter (BHG 936, 97 pages); and the life with encomium of Empress Theodora (BHG 1731, 22 pages). The editor attributes this imbalance to the paucity of hagiographical sources about the first period, the fact that no accounts were actually written in the first period, and the fact that a new edition of the Vita of St. Stephen the Younger, the major extensive hagiographical text pertaining to the first period of iconoclasm, is currently in press. The four short pieces from the Constantinopolitan synaxarion representing the first period of iconoclasm capture the retrospective assessment of the controversy that prevailed in the capital in the tenth century. They introduce the reader to the iconodule traditions that sustained the opposition to iconoclasm in the documents from the second period, while their editors' introductions place those later documents in perspective. The historical material provided in the introductions and notes are rich in reference to current research, bringing out the role that women played in resistance to iconoclasm and providing critical perspective on such issues as double monasteries and the persistent tensions between monastic leaders and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The four pieces representing the second period of iconoclasm offer very different contributions to this volume. Elizabeth Fisher's introduction to the Vita of Patriarch Nikephoros I (758-828) is a little gem of historiography, accounting for the bitter hostility evidenced in the Vita between Nikephoros and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, on the one hand, and, on the other, the Stoudite monks, who ought to have been his allies in their common opposition to iconoclasm. Fisher steers us through a labyrinth of political issues, including the elevation of Nikephoros, a layman, through a series of rapid ordinations to the patriarchate at the behest of Emperor Nikephoros I and over the objections of the Constantinopolitan Stoudios monastery; revocation of the earlier excommunication of a loyal courtier who had divorced and remarried contrary to canon law, again over the objections of the Stoudite monks; the emperor's exile of the Stoudite leader, Theodore, in the fourth year of Nikephoros's patriarchate; and Nikephoros's opposition to double monasteries. On the literary side, Fisher relates the remarkable overview of the Byzantine curriculum in higher education and the Socratic dialogue between the patriarch and the iconoclast emperor Leo V, both embedded in the Vita, to the ornate and archaic literary style of this work, preparing the reader for the Homeric allusions and vocabulary scattered through the text.
Speculum, 2002
In this second volume of the Dumbarton Oaks series Byzantine Saints' Lives in Translation, as in the first, Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints' Lives in English Translation, Alice-Mary Talbot capitalizes on the benefits of a unifying theme to produce a wonderfully useful volume. The eight saints' lives in this volume are divided evenly between the first period of iconoclasm (726-87), inaugurated by the Byzantine emperor Leo III, and the second (815-43), inaugurated by Leo V the Armenian. The contents of the two parts are very disparate in length and nature, however. Four brief notices from the Synaxarion of Constantinople (24 pages) represent the four saints of the first period: Theodosia of Constantinople (synaxarion for 18 July, Bibliotheca hagiographica Graeca [BHG] 1774e); Stephen the Younger (28 November); Anthousa of Mantineon (27 July, BHG Auctarium 2029h); and Anthousa, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Constantine V (12 April). By contrast, the second period is represented by extensive documents of diverse character: the life of Patriarch Nikephoros I by the repentant Ignatios, deacon and skeuophylax of the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople (BHG 1335, 102 pages); the anonymous life of Sts. David, Symeon, and George of Lesbos, in fact a composite of multiple sources about historically unrelated figures (BHG 2163, 102 pages); the life of Ioannikios by the monk Peter (BHG 936, 97 pages); and the life with encomium of Empress Theodora (BHG 1731, 22 pages). The editor attributes this imbalance to the paucity of hagiographical sources about the first period, the fact that no accounts were actually written in the first period, and the fact that a new edition of the Vita of St. Stephen the Younger, the major extensive hagiographical text pertaining to the first period of iconoclasm, is currently in press. The four short pieces from the Constantinopolitan synaxarion representing the first period of iconoclasm capture the retrospective assessment of the controversy that prevailed in the capital in the tenth century. They introduce the reader to the iconodule traditions that sustained the opposition to iconoclasm in the documents from the second period, while their editors' introductions place those later documents in perspective. The historical material provided in the introductions and notes are rich in reference to current research, bringing out the role that women played in resistance to iconoclasm and providing critical perspective on such issues as double monasteries and the persistent tensions between monastic leaders and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The four pieces representing the second period of iconoclasm offer very different contributions to this volume. Elizabeth Fisher's introduction to the Vita of Patriarch Nikephoros I (758-828) is a little gem of historiography, accounting for the bitter hostility evidenced in the Vita between Nikephoros and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, on the one hand, and, on the other, the Stoudite monks, who ought to have been his allies in their common opposition to iconoclasm. Fisher steers us through a labyrinth of political issues, including the elevation of Nikephoros, a layman, through a series of rapid ordinations to the patriarchate at the behest of Emperor Nikephoros I and over the objections of the Constantinopolitan Stoudios monastery; revocation of the earlier excommunication of a loyal courtier who had divorced and remarried contrary to canon law, again over the objections of the Stoudite monks; the emperor's exile of the Stoudite leader, Theodore, in the fourth year of Nikephoros's patriarchate; and Nikephoros's opposition to double monasteries. On the literary side, Fisher relates the remarkable overview of the Byzantine curriculum in higher education and the Socratic dialogue between the patriarch and the iconoclast emperor Leo V, both embedded in the Vita, to the ornate and archaic literary style of this work, preparing the reader for the Homeric allusions and vocabulary scattered through the text.