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Michael Psellos on the rhetoric of hagiography and the Life of St Auxentius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Elizabeth A. Fisher
Elizabeth A. Fisher*
Affiliation:
Classics Department, The George Washington University, Washington D.C.
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Extract

Hagiography and rhetoric appear incompatible according to modern conceptions of how each functioned in Byzantine society. Rhetoric, a vehicle of upward mobility, depended upon an elaborate theoretical literature and promised to skilled practitioners enviable professional reputations in remunerative public pursuits among influential people. Hagiography, in contrast, appealed to a socially diverse Christian audience and recorded the deeds of those who chose to seek spiritual rather than worldly rewards. Rhetoric and hagiography, however, intertwined inevitably in the Byzantine world, as did rhetoric and most literary genres. The basic intention of the hagiographer was, after all, to persuade, impress, and edify his audience, and the tenets of rhetoric assisted him in that goal. Since education in Byzantium included at all levels both the theory and practice of rhetoric, the educated portion of a hagiographer’s audience would expect him to use the familiar devices of rhetoric and would scorn poorly composed and incorrectly expressed hagiographic essays, no matter how spiritually beneficial.

Type
Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 17 , 1993 , pp. 43 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1993

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References

1. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Seventeenth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference in Brookline, Massachusetts, in November, 1991.1 am grateful to Robert Browning and Robert A. Hadley for their helpful suggestions.

2. Kennedy, George, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill, North Carolina 1980) 161–72.Google Scholar

3. Kennedy 163–9.

4. Ehrhard characterises Symeon’s achievement as ‘eine Revolution auf hagio-graphischen Gebiete: die direkte Absendung von den alten Texten und ihre Ersetzung durch rhetorische Überarbeitungen…’. Ehrhard, Albert, Überlieferung und Bestand II (Leipzig 1938 Google Scholar) Texte und Untersuchungen 51, 307.

5. Kurtz, E. and Drexl, F., Michaelis Pselli scripta minora magnam partem adhuc inedita I (Milan 1936) 94–107 Google Scholar; new edition by E. A. Fisher, Michaelis Pselli orationes hagiographicae (Teubner forthcoming).

6. Joannou, P.-P., Démonologie populaire — démonologie critique au XIe siècle. La vie inédite de S. Auxence par M. Psellos (Wiesbaden 1971) 55.Google Scholar

7. In quoting Psellos’ Life of Symeon the Metaphrast, I have followed my own edition of the text, forthcoming in Michaelis Pselli orationes hagiographicae (Teubner).

8. Kustas, George, ‘Function and Evolution of Byzantine Rhetoric’, Viator 1 (1970) 68–70.Google Scholar

9. Mayer, A. Cf., ‘Psellos’ Rede über den rhetorischen Charakter des Gregorius von Nazianzus’, BZ 20 (1911) 27–100.Google Scholar

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11. For a useful enumeration of the forms and categories, see Kustas, George, Studies in Byzantine Rhetoric (Thessaloniki 1973) 13–14.Google Scholar

12. ‘The influence of the progymnasmata is hard to overestimate. Practically all the other genres of Byzantine literature are affected by them: homilies, letters, histories, and so on’. Kustas, Studies 22 n.1.

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14. Joannou 53.

15. It is published as a Metaphrastic life in MPG 114, 1377–1436.

16. Cf. Ehrhard, pp.596, 603, 611.

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18. Cf. MPG 114, 1377, A-B.

19. Cf. Joannou 64.13–20.

20. Cf. Joannou 66.9–12.

21. Cf. Joannou 68.8–21.

22. Kazhdan, Alexander P., ‘Hagiographical Notes 3. An Attempt at Hagio-Autobiography: The Pseudo-Life of “Saint” Psellos?’, B 53 (1983) 546–8.Google Scholar

23. Cf. Joannou 84.37–9.

24. Cf. Joannou 84.40–86.4.

25. Cf. Joannou 86.4–5.