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Writing as Devotion: Hagiographical Composition and the Cult of the Saints in Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Cyril of Scythopolis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Derek Krueger
Derek Krueger
Affiliation:
Mr. Krueger is associate professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolinaat Greensboro, North Carolina.
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Extract

The period from the fourth through the seventh century witnessed the elaboration of Christian cults of saints with a particular interest in the ascetic labors and miraculous powers of holy men and women. Although much evidence for these cults derives from literary saints' lives, a genre that emerged simultaneously with the cults, scholars have overlooked the role of the hagiographer as devotee. Previous studies have tended to view an author's piety as a barrier to historical inquiry, dismissing miracle accounts (among other hagiographical elements) as pious fictions. Neglect of the religious dimensions of the activity of writing arises in part from the confluence of two trends. First, renewed interest in late antique popular culture highlights the affinities between the religious life of elites and nonelites. Despite the refreshing aspects of this approach, the distinctly literary contributions to the formation of piety have been overlooked. Second, traditional divisions between patristics and social history continue to exclude theology and religious composition from discussions of piety on the assumption that thought and action are separable. Thanks to the work of Catherine Bell and others, students of religion can appreciate that thinking is an activity, something obvious to Christians in late antiquity such as Gregory of Nyssa, for whom contemplation of God was virtuous motion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 707 - 719
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1997

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References

1. For criticism of positivist approaches see Heffernan, Thomas J., Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages (New York, 1988), pp. 38–71; andGoogle ScholarPatlagean, Evelyne, “Ancient Byzantine Hagiography and Social History,” in Saints and Their Cults: Studies in Religious Sociology, Folklore and History, ed. Wilson, Stephen (Cambridge, U.K., 1983), pp. 101–121 (originally published asGoogle Scholar“À Byzance: Ancienne hagiographie et histoire sociale,” Annales 23 [1968]: 106–126).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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10. Peter was something of a spiritual director to Theodoret's mother, having once cured her of an eye disease and prompted her interest in modest living (HR 9.5–8). Peter also exorcised the family cook (9.9).

11. Price (History of the Monks, p. 80 n. 15) and Canivet, and Leroy-Molinghen, (Histoire des moines, p. 403) date this visit to 407.Google Scholar

12. Price (History of the Monks, p. 57 n. 8) dates this visit to the early 410s.

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16. I address earlier gestures toward an integration of devotion and composition in late antique saints' lives in a forthcoming monograph. Of particular interest are the History of the Monks of Egypt and Palladius's Lausiac History.

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18. For examples of saints' eulogia conferred by water, see HR 2.17; 13.9, 13, 16–17; 21.14; by oil, 8.11; 21.16; 26.20.

19 Vikan, , Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, p. 13.Google Scholar

20. For the eulogiaof the corpse see HR 10.8, 17.10; of garments, 26.12, compare 9.15. Biblical precedents for healing garments include Mark 5:25–34 and Acts 19:11–12. Even simply seeing Symeon the Stylite or his image might convey benefit to the devoted (HR 26.11). On visual pieties, see Frank, Georgia, “The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrimage to Desert Ascetics in the Christian East during the Fourth and Fifth Centuries” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1994).Google Scholar

21. Brown, Peter (“Rise and Function of the Holy Man,” p. 120) writes that the work “was written to validate and publicize the local traditions surrounding the holy men of Syria.”Google Scholar

22. For ευλογí;α: HR 1.14, 4.13, 9.16, 10.9, 11.5, 16.4, 17.11, 19.3, 23.2, 25.2, 29.7; φρεβεí;α: 2.22, 6.14, 8.15, 12.7, 18.4; εφιΚουρíα: 3.23, 7.4, 20.4; and μυνμα: 5.10.

23. Cyril of Scythopolis: Life of Euthymius (hereafter VE), in Kyrillos von Skythopolis, ed. Schwartz, Eduard, Texte und Untersuchungen 49.2 (1939): 3–85;Google ScholarCyril of Scythopolis: Life of Sabas (hereafter VS), in Kyrillos, ed. Schwartz, , pp. 85–200. Citations refer to pagination in this edition.Google ScholarThe translation employed here with slight modification is by Price, R. M., Cyril of Scythopolis: The Lives of the Monks of Palestine, ed. Price, R. M. and Binns, John (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1991).Google ScholarPrincipal recent studies include Binns, John, Ascetics and Ambassadors of Christ: The Monasteries of Palestine 314–631 (Oxford, 1994);Google ScholarCynthia Jean Stallman-Pacitti, Cyril of Scythopolis: A Study of Hagiography as Apology (Brookline, Mass., 1991); andGoogle ScholarFlusin, Bernard, Miracle el histoire dans l'oeuvre de Cyrille de Scythopolis (Paris, 1983).Google Scholar

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32. VE, p. 6; Binns, , Ascetics and Ambassadors, p. 28; andGoogle ScholarFestugière, A.-J., Les moines d'Orient (Paris, 1962), 3.1:42–44.Google Scholar

33. Binns, (Ascetics and Ambassadors, p. 28) observes that Cyril “showed himself capable of the elegant ekphrasis on the beauties of the site of Euthymius' monastery.” Compare VE, pp. 64–65.Google Scholar

34. Theodoret, prologue to HR, p. 9: “The account will proceed in narrative form, not following the rules of panegyric but forming a plain tale of some few facts.” Compare Leontius of Neapolis, Life of John the Almsgiver, prologue (Vie de Syméon le Fou et Vie dejean de Chypre, ed. Festugière, A.-J. [Paris, 1974]): “We have recounted our story in a prosaic, unadorned, and humble style so that even ‘the unlearned and illiterate’ [Acts 4:13] can benefit from these words” (p. 334, my translation).Google ScholarKrueger, , Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius's “Life” and the Late Antique City (Berkeley, Calif, 1996), p. 5.Google Scholar

35. Festugière, , “Lieux communs litteraires et thèmes de folk-lore dans l'hagiographie primitive,” Wiener Studien 73 (1960): 130.Google ScholarFor this topos from the tenth to the fourteenth century see Wendel, C., “Die TAIIEINOTHΣ des griechischen Schreibermönches,” BZ43 (1950): 259–266.Google Scholar

36. Compare Binns, , Ascetics and Ambassadors, pp. 31–32.Google Scholar

37. Compare Flusin, , Miracle el histoire, pp. 107–108.Google Scholar

38. Harpham, Geoffrey Gait (The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism [Chicago, 1987], pp. 67–88) opens inquiry into the relationship between narration and asceticism. I hope to explore this problem more fully in a later essay.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. Dorotheus of Gaza, Doct. 2.33; edition: Dorothée de Gaza: Oeuvres spirituelles, ed. Regnault, L. and Préville, J. de (Paris, 1963), p. 196; trans.:Google ScholarDorotheus of Gaza: Discourses and Sayings, trans. Wheeler, Eric P. (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1977), p. 98.Google Scholar

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46. About a decade later Theodoret described the Religious History as “easily accessible to those who wish to become acquainted with [its contents]” (HE 4.27.1). For Cyril's dependence on Theodoret, see Flusin, Miracle et histoire, pp. 67–70. Cyril's literary afterlife is well attested to in middle Byzantine collections of monks' lives and menologia; see Schwartz, Kyrillos, p. 317.