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Mapping Miracles in Byzantine Hagiography: The Development of the Legend of St Alexios

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Barbara Crostini
Barbara Crostini*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Extract

Hagiographical narrative is often examined through the well-established text-critical principle according to which the earliest text is necessarily the most skeletal in outline, the least wondrous in plot, and therefore the most historically believable. According to this view, to the bare bones of truth, fanciful narrative and miraculous tales are added with time, as the tale grows in the telling. The development of the Legend of St Alexios has been viewed as a case in point. The idiosyncratic life-story of this fourth-century ascete has been described as evolving from a nucleus of ‘fact’, essentially coinciding with the early Syriac Life, to a romanced complexity with the Byzantine version influencing the later versions in all major romance languages. Consequently, critics have isolated and, to a large extent, derided the ‘miraculous’ element in the plot, while failing to articulate an understanding of the role of miracles in Alexios’s Life.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 41: Signs, Wonders, Miracles Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church , 2005 , pp. 77 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2005

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References

1 Amiaud, Arthur, La Légende syriaque de Saint Alexis l’homme de Dieu (Paris, 1889), xliv: ‘Que le fond d’une légende soit ou non authentique, la marche régulière de son développement n’est jamais du merveilleux au naturel, de la recherche à la simplicité; elle tend à s’amplifier plutôt qu’à se restreindre’.Google Scholar

2 Uitti, Karl D., ‘The Old French Vie de Saint Alexis. Paradigm, Legend, Meaning’, Romance Philology 20 (1966), 263–95, 266 Google Scholar. Uitti departs from the ‘genetically oriented studies of the Alexis Legend’, to bring his own brilliant reading of the OF poem to the centre of the discussion.

3 Amiaud, Légende syriaque, i-vi. Later Syriac manuscripts also continue the story with Alexios’s return to Rome.

4 It is not clear why the anonymous Syriac ascete is given the name of Alexios in Greek, how the accounts came to differ in a number of details, and how to reconcile a serious discrepancy in the chronology given for Alexios and for his Syriac antecedent; see Amiaud, Légende syriaque, lii: ‘La légende byzantine […] et la primitive légende syriaque sont en réalité deux œuvres distinctes’.

5 See Stebbins, Ch. E., ‘Les Origines de la légende de Saint Alexis’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 51 (1973), 497–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Venice, Marcianus gr. App. VII. 33: see Mioni, Elpidio, Bibliothecae Divi Marci Venetiarum: Codices Graeci manuscripti, 3 vols (Rome, 1960-72), 2: 60–2 Google Scholar; see also Vorst, C. Van de and Delehaye, H., ‘Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum graecorum Bibliothecae Divi Marci Venetiarum’, AnBoll 24 (1905), 169–256, 234–5 Google Scholar. Both catalogues date the manuscript, written on Western paper, to the fifteenth century, while the editors consider it a twelfth-century manuscript. According to the catalogue, the manuscript is composed of two contemporary parts, perhaps in origin separate books: in the first part, comprising fols 1–161, there is a Life of Alexios that includes both parts (BHG 51, with a different ending); the version considered the Urtext is contained in the last folios of the second part (fols 177–179).

7 BHG 56c: text first published by Margaret Rösler, ‘Alexiusprobleme’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 53 (1933), 508–28, 508–11. See also eadem, Die Fassungen der Alexius-Legende (Vienna and Leipzig, 1905).

8 Auct BHG 56c: Carl Odenkirchen, The Life of St Alexius in the Old French Version of the Hildesheim Manuscript, Medieval Classics 9 (Brookline, MA, 1978), 21–9. Although the book received poor reviews – Maria Dominica Legge described it as a ‘soggy sandwich’, in Medium Aevum 50 (1981), 133 – this remains the only approach to any Greek version for non-Greek specialists.

9 BHG 56: see the list of liturgical printings of this poem in the list given in Louis Petit, Bibliographie des Akolouthies grecques (Bruxelles, 1926), 4–6; these versions, however, afford little philological accuracy. See also Stebbins, ‘Les Origines de la légende’, 504–5 and idem, ‘Les Grandes versions de la légende de Saint Alexis’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 53 (1975), 679–95. 684.

10 Mölk, Ulrich, ‘Die älteste lateinische Alexiusvita (9./10. Jahrhundert). Kritische Text und Kommentar’, Romanistisches Jahrbuch 27 (1976), 293–315 Google Scholar; another Latin version, pr. ActaSS 17 July, IV: 251–3, is also pr. and transl, in Odenkirchen, Lifeof St Alexius, 34–51.

11 The latest edition of the French text is La Vie de Saint Alexis, ed. Maurizio Perugi (Geneva, 2000). Perugi summarizes the state of research concerning the origins of the legend in an excellent introduction. For a useful guide to further bibliography, see Storey, Christopher, An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to Alexis Studies (La Vie de Saint Alexis) (Geneva, 1987).Google Scholar

12 This classic reconstruction was expressed, for example, by Gaston Paris, ‘La Vie de Saint Alexis en vers octosyllabiques’, Romania 8 (1879), 163–80,164.

13 Ward, Benedicta, ‘Monks and Miracle’, in Cavadini, John C., ed., Miracles in Jewish and Christian Antiquity: Imagining Truth (Notre Dame, IN, 1999), 127–37, 127.Google Scholar

14 The text specifies the time as ‘when Emperors ruled at Rome’, and describes the setting for the benefit of an audience unfamiliar with Rome: ‘there is a river that flows through Rome; the sea is eighteen miles away, and ships come up by that river’: Odenkirchen, Life of St Alexius, 21–2.

15 Ibid., 28–9.

16 But see Uitti, ‘The Vie de Saint Alexis’, 277, n. 7, who, without endorsing Rösler’s conclusions, does however appreciate some elements in this version.

17 Odenkirchen, Life of St Alexius, 29.

18 According to Segal, J. B., Edessa: ‘the Blessed City’ (Oxford, 1970), 173 Google Scholar, the cult of Alexios was exploited to attract Christian pilgrims to Edessa, esp. to the site of his death in the ‘xenodochion’ and burial in that hospice’s cemetery; see also ibid., 148 and 185, n. 7. Therefore, the later version may have been devised to ‘bring back’ the saint’s cult to Edessa. I am grateful to Bernard Hamilton for bringing this issue to my attention.

19 For example, the inclusion of this text in the St Alban’s Psalter is explained as endorsing Christina of Markyate’s decision to spurn sex and high society in favour of an ascetic life; appropriately, the full-page miniature selected for this Psalter (p. 57) depicts the moment of Alexios’s desertion of the marriage chamber and departure by sea, as can be seen online at http://www.abdn.ac.uk/stalbanspsalter/english/translation/trans057 (consulted: 4 February 2004).

20 Halkin, F., ‘Une Légende grecque de Saint Alexis BHG 56d’, AnBoll 98 (1980), 5–16, 5 Google Scholar at n. 8. The date of this manuscript coincides with the year of the translation of Alexios’s relics from Rome to Montecassino: Vie de Saint Alexis, ed. Perugi, 21.

21 Latyshev, Vasilij Vasil’evic, Menologii anonymi Byzantini saeculi X quae supersunt:fasciculos duos sumptibus Caesareae Academiae Scientiarum e Codice Mosquensi 376 Vlad., 2 vols (St Petersburg, 1911-12; repr. Leipzig, 1970), 1: 245–52 Google Scholar. On the dating of the Imperial Menologion to the reign of Emperor Michael IV (1034–41), see D’Aiuto, Francesco, ‘Nuovi elementi per la datazione del Menologio Imperiale’, Rendiconti dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, ser. ix, 8 (1997), 715–47.Google Scholar

22 Dix Textes inédits tirés du Ménologe Impérial de Koutloumous, ed. and transl. Halkin, François and Festugière, André-Jean (Geneva, 1984), 80–93 Google Scholar, with an introduction to the twelfth-century manuscript, Athos Koutloumous. 23, at 7–8.

23 The text was published by Massmann, Hans Ferdinand, Sanct Alexius Leben in acht gereimten mittelhochdeutschen Behandlungen: nebst geschichtlicher Einleitung sowie deutschen, griechischen und lateinischen Anhängen, Bibliothek der gesammten deutsche National-Literatur 9 (Quedlinburg, 1843), 201–8 Google Scholar; cf. Vorst, C. Van de and Delehaye, H., Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum graecorum Germaniae, Belgii, Angliae (Brussels, 1913), 92–4 Google Scholar. The catalogue description of this manuscript is still that of Hardt, I., Codices graeci manuscripti (Munich, 1804), 14–22, 15 Google Scholar (tenth century); but the hand of the scribe has been identified by Kakoulidi, E., ‘The Library of the Prodromos-Petra Monastery at Constantinople’, Hellenika 21 (1968), 3–39 Google Scholar (in Greek), shifting the dating of the codex forwards by two centuries. I would like to thank Dr Annaclara Cataldi Palau for this reference and for sharing with me her notes on this manuscript.

24 Odenkirchen, , Life of St Alexius, 24; cf. Rösler, ‘Alexiusprobleme’, 520.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., 24–5.

26 Mölk, Ulrich, ‘Deux hymnes latines du Xle siècle en l’honneur de saint Alexis’, in Marche Romane. Mélanges de philologie et de littératures romanes offerts à Jeanne Wathelet-Willem (Liège, 1978), 455–64, 460 Google Scholar: this version is standard in the West in the eleventh century.

27 Massmann, , Sanct Alexius Leben, 204.Google Scholar

28 Massman transcribes after the title a rubric, ‘per eut’, that should probably be understood as ‘pater eulogesomen’, indicating the liturgical destination of the piece.

29 On the hypothesis that the apparition in person replaces the speaking icon motif at a later moment in the Life’s evolution, see Mölk, ‘Die älteste Lateinische Alexiusvita’, 301 and n. 36.

30 Halkin, , ‘Une Légende’, 10.Google Scholar

31 Latyshev, , Menologii, 247.Google Scholar

32 Also cited in Mölk, , ‘Die älteste Lateinische Alexiusvita’, 301 Google Scholar, n. 36.

33 Dix Textes, ed. Halkin and Festugière, 84–6.

34 See, for example, the scene depicted in the Imperial Menologion: Evans, Helen C. and Wixom, William D., eds, The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261 (New York, 1997), 101–2 Google Scholar, fig. 56; and the quasi-contemporary frescoes in San Clemente, Rome: Guidobaldi, Federico, San Clemente:gli edifici romani, la basilica paleocristiana e le fasi altomedievali, San Clemente Miscellany IV, 1 (Rome, 1992)Google Scholar, fig. 230.

35 Massmann, , Sanct Alexius Leben, 206.Google Scholar

36 Halkin, , ‘Une Légende’, 14.Google Scholar

37 Latyshev, , Menologii, 250.Google Scholar

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Dix Textes, ed. Halkin and Festugière, 90.1 disagree with the translation by Halkin and Festugière of the text at 90: ‘ ’, as: ‘[…] tous, d’un même mouvement, demandaient (au père) de leur remettre le papier du bienheureux’ (Dix Textes, 91). The genitive, , must be taken as the object of , a verb that is normally construed with the genitive in this meaning and form, yielding the translation: ‘Everyone together asked the blessed one to give up the scroll’.

41 Halkin, , ‘Une Légende’, 6.Google Scholar

42 Delehaye, Hippolyte, The Legends of the Saints (London, 1907), 32.Google Scholar

43 Barone, Giulia, ‘Une Hagiographie sans miracles. Observations en marge de quelques Vies du Xe siècle’, in Les Fonctions des saints dans le monde occidental (IIIe-XIIIe siècle), Collection de l’École française de Rome 149 (Rome, 1991), 435–46.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., 446.

45 Halkin, F., Bibliotheca hagiographica graeca. Novum Auctarium, Subsidia hagiographica 64 (Brussels, 1984), 16.Google Scholar

46 Robertson, H. S., review of Odenkirchen, Speculum 55 (1980), 385–6, 386.Google Scholar

47 Contini, Gianfranco, ‘Filologia’, in idem, Breviario di Ecdotica (Milan and Naples, 1986), 3–62, 7–8 and 31 Google Scholar, speaks of a ‘recensione aperta’ in the case of multiple versions; see also his comments on Gaston Paris’s editorial methods in ‘La “Vita” francese “di Sant’Alessio” e l’arte di pubblicare i testi antichi’, ibid., 67–97, 71–3. On editing hagiographies in general, see now the essays gathered in the new periodical Sanctorum 1 (2004).