Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T04:16:03.633Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Michael Glykas and the Afterlife in Twelfth-Century Byzantium*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Yannis Papadogiannakis
Yannis Papadogiannakis*
Affiliation:
Wolfson College, Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

From the range of sources on Byzantine religious life, and Byzantine views on the afterlife in particular, the correspondence of Michael Glykas stands out as precious but neglected evidence. Glykas’s correspondence with people from all walks of life and his engagement with their preoccupations and with other controversial issues of the day reflect a dense network of communication and links with monks, laymen, members of the imperial family and imperial bureaucrats, situating him at the heart of the moral universe of twelfth-century Byzantine culture. Glykas’s correspondence and, in particular, his collection of ‘Questions and Answers’ (Kephalaia) shed light on the kinds of religious issues that were being raised in twelfth-century Byzantium, and they also highlight the multifarious issues and pastoral challenges which Christian theologians had to be prepared to deal with in their pastoral, pedagogical work.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 45: The Church, the Afterlife and the Fate of the Soul , 2009 , pp. 130 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Dr Joseph Munitiz for his helpful comments on this paper. The paper is a development of my wider current research on late antique and Byzantine collections of questions and answers, including Glykas and his Kephalaia.

References

1 For Middle Byzantine eschatological concerns, see Baun, Jane, Tales from Another Byzantium (Cambridge, 2007).Google Scholar

2 Magdalino, Paul, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143-1180 (Cambridge, 1993), 371 n. 181.Google Scholar

3 On Glykas, see Magdalino, , Empire, 370–82, 404–06 Google Scholar; idem, L’orthodoxie des astrologues (Paris, 2006), 122–30 Google Scholar. For the identification, see Kresten, O., ‘Zur Sturz des Theodoros Styppeiotes’. Jahrbuch der österreischen Byzantinistik 27 (1978), 49–103, at 90–92 Google Scholar. This identification has been accepted by most scholars but is now challenged by Bourbouhakis, Emmanuel, ‘“Political” Personae: The Poem from Prison of Michael Glykas: Byzantine Literature Between Fact and Fiction’, Byzantine Modern Greek Studies 31 (2007), 53–75, at 56–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Reappraisal in Bourbouhakis, ‘“Political” Personae’.

5 Magdalino, , Empire, 371.Google Scholar

6 On his eucharistie views, see Angold, Michael, Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni 1081–1261 (Cambridge and New York, 1995), 128–29 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, Mahlon H. III, And taking bread…: Cerularius and the Azyme Controversy of 1054 (Paris, 1978), 119–35.Google Scholar

7 Ed. Sophronios Eustratiades, 2 vols (Athens, 1906; Alexandria, 1912). All references below are to this edition; translations are my own.

8 Cameron, Averil, ‘Texts as Weapons: Polemic in the Byzantine Dark Ages’, in Bowman, A. K. and Woolf, G., eds, Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 1994), 198–215 Google Scholar; Papadoyannakis, Yannis [sic], ‘Instruction by Question and Answer in Late Antiquity: the Case of Late Antique and Byzantine Erotapokriseis’, in Johnson, Scott, ed., Greek Literature in Late Antiquity: Dynamism, Didacticism, Classicism (Aldershot, 2006), 91–105.Google Scholar

9 On the literary form of kephalaia and its widespread use by the Byzantines, see Endre von Ivánka, ‘Kεφάλαια- eine byzantinische Literaturform und ihre antiken Wurzeln’, Byzantinische Zeilschrift 47 (1954), 285–91. On the literary form of erotapokriseis, see Volgers, Annelie and Zamagni, Claudio, eds, Erotapokriseis: Early Christian Question-and-Answer Literature in Context (Louvain, 2004)Google Scholar, with bibliography.

10 Thus Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 1: 95–96. See also Kurtz, E., in his review of Eustratiades’s edition in Byzantinische Zeilschrift 17 (1908), 166–72, at 168.Google Scholar

11 For identity and prosopography, see Magdalino, , Empire, 372–76 Google Scholar. According to the introduction by the editor (Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 1: 53–55), while not all questions can safely be attributed to the person from whom they are supposed to have originated, the fact that they were genuine enquiries does not seem to be in doubt.

12 Magdalino, , Empire, 372.Google Scholar

13 Constas, Nicholas, ‘“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”: The Middle State of Souls in Patristic and Byzantine Literature’, DOP 55 (2001), 91–124, at 124.Google Scholar

14 Ibid. 120. For a review of attitudes on the afterlife, see Baun, , Tales, 120–29 Google Scholar, and for visual expression of this variety, see, in this volume, Brubaker, Leslie, ‘Byzantine Visions of the End’, 97–119.Google Scholar

15 Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 1: 240–46 (Q. 20).

16 PG 28: 597–700.

17 For the reliance of pseudo-Athanasius on Anastasius’s collection, see Anastasii Sinaitae Quaestiones et responsiones, eds Richard, Marcel and Munitiz, Joseph A. (Turnhout, 2006), lii–lv Google Scholar. Glykas seems to have had access to both collections: see Munitiz, J. A., ‘In the Steps of Anastasius of Sinai: Later Traces of His Erotapokriseis’, in Janssens, B., Roosen, B. and Deun, P. Van, eds, Philomathestatos: Studies in Greek Patristic and Byzantine Texts Presented to Jacques Noretfor His Sixty-fifth Birthday (Leuven and New York, 2005), 435–54, at 448.Google Scholar

18 Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 1: 241 (Q. 20).

19 ‘Fear of the Punishment to Come’, Discourse 12, ed. L. Regnault, SC 92 (Paris, 1962), 384–88. Further details in Constas, ‘“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”’, 100.

20 Every, George, ‘Toll Gates on the Air Way’, Eastern Churches Review 8 (1976), 139–50.Google Scholar

21 Baun, Jane, ‘Last Things’, in Noble, T. F. X. and Smith, J. M H., eds, The Cambridge History of Christianity, 3: Early Medieval Christianity, c. 600-c. 1100 (Cambridge, 2008), 606–24, at 607 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Baun, , Tales, 125–26.Google Scholar

22 Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 1: 245 (Q. 20).

23 See Lehtipuu, Outi, The Afterlife Imagery in Luke’s Story of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Leiden, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Alexandre, Monique, ‘L’interprétation de Luc 16.19-31, chez Grégoire de Nysse’, in Fontaine, J. and Kannengiesser, C., eds, Epektasis: mélanges patristiaues offerts au cardinal Jean Daniélou (Paris, 1972), 425–41 Google Scholar; Constas, , ‘“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”’, 99 Google Scholar; Baun, , Tales, 315.Google Scholar

24 For an overview of the patristic debate regarding the age and shape of resurrected bodies, see Gnilka, Christian, ‘Neues Alter, neues Leben: Eine antike Weisheit und ihre christliche Nutzung’, in idem, Sieben Kapitel über Natur una Menschenleben (Basel, 2005), 105–48, at 129–48.Google Scholar

25 For analysis of resurrection imagery, see Bynum, Caroline Walker, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York, 1995).Google Scholar

26 Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 1: 73–74 (Q. 7).

27 Ibid. 2: 273–74 (Q. 78).

28 Ibid. 1:88 (Q. 7).

29 Ibid. 1:89 (Q. 8).

30 Ibid. 1: 116(Q. 9).

31 Zachhuber, Johannes, Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa: Philosophical and Background Theological Significance (Boston, MA, 1999), 154–59 Google Scholar; Ludlow, Morwenna, Universal Salvation: Eschalology in the Thought of Gregory of Nyssa and Karl Rahner (Oxford, 2000), 46–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 See Flusin, Bernard, ‘Avant la différenciation sexuelle: Remarques sur la huitième “difficulté” de Michel Glykas’, in Legendre, P., ed., ’Ils seront deux en une seule chair’: scénographie du couple humain dans le texte occidental (Bruxelles, 2004), 217–33 Google Scholar; Smith, J. Warren, ‘The Body of Paradise and the Body of the Resurrection: Gender and the Angelic Life in Gregory of Nyssa’s De hominis opificio ’, HThR 92 (2006), 207–28.Google Scholar

33 Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 1:117 (Q. 9).

34 Constas, Nicholas, ‘Death and Dying in Byzantium’, in Krueger, Derek, ed., Byzantine Christianity (Minneapolis, MN, 2006), 124–45, at 144.Google Scholar

35 Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 1: 120 (Q. 9).

36 Ibid. 1: 125–26 (Q. 9).

37 See also Constas, , ‘Death’, 144.Google Scholar

38 Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 1: 123–28 (Q. 9).

39 Ibid. 1:129 (Q. 10).

40 Ibid. 1: 132–33 (Q. 10).

41 Ludlow, , Universal Salvation, 63–64.Google Scholar

42 On the controversy, see Constas, Nicholas, ‘An Apology for the Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity: Eustratius Presbyter of Constantinople, On the State of Souls After Death (CPG 7522)’, JECS 10 (2002), 267–85 Google Scholar; see also, in this volume, Booth, Phil, ‘Saints and Soteriology in Sophronius Sophista’s Miracles of Cyrus and John , 52–63 Google Scholar, and Santo, Matthew J. dal, ‘Philosophy, Hagiology and the Early Byzantine Origins of Purgatory’, 41–51.Google Scholar

43 Eustratii Presbiteri Constantinopolitani De statu animarum post mortem (CPG 7522), ed. Peter van Deun, CChr.SG 60 (Turnhout and Louvain, 2006).

44 Further details in Constas, , ‘An Apology’, 278–79 Google Scholar; idem, ‘“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”’, 110–12.

45 Dagron, Gilbert, ‘L’ombre d’un doute; L’hagiographie en question, VIe-XIesiècle’, DOP 46 (1992), 59–68, at 67 Google Scholar; Constas, , ‘“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”’, 111–12.Google Scholar

46 Constas, , ‘An Apology’, 273–74.Google Scholar

47 Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 1: 248 (Q. 21).

48 Ibid. 1:251 (Q. 21).

49 Ibid. 1: 251–52 (Q. 21).

50 Ibid. 2: 55–61 (Q. 50), to the same (Neilos the monk). Following the editor Eustratiades, Constas notes that Glykas is here drawing partly on the section on the feast of Protopsychosabbaton (Saturday of All Souls, the first Saturday of Great Lent in the Orthodox calendar) in the liturgical calendar (synaxarion) dedicated to the prayers and memorial offerings for the dead: Constas, ‘“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”’, 102.

51 Constas, , ‘Death and Dying’, 137 Google Scholar; Dagron, Gilbert, Troisième, neuvième et quarantième jour dans la tradition byzantine: temps chrétien et anthropologie’, in Le temps chrétien de la fin de l’antiquité au moyen age, IIIe-XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1984), 419–30.Google Scholar

52 Perhaps he had in mind the Apostolic Constitutions 8.42.1, ed. M. Metzger, SC 336 (Paris, 1987), 258. The Byzantine practice of mnemosyna, however, was interpreted by some as an imitation of Christ’s resurrection on the third day and his ascension into heaven on the fortieth: Constas, , ‘“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”’, 103.Google Scholar

53 Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 2: 59 (Q. 50).

54 Ibid. 2: 215–29 (Q. 69).

55 Ibid. 2: 228 (Q. 69).

56 Ibid. 2: 221 (Q. 69); see also discussion in Baun, Tales, 138–44,300-12.

57 Kephalaia, ed. Eustratiades, 2: 380 (Q. 85).

58 Ibid. Constas (‘“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”’, 113 n. 77) sees in this an allusion to the debate on purgatory that was to erupt few years after Glykas’s death.

59 Magdalino, , Empire, 406.Google Scholar

60 Constas, , ‘“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”’, 100–01.Google Scholar