Chapter 5 - Narratives about the Panagia

Summary

This chapter covers a large literary category which I call ‘hagiographical’: it includes miracle stories that involve the Virgin Mary, full-length Lives of the Virgin (which began to be produced from the late eighth or early ninth century onward) and two Apocalypses. Many of the texts studied here are composed in a colloquial style that may have appealed to wider audiences in non-liturgical settings. This genre thus contrasts with the liturgical texts that are studied in the first four chapters: according to hagiography, Mary assumes power and agency that goes beyond her theological role in giving birth to Christ. Christians appeal to this female holy figure as one who is able to appeal to Christ and who is willing to help sinners or supplicants who despair of God’s direct favour. Christological teaching persists in these texts, but the emphasis has shifted to Mary’s intercessory role among Christians.

It is convenient to include miracle stories and narrative accounts concerning the Virgin Mary’s birth, life, death and posthumous activities within an all-encompassing category which I shall call ‘hagiography’ in this chapter. Such material shares certain characteristics: it may (although there are significant exceptions to this rule) be written in a low-brow or even colloquial style,¹ display an interest in historical narrative and deviate – sometimes quite intriguingly – from more ‘official’ or theological literary treatment of the Theotokos.² After the anomalous second- or third-century apocryphal text known as the Protevangelion of James,³ mention of the Virgin Mary in hagiographical texts did not begin to appear until about the middle of the fourth century.⁴ Even after this, with the exception of the various accounts of Mary’s dormition that began to circulate from about the end of the fifth century onward,⁵ miraculous or hagiographical stories concerning the Virgin were not produced in any great quantity until the late sixth or early seventh century. From that period onward, such texts began to proliferate – although, arguably, they never overtook the quantity of miracle stories and biographies associated with other saints who had come to be celebrated in the Byzantine liturgical calendar.⁶

The material to be discussed in this chapter includes stories about posthumous miracles performed by the Virgin Mary or by her relics (usually a garment) contained in miracle collections, enkomia or vitae of other saints, as well as some other literary genres such as histories and chronicles. I will also examine four hagiographical texts that are dedicated to the Theotokos herself. These works form a group that displays common narrative themes, even if each text possesses unique preoccupations and aims.⁷ The four hagiographical texts include a Life of the Virgin written by Epiphanios, who may have been a monk at the Constantinopolitan Monastery of Kallistratos towards the end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth century,⁸ a more sophisticated composition by the late tenth-century writer John of Geometres,⁹ a contemporary Georgian version of Geometres’ text by Euthymios the Athonite¹⁰ and another Marian Life that is attributed to Symeon the Metaphrast.¹¹ Finally – as a kind of appendix to the chapter – I shall look briefly at the ninth- or tenth-century apocalypses that deal with Mary’s tour of hell and paradise in the period just before or after her death; these texts, which Jane Baun has explored so fruitfully in various recent studies, contain a hagiographical element in that they provide narratives about the Virgin’s life or afterlife.¹² And, like miracle stories and Lives of the Virgin, they reveal much about the Virgin Mary’s cult and intercessory role in Byzantium.¹³

A brief comment on the literary genre, or the validity of assigning many of the texts described above to that of hagiography, is necessary here.¹⁴ We should remind ourselves again that the boundaries between separate genres were porous in the hands of Byzantine writers.¹⁵ Thus, John Geometres’ Life of the Virgin, although described by scholars as ‘hagiography’, is also a series of rhetorical meditations, or orations, on events in the life of the Theotokos that correspond with their liturgical celebration as feasts.¹⁶ Many of the middle Byzantine festal sermons which we examined in Chapter 3 take the form of (or are described in manuscripts as) enkomia. And the liturgical or monastic locations at which sermons, enkomia or Lives of the Theotokos were delivered may not always have differed. Nevertheless, it is convenient to categorise the literary evidence to be examined in this chapter as ‘hagiographical’. We will be concerned above all with narratives – whether written in a low or high literary style – that deal with Mary’s personal history, characteristics and activities in this or the next world. There tends to be less emphasis in these texts on her place in Christological doctrine or in the wider scheme of God’s dispensation and more on her relationship with individual Christians – although this may not always be the case in more sophisticated theological works such as John Geometres’ Life of the Virgin. Such teaching, while popular and apparently acceptable to the official Church, could sometimes (but not always) deviate from more rigorous formulations of Christian atonement and salvation.

Jane Baun has recently challenged theologians and historians to include ‘low-brow’ and ‘popular’ religious texts in their studies of the formation of Byzantine Christian doctrine. She suggests, following Cyril Mango, that such literature ‘brings us into closer contact with reality than the stilted compositions of the educated élite’,¹⁷ arguing that it reflects the beliefs and practices of the Byzantine faithful.¹⁸ Hagiographical and apocalyptic texts which, judging from the number of surviving manuscripts, circulated widely and continued to be read in later centuries not only in Greek but also in many other languages, also helped to shape Christian doctrine. This ‘sensus fidelium’, as it is called in the Roman Catholic tradition, should not be underestimated as a force in the development of Byzantine ideas about the Mother of God, divine intercession and the afterlife.¹⁹ It is my broad agreement with this thesis that has led me to devote a chapter to miracle stories, hagiography and apocalypses that deal with the Virgin Mary. In the discussion that follows, I shall attempt both to highlight the unique characteristics of these various literary forms and to assess their significance in the Marian cult as a whole.

Miracle Stories Involving the Virgin Mary

Stories of the Virgin Mary’s appearance to individual Christians, either in person or in dreams, are rare before about the middle of the sixth century. There are exceptions to this rule, such as Gregory of Nyssa’s account, in the fourth century, of Gregory Thaumatourgos’ (the Wonderworker’s) waking vision of a figure who ‘had the appearance of a woman, whose noble aspect far surpassed normal human beauty’. Gregory of Nyssa tells us that although the night was dark, she appeared to his namesake ‘as if a burning lamp had been kindled there’. After she and her companion, who is identified as John the Evangelist, had settled the doctrinal matter that had been worrying the saint, they disappeared from view.²⁰ This story neatly juxtaposes Mary’s function as a holy intercessor with her own importance in doctrinal terms. It remains, however, a somewhat isolated example against a background of growing Christian devotion towards saints and their relics, as well as belief in their ability to mediate divine power in the created world.²¹

It was in the sixth century, beginning in the Latin-speaking West, that miracle stories involving the Theotokos began to appear in greater quantity. Owing to the fact that many of these stories reflected contact with Eastern Christendom, either because of pilgrimage to the Holy Land or simply due to oral transmission from one region to another, it is worth examining them in the context of this study. Gregory of Tours, writing between approximately the middle of the sixth century and his death in 594, included several miracles involving the Virgin in his Libri miraculorum.²² These include a story about builders who were constructing a basilica in honour of the Virgin during the reign of Constantine and who were granted a vision in which she showed them how to move heavy columns with the help of a machine and one about a Jewish boy, son of a glass-blower, who was thrown into the furnace by his father for having partaken of the Christian eucharist but survived, thanks to the intervention of the Theotokos. The second of these stories, along with another concerning a pilgrim who was on his way from Palestine to his home in Gaul, involved the Virgin Mary’s relics: in the former, she spread her mantle over the boy in the furnace and in the latter, the pilgrim discovered the indestructibility of pieces of her clothing that he was carrying home after his pilgrimage.²³ Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540–604) told the story of a young girl called Musa, who experienced a vision of the Virgin Mary one night. The Theotokos informed Musa of her approaching death and told her that she would be included in a group of holy virgins belonging to her entourage. After thirty days, during which she had time to reform her way of life, the girl duly died.²⁴ This story was transmitted to the Byzantine world by means of its inclusion in the eleventh-century spiritual anthology known as the Evergetinos;²⁵ it is also likely that Gregory’s Dialogues were circulating in a Greek translation well before that period.²⁶

John Moschos, perhaps writing in Rome but using material that he and his friend Sophronios, future patriarch of Jerusalem, had gathered in the course of their travels through Palestine and Egypt, added to the collection of miraculous stories involving the Virgin Mary.²⁷ These tales included that of the Jewish glass-blower’s son (also narrated by Gregory of Tours, as we saw above),²⁸ along with several more disturbing examples of Mary’s punishment of unrepentant sinners. In one story, the Mother of God threatens an actor named Gaïanas, who has been performing an act in the theatre in Heliopolis (Lebanese Phoenicia) in which he blasphemes her. She appears three times, warning him to stop performing the scene, but Gaïanas refuses to obey. Finally, when he is taking an afternoon nap, she reappears and cuts off his hands and feet with her finger. On waking up, Gaïanas lies there ‘just like a tree trunk’ and then admits that he has received a just reward for his actions.²⁹ In another interesting story, John relates how an abbot had a vision of ‘a woman of stately appearance clad in purple’, accompanied by ‘two reverend and honourable men’ (whom he identified as John the Baptist and John the Evangelist), who refused to enter his cell unless he destroyed a book containing writings by Nestorios.³⁰ Another tale describes how Kosmiana, wife of a patrician named Germanos, was approached by the Mother of God, accompanied by some other women, and forbidden entrance to Christ’s tomb in Jerusalem unless she renounced her allegiance to the Miaphysite Church. After being admitted to communion by a Chalcedonian deacon, she was thereafter allowed ‘to worship unimpeded at the holy and life-giving sepulchre of Jesus Christ’.³¹ Mary is invariably described in these stories as a dignified figure, dressed in purple, who is easily identifiable as the Theotokos. It is likely that such descriptions were based on iconography that was becoming increasingly standard in this period; the confidence with which writers such as Gregory of Tours and John Moschos describe Mary’s appearance and garb suggests their familiarity with her portrayal in icons, wall paintings and manuscripts.³²

Miracle stories were also produced in the middle Byzantine period, although perhaps not in the profusion that one might expect, given the growing importance of the Mother of God both during and after the period of Iconoclasm. Stephen the Deacon’s Life of St Stephen the Younger, probably composed at the beginning of the ninth century, relates how the saint’s mother (named Anna like her forerunner in the Old Testament) prayed for a child during the all-night vigil at the church of Blachernai. On falling asleep as she prayed for the third time, Anna received a vision of the Mother of God who promised that she would conceive a son.³³ The ninth-century Life of St Irene of Chrysobalanton, another Constantinopolitan saint, tells how this abbess was granted a vision of the Mother of God in response to her prayers concerning a nun who had become possessed by demons.³⁴ St Theodora, consort of the iconoclast emperor Theophilos, dreamed that she saw the holy Theotokos, holding the infant Christ in her arms, reproaching her husband and beating him because of his stance against icons.³⁵ And, dating probably from the tenth century, there is the famous account in the Life of St Andrew the Fool in which the Mother of God appeared to all who were present at the all-night vigil in the church of Blachernai, emerging from the sanctuary accompanied by a large retinue of prophets, patriarchs and saints. She prayed on behalf of everyone there, as well as for the whole world, and then spread out her veil over the congregation. According to the hagiographer, ‘for a long while the admirable men [Andrew and Epiphanios] saw it stretched out over the people, radiating the glory of the Lord like amber. As long as the most holy Theotokos was there the veil was also visible, but when she had withdrawn they could no longer see it.’³⁶

The Virgin Mary makes brief, but significant appearances not only in the Life of St Andrew the Fool, but also in the probably contemporary Life of St Basil the Younger.³⁷ Both texts provide lengthy accounts, inspired by apocalyptic literature, of the heavenly kingdom with its Ruler, Christ, the Mother of God, and the ranks of attendant angels. In one significant passage, the author of the Life of St Basil the Younger, Gregory, describes his vision of Christ crowning and robing his mother in this context:

The first to come to Him was the Mother of His holy incarnation and His nurturer, the immaculate and supremely holy Virgin Mary, the undefiled tabernacle of His awe-inspiring incarnation. Immediately taking the wondrous crown He wore on His holy and immaculate head, a crown of multicoloured flowers, precious gems, and noetic pearls, fabricated in many colours and in a divine fashion, He placed it on her holy head … In addition He gave her also the first robe, which was awesomely woven and noetically fabricated from heavenly imperial linen and purple (cf. Lk 16:19, Rev. 18:12, 16), the robe which He Himself wore after His incarnation … After honouring her as His Mother, He rose up and seated her on the most awe-inspiring divine and fiery throne of His glory (Mt 19:28, 25:31) positioned near Him, having extolled and praised her in the presence of all the saints from the ages, for her spiritual purity and magnanimous and very great divine forbearance amid terrible circumstances …³⁸

The hagiographer ranks the Virgin as second only to Christ; after her comes John the Baptist ‘whom [Christ] honoured worthily and extolled above all and deemed worthy of rank and honor second only to the Mistress and Lady of all’.³⁹ Although Epiphanios, the narrator in the Life of St Andrew the Fool, experiences a similar vision, he does not see the Mother of God in glory. An angel (described as ‘a dazzling man dressed in a garment that was like a shining cloud’) explains her absence as follows:

Our distinguished Lady, the Queen of the heavenly powers and God-bearer, is not present here, for she is in that vain world to support and help those who invoke God’s Only Son and Word and her own all-holy name.⁴⁰

Whether they envision her in heaven or on earth, these tenth-century hagiographers stress the Virgin’s glory and power. Her devotees regularly visit her shrines in Constantinople, where they can expect to find forgiveness of sins and healing. A young thief in the Life of St Andrew the Fool flees to the Virgin’s oratory of the Myrelaion after breaking his promise to reform himself. After anointing himself with oil and praying to the Virgin for help, he sees ‘a woman standing before the doors of the holy sanctuary dressed in fine linen and purple. Her face [is] shining, more dazzling than the sun’. The vision expels the demon that has seized the boy, after which he addresses her icon, offering ‘fervent thanks to the Mother of God, swearing an oath that he [will] never more steal, nor fornicate nor fraternize with fools and sinners’.⁴¹

The contexts or audiences for which these Lives were intended unfortunately remain unclear. Sullivan, Talbot and McGrath suggest (with respect to the Life of St Basil the Younger) that the text may have circulated in a monastery or monasteries where it offered ethical teaching to the brethren. They also posit that the text was consumed in sections throughout the year, rather than as a single reading on the feast-day of the saint. Both the length of the Life and its organisation into discrete sections or episodes support this hypothesis. However, it is also possible that the text was composed for a lay audience since it concerns itself with people of all classes and genders: the ethical teaching, which stresses charity as a virtue, relates especially to people who have the means to do good works. Above all, the lively narratives that are contained in both Lives, including both apocalyptic visions and cautionary tales, would have attracted readers or audiences from diverse social backgrounds.⁴²

From about the tenth century onward, miracle stories associated with water also began to be recorded in Constantinople. Three important Marian shrines, namely, the complexes at Blachernai, the Hodegon Monastery and the shrine of the Pege (‘Source’), contained baths (lousmata) or springs (pegai). According to the anonymous tenth-century text known as the Patria, miracles took place at the spring of the Hodegon Monastery: ‘many blind people saw again at the spring there, and many miracles happened’.⁴³ Another important Constantinopolitan shrine of the Virgin that incorporated water was the Blachernai church and monastery.⁴⁴ The empress Verina probably founded this shrine, which was originally located just outside the Theodosian land walls (and later included within them),⁴⁵ shortly before 475.⁴⁶ In its earliest phase, the shrine consisted of a round or octagonal sanctuary (known as the ‘Soros’), which contained the most important relic of the Virgin, a robe; several centuries later this would be described as a mantle or mandylion.⁴⁷ The early sixth-century emperor Justin I added a three-aisled basilica to the complex, which was re-modelled by Justin II and his consort Sophia, later in the same century.⁴⁸ There was also a pool or bath at the Blachernai complex, which must have been there even before its foundation.⁴⁹ Most accounts of the Virgin Mary’s veneration at the sanctuary focus on her robe or, from the eleventh century onward, a holy icon that performed on a weekly basis what came to be known as ‘the usual miracle’.⁵⁰ However, the pool played a ceremonial role when the emperor and his entourage paid a special visit to the shrine on certain Fridays during the year.⁵¹ According to the tenth-century Book of Ceremonies, the royal visitors first entered the holy Soros where they said special prayers and then venerated and lit candles before an icon of the Virgin and Child known as the ‘episkepsis’. Following these rites, they immersed themselves three times in the sacred bath that adjoined the Soros.⁵² This description suggests a more ceremonial than impromptu role for the Blachernai pool. Nevertheless, it reinforces the association between the Virgin Mary and water, which represented an important aspect of her cult in the imperial city throughout the middle Byzantine period.

The shrine of the Virgin of the Source (Pege) was based at a sanctuary that was located just outside the walls of Constantinople. Like the shrine at Blachernai, the Pege was believed to have been founded in the second half of the fifth century, again during the reign of Leo I. An anonymous writer collected and wrote down the miracle stories that were associated with this shrine, from the time of its foundation to the tenth century.⁵³ He described the legendary origins of the shrine, asserting that the fifth-century emperor Leo had discovered a spring just outside the walls of Constantinople when he was searching for water for a thirsty blind man. The Virgin Mary appeared to him, directing him to the spring. When the man drank the water, his sight was miraculously restored. The emperor then built a small shrine on the site, which was called a kataphygion or ‘place of refuge’.⁵⁴ In the sixth century, the emperor Justinian constructed a domed church in honour of the Mother of God after being cured of a urinary infection by water from the Pege.⁵⁵ This church, to which a male monastery was soon attached, became a focus for both imperial and lay pilgrimage.⁵⁶ The Byzantine emperors visited the spring on Ascension Day; on this occasion, the patriarch celebrated a Divine Liturgy, which was followed by a meal.⁵⁷

In addition to such imperial patronage, ordinary people visited the spring throughout the year, seeking healing from the water or sometimes from oil lamps that were hanging before an icon of the Virgin. The miraculous healings that took place at the shrine of the Pege were facilitated either by the Theotokos herself, who appeared to her supplicants in visions, or by her icon. However, they were always brought about by means of physical substances – water from the spring, mud from its banks or oil from the lamps that were hanging in the sanctuary. For the most part, the pilgrims ingested these liquids; it is also noticeable that the illnesses were often internal ones, consisting of gastric, urinary or intestinal infections or tumours. Dropsy, or bloating due to fluid retention, was also a common ailment. The beneficiaries of Mary’s intercession ranged from emperors and their wives or relatives to common people; she appears to have acted without discrimination in her service to Christians of every gender and class. And, interestingly, the author of the miracles tells us that ‘Eudokia’, sister-in-law of Maurice (582–602 ce), did not recognise the Virgin when she encountered her in a vision; she appeared to be a woman ‘of modest means’ (gynaika tina metrian).⁵⁸ In another story, however, a monk perceived her as ‘a woman robed in purple, towering as high as the lintel [of the church doorway] in the majesty of her stature’.⁵⁹ Such discrepancies probably reflect the diverse nature of these tales, which were compiled over several centuries; however, they may also reveal something about the status of individual devotees and how they expected to encounter the Mother of God.

Jane Baun suggests various ways of classifying the accounts of Marian miracles, which help us to evaluate their significance. She divides apparitions, for example, into categories on the basis of intention or purpose, which range from healings to intercession. After dividing the material up in this way, Baun is able to distinguish chronological developments with regard to some themes, with instances of Mary appointing tasks to her devotees or combating heresy belonging mainly to the earlier or late antique period, while her assistance in military matters appears increasingly frequently in later texts.⁶⁰ Baun also creates a useful distinction between the Virgin’s physical and visionary appearances.⁶¹ Her ability to appear to Christians in person even after death is described in a literal fashion in some texts: the miracle stories that were collected at the shrine of the Pege, for example, describe her appearances (in various guises) to individuals who pray to her there.⁶² It is significant that from about the late ninth century onward, Mary appears less often in person, preferring henceforth to intercede or perform miracles by means of her icons.⁶³ Baun qualifies her conclusions in this study by admitting that they are based only on a representative selection of miracle stories dating from between the sixth and eleventh centuries. It is unfortunate that the very popularity of anthologies of such texts has led to their neglect by scholars. The numbers of manuscripts in which they are transmitted, combined with the focus of Bollandists and other editors on saints whose cults are objects of historical interest,⁶⁴ has caused many collections of Marian miracles to remain unedited.⁶⁵ My observation above, concerning the limited amount of such material that survives from the middle Byzantine period, should thus remain tentative – pending future editions of a body of literary texts that is potentially of great interest, not only with regard to the cult of the Mother of God, but also for theological and historical reasons.⁶⁶

In summary, miracle stories convey much about the hope that Byzantine Christians placed in their protector and intercessor, the Mother of God. She could appear, either in person or glimpsed through icons or dreams, to those who placed their faith in her; at the same time, however, she could wreak awful vengeance on sinners and heretics. In theological terms, the portrayal of the Virgin Mary in texts such as these resembled that of other major saints. The Theotokos had the power to persuade, cure and sometimes punish Christians who were in trouble. She was not seen as co-redeemer in the sense of having unlimited power as intercessor before God.⁶⁷ Rather, endowed with the parresia or ‘freedom of speech’ with God that was shared by other saints, Mary interceded with him on behalf of the rest of the human race. Her feminine, and sometimes explicitly maternal, aspect was increasingly emphasised in texts written during or after the iconoclast period.⁶⁸ See, for example, the appeal made by St Stephen the Younger’s mother Anna for a child:

‘Theotokos, refuge of those who run towards you, anchor and protector of those who seek you in pain, most safe port for those who are drowning with faint hearts in the great sea of life and most opportune ally for those who in despair summon you to their aid, glory of mothers and adornment of daughters, you who have transformed into happy assurance, by giving birth to the God-man, the most shameful condemnation of the whole female sex, owing to our first mother Eve – have mercy on me, hearken, and break the bond that is in me, just as was done for your progenitor Anna who bore you, and show your maternal mediation in allowing me to bear a male child that I may offer this gift to your Son and God.’⁶⁹

Nevertheless, as we shall see later in relation to some middle Byzantine Lives of saints and apocalypses, Mary could sometimes wield considerable power in the heavenly court. She ranked higher than any other saint or even angelic power because of her maternal relationship with Christ and assumption into heaven after death. The boundary between orthodox and more heterodox views on the Virgin’s place in the celestial hierarchy was occasionally permeable, as a few of the surviving texts reveal.⁷⁰

Middle Byzantine Lives of the Theotokos

The orthodoxy of four surviving middle Byzantine vitae of the Virgin Mary is not in question, although these texts provide teaching that is not always strictly in line with that found in biblical or even well-known apocryphal texts. The four Lives offer narrative, praise and supplication in honour of the holy Theotokos.⁷¹ Although they are organised in different ways and display separate preoccupations, the texts are all hagiographical in nature. In other words, they attempt to elucidate the full life story, including the birth, life, death and afterlife of the Mother of God. In view of the silence of the canonical Gospels on so many aspects of Mary’s life, our four hagiographers also employ both patristic and apocryphal sources in their pursuit of her story. The practice of stringing together separate apocryphal narratives concerning the Virgin’s conception, infancy, motherhood of Jesus, and activities during his ministry and passion, as well as her own death and assumption into heaven, is known to have begun – perhaps first in Syriac-speaking milieux – from about the fifth century onward.⁷² Charles Naffah is in the process of classifying and editing fifth- and sixth-century Syriac manuscripts that combine the various phases of the Virgin Mary’s life into continuous narratives.⁷³ It is not known whether the Byzantine Lives were inspired by an early Greek translation of such a source or whether this genre evolved independently within the Greek-speaking Christian world. What is clear is that the literary and theological tendencies of at least three of the vitae reflect a period in which Marian doctrine and devotion were well developed; they express interest in the Virgin Mary as an exceptionally holy person in her own right who is capable of interceding on behalf of Christians and assisting their salvation.

It is necessary first to address questions of date and literary context for the four hagiographical texts. After this, I shall move on to analyse their narrative content, before exploring what they reveal about the Marian cult in Constantinople between the early ninth and late tenth centuries. The problem raised at the beginning of this chapter regarding ‘low’ and ‘high’ (or popular and élite) styles of hagiographical texts should also be addressed in relation to these vitae. Whereas the late eighth- or early ninth-century Life by Epiphanios of Kallistratos may have appealed to a wide audience, judging by its simple literary style and message,⁷⁴ the three remaining texts are complex in literary and theological terms. John Geometres’ Life of the Virgin contains sophisticated theological reflection on Christological themes along with its narrative and devotional content.⁷⁵ Symeon the Metaphrast’s Life, while short on narrative detail, represents an elegant panegyrical oration in praise of the Theotokos.⁷⁶ And the Georgian Life, which is attributed to Maximos the Confessor but inspired by Geometres’ work,⁷⁷ provides a somewhat simplified version of the latter with focus especially on Mary’s ascetic and didactic activities as a disciple of Christ.

Scholarly attention has so far focused mainly on the dating and provenance of the surviving Byzantine Lives of the Virgin. Both Michel van Esbroeck and Stephen Shoemaker have argued that a lost Greek Life of the Virgin, which was attributed to, but not necessarily composed by, the seventh-century theologian Maximos the Confessor, was the earliest exponent of the Marian hagiographical tradition in the Greek-speaking Byzantine world.⁷⁸ This text was then translated from Greek to Georgian by the monk Euthymios the Athonite (or Hagiorite), in the late tenth century.⁷⁹ Shoemaker’s arguments are based mainly on internal evidence: they include the author’s dependence on early apocryphal sources concerning the Virgin’s death and assumption into heaven, his awareness of both Palestinian and Constantinopolitan traditions regarding her relics, and the influence of the text on later writers including George of Nikomedia, John Geometres and Symeon the Metaphrast.⁸⁰ Phil Booth and Christos Simelidis have since challenged such an early date for the Georgian Life of the Virgin, arguing for its production no earlier than the middle or end of the tenth century.⁸¹ Booth accepts the existence of a lost Greek prototype for Euthymios the Athonite’s Georgian translation of the text, but prefers to place this in the tenth century.⁸² He offers various arguments that disprove either Maximian or even seventh-century authorship of the text, finally suggesting that the author was more likely inspired by George of Nikomedia’s homilies on the passion and resurrection of Christ than the reverse.⁸³ Simelidis proposes an even simpler explanation for the date and literary context of the Georgian Life of the Virgin. Having compared it closely with the former work, Simelidis argues that the late tenth-century translator Euthymios the Athonite based his work directly on Geometres’ text. Thus the bilingual abbot produced a revised, and somewhat simplified, version of the text for his Georgian readers. This means that the Georgian Life represents nothing more than a paraphrase – albeit a highly sophisticated one – of a complex theological Greek text that was produced during the final decades of the tenth century.⁸⁴

The textual analysis that Simelidis provides in his recent article provides, to my mind, a definitive answer to this long-running debate. He offers detailed and convincing proof that Euthymios the Athonite depended on John Geometres’ Life of the Virgin in order to produce a version that would appeal to less sophisticated but spiritually motivated audiences in Georgia. Simelidis focuses on sections in the text that have been simplified in the Georgian version, along with others that expand the number of biblical references: both of these features are characteristic of Euthymios’ methods of translation and metaphrasis.⁸⁵ John Geometres, when drawing on biblical, apocryphal and patristic sources for his composition, manages to combine a number of literary forms, including narrative, homiletic and panegyrical, into one harmonious composition. Although the success of this rhetorical exercise reflects John’s literary skill and originality, it also follows centuries of refinement in Marian liturgical expression. The hymnographic and homiletic genres that have been studied so far in this book all helped to inspire John Geometres’ work. It is also likely that new emphasis on various aspects of the Virgin Mary’s character, including her ascetic labours, involvement in Christ’s ministry and apostolic mission, and emotional demeanour at the foot of the cross reflect a relatively late, and highly developed, phase in her cult. Rather than accept Shoemaker’s proposal that these aspects of Marian devotion began much earlier than was previously thought in the Eastern Christian world,⁸⁶ I agree with Simelidis that they only reached full expression, thanks especially to John Geometres, in the late tenth century.

Now that we have eliminated a hypothetical early seventh-century prototype, the hagiographical text that is attributed to the Constantinopolitan monk Epiphanios of Kallistratos emerges as the earliest example of the genre.⁸⁷ This Life has received some scholarly attention, but still awaits detailed literary analysis.⁸⁸ Most recent studies agree that Epiphanios, a monk and priest who may have lived at the Kallistratos monastery in Constantinople at the end of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century, produced not only this vita, but also one on the apostle Andrew.⁸⁹ Alexander Kazhdan places him among the monastic literati of the early ninth century in Constantinople, who included such important figures as Theodore of Stoudios and his brother Joseph, Theophanes the Confessor and the nun Kassia.⁹⁰ Epiphanios’ Life of the Virgin contains a number of interesting characteristics, which set it off from the tenth-century hagiographical texts that followed it. For example, it is clear that Epiphanios approaches his material with a biographical or ‘historical’ purpose. He states at the beginning of his text that, since none of the apostles or early Fathers who wrote about Mary provided full accounts of her life from beginning to end, such a biography is needed.⁹¹ Epiphanios seeks at the outset to establish the authority of his literary sources. He avoids texts that he calls ‘apocryphal’ or ‘heretical’, but does cite earlier authors including ‘James the Hebrew’ (either the putative author of the Protevangelion of James or that of a polemical early seventh-century text known as the Doctrina Jacobi),⁹² John of Thessalonike, Andrew of Crete and Eusebios of Caesarea as authoritative sources on various aspects of Mary’s life.⁹³

After a brief prologue in which he sets out his aims and cites his sources, Epiphanios provides a genealogy for the Virgin Mary. This traces the ancestry of both parents, Joachim and Anna, on the basis not only of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, but also of apocryphal and patristic traditions.⁹⁴ The object of the exercise is, as for some other eighth-century writers, both to demonstrate the royal and priestly lineage of the Virgin Mary (with her father Joachim belonging to the tribe of David and her mother Anna to a priestly line) and to underline her links with the rest of the human race.⁹⁵ Epiphanios also stresses the familial relationship between various women who featured prominently in Mary’s life, including her cousins Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist) and Salome who was also a midwife.⁹⁶ After an account of Anna’s conception of the Virgin, Epiphanios moves on to her birth, infancy in the temple and betrothal to Joseph, followed by the part of her life that overlaps with the canonical Gospel accounts. The Life concludes with an account of the Virgin’s activities after Christ’s ascension into heaven (she led a life of asceticism and performed many miracles for the people of Jerusalem), followed by her death and burial. Epiphanios is careful in his epilogue to calculate the exact number of years that the Theotokos lived (he numbers these at seventy-two),⁹⁷ but – unlike the other Marian hagiographers – he does not discuss her assumption into heaven or the translation of her relics to Constantinople.⁹⁸ In short, this is a ‘factual’ (at least in the eyes of its author) account of the Virgin Mary’s terrestrial life, which attempts to set straight the discrepancies in the canonical Gospels and to fill in the many gaps that persist in both biblical and patristic sources.

The Life by Symeon the Metaphrast (+ c. 1000) is the shortest text in the group.⁹⁹ Like many of the Metaphrast’s reworkings of earlier Lives of saints, the redactor aims to produce a polished but somewhat impressionistic account of his subject.¹⁰⁰ It is noticeable that Symeon follows the Gospel narratives more closely than do the other three hagiographers; he also omits many details in Mary’s story that belong only to the apocryphal and patristic traditions. Those that he does include, however – among which are a brief account of Anna’s conception of Mary, the latter’s dedication and upbringing in the temple, and her betrothal to Joseph – reveal similarities with the other three Byzantine Lives of the Virgin Mary. Nevertheless, certain features in the hagiographical narratives that reflect a monastic background, such as consistent stress on Mary’s ascetic practices and apostolic leadership, are lacking in the Metaphrastic Life of the Virgin.¹⁰¹

John Kyriotes Geometres, who was a contemporary of Symeon the Metaphrast, went further in producing a long and complex panegyrical work in honour of the Mother of God.¹⁰² Like Symeon, Geometres was one of the most important literary figures of the second half of the tenth century.¹⁰³ He began his professional life as an imperial officer, but later retired and possibly became a monk and priest in Constantinople. In addition to the Life of the Virgin, John composed epigrams, hagiography in verse and prose, and progymnasmata.¹⁰⁴ His hymns on the Mother of God build on the traditional form of the chairetismos while also employing rhetorical wordplay in an innovative manner; his homily on the Annunciation represents a significant contribution to the genre.¹⁰⁵ Although John Geometres’ Life of the Mother of God remained unedited in its entirety until very recently, it has attracted notice from theologians, liturgists and Marian scholars in the course of the last century.¹⁰⁶ Roman Catholic scholars have been intrigued both by the high Mariology of this text¹⁰⁷ and by its teaching concerning the Virgin’s assumption into heaven.¹⁰⁸ Geometres promotes an exalted view of the Mother of God, picturing her as ‘Queen of all created nature’ and as ‘standing at the right hand of her Son and King’.¹⁰⁹ Considering the theological importance of this text, it is strange that it has waited so long to receive a critical edition.

As Fr Maximos Constas recently discovered, Michel van Esbroeck and Antoine Wenger planned such an edition from about the middle of the twentieth century. Although a manuscript which van Esbroeck had prepared was thought to have disappeared, it was recently discovered in the archives of Wenger that are held at the Assumptionist House in Paris.¹¹⁰ Fr Maximos Constas and Christos Simelidis are using this draft as a basis for a new critical edition of the text. Pending the appearance of this long-awaited publication, I have consulted the best surviving manuscript witness, Cod. Vatic. Gr. 504, which was copied in 1105 and contains the entire text, along with Wenger’s edition of the final section on the Virgin’s dormition and assumption.¹¹¹ It has not been possible in the present circumstances to gain a detailed understanding of the text; however, I hope at least to comment on aspects of the text that are relevant to this discussion.

John Geometres divides his panegyrical work into distinct sections that correspond to major episodes, or festal celebrations, in the life of the Theotokos.¹¹² It is possible that these sections were intended as separate readings, either in a private or a liturgical context, for separate days in the liturgical year. They are usually introduced by short titles and are made up of narrative sections accompanied by theological discussion. Nevertheless, the whole text presents the Virgin Mary’s life in chronological order, finishing with an extended account of her dormition, assumption into heaven and the translation of the robe to Constantinople. This narrative material is framed throughout the work by prayerful meditation on its theological and spiritual significance. While clearly based (like the other hagiographical texts that we have so far examined) on apocryphal and patristic sources that treat this subject, John Geometres also employs both scripture and his own imagination in developing Marian themes. As part of the hagiographical and exegetical tradition that had been evolving since the early ninth century, this text represents one of the most sophisticated treatments of the Virgin Mary’s role in the divine dispensation.

The Georgian Life of the Virgin represents, as we saw above, a translation that was completed, either at the Monastery of Iveron on Mt Athos or in Constantinople, by the monk and later abbot Euthymios the Athonite (c. 955/60–1028).¹¹³ Eleven manuscripts survive, bearing witness to the popularity of the text in monasteries from Georgia to Mt Sinai.¹¹⁴ Even if we accept, as I do, Simelidis’ conclusion that Euthymios adapted John Geometres’ set of orations on the Virgin (known as the Life) as he produced a version that would be understandable to a mainly monastic, Georgian audience, the text is significant in its own right. The Athonite translator not only simplified but also enhanced his version of Mary’s story in various ways. Since Shoemaker’s excellent translation and commentary appeared in English, it has begun to attract notice from scholars who are interested not only in the cult of the Virgin, but also in the role of women in early and medieval Christianity.¹¹⁵

Following its model, the Life of the Virgin by John Geometres, the Georgian version relates the whole story of Mary’s life, beginning with her conception, birth and dedication to the temple and ending not only with her death and assumption into heaven, but also with a short excursus on the translation of the relics, a robe and a belt, to Constantinople. Unlike the surviving apocryphal narratives, the Life also focuses on Christ’s life, passion and resurrection, providing the Virgin Mary with an important role throughout this narrative. Following her son at each stage of his public ministry, Mary attracts female disciples whom she personally guides and teaches. She is present at Christ’s interrogation and torture, standing outside the door of the courtroom and transmitting the news to his disciples.¹¹⁶ She stands at the foot of the cross and is entrusted to the care of the beloved disciple, as the Evangelist himself relates (John 19:26–7), but the hagiographer also describes her suffering in detail: ‘And the abundance of the sufferings and the wounds pierced your heart: streams of blood came down from his wounds, but fountains of tears came down from your eyes. How could you bear to behold such a dreadful sight, unless the grace and power of your son and Lord strengthened you and confirmed for you the glory of his mercy?’¹¹⁷ After the crucifixion, Mary is made responsible for finding a tomb and arranging for the burial of Christ’s body.¹¹⁸ She remains by the tomb and is the first person to see the resurrection; she then informs both the disciples and the myrrh-bearing women of this event.¹¹⁹ Following Christ’s ascension, the Theotokos becomes the apostles’ leader and guide: she instructs them in asceticism and directs their missions. The Life continues with an account of the Virgin’s dormition and assumption, which follows the conventional Greek treatment of this theme in liturgical texts. The author stresses the incorruptibility of Mary’s body while asserting the reality of her death; he states that the apostles were afraid, when placing her body in the tomb at Gethsemane, to ‘lay their hands upon the holy and utterly blessed body, for they saw the light that enveloped it and the grace of God that was upon it’.¹²⁰ This is followed by an account of the translation of Mary’s robe to Constantinople (using the traditional narrative involving two fifth-century patricians, Galbius and Kandidus), along with brief mention of the holy belt; the two relics were housed at the shrines in the churches of the Blachernai and the Chalkoprateia, respectively.¹²¹ The hagiographer concludes with a hymnic section that celebrates Mary with the help of metaphorical, typological and intercessory language,¹²² along with reflections on her miraculous assumption into heaven.¹²³

All four of the middle Byzantine Lives of the Virgin emphasise Mary’s importance within the larger story of Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection. To a greater or lesser extent, their authors are prepared to adapt both New Testament and apocryphal accounts in order to demonstrate this point. Three of the Lives (excluding the Metaphrastic one) also share narrative peculiarities, some of which may reflect the monastic (or pious lay) backgrounds of their authors, as I have demonstrated in earlier studies.¹²⁴ For example, the Virgin described as receiving a vision in the temple at the age of twelve (while carrying out nightly vigils), attracting female disciples, pursuing an ascetic life especially after the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, and (in the case of the Georgian Life of the Virgin) even directing the missions of the apostles during the years that followed. The prominence of the Mother of God especially within texts such as the Georgian Life has led scholars to ask whether this reflects a ‘feminist’ outlook on the part of the author; as Shoemaker notes in one study, this message ‘presents a stark contrast with the exclusion of women from church leadership at the time when the text was composed’.¹²⁵

One explanation for this anomaly might be that the Georgian Life of the Virgin (or certain elements within it) preserves earlier traditions concerning the position of women in the Church that were later suppressed.¹²⁶ However, the question why Euthymios the Athonite would have included such radical ideas when rewriting the story of the Virgin remains. Shoemaker suggests that it would have been easier for a monastic (as opposed to a lay or secular) writer to portray Mary, as well as her female followers, as important figures in the early Christian community: ‘the absence of actual women may have made this representation considerably less threatening than it would have been in a mixed, urban setting’.¹²⁷ Although this explanation helps to explain the freedom with which Euthymios approached his subject, it still does not fully explain his agenda in elevating Mary to such a powerful position throughout the text.

The answer may lie in the high Mariology that characterises both the Georgian Life of the Virgin and its source by John Geometres. John elaborates this doctrine especially in the closing chapters of his Life, which deal with the dormition and assumption of the Virgin. These events served to reveal – not only to the apostles who witnessed them but also to the wider Christian community in subsequent centuries – the exceptional holiness of Christ’s mother Mary. Geometres writes that the apostles carried ‘that supercelestial body, which had borne that unlimited nature and contained the uncircumscribable’ and placed it in the tomb. This is followed by a return to more earthly imagery when he states that ‘she went into the earth, ceding to the common law of nature while also withdrawing towards her Son and Bridegroom, towards the heavenly bridal chamber … ’¹²⁸ The paradoxical juxtaposition of earthly and heavenly natures is thus applied to Mary as well as to Christ in this text; she takes on the glory of heavenly existence while remaining subject to death (but not corruption), like other human beings. The Georgian Life of the Virgin employs similar language in its description of Mary’s death and assumption. Euthymios, like John Geometres, reminds his audience that this event assured the presence of human nature in heaven – thus guaranteeing the final resurrection of all Christians.¹²⁹ In her position of queenly power, as the bride of Christ in heaven, Mary also has the power to intercede on behalf of those who pray to her; she is infinitely generous and merciful towards her devotees. The high-flown quality of passages such as these has led some scholars, including Jean Galot and Hilda Graef, to suggest that John Geometres, alone among Byzantine theologians, accorded the role of ‘co-redemptrix’ to the Virgin Mary.¹³⁰ Since this teaching was not commonly accepted in the Eastern Christian tradition, which preferred to stress Mary’s solidarity with the rest of the human race even though she was exalted by her role in the incarnation, it is likely that rhetorical hyperbole rather than dogmatic experimentation lies behind such remarkable passages.

In any case, if we read the late tenth-century Lives of the Virgin as carefully constructed theological statements about Mary, then their depiction of her as a powerful mother, disciple and leader of the apostles begins to fall into place. From a rhetorical point of view, we need first to understand that she, as the holy subject of these panegyrical works, is bound to take centre stage. Next we may note that John Geometres and Euthymios the Athonite, building on at least five centuries of liturgical and theological reflection concerning the Mother of God, recognised that Mary represented an essential link in God’s saving dispensation for humanity. God entered creation as a human being while remaining fully divine. The Virgin Mary was chosen as the receptacle for the incarnation; however, her feminine qualities also enabled her to maintain a particularly close and emotional relationship with her Son. It is remarkable that meditation on the latter aspect of Mary’s position led monastic writers such as Euthymios to picture her at the centre of Christ’s mission, passion, resurrection and legacy; we can only speculate that Athonite veneration of the Mother of God encouraged such reflection.¹³¹ It is unlikely that this author intended a radical restructuring of church leadership on the basis of his hagiographical composition. Nevertheless, it offered an idealistic vision of the earliest Christian community in which male and female followers of Jesus served together on equal terms.

It only remains to discuss briefly the circumstances and possible reception of the four middle Byzantine Lives of the Virgin. The late eighth- or early ninth-century Life by Epiphanios, which was composed by a monk-priest in a Constantinopolitan monastery, was probably intended for a monastic audience. The text might have been read out in an all-night vigil before one of the great Marian feasts in order to educate the audience concerning the Virgin’s life story.¹³² The literary context and purpose of the longer Life of the Virgin by John Geometres was more exclusive. According to Simelidis, John may have composed this work for performance within a lay confraternity at the church of the Theotokos ta Kyrou in Constantinople.¹³³ The text survives in only four manuscripts, which suggests limited circulation not only at the time of its composition but also in subsequent centuries.¹³⁴ Although this confraternity, which was made up of devout lay Christians, sought spiritual inspiration at its weekly ‘readings’, it also expected high-style rhetorical expression that would do justice to its holy patroness, the Mother of God. According to marks or titles in the surviving manuscripts, it is likely that the text was divided into sections for delivery on separate Marian feasts throughout the liturgical year.¹³⁵ John Geometres’ Life of the Virgin thus follows that of Epiphanios in including an ascetic focus; however, it also offers fresh theological and metaphorical reflection on the Theotokos to an audience that was well versed in this rich liturgical tradition.

The Georgian Life, following its erudite model, is also divided into sections that reflect the festal cycle of the Virgin Mary’s life, beginning with her Nativity in early September and finishing after her death and assumption in the middle of August. Shoemaker has demonstrated how these sections were used as readings in Georgian monasteries throughout the Caucasus and Near East, helping monks and nuns to reflect on the historical and theological meaning of Mary’s life.¹³⁶ This work, as Simelidis has demonstrated, is somewhat simplified in relation to the Life by John Geometres; however, it also contains long sections of theological reflection and panegyrical praise of the Mother of God. The Life by Symeon the Metaphrast, like other redactions of this kind, offers an elegant, although shorter, version of the narrative. This text is included in Metaphrastic liturgical collections as a reading for the feast of the Dormition (15 August). It might have been read out in monastic or cathedral vigil services on an annual basis.

The manuscript evidence for all four middle Byzantine Lives of the Virgin thus suggests that they were written and subsequently disseminated for liturgical use – whether this occurred in public or, in the case of John Geometres’ Life, more restricted settings. The divergence of some of these texts from traditional narratives (whether canonical or apocryphal) concerning the Virgin Mary, along with their surprising emphasis on her personal power and influence among Jesus’s followers, must reflect her growing importance during the middle Byzantine centuries. Although Epiphanios of Kallistratos, writing at the beginning of the ninth century (and perhaps aware of iconoclast opposition to her cult), avoided offering excessive praise to the Theotokos and never invoked her intercessory power, Symeon the Metaphrast, John Geometres and Euthymios composed their works a century and a half later for audiences or readers who expected such devotional content. The freedom with which the tenth-century hagiographers approached their subject thus reflects the Virgin’s dominant position within the doctrinal and devotional life of the Church in this period.

Apocalyptic Views of the Panagia

My final category of texts is that of the apocalypse, although it should be noted here, as in the case of other genres discussed in this chapter, that the boundaries of this literary form are flexible. Passages conveying apocalyptic visions, or the fate of human beings in heaven and hell, may occur, for example, in hagiographical texts such as the Life of St Andrew the Fool, as well as in treatises and homilies.¹³⁷ I shall confine my attention here to a few ninth- and tenth-century texts that are exclusively concerned with such narratives, including especially the two that are known as the Apocalypse of the Holy Theotokos and the Apocalypse of Anastasia. These two accounts of visionary tours of paradise and hell feature in Jane Baun’s ground-breaking study of medieval apocalypses as windows into the beliefs and practices of Byzantine Christian communities.¹³⁸ They are significant for our purposes both because they deal with the Virgin Mary’s role as intercessor and, as Baun argues, because they stretch the theology of Christian redemption to its limits, placing Mary in a position that in fact challenges Christ’s role as merciful Saviour of humankind.

The Apocalypse of the Theotokos, which Baun dates to the ninth or tenth century although it is based on a much earlier literary tradition,¹³⁹ opens by describing a vision that is granted to the Virgin Mary as she prays on the Mount of Olives. She is taken first to see Hades, where sinners are punished in many different ways and locations on the basis of their particular transgressions. The ‘Panagia Theotokos’ is moved by their suffering, although she is less sympathetic to those who denied correct belief in the Trinity or herself, along with Jews and practitioners of incest or other crimes. She seeks an audience with God the Father and prays to him for mercy towards all of the other sinners, calling on the assistance of all the saints when he refuses to listen to her entreaties. God eventually relents and grants a brief period of respite to the sinners, between Easter and Pentecost, when their punishments in Hades will pause. The Apocalypse of Anastasia, which Baun dates slightly later, around the turn of the tenth century,¹⁴⁰ is more complex, involving the journey of a nun named Anastasia through six levels of the next world, beginning with the heavenly throne of God and ending with a zone reserved for the punishment of well-to-do sinners. Like the Apocalypse of the Theotokos, that of Anastasia not only provides a vivid description of the fate of human beings after death but also acts as a cautionary tale with regard to Christian doctrine and morality. The Apocalypse of Anastasia, although less concerned with the intercessory role of the Theotokos than that which focuses solely on that holy figure, does allude to her at various points in the text, describing her in one instance as someone who ‘entreats and beseeches God, saying, “Master, have mercy on the creation of your hands, and on your world, and do not destroy them.”’¹⁴¹

In her exploration of the dynamics of intercession and mercy that are described in these, as well as earlier, apocalyptic texts, Baun highlights their authors’ subversion of orthodox or ‘official’ Christian understanding of salvation. Whereas, according to scripture and mainstream patristic tradition, Jesus Christ should represent the preeminent mediator and saviour for ordinary Christians, he has shifted, according to this literary tradition, into the role of Righteous Judge. Baun argues that, as universal monarchs, God the Father and Christ his Son work on the basis of an ‘amnesty’ model of relations between rulers and their people. In these circumstances, Christian sinners must seek powerful advocates in order to secure forgiveness and salvation; only the saints or, pre-eminently, the Mother of God, are able to fulfil this function. Thus, from being a figure who aligns herself with the merciful intentions of a benevolent God, Mary is frequently portrayed in apocalyptic texts as being at odds with her divine Father and Son. Baun describes this configuration as ‘a dysfunctional family’; Mary, in the Apocalypse of the Theotokos, is a ‘majestic, militant grandmother’ who manipulates her heavenly family in order to achieve the results that she seeks.¹⁴²

The main difference between middle Byzantine apocalypses and the other literary genres that we have examined in the course of this book, including sermons, hymns and hagiography, thus lies in their configuration of the celestial hierarchy. Baun argues that whereas mainstream, or liturgical, texts present Mary as a fully integrated member of the heavenly power structure, enjoying a fond and synergic relationship with her son – who is also merciful and a lover of humanity (philanthropos) – the medieval apocalypses depict her as an outsider. According to the Apocalypse of the Theotokos, Mary demands to be taken on a tour of the underworld and, on being shocked by what she sees there, storms ‘the gates of heaven to badger an unwilling God and Christ into acting in a way contrary to their normal inclinations’.¹⁴³ These different perceptions of the dynamics of Christian salvation, which Baun labels ‘orthodox’ and ‘popular’, must have co-existed in Byzantine spirituality. Judging by the numbers of apocalyptic manuscripts that survive, not only in Greek but also in other languages, the latter outlook exerted considerable influence even if it was not expressed in mainstream theological or liturgical settings.

Conclusions

The material that I have surveyed in this chapter, which can be described in general terms as ‘hagiographical’, presents an aspect of the Virgin Mary which at times seems far removed from the more theological, or Christological, view that predominates in liturgical poetry and homiletics. Mary, as a dignified but powerful woman – usually dressed in purple – intercedes, according to hagiographical texts, on behalf of all Christians who appeal to her. Whereas many Lives of saints, including those that celebrate the Mother of God herself, emphasise Mary’s loving relationship and cooperation with her divine Son, some Byzantine apocalypses picture her as a determined advocate who is forced at times to oppose God’s righteous will.

Two main issues require discussion in my conclusion to this brief overview of the Marian hagiographical tradition between approximately 600 and 1000 ce. First, it is worth asking whether significant developments occurred in the portrayal of Mary, the Theotokos, in hagiographical or apocalyptic texts throughout these centuries. Second, we should return to the question that Jane Baun has posed concerning the relationship between ‘official’ and ‘popular’ strands of the Marian tradition.

With regard to developments in the hagiographical, or panegyrical, treatment of the Virgin Mary in this period, it is necessary to allude once again to the significant ‘spanner in the works’ that van Esbroeck and Shoemaker introduced by their early dating of the Georgian Life of the Virgin Mary that is attributed to Maximos the Confessor.¹⁴⁴ The widely accepted scholarly view that the Virgin Mary came to be viewed as a tender and maternal figure in response to Iconoclasm, achieving full-blown literary and iconographical treatment especially after the middle of the ninth century, needed to be reassessed in the light of this evidence.¹⁴⁵ However, if the Georgian Life was indeed based on that of the late tenth-century writer, John Geometres, then it fits well with parallel literary developments of this period. George of Nikomedia would remain an early proponent of this movement, with his affective treatment of Mary’s lament at the cross and the tomb of Christ influencing not only hagiographers, but also hymnographers and hagiographers of the tenth century.¹⁴⁶ The growing emphasis on emotion and the senses, which Tsironis traces in liturgical and hagiographical writing of the eighth and ninth centuries, thus follows a trajectory that begins in festal homilies and spreads into hymnography and devotional works such as the tenth-century Lives by (ps-)Maximos, John Geometres and Symeon the Metaphrast.¹⁴⁷ Although I thus adhere to the view that affective literary treatment of the Mother of God flourished especially after the end of Iconoclasm, it is worth remembering that such rhetorical emphasis is present (although not dominant) in earlier liturgical texts. As we have seen in earlier chapters, hymns and homilies of the sixth to early eighth centuries could also focus on Mary’s motherly qualities, in relation to both the infancy and the suffering of Christ. Romanos the Melodist provided dramatic dialogues in order to portray the Virgin’s emotional relationship with her son. Eighth-century preachers including Germanos of Constantinople and Andrew of Crete developed these themes in their sermons on Marian feasts, emphasising the reality of Christ’s incarnation by means of his mother’s humanity.¹⁴⁸ Even as such texts prefigure later developments in the tradition, it is possible to perceive trends in hagiographical writing between the early seventh and late tenth centuries. The later witnesses in this tradition, including the Lives by John Geometres, Euthymios the Athonite (the Georgian Life) and Symeon the Metaphrast, epitomise a movement towards a higher and more mystical style of panegyrical celebration of the Mother of God. As in the case of late ninth- and early tenth-century preachers, these hagiographers avoid precise statements about the Virgin’s physical nature – whether these concern her conception or death and assumption into heaven. Unlike some early eighth-century counterparts, the middle Byzantine writers stress the theological rather than the literal meaning of Mary’s life. They are conscious not only of the misconceptions that might arise from detailed scrutiny but are also influenced by the increasingly exalted style of Marian praise that by this time permeated all liturgical worship. Such awareness does not prevent a theologian such as John Geometres from exploring his subject with expansive enthusiasm; however, he is more inclined to digress into theological and poetic meditation than to investigate the historical basis for his narrative.

How then do we assess the influence of high-style texts such as the Lives of Symeon the Metaphrast and John Geometres, as opposed to those that display a more ‘popular’ aspect? One way of approaching this question is to look at the reception of the various genres by Byzantine Christians. Judging by the numbers of surviving manuscripts, along with the translation of individual texts into other languages, it appears that lower-style, more narrative, hagiographical and apocalyptic texts enjoyed a wider audience than did more literary works such as John Geometres’ orations on the Virgin Mary. It is surprising, considering their frequently heterodox content, that the official Church apparently condoned the writing and dissemination of apocalypses and miracle stories about the Virgin Mary. Orthodox Christians from a variety of backgrounds and ranks – even within the ecclesiastical hierarchy – probably read and enjoyed this literature, perhaps regarding it as morally and spiritually improving.

We may conclude that modern concerns with regard to the ‘subversive’ nature of such material may be misplaced. Like many believers of the twenty-first century, Byzantine Christians were capable of assimilating conflicting messages as long as they understood their literary or theological contexts. Miracle stories and apocalypses, which were known to have a mythical or legendary aspect, could be appreciated as moral tales or simply enjoyed for their entertainment value. The liturgical life of the Church, which was packed with more orthodox teaching with regard to the Mother of God, would have guided the faithful successfully in their understanding both of her importance in Christological terms and of her submission to the Trinitarian God. Most importantly, the tradition as a whole maintained a consistent emphasis on the Virgin’s physical link with the rest of humanity. This rule applies as much to high-style panegyrical texts such as John Geometres’ Life of the Virgin Mary as it does to collections of miracle stories or apocalypses throughout the Byzantine period.