“Image of the Soul” of a Learned Metropolitan in the Thirteenth Century: Some Notes on John Apokaukos’ Epistles

Submitted: 15.07.2020. Accepted: 15.10.2020.Поступила в редакцию 15.07.2020. Принята к печати 15.10.2020.John Apokaukos (ca. 1155–1233), the metropolitan of Naupaktos, was a church and political figure of the early thirteenth century and an outstanding Byzantine writer. So far the collection of Apokaukos’ letters has been studied mainly as a historical source. This paper has made a philological analysis of his epistles with the question raised how the author’s self is portrayed. This research has shown that Apokaukos’ letters formed an individual image of the author extending beyond epistolary clichés. This image is not without internal contradictions: on the one hand, Apokaukos portrays himself as a decrepit old man, enduring punishment for his sins, and on the other, he appears proud of his achievements and erudition, ready to stand up for his rights or defend the interests of his eparchy. Moreover, when the author speaks of his weakness and insignificance, he is not always serious, for the self-abasement sometimes turns into a caricature: for example, the author emphasizes his gluttony using grotesque comparisons. The author’s image is not static: Apokaukos often portrays himself as a doubter, hesitating over two opinions and changing his position under the influence of circumstances. This paper has analysed the author’s image in Apokaukos’ letters in the context of Byzantine epistolography in the Komnenian renaissance. Some common tendencies have been determined in the epistles of John Apokaukos, Michael Psellos, John Tzetzes, and Theodore Prodromos.Митрополит Навпактский Иоанн Апокавк (ок.1155–1233) – церковный и политический деятель начала XIII в., выдающийся византийский писатель. Эпистолярное собрание Апокавка, включающее 156 писем, до сих пор исследовалось в основном как исторический источник. В настоящей статье проводится филологический анализ писем – ставится вопрос о том, как в них изображается авторское «я». Исследование показывает, что в письмах Апокавка складывается индивидуальный образ автора, выступающий за рамки эпистолярных клише. Этот образ не лишен внутренних противоречий: с одной стороны, Апокавк изображает себя ветхим, больным и страдающим за свои грехи, а с другой – предстает гордым своими достижениями, ученостью, готовым вступиться за свои права или защищать интересы митрополии. При этом, когда автор говорит о своей слабости и ничтожности, он не всегда серьезен – самоуничижение порой превращается в карикатуру: например, автор подчеркивает свое чревоугодие, прибегая к гротескным сравнениям. Образ автора не статичен: Апокавк зачастую изображает себя сомневающимся, колеблющимся между двумя мнениями, меняющим свою позицию под влиянием обстоятельств. Образ автора в письмах Апокавка рассматривается в контексте византийской эпистолографии Комниновского ренессанса. Отмечается ряд общих тенденций в письмах Иоанна Апокавка, Михаила Пселла, Иоанна Цеца и Феодора Продрома.This research was funded by RFBR, research project no 18-011-00207 “The Logical Education in Byzantium: Theodore Prodromos and the Logical Experiments of the Twelfth Century.”Исследование выполнено при поддержке РФФИ, грант № 18-011-00207 «Логическое образование в Византии: Феодор Продром и логические опыты XII века»

Maximos the Confessor as a Letter Writer: Genre Etiquette in the Letters of the Seventh-century Byzantine Theologian

Поступила в редакцию: 14.04.2022. Принята к печати: 11.10.2022.Submitted: 14.04.2022. Accepted: 11.10.2022.Эпистолярное собрание Максима Исповедника (580–662) еще не становилось предметом филологического анализа. Задача настоящей статьи – проанализиро- вать письма Максима как образцы эпистолярной прозы и выяснить, в какой мере автор следует нормам жанрового этикета, разработанным в ранневизантийскую эпоху. Внимание концентрируется на трех этикетных мотивах, связанных с темой дружбы: иллюзия присутствия друга; единство душ; упрек в отсутствии писем. Демонстрируется, что Максим осведомлен об этикетных нормах письма, и в его посланиях можно обнаружить ряд мотивов и формул, восходящих к ранневизантийской традиции, но при этом эпистолограф переосмысляет уже сложившиеся общие места эпистолярного этикета и расставляет акценты по-новому, иногда даже вступая в спор с предшествующей традицией. Кроме того, в письмах Максима фиксируются мотивы и клише, которые соотносятся не с ранневизантийской традицией, а с письмами последующих авторов – Михаила Пселла, Феодора Продрома и др. Высказывается гипотеза, что письма Максима повлияли на последующих авторов и, таким образом, послужили звеном между ранне- и средневизантийской эпистолографией.So far, the collection of letters of Maximos the Confessor (580–662) has not been studied from the point of view of philology. The purpose of this article is to analyse Maximos’ letters as examples of epistolary prose and to find out the extent to which the author follows the etiquette norms of letter writing developed in the Early Byzantine Period. The attention is focused on three motifs related to the theme of friendship: the illusion of friend’s presence; unity of souls; reproach for the lack of letters. It has been shown that Maximos was aware of the letter etiquette norms, and that his letters contained a number of motifs and formulae belonging to the Early Byzantine tradition, but at the same time, Maximos rethought and transformed some already established commonplaces, sometimes entering into a dispute with the previous tradition. In addition, it has been demonstrated that Maximos’ letters contain motifs and clichés correlating with not the Early Byzantine tradition, but rather the letters of later authors, such as Michael Psellos, Theodore Prodromos, and others. It has been supposed that Maximos’ letters influenced later authors, thus forming a link between the Early and Middle Byzantine epistolography.Исследование выполнено при поддержке РФФИ, грант № 21-011-44263 «Формирование понятия “теологии” как науки и ее концептуального аппарата в византийской христианской теологической мысли конца V – начала VIII в. в контексте научно-философского знания поздней античности».This research was funded by Russian Foundation for Basic Research, research project no 21-011-44263 Formation of the Concept of “Theology” as a Science and Its Conceptual Apparatus in the Byzantine Christian Theological Thought from the Late Fifth to the Early Eighth Centuries in the Context of Scientific and Philosophical Knowledge of Late Antiquity

High-accuracy waveforms for black hole-neutron star systems with spinning black holes

The availability of accurate numerical waveforms is an important requirement for the creation and calibration of reliable waveform models for gravitational wave astrophysics. For black hole-neutron star binaries, very few accurate waveforms are however publicly available. Most recent models are calibrated to a large number of older simulations with good parameter space coverage for low-spin non-precessing binaries but limited accuracy, and a much smaller number of longer, more recent simulations limited to non-spinning black holes. In this paper, we present long, accurate numerical waveforms for three new systems that include rapidly spinning black holes, and one precessing configuration. We study in detail the accuracy of the simulations, and in particular perform for the first time in the context of BHNS binaries a detailed comparison of waveform extrapolation methods to the results of Cauchy Characteristic Extraction. The new waveforms have $0.99$) for binaries seen face-on. For edge-on observations, particularly for precessing systems, disagreements between models and simulations increase, and models that include precession and/or higher-order modes start to perform better than BHNS models that currently lack these features

MARS spectral molecular imaging of lamb tissue: data collection and image analysis

Spectral molecular imaging is a new imaging technique able to discriminate and quantify different components of tissue simultaneously at high spatial and high energy resolution. Our MARS scanner is an x-ray based small animal CT system designed to be used in the diagnostic energy range (20 to 140 keV). In this paper, we demonstrate the use of the MARS scanner, equipped with the Medipix3RX spectroscopic photon-processing detector, to discriminate fat, calcium, and water in tissue. We present data collected from a sample of lamb meat including bone as an illustrative example of human tissue imaging. The data is analyzed using our 3D Algebraic Reconstruction Algorithm (MARS-ART) and by material decomposition based on a constrained linear least squares algorithm. The results presented here clearly show the quantification of lipid-like, water-like and bone-like components of tissue. However, it is also clear to us that better algorithms could extract more information of clinical interest from our data. Because we are one of the first to present data from multi-energy photon-processing small animal CT systems, we make the raw, partial and fully processed data available with the intention that others can analyze it using their familiar routines. The raw, partially processed and fully processed data of lamb tissue along with the phantom calibration data can be found at [http://hdl.handle.net/10092/8531].Comment: 11 pages, 6 fig