Temptation in the Cell: Dangerous Closeness and Redeeming Love in a Byzantine Narrative of Paired Monks

The close relationship of a pair of monks, an elder and a young disciple, is analyzed from a recently published apophthegm in an eleventh-century Greek manuscript in Uppsala, Sweden. This narrative is simple in style, but rich in implications for the window it opens on Christian ethics in a semi-solitary monastic context. Human failure highlights patience and forgiveness within a loving relationship. Careful handling of the crisis by the young disciple succeeds in granting the tempted elder, through God’s grace, eternal salvation. The close relationship of a pair of monks, an elder and a young disciple, is analyzed from a recently published apophthegm in an eleventh-century Greek manuscript in Uppsala, Sweden. This narrative is simple in style, but rich in implications for the window it opens on Christian ethics in a semi-solitary monastic context. Human failure highlights patience and forgiveness within a loving relationship. Careful handling of the crisis by the young disciple succeeds in granting the tempted elder, through God’s grace, eternal salvation

“A Child in Zion”: The Scriptural Fabric of Armenian Colophons

A unique witness to the dynamism of a mediaeval Christian literature, the literary genre of the colophon in Armenia is notable for its reliance on biblical quotations, themes, and references. This essay provides a global overview of biblical materials found in Armenian colophons, emphasizing their significance as part of the Wirkungsgeschichte of the Bible in Armenia. Different levels of reception can be distinguished, from straightforward quotations to pervasive echoes and imitatio of biblical language. It is also shown that colophon authors did not refer to the Bible merely because it was customary to do so: they often used the Bible purposefully to stress salient points of their texts, and they eagerly related their personal experiences to biblical episodes. Translated excerpts of colophons illustrate each argument. As a whole, the paper casts a new light on the collective reception of the Bible in Armenian culture, particularly among lower-rank clerics, monastics, and literate laymen, who authored a majority of colophons

An eleventh-century liturgical homiliary : the Evergetis Katechetikon

The Katechetikon, a liturgical homiliary composed by Paul (†1054) higoumenos and founder, in 1048-49, of the monastery of the Theotokos Evergetis near Constantinople, is an unpublished collection of monastic catecheses dating to the middle of the eleventh century. The collection is divided in two tomes. The first part is extant in two manuscripts, Marcianus graecus App. II. 40 and Atheniensis graecus 215, probably dating around the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. The second part is extant in codex Athos, Esphigmenou 45, dated by its colophon to 1108 and used at the monastery of Christ Philanthropos in Constantinople. Single catecheses are also preserved in the fragments of Athos, Vatopedi 1216, and among the catecheses of Theodore Studite in Atheniensis graecus 295, Serdicensis graecus Dujcev 222 and in Sinaiticus graecus 482. Codex Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Cromwell 22, signed by the hieromonachos Mark and dated 1315, bears the only explicit attribution of the catecheses to Paul of Evergetis. In it, the catecheses are adapted for a feminine audience. The Katechetikon provides liturgical readings for the morning office for each day of the year and functions according to the movable cycle of the liturgical year dependent on Easter, just as a Gospel Lectionary. Texts are selected from the following authors: Theodore Studite, Maximos Confessor, Pseudo-Makarios, Dorotheos of Gaza, Ephrem, Mark the Monk and Pseudo-Mark (Marcian), Neilos/Evagrios, John of Karpathos, Diadochos of Photike. The sources are edited with varying degrees of alteration. The Apophthegmata Patrum and passages from John Klimakos' Ladder are also quoted. In addition, the sources of forty-two texts remain unidentified. The purpose of the catecheses is to exhort the monks to virtue and assist them through difficulties in their monastic experience, thereby revealing the monastic ideals of the Evergetis founder

Commenting the Psalter in Eleventh-Century Constantinople: an Image of the Paralipomena Ieremiou in the ‘Theodore Psalter’

Centre for Medieval Studies; Ars edendi Programme; SSHR