The Rise And Function Of The Holy Man In Late Antiquity

Journal of Roman Studies

Volumn 61, Issue , 1971, Pages 80-101

  Brown, Peter ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84968041304     PISSN: 00754358     EISSN: 1753528X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/300008     Document Type: Article

References (207)

1. N. H. Baynes, ‘ The Thought World of East Rome ’, Byzantine Studies and Other Essays (1960), 24-46; ‘ The Pratum Spirituale ’, 261-270.
2. e.g. F. Halkin, ‘ L'hagiographie byzantine au service de l'histoire ’, XHIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies, (Oxford i960), Main Papers xi, 1-10.
3. E. Patlagean, ‘A Byzance: ancienne hagiographie et histoire sociale ’, Annales XXIII, 1968, 106-123, is the most thought-provoking study. 4 P. Peeters, Le trefonds oriental de l'hagiographie byzantine (1950).
4. H. Bacht, ‘ Die Rolle des orientalischen M6nchtums in den kirchenpolitischen Auseinandersetzungen um Chalkedon (431-519)’, Das Konzil von Chalkedon II, 1954, 193-314.
5. K. Holl, Enthusiasmus und Bussgewalt beim griechischen Monchtum (1898); A. V66bus, A History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient, 11 (Louvain i960); La Theologie de la Vie monastique (Théologie 49, Lyon 1961); D. Chitty, The Desert a City (1966). Brevity has determined that this list should be not a guide to the vast literature, but rather the expression of my debt to those works cited.
6. Libanius, Oratio 1, 2 (ed. A. F. Norman, Libanius’ Autobiography (1965), 2-3) shows how the reputation of a local family depended on members who were famous ‘ in the oratory which opposes itself to the ill-temper of governors ’. The circles around holy men delighted in similar incidents: V. Theod. c. 142: ‘ The consul (Bonosus) stood but did not bend his neck, so the saint took hold of the hair of his forehead and pulled it and in this way bent his head down… We who were present were thunderstruck and terrified at the just man's daring ’.
7. Macedonius boldly halted the military commissioners on their way to punish the city of Antioch in 387 {H.R. 1404 C); but he had already created a clientele among the military-he had impressed a general on a hunt, and had prophesied for Count Lupicinus on the outcome of grain-speculations (H.R. 1404 B). Alexander the Sleepless, who attempted to rebuke officials without such preparation, was summarily exiled both from Antioch (V. Alex. c. 39-40, 687-9) and Constantinople (V. Hyp. c. 41).
8. N. H. Baynes, in Baynes and Dawes (o.c, see note ), pp. ix-xii. 10 E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ch. 37: ‘If it be possible to measure the interval between the philosophic writings of Cicero and the sacred legend of Theodoret, between the character of Cato and that of Simeon, we may appreciate the memorable revolution which was accomplished in the Roman empire within a period of five hundred years.’
9. This has been rebutted, and most acutely, in only one study known to me: Patlagean, art. cit. (n. 3), 106-10.
10. e.g. F. Steinleitner, Die Beicht im Zusammenhang mit der sakralen Rechtspflege in der Antike (1913), 99.
11. ’ Diese Glaube [on the relation between sin and illness] ist fur alle niederen Stufen ethischer Betrachtung charakteristisch ‘-not surprisingly, therefore, the religious practices of the nineteenth-century Aargau (p. 127, n. 1) conclude a monograph on secondcentury Asia Minor !
12. Festugiére, Les Moines d'Orient 1, 21: ‘ Ce que Gilbert Murray a nomm£ “the failure of nerve “a propos du gout de l'irrationel dans le Bas-Empire, ne doit pas 6tre regarde comme une decadence des esprits cultiv£s (a preuve Plotin, Ambroise, Augustin, Boece, Cassiodore) que comme l'apparition, dans la litterature… des croyances et des sentiments du vulgaire.’
13. A. Grabar, Christian Iconography (1969), 65, rightly criticises an account of the growth of the Late Antique portrait by an author who ‘ chiefly stressed this simplification, which he attributed to the influence of artisans who came from the masses and to poorly denned “oriental influences “… ’ The historians of Late Antique art are, on the whole, more sophisticated in their approach to such problems than are the historians of Late Roman society.
14. V. Alex. c. 6, p. 661.
15. Rectified by C. Detlef G. Muller, ‘ Die koptische Kirche zwischen Chalkedon und dem Arabereinmarsch’, Zft.f. Kirchengesch. LXXXV, 1964, 271-308; M. P. Roncaglia, ‘ La chiesa copta dopo il Concilio di Chalcedonia: monofisismo reale o monofisismo nominale ? ’, Rend. 1st. Lomb. en, 1968, 493-514.
16. H. I. Bell, Jews and Christians in Egypt (1924), ch. in (’ The correspondence of Paphnutius ‘), 100-20; cf. A.P. Daniel 3 (95), 153C.
17. See recently, J. Barns, ’ Schenute as an Historical Source ’, Actes du Xeme Congrés international des Papyrologues, 1964, at pp. 153-4 and 157
18. G. Tchalenko, Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord I, 1953, 226 (on Symeon Stylites): ‘ Sa vie est un exemple typique du monachisme syrien qui savait concilier l'isolement et la discipline la plus severe avec la participation directe á toutes les manifestations de la vie temporelle et religieuse, en contact journalier avec le peuple.’
19. e.g. A.P. Esias 5, 181B-sharecropping; Isidore 7 (20), 221B-sale of pots; John the Persian 2 (50), 237-working flax; Lucius (75), 253C-earns 16 voiiicrncrra per day; Megethius 1, 30D-is totally independent on 3 baskets a day. See P. Brown, ‘ The Social Background to the early Ascetic Movement ‘ (to appear).
20. A. Veilleux, La liturgie dans le céenobitisme pachomien au IVéme siécle (Studia Anselmiana 57, 1968), 186, n. 91.
21. See A.P. Zeno 3 (38), 176C on the Egyptian pride in scrupulous self-examination.
22. See Vööbus, o.c. (n. 6), ch. ix, 293-315. “H.R. 1305 C.
23. Theodoret, Ep. 42.
24. A. Poidebard, La trace de Rome dans le desert de Syrie; le limes de Trajan a la conquéte arabe (1934), 13-16 and Vööbus, o.c. (n. 6), 165, n. 21.
25. Vööbus, o.c. 151, n. 24.
26. Vividly described by Cyril of Scythopolis, esp. V. Cyriaci c. 8 (Festugiere, o.c. (n. 13), p. 44).
27. Vööbus, O.C. (n. 6), 25-27; and V. Sab. c. 27.
28. H.R. 1360 C-D; 1476 D (Symeon Stylites and the Beduin); V. Euthym. c. 15; V, Alex. c. 33, p. 683.
29. Sym. Styl. cc. 2-5, 11. 80-2.
30. M. du Buit, ‘ Note sur la Palestine byzantine’, in Festugiere, Les Moines (above, n. 13), iii/i, 47.
31. Tchalenko, o.c. (n. 19), 70.
32. The miracles of Symeon Stylites are crowdphenomena: Sym. Styl. c. 61, p. m, 13; 65, p. 113, 34-114, 4 and especially c. 109, pp. 156-8. For the r61e of the crowd in such a situation, see E. Peterson, Els 6E6S. Epigraphische, formgeschichtliche und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (1926), esp. 181-95.
33. H.R. 1433 C.
34. See Peters, Le trefonds…, (cit. n. 4), 124, n. 1, on the great festival at the foot of the column timed for July 27th.
35. Tchalenko, O.C. (n. 19), 373.
36. Libanius, Or. xi, 230.
37. H.R. 1365 B; Tchalenko, O.C. 23, n. 1; and 93.
38. H.R. 1375 D.
39. L. Harmand (cited below, n. 60), 150-6. These were later maintained to guard the cities from the Isaurian raids: Sym. Styl. c. 8, p. 85, 14 and n. 5. Theodoret, Comm. in Ezech. 3, 17 (PG LXXXI, 848 C) describes watchtowers to give warning of such raids. “H.R. 1329 B on the close relations of Marcianus of Cyrrhus with a general at Berrhoea; and Sym. Styl. c. 9, p. 86, 12.
40. H.R. 1308 B.
41. H.R. 1456 B.
42. V. Alex. c. 34-35, pp. 684-6. 61 Vööbus, O.C. (n. 6), 120-123; and P. Brown, ‘ The Diffusion of Manichaeism in the Roman Empire ’, jfRS LIX, 1969, 96 (= Religion and Society in the Age of St. Augustine, 1971, 104).
43. H.R. 1360 C-in a little house by the threshingfloors.
44. H.R. 1365 B. 64 A.P. Macarius the Egyptian 1 (80), 257 C. 55 Marc le Diacre, Vie de Porphyre, ed. Grégoire- Kugener (1930), c. 19, p. 16 and 95; V. Alex. cc. u, p. 665 and 40, p. 689.
45. R. Remondon, La crise de I'empire romain (1964), 302-308, provides an excellent survey of recent studies and discoveries; and, now, E. Patlagean, ‘ Sur la limitation de la fe'condite’ dans la haute 6poque byzantine,’ Annales xxiv, 1969, 1353-69 esp. at p. 1368.
46. Gindaros, H.R. 1313 C, and Sym. Styl. c. 98, 143-4; Nicerta, H.R. 1325 D; Teleda (Tel ‘Ade) H.R. 1340 D; Immai (see n. 44) 1365 A.
47. L. Robert, Hellenica xi-xii, i960, esp. 321-27 on inscriptions in t he Hauran.
48. Tchalenko, O.C. (n. 19), 317 and 385 ff.
49. See Libanius, Or. XLVII in L. Harmand, Libanius, Discours sur les patronages. Texte traduit, annote et commente, 1955 (cited henceforth in this edition). I owe to W. Liebeschuetz's forthcoming Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire, a different perspective from that adopted by Harmand.
50. Harmand, esp. p. 181, tends to conflate the evidence from Salvian of Marseilles with that of Syrian conditions.
51. Or. XLVII, 6-7 (p. 16, 20-33).
52. Or. XLVII, 11 (p. 17, 24).
53. Or. XLVII, 13 (pp. 17-8).
54. Or. XLVII, 4 (p. 15, 28-30).
55. See p. on H.R. 1420 C-1421 B.
56. Or. XLVII, 4 (p. is, 25); 6 (p. 16, 23-7).
57. Or. XLVII, 19 (p. 19); cf. H. I. Bell, V. Martin, E. G. Turner and D. Van Berchem, The Abinnaeus Archive. Papers of a Roman Officer in the reign of Constantius II, 1962, no. 28, p. 77: ‘ For my intention was to go up to the city… but first of all I have written to you, my master, to do me justice.’ cf. H. Braunert, Die Binnenwanderung. Studien zur Sozialgeschichte Agyptens (Bonner Historische Forschungen, 28), 1964, 144.
58. Harm and, 148-68, esp. p p. 155-6; cf. R. Remondon,’ Militaires et civils dans une campagne egyptienne au temps de Constance II ’, Journal des Savants 1965, 132-43.
59. Libanius, Or. xxxix, esp. 10 (Forster m, p. 270), where a friend of Libanius is consoled for having as an enemy Mixidemus, a lawyer who had gained his wealth by this and other distasteful means.
60. H.R. 1420 C-1421 B.
61. Rémondon, La crise (above, n. 56), 303-4.
62. Or. XLVII, 13 (pp. 17, 39-18, 10).
63. Or. XLVII, 17 (p. 18, 36).
64. See R. Redfield, The Little Community and Peasant Society and Culture (Phoenix Books, Chicago, 1960), esp. Peasant Society and Culture, pp. 36-8.
65. Tchalenko, O.C. (n. 19), 408-9.
66. Braunert, O.C. (n. 71), 291.
67. See Tchalenko, O.C. (n. 19), 46 ff.; Sym. Styl. c. 65, p. 113, 26-a rain-miracle fills these cisterns. Olive-harvesting made cooperation desirable, without creating year-long habits of communal work; see Tchalenko, 386.
68. See Tchalenko, 317 on the egalitarian tone of the farmhouses at Bamuqqa. Frequent Late Roman inscriptions against envy and t he evil eye are not an argument for neighbourliness among Syrian householders: E. Peterson, O.C. (n. 39), 34-6 and L. Robert, Hellenica xi-xn, i960, 298, n. 1 and p. 299; and XIII, 1965, 265-71.
69. Hamed Ammar, Growing up in an Egyptian Village. Silwa, province of Aswan, 1954, 80.
70. Peeters, O.C. (n. 4), 95. See also P. Canivet, ‘ Theodoret et le Monachisme syrien avant le concile de Chalcedoine’, Theologie de la Vie Monastique cit. n. (6), 241-282; A. J. Festugiere, Antioche paienne et chrétienne (1959), part II, esp. 244-506.
71. SH.R. 1392 D.
72. H.R. 1312 Cand 1328 D.
73. O. Weinreich, Antike Heilungswunder (1909), 13; 29-30; 49-
74. As assumed in A. Adnes-P. Canivet,’ Guerisons miraculeuses et exorcisme dans VHistoire Philothee de Theodoret’, Rev. Hist. Religions CLXXI, 1967, 53-82.
75. H.R. 1296 A.
76. H.R. 1297 B.
77. H.R. 1304 D.
78. See esp. A.P. Gelasius 2, 148 CD-on Symeon Stylites.
79. Sym. Styl. c. 77, 124-125-a decision in favour of a poor man's right to his cucumber-patch.
80. H.R. i486 A.
81. Sym. Styl. c. 55, p. 107, 18.
82. H.R. 1360 C-D.
83. Abinnaeus Archive (cit. n. 71), no. 50, p. 109: ‘ The same Aion, after I had finished winnowing the threshing floor, carried off my own corn and took it away to his own place, and carried off my half share… Having neither fear of God nor of you, my lord… ’
84. Sym. Style. 92, p. 135.
85. Sym. Styl. c. 95, pp. 137-8.
86. H.R. 1384.
87. s.v. ‘ Exorzismus ‘ (K. Thraede), Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum vn, 1969, 44-117.
88. See most recently, Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa (ed. John Beattie and John Middleton, 1969).
89. See M. Leiris, La possession et ses aspects thedtraux chez les Ethiopiens de Gondar (1958).
90. V. Sym. Jun. c. 118 provides a fascinating exception: the acting out of a woman whose demon thought of itself as more married to her than her husband.
91. H.L. c. XXII, n-13.
92. e.g. V. Theod. c. 46.
93. e.g. A.P. Daniel 3 (95), 156A; V. Theod. c. 71.
94. That the ‘ demon ‘ is an articulation of a relationship crystallized towards the holy man, is indicated by the way in which it was believed that the same ‘ demon ‘ could ‘ pass ‘ from one client to another, who were strangers to each other: V. Dan. c. 33.
95. V. Theod. c. 84, 108 and 132.
96. H.R. 1329 D, by which the authority of the holy man is shown even at a distance.
97. S. M. Shirokogoroff, The Psycho-Mental complex of the Tungus (1935), esp. 264-268. That it was a genuine group-experience is shown by the articulation of a mass-panic by a possessed man in Trier, and its successful pacification, by St. Martin: Sulpicius Severus, Vita Martini c. 18, 2 (CSEL 1, p. 127): ‘ turn confessus est decem daemones secum fuisse, qui rumorem hunc per populum dispersissent, ut hoc saltim metu ex illo Martinus oppido fugaretur: barbaros nihil minus quam de irruptione cogitare. ita cum haec immundus spiritus in media ecclesia fateretur, metu et turbatione praesenti civitas liberata est.’ Moments of uncertainty about century, a ‘ demon ‘ in Rome would not be expelled; he was called ‘ Philippicus ‘-the name of a usurper at Constantinople against Anastasius II: (the name, also, of the holy man): Analecta Bollandiana XI, 1892, 233-4I-
98. See esp. V. Theod. c. 114: ‘They grew mad against the householder and rushed to burn down him and his household as being responsible for their ill-fortune. But as this attempt was foiled by those who held the highest positions in the village and wished to restore peace, they sent to the monastery begging the saint and servant of Christ, Theodore, to come to the village and free them from the evils that had befallen them.’ Cf. V. Theod. c. 116. 117 V. Theod. c. 43.
99. Sym. Styl. c. 97, 140-3, cf. c. 73, pp. 119-20 and 75, pp. 121-2.
100. V. Euthym. cc. 45 and 57, with Festugiere, Moines d'Orient III/i, 121, n. 147 and L. Robert, Hellenica X, 1955, 199-200.
101. Sym. Styl., Vorschriften und Ermahnungen, p. 181, 27.
102. Sym. Styl. cc. 66-70, pp. 114-8; 101-7, pp. 146-56. Further testimony, surely, to the role of the merchant in spreading the reputation of saints: see inf. n. 186.
103. Sym. Styl. c. 72, p. 119-from seven days’ journey away; c. 73, pp. 119-20 and c. 75, pp. 121-2.
104. Sym. Styl., ‘ Brief des Cosmas ’, p. 187, 4.
105. Sym. Styl., ‘ Brief des Cosmas ’, p. 184, 32.
106. Used of God-from Amos, 3, 8: Sym. Styl., Vorschr. und Ermahnungen, p. 180, 14.
107. Sym. Styl. c. 128, p. 173, 6.
108. Vööbus, O.C. (n. 6), 299 is unduly impressed by the ‘ hyperasceticism’ of the Syrian hermits. Rather, men constantly in contact with the surrounding society-see Tchalenko cited in n. 19-needed to act out a more elaborate and dramatically ‘ inhuman ‘ ritual, if they were to maintain their position as ‘ the stranger’. Symeon, significantly, would have been ‘ ashamed ‘ had he been seen on ground-level: Sym. Styl., c. 116, p. 163, 16-19.
109. Sym. Styl. c. 38, p. 100, 2.
110. Sym, Styl. c. 17, p. 90, 26: Symeon even rejected the Eucharist if it tied him to his fellowmonks.
111. See the most illuminating discussion of J. Neusner, 1969, 297-402, whose rabbis resemble the 6EIOS aviip of Late Antique paganism far more than either resemble the holy man.
112. See P. Brown, ‘ The Formation of the Holy Man ‘ (to appear).
113. H.L. XL, 2: Apollonius of Tyana did the same, and, also, as a total ‘ stranger ’, ‘ dissociated ‘ by the Pythagorean vow of silence: Philostratus, Vita ApolloniiI, 15 (Loeb edn. 1, pp. 38-42). Cf. Severinus of Noricum, Eugippius, Vita Severini iii, 2. He, also, was so total a stranger to Noricum, as to be believed by some to be a fugitive slave: appendix c. 9. Severinus has kept us guessing up to the present: see F. Lotter, Deutsches Archiv xxiv, 1968, 309 and F. Prinz, xxv, 1969, 531.
114. Vööbus, 91.
115. As did the influential Marcianus; H.R. 1332 C -a stroke of diplomacy appreciated by Festugiere, O.C. (n. 13), 254. Marcianus even ensured that no one party had his body for burial! H.R. 1336 A. 146 V. Dan. c. 57.
116. The parallel of Rasputin, adduced by Delehaye (o.c. note, p. LV), is trivial compared with the diplomacy required of Daniel. For t h e pressures to which a holy man was subject in Constantinople, see V. Hyp. c. 32-trick questions posed by Nestorius; c. 39-tactful lobbying by supporters of Nestorius!
117. V. Dan. c. 17.
118. V. Dan. cc. 31-32: Cyrus of Panopolis and Gelanios, a supporter of the eunuch Chrysaphius.
119. V. Dan. cc. 55 and 65.
120. V. Dan. c. 49.
121. V. Dan, c. 51.
122. V. Dan. c. 43.
123. On the ‘ Hand of God ’, see A. Grabar, ‘ Recherches sur les sources juives de l'art pal£ochretien (in) ’, Cahiers archéologiques xiv, 1964, 49-57, at 53-7.
124. V. Dan. c. 75.
125. V. Dan. c. 82.
126. V. Dan. c. 83.
127. H.L. xx, 7, 10.
128. H.L. xxv, 4 and Festugiere, Les Moines (cit. n. 13) 1, p. 46.
129. S. Sauneron, Bull, de Vlnst. fr. d'Anch. orientate LXVII, 1969, no, on the hermitages at Esna.
130. I Samuel 10, 6.
131. H.R. 1369 C-1373 A-B, on Aphraat the Persian. His guarded and homely parables, delivered in pidgin-Greek, are rightly relished by Festugiere, O.C. (n. 13), 259-60, as part of a long tradition.
132. Salamanes of Capesana, who was transported, cell and all, from his adopted village to his native village and back again, was the ideal of a man impassive but not in a trance: H.R. 1428 D- 1429 C.
133. J. Fontaine, ‘Démons et sibylles: la peinture des possédxyes dans la poesie de Prudence ’, Melanges Jean Bayet, 1964, 196-213. On the possible implications of such a shift, Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols Explorations in Cosmology, 1970, 65-98, which forms an admirable starting-point for many trains of thought relevant to the historian of Late Antiquity.
134. See esp. Helga von Heintze, ‘ Vir gravis et sanctus, Bildniskopf eines spätantiken Philosophen ’, Jahrbuchfilr Antike und Christentum vi, 1963, 35-53.
135. Ammianus Marcellinus, XVI, 10, 10.
136. Sym. Styl. c. 10, p. 86, 20.
137. H.L. Xviii, 28.
138. H.R. 1452 B, cf. Neusner, O.C. (n. 141), 327 for Jewish parallels.
139. Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of John the Hesychast c. 25 (Festugiere, op. cit. 111/3, 32).
140. See the career of Flavius Philippus: AJP LXXXIII, 1962, 247-64.
141. Sulpicius Severus, Vita Martini 7, 7 (CSEL 1, 118, 11). 178 V. Dan. c. 75.
142. See esp. Ramsay MacMullen, ‘ Some Pictures in Ammianus Marcellinus ’, The Art Bulletin XLVI, 1964, 435-55.
143. A fact almost too large to be seen, and so seldom applied to precise details: now recognized by Grabar, O.C. (n. 14), 16.
144. For the parallels in expression, see L. Robert, Hellenica XI-XII, 1960, 355-8.
145. Canivet, O.C. (n. 86), 247.
146. H.R. 1340 A.
147. N. Giron, Le'gendes coptes, 1907, 51.
148. V. Theod., c. 50.
149. To the examples of Symeon's reputation, spread by Syrian merchants, v. sup. n. 123. We could add that of John of Lycopolis, spread by members of t he family of Theodosius I, see P. Devos, Analecta Bottandiana LXXXVII, 1969, 189-212, and of St. Phocas of Sinope, spread throughout the Mediterranean by Black Sea sailors: Asterus of Amasea, Horn. ix. in S. Phocam (PG XL, 309-312).
150. A.P. Anton. 25, 84 B.
151. A.P. Eucharistos 1 (24), 169 A.
152. See P. Brown, O.C. (n. 119), 413-14.
153. See P. Brown, ‘ A Dark-Age Crisis: the significance of the Iconoclast Controversy’ (to appear).
154. As it struck, and misled, Western medieval statesmen: R. W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Pelican History of the Church 2, 1970), 75-6.
155. See esp. H. G. Beck, ‘ Byzantinische Gefolgschaftswesen’, Sitzungsberichte d. bayer. Akad. der Wiss. 1955, no. 5.
156. Ambrose, Ep. 41, 28.
157. Nicholas Mysticus, Ep. 5 (PG cxi, 56 C).
158. Theophanes Continuatus, ed. Bonn. 430-440.
159. Mansi, Concilia xvi, 150 D (Synod of A.D. 869).
160. Baynes, ‘ The Hellenistic Civilisation and East Rome ’, O.C. (n. 1), 5. ‘ I t was on life's casuistry-on the moral problems of the individual in a dangerous world-that attention was concentrated.’ 199 Fairy von Lilienfeld, ‘ Anthropos Pneumaticus- Pater Pneumatophorus ’, Studia Patristica v, Texte und Untersuchungen LXXX, 1962, 382-92, is particularly revealing: see p. 282: ‘ Begreift man ihn recht (this aspect of the role of the holy man), so mochte man die inneren Griinde jener erstaunlichen Bliite des Monchtums im 4. Jahrhundert erspiiren konnen.’
161. See P. Brown, ‘ Holy Men at Work: Cure and therapy in Late Antiquity ‘ (to appear).
162. e.g. V. Theod. cc. 84, 86 and 108.
163. e.g. Sym. Styl. cc. 27, p. 95; 31, p. 97, 8; 34, p. 98, 14; 35, p. 98, 30.
164. H.R. 1409 C.
165. As K. Holl, ‘ Der Anteil der Styliten am Aufkommen der Bilderverehrung ’, Gesammelte Aufsdtze zur Kirchengeschichte, II, 1928, p p. 388-98 (at P- 395)-
166. C. Binger, The Doctor's Job.
167. The artistic development of the reliquaries associated with the Stylite saints shows the same evolution: see Tchalenko, O.C. (n. 19), in, 17-8: ‘ il n'y a probablement dans ses dessins geometriques nulle maladresse, nulle inexperience primitive, mais, semble-t-il, l'expression finale d'un penchant que les Syriens ont souvent montre pour l'image religieuse abstraite ‘-and, one might add, for the ‘ abstract holy man ‘; v. sup. n. 163.
168. I. Haussherr, Penthos (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 132), 1944, 81-5.
169. John Moschus, Pratum Spirituale c. 50, PG LXXXVII, 2905 B.
170. Sym. Styl., c. 80, p. 127, 4.
171. e.g.H.R. 1384 A.
172. Hence so many of Symeon's ‘ prophecies ‘ were, rather, ‘ explanations ‘: a drought of two years was a ‘ good beating ‘ for certain sins; that of 36 days, merely a ‘ switching ‘ by God. H.R. i486 A.
173. Sym. Styl. cc. 109-no, 156-60-a vivid scene.
174. See Festugiere, Les Moines III/I, 107. n. i n and Hausherr, O.C. (n. 207), 14-17. Compare the interesting study of P. Rousset, ‘ Recherches sur TeVnotivite a l'epoque romaine ’, Cahiers de civilisation medievale II, 1959, esp. pp. 58-65.
175. See now P. Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, 1971, p. 159, ill. 105; p. 187, ill. 126; p. 191.
176. V. Dan. c. 31.
177. V. Hyp. c. 27.
178. H.L. xxxv, 5-6: with John of Lycopolis, lay clients were given preference: they were slaves playing truant from their owner, the Devil !
179. e.g. V. Euthym. c. 8.
180. A.P. Lot 2, 256 B-can decide the extent of penance for a caster of love-spells: v. Holl. o.c, 315-8.
181. For not to be blessed by a holy man was a setback for any Byzantine politician: see the charming story in John of Nikiu, c. 89 (ed. Zotenberg, Extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Nationale xxiv, 1, p. 488)-a holy man refused to bless the future Emperor Anastasius because, as a future Emperor, he no longer needed further blessing.
182. F. Halkin, ‘ Saint Antoine le Jeune et Petronas vainqueur des Arabes en 863,’ Analecta Bollandiana LXII, 1944, 187-225.
183. e.g. A.P. Daniel 3 (95); 153 C: the TTparreuwv of Babylon has his favourite monk.
184. A. Dmitrevsky, Opisanie liturgiceskich rukopisej chranjascichsja v bibliotekach pravoslavnogo vostoka u, 1901, 580.
185. V. Sab. c. 45.
186. e.g. V. Theod. c. 137.
187. See the fascinating series of answers to clients by the sixth-century hermit Varsanuphius cited by Chitty, O.C. (n. 6), 137, whose complete edition is appearing in Patrologia Orientalis.
188. Nilus, Ep. ad Olympiodorum, PG LXXIX, 577 D.
189. e.g. V. Hyp. c. 40.
190. V. Theod. cc. 145-146.
191. H.R. 1380 D.
192. See esp. R. MacMullen, ‘ Social Mobility and the Theodosian Code,’ JRS LIV, 1964, 49-53, on t h e variety of careers open to quite humble men. See also Epistula Ammonis c. 17 (Sancti Pachomii vitae graecae, ed. F. Halkin, 1932, p. 106)-a Coptic monk wrestling with the temptation to become a soldier. Peasant, monk, soldier-already an embarras de richesse !
193. Porphyry, Vita Pythag., c. 34; cf. F. Cumont, L'Egypte des astrologues, 1937, 118-70.
194. T. Lefort, S. Pachomii vitae sahidice scriptae, 10.33, 248-251, from the translation of P. Peeters, ‘ A propos de la vie sahidique de S. Pachome,’ Analecta Bollandiana LII, 1934, p. 303.
195. L. Robert, Hellenica XIII, 1965, 226-7.
196. Women as piA6Aoyoi: Robert, 52; cf. Artemidorus, Oneirocritica iv, 83-a woman dreams she has a beard on one side of h e r face: she manages her husband's estates while he is away. Very much the ancestors of St. Monica, and of the mothers of Theodoret and of Cyril !
197. See esp. Gregory Thaumaturgus, In Origenem prosphonetica ac panegyrica oratio (PG x, 1049-1104), a neglected text, now available: Gregoire le Thaumaturge, Remerciement a Origene, ed. H. Crouzel (Sources Chre'tiennes, 148), 1969. See H.R. 1384 A- the ‘ netting ‘ of a young man by a spiritual father, with the long classical background of the expression, in Festugiere, Antioche o.c. (n. 86), 258, n. 5.
198. Plutarch, De Pythiae oraculis c. 3, 408 B-409 A, is especially revealing. (But, as Professor E. R. Dodds has kindly pointed out to me, the trivialization of oracle-questions was no new thing: Plutarch had pitched his demands rather high).
199. See esp. L. Robert, Hellenica xi-xn, p. 546 (on their continued stabilizing function in times of religious ferment); and ‘ Trois Oracles de la Theosophie et un prophete d'Apollon ’, Comptes Rendus de VAcad. des Inscr., December 1968, 568-99.
200. Already in the third and early fourth century, a ‘ prophet’ had taken on some of the more ‘ personalized ‘ attributes of a holy man: e.g. the priestess Ammias at Thyateira and Athanatos Epitynchanos at Akmoneia, discussed with earlier references in L. Robert, Etudes anatoliennes, 1937, 131-2.
201. Clearly seen, as the background to the elaborate exorcistic prayers of a holy man, by Robert, Hellenica XIII, 1965, 267, n. 3.
202. See Neusner, O.C. (n. 141) 348-9 on the rabbi's mother as a source of occult remedies.
203. V. Theod. cc. 124 and 143.
204. See now D. Claude, Die byzantinische Stadt im 6. Jahrhundert (Byzantinisches Archiv 13), 1969, and A. Grabar, ‘ La mosaique de pavement de Qasr el-Lebya’, C.R. Acad. des Inscr,, June 1969, 264-82.
205. See now Peter Llewellyn, Rome in the Dark Ages, 1971, 174.
206. Impressively described by Southern, O.C. (n. X92), 27-33.
207. M. Simon and A. Benoit, Le judaisme et le christianisme antique (nouvelle Clio), 1968, p. 2.