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Asceticism in Adversity: An Early Byzantine Experience*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Susan Ashbrook
Susan Ashbrook*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Extract

The city of Amida lay on the eastern frontier of the early Byzantine Empire, close to the Persian borders; physically and politically, it led a volatile existence. Its situation was thus a dominant factor in the growth of its ascetic tradition, for if the outlying lands did not offer a suitably peaceful life, the social and religious forces calling for an ascetic presence were intense. The early years of the fourth century found the territory of Amida already harbouring individuals of noteworthy ascetic practice, and it was not long before the city itself sheltered an increasing number of monastic communities in and around the urban arena. But the choice of urban rather than wilderness setting signified practical considerations and not social development. The devastation of Amida and its environs by the Persians in 359/60 stated the realities of Amida’s location: invasions were frequent and brutal. An isolated recluse was not exempt from danger unless utterly remote, and proximity to the shelter of fortified walls and communal protection was a simpler alternative.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 6 , 1980 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1980

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References

1. On Amida see the articles ‘Amid’, DHGE, II, 1237–49 (Karalevsky), and RE, I, 1833 (Baumgartner); also Berchem, M. Van and Strzygowski, J., Amida (Heidelberg, 1910)Google Scholar. For Amida’s military and trading importance, see Dillemann, L., Haute Mésopotamie Orientale et Pays Adjacents (Paris, 1962) (with caution)Google Scholar; and especially Pigulevskaja, N., Les Villes de l’état Iranien aux époques parthe et sassanide (Paris, 1963).Google Scholar

2. Sozomen, HE, III, xiv.

3. John of Ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints, LVIII, PO, XIX, pp. 206–9.

4. Compare, e.g. the monastic institution as developed by Basil of Caesarea in the second half of the fourth century: first as a regulated coenobitic community in the Pontus, following his study of anchoretic asceticism in Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia (cf., e.g. Basil, Ep., CCXXIII and II); and then as the organizational and administrative core for a social welfare and hospital complex on the outskirts of Caesarea in Cappadocia (cf., e.g. Basil, Ep., XCIV, CXLII-CLIV; Gregory of Nazianzus, Or., XLIII, 63). See also Constantelos, D., Byzantine Philanthropy and Social Welfare (New Brunswick, N.J., 1968).Google Scholar

5. See Vööbus, A., History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient (Louvain, 1958), I, pp. 228–9 Google Scholar; and II, pp. 37–9. Vööbus considers the background of Persian-Byzantine hostilities, and the constant invasions in North Mesopotamia, crucial conditions for the development of asceticism in this area.

6. During the fifth century, there appears to have been growth in wealth and property for Amida’s ascetic communities, as well as growing connections with the social structure of the city. Jo. Eph., Lives, LVIII, PO, XIX, pp. 209 ff.

7. Rhetor, Pseudo-Zachariah, HE, VII, ii Google Scholar; Stylites, Joshua, Chron., XXXIII-XLIX Google Scholar; Jo. Eph., HE, ROC, 2, pp. 462–3; Chron. Edessenum, CSCO, III. 4, LXXVI-LXXIX; Jacob of Edessa, Chron., CSCO, III. 4, pp. 314–15; Chron. ad annum 846, CSCO, III. 4, pp. 218–19; Michael the Syrian, Chron., IX, vii.

8. There is a well-known tradition that it was monks from the monastery of Mar John Urtaye who betrayed the city, by drinking too much wine one night and falling asleep on guard duty. See Procopius, Wars, I, vii, vii, 23;ps.-Zach., HE, VII, iv; Mich. Syr., IX, vii; Chron. ad annum 1234, CSCO, III. 4, LI. The more likely accounts do not specify who was on watch that night: Josh. Sty., LIII; Jo. Eph., HE, ROC`, 2, pp. 463–4, and Lives, LVIII, PO, XIX, pp. 217–19. But the story of the monks serves to indicate how visible their presence was in the city. This capture of Amida was not to lose its importance as an historical landmark; in addition to the sources mentioned, see also, Chron. Ed., LXXX; Jac. Ed., Chron., p. 315; Chron. adannum 819, CSCO, 81/36, p. 7; Chron. ad 846, p. 219; Narrationes Variae, CSCO, III. 4, XVII and XVIII.

9. Proc, Wars, I, ix; Josh. Sty., LXXXI; ps.-Zach., HE, VI, iv; Mich. Syr., IX, viii; Narrat. Var., XVIII.

10. Proc, Wars, I, vii, 33–5.

11. The major accounts of the plague of madness are found in pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, CSCO 140/53, pp. 115–16; Mich. Syr., IX, xxxii; and Chron. ad 1234, LXII; but the account of ps.-Dionysius is clearly the origin for all other versions. This is significant, for Nau, F., ROC, 2 (1897), pp. 486–9 Google Scholar includes this passage in his collection of fragments from the HE of John of Ephesus, who was a contemporary; although not present in Amida at the time, John was well informed on events there. A second, later tradition claims that Jacob Baradaeus (founder of the Jacobite Church) predicted this plague in advance, because of those who had succumbed to persecution and joined the Chalcedonian ranks, and that he exorcized the city. See the spurious Life of James (Jacob Baradaeus), PO, XIX, pp. 259–62; and Narrat. Var., XVII. The Amidan madness is not, perhaps, without parallel, although its scope in duration and numbers is arresting. The medieval west was also prone to mass hysteria during the Black Death in the fourteenth century; cf.Ziegler, P., The Black Death (London 1969)Google Scholar. Professor A. A. M. Bryer has pointed out to me that Amida would suffer a similar constellation of tragedy in the fourteenth- mid-fifteenm centuries without evidencing such a major social breakdown; cf.Sanjian, A. K., Colophons of Armenian Manuscripts 1301–1480 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The influence of Islamic fatalism may have contained public reaction, as it did in general during the Black Death in the Muslim domain, see Dols, M. W., The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton, 1977).Google ScholarPubMed

12. Besides the calamities mentioned in the text, it may be noted that comets were seen in the Byzantine east in the years 500, 538, 543/4, 556, 565, and 599; earthquakes occurred in the same area in 499, 503, 515, 525, 526, 528, 529, 530, 533, 536, 538/9. 539. 541. 542. 543. 546, 551. 554. 557. 558. 558/9, 561, 567, 568, 580/1,583,584/5, 588,601. See Grumel, V., La Chronologic (Traité d’études byzantine, I [Paris, 1958]), pp. 457–81, on natural disasters.Google Scholar

13. Cf., e.g. Brown, P., ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity’, JRS, LXI (1971), 80–101.Google Scholar

14. Proc, Wars, I, ix, 18.

15. E.g. Jo. Eph., Lives, IV, PO, XVII, pp. 78–83; Proc, Wars, I, vii, 5–11.

16. Jo. Eph., Lives, VI, PO, XVII, pp. 111–18. In this case, the demons exorcized appeared first in the guise of panicked villagers fleeing from invaders; only when this failed to raise sufficient terror in the holy man Paul did they assume the form of the invaders themselves. The similarity to the incident sparking off the plague of madness is interesting.

17. Jo. Eph., Lives, LVIII, PO, XIX, pp. 217–19.

18. John of Nikiu, Chron., XC, 1.

19. Monophysite sources distinctly mark Justin’s accession as the beginning of their woes: cf. ps.-Zach., HE, VIII; Jo. Eph., HE, ROC, 2, pp. 467–8; Jo. Nik., XC, 5ff.;Jac. Ed., Chron., p. 317; Chron. ad. 846, p. 222; Mich. Syr., IX, xii; Chron. ad 1234, LIII. For the significance of Justin’s move to Chalcedonian faith, see especially Vasiliev, A. A., Justin the First (Dumbarton Oaks Studies, I [Cambridge, Mass., 1950]).Google Scholar

20. On the monophysite persecutions in general see Vasiliev, op. cit.; Frend, W. H. C., The Rise of the Monophysite Movement (Cambridge, 1972)Google Scholar; Wigram, W. A., The Separation of the Monophysites (repr. New York, 1978)Google Scholar; and Honigmann, E., Évêques et évêchês monophysites d’Asie antêrieure au Vie siècle, (CSCO Subsidia II [Louvain, 1951])Google Scholar. For Ephraim, see Lebon, J., ‘Ephrem d’Amid patriarche d’Antioche, 526–44’, Mélanges d’histoire offerts à Charles Moeller (Louvain-Paris, 1914), 197–214 Google Scholar; and Downey, G., ‘Ephraemius, Patriarch of Antioch’, Church History, VII (1938), 364–70 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the particularly cruel efforts of Ephraim and Abraham bar Kaili see especially Jac. Ed., Chron., pp. 319–20; Chron. ad 846, pp. 225 ff.; ps.-Dion., CSCO, 140/53, pp. 32–44; Mich. Syr., IX, xiii-xxiii.

21. For this and the following paragraph, I use the account in Jo. Eph., Lives, XXXV, PO, XVIII, pp. 607–23; and Mich. Syr., IX, xviii-xix. The brief translations from John follow Brooks.

22. Ps.-Zach., HE, VIII, v.

23. Jo. Eph., lives, XXXV; also, e.g. XV, PO, XVII, pp. 220–9.

24. E.g. Jo. Eph., lives, XIV, XVII, XVIII, PO, XVII, pp. 213–20, 248–60, 260–6.

25. Jo. Eph., Lives, passim., PO, XVII-XIX.

26. E.g. Jo. Eph., Lives, V, PO, XVII, p. 98. As this case emphasizes, the Chalcedonians did not simply plunder the local sanctuaries. From such great local celebrities as Maro the Stylite, they sought as little as a slip of the tongue by which to claim Chalcedonian support.

27. Jo. Eph., Lives, V, PO, XVII, pp. 101–3 (my translation).

28. Mich. Syr., IX, xvi.

29. Jo. Eph., Lives, XII, PO, XVII, pp. 166–86.

30. Ibid., pp. 183–4 (my translation).