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Byzantine Visions of the End

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Leslie Brubaker
Leslie Brubaker*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Extract

As is well known, western medieval apocalyptic literature owes a considerable debt to Byzantine apocalyptic literature, which itself built on Roman and Jewish sources. The classic studies are now Evelyne Patlagean’s ‘Byzance et son autre monde’, published in 1981; Paul Alexander’s The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, published posthumously in 1985; and Jane Baun’s edition and commentary of three Middle Byzantine apocalyptic texts that appeared in 2007. In addition, Paul Magdalino has recently published several articles on the theme. On top of this, numerous studies connect specific Byzantine apocalypse traditions to particular political events, most notably the Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries. Byzantine eschatology has been even more thoroughly studied, and, with the subtitle ‘Views on death and the last things’, was the subject of a recent (1999) Dumbarton Oaks symposium.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 45: The Church, the Afterlife and the Fate of the Soul , 2009 , pp. 97 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2009

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References

1 Patlagean, E., ‘Byzance et son autre monde: observations sur quelques récits’, in Faire croire: Modalités de la diffusion et de la reception des messages religieux du XIIe au XVe siècle, Collection de l’École française de Rome 51 (1981), 201–21 Google Scholar; Alexander, P., The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition (Berkeley, CA, 1985)Google Scholar; Magdalino, P., ‘“What we Heard in the Lives of the Saints we have Seen with our own Eyes”: The Holy Man as Literary Text in Tenth-Century Constantinople’, in Howard-Johnston, J. and Hayward, P., eds, The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (Oxford, 1999), 88–112 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Une prophétie inédite des environs de l’an 965 attribuée à Léon le Philosophe (Ms Karakallou 14, fol. 253r-254r)’, Travaux et mémoires 14 (2002), 391–402; idem, ‘The Year 1000 in Byzantium’, in idem, ed., Byzantium in the Year 1000 (Leiden, 2003), 233–70; Baun, J., Tales from Another Byzantium: Celestial Journey and Local Community in the Medieval Greek Apocrypha (Cambridge, 2007)Google Scholar. For a recent overview, see Timotin, A., ‘Byzantine Visionary Accounts of the Other World: A Reconsideration’, in Burke, J. et al., eds, Byzantine Narrative. Papers in Honour of Roger Scott (Melbourne, 2006), 404–20.Google Scholar

2 See the articles collected in Cameron, A. and Conrad, L., eds, The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East I: Problems in the Literary Source Material, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 1 (Princeton, NJ, 1992)Google Scholar. Byzantine prophetic literature also flourished: see, for example, Mango, C., ‘The Legend of Leo the Wise’, Zbornik Radova Vizanštoloskog Instituta 6 (1960), 59–93 Google Scholar; repr. in idem, Byzantium and its image (London 1984), essay 16.

3 See, for example, Brenk, B., ‘Die Anfänge der byzantinischen Weltgerichtsdarstellung’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 57 (1964), 106–26 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and, despite its title, idem, ‘The Imperial Heritage of Early Christian Art’, in Weitzmann, K., ed., Age of Spirituality: A Symposium (New York, 1980), 39–52 Google Scholar; Kartsonis, A., Anastasis, The Making of an Image (Princeton, NJ, 1986)Google Scholar; Nersessian, S. Der, ‘Program and Iconography of the Frescoes of the Parecclesion’, in Underwood, P., ed., The Kariye Djami 4 (Princeton, NJ, 1975), 303–49.Google Scholar

4 See Walter, C., ‘Biographical Scenes of the Three Hierarchs’, Revue des études byzantines 36 (1978), 233–60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, Art and Ritual of the Byzantine Church (London, 1982), 137–44 Google Scholar, using slightly different terminology.

5 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS gr.510, fol. 43V, discussed and reproduced in L. Brubaker, Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, , Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology 6 (Cambridge, 1999), 119–21.Google Scholar

6 On the rare use of quotations in the inscriptions of this manuscript, and their significance, see Brubaker, L., ‘When Pictures Speak: The Incorporation of Dialogue in the Miniatures of Paris.gr. 510’, Word & Image 12 (1996), 94–109.Google Scholar

7 Venice, Hellenic Institute, MS 5, fol. 192r, reproduced in Trahoulias, N., The Greek Alexander Romance, Venice Hellenic Institute Codex gr. 5 (Athens 1997), 433.Google Scholar

8 See Walter, , Art and Ritual, 139–40.Google Scholar

9 Kazhdan, A. P. et al., The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 3 vols (Oxford, 1991), 1: 651–53 Google Scholar, with additional bibliography, to which should be added Mimouni, S., Dormition et assumption de Marie, Histoire des traditions anciennes, Théologie historique 98 (Paris, 1995)Google Scholar and Daley, B., ‘“At the Hour of our Death”: Mary’s Dormition and Christian Dying in Late Patristic and Early Byzantine Literature’, DOP 55 (2001), 71–89.Google Scholar

10 Weitzmann, K., ‘The Origin of the Threnos’, in Meiss, M., ed., De Artibus Opuscula XL. Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky (New York, 1961), 476–90 Google Scholar, remains the classic study. Giotto’s much-vaunted Lamentation at the Arena Chapel is a straight crib from Byzantine images of the threnos.

11 See Walter, , Art and Ritual, 137–38 Google Scholar. For another example from the same manuscript (Paris, MS gr.510, fol. 104r), see Brubaker, , Vision and Meaning, 137–41.Google Scholar

12 See, for example, the sixth-century Vienna Genesis (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS theol.gr.31), reproduced in the facsimile volume of Gerstinger, H., Die Wiener Genesis (Vienna, 1931).Google Scholar

13 Moscow, Gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii muzei (State Historical Museum), cod. 129, fol. 87r, reproduced in the facsimile volume M. Šcepkina, Miniaturi Khludovskoi Psalt’iri (Moscow, 1977). For another, slightly later, example, see Paris, MS gr.510, fol. 30V, discussed and reproduced in Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, 297–99.

14 The bibliography on Iconoclasm is immense. The most recent overviews are, from a theological perspective, Barber, C., Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm (Princeton, NJ, 2002)Google Scholar, and, from a cultural and historical perspective, Brubaker, L. and Haldon, J., Byzantium in the Era of Iconoclasm (Cambridge, 2009).Google Scholar

15 The patriarch Germanos (715–30) was an early exponent of this point, the implications of which were first explored by Martin, J., ‘The Dead Christ on the Cross in Byzantine Art’, in Weitzmann, K., ed., Late Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend Jr (Princeton, NJ, 1955), 189–96.Google Scholar

16 Paris, MS gr.510, fol. 452r, discussed and reproduced in Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, 136–37. See also Sears, E., The Ages of Man: Medieval Interpretations of the Life Cycle (Princeton, NJ, 1986), 90–94.Google Scholar

17 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat.gr. 699, fol. 89r. On this image, see Kessler, H., ‘Gazing into the Future: The Parousia Miniature in Vatican gr. 699’, in Moss, C. and Kiefer, K., eds, Byzantine East, Latin West: Art Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann (Princeton, NJ, 1995) 365–75.Google Scholar

18 Book 7.94: Wolska-Conus, W., ed. and trans., Cosmos Indicopleustès, Topographie chrétienne III, SC 197 (Paris, 1973), 162–63.Google Scholar

19 Book 5.247: Wolska-Conus, W., ed. and trans., Cosmos Indicopleustès, Topographie chrétienne II, SC 159 (Paris, 1970), 358–59 Google Scholar. See Kessler, ‘Gazing into the Future’, esp. 366, whence the English translation.

20 On which, see Brubaker, L., ‘The Christian Topography (Vat.gr.699) Revisited: Image, Text, and Conflict in Ninth-Century Byzantium’, in Jeffreys, E., ed., Byzantine Style, Religion and Civilisation: In Honour of Sir Steven Runciman (Cambridge, 2006), 3–24.Google Scholar

21 Paris, MS gr. 510, fol. 149r ( Brubaker, , Vision and Meaning, 131–32 Google Scholar); PG 35: 857–909 (the parable appears at 904 B14-C3).

22 Ibid.

23 The scene is inscribed ‘Lazarus on the bosom of Abraham’.

24 As we are told by the inscription: O ΠAOUCIOC EN TH KAMINΩ.

25 See Plotzek, J. M., ‘Lazarus, Armer’, in Kirschbaum, E., ed., Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie III (Rome, 1971), 31–33.Google Scholar

26 See, for example, Florence, Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana, MS Laur. plut. 6.23, fol. 144r, reproduced in Velmans, T., Le Tétraévangile de la Laurentienne, Bibliothèque des cahiers archéologiques 6 (Paris, 1971)Google Scholar, fig. 243.

27 Brubaker, , Vision and Meaning, 201–38.Google Scholar

28 Ibid. 113.

29 Vatican City, MS Vat.gr.1162, and Paris, MS gr.1208, reproduced in Hutter, I. and Canart, P., Dos Marienhomiliar des Mönches Jakobos von Kokkinobaphos, codex Valicanusgraecus 1162, Codices e Vaticanis selecti 79 (Vatican City, 1991)Google Scholar; Stornajolo, C., Miniature della Omilie di Giacomo Monaco (cod.Vatic.gr. 1162) e dell’Evangeliario greco Urbinate (cod.Vatic.Urbin.gr.2), Codices e Vaticanis selecti, series minor 1 (Rome, 1910)Google Scholar; H. Omont, ‘Miniatures des homélies sur la Vierge du moine Jacques (MS grec 1208 de Paris)’, Bulletin de la Société française de reproductions de manuscrits à peintures 11 (1927), 1–24. The most recent study is K. Linardou’s as yet unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, ‘Reading two Byzantine Illustrated Books: the Kokkinobaphos Manuscripts (Vaticanus graecus 1162 and Parisinus graecus 1208) and their Illustration’ ((University of Birmingham, 2004).

30 Linardou, , ‘Reading two Byzantine Illustrated Books’, 43–46.Google Scholar

31 Vatican City, MS Vat.gr.1162, fol. 62v; Paris, MS gr.1208, fol. 80r: Linardou, , ‘Reading two Byzantine Illustrated Books’, 80–82.Google Scholar

32 Vatican City, MS Vat.gr. 1162, fol. 48V; Paris, MS gr.1208, fol. 66v: Linardou, , ‘Reading two Byzantine Illustrated Books’, 63–65.Google Scholar

33 Vatican City, MS Vat.gr.1162, fol. 50V; Paris, MS gr.1208, fol. 69V: Linardou, , ‘Reading two Byzantine Illustrated Books’, 66–68.Google Scholar

34 In this case from the eleventh century: see Linardou, , ‘Reading two Byzantine Illustrated Books’, 67 n. 3.Google Scholar

35 Ihm, C., Die Programme der christlichen Apsismalerei vom vierten Jahrhundert bis zur Mitte des achten Jahrhunderts, Forschungen zur Kunstgeschichte und christlichen Archäologie 4 (Wiesbaden, 1960)Google Scholar; Pallas, D., ‘Eine Differenzierung unter den himmlischen Ordnungen (ikonographische Analyse)’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 64 (1971), 55–60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Belting-Ihm, C., ‘Theophanic Images of Divine Majesty in Early Medieval Church Decoration’, in Tronzo, W., ed., Italian Church Decoration of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: Functions, Forms and Regional Traditions, Villa Spelman colloquia 1 (Baltimore, MD, 1989), 43–59.Google Scholar

36 See, for example, Brubaker, , Vision and Meaning, 281–90 Google Scholar, with bibliography.

37 Kartsonis, Anastasis.

38 See James, L., Light and Colour in Byzantine Art (Oxford, 1996), 103.Google Scholar

39 Mouriki, D., Nea Moni on Chios: The Mosaics (Athens, 1986), pl. 48.Google Scholar

40 Diez, E. and Demus, O., Byzantine Mosaics in Greece: Hosios Lucas and Daphni (Cambridge, 1931)Google Scholar, fig. 100.

41 For a brief overview, see Kazhdan, et al., Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 2: 1181–82.Google Scholar

42 See Gerstel, S., ‘The Byzantine Village Church: Observations on its Location and on Agricultural Aspects of its Program’, in Lefort, J., Morrisson, C. and Sodini, J.-P., eds, Les villages dans l’empire byzantin (IVe-XVesiècle), Réalités Byzantines 11 (Paris, 2005), 165–78.Google Scholar

43 Underwood, ed., Kariye Djami; the Last Judgement sequence is closely studied in Der Nersessian, ‘Frescoes of the Parecclesion’.

44 Brenk, ‘Die Anfange der byzantinischen Weltgerichtsdarstellung’; idem, ‘Imperial Heritage’.

45 On Nicholas, see N. Patterson Ševčenko, The Life of Saint Nicholas in Byzantine Art (Turin, 1983); eadem, , ‘Canon and Calendar: The Role of a Ninth-Century Hymnographer in Shaping the Celebration of Saints’, in Brubaker, L., ed., Byzantium in the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive? (Aldershot, 1998), 101–14.Google Scholar

46 See the references in notes 35–36 above.

47 Kartsonis, , Anastasis, 40–67, 165–203.Google Scholar

48 Brenk, ‘Die Anfänge der byzantinischen Weltgerichtsdarstellung’.

49 Karsonis, , Anastasis, 177–85.Google Scholar

50 Baun, Tales from Another Byzantium; Romano, R., ed., Pseudo-Luciano, Timarione (Naples, 1974)Google Scholar; ET in Baldwin, B., Timarion (Detroit, MI, 1984).Google Scholar