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Taboo or Gift? The Lord’s Day in Byzantium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Jane Baun
Jane Baun*
Affiliation:
New York University
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Extract

Church history has tended to trace the development of doctrine, either orthodox or heretical, canonical or anti-canonical. This paper, however, examines ‘para-canonical’ ideas, those which develop alongside the canonical – not quite heretical, but not fully orthodox either. Canonical norms, while constant in principle, have always been subject in practice to multiple understandings. Most of these shifting understandings, among groups or individuals, are fleeting and can never be recovered; this is why the history of the reception of canonical norms is so elusive. But for the social historian of religion, reception is often more interesting than the norms themselves.

What actually ‘trickles down’ from what the bishops teach? This paper will maintain that some record of how things ‘trickled down’ is preserved in para-canonical religious texts, commonly known as ‘apocryphal’ literature. It considers various ways in which the canonical norms of the Greek Orthodox Church concerning the Lord’s Day were understood in a specific time and place: medieval Byzantium, between the ninth and the twelfth centuries. This was a crucial formative period for Orthodox Church culture, both Greek and Slav, during which ritual and moral attitudes that still obtain today were being worked out.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 37: The Use and Abuse of Time in Christian History , 2002 , pp. 45 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2002

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References

1 The antithesis of ‘taboo’ and ‘gift’ is particular to this paper, and the terms are used non-technically. Among the many anthropological discussions of ‘taboo’, the most pertinent here is Webster, Hutton, Rest, Days: the Christian Sunday, the Jewish Sabbath, and their Historical and Anthropological Prototypes (New York, 1916 Google Scholar, repr. Detroit, 1992), which, despite its evolutionism, remains the comprehensive ethnographic survey of ‘taboo days’.

2 Relevant canons, together with twelfth-century commentary by fialsamon, Zonaras, and Alexios Aristenos: Apostolic Canons 64/66, Nicaea 20, Trullo 55, 90, Gangra 18 (PG 137, cols 169–72, 308–9, 708–9, 821–5, 1265–6); also, Peter of Alexandria, canon 15; Nicholas HI Grammatikos, question 2 (PG 138, cols 516, 940).

3 Carthage 70 (PG 138, cols 247–50), Trullo 66 (PG 137, cols 744–5).

4 Noailles, P. and Dain, A., eds, Les Novella de Léon VI le Sage (Paris, 1944), pp. 205–9 Google Scholar.

5 Mosna, C. S., Storia della Domenica dalle origini fino agli inizi del V secolo (Rome, 1969), pp. 216–27 Google Scholar, gives a detailed summary and analysis of prior legislation.

6 E.g., ‘Whoever works on that day shall be put to death’ (Exod. 35.2); also Exod. 20.8-11, 23.12; Deut. 5.12-15.

7 Noailles and Dain, Novelles, p. 207, ll.14-17.

8 Question 51: PG 138, cols 997–1000.

9 PC 137, cols 813–16.

10 Question 5: PG 138, col. 893.

11 Question 13: PC 138, col. 900.

12 PG 138, cols 899–964.

13 Question 10: PG 138, cols 961–4.

14 Question 49: PG 138, col. 997.

15 The Life of St. Andrew the Fool, ed. and tr. Rydén, Lennart (Uppsala, 1995), 11, 2869–92 Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., p. 199.

17 Apocalypsis Anastasiae, ed. Rudolf Homberg (Leipzig, 1903) [hereafter Anastasia], ch. 2 (pp. 12–16).

18 Ibid., pp. 12–13, bottom text. The apocalypse is known in four Greek manuscripts: BN, MS Graecus 1631; Milan, Ambrosianus, MS A 56 Sup.; Oxford, Bodleian, MS Selden Supra 9; Palermo, Panormitanus, MS IILB.25. The Paris, Milan, and Oxford MSS form the ‘long’ recension of the text; the Palermo version the ‘short’ recension. See further Baun, Jane, The Apocalypse of Anastasia in its middle Byzantine context’ (Princeton University, Ph.D. thesis, 1997 Google Scholar), ch. 2.

19 I.e., Saturday. Both Greek and Russian have kept ‘Sabbath’ as the standard name for Saturday – in Greek, sabbaton; in Russian, subbota. Accordingly, Byzantine authors rarely use the word ‘Sabbath’ to refer to Sunday.

20 Anastasia, p. 12 (Palermo and Milan MSS only).

21 Ibid., p. 17. ‘The four manuscripts often show variant readings. Here, the Milan MS has ‘liquor’, while Palermo reads ‘anger’.

22 Ibid., p. 12, top text.

23 Ibid., p. 20.

24 Anastasia, p. 12; compare Exod. 35.3. Trullo 90 (see n.2) also makes the Christian Sabbath last ‘for a whole day and a whole night’.

25 Canons, 2nd ser., no. 2 [PC 100, col. 852). See Mosna, Storia, pp. 353–62, for Sabbatarian debates in the early Church.

26 PC 137, cols 1376–7 (Balsamon citation at 1377-B).

27 Bittner, M., ed., ‘Der vom Himmel gefallene Brief Christi in seinem morgenlandischen Versionen und Rezensionen’, Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 51/i (Vienna, 1905 Google Scholar). Possible fifth-century origins: M. van Esbroeck, ‘La Lettre sur le dimanche, descendue du ciel’, in his Aux origines de la Dormition de la Vierge (Aldershot, 1995), no. XIII; nineteenth-century circulation: H. Delehaye, ‘Note sur la légende de la Lettre du Christ tombée du ciel’, Bulletins de l’Académie Royale de Belgique, Classe des lettres (1899), pp. 171–213.

28 Bittner, ‘Der Brief Christi’, p. 19, §17.

29 Ibid., p. 32. §53.

30 Bittner, , ‘Der Brief Christi’, pp. 32–3 Google Scholar.