Byzantine Apocalyptic

We tend to think of translation as an exercise that crosses cultural boundaries, and quite naturally. The very word we use for the process indicates in its original tongue a 'carrying over' of the wealth of knowledge and beauty vested in one language to another. But I would like to consider here an instance in which translation and similar acts of literary acquisition and appropriation produced a contrary effect: the erection of barriers segregating one culture from others. The most important barriers are conceptual and metaphorical, but they are signalled by the description of the building of a very concrete barricade, the wall behind which Alexander the Great trapped the Unclean Nations. This episode was transferred from Syriac Alexander lore to the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius and from there to one of the later versions of the Alexander Romance. The Apocalypse and the Alexander Romance were two of the most widely read and widely translated works in the Middle Ages, enjoying a truly international readership. Even as these texts crossed from one language and culture to the next, however, they changed the essential image of Alexander from one of a bold adventurer drawing new people within the ambit of his rule to one of a cautious protector who excludes strange and foreign races from his realm. This

This bibliographical inventory surveys 50 medieval Greek apocalyptic sources ranging from the turn of the sixth century until the late fifteenth century. The surveyed material consists of historical and moral apocalypses, oracular prophecies and end-time calculations. The survey enumerates the various appellations and dating attempts for each text as proposed in modern scholarship. Moreover, references to editions and translations of each source are provided; they are followed by a preliminary list of the known manuscript witnesses. The purpose of the inventory is twofold: (i) it presents a quantitative estimation of the respective manuscript distribution. Altogether 1024 textual witnesses in 688 manuscripts have been identified to contain the surveyed apocalyptic texts. It has been found that about 70% of all manuscript material dates to the fifteenth century or later. Consequently, it can be established that the period surrounding and following the halōsis of 1453 functions as a filter that, to a large extent, regulates our access to and conditions our understanding of medieval Greek apocalyptic thought. Moreover, the inventory (ii) provides a holistic yet concise overview of a large section of Byzantine apocalypticism, which appears necessary for any comprehensive research that engages in (or steps beyond) intertextual analysis.

L'étude des citations bibliques présentes dans la Première Apocalypse Apocryphe de saint Jean montre une parenté avec les Quaestiones ad Antiochum Ducem, Les deux corpus pourraient être de la même époque, peut-être le début du VIe s. Cela confirme aussi qu'Anastase le Sinaïte dépend des Quaestiones ad Antiochum Ducem et non l'inverse.

Η παρούσα μεταπτυχιακή διπλωματική εργασία φιλοδοξεί να συμβάλει στη μελέτη των χρησμολογικών και εσχατολογικών κειμένων που ανήκουν στο ευρύτερο αποκαλυπτικό corpus. Για τον σκοπό αυτόν επιχειρήθηκε η διπλωματική έκδοση πέντε τέτοιων κειμένων που βρέθηκαν σε δύο χειρόγραφους κώδικες της Ιεράς Μονής Παναγίας Προυσού στην Ευρυτανία και ανήκουν χρονολογικά στα τελευταία χρόνια της Οθωμανοκρατίας.

Miracles present a central theme in Byzantine prophetic texts. They are associated with eschatological protagonists, most notably with the motifs of the Antichrist and the Savior-Emperor, who are the dominant narrative figures in historical apocalypses, upon which the present study lays its focus. By surveying more than a dozen Byzantine prophecies from the sixth to sixteenth century this study aims to excavate the meaning and implications of miraculous deeds in the longue durée of Byzantine apocalyptic thought. In particular, it is shown how specific miraculous actions and characterizations-attributed to the Savior-Emperor and the Antichrist respectively-are to be read as either homologous or inverted correspondences that emulate biblical precedences of divine beneficial acts. Apocalyptic miracles (and pseudo-miracles) are, first and foremost, constructed as Christocentric typologies that stress the continuation of the miracle accounts known from the Gospels and the Old Testament. Furthermore, it is shown which specific events carried miraculous as well as eschatological connotations for the Byzantines.

Medieval prophetic writings consist of various standard literary elements, such as motifs, oracles, canonical citations as well as scriptural exegesis. The latter not seldom serves to support the apocalyptist’s universal history, which is generally presented in a typological framework. Typologies are literary devices that pair long-gone Old and New Testament events and characters with more recent, contemporary counterparts. In this paper it is argued that typologies (biblical as well as extra-biblical) form an essential compositional method in medieval Greek apocalypticism. Moreover, this study investigates what kind of time perception apocalyptic typologies are prone to convey. The Last Vision of the Prophet Daniel has been chosen as the primary source of this study. This prophecy is a pseudonymous, historical apocalypse that can be viewed as a typical representative of medieval Greek apocalypticism. The paper consists of three parts: First, the Pseudo-Danielic prophecy is introduced with regard to its date, content and influence. Second, its most significant typological models are identified and briefly discussed. Third, a number of inferences are drawn from the foregoing analysis, which characterize the Byzantine perception of apocalyptic time.