Byzantine literature of the 4th-7th centuries is characterized by breadth and undifferentiation: it includes works of a historical nature, theology, philosophy, natural philosophy and much more. This literature is distinguished by its ethnolinguistic heterogeneity, multilingualism and multinationality. Its main line is Greek-speaking, since for the vast majority of the population the Greek language was common, which became from the end of the 6th century. official in the empire. However, along with Greek-language monuments and in interaction with them, there were works written in Latin, Syriac, Coptic and other languages.
Antique traditions continued to live in Byzantine literature for a long time, which was facilitated by the preservation of the Greek language, as well as the specifics of the training and education system. The organization of teaching in primary and higher schools played a large role in the dissemination of ancient literary monuments and in the formation of tastes. At the same time, Christianity had a huge impact on literature (as well as on the entire culture as a whole). Theological works made up a significant part of it.
In the literature of the IV-VII centuries. There are two schools of thought: one represented by pagan writers and poets, and the other by Christian authors. Such ancient genres as rhetoric, epistolography, epic, and epigram continue to develop. Next to them are new ones: chronography, hagiography and hymnography.
Early Christianity could not provide fiction in the true sense of the word. In his literary production, the balance between form and content is still too sharply disrupted in favor of content; a rigid focus on didactic “educationalness” excludes conscious concern for external design; decorative stylistic elements are rejected as unnecessary. Apocryphal narrative literature allows itself more freedom, sometimes using the techniques of the ancient novel. Christianity begins its mastery of the arsenal of pagan culture with philosophy; already by the beginning of the 3rd century. it puts forward a thinker like Origen, but does not yet produce a single author who could compete with the pillars of the “second sophistry” also in the formal mastery of words.
Only on the eve of the reign of Constantine did the growth of Christian culture and the rapprochement of the church with pagan society go so far that objective conditions were created for the combination of Christian preaching with the most refined and developed forms of rhetoric. This is how the foundations of Byzantine literature are laid.
The primacy in it belongs to prose. Back in the middle of the 3rd century. Gregory of Neocaesarea (c. 213 - c. 273) works, who dedicated to his teacher Origen “ Word of thanks"(or "Panegyric"). The topic of the speech is Origen’s years of study in church school and the path of his own spiritual formation. Her character is determined by a combination of traditional stylistic forms and autobiographical intimacy that is new in spirit; the pomp of panegyric and sincerity of confession, representative and confidential intonations contrast each other. An even more conscious and clear play on the contrasts of the old form and new content is carried out in the dialogue “The Feast, or on Chastity” by Methodius of Olympus in Lycia (died in 311). The title itself alludes to Plato’s famous dialogue “The Symposium, or on Love,” the structure of which is reproduced by Methodius with great accuracy; the work is replete with Platonic reminiscences - in language, style, situations and ideas. But the place of Hellenic Eros in Methodius was taken by Christian virginity, and the content of the dialogue is the glorification of asceticism. An unexpected effect is created by the breakthrough in the finale of the prosaic fabric of presentation and the entrance to hymn poetry: the participants in the dialogue sing a solemn doxology in honor of the mystical marriage of Christ and the Church. This hymn is also new in its metrical form: for the first time in Greek poetry, tonic tendencies are explored.
Apparently, Methodius’s experience was close to the liturgical practice of Christian communities, but in “great literature” it remains for a long time without consequences. Half a century later, a student of the pagan rhetorician Epiphanius, Apollinaris of Laodicea, tries to re-found Christian poetry on different, completely traditionalist foundations. From his numerous works (a hexametric arrangement of both testaments, Christian hymns in the manner of Pindar, tragedies and comedies imitating the style of Euripides and Menander) came only an arrangement of the psalms in the meter and language of Homer - as masterly as it was far from the living trends of literary development. The risky combination of two disparate traditions - Homeric and biblical - is carried out with great tact: the epic vocabulary is very carefully seasoned with a small number of sayings specific to the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament), which creates an unexpected, but quite integral linguistic flavor.
Early Christianity lived not in the past, but in the future, not in history, but in eschatology and apocalypticism. By the end of the 3rd century. the situation is changing: Christians cease to feel like rootless “aliens on earth” and acquire a taste for tradition. The Church, internally ripe for spiritual domination, feels the need for an impressive perpetuation of its past.
Eusebius undertook to satisfy this need. His “Church History” belongs to scientific prose, “Biography of the Blessed King Constantine” - rhetorical. In its attitudes and style, this is a typical “encomium” (a word of praise), a product of the old ancient tradition, dating back to Isocrates (IV century BC). The Christian trend is new. The ideal monarch should not only be “fair” and “invincible,” but also “God-loving.” If the old rhetoricians compared the glorified monarchs with the heroes of Greco-Roman mythology or history, then Eusebius takes the objects of comparison from the Bible: Constantine is the “new Moses.” But the structure of the comparison itself remains the same.
It was at that moment when the church achieved full legality and political influence that it faced the need to reconsider its ideological foundations. This gave rise to the Arian controversy. She stood at the center of all public life in the 4th century. and could not help but influence the course of the literary process.
Arius brought a worldly spirit into religious literature. A brilliant preacher, he knew his listeners well - citizens of Alexandria, accustomed to the life of a big city. The ancient Christian ascetic severity of style could not count on success here; however, the traditions of pagan classics were too academic and outdated for the masses. Therefore, Arius, writing the poem “Falin” for widespread propaganda of his theological views, turned to other traditions, less respected and more vital. We know little about the poem of the famous heretic - it itself has been lost (it is even possible that it was not a poem, but a mixed poetic and prose text such as the so-called Menippean satire). But the testimony of contemporaries adds up to a fairly vivid picture. According to one account, Arius imitated the style and meter of Sotades, one of the representatives of the light poetry of Alexandrian Hellenism; in another way, his poems were designed to be sung at work and on the road. Even if these reports tend to exaggerate the incriminating associations evoked by the work of Arius (Sotad's poetry was pornographic), they contain some truth. Alexandria has long been the center of the poetry of mimodias, mimiambas, etc. Arius tried to select some (of course, only purely formal) features of these genres for the emerging Christian poetry. His path was more shocking, but also more promising than the path of the Christianized classicism of Apollinaris of Laodicea.
Egyptian monks, who treated the culture of big cities with hatred, accepted such experiments with sharp hostility and went so far as to deny the very principle of liturgical poetry. From the 5th century I heard a conversation between Elder Pamva and a novice, in which the stern ascetic said: “The monks did not retire into this desert to think idle, to fold frets, to sing chants, to shake their hands, and to move their legs...” However, the process of development of church poetry that was folk in spirit and innovative in form could not be stopped. The strictest zealots of orthodoxy had to start composing chants in order to oust the hymns of heretics from everyday life. One of the exponents of the trends of the time was the Syrian Ephraim (d. 373), a successful rival of the representatives of heretical hymnography, who wrote in Syriac, but also influenced Greek-language literature; one of his texts is well known from Pushkin’s adaptation in the poem “The Desert Fathers and the Immaculate Wives...”.
The people wanted to receive intelligible and easy-to-remember poetic texts that they could, having memorized in church, sing at work and at leisure, “Travelers in a cart and on a ship, artisans engaged in sedentary work, in short, men and women, healthy and sick , they are downright revered as punishment if anything prevents them from repeating these sublime lessons,” states at the end of the 4th century. Gregory of Nyssa. The teaching of Arius was supposed to perish, his name became odious, but literary development largely followed the path indicated by his “Thalias”.
The main antagonist of Arius was the Alexandrian patriarch Athanasius. The pagan spirit of ancient traditions was deeply alien to Athanasius, but in his desire for an impressive severity of style, he adhered to school rhetorical norms. Of greatest historical and literary interest is the biography of the Egyptian ascetic Anthony, the founder of monasticism (by the way, the motif of the “temptation of St. Anthony”, popular in European art and literature up to Flaubert’s story). This work was almost immediately translated into Latin and Syriac and marked the beginning of the most popular genre of monastic “life” in the Middle Ages.
The first monks of the Nile Valley shunned literary pursuits: Anthony is a new hero of literature, but he himself could not yet pick up a pen. After a few decades, the monks became involved in writing. Evagrius of Pontus (c. 346-399) founded a form typical of Byzantium - a manual of monastic ethics based on introspection and constructed from aphorisms. It is unlikely that Evagrius and his successors knew anything about the philosophical diary of Marcus Aurelius “Alone with Oneself,” but the similarities are obvious here.
Ideological life of the 4th century. deeply contradictory. While the most specific products of Byzantine Christianity - dogmatic theology, liturgical hymnography, monastic mysticism - are already acquiring clear contours, paganism does not want to leave the scene. His authority in a closed sphere liberal arts education remains very high. It is characteristic that Christian authors working in traditional rhetorical and poetic genres often avoid any memories of their faith and operate exclusively with pagan images and concepts in their works. Julian the Apostate, in a tone of complete confidence, declares to Christians that no one in their own ranks will dare deny the advantages of the old pagan school.
It is the need to defend oneself in a life-and-death struggle against the onslaught of a new ideology that gives pagan culture new strength.
It experienced a special flourishing in the 4th century. rhetoric: its adherents are characterized by a deep conviction in the exceptional social significance of their work, which from time immemorial was an indispensable feature of the Greek “sophist”, but in the conditions of the struggle against Christianity received a new, in-depth meaning. In this regard, the pillar of eloquence of the 4th century is characteristic. Antiochian Libanius.
Livanius was born in Antioch, into a rich and noble family. Even as a child, he showed an interest in knowledge. The desire for education draws him to Athens, where Livanius attends high school. After graduating, he opens his own school of oratory, first in Constantinople, then in Nicomedia. From 354 he returned to his homeland, where he spent the rest of his life.
In his autobiography “Life, or about one’s destiny,” written in the form of a speech, Livanius writes: “I should try to convince those who have formed the wrong opinion about my fate: some consider me the happiest of all people in view of the wide fame that my speeches, others to the most unfortunate of all living beings, due to my incessant illnesses and disasters, meanwhile both of them are far from the truth: therefore I will tell about the previous and current circumstances of my life and then everyone will see that the gods have mixed the lot of fate for me ...".
Livanius's numerous letters (more than one and a half thousand have survived) convey his philosophical, historical, political and religious thoughts. The letters were intended for publication and therefore were interesting not only in content, but also in brilliant form.
In the eyes of Livan, the art of speech is the key to the integrity of the threatened polis structure; rhetorical aesthetics and polis ethics are interdependent. The duality of traditional eloquence and traditional citizenship is sanctified by the authority of Greek paganism - and therefore Livanius, alien to mystical quests in the spirit of the Neoplatonists, ardently sympathizes with the old religion and mourns its decline. Christianity, like all the phenomena of spiritual life of the 4th century that did not fit within the framework of the classical tradition, is not so much hateful for him as incomprehensible.
And yet, the trends of the era emerged in his work; this champion of classicist norms writes a huge autobiography, oversaturated with intimate details and akin to his understanding of the human personality to such monuments as the lyrics of Gregory of Nazianzus or Augustine’s Confessions.
The literary activity of his contemporary and friend Themistius (320-390) is closely related to the creative path of Livanius. From Livaniya's letters we learn about his respect for the merits of his rival - a “brilliant orator.” Themistius' talent was highly valued by Julian; Gregory of Nazianzus called him βασιλευς λογων.
Unlike Julian and Livanius, Themistius refrained from harsh polemics with adherents of Christianity. He was characterized by religious tolerance; It is not without reason that under all the emperors, regardless of their religion, he occupied prominent government positions. In his speech “To Valens on Confessions,” Themistius, praising the emperor, writes: “You have wisely decreed that everyone should join the religion that seems convincing to him, and in it he would seek peace for his soul...” and further: “Which It’s madness to try to ensure that all people, against their will, adhere to the same convictions!” According to Themistius, the emperor is wise to provide freedom of choice of beliefs, “so that people are not held accountable for the name and form of their religion.”
It is significant that despite his commitment to ancient philosophy, in his works there are ideas alien to the paganism of the classical period, for example, about earthly life as a prison and about the afterlife as a “happy field.” In his speeches, he talks everywhere about his love for philosophy, often turning to Plato and Socrates.
Themistius's speeches are devoid of poetic pathos, he lacks living characteristics. However, he was an excellent stylist, which greatly contributed to his fame.
The speeches of Imerius (315-386) differ in content, form and style from the speeches of Themistius. Imerius stood aloof from social and political life, was far from the court and lived in the interests of his school. Speeches related to the life of the school in Athens, where the sophist’s activities unfolded, and speeches concerning issues of rhetorical art occupy a place in his work great place. In the fight against Christianity, Imerius preferred epidictic (solemn) speeches dedicated to the heroic past or glorifying the traditions of the Greek religion. These speeches are written in a lush, Asian style.
Imerius gives his speeches euphony, using images, words and expressions of ancient Greek lyricists. He himself often called his speeches “hymns.” An idea of the manner of Imeria is given by a speech at the wedding of a relative of the North, where the bride and groom are described in enthusiastic tones: “They are even more similar to each other in character and blooming age: they are like young roses in the same meadow, they were born at the same time, at the same time open their petals; Their spiritual affinity is amazing - both are bashful and pure in disposition and differ from each other only in the activities inherent in the nature of each. She excelled in weaving wool, the glorious work of Athena, he finds joy in the labors of Hermes.”
The idol of Neoplatonist philosophers and pagan rhetoricians was the Emperor Flavius Claudius Julian, nicknamed the “Apostate” by Christians. In his person, paganism put forward a worthy opponent to such leaders of militant Christianity as Athanasius; a man of fanatical conviction and extraordinary energy, Julian fought for the revival of paganism by all possible means, and only his death in a campaign against the Persians once and for all put an end to all the hopes of supporters of the old faith. The needs of the struggle dictated the transformation of polytheism along the lines of Christianity (Julian elevated the Neoplatonic doctrine to the rank of dogmatic theology) and the utmost consolidation of the spiritual forces of pagan culture. Julian tried to carry out this consolidation by his personal example, combining in himself a monarch, a high priest, a philosopher and a rhetorician; within philosophy and rhetoric, he in turn strives for the broadest synthesis. This makes the picture of Julian’s literary work very varied in genre, style and even language: the entire past of Greek culture, from Homer and the first philosophers to the first Neoplatonists, is equally dear to him, and he strives to resurrect it in its entirety in his own works. We find in him mystical hymns in prose, overloaded with philosophical subtleties, and at the same time captivating with the intimacy of their intonations (“To the Sun King”, “To the Mother of the Gods”), and satirical writings in the manner of Lucian - the dialogue “Caesars”, where the Christian emperor Constantine was mocked, and the diatribe “The Hater of the Beard, or the Antiochian”, where the self-portrait of Julian himself is presented through the perception of the inhabitants of Antioch hostile to him; finally, Julian paid tribute to epidictic eloquence and even epigrammatic poetry. Only fragments have survived from his polemical treatise “Against the Christians,” from which it is clear how passionately he criticized the religion hostile to him: “... The insidious teaching of the Galileans is an evil human fiction. Although there is nothing divine in this teaching, it managed to influence the unreasonable part of our soul, which childishly loves fairy tales, and inspired it that these fables are the truth.” He also maintained a harsh tone towards Christianity in the satires “Caesars” and “The Beard Hater.”
Despite his restorationist tendencies, Julian as a writer is closer to his turbulent times than to the classical eras for which he yearned: his inherent sense of loneliness and extremely intense personal experience of religious and philosophical problems stimulated autobiographical motives in his work; when he talks about his gods, with unprecedented intimacy, he seems to declare his love for them.
Byzantine literature recognized Julian as her own: given the hatred that surrounded his name for religious reasons, the very fact of rewriting his works already in the Christian era proves that, no matter what, they found readers.
Julian’s cause was lost: according to a well-known legend, the emperor on his deathbed turned to Christ with the words: “You have won, Galilean!” But Christianity, having won politically, could fight the authority of paganism in the field of philosophy and classic literature with only one means - by assimilating as fully as possible the norms and achievements of pagan culture. In solving this problem, a huge role belongs to the so-called Cappadocian circle, which became in the second half of the 4th century. recognized center of church politics and church education in the Greek east of the empire. The core of the circle consisted of Basil from Caesarea, his brother Gregory, bishop of Nysa, and his closest friend Gregory of Nazianza.
The members of the circle stood at the pinnacle of contemporary education. They transferred the filigree methods of Neoplatonic dialectics to current theological polemics. An excellent knowledge of ancient fiction was also a taken-for-granted norm in the circle.
The leader of the circle was Basil of Caesarea. Like all members of the circle, Vasily wrote a lot and skillfully; his literary activity is entirely subordinated to practical goals. His sermons formally stand at the level of the extremely developed rhetoric of this time - and at the same time, in their very essence they differ from the aesthetic eloquence of pagan sophists like Livanius. Vasily, like speakers Greek classics during the times of Pericles and Demosthenes, the word again became an instrument of effective propaganda, persuasion, and influence on minds. It is characteristic that Vasily demanded that the listeners, not catching the meaning of his words, interrupt him at all costs and demand clarification: to be effective, the sermon must be intelligible. Of the pagan writers of late antiquity, Basil was greatly influenced by Plutarch with his practical psychologism; in particular, Plutarch's writings served as a model for Basil's treatise "On how young people can benefit from pagan books." This work has long served as an authoritative rehabilitation of the pagan classics; Even in the Renaissance, humanists referred to it in disputes with obscurantists.
Among Vasily’s “interpretations” of biblical texts, “Six Days” stands out - a cycle of sermons on the theme of the story of the creation of the world from the Book of Genesis. The combination of serious cosmological thoughts, entertaining material from late antique scholarship, and a very lively and heartfelt presentation made The Six Days a popular read in the Middle Ages. It gave rise to many translations, adaptations and imitations (including in ancient Russian literature).
Gregory of Nazianzus was for a long time the closest friend and collaborator of Basil of Caesarea, but it is difficult to imagine a person who would be less like this powerful politician than the refined, impressionable, nervous, self-absorbed Gregory. The same line divides their approach to literature: for Vasily, writing is a means of influencing others, for Gregory it is to express oneself.
Gregory's extensive legacy includes treatises on dogma (hence his nickname "Theologian"), rhetorical prose similar to the decorative style of Imeria, and letters. But its main significance lies in his poetic creativity. The stylistic range of Gregory's poetry is very wide. The closest to ancient examples are his numerous epigrams, distinguished by the intimacy of tone, softness, liveliness and transparency of intonation. Some of them do not allow one to guess that their author is one of the “church fathers.” Here, for example, is an epigram on the grave of a certain Martinian:
Muses' pet, vita, judge, excellent in everything
The glorious Martinian hid in my bosom.
He showed valor in sea battles, courage in land battles,
Then he went to his grave without having tasted the sorrows.
His religious hymns have a completely different appearance, marked by stately impersonality and rhetorical sophistication: numerous anaphors and syntactic parallelisms skillfully highlight their metrical structure and create a verse image reminiscent of the symmetrical arrangement of figures on Byzantine mosaics:
To her, the king, the imperishable king,
Through you our tunes,
Through you the heavenly choirs,
Time flows through you,
Through you the sun shines,
Through you the beauty of the constellations;
Through you the mortal is exalted
With a wondrous gift of understanding,
This makes him different from all creatures.
Along with this, Gregory’s poetry has at its disposal deeply personal motives of loneliness, disappointment, bewilderment at the cruelty and meaninglessness of life:
O bitter bondage! So I entered the world:
Who needs my torment for?
I say a frank word from my heart:
If I weren't yours, I would be indignant.
Let's be born; we come into the world; we spend our days;
We eat and drink, we wander, we sleep, we stay awake,
We laugh, we cry, pain torments the flesh,
The sun walks above us: this is how life goes,
And there you will rot in your grave. So is the dark beast
He lives in equal ignominy, but more innocent.
Gregory's generation could not yet accept a reassuring dogma from others - it had to first suffer through it. Therefore, Gregory’s world is full of difficult, vague, unresolved questions:
Who am I? Where did you come from? Where am I going? Don't know.
And I can't find anyone to guide me.
Gregory's lyrics capture with arresting immediacy the spiritual struggle that paid for the creation of church ideology:
Oh, what happened to me, true God,
Oh, what happened to me? Emptiness in the soul
All the sweetness of beneficent thoughts is gone,
And the heart, deadened in unconsciousness,
Ready to become the haven of the Prince of Abomination.
Three of Gregory’s poems are purely autobiographical in nature: “About my life”, “About my destiny” and “About the suffering of my soul”. It is possible that these poems, with their intimate psychologism and enormous culture of introspection, influenced the emergence of Augustine's Confessions.
The vast majority of Gregory's poems are subject to the laws of traditional musical versification, which Gregory mastered perfectly. It is all the more remarkable that we find in him two cases where the experience of tonic reform of prosody was completely consciously and consistently carried out (“Evening Hymn” and “Admonition to the Virgin”). This experiment is internally justified by the popular nature of both poems.
The third member of the circle, Gregory of Nyssa, is a master of philosophical prose. Gregory's worldview stands under the sign of a centuries-old tradition, going from the Pythagoreans through Plato to the Neoplatonists. Gregory's style, compared with the style of his companions, is somewhat ponderous, but it is precisely in the texts of the most speculative content that it reaches such sensitivity and expressiveness that even the most abstract thoughts are presented with plastic clarity. Gregory of Nyssa had a huge influence on medieval literature not only of Byzantium, but also of the Latin West with his allegorism.
The flourishing of rhetorical prose, passing through the entire 4th century, captured both pagan and Christian literature equally. But it reaches its culmination in the work of the church orator - the Antioch preacher John, nicknamed Chrysostom for his eloquence.
In his works, which vividly depict the social and religious life of the era, John Chrysostom angrily criticized the shortcomings of his contemporary society. Oratory skill and the brilliance of the Attic language were directed against the luxury of the imperial court and the corruption of the higher clergy. All this could not but cause discontent in the capital, as a result of which the bishop of Constantinople was deposed and sent into exile. Examples of Chrysostom's oratory are statements about spectacles that attracted people so much that the church was sometimes empty. “People are invited to spectacles every day, and no one is lazy, no one refuses, no one refers to the many activities... everyone runs: neither the old man is ashamed of his gray hair, nor the young man is afraid of the flame of his natural lust, nor the rich man is afraid of humiliating his dignity". All this outrages the preacher, and he exclaims: “Am I really laboring in vain? Am I sowing on a rock or among thorns? If you go to the hippodrome, then “...they don’t pay attention to the cold, or the rain, or the distance of the journey. Nothing will keep them at home. But going to church - rain and mud become an obstacle for us!”
Meanwhile, nothing good comes from visiting the theater, for “... there you can see fornication and adultery, you can hear blasphemous speeches, so that the disease penetrates both through the eyes and through the ears...” And it is natural that “if you went to a spectacle and listened to prodigal songs, then you will certainly spew out the same words in front of your neighbor...”
The preaching of Christian morality was carried out from certain class positions. “People harmful to society,” wrote Chrysostom, “appear from among those who attend spectacles. From them comes indignation and rebellion. They most of all outrage the people and give rise to riots in the cities.”
The work of John Chrysostom, like some other authors of this turbulent era (for example, Julian the Apostate), is characterized by a feverish pace. Only those works of John that were included in the famous “Patrology” of Minh occupy 10 volumes; such productivity is especially surprising given the filigree rhetorical decoration. John's eloquence has a passionate, nervous, exciting character. This is how he addresses those who do not behave decently enough in church: “...You are a pitiful and unhappy person! You should have proclaimed the angelic praises with fear and trembling, but you bring here the customs of mimes and dancers! How are you not afraid, how are you not trembling when you begin to speak like this? Don’t you understand that the Lord himself is invisibly present here, measuring your movements, examining your conscience?...” John’s sermons are replete with topical allusions; when the empress threatened him with reprisals, he began his next sermon on the feast of John the Baptist with these words: “Again Herodias is on a rampage, again going berserk, again dancing, demanding the head of John on a platter...” - and the listeners, of course, understood everything.
It is remarkable, however, that the focus on popularity did not stop John from following the canons of Atticism. The verbal fabric of his sermons is replete with reminiscences from Demosthenes, with whom, however, he was brought together not only by formal imitation, but also by internal congeniality: for all eight centuries, Demosthenes did not have more worthy heirs. Nevertheless, the virtuoso playing with classical turns, one might think, prevented John’s listeners from fully understanding him.
John Chrysostom was an unattainable ideal for every Byzantine preacher. The reader's perception of his works is well expressed by the inscription in the margins of one Greek manuscript kept in Moscow:
How wondrous is the brilliance of virtue,
Great John, from your soul,
All the power of God glorifying, poured out!
For this and golden eloquence
It's given to you. So have mercy on the sinner!
Az, poor Gordius, on the terrible day of judgment
May I be preserved by your prayer!
The Cappadocians and John Chrysostom brought Christian literature to a high degree of sophistication. But at the same time, other authors very productively developed other forms, more plebeian, alien to the academic style and language. Among them, it should be noted Palladius of Elenopolis (c. 364 - c. 430), the author of “Lavsaik”, or “Lavsian History” (named after a certain Lavs, to whom the book is dedicated). “Lavsaik” is a cycle of stories about Egyptian ascetics, among whom Palladius himself lived for a long time.
The main advantages of the book are a keen sense of everyday color and the folkloric spirit of the presentation. Classical reminiscences are unthinkable here; Even the kind of academicism that was still in the “Life of Anthony the Great,” compiled by Athanasius, left no trace here. The syntax is extremely primitive; as one can judge from the introductory parts of the book, written in a different texture, this primitiveness is to a large extent conscious. The conversational tone is very vividly imitated. Here is an example of the style of “Lavsaik”: “...When fifteen years had passed, a demon possessed the cripple and began to incite him against Eulogius; and the cripple began to blaspheme Evlogius with these words: “Oh, you, a selfish, prude, you hid extra money, but you want to save your soul on me? Drag me to the square! I want meat!” - Eulogius brought meat. And he again did his thing: “Not enough! I want people! I want to go to the square! Uh, rapist!” Palladius knew his heroes well, and for him they had not yet turned into impersonal personifications of monastic virtues. Of course, he reveres and loves them very much, seeing in their strange, often grotesque way of life the highest expression of holiness and spiritual strength; at the same time, he is far from devoid of a sense of restrained humor towards them. This combination of reverence and comedy, pious legend and businesslike reality makes Palladius’s monastic short stories a unique, attractive monument. They have their own personality.
Created by Palladius (undoubtedly based on predecessors unknown to us), the type of novelistic stories from the life of ascetics became extremely widespread in Byzantine literature. It also spread to other literature of the Christian Middle Ages: in Rus' such collections were called “patericons”; in Western Europe, for example, the famous “Fioretti” (“Flowers” by Francis of Assisi, 13th century) goes back to this genre form.
Sinesius of Cyrene occupies a special place in the literary process of his era. First of all, it cannot be classified as either pagan or Christian literature. Sinesius was a highly educated descendant of an original Greek family, who traced themselves to Hercules; His inner affinity with the ancient tradition reached such a degree of organicity as in none of his contemporary authors. More or less sincerely accepting the authority of Christianity, he sought to smooth out any contradiction between it and Hellenism: in his own words, the black cloak of a monk is equivalent to the white cloak of a sage. The need for social activity coming from antiquity forced him against his will to accept the rank of bishop, but he was never able to abandon his pagan sympathies and sentiments. Sinesius's literary activity is quite diverse. His letters, lively in tone and refined in style, served as an indisputable model for Byzantine epistolography: back in the 10th century. the author of “Svida” calls them “an object of general admiration,” and on the verge of the 13th and 14th centuries. Thomas Magister composes a detailed commentary on them. The speech “On Royal Power” - a kind of political program deployed by Sinesius before the Emperor Arcadius - is connected with topical issues, but spiritually and stylistically closer to the political moralization of the “second sophistry” than to the living trends of his time. In addition, from Synesius came: a kind of mythological “novel” with current political content - “Egyptian stories, or about providence”, an autobiographically colored treatise “Dono, or about life following his example” (about the author of the 1st-2nd centuries Dion Chrysostomos) , the rhetorical exercise “A Eulogy to a Bald Head,” several more speeches and religious hymns, marked by a colorful mixture of pagan and Christian images and thoughts. The metric of the hymns imitates the meters of ancient Greek lyrics, and the archaic nature of their vocabulary is complicated by the restoration of the ancient Doric dialect.
IV century was primarily an age of prose; he gave only one great poet - Gregory of Nazianzus. In the 5th century there is a revival of poetry. Already on the threshold of this century stands Sinesius with his hymns, but the most important event in the literary life of the era was the activity of the Egyptian school of epic poets.
Almost nothing is known about the life of the founder of this school, Nonna from the Egyptian city of Panopolis. He was born around 400 and towards the end of his life became a bishop. There are two more from his works: huge in volume (48 books - like the Iliad and Odyssey combined) the poem “The Acts of Dionysus” and “Arrangement of St. Gospel of John." Both the poem and the transcription are written in hexameters. In terms of material, they sharply contrast with each other: pagan mythology dominates in the poem, while Christian mysticism dominates in the transcription. But stylistically they are quite homogeneous. Nonnus is equally inaccessible to the plastic simplicity of Homer and the artless simplicity of the Gospel: his artistic vision of the world is characterized by eccentricity and an excess of tension. His forte is rich imagination and exciting pathos; his weakness is the lack of measure and integrity. Often, Nonnus’s images completely fall out of their context and take on an autonomous life, frightening with their mystery and dark significance. This is how he describes the death of Christ:
Someone with a fierce spirit
A sponge that grew in the abyss of the sea, in the incomprehensible abyss,
He took it and abundantly saturated it with painful moisture, and then
He strengthened it on the tip of the reed and raised it high;
So he brought mortal bitterness to the lips of Jesus,
Right in front of his face, he swayed on a long pole,
There is a sponge high in the air and pouring moisture into the mouth...
...Then the larynx and lips felt the bitterest moisture;
All dying, he said the last word: “It is finished!” —
And, bowing his head, he surrendered to his voluntary death...
Nonnus carried out an important reform of the hexameter, which boils down to the following: the exclusion of verse passages that made it difficult to perceive size in the state of the living Greek language that existed by the 5th century; taking into account, along with musical stress, also tonic stress; a tendency towards the unification of caesura and pedantic smoothness of verse, justified by the fact that the hexameter has finally hardened in its academic and museum quality (starting from the 6th century, traditionalist epic gradually abandoned the hexameter and switched to iambics). Nonna's hexameter is an attempt to find a compromise between traditional school prosody and live speech in ways of complicating versification.
A number of poets who developed the mythological epic and mastered the new metrical technique experienced the influence of Nonna. Many of them are Egyptians, like Nonnus himself (Collufus, Trifiodorus, Cyrus of Panopolis, Christodorus of Koptos); the origin of Musaeus is unknown, from whom came the epillium “Hero and Leander”, marked by the ancient clarity and transparency of the figurative system. Cyrus owns, by the way, an epigram on Daniel the Stylite, where Homeric sayings are curiously applied to the description of the Christian ascetic:
Behold, between earth and sky a man stands motionless,
Substituting your flesh to all the demons of the winds.
His name is Daniel. Competing with Simeon in labor,
He accomplished the feat of the pillar, his foot rooted to the stone.
He feeds on ambrosial hunger and imperishable thirst,
Trying to glorify the Most Pure Virgin Child.
Christodore is already on the verge of the 5th and 6th centuries. composed a poetic description (the genre of ekphrasis, fashionable in this era) of ancient statues from one of the capital’s gymnasiums. Here is a description of the statue of Demosthenes:
The appearance was not calm: the brow betrayed concern,
In the heart of the wise, deep thoughts turned in succession
It was as if he were gathering in his mind a thunderstorm against the heads of the Emathians.
Soon, soon, angry speeches will come from the lips,
And the lifeless brass will sound!.. But no, it is indestructible
Art closed its mute lips with a strict seal.
But the most talented poet of the turn of the 5th and 6th centuries. stands outside the school of Nonna: this is the Alexandrian Pallas, who worked in the genre of epigram. The dominant tone of Pallas's lyrics is courageous but hopeless irony: his hero is a mendicant scientist, defending himself against the hardships of poverty and family life sarcasm (complaints about financial difficulties and an evil wife become a popular commonplace in Byzantine lyrics).
The poet's sympathies are on the side of vanishing antiquity. With sadness he realizes the inevitability of the death of the old world close to him. He mourns the fallen statue of Hercules:
I saw the bronze son of Zeus in the dust of the crossroads;
Before they prayed to him, but now they have cast him into dust.
And the shocked one said: “O Three-Mooned One, guardian of evil,
Hitherto invincible, by whom are you defeated, tell me?”
At night, appearing before me, God said to me, smiling:
“I am God,” and yet I have learned the power of time over myself.”
Christianity is alien to Pallas, and undisguised sad irony is heard in his poem “To Marina’s House”:
The gods of Olympus have now become Christians in the house
They live carelessly in this, because the flames are not dangerous for them here,
The flame feeding the crucible where the copper is melted into a coin.
Justinian's restoration policy to some extent contributed to the strengthening of the classicist trend in literary life. The situation was contradictory to the point of paradox: Justinian cruelly persecuted deviations from Christian ideology, but in literature he encouraged the formal language that was borrowed from the pagan classics. Therefore, in the middle of the 6th century. two genres flourish: historiography, living by the pathos of Roman statehood, and the epigram, living by the pathos of culture inherited from antiquity.
The most significant historian of this era is Procopius, whose successor was Agathius of Myrinea. Agathius also worked in another leading genre of that time - the epigram genre.
An epigram is a form of lyrical miniature that requires a particularly high level of external decoration. This is precisely why it attracts the poets of the Justinian era, who seek to demonstrate the refinement of their taste and their familiarity with classical examples. Many people write epigrams: along with great masters- Agathias, Paul the Silentiary, Julian of Egypt, Macedonia, Eratosthenes Scholasticus - there is a legion of imitators: Leontius Scholasticus, Arabia Scholasticus, Leo, Damocharides of Kos, John Barvukal and others. By social status, these are either courtiers (Paul is the “guardian of silence” at the court of Justinian , Julian - prefect of Egypt, Macedonia - consular), or brilliant capital lawyers (Agathias, Eratosthenes, Leontius). Here is one of Julian’s epigrams - a compliment expressed in verse to the Empress’s relative John:
A. Glorious, mighty John! B. But mortal. A. Royal wife
In-laws! B. Mortal, add. A. Royal family escape!
B. The kings themselves are mortal. A. Fair! B. Only this is immortal
In it: one virtue is stronger than death and fate.
In the epigrammatics of Justinian's era, conventional classical motifs predominate; only sometimes a touch of sentimentality or erotic poignancy betrays the attack new era. The court poets of the emperor, who diligently uprooted the remnants of paganism, refined their talent on stereotypical themes: “Offering to Aphrodite,” “Offering to Dionysus,” etc.; when they take on a Christian topic, they turn it into a game of the mind. Paul the Silentiary had to sing, by order of the emperor, to the newly built St. Sophia: he begins the most winning part of his graceful ekphrasis - the description of the night illumination of the dome - with the mythological image of Phaethon (the son of Helios, who tried to drive his solar chariot):
Everything here breathes beauty, you will marvel at everything
Your eye. But tell me, with what radiant radiance
The temple is illuminated at night, and the word is powerless. You say:
A certain night Phaeton poured this brilliance onto the shrine!..
An anonymous epigram glorifying another great creation of the Justinian era - the codification of legislation carried out under the leadership of Tribonian - also operates with mythological images:
Justinian the ruler conceived this work;
Tribonian worked on it, pleasing the ruler,
As if creating a valuable shield for the power of Hercules,
Wonderfully decorated with the cunning embossing of wise laws.
Everywhere - in Asia, in Libya, in vast Europe
The nations listen to the king that he has laid down the rules for the universe.
Anacreontic poetry is also adjacent to epigrammatics, characterized by the same features - an imitation of pagan hedonism,
standardization of subject matter and refinement of technology. Here are verses for the pagan holiday of the rose, belonging to John the Grammar (first half of the 6th century):
Here Zephyr blew with warmth,
And he opened up, I note,
And the color of Harita laughs,
And the meadows are colorful.
And Eros with a skillful arrow
A sweet desire awakens
To the greedy mouth of oblivion
Didn't devour the human race.
The sweetness of the lyre, the beauty of the song
Summon Dionysus
Announcing the spring holiday
And they breathe the wise Muse...
Give me the Cythera flower,
Bees, wise songbirds,
I will praise the rose with a song:
Smile at me, Cypris!
This artificial poetry, playing with outdated mythology, superficial cheerfulness and bookish eroticism, does not cease to exist in subsequent centuries of Byzantine literature (especially after the 11th century), paradoxically adjacent to the motives of monastic mysticism and asceticism.
However, in the same VI century. A completely different poetry arises, corresponding to such organic manifestations of the new aesthetics as the Church of St. Sofia. Liturgical poetry, folk in spirit, after all the experiments and searches of the 4th-5th centuries. suddenly acquires the fullness of maturity in the work of Roman, nicknamed by his descendants the Sweet Singer (born at the end of the 5th century, died after 555). The naturalness and confidence with which Roman worked seemed like a miracle to his contemporaries; According to legend, the Mother of God herself opened his mouth in a night dream, and the next morning he ascended to the pulpit and sang his first hymn.
Already by its origin, Roman has nothing to do with the memories of ancient Greece: he is a native of Syria, perhaps a baptized Jew. Before settling in Constantinople, he served as a deacon in one of the churches in Beirut. Syrian verse and musical skills helped him abandon the dogmas of school prosody and switch to tonics, which alone could create a metrical organization of speech intelligible to the Byzantine ear. The novel created the form of the so-called kontakion - a liturgical poem consisting of an introduction, which should emotionally prepare the listener, and no less than 24 stanzas. That looseness, which for the first time in the history of Greek liturgical lyricism appears in Roman, allowed him to achieve enormous productivity; According to sources, he wrote about a thousand kontakia. Currently, about 85 Roman kontakia are known (the attribution of some is questionable).
Having abandoned retrospective metrical norms, the Roman had to sharply increase the role of such verse factors as alliteration, assonance and rhyme. This entire set of technical means existed in traditional Greek literature, but was always the property of rhetorical prose; The novel transferred it to poetry, creating in some of its kontakia a type of verse that will evoke in the Russian reader clear associations with folk “spiritual poems” (and sometimes with the so-called raeshnik). Here are two examples (from the kontakions “On the Betrayal of Judas” and “On the Dead”):
God, who washes our feet with waters
To the organizer of your destruction,
Filling your mouth with bread
To the desecrator of your blessing,
To the traitor of your kiss, -
You have elevated the poor with wisdom,
He caressed the poor man with wisdom,
Gifted and blessed
A demonic game!..
The unmarried man repents in sadness,
The married man strains himself in the bustle;
The endless one is tormented by sorrows,
We have many children and are consumed by worries;
Those in marriage are consumed by labor,
Those in celibacy are tormented by despair...
With this richness of the language of forms, the novel combines the people's integrity of emotions, naivety and sincerity of moral assessments. The kontakion about Judas ends with this stunning appeal to the traitor:
Oh, slow down, you unfortunate one, come to your senses,
Think, madman, of retribution!
Conscience will bind and destroy the sinner,
And in horror, in agony, having come to his senses,
You will give yourself up to a vile death.
The tree will stand over you as a destroyer,
He will reward you in full and without pity.
And what, money lover, were you flattered by?
You will throw away terrible gold,
You will destroy your vile soul,
And you can’t help yourself with silver,
Selling an incorruptible treasure!..
As unexpected as it may seem, Roman’s poetry, purely religious in its themes, speaks much more about real life his
time than the too academic secular poetry of the era of Justinian. In the kontakion “On the Dead,” with great internal regularity, images of the reality that worried Roman’s plebeian listeners appear:
The rich man abuses the poor man,
Devours the orphan and the weak;
The farmer's labor is the master's profit,
Sweat for some, luxury for others,
And the poor man strains himself in his labors,
So that everything will be taken away and dispelled!..
Roman’s work contains motifs and images that most adequately expressed the emotional world of medieval man. Therefore, we find in him the prototypes of not only many works of later Byzantine hymnography (for example, the “Great Canon” of Andrew of Crete), but also two of the most famous hymns of the Western Middle Ages - Dies irae and Stabat mater.
Roman Sladkopevets far exceeded his contemporaries in the scale of his artistic talent, but he was not alone. From the era of Justinian and his successors, many poetic and prosaic works have come down that, in an artless and unpretentious manner, but with great organicity, expressed the Byzantine style of life and worldview.
The plebeian figurative system is for the most part distinguished by the vast literature of prose or versified monastic teachings. John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople, hardly considered himself a poet, but his “Instructions for a Monk” in iambic trimetres are arresting with their rough vitality:
Don’t you dare disdain food alone,
Others you choose at your whim;
And whoever is squeamish, we will also be squeamish...
...Chat and gossip run away like a scourge:
They plunge the heart into mortal defilement.
Don't you dare spit in the middle of the meal,
And if the need has fallen so much that there is no urine,
Hold back, quickly go out and clear your throat.
O man, do you want to eat and drink?
There is no sin in that. But beware of satiety!
There is a dish in front of you, eat from it,
Don’t you dare reach across the table, don’t be greedy!..
These verses are characterized, by the way, by their iambic form: of the traditional classical meters, the iambic trimeter is adopted by Byzantine poetry with the greatest organicity. At the same time, its musical prosody is increasingly ignored, and it is reinterpreted as pure syllabic; the minimum level of structure is maintained in these equal lines by the fact that the last tonic stress in the verse certainly falls on the penultimate syllable (thus, when we call these verses iambics and translate them accordingly, this is a pure convention - but the Byzantines themselves adhered to this convention). Gradually, the epic moves from the academic forms of elegiac distich to iambics.
Official propaganda, in order to influence the people, was itself forced to adopt plebeian, semi-folklore forms, without which it could no more do than without the impressive verses of court poets. Even in the Hellenistic monarchies and the Roman Empire, the custom of choral recitation or recitative chanting of rhythmically designed loyal greetings to the sovereign was widespread. This custom received particular development and complication in the cumbersome ritual of Byzantine court festivities, in which crowds of people were also involved in the role of extras. Here is the text for choral performance at the spring festival - here the folklore basis is revealed especially clearly:
Once again a beautiful spring comes to our joy,
Bringing joy, health, life, fun and good luck.
Carrying strength from God as a gift to the Roman ruler
And victory over enemies by the will of God!
Similar texts were sung at the holidays of accessions, coronations, weddings of emperors, at Easter celebrations, etc. But formally close to them, popular reproaches and ridicule were also in great use, with which the Byzantine crowd showered those in power during unrest and uprisings.
The wide readership of Byzantium received its own historiography in this era. The works of Procopius or Agathias, with their intellectual and linguistic sophistication, were incomprehensible to the average reader; for him a purely medieval form of folk-monastic chronicle is created.
We have already spoken above about the folk character of ascetic edifying literature. The folkloric tone is especially characteristic of the famous “Ladder” of the Sinai monk John (c. 525 - c. 600), nicknamed “The Ladder” after his main work. “The Ladder”, in a simple and relaxed language, sets out the prescriptions of harsh ascetic morality, interspersed with confidential stories about personal experiences and equipped with colorful proverbs and sayings. John approaches the duty of an ascetic with popular frankness and ingenuity; he is alien to pretentious monastic mysticism. The translation of “The Ladder” has been known in Rus' since the 11th century. and enjoyed enormous popularity. Another type of ascetic literature, characterized by greater sophistication of psychological introspection and the cult of contemplation, was represented in the same era by Isaac the Syrian: his “Words of Instruction” (compiled in Syriac and soon translated into Greek) speak of “tenderness,” of “amazement at one’s own beauty.” souls." In Rus', Isaac has been read since the 14th century; there is reason to think that his “Words of Instruction” were known to Andrei Rublev and influenced his work.
Hagiographic literature also belongs to this circle of monuments. An outstanding hagiographer of the 6th century, one of the creators of the hagiographic canon, was Cyril of Scythopolis. The exact years of his life are unknown: his year of birth is approximately 524. Thanks to his father, who was a lawyer, Kirill received a good education, although he did not learn rhetoric, which he himself regrets. In 543, being a monk, he entered the monastery of St. Euthymius, then moved to the monastery of St. Savva.
A keen interest in the illustrious founders of the monasteries of Palestine prompted him to collect more accurate information about their lives. At the same time, he created images of other Palestinian monks, which was of considerable importance for the history of the church and monasteries of Palestine.
Kirill was not a professional writer, but the lives he wrote served as a guide for his followers. His works were distinguished by chronological accuracy and simple presentation. They contained valuable historical facts, such as information about Arab tribes. A significant role was also played by the fact that Kirill was a contemporary of his heroes, which made it possible to present them against a real cultural and historical background.
Social and political cataclysms of the 7th century. contributed to the vulgarization of literature that had already begun in previous centuries.
Classical traditions become meaningless; the experience of the continuity of power and culture, dating back to ancient times, ceases to be relevant. Refined imitation of ancient samples is finding fewer and fewer readers. Moreover, within the framework of the specific spiritual situation of the early Middle Ages, the vulgarization of literature inevitably had to result in its sacralization; the proportion of genres related to the life and needs of the church and monastery is greatly increasing. Folk monastic forms, pushed aside in the 6th century. to the periphery of the literary process find themselves in the center.
The last echo of the “high” secular poetry of the 6th century. there was the work of George Pisis (a nickname from the name of the Asia Minor region of Pisidia, where George was from), Chartophylak under Heraclius. It is far from accidental that George worked precisely during the era of Heraclius: this reign was the last light before the difficult decades of the Arab onslaught, and it might have seemed to his contemporaries that the times of Justinian were returning. It was to the military operations of his royal patron that George dedicated his large epic poems: “On the campaign of King Heraclius against the Persians”, “On the Avar invasion with an account of the battle under the walls of Constantinople between the Avars and the townspeople” and “Heracliade, or on the final death of Khosrov, the king of Persia” . In addition, George wrote less significant poems of moralistic and religious content; Among them, “The Sixth Day, or the Creation of the World” stands out, testifying to the outstanding erudition of Pisis in ancient literature. Translations of “Shestodnev” were in circulation in Armenia, Serbia and Rus'. George Pisida also wrote iambic epigrams.
Pisis's historical works are particularly interesting. Central image heroic epic- an emperor surrounded by an aura of military glory and valor. The poet acts as a singer of the glory of Heraclius. Despite the tendentiousness, rhetorical style and mannerisms of expression, these works reflect the difficulty of the external situation of the empire in the first half of the 7th century. and important factual data.
Pisida's work attracts attention because of its retrospective nature and the school-like correctness of its metrics. Most of his works are performed in iambics, which, unlike his contemporaries, correspond to the norms of musical prosody. He achieves such virtuosity in his use of the iambic trimeter that he prompted the subtle connoisseur Michael Psellus (11th century) to seriously discuss the problem in a special treatise: “Who constructs verse better - Euripides or Pisis?” Sometimes he resorts to hexameter; in these cases he scrupulously observes the prosodic restrictions of the Nonna school. Pisis's figurative system is distinguished by great clarity and a sense of proportion, which also makes us recall classical examples.
And yet Pisis went much further from antiquity than the court poets of Justinian. We find in him an image of Fate, designed in the spirit of the purest medieval allegorism and forcing us to recall dozens of parallels from Vagant poetry or book miniature Middle Ages:
Imagine in your mind an obscene dancer,
Which is acting with noise and antics.
Depicting the vicissitudes of existence
The deceptive flash of fussy hands.
The disgraceful woman is thrilled, spinning, simpering,
Winking languidly and seductively
To the one whom she decided to fool,
But immediately on another and a third
He still turns his gaze with the same prodigal caress.
He promises everything, he tries to fake everything
And nothing creates reliable,
Like a slut with a cold soul
Approaches everyone with feigned fervor...
The medieval allegory is necessarily followed by a characteristic edification:
To fools - thrones, kingdoms, glory, honors,
Inseparable with malice and care;
But for those who have managed to comprehend the truth,
The throne is prayer, glory is quiet speech...
Yet the poetry of Pisis, with its secular orientation, linguistic purism and metrical correctness, stands out sharply against the background of the literary production of its era. A few generations later it would already be an anachronism.
More promising was the line of liturgical poetry that Roman Sladkopevets discovered. A contemporary and friend of George Pisis was Patriarch Sergius (610-638); under his name came the most famous work of Greek hymnography - the “Great Akathist” to the Virgin Mary. This attribution is doubtful: the poem was attributed to Romanus, Patriarch Herman and even Pisis. One thing is obvious: at least the introductory part of the akathist was created immediately after the invasion of the Avars in 626. The form of the akathist involves an endless escalation of appeals and epithets, beginning with the same greeting (in the traditional Russian translation, “Rejoice”). The lines are connected in pairs by strict metric and syntactic parallelism, supported by the widest use of assonance and rhyme:
Rejoice, receptacle of God's wisdom,
Rejoice, storehouse of the Lord's mercy,
Rejoice, flower of continence,
Rejoice, wreath of chastity,
Rejoice, thou who overcomest the wiles of hell,
Rejoice, thou who openest the doors of heaven...
Translation can only give an extremely poor idea of this poetic structure based on the most complex play of thoughts, words and sounds; This game cannot be played within another language. The flexibility and virtuosity of verbal ornamentation reaches the highest degree in The Great Akathist. But the movement, the dramatic gradation of tension that can still be found in Roman’s kontakia, is not here. This does not mean that the poem is monotonous or monotonous. On the contrary, she plays with the greatest variety of shades of vocabulary and euphony, but this variety is akin to the variegation of arabesques: there is no dynamics behind it. In general, the poem is static to an extent that would be unbearable for any reader and listener except the Byzantine (this is by no means a common feature of liturgical poetry - in all works of Western medieval hymnography, which in their artistic level can withstand comparison with the “Great Akathist”, there is always internal development).
Meanwhile, we see that the author was able to convey the movement of human emotion quite convincingly: in the inserted parts framing the stanzas, he depicts Mary’s embarrassment in front of her fate, Joseph’s bewilderment, etc. But it is characteristic that these sketches and sketches lie on the periphery of the artistic whole. Byzantine aesthetics required the hymnographer to be static. In the words of John Climacus. one who has achieved moral perfection “becomes like a motionless column in the depths of his heart”; It is impossible to imagine a greater contrast to the Gothic understanding of spirituality as dynamic tension. In its static nature, “The Great Akathist” is an exact correlate of works of Byzantine painting. It ideally suits the rhythm of the liturgical “action” of the Greek liturgy, the intonations of Byzantine music (which are also static), and the outlines of the church interior, filled with the flickering of candles and the glitter of mosaics. Here the same integral unity of poetic text and architectural space has been achieved as once in the Attic theater of the era of Sophocles.
Continuers of the hagiographic traditions of the 6th century. there were John Moschus, Sophronius of Jerusalem, Leontius of Naples. They all belonged to the same circle, which was characterized, on the one hand, by the desire to bring literature closer to the people, and on the other, by a break from antiquity.
The Palestinian monk John Moschus (died in 619), who made numerous trips to Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, Sinai and Cyprus, compiled, as a result of his travels, together with his friend, Sophronius of Jerusalem, a collection of stories about monks “The Spiritual Meadow ", or "Limonar". This work is distinguished by its simplicity of plot, realism, and vivid characterization. Limonar was a considerable success and was repeatedly reworked and expanded.
John Moschus and Sophronius jointly wrote a biography of John the Merciful, intended for an educated circle. In such lives, designed for representatives upper class Byzantine society, the authors sought to show their erudition: familiarity with ancient literature, knowledge of rhetoric; however, they often lost their originality.
The most prominent figure of democratic hagiography of the 7th century. there was Leontius from Naples on the island of Cyprus (late 6th - mid 7th century). His compositions are distinguished by a rare liveliness of tone; at the same time, he is brought closer to his genre predecessor Palladius by the fact that he does not avoid humorous assessments in his lives. This is what he says about the holy fool. Simeone: “...On one street the girls were dancing in circles with choruses, and the saint decided to walk along this street. And so they saw him and began to tease the holy father with their refrains. The righteous man made a prayer in order to bring them to their senses, and through his prayer they all immediately became dumb... Then they began to chase him with tears and shout: “Take back the word, blessed one, take back the word,” because they believed that he had let go there is a squint on them like a fortune-telling. And so they caught up with him, stopped him by force and begged him to unleash his spell. And he said to them with a grin: “Whichever of you wants to be healed, I will kiss that squinted eye, and it will be healed.” And then everyone who was the will of God to be healed was allowed to kiss their eye; and the rest, who did not succeed, remained dumbfounded and crying...” The episode ends with the holy fool’s maxim: “If the Lord had not sent squint to them, they would have turned out to be the greatest disgraces in all of Syria, but because of the illness of their eyes, they were saved from many evils." The life of the Alexandrian Archbishop John the Merciful, with whom Leontius had a personal friendship, is distinguished by a more serious, but equally vital character. Leonty portrays his hero as an active lover of humanity, whose heightened conscience does not allow him to enjoy the luxury appropriate to his rank: “...Can one say that John is covered with a cover of thirty-six gold coins, while his brothers in Christ are numb and cold? How many at this very moment are chattering their teeth from the cold, how many have only a straw at their disposal; They lay half of it down, cover themselves with half and can’t stretch their legs - they’re just shaking, curled up in a ball! How many go to bed in the mountains, without food, without a candle, and suffer doubly from hunger and cold!..”
Literature of Byzantium IV-VII centuries. reflects the formation and establishment of Christian culture, accompanied by the struggle against the echoes of pagan antiquity. In this complex and contradictory struggle between two ideologies, new genres and styles were born, which were developed in the subsequent era.
The influence of Byzantine literature on European literature is very great, and its influence on Slavic literature is undeniable. Until the 13th century. in Byzantine libraries one could find not only Greek manuscripts, but also their Slavic translations. Some works have survived only in Slavic translation; the originals have been lost. Byzantine literature proper appears in the 6th-7th centuries, when the Greek language became dominant. Monuments folk art Almost none have survived to this day. According to Western European scholars, Byzantine literature was considered the “archive of Hellenism”, its free nature was underestimated, meanwhile Byzantine literature is original, and one can speak of Hellenism as a literary influence on a par with the influence of Arabic, Syriac, Persian, Coptic literatures, although Hellenism was more clearly manifested . The poetry of the hymns is best known to us: Roman the Sweet Singer (VI century), Emperor Justinian, Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople, Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem. The hymns of Roman the Sweet Singer are characterized by closeness to the psalms in musical and semantic terms (themes of the Old Testament, the depth and asceticism of the music). Of the thousand hymns he wrote, about 80 have survived. In form, it is a narrative with elements of dialogue; in style, it is a combination of scholarship and edification with poetry.
Historical storytelling in the style of Herodotus was popular in Byzantine literature. In the VI century. these are Procopius, Peter Patrick, Agathia, Menander. Protiktor and others. The best writers, educated in ancient schools on pagan traditions, are Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom. The influence of the East is observed in the patericons of the V-VI centuries. (stories about hermit-ascetics). During the period of iconoclasm, the lives of saints and their twelve-month collections “Cheti-Minea” appeared.
Starting from the 9th century, after iconoclasm, historical chronicles with a church orientation appeared. Particularly interesting is the chronicle of George Amartol (late 9th century) from Adam to 842 (a monastic chronicle with intolerance for iconoclasm and a predilection for theology).
Among literary figures, it is worth noting Patriarch Photius and Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Photius was a highly educated man, and his house was a learned salon. His students were compiling a dictionary-lexicon. The most outstanding work of Photius is his “Library” or “Polybook” (880 chapters). They contain information about Greek grammarians, orators, philosophers, naturalists and doctors, novels, hagiographic works (apocrypha, legends, etc.).
Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, at his own expense, published extensive collections and encyclopedias of works of old literature that had become rare. On his orders, it was compiled historical encyclopedia.
Byzantine Literature: Book Treasures of the Monasteries
Byzantine culture - the earliest in the history of medieval Europe - developed on the traditions of the Greco-Roman world, in conditions of confrontation with Asian civilizations (Iran, Palestine, the Arab East), the interpenetration of Western cultures, and the spread of Christianity. Not many fictional forms arose here, and yet it is impossible to confine Byzantine prose within the framework of religious-didactic issues or the functions of church cult and ascetic preaching of the disembodied spirit. The smoke of lamp oil, the debilitating exhaustion of the body during fasting, the solemn luxury of church services could not stop the excited noise in the squares, the witty words in the streets, and the cheerful voices during the feast. Byzantium left a legacy of heartfelt frankness in the genre of fictitious writing, the sarcasm of everyday satire, historical epic, and, finally, omitting the entire arsenal of religious writing, the novel in verse and prose.
The collector of ancient classics was the Byzantine Patriarch Photius (c. 820-891), thanks to whom expositions of texts and critical interpretations of many prose works of the Ancient World have come down to us - “a total of three hundred books without twenty-one”, included in his huge collection “Myriobiblion” (“ Many Books), also known as the Library. This amazing “bibliographic work of Rubakin” of the Middle Ages outlined the circle of self-educational reading and called for strengthening knowledge: “This book will undoubtedly help you remember and retain in memory what you gleaned from independent reading, find in a ready-made form what you were looking for in books , and it is also easier to perceive what you have not yet comprehended with your mind.”
The work of Photius was continued by his student AREPHAS OF CESAREA (c. 860-932), who showed close attention to the works of Plato, Lucian, and the “Apocalypse” and left a huge literary legacy. A prominent place in it is occupied by the bright pamphlet “Chirosphant, or Hater of Witchcraft,” found at the end of the 19th century. in the library of the current Historical Museum in Moscow. This masterfully executed reproach against the “impudent tenacity” with which his contemporary Leo Hirosphant came out in defense of pagan culture “brought the dust of atheism into the eyes.” However, Arefa, with no less insolence, condemned the Christian churchmen themselves in his “Speech in defense of those who reproduce life in the theater, glorified the god Dionysus, who gives people joy and relaxation, and gave witty people an activity with which they would console those who have fallen spirit."
The origins of a major genre in artistic prose Byzantium was already noticeably visible in the 5th century. The student of the famous, tragically deceased female scientist Hypatia was the writer SINESIUS (370-413/414), born in the North African colony of Cyrene. In 397, he represented the interests of his homeland in Constantinople, defending it from mediocre and unscrupulous governors. There, perhaps, his peculiar political novel “The Egyptians, or About Providence” arose, which depicts intrigues at the Byzantine court under the guise of strife between two Egyptians - the sedate Osiris and the defeated Typhon.
The conflict between the main characters was based on the dangerous delusion of adherents of tyrannical power to believe that “the only occupation of free-born people is to do as they please and do whatever they want.”
One of the most significant works in Byzantine literature is the “Love Letters” of ARISTENETUS (or Aristinitis, 6th century), which posed many mysteries to scientists. One of them is the semantic meaning of the author’s name, which in translation means: “one who praises best” or “deserving preferential praise.” The other is whether there really was such a writer or whether this name was taken from the pages of Lucian. The third mystery concerns the indifference of contemporaries to this outstanding literary monument and the silence of the Byzantines later, in the 11th-12th centuries, when interest in any antiquity increased. The discovery of Aristenet dates back to 1566.
The genre of fictitious writing chosen by Aristenetus goes back in its origins to Alkiphron, Aelian and Philostratus with their repeated appeals to the authority of Homer, Plato, Callimachus, Sappho, Lucian, Xenophon of Ephesus, Achilles Tatius. Borrowing motifs and plots from some of them, extracting individual bright phrases or entire passages in the love letters of the characters form an entertaining plot pattern, where quotes are included in the action itself, and the authors of the quotes sometimes act as characters. The writer strives to introduce unusualness, to psychologically substantiate situations when young men seek love, make street acquaintances, abandon their beloved girls, and when cheerful picnics of lovers are arranged, and hetaeras surrender to a fickle sense of whim.
The artistic epistolary prose of Byzantium also knows other masters of this genre - Aeneas Sophist (late 5th century), who gravitates towards aphorism, Theophylact Simokattu (first half of the 6th century), whose fictitious moralizing, rural and love letters receive addressees from real history (Pericles, Plotinus, Plato, Socrates), from mythology (Atlas, Thetis, Eurydice) from fiction.
EUMATIUS MACREMVOLITUS - author of the Byzantine novel about love - “The Tale of Isminia and Ismina” (XII century). Like Aristenetus, Eumatius widely refers to antiquity, to quotes from Homer, Hesiod, tragedians, Aristophanes, etc. His story reveals a dependence on the novel by Achilles Tatius “Leucippe and Clitophon” not only in style and language, but also in the construction of situations : meeting of young people in a hospitable house, the emergence of love, secret communication at a feast and dates in the garden, flight, separation, slavery, etc. The lovers extricate themselves from risky situations thanks to their exceptional virtue, sometimes so extravagantly that scientists considered the work a caricature of “Leucippa and Clitophon”, and its author was called Achilles Tatius who had gone mad. However, in this case, the Byzantine author projected pagan themes onto the Middle Ages, which perceived reality in abstract symbols of Reason, Strength, Chastity, Law, Love, etc. This allegorical nature saved the novel from oblivion and at the same time erased specific signs of the times, turning the lovers - Isminia and Isminu - into conventional figures, which is emphasized by the identity of their names.
The edifying, exhorting prose includes the “Strategikon”, the author of which KEKAUMENES (11th century), may have been the same person as the famous commander Katakalon Kekaumenes. This is not so much a treatise on the art of war as a set of moral instructions and rules of life. The book contains advice to be a “homely person and a social person.”
The plot of “The BOOK OF SYNTIP” (12th century) dates back to the lost Sanskrit source, in the Arabic version known as “The Tale of the Prince and the Seven Viziers”, and in the Syriac version called “The Tale of Sinbad and the Philosophers”, in the Persian version - “Sinbad -name." The story is based on the story of the king's son, who studied various sciences with the philosopher Sintipa (or Sinbad), but was doomed to remain silent for seven days due to the unfavorable position of the stars. During this time, the king's wife tries to seduce the young man and then denigrate him in front of his father, but seven court advisers prevent the unjust execution with moralizing stories. “The Book of Sintipa” testified that, along with severe asceticism, there was frivolity and even outright eroticism in literature. It served as a source for “Roman Acts” and “Decameron” by D. Boccaccio.
Period from IV to VI centuries. n. e. was the time during which the eastern part of the Roman Empire turned into the Byzantine Empire. This process went in three directions: the development of elements of feudal relations in the economy, the strengthening of absolute imperial power in politics and the growing influence of Christianity in ideology. All these moments are clearly visible already in the reign of Constantine I (306–337 AD).
The name of Constantine is associated with two major events of the era - the founding of the new capital of the Roman Empire and the legalization of Christianity. The first event was caused by the fact that Rome already by the 3rd century. lost its former significance: it was open to barbarians approaching from the north, its trade ties weakened. The emperors began to choose Milan, Trier, and Nicomedia as their residence. Constantine managed to find the most favorable place for the new capital - it was greek city Byzantium, located on the trade route from Europe to Asia, between the eastern and western halves of the empire.
The foundation of the new capital took place in 324, consecration - on May 11, 330. Both those and other celebrations took place in the presence of colleges of pagan priests and Christian clergy. The new capital received the official name “New Rome” - this is what was said about it in the edict carved on a marble column on the day of consecration. Somewhat later, a second name was added to this name, named after the founder of the city - Constantinople (Κωνσταντίνου πόλις), which remained for subsequent centuries.
In a short time, the city achieved external splendor and splendor. A luxurious imperial palace, a building for Senate meetings, baths, a library, and a large hippodrome decorated with ancient statues were built; The best works of ancient sculpture were brought from all over the empire to decorate Constantinople.
The second event was caused by those changes in ideology that became most noticeable at the turn of the 3rd–4th centuries. Originated in Palestine in the 1st century. n. e. , despite more than two hundred years of semi-legal existence and periodic persecution, by the beginning of the 4th century. has strengthened significantly. Crowds of townspeople of various classes flocked to listen to Christian sermons, which spoke about the origin of the world, and about the duty of a person during life, and about the bliss that everyone can achieve after death, if only his life was righteous. The ethics of Christianity also found numerous supporters - disregard for property and class differences, calls to console the poor and suffering. The logical application of the basic principle of Christianity - monotheism - to human society affirmed the need for the existence of a single ruler in the state - the deputy of God on earth. This historically led to the recognition of Christianity by Roman emperors. Even Constantine’s predecessors, Maxentius and Galerius, understood that religious strife only weakened the state, which was on the verge of collapse; They owned the first decrees prohibiting the persecution of Christians and the free construction of Christian churches. In 313, Constantine and his co-ruler Licinius jointly issued a decree on the equality of Christianity with pagan religions in the empire - the so-called “Edict of Milan”.
“Recognizing that God is the source of all the blessings sent down by him,” writes the Christian historiographer of the 3rd–4th centuries. Eusebius, both of them unanimously and unanimously published the most perfect and most thorough law in favor of Christians” (“Church History”, X, 86). Constantine himself remained a pagan for a long time - all his life he bore the priestly title of “Great Pontiff” - and yet in every possible way contributed to the transformation of Christianity into the state religion. He took part in meetings of the clergy, and sometimes he himself proposed church laws. On his initiative, in 321 the rite of freeing slaves before the bishop was established, and in 323 it was forbidden to force Christians to participate in pagan festivities. The Ecumenical Council, that is, the general congress of the clergy of the empire, from the time of the council convened by Constantine in Nicaea (325) received the rights of an all-empire institution and the highest legislative body of the church.
After the death of Constantine, power over the empire passed to his three sons, whose internecine wars continued until 351, when one of the brothers, Constantius, managed to concentrate all power in his hands. The reign of Constantius is followed by a short but striking episode of the two-year reign of the pagan emperor Julian (361–363). For his attempt to revive the ancient Hellenic cults (albeit in conjunction with some ethical principles of Christians), Julian was nicknamed the Apostate by the church. Christians were not subjected to direct persecution under him; they were only removed from senior positions and teaching in schools. A widely educated man, an adherent of Neoplatonism, Julian enjoyed the support of the educated pagan nobility, but was not popular either in the lower classes or in the army. After his death during the campaign against the Persians, his work found no successors. Jovian, who replaced him on the throne, canceled his orders to limit the rights of Christians, and so, after a short break, the victorious march of the new religion resumed.
Under the last emperor of the Constantine dynasty, Valens, who ruled in the second half of the 4th century. together with Valentinian, who set up his residence in Milan, the separation of the western and eastern parts of the empire became obvious; There was a process of formation of two independent cultures. Seventeen years after Valens, the founder of the next dynasty, Theodosius I, dying (395), left in his will to his sons an empire divided into two parts: Arcadius received the eastern half, Honorius received the western half. Thus, by the end of the 4th century. the scale and limits of the Byzantine state are clearly defined: it occupied Balkan Peninsula, islands of the Aegean Sea, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Armenia, Cyrenaica, Egypt and owned colonies on the Black Sea (Chersonese, etc.); this vast territory was inhabited by Greeks, Macedonians, Thracians, Goths, Copts, Syrians, Armenians, Slavic tribes. The composition of the empire in terms of diversity was not inferior to the national one. Large landowners - descendants of the Roman slave-owning aristocracy - together with the court nobility, imperial officials and high ranks of the clergy constituted the upper class. The middle and lower classes included ordinary clergy, merchants, a heterogeneous urban population united in a curia, peasants, and rural tenants - colons. Despite the known progress of feudal relations, slave labor continued to be used in some areas of the Byzantine economy.
An important role was played by the army, which consisted of representatives of a wide variety of social groups; The fickle mass of mercenaries, subject to moods, more than once started and carried out coups d'etat. Special social groups were the urban pagan intelligentsia and monasticism. The first gradually died out, the second was in the ascendant stage. Monasticism arose at the end of the 3rd century. based on the ascetic tendencies of that part of Christians who were dissatisfied with the growth of church wealth and the participation of the clergy in secular life. Using the traditions of ancient hermit communities at the temples of Serapis in Egypt, Christian monasticism created two types of its way of life: one (introduced by Anthony) was based on the complete solitude of each person; the other (associated with the name Pachomius) - on life in a community (cenovia) with centralized power, where the strictest implementation of the monastic charter was required.
The life of Byzantine society as a whole was determined by two characteristic features. The first of them is a combination of absolutism with very strong democratic elements. Social life in large cities was centered on racetracks. Horse racing has long been one of the most common spectacles, but they gained particular popularity after the ban on gladiator fights under Christian emperors. By ancient tradition The drivers competing at the hippodromes and their “fans” dressed in clothes of different colors: white, red, green, blue. The origin of this division in Byzantine scientific literature was traced back to the mythical times of Romulus, and the four colors were explained as symbols of the four elements: air, fire, water and earth. Under the name of dimovs (or factions), these parties are also known in the cities of the Byzantine Empire. The “blues” were called Veneti, the “greens” were called Prasins, the “whites” were called Levkas, and the “reds” were called Russians. The social composition of each party was quite diverse. The “blues” and “greens” enjoyed the greatest authority and weight: the former consisted mainly of the clientele of large estates, colons, and peasants, the latter - of artisans, sailors, and merchants. Each party had its own patrons from the nobility.
The activities of the Dims went far beyond disputes and clashes over public games and competitions: by the 5th century. they become a genuine representation of the people, and the hippodrome becomes a place of public meetings, where emperors and nobles not only received greetings, but also met open expressions of discontent, listened to claims and complaints, which often turned into serious unrest among the plebs.
The other side of the social life of the empire is represented by religious polemics, which went far beyond the boundaries of the educated clergy, where its origins were located, and captured the entire Byzantine society. The beginning of disagreements on theoretical questions about the essence of Christianity dates back to the first centuries of the new era. Their emergence was caused by the dangers that threatened the new religion at the very beginning of its spread: excessive enthusiasm for the traditions of Gnosticism threatened to turn it into a secret teaching, accessible only to a select few, and tear it away from the people; Following the Donatists, who preached the omnipotence of God's grace and the prophetic powers hidden in every person, would inevitably lead to a weakening of the authority of the church. The need for a mass religion, accepted by everyone and acceptable to everyone, a need equally inherent in everyone, from the ruling elite to the plebs, dictated the need for a clear formulation of the orthodox line of the Christian worldview.
This line was found at the first Ecumenical (Nicene) Council, in 325, where the creed was approved - a reduction of the main dogmas to a short formula, the acceptance and assimilation of which was mandatory for every Christian.
“We believe in one God the Father, Almighty, Creator of all things visible and invisible,” read the text of the symbol, “and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God from God, Light from Light, Life from Life, the Only Begotten Son and the Holy Spirit” ( Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History, VI, 135). In the Divinity, the unity of three Hypostases (Entities) was recognized, one of which was Christ, incarnated as a man and sent to people to atone for their sins. Thus, to the defenders of the orthodox movement, the nature of Christ seemed consubstantial with the Divine principle. The immediate reason for the convening of the Council of Nicea was the spread of Arianism - the theory of the Alexandrian preacher Arius (d. 336), who argued that the birth of Christ on earth contradicts the concept of consubstantiality. Arius called Christ only like God. This thesis of the Arians imparted anthropomorphic features to the image of Christ. Christ resembled the ancient gods, and this made it easier for many to transition from paganism to Christianity. Arianism was readily accepted by the urban intelligentsia, wealthy townspeople, and soldiers, because its sermons sounded affirmation and approval of worldly life. However, this carried with it the possibility of weakening church authority, which is why violent disputes flared up. The Orthodox party at the Council of Nicea was led by an outstanding church orator and publicist. Arianism was declared heresy. But the controversy with him did not end. In the following decades, Antioch became the center of activity for Arius' disciples and supporters. There arose a movement related to Arianism, led by the Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius (Nestorians), which was rejected by orthodox Christianity at the Council of Ephesus (431).
How deeply the Arian disputes worried the entire society of that time, Gregory of Nyssa tells in one of his sermons: “Everything is full of people who talk about incomprehensible objects - streets, markets, squares, crossroads; if you ask how many obols you need to pay, they philosophize about the born and the unborn; if you want to know about the price of bread, they answer: “The Father is greater than the Son”; If you find out if the bathhouse is ready, they say: “The son came from nothing.”
After the Council of Nicea, the final development of the doctrine of the trinity of the Godhead and the theory of hypostases was carried out by the Cappadocians Basil of Caesarea (“the Great”), Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa. This period of religious controversy is usually called the period of trinitarian disputes.
In the 5th century the main attention of those disputing is no longer directed to the relationship of the Hypostases, but only to the nature of Christ - Trinitarian disputes are transformed into Christological ones. So, in the middle of the 5th century. Monophysitism arises, the first preacher of which was the poorly educated, but popular among the ordinary clergy, Archimandrite Eutyches of Constantinople. The main position of Monophysitism was the complete denial of human nature in Christ and the recognition of only spiritual nature. Monophysite preaching found ardent supporters in Egyptian and Syrian monasteries, where ascetic tendencies excluded the acceptance of Hellenic culture, putting in first place harsh ascetic morality, the fight against secular pleasures, luxury and education. Monophysitism also found supporters among the disenfranchised masses. It became so popular that it prevailed at the so-called Council of Robbers in Ephesus (449). The head of the Orthodox party, Bishop Flavian, was beaten and sent into exile.
Theological disputes worried not only the lower strata of the Byzantine population; they had a significant influence on the policies of the emperors and merged with the struggle in court circles.
In the 5th century The reign of the Theodosian dynasty dates back to the 6th century. - Justinian dynasty. The history of these two centuries is marked by the struggle for territorial and state monolithicity.
During the 5th century. The empire was subjected to raids by the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Huns. However, the strategically advantageous position of Constantinople and the timely conclusion of peace with Persia played their role: all these events affected the center of the empire only to a small extent. A different fate befell the Western capital. Despite repeated attempts by the Byzantine emperors to help Rome, in 476 it was captured by the mixed-tribal troops of Odoacer, which marked the beginning of the formation of medieval states on the Apennine Peninsula. From now on, the Eastern Empire, which turned out to be more viable, acts as the sole guardian of the state and cultural structure of antiquity. The internal history of the Byzantine state at this time represents a continuous chain of court intrigues, coups d'état, riots and uprisings at the bottom. In fact, power remains in the hands of the nobility. History has preserved the names of temporary regents, such as Eutropius, who ruled instead of the weak-willed emperor Arcadius (395–408), Anthimius and Aurelian, who administered the affairs of the empire under Theodosius II Calligrapher, whose main activity was the copying of manuscripts.
The administration of the empire was built on the Roman model and was carried out by a large bureaucratic apparatus with a strict bureaucratic hierarchy. The masterfully developed fiscal system, which was a burden not for the plebs, and the struggle for power at the top caused a series of uprisings of different social nature among the Goths, the semi-wild tribe of the Isaurians, the imperial army, and the Monophysites of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
At this time, the struggle between Christianity and paganism and internal strife among Christians took on acute forms. In 414, the sister of Theodosius II, Pulcheria, became the ruler of the empire, who, according to contemporaries, turned the imperial palace into a monastery.
Pagans were expelled from government service, and the rights of all those who disagreed with the Orthodox Church were limited. Pagan culture was mercilessly destroyed: in 391 the Serapeum temple with a large library was burned, and in 415 Hypatia, a philosopher and mathematician who taught in Alexandria, was killed by a crowd of angry fanatics, monks and townspeople. Nevertheless, imperial power acquires external imposingness. In 450, Marcian was solemnly enthroned during the rite of coronation and confirmation. Secular and church rituals were combined: anointing, borrowed from the Jewish religion, meant the blessing of the church for those ascending the throne. And from that time on, the church became a permanent participant in the royal wedding.
Marcian was the last emperor of the Theodosian dynasty. His death was followed by several decades of brutal struggle for the throne between various factions of the nobility. The empire was ruled either by the military tribune Leo (457–474), chosen by the army, or by the Isaurian Zeno (474–491), by the “born Roman” appointed by the aristocracy, Anastasius (491–518), or by the head of the imperial guard, Justin.
The founder of the new dynasty was Justinian, a Macedonian by birth, the nephew of Justin, under whom he was already a regent - the de facto ruler (518–527). The next twenty-eight years of his autocratic rule constitute the era of the heyday of Byzantine statehood, certain features of which are expressed in the culture of that time. Justinian managed to concentrate secular power in his hands as much as possible and subordinate all religious policy in the state to his influence. He sought, like the Roman emperors, to become the sole ruler of East and West. This determined his foreign policy: Justinian undertook a series of aggressive campaigns in the West, which were generally unsuccessful, but he wasted the main forces of the empire on them. Historiographers of the 6th century, speaking about Justinian, always pay due attention to his wife, the treacherous and cruel Theodora, life path which began with the role of a mimic actress and who until her death provided significant influence on the emperor.
Christianity received a patron of the orthodox direction in the person of the new emperor. Not only paganism was persecuted, but also any deviations from the general line of the church. In 529, the Athenian Academy, the last refuge of pagan culture, was closed.
Justinian's reign is also known for brutal reprisals against the lower classes of the Byzantine population. In 532, one of the largest uprisings of the Constantinople plebs took place, the so-called Nika uprising, which ended in massacres and a massacre at the hippodrome. These features of Justinian's time were combined with the external splendor and splendor of the palace, the brilliant rituals of court festivities, the theatricality of which attracted crowds of townspeople.
Justinian's concerns for the political unity of the state earned him the reputation of a “great legislator” - on his initiative, a universal code of Roman laws was created. The classical Roman law in force in the empire required changes in relation to the absolute imperial power and to dominant Christianity. The large bureaucratic apparatus also needed legal guidance. These tasks were only partially fulfilled in their time by the Code of Theodosius (438), a collection of decrees of Roman and Byzantine emperors since the time of Constantine I.
To edit the new collection, Justinian convened a special commission of 16 lawyers, headed by Trebonian. This is how the Latin “Corpus juris civilis” appeared, consisting of the “Digest” (or “Pandects”) in 50 books containing the works of all Roman lawyers, the “Institutions” in 4 books (a guide to Roman law) and the collection of laws itself - the code. On the one hand, Justinian’s despotism and wastefulness brought the empire to the brink of destruction, although this affected mainly in the 7th–8th centuries, and on the other hand, they caused a well-known rise in culture in its specifically Byzantine forms, which was the result of the previous two-century transition period.
The victory of Christianity left its mark on all sections of Byzantine culture. In science, in architecture, in the fine arts, in literature, in music, the theme of the relationship between earthly life and the afterlife dominates. Art no longer aims to show the greatness and significance of man, as it was in antiquity. The tasks of depicting the insignificance and insignificance of everything worldly, the task of revealing sinful human nature, calls for repentance and spiritual purification in anticipation of eternal bliss after death are brought to the fore.
In external terms, Byzantine culture is a mixture of strong traditions of classical Greek antiquity and Hellenism, Christian ideology and Eastern influences that have invariably operated since the formation of the Hellenistic states. The transfer of the capital from Rome to Byzantium, the need for constant defense against barbarians, on the one hand, and the development of trade, on the other, caused a rise in urban planning. Cities such as Constantinople, Alexandria, Caesarea, Antioch, Beirut, and Gaza were famous for their magnificent architecture. In every city, in addition to libraries, hippodromes, pagan temples - the heritage of ancient times - since the 4th century. Christian church architecture began to develop intensively. The models for early Christian churches were ancient basilicas - public buildings for court and trade, common in classical antiquity. This building, unpretentious in architectural design and neutral in purpose, which did not in any way resemble pagan rites, most satisfied the requirements of supporters of the new religion. The basilica consisted of three galleries separated by columns (naves, from the Latin navis), of which the middle one - a place for worship - ended in a round niche (apse) where the altar was placed. In front of a Christian basilica there was usually a courtyard with a well or a fountain - a symbol of the appeal to everyone entering the temple to wash not only their face and hands, but also their soul. In the early period of Christianity, basilicas were often built over the graves of martyrs. The material was usually obtained from the ruins of ancient buildings, and well-preserved ancient basilicas were used for Christian rites without modification.
In the 5th century Gradually, a new type of building was created, closer to Christianity in spirit. The unity of the divine principle and its correspondence to centralized state power are expressed in monumental forms of architecture: a dome appears above the middle part of the temple. This detail was already known in antiquity; however, the dome was placed directly on a quadrangular base. Such buildings did not have focus and lightness, that takeoff that is the specificity of Christian architecture. The task of connecting the lower part of the building with the dome through various vaults and arches (the so-called sails, or pandatives) was finally resolved by the architects Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Thrall, who in 537 completed the construction of the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople. This building combined the plan of the ancient basilica with the centralizing force of the main dome. The luxurious interior decoration of the temple, the polychrome frescoes and mosaics, the diversity of ornaments, where oriental motifs were also used, reflected both the external splendor of the way of life of the Byzantine elite, and the entire process of the formation of Byzantine painting, which, like architecture, used ancient traditions.
Christian fine art was formed under the influence of two trends: the need to find a secret language due to its semi-legal existence in the 1st–3rd centuries. and the desire to preserve the image forever. The first trend gave rise to a series symbolic images, in most cases borrowed from antiquity. For example, a wreath and a palm tree even in the classical era meant victory, but the image of a palm tree was reduced to victory over earthly temptations and to the victory of resurrection over death. The ship meant the Christian community, the anchor - hope, the dove with an olive branch in its beak - peace, Cupid and Psyche - the immortality of the soul. The character of Christian fresco painting, which begins with the paintings of the catacombs, is close to the art of Pompeian frescoes.
In a number of cases, ordinary details of ancient scenes (winged cupids, dolphins, fishermen, garlands of flowers) were used to depict scenes from the Old Testament. The second trend was reflected in the development of monumental mosaic art, which has become especially widespread since the time of Constantine, when legalized art strives for the external effect of rituals performed in basilicas, baptismal sanctuaries, and churches. The ascetic worldview of the monastic environment left its mark on the art of portraiture, which reflected the traditions of the Fayum masters. But over time, realistic elements in portrait images are replaced by stable techniques of Christian iconography: dry, devoid of dynamism figures, humble poses, elongated faces in dark, yellowish tones.
The art of miniature, a painstaking work that especially flourished in monasteries, gained particular popularity in Byzantium. Many drawings by unknown masters have been preserved in the manuscripts - evidence of the high level of Byzantine painting technique and the inheritance of the best traditions of Hellenistic artists.
The art of sculpture, so high and significant in the Hellenic world, was not of particular importance due to the changed approach to the human personality. Byzantine sculpture exists mainly in the genres of relief on sarcophagi, tombstones and external walls of temples, using basically the same subjects as painting. At the turn of the 5th–6th centuries. a cross appears as a detail on reliefs and frescoes and as an independent image, which for a long time reminded Christians of persecution and therefore they avoided depicting it.
The collision of ancient traditions and the needs dictated by Christianized culture took a unique form in the field of theatrical art of Byzantium. Christian liturgy, having adopted much of the stage design and dramatic techniques of Greek tragedy, gradually (around the 9th century) turned into a monumental dramatic performance, a phenomenon similar to the medieval mysteries of the West. The altar with a three-leaf door resembled the triple door of an ancient skene. During the service, monologue recitations alternated with exclamations and chants of the choir, divided into two semi-choirs. Some musical parts of the liturgy were hymns-dialogues between the soloist and the choir. However, the development of new aesthetic principles and the demand from art for abstraction and contemplation led to a weakening of the dynamics of the dramatic plot.
Episodes from the Gospel, which were usually subject to dramatic alterations, were performed with a deliberate slowdown and, in their static nature, were reminiscent of the early Christian literary genre of “visions”.
There was a special type of theatrical church eloquence: to enliven and illustrate, sermons were interrupted by dialogic scenes or antiphonal singing. The first monument of this genre dates back to the 5th century. This is an encomium (eulogy) to the Virgin Mary, written by the Bishop of Constantinople, Proclus. After a lengthy introduction - a sublimely rhetorical hymn to virginity - there is a lively scene - a dialogue between Mary and Joseph, who suspects his wife of adultery and does not immediately comprehend the divine essence of the events. This is followed by a dialogue between Mary and the Archangel Gabriel, a theme often reproduced in mosaics; in this case, it is this part that has internal slowness. Encomius concludes two monologues. The first of them is pronounced by God: the divine purpose of Mary is revealed and future events are explained. The second monologue is pronounced by the devil, who wants to interfere with the incarnation and action of God's grace.
Such encomia were the main part of large church celebrations, called πανήγυρις, and were performed in persons.
In other cases, church festivities adopted certain details of ancient everyday life. So, for example, the traditional Easter dance was reminiscent of the pyrrhic dance that once arose in Sparta; during the grape harvest back in the 7th century. called on Dionysus. Outside the church sphere, the holidays of Kalends, Neomenia, Dionysius, and others with carnival processions, when participants put on tragic and comic masks, were very popular.
Along with the church theater in Byzantium, there was also a secular stage, on which even in the 6th century. was put Greek tragedy. The main secular repertoire of the Byzantine theater were mimes and pantomimes - the most viable of the genres inherited from antiquity. Pantomimes, combined with acrobatic acts and performances of trained animals, were apparently included in general program games at the racetrack.
The ancient classification of mimes according to their themes indicates two groups: everyday mimes and mythological travesties. The Byzantine stage adopted only the first of them. The content of the mimes was reduced mainly to crude eroticism, and this caused a sharply hostile attitude towards them from those at the head of Christian enlightenment. It is mimes that Basil of Caesarea (IV century) has in mind when he speaks with contempt of “actors”; John Chrysostom condemns secular music, which, in his opinion, only spoils morals, and calls theaters “the buildings of the devil,” and theatrical performances “the marketplace of demons.”
The “Speech in Defense of the Mimes” by the rhetorician Horikius of Gaza (5th–6th centuries) was a response to these constant attacks. Gaza was a brilliant cultural center, where the traditions of Hellenic education were maintained almost until iconoclastic times; there was a famous school of rhetoric, a school of mime actors and a theater of Dionysus, where Khorikiy delivered his speech.
In subsequent centuries, the persecution of mimes by the ruling clergy and the emperor took on more severe forms. However, individual plot details and stage techniques of mimes penetrate into the church, which contributes to the formation of a new specifically Byzantine genre of “Christological” mime, examples of which date back to the 7th–8th centuries. – the period of increasing Christianization of Byzantine culture.
The first centuries of the existence of the Byzantine state were also marked by the struggle between two educational systems - ancient and Christian.
Primary Christian education was given at home or in monasteries; then, to acquire literary and oratorical skills, Christians resorted to the help of pagan, rhetorical and philosophical schools; The highest level of education was theology. Theological schools developed from schools for converts (the so-called catechetical schools), where people of different ages had to learn Christian dogma. By the 4th century. The school in Alexandria, which became famous back in the 1st century, acquired the reputation of being the largest theological school. n. e., - the first theoreticians of Christianity taught there - Clement and Origen. There is an extensive system of theological disciplines here (for example, polemical apologetics, dogmatic theology, exegesis). The main method of Alexandrian exegesis was allegory - searching for mysterious, hidden meaning in the Holy Scriptures.
Somewhat later, at the turn of the 3rd–4th centuries, a theological school arose in Antioch with a different method - a historical, logical and grammatical approach to the Holy Scriptures; the Antiochian theologians looked upon the Old and New Testaments as real history, which required revelation through improved methods of historical exegesis. There were schools of the same type in Edessa and Nizibia. Christian education triumphed as a result of competition with paganism, which lasted five centuries. In the 3rd century. in contrast to Christianity, paganism puts forward a universal philosophical system Neoplatonism, which embraced all currents and shades of ancient idealistic philosophy and touched all areas of life. After the “classical age” of Neoplatonism during the life of its founder Plotinus in the 4th century. The Syrian and Pergamon schools, led by Iamblichus and Aedesius, flourished. These schools are characterized by a tendency towards mysticism, from which in the 1st century. Representatives of the Athenian school, Proclus and Marinus, departed, turning to a logical systematization of their positions. Withstanding repeated attacks and criticism from the Neoplatonists (for example, in the lost works of Proclus), at the same time it borrowed a lot from them.
So, in the IV–V centuries. rhetorical and philosophical pagan education was concentrated in Athens, medicine and philosophy flourished in Alexandria, and the rhetorical schools of Antioch, Caesarea, and Gaza were also famous; Beirut was the center of legal education. Numerous pagan schools existed in Constantinople, Nicaea, and Trebizond. In contrast to the schools of Constantinople, even under Theodosius II, a higher Christian school was opened in the capital (425); in the second half of the 6th century. it was transformed into a school of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, headed by an ecumenical teacher. The time of the final victory of Christian education and Christian ideology is considered to be 529, when the Athenian Academy was closed by Justinian. The dying of pagan culture also affected the state of science in these centuries. Despite the well-known progress of the exact sciences, in particular mechanics, in general science is in decline. Ancient medicine and natural science are being replaced by conspiracies and belief in miracles, legends about which were given in abundance by the monastic and ascetic environment. did not strive for accurate ideas about the universe. The popularization of Christian cosmogonic theories found its expression in the genres of Shestodnev - spiritual sermons on topics about God’s creation of the world. Scientific Christian literature has produced a number of works, similar to the “Christian Topography” of Cosmas Indicopleus (VI century), where familiarity with the achievements of Hellenistic science does not interfere with the construction of a fantastic diagram of the universe that is most consistent with the Christian worldview.
However, in the ancient heritage there was an area unconditionally accepted by the new culture - the Greek language. Remaining the language of literature, it penetrated into all areas of state and cultural life. They studied on it, they conducted theological discussions on it. This determined the most significant feature that distinguishes oriental culture from the Western, namely: its monolingualism. Period IV–VI centuries. was a time of gradual displacement of the Latin language by Greek, which by the 7th century. took a dominant position. Thus, from the once united Roman Empire, two states with different cultures are formed. The reinterpreted word “Romei”, which the Byzantines called themselves, meant precisely this ethnic and spiritual isolation, which was reflected even in the nature of the victorious ideology: the Christianity of the East, appealing to human feelings, was alien to the rationalism and voluntaristic tendencies of the West.
II
In the IV–VI centuries. on the territory of the eastern part of the Roman Empire there were five main cultural centers: Athens with its famous Platonic Academy, Constantinople, Asia Minor Cappadocia (Caesarea, Nysa, Nazians), Syria (Antioch, Gaza), Egypt (Alexandria, Panopolis). The main trends in the spiritual life of that time are clearly manifested in the cultural, educational and creative activities of the representatives of these centers.
Thus, Athens turns out to be the main repository and stronghold of ancient Hellenic culture and education. In the 4th century. the famous pagan rhetoricians Himerius and Proeresius teach there; Future famous figures of the Christian Church studied with them - Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus. In the 5th century Athenaida, the future wife of Emperor Theodosius II, studies with her father Leontius, a teacher of philosophy and rhetoric. At this time, the Athenian Academy was headed by one of the last luminaries of paganism. philosophical thought- Neoplatonist Procl. But by the 6th century, especially after Justinian closed the Athenian Academy, the ancient center of paganism lost its leading role in the cultural education of the era. The main threads of the country's spiritual life now stretch to Constantinople: in the 6th century. he receives such prominent poets as Roman the Sweet Singer, who arrived from Syria, Agathius from the Asia Minor city of Myrina, Paul Silentiary, historiographers Procopius from Caesarea, Menander Protiktor and others.
If Athens IV–V centuries. were the main focus of the pagan culture that was receding into the past, then at the same time a new ideology, a new culture crystallized in the works of representatives of the so-called Cappadocian circle in the works of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa. However, this philosophical literature, new in content, does not break with ancient traditions, but, on the contrary, assimilates them and continues them in its own way. For example, in the theological works of the Cappadocians, the main provisions of orthodox Christianity are substantiated by means of Neoplatonic dialectics. The poems of Gregory Nazianzus reveal the author's deepest attachment to the traditions of ancient poetry. The application of the rules of ancient versification to the Greek language, which changed the phonetic nature, is carried out by the poet Nonnus from Panopolis.
Connection new culture from the old days it is also noticeable in the activities of representatives of the Alexandrian and Antiochian schools - in Athanasius of Alexandria and John Chrysostom.
The literary heritage of authors of the 5th–6th centuries, educated at the Gaz school, is very indicative of the era of the transition period from antiquity to the Middle Ages. It clearly distinguishes three types of works: 1) purely Christian in spirit (exegetical works of Procopius, hagiography of Theodore); 2) purely pagan (the poetry of John); 3) Christian works that borrowed form from pagan poetry. This is explained by the fact that in Gaza, like in no other center of Hellenic culture, pagan beliefs were preserved for an unusually long time and firmly. It is no coincidence that Jerome, whose conscious life spanned the second half of the 4th century and the first two decades of the 5th century, called Gaza a city of pagans (“Life of Hilarion”, Chapter 14). Some philosophers, pupils of this school, even tried to bring them closer to the teachings of Plato (dialogues of Aeneas), and the poets of the Gaz school, the only ones in the entire Greco-Roman society of that time, created direct imitations of ancient pagan poets: Anacreon was imitated by John (5th century), tragedians – Timothy (end of the 5th – beginning of the 6th century). Christian rhetoricians and sophists tried to build on the ruins of paganism a culture that was new in content but old in form. In the Gaz school of this time, the same genres that were successfully developed in the pagan schools of rhetoricians and sophists flourish. Thus, one of Horikias’s recitations is devoted to the question of what words Aphrodite would utter if she went in search of Adonis. Even when creating works of a Christian direction, the rhetoricians of the Gaz school filled them with comparisons with the heroes of ancient Greek mythology and with historical figures of pagan times (“Encomius Procopius” by Horikia).
The process of the initial assimilation by Christian literature of the forms and methods of genre and verbal expression developed by pagan literature, and the gradual break with it, is especially clear in Christian poetry of the 4th–6th centuries. It is precisely this feature - following the patterns of pagan literature or deviating from them - that divides Christian poetry of the 4th–6th centuries. on traditional and new poetry. In traditional poetry, not only the genres themselves, borrowed from pagan literature, remain unchanged (hymn, epigram, epitaph, didactic poem, gnomes, poem, ekphrasis), but also the same metric principles of versification, although the Greek language has ceased to feel the difference between long and short syllables. in all his 408 poems he strictly adheres to the principle of metrical versification. The genres of his poems are varied: epigrams, friendly or angry (“On Maxim”, “On those who love wealth”, “On hypocritical monks”), short, apt gnomes (sayings) originating from Homer and Hesiod, long poems (“On your life”, “The dispute between spiritual life and worldly life”, “From Nicobulus the father to the son”), hymns (for example, “Hymn to Christ”). However, Gregory’s poetic work is characterized by a new worldview, which powerfully breaks through the old traditional form. It is expressed primarily in the combination of two components: an extremely personal feeling with a universal human feeling. Thus, the basic principle of genuine lyric poetry is realized, on which the ancient Greek lyric poetry of its heyday grew (the early work of Ibycus, Solon, Pindar); in the era of Hellenism and the “Silver Age” of Roman literature, this principle was violated by the loss of the second component.
Grigory knew how to speak about his own, personal matters in such a way that his words acquired a public resonance: they were full of universal significance. That is why the lines of his two “Complaints” (382 and after 383) sound so heartfelt, expressing the full power of human suffering, and the angry invective against his personal enemy Maximus grows into a general political satire on secular and spiritual society, in which “the victorious Ignorance barely opens its mouth, it takes over with insolence alone,” and valor and abilities are erased.
In the V-VI centuries. In Christian poetry, the genre of ekphrasis (description), which came from ancient rhetoric, was popular. Such poets of the 6th century paid tribute to him as Christodore of Coptic, who described 88 statues of gods, heroes, poets, philosophers and statesmen of Greece and Rome, Julian of Egypt in the epigrams “On the copper statue of Icarus”, “On the “cow” of Myron”, Leontius Scholastic (“On the statue of a dancer”), Agathius of Myrinea (“On the statue of Plutarch”, “On the image of the Archangel Michael”) and, finally, Paul the Silentiary (“Illumination of the dome of Hagia Sophia”). Of these poems, the last two deserve special attention. Agathia's ekphrasis is remarkable because in poetic form, it very briefly and clearly expresses a completely new, medieval understanding of the main task of art: it should help a person to be transported to another, more sublime world, that is, to serve religion.
To the invisible angeliarch, spirit devoid of flesh,
The wax-embodier dared to give a physical form.
And the image is not without charm; contemplating it, is able
Mortal for the thoughts of the saints it is better to tune your mind.
His feeling is no longer pointless; taking on the image
The heart trembles before him, as if before the face of a deity.
The sight excites the soul to the core. This is what art can do
Express with colors what arises in the mind.
The ekphrasis of Paul the Silentiary, written in hexameter, testifies to a new quality that developed by the 6th century. in this ancient genre ancient literature: a poem of almost a thousand verses turns into a poem with a propaganda goal, where the author connects the religious feelings awakened by the splendor of the new temple with the main goals of the political life of the Byzantine state. The temple turns here, as it were, into the personification of a new powerful empire: night lighting in the temple not only helps the soul of the person in it to join the divine principle - it turns the temple into a saving beacon, to which sailors sailing in the Black and Aegean seas look with hope. In other words, the cathedral is a symbol of hope and salvation for the barbarians approaching Constantinople; salvation can come to them only from the Byzantine state.
Examples of expressing new content in the old form could be multiplied. Particularly interesting are the attempts of some poets to convey gospel stories using epic hexameter. This is the poetic treatment of the Gospel stories by Gregory of Nazianzus, Anastasius the tongue-tied, and Patriarch Sophronius, given among the Byzantine epigrams in the Palatine Anthology. The translation of the biblical traditions of the Old and New Testaments into hexameters is carried out by the Empress Eudokia, in paganism Athenaidas (5th century). She decided to use the hexameter size in the hagiographic poem “About Saint Cyprian”, which in some ways resembles the later legend of Faust. Although the text of the poem has not been fully preserved, it still gives an idea of the image of Cyprian, a former magician, defeated by the power of moral purity and firmness of the Christian girl Justina. The verbal fabric of the poem, although to an insignificant extent, still conveys the changes that have occurred in the language; They are evidenced by the grammatical and phraseological deviations from classical norms that sometimes occur in the poem, the mixing of long and short syllables.
Athenaida's contemporary Nonnus, setting out the Gospel of John in hexameters, already strives to take into account new language norms. The author constructs the verse in such a way that the musical stress in it coincides with the expiratory stress of colloquial speech. Thus, a gradual transition begins from the metric principle of versification to the tonic one. Such attempts were made back in the 4th century: among the meager fragments of the famous heresiarch Arius, two poetic fragments were preserved; from them one can judge that the poems were intended for singing and in many ways deviated from the norms of ancient metrics; one can even assume the presence of rhyme in them. This is what the passage sounds like in an approximate Russian translation:
Wasn't always the Father
But there was time
When I was alone
And he was not yet a Father.
The Son was not always there,
And the time was
When he wasn't there.
Over time, such attempts to break with the norms of ancient metrics apparently became more frequent, since we see a complete break with them already in the 6th century. in the works of the wonderful poet Roman Sladkopevets. His name is associated with the emergence of new poetry in Byzantine literature - new both in content and in form, and in genre and metrical characteristics. Roman Sladkopevets is the author of more than a thousand church chants, which give the right to call him a true reformer of Byzantine versification: he was the first of the Christian poets to write according to the tonic principle and thereby brought church chants closer to the living. spoken language, made them understandable and close to all his contemporaries. Roman Sladkopevets is the creator of two new poetic genres, which he called kontakion and ikos. Kontakion (from the Greek word κοντάκιον - small scroll) is a liturgical poem dedicated to the description of any church holiday or episode from the life of both the legendary heroes of the Old Testament and Christian saints. Ikos (from the Greek word οίκος - house) - detailed explanation, often with a moralizing purpose, accompanying the kontakion. Thus, the kontakion and the ikos form a single whole: the kontakion (always one) precedes the ikos, the number of which ranges from eleven to twenty-eight. The impression of unity is achieved by repeating the final words of the kontakion at the end of each ikos. This combination of kontakion with ikos gave a highly flexible poetic form that opened up great possibilities for the expression of emotions. Roman's chants are often full of drama, and this drama sometimes unfolds on a psychological level (“On Betrayal by Judas,” “Joseph and the Egyptian,” “The Wise and Foolish Virgins”). Tonic meters added variety to the external, musical side of poetic speech. The tone of Roman’s chants is simple and majestic, strict and gentle, solemn and soulfully lyrical. For this constant depth of feeling and beauty of style, Roman was called the Sweet Singer.
Byzantine prose was formed under the influence of the need to defend and substantiate the main provisions of orthodox Christianity in disputes with pagans and heretics. This gave rise to such genres as polemical philosophical and theological speeches, exegesis (interpretation), and homilies (sermons). The strengthening of the role of the church in the political and spiritual life of the empire affected the development of eloquence, which is now becoming the property of the church (comforting speeches, epitaphs, panegyrics to saints). A specifically medieval genre of hagiography also emerged. Historiography and epistolary prose remain less susceptible to clerical ideology.
The genre of polemical speeches is represented in the works of Christian writers of the 4th century. Gregory of Nazianzus, Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Ephraim the Syrian. The polemics are conducted by these authors in two directions: against pagans and against heretics. Its method in both cases is extremely different. Pagans, as a rule, are denounced by Christian writers without providing them with a word of justification or defense: such, for example, are the speeches of Gregory of Nazianzus against Emperor Julian in the form of an invective.
In anti-heretical works, the views of the enemy receive more or less spatial expression; This is facilitated by the form of diatribe (conversation, conversation). These are the five speeches of Gregory of Nazianzus in defense of Nicene Orthodoxy against the Arians. The Alexandrian Bishop Athanasius, the main opponent of the Arian doctrine, devotes more than half of his writings to the defense of Orthodox teaching. His polemical speeches, written mainly in the form of a diatribe, are sometimes developed in philosophical terms. For example, “Speech on the incarnation of God the Word and his coming to us in the flesh” begins with cosmogonic excursions. Athanasius briefly outlines various pagan theories, accompanying them with his own assessment; The tone in these judgments is calm and impartial; Athanasius avoids quoting the writings of pagans: “Many explained the creation of the world and the creation of the universe in different ways, and each one came up with the same concept about it that he wanted. Some said that everything happened naturally and by accident. Such are the Epicureans... Others, and among them the great Plato of the Hellenes, argued that God created the universe from ready and uncreated matter” (“Speech about the incarnation of God the Word and his coming to us in the flesh,” § 2).
However, when presenting the views of the Arians, Athanasius’s method of polemic changes: he often and abundantly quotes his ideological enemies, contrasting his beliefs with them.
In the same way, Basil of Caesarea quotes at great length from his opponent and compatriot Eunomius, a student of the Arian Aetius. His five books “Against Eunomius” are structured in this way: the author cites one after another more or less lengthy sayings of Eunomius and after that develops his refutation. On the contrary, his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa in “The Twelve Books of Refutations of Eunomius” resorts to quotations extremely rarely, trying in most cases to convey the meaning of the disputed provisions in his own words. In this regard, Gregory sets out his own views in detail. This is predetermined by the history of the emergence of the Arian teaching, where the curious characteristics of the “father of heresy” are Arius, his student Aetius, who surpassed his teacher with “new inventions,” and, finally, Eunomius himself, “the true competitor of Aetius.” The language of the theological works of Gregory of Nyssa is quite complex and difficult to understand.
The presentation of the same issues by John Chrysostom, on the contrary, is easy and accessible thanks to vivid and figurative comparisons, the absence of excessive rhetoric and simple syntax: “There is nothing strange or unexpected in the fact that madmen laugh at great things. Such people cannot be convinced by human wisdom; and if you begin to convince them in this way, you will achieve the opposite; for that which is above reason, faith alone is needed. In fact, if we, through the judgments of reason, want to explain to the pagans how God became man by moving into the womb of a virgin, and do not recognize this as an object of faith, they will only laugh. And those who want to comprehend this are defeated” (“Fourth Discourse on the First Epistle to the Corinthians,” § 1).
Equally clear are the arguments on these topics by a contemporary of the Cappadocians, the Syrian preacher Ephraim the Syrian, whose works were translated into Greek during his lifetime. He knows how to find his own, unique means of expressing thoughts. Noteworthy, for example, is the comparison of the incarnation of Christ into man with the formation of pearls in shells: “... I will give an example that will help me explain nature... Pearl is a stone formed from the flesh, for it is obtained from shells. And therefore, who will not believe that God is born from the body as a man? Pearls are obtained not from the communication of shells, but from the collision of lightning and water. So Christ was conceived by a virgin without carnal pleasure” (“Word on Heretics”).
In another essay, Ephraim the Syrian is indignant at anyone who dares to explore the nature of Christ, “the universal savior, or Physician,” since it is incomprehensible. Ephraim fills his essay “Against Investigators of the Nature of the Son of God” with admonitions not to deal with such issues. This work begins with a kind of solemn hymn to Christ: “The heavenly king, the immortal ruler, the only begotten son, beloved of the father, who, by the sole goodness of his power, created man from the earth, conquered by the bounty of his divine essence, for the sake of that very man whom his most pure hands created, came down from heaven to save and heal all those who suffer. For through the action of the evil one, everyone became weak in evil: the illness became serious and incurable; neither the prophets nor the priests were able to completely heal the ulcers. Therefore, the holy, only-begotten son, seeing that all things were weakened by evil, by the will of his father came down from heaven and was incarnated in the womb of the holy virgin, and by his good pleasure, having been born of her, came to heal with grace and generosity those possessed by various infirmities and with his word heal all diseases. He delivered everyone from the stench of their own ulcers. But the sick, having been healed, instead of giving thanks to the Doctor for the healing, began to investigate the essence of the Doctor, which is incomprehensible ... "
The next genre, widespread in Christian prose of the 4th–6th centuries, is the genre of exegesis; All prominent Christian writers paid tribute to him. This genre also has its roots in the area of pagan literature, in which the interpretation of the works of Homer, Pindar, Plato, Aristotle and other famous authors of antiquity had a long and continuous tradition.
The Christian exegesis of the Alexandrian school with its allegorical method is represented for us primarily by the works of Athanasius: “Interpretation of the Psalms”, “From Discourses on the Gospel of Matthew”, “From the Interpretation of the Gospel of Luke”, etc. The method of interpretation of Athanasius is extremely complex not only because , that he strives to see an allegory in almost every word of Holy Scripture, but also because he expresses his thoughts in dark language, with deliberate sublimity, resorting to complex syntactic structures.
Gregory of Nyssa also belongs to the same school; having experienced the enormous influence of Neoplatonism, with his penchant for contemplative and philosophical reflections, Gregory gravitates towards abstract theological discussions about the nature of man, about the order of the universe. So, for example, in “Commentaries on the Inscriptions of Psalms,” he moves from discussions about the meaning of music to cosmogonic and theological questions of the universe. His interpretations are eclectic: they contain the thoughts of the Pythagoreans, Stoics, Peripatetics, Neoplatonists, and this is very indicative of a thinker of the transitional era from antiquity to the Middle Ages.
Exegesis is more rationalistic in the works of representatives of the historical and grammatical Antiochian school - primarily Basil of Caesarea and John Chrysostom; Thus, in the first conversation on the psalms, Vasily touches on approximately the same topic as his younger brother Gregory, but this topic is no longer developed in a sublime philosophical plane, but in a real-ethical plane with a strong didactic bias. When explaining the content of the psalms, Vasily very often uses comparisons taken from real, everyday life - from the field of house building, shipbuilding, or from the life of farmers, merchants, and wanderers. Such comparisons made Vasily’s exegesis extremely popular, accessible to people of any social status.
Also in his explanations of the texts of the Old Testament, Basil is more “realistic”, simpler and more accessible than Gregory of Nyssa. His “Conversations on the Six Days” (a series of sermons about God’s creation of the world over six days) are detailed answers to clearly posed questions, where the presentation is accompanied by witty comparisons and antitheses. Sometimes, to be convincing, Vasily resorts to the method of proof by contradiction.
Finally, in the works of John Chrysostom, who also belonged to the Antiochian school, exegesis takes on its classical form, the signs of which are the extraordinary simplicity of presentation, clarity of thought and brevity in the way of its expression. At the same time, John did not at all avoid complex theological topics. He willingly accompanied his presentation and proof of the propositions put forward with examples from pagan literature, which he contrasted with examples from the life of Christians. At the same time, John always foresaw the possibility of objections from opponents - pagans or Christian heretics. Often he proceeds precisely from such objections. For example, in the “Fourth Discourse on the First Epistle to the Corinthians” about the execution of Christ, John writes: “If I say: Christ was crucified, then the pagans will object: how is this consistent with reason? He did not deliver himself when they crucified and tortured him on the cross; How then did he rise again and deliver others? If he had such power, he should have shown it before he died (this is what the Jews actually said); if he did not deliver himself, how could he deliver others? The pagan will say that this does not agree with reason. And it’s true, it’s beyond reason; indescribable power appeared in the cross. To be tormented and to be above torment, to be bound and to conquer—this requires boundless strength” (§ 1).
Often John turns to the listener, posing the question for him: “But, you say, even among the pagans many despised death. Who, tell me? Is it the one who drank the poison from the hemlock? But I can imagine, if you like, whole thousands like him in our church; If during persecution it was allowed to die by taking poison, then all those persecuted would turn out to be more glorious than him. Moreover, he drank poison without having the power to drink or not drink; whether he wanted it or not, he had to undergo it, and, therefore, it was not a matter of courage, but of necessity; and robbers and murderers, according to the sentence of the judges, suffered even greater suffering” (§ 4). This lively form of explanation, which turned into a conversation with those to whom John addressed, brought his exegesis closer to the genre of preaching (homily), which also received brilliant development in his work. The fame of his eloquence over time reaches the new capital - Constantinople, where he is invited to take the bishop's chair. The charm of John’s eloquence lay in the simple, relaxed form of his conversations, in apt images and comparisons, in large quantities witticisms and sayings, which brought his speech closer to living folk speech. But John’s enormous popularity as a rhetorician was ensured not by these external techniques of oratory, which can also be found among pagan rhetoricians of that time, but by the content that he put into this form. John spoke about human suffering and needs, denounced vices, ambition, greed, envy, drunkenness, debauchery, anger (“Two speeches to a young widow”, “Three speeches to the ascetic Stagirios”). At the same time, John did not distinguish between emperor and slave, layman and monk, rich and poor, for which he acquired numerous enemies, starting from Emperor Arcadius and his wife Eudoxia, who twice sent him into exile, and ending with the rich people of Antioch, who attempted to assassinate him. life.
Another genre of ancient Greek eloquence - the genre of laudatory speech - from the 4th century. is also becoming very common in Christian literature. In their genre characteristics it does not undergo any significant changes compared to later examples of pagan rhetoric - the works of Themistius, Himeria, Libanius. Christian panegyrics are characterized by the sincerity of human feeling - this is noticeable in the consoling speeches of Gregory of Nyssa and Basil of Caesarea, in speeches glorifying Christian holidays, and in the consoling and funeral speeches of Gregory of Nazianzus. Particularly remarkable in emotional terms is the “Funeral Oration for Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia” - the swan song of Gregory of Nazianzus. The speaker talks simply, but with great and touching love, about his close friend from his youth. This panegyric is enlivened by Gregory's memories of the years spent with Basil in Athens, of the atmosphere that surrounded Christians living in a city pagan in spirit. Gregory subtly and skillfully recreates the images of the people around them, details of everyday life and, most importantly, some features of the spiritual life of that time, for example, the strong passion of the Athenian youth for rhetorical education.
The biographies of famous people constitute an independent, intensively developing genre in Byzantine literature, which also has its roots in pagan literature. Over time, this genre became one of the leading in Byzantine literature, and hagiographic literature became one of the types of “mass” reading. The main reasons for this are, firstly, that works of the hagiographic genre, telling in a simple form, sometimes equipped with entertaining stories, about the pious life of a saint, were very convenient for disseminating a new ideology in wide public circles; secondly, in the fact that growing from the very beginning of the 4th century. the passion for asceticism found fertile soil in hagiographic literature, the hero of which becomes an ascetic hermit. Starting from the 4th century. this genre is developing extremely intensively, accepting various shapes and by the 7th–8th centuries. results in distinctly different directions of hagiographic literature.
The forms of narration in this genre were different even over the course of one century, which was determined by the goals pursued by one or another hagiographer. Thus, Athanasius of Alexandria, wanting to teach the monks the ideal of an ascetic hermit, compiles, from his own impressions and from the stories of people who knew the first guide of monastic communities, Anthony of Egypt, his life in a form close to the biographical encomium, and at the same time not alien to Christian preaching.
Palladius, a younger contemporary of Athanasius, originally from Asia Minor, devotes his work to the life of not one, but many hermits. At the end of the 80s of the 4th century. he settles for a whole decade in the Egyptian desert, observes the life of the monks there, the result of which is the “Lavsian History” (“Lavsaik”), written by him at the end of his life, a work surprising in its spontaneity, extremely entertaining presentation of even the most ordinary facts from the life of hermits , a work whose intonation is close to Byzantine folklore. Palladius's book helped familiarize Christians with the lifestyle and characters of the Egyptian ascetics.
The same goal is pursued by Palladius, who was born twenty-three years later in Euphrates Syria. He tells about the life of thirty ascetics of the Euphrates land, devoting to each of them a separate chapter of the work, which bears a double title - “The Tale of Those Who Love God, or About Ascetics.” The author writes mainly about his contemporaries, whom he knew personally, or, in extreme cases, about persons who lived a little earlier before him, but were known to him from eyewitness accounts; his narration, like Palladius’ narration, is distinguished by the concreteness of his observations, the persuasiveness of the story, and the liveliness in the conveyance of what he saw. Theodorit lacks a sense of good-natured humor in relation to the events he describes, which is Palladius’s individual trait, and therefore Theodorit’s narrative is somewhat drier and more monotonous. But nevertheless, it also captivates with some measured flow of a leisurely story, in which, again, thanks to the great specificity, one might even say - the realism of the descriptions, not only the very images of the people of that time, but also the most characteristic details of their everyday life stand before us as if alive. Such attention to the smallest details of everyday life, the desire to accurately recreate the atmosphere in which the hermits lived, should be considered positive quality new literature: it is very important that such a method serves as one of the means of characterizing a person.
In later times, the methods of biography became more and more monotonous and eventually led to a stencil composition, epithets, metaphors, and a stencil image of the person being described, which is completely absent in the first hagiographic works, as evidenced, for example, by the life of Anthony of Egypt. In the composition of this life, what primarily attracts attention is the complex form, which allows the author to use a variety of means to express his thoughts.
The entire life is a message from Athanasius “to the monks who are in foreign countries,” and this message itself consists not only of the author’s narrative, but also of Anthony’s direct speeches and messages (one speech is a lesson to the monks about devilish obsessions - chapter 16– 43, the other is Anthony’s answer to the pagan philosophers - ch. 74–80, etc.). In Palladius and Theodoret, the composition of their lives is incomparably simpler; they do not tell about the whole life of the hermit, but only about one, in best case scenario- several episodes from his life. These authors use only two narration techniques: the first is a story on behalf of the author, sometimes on behalf of another person, usually an eyewitness, and the second is the direct speech of the hermit himself. In depicting the main character, hagiographers have not yet resorted to constant traditional epithets, which sometimes bore the stamp of deliberate glorification; their story is always spontaneous and original, bright and expressive.
Only in the VI century. The hagiographic genre loses its spontaneity and originality, acquiring stereotyped features. This can be seen in the examples of lives compiled by the famous hagiographer of the 6th century. Cyril of Scythopolis (who lived in the Galilean city of Scythopolis). We know five of his lives: Euthymius, Sava, John the Silent, Cyriacus and Theognius. In all these biographies, the scheme of the hagiographic genre is clearly visible, which has become traditional since that time. First, praise is given to the saint in a general form, such as: “Theognius, the all-glorified, the great beauty of all Palestine, the brightest lamp of the desert and the clearest luminary of the bishopric.” Next, it tells about the place of birth of the saint, his parents (as a rule, these are the most pious Christians), how he becomes a monk, then moves further along the steps of the clergy or retires to the desert and founds a monk there. The presentation is very simple, there are almost no stylistic embellishments. This calm narrative tone of the story about the pious labors of the ascetic is disrupted by individual episodes from his life, which give the story some entertainment; as a rule, these are stories about miracles performed by saints (for example, about the taming of the raging sea by Theognius or how a lion repelled the onslaught of Saracen barbarians, how a lion ran away from wanderers through the prayer of John, etc.).
In the VI century. examples of life stories that are more sophisticated in language and style with a large number of stylistic decorations are being created, some of which acquire the character of a stamp (the epithets “light”, “luminary”, “honest pearl”, “beauty”, etc.). This is clear from the biography of the same Theognius, compiled at the beginning of the 6th century. Paul of Greece. His desire for complex ornate descriptions is constantly felt: “Thus the king of glory, Christ, commanded his disciples. Therefore, they zealously accepted the divine commandment, abundantly illuminated the entire sunflower with the lightning of their miracles, and flawlessly fulfilled the ministry entrusted to them, and their precious bodies, those God-created instruments, which the ancient law called “rams' skins scarlet,” leaving on earth, as they once left that same fiery prophet Elijah, their flesh on earth, went with joy to the creator of all works and boldly appeared before the royal throne not made by hands.”
Thus, we see that in terms of forms of expression of thought, the hagiographic genre is experiencing a descending evolution. This could not but affect the content of the works themselves. If from the life of Anthony we learn about the social origin of the hero (chapter 1) and about the historical events of that time - about the persecution of Christians under Maximin (chapters 46–47), about the hostile actions of the Arians and pagans (chapter 82), then nothing We will not find anything like this in subsequent authors. They are occupied only by the deeds of the ascetic, the miracles and feats he performed; at best, these will be brief references to external events only insofar as they relate to the hermit, for example, Cyril’s message about the Saracen invasion of the monastery where John the Silent lived (chapter 13). If the life of Anthony is polemically sharpened, because it clearly expresses an anti-pagan and anti-heretical orientation, then in the works of subsequent hagiographers it is either absent or, again, barely perceptible. Athanasius allows direct denunciations of the Meletians, Manichaeans (chap. 68), Arians (chap. 68, 69); his reasoning about the advantages of the Christian faith over pagan “proofs from reason” is directed not only against the pagans, but in its hidden side also against the Arians (chap. 73, 77, 80). We will not find anything similar in the hagiography of at least the same Cyril of Scythopolis. If the lives of Palladius somehow reflected the life of that time, mainly in its moral manifestations, then again we will look in vain for the same thing in Cyril or in the even later hagiographer Ignatius. In fact, Palladius’s “Lavsaik” is not only the ascetic life of hermits, but also the very simple life of ordinary people with their vices and passions: this is the story of a money-loving maiden (chapter 6), of the slave Potamiena, pursued by her dissolute master ( Ch. 3), this is the story of one rich Egyptian who fell madly in love with married woman of free origin (chap. 19, 20 about Macarius of Egypt). Often in Palladius we come across special transformation stories that apparently existed in the folklore of the peoples of the East - for example, an episode with an Egyptian who could not seduce his intended victim and turned to the help of a magician who turned this woman into a mare; Macarius of Egypt returns her to her former human appearance by sprinkling her with holy water.
Theodoret's "Tale of Those Who Love God" also tells us interesting information about local customs and morals of the Syrians of that time. On the contrary, from the lives of Cyril we learn only what concerned a narrow circle of people who stood primarily at the highest levels of the church hierarchy.
The next two rather productive genres of Christian literature of the 4th–6th centuries, also rooted in pagan literature, stand, as already indicated, apart from the philosophical and theological direction. These are epistolary and historiographic genres. From a formal point of view, Christian epistolography does not undergo any significant changes: it retains the same formulas for addressing the addressee that were in the epistolary work of the pagans, the same formulas for the final lines of the message. Some rules of epistolary art taught by Gregory of Nazianzus in letter 51 to his son-in-law Nicobulus are interesting: they relate to three main features, the observance of which, in the author’s opinion, will help to compose a letter that is impeccable in terms of style and content. The first sign is size, the second is clarity of speech, the third is the pleasantness of the syllable. Gregory’s reasoning is as follows: “Some of the epistolographers write longer than they should, others write too briefly; both the first and the second sin against the measure, like archers... The measure of writing is necessity: there is no need to write long if there are not many objects, and briefly if there are many... In order to maintain the measure, one should avoid immoderation in both cases. Here's what I know about brevity.
Regarding clarity, it is known that one should, as far as possible, avoid the bookish style, but lean more towards the colloquial one. In short, such writing is the best and most beautiful, which convinces both the uneducated and the educated; the first because it was compiled in accordance with the concepts of ordinary people, the second because it is above such concepts... After all, both a solved riddle and a letter to be explained are equally inappropriate.
Thirdly, the letter should be pleasant. We will achieve this if we write it not in a completely dry, unpleasant or inelegant way, ugly, as they say, without decoration; that is, if we write it, introducing gnomes, proverbs, sayings, as well as jokes and riddles, thanks to which the speech becomes more pleasant; but they should not be used excessively, for the first is rude, and the second is pompous. They should be used to the same extent as red threads are used in fabrics. We allow trails, but in small numbers and in decent ways. We leave antitheses, parallelisms and isocolonies to the sophists; if we use them anywhere, we will do it more as if in jest than seriously. Above all, one should strive for moderate beauty in writing, so that it seems more natural.”
Of course, the letters are now filled with new content: they reflect new ideas, views, beliefs, new life phenomena. Thus, some letters of the same Gregory of Nazianzus (243 of them have survived) contain Christian instructions and advice; others, written during the period of polemics with the heretic Apollinaris, are of dogmatic interest (letters to the presbyter Kledonius, Patriarch Nektarios). The correspondence of Basil the Great and John Chrysostom covers a very wide circle of people, Christians and pagans. Their messages perfectly convey the author’s worldview: for example, the subtle poetic nature of Basil of Caesarea, who knew how to perfectly feel and convey the beauty of nature (letter 14 to Gregory of Nazianzus); or the strong willpower and good spirits of the elderly John Chrysostom, traveling under the scorching sun on the road of exile to a foreign land (letters 6 and 9 to Olympias).
More than 150 letters of the most diverse content have been preserved from the epistolary work of Synesius; among them there are intimate ones (letters from Hypatia, from whom Sinesius studied philosophy, to his brother Evoptius, friend Olympius), as well as full of tension and severity (telling about disasters in Pentapolis, where Sinesius lived in recent years - letter 69 to Bishop Theophilus, 89, 107 brother). From the point of view of external decoration, many of Sinesius’s letters are marked by extraordinary grace, sometimes combined with a witty play of thought and feeling. Letter 1 to Nikandr is especially remarkable: “My books are my children,” this is how he begins this letter.
The epistolary work of the representative of the Gaz school of the sophist Aeneas (25 letters have survived) testifies to the enormous power of ancient traditions that dominated the mind of a Christian educated in a pagan rhetorical school: almost every letter of Aeneas is filled with a large number of names and images taken from ancient Greek literature or history (for example, letter II Cassus, XV presbyter Stephen, XXI presbyter Dorotheus, XXIII sophist Epiphanius). In terms of volume, general style and composition, these letters have much in common with the fictitious fictional letters of the famous figures of the second sophistry Alkiphron and Aelian.
Like the epistolary genre, which, as we have seen, did not undergo significant changes in the formal techniques developed by the ancient tradition, the genre of historiography is also basically free from innovations. Although the works of Byzantine historiographers differ in the scale of the narration, in the quality of the psychological characteristics of the historical figures depicted, in the criteria in the selection of facts, not to mention the individual awareness and talent of the author, the technique of historical narration and its tasks remain the same as they were in historiography antique.
The historiographic genre first received its most significant expression in Christian literature in the 6th century, developing mainly in two directions: world chronicle and history in the proper sense of the word. The world chronicles were compiled in most cases by monks; in chronological order they described events “from the creation of the world” until approximately the time of which they were eyewitnesses. As a rule, the authors sought only to simply list important, from their point of view, events, sometimes even of a legendary nature. From chronographs of the 6th century. the most famous are Hesychius of Miletus, John of Antioch and John of Malala. Malala is the most significant author among those who wrote in the world chronicle genre. His “Chronicle” enjoyed great success among his contemporaries and had a significant influence on subsequent chroniclers, serving them as a wonderful model for works of this kind; it was translated into Old Russian. The popularity of Malala's work was mainly due to its simple and artless style, reminiscent of folk tales.
Authors working in the field of historiography proper described chronological periods that were not as large as chronographs. For the most part, this was contemporary history or a period close to it. They most often took the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Polybius as examples of historical narration. This is reflected in the desire for a wide coverage of events, in a clearly expressed free manner of narration, in the use of mythological images, in the composition of direct speeches of some characters. Among the representatives of historiography of the 6th century. the most interesting are Procopius of Caesarea, the author of “The History of Justinian’s Wars with the Persians, Vandals and Goths” and “The Secret History”, Agathius of Myrinea, the author of the work “On the Reign of Justinian” and his successor Menander the Protector. The focus of all these authors is on Justinian’s wars, but their assessments are different: the assessment of Procopius in his “Secret History,” published probably after Justinian’s death, is the assessment of an oppositionist in relation to the emperor; it is extremely opposed to the spirit and direction of the historical works of Agathias and Menander. A distinctive feature of the works of Procopius and Agathias is their versatility: it allows the authors to cover many events in the socio-economic and spiritual life of people of that time, to provide important information of an ethnographic and geographical nature; at the same time, these authors manage to give lively portraits and characteristic sketches of some remarkable persons (for example, the energetic, prudent commander Belisarius in military actions in “The History of Justinian’s Wars with the Persians, Vandals and Goths” or the treacherous and cruel Justinian in “The Secret History” , the eloquent Ayet, originally from Colchis, a true patriot - in the work of Agathias “On the reign of Justinian”).
Brief description of the literature of the Eastern Roman Empire of the 4th–6th centuries. allows us to draw the following main conclusions: during this period, literature, new in its ideological orientation and content, on the one hand, widely uses the traditions of ancient culture and literature and thereby carries out not only aesthetic continuity in the cultural development of the Greek people, but also contributes to the cultural education of others peoples that were part of the Eastern Roman Empire. At the same time, in the literature of this time, not in all, but in some part of it, significant shifts are outlined in its approach to folk art, which is reflected in the use of the folk language, folk melody and rhythm; this leads to the emergence of some new genres and to the enrichment of old ones, changing in internal and external features and conveying to us the peculiar flavor of their era,
Evangelist Mark. Gospel sheet. Early 11th century Walters Ms. W.530.A, St. Mark/The Walters Art MuseumThe scientific literature on Byzantium is immense. Twice a year, the most authoritative international journal of Byzantine studies, the Byzantinische Zeitschrift (literally, "Byzantine Journal") compiles an annotated bibliography of new works on Byzantine studies, and the typically 300-400 page issue contains between 2,500 and 3,000 items. It’s not easy to navigate such a flurry of publications. Moreover, this is literature on different languages: Byzantine studies (like, for example, classical philology) never became an English-language discipline, and every Byzantinist is required to read a minimum of German, French, Italian, Modern Greek and Latin (Latin for Byzantinists is not only the language of sources, but also a working tool: in in accordance with tradition, it is on it that prefaces to critical editions are written to this day). At the beginning of the 20th century, this mandatory list also included the Russian language, but now Turkish is gaining an increasingly stronger position.
That is why even important books are very rarely translated. Paradoxically, even Karl Krumbacher’s programmatic book “Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur” (“History of Byzantine Literature”), which laid the foundations of scientific Byzantine studies at the end of the 19th century, has not been fully translated into any European language except Modern Greek. The situation with translations into Russian is even more deplorable - fundamental works cannot be read in it.
The list below includes one popular monograph, designed to explain what Byzantium was to a person who first asked this question, and five “classic” books that had a great influence on the development of Byzantine thought. These are either works of Russian-speaking scientists, or monographs of European researchers, available in translation (however, the quality of the translation is not always high, and if possible, it is always better to turn to the original). The list does not include important books dedicated to individual figures of Byzantine culture For example, Lyubarsky Y. N. “Mikhail Psell. Personality and creativity. On the history of Byzantine pre-humanism" (Moscow, 1978); Meyendorff I., protopres. “The Life and Works of St. Gregory Palamas: an introduction to the study” (2nd ed. St. Petersburg, 1997)., or deep research revealing some narrow layer of Byzantine culture Ousterhout R. “Byzantine Builders” (M., Kyiv, 2005); Taft R. F. “Byzantine Church Rite” (St. Petersburg, 2000)., since it would be wrong to recommend this kind of private research for the first acquaintance with Byzantium.
Judith Herrin. "Byzantium: The Amazing Life of a Medieval Empire"
Professor Judith Herrin (b. 1942) wrote her popular monograph on Byzantium - if, of course, you believe the preface, and not count it literary game- after failing to answer the question of workers doing renovations in her office at King’s College London: “What is Byzantium?” (They noticed this mysterious word on the door of her office.) From a book that is unlikely to reveal anything new to a specialist, but will be useful to anyone who is asking the same question as the heroes of the preface, one should not expect a consistent presentation of Byzantine history - according to According to the author, these are just “assorted mezes” (this originally Persian word is used to describe snacks throughout the Mediterranean), designed not to satiate, but only to tease the reader’s appetite. The book is structured according to a chronological principle (from the founding of Constantinople to its fall), but its chapters are deliberately balanced - on the same level there may be, at first glance, the vast topics of “Greek Orthodoxy” or “Byzantine economy” and the very specific “Basily II the Bulgarian Slayer” and "Anna Komnena".
Herrin suggests looking at the history of Byzantium not as an endless series of emperors, generals and patriarchs with names unusual for European ears, but as the history of the people who created a civilization that, in the 7th century, protected Europe from the Arab threat,
and in XIII-XV centuries laid the foundations of the European Renaissance - and yet the average modern European is completely unfamiliar and is reduced in his mind to stereotypes of deceit, obscurantism, flattery and pretense. Herrin masterfully deals with these stereotypes, inherited from Montesquieu and Edward Gibbon, at the same time defamiliarizing and bringing Byzantium closer. She describes Byzantium with elegant paradoxes (“Byzantium’s cultural influence grew inversely proportional to its political power”), but at the same time shows how this seemingly infinitely distant civilization breaks into the world around us, sharing childhood impressions of the mosaics of Ravenna or analyzing a speech by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006, in which he referred (however, according to Herrin, not entirely correctly) to the anti-Islamic statements of Emperor Manuel II Comnenos.
Herrin J. Byzantium: The Surprising. Life of a Medieval Empire. Princeton, N.J., 2008.
Alternative: Herrin J. Byzantium. The amazing life of a medieval empire. M., 2015.
Alexander Kazhdan. "History of Byzantine Literature"
The unfinished project of Alexander Kazhdan (1922-1997), towards which he worked for many years, gradually moving from the socio-economic issues that occupied him in his youth to the history of Byzantine literary aesthetics. Work on the volumes began in 1993, and by the time Kazhdan passed away, none of them were completely ready for publication. The books were published only nine years later, and in Greece, which is why they practically did not end up in libraries and book networks.
The published volumes are only a small part of what was to be written. They cover the period of the Dark Ages (mid-VII - mid-VIII centuries), the era of the monastic revival (c. 775 - c. 850) and the time of Byzantine encyclopedism (850-1000). Kazhdan did not have time to write about either Michael Psellos or his beloved Niketas Choniates (however, the collection of his articles “Nicetas Choniates and His Time” (St. Petersburg, 2005) can serve as some compensation for this).
The title of Kazhdan's books is unlikely to attract the attention of a reader unfamiliar with the circumstances. Meanwhile, behind the simplicity of the title lies a polemic with the founder of Byzantine studies, Karl Krumbacher, and his vast and meticulous German reference book, “The History of Byzantine Literature” (in drafts and personal correspondence, Kazhdan even abbreviated his book as GBL, as if he had written it not in English, but in German). The books that replaced Krumbacher's outdated compendium in the mid-20th century (for example, the works of Herbert Hunger on high secular literature or Hans Georg Beck on church writing and vernacular literature) were also more like reference books - detailed, complexly structured, but devoid of any aesthetic assessments, lists of texts with comprehensive source characteristics and a complete bibliography.
Kazhdan’s task was different - to return to the question of “the pleasure obtained from reading a Greek medieval literary text,” to try to evaluate Byzantine literature “by its own standards,” and to understand issues of literary style. That is why the form of the book is impressionistic - Kazhdan abandoned the attempt to cover the entire literary heritage of Byzantium and created a cycle of chronologically sequential literary sketches and essays, sometimes almost devoid of reference and bibliographic apparatus. At the center of each of them is a key figure of a writer for a particular era, and lesser authors, acting in the orbit of the main character or continuing the vector given by him, are mentioned only in passing.
Kazhdan’s “History of Byzantine Literature” finally established the rights of a literary rather than source-study approach to the monuments of Byzantine literature and caused an avalanche-like growth in the number of works on Byzantine literary aesthetics.
Kazhdan A. A History of Byzantine Literature (650-850) (in collaboration with L. F. Sherry and Ch. Angelidi). Athens, 1999.Kazhdan A. A History of Byzantine Literature (850-1000). Ed. Ch. Angelidi. Athens, 2006 Their latest books Alexander Kazhdan wrote in English - since since 1979 he lived in the USA and worked at the Byzantine studies center Dumbarton Oaks..
Alternative: Kazhdan A.P. History of Byzantine literature (650-850). St. Petersburg, 2002.
Kazhdan A.P. History of Byzantine literature (850-1000). The era of Byzantine encyclopedism. St. Petersburg, 2012.
Igor Medvedev. "Byzantine humanism of the XIV-XV centuries"
The first edition of the book by the current head of the St. Petersburg school of Byzantine studies, Igor Medvedev (b. 1935), took place in 1976; for the second edition in 1997 it was expanded and revised. Medvedev's monograph raises the question of humanistic trends in the culture of Late Byzantium (XIV-XV centuries) and the typological similarity of these trends with the features of the Western European Renaissance.
The central figure of the book is the Neoplatonist philosopher George Gemistus Plithon, who, at the end of Byzantine history, proposed a program for the radical renewal of the empire based on the revival of pagan Olympian cults. Consigned to oblivion in Byzantium (his most scandalous book, “Laws,” was destroyed by the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennady Scholarius), Plytho, who was an unimaginable combination of a Byzantine intellectual and a neo-pagan, has always intrigued and continues to intrigue researchers (for example, last year The prestigious English publishing house Ashgate has published a new four-hundred-page book about Plithon with the subtitle “Between Hellenism and Orthodoxy”). The chapter “The Apotheosis of Plyphon” added by Medvedev in the second edition of the book bears the characteristic subtitle “New Historiographical Wave”.
According to Medvedev, in the 14th-15th centuries, a special environment was formed in the Byzantine elite, in which trends somewhat akin to the ideas of Italian humanism became widespread. The most prominent representatives of this environment (Plytho and the writer Theodore Metochites) were ready to offer Byzantium a “Hellenistic” future based on the ideology of “secular humanism” and open recognition of the unity of Greek culture from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. However, the possibility of this alternative history never became a reality, since the “Byzantine Church, “having approved the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas... decisively turned away from the Renaissance According to Medvedev, hesychasm, substantiated by Gregory Palamas - a monastic and ascetic practice that allows a person to unite with God - was “obscurantism”, and his victory did not leave any space for free discussions about faith: a system of “political persecution modeled on the Catholic Inquisition” arose, and now for “the beginnings of a new vision of the world, a new worldview born of the Renaissance era, people had to shed blood.”“ (quote from John Meyendorff John Meyendorff(1926-1992) - American church historian, researcher of hesychasm.), and in 1453 the Turkish blade finally interrupted the political existence of Byzantium." Today, when the church component of Byzantine culture overshadows all others in the mass consciousness, such a juxtaposition of the “merits” of the Church of Constantinople and the Turks, as well as the entire anti-hesychast pathos of the book, sounds especially relevant.
Medvedev I. P. Byzantine humanism XIV-XV centuries. 2nd edition, corrected and expanded. St. Petersburg, 1997.
Sergey Averintsev. "Poetics of Early Byzantine Literature"
The book by Sergei Averintsev (1937-2004) is perhaps the most popular publication with the word “Byzantine” in the title ever published in Russia. It has been reprinted many times and is included in the reading lists for students not only in specialized Byzantine departments.
The book is both easy and difficult to read. It is almost devoid of a reference and bibliographic framework and deliberately confuses the reader with riddle headings of sections that are not formally structured: “Being as perfection - beauty as being,” “Agreement in disagreement,” “The world as a riddle and solution.” The book is not a sequential presentation of the stages of the literary process in the Mediterranean region and not a reference book on genres, but a collection of cultural essays written in bright, figurative language, in which the author tries to find the specifics of Byzantine culture through literary texts that are not yet formally related to the Byzantine period ( As a rule, Byzantine literature is spoken of in relation to monuments no earlier than the 6th or even 7th century).
Averintsev proposed to abandon the endless dispute about where the border between Antiquity and Byzantium lies, recognizing that the texts he discusses (authored by Nonnus of Panopolitan or Gregory the Theologian) can rightfully be attributed to both ancient and pre-(or early) Byzantine literature. According to him, we are talking only about focus - about looking forward or backward: “We were looking in these texts, first of all, not for echoes of the old, but for features of the new; We were interested not so much in the harmony of inertia, worked out over the centuries, as in the fruitful disharmony of shift... We tried to take the most fundamental literary principles in their mobile, self-contradictory, transitional state.<…>No era can be completely “equal to itself” - otherwise the next era would have no chance of ever coming.”
Another fundamental decision of Averintsev was to include in the range of sources texts that are not literature in the modern European understanding: theological treatises, sermons, liturgical poetry. These texts, familiar to many at least from church services, but thereby torn out of the Byzantine, and even more so the ancient context that gave birth to them, are revealed precisely as works of literature and find their place in the history of literary aesthetics.
Averintsev S. Poetics of early Byzantine literature. M., 1997.
Dmitry Obolensky. "Byzantine Commonwealth of Nations"
The book by Dmitry Obolensky (1918-2001) proposed the concept of the “Byzantine Commonwealth of Nations” (similar to the British Commonwealth). Obolensky postulates the possibility of “considering [Byzantium and the countries of Eastern Europe] a single international community,” a “supernational union of Christian states,” between the parts of which there are opposite lines of tension: centrifugal (the struggle of the peoples of Eastern Europe with Byzantium in the political, cultural, ecclesiastical and military level) and centripetal (gradual perception and recognition of the primacy of the Byzantine cultural tradition in Eastern Europe). The geographical boundaries of the world described on the pages of the book are moving. The focus of the researcher’s attention moves both along a time and geographical scale, since new peoples constantly fell into the orbit of influence of Byzantine culture: the “core” of the Byzantine world in the Balkans remained unchanged, but over time, some regions moved away from Byzantium (Moravia, Croatia, Hungary) and others were approaching (Rus, Moldavia, Wallachia). The series of chronologically organized essays gives way to discussions about the factors of cultural penetration of Byzantium.
According to Obolensky, the “Commonwealth,” which was fully formed by the beginning of the 11th century, had exceptional stability and existed until the fall of Byzantium. Insisting that this is “not an intellectual abstraction,” Obolensky acknowledges that the Byzantines themselves and their neighbors were not always fully aware of the nature of their relationship and were unable to conceptualize it themselves. However, the flexibility of the terminology that described these relations had its advantages, and modern attempts to “describe them in precise legal terms<…>oversimplify and distort their nature.” The author’s fundamental decision was to refuse to see in Byzantium’s relations with Eastern European countries and regions a simplified scheme of the struggle of Byzantine “imperialism” and “local national movements.”
The idea of the “Commonwealth” removed the contradiction that seemed insoluble to Obolensky’s predecessors between “the political independence of the medieval peoples of Eastern Europe” and “their recognition of the supreme power of the emperor.” Its bonds were the confession of Eastern Christianity and the recognition of the supremacy of the Church of Constantinople, the norms of Roman-Byzantine law, the supreme political power of the Byzantine emperor over the entire Orthodox world, as well as the standards of Byzantine literary and artistic aesthetics.
Obolensky D. The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500-1453. London, 1971.
Alternative: Obolensky D. Byzantine Commonwealth of Nations. Six Byzantine portraits. M., 1998.
Paul Lemerle. "First Byzantine humanism"
The classic monograph of the French Byzantine scholar Paul Lemerle (1903-1989), which became available in Russian only forty years after publication, is dedicated to the cultural transformation of Byzantium during the Macedonian Renaissance (IX-X centuries) - the time of the “first” humanism, which made it possible not to only the “second”, much more famous, humanism of the Palaiologan era, but also indirectly influenced the humanism of the Western European Renaissance. The knowledge base about the ancient culture of the Byzantines, who fled to Italy after 1453, was accumulated by scientists of the 14th-15th centuries, but they, in turn, relied on the intellectuals of the Macedonian era, who were the first to rescue the works of Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus and Euripides from the oblivion of the dark ages.
The second half of the 9th - 10th centuries was the time of the Byzantines' new acquaintance with ancient culture and the accumulation and codification of knowledge in all spheres of life. Questioning the reasons for this cultural surge, Lemerle refuses to see in it an external (Carolingian western or Syro-Arab eastern) influence. In his interpretation, the possibility of such a revival was always inherent in Byzantine culture, which formally declared hatred of the pagan past, but in reality was careful about preserving its cultural heritage. Lemerle describes the relationship between Christianity and pagan antiquity in terms of “discontinuity and rupture.” Eastern Christianity condemned paganism, but was, paradoxically, a connecting element between eras. It turned the ancient tradition of education “into one of the weapons of its victory,” but (unlike the Western Church) did not follow the path of complete subordination of school education. According to Lemerle, the “first salvation of Hellenism” occurred already at the dawn of the Byzantine era, when large-scale copying of ancient papyri began in Constantinople by order of Emperor Constantius II.
In the center of each of the chapters of the main part of the book there is some important figure of the era - Leo the Mathematician, Patriarch Photius, Arethas of Caesarea, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Independent sections are devoted to the development of school education and the technical revolution that occurred thanks to the invention of minuscule - that is, writing in lowercase letters, which made it possible to significantly speed up the rewriting, and therefore the distribution of texts. Without formally claiming to be anything more than “notes et remarques,” Lemerle comes to important conclusions about the specificity of Byzantine civilization: it combines “imperial” or “baroque” Hellenism with the church’s decision to “adopt [pagan culture] , and not destroy it,” which gave rise to the typically Byzantine “duality or, if you like, ambiguity” of the entire Byzantine culture.
Lemerle P. Le premier humanisme byzantin: Notes et remarques sur enseignement et culture à Byzance des origines au X e siècle. Paris, 1971.
Alternative: Lemerle P. First Byzantine humanism. Remarks and notes on education and culture in Byzantium from the beginning to the 10th century. St. Petersburg, 2012.
Byzantine literature
Byzantine literature
BYZANTINE LITERATURE - literature of the Byzantine Empire, Central Greek in language. She had a great influence on European literature, including Slavic literature, with her monuments, mainly until the 13th century. Byzantine literature penetrated into Russia in most cases through South Slavic translations in the pre-Mongol period and was rarely translated directly by Russians. The presence of Byzantine books is determined as follows. arr. not only by Greek manuscripts, but also by Slavic translations, which sometimes preserved works now unknown in the original. Beginning of V. l. refers to the VI-VII centuries, when the Greek language. becomes dominant in Byzantium. History of V. l. represents one of the least developed areas in world literature. The reason for this has to be sought. arr. the fact that the very complex socio-economic factors that characterize the history of Byzantium, formed from the eastern provinces and regions of the Roman Empire, after the western part of the latter was during the 4th-5th centuries, still remain unexplored. captured by Germanic tribes. Monuments of folk art from Byzantium have not reached us at all. Ch. preserved arr. literature created by the church, which played a very large economic and political role in the state life of Byzantium (church councils limited the power of the emperor, and by the 8th century one third of all lands were concentrated in monasteries). Modern researchers have to take into account that Western scientists - enemies of the Eastern Church - approached V. l. with great passion. They didn't recognize her original character, considered it “the archive of Hellenism” (Voigt) or identified its history with the period of decline of ancient literature. In the V-IX centuries. Byzantium was a powerful centralized monarchy, based on large secular and church landownership and, to a certain extent, on loan, trade and partly industrial capital. She created her own unique culture and literature. And if we have to talk about Hellenism in Byzantium, then only as a literary influence, which must be placed next to the influences of Arabic, Syrian and other literatures, with which Byzantium was in close contact. The Hellenic influence was, however, one of the strongest.
Among the church literature that has come down to us, church poetry of hymns stands out. Most major representatives hers are: Roman the Sweet Singer (VI century), a Syrian who wrote about a thousand hymns, Emperor Justinian (527-565), Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, to whom belongs the akathist to the Mother of God on the occasion of the victory over the Avars in 626, Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and others. Roman's hymns are distinguished by their ascetic character, naive sincerity and depth of feeling. They are written in a free form, intermediate between metrical and prosaic speech, and are closest to the psalms. Both in form and in content, these hymns are related to the Semitic elements of the Old Testament, the motives of which are aligned by the Roman to the New Testament (comparison of events and characters). Of the thousand hymns of the Roman, only 80 have survived. They usually represent a narrative with the introduction of freely composed dialogues. Often in these hymns dogmatic and theological scholarship is manifested, which threatens to strangle the ardent feeling, edification interferes with poetry and artistry. Byzantium inherited a lot from Hellenistic prose. This should include, for example, the Egyptian story about Alexander the Great, full of fabulous episodes, which Byzantium Christianized and processed in different editions. The manner of Hellenism is repeated by many other works: love stories of the adventures of Heliodorus (“Ethiopics” about Theogenes and Chariclea) of the 4th century, Achilles Tatius (about Clitophon and Leucippus) of the 5th century, Chariton (about Chaereas and Calliroe), Longus (about Daphnis and Chloe) and others. From prose types in the first period of V. l. History especially flourishes, the authors of which imitated the manner of Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius and their epigones, for example in the 6th century - Procopius, Peter Patrick, Agathia (historian and poet), Menander Protictor, Theophylact Samocatt; John Malala, a monk from Syrian Antioch, dates back to the same time and compiled a world chronicle, vulgar in content and language, close to living speech. The early creativity of Byzantium was especially evident in church eloquence and dogma.
The best church writers, educated in pagan schools in antiquity, in the 4th century. are: Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria (wrote against paganism and Arianism, compiled the life of Anthony of Egypt), Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, nicknamed “The Great” (defender of forms of “secular,” i.e., pagan, literature, imitator of Plutarch, wrote against the monks, about asceticism, compiled the liturgy), Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop, nicknamed “Theologian” (church speaker and poet who filled the forms ancient lyrics Christian content), John, Patriarch of Constantinople, nicknamed “Chrysostom” (church orator, compiled the liturgy).
The colonial, predominantly eastern, element found vivid expression in numerous collections of stories of the 5th-6th centuries. about the hermit-ascetics of the Byzantine outskirts (the so-called “patericon”).
This type of monasticism developed first in Egypt, then in Palestine and Syria, from where it spread throughout the interior regions. Corresponding to the pre-Christian culture of one or another outskirts, their beliefs were reflected in the confession of these monks, and, consequently, in the stories of the patericons. The enchantments and mysteries of Egypt were reflected in the demonology of the Egyptian patericon “Lavsaik” by Palladius, Bishop of Elenopolis; the ancient Israeli cult - in “The God-loving History” about the ascetics of the Euphrates country of Theodoret of Cyprus; Arabic and Jewish elements - in the Palestinian patericon “The Spiritual Meadow” (Limonar) by John Moschus; finally, the beliefs of the Goths - in the Italian “Dialogues” of Gregory Dvoeslov (VI-VII centuries), translated in the VIII century. from Latin to Greek, etc. From the very beginning of V. l. known in it are books that were not recognized by the official church with legendary plots and motifs attached to persons and events of the Old and New Testaments and the Christian cult in general. These books are partly falsely attributed to famous authors and are usually called apocrypha (see).
In the 7th and 8th centuries. Byzantium experienced severe military failures (Avars, Slavs, Arabs), socio-political and religious movements (iconoclasm); hagiographic literature flourishes (the lives of the saints were collected in huge twelve-month collections - Menaions (chetes)). From writers of the 7th-8th centuries. we note: Anastasia Sinaita, disputant with the Jews and Monophysites in Syria and Egypt; Cosmas, Bishop of Mayum, hymnographer; Andrew, Bishop of Crete, preacher and poet, who wrote the “great canon”; John of Damascus, polemicist with iconoclasm and Islam, preacher and author of 55 canons, theologian who based his “Dialectics” on Aristotle.
With the cessation of iconoclasm, that is, from the 9th century, short guides to world history, “chronicles” with a clerical tendency, based partly on both the Alexandrians and church historians, on previous Byzantine historiography in general (George Sinkelya, Theophanes the Confessor, Patriarch Nikifor, Georgy Amartol). For Russian antiquity, the most interesting is the chronicle of the author of the second half of the 9th century, George Amartol, which covers the history of the “world” from Adam to 842 (and if we count its continuation, then until the half of the 10th century). This monastic chronicle is distinguished by fanatical intolerance towards iconoclasts and passion for theology. Here is a review of interesting facts for a monk: secular history before Alexander the Great, biblical history before the Roman era, Roman history from Caesar to Constantine the Great, and Byzantine history. The main sources of Amartol were the chronicles of Theophanes the Confessor and John Malala. Amartol also has extracts from Plato, Plutarch, Josephus (1st century), Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Fyodor the Studite, from lives, patericons, etc. The language of monastic chronicles of the 9th century. close to language the Greek Bible and is not alien to the elements of living speech. In this century, about 500 canons were written in honor of saints (Theophanes and Joseph the hymnals), i.e., almost half of all Byzantine canons. Along with the restoration of icon veneration, monasticism energetically began to compile the lives of the defenders of Orthodoxy. Even a special school was created in Constantinople, where hagiographic techniques and templates were taught, based on the examples of classical biographers. The historical element in these lives is very meager, distorted and hidden by the introduction of the obligatory themes of humility and emotion. All lives are compiled according to one glorification program. Second half of the 9th century V. l. called the century of learned encyclopedias; His collections and adaptations preserved precious material from antiquity, borrowed from writers now lost. In the first row of figures of the 9th-10th centuries. should be named Patriarch Photius of Constantinople and Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Coming from a patrician family, Photius was distinguished by exceptional education in a form typical of Byzantium. A brilliant philologist, not without pedantry, an expert in the Greek language. and literature of all periods, an admirer of Aristotle, a philosopher with the theological overtones common to Byzantium, and a passionate teacher, Photius gathered around him a mass of students, turning his house into a kind of academy, a learned salon, where books were read and discussed, ranging from classical antiquity to latest news. He forced his students to compile a huge Lexicon based on both previous dictionaries and outstanding works of antiquity and V. l. The most outstanding work of Photius is his “Library” or “Polybook” (Myriobiblon), consisting of 280 chapters. It contains information about Greek grammarians, orators (especially Attic), historians, philosophers, naturalists and doctors, novels, hagiographic works, etc. From Photius’s “Library” it is clear how many outstanding works have not reached us; only from here do they become famous.
The grandson of Basil I, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, emperor nominally from 912, in reality from 945 to 959, ordered the compilation at his own expense of extensive collections, encyclopedias of works of old literature that had become rare; Using simple Byzantine speech, he wrote himself and in complicity. From the works of Constantine we know: the history of the reign of his grandfather Vasily; an essay on government, written for his son, Roman (mainly about relations with the neighbors of Byzantium, whose life is depicted); about the military and administrative division of the empire (detailed geography, as in previous essay, with fantastic stories about the origin of cities and caustic epigrams on their inhabitants); about the ceremonies of the Byzantine court (among the descriptions of court etiquette that amazed the barbarians, the poetic cliques, odes and troparia in honor of the emperor are interesting from a literary point of view, especially the spring song in the folk style and the hymn of the Gothic Christmas game). By order of Constantine, a historical encyclopedia was compiled. This includes almost all of the extracts historical literature Greeks of all periods; there are extracts from literary works(eg novels). Among the scientists surrounding Constantine, one should name the historian of Byzantium of the 9th century. Genesius, a lover of folk legends and an admirer of classical literature, which he however used tastelessly. Later, the Byzantine history of the third quarter of the 10th century was described by Leo the Asiatic, also nicknamed the Deacon, a poor stylist who used high-flown rhetoric and a dictionary of church works. The World Chronicle was compiled at this time by Simeon Magister, or Metaphrastus, so called because he rhetorically reworked a lot of previous lives of saints, weakening the fantastic element in them. Also by the 10th century. or somewhat later there are voluminous collections of sayings (for example, “Melissa”, i.e. “Bee”, “Antonia”). In the half of the 11th century. The higher school in Constantinople expanded, splitting into two - philosophical (i.e. general education) and legal. People from the West began to come here to study. Europe and from the Baghdad and Egyptian caliphates. The most talented and influential leader of the school was Michael Psellus, a philosopher (Platonist) and rhetorician, teacher of several emperors who themselves became writers, and later the first minister. His literary activity was very extensive. He left many works on philosophy, theology and natural sciences, philology, history, and was a poet and speaker. Strongly influenced by Hellenism, he wrote medical treatises and Christian hymns in poetry; He also studied the style of Homer, retold the Iliad, commented on the comedies of Menander, etc.
In the 12th century. there is a flourishing of literary activity among clergymen who wrote on theology and philosophy, grammar and rhetoric - and not only in the capital center, but also in the territory ancient Hellas , where for example Nicholas, Bishop of Mythos (about half of the 12th century), argued with Neoplatonism, grammaticalized by Metropolitan Gregory of Corinth; One should also name the commentator on Homer, Eustathius, Archbishop of Thessalonica, and his student, Archbishop of Athos, Michael Acominatus, who studied Homer, Pindar, Demosthenes, Thucydides, and so on, and wrote in iambic and hexameter. The following figures are characteristic of this era: Tsetsas, Prodromus, Glyka, Constantine Manasses, Anna Komnena, Nikita Evgenian. John Tsetsas was at one time a teacher, then a needy professional writer, dependent on the favors of nobles and princes, to whom he dedicated his works. He was well-read in ancient poets, orators, and historians, although he did not always use them first-hand and allowed their interpretation to be inaccurate. Tsetsas collected and published his letters to actual addressees - nobles and friends, as well as fictitious epistles, full of mythology and literary-historical wisdom, colored by wayward self-praise. He compiled a huge, versioned commentary on these letters. Also known are his commentaries on Homer (for example, “allegories to the Iliad and Odyssey” take up about 10,000 verses), Hesiod and Aristophanes, treatises on poetry, metrics and grammar, grammatical iambics, where the peasant, the choir and the muses glorify the life of a scientist as happy, and the sage complains about the sad situation of the wise, to whom happiness denies mercy, endowing it with the ignorant. Interesting is Tsetzas's "stepped" poem on the death of Emperor Manuel Komnenos (1180), where the final word of each verse is repeated at the beginning of the next. The same professional poet was Fyodor Prodromus, nicknamed “Poor” (Puokhoprodromus), an ever-complaining self-praiser and flatterer, begging handouts from the nobility with songs of praise, speeches, and epistles; He also wrote satires, epigrams and novels (about Rodanthe and Dochiple), imitating the style of Lucian in prose. He was more talented and original than Tsetsas, daring to write comic poems in the vernacular. Of the dramatic works of Prodromus, the best is the parody “The War of Cats and Mouse.” Mikhail Glika is a similar writer, but in addition to poverty, he experienced prison and also execution by blinding. On this occasion, he addressed the imp. Manuel with a petitionary poem in folk language. (like Russian “Prayers of Daniil the Zatochnik”). Glick’s most important work is considered to be the “World Chronicle” (before the death of Alexei Komnenos). Before Glick in the 12th century. They also wrote chronicles: Kedrin, Zonara, Skalitsa and Manasseh, which Glicka used. Constantine Manasseh wrote many works - prose and poetry. His chronicle consists of 6,733 verses. Manasseh is actually a historian-novelist; he tries to impart a poetic lift to his chronicle with the colors of eloquence, mythological allusions and metaphors. The style of his story is vaguely reminiscent of some features of The Tale of Igor's Campaign. Anna Komnena, daughter of the Emperor. Alexei, was exceptionally educated - she read Homer, Thucydides and Aristophanes, Plato and Aristotle, and was knowledgeable in church literature. Soon after her father’s death (1118), she retired to the “Delighted” monastery, where by 1148 she wrote the history of her father’s reign - “Alexiad”. The ideal form for Anna is Atticism. In addition to the poetic novel of Prodromus, two more novels of the 12th century are known. The best is the poetic novel by Nikita Evgenian (“8 books about the love of Drosilla and Harikis”), which borrowed a lot from Prodromus. In Evgenian we find pampered eroticism in love letters, sensitivity of outpourings and picturesque descriptions. In places the novel is pornographic. The plot does not bear the features of modernity, being remote into the rather vague past of Hellenic paganism. Eugene borrowed the flowers of his eloquence from bucolic poets, from anthologies and from novels of the 4th-5th centuries. Another 12th-century novel, “On Ismin and Isminia,” was written by Eumathius in prose; he also imitates pagan antiquity. From the XII to the middle of the XV century. (1453) in Byzantium the era of feudalism begins, the domination of the so-called. “rulers” - secular feudal lords and spiritual lords - an alarming time when, in the fight against the Turks, Byzantium sought support from the Western knighthood, which temporarily even seized power in Byzantium; not having sufficient internal forces to fight, the empire, after a short period of success in the 12th century. gradually becomes the prey of the Turks and in 1453, with the fall of Constantinople, ceases to exist. This period in the history of the development of V. l. characterized by its complete decline. Bibliography:
I. Uspensky F.I., Essays on the history of Byzantine education, Zhurn. MNP, 1891, No. 1, 4, 9, 10; 1892, Nos. 1, 2 and sec. reprint, St. Petersburg, 1891; Kenoyn Fr. G., The Palaeography of Greek papyri, Oxford. Clarendon Press, 1899; Lietzmann H., Byzantinische Legenden, Jena, 1911; Diehl Gh., Byzance, 1919; Heisenberg A., Aus der Geschichte und Literatur der Palaeologenzeit, Munchen, 1922; Ehrhard A., Beitrage zur Geschichte des christlichen Altertums und der byzantinischen Literatur, Bonn, 1922; Serbisch-byzantinische Urkunden des Meteoronklosters, Berlin, 1923; Istituto per l’Europa Orientale, Studi bizantini, Napoli, 1924; La Piana G., Le rappresentazioni sacre nella letteratura bizantina, 1912.
II. Hertzsch G., De script. rerum. imp. T. Constantini, 1884; Potthast A., Bibliographia historica medii aevi: Wegweiser durch die Geschichtswerke des eurolaischen Mittelalters, 1375-1500, ed. 2nd, 2 vols., Berlin, 1896; Krumbacher C., Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur, Munchen, 1897; Bibliotheca hagiographica orientalis, Ed. Socie. Bollandiani, Bruxelles, 1910.
Literary encyclopedia. - At 11 t.; M.: Publishing House of the Communist Academy, Soviet Encyclopedia, Fiction. Edited by V. M. Fritsche, A. V. Lunacharsky. 1929-1939 .
See what “Byzantine literature” is in other dictionaries:
Byzantine culture Art ... Wikipedia
Byzantine literature- Greek liter byzantine era (4th century 1453, before the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks). In V. l. can be distinguished, based on the authors of the works, stylistic. features of the language and readership, mainly two main ones. section: scientific literature,... ... Dictionary of Antiquity
Byzantine literature- is divided into three periods. The first, from Constantine V. until the death of Heraclius (323-640), created a whole galaxy of great church writers, St. fathers, teachers and was called the golden age. Theology was developed most of all, then... ... Complete Orthodox Theological Encyclopedic Dictionary