100 Chapter 2 preceding the passage, the hagiographer elaborates on the foundation of the monastery and expresses how Elias and Daniel with their monastery and their way of life are an inspiration to others. The hagiographer’s comment that they often moved to other places thus seems to imply that Elias and Daniel did not stay at the physical monastery all the time after its foundation. In addition to this specific contextual reading, the reader can also interpret this phrase as a general defence of monastic travel – having in mind the many journeys that Elias and Daniel had already undertaken earlier in the narrative and possibly anticipating the journeys that are still to come. In other words, this passage can also be interpreted as a general apology for monastic travel. In the cited passage, the hagiographer indicates that the many journeys of Elias and his disciple Daniel did not compromise their hesychia. The passage comments on the many journeys made by Elias and Daniel. A connection between hesychia and mobility is explicitly denied: the monks did not change with regard to hesychia, while moving from place to place. This may be a reaction of the hagiographer to certain attitudes of his (expected) audience. That is, the emphatic denial of an impact of mobility on hesychia reveals that the hagiographer thought that the audience might have expected there to be an issue with the saint’s mobility. A close reading of the passage will attempt to disentangle these anticipated attitudes. Notably, in the cited passage, the hagiographer hagiographer understands hesychia in a slightly different manner from that presented in the Lives of Gregory and Euthymius. The cited passage suggests that hesychia refers to a characteristic of a person. Specifically, it refers to a way of life. The passage suggests it can be equated with ‘living according to God’ (κατὰ Θεὸν ζῶσι) and virtue (ἡ ἀρετή). Whereas in the Lives of Gregory and Euthymius we saw that hesychia is connected to the relation between the monk and his surroundings, and to place, in the Life of Elias hesychia is expressly not connected to place: for ‘those living according to God every place is safe, for virtue is not circumscribed in a certain place’. Here ἀσφαλής could be interpreted as safe for the soul and for the spiritual progress towards salvation that is to be accomplished by a virtuous way of life.326 According to the hagiographer, virtue can thus be realised anywhere. In the Lives of Gregory and Euthymius hesychia may refer to an absence of disturbance and to contemplation (in an enclosed space or in the wilderness), whereas in the Life of Elias hesychia seems more broadly to refer to a virtuous way of life. Perhaps it even refers specifically to a monastic ascetic way of life, for elsewhere hesychasterion is used for the Elias’ monastic establishment in Salinas.327 326 In the narrative there are sufficient examples that demonstrate that not every place was safe in the common sense of the word: early in his life Elias had to flee for Arab attacks in Sicily, he had been captured and sold as a slave; later he changed travel plans to avoid unrest in Persia and he fled Taormina to escape Arab attacks. 327 τὸ ἐν Σαλίναις ἡσυχαστήριον; Life of Elias the Younger 38. Understood this way, hesychia is thus an essential aspect of Elias’ sainthood, as sainthood for ascetic saints is constructed as the combination of a virtuous life and supernatural gifts (based on the model of sainthood identified in Klaniczay (2014)); but also in the preamble of the Life the hagiographer emphasises virtue and the ‘sacred politeia/way of life’ of Elias. Life of Elias 1.
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