121 Representations of travel motivation travelled together to Constantinople.382 In Constantinople, Gregory would have sent Joseph to Rome to report about the iconoclast controversy. On his journey to Rome Joseph would have been captured and released again by Arabs. Joseph subsequently travelled back to Constantinople to find out that Gregory had just died (20 November 841 or 842) and that the veneration of icons had been restored (11 March 843). Joseph later attracted a circle of monks himself, which formed a monastic community. Once this community grew too big, Joseph decided to found a new monastery to which he transferred Gregory’s relics.383 Moreover, he built a church dedicated to the apostle Bartholomew and to his former spiritual father Gregory.384 After Joseph’s death he came to be venerated as a saint himself. Considering the connections between Joseph and Gregory, Joseph would indeed be a plausible candidate to be involved in the commissioning of Gregory’s Life. We know that Joseph himself also created literary output for the celebration of his former spiritual father. That is, he composed hymns in Gregory’s honour, probably for the occasion of the transfer of Gregory’s relics.385 It is well possible that Joseph’s involvement in creating texts for the veneration of Gregory extended to the commissioning of Gregory’s Life. Makris takes the plea on behalf of τῆς σῆς ποίμνης (‘your flock’) in the epilogue of the Life of Gregory to mean 382 There are two Lives written about Joseph the Hymnographer, both mention the connection to Gregory, but the one I refer to in this chapter is the earliest one, written soon after Joseph’s death by Theophanes, Joseph’s successor as abbot at the Bartholomew-monastery. The other Life by John the Deacon is written later (possibly early 10th century, but the identity of the author and the dates are unclear; in any case, the earlier Life by Theophanes provides us with more detail). Prieto Domínguez (2021), pp. 197–198. For the Life of Joseph the Hymnographer by Theophanes, see Papadopoulos-Kerameus (1901). Unfortunately I did not have access to the edition by Papadopoulos-Kerameus itself, so I used the text incorporated in the Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database, based on the edition by Papadopoulos-Kerameus (hereafter referred to as Life of Joseph the Hymnographer): https://www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/resources/hagiography/database/texts/35.html. 383 Life of Joseph the Hymnographer 5-9. 384 Janin (1969) stated that Joseph together with Gregory founded a monastery church dedicated to Bartholomew. This must be based on an erroneous interpretation of the relevant passage in the Life of Joseph the Hymnographer: ναόν τε τούτῳ σὺν τῷ κλεινῷ Γρηγορίῳ τῇ ὑδίᾳ ποίμνῃ συνανεδείματο. Grammatically it would indeed make sense to interpret the clause to mean that Joseph together with Gregory (σὺν τῷ Γρηγορίῳ) founded a church, whereby the prefix συν- in συνανεδείματο is repeated and τῇ ὑδίᾳ ποίμνῃ (his own flock) is a dative of advantage. However, such a reading does not make sense in the narrative: Gregory has already died by this point in the narrative. A few sentences earlier narrate that Joseph translated Gregory’s relics to the newly founded monastery. Therefore the passage must be interpreted to mean that Joseph built the church, together with his own flock (τῇ ὑδίᾳ ποίμνῃ) dedicated to Bartholomew (τούτῳ) and to Gregory (σὺν τῷ κλεινῷ Γρηγορίῳ). We must then accept the rather unusual usage of σύν, where the author (or copyist) could also just have used καί; in my view this is the only logical interpretation when taking into account the narrative. This passage is the only evidence we have of a church dedicated to Gregory of Decapolis. Janin (1969), p. 57; The Life of Joseph the Hymnographer 9. 385 The Life of Joseph the Hymnographer suggests that Joseph composed hymns (μελῳδήμασι, ‘melodies’) for Gregory and Bartholomew to celebrate the translation of their relics and the dedication of the church. My translation of the relevant passage: ‘Already many monks flocked together to the venerable and very holy Joseph, because of his beautiful and virtuous way of life, and because it was not possible to come together in that place [anymore], he then established our school of virtue in a place that then was deserted; to which he transferred the relic of the Great Gregory as an inviolable treasury […]. [H]e build up a church together with his own flock for him [Bartholomew] and for the famous Gregory. In great care he also established and adorned their feasts with melodies’. (ἤδη δὲ πλειόνων μοναζόντων τῷ τιμίῳ καὶ ἱερωτάτῳ 'Ιωσὴφ συρρευσάντων διὰ τὴν καλλίστην καὶ ἐνάρετον αὐτοῦ βιοτήν, καὶ συνεῖναι τῷ τόπῳ μὴ δυναμένων, τὸ καθ' ἡμᾶς τῆς ἀρετῆς ἐν χώρῳ ἐρήμῳ τότε ὄντι καθιδρύσατο φροντιστήριον·; ἐν ᾧ τὸ τοῦ μεγάλου Γρηγορίου ὡς θησαυρὸν ἄσυλον μετατίθησι λείψανον […] ναόν τε τούτῳ σὺν τῷ κλεινῷ Γρηγορίῳ τῇ ὑδίᾳ ποίμνῃ συνανεδείματο, ἐν φροντίδι πλείονι καθεστήκει καὶ μελῳδήμασι τὰς αὐτῶν πανηγύρεις κοσμεῖν·) Life of Joseph the Hymnographer 9. 3
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