139 Representations of travel motivation We may thus conclude the following: by providing a general travel motivation and by omitting travel motivations for other journeys, the travel motivation provided for journey 6 is emphasised in the narrative as a key motivator for Gregory’s mobility. The other travel motivations mostly stress Gregory’s monastic and/or spiritual development. Both categories, travel as a quest and travel for monastic or spiritual development, shape aspects of Gregory’s identity and contribute to the representation of Gregory’s sainthood. The motivations included in the Life of Gregory thus served a purpose of carefully constructing the saint’s image. Considering that Gregory’s Life was probably written in the context of the immediate aftermath of the restoration of icons, it was not a given that Gregory would become recognised as a saint beyond the commissioners’ own devotion. In the course of the ninth century many new saints were promoted as champions of orthodoxy and styled as new martyrs, by virtue of having suffered for their iconophile faith under the iconoclast regime. The hagiographer could not claim that Gregory was an actual martyr,450 nor an advocate for the veneration of icons. Perhaps even more than usual with hagiography, shaping Gregory’s identity according to an accepted model of sainthood would be of essential concern for the commissioners and the hagiographer if they wished to promote Gregory’s veneration beyond the existing group of devotees in Gregory’s personal circle. Ignatius attempted to shape Gregory’s identity as a saint in various ways, but among these strategies the representation of Gregory’s mobility was essential. Both the previous chapter on hesychia and the discussion above on the representation of travel motivations demonstrated the intersection between the representation of mobility and sainthood.451 Joseph’s later efforts in the promotion of Gregory as a saint presumably helped as well,452 besides Ignatius’ text itself, to popularise Gregory’s hagiography. Ignatius’ Life of Gregory survived in twenty-four manuscripts – a great deal more than many new saints of the middle-Byzantine period.453 Probably even more important for the spread of Gregory’s (relative) popularity was the fact that a shortened version of his Life was made and incorporated in synaxaria collections, including the famous menologion for Emperor Basil II (r. 975-1025). These synaxaria could be used in liturgies, as we know for example, for the liturgy of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. We may thus judge the combined efforts of Ignatius, the commissioners of Gregory’s Life, and of Joseph the Hymnographer as successful in promoting Gregory as a saint at the political and religious centre of power. 450 The hagiographer calls Gregory a ‘martyr without bruises’ (Life of Gregory 73), which reveals that the model of martyrdom as the basis of sainthood was a prevailing one. Cf. footnote 399 above. 451 Another way in which Gregory’s mobility functions to underline his sainthood is by serving as narrative opportunities for Gregory to overcome hardship and work miracles during his journeys. This aspect at the intersection between the representation of mobility and sainthood is already explored by Mullett (2002); Mantova (2014). 452 Joseph had Gregory’s relics moved and composed hymns in honour of the saint. See the discussion of Joseph’s connection to Gregory above, pp. 120-124. 453 As we will also observe for Elias and Euthymius: both Lives have survived in 4 manuscripts. 3
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