146 Chapter 3 would have traversed.484 Euthymius’ journeys stay within the boundaries of the Empire,485 but they do take him to various regions, crossing the provinces of Galatia and Bithynia, the regions of Thessaloniki and Athos and two islands of which the exact location is unknown, but which presumably were in the Aegean Sea.486 In the Life of Gregory, as shown above, the hagiographer limits his narrative to those travel motivations he found important, for he left out the others. In contrast, the hagiographer of Euthymius provided a motivation for every journey the saint made. If the hagiographer of Euthymius emphasised particular travel motivations and if he used these motivations for discursive aims, he did so in a different manner from the Life of Gregory. In order to see whether Basil gave prominence to particular travel motivations over others and whether he used these for particular purposes, the following analysis will discuss the various categories of travel motivations found in this Life. In doing so, we will be able to see how the categories of travel motivation found in this Life relate to each other and eventually to the hagiographer’s aims. Moreover, in an attempt to see whether Basil expressed normative ideas on monastic mobility, this analysis may reveal whether he stressed particular types of mobility as a justifiable or even beneficial type of monastic mobility. Each journey in the Life of Euthymius is presented primarily as one type of mobility, rather than combining multiple motivations at the same time. This makes it possible to divide the travel motivations in categories five categories: educational mobility, pursuit of personal spiritual development, mobility for monastic leadership, mobility due to loyalty to personal connections and involuntary mobility (see appendix 6).487 484 The places or descriptions of places that Euthymius is mentioned to have lived or passed through are: Opso, Mount Olympus, Nicomedia, Mount Athos, Thessaloniki, ‘just outside’ Thessaloniki, an island called Neoi, Brastamon, Peristera, Sermelia, and an island called Hiera. The listener might add in his or her imagination places that Euthymius would most likely also have passed through, such as Constantinople on the journey by foot, according to the hagiographer, from Nicomedia to Mount Athos. Presumably because it is hard to bypass Constantinople during this journey over land, Élisabeth Malamut has even included the capital as a destination in her analysis of the itinerary of Euthymius’ travels – even though it is not mentioned explicitly in the narrative. Malamut (1993), pp. 254–255. 485 Several episodes of raids by Aghlabids at the island of Neoi and later also at Athos do reveal that these were border regions and that these borders were under threat. However – possibly with the exception of an episode of the ultimately unsuccessful capture of Euthymius by Arab raiders, which plays out at the Aegean Sea and which reveals that hegemony over the sea was contested – Euthymius never ventured beyond these frontiers of the Empire. 486 I refer to the provinces here just to give an indication of the geographical scope of Euthymius’ journeys, although the system of provinces was mostly replaced by the system of themes by the middle Byzantine period for fiscal and military purposes. The sources, however, continue to refer to the earlier system of provinces as well as to themes. In a few instances the hagiographer of the Life of Euthymius the Younger refers to these administrative units: to the province of Galatia (ch. 3), and to the theme of Hellas (ch. 26; which concerns a journey made by a disciple, not by Euthymius himself), but mostly the hagiographer refers to names of villages or cities to indicate the geographical setting of the narrative. 487 As already became evident from the discussion of the Life of Gregory there is evidently overlap between these categories, particularly between educational mobility and mobility for spiritual development (as monastic training also involved spiritual development). However, as will be discussed below, Euthymius’ monastic training may be seen as a different type of mobility, and a distinct phase in Euthymius’ life, compared to his later journeys. In addition to the five categories mentioned, there is one journey that might be classified as pilgrimage (journey 8): Euthymius is described to go to Thessaloniki to visit the tomb of his previous spiritual father. Life of Euthymius 23.
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