156 Chapter 3 Ὑμεῖς δέ, ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ λαός, τὸ ἅγιον ἔθνος, τὸ βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα, ὅσοι τε ἀστικοὶ καὶ ὅσοι ἐγχώριοι, ὅσοι τοῦτον ὀφθαλμοῖς ἑωράκατε καὶ ὅσοι ἀκοῇ παρειλήφατε, δέξασθε τὸν περὶ ἐκείνου λόγον, καὶ μηδεὶς ἀπιστείτω τοῖς εἰρημένοις· καὶ οἱ μὲν εἰδότες ἡδέως γένησθε, οἱ δ’ ἀγνοοῦντες θαυμάσατε τὴν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀρετήν.530 But you, people of God, the holy nation, the royal priesthood, as many town-dwellers as those of the countryside, as many who have seen him [Elias] with their eyes and who have heard of him, listen to this speech about him, and let no one disbelief the things that will be said, and the ones who have known him, you will become pleased, the ones who do not know him, you will admire the virtue of the man. The author thus envisioned a gathering of people from the surrounding region at the festival, addressing a mixed audience, including priests, people from towns and from the countryside, in addition to the monks at the monastery. Rossi Taibbi dates the Life to the 930s or 940s, which is generally accepted, although Costa-Louillet suggests 905/6.531 In any case it must have been written not too long after Elias’ death, but possibly not straight way after the translation of Elias’ relics to Calabria (the last event recounted in the Life), for the author addresses the audience both as ‘many [who] have seen him with their eyes’, hence contemporaries of Elias, but he also addresses people who only know Elias through his fame.532 The Life of Elias is the longest of the three Lives, and it would be a rather lengthy speech if delivered in one go, although to do so is possible.533 We could also imagine that the reader chose excerpts or that the text was intended to be recited in multiple stages, as some scholars have suggested, for instance on the days leading up to the feast-day.534 In any case, the novelistic tendencies that some scholars have pointed out for the first half of the 530 Life of Elias the Younger 2, lines 31-36. 531 Rossi Taibbi (1962); Da Costa-Louillet (1960), p. 96. 532 The people who do not know Elias might of course also refer to people from outside the monastery, so an early date, as Costa-Louillet (1960) has suggested, is still possible. Life of Elias the Younger 2. 533 If we assume an average of 130 words per minute, which in English would be a relaxed, not too fast pace for reciting a text, the reading would take about 103 minutes: if somewhat faster or slower, we might assume the reading to take for 1,5 up to c. 2 hours. Although the Life of Elias is the longest, the three Lives are quite comparable in length (the word count is based on the information provided in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae for the respective Lives). The Life of Elias (13.398 words) has 76 chapters, 60 pages of Greek text in the modern edition; the Life of Gregory (9.048 words; estimate of 1 to 1,5 hours) is significantly shorter with 90 chapters in 49 pages of Greek text in the modern edition. The Life of Euthymius (10.883 words; estimate of 1 to 1,75 hours) sits in between in terms of length and has 39 chapters in 61 pages of Greek text in the modern edition. 534 Suggested by Tounta (2016), p. 433.
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