210 building. The interconnection between hesychia, immobility and sainthood works differently for the Life of Elias. In this Life, the author plays down the connection between hesychia and physical immobility. However, in the other two Lives, immobility in the form of hesychia represents the monks as embodying a monastic spiritual ideal. The second way in which (im)mobility is essential for the construction of sainthood concerns the representation of monks as combining two opposing modes of living. This discursive strategy was revealed through a discourse analysis of hesychia in its narrative contexts. That is, the analysis allowed us to see how the hagiographer could unite in one person two contradictory ideals necessary for the construction of sainthood. Holy men embodied (at least) two ideals: living an exemplary life and being of benefit to society. The ideal of a monastic exemplary life, which is particularly dominant in the Lives of Gregory and Euthymius, is a life of isolation from society, completely dedicated to God, and indeed in pursuit of hesychia. This ideal stands in a long tradition of monastic literature and practice. However, an exemplary life was not considered enough to be celebrated as a saint. Saints were also represented as being of benefit to society, by life (as holy men) as well as after their death. The representation of the saint’s life was especially challenging for the hagiographer of ascetic saints: how to represent monks as rejecting society while at the same time serving it? If a monk was also to be of benefit to others, he needed to interact with people, for example, to give advice, to give prophesies, to heal people, to expel demons, or just to be seen so he might inspire others with his lifestyle. Combining these two ideals – retreat and interaction – creates a tension in many monastic hagiographies. One of the narrative strategies that hagiographers used to resolve this tension involves mobility. The hagiographers used the frequent translocations of the monks to alternate between episodes centred on interaction (e.g., in a monastic community or in a city) with episodes centred on isolation (e.g., on uninhabited islands or in caves). In other words, mobility is used as a narrative bridge between spaces facilitating isolation and spaces facilitating interaction, between an ascetical lifestyle of retreat and serving society. The discourse analysis of hesychia also revealed a narrative strategy in episodes of immobility. The places where the monks stay in order to attain hesychia are represented as having particular characteristics. One of these characteristics is the narrative choice to represent the boundaries between exterior-interior and between city-wilderness as permeable. This means that the search for isolation still allowed for interaction. These interactions gave the hagiographer the opportunity to present the monk as miracle-worker (e.g., when Gregory exorcised a demon while staying in a monastic cell in Rome) or as a counsellor (e.g., when many people visited Euthymius and asked for advice when he was sitting on his column outside Thessaloniki). Both mobility and the particular representation of episodes of immobility were thus used strategically to portray Gregory and Euthymius as holy men. The focus on hesychia served as a lens to see authorial strategies at work and to perceive discourses on mobility and immobility. Nevertheless, the findings may also
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