23 Introduction physically from his family and from his previous physical and social environment. The move thereby symbolises the breach with the ‘world’, which was considered a precondition for a life completely devoted to the spiritual.60 Another topos for monastic saints’ Lives is the founding of a new monastery, which could involve travel to an ideal site assigned by God. The element of choosing a site which is designated by God is already found in one of the earliest late-antique Greek hagiographical dossiers, that of saint Pachomius (292326). That element would become a shared characteristic for later foundation narratives in Byzantine hagiography, in addition to other elements in the foundation story in the Life of Pachomius.61 So although not free from topoi, the centrality of the travel-theme seems to be a distinguishing feature only of a handful of hagiographical texts.62 The decisions of the hagiographers on how and how much to incorporate journeys in their narratives, apart from these topoi, therefore do not seem to be predefined by traditions of the genre, so we might be able to observe a greater degree of creativity on the hagiographers’ part. Studies on Byzantine hagiography have a long and continuous tradition. Since the seventeenth century, the Bollandists studied saints’ Lives with the aim of evaluating the historicity of the cults of saints and to publish hagiographical texts.63 New editions and especially translations of Byzantine hagiographies continue to be made.64 Currently, hagiography is mostly studied either as evidence for social history, or from literary 60 See for a discussion of breaking with family ties to enter upon a monastic life Oltean (2020), pp. 146–151. The move away from the individual’s home or familiar surroundings is considered to correspond to a monastic ideal, xeniteia. See e.g., Bitton-Ashkelony (2005), pp. 146–158; Mitrea (2023a), p. 3. For a discussion of the topos in hagiography of a physical withdrawal and renunciation from the ‘world’ see Pratsch (2005), pp. 117–146. 61 The elements in the Life of Pachomius which would shape later foundation stories in Byzantine hagiographies as well, are listed in Efthymiadis et al.: ‘the choice of an ideal site designated by God, reception of the first disciples, the building of an enclosure wall, the redaction of a monastic rule, the institution of a hierarchy inside the monastery and the organisation of duties, and, finally, the building of a church and the recognition of the monastic institution by the Church hierarchy’. Efthymiadis et al. (2011), p. 42. 62 Other Lives of monastic saints who travelled frequently include Nikon the Metanoite (Life written in the mideleventh or twelfth century) or Lazarus of Mount Galesion (Life written in the mid- to late eleventh century). These were written at a later date than the selection criteria for this project, and therefore were not selected as case studies (see discussion of the criteria on pp. 29-31). Saints’ Lives written in the ninth or tenth century of monastic saints who would have made multiple long distance journeys, but less frequently than the chosen case studies, include the Lives of Anthony the Younger, Blasius of Amorion, Christopher and Makarius and Sabas the Younger, the (most likely) fictional Constantine the Jew, David and Symeon and Gregory of Lesbos, Elias Spelaiotes, Euthymius of Sardis, Evaristus, Joseph the Hymnographer, Luke the Younger of Steiris, Michael Synkellos and Phantinus the Younger (about a dozen of Lives out of a surviving corpus of 119 saints’ Lives, as listed in the Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database). 63 See a discussion of their long-lasting project in e.g., Efthymiadis (2011b), pp. 2–4. 64 The Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, launched in 2010, is an example of a series with (mainly) Old English and Byzantine texts with facing English translation, among which Byzantine hagiographical texts are strongly represented – an initiative akin to the long-established Loeb Classical Library, which originally aimed to include Byzantine literature as well. For the early history of the Loeb Classical Library, see the forthcoming dissertation Behind the Red and the Green: Unraveling the History of the Loeb Classical Library (1911-1939) by Mirte Liebregts (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen). I
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