27 Introduction Another social function of saints’ Lives that authors themselves often address is to inspire the audience to imitate the virtuous life of the saint.83 In saints’ Lives the celebrated individuals are presented as exemplars, as the ideal Christians par excellence. This (envisioned) social function of hagiography connects to a type of ideal reader in Byzantine literary culture, identified by Stratis Papaioannou as the ritual reader. As attested by various stories featuring reading in Byzantine literature, one of the (ideal or appropriate) responses to reading or listening was a ‘fundamental moral or ontological change in its recipients’.84 As normative texts, by providing a model for what was considered an ideal Christian life, hagiography could, and perhaps in the minds of hagiographers ideally would, inspire such a moral change in the listeners/readers of saints’ Lives. For any literary piece of writing, one of the authorial aims most likely was also to write a compelling story, both in order to retain the attention of the audience and equally to appeal to an appreciation of beautiful language.85 Aesthetics and entertainment should thus also be considered as aims (and effects) of writing and performing hagiography. Indeed, a topos in hagiography is an expression of concern regarding the (lack of) beauty of the author’s language, indicating that beautiful language use was appreciated. Moreover, some hagiographical texts include aspects of the ancient novel and the many adventures and dangers in the narratives create a sense of drama and suspense.86 Entertainment should therefore be considered as one of the potential functions and one of the authorial aims of hagiography as well. Finally, hagiography has been recognised as literature of persuasion.87 Hagiographers argue for ideals and principles that the saint represents, for example promoting an ideal of asceticism, or advancing the correctness of particular theological positions (e.g., icon veneration during and in the immediate aftermath of iconoclasm).88 Apart from aiming to shape their own society, hagiographers of new saints also had a more immediate task 83 Expressions of the hagiographer that he/she hopes to inspire towards a virtuous life (through the example of the saint), are found e.g., in the epilogues of the Lives of Gregory of Decapolis and Elias the Younger. This social function of hagiography, in which hagiography is thus understood as a normative text by providing a model for what is considered an ideal way of life, is commonly recognised in scholarship, see e.g., Rapp (2015), p. 129; Isaïa (2014), p. 17. 84 Papaioannou (2021), p. 533. 85 The other type a model reader in Byzantine literary culture identified by Papaioannou is the aesthetic reader, corresponding to reading practices centring the beauty of language, entertainment and pleasure of the senses. While there could be a tension between ideals of ritual versus aesthetic readership, as Papaioannou recognises, they did not exclude each other: ‘ritual’ texts could also be appreciated for their beauty or compelling narrative. See Ibid., pp. 534–538. 86 See Messis (2014); Mullett (2002). 87 E.g., Jamie Kreiner sees (Merovingian) hagiography as having the dual objective of ‘truth-telling’ and persuasion. By truth-telling she means a version of truth that made sense to the authors and audiences, rather than a contemporary historian’s idea of truth. Together these objectives would determine how the narratives are shaped. The argument that Merovingian hagiographies were making, according to Kreiner, is to help shape and transform the social order of the Merovingian society based on ‘new [Christian] concepts of authority, group identity, political responsibility, and economic value’. The saints would represent the principles argued for. Kreiner (2014), p. 7. 88 Exemplary and persuasion as social functions of hagiography could in this context be used interchangeably: hagiography in this sense is understood as promoting particular ideologies of behaviour or ideas. I
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