72 Chapter 2 offers a critical-discourse analysis and explores the various discourses in which the term is used in the analysed texts. The discourse analysis reveals the significance of hesychia in the narratives and lays bare various monastic discourses that pertain to themes such as mobility and sainthood. Similarities but also differences in the understanding of hesychia and its relation to mobility come to the fore in the three Lives, showing that there are various discourses within one genre. In all three saints’ Lives, monastic mobility is represented as positive or neutral, although an example from Elias the Younger illustrates that the contemporary audience may have had negative associations with monastic mobility. 2.2 Hesychia: a semantic analysis The core meaning of hesychia is usually translated as ‘rest’ or ‘quiet’.229 Even in the English language, ‘rest’ can mean different things: for example, a physical state of the body or a period of time (a break) in between busy moments. So too in ancient and medieval Greek. Scholars have recognised that the term changed meaning over time. Therefore, a brief exposition on the meaning of hesychia in late antiquity and the middle-Byzantine period will follow. This exposition will inform the discourse analysis that follows in section 2.3 and 2.4. 2.2.1 Roots: hesychia in late-antique monastic literature Language develops over time, so one cannot assume that the same words have the same meanings in different periods and contexts. It is clear that hesychia is no exception. While there is hardly any research on the meaning and significance of hesychia in the middleByzantine period, there are various studies elaborating on its significance in late-antique monastic literature, and in a late-Byzantine political and spiritual movement. These studies show that the meaning of hesychia has been subject to change. In the late-Byzantine movement of hesychasm the term acquired a specific meaning that was related to, but does not capture completely, the meanings of the term in a late-antique context.230 Also in the earlier history hesychia might have changed meaning. It has been suggested that the meaning of hesychia in early monastic literature changed in the fifth century.231 229 See the entry in the Liddell, Scott, Jones Greek-English Lexicon (=LSJ). 230 Hesychasm is used to refer to two things: a specific method of prayer and contemplation centred on breathing and of continuous prayer of the Jesus prayer (‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’) with the aim of avoiding any distraction and complete devotion to God, eventually hoping for communion with God – a method developed by the thirteenth-century Athonite monk Nicephorus the Hesychast. The prayer itself and the roots of this practice go back to late antiquity, see e.g., Sinkewicz (1987). Secondly, hesychasm refers to a spiritual, political and social movement in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Papadakis (1991); Hausherr (1966b). 231 Müller argued that in monastic literature before the fifth century, hesychia merely referred to exterior circumstances of the dwelling place of monks, and should just be translated with ‘rest’. According to Müller, hesychia did not yet have connotations of contemplation or inner rest; this would only change in the second half of the fifth century, when she sees that hesychia also started to signify a spiritual concept of contemplative rest. There is no consensus on this point yet. Other scholars, do see exactly such meanings already reflected in writings from the fourth century, particularly in the writings of Evagrius of Ponticus (345-399) and Basil of Caesarea (330-379), e.g., Müller (2017), p. 153; Sinkewicz (2003), p. 1; Koder (2017), p. 219.
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