94 Chapter 2 enabling transformations in which the monks shift from mere humans towards a divine and saintly status.307 In addition, the representation of spaces associated with hesychia contributes to the representation of sainthood due to the spatial qualities discussed above. Because the boundaries between the exterior-interior and the city-wilderness are permeable, it is hard to reach hesychia for a sustained period. The resulting interactions with people give the hagiographer the opportunity to represent the monks as holy men, for example by representing them as a ‘miracle-worker’ (e.g., in the example of Gregorius in the monastic cell in Rome, in which he drove away a demon) or a ‘counsellor’ (e.g., in the example of Euthymius on top of the column outside Thessaloniki). 2.3.4 Hesychia, immobility and mobility All the observations above reiterate that space matters. The spaces associated with hesychia function both as a reflection of an extra-textual reality, which the audience can relate to, and as narrative-building blocks that function to promote the respective protagonists as saints. The meaning of hesychia as rest and the strong connection between hesychia and staying in certain spaces,308 moreover, support the idea that hesychia could be imagined as immobility. In addition to the connection to immobility, mobility plays a key role in relation to hesychia in the narratives. This is already suggested by the percentage of occurrences of hesychia or one of its cognates that are mentioned in episodes involving mobility in the Lives of Gregory and Euthymius, namely over seventy percent.309 In the great majority of these instances hesychia is presented as a travel motivation.310 So paradoxically, the desire for hesychia and thus for (a degree of) immobility, inspires further mobility. Monks travel 307 As is implied from hagiographical narratives, the transformative process towards sanctity would only completed after death, when the saints are in Heaven and are believed to be able to influence events at earth and can help others towards salvation through their supplication to God, as often expressed in saints’ Lives. To understand saints as people who complete a transformation from the non-holy to the holy in a divine-human relational process is propounded by Kees Waaijman. He sees this divine-human relational process (‘het godmenselijke betrekkinsgebeuren beschouwd onder het oogpunt van omvorming’) as the essence of spirituality of all faithful people. Saints function as models for others, models that fulfilled this transformation: ‘Spiritualiteit is de voortdurende overgang van het niet-heilige naar de Heilige. Deze overgang wordt gemaakt door de heiligen die daardoor modellen van spiritualiteit worden voor anderen. Heiligen zijn de eigenlijke kenners van het werkelijkheidsgebied van de spiritualiteit’. Waaijman (2000), pp. 6; 321. 308 This is especially apparent for monastic cells, caves and towers, which are circumscribed and confined spaces, whereas passages in which the saint is described be at Mount Athos, one can still imagine that the monk walks around and does not necessarily stay at the exact same spot. However, if we understand immobility, as the opposite of mobility, as the absence of travel – and we understand travel to be medium- or long-distance travel, involving leaving one distinct area to go to another – then also in these instances, in which hesychia is connected to mountains and islands, we might connect hesychia to immobility. 309 In 15 out of 21 instances in the Lives of Gregory and Euthymius; see appendix 2. 310 In 12 instances. There are 3 instances in which hesychia or one of its cognates is used in an episode involving mobility, but in which it is not linked to travel motivation. These are found in chapter 17 (hesychazo as a stopover during a journey; the verb thus signifies immobility in a mobility context) and 65 (the hesychast sends one of his disciples for an errand ) of the Life of Gregory and in chapter 9 of the Life of Euthymius (after being instructed in hesychia Euthymius was sent to a cenobitic monastery as the next step in his monastic training).
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