98 Chapter 2 desire for solitude. The revelation at Athos spurs Euthymius to move towards Thessaloniki and to found a monastery at the nearby Peristera. This change from a solitary mode of life to the foundation of a communal monastery is made explicit in the narrative. The divine voice says: ‘Euthymius, go away […] make it [the designated place] into a monastery for souls […] [f]or it is not good for you to continue to dwell alone in the wilderness and try to contend with demons, who fled long ago after being defeated by your virtue’.320 So again, mobility enables the protagonist to alternate between various modes of monastic life. In addition, this episode suggests that Euthymius is now so far in his spiritual development that his solitary mode of life is of no benefit anymore. The move to Peristera could thus be seen as a transformative moment in the monastic career of Euthymius and in the representation of his exemplary life, showing how he now masters all virtues. Although this passage functions as a motivation for Euthymius to found a communal monastery at Peristera, this does not mean that the author avoids showing subsequent alternations of monastic modes later in the narrative. In fact, in later chapters Euthymius continues to travel to places of various degrees of seclusion, such as the column outside of Thessaloniki or again Mount Athos, motivated by his search for hesychia. In the narrative, mobility thus continues to enable the combination of diverse modes of monastic life. Mobility and models of sainthood The discourse analysis of the connections between hesychia, space and mobility allows us to see how the authors construct Gregory and Euthymius as holy men. Closely connected to the observations above on different modes of monastic life, holy men should embody (at least) two ideals: living an exemplary life and benefitting society. The ideal for a monastic exemplary life that is dominant in these two texts is a life of isolation from society, completely dedicated to God, and in pursuit of hesychia.321 However, if a monk also is to be of benefit to others and hence be portrayed as a holy man, he needs 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. So also for the construction of sainthood the alternation between modes of interaction and withdrawal are essential. Combining these two ideals of retreat and interaction creates a tension in many monastic hagiographies.322 In the examples discussed earlier, hagiographers used several strategies to resolve this tension. Interaction and retreat are represented simultaneously by the authors through the presentation of the boundaries between interior-exterior and wilderness-city as permeable. Moreover, the hagiographers used the frequent mobility of Gregory and Euthymius to represent them as alternating between these two modes of sainthood, that is, to alternate episodes of interaction with episodes of (relative) isolation. 320 Life of Euthymius 27.3; translation by Talbot in Alexakis (2016), p.83. 321 These ideals stand in a long tradition of monastic literature and practice. Cf. Introduction, pp. 22-23 and section 2.2.1 above. 322 E.g., also discussed for Theodoret’s Religious History, which incorporates various ‘biographies’ of saints, in Urbainczyk (2002), pp. 80–88.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw