The Byzantine World

CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE MIRACLES OF GREGORY PALAMAS BY PHILOTHEOS KOKKINOS

Alice-Mary Talbot

After a noteworthy decline in the production of hagiographic texts in Byzantium in the eleventh, twelfth and first half of the thirteenth centuries, the Palaiologan era (1261–1453) witnessed a revival in the composition of saints’ lives and miracle collections.¹ Assemblages of late Byzantine miracula² fall into two categories: the miracles of new saints and miracles that occurred at the well-established shrines of older saints or the Virgin. Examples of the latter are Maximos the Deacon’s narrative of miracles at the shrine of SS Kosmas and Damian just outside the walls of Constantinople (c. 1300); the accounts composed by Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos of miraculous cures that took place at the shrine of the Zoodochos Pege, also located just outside the Byzantine capital (c. 1308–20); and John Lazaropoulos’ collection of miracles that occurred at the shrine of St Eugenios in Trebizond (1360s).³ Only two assemblages of miraculous healings effected by new saints survive, one by Theoktistos the Stoudite on the miracles of the patriarch Athanasios I of Constantinople (1289–93; 1303–9), probably written in the 1330s,⁴ and the second on the miracula of Gregory Palamas, composed by Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos in the 1360s,⁵ and the subject of this essay. As we shall see, both collections were probably intended as dossiers to promote the canonization of the holy men they praised.

GREGORY PALAMAS

Palamas, born in 1294 or 1296, was an Athonite monk and distinguished theologian of the fourteenth century, who promoted a new emphasis on mysticism and monastic contemplation, often referred to as hesychasm. He taught that it was possible through intensive prayer to achieve a vision of the uncreated light of God, such as shone on Christ at his Transfiguration on Mt Tabor. This Palamite doctrine gave rise to a serious controversy within the Orthodox Church in the mid-fourteenth century, resulting in a series of councils in Constantinople (1341, 1347, 1351) that in the end supported Palamas’ views and declared them official doctrine.

Palamas was appointed metropolitan of Thessalonika in 1347, but was initially denied admission to the city by the rebellious Zealots, and had to seek refuge on Mt Athos. Following the quelling of the Zealot revolt in 1349, he was able to take up his position as hierarch. He was taken prisoner by the Turks in 1354 and held by them in captivity in Asia Minor until 1355. The account he wrote of his captivity is a useful source for conditions in Turkish-occupied Anatolia in the mid-fourteenth century. We know the precise day of his death, 14 November, at the age of sixty-three, but the year is disputed. Older scholarship argues that he died in 1359,⁶ while more recent research moves his death date forward by two years, to 1357.⁷

PHILOTHEOS KOKKINOS

The author of the miracula of Palamas, Philotheos Kokkinos, was his contemporary and supported his views on hesychasm. Born around 1300 in Thessalonika, Philotheos was, like Palamas, a monk on Mt Athos who rose in the ecclesiastical hierarchy to become a metropolitan in 1347 with the triumph of John VI Kantakouzenos (1347–54); in the case of Philotheos, he was promoted to the see of Herakleia in Thrace, where he remained until 1353 when he was chosen as patriarch of Constantinople. His first tenure on the patriarchal throne lasted only one year, until 1354, on account of the deposition of Kantakouzenos, but he was restored as patriarch in 1364 and led the Church until 1376. Philotheos wrote theological treatises, hymns and a collection of liturgical rubrics, as well as a series of lengthy vitae of new saints of the fourteenth century, all of them having some connection with his hometown of Thessalonika.⁸ He includes an account of the miracles performed by Palamas in his lengthy biography of the metropolitan, termed a Logos rather than a Bios. Philotheos most likely composed this Logos sometime between 1364, when he returned to the patriarchal throne, and 1368 when Palamas was formally recognized as a saint by the synod of Constantinople.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CULT OF PALAMAS AND HIS CANONIZATION

We are well informed on the development of the cult of Palamas, thanks in large part to his biography by Philotheos and a synodal document of 1368. There was evidence of Palamas’ sanctity even before his death, attested by his performance of six miracles in Thessalonika. During his final illness he predicted the day of his death, a topos of hagiography, and as his soul left his body his face was illuminated with radiance, and the room glowed with light (chs 114–16). Curiously, Philotheos provides little explicit information about Palamas’ funerary rites and the place of his burial in the cathedral of Hagia Sophia, but some details about the tomb can be gleaned from the miracle accounts. His corpse was laid to rest in a stone sarcophagus, with a stone lid, located on the right side of the church (chs 119–20); an icon of Palamas was placed nearby (ch. 125). Ailing pilgrims to the tomb usually rubbed the afflicted part of their body against the stone sarcophagus; they also prostrated themselves, kissed the tomb and prayed to Palamas’ icon. Some afflicted individuals stayed several days in the church, praying for healing (ch. 121). Since Philotheos wrote his text within ten years of Palamas’ death, we can be assured that veneration of the deceased metropolitan began very soon after his demise.⁹

Shortly after the death of Palamas, his veneration spread to neighboring cities, most notably Kastoria. Philotheos reports that, following the miraculous cure of a woman named Zoe from severe menstrual problems, the citizens of the town decided to “set up a holy icon to Gregory … and celebrated a splendid feast for all the people on the day of his death, and hastened to erect a church for him” (chs 127–8). Philotheos notes further that the people of Kastoria did not wait for Palamas’ official canonization before venerating him as a saint, but proceeded of their own accord (ch. 128). Palamas also twice healed a boy from Verroia, appearing first to his father and later to his mother in a dream vision (chs 131–2). In addition he cured the boy’s aunt in Constantinople (ch. 133).

An iconographic tradition began very early for Palamas, based no doubt on the image next to his tomb.¹⁰ A portrait was painted in the Vlatadon monastery in Thessalonika within a few years of his death, and another image of similar date can be seen in the chapel of the Holy Anargyroi at Vatopedi. Significantly in this latter image Palamas is labeled as a miracle-worker (θαυµατoυργóς).¹¹

Philotheos’ synodal decision of 1368 about the canonization of Palamas provides detailed information about the unofficial and official developments in his sanctification. While Philotheos was in retirement between his two patriarchates, and residing at the Akataleptos monastery in Constantinople, he devoted much time to promoting the cult of Palamas, and privately celebrated his feast-day. He took the initiative of writing to the megas oikonomos of the metropolis of Thessalonika, asking him to send information on Palamas’ healing miracles. The oikonomos insisted on receiving sworn testimony from the beneficiaries of the miracles, which he then passed on to Philotheos.¹² In his Logos Philotheos calls this man a “brother”, that is, a monk, and praises him for his composition of the miracles with “an abundance of style and wisdom” (ch. 134.5–6). Philotheos also reports that subsequently his predecessor as patriarch, Kallistos I (second patriarchate, 1355–63), who shared his esteem for Palamas, confirmed Palamas’ performance of miracles by writing c. 1360–1 to the suffragan bishops of Thessalonika and to metropolitan officials, asking them to send him signed testimony about the miraculous cures effected by Palamas.¹³ These high clerics assembled at the instigation of the empress mother, Anna of Savoy, who was resident in Thessalonika at that time; “after summoning those people who had been healed and receiving testimony from them with assurances that their words were true, they wrote down these [accounts] and signed them, and sent them to my predecessor as patriarch.”¹⁴

The miracula give a few clues as to the sources of information for the initial compilation of evidence on miraculous events associated with Palamas. His status as a holy man was confirmed by the illumination of the room in which he died, and the radiance of his face. The former was attested by two witnesses, both priests, and the latter by everyone who viewed his corpse on its bier (ch. 116). A monk from Kastoria healed of a badly infected foot could still show the scars from the forty lesions from which pus had flowed, attesting to the severity of his affliction, so marvelously cured (ch. 129). The nobleman delivered from severe constipation is described as “going with good strength and vigor to the tomb of the great one [Palamas], [and] himself proclaiming to all with a loud voice the extraordinary miracle” (ch. 118). A number of other people healed by Palamas are said to have gone to his tomb to proclaim his praises and utter words of thanksgiving for their deliverance from affliction (chs 124, 125, 129). Philotheos states that “truthful witnesses of these words [about the cures of incurable afflictions] are Thessalians and Illyrians and the people who … narrate wondrously … the miracles of the great man” (ch. 126). It is possible that an attendant at the shrine of Palamas wrote down such testimonies of cures. Philotheos also mentions that “[stories of] the operation of the miracles circulated throughout the entire city [of Thessalonika]” (ch. 122).

Philotheos compiled the assembled testimonies some time before 1368, no doubt unifying and embellishing their style, and probably adding details about the symptoms and causes of the various diseases. The composition by Philotheos of the miracles in their present form is confirmed by similarities with the terminology and phraseology of his other works.¹⁵ Soon after regaining the patriarchal throne in 1364, he wrote to the monks at the Great Lavra on Athos, assuring them that it was permissible to celebrate the feast-day of Palamas privately.¹⁶ Early in 1368 the feast-day of Palamas was formally instituted at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and in all metropolitan sees by a synodal decree (the so-called Tomos against Prochoros Kydones). Philotheos notes therein that the procedures followed with regard to the canonization of Palamas paralleled developments in the institution of the cult of Patriarch Athanasios I: popular veneration of his tomb at the Xerolophos monastery where miraculous healings occurred; annual procession of the Xerolophos monks to Hagia Sophia on the Sunday of Orthodoxy; and a subsequent official synodal declaration of his sanctity.¹⁷ The miracula of Athanasios, compiled by Theoktistos the Stoudite, were evidently also intended to support the process of his canonization.¹⁸

STRUCTURE OF THE MIRACLE COLLECTION

The collection of miracles effected by Palamas has attracted surprisingly little attention to date, except in Antonio Rigo’s exhaustive study of the canonization of the metropolitan of Thessalonika.¹⁹ This may be because the dossier is not preserved in the manuscript tradition as a separate collection of miracula, like that of Athanasios, but as part of a very lengthy vita. Only recently were the miracula of Palamas translated into a western European language.²⁰

The miracles are divided into two groups: those performed by Palamas while he was still alive, and those effected after his death. The six miracles wrought during Palamas’ lifetime all took place during the period when he was metropolitan of Thessalonika, and are described in scattered chapters (81, 97 and 105–8). These miracle accounts are followed by an account of Palamas’ final illness, some sort of abdominal ailment, his foretelling the day of his death, his deathbed speech (ch. 114) and the separation of his soul from his body at the age of sixty-three (ch. 115).

The posthumous healing miracles are assembled together in chapters 117–33, at the very end of Philotheos’ lengthy Logos. An initial set of miracles performed in Thessalonika is recounted in chapters 117–25. Chapter 125 leads into a transitional paragraph (126) by narrating the cure of an elderly émigré from Adrianople to Thessalonika who was cured of unsightly callosities on his hand, as well as the healing of an unidentified “foreign monk.” Philotheos is making the point that the metropolitan of Thessalonika did not limit his miraculous healing to members of his own flock, but extended his benefactions to people from other cities as well. Chapter 126 declares that people in Thessaly and Illyria benefited from Palamas’ healing powers, and that very soon after his death people in other cities were painting his icon, celebrating his feast-day and building churches in his honor. He is in fact referring to Kastoria, where the local population instituted a feast-day on the anniversary of Palamas’ death without awaiting a synodal decision, that is, prior to 1368 (ch. 128). Philotheos next narrates the miraculous cures of two inhabitants of Kastoria, Zoe and the monk Ephraim (chs 127 and 129).²¹ Philotheos then goes on to describe healing miracles in Verroia, where the son of Andronikos Tzimiskes is twice cured by Palamas of life-threatening illnesses, and in Constantinople where the sister-in-law of Tzimiskes is also healed (chs 130–3). As already noted by Rigo,²² the final chapter in the miracle collection (134) has no connection with healing, and is really not a miracle at all, but rather a dream vision, assuring a hermit at the Athonite Lavra of St Athanasios that Palamas was ranked together with the great founding Fathers of the Church, and that his approval was necessary for any synodal doctrinal decision.

TYPES OF AFFLICTIONS HEALED

Both as living hierarch and in his tomb in Hagia Sophia, Gregory Palamas was credited by his hagiographer with the healing of a wide variety of afflictions, including paralysis, blindness, cataract, deafness, hemorrhage, migraine headache, intestinal problems, calluses on the palm of a hand and an infected foot. One can detect an unusual focus on problems of defecation, ranging from incontinence of the bowels (ch. 107) to diarrhea (chs 120–1) to three cases of extreme constipation (chs 118, 120, 121), and pose the question of whether this has any connection with the fact that Palamas himself is reported to have succumbed to an abdominal ailment (ch. 114). One can also note that this is a very different list of afflictions from those that affected pilgrims to the shrines of Athanasios or the Pege in Constantinople, where problems such as demonic possession, urinary dysfunction, fevers, epilepsy, leprosy, dropsy or cancer were more common.²³

ATTITUDES TOWARD MEDICINE AND PHYSICIANS

Like most miracle accounts, that of Philotheos Kokkinos reveals a negative attitude toward doctors, with criticism of their inability to heal their patients, their incompetence or even malpractice.²⁴ The uselessness of physicians is mentioned in the case of the nun Eleodora whose eye was afflicted by a “flux,” resulting in terrible pain: “all the skill of physicians, both local and foreign, was stymied by the severity of the affliction” (ch. 97). Likewise the gold-embroiderer Palates, whose son was afflicted with some sort of hemorrhage for fifteen months, complains “that he had used every doctor and every remedy on behalf [of his son], but had accomplished nothing up to this time” (ch. 107). A hieromonk suffered from recurrent headaches which did not respond “to any medical knowledge or drug treatment” (ch. 117).

In other cases the physicians’ treatment resulted in a worsening of the affliction. A choir leader in Thessalonika suffered from some unspecified ailment caused by “noxious matter,” for which the physicians prescribed a cold diet, as a result of which the noxious matter was neither absorbed nor digested, and became compacted in the extremities of his body, leading to paralysis of his arms and legs (ch. 119). An imperial weaver with severe constipation was prescribed a purgative; fortunately, he drank only half of the dose, which caused a violent and life-threatening diarrhea (ch. 120). A woman who earned her living by spinning developed a painful shoulder condition as the result of a flux. “Medical [skill] applied many [procedures] to get rid of the flux, so that finally a cauterizing iron [was used] on her shoulder … but it accomplished nothing more than to add to her pains and to make the suffering in her arm even worse” (ch. 123).

On the other hand, Philotheos never accuses physicians of greed, a topos in other miracle collections, and in chapter 121 he provides a sympathetic portrait of an ailing physician who is powerless to heal himself:

This great physician of souls and of bodies [Gregory] also cured a physician. For a [physician] was bedridden for a very long time, contending with all sorts of illnesses, so that as a result of his long confinement his flesh developed sores and a multitude of worms infested the sores. And not only was he ill, but also his wife and children, and the house of the physician was not a medical office, as it should have been, but rather a hospice for the sick.

After the physician was healed by a vision of Gregory, a visit to a bathhouse and pilgrimage to Gregory’s shrine, he recovered his strength “so that unexpectedly he was able to mount a horse nimbly and journey around the city, as previously, to practice his craft and heal many people.” The passage provides the important information that this Thessalonian doctor had an office in his home and made house calls, furnishing additional support to Timothy Miller’s argument that private practice was more common than hospital care in the Palaiologan period.²⁵

Although he could be quite critical of the failures of medical treatment, Philotheos, like some other Palaiologan hagiographers, was evidently interested in the practice of medicine and the aetiology of disease, and had picked up some medical terminology from books or acquaintances. For example, he used the technical word from the medical literature for the tailbone, calling it the “holy bone” ( or os sacrum) (ch. 118.42),²⁶ and states that doctors use the term “colic” for severe constipation (ch. 118.4).²⁷ Among the specific treatments he mentioned as being prescribed by physicians were a cold diet (ch. 119), the cauterizing iron (ch. 123), purgatives (ch. 120) and “warm medicaments” (poultices?) (ch. 122).

Philotheos vividly describes the protracted nature of the various illnesses and the discouraging sequence of symptoms. Many of the afflictions had oppressed their sufferers for a very long time: the daughter of the orphanotrophos was paralyzed for three years (ch. 81), the son of Palates had a hemorrhage for fifteen months (ch. 108), a hieromonk suffered from migraine headaches for seven years (ch. 117), the émigré from Adrianople had severe calluses on his hand for nine years (ch. 125), Zoe from Kastoria had a menstrual disorder for seven years (ch. 127). The hagiographer also recounts sympathetically the worsening nature of some afflictions, as in the case of the hieromonk with migraines: “the pain in his head did not go away, but returned periodically, first once a month, then as time passed twice and three times and several times a month, and even more often and more severely and left the man in dire condition” (ch. 117). The hieromonk Porphyrios was at first afflicted with a sharp pain in his left side. Soon after he was miraculously cured of this affliction, he again fell ill with a constriction in his throat that prevented him from swallowing either food or drink (ch. 120).The Kastorian monk’s troubles began with stepping on a thorn which punctured his right foot. Then the pain and infection transferred to his left foot which swelled up like a wineskin; eventually pus began to pour forth from forty openings (abscesses?). After he was healed by Palamas, he did not follow through with his vow to visit his shrine in Thessalonika, and the pain and swelling returned to his foot, accompanied by high fever (ch. 129).

Most afflicted people were healed quite suddenly, but for others the recovery was protracted. The choir leader at St Demetrios was at first paralyzed in both arms and legs; the paralysis gradually wore off, except in three fingers of his right hand (ch. 119). The well-born woman with a paralyzed right arm gradually regained the use of her limb over a period of three days, perhaps because of her previous skepticism and lack of faith in Palamas (ch. 122). Another woman with a painful arm also had a frustratingly slow recovery (ch. 123):

the great physician of the afflicted [Palamas] began his healing in a somewhat playful manner, and did not relieve her pain right away, even though it was possible, but eased it slowly and gradually … he first drove it away from her shoulder and upper arm, but permitted it to remain in her elbow and forearm. But the woman … as was likely feeling the even more violent assault of the pain, since it was concentrated into a narrow area, began to cry out against the physician [Palamas].

After she visited his tomb a second time, “he then compassionately brought the remainder [of the healing] and gave a complete cure to the woman, … seeming to draw out for a long time the pain and that lengthy illness from the tips of her fingers like a fine thread.”²⁸

Most authors of fourteenth-century miracle collections tried to explain the causes of the ailments that afflicted the people who came to healing shrines. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the miracles at the Pege shrine by Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos and in the miracles of St Eugenios by John Lazaropoulos,²⁹ and appears to a lesser extent in the miracles of the patriarch Athanasios.³⁰ Philotheos believed that certain illnesses were caused by noxious fluids moving through the body, what he termed a “flux” . Thus a nun went blind as the result of a “noxious flux [which] caused terrible pain in the eye” (ch. 97). The hieromonk Porphyrios was afflicted with matter flowing into his throat, causing such a constriction that he was unable to eat, drink or swallow at all (ch. 106). A nobleman suffered from extreme constipation, because “some noxious material had compacted and solidified and transformed into a stone and this blocked the outlet for normal defecation” (ch. 118). A choir leader became paralyzed in his arms and legs because some noxious matter, “moving unabsorbed and undigested, took refuge in the extremities of the body, and then the arms and legs of the chief of the musicians were paralyzed. Many days passed and the pestilential matter passed from them [his limbs],” but part remained in the first three fingers of his right hand which continued to be rigid and unbending (ch. 119). And in two cases, women’s arms were paralyzed on account of a “flux of some pernicious liquid” (ch. 122) or a “pernicious flux … that flowed from the shoulder of her left arm and rendered it useless” (ch. 123).

PHILOTHEOS’ EMPATHY WITH THE AFFLICTED

Related to Philotheos’ vivid narration of the distressing symptoms, suffering and discouragement of the afflicted individuals healed by Palamas is a keen sensitivity to the embarrassment and depression to which these sick people were subject, as they were bedridden for years, suffered from shameful problems or were unable to carry out their normal work. A particularly striking passage tells of a nun who had raised from infancy an abandoned baby girl. The child developed an incontinency of the bowels that caused her to soil her bed at night, just at the time when the nun would have expected her to be toilet trained; this caused the foster mother to turn against the child and to abandon her former “goodwill and love” (ch. 107). The choirmaster with a paralyzed hand grieved “that he could not exercise his [musical] talent as before, nor could he write or compose melodies on account of the paralysis in his hand” (ch. 119). The woman with the paralyzed arm was embarrassed because it did not hang down naturally, “but stretched upright and to the side, rigid, unbending … it was shameful to see” (ch. 122). Another woman with a bad arm was particularly distressed because her affliction prevented her from spinning and earning her living by such handwork (ch. 123). A man from Adrianople suffered from a disfigurement of his hand:

Four calluses suddenly appeared on the palm of his left hand, and they were very large, and some were hard and resistant and harsh and sharp … so as not to permit the palm to close naturally into a fist and it appeared inappropriate to touch because of the rough and harsh and sharp character of the calluses … and in addition it was shameful and ugly and a blemish for the entire body.

(ch. 125)

Finally, let me mention Philotheos’ touching description of a father whose son is on his deathbed (ch. 131):

His father, as if consumed by grief, withdrew, avoiding the very sight of the child and seeing him separated from his soul, and sat by himself … placing his right hand on his knees and his head on his right hand, in the posture of mourners.

One can find some similarities in the miracula of Athanasios by Theoktistos, with his sympathetic description of the blind nun who “sat in darkness for six whole years and relied on her relatives to lead her by the hand.”³¹ Likewise, with regard to the nun Magdalene, Theoktistos notes that she suffered “a double affliction, for in addition to the disease she could not endure the shame since she was not able to pass water naturally, as everyone does, but was incontinent night and day alike, and the affliction was unbearable.”³² Maria Frangopoulina endured twenty years of a uterine (menstrual) disorder, “which was not only deadly and difficult to cure, but also caused unbearable shame.”³³

METHODS OF HEALING

While metropolitan of Thessalonika, Palamas effected miraculous healings primarily by making the sign of the cross over the afflicted individual and/or laying on of hands on the affected portion of the body (chs 105–8). The mechanisms for posthumous healing miracles fall into two primary categories: dream visions in which Palamas appears to the ailing person, and the actual visitation of the patient to his tomb in Hagia Sophia, or a combination of the two. Often a cure ensues after the pilgrim rubs the afflicted limb or body part against the stone sarcophagus, especially its lid (as in chs 119, 120, 122, 125). In the dream visions Palamas may make the sign of the cross and place his hands on the ailing part of the body (chs 117, 119), or urge visitation of his tomb (ch. 120). In one more complex scenario, the daughter of the ailing physician has a dream in which Palamas orders one of his deacons to cleanse the man’s sores with water from a holy basin used for the rite of the Washing of the Feet on Maundy Thursday. Subsequently her father goes to the bathhouse and washes away his lesions, and then visits Palamas’ shrine (ch. 121). Twice the sick are healed after prayer to Palamas’ icon (chs 125, 129).

Several of the healing miracles are related to the power associated with Palamas’ vestments, especially a stole which had been refurbished for him at the beginning of his metropolitanate by the gold-embroiderer Palates (ch. 108), evidently the same stole that Palamas was wearing when the nun Eleodora was healed of blindness by touching its hem to her eye (ch. 97). Andronikos Tzimiskes, whose son was on the point of death, had a dream vision of Palamas wearing his holy stole, and upon wakening found that his child had miraculously recovered (ch. 131). The anonymous nobleman described in chapter 118, who suffered from severe constipation, had a dream vision in which Palamas appeared to him in the guise of a hieromonk also called Gregory. The monk Gregory extracted “from the folds of his garment a piece of the holy stole which had been previously refurbished for him, … marked with nine gold crosses and placed it on the afflicted area [his rear end]”; when the nobleman awoke, he was able to evacuate his bowels. The allusion to the nine gold crosses suggests that this stole is the omophorion, a long scarf adorned with crosses that was reserved for bishops.³⁴ It also seems probable that the epomis mentioned in chapter 120 is the same garment, and that it was deposited with Palamas in his tomb. Philotheos’ account is somewhat puzzling in this regard, however. An imperial weaver, afflicted with constipation, dreamed that he was advised by a monk to go to the archbishop’s house and place Palamas’ epomis on his kidneys (sic). When he went to the house, however, he was unable to obtain the vestment. Then (still in the dream vision) the monk led him to the tomb where he found the epomis and placed it on his kidneys. Upon awakening the weaver decided that the epomis referred to in the vision was really the stone lid of Palamas’ sarcophagus. An actual visit to the tomb and rubbing of his kidneys against the sarcophagus resulted in deliverance from his affliction.

LITERARY STYLE

The miracula of Palamas are written in a middle level of style, enlivened by frequent use of dialogue, first-person narration and vivid detail. Use of Scriptural quotations is restrained, and limited to the New Testament. In contrast, the rest of the Logos on Palamas and Philotheos’ other hagiographical works include numerous citations from the Old Testament, patristic authors and classical texts.³⁵ Very occasionally in the miracle tales Philotheos resorts to archaizing features, such as the use of the term Gorpiaios (a Macedonian name) for September (chs 81 and 97), and use of the dual (ch. 121.25). He is partial to and constructions and makes modest use of rhetorical flourishes, such as rhetorical questions,³⁶ exclamations³⁷ and chiasmus.³⁸ Figures of speech involving repetition, such as polyptoton,³⁹ assonance/alliteration⁴⁰ and homoioteleuton,⁴¹ are also encountered.

DEPICTION OF BYZANTINE SOCIETY

Like so many miracle collections, the miracula of Palamas by Philotheos Kokkinos offer wonderful insights into everyday life in the fourteenth century, and provide some unique information, especially about Thessalonika. The afflicted represent a cross-section of Thessalonian society, men, women and children. Half of them are from a religious milieu: nuns, monks, priests, a choirmaster and a foundling girl raised at a convent. The lay people include a gold embroiderer, an imperial weaver of purple cloth, a physician and three members of the (originally) anti-Palamite Tzimiskes family from Verroia. They range from well-born nobility to a poor widow who earns her living by spinning. Only a small number are named, surprising in view of the eyewitness testimonies assembled in Thessalonika. The nun Eleodora, the monk Ephraim, the gold-embroiderer Palates, the hieromonk Porphyrios and Zoe from Kastoria are not encountered elsewhere.⁴² The Basilikon convent is also known only from this text.⁴³

In addition to data on the development of Palamas’ cult and the practice of medicine in Thessalonika, Philotheos’ vignettes provide the following interesting tidbits of information: the upbringing of a foundling girl in a convent;⁴⁴ a gold embroiderer’s refurbishing of an ecclesiastical vestment for Palamas after he took office; a physician who makes house calls on horseback; the presence of imperial weavers of purple cloth in Thessalonika; a man asking his maidservant for a basin of wash-water upon arising in the morning.

Particularly striking are the close personal relationships that are depicted: a father grieving for his dying son (ch. 131); a daughter so worried about the illness of her physician father that she is vouchsafed a dream vision of St Gregory (ch. 121); friends and relatives crowding sympathetically around a sick-bed (ch. 118); the female neighbors of a woman with a painful arm who take pity on her misery and persuade her to visit the saint’s shrine (ch. 123); pilgrims to the tomb conversing with each other about their afflictions (ch. 125); a woman so agitated over her sister’s illness that she runs into the streets of Constantinople in the middle of the night like “a mad and crazy woman” to go pray at the church of the Chora for her sister’s recovery. Surely the miracle collection composed by Philotheos Kokkinos must be reckoned among the most successful literary compositions of this genre, and will repay further study.

NOTES

1 For an overview of Palaiologan hagiography, see Talbot forthcoming.

2 A listing of late Byzantine miracula (but omitting those of Palamas discussed here) can be found in Efthymiades 1999.

3 On Palaiologan miracle collections, see the chapter by Stephanos Efthymiades in Efthymiades forthcoming, and Efthymiades 2004.

4 Ed. and trans. Talbot 1983.

5 Originally published in PG 151: 551–656; new edn Tsames 1985: 425–591. The miracle accounts are found in chs 81, 97, 105–8 and 117–33.

6 See e.g. Meyendorff 1959: 168; ODB: s.v. Palamas, Gregory; and Tsames 1985: 563 n. 512, following the old article of Dyobouniotes 1924: 74.

7 PLP: no. 21546 and Rigo 1993: 159 and n. 9.

8 For an introductory sketch, see Talbot 2006.

9 Although a hostile source, Nikephoros Gregoras provides independent evidence of the rapid spread of Palamas’ cult. He asserts that supporters of the deceased Palamas spread rumors about miraculous healings and bribed poor homeless people to go to Palamas’ tomb and disseminate tales of miraculous dream visions; see Gregoras 1829–55: III, 350–1. Rigo dates this portion of Gregoras’ text to 1358; cf. Rigo 1993: 165.

10 Cf. Rigo 1993: 171–2.

11 See Gerstel 2003: fig. 19 and 235–7, where the previous bibliography is cited. See also Rigo 1993: 171–4.

12 PG 151: 711B.

13 Darrouzès 1977: no. 2430; PG 151: 711C.

14 PG 151: 711C.

15 A quick TLG search has revealed the following parallels: the phrase is found in Philotheos’ Oration 2.344, Oration 9.253 and the Vita Sabae iunioris, ch. 7.23, as well as in the Logos of Palamas, ed. Tsames 1985: ch. 119. The phrase (Logos, ch. 118.8) is paralleled in the vita Germani Hagioritae, ch. 31.24 and in Oration 9.348. The phrase is used in both the Logos, ch. 120.2, and in the vita Sabae iunioris, ch. 47.11. The expression is found in the Logos, ch. 122.35, and twice in Philotheos’ Antirrhetics against John VI (Oration 13.17, 14.288).

16 PG 151: 711D.

17 PG 151: 711D–712B; Darrouzès 1977: no. 2540.

18 Talbot 1983: 21–30.

19 Rigo 1993: 186–95. Neither Efthymiades 1999 nor Efthymiades 2004 mentions the miracles of Palamas. I have not seen Efthymiades forthcoming.

20 An Italian translation of the life of Gregory by Philotheos Kokkinos (including the miracula) is to be found in Perrella et al. 2003: 1353–1513. I myself am currently preparing an English translation of the miracula.

21 In fact the text itself does not specify clearly that Zoe was from Kastoria, but this is apparent from the overall structure of the narrative, and is also attested by marginal notations in two manuscripts of the Logos, Lavra 1134 and 1573; see Tsames 1985: 580–1, crit. app.

22 Rigo 1993: 187 n. 144.

23 On illnesses cured at the shrine of Athanasios, see Talbot 1983: 17–19; for the Pege shrine, see Talbot 2002a: 222–8, esp. 223–5, and Efthymiades 2006–7.

24 For discussion of this subject in the middle Byzantine period, see Kazhdan 1984c.

25 Miller 1985: 199–200.

26 Cf., for example, Hippocrates, De ossium natura, 10.42 and 17.13 in Littré (1861): IX, 180, 192.

27 Cf., for example, Galen, De symptomatum causis libri iii, in Kühn (1824): VII, 195.12 and passim in TLG. Likewise in his vita Isidori (ed. Tsames 1985: ch. 76.3) Philotheos says that the use the term .

28 A particularly apt play on words, since the woman was a spinner.

29 On Xanthopoulos, see Talbot 2002b: 611–15; on Lazaropoulos, see Rosenqvist 1995.

30 As in Talbot 1983: chs 37, 56 and 60.

31 Talbot 1983: ch. 38.

32 Talbot 1983: ch. 39.

33 Talbot 1983: ch. 63. I should note that I have taken care to select passages that are the work of Theoktistos, and not copied from the tenth-century miracles of St Luke of Steiris (as are many of the miracles of Athanasios), but should point out that similar sentiments can be found in the tenth-century vita as well.

34 See ODB: s.v. omophorion.

35 See the helpful indices included in Tsames 1985: 595–623.