There seems to be an inherent tension in the work of Theodoret of Cyrrhus that is well-known, but hard to resolve. For example, scholarly treatments of his book on the monks of Syria, Philotheos Historia (PH, ed. Canivet and Leroy Molinghen, Histoire de moines de Syrie, 1977,79) tend to stress one side over the other. Whether the many biblical typologies or the frequent use of heroic terminology have been called exceptional, these perspectives have not been aligned (Compare Krueger, Writing and Holiness, 2004 and Gaşpar, In Praise of Unlikely Holy Men, 2006). A recent examination even says that the high-pitched, classicizing language is not easily blended with the simple “desert stories” that are recounted (Hult, Syntactic variation in Greek of the 5th century A.D, 1990). One way to bridge this perceived hiatus is to consider who the audience might be (a work began by Gaşpar, and Schor, Patronage Performance and Social Strategy, 2009).
The present Short Communication does not aim to solve these ambiguities, but to work with them from the perspective of one specific narrative in the PH. The most well-known saint of Theodoret’s own diocese was James of Cyrrhestica. His biography has a central place in the PH, but has not received as much attention as that of his namesake James of Nisibis, or Symeon the Stylite. It is my intention to analyse this vita, and address specifically how the dual images of the ascetic as both a philosopher and a martyr are combined. Moreover, I hope to display how focus is shifted from the living saint to the dead saint. As the text was written, the saint was (supposedly) still very much alive, and deeply involved in the matters of the church. Still, I suggest that he is made a relic in spe, and thereby brought closer to the cultic practices of the church in the city. A little tentatively, such a proposal can allow us to think further about the newly converted intelligentsia in the cities.
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