Irene Jacobs: Movement and stability: metaphor as thought in middle Byzantine hagiography

In Byzantine monastic saints’ lives we come across both the ideal of spiritual stability and the reality of physical movement. While on the one hand physical stability, besides spiritual stability, seemed to have been important in Byzantine society in general (eg. emperors are praised for their ‘firmly fixed’ disposition) and normative sources even forbade monks to leave their monastery, the ‘wandering monastic saints’ do not seem to uphold this ideal. They in fact travelled frequently, moving from a monastery to a cave, to a city, to another monastery. This paper deals with conceptualisations of travel in ninth- and tenth-century Byzantine Lives of travelling monks and examines if and how the ideal of stability plays a role in these texts.Taking a cognitive approach, this paper will investigate the potential of studying metaphors to uncover underlying thought patterns regarding movement and stability, both physical and spiritual. By highlighting certain aspects of reality, while hiding others, metaphors have been said to contribute to particular understandings of the world. Figurative language permeates Byzantine hagiography. In the Life of Euthymios the Younger, for example, the saint’s spiritual stability is emphasized by likening him to an ‘unshakable rock’ or a ‘man of steel,’ while sea travel metaphors – eg. temptations as ‘buffeting waves’ and minds experiencing ‘a total shipwreck’ – are equally paramount. The paper aims to show how conceptual metaphor theory as a novel approach to Byzantine hagiography can deepen our understanding not only of the saints’ lives but also of characteristic features of Byzantine society.