Byzantine literature. Byzantine literature IV-VII centuries

Byzantine literature

Byzantine literature

BYZANTINE LITERATURE - literature of the Byzantine Empire, Middle Greek in language. She had a great influence on European, including the literature of the Slavs, with her monuments, mainly until the 13th century. Byzantine literacy penetrated into Russia in most cases through South Slavic translations in the pre-Mongolian period and was rarely translated directly by Russians. The existence of Byzantine literacy is defined as follows. arr. not only Greek manuscripts, but also Slavic translations, which sometimes preserved works that are now unknown in the original. The beginning of V. l. refers to the VI-VII centuries, when the Greek language. becomes dominant in Byzantium. History of V. l. is one of the least explored areas in world literature. The reason for this must be sought. arr. in that the very complex socio-economic factors that characterize the history of Byzantium, which was formed from the eastern provinces and regions of the Roman Empire, after the western part of the latter was during the 4th-5th centuries, still remain unexplored. captured by the Germanic tribes. Monuments of folk art of Byzantium have not reached us at all. Preserved ch. arr. literature created by the church, which played a very large economic and political role in the state life of Byzantium (church councils limited the power of the emperor, and by the 8th century one third of all lands were concentrated in monasteries). Modern researchers have to take into account that the scientists of the West - the enemies of the Eastern Church - approached V. l with great predilection. They did not recognize its original character, considered it "the archive of Hellenism" (Voigt) or identified its history with the period of the decline of ancient literature. In the V-IX centuries. Byzantium was a powerful centralized monarchy based on large secular and ecclesiastical land ownership and, to a certain extent, on loan, commercial, and partly industrial capital. She created her own original culture and literature. And if one has to talk about Hellenism in V. l., then only as a literary influence, which should be placed next to the influences of Arabic, Syrian and other literatures, with which Byzantium was in close contact. Hellenic influence was, however, one of the strongest.
Among the ecclesiastical literature that has come down to us, the ecclesiastical poetry of hymns stands out. Its largest representatives are: Roman the Melodist (VI century), a Syrian who wrote about a thousand hymns, Emperor Justinian (527-565), Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who owns an akathist to the Mother of God on the occasion of the victory over the Avars in 626, Sofroniy, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and others. Roman's hymns are distinguished by their ascetic character, naive sincerity and depth of feeling. They are written in a free form, intermediate between metrical and prose speech, and are closest to the psalms. Both in form and in content, these hymns are related to the Semitic elements of the Old Testament, the motives of which are adapted by the Roman to the New Testament (comparison of events and characters). Of the thousand hymns of Romanus, only 80 have survived. Usually they are a narrative with the introduction of freely composed dialogues. Often in these hymns dogmatic and theological learning is manifested, which threatens to stifle the ardent feeling, edification interferes with poetry and artistry. Byzantium inherited a lot from Hellenistic prose. This should include, for example, the Egyptian story about Alexander the Great, full of fabulous episodes, which Byzantium Christianized and processed in various editions. The manner of Hellenism is repeated by many other works: romance novels adventures of Heliodor (“The Ethiopians” about Theogene and Chariclea) of the 4th century, Achilles Tatia (about Clitophon and Leucippe) of the 5th century, Khariton (about Hereas and Kalliroe), Long (about Daphnis and Chloe), etc. From prosaic views to the first period V. l. history flourishes especially, the authors of which imitated the manner of Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius and their epigones, for example, in the 6th century - Procopius, Peter Patricius, Agathia (historian and poet), Menander Protector, Theophylact Samokatt; John Malala, a monk from Syrian Antioch, who compiled a world chronicle, vulgar in content and language, close to living speech, belongs to the same time. The early work of Byzantium was especially evident in church eloquence and dogmatics.
The best church writers, brought up in pagan schools in antiquity, in the 4th century. are: Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria (wrote against paganism and Arianism, compiled the life of Anthony of Egypt), Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, nicknamed "The Great" (defender of the forms of "secular", i.e. pagan, literature, imitator of Plutarch, wrote against the monks, about asceticism, composed the liturgy), Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop, nicknamed "The Theologian" (church speaker and poet, filling the forms of ancient lyrics with Christian content), John, Patriarch of Constantinople, nicknamed "Chrysostom" (church speaker, composed the liturgy).
The colonial, predominantly eastern, element found a vivid expression in numerous collections of stories of the 5th-6th centuries. about hermits-ascetics of the Byzantine outskirts (the so-called "pateriks").
This type of monasticism developed first in Egypt, then in Palestine and Syria, from where it spread to the interior regions. Corresponding to the pre-Christian culture of those or other suburbs, their beliefs were reflected in the confession of these monks, and consequently in the stories of the Patericons. The charms and mysteries of Egypt were reflected in the demonology of the Egyptian Paterik "Lavsaik" Palladius, Bishop of Helenopolis; the ancient Israeli cult - in the "God-loving story" about the ascetics of the Euphrates country of Theodoret of Cyprus; Arabic and Jewish elements - in the Palestinian patericon "Spiritual Meadow" (Limonar) by John Mosch; finally, the beliefs are ready - in the Italian "Dialogues" by Gregory the Dialogist (VI-VII centuries), translated in the VIII century. from Latin to Greek, etc. From the very beginning V. l. known in it are books not recognized by the official church with legendary plots and motifs attached to persons and events of the Old and New Testaments and the Christian cult in general. These books are partly falsely attributed to famous authors and are usually called apocrypha (q.v.).
In the 7th and 8th centuries Byzantium experienced severe setbacks of a military nature (Avars, Slavs, Arabs), socio-political and religious movements (iconoclasm); hagiographic literature flourishes (the lives of the saints were collected in huge twelve-month-old collections - Menaia (chetya)). From the writers of the 7th-8th centuries. we note: Anastasius of Sinai, a disputant with the Jews and Monophysites in Syria and Egypt; Cosmas, Bishop of Mayum, hymnographer; Andrew, Bishop of Crete, preacher and poet who wrote the "great canon"; John of Damascus, a polemicist with iconoclasm and Islam, a preacher and author of 55 canons, a theologian who built his "Dialectics" according to Aristotle.
With the cessation of iconoclasm, i.e., from the 9th century, brief guides to world history appear, “chronicles” with a clerical tendency, partly based on the Alexandrians and church historians, on previous Byzantine historiography in general (George Sinkel, Theophan the Confessor, Patriarch Nikifor, George Amartol). For Russian antiquity, the most interesting chronicle of the author of the second half of the 9th century Georgy Amartol, embracing the history of the "world" from Adam to 842 (and if we count its continuation, then until the middle of the 10th century). This monastic chronicle is notable for its fanatical intolerance towards iconoclasts and its predilection for theology. Here are placed: an overview of facts of secular history interesting for a monk before Alexander the Great, biblical history before the Roman era, Roman history from Caesar to Constantine the Great, and Byzantine history. The main sources of Amartol were the chronicles of Theophan the Confessor and John Malala. Amartol also has extracts from Plato, Plutarch, Joseph Flavius ​​(1st century), Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Theodore the Studite, from lives, patericons, etc. The language of monastic chronicles of the 9th century. close to lang. Greek Bible and is not alien to the elements of living speech. In this century, about 500 canons were written in honor of the saints (Theophan and Joseph are hymn-writers), that is, almost half of all Byzantine canons. Along with the restoration of icon veneration, monasticism energetically set about compiling the lives of the defenders of Orthodoxy. In Constantinople, even a special school was being created, where hagiographic techniques and patterns based on the samples of classical biographers were taught. The historical element in these lives is very scarce, distorted and hidden by the introduction of obligatory themes of humility and affection. All lives are compiled according to one program of worship. The second half of the 9th century V. l. called the century of scholarly encyclopedias; in his collections and revisions, precious material of antiquity, borrowed from writers now lost, has been preserved. In the first row of figures of the IX-X centuries. should be called Patriarch Photius of Constantinople and Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Coming from a patrician family, Photius was distinguished by exceptional education in a typical form for Byzantium. A brilliant philologist not without pedantry, a connoisseur of the Greek language. and literature of all periods, an admirer of Aristotle, a philosopher with a theological tinge, usual for Byzantium, and a passionate teacher, Photius gathered around him a mass of students, turning his house into a kind of academy, into a learned salon, where books were read and discussed, ranging from classical antiquity to the latest innovations. He forced his students to compile a huge Lexicon on the basis of both previous dictionaries and outstanding works of antiquity and V. l. The most outstanding work of Photius is his "Library" or "Multibook" (Myriobiblon), consisting of 280 chapters. It contains information about Greek grammarians, orators (especially Attic), historians, philosophers, naturalists and doctors, about novels, hagiographic works, etc. From the “Library” of Photius it is clear how many outstanding works have not come down to us; only from here do they become known.
The grandson of Basil I, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, emperor nominally from 912, in reality from 945 to 959, ordered to compile at his own expense extensive collections, encyclopedias of works old literature that have become a rarity; using simple Byzantine speech, he wrote himself and in complicity. From the works of Constantine are known: the history of the reign of his grandfather Basil; an essay on government, written for his son, Roman (mainly about relations with the neighbors of Byzantium, whose life is depicted); about the military and administrative division of the empire (detailed geography, as in the previous essay, with fantastic stories about the origin of cities and biting epigrams about their inhabitants); about the ceremonies of the Byzantine court (among the descriptions of court etiquette that amazed the barbarians, poetic cliques, odes and troparia in honor of the emperor are literary interesting, especially the spring song in the folk style and the anthem of the Gothic Christmas game). By order of Constantine, a historical encyclopedia was compiled. Almost all the historical literature of the Greeks of all periods entered here in extracts; there are extracts from literary works (for example, novels). Among the scientists who surrounded Constantine, one should name the historian of Byzantium of the 9th century. Genesius, a lover of folk tales and an admirer of classical literature, which, however, he used tastelessly. Later Byzantine history the third quarter of the 10th century was described by Leo the Asian, also called the Deacon, a bad stylist who used both grandiloquent rhetoric and a dictionary of church works. The world chronicle was compiled at that time by Simeon the Magister, or Metaphrastus, so called because he rhetorically reworked a lot of the previous lives of the saints, weakening the fantastic element in them. Also to the X century. or somewhat later include voluminous collections of sayings (for example, "Melissa", that is, "Bee", "Antonia"). In the middle of the XI century. expanded graduate School in Constantinople, breaking up into two - philosophical (i.e., general education) and legal. They began to come here to study from Zap. Europe and from the Baghdad and Egyptian Caliphates. The most talented and influential leader of the school was Michael Psellos, a philosopher (Platonist) and rhetorician, teacher of several emperors who themselves became writers, later the first minister. His literary activity was very extensive. He left many writings on philosophy, theology and natural sciences, philology, history, was a poet and orator. Strongly influenced by Hellenism, he wrote both medical treatises and Christian hymns in verse; he also studied the style of Homer, retold the Iliad, commented on the comedies of Menander, etc.
In the XII century. there is a flourishing of literary activity among churchmen who wrote on theology and philosophy, grammar and rhetoric - and not only in the capital's center, but also in the territory of ancient Hellas, where, for example. Nikolai, Bishop of Mython (about the middle of the 12th century), argued with Neoplatonism, grammatized by Metropolitan Gregory of Corinth; we should also mention the commentator Homer Eustathius, Archbishop of Thessalonica, and his student, the Archbishop of Athos, Michael Acominatus, who studied Homer, Pindar, Demosthenes, Thucydides, and so on, who wrote in iambic and hexameter. The following figures are characteristic of this era: Tsetzas, Prodrom, Glika, Konstantin Manasseh, Anna Komnena, Nikita Evgenian. John Tsetzas was at one time a teacher, then a needy professional writer, dependent on the graces of nobles and princes, to whom he dedicated his works. He was distinguished by his erudition in ancient poets, orators, historians, although he did not always use them first-hand and allowed their inaccurate interpretation. Tsetzas collected and published his letters to real addressees - nobles and friends, as well as fictitious epistles, full of mythology and literary and historical wisdom, colored with wayward self-praise. To these letters he composed a huge versified commentary. Also known are his comments on Homer (for example, "allegories to the Iliad" and "Odyssey" occupy about 10,000 verses), Hesiod and Aristophanes, treatises on poetry, metrics and grammar, grammatical iambics, where the peasant, the choir and the muses glorify the life of a scientist as happy, and the wise man complains about the sad situation of the wise, to whom happiness denies mercy, endowing it with the ignorant. Interesting is the "stepped" poem by Tsetzas on the death of Emperor Manuel Comnenus (1180), where the final word of each verse is repeated at the beginning of the next. The same professional poet was Fyodor Prodrom, nicknamed "Poor" (Puokhoprodrome), always complaining self-praise and flatterer, begging for handouts from the nobility with laudatory songs, speeches, epistles; He also wrote satires, epigrams and novels (about Rodanthes and Dochiplea), imitating the style of Lucian in prose. He was more talented and original than Tsetzas, daring to speak with comic poems in the common language. From dramatic works Prodrome the best - a parody of "The War of Cats and Mice". Mikhail Glika is a similar writer, but who, in addition to poverty, experienced both prison and execution by blinding. On this occasion, he turned to imp. Manuel with a pleading poem in folk language. (like the Russian “Prayer of Daniil the Sharpener”). The most important work of Glick is considered to be the World Chronicle (until the death of Alexei Komnenos). Before Glik in the XII century. chronicles were also written: Kedrin, Zonara, Skalitz and Manasseh, which Glyka used. Konstantin Manasseh wrote many works - prose and verse. His chronicle consists of 6,733 verses. Manasseh is actually a novelist historian; he tries to give his chronicle a poetic uplift in the colors of eloquence, mythological allusions and metaphors. The style of his story vaguely resembles some of the features of The Tale of Igor's Campaign. Anna Komnena, daughter of the imp. Alexei, was distinguished by exceptional education, she read Homer, Thucydides and Aristophanes, Plato and Aristotle, she was well-versed in church literature. Soon after her father's death (1118), she retired to the "Rejoiced" monastery, where by 1148 she wrote the history of her father's reign - "Alexiad". The ideal form for Anna is Atticism. In addition to the poetic novel Prodrom, two more novels of the 12th century are known. The best is the poetic novel by Nikita Evgenian (“8 books about the love of Drosilla and Harikis”), which borrowed a lot from Prodrom. In Eugenian we find pampered eroticism in love letters, sensitivity of outpourings and picturesque descriptions. In places, the novel is pornographic. The plot does not bear the features of modernity, being distant in the rather indefinite past of Hellenic paganism. Eugenian borrowed the flowers of his eloquence from bucolic poets, from an anthology and from novels of the 4th-5th centuries. Another novel of the twelfth century, On Ismin and Isminia, was written by Eumathius in prose; he also imitates pagan antiquity. From the XII to the middle of the XV century. (1453) in Byzantium comes the era of feudalism, the domination of the so-called. "rulers" - secular feudal lords and spiritual lords - an alarming time when, in the fight against the Turks, Byzantium sought support from the Western chivalry, which even temporarily seized power in Byzantium; not having sufficient internal forces to fight, the empire after a short period of success in the XII century. gradually becomes the prey of the Turks and in 1453, with the fall of Constantinople, ceases to exist. This period in the history of development of V. l. characterized by its complete decline. Bibliography:

I. Uspensky F.I., Essays on the history of Byzantine education, Zhurn. MNP, 1891, Nos. 1, 4, 9, 10; 1892, Nos. 1, 2 and sec. print, St. Petersburg., 1891; Kenoyn Fr. G., The Palaeography of Greek papyri, Oxford. Clarendon Press, 1899; Lietzmann H., Byzantinische Legenden, Jena, 1911; Diehl Gh., Byzance, 1919; Heisenberg A., Aus der Geschichte und Literatur der Palaeologenzeit, Munchen, 1922; Ehrhard A., Beitrage zur Geschichte des christlichen Altertums und der byzantinischen Literatur, Bonn, 1922; Serbisch-byzantinische Urkunden des Meteoronklosters, Berlin, 1923; Istituto per l'Europa Orientale, Studi bizantini, Napoli, 1924; La Piana G., Le rappresentazioni sacre nella letteratura bizantina, 1912.

II. Hertzsch G., Descript. rerum. imp. T. Constantini, 1884; Potthast A., Bibliographia historica medii aevi: Wegweiser durch die Geschichtswerke des eurolaischen Mittelalters, 1375-1500, ed. 2nd, 2 vols., Berlin, 1896; Krumbacher C., Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur, Munchen, 1897; Bibliotheca hagiographica orientalis, Ed. Socie. Bollandiani, Bruxelles, 1910.

Literary Encyclopedia. - In 11 tons; M .: publishing house of the Communist Academy, Soviet Encyclopedia, Fiction. Edited by V. M. Friche, A. V. Lunacharsky. 1929-1939 .

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Byzantine literature- Greek. Byzantine liter. era (4th century 1453, before the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks). In V. l. can be distinguished, based on the authors of the essays, stylistic. features of the language and readership, mainly two DOS. section: scientific literature, ... ... Dictionary of antiquity

Byzantine literature- is divided into three periods. The first, from Constantine V. to the death of Heraclius (323-640), created a whole galaxy of great church writers, St. fathers, teachers and was called the golden age. Theology was developed most of all, then ... ... Complete Orthodox Theological Encyclopedic Dictionary

Period from the 4th to the 6th century. n. e. was the time during which the eastern part of the Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire. This process went in three directions: the development of elements of feudal relations in the economy, the strengthening of the absolute imperial power in politics, and the growth of the influence of Christianity in ideology. All these moments are clearly outlined already in the reign of Constantine I (306-337 AD).

The name of Constantine is associated with two major events of the era - with the founding of the new capital of the Roman Empire and with the legalization of Christianity. The first event was caused by the fact that Rome already by the III century. lost its former importance: it was open to barbarians advancing from the north, its trade ties were weakened. The emperors began to choose Milan, then Trier, then Nicomedia as their residence. Constantine managed to find the most successful place for the new capital - it was the Greek city of Byzantium, located on the trade route from Europe to Asia, between the eastern and western halves of the empire.

The laying of the new capital took place in 324, the consecration - on May 11, 330. Both those and other celebrations took place in the presence of colleges of pagan priests and Christian clergy. The new capital received the official name of "New Rome" - as it was said about it in an edict carved on a marble column on the day of consecration. Somewhat later, a second name was added to this name, after the name of the founder of the city - Constantinople (Κωνσταντίνου πόλις), which remained for subsequent centuries.

In a short time, the city achieved external splendor and splendor. A luxurious imperial palace, a building for meetings of the senate, baths, a library, a large hippodrome decorated with antique statues were built; to decorate Constantinople, the best works of ancient sculpture were brought from all over the empire.

The second event was caused by those changes in ideology that became most noticeable at the turn of the 3rd-4th centuries. Born in Palestine in the 1st c. n. e. , despite more than two hundred years of semi-legal existence and periodic persecution, by the beginning of the 4th century. strengthened considerably. Crowds of citizens of various classes flocked to listen to Christian sermons, which spoke about the origin of the world, and about the duty of a person during life, and about the bliss that everyone can achieve after death, if only his life was righteous. The ethics of Christianity also found numerous supporters - neglect of property and class differences, calls to console the poor and suffering. The logical application to human society of the basic principle of Christianity - monotheism - affirmed the need for the existence of a single ruler and in the state - the viceroy of God on earth. This historically determined the recognition of Christianity by the Roman emperors. Even the predecessors of Constantine, Maxentius and Galerius, understood that religious strife only weakened the state, which was on the verge of death; they owned the first decrees on the prohibition of the persecution of Christians and on the free construction of Christian churches. In 313, Constantine and his co-ruler Licinius jointly issued a decree on the equality of Christianity with pagan religions in the empire - the so-called "Edict of Milan".

“Recognizing that God is the source of all the blessings sent down to him,” writes a Christian historiographer of the 3rd-4th centuries. Eusebius, - both of them unanimously and unanimously published for the benefit of Christians the most perfect and most detailed law ”(“ church history", X, 86). Constantine himself remained a pagan for a long time - he bore the priestly title of "great pontiff" all his life - and yet he contributed in every possible way to the transformation of Christianity into the state religion. He took part in meetings of the clergy, and sometimes proposed church laws himself. On his initiative, in 321, a rite of emancipation of slaves was established before the bishop, and in 323, it was forbidden to force Christians to participate in pagan festivals. The Ecumenical Council, that is, the general congress of the clergy of the empire, from the time of the council convened by Constantine in Nicaea (325), received the rights of an all-imperial institution and the highest legislative body of the church.

After the death of Constantine, power over the empire passed to his three sons, whose internecine wars continued until 351, when one of the brothers, Constantius, managed to concentrate all power in his hands. The reign of Constantius is followed by a short but vivid episode of the two-year reign of the pagan emperor Julian (361-363). For an attempt to revive the ancient Hellenic cults (albeit in conjunction with some of the ethical provisions of Christians), Julian was called the Apostate by the church. Christians were not subjected to direct persecution under him; they were only removed from higher positions and teaching in schools. A widely educated man, an adherent of Neoplatonism, Julian enjoyed the support of the educated pagan nobility, but was not popular either in the lower classes or in the army. After his death during a campaign against the Persians, there were no successors to his cause. Jovian, who succeeded him on the throne, canceled his orders to restrict the rights of Christians, and so, after a short break, the victorious procession of the new religion resumed.

Under the last emperor of the dynasty of Constantine, Valens, who ruled in the second half of the 4th century. together with Valentinian, who arranged for himself a residence in Milan, the separation of the western and eastern parts of the empire became obvious; there was a process of formation of two independent cultures. Seventeen years after Valens, the founder of the next dynasty, Theodosius I, dying (395), left in his will to his sons an empire divided into two parts: Arcadius received the eastern half, Honorius received the western half. Thus, by the end of the 4th c. the scope and limits of the Byzantine state are clearly defined: it occupied the Balkan Peninsula, the islands of the Aegean Sea, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Armenia, Cyrenaica, Egypt and owned colonies on the Black Sea (Chersonesus, etc.); this vast territory was inhabited by Greeks, Macedonians, Thracians, Goths, Copts, Syrians, Armenians, Slavic tribes. The class composition of the empire was not inferior in diversity to the national one. Large landowners - descendants of the Roman slave-owning aristocracy - together with the court nobility, imperial officials and high ranks of the clergy constituted the upper class. The middle and lower classes included ordinary clergy, merchants, a heterogeneous urban population united in the curia, peasants, rural tenants - columns. Despite a certain progress in feudal relations, slave labor continued to be used in some areas of the Byzantine economy.

An important role was played by the army, which consisted of representatives of the most diverse social groups; the fickle, moody mass of mercenaries more than once started and carried out coups d'état. Urban pagan intelligentsia and monasticism were special social groups. The first gradually died out, the second was in the process of recovery. Monasticism arose at the end of the 3rd century. based on the ascetic tendencies of that part of Christians who were dissatisfied with the growth of church wealth and the participation of the clergy in secular life. Using the traditions of the ancient hermit communities at the temples of Serapis in Egypt, Christian monasticism created two types of its way of life: one (introduced by Antony) was based on the complete seclusion of each person; the other (associated with the name Pachomius) - on life in a community (kinovia) with centralized power, where the strictest observance of the monastic charter was required.

The life of Byzantine society as a whole was determined by two characteristic features. The first of these is a combination of absolutism with very strong democratic elements. Public life in major cities focused on hippodromes. Horse dancing has long been one of the most common spectacles, but they gained particular popularity after the prohibition of gladiator fights under the Christian emperors. By ancient tradition the drivers competing on the hippodromes and their "fans" dressed in clothes of different colors: white, red, green, blue. The origin of this division in the Byzantine scientific literature was traced back to the mythical times of Romulus, and the four colors were explained as symbols of the four elements: air, fire, water and earth. Under the name of dims (or factions), these parties are also known in the cities of the Byzantine Empire. The “blues” were called Veneti, the “greens” were called prasins, the “whites” were called Levkas, and the “reds” were called Russians. The social composition of each party was quite diverse. The “blue” and “greens” enjoyed the greatest authority and weight: the first consisted mainly of the clientele of large estates, columns, peasants, the second - of artisans, sailors, merchants. Each party had its patrons from the nobility.

The activities of the dims went far beyond the scope of disputes and clashes over public games and competitions: by the 5th century. they become a true representation of the people, and the hippodrome - a place of popular meetings, where the emperors and the nobility not only received greetings, but also met frank expressions of discontent, listened to claims and complaints, which often turned into serious unrest of the plebs.

The other side of the social life of the empire is represented by religious controversy, which went far beyond the environment of the educated clergy, where its origins were located, and captured the entire Byzantine society. The beginning of disagreements on theoretical questions about the essence of Christianity dates back to the first centuries of the new era. Their emergence was caused by the dangers that threatened the new religion at the very beginning of its spread: excessive enthusiasm for the traditions of Gnosticism threatened to turn it into a secret teaching, accessible only to the elect, and tear it away from the people; following the Donatists, who preached the omnipotence of God's grace and the prophetic powers hidden in every person, would inevitably lead to a weakening of the authority of the church. The need for a mass, accepted by all and all accepting religion - a need equally inherent in everyone, from the ruling elite to the plebs, dictated the need for a clear formulation of the orthodox line of the Christian worldview.

This line was found at the first Ecumenical (Nicene) Council, in 325, where the creed was approved - the reduction of the main dogmas to a short formula, the acceptance and assimilation of which was mandatory for every Christian.

“We believe in the one God the Father, the Almighty, the Creator of all visible and invisible,” the text of the symbol read, “and in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God from God, Light from Light, Life from Life, the Only Begotten Son and the Holy Spirit” ( Eusebius, Church History, VI, 135). In the Godhead, the unity of three Hypostases (Essences) was recognized, one of which was Christ, incarnated in man and sent to people to atone for their sins. Thus, to the defenders of the orthodox direction, the nature of Christ seemed consubstantial with the Divine principle. The immediate reason for the convocation of the Council of Nicaea was the spread of Arianism - the theory of the Alexandrian preacher Arius (d. 336), who argued that the birth of Christ on earth contradicts the concept of consubstantiality. Arius called Christ only like God. This thesis of the Arians imparted anthropomorphic features to the image of Christ. Christ was like the gods of antiquity, and this facilitated the transition from paganism to Christianity for many. Arianism was readily accepted by the urban intelligentsia, wealthy citizens, soldiers, because in his sermons there was an affirmation and approval of worldly life. However, this concealed the possibility of weakening church authority, which is why fierce disputes flared up. The Orthodox party at the Council of Nicaea was led by an eminent ecclesiastical orator and publicist. Arianism was declared heresy. But the controversy didn't end there. In the following decades, Antioch became the center of activity for the disciples and supporters of Arius. There arose a trend related to Arianism, headed by the Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius (Nestorians), which was rejected by orthodox Christianity at the Council of Ephesus (431).

How deeply the Arian disputes worried the whole society of that time, tells in one of his sermons Gregory of Nyssa: “Everything is full of such people who talk about incomprehensible objects - streets, markets, squares, crossroads; if you ask how much you need to pay obols, they philosophize about the born and the unborn; if you want to know the price of bread, they answer: “The Father is greater than the Son”; if you check whether the bath is ready, they say: “The son came from nothing.”

After the Council of Nicaea, the final development of the doctrine of the trinity of the Deity and the theory of hypostases was carried out by the Cappadocians Basil of Caesarea ("the Great"), Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa. This period of religious controversy is commonly called the period of trinitarian disputes.

In the 5th century The main attention of the arguing is no longer directed to the correlation of Hypostases, but only to the nature of Christ - trinitarian disputes are transformed into Christological ones. So, in the middle of the 5th century. Monophysitism arose, the first preacher of which was the poorly educated, but popular among the ordinary clergy, Archimandrite Eutychius of Constantinople. The main tenet of Monophysitism was complete denial in Christ human nature and recognition of one spiritual. The Monophysite preaching found ardent supporters in Egyptian and Syrian monasteries, where ascetic tendencies ruled out the adoption of Hellenic culture, putting in the first place a harsh ascetic morality, a struggle against secular pleasures, luxury and education. Monophysitism also found supporters among the disenfranchised masses. It became so popular that it gained the upper hand at the so-called robber council of Ephesus (449). The head of the orthodox party, Bishop Flavian, was beaten and sent into exile.

Theological disputes worried not only the lower strata of the Byzantine population, they had a significant impact on the policy of the emperors and linked up with the struggle in court circles.

On the 5th century accounts for the reign of the dynasty of Theodosius, in the VI century. - Dynasty of Justinian. The history of these two centuries has been marked by the struggle for territorial and state solidity.

During the 5th century the empire was subjected to raids by the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Huns. However, the strategically advantageous position of Constantinople and the timely conclusion of peace with Persia played their role: all these events touched the center of the empire only to a small extent. A different fate befell the western capital. Despite repeated attempts Byzantine emperors to help Rome, in 476 he was captured by Odoacer's troops of different tribes, which marked the beginning of the formation of medieval states on the Apennine Peninsula. From now on, the Eastern Empire, which turned out to be more viable, acts as the only custodian of the state and cultural structure of antiquity. The internal history of the Byzantine state at this time is a continuous chain of court intrigues, coup d'état, rebellions and uprisings in the lower classes. In fact, power remains in the hands of the nobility. History has preserved the names of temporary regents, such as, for example, Eutropius, who ruled instead of the weak-willed emperor Arcadius (395–408), Anthemius and Aurelian, who managed the affairs of the empire under Theodosius II Calligrapher, main activity which consisted in the correspondence of manuscripts.

The administration of the empire was built according to the Roman model and was carried out by a numerous bureaucratic apparatus with a strict bureaucratic hierarchy. The virtuously developed fiscal system, which was not a burden for the plebs, and the struggle for power at the top caused a number of socially different uprisings among the Goths, the semi-savage Isaurian tribe, the imperial army, the Monophysites of Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Acute forms at this time take the struggle of Christianity with paganism and the internal strife of Christians. In 414, the sister of Theodosius II, Pulcheria, became the ruler of the empire, who, according to contemporaries, turned the imperial palace into a monastery.

The pagans were expelled from public service, the rights of all those who disagree with the orthodox church were limited. Pagan culture was mercilessly destroyed: in 391 the Serapeum temple with a large library was burned, and in 415 Hypatia, a philosopher and mathematician who taught in Alexandria, was killed by a crowd of angry fanatics, monks and townspeople. Nevertheless, the imperial power acquires external impressiveness. In 450, Marcian was solemnly enthroned at the rite of coronation and chrismation. Secular and ecclesiastical rituals were combined: chrismation, borrowed from the Jewish religion, meant the blessing of the church for those who ascended the throne. And from that time on, the church becomes a constant participant in the crowning of the kingdom.

Marcian was last emperor dynasty of Theodosius. After his death, several decades of fierce struggle for the throne between various factions of the nobility follow. The empire was ruled either by the military tribune Leo (457–474) chosen by the army, then by the Isaurian Zeno (474–491), then by the “born Roman” Anastasius (491–518), then by the head of the imperial guard Justin.

The founder of the new dynasty was Justinian, a Macedonian by origin, Justin's nephew, under whom he was already regent - the actual ruler (518-527). The next twenty-eight years of his sovereign rule constitute the heyday of Byzantine statehood, some features of which find their expression in the culture of that time. Justinian was able to maximize the concentration of secular power in his hands and subjugate the entire religious policy in the state. He aspired, like the Roman emperors, to become the sole ruler of East and West. It defined him foreign policy: Justinian undertook a series of aggressive campaigns in the West, which were generally unsuccessful, but he squandered the main forces of the empire on them. Historiographers of the 6th century, speaking of Justinian, always pay due attention to his wife, the insidious and cruel Theodora, whose life path began with the role of a mimic actress and who, until her death, had a significant influence on the emperor.

Christianity received in the person of the new emperor the patron of the orthodox direction. Not only paganism was persecuted, but also any deviations from the general line of the church. In 529, the Academy of Athens, the last refuge of pagan culture, was closed.

The reign of Justinian is also known for the brutal reprisals against the lower classes of the Byzantine population. In 532, one of the largest uprisings of the Constantinople plebs took place, the so-called Nika uprising, which ended in massacres and massacres at the hippodrome. These features of Justinian's time were combined with the outward splendor and splendor of the everyday life of the palace, the brilliant rituals of court festivities, the theatricality of which attracted crowds of citizens.

Justinian's concerns about the political unity of the state ensured him the reputation of a "great legislator" - on his initiative, a universal code of Roman laws was created. The classical Roman law that operated in the empire required changes in relation to the absolute imperial power and to dominant Christianity. The numerous bureaucratic apparatus also needed legal guidance. These tasks were only partly fulfilled in due time by the code of Theodosius (438) - a collection of decrees of the Roman and Byzantine emperors since the time of Constantine I.

To edit the new collection, Justinian convened a special commission of 16 lawyers, headed by Trebonian. This is how the Latin “Corpus juris civilis” appeared, consisting of the “Digest” (or “Pandects”) in 50 books containing the writings of all Roman lawyers, “Institutions” in 4 books (manual of Roman law) and the collection of laws itself - the code. On the one hand, the despotism and extravagance of Justinian brought the empire to the brink of destruction, although this affected mainly in the 7th-8th centuries, and on the other hand, they caused a certain rise in culture in its specifically Byzantine forms, which was the result of the previous two-century transition period.

The victory of Christianity left its mark on all sections of Byzantine culture. In science, in architecture, in the visual arts, in literature, in music, the theme of the relationship between life on earth and the afterlife dominates. Art no longer aims to show the greatness and significance of man, as it was in antiquity. The tasks of depicting the insignificance and insignificance of everything worldly, the tasks of revealing the sinful human nature, calls for repentance and spiritual purification in anticipation of eternal bliss after death are put forward to the fore.

Externally, Byzantine culture is a mixture of strong traditions of classical Greek antiquity and Hellenism, Christian ideology and oriental influences invariably operating since the formation of the Hellenistic states. The transfer of the capital from Rome to Byzantium, the need for constant defense against the barbarians, on the one hand, and the development of trade, on the other, caused an upsurge in urban planning. Cities such as Constantinople, Alexandria, Caesarea, Antioch, Beirut, Gaza were famous for their magnificent architecture. In every city, except for libraries, hippodromes, pagan temples - the heritage of ancient times - already from the 4th century. began to develop rapidly Christian temple architecture. Ancient basilicas, public buildings for court and trade, which were common in classical antiquity, served as models for early Christian churches. This building, unpretentious in its architectural design and neutral in its purpose, in no way reminiscent of pagan rites, most satisfied the requirements of the supporters of the new religion. The basilica consisted of three galleries (naves, from Latin navis) separated by columns, of which the middle one - a place for worship - ended in a round niche (apse) where the altar was placed. In front of the Christian basilica, there was usually a courtyard with a well or fountain - a symbol of the appeal to everyone entering the temple to wash not only their face and hands, but also their soul. IN initial period In Christianity, basilicas were often built over the graves of martyrs. The material was usually extracted from the ruins of ancient buildings, and well-preserved ancient basilicas were used for Christian rites without modification.

In the 5th century gradually a new type of building was created, closer to Christianity in spirit. The unity of the divine principle and the correspondence to it of the centralized state power find their expression in the monumental forms of architecture: over middle part temple appears dome. This detail was already known in antiquity; however, the dome was placed directly on a quadrangular base. Such buildings did not have the focus and lightness, that take-off, which is the specificity of Christian architecture. The task of connecting the lower part of the building with the dome through various vaults and arches (the so-called sails, or pandatives) was finally solved by the architects Isidore of Miletus and Anthimius of Thrall, who in 537 completed the construction of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople. This building combined the plan of the ancient basilica with the centralizing power of the main dome. In the luxurious interior decoration of the temple, in polychrome frescoes and mosaics, in the variegation of ornaments, where oriental motifs were also used, both the external splendor of the lifestyle of the Byzantine elites and the whole process of the formation of Byzantine painting, which, like architecture, used ancient traditions, affected.

Christian art was formed under the influence of two trends: the need to find a secret language due to semi-legal existence in the 1st-3rd centuries. and the desire to preserve the image for all eternity. The first trend gave rise to a number of symbolic images, in most cases borrowed from antiquity. For example, a wreath and a palm tree in the classical era meant victory, but reduced the image of a palm tree to victory over earthly temptations and to the victory of resurrection over death. The ship meant the Christian community, the anchor meant hope, the dove with an olive branch in its beak meant peace, Cupid and Psyche meant the immortality of the soul. The nature of Christian fresco painting, which begins with the paintings of the catacombs, is close to the art of Pompeian frescoes.

In a number of cases, scenes from the Old Testament were depicted using the usual details of ancient scenes (winged cupids, dolphins, fishermen, garlands of flowers). The second trend was reflected in the development of the monumental art of mosaic, which has been especially widespread since the time of Constantine, when the legalized tends to the external effect of the rites performed in basilicas, baptismal churches, and churches. The ascetic worldview of the monastic environment left its mark on the art of portraiture, in which the traditions of the Fayum masters were reflected. But over time to change realistic elements in portrait images, stable techniques of Christian iconography appear: dry, devoid of dynamism figures, humble poses, oblong faces in dark, yellowish tones.

The art of miniature became especially popular in Byzantium - painstaking work, which especially flourished in monasteries. Many drawings by unknown masters have been preserved in manuscripts - evidence high level Byzantine painting technique and the inheritance of the best traditions of the artists of the Hellenistic era.

The art of sculpture, which was so high and important in the Hellenic world, did not have much significance due to the changed approach to the human person. Byzantine sculpture exists mainly in the genres of relief on sarcophagi, tombstones and the outer walls of temples, using basically the same subjects as painting. At the turn of the 5th-6th centuries. as a detail on reliefs and frescoes and as an independent image, a cross appears, which for a long time reminded Christians of persecution and therefore avoided depicting it.

The clash of ancient traditions and needs dictated by Christianized culture took a peculiar form in the field of theatrical art of Byzantium. The Christian liturgy, having adopted much of the stage design and dramatic techniques of Greek tragedy, gradually (by about the ninth century) turned into a monumental dramatic performance, a phenomenon analogous to the medieval mysteries of the West. The altar with a three-leaf door was reminiscent of an antique skene's triple door. During the divine service, monologue recitations alternated with replicas-exclamations and hymns of the choir, divided into two half-choirs. Some of the musical parts of the liturgy were hymns-dialogues between the soloist and the choir. However, the development of new aesthetic principles, the demand from art for abstraction and contemplation led to a weakening of the dynamics of the dramatic plot.

Episodes from the gospel, which were usually subjected to dramatic alterations, were performed with deliberate slowing down of the action and, in their static nature, resembled the early Christian literary genre of "visions".

There was a special kind of theatrical church eloquence: for animation and illustration, sermons were interrupted by dialogic skits or antiphonal singing. The first monument of this genre dates back to the 5th century. This is an encomium (eulogy) to the Virgin Mary, written by the Bishop of Constantinople Proclus. After a lengthy introduction - a sublimely rhetorical hymn to virginity - a lively scene is placed - a dialogue between Mary and Joseph, who suspects his wife of treason and does not immediately comprehend the divine essence of events. This is followed by a dialogue between Mary and the Archangel Gabriel, a theme often reproduced in mosaics; in this case, it is this part that has internal slowness. Encomius concludes two monologues. The first of them is pronounced by God: it is revealed divine appointment Mary and the coming events are explained. The second monologue is delivered by the devil, who wants to interfere with the incarnation and action of God's grace.

Such encomia were the main part of the great church festivals, called πανήγυρις, and were performed in faces.

In other cases, church festivities assimilated certain details of ancient everyday life. So, for example, the traditional dance for Easter resembled the pyrrhic that arose once in Sparta; during the grape harvest as early as the 7th century. called Dionysus. Outside the ecclesiastical sphere, the holidays of Kalend, Neomenius, Dionysius, and others were very popular with carnival processions, when the participants put on tragic and comic masks.

Along with the church theater in Byzantium, there was also a secular stage, on which, as early as the 6th century. was a Greek tragedy. The main secular repertoire of the Byzantine theater was mime and pantomime - the most viable of the genres inherited from antiquity. Pantomimes, combined with acrobatic numbers and performances by trained animals, apparently, were included in the general program of games at the hippodrome.

The ancient classification of mimes according to their subject matter indicates two groups: everyday mimes and mythological travesties. The Byzantine stage accepted only the first of them. At the same time, the content of mimes was reduced mainly to crude eroticism, and this caused them a sharply hostile attitude from those who were at the head of Christian enlightenment. It is mimes that Basil of Caesarea (4th century) has in mind when he speaks with contempt about "acts"; John Chrysostom condemns secular music, which, in his opinion, only spoils morals, and calls the theaters "the buildings of the devil", and theatrical performances - "the marketplace of demons."

The "Speech in Defense of Mimes" by the rhetorician Horikia of Gaza (5th-6th centuries) was a response to these constant attacks. Gaza was a brilliant cultural center, where the traditions of Hellenic education were maintained almost until iconoclastic times; there existed the famous rhetorical school, the school of mime actors and the theater of Dionysus, where Horikiy delivered his speech.

In subsequent centuries, the persecution of mimes by the ruling clergy and the emperor took on more acute forms. However, individual plot details and stage mime techniques penetrate the church, which contributes to the formation of a new specifically Byzantine genre of “Christological” mime, samples of which date back to the 7th-8th centuries. - the period of increasing Christianization of Byzantine culture.

The first centuries of the existence of the Byzantine state were also marked by the struggle of two educational systems - ancient and Christian.

Primary Christian education was given at home or in monasteries; then, to acquire literary and oratory skills, Christians resorted to the help of pagan, rhetorical and philosophical schools; theology was the highest level of education. Theological schools developed from schools for converts (the so-called catechetical schools), where people different ages Christian dogma had to be learned. By the 4th century the reputation of the largest theological school is acquired by the school in Alexandria, which became famous as early as the 1st century BC. n. e., - it was taught by the first theorists of Christianity - Clement and Origen. Here there is an extensive system of theological disciplines (for example, polemical apologetics, dogmatic theology, exegesis). The main method of Alexandrian exegesis was allegory - the search for a mysterious, hidden meaning in the Holy Scriptures.

Somewhat later, at the turn of the 3rd-4th centuries, a theological school arose in Antioch with a different method - a historical-logical and grammatical approach to the Holy Scriptures; Antiochian theologians looked at the Old and New Testaments as real history that needed to be revealed through improved methods of historical exegesis. Schools of the same type were in Edessa and Nisibis. Christian education triumphed as a result of competition with paganism that lasted five centuries. In the III century. in contrast to Christianity, paganism puts forward the universal philosophical system of Neoplatonism, which embraced all the currents and shades of ancient idealistic philosophy and concerns all areas of life. After the "classical age" of Neoplatonism during the lifetime of its founder Plotinus in the 4th century. the Syrian and Pergamon schools flourish, headed by Iamblichus and Edesius. These schools tend to gravitate towards mysticism, from which in the 1st century. the representatives of the Athenian school depart, Proclus and Marine, who turned to the logical systematization of their provisions. Withstanding repeated attacks and criticism from the Neoplatonists (for example, in the lost writings of Proclus), at the same time, it borrowed a lot from them.

So, in the IV-V centuries. rhetorical and philosophical pagan education was concentrated in Athens, medicine and philosophy flourished in Alexandria, the rhetorical schools of Antioch, Caesarea, Gaza were also famous; the center of legal education was Beirut. Numerous pagan schools existed in Constantinople, Nicaea, Trebizond. In contrast to the schools of Constantinople, even under Theodosius II, a higher Christian school was opened in the capital (425); in the second half of the VI century. it was transformed into the school of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, headed by an ecumenical teacher. The time of the final victory of Christian education and Christian ideology is considered to be 529, when the Academy of Athens was closed by Justinian. The dying of pagan culture also affected the state of science in these centuries. Despite some progress exact sciences, in particular mechanics, in general, science is in decline. Ancient medicine and natural science are being replaced by conspiracies and belief in miracles, legends about which were born in abundance by the monastic ascetic environment. did not strive for accurate ideas about the universe. The popularization of Christian cosmogonic theories found its expression in the genres of the Six Days - spiritual sermons on topics about God's creation of the world. Scientific Christian literature produced a number of works similar to Kosma Indikoplov's "Christian Topography" (6th century), where familiarity with the achievements of Hellenistic science does not interfere with the construction of a fantastic scheme of the universe that is most consistent with the Christian worldview.

However, in the ancient heritage there was an area unconditionally accepted by the new culture - the Greek language. Remaining the language of literature, it penetrated into all areas of state and cultural life. They studied on it, conducted theological discussions on it. This determined the most significant feature that distinguishes Eastern culture from Western culture, namely, its monolingualism. Period IV-VI centuries. was a time of gradual displacement of the Latin language by Greek, which by the 7th century. occupied a dominant position. So, from the once united Roman Empire, two states with different cultures are formed. The reinterpreted word “Romans”, which the Byzantines called themselves, meant precisely this ethnic and spiritual isolation, which was reflected even in the nature of the victorious ideology: Christianity of the East, appealing to the feelings of man, was alien to the rationalism and voluntaristic tendencies of the West.

II

In the IV-VI centuries. on the territory of the eastern part of the Roman Empire there were five main centers of culture: Athens with their famous Platonic Academy, Constantinople, Asia Minor Cappadocia (Caesarea, Nisa, Nazianzus), Syria (Antioch, Gaza), Egypt (Alexandria, Panopolis). In cultural, educational and creative activity representatives of these centers clearly manifest the main trends in the spiritual life of that time.

So, Athens turns out to be the main repository and stronghold of the ancient Hellenic culture and education. In the IV century. the famous pagan rhetoricians Hymerius and Proeresius teach there; future famous figures study with them christian church- Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus. In the 5th century Athenaida, the future wife of Emperor Theodosius II, studies with her father Leontius, a teacher of philosophy and rhetoric. At the head of the Athenian Academy at this time stands one of the last luminaries of pagan philosophical thought - the Neoplatonist Proclus. But by the 6th century, especially after the closure of the Athenian Academy by Justinian, the ancient center of paganism was losing its leading role in the cultural education of the era. The main threads of the spiritual life of the country now stretch to Constantinople: in the VI century. he receives such prominent poets as Roman the Melodist, who arrived from Syria, Agathius from the Asia Minor city of Myrina, Paul the Silentiary, historiographers Procopius from Caesarea, Menander Protector, and others.

If Athens IV-V centuries. were the main focus of the pagan culture that was fading into the past, then at the same time a new ideology, a new culture crystallizes in the works of representatives of the so-called Cappadocian circle in the works of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa. However, this philosophical literature, new in content, does not break with ancient traditions, but, on the contrary, assimilates them and continues them in its own way. So, for example, in the theological works of the Cappadocians, the main provisions of orthodox Christianity are substantiated by means of Neoplatonic dialectics. The poems of Gregory of Nazianzus reveal the deepest attachment of the author to the traditions of ancient poetry. The application of the rules of ancient versification to the Greek language that changed its phonetic nature is carried out by the poet Nonn from Panopolis.

The connection of the new culture with the old is also noticeable in the activities of representatives of the Alexandrian and Antiochian schools - in Athanasius of Alexandria and John Chrysostom.

The literary heritage of the authors of the 5th-6th centuries, who were educated in the Gaz school, is very indicative of the era of the transitional period from antiquity to the Middle Ages. It clearly distinguishes three types of works: 1) purely Christian in spirit (the exegetical writings of Procopius, the hagiography of Theodore); 2) purely pagan (poetry of John); 3) Christian works, borrowing form from pagan poetry. This is explained by the fact that in Gaza, as in no other center of Hellenic culture, pagan beliefs were preserved for an unusually long and firmly preserved. It is no coincidence that Jerome, whose time of conscious life falls on the second half of the 4th and the first two decades of the 5th century, called Gaza a city of pagans (“The Life of Hilarion”, ch. 14). Some philosophers, pupils of this school, even tried to bring them closer to the teachings of Plato (the dialogues of Aeneas), and the poets of the Gaz school, the only ones in the entire Greco-Roman society of that time, created direct imitations of the ancient pagan poets: Anacreon was imitated by John (V century), tragedians - Timothy (late 5th - early 6th century). Christian rhetoricians-sophists tried to build a culture new in content, but old in form, on the ruins of paganism. In the Ghaz school of this time, the same genres flourish that were successfully developed in the pagan schools of rhetoric-sophists. So, one of the recitations of Horikiy is devoted to the question of what words Aphrodite would have uttered when she went in search of Adonis. Even when creating works of the Christian direction, the rhetoricians of the Gazian school filled them with comparisons with the heroes of ancient Greek mythology and with historical figures of pagan times (Enkomius Procopia by Horikia).

The process of initial assimilation by Christian literature of the forms and methods of genre, verbal expression, developed by pagan literature, and the gradual break with it are especially distinct in Christian poetry 4th–6th centuries It is this sign - following the patterns of pagan literature or deviation from them - that divides Christian poetry of the 4th-6th centuries. to traditional and new poetry. In traditional poetry, not only the genres themselves, borrowed from pagan literature (hymn, epigram, epitaph, didactic poem, gnomes, poem, ekphrasis), remain unchanged, but also the same metrical principles of versification, although the Greek language has already ceased to feel the difference between long and short syllables. in all his 408 poems, he strictly observes the principle of metrical versification. The genres of his poems are diverse: epigrams, friendly or angry (“On Maxim”, “On those who love wealth”, “On the hypocritical monks”), short, well-aimed gnomes (sayings), originating from Homer and Hesiod, large poems (“On own life”, “The dispute of the spiritual life with the life of the world”, “From Nicobulus the father to the son”), hymns (for example, “Hymn to Christ”). However, the poetic work of Gregory is characterized by a new worldview, which powerfully breaks through the old traditional form. It is expressed primarily in the combination of two components: an extremely personal feeling with a universal feeling. Thus, the basic principle of genuine lyric poetry is realized, on which the ancient Greek lyrics of the heyday grew up (the early work of Ivik, Solon, Pindar); in the era of Hellenism and the "silver age" of Roman literature, this principle was violated by the loss of the second component.

Grigory knew how to speak about his purely personal, personal things in such a way that his words acquired a public resonance: they were full of universal significance. That is why the lines of his two “Complaints” (382 and after 383) sound so heartfelt, expressing the full force of human suffering, and the angry invective on his personal enemy Maxim grows into a general political satire on a secular and spiritual society in which “the victorious ignorance opens its mouth a little, takes it with audacity alone, ”and valor and abilities are overwritten.

In the V-VI centuries. in Christian poetry, the genre of ekphrasis (description), which came from ancient rhetoric, was popular. He was paid tribute to by such poets of the 6th century as Christodore of Coptic, who described 88 statues of gods, heroes, poets, philosophers and statesmen of Greece and Rome, Julian of Egypt in the epigrams “On the copper statue of Icarus”, “On the “cow” of Myron”, Leonty Scholastic (“On the statue of a dancer”), Agathius of Mirinea (“On the statue of Plutarch”, “On the image of the Archangel Michael”) and, finally, Paul the Silentiary (“Lighting the dome of St. Sophia”). Of these poems, the last two deserve special attention. The ekphrasis of Agathia is remarkable in that in poetic form, extremely briefly and clearly expresses a completely new, medieval understanding of the main task of art: it should help a person to be transferred to a different, more sublime world, that is, to serve religion.

To the invisible angeliarch, the spirit without flesh,

Wax-embodier dared to give a bodily form.

And not without the charm of the image; contemplating it, capable

Mortal for the thoughts of the saints better tune your mind.

Now his feeling is not pointless; taking on the image

The heart trembles before him, as before the face of a deity.

Vision excites the soul to the bottom. That's how art can

Paint to express what arises in the mind.

The ekphrasis of Paul Silenciarius, written in hexameter, testifies to a new quality that had developed by the 6th century. in this ancient genre of ancient literature: a poem of almost a thousand verses turns into a poem pursuing a propaganda goal, where the author connects the religious feelings awakened by the splendor of the new temple with the main goals of the political life of the Byzantine state. The temple turns here, as it were, into the personification of a new powerful empire: night lighting in the temple not only helps the soul of the person in it to join the divine principle - it turns the temple into a saving beacon, which sailors sailing through the Black and Aegean look with hope. In other words, the cathedral is a symbol of hope and salvation for the barbarians approaching Constantinople; salvation can come to them only from the Byzantine state.

Examples of expressing new content in the old form could be multiplied. Particularly curious are the attempts of some poets to convey gospel stories epic hexameter. Such is the poetic treatment of the gospel stories by Gregory of Nazianzus, Anastasius of the Kosnoyazychny, Patriarch Sophrony, given among the Byzantine epigrams in the Palatine Anthology. The transcription of the biblical traditions of the Old and New Testaments in hexameters is carried out by Empress Eudokia, in paganism Athenaida (5th century). She also decided to use the size of the hexameter in the hagiographic poem "About Saint Cyprian", which in some ways resembles the later legend of Faust. Although the text of the poem has not been completely preserved, it nevertheless gives an idea of ​​the image of Cyprian, a former magician defeated by force. moral purity and the firmness of the Christian girl Justina. The verbal fabric of the poem, although to a small extent, nevertheless conveys the changes that have taken place in the language; they are evidenced by grammatical and phraseological deviations from classical norms, sometimes found in the poem, a mixture of long and short syllables.

Nonnus, a contemporary of Athenaida, expounding the Gospel of John in hexameters, is already striving to take into account new linguistic norms to one degree or another. The author builds the verse in such a way that the musical stress in it coincides with the expiratory stress of colloquial speech. Thus, a gradual transition from the metrical principle of versification to the tonic one begins. Such attempts were made as early as the 4th century: among the meager fragments of the famous heresiarch Arius, two poetic passages have been preserved; one can judge from them that the verses were intended for singing and in many respects deviated from the norms of ancient metrics; they can even assume the presence of rhyme. Here is how such a passage sounds in an approximate Russian translation:

Wasn't always the Father

But there was a time

When one was

And he wasn't a father.

Not always the Son was

And the time was

When he wasn't.

Over time, such attempts to break with the norms of ancient metrics became, apparently, a more frequent occurrence, since we already see a complete break with them in the 6th century. in the work of the remarkable poet Roman Sladkopevets. His name is associated with the emergence new poetry in Byzantine literature - new in content, form, genre, and metrics. Roman Sladkopevets is the author of more than a thousand church hymns, which give the right to call him a true reformer of Byzantine versification: he was the first of the Christian poets to write according to the tonic principle and thereby brought church hymns closer to the living spoken language, made them understandable and close to all his contemporaries. Roman Sladkopevets is the creator of two new poetic genres, which he called kontakion and ikos. Kontakion (from the Greek word κοντάκιον - a small scroll) is a liturgical poem dedicated to the description of any church holiday or episode from life as legendary heroes Old Testament and Christian saints. Ikos (from the Greek word οίκος - house) - a detailed explanation, often with a moralizing purpose, accompanying the kontakion. Thus, the kontakion and ikos form a single whole: the kontakion (always one) precedes the ikos, the number of which ranges from eleven to twenty-eight. The impression of unity is achieved due to the fact that final words kontakia are repeated at the end of each ikos. This combination of kontakion with ikos gave an extremely flexible poetic form, which opened up great opportunities for expressing emotions. The chants of Roman are often full of drama, and this drama sometimes unfolds on a psychological plane (“On the Betrayal of Judas”, “Joseph and the Egyptian”, “The Wise and Foolish Virgins”). Tonic dimensions gave variety to the external, musical side of poetic speech. The tone of Roman's chants is simple and majestic, strict and gentle, solemn and sincerely lyrical. For this invariable depth of feeling and the beauty of the style, Roman was called the Sweet Singer.

Byzantine prose developed under the influence of the need to defend and substantiate the main provisions of orthodox Christianity in disputes with pagans and heretics. This gave rise to such genres as polemical philosophical and theological speeches, exegesis (interpretation), homily (sermons). The strengthening of the role of the church in the political and spiritual life of the empire affected the development of eloquence, which is now becoming the property of the church (consoling speeches, epitaphs, panegyrics to the saints). There is also a specifically medieval genre of hagiography. Historiography and epistolary prose remain less subject to clerical ideology.

The genre of polemical speeches is represented in the work of Christian writers of the 4th century. Gregory of Nazianzus, Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Ephraim the Syrian. The controversy is conducted by these authors in two directions: against pagans and against heretics. Its method in both cases is extremely different. Pagans, as a rule, are denounced by Christian writers without giving them a word of justification or defense: such, for example, are the speeches of Gregory of Nazianzus against the emperor Julian in the form of an invective.

In anti-heretical writings, the opponent's views receive more or less spatial expression; this is facilitated by the form of the diatribe (conversation, conversation). These are the five speeches of Gregory of Nazianzus in defense of Nicene Orthodoxy against the Arians. More than half of his writings are devoted to the defense of Orthodox teaching by the Bishop of Alexandria Athanasius, the main opponent of the Arian doctrine. His polemical speeches, written mainly also in the form of a diatribe, are sometimes deployed on a philosophical plane. For example, “Speech about the incarnation of God the Word and about his coming to us in the flesh” begins with cosmogonic excursions. Athanasius summarizes various pagan theories, accompanying them with his own assessment; the tone in these judgments is calm and impartial, Athanasius avoids quoting the writings of the pagans: “Many explained the creation of the world and the creation of the universe in different ways, and everyone, whatever he wanted, made up a concept about it. Some said that everything happened by itself and by accident. Such are the Epicureans... Others, including Plato, great among the Hellenes, argued that God created the universe from ready-made and uncreated matter” (“Speech on the incarnation of God the Word and his coming to us in the flesh”, § 2).

However, when presenting the views of the Arians, Athanasius' method of polemic changes: he often and abundantly quotes his ideological enemies, opposing them with his convictions.

In the same way, Basil of Caesarea quotes his opponent and compatriot Eunomius, a student of the Arian Aetius, in a large volume. His five books "Against Eunomius" are structured in this way: the author gives one after another more or less lengthy sayings of Eunomius and then develops his refutation. On the contrary, his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa in his "Twelve Books of Refutations of Eunomius" resorts to quotations extremely rarely, trying in most cases to convey the meaning of the disputed provisions in his own words. In this regard, Gregory sets out his own views in detail. This is preceded by the history of the emergence of the Arian doctrine, where the characteristics of the “father of heresy” are curious - Arius, his student Aetius, who surpassed his teacher with “new inventions”, and, finally, Eunomius himself, “the true Aetian competitor”. The language of the theological writings of Gregory of Nyssa is quite complex and difficult to understand.

The exposition of the same questions in John Chrysostom, on the contrary, is easy and accessible thanks to vivid and figurative comparisons, the absence of excessive rhetoric and simple syntax: “There is nothing strange and unexpected in the fact that madmen laugh at great subjects. Such people cannot be persuaded by human wisdom; and if you begin to convince them in this way, you will achieve the opposite; for that which is above reason, faith alone is needed. In fact, if we want to explain to the pagans by means of judgments of reason how God became a man by dwelling in the womb of a virgin, and do not recognize this as an object of faith, they will only laugh. And it is precisely those who wish to comprehend this that suffer defeat” (“Discourse Four on the First Epistle to the Corinthians”, § 1).

Equally clear are the arguments on these topics by the contemporary of the Cappadocians, the Syrian preacher Ephraim the Syrian, whose writings were translated into Greek during his lifetime. He knows how to find his own, unique means for expressing thoughts. For example, the comparison of the incarnation of Christ into a man with the formation of pearls in shells draws attention: “... I will give an example that will help me explain nature ... Pearls are a stone formed from the flesh, for it is obtained from shells. And therefore, who will not believe that God, too, is born from a body as a man? Pearls are not obtained from the communication of shells, but from the collision of lightning and water. So Christ was conceived by a virgin without carnal pleasure” (“Word against Heretics”).

In another essay, Ephraim the Syrian is indignant at the one who dares to investigate the nature of Christ, "the universal savior, or Physician", since it is incomprehensible. Ephraim fills his essay "Against the investigators of the nature of the son of God" with exhortations not to deal with such questions. This composition begins with a kind of solemn hymn to Christ: “The heavenly king, the immortal lord, the only-begotten son, beloved of the father, who, by the sole goodness of his power, created a man from the earth, defeated by the bounty of his divine essence, for the sake of the very man whom his most pure hands created, descended from heaven to save and heal all those who suffer. For by the action of the evil one, all were exhausted in evil: the disease became grave and incurable; neither the prophets nor the priests were able to completely heal the ulcers. Therefore, the holy, only-begotten son, seeing that all that exists is exhausted in evil, by the will of the father descended from heaven and was incarnated in the womb of the holy virgin, and by his good pleasure, having been born of her, he came to heal those possessed by various infirmities and by his word with grace and bounty. heal all diseases. He delivered them all from the stench of their own sores. But the sick, healed, instead of giving thanks to the Doctor for the healing, began to explore the essence of the Doctor, which is incomprehensible ... "

The next genre, widespread in Christian prose of the 4th-6th centuries, is the genre of exegesis; all prominent Christian writers paid tribute to him. This genre also has its roots in the area of ​​pagan literature, in which the interpretation of the works of Homer, Pindar, Plato, Aristotle and others famous authors antiquity had a long and continuous tradition.

The Christian exegesis of the Alexandrian school with its allegorical method is presented for us primarily by the writings of Athanasius: "An Interpretation of the Psalms", "From the Talks on the Gospel of Matthew", "From the Interpretation of the Gospel of Luke", etc. The method of interpretation of Athanasius is extremely complex, not only because that he strives to see an allegory in almost every word of Holy Scripture, but also because he expresses his thoughts in a dark language, with deliberate sublimity, resorting to complex syntactical constructions.

Gregory of Nyssa also belongs to the same school; having experienced the enormous influence of Neoplatonism, with his penchant for contemplative-philosophical reflections, Gregory gravitates toward abstract theological reasoning about human nature, about the order of the universe. So, for example, in the "Interpretations to the inscriptions of the psalms" from reasoning about the meaning of music, he moves to the cosmogonic and theological issues of the universe. His interpretations are eclectic: they contain the thoughts of Pythagoreans, Stoics, Peripatetics, Neoplatonists, and this is very significant for a thinker of the transitional era from antiquity to the Middle Ages.

More rationalistic is the exegesis in the writings of representatives of the historical and grammatical school of Antioch, primarily Basil of Caesarea and John Chrysostom; So, in the first conversation on the psalms, Vasily touches on approximately the same topic as his younger brother Gregory, but this topic is no longer developed on a lofty philosophical level, but on a real-ethical level with a strong didactic bias. When explaining the content of the psalms, Vasily very often uses comparisons taken from real, everyday life - from the field of housing construction, shipbuilding or from the life of farmers, merchants, wanderers. Such comparisons made Basil's exegesis extremely popular, accessible to people of any social status.

Also in the explanations of the texts of the Old Testament, Basil is more "realistic", more simple and accessible than Gregory of Nyssa. His Discourses on the Six Days (a series of sermons on the creation of the world by God over six days) are detailed answers to clearly posed questions, where the exposition is accompanied by witty comparisons and antitheses. Sometimes, for persuasiveness, Vasily resorts to the method of proof by contradiction.

Finally, in the writings of John Chrysostom, who also belonged to the school of Antioch, exegesis finds its classic shape, the signs of which are in the extraordinary simplicity of presentation, clarity of thought and brevity in the way it is expressed. However, John did not avoid difficult theological topics. He willingly accompanied his exposition and proof of the propositions put forward with examples from pagan literature, which he contrasted with examples from the life of Christians. At the same time, John always foresaw the possibility of objections from opponents - pagans or heretic Christians. He often proceeds precisely from such objections. For example, in the Fourth Discourse on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, about the execution of Christ, John writes: “If I say: Christ was crucified, then the pagans will object: how is this consistent with reason? He did not deliver himself when they crucified and tortured him on the cross; how then did he resurrect and deliver others? If he had such power, he should have shown it before he died (so, indeed, the Jews said); if he did not deliver himself, how could he deliver others? The pagan will say that this does not agree with reason. And it's true - it's beyond reason; an unspeakable power appeared in the cross. To be tormented and to be above torment, to be bound and overcome - this requires infinite strength ”(§ 1).

Often John addresses the listener, posing the question himself for him: “But, you will say, even among the Gentiles many despised death. Who, tell me? Is it the one who drank the poison from the hemlock? But like him I will present, if you like, whole thousands in our church; if during the persecution it was allowed to die by taking poison, then all the persecuted would be more glorious than him. Moreover, he drank the poison, not having the power to drink or not to drink; whether he wanted it or not, he had to undergo it, and therefore it was not a matter of courage, but of necessity; both robbers and murderers, by the verdict of the judges, suffered even greater suffering ”(§ 4). Such a lively form of explanation, which turned into a conversation with those to whom John addressed, brought his exegesis closer to the genre of sermon (homily), which also received a brilliant development in his work. The fame of his eloquence over time reaches the new capital - Constantinople, where he is invited to take the bishop's chair. The charm of John's eloquence lay in the simple, unconstrained form of his conversations, in apt images and comparisons, in a large number of witticisms and sayings, which brought his speech closer to a lively one. popular speech. But John's great popularity as a rhetorician was ensured not by these external methods of oratory, which can also be found among the pagan rhetoricians of that time, but by the content that he clothed in this form. John spoke about human suffering and needs, denounced vices, ambition, greed, envy, drunkenness, debauchery, anger (“Two speeches to a young widow”, “Three speeches to the ascetic Stagirius”). At the same time, John did not make a distinction between emperor and slave, layman and monk, rich and poor, for which he acquired numerous enemies, ranging from the emperor Arcadius and his wife Eudoxia, who twice sent him into exile, and ending with the rich people of Antioch, who attempted on his life. life.

Another genre of ancient Greek eloquence - the genre of laudatory speech - from the 4th century. also becomes very common in Christian literature. In their genre features it does not undergo any significant changes in comparison with the later examples of pagan rhetoric - the works of Themistius, Gimerius, Libanius. Christian panegyrics are characterized by the sincerity of human feelings - this is noticeable in the comforting speeches of Gregory of Nyssa, and in Basil of Caesarea, in speeches glorifying Christian holidays, and in the comforting and funeral speeches of Gregory of Nazianzus. Particularly remarkable in an emotional sense is the “Funeral Oration to Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia” – the swan song of Gregory of Nazianzus. Simply, but with great and touching love, the speaker tells about his close friend of his youth. This eulogy is revived by Gregory's memories of the years spent together with Basil in Athens, of the atmosphere that surrounded Christians who lived in a pagan city in spirit. Gregory subtly and skillfully recreates the images of the people around them, the details of everyday life and, what is especially important, some features of the spiritual life of that time, for example, a strong passion for rhetorical education among Athenian youth.

The biographies of famous people in Byzantine literature constitute an independent intensively emerging genre, which also has its roots in pagan literature. Over time, this genre becomes one of the leading in Byzantine literature, and hagiographic literature - one of the types of "mass" reading. The main reasons for this are, firstly, that the works of the hagiographical genre, telling in a simple form, sometimes equipped with entertaining stories, about the pious life of a saint, were very convenient for spreading the new ideology in wide circles of the people; secondly, that growing from the very beginning of the 4th century. passion for asceticism found a fertile ground in hagiographic literature, the hero of which is an ascetic hermit. Starting from the IV century. this genre develops extremely intensively, takes various forms and by the 7th-8th centuries. results in distinctly different directions of hagiographic literature.

The forms of narration in this genre were different even over the course of one century, which was determined by the goals pursued by one or another hagiographer. Thus, Athanasius of Alexandria, wishing to teach the monks the ideal of the hermit ascetic, composes, from his own impressions and from the stories of those who knew the first ruler of the monastic communities, Anthony of Egypt, his life in a form close to a biographical encomium, and at the same time not alien to Christian preaching.

The life of not one, but many hermits is dedicated to the work of a younger contemporary of Athanasius Palladius, originally from Asia Minor. At the end of the 80s of the IV century. he settles for a whole decade in the Egyptian desert, observes the life of the monks there, the result of which is the “Lavsian History” (“Lavsaik”) written by him at the end of his life, a work that is amazing in its immediacy, an extremely entertaining presentation of even the most ordinary facts from the life of hermits , a work, in its intonations close to Byzantine folklore. The book of Palladius contributed to the acquaintance of Christians with the way of life and the characters of the Egyptian ascetics.

The same goals are pursued by Palladius, who was born twenty-three years later in Euphrates Syria. He tells about the life of thirty ascetics of the Euphrates land, devoting to each of them a separate chapter of the work, which has a double title - “The Tale of loving God, or About ascetics. The author writes mainly about his contemporaries, whom he knew personally, or, in extreme cases, about persons who lived before him a little earlier, but known to him from eyewitness accounts; his narrative, like that of Palladius, is distinguished by the concreteness of his observations, the persuasiveness of the story, and the liveliness in conveying what he saw. Theodoret lacks a sense of good-natured humor in relation to the events he describes, which is an individual trait of Palladius, and therefore Theodoret's narrative is somewhat drier and more monotonous. But still, it captivates with some measured flow of a leisurely story, in which, again, thanks to the great concreteness, one might even say - the realism of the descriptions, not only the very images of people of that time, but also the most characteristic details of their everyday life stand before us as if alive. Such attention to the smallest details of everyday life, the desire to accurately recreate the atmosphere in which the hermits lived, should be considered a positive quality of the new literature: it is very important that this method serves as one of the means of characterizing a person.

IN later time the methods of biography become more and more monotonous and eventually lead to a stencil composition, epithets, metaphors, to a stencil image of the described person, which is completely absent in the first hagiographic works, as evidenced, for example, by the life of Anthony of Egypt. In the composition of this life, first of all, attention is drawn to the complex form, which allows the author to use a variety of means to express his thoughts.

The whole life is a message from Athanasius "to the monks who are in foreign countries", and this message itself is made up not only of the author's narration, but also of direct speeches and letters of Anthony (one speech is a lesson to the monks about the devil's obsessions - ch. 16- 43, the other is Antony's answer to the pagan philosophers - ch.74-80, etc.). In Palladius and Theodoret, the composition of the lives is incomparably simpler; they do not tell about the whole life of the hermit, but only about one, at best, several episodes from his life. These authors use only two methods of narration: the first is a story on behalf of the author, sometimes on behalf of another person, usually an eyewitness, and the second is the direct speech of the hermit himself. In describing the protagonist, hagiographers have not yet resorted to constant traditional epithets, sometimes bearing the stamp of deliberate doxology; their story is always direct and original, bright and expressive.

Only in the VI century. hagiographic genre loses its immediacy and originality, acquiring stereotyped features. This can be seen in the examples of the lives compiled by the famous hagiographer of the 6th century. Cyril of Scythopol (who lived in the Galilean city of Scythopolis). We know five of his lives: Euphemia, Savvas, John the Silent, Cyriacus and Theognius. In all these biographies, the scheme of the hagiographic genre is clearly traced, which has become traditional since that time. First, in a general form, praise is given to the saint, as, for example: “Theognius, the all-glorified, the great beauty of all Palestine, the brightest lamp of the desert and the clearest luminary of the bishops.” Further, it tells about the place of birth of the saint, his parents (as a rule, these are the most pious Christians), about how he becomes a monk, then moves further up the steps of the spiritual order or retires to the desert and founds a coenobia there. The presentation is very simple, stylistic embellishments are almost completely absent. This calm narrative tone of the story about the pious labors of the ascetic is disturbed by individual episodes from his life, which give the story some entertainment; as a rule, these are stories about miracles performed by saints (for example, about the taming of the raging sea by Theognius, or how a lion repelled the onslaught of barbarian Saracens, how a lion fled from wanderers at the prayer of John, etc.).

In the VI century. samples are also created of biographies that are more sophisticated in language and style with a large number of stylistic embellishments, some of which acquire the character of a stamp (the epithets “light”, “luminary”, “honest pearl”, “beauty”, etc.). This is clear from the biography of the same Theognius, compiled at the beginning of the 6th century. Pavel of Hellas. His desire for complex ornate descriptions is constantly felt: “Thus the King of glory Christ commanded his disciples. Therefore, they diligently accepted the divine commandment, abundantly illuminated the entire sunflower with the lightning of their miracles, and flawlessly fulfilling the service entrusted to them, and their precious bodies, those God-created tools that the ancient law called “scarlet skins”, leaving on earth, as it once left on earth, that same fiery prophet Elijah, departed with joy to the creator of all deeds and boldly stood before the miraculous royal throne.

Thus, we see that in terms of forms of expression of thought, the genre of hagiography is undergoing evolution along a downward line. This could not but affect the content of the works themselves. If from the life of Anthony we learn about the social origin of the hero (ch. 1) and about the historical events of that time - about the persecution of Christians under Maximinus (ch. 46-47), about the hostile actions of the Arians and pagans (ch. 82), then nothing we will not find anything similar in subsequent authors. They are occupied only by the deeds of the ascetic, the miracles and deeds performed by him; at best, these will be brief references to external events only in so far as they are related to the hermit, for example, Cyril's report about the invasion of the Saracens on the monastery where John the Silent lived (ch. 13). If the life of Anthony is polemically pointed, because it has a pronounced anti-pagan and anti-heretical orientation, then in the works of subsequent hagiographers it is either absent or again barely perceptible. Athanasius allows direct denunciations of the Meletians, Manicheans (ch. 68), Arians (ch. 68, 69); his reasoning about the advantages of the Christian faith over the pagan "proofs from reason" is directed not only against the pagans, but with its hidden side and against the Arians (ch. 73, 77, 80). We will not find anything of the kind in the hagiography of at least the same Cyril of Scythopol. If the life of that time was somehow reflected in the biographies of Palladius, mainly in its moral manifestations, then again we will look in vain for the same thing from Cyril or from an even later hagiographer - Ignatius. In fact, "Lavsaic" by Palladius is not only the ascetic life of hermits, but also the very simple life of ordinary people with their vices and passions: such is the story of the money-loving girl (ch. 6), about the slave Potamiene, pursued by her dissolute master ( ch. 3), such is the story of a wealthy Egyptian who fell madly in love with married woman free origin (ch. 19, 20 about Macarius of Egypt). Often in Palladium we come across special stories-transformations that apparently existed in the folklore of the peoples of the East - for example, an episode with an Egyptian who could not seduce his intended victim and turned to the help of a magician who turned this woman into a mare; Macarius of Egypt restores her former human appearance by sprinkling her with holy water.

"The Tale of Those Who Love God" by Theodoret also gives us interesting information about local customs, mores of the Syrians of that time. On the contrary, from the lives of Cyril we learn only what concerned a narrow circle of people who stood mainly at the highest levels of the church hierarchy.

The following two rather productive genres of Christian literature of the 4th-6th centuries, also rooted in pagan literature, stand, as already indicated, aloof from the philosophical and theological direction. These are epistolary and historiographical genres. From a formal point of view, Christian epistolography does not undergo any significant changes: it retains the same formulas for addressing the addressee that were in the epistolary work of the pagans, the same formulas for the final lines of the epistle. Some of the rules of epistolary art taught by Gregory of Nazianzus in a letter 51 to his son-in-law Nicobulus are interesting: they concern three main features, the observance of which, in the author's opinion, will help to compose a letter that is impeccable in terms of style and content. The first sign is the size, the second is the clarity of speech, the third is the pleasantness of the syllable. Gregory's reasoning is as follows: “Some of the epistolographers write longer than they should, others write too short; both the first and the second sin against the measure, like archers ... Necessity serves as the measure of writing: it is not necessary to write long if there are not many objects, and briefly if there are many of them ... In order to observe the measure, immoderation should be avoided in both cases. Here's what I know about brevity.

With regard to clarity, it is known that one should, as far as possible, avoid the bookish style, but incline more towards the colloquial. In short, such writing is the best and most beautiful, which convinces both the uneducated person and the educated; the first because it was compiled in accordance with the concepts of ordinary people, the second because it is higher than such concepts ... After all, both a solved riddle and a letter to be explained are equally inappropriate.

Thirdly, the letter should be pleasant. We will achieve this if we write it not in a completely dry, unpleasant or inelegant way, ugly, as they say, without decorations; that is, if we write it by introducing gnomes, proverbs, sayings, as well as jokes and riddles, thanks to which speech becomes more pleasant; but they should not be used beyond measure, for the first is rude, and the second is pompous. They should be used to the extent that red threads are used in fabrics. We allow trails, but they are few and decent. We leave the antitheses, parallelisms, and isocolones to the sophists; if we use them anywhere, we will do it more as a joke than seriously. Most of all, in writing, one should strive for moderate beauty, so that it seems more natural.

Of course, the letters are now filled with new content: they reflect new ideas, views, beliefs, new life phenomena. So, some letters of the same Gregory of Nazianzus (a total of 243 have been preserved) contain Christian instructions and advice; others, written during the period of controversy with the heretic Apollinaris, are of dogmatic interest (letters to Presbyter Cledonius, Patriarch Nectarius). The correspondence of Basil the Great, John Chrysostom covers a very wide circle individuals, Christians and pagans. Their messages perfectly convey the attitude of the author: for example, the subtle poetic nature of Basil of Caesarea, who knew how to perfectly feel and convey the beauty of nature (letter 14 to Gregory of Nazianzus); or the firm willpower and cheerfulness of the spirit of the aged John Chrysostom, riding under the scorching sun along the road of exile to a foreign land (Letters 6 and 9 to Olympias).

More than 150 letters of the most diverse content have been preserved from the epistolary work of Sinesius; among them there are intimate ones (letters from Hypatia, from whom Synesius studied philosophy, to his brother Euoptius, friend Olympius), as well as full of tension and severity (telling about disasters in Pentapolis, where Synesius lived in recent years - letter 69 to Bishop Theophilus, 89, 107 brother). From the point of view of external decoration, many of Sinesius's letters are marked by extraordinary elegance, sometimes combined with a witty play of thought and feeling. Particularly remarkable is letter 1 to Nikander: “My books are my children,” he begins this letter in this way.

The epistolary work of the sophist Aeneas, a representative of the Gaza school (25 letters have been preserved), testifies to the enormous power of ancient traditions that owned the mind of a Christian who was educated in a pagan rhetorical school: almost every letter of Aeneas is filled with a large number of names and images taken from ancient Greek literature or history (for example, a letter to II Cass, XV presbyter Stephen, XXI presbyter Dorotheus, XXIII sophist Epiphanius). In terms of volume, general style and composition, these letters have much in common with fictitious fiction letters. famous figures the second sophistry of Alciphron and Elian.

Like epistolary genre, which, as we have seen, has not undergone significant changes in the formal techniques developed by the ancient tradition, the genre of historiography is also basically free from innovations. Although the works of Byzantine historiographers differ in the scale of the narrative, in the quality of the psychological characteristics of the depicted historical figures, in the criteria for selecting facts, not to mention the individual awareness and talent of the author, nevertheless, the technique of historical narrative, its tasks remain the same as they were in historiography. antique.

The historiographical genre for the first time in Christian literature received its most significant expression in the sixth century, developing mainly in two directions: the world chronicle and history in the proper sense of the word. World chronicles were compiled in most cases by monks; in chronological order, they described the events "from the creation of the world" to approximately the time of which they were eyewitnesses. As a rule, the authors strove only for a simple enumeration of important, from their point of view, events, sometimes even of a legendary nature. From the chronographs of the VI century. the most famous are Hesychius of Miletus, John of Antioch and John Malala. Malala is the most significant author among those who wrote in the genre world chronicle. His "Chronicle" enjoyed great success with his contemporaries and had a significant influence on subsequent chroniclers, serving them as a wonderful model for works of this kind; it was translated into Old Russian. Such popularity of Malala's work was mainly due to the simple and artless style, reminiscent of folk tales.

Authors working in the field of historiography proper described not so large chronological periods as chronographs. For the most part, this was contemporary history or a period close to it. They most often took the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius as examples of historical narrative. This is reflected in the desire for a wide coverage of events, in a pronounced free manner of narration, in the use of mythological images, in the compilation of direct speeches of some characters. Among the representatives of the historiography of the VI century. the most interesting are Procopius of Caesarea - the author of "The History of Justinian's Wars with the Persians, Vandals and Goths" and "The Secret History", Agathius of Mirinea - the author of the work "On the Reign of Justinian" and his successor Menander Protector. The focus of all these authors is the wars of Justinian, but their assessments are different: the assessment of Procopius in his Secret History, probably published after the death of Justinian, is an assessment of the oppositionist in relation to the emperor; it is very opposite in spirit and direction historical works Agathia and Menander. A distinctive feature of the works of Procopius and Agathias is their versatility: it allows the authors to cover many events in the socio-economic and spiritual life of people of that time, to inform important information ethnographic, geographical character; at the same time, these authors manage to give vivid portrait and characteristic sketches of some remarkable persons (for example, the energetic, prudent commander Belisarius in the “History of Justinian’s Wars with the Persians, Vandals and Goths” or the insidious and cruel Justinian in “The Secret History” , eloquent Ayet, originally from Colchis, a true patriot - in the work of Agathias "On the reign of Justinian").

Brief description of the literature of the Eastern Roman Empire IV-VI centuries. allows us to draw the following main conclusions: during this period, literature, new in its ideological orientation and content, on the one hand, widely uses the traditions ancient culture and literature, and thereby provides not only aesthetic continuity in cultural development Greek people, but also contributes to the cultural education of other peoples that were part of the Eastern Roman Empire. At the same time, in the literature of this time, not in all, but in some part of it, significant shifts are outlined in bringing it closer to folk art, which is reflected in the use of the folk language, folk melody and rhythm; this leads to the emergence of some new genres and to the enrichment of old ones, changing in internal and external features and conveying to us the peculiar color of their era,

The influence of Byzantine literature on European literature is very great, its influence on Slavic literature is undeniable. Until the 13th century in Byzantine libraries one could find not only Greek manuscripts, but also their Slavic translations. Some works have survived only in Slavic translation, the originals have been lost. Actually Byzantine literature appears in the VI-VII centuries, when the Greek language becomes dominant. Monuments of folk art have almost not survived to our time. According to Western European scholars, Byzantine literature was considered the "archive of Hellenism", its free character was underestimated, meanwhile Byzantine literature is original, and one can speak of Hellenism as a literary influence on a par with the influence of Arabic, Syriac, Persian, Coptic literature, although Hellenism manifested itself more clearly . The poetry of hymns is best known to us: Roman the Melodist (6th century), Emperor Justinian, Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople, Patriarch Sofroniy of Jerusalem. The hymns of Roman the Melodist are characterized by their closeness to the psalms in musical and semantic terms (the themes of the Old Testament, the depth and asceticism of music). Of the thousand hymns he wrote, about 80 have survived. In form, this is a narrative with elements of dialogue, in style - a combination of learning and edification with poetry.

Popular in Byzantine literature historical narrative in the style of Herodotus. In the VI century. these are Procopius, Peter Patricius, Agathia, Menander. Protector and others. The best writers brought up in ancient schools on pagan traditions are Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom. The influence of the East is observed in the patericons of the 5th-6th centuries. (stories about hermit ascetics). During the period of iconoclasm, the lives of the saints and their twelve-month collections "Cheti-Minei" appear.

Starting from the 9th century, after the iconoclasm, historical chronicles with a church orientation appear. Of particular interest is the chronicle of George Amartol (end of the 9th century) from Adam to 842 (a monastic chronicle with intolerance for iconoclasm and a passion for theology).

Among the literary figures, Patriarch Photius and Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus should be noted. Photius was a highly educated person, and his house was a learned salon. His students were engaged in compiling a dictionary-lexicon. The most outstanding work of Photius is his "Library" or "Multibook" (880 chapters). They contain information about Greek grammarians, orators, philosophers, naturalists and doctors, about novels, hagiographic works (apocrypha, legends, etc.).

Konstantin Porphyrogenitus at his own expense published extensive collections and encyclopedias from works of old literature that had become rare. By his order, a historical encyclopedia was compiled.

Byzantine Literature: Monastic Book Treasures

Byzantine culture - the earliest in the history of medieval Europe - developed on the traditions of the Greco-Roman world, in the face of confrontation with Asian civilizations (Iran, Palestine, the Arab East), the interpenetration of Western cultures, the spread of Christianity. There are not so many fictional forms here, and yet Byzantine prose cannot be confined within the framework of religious didactic problems or the functions of church cult and the ascetic preaching of an incorporeal spirit. The fumes of lamp oil, the debilitating exhaustion of the body during fasting, the solemn luxury of church services could not stop the gambling noise in the squares, wit in the streets, cheerful voices during the feast hours. Byzantium left as a legacy the heartfelt frankness of the genre of fictitious writing, the sarcasm of everyday satire, the historical epic, and, finally, omitting the entire arsenal of religious writing, the novel in verse and prose.

The collector of ancient classics was the Byzantine Patriarch Photius (c. 820-891), thanks to whom expositions of texts and critical interpretations of many prose works of the Ancient World have come down to us - “a total of three hundred without twenty-one books”, included in his huge compendium “Myriobiblion” (“ Many books"), also known as the "Library". This amazing “bibliographical work of Rubakin” of the Middle Ages outlined the circle of self-educational reading and called for the strengthening of knowledge: “This book will undoubtedly help you remember and keep in mind what you learned while reading on your own, find in finished form what you were looking for in books , and it is also easier to perceive what you have not yet comprehended with your mind.

The case of Photius was continued by his student AREPHAS OF CESARIA (c. 860-932), who showed close attention to the work of Plato, Lucian, to the "Apocalypse" and left a huge literary legacy. A prominent place in it is occupied by the bright pamphlet "Hirospant, or the Hater of Sorcery", found in late XIX V. in the library of the current Historical Museum in Moscow. This is a virtuoso reproach against the "daring obstinacy" with which his contemporary Leo Hirosphant came out in defense of pagan culture, "thrown the dust of godlessness into his eyes." However, Aretha, with no less impudence, condemned the Christian churchmen themselves in his “Speech in defense of those who reproduce life in the theater, glorified the god Dionysus, who gives people joy and rest, and gave witty people an occupation with which they would console those who fell spirit."

The origins of a major genre in the artistic prose of Byzantium are already noticeably revealed in the 5th century. The writer SINESIUS (370-413/414), who was born in the North African colony of Cyrene, was a student of the famous, tragically deceased female scientist Hypatia. In 397, he represented the interests of his homeland in Constantinople, defending it from mediocre and unscrupulous governors. There, perhaps, his peculiar political novel “The Egyptians, or On Providence” arose, which depicts intrigues at the Byzantine court under the guise of strife between two Egyptians - the sedate Osiris and the defeated Typhon.

The conflict between the main characters was based on the dangerous delusion of adherents of tyrannical power to consider “the only occupation of free-born people is to do as they have to and do whatever they want.”

One of the most significant works in Byzantine literature is the “Love Letters” of ARISTENET (or Aristinite, VI century), who asked scientists a lot of mysteries. One of them is the semantic meaning of the author's name, which in translation means: "praising better than anyone" or "deserving preferential praise." The other is whether such a writer actually existed, or whether this name is taken from the pages of Lucian. The third mystery concerns the indifference of contemporaries to this outstanding literary monument and the silence of the Byzantines later, in the 11th-12th centuries, when interest in any antiquity increased. The discovery of Aristenetus dates back to 1566.

The genre of fictitious writing chosen by Aristenetus goes back in its origins to Alciphron, Elian and Philostratus with their repeated appeal to the authority of Homer, Plato, Callimachus, Sappho, Lucian, Xenophon of Ephesus, Achilles Tatius. Borrowing motifs and plots from some of them, extracting individual vivid phrases or entire passages in the characters' love letters form an entertaining plot pattern, where quotes are included in the action itself, and the authors of quotes sometimes speak actors. The writer seeks to introduce unusualness, to psychologically substantiate situations when young men solicit love, make street acquaintances, leave their beloved girls, and when merry picnics of lovers are arranged, and hetaeras surrender to a changeable sense of whim.

The artistic epistolary prose of Byzantium also knows other masters of this genre - Aeneas the Sophist (end of the 5th century), who tends to be aphoristic, Theophylact Simocatta (first half of the 6th century), whose fictitious moralizing, rural and Love letters receive addressees from real history (Pericles, Plotinus, Plato, Socrates), from mythology (Atlas, Thetis, Eurydice) from fiction.

Eumatius Makremvolit - the author of the Byzantine novel about love - "The Tale of Isminia and Ismin" (XII century). Like Aristenetus, Eumatius widely refers to antiquity, to quotations from Homer, Hesiod, tragedians, Aristophanes, etc. His story reveals a dependence on the novel by Achilles Tatius "Leucippe and Cleitophon" not only in style and language, but also in the construction of situations : the meeting of young people in a hospitable house, the emergence of love, secret communication at a feast and dates in the garden, flight, separation, slavery, etc. Lovers get out of risky situations thanks to their exceptional virtue, sometimes so extravagantly that scientists considered the work a caricature of Leucippe and Clitophon, and its author was called the mad Achilles Tatius. However, in this case, the Byzantine author projected pagan themes onto the Middle Ages, which perceived reality in abstract symbols of Reason, Strength, Chastity, Law, Love, etc. This allegorical nature saved the novel from oblivion and at the same time erased specific signs of the time, turning the lovers - Isminius and Ismin - in conditional figures, which is emphasized by the identity of their names.

The edifying, persuasive prose includes the "Strategikon", the author of which is KEKAVMEN (XI century), perhaps, was the same person as the famous commander Katakalon Kekavmen. This is not so much a treatise on military art as a set of moral instructions, rules of life. The book contains advice to be "homey and social".

The plot of the “BOOK OF SINTIPA” (XII century) goes back to the lost Sanskrit source, in the Arabic version known as “The Story of the Prince and the Seven Viziers”, and in the Syrian version called “The Tale of Sinbad and the Philosophers”, in the Persian version - “Sinbad - name". The story is based on the story of the king's son, who studied various sciences with the philosopher Sintipa (or Sinbad), but was doomed to remain silent for seven days due to the unfavorable position of the stars. During this time, the king's wife tries to seduce the young man and then denigrate him in front of his father, but seven court advisers prevent an unfair execution with moralizing stories. "The Book of Sintipa" testified that along with severe asceticism in literature there was frivolity and even outright erotica. It served as a source for the Acts of Rome and the Decameron by D. Boccaccio.

However, in the same VI century. a completely different poetry is being formed, equivalent to such organic manifestations of the new aesthetics as the Hagia Sophia temple. Liturgical poetry after all the searches of the 4th-5th centuries. suddenly acquires full maturity in the work of Roman, nicknamed by the descendants of the "Sweet Singer" (born at the end of the 5th century, died after 555).

Already in its origin, Roman is in no way connected with the memories of ancient Greece: it is a native of Syria. Before settling in Constantinople, he served as a deacon in one of the Beirut churches.

In Syria, there was a spiritual tradition of liturgical poetry associated with the initiative of Ephraim (Afrem) the Syrian. Syrian poetic and musical skills, apparently, helped Roman the Melodist to abandon the dogmas of school prosody and switch to tonic, which alone could create a metrical organization of speech intelligible to the Byzantine ear.

He created the form of the so-called kontakion - a liturgical poem consisting of an introduction, which should emotionally prepare the listener, and at least 18 stanzas. Kontakion has much in common with Syriac metrically organized preaching; as in another genre of Syriac literature called sogita, dialogic dramatization is often found in kontakia biblical narrative, exchange of remarks, live "acting in faces".

Altogether Roman, according to legend, wrote about a thousand kontakia. Currently, about 85 of his works are known (the attribution of some is doubtful).

By abandoning retrospective metrical norms, Roman had to sharply increase the constructive role of such factors of verse as alliteration, assonance and rhyme. This whole set of technical means has long existed in traditional Greek literature, but has always been the property of rhetorical prose: Roman transferred it to poetry.

He owns the first verses in the history of Byzantine poetry (and indeed in the history of the European poetic tradition in general) in which rhyme can become an almost obligatory factor in the artistic structure, as, for example, in the kontakion “About Judas the Betrayer”:

How the lands bore away boldness,

How the waters endured the crime

How the sea held back its anger

As the sky did not fall to earth,

How did the structure of the world stand?

(Translated by S. Averintsev)

The next step on the way to regular verse rhyme was the paired lines (the so-called hayretisms) of the Akathist to the Theotokos, whose belonging to the same Roman or at least to his generation is by no means excluded (see below).

In the discovery of rhyme, Byzantine poetry has priority over Western, Latin. Later, however, Byzantine poetry did not know such a consistent use of rhyme until the era of the Fourth Crusade, when the fashion for rhyme came already from the West.

With a renewed wealth of forms, Roman combines warmth, integrity of emotion, naivete and sincerity of moral assessments. Not only that, however unexpected it may seem, but the purely religious in its subject matter, the poetry of Roman speaks much more about real life time than the too academic secular lyrics of the Justinian era.

In the kontakion “On the Dead”, images of the reality that agitated the plebeian listeners of the Sweet Singer naturally arise:

The rich man abuses the poor,

Devours the orphans and the weak;

Farmer's labor is the master's profit,

Sweat to one and luxury to another

And the poor work hard,

So that everything is taken away and dispelled! ..

(Translated by S. Averintsev)

We find in Roman the prototypes not only of many works of later Byzantine hymnography, but also the spirit of the most famous hymns of the Western Middle Ages.

Grassroots Byzantine reader receives in this era and his historiography. The works of Procopius or Agathias, with their intellectual and linguistic refinement, were incomprehensible to him; for him, a specifically medieval form of the monastic chronicle is created.

A very colorful monument of the latter is the "Chronography" of John Malalas (491-578), which sets out in eighteen books the history of all peoples from ancient times to 563 (it may be that the now lost conclusion reached 574).

Malala gets confused in Greek and especially Roman antiquities; it costs nothing for him to call Cicero and Sallust "the most skillful Roman poets", to make Herodotus the successor of Polybius and generously endow the mythical Cyclops instead of one with three eyes.

But a lively, colorful, lively presentation guaranteed success for his chronicle, especially among his descendants, when Byzantium had already moved far enough away from its ancient origins.

World history is transformed in the retelling of John Malala into a fairy tale, primitive and sometimes absurd, but not without amusement; like any storyteller, Malala's fantasy mainly operates with images of kings and queens, naturally not finding material for itself in the world of Greco-Roman antiquity - from the entire history of republican Rome, Malala is attracted only by the invasion of the Gauls.

The "Chronicle" of Malala was followed and imitated not only by the Greek and Syrian chroniclers (John of Ephesus, the anonymous author of the "Easter Chronicle", etc.), but also by Western historians (starting with the compiler of the Latin "Palatine Chronicle", VIII century); finally, from the X century. Slavic translations appear, from the 11th century. - Georgian translation, at about the same time Slavic translations were circulating in Rus'.

The successful Byzantine chronicler anticipated the general style of the medieval perception of history as a series of miraculous, entertaining and instructive episodes in which the will of a deity is revealed.

What the "Chronicle" of John Malala was for historiography, that is, the description of the world in time, the "Christian Topography" (first half of the 6th century) was for geography, that is, the description of the world in space. "Christian topography" came under the not entirely reliable name of Kosma Indikoplova ("Indikopleust", that is, "sailor to India").

The author is not a scientist, but an experienced person, a merchant and a traveler, who has seen distant countries (Ethiopia, Arabia, etc.) with his own eyes and, in his old age, writes about what he saw for soul-saving purposes. His cosmology is barbaric: denying the achievements of ancient science, he describes the Earth as a plane covered by a vault of heaven, over which the upper tier of the universe is found - paradise.

His language is almost common speech. His entertaining stories, naive-wise reasoning and fabulous picture of the world had an exceptional charm for the medieval reader. Therefore, "Christian Topography" was translated into various languages the Christian world; it was also popular in ancient Rus'.

The ascetic edifying literature, which flourished in these centuries, also has a grassroots character. Perhaps its most important monument is the "Ladder" of the Sinai monk John (c. 525 - c. 600), nicknamed "The Ladder" ("Klimak") after his main work.

The "ladder", i.e. the ladder, is a symbol of a difficult spiritual ascent that runs through the entire book. Above all, John values ​​precisely the intense effort of struggle with himself; much less does he trust speculation and refined contemplation.

The harsh prescriptions of ascetic morality are set forth in The Ladder in a very simple and unconstrained language; they are interspersed with confidential accounts of personal experiences or what happened to John's brothers in monastic life.

A large role is played by maxims, proverbs and sayings of a folklore nature. The translation of The Ladder has been known in Rus' since the 11th century. and enjoyed great popularity.

Story world literature: in 9 volumes / Edited by I.S. Braginsky and others - M., 1983-1984