5. Eastern Mary—Byzantium and Islam

‘Eastern Mary—Byzantium and Islam’ examines Marian ideals in Byzantine Christianity as well as the Islamic view of Maryam, which reflects and rejects the Byzantine worldview from which Islam partly emerged. It was in the east that Christians celebrated the first Marian festivals and dedicated the earliest Marian churches. A Byzantine icon serves to illustrate key ideas about Mary as they developed in the east, where the first Marian relics were also discovered and venerated. Muslims revere Al-ʿAdhraʾ (the Virgin) as a model of piety, following the lead of the Prophet Muhammad, who stated that Maryam was one of the four spiritually perfect women in Paradise. There are a number of famous texts in the Qur’an devoted to Mary, a significant factor in Islam’s high regard for Mary and Jesus.

Reception of the Septuagint among Greek Christian Writers

This chapter opens by explaining how profoundly patristic and Byzantine Christianity was shaped by the LXX. Not only learned literature (to which the chapter confines itself) but also popular texts, non-literary documents, buildings, ceremonies, etc. testify to the deep but diverse impact that the LXX had on everyday life. In the first of two main sections, the chapter discusses the ways in which Greek Christianity received and transmitted the text of the LXX (and of related Greek versions). The various forms in which the LXX was explained are presented in the following part, which combines a general image with a treatment of the catena format in particular. Throughout the chapter, particular aspects are highlighted with regard to which modern (Western) LXX scholarship still strongly depends (whether it realizes it or not) on views developed by patristic and Byzantine Christians.

Dreams and the Material World

This chapter turns to the hagiographic tradition and what it can tell us about the spiritual roles available to men and women within it. It is concerned mostly with archetypal-spiritual dreams and prophetic or mantic dreams, which pertained not only to the future but also to the present. Any dream in which a prophet, angel, saint, or other agent of God appears may be considered prophetic. Byzantine saints found new avenues of appearance through tangible items such as icons and holy relics. Their messages, which could have personal or wider significance, were generally clear in meaning and did not require interpretation by specialists. The chapter compares the dreams of holy Christian men and women with the dreams of their Muslim counterparts in the Sufi tradition. It shows that dreams allowed pious women a greater degree of spiritual agency than was normally accorded to them in either culture. This unusual equity of gender is also evident in the early hagiographic biographies of Muhammad. The chapter closes with apocalyptic visions in Judaism, Byzantine Christianity, and Islam, showing that they were symptomatic of communities in crisis, regardless of faith. Moving from community concerns to individual concerns about the afterlife, it looks at tours of the other world, including two undertaken by women.

Greek

Christian authors and scribes are mainly responsible for the relatively intact survival of the writings of Philo and Josephus, along with the scattered fragments from various other Hellenistic Jewish apologists, commentators, historians, and poets. Byzantine Christianity is also a valuable witness to the Greek text of Second Temple parabiblical writings. Among other things, Christian authors found in these sources insights into the meaning of the biblical text, confirmation of the truth and antiquity of Christian teachings, and raw material for historiography. Christian authors and scribes are mainly responsible for the relatively intact survival of the writings of Philo and Josephus, along with scattered fragments from Jewish apologists, commentators, historians, and poets of the Hellenistic age. Clement, Origen, and Eusebius of Caesarea (among others) found in these sources confirmation of the truth and antiquity of Christian teachings, and raw material for historiography. While official categorization of parabiblical works from Second Temple Judaism as “apocrypha” may have eroded confidence in their authority, it did not ensure their demise. As late as the 12th century, Byzantine chroniclers and commentators continued to cite approvingly from the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees.