“I Counted Sun’s Faces” in the Short Recension of 2 Enoch

2 Enoch without any doubt is one of the most interesting and enigmatic texts of Slavonic Pseudepigrapha. Since the publication of the first fragments of it in the middle of the 19th century, there has been a protracted debate on all the questions concerning the history of the pseudepigraphon. And the “astronomical information” in it is possibly one of the most mysterious parts of 2 Enoch. The contents of the two main recensions are quite different in the chapter dealing with astronomical material. The paper studies the fragment, in which, in the short recension, it is literally said: “I [Enoch] counted Sun’s faces”.

Emperors, Patriarchs, Metropolitans, Deacons and Monks: Individuals and Groups in the Byzantine Church (6th–11th Centuries)

This article traces the history of the Byzantine Church from the sixth to the early twelfth century. It seeks to show how the development of the institution was shaped through the interactions of groups and individuals. Particular attention is paid to the permanent synod, the deacons of St Sophia and the monks of the capital.

Some Notes on “playing Logos” in Ambiguum 71 of St Maximus the Confessor

In the Ambigua to John 71, Maximus the Confessor discusses a passage of Gregory Nazianzen describing divine Logos that “plays in all kinds of forms.” The article emphasises four main approaches of the Ambiguum 71 to ‘acquit’ the image of ‘playful’ God. Firstly, St Maximus involves the hyperbolic language of Pseudo-Dionysius to indicate the superiority of divine ‘game’ over any kind of prudency or playfulness. Secondly, God’s playing can be discovered in His providence towards the sensible creations. The third step introduces all the material world as a God’s plaything, which can nevertheless be an object of natural contemplation. The fourth approach is merely moral, and its pathetic language conceals tensions between St Maximus’ and St Gregory’s patterns of thinking. Finally, all four parts are linked in a single structure derived from the triad “practical philosophy – natural contemplation – mystical theology,” which was often used by St Maximus.

Rock-Cut Church Göreme 31 (Cappadocia, Turkey): New Data from the Study in Situ (2014–2015)

This paper presents new findings from our study in situ of a small Christian church, known as Göreme 31, which is situated above the Kılıçlar church in Göreme (Cappadocia, Turkey). It was discovered and briefly described at the beginning of the 20th century, but after that almost no additional information was published. We were able to study Göreme 31 in situ in 2014–2015. In this article, we present new findings and updated information on this church: data on three previously unpublished murals in the naos, corrections to the readings of the frescoes of St. Auxentius (previously identified as St. Vincent), St. Sisinius (previously identified as St. Irene), and St. George with St. Theodore, and discussion of the enigmatic tiny grave in the funeral chamber.

Syriac Love Charms. Part I. The Recipe-Type

In this paper we consider 6 Syriac love charms and edit their original text and translation. All but two texts are published here for the first time. This is the first part of our inquiry, in which we consider one of the two types of Syriac love charms, the recipe-type. Among its primary characteristics is its extreme rarity in Syriac magic codices. Another prominent trait of this type, which makes these texts especially valuable, is that some of them contain ritual instructions which are exceedingly rare for Syriac charms as a whole, while others may contain what we call an allusion to it. Our assumption is that texts of this type reflect ancient magic practices originating in pre-Christian time, which are credibly attested in the texts belonging to other magic traditions of the Near East and Egypt.

What Is a Composite Hypostasis? Leontius of Jerusalem, Maximus the Confessor and the Nestorian Challenge

At the Fifth Ecumenical Council the concept of a ‘composite hypostasis’ was enshrined in dogma. This implied that after the incarnation the divine and human natures had the status of parts that constituted a single whole. In order to make this concept intelligible a comparison was drawn with the human compound where two different natures, the soul and the body, formed one being. In the seventh century Maximus, the foremost Chalcedonian theologian of the time, came to the conclusion that the differences between the incarnated Word and a human individual were too great for a strict comparison to be useful. Yet he continued to defend the notion of composition. Indeed, his views on this point have been lauded as an important step in the development of doctrine. This article seeks to show that composition itself had become problematic, and that it was relentless Nestorian polemic that induced Maximus, and his contemporary Leontius of Jerusalem, to change their understanding of the concept.

Natural Disasters in Medieval Greek Apocalypses

Natural calamities form a standard theme in Byzantine apocalypses. This paper discusses their function and meaning by surveying more than a dozen medieval Greek apocalyptic narratives from the sixth to the fifteenth century. It is shown that natural disasters were understood as ambiguous epiphenomena, whose ultimate meaning revolved around human agency and intentionality. Furthermore, it is argued that Byzantine apocalypses offered an intellectual strategy for coping with natural calamities by placing them into an eschatological context. This eschatologization restored epistemological control of the – seemingly uncontrollable – phenomena. Finally, it is suggested that the understanding of natural disasters as anthropogenic events is not only characteristic of medieval Greek apocalypticism but also of modern-day environmental alarmism. The paper closes with a preliminary comparison of these two hermeneutic paradigms.