Prolegomena

Prolonged civil wars and acrimonious religious controversies characterized middle Palaiologan Byzantium.Footnote ² In spite of struggling with political fragility, fragmentation and territorial contraction, turmoils in ecclesiastical affairs, and increasing poverty, late Byzantium nonetheless nurtured a significant blossoming of learning. This also included an impressive revival of hagiographical production, of which almost eighty percent consisted of new versions (metaphraseis)—‘old wine in new bottles’ as Talbot phrased it—of vitae and enkomia of holy men and women from the distant past.Footnote ³ Numerous Byzantine pepaideumenoi, be they statesmen or ecclesiastics, tried to write in this genre and at times employed it for promoting themselves and their competing political and religious standpoints; among them it suffices to mention Constantine Akropolites,Footnote ⁴ Nikephoros Gregoras,Footnote ⁵ and Philotheos Kokkinos.Footnote ⁶ Gregory Palamas (c.1294/6–1357/9), an Athonite monk of distinguished upbringing, a theologian and spokesman of the hesychast camp, also tried to write in this genre.Footnote ⁷ In line with contemporary trends, Palamas had an interest in older saints and wrote an encomiastic Logos on the marvellous and angelic life of our father, saint and God-bearer, Peter, who practiced askesis on the holy Mount Athos (BHG 1506),Footnote ⁸ as well as homilies such as on Christ's highly revered prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John (BHG 846) and on The Great Martyr among the saints, Demetrios the Wonderworker and Myroblytos (BHG 546). This Logos—a metaphrasis of an earlier vita—in particular has received little scholarly attention. At the end of the seventeenth century, the Bollandist Conrad Janning prepared the editio princeps, based on the fifteenth-century manuscript Paris. gr. 1239, fols. 249–63, and published it together with a Latin translation in the Acta Sanctorum. He dismissed its originality and characterized it as ‘Nihil insolitum et inauditum, nihil ex variis consarcinatum, nihil alteri contrarium, nisi forte in numero per errorem tale quid reperiatur’.Footnote ⁹ Janning's edition was later reprinted with several corrections in Patrologia Graeca.Footnote ¹⁰ In 1992 Chrestou produced a modern critical edition based on nine codices,Footnote ¹¹ which he subsequently republished with facing Modern Greek translation.Footnote ¹² In his monograph, Introduction à l’étude de Grégoire Palamas, Meyendorff dedicated a short entry to Palamas’ Logos, which he assigned to Gregory's ‘moins originales’ didactical and spiritual writings. He mentioned Palamas’ source, that is to say, the Vita of St. Peter of Athos (BHG 1505) written by a certain Athonite monk Nicholas (hereafter Vita),Footnote ¹³ and he concluded that the Logos deserves a ‘place de choix’ within Palamas’ didactical œuvre.Footnote ¹⁴ In a recent contribution Polemis discusses Neoplatonic and hesychastic elements in Palamas’ Logos.Footnote ¹⁵ However, to date, the most comprehensive analysis of this Logos was presented by Rigo.Footnote ¹⁶

The extensive scholarship on Palamas has mainly presented him in connection with the theological controversies in which he played a leading role and analyzed his writings in response to his theological opponents, Barlaam, Akindynos and Gregoras. The present article attempts to enter the less studied ‘working room’ of Gregory Palamas and portray him as hagiographer and metaphrastes. Contextualizing and analyzing his first composition, that is to say, the Logos on St. Peter of Athos, it will endeavour to investigate to what extent Palamas used, changed, supplemented, and departed from his source, and refashioned the image of the saint when (re)writing his life. Moreover, the article will address Palamas’ theological programme, intended audience, and possible reasons behind his choice of subject. The study has a threefold structure: the first part, ‘Saint Peter of Athos and his hagiographic dossier’ (I), introduces the figure of St. Peter and the sources testifying to his life and cult; offers a synopsis of Peter's Vita written by Nicholas; and finally looks at its dissemination and manuscript tradition. The second part, ‘Gregory Palamas’ Logos on Saint Peter of Athos (BHG 1506)’ (II), undertakes to contextualize and interpret Palamas’ Logos, both on its own terms and comparatively. The third part, ‘‘Old wine in new bottles’?’ (III), is dedicated to conclusions. The article is equipped with two appendices, the first providing synoptic tables of contents of Nicholas’ Vita and Palamas’ Logos, and the second bringing forward paratextual evidence from the fourteenth-century codex Coislin. 97 which may point to the readership of Palamas’ spiritual writings.

I. Saint Peter of Athos and his hagiographic dossier

Peter the Athonite, renowned as ‘the first monk of the Holy Mountain’, is a mysterious character—‘personaggio avvolto nella leggenda’Footnote ¹⁷ —who seems to have been a hermit living for more than five decades on Mt. Athos in the eighth and ninth centuries, in the period prior to the foundation of the great coenobitic monasteries. Unfortunately, the information regarding his life is scarce. He does not feature in the Synaxarion of the Great Church of Constantinople, a tenth-century liturgical collection of short hagiographical notes.Footnote ¹⁸ The earliest source testifying to Peter's life is a canon seemingly composed c. 831–41 by a certain Joseph.Footnote ¹⁹ If this is Joseph the Hymnographer (816–86), a prolific composer of ecclesiastical canons, then the year 886 would be a terminus ante quem for Peter's death.Footnote ²⁰ The earliest manuscripts transmitting Joseph's canon are the tenth-century Hierosolym. Sab. Ms. 70, fols. 96–8 and the twelfth-century Hierosolym. Sab. Ms. 72, fols. 170–1.Footnote ²¹ The latter is a four-month menaion (April–July), whereas the former is a menaion for June which seems to have been initially owned by the Constantinopolitan monastery of Christ Akataleptos as attested by a note of possession on fol. 139v. The canon praises a certain St. Peter who lived on Athos and was honoured at a local level on June 22. Although disclosing only sparse biographical data, it portrays an anchorite who lived an ascetic life for many years in hesychia and complete seclusion on Mt. Athos, like the prophet Elijah on Carmel, and who, because of his virtuous conduct, had a vision of God like Moses. Moreover, the canon mentions that Peter's relics were discovered after many years and performed numerous posthumous miracles. In the second half of the ninth century a certain Arsenios composed a similar canon praising a monk with the name of Peter. However, it is uncertain whether this Peter is the same as the one Joseph praised in his canon. Arsenios’ canon celebrates the saint on June 5 and describes him in conventional terms as a hermit zealous in fasting and vigils, fighting demons, living in the desert emulating Elijah and John the Baptist, and whose relics performed many miracles posthumously and attracted a large number of pilgrims.Footnote ²²

At some point between c. 980 and the mid-eleventh century,Footnote ²³ Nicholas, an Athonite monk,Footnote ²⁴ wrote the Life and conduct of our holy and God-bearer father, Peter the Athonite (BHG 1505), most likely relying on oral traditions and on the above-mentioned canons. In fact, as will be seen, Nicholas’ Vita does not offer any further data or chronological information on Peter's life in addition to those already found in the canons. Nicholas presents Peter as an example of authentic ascetic life to be emulated especially by monks prone to the sin of striving after worldly possessions. The Vita includes ingredients common in hagiographical compositions, namely contests with demons, emphasis on asceticism, visions and miracles, and posthumous efficacy of the saint's relics.

Nicholas’ Vita unfolds as follows: Peter, a soldier in the fifth schole, took part in a campaign against the Arabs, being subsequently captured in Syria and imprisoned at Samarra.Footnote ²⁵ This misfortune is regarded by the hagiographer as a result of Peter not fulfilling his vow to become a monk. While imprisoned, he entreated St. Nicholas of Myra and St. Symeon the God-Receiver for help,Footnote ²⁶ renewing his promise to go to Rome to assume the monastic habit; after he was miraculously liberated by the saints, Peter went to Rome where the pope tonsured him. On his way towards the Levant, his boat was miraculously held back close to Mt. Athos. Thus, Peter disembarked and settled on Athos where he lived an ascetic life for fifty years. Towards the end of his life, the saint was discovered by a hunter to whom he confided the story of his life (a common hagiographical topos). The following year the hunter, together with his brother and two monks, returned to Athos and, finding Peter lying dead, took away his relics. By divine intervention, the relics were first placed in the katholikon of the monastery of Clement (perhaps the future Iveron)Footnote ²⁷ and subsequently transferred to the Protaton church in Karyes. The final section of the Vita centres upon Peter's relics which were stolen and taken to the Thracian village of Phokomis,Footnote ²⁸ where they performed numerous healing miracles. Finally, a local bishop acquired the relics and placed them in a church dedicated to the saint.

With a rich manuscript tradition of more than thirty codices, the earliest dating back to the eleventh century (i.e., Mosquensis Syn. gr. 174, fols. 122–43), Nicholas’ Vita has received considerable scholarly attention. In 1909 Lake published a critical edition with a short introduction briefly discussing the content of the Vita and five of the manuscripts transmitting it. Moreover, he analyzed the sparse historical data of the life and concluded that ‘Peter the Athonite is probably a historical person who lived the life of a hermit on Mount Athos in the ninth century’.Footnote ²⁹ Lake's conclusion was subsequently dismissed by BinonFootnote ³⁰ and Papachryssanthou. For instance, the latter qualifies the Vita as having no historical importance—‘ne présente pas d'intérêt historique’—and is ‘en réalité un éloge de la vie anachorétique’.Footnote ³¹ The most comprehensive study of this hagiographical piece, as well as an Italian translation, has been written by Rigo.Footnote ³²

Scholars have already noted that Nicholas composed Peter's Vita combining at least three different traditions, ‘diverse per origine e argomento’,Footnote ³³ each having at its core a homonymous St. Peter. Thus, the first part describes the miracles of St. Nicholas of Myra performed for Peter scholarios (‘the soldier’) who was imprisoned by the Arabs; the second narrates the fifty years of eremitism of a monk Peter on Mt. Athos, and the third recounts the miracles effected in Thrace by the relics of a certain saint Peter. Therefore, it seems plausible that in his endeavour to reconstruct the life of the hermit Peter—minimally documented as already seen—the hagiographer Nicholas drew heavily on the typology of the unclothed hermit, hairy, skinny and hidden from people.Footnote ³⁴ Moreover, Nicholas intertwined distinct traditions and gave his hero a past and a ‘worldly’ life (that is to say, Peter scholarios), as well as a posthumous cult, most probably inspired by the local cult of a homonymous saint from Thrace.Footnote ³⁵ Furthermore, Nicholas quoted at length from an Enkomion of Saint Nicholas of Myra (BHG 1348)—the chapters 48–59 on ‘The Miracles for Peter scholarios’—and ascribed the legendary story to his saint. This enkomion is attributed to Methodios, Patriarch of Constantinople (†847).Footnote ³⁶

Nicholas may have composed Peter's Vita in the framework of the emergence of the great coenobitic monasteries—in the mid-tenth century Athanasios the Athonite founded the Great Lavra—on Mt. Athos.Footnote ³⁷ Thus, one of the main reasons for writing this Vita could have been polemical rather than purely biographical. In the context of the tenth-eleventh-century competing Athonite monastic lifestyles and traditions, in other words eremitic vs. coenobitic, Nicholas may have aimed at bringing forward a hagiographical argument in favour of the former when writing the politeia of the founding figure of Athonite monasticism, the hermit Peter. As Flusin has noted, this Vita

Moreover, Nicholas might have aimed at promoting Peter's cult which seems to have been diminishing in this period.

A renewed interest in St. Peter and a resurgence of his cult was rekindled on Mt. Athos, and especially at the Great Lavra, in the context of the thirteenth and fourteenth century hesychast revival. Evidence for this comes from the numerous late Byzantine manuscripts transmitting his Vita, such as Athos, Lavra 455, Philotheou 66, and Esphigmenou 76.Footnote ³⁹ Moreover, in this period St. Peter was regarded as the model for Athonite hermits. This is seen, for instance, in the vita (BHG 1237) written by Theophanes for the renowned hesychast Maximos Kausokalybites (d.1365/80). Thus, after he arrived on Athos and settled at the Great Lavra, Maximos read the vitae of both Peter and Athanasios the Athonite (BHG 187–8), the founding fathers of eremitic and respectively coenobitic monasticism on Mt. Athos.Footnote ⁴⁰

Furthermore, the earliest preserved fresco of St. Peter, found in the katholikon of the Protaton church in Karyes and traditionally attributed to Manuel Panselinos,Footnote ⁴¹ seems to date from the late thirteenth century. Peter's iconography to a large extent resembles that of the late fourth-century desert father Onouphrios. In fact, in the Protaton church the frescoes of the two saints are paired. They are also depicted together in frontal poses in the west ambulatory of the katholikon of the late Byzantine monastery of the Panagia Olympiotissa at Elasson.Footnote ⁴² St. Onouphrios was a popular figure in late Byzantium and received vitae, enkomia, and poems from authors such as Philotheos Kokkinos (BHG 1380) and Manuel Philes (BHG 1382c). Moreover, several Constantinopolitan churches were dedicated to him.Footnote ⁴³ Both the typological (as unclothed ascetics) and iconographical association between Peter and Onouphrios come naturally, given that desert fathers were generally regarded in late Byzantium as models of hesychast conduct. For instance, in the vita (BHG 1236z) the Athonite hieromonk Niphon composed for his spiritual father, Maximos Kausokalybites, he portrays his protagonist as ‘another Onouphrios and Peter of Athos’.Footnote ⁴⁴ Additionally, the typological association between the two might have also triggered the liturgical celebration of these saints on the same day. Thus, whereas St. Peter's feast day had been celebrated on different days of June (that is to say, 22, 13),Footnote ⁴⁵ in this period it was fixed on June 12. For instance, in a mid-thirteenth-century revision of the Synaxarion of the Great Church of Constantinople, transmitted by Petrop. gr. 240, St. Peter is celebrated on June 12 together with St. Onouphrios. Thus, it was in this context of hesychast revival and renewal of interest in St. Peter's life and cult that the hieromonk Gregory Palamas, living at the time in the vicinity of Great Lavra, dedicated an encomiastic Logos to St. Peter the Athonite.

II. Gregory Palamas’ Logos on Saint Peter of Athos (BHG 1506)

In 1332/3, more than three centuries after the publication of Nicholas’ Vita of Peter of Athos, the Athonite hieromonk Gregory Palamas, a man ‘d’âge mûr’,Footnote ⁴⁶ started preaching and writing. His first publication was the Logos on the marvellous and angelic life of our father, saint and God-bearer, Peter, who practiced askesis on the holy Mount Athos (BHG 1506). In the lengthy biography he composed for Palamas (BHG 718), the Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos (1353–1354; 1364–1376) wrote about Palamas’ literary debut. According to Kokkinos, in the third year of his stay at St. Sabbas’ hermitage, in the vicinity of Great Lavra, Gregory had a divine revelation after which he started writing:

After reproducing Palamas’ words and his dialogue with the angel, Kokkinos comments upon this divine revelation and makes a clear distinction within Palamas’ literary output: ‘the transformation of the holy drink from milk into wine represents the transformation of the word from the clearly moral and simple word into the dogmatic and ascending word’.Footnote ⁴⁸ Thus, according to Kokkinos, Palamas’ œuvre can be divided into the ‘holy drink of milk’, representing his moral and spiritual writings, and the ‘holy drink of wine’, namely his dogmatic and theological works. Of the former, Philotheos lists the first two:

The manuscript tradition endorses the distinction Kokkinos makes within Palamas’ œuvre. Thus, Palamas’ spiritual writings, including the homilies and the Logos on St. Peter,Footnote ⁵¹ have been transmitted as one collection. Such collections can be found, for instance, in the mid-fourteenth-century codices, Athos Iveron 266 and Coislin. 97.Footnote ⁵² Upon the autopsy of the latter, one notices that after each title introducing either the Logos or any other homily, the scribe Manuel Tzykandyles added the formula eulogeson pater (or eulogeson despota for homily 57). This might indicate that soon after his death, Palamas’ spiritual writings were being copied, circulated and read aloud, most probably in monastic milieux, either during liturgical services or in the refectory.Footnote ⁵³

The Logos on St. Peter was delivered by Palamas most likely on the feast day of the saint, June 12, 1332/3, in front of a monastic audience, a holy theatron Footnote ⁵⁴ as he calls it, either at St. Sabbas’ hermitage or at the Great Lavra. In connection to this practice, Meyendorff noted that:

Chrestou argues that, since Palamas’ vision occurred shortly before the feast of St. Peter, this might explain why he chose to dedicate his first text to this saint.Footnote ⁵⁷ Meyendorff offers a more plausible explanation:

There might have been in fact an array of reasons triggering the composition of a vita or an enkomion of an old saint; they will be addressed throughout the article and especially in the concluding section. When composing the Logos on St. Peter, Palamas took as his point of departure the Vita written by Nicholas. He followed the structure of the original Vita closely, adding a lengthy prooimion, an epilogue, and some passages describing the hesychast experience and practice.Footnote ⁵⁹ Thus, Palamas embedded into his first (hagiographical) composition, as will be argued, the very first contour of the hesychast theology which he would later deepen and develop in his theological and polemical writings.

In his highly rhetorical preface, which is far longer than that of Nicholas, Palamas states his aims and methods using several hagiographical topoi. If Nicholas underlines the spiritual benefit derived from writing and listening to saints’ lives, Palamas addresses his audience stressing the moral obligation of the Athonite monks to eulogize the native saint of Athos, St. Peter.Footnote ⁶⁰ If his source enters immediately in medias res and begins to narrate Peter's captivity, Palamas pauses more on what he is about to undertake, stressing that his task is immense, if not impossible, due to the greatness of the subject which is difficult to reach through words (rerum magnitudo, a common hagiographical topos). Thus, he asks for God's help and the support of his ‘holy’ audience (theatron hieron).Footnote ⁶¹

After these opening remarks, Palamas begins the proper narrative. Well-versed in the rules of rhetoric, he follows the classical pattern of a biography and eulogizes the patris of the saint. After alluding to his source, which has not passed on any information on Peter's childhood, parents, and fatherland, Palamas finds a way to fill this gap. This is his solution: as Peter's origins were carried down by time into the abyss of oblivion, Mt. Athos became his new and true fatherland. Palamas adduces evidence in support of Peter's Athonite citizenship by making a synkrisis with the Athenian rules of citizenship. Thus, given that in Athens one could become a citizen after three years of residence, by how much more then did Peter surpass this requirement by living on Athos for more than fifty years? Furthermore, as another criterion of citizenship he quotes Aristophanes’ Ploutos (1151): ‘where I live well, there is my patris’, stressing that Athos was the place where Peter met God and contemplated the divine, and which finally granted him the heavenly patris.Footnote ⁶²

Using asyndetonic structures that confer vividness to his account, Palamas writes in generic terms about Peter's captivity following a war with the Arabs. If Nicholas’ Vita offers more details on this particular episode—informing the reader, for instance, that Peter, a soldier (scholarios) of the fifth schole, was taken captive by the Arabs while fighting in Syria and was imprisoned at Samarra—Palamas provides very few chronological coordinates and little geographical information throughout his Logos. Palamas goes on to narrate Peter's visions of St. Nicholas and St. Symeon who interceded before God for his liberation. Before further pursuing Peter's journey to Rome following his liberation, Palamas pauses his narrative to highlight Peter's act of introspection and decision to emulate the Apostle Paul.Footnote ⁶³ Thus, Palamas goes beyond Nicholas’ Vita by describing the inner self and the gradual spiritual growth of the holy man.

Upon reaching Rome, Peter was tonsured by the pope in a ceremony that is described in more detail in Nicholas’ Vita. Palamas supplements instead the episode of Peter's presence at Rome with a suggestive detail, namely that once in Rome, Peter offered proskynesis to the divine icons.Footnote ⁶⁴ This detail might have been meant to explain to his audience the rationale behind Peter's pilgrimage to Rome instead of Constantinople, since at that time (before 843) the latter was facing the iconoclast crisis.Footnote ⁶⁵ Departing from Rome, Peter boarded a ship bound for the Levant. During a stopover in a village—Palamas adding that it was somewhere in Crete—he met some afflicted men who were cured at the mere sight of Peter, in Palamas’ version, and through Peter's words and the sign of the cross, in the Vita. Resuming his voyage, Peter had a vision of the Theotokos. In Nicholas’ extensive account of the vision, the Theotokos spoke of the Mt. Athos she received as a legacy (kleros) from Christ and which would be entirely inhabited by monks and always under her protection. This prophecy had a large circulation, being copied and transmitted on its own (BHG 1505e), and becoming part of the Athonite tradition up to the present day. Placing it earlier in the Logos, Palamas considerably shortens the Theotokos’ prophecy of the glorious monastic future of Athos which by the fourteenth century had already been fulfilled.Footnote ⁶⁶

Subsequently, Peter miraculously arrived on Athos, as the boat was amazingly held back in the vicinity of the mountain. Now Palamas portrays Peter as a new Moses ascending Mt. Athos like a new Sinai and, entering its innermost part (cf. Exodus 24), fully dedicating himself to God.Footnote ⁶⁷ Through hesychia, writes Palamas, Peter made his heart a divine vessel, another heaven and a dwelling-place more pleasant to God than the heavens. At this point, Palamas departs completely from his source and weaves into the fabric of his Logos an extensive section on hesychia.

Familiar with the writings of Church Fathers (Evagrios of Pontus, Diadochos of Photike, Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite, Isaac the Syrian, and Maximos the Confessor) and probably acquainted with the works of Neoplatonic philosophers,Footnote ⁶⁸ Palamas developed the theme of the returning of the mind (epistrophe) towards itself, which he will rework and extend in his later works (Triads, On prayer and purity of heart). The topic of epistrophe is widely encountered in hesychast spirituality (for example, Nikephoros the Hesychast), in Christian patristics in general, and can be traced back to the philosophical tradition of Neoplatonic philosophers such as Plotinos.Footnote ⁶⁹ Thus, when the mind departs from the tumult of all external things and turns towards the inner man (entos anthropos), it observes his repulsive mask which the mind created by wandering around and it hastens to cleanse it through mourning (penthos). Consequently, bereft of its passions, the soul reaches peace and hesychia, and the mind remains in itself understanding itself and, through itself, its Creator as much as it possibly can. Palamas explains that the mind, stepping out of its own nature, advances towards God provided that it surrounds itself with a fortification which bars access to the devil so that the latter cannot appropriate it and make it an encampment of his own knavish phalanx. Having expelled all passions, the mind turns towards itself, also turning along all the powers of the soul, and thus, standing before God ‘deaf and dumb’, the divine grace transforms it towards the better.Footnote ⁷⁰ Thus transformed, the mind passes on to the body spiritual gifts such as miracle-making and foresight.Footnote ⁷¹ However, Palamas emphasizes that in themselves these gifts are not the main aim of the hesychast monks. Instead, they are secondary to ‘the fruit of the true hesychia’. For Peter, the ‘great-minded’ saint and the hesychast par excellence, the aim is to restore the inner man and, through synergy with the divine grace, to achieve the likeness with his Prototype (that is to say, Christ). Palamas concludes that Peter experienced the vision of God, not only through the imaginative spirit (phantastiko pneuma), which Aristotle called ‘the chariot of the intelligible soul’ (On the Soul 428a), but in a real way through the immaterial radiance of the divine light.Footnote ⁷²

Palamas resumes the thread of his narrative and extensively describes Peter fighting the devil. In order to pull him out of the hesychast paradise (Athos), the devil — likened to Amalek, Proteus and the Hydra — attacked Peter four times, in the guise of a general, dragon, servant, and angel of light. Each time he cunningly tried to deceive Peter either through fear, social discourse (in other words, false compassion for others) or eulogy of his perfection. Peter warded off these attacks through his humility and by calling upon the Theotokos. In Nicholas’ Vita Peter prayed each time to the Theotokos by saying ‘Holy Mother of God, help your servant’, which attests, in the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century, the practice of a ‘prayer of the Theotokos’ alongside the famous ‘Jesus prayer’.Footnote ⁷³ Palamas emphasizes that Peter reached the summit of virtue (humility), leaving behind the devil whose wings of wax were melted by divine fire, as in the myth of Icarus. Thus, for forty-six years Peter lived a paradisiac life in hesychia, being nourished by angels like Elijah.Footnote ⁷⁴

In keeping with the structure and the chronological order of the former Vita, Palamas describes how a hunter miraculously found Peter after his fifty years of solitude. The hagiographer presents the physical portrait of the saint like that of the fourth-century hermit Onouphrios, that is to say, a slim and ascetic figure with long hair, and deprived of any garment. Following their encounter, Peter narrated his entire life to the hunter (a recurrent hagiographical topos, for example, St. Mary of Egypt and St. Zosimos of Palestine, and St. Theoktiste of Lesbos and the Euboean hunter).Footnote ⁷⁵ This meeting not only ensured Peter's afterlife in the form of a vita, but was allegedly also influential for the hunter, who decided to emulate the life and conduct of the saint. However, Peter recommended that he first go back to his home and return and become a hermit after following a set of rules for a year. Palamas emphasizes this encounter and presents the spiritual program prescribed by the saint for the hunter while living in the world, stressing especially the fact that it is equally possible for any person, be they monks or laymen, to practice the hesychastic way of life. Tailored for everyone, this urban hesychast program entails charity, constant remembrance of God (in other words the Jesus prayer), and reading divine books.Footnote ⁷⁶ This was in fact the quintessence of the hesychast apostolate, carried out in Thessalonike between 1325 and 1335 by Isidore Boucheiras, a close friend of Palamas and future patriarch of Constantinople (1347–1350).Footnote ⁷⁷

Obeying the holy man and returning after one year, accompanied by his brother and two monastics, the hunter found Peter dead. The relics of the saint cured the huntsman's brother from demonic possession and afterwards were miraculously kept in an Athonite monastery where they effected numerous miracles. Nicholas identifies this monastery with the so-called monastery of Clement and adds that at some later point the relics were transferred to the Protaton church in Karyes. Furthermore, Palamas briefly recounts an episode of furta sacra. Peter's body, described as ‘a dead man more powerful than the living’, was stolen by the monks who first found the relics together with the hunter and it was taken to the Thracian village of Photokomis (Phokomis in Nicholas’ Vita). There the saint's relics cast out demons and performed numerous healing miracles; for instance, Palamas emphasizes, again quoting Aristophanes, that the saint made the blind ‘more sharp-sighted than Lynceus’ (Ploutos 210).Footnote ⁷⁸ Finally, the relics were placed in a church dedicated to the saint. Palamas conceals additional details found in his source. Thus, Nicholas speaks further of a local bishop who purchased the relics for 100 nomismata, the attempt of the devil to set them on fire, and their translatio to a newly built church.Footnote ⁷⁹

At the end of their accounts of Peter's life, Nicholas briefly eulogizes the ascetic life of the holy man and exhorts his audience to emulate Peter's politeia, whereas Palamas provides a more extended epilogue. The latter portrays Peter as a universal saint, honoured both in heaven and all over the world. Quoting Thucydides (History 2.43.3), Palamas emphasizes that virtuous men have tombs all over the world and everyone proclaims their excellence (aristeia). Moreover, through divine grace, Peter achieved omnipresence which is inherent only in divine nature; thus, he is present both on earth, due to people's continuous praise and remembrance, and in heaven, praising God with the angels and the other saints. Persecutor of demons, benefactor of mankind, and fellow-citizen of angels, Peter has given up everything while alive and inherited everything upon dying. Thus, he renounced the world and so inherited both the earth and heaven.Footnote ⁸⁰ Finally, Palamas exhorts his audience to follow in Peter's footsteps and emulate his example of ‘true philosophy’ and virtue.

If Palamas began the Logos stressing that his task is immense, if not impossible, because of the greatness of the subject which is difficult to comprehend through words, he ends by saying that in fact the subject is not only one that can be adorned by words, but one that in itself adorns them. Thus, his endeavour was bound to succeed due first and foremost to the greatness of its subject, that is, St. Peter himself.Footnote ⁸¹

III. ‘Old wine in new bottles’?

Late Byzantine pepaideumenoi showed a predilection for penning vitae and enkomia of saints of bygone eras. The reasons for this interest might have ranged from the wish to honour and promote the saint, to edify and exhort a specific audience, antiquarianism,Footnote ⁸² a desire to improve the style of the older vita, pride in one's monastery or civic loyalty, to engaging in political and ecclesiastical polemics. For instance, Gregoras’ new vita of the Empress Theophano (BHG 1795) contains a veiled critique of the hesychast doctrine and of contemporary ecclesiastical disorder.Footnote ⁸³ Writing to Gregoras, Akindynos — one of Palamas’ theological opponents — praises his composition:

As narrated above, at the age of thirty-eight, while practicing askesis on Athos in the vicinity of Great Lavra, Gregory Palamas reportedly had a vision which encouraged him to share the wisdom bestowed upon him from on high. His first publication was the Logos on St. Peter of Athos, a metaphrasis of an earlier vita.

Peter, ‘the first monk of Athos’, lived in solitude and did not leave easily accessible traces behind. Rigo likens the secluded life of the hermit to a subterranean river (‘un fiume carsico’), ‘hidden’ in the depths of the earth.Footnote ⁸⁵ Just as its ebb and flow reveal too little to the eyes of the beholder, so the life of the saint remained hidden in the deep past. The first to bring Peter to the surface was the Athonite monk Nicholas, who reconstructed his life from different liturgical and oral traditions. This ‘old wine’ served as the source for Palamas’ Logos.

Not surprisingly, as in many other vitae and enkomia of older saints composed by Palaiologan hagiographers, Palamas did not present any new biographical material. However, as this article has endeavoured to show, Palamas’ Logos is far from lacking in originality—contrary to what Janning or Meyendorff would say — especially when taking into account the manner in which he reused, changed or supplemented his source. Thus, even though he followed the structure of the original Vita closely, Palamas added numerous rhetorical passages, a lengthy prooimion and epilogue, and an extensive account describing the hesychast experience and practice with special emphasis on the topic of epistrophe (the returning of the mind towards itself). Moreover, Palamas did not simply recast ‘old wine in a new bottle’, but filled the new bottle of his Logos with a new essence. Throughout his Logos the hagiographer and metaphrastes delves with psychological finesse into the inner life of the holy man and pauses his narrative to give Peter moments of introspection.

Moreover, with Peter as his spokesman, Palamas promotes a hesychast programme accessible to everyone, weaving into his hagiographical narrative the first contours of the hesychast doctrine which he would later deepen and develop in his theological and polemical writings. Thus, the thematic interest of Palamas goes beyond the boundaries of the hagiographical genre, giving way to theology. Following Kokkinos’ division of Palamas’ œuvre into the ‘holy drink of milk’ (his moral and spiritual writings) and the ‘holy drink of wine’ (his dogmatic and theological works), it could be argued that the Logos displays the early signs of the transformation from the ‘clearly moral and simple word to the dogmatic and ascending word’. Nevertheless, instead of a dry theoretical treatise, Palamas writes an engaging narrative, or what Gregory of Nazianzus would call ‘a rule for the monastic life in the form of a narrative’.Footnote ⁸⁶

Palamas renders Peter's life in a higher stylistic and linguistic register than Nicholas does. Thus, he uses the rules of encomiastic discourse and the precepts and formulae of rhetoric in order to impress, persuade, and edify his audience. Rhetorical ornaments, such as metaphors, paroimia, biblical, patristic and classical references and allusions permeate the Logos. Gregory employs a plethora of biblical quotations, especially from the Psalms, Gospels and the Letters of the Apostle Paul. He also adorns his narrative with quotations from Aristophanes (Ploutos 210, 1151), Aristotle (On the Soul 428a), and Thucydides (Histories II. 43.3), and with simili and references to the biblical and classical figures of Moses, Elijah, David, Job, Amalek, Hydra, Icarus, Lynceus and Proteus. This implies that Palamas addressed a learned monastic audience, although Athonite monks were generally accused of ignorance and illiteracy by anti-hesychasts. However, through the rules of rhetoric Palamas also refashioned Peter so as to meet the horizon of expectations of an educated urban, perhaps Constantinopolitan or Thessalonian, audience. Thus, he portrayed Peter as an international hesychast,Footnote ⁸⁷ whose image and example travelled well beyond his patris of Athos.

By analyzing the Logos on St. Peter, this study has entered the ‘working room’ of Gregory Palamas, encountering not only a learned and gifted hagiographer and rhetorician, but also a foreshadow of the theologian and spokesman of fourteenth-century hesychasm. Palamas not only masterfully adorned the subject he chose for his first publication, but was in turn adorned by it. Both Peter and Palamas provide perfect models of sanctity, the former through his own life, the latter through his writing.Footnote ⁸⁸ Through writing a saint's life, Palamas derived spiritual benefit and, appropriating the saint, engraved him unto his heart. Within a decade after his death (c.1357/9), Palamas was canonized as a saint and his doctrine became authoritative in the Orthodox Church. Thus, the hagiographer Palamas, wetting the soles of his feet in Peter's tears, as Cioran would say, came to follow very closely in the traces of his hero: the hagiographer made his own claim to sainthood.