Chapter 3 The Power of the Cross: The Role of the Helper in ’s Hymns’ Narratological Structure and Its Doctrinal Implications

Laura Borghetti

1 Introduction

A challenging opportunity for contemporary historical and literary scholar- ship is the possibility of a significantly comprehensive view over the past ages. Having at our disposal countless material traces and a huge background of re- search allows us not only to treat single events as such, but also to individuate among them some tendencies – that we can define as trends – and some specif- ic phases or circumstances that may constitute over time actual turning points.1 When it comes to applying the concept of a turning point to the Byzantine world, the same definition seems to fit the centuries of the iconoclastic contro- versy well. Several transformations, more or less promptly, occurred between the 8th and the first half of the 9th century within, among others, politics – in terms of balance of power between Emperor and – society, and liturgy. The monastic of the , carried out by the Studite monks in , has had substantial consequences in the euchologic, ceremonial, musical, and even architectural framework.2 Within the incessant fluctuations and changes of her time – namely, the first half of the 9th century – Kassia herself embodies a turning point, not only for her ground-breaking writing style but also for her prominent role as a woman, a high-ranking member of the monastic community, and poet.

1 I rely on Roger D. Launius’ fruitful definition of historical turning point: “At a core level, a turning point may be defined as an event or set of events that, had it not happened as it did, would have prompted a different course in history. […] From a sociological perspective, a turning point represents a lasting shift in the Zeitgeist, or spirit of the age”, in Roger D. Launius, “What Are Turning Points in History, and What Were They for the Space Age?”, in Societal Impact of Spaceflight, ed. Steven J. Dick (Washington DC, 2007), pp. 19–39. 2 Robert Taft, The Byzantine Rite: A Short History (Collegeville, 1993), pp. 52–66. More about the role of the of Stoudios at the time of the iconoclastic controversy is in Leslie Brubaker, Inventing Byzantine (London, 2012), pp. 68–9.

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32 Borghetti

Although the desideratum of a critical edition of her hymnographic writ- ings has not been fulfilled yet, her corpus has been shown to have a rich and complex content that encourages deeper studies into its historical and literary perspective.3 Kassia lived and worked during the second phase of Iconoclasm. According to the historiographers and to the latest studies, she was born between 800 and 805 in a Constantinopolitan aristocratic family and died during Emperor Mi- chael iii’s reign, hence before the year 867.4 Her literary production consists of both a rich collection of liturgical hymns dedicated to male and female and to Christian holy days, and a series of moral sentences, the gnomai. Her verses and aphorisms stand out for their concise, dynamic, and evocative style, in line with the theological and liturgical changes of those years. Kassia, due to her zealous monastic life in her own monastery in Constantinople and accord- ing to her alleged correspondence with the monk , seems to have actively taken part in the ferment of those years. In the course of this article, Kassia’s , traditionally affirmed and accepted by modern scholars, will be analysed and called into question in light, among other rea- sons, of some of her verses in the Hymn to Christina.5 The main objective of my study is to analyse the modalities in which histori- cal content and doctrinal developments are reflected in the narrative structure of Kassia’s hymns that are dedicated to Christian female martyrs. My interven- tion especially focuses on the role of the Holy Cross and the Christian Virtues used as instruments of salvation by Saint Christina in the Hymn dedicated to her by Kassia. The present contribution is structured in four sections. A first preliminary analysis of the narratological structure of Kassia’s hymns will pres- ent the role of the Cross as a magical instrument, according to Vladimir Propp’s theories of the Morphology of the folktale. After this preliminary clarification of the narratological function of the Cross, the two following sections will highlight its relevance both in connection to other Christian historical turn- ing points and to the doctrine of aniconism, which played a substantial role especially during the years of the iconoclastic controversy. Finally, these three

3 Due to the lack of a critical edition of Kassia’s religious hymns, the Greek text and transla- tions used for the purpose of this paper have been taken from Antonia Tripolitis, Kassia: The legend, the woman and her work (London, 1992). 4 Ilse Rochow, Studien zu der Person, den Werken und dem Nachleben der Dichterin Kassia (Berlin, 1967), p. 31. See also: Marc Lauxtermann, “Three-biographical notes”, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 91 (1998), 391–403. 5 For further details about Kassia’s monastic life, see Kurt Sherry, Kassia the Nun in Context (Piscataway, NJ, 2013), pp. 63–91. About Kassia’s Constantinopolitan monastery, see Rochow, Studien, pp. 26–9. About Kassia’s correspondence with Theodore the Studite, see Rochow, Studien, pp. 20–6 and Georgios Fatouros, ed. Theodori Studitae Epistulae, 2 vols (Berlin, 1992), 1:5–187; 2:189–861.