Biblical and Parabiblical Women in Late Antique Christian Liturgy an Eclectic Overview*

Biblical and Parabiblical Women in Late Antique Christian Liturgy An Eclectic Overview*

Harald BUCHINGER Universität Regensburg

In Christian liturgy, saints appear in three prominent places. Firstly, feasts of the sanctoral cycle of annual celebrations are dedicated exclusively to the veneration of particular figures. Originally, such cults are strictly focused on the date of the death (understood and addressed as a “birthday” into heavenly life) and fixed to the place of martyrdom or burial; only secondarily does the exchange of sanctoral commemorations become a medium for networking between different communities and regions1. Secondly, lists of saints are commemorated in the intercessions of Eucharistic prayers, that is, a structural component in which the universal communion of those partaking in the Eucharist comes to be developed. While these saints come from both the Bible and – much more importantly – from Christian history, a third function is reserved for biblical characters: paradigms from the Bible are invoked in certain prayers either as examples of God’s salvific activity or as role models for those for whose benefit the prayer is spoken. For pragmatic reasons, the following survey is limited to the liturgy of late antique Jerusalem, the “mother of all churches”2, and to the Byzantine and Roman liturgies as those which have become the dominant rites of Eastern and Western Christianity.

* The conference in March 2019 in Be᾿en Sheva῾ and the research for this paper were funded by the DFG-Centre for Advanced Studies “Beyond Canon” (FOR 2770) at the University of Regensburg. My sincere thanks are due to Christopher Sprecher, DFG- Research Training Group “Pre-Modern Metropolitanism” (GRK 2337), for a careful revi- sion of the English text and to Prof. Dr. Gabriel Radle, University of Notre Dame, IN, and Humboldt Fellow at the University of Regensburg, for helpful hints on the Byzantine and Palestinian marriage liturgy. 1. H. AUF DER MAUR, Feste und Gedenktage der Heiligen, in ID. – P. HARNONCOURT, Feiern im Rhythmus der Zeit II/1: Der Kalender / Feste und Gedenktage der Heiligen (Gottesdienst der Kirche, 6/1), Regensburg, Pustet, 1994, 65-357, is still the authoritative manual on the topic. 2. Synodal letter from Constantinople (382 CE), quoted in Theodoret, HE 5,9,17 (GCS. NF 5, p. 294 PARMENTIER – 3HANSEN); anaphora attributed to St James: B.-Ch. MERCIER, La liturgie de saint Jacques: Édition critique du texte grec avec traduction latine (PO, 126 = 26/2), Turnhout, Brepols, 1997 [= Paris, 1946], p. 206 [92], l. 27. 538 H. BUCHINGER

I. FEMALE SAINTS FROM THE BIBLE IN THE SANCTORAL CYCLE

While the commemoration of local martyrs is documented since the second half of the second century CE and lists are attested in the period of the great persecution under Emperor Decius in the middle of the third3, more comprehensive calendars appear only after the Constantinian turn in various places4. The so-called Martyrologium (or Breviarium) syriacum of 411 CE, a rendition of a fourth-century Greek compilation integrating prominent biblical characters such as the protomartyr Stephen in Jerusalem (even before the invention of his relics in 415 CE!), the apostles John and James in the same place, and the chief leaders of the apostles, Paul and Simon Kepha in Rome5, does not contain a single female figure from the Bible.

1. Jerusalem The oldest surviving strictly liturgical source for a cycle of sanctoral celebrations comes from late antique Jerusalem6. The so-called “Armenian Lectionary” – in fact a combination of a kind of synaxarium, a calendar of celebrations with indications of dates and stations, together with a lectionary of readings given in full – documents a developed system of sanctoral celebrations in the period after 417 CE; the only female saint therein comes from the Bible and is “Mary the Theotokos”7. It has been hypothesised that her celebration on 15 August – a date which later was to become the feast of her Dormition – at the third milestone on the way to Bethlehem may have originally represented an old tradition of the birth of Jesus at that very place (and not in Bethlehem as in the canonical accounts of Matthew 2 and Luke 2) according to the apocryphal tradition recorded by the Protevangelium Jacobi 17f.8. Be that as it may, the introduction of

3. AUF DER MAUR, Feste (n. 1), pp. 92f., with reference to the Martyrium Polycarpi and Cyprian of Carthage’s Ep. 12,2. 4. Ibid., p. 103. The Depositio martyrum of Furius Dionysius Philocalus (354 CE, probably going back to 336 CE) contains six female names (ibid., p. 137); Peter and Paul are the only – albeit male – biblical figures. 5. F. NAU (ed.), Martyrologues et ménologes orientaux I-XIII: Un martyrologe et douze ménologes syriaques (PO, 46 = 10/1), Turnhout, Brepols, 1974 [= Paris, 1912], p. 11. 6. H. BUCHINGER, Das Jerusalemer Sanctorale: Zu Stand und Aufgaben der Forschung, in M. BARNARD – P. POST – E. ROSE (eds.), A Cloud of Witnesses: The Cult of Saints in Past and Present (Liturgia Condenda, 18), Leuven, Peeters, 2005, 97-128. 7. A. RENOUX (ed.), Le codex arménien Jérusalem 121. II: Édition comparée du texte et de deux autres manuscrits. Introduction, textes, traduction et notes (PO, 36/2 = 168), Turnhout, Brepols, 1971, p. 354 [216], #64. 8. FC 18, pp. 124-126 SCHNEIDER; cf. S. VERHELST, Le 15 août, le 9 av et le Kathisme, in Questions Liturgiques / Studies in Liturgy 82 (2001) 161-191; R. AVNER, The Initial Tradition of the Theotokos at the Kathisma: Earliest Celebrations and the Calendar, in L. BRUBAKER – M.B. CUNNINGHAM (eds.), The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium: (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 539 a properly Marian feast fits with the surge in reflection on and piety towards the mother of Christ, which was also fuelled by her solemn definition as Theotokos at the third ecumenical council at Ephesus in 431 CE9. A number of Georgian manuscripts illustrate the development of the stational system and the calendar in subsequent centuries10. A veritable paradigm-shift is to be observed: by the beginning of the seventh century, almost every day of the year had been outfitted with a sanctoral celebration in a complex interplay between the differentiation of the sacred topography of the Holy City and the development of the stational liturgy. While the sanctoral calendar is systematically filled with male figures from the Old Testament such as patriarchs or prophets who tend to be commemorated personally, either on their own or in little clusters, the respective women or matriarchs are almost totally neglected. Only Rachel’s tomb is the focus of any interest: depositions of relics are mentioned on 20 February and 18 July11; and although this monument as such was already known to the anonymous pilgrim from Bordeaux in the early 330s12, one wonders whether such striking prominence was not induced by the reference to Rachel in Matt 2,18 on the occasion of the massacre of the Holy Innocents, the gospel of the commemoration on 18 July (when,

Texts and Images, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2011, 9-29; EAD., Presbeia Theotokou, Presbeia mētros: Reconsidering the Origins of the Feast and the Cult of the Theotokos at the Kathisma, on the Road to Bethlehem, in L.M. PELTOMAA – A. KÜLZER – P. ALLEN (eds.), Presbeia Theotokou: The Intercessory Role of Mary across Times and Places in Byzantium (4th-9th Century) (Denkschriften. Ö sterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philoso- phisch-Historische Klasse, 481 = Verö ffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung, 39), Wien, Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015, 41-48; S.J. SHOEMAKER, Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2016, pp. 181-185. 9. SHOEMAKER, Mary (n. 8), collects the material documenting the early roots of Marian piety and demonstrates that the council of Ephesus was more a catalyst than an initial trig- ger of liturgical developments. The recent dispute about the terminus ante quem of the Armenian Lectionary, however, may once more push the time-frame of explicitly Marian cult in Jerusalem a little upward; cf. H. MÉNDEZ, Revising the Date of the Armenian Lectionary of Jerusalem, in JECS 29 (2021) [forthcoming]. 10. Cf. H. BUCHINGER, Liturgy and Topography in Late Antique Jerusalem, in K. HEYDEN – M. LISSEK (eds.), Jerusalem (Civitatum Orbis Mediterranei Studia), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2020 [forthcoming]. Much of the substance of the “Georgian Lectionary” may go back to the period before the Persian raid (614 CE) and the Arab conquest (636/637 CE); the latest clearly datable commemoration is that of Bishop Sophronius († 638 CE?) on 11 March: M. TARCHNISCHVILI, Le grand lectionnaire de l’Église de Jérusalem (Ve-VIIIe siè- cle) (CSCO, 188f. = CSCO.I, 9f.; CSCO, 204f. = CSCO.I, 13f.), Louvain, CSCO, 1959- 1960, 253 (vol. 1, pp. 42/39; here and in the following, the first page number refers to the edition, the second to the translation). Although all extant manuscripts are medieval, the fuller order of the Paris manuscript (P) is generally considered to attest a later stage of development than the one from Latal (L). 11. Georgian Lectionary 230 (vol. 1, pp. 40/37 TARCHNISCHVILI, with reference to the common of saints); 1096-1101 (vol. 2, pp. 24/22 TARCHNISCHVILI). 12. Itin. Burd. 598,5 (CCSL 175, pp. 19f. GEYER – CUNTZ). 540 H. BUCHINGER however, also Gen 48,1-7 is provided as a reading, along with Gen 35,9- 20 according to the Paris manuscript)13. From the New Testament, the prophetess Anna, mentioned in Luke 2,36-38, is celebrated in the Paris manuscript on 1 February, the day before the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, according to the relatively late principle of concomitant feasts for secondary figures of major feasts14. In the same late stage of development, Mary’s cousin Elisabeth gets a commemoration of her own on 28 August at the church dedicated to her in the village of En Kerem near Jerusalem15; the proximity to the feast of the beheading of St John the Baptist on the following day is conspicuous and may suggest a kind of concomitant celebration of Elisabeth with her son, whose birth according to Luke 1,57-80 is read as the gospel of the day. A specific feast of the Visitation of Mary with her cousin (Luke 1,39-56) does not, however, occur before the hybrid calendar of Sinai georg. 34 in the late tenth century, where it appears in its own way as a kind of concomitant feast to the celebration of the Annunciation of Christ on 25 March16. Some women thus appear only secondarily in association with dominant men. By contrast, other women obtain a certain degree of independence. The women of the Easter morning gospel narratives are honoured on Tuesday of

13. Georgian Lectionary 1096-1101 (vol. 2, pp. 24/22 TARCHNISCHVILI). While both manuscripts provide Gen 48,1-7 and Matt 2,16-18 and thus clearly refer to Rachel, only the Paris manuscript explicitly assigns the station “On the way to Bethlehem, at Rachel’s tomb”, and identifies it as “her commemoration”. 14. Georgian Lectionary 193-194 (vol. 1, pp. 35/34 TARCHNISCHVILI). Since the cluster- ing of concomitant feasts is not generally a formative principle in late antique Jerusalem, one may speculate if this is already a Byzantine intrusion; cf. D. GALADZA, Liturgy and Byzantinization in Jerusalem (Oxford Early Christian Studies), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 229, 297, with reference to the hybrid calendar of Ioane Zosime in Sinai georg. 34, which, however, notes the commemoration of the “prophets Symeon and Anna” on their Byzantine date, 3 February (cf. below, n. 41): G. GARITTE, Le calendrier palestino- géorgien du Sinaiticus 34 (Xe siècle) (Subsidia hagiographica, 30), Bruxelles, Société des Bollandistes, 1958, pp. 148f. 15. Georgian Lectionary 1184f. (vol. 2, pp. 35/32 TARCHNISCHVILI, Ms. P only). 16. GARITTE, Le calendrier (n. 14), p. 189: “Cette annonce de notre calendrier est la plus ancienne attestation connue d’une fête de la Visitation (cf. Luc., I, 39-56). La date du 1er avril est évidemment fonction de celle de l’Annonciation (voir infra: Octava Annuntia- tionis). … Les Grecs ignorent la fête de la Visitation. En Occident, elle apparut seulement au XIIIe siècle; elle fut introduite d’abord dans l’Ordre franciscain par le chapitre général de Pise en 1263; la date latine (2 juillet) dépend sans doute de la fête mariale byzantine du même jour, qui a d’ailleurs un tout autre objet”; cf. below, I.2 with n. 55; cf. also AUF DER MAUR, Feste (n. 1), pp. 156f. The feast of the Annunciation is an innovation of the sixth century (see below, n. 49), introduced in Jerusalem only by Justinian, probably in 560 CE: M. VAN ESBROECK, La lettre de l’empereur Justinien sur l’Annonciation et la Noël en 561, in Analecta Bollandiana 86 (1968) 351-371; ID., Encore la lettre de Justinien. Sa date: 560 et non 561, in Analecta Bollandiana 87 (1969) 442-444. Abr. Ephes. (ca. 530-550 CE?), Annunt. 1 (M. JUGIE, Homélies mariales byzantines: Textes grecs édités et traduits en latin [PO, 16/3 = 79], Turnhout, Brepols, 1973 [= Paris, 1922], p. 443 [19]), attests that the Palestinians and Arabs did not yet celebrate it. (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 541 the second week after Easter with a “commemoration of the holy Theotokos and the holy women”17; later sources not only fix that content to 25 April, but also name the women in different variations and compositions, all of which focus on the Myrophores18, thus attesting to a tendency to isolate characters of the biblical narrative from their original place and context. Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, are commemorated on 4 June in Bethany, which is also the dedication of the respective church according to the Paris manuscript19. It can also be observed that existing places long connected with prominent biblical narratives are secondarily enriched with further parabiblical traditions. Particularly productive are stories about Mary the Theotokos and her family. On 8 September, the birth of Mary the Theotokos is celebrated “at the Probatike, where the house of Joachim was”, according to the Paris manuscript20 (the latter tradition also being witnessed indirectly by the archdeacon Theodosius at the beginning of the sixth century21). While the Hagiopolite sources do not commemorate the conception of Mary by her mother Anna, the annunciation of that conception to Joachim during his sojourn in the desert (cf. Protevangelium Jacobi 1-422) is mentioned on 16 January “In Choziba of the Theotokos, when the angel announced to Joachim at Choziba the birth of the Theotokos Mary”, in the late tenth-century hybrid calendar of Ioane Zosime in Sinai georg. 3423. The date of the annunciation to Mary herself on 25 March can be extrapolated from Christmas on 25 December, which was established in Jerusalem for the second and definitive time only in the later

17. Georgian Lectionary 767-772 (vol. 1, pp. 151/120f. TARCHNISCHVILI). Ms. L has a shorter rubric mentioning only the “holy women”. The provided gospel pericope is Luke 8,1-3. 18. GARITTE, Le calendrier (n. 14), pp. 207f. 19. Georgian Lectionary 1010-1012 (vol. 2, pp. 13/14 TARCHNISCHVILI; Ms. L only the commemoration of Mary and Martha); cf. GARITTE, Le calendrier (n. 14), p. 242. The commemoration spread to Byzantium; cf. below, I.2 with n. 43. 20. Georgian Lectionary 1221-1226 (vol. 2, pp. 40f./35 TARCHNISCHVILI; while the station is identified only in Ms. P, the celebration as such is also attested in Ms. L). The Sheep Pool, “which in Hebrew is called Bethzatha”, is mentioned in John 5,2; on the development of local traditions connected with the church at the site in Late Antiquity, cf. M. KÜCHLER, Jerusalem: Ein Handbuch und Studienreiseführer zur Heiligen Stadt (Orte und Landschaf- ten der Bibel, 4/2), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007, pp. 332-334. 21. Theodosius, De situ terrae sanctae 8 (CCSL 175, p. 119 GEYER): Iuxta piscinam probaticam ibi est ecclesia domnae Mariae. Apart from the Georgian Lectionary, the birth of the Theotokos at the site is first mentioned by Sophron. Hier. († 638 CE?), Carm. 10, κ. 5-20: H. DONNER, Die anakreontischen Gedichte Nr. 19 und Nr. 20 des Patriarchen Sophronius von Jerusalem (Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaf- ten. Philosophisch-historische Klasse, 1981/10), Heidelberg, Winter, 1981, pp. 15f. 22. FC 18, pp. 96-104 SCHNEIDER. 23. GARITTE, Le calendrier (n. 14), p. 132; the date is, of course, not consistent with the birth of Mary on 8 September. The commemoration occurs two days before the dedication of the church of the Theotokos at Choziba already mentioned in the Georgian Lectionary 153-158 (vol. 1, pp. 29f./29f. TARCHNISCHVILI). 542 H. BUCHINGER sixth century, probably under Emperor Justinian in 560 CE24; the Latal manuscript of the Georgian Lectionary locates the celebration of the Annunciation at the Probatike25. Much older is the apocryphal tradition of the Dormition26. However, whereas a Marian church in the valley of Josaphat goes back to the fifth century27 and a monumental tomb is first mentioned in the mid-sixth century28, the renewed building at that tomb mentioned repeatedly in the Georgian Lectionary was only dedicated under Emperor (Tiberius) Mauricius (582-602 CE)29, who is also credited with having prescribed the feast of the Dormition on 15 August30. Consequently, the site also attracts the Marian feast of that day31, which by this time clearly focused on the death of the Theotokos, shifting the celebration at the earlier site of her celebration in the Kathisma church on the way to Bethlehem two days in advance, to 13 August32. When Justinian dedicated a “New” church of the Theotokos, the monumental Nea, in 534 CE, the choice of the site was not based on any biblical or parabiblical traditions; the proximity of the date of its dedication on 20 November33 to the Byzantine feast of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple – a motif from the Protevangelium Jacobi 7,2f.34 – seems to be merely coincidental35. Taking up extracanonical traditions beyond those about the family of Jesus and Mary, various Georgian manuscripts also know commemorations

24. See above, n. 16. 25. Georgian Lectionary 267-276 (vol. 1, pp. 43f./40f. TARCHNISCHVILI). 26. SHOEMAKER, Mary (n. 8), p. 103, pushes the date of the Book of Mary’s Repose “with some confidence to the third century although the possibility of an even earlier origin, perhaps in the second century, should not be excluded”. 27. D.W. JOHNSON, A Panegyric on Macarius, Bishop of Tkôw, Attributed to Dioscorus of Alexandria (CSCO, 415f. = CSCO.C, 41f.), Leuven, CSCO, 1980, pp. 49/38, cap. 7. 28. Breviarius de Hierosolyma 7B (CCSL 175, p. 112 WEBER). 29. Cf. KÜCHLER, Jerusalem (n. 20). The Georgian Lectionary 1320-1324 (vol. 2, pp. 56f./46f. TARCHNISCHVILI) mentions the “building of Emperor Maurice in Gethsemane” not only on the occasion of its dedication on 23 October and the dedication of the altar on the following day (on which occasion Ms. P also speaks of the “tomb of the Theotokos”), but also on 15 August (see below, n. 31). 30. Nicephor. Callistus, HE 17,28 (PG 147, col. 292; fourteenth cent., not always reliable). 31. Georgian Lectionary 1148-1154 (vol. 2, pp. 30f./27f. TARCHNISCHVILI). 32. Georgian Lectionary 1143-1146 (vol. 2, pp. 29f./26f. TARCHNISCHVILI); cf. GARITTE, Le calendrier (n. 14), p. 301. In a later period, a whole week was dedicated to Mary around 15 August; cf. S.J. SHOEMAKER, Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption (Oxford Early Christian Studies), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 132-140. 33. Georgian Lectionary 1373-1375 (vol. 2, pp. 64/52 TARCHNISCHVILI). 34. FC 18, p. 108 SCHNEIDER. 35. Cf. below, n. 59. Neither can it be proven that the dedication of the church in Jerusalem generated the Byzantine feast, nor did it ever attract the tradition of the Presen- tation; the hybrid calendar Sinai georg. 34 dates it on 15 May: GARITTE, Le calendrier (n. 14), p. 225. (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 543 of St Thecla on 26 July (considered to be her “martyrdom” by the Paris manuscript)36, 24 September37, and 10 October38. It should be noted that in spite of the inflation of the calendar with sanctoral commemorations towards the end of the late antique period, only the most prominent feasts got equipped with full proper cycles of troparia for the daily offices and the Divine Liturgy in the hymnal, which is transmitted in Georgian translation through the so-called Ancient Iadgari. Apart from the special case of Mary, whose celebrations on 15 August and 8 September are more parabiblical than biblical in character, Thecla is the only female saint who is honoured with such a proper on 24 September39. The hymns for both saints clearly presuppose the respective apocryphal literature.

2. Byzantium Full documentation of the liturgical life in Constantinople through liturgical books only dates from the Middle Byzantine period; the annual festal cycle is contained in the document misleadingly called the “Typikon of the Great Church”, an order of the Byzantine capital’s stational liturgy from manuscripts of the tenth and eleventh centuries40.

36. Georgian Lectionary 1110-1113 (vol. 2, pp. 25f./23 TARCHNISCHVILI). Sinai georg. 34 specifies: “when the angel led her to the rock and baptised her secretly”: GARITTE, Le calendrier (n. 14), p. 288; on this note, cf. S.J. VOICU, Thecla in the Christian East, in J.W. BARRIER – J.N. BREMMER – T. NICKLAS – A. PUIG I TÀRRECH (eds.), Thecla: Paul’s Disciple and Saint in the East and West (Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha, 12), Leu- ven, Peeters, 2017, 47-68, pp. 65f. The indication that her martyrdom is celebrated “on the Holy Mountain” according to Ms. P points to a church in Bethphage dedicated to the saint according to Theodosius, De situ terrae sanctae 21 (CCSL 175, p. 122 GEYER); cf. J.T. MILIK, Notes d’épigraphie et de topographie palestiniennes, in RB 66 (1959) 550-575; 66 (1960) 354-367, 550-591, pp. 564f. 37. On 24 September, the principal feast of the saint not only in Byzantium (see below, I.2 with n. 87) but also in Jerusalem according to later witnesses (see below, n. 39), Georgian Lectionary Ms. P is lacunose, while 1256 d) Ms. P notes only a “deposition of Konon and Thecla”, without stational indication or proper texts (vol. 2, pp. 47/40 T ARCHNISCHVILI). 38. Georgian Lectionary 1290 (vol. 2, pp. 52/43 TARCHNISCHVILI, Ms. P only, commemoration in the Anastasis, with reference to the texts on 26 July). 39. C. RENOUX, L’hymnaire de Saint-Sabas (Ve-VIIIe siècle): Le manuscrit géorgien H 2123. II: De la nativité de Jean-Baptiste à la liturgie des défunts (PO, 53/3 = 237), Turnhout, Brepols, 2015, pp. 541 [67]-561 [87], 579 [105]-588 [114], 635 [161]-639 [165]. On the dates of Saints Febronia on 26 June, Kwiraké on 15 July, and Thecla on 26 July, rubrics in manuscripts of the Iadgari refer to a common office of saints: RENOUX, L’hymnaire, p. 511 [37], n. 2. 40. J. MATEOS, Le Typicon de la Grande Église: Ms. Sainte-Croix n° 40, Xe siècle. I: Le cycle des douze mois. II: Le cycle des fêtes mobiles (OCA, 165f.), Roma, Pont. Insti- tutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1962; 1963. The later development is documented by H. DELEHAYE, Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae e Codice Sirmondiano nunc Berolinensi adiectis synaxariis selectis: Propylaeum ad Acta Sanctorum Novembris, 544 H. BUCHINGER

The Old Testament patriarchs’ wives are not honoured in the festal calendar of Middle Byzantine Constantinople. The New Testament prophetess Anna is mentioned along with “the holy and just Symeon, who received the Lord in his arms (cf. Luke 2,25.28)” on the concomitant feast to that of the “Meeting (ἀπάντησις) of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ”, celebrated on the day after the latter, i.e., 3 February41. As in Jerusalem, the Myrophores get some attention in the calendar: not only did the “commemoration of the righteous Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene and the other (women) disciples of the Lord” on the second Sunday after Easter develop over time into the “Sunday of the Myropho- res”42. On 4 June, Mary and Martha are subsumed under this category, although the sisters of Lazarus from John 11 do not appear in the Easter morning gospel43. More prominent is “Mary Magdalene the Myrophore”, whose relics were transferred to Constantinople together with those of “Lazarus, the friend of the Lord” and deposited in a monastery named after the latter by Emperor Leo VI in 900 CE; the deposition is commemorated together with the consecration of the respective church on 4 May44. Additionally, “Mary Magdalene the Myrophore” is granted a celebration of her own, both at this place and in the quarter of the Curator near Taurus, on 22 July45. The latter liturgy has a full set of proper biblical texts (culminating with Mark 16,1-8), but no proper hymnographic poetry.

Bruxelles, Bollandiani, 1902 [repr. 1985]. Feasts which are documented only in the Synaxaria and not yet in the so-called Typikon are not considered in the following. 41. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 224; no station or proper is provided. Accord- ing to the Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 439f., “their synaxis is celebrated in the apostoleion of St James the Brother of the Lord which is in the holy shrine of the most holy Theotokos of the Chalkoprateia”, where also the vigil of the preceding major feast is celebrated according to the so-called Typikon (pp. 220-222), while the main liturgy is celebrated at the Blachernai according to both witnesses; see below, n. 50. On the competition between these two sanctuaries, see below, nn. 50-55 and 61. 42. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 2, pp. 114f. with n. 3; Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 593f., ll. 58f. Already the so-called Typikon contains a proper troparion in honour of the “choir of your disciples, together with the Myrophore Women”. The gospel of the day is Mark 15,43–16,8. 43. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 304, without station or proper. The commemoration probably goes back to the church dedicated to the two sisters in Bethany near Jerusalem; cf. above, I.1 with n. 19. Apart from regular entries in manuscripts of the Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 727f., ll. 50-53, on 4 June, the “holy Myrophore Women Mary and Martha” are also mentioned on 6 June in the Sirmond Synaxarium (ibid., col. 734), which may be due to a confusion with the homonymous martyrs mentioned before on the same date, namely “the five holy virgins Mary, Martha, and their company”; cf. GARITTE, Le calendrier (n. 14), p. 244 (with reference to more detailed lists including the name Thecla). 44. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, pp. 280-282; Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 658f.; cf. R. JANIN, La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin. Première partie: Le siège de Constantinople et le patriarcat œcuménique. Tome 3: Les églises et les monastères, Paris, Institut français d’études byzantines, 1969 [cf. 11953], pp. 298-300. 45. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, pp. 346-348; Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 833-835, with further apocryphal details of Mary’s life, death and burial in Ephesus. On the further (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 545

Most notable, however, is the quantitative and qualitative explosion of the cult of Mary the Theotokos in Constantinople in the second half of the first millennium46. From the four feasts which ultimately became celebrated in East and West alike, the Annunciation on 25 March and the Presentation (“Meeting”/ὑπαπαντή47) on 2 February are based on the canonical Nativity gospels and calendrically linked to Christmas (nine months before and forty days after 25 December, respectively); the Nati- vity on 8 September and the “Transitus (μετάστασις)” or Dormition on 15 August are derived from apocryphal accounts. The set of feasts was certainly established in the course of the sixth century: the Nativity of the Theotokos is the topic of a hymn by Romanos the Melodist (and its celebration thus attested in Constantinople in the first half of the sixth century)48; the Annunciation, Presentation, and Dormition are mentioned in imperial interventions later in the same century49. The Presentation50 history of Mary Magdalene’s veneration, see V. SAXER, Les saintes Marie Madeleine et Marie de Béthanie dans la tradition liturgique et homilétique orientale, in Revue des sciences religieuses 32 (1958) 1-37. 46. The study of Byzantine Marian liturgy and devotion has flourished in recent years; most recently, cf., among others, BRUBAKER – CUNNINGHAM, Cult (n. 8), with a seminal article by D. KRAUSMÜLLER, Making the Most of Mary: The Cult of the Virgin in the Chalkoprateia from Late Antiquity to the Tenth Century, ibid., 219-245, PELTOMAA – K ÜLZER – ALLEN, Presbeia (n. 8), and T. ARENTZEN – M.B. CUNNINGHAM (eds.), The Recep- tion of the Virgin in Byzantium: Marian Narratives in Texts and Images, Cambridge, Cam- bridge University Press, 2019. On Romanos the Melodist, a key witness of the development in the early sixth century, see T. ARENTZEN, The Virgin in Song: Mary and the Poetry of Romanos the Melodist (Divinations. Rereading Late Ancient Religion), Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. R. IACOPINO, La Vergine Maria “Alfa e Omega” della celebrazione liturgica bizantina (Monumenta Studia Instrumenta Liturgica, 77), Città del Vaticano, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2018, is rather systematic and concentrates on the liturgical texts about the Birth and Dormition of Mary. 47. On the Marian dimension of this feast, see below, nn. 50 and 93. 48. Roman., Cant. 35 (28): P. MAAS – C.A. TRYPANIS, Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica: Cantica genuina, Oxford, Clarendon, 1963, pp. 276-280, with manifold motifs from the Protevangelium Jacobi but no unequivocal reference to the date of the celebration. 49. The late Byzantine historian Nicephor. Callistus, HE 17,28 (PG 147, col. 292), mentions that Justinian (527-565 CE) decreed the universal celebration of the “Meeting” (ὑπαπαντή, i.e. Presentation of the Lord; see also his letter about the dates of Christmas, the Annunciation, and Hypapante, quoted above, n. 16), while Maurice (582-602 CE) established the feast of the Dormition (κοίμησις; cf. nn. 29f.). In Jerusalem, the fortieth day after Epiphany is already mentioned as a solemn feast by Eger., Itin. 26 (FC 203, p. 224 FRANCHESCHINI – WEBER – RÖWEKAMP). It is not clear when exactly the Marian feast on 15 August attracted the apocryphal content of the Dormition; cf. above, I.1 with nn. 7-9, 28-31. Since the Annunciation is widely believed to have first been celebrated in the run-up to Christmas, it is not beyond doubt that Roman., Cant. 36f. (50; 43) (MAAS – TRYPANIS, Cantica, pp. 280-293), presupposes a feast on 25 March, which is unequivocally attested only by Abraham of Ephesus before and Justinian after the middle of the sixth century (see above, n. 16); cf. C. MAGGIONI, Annunciazione: Storia, eucologia, teologia liturgica (Bibliotheca Ephemerides liturgicae. Subsidia, 56), Roma, C.L.V.-Liturgiche, 1991, pp. 40-48. 50. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, pp. 220-224; cf. Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 439f. The vigil (Paramonḗ and Orthros) of the Presentation of the Lord is celebrated at the 546 H. BUCHINGER and the Dormition51 are solemnly celebrated at the church of the Blachernai in the northwestern suburbs of the capital52 with a procession beforehand; this church also housed the robe of the Virgin, which played a particular role in the defence of the city and the deposition of which was the object of a separate feast, replete with a procession and a full set of proper liturgical texts, on 2 July. The troparion reflects the multifaceted function of Mary’s garment53. The Annunciation and Nativity, however, were celebrated in the church of St Mary in the Chalkoprateia quarter, in the vicinity and under the immediate influence of Hagia Sophia54. This church, which obviously vied for importance with the Blachernai sanctuary, had a competing relic in the form of the Theotokos’s girdle, the deposition of which was celebrated on 31 August with the same texts as the other feast on 2 July55. Increasing attention to Mary the Theotokos also led to celebrating the “Conception of St Anna, when she conceived the holy Virgin and Theotokos” on 9 December (i.e., nine months before 8 September); the parabiblical feast was celebrated with the same texts as her birth in a church in the quarter of the Euouranioi close to the Great Church56. While this date can be extrapolated from the mere fact of her birth (although

Chalkoprateia according to the so-called Typikon. Although the title of the feast, “The Meeting of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ”, is Christological, both the station and the first part of the troparion “Rejoice, O highly favoured one” (cf. Luke 1,28) are Marian (while the second part of the troparion addresses Symeon). 51. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, pp. 368-372; cf. Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 891- 894. The procession between Orthros and Liturgy goes to St Euphemia in the Petrion according to the so-called Typikon; on the latter, cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 127-129. 52. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 161-171. 53. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, pp. 328-330; Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 293f. The transfer and deposition of the relic is unanimously dated to the reign of Emperor Leo (457-474 CE); cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 161, 169; E. CRONNIER, Les inventions de reliques dans l’Empire romain d’Orient (IVe-VIe s.) (Hagiologia, 11), Turnhout, Brepols, 2015, pp. 129-143, with reference to the earlier bibliography. 54. Nativity of the Theotokos: MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, pp. 18-20 (the station is only referred to as “in her venerable house which is near the most holy Great Church”; the Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 25-30, situates the synaxis “in the Great Church and in the Chalkoprateia and in those of Urbicius”. On the Chalkoprateia church, see JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 237-242, on the one of Urbicius, ibid., p. 207. Annunciation: Le Typi- con, vol. 1, pp. 252-254 (procession between Paramonḗ and Pannychis from the Great Church to the Chalkoprateia; likewise between Tritoektḗ and Liturgy); Synaxarium, coll. 557f. (reference to the Chalkoprateia only in a variant). 55. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 386; Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 935f. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 238f., and CRONNIER, Inventions (n. 53), pp. 139-141, discuss the contradictory claims about the age of this relic. Is it coincidence that in late antique Jerusalem, the Ark of the Covenant – which came to be understood as a type of Mary – had been celebrated on the same day since the time of the Armenian Lectionary (PO 36/2 = 168, p. 348 [210]-359 [212] RENOUX)? Cf. also GARITTE, Le calendrier (n. 14), pp. 267f., and p. 189 (as quoted in n. 16). 56. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 126; Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 289-291 (with manuscripts disagreeing about the location: the Euouranioi quarter or Blachernai). (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 547 details are only given in the Protevangelium Jacobi 2-457), the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple at the age of three by her parents Joachim and Anna on 21 November is derived from the narrative in the Protevangelium Jacobi 758 and given a solemn celebration with a procession and the participation of the patriarch at the Chalkoprateia church59. Both feasts may have been introduced at some point during the eighth century60, and the question has been raised as to whether their introduction might not also reflect the competition between the Chalkoprateia and Blachernai churches61. At any rate, the general proliferation of Marian devotion in Middle Byzantine Constantinople and the particular influence of apocryphal traditions are remarkable. Another “Synaxis of the all-holy Theotokos at the Blachernai, where the holy casket (σορός) lies”, with procession and full proper on 26 December is a concomitant celebration of Christ’s mother on the day after Christmas62. Further Marian occasions mentioned in the so-called Typikon are the “Dedication of (a chapel of) the Theotokos in the house of St Anna in the second (part of the city)” on 6 September, with proper texts63; a Synaxis on 22 September at Chrysopolis on the other bank64; on 4 October in the quarter of Honoratus, likewise on the other bank65; on 16 October and 9 November “in the so-called little Park (παραδείσιον)”66; likewise on 9 November a Dedication in the quarter of Protasius67; on 10 February

57. FC 18, pp. 98-104 SCHNEIDER. 58. FC 18, p. 108 SCHNEIDER. 59. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 110; cf. Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 243f.; cf. J.H. OLKINUORA, Byzantine Hymnography for the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos: An Intermedial Approach (Studia patristica fennica, 4), Helsinki, Suomen patris- tinen seura ry, 2015. 60. Cf. KRAUSMÜLLER, Mary (n. 46), pp. 228-230. 61. KRAUSMÜLLER, ibid., pp. 231f., remains cautious. 62. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, pp. 158-160; Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 343. St Stephen is celebrated on 27 December, as – for different reasons – in Jerusalem; cf. S.J. VOICU, Feste di apostoli alla fine di Dicembre, in Studi sull’Oriente Cristiano 8 (2004) 47-77; H. MÉNDEZ, The Origin of the Post-Nativity Commemorations, in VigChr 68 (2014) 290-309. 63. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, pp. 16-18; cf. Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 20; JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), p. 36. 64. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 42 (without proper); Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 70; cf. R. JANIN, L’Église byzantine sur les rives du Bosphore (côte asiatique), in Revue des études byzantines 12 (1954) 69-99, pp. 92-94. 65. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 60 (without proper); Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 103; cf. JANIN, L’Église (n. 64), pp. 89f. 66. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, pp. 68, 96 (both without proper); Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 144, 206; cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 216f. 67. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 96, with cross reference to the order of the service on 6 September, likewise a Marian dedication; cf. n. 63. Cf. Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 206; JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), p. 229. 548 H. BUCHINGER a commemoration in the quarter of Areobindos68; on 13 May in the quarter of the Diakonissa and on 15 May “at the wall”69; on 23 May in the quarter of Sophia70; on 8 June in the quarter of Sosthenes71; on 15 June a Synaxis in the quarter of Marinakios on the other bank, and on 16 June in the quarter of Eudokia72; a Synaxis on 21 July and a commemoration on 17 August in the quarter of Armasius73; on 25 July on the other bank in the Pagidion74, and on 28 August in another church likewise on the Pinnoulophos on the other bank75 – not to mention the Marian aspects of the temporal cycle76. The unprecedented veneration of Mary also spread to her parabiblical mother: in addition to the aforementioned feast of the Conception of St Anna, both parents Joachim and Anna are honoured with a Synaxis with a full proper at a concomitant feast on 9 September, the day after the Theotokos’ Nativity, in the Chalkoprateia church77; ultimately, they and their distinguished daughter are the object of a prominent celebration at the same church on the Saturday after Pentecost78, followed on the Wednesday after All Saints (i.e., the Sunday after Pentecost) by a Synaxis of the Theotokos “at her venerable house in old Petra”79. Later, the Dormition of St Anna was also celebrated at her sanctuary in the second part of the city80. These celebrations are obviously not inherited from

68. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 230 (without proper); Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 458; cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), p. 157. 69. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 292 (both without proper); Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 680, 686; cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 174f., 222. 70. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 298 (without proper); Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 703f., Apparatus (22 or 23 May); cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), p. 231. 71. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, 308; Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 738; cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 231f. 72. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 314 (with apparatus, both without proper); Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 752, 754; cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), p. 178 (a church of the Theotokos “on the other side in the (quarter) of Marinakios” is not mentioned by Janin). 73. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, pp. 346, 376 (both without proper); Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 834, 908 (likewise addressed as Synaxis); cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 157f. 74. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 350 (without proper); Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 844; cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), p. 208. In the Synaxarium, coll. 841f., this date also attracted the Dormition of Anna. 75. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 386 (without proper); Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 932; cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), p. 228. Neither the church nor the toponym are otherwise attested (as confined by TLG search). 76. Cf. the index of MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 2, p. 252. 77. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 22; Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 29. 78. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 2, p. 142, with full proper. 79. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 2, p. 146, with procession from the Great Church via the Forum, but without proper; cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), p. 223, with reference to alternative dates. 80. Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 841f.; cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 35-37. Since the celebration is absent in the so-called Typikon, it appears that it was introduced into the (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 549

Jerusalem, although the establishment of shrines for the mother of Mary in Constantinople, documented from the mid-sixth century onward, has been hypothetically explained by the model of the respective healing sanctuary at the Sheep Pool in Jerusalem81. It is remarkable that the biblical episode of Mary’s visit to her cousin Elisabeth – one of the few details one learns about her from the Bible itself – did not generate a feast of the Visitation in Byzantine liturgy82; Elisabeth is only celebrated on the occasion of her “Conception, when she conceived the Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John”, which is commemorated in the latter’s sanctuary “in the quarter of Sporake” on 23 September (itself also the New Year according to Constantine’s Indiction)83, with the same texts as on the feast of John’s nativity and thus clearly forming more a part of the Baptist’s festal cycle than a separate celebration focused on his mother. While Veronica appears on 12 July after a number of other saints celebrated on that date, no reference is yet made to the tradition of the shroud, although the image of Edessa is attested in the cathedral of Constantinople towards the middle of the tenth century (944 CE under Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos), where it is later celebrated on 16 August84; on her own feast day, she is simply referred to as “the woman with an issue of blood” and thereby identified with the anonymous woman from Matt 9,2085. The anonymous Samaritan woman of John 4 is venerated as the martyr Photeine in the Byzantine liturgy; her commemoration occurs on 20 August ante portas, in a church outside the Blachernai gate86. stational calendar only at a later date than the dedication of the chapel of the Theotokos in the same church (cf. above, n. 63). 81. E. PANOU, The Cult of St Anna in Byzantium (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies), Abingdon, TN, Routledge, 2018, pp. 11-15. 82. The feast is only sporadically attested in the East, and it is also a latecomer in the West; cf. above, n. 16. 83. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 42, with cross-reference to the order for the feast of his birth; Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 71; cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 440f. 84. Cf. A.-M. DUBARLE, L’homélie de Grégoire de Référendaire pour la réception de l’image d’Édesse, in Revue des études byzantines 55 (1997) 5-51; M. ILLERT, Doctrina Addai; De imagine Edessena / Die Abgarlegende; Das Christusbild von Edessa (FC, 45), Turnhout, Brepols, 2007, pp. 76-89, 260-311; Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 893-901. 85. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 338; cf. Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 818. Veronica is the last of several saints commemorated on this date; no station or proper is given. 86. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, p. 389, without proper; Synaxarium (n. 40), col. 912; JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), p. 499; cf. A.-M. TALBOT – A. KAZHDAN, The Byzantine Cult of St. Photeine, in A.R. DYCK – S.A. TAKÁCS (eds.), Presence of Byzantium: Studies Presented to Milton V. Anastos in Honor of His Eighty-fifth Birthday (Byzantinische Forschungen, 20), Amsterdam, Hakkert, 1994, 103-112, esp. pp. 106f. While the short notice in the Synaxarium refers to the commemoration on 20 August as ἄθλησις, the hagi- ographic tradition of V. Phot. 3, ed. F. HALKIN, Hagiographica inedita decem (CCSG, 21), Turnhout, Brepols; Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1989, p. 115 (codex unicus from the fourteenth cent.), situates the invention on that day; in view of the explicitly aetiological character of the story, however, it may well be secondary. In the Synaxarium, coll. 549-552, 550 H. BUCHINGER

The “holy martyr and apostle Thecla” has a full proper synaxis “at her martyrion, which is on the Cornmarket” on 24 September. Both troparia of the day hail her as the first female martyr, and the first alludes to details of her Acts87.

3. Rome The church of late antique Rome did not include any biblical or parabiblical women in its sanctoral cycle, although Marian church dedications did occur since Sixtus III (432-440 CE) dedicated the basilica of St Maria88 (later called Maggiore in distinction to others), probably in 434 CE89 and thus in the wake of the council of Ephesus. Regular liturgical veneration of Mary seems to have entered the liturgical calendar of the Western capital only through the backdoor of Eastern influence: Pope Sergius I (687-701 CE), born in Sicily and of Syrian descent, is credited by the papal chronicle with the introduction of a procession on the four feasts of the Annunciation, the Dormition, and the Nativity of Mary, and the feast of “saint Symeon, which the Greeks call Ypapanti” (which later was also to become known as the Purification of Mary)90; this is in fact the first notice of these feasts as such in Rome, where they seem to have been received only with some reluctance91. While the texts of the first three are entirely Marian92, the another commemoration is dedicated to the ἄθλησις of St Photeine and her legendary sons and siblings on 20 March, albeit without stational indication. 87. MATEOS, Le Typicon (n. 40), vol. 1, pp. 42-44; Synaxarium (n. 40), coll. 75-78; on the localisation, cf. JANIN, Les églises (n. 44), pp. 142f. St Thecla must have been popular enough in Constantinople before 400 CE that preachers could refer to her; see VOICU, Thecla (n. 36), pp. 57-60. 88. L. DUCHESNE (ed.), Le Liber pontificalis (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome), Paris, Boccard, 1981 [= 1955], vol. 1, p. 232, #46,3; cf. also the monumental inscription on the triumphal arch and the lost dedicatory inscription quoted ibid., p. 235. 89. Cf. V. SAXER, Sainte-Marie Majeure: Une basilique de Rome dans l’histoire de la ville et de son Église (Ve-XIIIe siècle) (Collection de l’École Française de Rome, 283), Roma, École Française, 2001, pp. 57f. GARITTE, Le calendrier (n. 14), pp. 285f., documents the infiltration into the Palestinian (and Georgian) realm. 90. Liber pontificalis 86,14 (vol. 1, p. 376 DUCHESNE); Liber pontificalis 86,1 (ibid., p. 371) names Sergius, natione Syrus, Antiochiae regionis, ortus ex patre Tiberio in Panormo Siciliae. 91. Cf. AUF DER MAUR, Feste (n. 1), pp. 128f. L.C. MOHLBERG – 3L. EIZENHÖFER (eds.), Sacramentarium Veronense (Cod. Bibl. Capit. Veron. LXXXV [80]) (Rerum Ecclesiasti- carum Documenta. Fontes, 1), Roma, Herder, 31978 [11956], the oldest extant presider’s book codifying Roman material, written in the first half of the seventh century (ibid., pp. XXVf.), does not yet include any Marian feast, although the acephalous manuscript includes the months of August and September. 92. The papal stational liturgy is documented by the Gregorian Sacramentary (J. DESHUSSES [ed.], Le Sacramentaire Grégorien [SpicFri, 16], Fribourg/CH, Éditions uni- versitaires, 31992 [11971]) and the chant manuscripts of R.-J. HESBERT (ed.), Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex, Bruxelles, Vromant, 1935 [repr. Roma, Herder, 1985]; further Roman material, which therefore may stem to a large extent from non-episcopal liturgies (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 551 latter is a feast of Christ in the first place93. Successively, Marian aspects were accentuated also on the octave day of Christmas94, again under Eastern influence95. Apart from the annual commemoration of the dedication of presided over by presbyters, is contained in the so-called Old Gelasian Sacramentary (L.C. MOHLBERG [ed.], Liber sacramentorum romanae aeclesiae ordinis anni circuli [Cod. Vat. Reg. lat. 316/Paris Bibl. Nat. 7193, 41/56] [Sacramentarium Gelasianum] [Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Documenta. Fontes, 4], Roma, Herder, 31981 [11960]). It is not clear, how much of the office texts preserved in the medieval antiphoners of R.-I. HESBERT (ed.), Corpus Antiphonalium Officii (Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Documenta. Fontes, 7-12), Roma, Herder, 1963-1979, go back to late antique Rome. On the feast of the Annunciation, all prayers and most chants are Marian (cf. also MAGGIONI, Annunciazione [n. 49]); the same is true for the Assumption of Mary and her Nativity. 93. On Ypopanti (2 February), however, the prayers of the Gregorian Sacramentary 27,123-127 (SpicFri 16, pp. 123f. DESHUSSES) mention the “intercession of the Blessed ever-virgin Mary” only in passing in the postcommunion, although the collect alludes to the “purification” of the spirit, thus allegorising Luke 2,22. While the Old Gelasian Sacra- mentary 2,8 (RED.F 4, p. 133 MOHLBERG) attests the title “Purification of St Mary”, which also dominates the multifaceted terminology of the early Mass antiphoners, its prayers totally abstain from Marian aspects. Among the chants (Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex 27 [pp. 36-39 HESBERT]), only the first processional antiphon Ave gratia plena, taken over ad litteram from Byzantium, addresses Mary in its first part (see above, n. 50); the instable offertory Diffusa est gratia (Ps 44[45],3), also used on feasts of virgins, has Marian over- tones. Furthermore, the station at St Mary’s gives the whole feast a Marian twist. The Liturgy of the Hours, the precise age of which remains unclear, employs Marian texts – which are partly in common with those of virgins’ feasts – mostly at Nocturns: Corpus Antiphonalium Officii 48 (RED.F 7, pp. 114-177; 8, pp. 192-195 HESBERT). 94. Cf. H. AUF DER MAUR, Feiern im Rhythmus der Zeit. I: Herrenfeste in Woche und Jahr (Gottesdienst der Kirche, 5), Regensburg, Pustet, 1983, pp. 171f. Among the prayers, only the collect of the Gregorian Sacramentary 14,82 (SpicFri 16, p. 112 DESHUSSES) is Marian; but the station at St Mary ad martyres, the former Pantheon, makes clear that the received state of the formulary comes from the seventh century (see below, n. 96), although G. DI NAPOLI, L’orazione colletta del 1° gennaio nel Missale Romanum (1970): Un’attribuzione di paternità, in Marianum 74 (2012) 17-63, seeks to demonstrate the authorship of Leo I (440-461 CE). The preface of the Old Gelasian Sacramentary 9,51 (RED.F 4, p. 13 MOHLBERG), the style and verbosity of which seems to preclude Roman provenance, accentuates Marian aspects among many others, in between even switching the address to the “Mother”. With the exception of the Communion antiphon, the chants, which appear to be borrowed from the common for virgins, testify to a Marian understanding of the day, as does the nomenclature of Natale sanctae Mariae (Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex 16bis [pp. 22f. HESBERT]), but J.-M. GUILMARD, Une antique fête mariale au 1er janvier dans la ville de Rome?, in Ecclesia Orans 11 (1994) 25-67, comes to the conclusion that this is a non-Roman development. Although this is not the place to enter into the discussion about the age of the Roman Mass chants, the minority position of a late date argued by J. MCKINNON, The Advent Project: The Later-Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper, Berkeley, CA, University of California, 2000, should be borne in mind. On the octave day of Christmas in Roman liturgy, see H. BUCHINGER, Die Beschnei- dung des Herrn am Oktavtag von Weihnachten: Liturgische Entwicklung und Entfaltung im ersten Jahrtausend, in J.-H. TÜCK (ed.), Die Beschneidung Jesu: Was sie Juden und Christen heute bedeutet, Freiburg i.Br., Herder, 2020, 147-185, pp. 173-179. 95. While Nocturns on the octave of Christmas are biblical according to Roman usage and predominantly Christological, the series of non-biblical antiphons for Lauds following O admirabile commercium, which are partly directed even to the Mother of God, as well 552 H. BUCHINGER the Pantheon as the church of St Mary ad martyres (under Boniface IV [608-615 CE])96, the texts of which have no Marian signification whatso- ever97, neither the Gregorian Sacramentary, which documents the stational liturgy presided over by the pope when it was exported into the Frankish realm in the later eighth century, nor the calendar of the Lateran basilica from the twelfth century, adopt any further Marian celebrations, let alone for the more remote kin such as Mary’s parabiblical mother, Anna98. Other commemorations, such as the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin with her cousin Elisabeth on 2 July or her conception on 8 December, entered the Roman liturgical books only much later through the hybrid late medieval Romano-Frankish mixed liturgy (with the Franciscans playing a key role)99; the same is true of the celebration of Martha of Bethany on 29 July100. It is noteworthy, however, that the celebration of Mary Magdalene on 22 July, prominent by that time in both East and West, had infiltrated the liturgy of the city of Rome in the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries101, as had St Thecla on 24 September102. In a bold expansion of the concept, one could also include the legendary martyrs Pudentiana (19 May) and Praxedis (21 July), ultimately considered to be daughters of Pudens (cf. 2 Tim 4,21), in the category of “parabiblical” women who were secondarily added to the Roman Sanctorale103. Finally, as the Magnificat antiphon Magnum haereditatis mysterium are drawing on Greek models: A. BAUMSTARK, Byzantinisches in den Weihnachtstexten des römischen Antiphonarius officii, in Oriens Christianus 33 = 3. Serie 11 (1936) 163-187; P. JEFFERY, Παράδοξον Μυστήριον: The Thought of Gregory the Theologian in Byzantine and Latin Liturgical Chant, in Greek Orthodox Theological Review 39 (1994) 187-198; R. STEINER, Antiphons for Lauds on the Octave of Christmas, in J. SZENDREI – D. HILEY (eds.), Laborare fratres in unum: Festschrift László Dobszay zum 60. Geburtstag (Spolia Berolinensia. Berliner Beiträge zur Mediävistik, 7), Hildesheim, Weidmann, 1995, 307-315. No manuscript predates the second half of the ninth century. 96. Liber pontificalis 69,1 (vol. 1, p. 317 DUCHESNE). 97. The prayers of the Gregorian Sacramentary 107,494-496 (SpicFri 16, p. 219) for the Natale Sanctae Mariae ad Martyres, concentrate on the veneration of martyrs, while the chants (Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex 100 [pp. 118f. HESBERT]) focus on the church dedication. 98. The development of the Roman calendar is visualised in the synoptic tables given by AUF DER MAUR, Feste (n. 1), pp. 298-319. 99. Cf. ibid., pp. 156f. 100. Cf. ibid., p. 156. 101. P. JOUNEL, Le culte des saints dans les basiliques du Latran et du Vatican au dou- zième siècle (Collection de l’École Française de Rome, 26), Roma, École Française, 1977, pp. 258f., with reference to V. SAXER, Le culte de Marie Madeleine en Occident des origines à la fin du Moyen Âge (Cahiers d’archéologie et d’histoire, 3), Auxerre, Société des Fouilles Archéologiques et des Monuments Historiques de l’Yonne; Paris, Clavreuil, 1959. On the Byzantine celebration, see above, I.2 with n. 89. 102. JOUNEL, Le culte (n. 101), p. 291. 103. Ibid., pp. 239f., 257f. Both are absent from the early Roman sacramentaries, and their churches entered the stational system and calendar only gradually (and separately); cf. also J.F. BALDOVIN, The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and Meaning of Stational Liturgy (OCA, 228), Roma, Pont. Institutum Studiorum (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 553 it must be mentioned that apart from the Maccabean Brothers104, not a single Old Testament saint, male or female, was ever included into the Roman liturgical calendar105.

II. FEMALE SAINTS FROM THE BIBLE IN THE INTERCESSIONS OF EUCHARISTIC PRAYERS

Since the later fourth century it has become a structural constituent of Eucharistic prayers to “commemorate the deceased: first the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, so that God may receive through their prayers and intercessions also our supplication”, as the mystagogies attributed to Cyril or John of Jerusalem explain106. The developed text of the anaphora of the church of Jerusalem transmitted under the name of Saint James addresses the same categories globally – like most Oriental anaphorai in a slightly amplified version107 – before it sets off onto an exuberant list of names. However, no individual Old Testament saints are mentioned at all, although at a later point the “bosoms of Abraham (cf. Luke 16,22f.), Isaac, and Jacob, our holy fathers” become part of the biblical imagery of eternal rest in the conclusion of the intercession for the deceased108. Among New Testament saints, the following women stick out: “most prominently our all-holy and blessed, undefiled Lady, the God-bearing and ever-virgin Mary”, and later on, the biblical “Myrophore Women”, who are preceded by the parabiblical “Saint Thecla, the (female) protomartyr”109. The commemoration of the Myrophore Women, identified by name as “Mary Magdalene, Mary (the mother) of James, and Salome” (cf. Mark 16,1) in

Orientalium, 1987, tables pp. 285-291; index p. 310. The construction of a common and parabiblical pedigree is late and obviously secondary: E. GRÜNBECK, Praxedis, in LTK3 8 (1999), coll. 520f.; H.R. SEELIGER, Pudens u. Pudentiana, ibid., col. 738. 104. The celebration is already attested by Leo I (440-461 CE), Tract. 84bis (CCSL 148A, pp. 529-532 CHAVASSE); cf. JOUNEL, Le culte (n. 101), p. 265, and AUF DER MAUR, Feste (n. 1), pp. 144, 148. 105. Cf. G. BRAULIK, Verweigert die Westkirche den Heiligen des Alten Testaments die liturgische Verehrung?, in Theologie und Philosophie 82 (2007) 1-20. N.C. SCHNABEL, Die liturgische Verehrung der Heiligen des Alten Testaments in der lateinischen Kirche, Diss. Universität Wien, Katholisch-Theologische Fakultät, 2013, is still unpublished. 106. Mystag. 5,9 (FC 7, p. 152 PIÉDAGNEL – RÖWEKAMP). 107. Cf. A. BUDDE, Die ägyptische Basilios-Anaphora: Text – Kommentar – Geschichte (Jerusalemer Theologisches Forum, 7), Münster, Aschendorff, 2004, pp. 484f. 108. Liturgy attributed to St James (PO 26/2 = 126, p. 220 [106], ll. 11f. MERCIER); on this formulation, cf. BUDDE, Basilios-Anaphora (n. 107), pp. 509-511. 109. Greek liturgy of St James (PO 26/2 = 126, pp. 214 [100], ll. 10f., 216 [102], ll. 2f. MERCIER); the sequence of the latter series is unstable in the Greek manuscripts and in the Georgian version. Thecla and the Myrophores are altogether absent from the Syriac version, which generally gives almost no names of particular saints: O. HEIMING (ed.), Anaphora Sancti Iacobi, fratris Domini, in Anaphorae syriacae 2/2, Roma, Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1953, 105-179, pp. 162ff. 554 H. BUCHINGER the most prominent manuscript of the Georgian version110, belong to the biblical orchestration of the Hagiopolite prayer, along with the Holy Innocents. The Byzantine anaphorai attributed to St Basil and St John Chrysostom only mention the general categories of Old and New Testament saints without pointing to any particular women apart from Mary the Theotokos111; and although the diptychs recited by the deacon, along with the presider’s intercessions, provided an opportunity for reading lists of names, this obviously did not extend to further biblical saints112. The Canon of the Roman Mass contains two lists of saints: the communion of those offering comprises the commemoration of Mary, the twelve apostles and twelve male saints specifically venerated in the Roman tradition; although the second enumeration of those whose company the community wishes to attain is remarkably gender-balanced with an equal number of female and male martyrs, it does not contain any biblical names113. Both lists show some flexibility throughout history, but this apparently did not allow for the integration of biblical women114, although Thecla appears as a regular amplification of the commemoration of female martyrs in the Ambrosian tradition of Milan (where the cathedral was dedicated to the female protomartyr)115.

110. L. KHEVSURIANI – M. SHANIDZE – M. KAVTARIA – T. TSERADZE – S. VERHELST, Liturgia ibero-graeca sancti Iacobi: Editio – translatio – retroversio – commentarii: The Old Georgian Version of the Liturgy of Saint James. La Liturgie de Saint Jacques: Rétroversion grecque et commentaires (Jerusalemer Theologisches Forum, 17), Münster, Aschendorff, 2011, p. 96 with apparatus p. 164, showing that Ms A (Sinai georg. N 58) is the only one giving the full list, which therefore is perhaps to be considered as a secondary expansion. 111. A. HÄNGGI – I. PAHL (eds.), Prex Eucharistica. Vol. I: Textus e variis liturgiis antiquioribus selecti (SpicFri, 12), Freiburg/CH, Universitätsverlag, 31998 [11968], pp. 228, 238. 112. R.F. TAFT, A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Vol. IV: The Diptychs (OCA, 238), Roma, Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1991; cf. ibid., pp. 100f., 118f. on the introduction of the Ekphonesis accentuating the commemoration of Mary. 113. HÄNGGI – PAHL, Prex (n. 111), pp. 430f., 436f. 114. One cannot, of course, totally preclude that in certain places Mary Magdalene was included in later times. 115. V.L. KENNEDY, The Saints of the Canon of the Mass (Studi di antichità cristiana, 14), Città del Vaticano, Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 21963 [11938], p. 71; cf. M. MIGLIARINI, Alle origini del duomo: La basilica e il culto di Santa Tecla (Archivio ambrosiano, 64), Milano, NED, 1990, pp. 59-64. The dedication to St Thecla, who was certainly known in Milan from the fourth century on, is, however, only attested explicitly from the eighth century on, although the tradition may be older (ibid., p. 73). Much later, even the head of the saint is claimed to be kept there (ibid., p. 63, with reference to M. MAGISTRETTI – U. MONNERET DE VILLARD [eds.], Liber notitiae sanctorum Mediolani, Milano, 1917, coll. 383f., #422; thirteenth cent. CE?) – which, of course, contradicts the famous legend of her mysterious disappearance. (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 555

III. FEMALE SAINTS FROM THE BIBLE AS PARADIGMS IN CHRISTIAN PRAYER

Female saints from the Bible serve as paradigms in sacramental prayers beyond the Eucharist. Nuptial blessings in particular refer to prominent couples of biblical narratives. Although no such prayer has been restored with certainty to the tradition of late antique Jerusalem, there are beautiful Byzantine and Roman examples, along with many other traditions not considered in this contribution.

1. Byzantium

The oldest Byzantine euchologion, Barberini gr. 336 (late eighth cent. CE), contains a relatively short “prayer at the betrothal”, which in its anamnetic first part appeals prominently to God, “who blessed Isaac and Rebecca and showed them forth as heirs of your promise (cf. Heb 6,17)”116. The concluding alternative prayer for the marriage itself mentions not only the creation of Eve from the side of Adam (cf. Gen 2,21f.), but also asks God to “bless the unification of your (male) servant N. and your (female) servant N., as you have blessed Abraham and Sarah; bless them as Isaac and Rebecca, bless them as Jacob and Rachel; crown them as Joseph and Aseneth, as Moses and Zipporah”117. It is noteworthy that none of these formulations draws exactly on the Old Testament118. In the received tradition, the betrothal concludes with a lengthy prayer, the first part of which comes from a prayer over a pledge of marriage (εἰς ἀῤῥαβῶνα γάμου) in the twelfth-century euchologion Sinai gr. 973, probably of Alexandrian provenance119. It refers to God, “who, when you went to Mesopotamia with the servant of the patriarch Abraham who was sent to woo a wife for Isaac, and revealed through the mediation of drawing water that Rebecca was to be plighted to him (ἀῤῥαβωνίσασθαι αὐτῷ; cf. Genesis 24)”120; again, it should be noted that the constitutive key word ἀῤῥαβών/ἀῤῥαβωνίζεσθαι does not occur in Genesis 24.

116. S. PARENTI – E. VELKOVSKA (eds.), L’Eucologio Barberini gr. 336 (Bibliotheca Ephemerides liturgicae. Subsidia, 80), Roma, C.L.V.-Liturgiche, 22000, p. 185, #184. My sincere thanks go to Gabriel Radle for many helpful remarks on a draft of the following sections. 117. Euchologion Barberini gr. 336, 184 (BEL.S 80, p. 188 PARENTI – VELKOVSKA). 118. Only Rebecca is blessed by her family in Gen 24,60; in Isa 51,2 God says that he blessed Abraham, who together with Sarah is named previously in the same verse. 119. S. PARENTI, The Christian Rite of Marriage in the East, in A.J. CHUPUNGCO (ed.), Handbook for Liturgical Studies. IV: Sacraments and Sacramentals (A Pueblo Book), Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2000, 255-274, pp. 265f., 269, with reference to the earlier bibliography. 120. J. GOAR (ed.), Εὐχολόγιον sive Rituale Graecorum, Venezia, Javarina, 21730 [cf. 1Paris, Piget, 1647; repr. Graz, ADEVA, 1960], pp. 313f.; А.А. Дмитриевский ( Dmitrievskij), Описание литургическихъ рукописей, хранящихся въ библиотекахъ 556 H. BUCHINGER

In the modern Byzantine marriage liturgy itself, two other prayers come before the ancient Constantinopolitan prayer for marriage: an – obviously late – prayer literally related to the above-mentioned alternative prayer of the Barberini euchologion complements the same Old-Testament list with two others, one parabiblical couple and one from the New Testament: Joachim and Anna, and Zechariah and Elisabeth121. This prayer is preceded by another one, already attested in the euchologia St Petersburg gr. 226 (tenth cent. CE, of Italo-Greek origin) and Sinai gr. 958 (eleventh cent. CE?) for the crowning122; it may be of Palestinian origin123, since it is also present in the more purely Hagiopolite Georgian euchologion Sinai georg. O 12, likewise from the tenth century (although the relevant part is not attested in Sinai georg. O 66)124. It refers to a long enumeration of biblical paradigms – in fact, the most comprehensive one under consideration in this survey – not in the deprecatory second part, but in the anamnetic foundation in the first part: God is not only addressed as having founded the union of humans in creation; he is also the one “who blessed your attendant Abraham and opened the womb of Sarah (cf. Gen 21,1f.) and made him the father of a multitude of nations (cf. Gen 17,4) and a countless people; who joined Isaac to Rebecca (cf. Gene- sis 24), and blessed their fruit (cf. Genesis 27?); who joined Jacob to Rachel, and has shown forth from her the twelve Patriarchs (cf. Genesis 29f.)125; who united Joseph and Aseneth and gave them Ephraim and Manasseh as fruit (cf. Gen 41,45.50-52; 46,20); who accepted Zechariah and Elisabeth and showed their offspring forth as the Forerunner (cf. Luke 1); who from the root of Jesse caused to blossom forth according to the flesh

Православного Востока. II: Εὐχολόγια, Киевъ, Корчакъ-Новицкий, 1901 [repr. Hildesheim, Olms, 1965], pp. 95f. 121. GOAR, Εὐχολόγιον (n. 120), pp. 316f. “The second prayer, similar to the first in content and literary form, is almost unknown even in the late manuscript tradition” (PARENTI, Rite [n. 119], p. 270). The New Testament couples are missing from the anteced- ent of this prayer in the thirteenth-cent. Euchologion Athos Lavra 189 (Дмитриевский, Описание [n. 120], vol. 2, pp. 183f.). 122. PARENTI, Rite (n. 119), pp. 262, 265 (“later [11th cent.]”), 270. Earlier literature, including Дмитриевский, Описание (n. 120), p. 19, and M. KAMIL, Catalogue of All Manuscripts in the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1970, p. 110, tentatively dated the manuscript to the tenth century. 123. G.I. RADLE, The Byzantine Marriage Tradition in Calabria: Vatican Reginensis gr. 75 (a. 982/3), in Bollettino della Badia greca di Grottaferrata 9 (2012) 221-245, p. 227, discusses the wide diffusion of the prayer and suggests Palestinian origin; ID., The Rite of Marriage in the Archimedes Euchology & Sinai gr. 973 (a. 1152/3), in Scripta & e-Scripta 12 (2013) 187-199, p. 193, addresses it as “the common Palestinian marriage prayer”. 124. ექვთიძე კოჭლაძაზაშვილი (Ḳ oč̣lamazašvili), წიძდობისა და ქორწილის საეკლესიო რიტუალი უKველეს ქართულ “კურთხევათა” კრებულებში, in ქრისტიანულ-არქეოლოგიური Kიებანი 1 (2008) 349-369, pp. 359f. The precise relation of this longer prayer and its shorter parallel to Greek texts has not yet been studied in detail. 125. The passage about Jacob and Rachel is missing from Sinai gr. 958, but present in Sinai georg. O 12, albeit in abbreviated form without reference to the Patriarchs. (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 557 the ever-virgin (cf. Isa 11,1.10; Rom 15,12; Matt 1,1-17; Luke 3,23-28)126 …”127. While the entire passage is based on biblical stories, it appears that the formulations of joining Isaac to Rebecca and joining Jacob to Rachel concentrate more on the wife than does either the biblical text or the patriarchal reality of antiquity128. In Sinai gr. 958, another prayer is inserted between the Constantinopo- litan one and the allegedly Palestinian one quoted above; it is unique among the prayers considered here in turning to bridegroom, bride, and best man separately as it founds the blessing on respective biblical paradigms: “Blessed are you also, bride, like Sarah, glorified like Rebecca, multiplied like Rachel; give her, O Lord, the intelligence of Aseneth”129.

2. Jerusalem? A synthesis of the marriage rite of late antique Jerusalem waits to be written130. While all Greek euchologia preserved on Mount Sinai attest the Byzantinisation and other hybridisations of the marriage rite, a few sources from the Palestinian realm contain rites and alternative prayers which may come from the area and thus be of Hagiopolite origin131; these include Sinai gr. 958 and 973 and Sinai georg. O 12 and 66 mentioned above.

126. The passage about the root of Jesse is highly unstable and potentially corrupt; cf. G. BALDANZA, Il rito matrimoniale dell’Euchologio Sinaitico Greco 958 ed il significato della coronazione nella δόξα καὶ τιμή: Proposte per una ricerca teologica, in Ephemerides Liturgicae 95 (1981) 289-315, pp. 301ff. In Sinai gr. 958, it is inserted after Ephraim and Manasseh in a hardly intelligible form: οἱ ἐκ τῆς ῥίζης Ἰεσσαὶ τὸ κατὰ σάρκα βλαστήσαντες (“who sprouted forth from the root of Jesse what is according to the flesh”); in Sinai georg. O 12 it is likewise inserted after the line on Ephraim and Manasseh, but addresses God, reading “who from the root of Jesse became flesh”. Unfortunately, the marriage liturgy of St Petersburg gr. 226 is not part of the edition in the published extract of P. KOUMARIANOS, Il Codice 226 della Biblioteca di San Pietroburgo: L’Eucologio Bizantino di Porfyrio Uspensky, Diss. Nr. 406 / 233, Roma, Pontificium Institutum Orien- talium Studiorum, 1996; according to a kind note from Gabriel Radle, it concurs with the manuscripts mentioned above in placing the line about the root of Jesse after Ephraim and Manasseh and before Zechariah and Elisabeth. Putting it at the end may therefore be a late intervention in the history of the text. 127. GOAR, Εὐχολόγιον (n. 120), pp. 315f.; Дмитриевский, Описание (n. 120), vol. 2, pp. 29f. 128. Furthermore, at least in the received text Mary is inserted into the offspring of Jesse without the mediation of Joseph, in contrast to the gospels; but see above, n. 126. 129. Дмитриевский, Описание (n. 120), vol. 2, p. 29. 130. H. BRAKMANN – T. CHRONZ, Ist das Jerusalemer Euchologion noch zu retten?, in Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 54 (2012) 1-28, pp. 8, 10f., 24f.; but see the studies of G. RADLE quoted in nn. 123 and 131. 131. G. RADLE, The Development of Byzantine Marriage Rites as Evidenced by Sinai Gr. 957, in OCP 78 (2012) 133-148; ID., Rite (n. 123); ID., The Nuptial Rites in Two Redis- covered First-Millennium Sinai Euchologies, in B. GROEN – D. GALADZA – N. GLIBETIĆ – G. RADLE (eds.), Rites and Rituals of the Christian East: Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, Lebanon, 10-15 July, 2012 (Eastern Christian Studies, 22), Leuven, Peeters, 2014, 303-315; cf. also above, III.1 with nn. 119-127. 558 H. BUCHINGER

Some of these prayers contain references to the biblical paradigms: apart from the “common Palestinian marriage prayer” quoted above from Sinai georg. 958 with its most comprehensive enumeration of Old and New Testament figures132, a “rare periphery prayer” of Sinai gr. 973 appeals to the blessing of Joseph and Aseneth and the blessing of “the mistress Theotokos” in its deprecatory part133. Another alternative prayer is one of the obviously very few to include Leah within the usual petition to bless “as you blessed Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, Joseph and Aseneth”134, while the analogous list of the following prayer is more conventional: “Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Joseph and Aseneth”135. In addition to the presumably Palestinian marriage prayer quoted above, the Georgian euchologia contain a prayer for the betrothal appealing to the blessing of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Rachel in its anamnetic part136.

3. Rome The traditional Roman wedding liturgy only blessed the bride; as was the case in many comparable prayers for various ecclesial ranks or ways of life, the deprecatory part combined a supplication with an implicit admonition about the duties and prohibitions of the future status. Before the request of a union with a single marital bed and the flight of illicit contacts are addressed, among others, biblical examples are invoked: “she shall wed chastely in Christ and remain an imitator of the holy women”, which is subsequently concretised with reference to the patriarchs’ wives: “she shall be lovely as Rachel to her husband, wise as Rebecca, long- living and faithful as Sarah”137.

132. See above, III.1 with nn. 123f. 133. Дмитриевский, Описание (n. 120), vol. 2, p. 97; cf. RADLE, Rite (n. 123), p. 192. 134. Дмитриевский, Описание (n. 120), vol. 2, p. 98. 135. Ibid.; cf. RADLE, Rite (n. 123), p. 192. 136. კოჭლაძაზაშვილი, რიტუალი (n. 124), pp. 351f. 137. None of the concrete formulations comes literally from the Bible. The passage is documented since its first attestation in the Verona Sacramentary 31,1110 (RED.F 1, p. 140 MOHLBERG – 3EIZENHÖFER); Gregorian Sacramentary 200,838b (SpicFri 16, p. 310 DESHUSSES); Old Gelasian Sacramentary 42,1451 (RED.F 4, p. 210 MOHLBERG); it was reduced to the faint generic statement about imitating “the holy women, whose praise is proclaimed in Scripture”, only in the recent reform of the Roman rite (Rituale Romanum … Ordo Celebrandi Matrimonium, editio typica altera, Vatican, 1991, p. 26). Although this contribution limits itself to the liturgies of Jerusalem, Byzantium, and Rome, one particularly interesting testimony from Merovingian Gaul should not go unmen- tioned: the seventh-century “Bobbio Missal” does not only draw exclusively on women from the Old Testament as types for both spouses in the second “benediction of the bridal chamber upon those who are getting married”: “may they put on the affection of Sarah, the penitence of Rebecca, the love of Rachel and the grace and affection of Susanna…” (E.A. LOWE [ed.], The Bobbio Missal: A Gallican Mass-Book [Ms. Paris. lat. 13246] (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 559

Biblical paradigms are also invoked in prayers for the dying, which, however, are codified only in hybrid witnesses of the Romano-Frankish synthesis in the early Middle Ages and therefore most likely do not go back to late antique Rome. The famous litany “Liberate, O Lord, the soul of your servant N., as you liberated xyz (Libera domine animam servi tui N, sicut liberasti xyz)”, accumulates biblical paradigms of salvation138. Already the earliest extant witness of such a commendatio animae in the Frankish Sacramentary of Gellone (late eighth cent. CE) appeals to God to liberate the soul of the dying “as you liberated Susanna from false testimony”139; the roughly contemporary Sacramentary of Rheinau (around 800 CE) omits this paradigm, but closes in turn with the invocation “… as you liberated Thecla from three torments”140. This is structurally significant, as it raises Thecla, the only parabiblical figure in this list, to quasi-biblical dignity. In later witnesses, both, Susanna and Thecla, become stock inventory of the Libera litany141. It may be mentioned that for diverse reasons all these female paradigms happened to become suppressed in the latest reform of the Roman liturgy.

IV. OUTLOOK

1. Hymnography Of course, female figures from the Bible also occur in hymnography; but the vast repertoires of the various traditions have yet to be systematically investigated. At any rate, the Roman liturgy (in the strict sense of the liturgy of the city of Rome) resisted the introduction of non-biblical poetry throughout the first millennium, while hymnography flourished almost everywhere else and complemented the older core of liturgical structures.

[Henry Bradshaw Society, 58], London, Boydell, 1920, p. 168, #551; cf. G. RADLE, Bishops Blessing the Bridal Bedchamber in the Early Middle Ages: Reconsidering the Western Evidence, in Medium Aevum 87 [2018] 219-238; a kind hint from Gabriel Radle). The subsequent “prayer upon those who are getting married for the second time” is in the first place unique in appealing to Ruth, “… as in ancient times you blessed Ruth the Moabite”; secondly, it makes the rare use of both wives of Jacob as models for the envisaged progeny when it prays that God might “make this woman, who comes into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who built the house of Israel” (Bobbio Missal 552 [HBS 58, p. 168 LOWE]). 138. The Libera is missing from the oldest witnesses of early Roman liturgy, the Old Gelasian and the Gregorian Sacramentary (and even of the Frankish supplement to the latter). 139. A. DUMAS (ed.), Liber Sacramentorum Gellonensis. Textus (CCSL, 159), Turnhout, Brepols, 1981, p. 461, #486,2893. 140. A. HÄNGGI – A. SCHÖNHERR, Sacramentarium Rhenaugiense: Handschrift Rh 30 der Zentralbibliothek Zürich (SpicFri, 15), Freiburg/CH, Universitätsverlag, 1970, p. 272, #266,1330. 141. D. SICARD, La liturgie de la mort dans l’église latine des origines à la réforme carolingienne (LQF, 63), Münster, Aschendorff, 1978, pp. 366-368. 560 H. BUCHINGER

The ancient hymnal of Jerusalem transmitted in Georgian translation attests not only the frequent inclusion of references to the Virgin Mary, which later were to become stereotype in the Byzantine tradition; the hymns for the Sunday resurrection vigil, for example, also make mimetic appeals to the women approaching the tomb142. Old Testament women, however, do not appear to be given particular attention in this oldest surviving hymnographic corpus from the Christian East. Syriac dialogue poems143 and the hymns (received as kontakia) of Romanos the Melodist are a rich source of rewritten biblical narrative, in which female protagonists are often given a significant role144. Marian theology exploded qualitatively and quantitatively especially in Byzantium, but also in Jerusalem, the rest of the Christian East, and later also in the West. Eve is not infrequently mentioned together with Adam when the human condition and its restoration are addressed. Female protagonists from the history of Israel, however, appear to feature only exceptionally in Byzantine hymnography: they are mentioned, for example, on the feast of the forefathers preceding Christmas (albeit only in passing)145.

2. Mary Magdalene Apart from Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene became probably the most important biblical woman in medieval Christianity. After Late Antiquity, the Byzantine feast on 22 July spread not only east to Palestine and adjacent regions, but also to the Latin West146, where she

142. The Oktoechos part of the Iadgari, first translated by C. RENOUX, Les hymnes de la Résurrection. I: Hymnographie liturgique géorgienne. Textes du Sinaï 18 (Sources liturgiques, 3), Paris, Cerf, 2000; ID., Les Hymnes de la Résurrection. II: Hymnographie liturgique géorgienne. Texte des manuscrits Sinaï 40, 41 et 34 (PO, 52/1 = 231), Turnhout, Brepols, 2010; ID., Les Hymnes de la Résurrection. III: Hymnographie liturgique géor- gienne. Introduction, traduction, annotation des manuscrits Sinaï 26 et 20 et index analy- tique des trois volumes (PO, 52/2 = 232), Turnhout, Brepols, 2010, is now conveniently available in the bilingual edition of S.J. SHOEMAKER, The First Christian Hymnal: The Songs of the Ancient Jerusalem Church (Middle Eastern Text Initiative. Eastern Christian Texts), Provo, UT, Brigham Young University, 2018. 143. Cf. the inventory given by Sebastian BROCK, Dramatic Dialogue Poems, in H.J.W. DRIJVERS – R. LAVENANT – C. MOLENBERG – G.J. REININK (eds.), IV Symposium Syriacum 1984: Literary Genres in Syriac Literature (Groningen – Oosterhesselen 10-12 September) (OCA, 229), Roma, Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 1987, 135-147. 144. Studies of Romanos are flourishing; most recently, cf. the dissertations of C. MULARD, La pensée symbolique de Romanos le Mélode (Cahiers de Biblia Patristica, 16), Turnhout, Brepols, 2016; ARENTZEN, The Reception of the Virgin (n. 46), and S. GADOR- WHYTE, Theology and Poetry in Early Byzantium: The Kontakia of Romanos the Melodist, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017. 145. B. GROEN, Old Testament Saints and Anti-Judaism in the Current Byzantine Liturgy, in A Cloud of Witnesses (n. 6), 145-159, pp. 147f., 150. 146. See above, I.2 with n. 89 and I.3 with n. 101. (PARA)BIBLICAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN LITURGY 561 became incredibly popular in liturgy and beyond147 – but this is also clearly beyond the time-frame of this contribution.

V. S UMMARY

Biblical and parabiblical women do not feature prominently in late antique Christian liturgy. From the Old Testament, the matriarchs and other biblical couples – only occasionally also taken from the New Testament – are important as paradigms in the marriage prayers of various rites; otherwise, only Rachel gets some attention at her tomb in the vicinity of Jerusalem, although even this may be induced by the occurrence of her name in the New Testament. From the New Testament, the Myrophore Women play a certain role in late antique Jerusalem and Byzantium; later on, Mary Magdalene makes an unprecedented career of her own. Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus in John 11, are venerated in Bethany near Jerusalem and in Constantinople. Other women accompany important biblical men in concomitant feasts: a commemoration of Elisabeth precedes the feast of the beheading of her famous son in late antique Jerusalem, and the prophetess Anna anticipates (in Jerusalem) or follows (in Byzantium) the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. In both East and West, the parabiblical figure of Thecla is celebrated as the protomartyr among women. Most notable is the incomparable explosion of Marian commemorations, the first of which probably antedates the definition of Mary as Theotokos at the council of Ephesus148. From the sixth century on, feasts of various parabiblical and outright apocryphal moments of her life are celebrated, both in Jerusalem and especially in Constantinople, from whence some of

147. After SAXER, Le culte (n. 101), cf., among others, the monographs by W. AUS DER FÜNTEN, Maria Magdalena in der Lyrik des Mittelalters (Wirkendes Wort, 3), Düsseldorf, Schwann, 1966; V. SAXER, Le Dossier vézelien de Marie Madeleine: Invention et translation des reliques en 1265-1267. Contribution à l’histoire du culte de la sainte à Vézelay à l’apogée du Moyen Âge (Subsidia hagiographica, 57), Bruxelles, Société des Bollandistes, 1975; C.E. VAN DEN WILDENBERG-DE KROON, Das Weltleben und die Bekehrung der Maria Magdalena im deutschen religiösen Drama und in der bildenden Kunst des Mittelalters (Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur, 38), Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1979; E.-M. ADAM, Maria Magdalena in geistlichen Spielen des Mittelalters, Zürich, Druckstelle der Studentenschaft der Universität Zürich, 1996; K.L. JANSEN, The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2000, M.A. ERHARDT – A.M. MORRIS (eds.), Mary Magdalene: Iconographic Studies from the Middle Ages to the Baroque (Studies in Religion and the Arts, 7), Leiden, Brill, 2012; M. ARNOLD, The Magdalene in the Reformation, Cambridge, MA, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018, and D. HILEY, Early Cycles of Office Chants for the Feast of Mary Magdalene, in J. HAINES – R. ROSENFELD (eds.), Music and Medieval Manuscripts: Paleography and Performance. Essays Dedicated to Andrew Hughes, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004, 369-399. 148. Cf. above, n. 9. 562 H. BUCHINGER them spread to both East and West (although the Roman liturgy received them only reluctantly); ultimately, they span Mary’s life from conception to death. On the one hand, the contents of these feasts are derived from ancient extracanonical literature, especially the Protevangelium Jacobi and complex traditions regarding the Dormition and Assumption of Mary; on the other hand, they develop in a complex interplay with the topography of sanctuaries and the materiality of relics. The veneration spreads further to Mary’s apocryphal parents, Joachim and Anna; in Constantinople, over time the latter even receives some attention of her own. Whereas in Byzantium anonymous women from the New Testament are identified as Veronica or Photeine, the biblicism of the Roman liturgy resisted such temptations. Apart from Mary the Theotokos, only the Myrophores and Thecla enter the list of saints enumerated in the eucharistic prayer of Jerusalem (and the latter also in Milan); in other rites, all other biblical and parabiblical women are silenced on this occasion, while Mary rises to unrivalled prominence.

Fakultät für Katholische Theologie Harald BUCHINGER Universität Regensburg DE-93040 Regensburg Germany [email protected]

ABSTRACT. — In Christian liturgy, saints appear in three prominent places: firstly and perhaps most importantly, feasts of the sanctoral cycle of annual celebrations are dedicated to the veneration of particular figures; the exchange of such sanctoral commemorations is also a medium for networking between different communities and regions. Secondly, lists of saints are commemorated in the intercessions of Eucharistic prayers, that is, a structural component in which the universal communion of those partaking in the Eucharist comes to be developed. While these saints come from both the Bible and – much more dominantly – from Christian history, a third function is reserved for biblical and parabiblical characters: paradigms from the Bible are invoked in certain prayers either as examples of God’s salvific activity or as role models for those for whose benefit the prayer is spoken. In this article, all three categories are surveyed in the liturgy of late antique Jerusalem, the “mother of all churches”, and in the Byzantine and Roman liturgies as those which have become the dominant rites of Eastern and Western Christianity.