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Imitatio Mosis and Pilgrimage in the Life of Peter the Iberian

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Imitatio Mosis and Pilgrimage in the Life of Peter the Iberian IMITATIO MOSIS AND PILGRIMAGE IN THE LIFE OF PETER THE IBERIAN When John Rufus — disciple and companion of Peter the Iberian in his old age, and his successor as bishop of Maiuma near Gaza — com- posed the Life of Peter the Iberian at the end of the fifth century1, Greek hagiographic models were easily available2. Indeed, in many senses, the author followed a standard pattern of account, describing Peter’s ances- try, his education, his character, central events in his life, his travels, his doctrines, his death, and his heirs. Peter was depicted as an enthusiastic pilgrim, a zealous monk, a dynamic bishop, a holy man, and an anti- Chalcedonian leader3. Likewise, the criteria of sanctity in this Vita are those common in hagiography: asceticism, the working of miracles, power of discernment (diakrisis), and freedom of speech (parrêsia)4. John Rufus’ goal, however, was not merely to write an eloquent hagio- I thank Aryeh Kofsky, Ora Limor, and David Satran for their helpful comments and suggestions on this paper. This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation. 1 The Vita Petri Iberi was written in Greek and survived in Syriac. For the Syriac text with a German translation, see Petrus der Iberer: Ein Charakterbild zur Kirchen- und Sittengeschichte des fünften Jahrhunderts, R. RAABE (ed.), Leipzig, 1895 (hereinafter V. Petri Ib.). I am deeply indebted to Sebastian Brock for putting at my disposal D.J. Chit- ty’s unpublished English translation of the Vita Petri. For a detailed summary of the Vita in French, see J.B. CHABOT, Pierre l’Ibérien, évêque Monophysite de Mayouma [Gaza] à la fin du ve siècle, in Revue de l’Orient Latin, 3 (1895), p. 367-97. For a Georgian version of the Syriac Life of Peter, see D.M. LANG, Peter the Iberian and his Biographers, in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2 (1951), p. 158-68; A. SCHMIDT, Habent sua fata libelli. Georgische Fiktion contra armenische Fälschung: Die Vita Petrus des Iberes im Spannungsfeld zwischen armenischer und georgischer Überlieferung, in B. SCHRADE (ed.), Georgien im Spiegel seiner Kultur und Geschichte. Akten des Zweiten Deutsch- Georgisches Symposium, Berlin, 1998, p. 91-95. 2 On John Rufus’ writings, see E. SCHWARTZ, Johannes Rufus, ein monophysitischer Schriftsteller, Heidelberg, 1912; J.-E. STEPPA, John Rufus and the World Vision of Anti- Chalcedonian Culture, Piscataway, 2002 (= STEPPA, John Rufus); IDEM, Heresy and Or- thodoxy: The Anti-Chalcedonian Hagiography of John Rufus, in B. BITTON-ASHKELONY and A. KOFSKY (eds.), Christian Gaza in Late Antiquity, Leiden, 2004, p. 89-106. 3 A. KOFSKY, Peter the Iberian: Pilgrimage, Monasticism and Ecclesiastical Politics in Byzantine Palestine, in Liber Annuus, 47 (1997), p. 209-22) (= KOFSKY, Peter the Ibe- rian); C.B. HORN, Beyond Theology: The Career of Peter the Iberian in the Christo- logical Controversies of Fifth-Century Palestine, Ph.D. diss., The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 2001. For an overview of Peter’s monastic activity in Pales- tine, see B. BITTON-ASHKELONY and A. KOFSKY, Gazan Monasticism in the Fourth-Sixth Centuries: From Anchoritic to Cenobitic, in Proche Orient Chrétien, 50 (2000), p. 14-62. 4 See, for example, B. FLUSIN, Miracle et histoire dans l’oeuvre de Cyrille de Scythopolis, Paris, 1983 (= FLUSIN, Miracle et histoire). In analyzing this Vita I have been much influenced by P. COX MILLER, Strategies of Representation in Collective Biogra- phy: Constructing the Subject as Holy, in T. HÄGG and P. ROUSSEAU (eds.), Greek Biog- raphy and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, Berkeley, 2000, p. 209-54. 52 B. BITTON-ASHKELONY graphic treatise; rather, his narrative aimed to be a propagandist compo- sition in hagiographic dress, merging the hero’s life with the religious controversy that ensued after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 in the Eastern Empire5. Yet Rufus’ commitment to anti-Chalcedonian propa- ganda — to which a few years later he devoted his composition the Plerophoriae — did not block his interest in history or in its details6. The text does in fact describe the life of Peter and his politeia, but all the while promotes his theological inclinations7. Despite theological controversy being foregrounded in the Vita, its idiosyncracy resides in two particular features: the interpretation of Pe- ter’s activities throughout the Vita in light of the biblical Moses and the relatively detailed accounts of the hero’s pilgrimages. These two peculi- arities, especially the use of Moses as the icon of the Vita, served the religious orientation that guided the author — namely, the anti- Chalcedonian stance — and his general tendency to praise and laud Pe- ter as “that minister of God and fellow in zeal of the great Moses,”8 as one holding firmly the orthodoxy, i.e., the anti-Chalcedonian faith. While spending his teenage years as a political hostage in the court of Theodosius II in Constantinople, Peter had embraced ascetic behaviour and striven to escape the palace and head for Jerusalem9. His objective in undertaking the journey to Jerusalem in the year 437/8 is described in the opening lines of his Vita — namely, the realization of akseniutha (Greek xeniteia): When he [Peter] had advanced in age and spiritual love, and was adding every day to the grace of divine fire, and was placing ascent in his heart… he longed to go far from the world and its vanity, and run to that first of virtues which is akseniutha10. This desire was ardently shared by the monks flocking to the holy sites in Palestine from the fourth century on. The ideal of xeniteia, 5 For the christological controversies in that period in Palestine, see L. PERRONE, La chiesa di Palestina e le controversie cristologiche, Dal concilio di Efeso (431) al secondo concilio di Costantinopoli (553), Brescia, 1980, p. 89-202. 6 Plerophoriae, ed. with a French trans., F. NAU, Plérophories: témoignages et révélations contre le concile de Chalcédoine, P.O., 8.1, Paris, 1912. On the propagandist aspects of the Plerophoriae, see L. PERRONE, Dissenso dottrinale e propaganda visio- naria: le Pleroforie di Giovanni di Maiuma, in Augustinianum, 29 (1989), p. 451–95; STEPPA, John Rufus, p. 73-80. 7 For the use of hagiography as a weapon in the Chalcedonian controversy in Pales- tine, see B. FLUSIN, L’hagiographie palestinienne et la réception du concile de Chalcé- doine, in J.-O. ROSENQVIST (ed.), LEIMWN: Studies Presented to Lennart Rydén on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, Uppsala, 1996, p. 25-47 (= FLUSIN, L'hagiographie palestinienne). 8 V. Petri Ib., 70-71. 9 Ibid., 15-18. 10 Ibid., 20. For the date of Peter’s journey, see P. DEVOS, Quand Pierre l’Ibère vint-il à Jérusalem, in Analecta Bollandiana, 86 (1968), p. 338. IMITATIO MOSIS AND PILGRIMAGE IN THE LIFE OF PETER THE IBERIAN 53 prevalent in monastic culture — a life of self-imposed exile, voluntary alienation and wandering, separation from family, and detachment from all social relationships — aims at spiritual progress. The very essence of xeniteia is the perception of the monk as stranger — in both a physical and a spiritual sense11. From the fourth century on an explicit affinity is noticeable in monastic culture between the phenomenon of pilgrimage and the realization of xeniteia. Of special interest are those instances in which holy sites and the Holy Land were chosen as the setting for achieving these ideals12. In the Life of Peter the Iberian the juxtaposition of monastic politeia with the ideal of akseniutha near the holy places in Palestine is wholly evident. In late antiquity, voluntary exile and wan- derings had affected monastic life and aroused controversy among Church and ascetic leaders, as well as among ordinary monks13. How- ever, in the Life of Peter the Iberian scarcely any ambivalence or reser- vations regarding the act of voluntary exile is discernible. On the con- trary, the author represents it as the culmination of the hero’s ambi- tions — to achieve the crown of akseniutha14. Four threads depicting pilgrimage and the discovery of a holy tomb are interwoven in the Life of Peter: a description of Peter and his com- panion entering Jerusalem, the visit to Mount Nebo, the inventio of the tomb of Moses at Mount Nebo, and the dream journey to the sacred sites in Jerusalem and its environs15. Certainly, by the time Peter the Iberian and his entourage were overwhelmed by the vision of the glistening 11 The classic study on the various meanings of zeniteía in Greek and Syriac litera- ture is still A. GUILLAUMONT, Le dépaysement comme forme d'ascèse dans le monachisme ancien, in IDEM, Aux origines du monachisme chrétien: Pour une phénoménologie du monachisme (Spiritualité Orientale, 30), Paris, 1979, p. 89-116. See also, B. BITTON- ASHKELONY, Pilgrimage in Monastic Culture in Late Antiquity, in M. STONE, R. ERVINE, and N. STONE (eds.), The Armenians in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Leuven, 2002, p. 1- 17 (= BITTON-ASHKELONY, Pilgrimage in Monastic Culture). For a thorough discussion of the phenomenon of wandering monks in its social, economic, and ecclesiastical contexts, see D. CANER, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, Berkeley, 2002, p. 19-82 (= CANER, Wondering, Begging Monks). 12 On this affinity, see BITTON-ASHKELONY, Pilgrimage in Monastic Culture. 13 CANER, Wandering, Begging Monks; D. BRAKKE, Outside the Places, Within the Truth: Athanasius of Alexandria and the Localization of the Holy, in D. FRANKFURTER (ed.), Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt, Leiden, 1998, p. 445–81; S. ELM, Athanasius of Alexandria’s Letter to the Virgins: Who Was Its Intended Audi- ence? in Augustinianum, 33 (1993), p. 171–83; G.E. GOULD, Moving On and Staying Put in the Apophthegmata Patrum, in Studia Patristica, 20 (1989), p.
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