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Accepting the divine order allows for a return to normality. Outside the monastery the world is topsy turvy - an inversion of the divine realm - therefore the mother tries to prevent her son becoming a monk and the mother herself is unwomanly and manly. The monastery is an inversion of the temporal realm of daily life. Then son can imitate Christ and the mother the Virgin Mary.
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At first the mother's role is to hinder her son in his efforts to become a monk, only when she submits and allows that, then becoming a nun herself does she become "properly" female herself. Outlandish details, like the description of the saint's mother - monstrously strong and with a voice like a man's - are not a sign of veracity but a function of the story telling. However Bortnes' argument is that his account is deliberately ahistorical. Saint Theodosius as monk and later Abbot of the Caves monastery near Kiev died only a few years before Nestor wrote his Life.
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In later literature we might think of the dialogues between Raskolnikov and Porfiry in Crime and Punishment (the latter as a Detective is literally the representative of the Emperor) and the story of the Grand Inquisitor (with the Grand Inquisitor playing the part of the persecuting Emperor - Dostoevsky wasn't a fan of the Catholic church) in The Brothers Karamazov. This draws not only on the Gospels with the martyr imitating Christ but also on pagan martyr stories which follow the same pattern. There were two general models in early Christian writing - the life ( Vita) and the martyr-passion ( passio martyrum) which featured a dramatic dialogue between the accused and the Roman Emperor or his representative followed by the execution of the martyr. p34 (view spoiler) That comparison points to the potential power and freedoms possible through reference to this kind of writing, you can have knock about humour and spiritual transformation, indeed possibly the two have to skip hand in hand together. Both the Christian protagonist of the Acts of the Apostles and the Isis- mustes in Apuleius' Golden Ass, conquer death through their suffering and prove worthy of deification through the god for whose sake and in whose image they have undertaken to suffer. Rather, they are the verbal expressions of a mythical world-view in which conceptual contrasts such as life and death, affirmation and negation, deification and abasement, are not absolutely opposed to each other, but are complementary: life is fraught with death and death with birth, affirmation implies negation, humiliation is the other side of theosis. Bortnes writes: neither the late-antique novel nor early Christian hagiographical literature is pure entertainment or even even entertainment with an additional didactic function, as has often been maintained. We are first introduced to Early Christian writing by Bortnes, but which itself was derived from the classical tradition and folk tales but adapted when necessary to suit new needs. This became a source of inspiration for nineteenth century Russian writers.īortnes looks at three works in detail: The Life of Saint Theodosius by Nestor (view spoiler) written during the 1080s, The Life of Saint Stephen of Perm written by Epiphanius the Wise written in 1397 and Archpriest Avvakum the Life Written by Himself which was written between 16 and has come down to us in a complex manuscript (MS) tradition (view spoiler) Topoi, language, literary allusions and structure could all be used to affect the reader or listener, particularly through a structured and carefully constructed appeal to the emotions.
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Part of the appeal of Saint's lives came from their strongly didactic nature - this was writing designed to have an impact upon the reader. Top This is a book about hagiographical patterns in Russian saint's lives written in the period before Peter the Great, however the author became interested in this topic because they noticed motives in nineteenth century writers including Leskov and Dostoevsky that were taken from this much earlier and to contemporary readers more obscure form of literature. This is a book about hagiographical patterns in Russian saint's lives written in the period before Peter the Great, however the author became interested in this topic because they noticed motives in nineteenth century writers including Leskov and Dostoevsky that were taken from this much earlier and to contemporary readers more obscure form of literature.