This volume radically transforms normative conceptions of what we call the “New Testament.” This, in Byzantium (and probably other places well beyond the premodern era), was not a fixed and continuous text, “or even a text at all” (2) asserts the introductory essay. Its title nicely lays out the issues under consideration: “New Testaments of Byzantium. Seen, Heard, Written, Excerpted, Interpreted.” The argument of this essay is that several versions of the New Testament were in circulation, and that it extended “well beyond the dimensions of its codices” (2). Byzantium was exposed to this “text” in extracts and varied contexts from liturgical readings, sermons, and hymns, to visual imagery.
The New Testament in Byzantium asks fundamental questions regarding the definitions, use, and reception of the New Testament in Byzantium, and answers them lucidly. Each contribution offers both a focused and broader view, taking us from the specifics of a set of texts and/or images to their place in the larger historical and cultural framework. Quite a few essays enlist the T&T Mss. Clusters tool from the University of Münster's Institute for New Testament Research (INTF) as an aid to deciphering the closest extant textual relatives of Greek gospel books.
David Parker's essay presents an exciting glimpse into the Byzantine text of the New Testament, demonstrating its many distinctive forms and readings, thus refuting notions of its uniformity and/or unity. Kathleen Maxwell's contribution asks whether “gospel texts and their figural and non-figural decoration travel together when they are copied by scribes and painters?” (33). A survey from the sixth through the thirteenth centuries reveals that the same scribes could create both ordinary and deluxe manuscripts, and that manuscripts grouped together by their ornamental characteristics need not necessarily share textual profiles. Robert S. Nelson's essay unfolds a part of the knotty history of the patriarchal lectionaries of Constantinople. A broad survey of one hundred thirty manuscripts is enlisted to define the limits of the “genre” and to raise questions for future research. (93). Nelson's essay is both detailed and wide-ranging, looking closely at individual folios in these manuscripts while making connections with the larger context of their performance, both in a church and within the changing urban configuration of Constantinople. Nadezhda Kavrus-Hoffmann's contribution asks “how, when, where, by whom, for whom, and for what payment were these manuscripts produced?” (117). These are particularly difficult queries, since most Greek manuscripts lack colophons. The essay concludes that a) almost all New Testament manuscripts were decorated, even if modestly, and b) they were made in every known monastic scriptorium, for monastic libraries and private patrons, many of whom donated them, in turn, to monasteries. Significantly, New Testament manuscripts were also venerated as sacred objects in their own right. (145).
Friar Maximos Constas examines the Byzantine interpretation of Paul, “a figure whose importance for Christianity is second only to that of Christ.” (147). The corpus Dionysiacum had a profound influence on the reception of the corpus Paulinum in the later Byzantine world. Through a close reading of Gregory Palamas, Constas argues that the Hesychast controversy centered on rival interpretations of Paul and Palamas's specific associations of Dionysian ecstasy with the figure of Paul. Derek Krueger excavates “the hagiographer's Bible” through an examination of the reception of saints’ lives and the differing levels of familiarity with the Bible they disclose. Krueger demonstrates that each saint's life is addressed to a specific audience, thus revealing corresponding expectations about “the relationship between hagiographical narratives and biblical intertexts.” (189).
Krueger's invocation of rhetorical delivery and oral performance in the reading of the hagiographies is an appropriate segue into the essay by Mary B. Cunningham, which examines the New Testament in Byzantine preaching. Preachers used many of the same methods used by their Western counterparts, that is, 1) literal exegesis; 2) moral interpretations; 3) allegory; and 4) typology. Various rhetorical devices were enlisted to get the message across. Where daily homilies were more literal, moral, or allegorical in nature, sermons belonging to the fixed liturgical calendar favored a typological interpretation. Susan Ashbrook Harvey's contribution leads from the spoken word to the sung or chanted hymn, which was written for public performance and participation and was an integral part of the soundscape of the early Byzantine city. Through the lens of the hymns of Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373) and Romanos the Melodist (d. ca. 555), this essay underscores the importance of New Testament women as potent models for Christian self-presentation. William Lamb's essay plunges into the challenging world of the New Testament catenae: a treasure trove of evidence regarding biblical interpretations and responses to them over time. Lamb uncovers an eclectic range of voices crafting a “staged conversation” (298) which reinforced a specific understanding of orthodoxy.
A smaller number of essays considers the ramifications of the New Testament in visual media other than the illustrated codex. Charles Barber considers the reasons behind depicting the totality of Christ's life from the eleventh century on. Barber's analysis of the templon beams with the Deesis image in the center is particularly intriguing; as argued, the interruption of Christ's life by an intercessory image underscores the prospect of salvation for the viewer in tandem with contemplation of the biographical cycle. Nektarios Zarras explores the enrichment and augmentation of the Christological cycle in middle and late Byzantine wall painting. Through a detailed look at select monuments, Zarras observes a distinction between the overtly rhetorical character of middle Byzantine cycles and the lavish narrative programs of the Palaiologan period.
The final essay by Stephen J. Shoemaker returns us to textual matters and a work that was, and still is, regarded as quasi-canonical in the Greek church: the Apocalypse of John. Despite its ambiguous status, it yielded four commentaries from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries and influenced the Eastern Christian liturgies, as first argued by Otto Piper in a groundbreaking article in this very journal.
The volume is invaluable for eastern and western medievalists. Additionally, it should be required reading for those interested in issues of reception regarding any work in any era.
