Syméon Métaphraste

Syméon Métaphraste , known as also Syméon Magistros or Syméon Logothète (10th century). Statesman, historian, author of most important hagiographic compilation of the Byzantine Middle Ages .

Career

Born in Constantinople under the reign from Leon VI (886-912), Syméon belongs to one of these aristocratic big families with which it naturally returns to share dignities and the loads of the court. Michel Psellos presents it to us moreover like one man of culture, excel rhetor and versed in philosophy.

He started a career of senior official in the entourage of Constantin VII Porphyrogénète (944-959) and continued it under its three successors. Under Romain II Lecapène (959-963), it is protoasekretis (i.e. chief of the imperial chancellery) with the title of Patrice and, with died of the emperor, it seems to belong to the council of regency which controls the Empire for six months. It has a more obscure role under Nicéphore Phocas (963-969); some indices however seem to show it implied in the development of the constitutions (Novelle S) of this emperor. After the assassination of Nicéphore, it is again in the foreground with Jean Tzimiskès; it has then the title of Magistros and directs the military administration (logothète of the stratiotikos) before becoming Logothète drome, station prestigious which at that time implies the relationships to the ambassadors, the circulation and the monitoring from abroad in the Empire, the good performance of the communications and the imperial post office…

The end of its life is badly known. It seems that he fell in disgrace (probably with the advent of Basile II) and that he then withdrew himself in a monastery where he would have died one November 28th, perhaps in 987. It is probably for this last period of its life that it was devoted to its religious compositions.

The Ménologe metaphrastic

In the East, a ménologe is a collection of lives of saints, arranged in the order of the calendar. Received by the Church, it is official, because it is on him that the extracts and summaries are based which are used for the liturgical use. The compilation of Syméon is most important of these collections. It is its philosopher's stone. It owes him its nickname (the “Reviser”), a celebrity who still lasts in the orthodoxe Église and, as of the 11th century, to be counted itself among the saints.

If it is necessary to believe Michel Psellos of it, at the time of Constantin VII, the old lives of saints were not read any more, because of their too hard style, which made laugh the faithful ones when they had had to be built. The emperor would then have asked Syméon to redesign and rewrite the whole of these lives to make them usable in more refined company from now on.

In fact, it is necessary to consider this hagiographic revision of the repertory within the general framework of the vast companies encyclopedic - histories, legal, administrative, grammatical… - ordinates by Constantin VII in order to promote executives of thought, standards and uses, if not a “official culture” intended to stabilize the Empire.

Syméon is a project superintendent joining together around him varied competences. It gathers a great number of manuscripts, translates into Greek syriaques lives and coptes, chooses among these texts those which appear most suitable and undertakes of the “métaphraser”.

In its final state, the ménologe includes/understands ten volumes, including eight for the first four months of the liturgical year (from September to December); the two others concern saints from February to April for one, of the saints of August for the other. It is to say that the work of revision was not completed, perhaps stopped by the death of Constantin VII, by that of Romain II surely. However, work of the modern critic who endeavors to precisely date the different components from the ménologe gives rise to think that Syméon continued to work there, undoubtedly until towards 980. Michel Psellos insists on the respect carried to the document. Syméon “would have equipped the texts with a clothing renovated” by taking care not to deteriorate of it the bottom which belongs to the crowned history. The truth such as can establish it the work of the modern philologists is appreciably different.

The “métaphrase” certainly renovates the language, removes the words which pass for vulgar or obsolete; she especially endeavors to give “literary” style to writings which generally were not concerned with it; that does not go without misinterpretation and from many concrete details, sometimes from the whole episodes considered badly come disappear with the profit from developments rhetorics. The biographical account tends to be transformed into éloge.
But one feels in many cases that the stake of this vast company was to modernize the figure of the saint as much as the style of hagiographal old.

The critic of the ménologe is difficult, very as much as it is difficult to distinguish personal work from Syméon from what is allocated to the commission under its orders. One finds three kinds of texts ultimately there: texts which passed there such as they were before or while having undergone only some not very perceptible philological corrections; many texts improved or altered to differing degree; texts finally, often concerning recent, entirely written or rewritten saints hand of Syméon. Moreover, helping success, one often supplemented the collection with texts which did not appear in it initially. Ultimately, one in general admits the conclusions of the Bollandistes which, after especially work of the father Delehaye, count 148 metaphrastic lives, plus two doubtful.

Such as it is, the success of new the ménologe was considerable: nearly a thousand of manuscripts now located testify some. The tradition of the old lives that it contains stops, they are not copied any more and some of this fact are lost. As for the later hagiography, the metaphrastic influence of the “style” is very often perceptible there, on the bottom as much as in the form.

It is finally advisable to recall that this 10th century which sees the metaphrastic diffusion of the ménologe is also that which sees a deep transformation of the icon and probably also of the hymnodie. It is true that in Byzance, these three elements - Hagiographie, Iconographie, Hymnographie - are much more closely dependant than in Occident, but one can as think as the imperial will was felt in all the expressions of an again flourishing Church after the convulsions of the crisis iconoclast.

The Chronicle and other writings

The identification of Syméon Métaphraste with Syméon Logothète, given traditionally as author of a chronicle, was defended with good arguments as of the end of the 19th century by Albert Ehrhard. After some discussions, it is allowed today by all the byzantinists, in particular following work of Treadgold which recognizes a great historical value to him.

Unfortunately, in the absence of a critical edition, this text is difficult to reach and not very usable. There are several versions improved by various revisers and he mingles with it moreover the continuations of pseudo-Syméon Magister (which is perhaps only one additional misadventure of Métaphraste). Does one of the versions appear to stop into 948, another (or a continuation?) appears to be written under Nicéphore Phocas. It should be sought in completely out-of-date editions, either in a volume of the Byzantine of Bonn appeared in 1828, or in volume 109 of the Greek Patrology of Migne, which reprints a text established at the 17th century.

Syméon also left some letters, a poem on the death of Constantin VII and one certain number of religious parts, anthems and prayers which are always used in the orthodoxe liturgy. A summary of ecclesiastical guns, extracts of Basile and Macaire, are perhaps vestiges of a fuller project.

See too

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