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Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium
About This Book
In the Roman and Byzantine Near East, the holy fool emerged in Christianity as a way of describing individuals whose apparent madness allowed them to achieve a higher level of spirituality. Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium examines how the figure of the mad saint or mystic was used as a means of individual and collective transformation in the period between the birth of Christianity and the rise of Islam. It presents a novel interpretation in revealing the central role that psychology plays in social and historical development.Early Christians looked to figures who embodied extremes of behaviorâlike the holy fool, the ascetic, the martyrâto redefine their social, cultural, and mental settings by reading new values in abnormal behavior. Comparing such forms of extreme behavior in early Christian, pagan, and Jewish societies, and drawing on theories of relational psychoanalysis, anthropology, and sociology of religion, Youval Rotman explains how the sanctification of figures of extreme behavior makes their abnormality socially and psychologically functional. The sanctification of abnormal mad behavior created a sphere of ambiguity in the ambit of religious experience for early Christians, which brought about a deep psychological shift, necessary for the transition from paganism to Christianity.A developing society leaves porous the border between what is normal and abnormal, between sanity and insanity, in order to use this ambiguity as a means of change. Rotman emphasizes the role of religion in maintaining this ambiguity to effect a social and psychological transformation.
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PART I
SANCTIFIED INSANITY
Between History and Psychology
1
The Paradox That Inhabits Ambiguity
I am aware that the man who is said to be deluded may be in his delusion telling me the truth, and this in no equivocal or metaphorical sense, but quite literally, and that the cracked mind of the schizophrenic may let in light which does not enter the intact minds of many sane people whose minds are closed.âRONALD D. LAING, 1960*
What Is a âHoly Foolâ?
If any man among you seems to be wise [Greek: sophos] in this world, let him become a fool [mĹros] that he may be wise, for the wisdom [sophia] of this world is folly [mĹria] in Godâs sight. (1 Cor. 3:18â19)2
We are fools [Greek: mĹroi] for Christâs sake, while you are such sensible [phronimoi] Christians. (1 Cor. 4:10)3
A brother asked his elderly spiritual father [abba]: âHow does one become a fool [Greek: mĹros] for the Lordâs sake?â The elder said to him: âThere was a child in a coenobion who was given to a good elder so he might bring him up and teach him the fear of God. The elder would say to him: âWhen somebody reviles you, bless him; and if you are sitting at table, eat what is decaying and leave what is good and, if you are to choose a garment, leave the good one and take the one that is worn out.â âAm I a fool that you tell me to behave like that?â the child said to him. âI am telling you to do those things for this reason that you may become âa fool for the Lordâs sake,â so that the Lord may make you wise,â said the elder. The elder showed what one does to become âa fool for the Lordâs sake,â you see. . . .â
In this monastery there was another maiden who feigned folly [Greek: mĹria] and demon-possession [Greek: daimona]. The others felt such contempt for her that they never ate with her, which pleased her entirely. Taking herself to the kitchen she used to perform every menial service and she was, as the saying goes, âthe sponge of the monastery,â really fulfilling the Scriptures: If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise. She wore a rag around her headâall the others had their hair closely cropped and wore cowls. In this way she used to serve. Not one of the four hundred ever saw her chewing all the years of her life. She never sat down at a table or partook of a particle of bread, but she wiped up with a sponge the crumbs from the tables and was satisfied with scouring pots. She was never angry at anyone, nor did she grumble or talk, either little or much, although she was maltreated, insulted, cursed, and loathed.Now an angel appeared to Saint Piteroum, the famous anchorite dwelling at Porphyrites, and said to him: âWhy do you think so much of yourself for being pious [Greek: eulabÄs] and residing in a place such as this? Do you want to see someone more pious than yourself, a woman? Go to the womenâs monastery at Tabennisi and there you will find one with a band on her head. She is better than you. While being cuffed about by such a crowd she has never taken her heart off God. But you dwell here and wander about cities in your mind.â And he who had never gone away left that monastery and asked the superiors to allow him to enter into the monastery of women. They admitted him, since he was well on in years and, moreover, had a great reputation. So he went in and insisted upon seeing all of them. She did not appear. Finally he said to them: âBring them all to me, for she is missing.â They told him: âWe have one madwoman, a salÄ, inside the kitchenââthat is what they called the afflicted one [Greek: paschousa]. He told them: âBring her to me. Let me see her.â They went to call her, but she did not answer, either because she knew of the incident or because it was revealed to her. They seized her forcibly and told her: âThe holy Piteroum wishes to see youââfor he was renowned. When she came he saw the rag on her head and, falling down at her feet, he said: âBless me!â In similar manner she too fell down at his feet and said: âYou bless me, lord!â All the women were amazed at this and said: âFather, take no insult. She is a madwoman, salÄ.â Piteroum then addressed all the women: âYou are the madwomen, salai! This woman is my and your spiritual mother [Greek: ammas]ââso they called the spiritualsââand I pray that I may be deemed as worthy as she on the Day of Judgment.â Hearing this, they fell at his feet, confessing various thingsâone how she had poured the leaving of her plate over her; another had beaten her with her fists; another had blistered her nose. So they confessed various and sundry outrages. After praying for them, he left. And after a few days she was unable to bear the praise and honor of the sisters, and all their apologies was so burdensome to her, that she left the monastery. Where she went and where she disappeared to, and how she died, nobody knows.10In this story, which to us is read as a folk tale, a Byzantine version of a Cinderella story, the plot is constructed by using two basic elements: the simulated, fake madness and its concealment.11 It is clear that one cannot exist without the other: a simulated madness cannot but be kept concealed, otherwise there is no story. However, the story is not presented as a fictional work. In contrast to folk tales, the moral agenda of hagiography is completely conditioned by its aspiration to historical authenticity; otherwise, these would not be saintsâ Lives, but fictional legends.12 In other words, the moral function that such texts played as religious exempla defined their genre, and determined the way in which the author presented the facts. The narrative had to be presented as a real and true historical story. However, a story about someone who feigned madness but concealed it is impossible to tell without access to this personâs hidden motive. This is why such narratives always include a third figure who knows, or is exposed to, the truth about the hero, and reveals it in due course to the surrounding society. This is also the case in one of the most elaborated texts dedicated to such a person to come down to us in the Life of Symeon salos, composed in the seventh century by Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyprus.13To summarize very briefly a text of around fifty folios, this is the story of a young man who becomes a fervent Christian monk and withdraws with his close friend to the desert, leaving behind his previous social life. After twenty-nine years of monastic life in the Dead Sea desert he decides to become a madman for Christâs sake. He leaves the monastery for the city, where he performs a continuous state of madness in public. Being unaware of the fact that his insanity is simulated, the inhabitants of the city think him a madman and treat him as such. This second part of the text is characterized by a literary tension that the author constructs, which confronts Symeonâs conscious actions of madness with his spectatorsâ reactions. Being unaware of his spiritual consciousness, they treat him like an ordinary madman. The reader, however, is placed in the position of the omniscient observer, and learns about Symeonâs ...
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Prologue: Insanity and Religion
- Part I. Sanctified Insanity: Between History and Psychology
- Part II. Abnormality and Social Change: Early Christianity versus Rabbinic Judaism
- Epilogue: Psychology, Religion, and Social Change
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgments
- Index