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Life of the Virgin Mary

from Harvard University Press Autumn/Winter 2023

by Harvard University Press

from Harvard University Press Autumn/Winter 2023, page 63

Article from: Harvard University Press Autumn/Winter 2023

Breaking the Bonds of Corruption

John Geometres

The Moralized Ovid

Saints at the Limits

Pierre Bersuire

edited and translated by Maximos Constas · Christos Simelidis

edited and

translated

Seven Byzantine Popular Legends edited and translated by Stratis Papaioannou

by Frank T. Coulson • Justin Haynes

The first complete, modern translation of one of the most important Byzantine works of Marian doctrine and devotion.

An influential medieval allegorical interpretation of the Metamorphoses that uncovers the hidden moral truths of Ovid’s stories, translated into English for the first time.

Written in about 1340 in Avignon by the Benedictine preacher Pierre Bersuire, The Moralized Ovid—commonly referred to by its Latin title, Ovidius moralizatus, to distinguish it from the anonymous French vernacular Ovide moralisé—was arguably the most influential interpretation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the High Middle Ages. It circulated widely in manuscript form and was frequently printed during the Renaissance. Originally intended as a sourcebook of exempla for preachers’ sermons, The Moralized Ovid provides not only a window into the reception of classical literature in the fourteenth century but also amazingly vivid details of daily life in the Middle Ages across all strata of society.

A collection of medieval tales of Byzantine saints, including some rejected by the Church, translated into English for the first time.

The work begins with a detailed description of the Greco-Roman gods, inspired in part by Bersuire’s friend and fellow proponent of classical poetry, Francesco Petrarch. It then retells selected major myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, each followed by numerous allegorical interpretations that draw from biblical stories, contemporary events, and the natural world.

This edition presents the first full English translation alongside an authoritative Latin text.

Frank T. Coulson is Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of Classics at The Ohio State University.

John Geometres (ca. 935–ca. 1000) was one of the most highly esteemed poets and authors in Byzantium; yet his most important text, the Life of the Virgin Mary, remains largely unknown today. This literary and rhetorical masterpiece stands as a work of outstanding theological sophistication, animated by deeply felt devotion to the Mother of God. Geometres’s distinctive and idiosyncratic narrative offers a comprehensive biography, from Mary’s ancestry to her death and beyond, with special emphasis on her direction of Christ’s female disciples, her active participation in the passion and resurrection, and her leadership of the nascent Church. The Life has been rightly considered a critical missing piece in a larger puzzle connecting early Marian writings with later works. Based on a completely new edition of the Byzantine Greek text, this is the first complete translation of Life of the Virgin Mary into a modern language.

Justin Haynes is Assistant Professor of Classics at Georgetown University.

Maximos Constas is Professor of Patristics and Orthodox Spirituality at Holy Cross School of Theology in Brookline, MA.

Christos Simelidis is Assistant Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Philology and Literature at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki.

May · cloth · 496 pages

51/4 x 8 · $35.00x

Religion

9780674290808

Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library DOML 77

Daniel Donoghue, general editor and Old English editor

Danuta Shanzer, Medieval Latin editor

Alexander Alexakis and Richard Greenfield, Byzantine Greek coeditors

Jan M. Ziolkowski, founding editor

The legends collected in Saints at the Limits, despite sometimes being viewed with suspicion by the Church, fascinated Christians during the Middle Ages—as related cults, multiple retellings, and contemporary translations attest. Their protagonists span the entire spectrum of Byzantine society, including foreigners, soldiers, ascetics, lustful women, beggars, and the sons and daughters of rulers. They travel to exotic lands, perform outlandish miracles, suffer extraordinary violence, reject family ties, save cities, destroy absolute rulers, and discover the divine. Some saints, like Markos the Athenian, are forgotten nowadays; others, like Saint George the Great Martyr, still command a wide appeal. Each, however, negotiates the limits of Byzantine imagination: the borders that separate the powerful from the outcasts, the real from the imaginary, the human from the beyond human. These stories, edited in Greek and translated into English here for the first time, continue to resonate with readers seeking to understand universal human fears and desires in their Byzantine guise.

Stratis Papaioannou is Professor of Byzantine Literature at the University of Crete.

May · cloth · 400 pages