hgr
in
celtic_church
культ ап. Андрея в Шотландии
Some Raw Thoughts on the Foundation Account B
1. Genre. This is certainly a kind of the hagiographical legend and not a chronological (historical) account. This is quite normal: it is hardly possible to imagine any local Church center without such a legend. It is also normal that such legends present this center as a New Sion.
Therefore, the main features of the genre are those described by Hippolyte Delehaye for the so-called “Passions épiques”. This is especially important to note when we are dealing with chronological markers in such legends (that is, either explicit indication of years or names of kings and so on).
On the Passions épiques see esp.: H. Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires. Deuxième édition, revue et corrigée (Bruxelles, 1966) (Subsidia hagiographica, 13 B). On the chronology in the «epical» hagiography see esp.: H. Delehaye, Cinq leçons sur la méthode hagiographique (Bruxelles, 1934) (Subsidia hagiographica, 21), ch. I « Coordonnées hagiographiques ».
So, the main goal of the FAB is to explain the origin and nature of the independency of the Church of Scotland. A common to way to do this was to establish some local cult of an apostolic (possibly “equal-to-apostles”, isapostolon) figure. Cf., for a modern introduction into this topic: M. van Esbroeck, Primauté, Patriarcats, Catholicossats, autocéphalies en orient, in Il primato des Vescovo di Roma nel primo millenio. Ricerche e testimonianze, ed. M. Maccarrone, Vatican 1991, 493-521. (Fr M. van Esbroeck, sj, Bollandist, was my teacher. He died in November, 2003. I think, he was the last representative of the line of Delehaye in the Society of the Bollandists).
2. Internal Chronology of FAB. There are three main repères indicating the epoch of the account: one explicit (346 AD) and two implicit (names of the kings: “Hungus filius Forso” and “Adhelstanus rex Saxonum”). It is important, but always disregarded by the historians that all these indications, according to FAB, point out the same epoch, within the maximal time span of about a couple of years. For the historians, this seems to be a simple anachronism, but for the hagiographical legend, this makes sense.
The absolute chronology of such legends is formed by a phenomenon that the Bollandists coined as “téléscopage”: cf. a classical description of a téléscopage of several layers of the historical reality in P. Peeters, La légende de S. Orentius et de ses six frères martyrs, Analecta Bollandiana 56 (1938) 241-264.
So, this absolute chronology bears a very important (even for the historians) symbolical meaning, but has to be in no way accepted prima facie. Moreover, it is obvious that the very notion of “anachronism” is inapplicable to the epical hagiography: its plot is placed in the epical “formative period” corresponding to the importance of a given cult.
So, let us see what means the absolute chronology of FAB.
1. What means the date 346 AD and a reference to the account of the translation of the relics to Constantinople?
The date is rather accurate, because the Church of Apostles in Constantinople was founded in 338 and consecrated in 352, the relics of apostles being collected into the church short before the consecration (now I am writing from memory, having no Gilbert Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale, Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 à 451, PUF, Paris, 1974 (2nd impression 1984) handy).
So, our legend is carefully inserted into the frame of the foundation legend of the main Christian capital, Constantinople. (Constantinople had several foundation legends, all of them being representations of the city as New Sion. The legend linked to the martyrium that was the Church of Apostles was not an exception representing gathering of the apostles in Sion, in the upper room, especially on the Pentecost).
According to FAB, St Regulus participated, in a way, in the famous event of the posthumous gathering of the apostles in Constantinople. FAB insists that only some parts of the relics of Andrew (carefully enumerated) escaped from this translation and remained in St Regulus’ competence.
What mean both the date 346 AD and the reference to Constantinople (because their meaning is the same)? Not necessarily an allusion to any kind of dependency, but, most probably, an implication that the place where parts of the relics will be deposed by St Regulus will be also a capital of a Christian empire - not so great as Constantinople, but from the same line. It is an important detail also because of the fact that Constantinople in this legend has still a great authority in the West. It is hardly compatible with the 12th century (while I am not quite sure in this).
2. “Hungus filius Forso”, it is clear, is Óengus mac Fergusa, but which one, first or second? (Yes, the character of our legend is neither, from historical point of view. But, from the symbolical viewpoint, such a question is reasonable). Dauvit Broun (whose articles I know only through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93engus_II_of_the_Picts) seems to opt for the first, judging from the so-called Andrew’s Sarcophagus. This seems to be the most reasonable also from a critical hagiography viewpoint.
This king is the founder of a Christian capital, that is, the founder of a Christian kingdom. He must be certainly also the founder of a dynasty. (Yes, I know that Óengus I was not the first king of the Picts, but he was the one who established, according to FAB at least, a Pictish Christian state and who was considered as the founder of his royal dynasty).
So, we have to opt for the first Óengus who lived in the 8th century.
This is not an anachronism: the founder of the state, who lived in the formative epoch by definition, created his capital in the formative epoch of creation of the capital of the whole Christian world (that is, for FAB, Constantinople).
3. “Adhelstanus”. This is certainly Athelstan, 10th cent., the first king of England in the same way as the first Óengus was the first king of his Pictish Christian state.
So, the plot of FAB is clear: victory of the Christian Pictish state over the state of the Saxons. This is a victory in the battle between two epic figures of the founders of the corresponding dynasties. These founders are, too, contemporaneous by definition because they both live in the formative period of the epos.
So, the internal chronology of FAB corresponds to the formative period of a Pictish Christian state of the dynasty founded by Óengus I and considering itself in a conflict with the English state created by Athelstan. In its own state ideology, this Pictish state was a small, but genuine Christian empire in the same way as Constantinople.
3. Sitz im Leben of FAB. In its actual form, FAB refers explicitly to St Andrews (“Chilrimonith”), but the whole geography of account is rather complete and difficult. For instance, it is interesting to know what is the alleged place of decapitation of “Adhelstanus”? All these place names are important for establishing of the “coordonnées hagiographiques” of place, according to Delehaye (that is, the places of some cult responsible for appearance of the legend).
As to the date, a terminus post quem gives the name of Athelstan: the second half or the end of the 10th cent. († 939 + some time for being accepted as a symbolic figure of the founder of the English state).
Terminus ante quem is, probably, to be derived from the date of the actual martyrium (church) of Andrew: first half of the 12th cent. It was constructed when the cult of Apostle Andrew in this place was already established, so, some shrine already existed. This leads us into the 11th century as the date of the earliest shrine whose establishment was the cause of appearing of the accompanying legend. (NB: hagiographical texts, unlike the chronicles, are always created within a cult for cultic purposes; see the details in Delehaye, esp. re: “coordonnées hagiographiques”).
So, the most probable date of the FAB, that is, the legend of arrival of Apostle Andrew’s relics to Scotland in its existing form, is the 11th century, or, as the earliest possible date, the end of the 10th cent.
4. Polemical purpose. “Constantinople”-styled legend on the creation of some Christian empire was, in the European context, an implicit reference to the empire of Charlemagne. However, in the nearer British context, it was to be read as a reference to the copy of a copy - to the state ideology of the local Charlemagne, Athelstan. (Unfortunately, I am here unable to check Wood, Michael. 1983. "The Making of King Aethelstan's Empire: An English Charlemagne?" In Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. Patrick Wormald, et al., 250-72. Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
So, we have to know what the main imperial cult in the empire of Athelstan was.
According to William of Malmesbury (De Gesta Regum Anglorum), it was a cult of some Constantinople relics that belonged to Charlemagne and presented to Athelstan by Hugh of France, among those two lances, that of Longinus and that of St Mercurius. The latter was a specific Constantinopolitan relic, but the first clearly that of Jerusalem (from the 4th to the 7th century reported by the pilgrims as remaining in the Basilica of Resurrection, on Golgotha). Both relics are mentioned in the accounts of the items taken by Charlemagne from his (alleged) visit to Constantinople (Old French Le Pélérinage de Charlemagne, an early oral tradition written down in the 12th cent.). On this topic see also: R. J. Peebles, The Legend of Longinus in Ecclesiastical Tradition and in English Literature, and its connection with the Grail (Baltimore: J. H. Furst Company, 1911), p. 60-61. And also an inaccessible to me article: Loomis, Laura Hibbard. 1950. "The Holy Relics of Charlemagne and King Athelstan: The Lances of Longinus and St. Mercurius." Reprinted 1962. In Adventures in the Middle Ages: A Memorial Collection of Essays and Studies, 201-28. New York: Burt Franklin, 1962.
The earliest history of the cult of the lance of Longinus on the British islands is here out of our scope (it is quite possible that its origin is Celtic and not Saxon and with no connection to Charlemagne), but here is important to note that such was the official “imperial” cult of Athelstan, the cult of the insignia of his power.
So, in FAB, the theme of the heritage of Constantinople/New Jerusalem makes sense as a rival cult to the official cult of England of Athelstan, that of the lance of Longinus. The latter was, too, a representation (though via the tradition of Charlemagne) of Constantinople as New Jerusalem (the lance being a well-known, especially by the Western pilgrims, Jerusalem relic received by Charlemagne).
Both relics, those of Apostle Andrew and the lance, were insignia of the corresponding emperor power. Indeed, in FAB, the relics of Andrew are the source of power necessary for the very existence of Óengus’ state.
It is normal that a political struggle was represented in the hagiography by a corresponding while implicit polemics. By the way, the same was the role of Longinus and his lance in Caucasus: for instance, in Lazica, the first Christianization in the early 6th cent. by the monophysits under the aegis of the cult of Longinus was superposed in the middle of the same century by the Chalcedonian re-Christianization under the aegis of Simon the Cananite.
Both legends, that of Andrew and that of Longinus, are focused on Constantinople as New Jerusalem.
Such a symmetry between FAB and Athelstan’s Longinus cult corroborates our dating of FAB, while does not implies any conclusion regarding the relative priority of any of them.
When the rivalry between two ideologies lost its actuality (in the Crusaders time), it became possible to unite two cults into one, as it was the case in one of the Crusaders’ account of a real fact, invention of the lance of Longinus in Antioch in 1098: according to the Gesta Francorum, cap. XXV, the lance was revealed by Apostle Andrew in person.
There is a need to study the places mentioned in FAB whether they have any relation to either battles with the Saxons or cult of Longinus.
Moreover, it is interesting to verify (or falsify), possibly through a study of the toponyms, a hypothesis if FAB contains an “alternative” tradition about the Battle of Brunanburh (937). (To my knowledge, all the extant sources are from the side of Athelstan).
7. Seven churches. This in an archaic feature, but, I think, with no importance for dating FAB. It is important, however, to the study of the local hagiographic traditions in their mutual connection, such as the cult of St Monena and her companions in Edinburgh (also with a seven church tradition: http://www.oldandnewedinburgh.co.uk/volume1/page26.html).
The seven church tradition was preserved in Rome (seven pilgrim basilicas, but the tradition itself goes back to the earliest Christian times, 3rd cent. or even earlier, when 7 Roman tituli were established), but was unusual in the continent. (As to Rome itself, it preserved a very archaic liturgy as late as, at least, in the 12th century - including even a Jewish-Christian animal sacrifice on the Easter). However, it was relatively widespread on the British islands (cf. toponyms such as “Seven Churches” in Ireland…).
The tradition itself goes back to the Jewish-Christian Sion, and, then, to some Jewish pre-Christian religious movements. As to the Jewish-Christian Sion, the tradition is reported as being ancient by three sources of the 4th century: Epiphanius of Salamis (De mensuribus et ponderibus, 14), Optatus of Mileve (De schismate Donatistarum III,2), and anonymous Pilgrim of Bordeaux c. 330 AD. All these data are collected by F.-M. Abel in: H. Vincent, F.-M. Abel, Jérusalem. Recherches de topographie, d’archéologie et d’histoire. T. II. Jérusalem nouvelle. Fasc. III. La Sainte-Sion et les sanctuaires de second ordre (Paris : Gabalda, 1922), esp. Ch. XVII, La Sainte-Sion, p. 471 sqq. The seven-chrines scheme was also repeated in the division of the liturgical space within the Sion basilica dedicated in 394 (and destroyed in 614) [I am currently working on the source explaining its liturgical spatial structure].
1. Genre. This is certainly a kind of the hagiographical legend and not a chronological (historical) account. This is quite normal: it is hardly possible to imagine any local Church center without such a legend. It is also normal that such legends present this center as a New Sion.
Therefore, the main features of the genre are those described by Hippolyte Delehaye for the so-called “Passions épiques”. This is especially important to note when we are dealing with chronological markers in such legends (that is, either explicit indication of years or names of kings and so on).
On the Passions épiques see esp.: H. Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires. Deuxième édition, revue et corrigée (Bruxelles, 1966) (Subsidia hagiographica, 13 B). On the chronology in the «epical» hagiography see esp.: H. Delehaye, Cinq leçons sur la méthode hagiographique (Bruxelles, 1934) (Subsidia hagiographica, 21), ch. I « Coordonnées hagiographiques ».
So, the main goal of the FAB is to explain the origin and nature of the independency of the Church of Scotland. A common to way to do this was to establish some local cult of an apostolic (possibly “equal-to-apostles”, isapostolon) figure. Cf., for a modern introduction into this topic: M. van Esbroeck, Primauté, Patriarcats, Catholicossats, autocéphalies en orient, in Il primato des Vescovo di Roma nel primo millenio. Ricerche e testimonianze, ed. M. Maccarrone, Vatican 1991, 493-521. (Fr M. van Esbroeck, sj, Bollandist, was my teacher. He died in November, 2003. I think, he was the last representative of the line of Delehaye in the Society of the Bollandists).
2. Internal Chronology of FAB. There are three main repères indicating the epoch of the account: one explicit (346 AD) and two implicit (names of the kings: “Hungus filius Forso” and “Adhelstanus rex Saxonum”). It is important, but always disregarded by the historians that all these indications, according to FAB, point out the same epoch, within the maximal time span of about a couple of years. For the historians, this seems to be a simple anachronism, but for the hagiographical legend, this makes sense.
The absolute chronology of such legends is formed by a phenomenon that the Bollandists coined as “téléscopage”: cf. a classical description of a téléscopage of several layers of the historical reality in P. Peeters, La légende de S. Orentius et de ses six frères martyrs, Analecta Bollandiana 56 (1938) 241-264.
So, this absolute chronology bears a very important (even for the historians) symbolical meaning, but has to be in no way accepted prima facie. Moreover, it is obvious that the very notion of “anachronism” is inapplicable to the epical hagiography: its plot is placed in the epical “formative period” corresponding to the importance of a given cult.
So, let us see what means the absolute chronology of FAB.
1. What means the date 346 AD and a reference to the account of the translation of the relics to Constantinople?
The date is rather accurate, because the Church of Apostles in Constantinople was founded in 338 and consecrated in 352, the relics of apostles being collected into the church short before the consecration (now I am writing from memory, having no Gilbert Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale, Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 à 451, PUF, Paris, 1974 (2nd impression 1984) handy).
So, our legend is carefully inserted into the frame of the foundation legend of the main Christian capital, Constantinople. (Constantinople had several foundation legends, all of them being representations of the city as New Sion. The legend linked to the martyrium that was the Church of Apostles was not an exception representing gathering of the apostles in Sion, in the upper room, especially on the Pentecost).
According to FAB, St Regulus participated, in a way, in the famous event of the posthumous gathering of the apostles in Constantinople. FAB insists that only some parts of the relics of Andrew (carefully enumerated) escaped from this translation and remained in St Regulus’ competence.
What mean both the date 346 AD and the reference to Constantinople (because their meaning is the same)? Not necessarily an allusion to any kind of dependency, but, most probably, an implication that the place where parts of the relics will be deposed by St Regulus will be also a capital of a Christian empire - not so great as Constantinople, but from the same line. It is an important detail also because of the fact that Constantinople in this legend has still a great authority in the West. It is hardly compatible with the 12th century (while I am not quite sure in this).
2. “Hungus filius Forso”, it is clear, is Óengus mac Fergusa, but which one, first or second? (Yes, the character of our legend is neither, from historical point of view. But, from the symbolical viewpoint, such a question is reasonable). Dauvit Broun (whose articles I know only through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93engus_II_of_the_Picts) seems to opt for the first, judging from the so-called Andrew’s Sarcophagus. This seems to be the most reasonable also from a critical hagiography viewpoint.
This king is the founder of a Christian capital, that is, the founder of a Christian kingdom. He must be certainly also the founder of a dynasty. (Yes, I know that Óengus I was not the first king of the Picts, but he was the one who established, according to FAB at least, a Pictish Christian state and who was considered as the founder of his royal dynasty).
So, we have to opt for the first Óengus who lived in the 8th century.
This is not an anachronism: the founder of the state, who lived in the formative epoch by definition, created his capital in the formative epoch of creation of the capital of the whole Christian world (that is, for FAB, Constantinople).
3. “Adhelstanus”. This is certainly Athelstan, 10th cent., the first king of England in the same way as the first Óengus was the first king of his Pictish Christian state.
So, the plot of FAB is clear: victory of the Christian Pictish state over the state of the Saxons. This is a victory in the battle between two epic figures of the founders of the corresponding dynasties. These founders are, too, contemporaneous by definition because they both live in the formative period of the epos.
So, the internal chronology of FAB corresponds to the formative period of a Pictish Christian state of the dynasty founded by Óengus I and considering itself in a conflict with the English state created by Athelstan. In its own state ideology, this Pictish state was a small, but genuine Christian empire in the same way as Constantinople.
3. Sitz im Leben of FAB. In its actual form, FAB refers explicitly to St Andrews (“Chilrimonith”), but the whole geography of account is rather complete and difficult. For instance, it is interesting to know what is the alleged place of decapitation of “Adhelstanus”? All these place names are important for establishing of the “coordonnées hagiographiques” of place, according to Delehaye (that is, the places of some cult responsible for appearance of the legend).
As to the date, a terminus post quem gives the name of Athelstan: the second half or the end of the 10th cent. († 939 + some time for being accepted as a symbolic figure of the founder of the English state).
Terminus ante quem is, probably, to be derived from the date of the actual martyrium (church) of Andrew: first half of the 12th cent. It was constructed when the cult of Apostle Andrew in this place was already established, so, some shrine already existed. This leads us into the 11th century as the date of the earliest shrine whose establishment was the cause of appearing of the accompanying legend. (NB: hagiographical texts, unlike the chronicles, are always created within a cult for cultic purposes; see the details in Delehaye, esp. re: “coordonnées hagiographiques”).
So, the most probable date of the FAB, that is, the legend of arrival of Apostle Andrew’s relics to Scotland in its existing form, is the 11th century, or, as the earliest possible date, the end of the 10th cent.
4. Polemical purpose. “Constantinople”-styled legend on the creation of some Christian empire was, in the European context, an implicit reference to the empire of Charlemagne. However, in the nearer British context, it was to be read as a reference to the copy of a copy - to the state ideology of the local Charlemagne, Athelstan. (Unfortunately, I am here unable to check Wood, Michael. 1983. "The Making of King Aethelstan's Empire: An English Charlemagne?" In Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. Patrick Wormald, et al., 250-72. Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
So, we have to know what the main imperial cult in the empire of Athelstan was.
According to William of Malmesbury (De Gesta Regum Anglorum), it was a cult of some Constantinople relics that belonged to Charlemagne and presented to Athelstan by Hugh of France, among those two lances, that of Longinus and that of St Mercurius. The latter was a specific Constantinopolitan relic, but the first clearly that of Jerusalem (from the 4th to the 7th century reported by the pilgrims as remaining in the Basilica of Resurrection, on Golgotha). Both relics are mentioned in the accounts of the items taken by Charlemagne from his (alleged) visit to Constantinople (Old French Le Pélérinage de Charlemagne, an early oral tradition written down in the 12th cent.). On this topic see also: R. J. Peebles, The Legend of Longinus in Ecclesiastical Tradition and in English Literature, and its connection with the Grail (Baltimore: J. H. Furst Company, 1911), p. 60-61. And also an inaccessible to me article: Loomis, Laura Hibbard. 1950. "The Holy Relics of Charlemagne and King Athelstan: The Lances of Longinus and St. Mercurius." Reprinted 1962. In Adventures in the Middle Ages: A Memorial Collection of Essays and Studies, 201-28. New York: Burt Franklin, 1962.
The earliest history of the cult of the lance of Longinus on the British islands is here out of our scope (it is quite possible that its origin is Celtic and not Saxon and with no connection to Charlemagne), but here is important to note that such was the official “imperial” cult of Athelstan, the cult of the insignia of his power.
So, in FAB, the theme of the heritage of Constantinople/New Jerusalem makes sense as a rival cult to the official cult of England of Athelstan, that of the lance of Longinus. The latter was, too, a representation (though via the tradition of Charlemagne) of Constantinople as New Jerusalem (the lance being a well-known, especially by the Western pilgrims, Jerusalem relic received by Charlemagne).
Both relics, those of Apostle Andrew and the lance, were insignia of the corresponding emperor power. Indeed, in FAB, the relics of Andrew are the source of power necessary for the very existence of Óengus’ state.
It is normal that a political struggle was represented in the hagiography by a corresponding while implicit polemics. By the way, the same was the role of Longinus and his lance in Caucasus: for instance, in Lazica, the first Christianization in the early 6th cent. by the monophysits under the aegis of the cult of Longinus was superposed in the middle of the same century by the Chalcedonian re-Christianization under the aegis of Simon the Cananite.
Both legends, that of Andrew and that of Longinus, are focused on Constantinople as New Jerusalem.
Such a symmetry between FAB and Athelstan’s Longinus cult corroborates our dating of FAB, while does not implies any conclusion regarding the relative priority of any of them.
When the rivalry between two ideologies lost its actuality (in the Crusaders time), it became possible to unite two cults into one, as it was the case in one of the Crusaders’ account of a real fact, invention of the lance of Longinus in Antioch in 1098: according to the Gesta Francorum, cap. XXV, the lance was revealed by Apostle Andrew in person.
There is a need to study the places mentioned in FAB whether they have any relation to either battles with the Saxons or cult of Longinus.
Moreover, it is interesting to verify (or falsify), possibly through a study of the toponyms, a hypothesis if FAB contains an “alternative” tradition about the Battle of Brunanburh (937). (To my knowledge, all the extant sources are from the side of Athelstan).
7. Seven churches. This in an archaic feature, but, I think, with no importance for dating FAB. It is important, however, to the study of the local hagiographic traditions in their mutual connection, such as the cult of St Monena and her companions in Edinburgh (also with a seven church tradition: http://www.oldandnewedinburgh.co.uk/volume1/page26.html).
The seven church tradition was preserved in Rome (seven pilgrim basilicas, but the tradition itself goes back to the earliest Christian times, 3rd cent. or even earlier, when 7 Roman tituli were established), but was unusual in the continent. (As to Rome itself, it preserved a very archaic liturgy as late as, at least, in the 12th century - including even a Jewish-Christian animal sacrifice on the Easter). However, it was relatively widespread on the British islands (cf. toponyms such as “Seven Churches” in Ireland…).
The tradition itself goes back to the Jewish-Christian Sion, and, then, to some Jewish pre-Christian religious movements. As to the Jewish-Christian Sion, the tradition is reported as being ancient by three sources of the 4th century: Epiphanius of Salamis (De mensuribus et ponderibus, 14), Optatus of Mileve (De schismate Donatistarum III,2), and anonymous Pilgrim of Bordeaux c. 330 AD. All these data are collected by F.-M. Abel in: H. Vincent, F.-M. Abel, Jérusalem. Recherches de topographie, d’archéologie et d’histoire. T. II. Jérusalem nouvelle. Fasc. III. La Sainte-Sion et les sanctuaires de second ordre (Paris : Gabalda, 1922), esp. Ch. XVII, La Sainte-Sion, p. 471 sqq. The seven-chrines scheme was also repeated in the division of the liturgical space within the Sion basilica dedicated in 394 (and destroyed in 614) [I am currently working on the source explaining its liturgical spatial structure].