Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

806 26. holy men
Such incidents were not simply moments of regression in the face of
overwhelming, but mercifully infrequent, catastrophe. It is important to
realize how little of the public space of late Roman society was occupied
by Christian holy persons. The solid gold of demonstrative sanctity was
spectacular; but it circulated in strictly delimited channels in what had
remained, to an overwhelming extent, a supernatural ‘subsistence
economy’, accustomed to handling life’s doubts and cares according to
more old-fashioned and low-key methods. To take one example: the high
drama associated with the healing of the mentally disturbed through exorcism
brought into peculiarly sharp focus the particular ‘style’ of supernatural
power associated with effective Christian sanctity. For that reason, it
bulks large in all hagiographic literature. But exorcism never achieved
exclusive dominance in the thought-world of contemporaries, nor, when it
happened, was it always perceived in the highly dramatic terms favoured by
Christian narratives of the display of spiritual power. Many of the exorcistic
gestures associated with holy men such as St Martin grew naturally out
of recognizable medical practices. Those in a position to visit a shrine or a
holy person associated with exorcism would, in any case, have been a small
proportion of the population. 44
As for the theological controversies that rocked the eastern empire in the
fifth and sixth century, Christian holy men played an important role in the
mobilization of local opinion on either side – all the more so as many
influential lay persons made the habit of taking the eucharist only from the
‘blessed’ hands of known holy men (John Rufus, Plerophoriae 22 and 33, PO
viii.40 and 75; John Moschus, Pratum Spirituale 188, PG lxxxvii.3065d). But
their opinions on theology carried little weight with the experts on such
matters. Considering a theological dictum ascribed to St Spyridon of
Cyprus, the great Monophysite theologian Severus of Antioch observed
drily that, while Spyridon might have received the ‘gift of healing’, the holy
old man had evidently not received the ‘gift of wisdom’ (Severus Antioch.
Liber contra impium grammaticum iii.39, tr. J. Lebon, CSCO 102, Script. Syri 51
(Louvain 1952) 181).
Deeply conscious of the ambiguity of the sacred and fully aware of the
limits of its field of action in a complex world, the society that turned to
Christian holy persons was more niggardly than our hagiographic sources
might lead us, at first sight, to suppose in lavishing credulity upon them.
But when they did, they were encouraged to ‘stylize’ their imagination of
the workings of the supernatural in a highly specific way. The holy man was
a ‘servant’ of his God. He was also a ‘patron’ in that he offered petitions to
God on behalf of others. His actions assumed, at a profound level, that the
events of this world were the product of conflicting wills (in which
44 Rousselle (1990) 109–86 and Horden (1993) are decisive on this issue.
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