Mekhamadiev, E. A.
The New Ark, the Deliverer of the World (ὁ κοσμορύστης) and God’s wrath: the Court Propaganda of Byzantine Emperor Heraclius I (610– 641 A. D.) during the First Half of the 630th A. D., in: Proslogion: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Social History and Culture, 2026. Vol. 9(1). P. 11–31.
Mekhamadiev Evgenii Aleksandrovich, Doctor of History, Associated Professor of the Medieval History Department at St. Petersburg State University (199034, Russia, St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg State University, Universitetskaya emb., 7/9)
e.mehamadiev@spbu.ru
Language: Russian
The present paper deals with the role and functions of God’s wrath concept (ἡ θεομηνία) in two works of George of Pisidia — the court poet-panegyrist of Byzantine Emperor Heraclius I (610–641 A. D.). In the poem «Restoration of the Cross», written in 630, and in a speech in honor of St. Anastasius the Persian, composed after 630–631, George demonstrates absolutely different ways of employment and understanding of God’s wrath concept in explaining of military-political events. Both works of the Constantinopolitan rhetor in any way praise a return of the relics of the Holy Cross, on which, according to Biblical stories, Jesus Christ was crucified, in Jerusalem in March 630, but the factor of God’s wrath as the reason of militarypolitical events (the wars of Heraclius with the Persians, the capture of Jerusalem and the theft of the relics by them in 614) is explained by George from entirely different points of views. In the poem George conveys to the reader an idea that God’s wrath fell upon the Persians and one another religion-political enemy of the Byzantines (the Romans, the Romaioi) — the Jews, because both didn’t respect the relics of the Cross, i.e. in the poem about the Holy Cross God’s wrath is shown as a consequence rather than as a cause of the theft of the Cross — as George claims, God’s wrath punishes the enemies of the Romans for their impious acts towards the Christian faith and Church. And contrary, in the speech in honor of St. Anastasius George directly and openly accuses the Byzantines themselves for the theft of the Cross by the Persians — from this perspective the Constantinopolitan rhetor insists that the theft was happened because of God’s wrath upon the Romans for their numerous sins. As a result, the author of the present paper argues that the differences in the interpretation of the role and functions of God’s wrath across George’s two works reflected the genre peculiarities of these works itself — in the poem the panegyrist narrated about the events from the perspective of a religious war waged for the triumph of Christian faith, whereas in the speech about St. Anastasius he composed his story from the hagiographical point of view.
Keywords: the Holy Cross, God’s wrath, the Persians, Jerusalem, Emperor Heraclius, panegyrics, hagiography, George of Pisidia
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