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To cite this article: Anthony Cutler & Robert Browning (1992) In the margins of Byzantium?
Some icons in Michael Psellos, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 16:1, 21-33
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BMGS 16 (1992) 21-32
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ROBERT BROWNING, ANTHONY CUTLER
Just as whatever I might say to you about yourself, oh living image of wisdom
add natural goodness, falls short of my inborn disposition towards you, and
in this alone my tongue lags behind my mind, so too it falls short of your
icon. Let me put it this way, if you like. But if you wish to hear the truth
about the first exact model, then the measure of my words falls short of the
greatness of that which is spoken of. For the (true) measure, that which a
thing really is, is called the standard with which a thing is compared. In this
case I think that it is so far short of the title which it enjoys. For the image
2. Psel1os, Scripta minora, ed. E. Kurtz and F. Drexl, II (Milan 1941), Ep. 211,
247.10-248.12.
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IN THE MARGINS OF BYZANTIUM? SOME ICONS IN MICHAEL PSELLOS
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ROBERT BROWNING, ANTHONY CUTLER
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IN THE MARGINS OF BYZANTIUM? SOME ICONS IN MICHAEL PSELLOS
I do not think that this fire was corporeal, even though it was so perceived
and conceived by most people. Rather, when on this occasion the holy
archangel decided to blaze forth in the church of the Mother of God, the
intelligible lightning was manifested to those who saw it as sensible flame.
For either from love for the sacred precinct he chose to be and to work his
miracles here, or out of reverence for the icon of the Mother of God he elected
to serve as deputy commander to her as empress. If the true reason is not
quite clear to us, let it remain guarded in the heavenly archives, and let our
narrative concern itself with what followed. The miracle was reported to the
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emperor, who when he heard it was filled with terror, but when he thought
it over and grasped what had happened, decided that it was a matter of a
divine command, and was roused to greater efforts. And on the foundation
of the divine, or let us say angelic, design, he adorned the church in honour
of the Mother of God, and built a chapel in it for the archangel too.
4. ibid., I, 128.23-27.
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ROBERT BROWNING, ANTHONY CUTLER
If you wish to gather together in one place all excellence and means of rising
to higher things, devote yourself above all to the Mother of God, and revere
not only her icons, but also her invisible shadows, as indeed you are wont
to do. And if she has been made manifest and as it were painted without
human hand, deem that she stands before you ineffably and invisibly, as
she has been seen by all beyond marvel in the monastery before the walls
of the imperial city, which for that reason they call the monastery of the
image not fashioned by hand. Evidence of the love of God, most philosophical
soul, and of attachment to the Mother of God, lies not in approaching icons
and frequently embracing her likeness, but in what? First and foremost in
fashioning ourselves after the likeness of the excellence of the higher power,
and next in caring attentively for the church in which the divinity is honoured,
either adorning it or taking care of the possessions belonging to it. This is
what the Virgin Unfashioned by Human Hand is now claiming from you
through me as an intermediary.
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IN THE MARGINS OF BYZANTIUM? SOME ICONS IN MICHAEL PSELLOS
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ROBERT BROWNING, ANTHONY CUTLER
Not even icons? Why, my most sacred Lord? I actually robbed them from
churches. On your holy soul, I have stolen many from sanctuaries, tucked
them under my arm, and made off unnoticed. Later on, when I came under
suspicion, I at once denied it on oath. I am rather attached to these faint
pictures, because they exemplify the art of the painter. I have a collection
of such boards, mostly without gold or silver, like some of the new senators,
who have neither crosses nor silk robes. I feel no pain when I give them away.
8. ibid., II, no.129. For another translation and the social circumstances, see N.
Oikonomides, 'The Holy Icon as Asset', nop 45 (1991) 36.
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IN THE MARGINS OF BYZANTIUM? SOME ICONS IN MICHAEL PSELLOS
And one of them (sc. children born from the same womb) may be clever
and creative while the other is from the outset filled with forgetfulness and
stupidity. A painter's hand too, delineating two icons from the same original,
may make one resemble the model, and give the other a dissimilar form.
9. Cf. a case of 1365in which a priest was condemned for stealing a silverphengeion
(halo) from an icon of the Theotokos (F. Miklosich and J. Muller, Acta et dip/omata
graecamedii aevi sacra etprofana I [Vienna 1860] 475.9-10). Psellos' passage suggests
that icons exposed in churches were by no means always decorated with the precious-
metal frames so often itemized in lists of church furnishings; for major examples
of the genre, see A. Cutler, in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (New York 1991)
(hereinafter cited as OBD) II, 1005, s. v. Inventory. That the unadorned pictures taken
by Psellos were small follows from the way in which he concealed them.
IO.K.N. Sathas, Mesaionike bibliotheke V (Paris 1876, reprint Athens 1972) 282
nO.51.On this letter, see Ja. Ljubarskij, Michail Psell. Ltt:nosti i tvorl:estvo (Moscow
1978) 105.
11.Mid-II th-century judges by this name include Basil Xeros, on whom see E. Follieri
in ZRVI 8/2, 142; and John Xeros mentioned in the Actes de Saint-Panteleemon,
edd. P. Lemerle, G. Dagron and S. Cirkovi6 (Paris 1982) nO.5 (of 1057), with com-
mentary on p.53. Our thanks to A. Kazhdan for these and other references; cf. his
entry in ODB III, 2210, s. v. Xeros.
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ROBERT BROWNING, ANTHONY CUTLER
12. Vitae duae antiquae Sancti Athanasii Athonitae, ed. J. Noret (Turnhout 1982)
A par. 254.3-36, B par. 78.24-33.
13. C. Mango, The art o/the Byzantine Empire 312-1453. Sources and documents
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1972, reprint Toronto 1986) xv.
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IN THE MARGINS OF BYZANTIUM? SOME ICONS IN MICHAEL PSELLOS
we have noticed and other Byzantine texts that touch upon works
of art is that Psel10s - and perhaps only Psellos - gave voice
both to an understanding of the multiplicity of roles that such
works could play and the variety of possible responses to them.
We do not need to assume that his aesthetic or psychological
accounts of images were typical of Byzantine attitudes, even those
of eleventh-century intellectuals, in order to recognize the impor-
tance of these views. They are significant because they existed
and they exist because one man, albeit unusually, saw fit to utter
them. However unrepresentative of-his culture they may be, they
are a part of the historical record that has remained unrecogniz-
ed. On the other hand, it is self-evident that these opinions were
neither deliberately revolutionary nor set down only for their
author's private purposes. His observations are for the most part
made in passing - asides in discourses devoted to other mat-
ters. They were, moreover, communicated to others and, to the
extent that we can measure, to persons of some standing in Byzan-
tine society. No contemporary evidence exists that his views on
icons were regarded as outlandish or that, like Leo of
Chalcedon,16 he got into trouble for them. There is an obvious
historiographical contradiction between the supposition that such
views set him in the margins of society and the major role that
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ROBERT BROWNING, ANTHONY CUTLER
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