![]() ![]() Stances, they did not practice embalming or cremation.6 Moreover, because of the imprecise nature of so many of our sources, what is presented here must be largely anecdotal. 5 Ioannis Climaci, Scala Paradisi, PG 88:793. de Catanzaro, The Discourses (New York-Toronto, 1980), disc. Dennis, CFHB 8 (Washington, D.C., 1977), ep. Basil, In Hexaem., 2, PG 29:52A John of Damascus, Carmen in Pascha, PG 96:844B The Letters of Manuel II Palaeologus, ed. We may also note that, except in very rare circum. At the beginning, however, we should note that the Byzantines were certain that death was not the end the sources give almost no indication of disbelief in an afterlife. Typical is the exhortation by Symeon the New Theologian to his monks, “On the Remembrance of Death.” 4 The sixth rung on the Ladder of Paradise of John Klimakos bears the same title: “On the Remembrance of Death.” 5 Several instances of death, as recorded in our sources, may teach us something about Byzantine attitudes regarding that eventuality. Death, the Byzantine people heard in church, was a consequence of sin, and, in addition to their daily experience of it, they were advised to reflect constantly on the transitory nature of this life.3 Monks and nuns, in particular, were called to meditate on death. Clearly, though, our concern is not limited to emperors, for death came, suddenly or slowly, to men and women of all classes and of all ages in the Byzantine world. In reflecting on the deaths of emperors, Niketas Choniates observed that God does not like to direct human affairs in the same manner all the time but prefers some variety.2 Thus one ruler is drowned, another decapitated, another killed by the enemy, still another gone mad and left to die in oblivion, while others “cross over to the other side as though they had simply closed their eyes in sleep.” Of the eighty-eight emperors who ruled, from the first Constantine to the twelfth of that name, thirty-seven died natural deaths, three died in accidents, five in battle, thirty by other forms of violence, and thirteen were forced to abdicate and enter a monastery, regarded as another kind of death. There is one way in which we enter this world, but many ways in which we leave it. But they also believed that there would come one day, for each individual as well as for the whole of creation, which would not have an evening-the day without an evening, hJ ajne´ spero" hJme´ ra.1 And this may help us understand how the Byzantine people looked upon what we call death. Or the Byzantines, as for us, the sun rises each morning and sets each evening. Issue year 2001 © 2002 Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University Washington, D.C. 55 Editor: Alice-Mary Talbot Published byĭumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection Washington, D.C.
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