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3 The Ideological and Cultural Dimensions 135

M.V. Esbroeck, in: The Byzantine Saint, 1981, pp. 128—140). Eąually symbolic are the namesof Sts. Irene and Christine and others, something pointing to the legendary character of such stories in which the struggle between Good ?.nd Evil emerges as the central theme.

4. This theme is important also in historical lives: it gradually became the lundamental characteristic of a true saint or holy man or, as he is usually called, muli of God, and through him as described in his Vita, of the Christian culture at large. E.g.: St. Marcellos the Akoimetos (400? — c. 484    A.D.)

could expel the demons from possessed men by invoking Christ, so he used his power for spiritual healing; he is also said to have performed other mi-racles beneficial for the people and his monastery of the Akoimetoi near Constantinople (G. Dagron, AnBoll, 1—2, 1968, pp. 271 — 321; J. M. Bague-nard, Les Moines Acemetes, 1983, pp. 121 — 192). The Evil fought by St. Peter of Atroa Id. 837), an ascetic who led a "confederation” of monasteries on mount Olympos in Bithynia, was Iconoclasm, the “terrible snake”, but also the "snake-like demons possessing a paralytic” whom he cured, serpents destroying the crops which disappeared through his prayer, a demon possessing a monk due to his contravening a commandment, and the like (V. Lau-rent, La vie merveillcuse de Saint Pierre d’Atroa (-\-838), 1956, pp. 123—125,127, 161—163, 185, 195—199; idem, La vita retractata et les miracles posthumes de Saint Pierre d’Atroa, 1958, espec. pp. 135—171: healings by the holy oilof his tomb owing to his parrhesia or favour of God). Theognosia is the spiritual ■weapon of St. Nicephorus the founder of the monastery of Medikion in Bithynia (d. 813) inhis struggle against the archekakos ophis, identified mostly with the christiano categoroi, the iconoclasts, but also with all sorts of evil-doers, rapacious and scandalous people; like other saints, with God’s help he could make for the shortage of food supplies by miraculously increasing them (F. Halkin, AnBoll, 78, 1960, pp. 396—430), a miracle occurring al-ready in the Historian Monachorum in Aegypto fed. A.-J. Festugiere, 1961, pp. 37—38) after Jesus’ miracle at Kana. The same miracle was attributed to Marcellos (Dagron, pp. 308 — 309) and to other saints. St. Athanasios the Athonite prevailed over the demons tormenting the builders of the church of Theotokos at the cape Melana of Athos (961: P. Lemerle in Le Millenaire du Mont Athos, 963—1963, 1963, p. 76), and the holy blood of his fatal wound caused a number of miracles after his death (ibid., pp. 82—83; F. Halkin, AnBoll, 79, 1961, pp. 37—38). The hagiographers however, do not dare to identify the emperor Nicephoros Phocas with devil due to his breaking his promise to Athanasios to join him in asceticism: the latter is reported to just express his disappointment by gibing at the former and by secretly escaping from Athos to Cyprus, where the emperor despatched an order demanding his return (Halkin, p. 36; Lemerle, pp. 77—78, 92—94; late 963 — early 964). Athanasios was so closely connected with the group of powerful fami-lies goveming the empire (Maleinoi, Zephinezer, Phocades) that any violent reproach at him would be inappropriate, the morę so as the Saint visited him after his return from Cyprus and received from him a solemnium for his Lavra and an epidosis for the Great Monastery in Thessalonica. From John Tzimis-kes, the assassin of his friend Nicephoros, be received as much for the Lavra (Lemerle, pp, 78—79), thus securing the support of the Athonites opposing his reform that changed the Holy Mountain into a worldly place. Both em-perors were Orthodox, and this mattered morę for both the Saint and the