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136 Kastas P. Kyrris 4

hagiograpbers than the assassination of an emperor who had become uńpo-pular owing to his militaristic rule that pressed heavily on the population. After all, thoUgh hesitantly, Athanasios had accepted Nicepho/os' invitation and rushed to Crete from Athos to help his liberating expedition with pra-yers to God; he arrived after the victory (March 961), but he was offered money for establishing a koinóbion: though he rejected it, the money rea-ched him soon and was duły used by him (Lemerle, pp. 75—76, 91—92). God seems to have been approving of all choices and activities of Athanasios within the complex system of relations between religion and State. This is the main ideological message of the hagiography relating to the glorious Athonite.

5.    God’s love allows most ascetics and saints to foretell events, i.e. provides them with the charismatic power of prophecy. Athanasios is said to have possessed this ability (Halkin, p. 31), like St. Anthony the Young, who predicted the victory of his friend and spiritual son the generał Petronas, strategos of the thema of the Thracesians and brother of the empress Theodora and of Cesar Bardas, Petronas' futurę victory over the Saracen Ambros for Amer or Ammor according to other sources); the hagiographer claims that Petronas, until bis acąuaintance with Anthony, had been a slave of pleasure and fallen seriously ill due to the influence of “a ąuarrelsome Ethiopian with an ugly face”, from whom he was liberated by the Saint. The latter then rejected Petronas’ wish to be tonsured, because he had serious work to do in the world as an instrument of God. The victory foretold was that of 863 against the emir of Melitene, Omar ibn Abd-Allah al-Akta, at Poson. St. Anthony, a native of Palestine, had been foretold his futurę by a monk of St. Sabas in Jerusalem: he would emigrate and become the head of many cities in Romania before he ended as a monk. His biographer informs us that he was appointed ekprosopou of the thema of the Cibyrrheotes under Michael II (820—829) and he took part in the suppression of the revolt of Thomas (the Slav: F. Halkin, AnBoll, LXII 1944, pp. 187—225; ‘Acta Graeca SS. Davidis, Symeonis et Georgii Mitylenae ibid., XVIII, 1, 1899, pp. 209 — 259, cf. 252). The prophetic talents, otherwise dioratikotes, madę holy men indispensable advisers for military officials and statemen: God’s power as reflected in the holy man was a substantial part of the system and an indispensable ingredient of Hagiography.

6.    Akin to prophecy are the apocalyptic visions and eschatological con-siderations occurring in some lives such as that of St. Andrew the Salos dated between the early 8^,h and the mid-l0^,h century and that of St. Basil the Young written in c. 960. St. Andrew is a fictitious saint and his prophesies, based on old models such as the Daniel Apocalypsis and the Sibyllian Ora-cles, concern the futurę of the empire and express the anguish about its destiny shared by many of its citizens: they have an "ausgesprochen romanhaften

Charakter” (L. Rydćn in Eranos, LXVI, 1968, pp. 101 — 117; idem, in Harv.

Ukr. Studies, VII, 1983, pp. 568—586 and in JdÓB 32/3, 1982, pp. 175—183),

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and are not purported to guide a statesman or a generał as in the two lives mentioned in paę. 4 — 5 and solve a specific problem. The same is true for the miracles and visions in the Bios tou Osiou Basileiou ton Neon (by Chr. G. Angelide, 1980, esp, pp. 72.—TLI, 178—204). Although it contains much