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frora Paradise through "a seafaring inhabitant of ... Patmos” (St. John) (pp. 80—85), a motif occurring already in the Historia Monachorum in Ae-gypto (pp. 62—63, 37—38) and in slightly different versions in the Life of St. Alexander (Baguenard, as in pa. 4, pp. 92—93, 103), the Life of St. Phila-retos, half-historical itself (Byzantion, IX, 1934, p. 163), in Das Leben des H. Narren Symeon von Leontios von Neapolis (ed. L. Rydćn, 1963, p. 137 = P. Cesaretti, I Santi Folii di Bizancio, 1990, p. 58), in the Acta Graeca of the three Mitylenean Saints (AnBoll, 18, 1899, pp. 224—225) and in nume-rous other hagiographic texts; the ultimate source of the motif in Christian literaturę is Acts, 14, 17. St. Irene's levitation when praying “gazing at the sphere of the stars and the beauty and greatness of the firmament” while “two lofty cypresses ... trembled gently together and bowed tlieir crowns to the ground along with her, waiting for her to rise” (Life, pp. 76—77), is a romantic religious motif traced already in the Virgin’s Koimesis (Synax-EcclCp, ed. H. Delehaye, p. 892), in the ‘Panegyriąue de Marie 1’Egyptienne par Euthyme le Protosecretis’ (An Boli, 99, 1—2, 1981, pp. 36—40), and the Cypriot folk story of Panayia of the Kykkos monastery. A hint at the motif occurs in the ‘Eloge de St. Alypius (the Slylite)’ (F. Halkin, Inedits, pp. 172— 173: he lived in the late 6. — early 7.c. p. 167) in a very naturalistic de-scription of a high lyrical ąuality (teller like a lily whiter among lilies, like a rosę morę wonderful among roses). Another possible hint is the description of Gregory the Sinaite by Callistos as seeming without a body when standing and singing all night (D. Balfour, Saint G • góry the Sinaite, Discourse on the Transfiguration, 1981/83, p. 63).

9. Similarly, St. Akakios the Young, martyred on 12 April 1730, is said by his hagiographer Papa Ionas the Kausokalybites to have been a man of God who, to destroy “the terrible, dirty, black, gigantic beasts, the demons, was praying standing like an unshakeable pillar, and when sitting (to pray) seemed levitating” (Nicodemos Hagioreites, Neon Martyrologion, 1961, pp. 286, 289). Temptation by the Devil is another indispensable experience of monks and ascetics (following the model of Jesus): St. Irene passed herself through it when confronted with “the adversary of our souls, in the guise of an ugly black man”, from whom she was saved by God through the inter-cession of the B.V.M., Jesus and the two archistrateges Michael and Gabriel (Life, pp. 18—23). With abundant tears, prayers and genuflections she was given by God the Gift of Second Sight (dioratikotes, pp. 38 — 41), eąually indispensable for saints. Her compunction, an expression of humility pre-scribed by the Fathers, took with Irene the form of almost incessant tears “gushing forth from her eyes like an ever-flowing stream from a spring” following her model, St. Arsenios; to conceal her wetting of the floor of the church with her tears “rather being ashamed of this, like a criminal”, she ordered a reservoir to be madę by a stonemason and be put and concealed at the appointed place where she used to be singing the divine hymns; “she did not rise until overflowing it was on the verge of betraying her... Telling its silent tale, the reservoir has remained until the present day” (pp. 64—67 with precedents). Tears were an extreme form of modesty and humility, tw₀ virtues that became part of the Byzantine system of behaviour, expressing self-abasement but also happiness. According to Symeon the Theologian they were the energeia of the Holy Spirit, food and drink for the soul leading to

salvj>tion (A. Kazhdan — G. Constable, People and Power in Byzantium,