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7 The Ideologic&l and Cultural Diraensions 130

1982, p. 62). Despite their edifying character, the two love stories in the Life of Saint Irene (pp. 52—65, 66—75) probably betray a Freudian taste and seem akin to secular erotic romance, in the way the Byzantines understood it, as an “allegorical description of the aspiration of the soul toward salva-tion — that is, as within the theological sphere ... Some Lives of saints stand in close relation to the chronicles, for which they had supplied materiał. Thus there is no elear boundary between theological and secular literaturę” (Kazhdan, p. 97).

10. The two stories of love in Irene's Life cany the ideological message of all Byzantine hagiographers "praising sexual abstinence or temperance” and implicitly accept the Byzantine concept of the Church as the bride of Christ, with which was connected the interpretation of the Greek erotic ro-mances “as pious books in which the longing of lovers appears as an allegory of the soul's yeaming for salvation”, e.g. Achilleus Tatios and Heliodoros, both bishops. For Symeon, the soul was bride of Christ, who as a groom com-mingles with it and produces a seed. So man's soul is in love with Christ (Kazhdan, pp. 70—71, A. D. Aleksidze, Mir Grecheskogo Ritsarskogo Romana (XIII—XIV w.), 1979, pp. 5—36, 51 — 53, etc.). The suitor of the Cappadocian lady who became a nun in Irene's monastery "leamt that she had submitted to the virtuous yoke of Christ” and persuaded a sorcerer in his district to “fulfil all his desires... the girl was unexpectedly attacked by a seething passion which maddened her with a frantic lust for her former suitor and did not allow her to control herself. Violently leaping, screaming, moaning, erying and calling out his name in a loud voice, she assured with fearful oaths that unless someone let her see him with her eyes and enjoy to excess his sight and intercourse, she would hang herself. Then one could see her ... urging her escape and with inarticulate screams and shameless gestures orde-ring the doorkeeper to let her out”. Irene took care of her, and Basil the Great in a vision asked her: “Why do you reproach me, Irene, as if I connived at the abominable deeds performed in our common native land?” Following Basil's advice Irene went to Blachemai, where after “wetting the sacred floor with tears ... she saw an awe-inspiring populous procession” drring which the B.V.M. reproached Basil for having “tolerated sorcerers dwelling in their native land”; then she called for Anastasia, and two Anastasiai appeared, the Roman dressed in a monastic dress and the other one (the virgin); the latter was asked by Her to heal the girl with the help of St.Basil, "for you have received the gift of effecting such ends from my Son”. Waking up (it was Friday, the day of the imperial procession to Blachemai for doxology, whose replica was Irene's dream), she prayed with tears wetting the floor,

when “the martyr Anastasia and Basil ... were seen flying through the air”

and throwing into Irene's garment a package of magie devices: two idols

embracing each other and inscriptions naming "the author of the evil and

[containing] appellations of his servant demons”. At the church of the Great

Martyr Anastasia the “possessed girl ... speaking and acting unseemly in

her disordered State of mind” was healed by being anointed with oil from the

Martyr's tomb and by burning the instruments of sorcery. Then the latter

were reduced to ashes, “screams resounded from the charcoals, like sąueals

... when swine are butchered in great numbers” (Life, pp. 53—65).