The fool and the tsar (the Vita of Andrew of Constantinople and Russian urban holy foolishness) Текст научной статьи по специальности «Философия, этика, религиоведение»

P. Hunt

THE FOOL AND THE TSAR (The Vita of Andrew of Constantinople and Russian Urban Holy Foolishness)1

In honored memory of D. S. Likhachev and A. M. Panchenko

Introduction

A. M. Panchenko in his essay «Laughter as Spectacle» identified the special relationship between the holy fool and the ruler in the Russian tradition of urban holy foolishness. He noted that the fool's public display of uncouth and provocative behavior could occur equally before king and commoner and for both didactic and denunciatory purposes. Moreover, the tsar typically reacted to the fool's ploys with tolerance and fearful respect. By the seventeenth century, fools occupied an honored place in the Kremlin, and some were special intimates of the tsar and the patriarch.2 Panchenko viewed these relationships as ritualized behavior and as a «specific cultural stereotype».3 This daring use of holy foolish spectacle characterized the urban fool who wandered the streets of a city, as opposed to the monastic ascetic, the first to be associated with this behavioral model derived from Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians 4

Panchenko observed that the fool's ritualized (etiknoe) behavior was a subspecies of medieval spectacle, including royal processions.5 He posited that it derived from the popular rather than the Church culture. For him, the

1 This article was first published in Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives / Eds. P. Hunt & Sv. Kobets // Bloomington, Slavica Publications. 2011. P. 149-224. The present version has been revised.

2 Панченко А. М. Смех как зрелище // Лихачев Д. С., Панченко А. М., Понырко Н. В. Смех в древней Руси. Л., 1984. C. 132-136. An English translation of Panchenko's article by P. Hunt, Sv. Kobets and B. Braley can be found in Holy Foolishness in Russia, P. 41-148.

3 Ibid., C. 148-150.

4 Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. Oxford, 2006. P. 49-65.

5 Панченко А. М. Смех... 13. See: «Этикет» См.: Лихачев Д. С. Поэтика древнерусской литературы. Л., 1971. С. 109-117.

closest kin to the fool's behavior were calendrical rites of status reversal associated with the unofficial, popular «carnival laughter» described by M. Bakhtin in its western instantiation.6 These rites allowed «structural» inferiors (even slaves) to temporarily take on the status of «structural» superiors (such as kings), and profanely parody and even inveigh against them before being ritually «uncrowned» and sacrificed.7 Similarly, the Russian fool's spectacle could involve temporarily changing places with the tsar in a comic-burlesque way, and blasphemous displays and provocative actions intent on shaming the tsar and other social superiors.

While scholars have questioned this «popular» interpretation of holy foolish spectacle, this study will be the first to challenge its use as the dominant framework for describing the stereotypical relationship between holy fool and king.8 Yet Panchenko himself acknowledged its limitations when he wrote:

We can assume that antique spectacles presented a well-balanced system. To explore and describe aspects of this system would be an important and rewarding task for the historian of culture. One hopes that in due time such a work will be undertaken, so that we will be able to determine the place and function of holy foolishness within the larger system.9

This study uses poetic analysis to discover a well-balanced mythological system that underlies holy foolish spectacle. It finds that the defining characteristics of Russian urban holy foolishness derived from an «antique» (mid-Byzantine) model, the Vita of St. Andrew the Fool (hereafter VAn-drew).1 This model revealed the «place and function» of holy foolishness

6 Лихачев Д. С. Поэтика... C. 140-141.

7 Turner V. Humility and Hierarchy: The Liminality of Status Elevation and Reversal // The Ritual Process. Ithaca, 1969. P. 166-203; Панченко А. М. Смех... C. 139 acknowledges the influence of Frazer J. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion I. New York, 1975. See Ibid., P. 675-679 for the description of the Roman saturnalia to which Панченко refers, «Смех.». C. 138.

8 Аверинцев С. С. Бахтин и русское отношение к смеху // От мифа к литературе: Сб. в честь 75-летия Е. М. Мелетинского. М., 1993. С. 341-5; Birnbaum H. The World of Laughter, Play and Carnival: Facets of the Sub- and Counterculture in Old Rus // Aspects of the Slavic Middle Ages and Slavic Renaissance Culture. New York, 1991. P. 483-4; Pope R. Fools and Folly in Old Russia // Slavic Review. 1980. V. 39: 3. P. 476-481. Лотман Ю. М, Успенский Б. А. Новые аспекты изучения культуры Древней Руси // Вопросы литературы. 1977. № 3. С. 148-167.

9 Ibid., C. 84.

10 The Life of St. Andrew the Fool, Text, Translation and Notes / Ed. and Transl. by L. Ryden. Uppsala, 1995. V. 2. Panchenko himself attests: «.я занимаюсь феноменологией юродства, пытаюсь выделить его стереотипы, свести их в некую общую таксономию, и никак не могу обойтись без византийских житий: они представляли собою нечто вроде инструкции по этикету юродства, и если не подвижники, то русские агиографы строго ей следовали». See Смех как зрелище, С. 99, note 49. Panchenko refers to Andrew's vita at least thirteen times, as attested by the index to the Russian 1984 edition.

within two culturally central spectacles of Byzantium: First, the liturgy of the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross (hereafter Elevation liturgy); second, the closely related imperial spectacle of the emperor's procession from the throne-room (or the outskirts of the city) to the imperial cathedral. VAndrew blended the mythology of Wisdom in these imperial spectacles with the authoritative paradigm for holy foolish spectacle in St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians.

VAndrew thus integrated the inherited paradigm of holy foolishness within the matrix of messianic imperial ideology. As a result it laid a basis for the reception and development of holy foolish tradition in Russia within the context of an evolving rulership ideology. Derived from Byzantium, this ideology cohered under the Metropolitan Makarii to sanction Ivan IV's status as tsar and involved the institutionalization of a holy foolishness cult. In VAndrew the fool emerged as a hidden king and high priest, and the mythological double in Wisdom to the Byzantine emperor Constantine. In Russia, Andrew's role as the emperor Constantine's secret double laid the groundwork for the fool's stereotypical relations with the Russian ruler in the lat-ter's role as a "new Constantine."

The Byzantine Andrew offered a mythological and behavioral paradigm of the fool's special method of "sacred combat" through the "trickery" or "deception" of the Cross. It entailed manifesting Wisdom's hidden nature through a rhetoric of disguise. This disguise involved the use of playful folk-oral speech and gestures in carnival-like performances. These performances thus functioned within a higher Christian mythological matrix wherein the fool both concealed and revealed his inner Wisdom by evoking it in an upside-down way.

Up until now scholars have shied away from looking to Byzantine sources for the basis of the Russian fool's special relationship to the ruler. The widespread assumption has been that this stereotype was without Byzantine precedents.11 Moreover, there were no obvious reasons to follow this research direction: Neither of the authoritative Byzantine texts for urban holy foolishness described below bring their fools face to face with a king. Andrew's association with the ruler occurs primarily on a metaphorical level that can be accessed through a reading of its poetic structure.

The first authoritative text, the seventh century Vita of Symeon of Emesa (hereafter VSymeon) by the Bishop Leontius, alludes to but has not yet developed the framework motivating the Russian fool's later relation to the ruler.12 This vita is transitional to the urban paradigm of holy foolishness:

11 Petrovich M. The Social and Political Role of the Muscovite fools-in-Christ: Reality and Image // Forschunger zur Osteuropaischen Geschicht. Berlin, 1978. Bd 25. P. 283-296; Sergei Ivanov posed the question of why Russian fools differ from Byzantine fools in this respect, but did not offer a solution. See Ivanov S. Holy Fools and Political Authorities in Byzantium and Russia. XVIIIth International Congress of Byzantine studies: Selected papers, main and communications. Moscow, 1991 / Ed. I. Shevchenko, G. Litavrin // Shepherdstown, WV, Byzantine Studies Press, 1996. P. 266-271.

12 Krueger D. Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius's Life and the Late Antique City. Berkeley, 1996. P. 131-171.

A significant portion of the narrative is devoted to early stages of the saint's life where he starts his spiritual path in a monastery, tests himself in the desert, and only then becomes a fool in the city of Emesa.

VAndrew, the second authoritative Byzantine text, is the first writing about a fully urban holy fool. Andrew's spiritual path takes place entirely in the city of Constantinople. Its author, Nikephoros, was a priest in the Church of Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) in tenth century Byzantium during the Macedonian renaissance.13 While both vitae were universally acknowledged models of holy foolishness, only VAndrew was widely popular in Russia. 4 It was translated into Slavonic in Kievan times, and is considered to be the main influence on Russian urban holy foolishness.15 We will show that VAn-drew's embodiment of the mythology of spectacle in the Elevation liturgy explains the unusual depth of its reception in Russia where this liturgy also expressed the rulership ideology.

The references to the Elevation liturgy in VAndrew occur on the level of the poetic structure that informs the plot. Nikephoros tells the story of Andrew, originally a Scythian slave living in Constantinople. (Russians' believed him to be a Slav).16 He responds to a summons in a dream to become a fool-in-Christ. He ends up wandering around Constantinople confronting peoples' vices and humiliating the demons who secretly encourage them. The entertaining nature of these episodes, written in the common language, have inspired some scholars to characterize VAndrew as a novelistic adventure story in the guise of a saint's biography.17 L. Ryden, who translated the vita into English and provided it with copious notes, acknowledges that these episodes serve as didactic exempla, but without a unifying "system."18 There are also non-episodic sections of the text in which Andrew secretly teaches his disciple Epiphanios.19 Andrew communicates the founding mysteries about the origins, nature, and end of the world in the format of both questions-and-answers (erotapokriseis) and apocalyptic prophecy.20

13 On Nikephoros's status, see Ryden L. The Life of St. Andrew the Fool, Introduction, Testimonies and Nachleben Indices / Ed. and Transl. by L. Ryden. Uppsala, 1995. V. 1. P. 58.

14 For the history of the Slavonic translations, their Greek originals and the manuscript tradition, as well as an authoritative slavonic translation of VAndrew, see Молдован А. М. Житие Андрея Юродивого в славянской письменности. М., 2000 [далее - ЖАЮ].

15 Ivanov S. Holy Fools... P. 263; Ryden L. The Life of St. Andrew the Fool. V. 1. P. 37, 263.

16 Молдован А. М. ЖАЮ, 5. On the association of the Rus' with Scythians, see Carile A. Byzantine Political Ideology and the Rus' in the Tenth-Twelfth Centuries // Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 1988-1989. V. 12-13. P. 400-408.

17 Mango C. The Life of St. Andrew the Fool Reconsidered // Rivista di studi bizantie slavi. 1982. V. 21. P. 297-313.

18 The Life of St. Andrew the Fool. V. 1. P. 30.

19 Ibid., 59. Ryden sees them also as unsystematic оп P. 34, Ryden asserts that Nikephoros created Andrew's persona as a mouthpiece for these teachings.

20 For a close examination of this prophecy and its sources, see Сахаров В. Эсхатологические сочинения и сказания в древней русской письменности и влияние их на народные духовные стихи. Тула, 1879. С. 87-98.

Poetic analysis will uncover the mythological system that underlies the representation of Andrew as fool, teacher and prophet. A set of core episodes are structurally marked and re-instantiate the Pauline paradigm of holy foolishness within a Wisdom mythology derived from the Elevation liturgy. As such, they function as a kind of mystical didactic parable (prichta) about the fool's Wisdom of the Cross. Nikephoros endows the fool with same charisma as the emperor Constantine by portraying Andrew's street appearances as a disguised spectacle of this Wisdom.

The imperial processions that associated the living emperor with Con-stantine's Wisdom were also a source for the mythology of VAndrew's core episodes. They entailed a choreographed movement through a space saturated with ritual objects. It occurred in stages that symbolically integrated palace and church as a terrestrial mirror of the cosmic heavenly Jerusalem with the emperor at the center as a Constantine-like "king and priest" manifesting the Wisdom of the Cross. Nikephoros, who knew this ceremonial intimately (and was probably a participant), invoked its symbolism to represent Andrew's movement around Constantinople as a secret king and priest, manifesting the Cross' Wisdom in the guise of a fool. He shows that Andrew's activity among the sinners of the city is integral to the emperor's messianic role of enthroning all the faithful as high priests and kings at the Second Coming. These core episodes were widely known, excerpted, and read in later Russian tradition.21 They will be discussed at length in section two of this study. They include:

1) the episode of Andrew's initiation that I call, "The Wrestling Parable;" Andrew, still a slave, has a dream in which a mysterious youth, Christ, tells him that he will gain three crowns and "receive the good things of my kingdom" if he overcomes two hurdles: he must win a wrestling match against a giant Ethiopian and "Run the good race naked, become a fool for my sake;"

2) the episode of the "Winter Storm" in which Andrew runs the metaphorical race to the point of death by freezing, only to be miraculously revived and touched by a flowering branch that sends him into the promised kingdom;

3) the episode of Andrew's "Personal Apocalypse," his ensuing visionary journey when he leaves his carnal body and experiences a mental ascent that is actualized as a journey into paradise and heaven. He, crowned with a flowering wreath and wearing the garments of a king, beholds the glory of the kingdom.

21The textual history of VAndrew in medieval Russian tradition has been understudied and is key to our understanding of its Russian reception. For these episodes' treatment in iconographie and Old Believer written tradition, see Bubnov I. Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool of Constantinople in the Tradition of Russian Old Believers // Hunt P. andKobets Sv. Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Bloomington, 2011. P. 305329, especially the miniatures, no's 1-4, 18-20, 26-33. This edited volume is available online at the site "Project Muse."

4) the episode of Andrew's spiritual "Combat at the Forum." It portrays Andrew as the counterpart to the emperor Constantine in the high priestly kingship manifesting the Wisdom of the Cross; the latter is present on the scene in the aspect of his statue in the forum. Andrew, having returned to earth and to his carnal body, is now performing his foolishness there. He provokes by-standers who are ignorant of his inner sovereignty-in-Christ to attack him as a madman; all the while the pious woman, Barbara sees through to his awesome inner glory.

We will also treat another episode that deepens the mythology of the core, "The Future Patriarch's Vision." It offers a spectacle of the divine high priestly kingship hidden behind Andrew's foolishness as seen by Andrew's disciple, Epiphanios, portrayed as the future patriarch of Constantinople.

The first three core episodes described above depict Andrew's initiation as a wise fool and his preparation for his salvific role in the city. The fourth core episode offers a full mythological framework for interpreting this salvific role. In an ensuing episode "The Vision of the Mother of God at Bla-chernae," Nikephoros expands the mythological basis of Andrew's representation by association with the imperial Blachernae cult of the Mother of God. It describes Andrew experiencing on earth the encounter with the Queen Mother of God that he had hoped to have in heaven.22 He is granted a vision that he shares with his disciple Epiphanios: They see her with her royal retinue of saints moving through the imperial doors into the Blachernae shrine (soros), holding the relics of the Virgin's robe. She stops and sprinkles the ambo with her tears as she prays for the people who are there worshipping in the early morning hours; she proceeds to the sanctuary, prays again, and then turns around and holds her flashing veil over the faithful, the beneficiaries of her intercession. This episode associates Andrew with the cult of the robe of the Blachernae Mother of God, one of the most powerful and prestigious loci of intercessory power in Byzantium, subordinate only to the cult of the Cross (whose primary relic, the True Cross was also housed at Blachernae). This episode at Blachernae played a key role in VAndrew's reception in Russia, and will be discussed in sections 3.0 and 3.1 of our study.

The performative teachings in VAndrew's biographical episodes were aimed at the uninitiated, and complemented the lengthy sections in which Andrew offers verbal explanations to an initiate, Epiphanios. In the same way as the Mother of God comes down from heaven to intercede for the faithful, so Andrew dedicates himself in these episodes to the ordinary hypocrite, be he clerical or lay.

VAndrew's organization occurred on the level of poetic structure rather than plot. This structure has not been evident to modern readers who see with different eyes than the faithful of the Byzantine Empire and of medieval Slavia Orthodoxa. D. S. Likhachev was the first to note that ""Средневековый читатель, читая произведение, как бы участвует в некоей

22 VAndrew, P. 255. Andrew's heavenly guide had told him: "Our ... Lady, the Queen ... Mother of God is not present here, for she is in the vain world to support and help those who invoke God's Only Son ... and her own all-holy name." See VAndrew. P. 61.

церемонии, включает себя в эту церемонию, присутствует при ... своеобразном ' богослужении'... как участвует молящийся в богослужении, присутствующий при известной торжественной церемонии ... [my italics]."23 Nikephoros expects his reader to take this prayerful attitude to VAn-drew in order to attain its deeper meaning and appreciate its paraliturgical etiket.24 This attitude assured that the text could invoke action, personal transformation, and ultimately theosis, or union with God, and even inspire others to undertake the feat of holy foolishness.25

Reading in Byzantium required both divine initiation, and human patience (endurance), like the spiritual life itself. It entailed the ability to move beyond the "veil," i.e. beyond the surface meaning to a deeper sacred message. This effort was the necessary preparation for receiving the mystery, but it required the assistance of divine grace. The prayer before reading sacred texts included the invocations from Psalms 118 and 50: "unveil Thou mine eyes ... (Ps. 118: 18-19) ... Manifest to me the secret and hidden things ... of Thy wisdom (Ps. 50: 6)."26 The reciting of the Psalms itself was a model for the act of recollection of spiritual mysteries.27 Nikephoros subtly invited the reader to engage in a similar recollection when reciting VAndrew. In the episode of the «Wrestling Parable», Andrew's request that his (and our) «eyes be unveiled» is implicit in his recitation of Psalm 118. In the "Personal Apocalypse," Andrew's movement through a "broad place" and a series of veils alludes to Ps. 118:45 "I walked also at large (in a broad place: en pla-tismu; Slavonic, po shirine)."28 These two interrelated allusions to Ps. 118 in marked places of Andrew's penetration of mystery are a meta-poetic reference about reading with spiritual sight.

Nikephoros counted on his reader to unveil VAndrew's hidden wisdom by inwardly co-performing the meaning of the text. He/she had to search out embedded scriptural allusions and citations in order to mentally create, in an act akin to contemplation, the symbolic representation of the world signifying the Wisdom of the Cross.29 In this study we have used the modern tools

23 Лихачев Д. С. Поэтика... С. 111. On reading as "Conversation and Sacrament," see also Romanchuk R. Byzantine Hermeneutics and Pedagogy in the Russian North. Toronto, 2007. P. 48-58.

24 Garzaniti M. Bible and Liturgy in Church Slavonic Literature: A New Perspective for Research in Medieval Slavonic Studies // Études slaves médiévales. Nouvelles perspectives de recherché. Paris, 2009. P. 129. On P. 132 he quotes A. Naumov's assertion in "Sred-nevekovaia literature i bogosluzhenie" // Ricerche Slavistiche, XLII: 52 that, "the liturgy must be recognized as the most important factor of modelization of medieval culture ... the artistic reflection of the ancient age can be considered a liturgical reflection.

25 On the effects of spiritual reading see Origin's authoritative Commentary on the Song of Songs // RomanchukR. Byzantine Hermeneutics and Pedagogy., P. 37; GarzanitiM. Bible and Liturgy. P. 127-148, esp. P. 135, 142.

26 Garzaniti, Ibid., P. 121.

27 Ibid., P. 136.

28 VAndrew. P. 51.

29All scriptural citations not from the Elevation liturgy will be from the Orthodox Study Bible: New Testament and Psalms New King James Version (NKJV) / Ed. by P. Gilliquist, et al. Nashville, 1993, in the case of the New Testament, Psalms and Revelation; and from the

of poetic analysis to unveil for the contemporary reader the mythological structure of this symbolic representation. This analysis, assisted by L. Ry-den's textual notes, will enable us to identify a set of functions that integrate repeating motifs into larger metaphorical systems that function as typologies for high priesthood and kingship. It will demonstrate how Nikephoros called on these typologies to turn the biographical plot into a paraliturgical, ritualized (etiketnoe) narrative signifying the fool's high priestly kingship. This ritualization both transformed Andrew's holy foolish spectacle into a subspecies of royal spectacle and integrated it into a messianic Byzantino-Russian rulership ideology.

A reason that could have compelled Nikephoros to embed this mythology in VAndrew's plot is the expectation of the millennium in the year 1000.30 Nikephoros and his contemporaries may have experienced a sense of a "heaven-sent remission" that made conditions ripe for Nikephoros to portray a fool with radical intercessory powers.31 Andrew's namesake, Andrew of Caesarea, in his sixth century commentary on Revelation, had asserted that a "notional millennium" was already underway in the cult of the saints: ''They have the power to judge, through which they judge demons even until now ... They are glorified with Christ until the consummation of the present age, revered by pious emperors and faithful rulers ... they officiate and reign, as we can see, with Christ.'"32 Nikephoros endowed Andrew with these "proto-millennial" attributes in his lifetime to portray him as an effective defense against apocalyptic catastrophe. VAndrew placed the fool at the vanguard of the emperor's messianic mission to deliver the world from Judgment. Andrew, during his lifetime, was thus following a path laid out in the Synaxarion of Basil II when it invoked the heavenly saints and angels to "assist the emperor in wielding power and to intercede for him on Judgment Day [my italics, P.H.]."33

VAndrew's role as a response to apocalyptic anxiety is a key to its capacity to inspire Russian urban holy foolishness. We argue that it emerged to endow Russia with similar radical intercessors in face of similar (inherited) apocalyptic forebodings.34 In choosing to bring the fool face to face with the ruler, Russian hagiographers were building on Andrew's role as the emperor's alter-ego in high priestly intercessory power. Russian fools, however,

Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English. / Ed. by Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. 2009, in the case of Old Testament citations.

30 Magdalino P. The Year 1000 in Byzantium // Byzantium in the Year 1000. / Ed. by P. Magdalino. Leiden, 2003. P. 250-254.

31 Ibid., P. 55.

32 Ibid., P. 249-251.

33 Ibid., P. 257.

34 The ever changing dates of the millennium were themselves a source of anxiety, since the relief of having escaped a given deadline also led to tension about the oncoming one. See Magdalino, Ibid., P. 257. On Andrew's sense of the imminence of the end, see L. Ryden, The Life of St. Andrew the Fool. V. 1. P. 70. During the period that urban holy foolishness emerged and developed, Muscovy was experiencing similar anxiety when it escaped the final judgment expected in 1492.

did not wait for the Last Judgment to intercede with and for the ruler. Under the pressure of their own eschatological forebodings, they strove to keep the ruler himself pious to prevent for as long as possible the inevitable great apostasy of the elite foretold in Revelation, prophesied in VAndrew, and in other apocalyptic texts.35 Thus, when the tsar and church hierarchy lost legitimacy by undertaking ecclesiastical reforms in the mid-seventeenth century, the Archpriest Avvakum responded by appealing to all to become fools-for-Christ's-sake in order to deliver the righteous remnant while there was still time. Russian readers of VAndrew understood that, when the fool reproached the emperor, he was confronting the sovereign with a disguised (inverted) form of the ruler's own "iconic" royal image. The fool, far from a rebel, was shaming the ruler into living up to the Wisdom that enabled him to fulfill his sacred mission of delivering the universal church-empire into God's kingdom.

Nikephoros found in VSymeon the authority for producing a new "imperial" rendition of holy foolishness.36 He could not have missed VSymeon's marked references to the Elevation liturgy at points that were determinative for Symeon's spiritual path. While in Jerusalem for the feast of the Elevation of the Cross, Symeon decided to engage in self-purification as a monk and then as a hermit in the desert.37 Immediately preceding his entrance into the city of Emesa as a fool, Symeon revisited the Lord's tomb, the "place of Golgotha and the Resurrection" in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where the feast of the Elevation originated.38 Symeon's return to the locus of his original inspiration indicates that he was asking for the intercession of the Divine Wisdom, symbolized by the Elevation of the Cross, prior to taking on the most challenging ascetic feat of his life. 39 (figure 1) 40

35 For Andrew's apocalypse, see VAndrew, 259-285. On the succession of evil rulers of the Last Days, see P. 265-275.

36 Ivanov S. Holy Fools and Political Authorities. P. 266 noted that Symeon cried out, "Victory to the Emperor and the City".

37 VSymeon. P. 134-135, 150. The author compares Symeon and his spiritual companion John to the apostles Peter and John "running ... toward the Lord's life-giving tomb [cf. Jn 20: 4].

38 Ousterhout R. New Temple and New Solomons: The Rhetoric of Byzantine Architecture // The Old Testament in Byzantium / Ed. by P. Magdalino and R. Nelson. Washington, D. C., 2010. P. 241.

39 References to Andrew's Wisdom of the Cross mark the same two stages of his spiritual path as they do for Symeon: 1) his preparation for foolishness and, 2) his entrance into the city for sacred combat.

40 Лазарев В. Н. Страницы истории новгородской живописи. Двухсторонние таблетки из собора Св. Софии в Новгороде. М., 1983. Plate III. This feast is represented on a late fifteenth century church calendar table for the church of Holy Wisdom in Novgorod during the reign of the archbishop Gennadii.

Рис. 1. Воздвижение креста Оборотная сторона двусторонней иконки из Софийского собора. XV в.

Nikephoros in his turn chose to dedicate his fool, Andrew, to making Constantinople as sacred as the Jerusalem filled with the adoring crowds during the same feast.41 Nikephoros interpreted the fool as a sacred center analogous to Hagia Sophia's symbolic role a recreation of the Jerusalem Holy Sepulchre.4 Nikephoros went beyond VSymeon's brief allusions to the Holy Sepulchre cult when he invoked this cult's mythological system. As a result, he created a new paradigm of holy foolishness in parallel to the Con-stantinian paradigm of the Macedonian emperors' legitimacy.43

The mythological system of the Elevation liturgy endowed Ni-kephoros' paradigm of holy foolishness with a specific kind of temple-liturgical mysticism of Wisdom inherent to the cult of the Holy Sepulchre. This mysticism expanded on the meaning of "hidden Wisdom" in 1 Corinthians 2: 7, but in directions that differed from the primarily monastic-ascetic concept of Wisdom that informed VSymeon. Constantine founded this cult when he built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to honor Christ's tomb and when he and his mother, Helena, established the Feast of the Elevation of the True Golgotha Cross on the day after the feast of this church's dedication.44

The ideologist of Constantine's power, Eusebios, provided the basis for the epiphanic symbolism of Andrew's spectacle, when he interpreted the spectacle of the Elevation as a theophany. Eusebios described Christ's tomb as a "place of witness" (marturion) to the divine Presence; it revealed what had been hidden previously in the Judaic Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem tabernacle.45 The rhetoric of spectacle in the Elevation liturgy symbolically made the Wisdom of the Cross present at the center of the universal earthly

41 In church tradition, the Elevation liturgy became the dominant vehicle for expressing the mythology of the Holy Sepulchre church as "Wisdom's house" (see OusterhoutR. New Temple and New Solomons. P. 151).

42 On the transference of the symbolism and cult of the Holy Sepulchre to Hagia Sophia as the sacred center of Constantinople as a new Jerusalem, see Ousterhout R. New Temple and New Solomons. P. 223-253, esp. P. 229-251. On the reproduction of the cult of the Holy Sepulchre in the altar installations in Hagia Sophia, see Лидов А. М. Катапетасма Софии Константинопольской // Иеротопия: Пространственные иконы и образы-парадигмы в византийской культуре. М., 2009. С. 211-227.

43 Brubaker L. To Legitimize an Emperor: Constantine and Visual Authority in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries // New Constantines: Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzantium, 4th-13th Centuries / Ed. by P. Magdalino. Aldershot, 1994. P. 139-159, esp. P. 142; Grabar A. L'Art religieux et l'empire Byzantin a l'Époque des Macédoniens // L'Art de la Fin de l'antiquité et du Moyen Age / Ed. by A. Grabar. Paris, 1968. P. 151-168.

44 The feast of the Dedication of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Renewal of the Temple, occurred on September 13 and Elevation liturgy on September 14. Lossky V. The Raising of the Cross // The Meaning of Icons. / Ed. by L. Ouspensky and V. Lossky. Crestwood, 1989. P. 148-151. On its celebration in tenth century Constantinople, see Беляев Д. Ф. Ежедневные приемы Византийских царей и праздничные выходы их в храм Св. Софии в IX-X вв. // ЗРАО. Новая серия. СПб., 1892. T. 6, вып. 1-4, С. 237-243.

45 Ousterhout R. New Temple and New Solomons. P. 236-237.

city; there it served as an epiphany of Christ's cosmic Presence on his throne in the heavenly Jerusalem that looked forward to the Second Coming.46

The Elevation liturgy made Constantine an epiphanic figure by means of a rhetorical trope. It associated the elevated Golgotha Cross with the same Victory Cross that, according to tradition, the still pagan Constantine saw illuminated in the sky during the decisive battle of the Milvian Bridge. This Cross, the "sign" of Victory was a promise of his imminent enthronement over the world-empire in the name of Christ.47 The Elevation liturgy's metaphors interpreted Constantine's vision as a prefiguration of the advent of the messianic kingdom in the same way as the elevated Cross. Nikephoros identified Andrew's foolishness with this manifest Wisdom in all its imperial, and messianic connotations.

Both the emperor in procession and the fool Andrew symbolized the manifest Presence experienced through the mystical viewing of the raised Golgotha Cross. Metaphors that were derived from the Solomonic First Temple cult associated the display of the Cross with Christ's theophany as Great High Priest and King enthroned in the heavenly Jerusalem.. Vision of the raised Golgotha Cross was symbolically an initiation into the high priesthood and kingship of the Christian elect, equivalent to the vision of Christ in the Holy of Holies (now associated with his fiery throne). Mystically, this vision foreshadowed deliverance before Christ's glory-filled throne of Revelation (7: 9). Nikephoros's accomplishment was to integrate Andrew's spectacle of holy foolishness into this metaphorical system. He thus represented Andrew's foolishness as a "veiled" epiphany of the Wisdom of the Cross that was a deliberately ridiculous and shocking, up-side-down counterpart to Constantine's glorious Wisdom deriving from his vision of the Victory Cross.

The balance in the Elevation liturgy's metaphorical structure was between two complementary and overlapping strands that expressed a mythology of Christ's Kingship and Great High Priesthood respectively.48 By embedding the emperor Constantine in this mythology, the Elevation liturgy

46 The Elevation liturgy nowhere openly quotes Revelation, but its messianic typologies continually point forward to this prophecy's portrayal of the cosmic victory of the heavenly Jerusalem. So also Revelation is not cited directly in VAndrew's core episodes, but alluded to in a prototypical manner through references to Old Testament prophecies and the Psalms, and also in the form of parable. Magdalino P. The Year 1000 in Byzantium. P. 249-250 notes the apparently marginal status of Revelation in tenth century Byzantium: "It is not used in liturgical readings, the main Greek Fathers hardly cite it, and only three Greek commentaries are preserved ... The text of Revelation was neither illustrated nor a direct source of religious iconography." Yet, in Magdalino's view, Revelation was an important underlying framework of interpretation "because it gave ... validation to Old Testament prophecies ... which had not yet been fulfilled ...".

47 On the ninth century celebration of this idea, see Brubaker L. To Legitimize an Emperor. P. 139, 148. See also Gage J. La victoire imperial dans l'empire chrétien // Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses. 1933. V. 13. P. 370-400. On the importance and use of the victory "sign" in imperial culture and spectacle, see Ibid., P. 371-372, 375.

48 Barker M. The Great High Priest: The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy. London, 2003.

placed Constantine at the top of hierarchy of theophanic "icons" of the Wisdom emanating from the center (the universal church/city). After him followed the succession of Christian rulers ("new Constantines") and priests, and the generations of the faithful who would be the future high priests and kings before God's throne (Rev. 1: 6). The reading from Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians in the Elevation liturgy left an open space for a holy fool that Nikephoros filled.

This epistle reading implied how holy foolishness made present the Wisdom of the Cross: "For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after Wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified [through foolishness] ... the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1: 22-24)." The fool "preach[ed] Christ crucified" by being himself a "spectacle" to "angels and men" of Christ's degradation on the Cross (1 Cor. 4: 9). The cosmic implications of this Pauline spectacle made it analogous to the spectacle of the elevated Cross. Ni-kephoros built on this analogy when, in an unprecedented way, he linked Andrew's visible Pauline self-degradation with its hidden other side, Andrew's high priestly-royal nature manifesting the glory of Christ's Throne as the Wisdom in the Holy of Holies. He thus represented Andrew as an upside-down, disguised version of the emperor Constantine's Wisdom.

NIkephoros' success assured that holy foolishness would be welcomed in Russia since it had inherited the Elevation liturgy and the Byzantine Wisdom cult as sources of its own legitimacy. VAndrew taught the Metropolitan Makarii in the reign of Ivan IV that the holy fool was uniquely adapted to assist the newly crowned Tsar in maintaining the empire's messianic promise. Thus Russian holy foolishness was intimately connected with the rise of

49

the Muscovite state.

Poetic analysis will show that both VAndrew and the iconography of the Intercession (based on Andrew's vision of the Mother of God as Blacher-nae) passed down a typology of holy foolishness to Russian hagiographers. A brief analysis of the Vita of Prokopii of Ustiug will offer evidence for the existence of functional analogies in plot between the Russian vitae and VAn-drew. VAndrew operated as a dominant ritual narrative in its role as an authority for an "open tradition" of Russian holy foolish vitae. By comparison, the successor Russian vitae were lesser ritual narratives that echoed VAn-drew's mythological structure with much less symbolic density, and cultural self-consciousness. Yet their distant echoes of VAndrew's glory spoke loudly to local conditions and needs. This evolution of the inherited model of foolishness so as to place a check on their rulers' violations of Wisdom is one of the most vivid expressions of their native creativity.

In sum, poetic analysis of VAndrew's core and other episodes will allow us to understand holy foolish spectacle as a subspecies of key Byzantine and Russian imperial spectacles of the Wisdom of the Cross. This paradigm of spectacle represents the context for the stereotypical pairing of fool and

49 Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 285 first observed this correlation.

ruler and for the folklore motifs and ritualized gestures that expressed this pairing.

Our analysis of VAndrew's Wisdom mythology and impact in Russia will occur in two parts. The first part addresses the Byzantine context for the creation and interpretation of VAndrew (sections 1 and 2); Section 1, "Spectacles of Wisdom," elucidates the Elevation liturgy's mythology and then examines its instantiation by the emperor in procession and in VAndrew (through the mediation of Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians). Section 2, "The Mystical-Didactic Import of Core Episodes of VAndrew," will examine the creation of a ritualized (etiketnoe) narrative symbolizing Andrew's epiphany of the Wisdom of the Cross. The second part addresses the "Russian reception of VAndrew" and its impact on the development of Russian urban holy foolishness (section 3). While section 3.0 offers a broad overview of VAndrew's impact, from Kievan to Muscovite times, climaxing in the age of Ivan IV, section 3.1 uses a mid-sixteenth century Novgorod icon of the Intercession to clarify Andrew's iconic role for the development of holy foolish tradition. Section 3.2 offers analysis of the vita of the Novgorod native, Prokopii the Fool. This case study elucidates the poetic mechanisms through which Russian hagiographers recreated the paradigm of holy foolishness in VAndrew, including the stereotypical relations between ruler and fool.

In the course of this study, it will become clear that: (1) the Russian fool's spectacle had less to do with Panchenko's carnival rites than with imperial liturgy and spectacle; (2) the stereotypical relationship between king and fool in Russian urban holy foolishness was derived from an "antique" mid-Byzantine model, VAndrew; and (3) VAndrew spoke urgently to Russia's cultural needs as inheritor of Byzantium's messianic mandate in conditions of eschatological anxiety. It thus played a key role as an authoritative model in the genesis of Russian urban holy foolishness.

1.0 Spectacles of Wisdom

The Elevation liturgy's mythological structure offered a framework for interpreting the spectacles of emperor and fool as manifestations of the Wisdom of the Cross. The conception of Wisdom associated with this framework derived from the Solomonic First Temple cult.50 It arose from the implications of Christ's prayer in John 12:19-22: Foreseeing his crucifixion, Christ said (referring to himself): "... Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again ..."51 Since, according to Judaic tradition, this Holy Name was hidden in the Holy of Holies, Christ was showing how his crucified human body paradoxically

50 The Elevation liturgy mentioned Wisdom explicitly only three times in contexts that evoke the intercessory power of the Cross. See The Festal Menaion / Transl. by Mother Mary and Kallistos Ware, London, 1969. P. 135, 138, 161.

51 Festal Menaion, P. 122. See also John 17: 1, 2, 19, 22: "Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven and said: 'Father the hour has come. Glorify your Son ... You have given Him authority over all flesh . And for their sakes I sanctify Myself that they also may be sanctified . and the glory that you have given Me I have given them [my italics]."

manifests the hidden Wisdom/Glory of the Holy of Holies.52 This symbolism was transferred onto the Elevation of the Cross and to other rituals. For this reason, engraved images of the cherubimic Holy of Holies occupied the "center" of processional crosses, which sometimes featured a representation of the renewed Jerusalem temple — the Holy Sepulchre or the New Jerusalem — at their base53 (figures 2 and 3)54.

Рис. 2. Процессионный серебряный крест. XVI в. Фрагмент

52 BarkerM. Temple Theology. P. 26.

53 Plates 21 A-E in The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era A. D. 843-1261 / Ed. by H. Evans and W. Wixom. New York, 1997. P. 55-56 show processional crosses with symbolic churches at their base that ""may refer both to the Holy Sepulchre and to 'Sion', the city of God or the Heavenly Jerusalem." On the inclusion of the Mother of God as another key imperial archetype of this intercessory symbolism on the Byzantine processional cross, see The Glory of Byzantium, plates 24-26.

54 Plates 5 and 6 in Самойлова Т. Е. Вера и власть. Эпоха Ивана Грозного. М., 2007. C. 42-44. Samoilova notes that this processional cross, made by a Kremlin master under the Metropolitan Makarii in the sixteenth century is based on the Byzantine processional crosses that acted as dominant symbols in imperial ceremonial of the emperor's nature as a "new Con-stantine." Under the presiding image of God as Trinity is an image of the cherubimic door out of the Holy of Holies itself presiding over an image of the Holy Face (the Savior Not Made by Human Hands), and of the crucifixion.

Рис. 3. Процессионный серебряный крест. XVI в.

By analogy to the Holy of Holies, the Elevation liturgy endowed the Elevation of the Cross with the cosmic apocalyptic implications of "entrance" beyond the Judaic temple "veil" into Wisdom-Glory. It associated this entrance with initiation into knowledge of the Pattern (Logos) of history, into the "structure and harmony" of the Creation.55 The archetypes of this Pattern were in the Book of Revelation, and condensed in the ecstatic image of the Throne of the Lamb and the God. The Elevation liturgy expressed this Pattern through historical typology to invoke the Cross's central role in the movement of sacred history to the Second Coming.56 Royal ritual and VAn-drew assimilated the emperor and fool respectively into this triumphal Pattern: They too served as typological prefigurations of the glory of the Throne (Altar) that Christ occupies with God the Father.

The Elevation liturgy set a precedent for the symbolism of royal and holy foolish spectacle by associating the Elevated Cross with experience of a reign of universal happiness under the sovereign Christ of the Second Coming. This experience was a return to Eden, and to the New Jerusalem, the place where the "lord of Hosts" is dwelling with his people and can be seen.57 Imperial ritual and VAndrew associated their protagonists with this reign and with its acclaimed Sovereign. In the Elevation liturgy, choruses of the faithful together with the angels celebrate the Spectacle of the King offered when the Cross is raised. In royal processions, the acclamations glorifying the emperor echoed this chorus. 8 In "Combat at the Forum," Nikephoros also places Andrew at the center of a similar chorus, foolishly exclaimed by "sparrows" instead of angels and men.

Similarly, imperial ritual and VAndrew's core episodes associated their protagonists with the connotations of "elevation" itself. A plethora of variants on the motif of "lifting up" (vozdvizhenie) in the Elevation liturgy elaborated the import of Christ's following prophecy: "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself (John 12: 32) [my italics]." Variants such as drawing "upward," "elevation," "rising," "exaltation," "ascension," and "resurrection"" were placed in the service of a cosmic trium-

55 BarkerM. Temple Theology: An Introduction. London, 2004. P. 35-37.

56 The Elevation liturgy exhibits a strong typology subsuming sacred history under the pattern (Logos) of the Cross and its eschatological triumph. The cross-bearing Constantine is the apotheosis of a long line of typological predecessors including Adam, Moses, Aaron, David and Paul. On the typology of Constantine's vision according to Eusebios of Caesarea, and on imperial typology, see Rapp C. Old Testament Models for Emperors in Early Byzantium // The Old Testament in Byzantium / Ed. by P. Magdalino and R. Nelson. Washington, D. C., 2010. P. 182-183, 196; and Jeffrey E. Old Testament 'History' and the Byzantine Chronicle // The Old Testament in Byzantium / Ed. by P. Magdalino and R. Nelson. Washington, D. C., 2010. P. 155, 172.

57 Barker M. The Great High Priest. P. 14-33; Barker M. Temple Theology. P. 32, 39; Festal Menaion, P. 141, 147, 148, 150, 157.

58 Festal Menaion, P. 131-163. Acclamations of the Emperor make direct analogies between him and Christ, especially as regards their light-bearing nature.

phalism. This choral-proclamatory mode looked forward to the great gathering together of the Faithful before the Lord's throne in the apocalyptic New Jerusalem.59

The Cross is raised on high, and urges all the creation to sing the praises ... of Him who was lifted high upon it. For there it was that He killed our slayer . and counted us to be worthy to be citizens of heaven. Therefore with rejoicing let us exalt His Name ... Therefore, beholding thee raised on high, creation rejoices ... glorifying Christ, who joined together that which was divided . thou dost lift up again all those who . had been made outcasts and were sunk in death ... through the cross we are all drawn to God ... Today is lifted up ... the Tree of life ... it proclaims His Ascension to heaven, whereby our nature ... is made a citizen of heaven" [my italics] ."60

The emperor in imperial procession dramatized this symbolism. He ty-pologically reenacted Christ's resurrection and enthronement, partially by association with Constantine's Victory Cross manifest in the sky? as a consequence, he was mystically elevated above his people, separated from them as a transcendental Other, and a beacon of their future transfiguration.61 Ni-kephoros's fool, Andrew, also dramatizes this symbolism, first comically, when a large Ethiopian wrestler "raises" Andrew "up" probably by his collar. Then in more exalted episodes, Nikephoros describes Andrew's mystical resurrection into the heavenly kingdom, and associates the fool with the Lord's exalted Name, with the power to "draw all to God," and redeem "outcasts." By contrast to the emperor, Andrew enacts his inner elevation inversely, by a display of degradation and weakness. He hides his nature as the exalted Other in order to place himself at the service of the urban population who, while separated from the emperor, are forced to face the fool.

Imperial ritual and VAndrew alluded to their protagonists' place in a hierarchy of mirrors reflecting the Wisdom-Light of the Cross. In the Elevation liturgy, the Wisdom and glory of its Spectacle flowed down through a hierarchy of mirrors "inscribing" the Light of the Cross on to sacred history. The emperor Constanstatne "illuminated" by his vision of a Cross in the sky was mythologically the first to be inscribed.62 His vision is a master symbol of the emperor's and the empire's initiation into the Light of the Cross. According to the Elevation liturgy, Constantine founded the feast of the Elevation as a way to extend this Light to the people of the empire by offering

59 Festal Menaion. P. 136, 160. On Revelation's relation to the temple cult, see BarkerM. The Great High Priest. P. 223-225.

60 Ibid., P. 134, 153, 157.

61Dagron G. Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium. Cambridge, 2003. P. 95-97 notes that access to the emperor was strictly controlled, and that in church and at the hippodrome his place was elevated above the populus romanus.

62 Festal Menaion. P.137, 139, 152.

them their own spectacle of the Cross on high.63 By associating the living Emperor with this Light, imperial ritual and acclamation associated him with Constantine as a spectacle of the Wisdom of the Cross. Nikephoros built on this Constantinian liturgical-ritual paradigm of spectacle when he allowed initiates (such as Epiphanios and the woman Barbara) to see a hidden inner glory in Andrew's inverted spectacle of holy foolishness. Thus imperial ritual and VAndrew interpreted their protagonists by analogy to the Presence of the King enthroned in the Holy of Holies, manifest as the Wisdom of the Elevated Cross.

1.1 Wisdom Mythology: Systems of Mediation in the Grid of the Cross

The Elevation liturgy's metaphorical structure implied a "well-balanced" structure of mediations that was reflected in imperial ritual and VAndrew. This structure emerged out of the Elevation liturgy's central paradox: At the apogee of his human lowliness on the cross, engaged in an act of high priestly atonement, Christ also was lifted up, manifesting the Father's Glory as King. This structure is implicitly a set of oppositions resolved at the intersection of a horizontal and vertical axis, modeling the Wisdom of the Cross through metaphors of high priesthood and kingship.

In this system of mediations, the lower polarity of the vertical axis is the archetype of Christ's human degradation on the cross. It is realized typo-logically on opposite sides of the horizontal axis by narratives of 1) high-priestly atonement and/or 2) military royal sacred combat signifying self-renunciation. The upper polarity of the vertical axis is the archetype of Christ's divinity. It is realized typologically on opposite sides of the horizontal axis by narratives related to the archetypes of 1) Christ's high-priestly glorification of the Father's name and 2) his royal sovereignty as a "military" victor over sin and death. Such narratives involve symbolism of 1) the high priests' passage through the veils into the glory of the Holy of Holies of the universal-cosmic Temple and/or 2) a king's triumphal conquest of, crowning and enthronement in the universal-cosmic Qty.

The horizontal axis models the duration in time through which the unified polarities of the vertical axis can be ritually reenacted. By resolving the "central" paradox of the Cross, this grid of mediations signified the Wisdom mythology that informed the image of the emperor Constantine, and of the "new Constantines" of imperial ritual, and of Andrew the fool.64 The spectacle of the emperor in procession embodied the internal balance of this grid as two roughly consecutive stages in which military-royal symbolism was followed by high priestly symbolism. Nikephoros placed his fool at the same epiphanic center. Only he assimilated Andrew to this grid in an "inverted"

63 Festal Menaion. P. 137: "Divine treasure hidden in the earth, the Cross of the Giver of Life appeared in the heavens to the godly King ... Rejoicing with faith and love, inspired by God he made haste to raise on high the Cross which he had seen in his vision . for the deliverance of the world and the salvation of our souls."

64 Ibid., P. 134, 150: ".the most glorious Cross [is] a safeguard of royal power. For it is a triumphal glory to kings, and a light. "

upside-down way characteristic of foolishness. Nikephoros allowed us to see this assimilation through a spiritual reading of VAndrew's metaphorical system, and also through the eyes of initiates who are able to penetrate beyond Andrew's holy foolish veil. By resolving the "central" paradox of the Cross, this grid of mediations laid a basis for the metaphorical structure of imperial ritual and VAndrew.

In royal procession the opposite sides of the horizontal axis were performed in sequence and related either latently or explicitly to the vertical axis. G. Dagron has pointed that royal procession on the twelve great feast days of the Church or on the emperor's coronation followed one basic bipartite schema: The first part involved procession from the Throne Room of the palace into the city, or, alternatively, during the coronation of a military general, procession through the outer gates into the city towards the cathedral; the second part was procession into Hagia Sophia (or Nea Ekklesia) to the altar. The first part outside the Church operated predominantly within the framework of the Elevation liturgy's royal-military metaphors and was associated with the Victory Cross that Constantine saw in the sky;65 the second part inside the Church shifted to the high-priestly metaphorical system associated with the Golgotha Cross, the Victory Cross's mythological double.66

Imperial procession was thus a system of mediations in movement that transformed the emperor into an epiphany of the Presence by analogy to the Elevated Cross. This ritual performance expressed aspects of the Elevation liturgy's mythology that were latent in this liturgy itself. When Nikephoros embedded Andrew's holy foolish spectacle in this same mythology, he drew from the Elevation liturgy and also from the elaborated mythology of imperial procession. In the following sections we will describe the structural analogies between the archetypal Spectacle of the Elevated Cross, and the spectacles of imperial procession, and of holy foolishness in VAndrew in evoked the grid of the Cross. As we will see, Nikephoros associated Andrew directly with the emperor Constantine in the form of the emperor's statue in the forum. This statue symbolically was at the center of the epiphanic grid invoked in the Elevation liturgy. On the hidden level of poetic structure, it was a touchstone for Andrew's parallelism that Wisdom with the spectacle of the emperor.

1.2.1 Horizontal Reflections of the Vertical Axis: Upper Polarity

The military-royal and high priestly realizations of the horizontal axis achieved an apotheosis in the symbolic structures of the Elevation liturgy and imperial procession when they instantiated the upper polarity of the epiphanic grid. These structures symbolized Constantine's and the living emperor's victory over the universal city and entrance into the Holy of Holies of the renewed Temple (the archetypal Church of the Holy Sepulchre).

65 Dagron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 84. Acclamations on the feast days make direct analogies between Christ and the emperor, especially as regards their light-bearing nature.

66 Ibid., P. 84-114. For the first military royal part, see P. 84-95; for the second part, high priestly part see P. 99-114.

Similarly, they were an implied parallel order for Nikephoros's representation of Andrew's encounters with the population of Constantinople, the universal city. Andrew's relation to these typologies made him a holy foolish counterpart to the wise emperor delivering the world-Empire-Church into the messianic kingdom-temple.

1.2.1.1 The Military-Royal Side

In the Elevation liturgy, military-royal metaphors offer a parallel system for Nikephoros' evocation of Andrew's sacred combat and victorious presence in the city. These metaphors signified the emperor's Power to wrest back territory usurped by the Devil (and his servants, including pagan "barbarians") and deliver it into the Father's kingdom.67 They reflected the emperor's participation in the Cross's Power to defeat the "slayer."

"He raised us up, whom the enemy had before despoiled . let us venerate the wood through which we have been counted worthy to crush the heads of our invisible enemies . Ye faithful Christian kings, forechosen by divine decree . make this victorious weapon your glory, for by it the tribes of the enemy . are scattered unto all ages."68

The ruler's victory over barbarians through the Cross testifies to his own kingship in Christ.

"The Length and breadth of the cross is equal to the heavens, for by divine grace it sanctifies the whole world. By the Cross barbarian nations are conquered, by the Cross the scepters of kings are confirmed, . lifted on high before the battle line, strengthen us through thine Exaltation."69

The emperor's defeat of barbarians initiates the formerly profane into the promise of the eschatological New Jerusalem.70 His military triumphs bring about a mental state of enlightenment that throws off the deception of the Beguiler: "Heaven showed the Cross as a sign of victory to Constantine, . through it the proud insolence of his enemies was cast down, deceit was overthrown [my italics]"71

The statue of Constantine in the forum is a symbolic nexus of these meanings that played a crucial role in VAndrew. The [no longer extant]

67 For visual evidence of this equivalence between barbarians and the devil see a miniature of the Khludov Psalter produced around 850, in Brubaker L. To Legitimize an Emperor. P. 147.

68 Festal Menaion, P. 156, 150.

69 Ibid., P. 153, 139.

70 Ibid., P. 136: "Therefore thy gates shall be open continually, O Jerusalem that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles [the profane] and that their kings may be brought. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish" (Is. 60: 11-16).

71 Ibid., P. 145. On the "beguiler," see P. 147.

statue on the porphyry column was believed to reveal the secrets of Constan-tine's vision (figures 4 and 5).72 In Eusebios's account, the emperor held in his right hand the "salvific trophy." Eusebius notes the presence of an inscription in which Constantine boasts to have "delivered the city from the tyrant's yoke, thanks to the salvific sign ...."73

Рис. 4. Порфировая колонна императора Константина. IV в.

Стамбул

72 Figure 4 is Plate IX in Fowden G. Constantine's Porphyry Column: The Earliest Literary Allusion // The Journal of Roman Studies. 1991. V. 81. P. 119-131; Figure 5 is in Sher-rardP. Byzantium // New York: Time Inc., 1966, P. 42-3. See also Mango C. Constantine's Porphyry Column and the Chapel of St. Constantine // Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologik-es Hetaireias. 1980. V. 10. P. 103-110.

73 Gage J. La victoire imperial. P. 385-387.

Рис. 5. Константинополь. Карта

Constantine's column was a destination of the imperial procession that acted out Constantine's military-royal Wisdom.74 The ceremony of the emperor's acclamations as victor in the first part of the procession invoked the military-royal symbolism associated with this statue, especially in the variant of this ceremony that described a general's triumph.75 The emperor-general

74 On the key importance of the Cross and Elevation liturgy in imperial ceremony see Gage J. La victoire imperial. P. 370-400.

75 These military rituals were still in use in Nikephoros' day and described in Constantine Porphyrogenitus' Book of Ceremonies. See Dagron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 59-78. In the tenth century when VAndrew was probably written, military generals were on the throne, first the regent Romanos I Lekapenos, and in 963, the co-emperor, Nikephoros II Phokas. The acclamations for the latter directly echo metaphors of the Elevation liturgy. See Pentcheva, Icons and Power, P. 33-34. Dagron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 64-65 writes of this ceremony: "the savior king appears to the people ... surrounded by supernatural signs ... he had at his side a great processional cross, probably that reproducing the vision of Constantine the Great ... The jubilant crowd welcomed with flowers and garlands this deus praesens, its liberator and de-

received a gold victory wreath during a stop near the column to emphasize his role as a new Constantine-like deliverer. The victory celebration continued the next day, when the emperor oversaw athletic games in the Hippo-drome.76 There he confronted the populus romanus from his elevated box, renewing his charismatic function as a mirror of the triumphal collective.77 In this way, the living emperor performed the meaning of Constantine's vision as symbolic crowning and enthronement over the universal city, foreshadowing the coming of the Lord of Hosts. He implicitly showed himself both as an initiate in Wisdom, and a "cosmic" deliverer.

By mentioning Constantine's statue in the "Combat at the Forum" episode, Nikephoros signifies Andrew's role as a foolish instantiation of the victorious emperor-general's Power of deliverance. He presents Andrew as a disguised prototype of the Coming Lord of Hosts (visible to the woman Barbara) who wins back souls from captivity to the Devil. By placing Andrew's victory in eschatological perspective, Nikephoros represents him as the apotheosis of the emperor's Wisdom, and the sovereign's alter-ego in the field of combat on the home-front.

Andrew's foolish embodiment of the military-royal Wisdom symbolism prepares the way for Andrew's vision of the Mother of God in the Bla-chernae Church. After the Cross, the Mother of God at Blachernae was the dominant imperial archetype of protection and military triumph. When Andrew evokes her intercession, he is demonstrating his own triumph as protector of the universal city.78

1.2.1.2 The High-priestly Side

The imagery of high priesthood that pervades the Elevation liturgy and imperial procession finds a parallel in VAndrew. Metaphors for the high priest's entrance into the Holy of Holies function as the other "side" of military-royal metaphors for victory over the universal city. The Elevation liturgy uses them to associate the emperor and his people with the Light of the Cross as a manifestation of the Holy Name previously hidden in the holy of Holies. For instance, when it describes Constantine seeing the glory of the Cross "inscribed" onto the heaven, it implies that he is "inscribed" with the same glory, that he is sealed, metaphorically, with the Holy Name. This imagery becomes explicit in regards to the faithful. Just as the Jewish high priest in the Holy of Holies wore the Holy Name on his forehead, so the faithful viewing the Cross bear its imprint on their foreheads.79 In this way the hymnology realizes the import of the communion verse: "The light of Thy countenance is marked upon us, O Lord (Psalm 4: 7). Moreover this "mark" points to the

fender and deliverer." He scattered gold and sometimes also remitted taxes or dedicated trophies.

76 Dagron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 60-63 and Gage J. La victoire imperial. P. 375-377.

77 Dagron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 95-96.

78 On the Mother of God's assimilation to the military royal system, see Pentcheva, Icons and Power, P. 11-61, 145-165.

79 Festal Menaion, P. 137-140, 152-153, 163.

future destiny of the faithful to be "kings and priests" before Christ who will "see His face, and His name [is on] their foreheads ... and they shall reign forever and ever" (Rev. 22: 4-5). Celebrating the glory of the Elevated Cross, they and their rulers are, implicitly, joining the chorus of angels before the Throne of God and the Lamb in the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. 7: 13-15).

In the episode, "Combat the Forum," Nikephoros associates Andrew with the symbolism of the Cross as Light in Constantine's statue. At the same time, Andrew appears to Barbara as an epiphany of the Holy Name. When his disciple Epiphanios sees Andrew in his heavenly palace, a cross has been inscribed on the forehead of this glorious fool who stands together with the archangels in praise of Christ's Throne. Thus the Elevation liturgy's high priestly metaphors of "inscribing" with the Holy Name played an active role in the poetic construction of the fool's hidden Wisdom.

Nikephoros also draws on the Elevation liturgy's association of the Cross with Aaron's flowering rod:

"The rod of Aaron is an image of this mystery, for when it budded it showed who should be priest. So in the church . the wood of the Cross has now put forth flower, filling her with strength and steadfastness . For the cross is the . strength and steadfastness of kings."80

Nikephoros uses variants of this metaphor to evoke junctures in the fool's high priestly inner journey into the Founding Mysteries. In the initiatory dream of the "Wrestling Parable," an angelic youth promises Andrew a flowery crown. All Andrew has to do is "champion" a group of white robed elders, - the future "kings and priests" before God in Revelation - to prove that he will be numbered among them. Later, after he endures the winter storm, a bright youth touches him with a flowering branch that sends him into the heavenly kingdom, where he assumes the promised flowery crown and comes "before God," as royal high priest (and king).

Nikephoros draws equally on the high priestly symbolism of the emperor's procession into Hagia Sophia for his evocation of the fool's hidden Wisdom: the emperor symbolically processed into the Holy of Holies when he passed through the imperial doors from the narthex to the nave of Hagia Sophia and arrived before the altar-throne. Once there he officiated with the patriarch in a "quasi-" high priestly way.81 Nikephoros represents Andrew's "Personal Apocalypse" and his foolishness at the forum in direct counterpoint to this dynamic of passage and arrival. He builds his system of imagery from the meanings symbolized in the narthex mosaic over the imperial doors and in two related compositions also above the imperial doors, in the narthex and the western wall of the nave respectively.

80 Festal Menaion, P. 145.

81 Dagron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 127-157, describes how the holy emperors reflected the sainted Constantine's role as "quasi-bishop."

Рис. 6. Император Лев Мудрый перед Христом на троне и Богоматерью Мозаика над западным входом Софии Константинопольской. X в.

The narthex mosaic made explicit the temple-liturgical symbolism of the emperor's action (figure 6).82 There an emperor, presumed to be Leo VI, is in prostration before the enthroned Christ. Christ bears signs that identify Him as the manifest Holy of Holies. Around His head is a cruciform halo of Light signifying His Wisdom of the Cross. He also holds open the Gospel at the place where he pronounces himself the "light of the World" (John 8: 12). This imagery suggests that the living emperor passing under this mosaic and approaching the altar is mystically entering into the Light of Christ's throne, the manifest Holy of Holies. The emperor's arrival at the altar prefigured a scenario described in Byzantine apocalypses: Prior to the Second Coming, the last emperor of Byzantium will go to Jerusalem and lay his crown on the reconstituted Golgotha cross.83

The emperor who has arrived at the altar of Hagia Sophia alludes to this ultimate act of deliverance of the empire into the kingdom.84 He thus becomes, implicitly a living icon of Christ's Wisdom. He inwardly mirrors the enthroned Christ with a Cross of light around his head. Mosaic depictions

82 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:The_Yorck_Project (Website Wikimedia Commons, the Yorck Project): Mosaiken in der Hagia Sophia, Szene: Christus Pantokrator und Kaiser Léon VI. (886-912) Byzantinischer Mosaizist des 9. Jahrhunderts.

83 Dagron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 104.

84 The emperor's procession under the narthex mosaic to the altar of Hagia Sophia symbolized the providential realization of Christ's promise to draw all "men" to Himself in John 12.

of the emperor reflect this system of imagery when they portray him crowned with the Cross and flashing with Christ's Wisdom-Light (figure 9).

Nikephoros portrays Andrew as an icon parallel to the emperor in Epiphanios' description of the fool in his heavenly palace, flashing with Light and filled with Wisdom. At the same time, Andrew's movement during his "Personal Apocalypse" is symbolically parallel to the emperor's approach to the altar. Ultimately, Nikephoros associates Andrew with the altar of Hagia Sophia itself, as symbolized by the two compositions on either side of the imperial doors.

Рис. 7. Престол уготованный с катапетасмой Каменный рельеф над императорским входом в Софию Константинопольскую с западной стороны. VI в.

The main altar was symbolically the Holies of Holies and the place sanctifying the emperor. It contained relics associated with Constantine's messianic status. Positioned above this altar was the katapetasma, symbolically the last curtain on the path leading into the Holy of Holies. Immediately below this curtain was the crown-wreath (venets) of Constantine. A dove

(signifying the Holy Spirit) descended onto a cross that was suspended from this wreath. These objects made the crown a symbol of the emperor's manifestation of the Wisdom of the Cross. The crowns of later emperors that surrounded this installation contributed to its glory.85

The composition within the molded brass frame of the imperial doors offered another symbolic representation of the altar. It depicted a ciborium, a symbolic evocation of the aedicula of the Holy Sepulchre.86 Within this ciborium is an altar portrayed as a throne with an open Gospel. A dove (of the Holy Spirit) descends into the throne's midst (figure 7). 7 The emperor in procession passed under this dove, which symbolically crowned him with the same Wisdom symbolized by Constantine's crown on the altar. Nikephoros associates Andrew with this same consecration when Andrew encounters a dove near God's heavenly throne, and when this same dove descends on his head as he plays the fool in the forum.

Рис. 8. Нисхождение святого Духа на покоящееся на императорском троне Евангелие от Иоанна. Бронзовый рельеф над императорским входом в Софию Константинопольскую с восточной стороны. VI в.

85 JludoB A. M. HepoTonM... C. 212.

86 For images and explanation of the ciborium, see http://cleansingfiredor.com/2010/09/-the-origins-and-symbolism-of-the-ciborium/

87JudoB A. M. HepoTonM... C. 169. The text in the Gospel is a paraphrase of John 10:7— 9: "I am the door of the sheep; through me if anyone should enter [he will be saved], and will go in and go out and find pasture."

Another composition located on the other side of the same door also portrayed a ciborium and offered a second interpretation of the altar (figure 8).88 Instead of the open Gospel inviting us into the Mystery, a bejeweled Cross enthroned on a raised platform embodies the Mystery. The veils on either side associate the Cross with the Judaic Holy of Holies. They appear to have just been drawn back and symbolize the unobstructed access to the Presence offered by the Cross. However, the fringes that hang from the Cross tell us that it is itself a veil, both shielding and revealing the Divine Throne. The two sets of veils imply that entrance into the Presence takes place in stages of initiation. This composition expresses the meaning of the emperor's procession to Hagia Sophia's main altar through a system of actual veils or curtains, and identifies it as a gnostic initiation. 9

This system of meaning comes into play in Andrew's "Personal Apocalypse." There he literally experiences the transcendental dimension of the emperor's approach to the altar in the Hagia Sophia. He moves through a series of curtains ever deeper into the Holy of Holies. On the way, he encounters a large illuminated elevated cross enthroned on a platform at the center of the celestial angelic liturgy.90 As Andrew processes further into the archangelic ranks, he approaches a curtain on which an immense golden dove alights. When it is raised he sees the Wisdom of the Cross in its original, archetypal form - the glorious flashing throne of the God-Man in Trin-

ity.91

Finally, in the episode "Combat at the Forum," this dove has descended into Andrew's earthly existence and landed on his head. The purple, scarlet, and gold of its feathers recall the katapetasma of Hagia Sophia, the veil of purple, blue, and scarlet suspended over the altar in a covering of gold and silver. 2 Its descent makes Andrew's foolishness a sign of initiation that is analogous to the emperor's initiation at the altar. Andrew as a fool is Con-stantine's and the living emperor's double in Wisdom. He is parallel to the emperor' statue at the forum by sharing the emperor's role as an "icon" of Christ's High Priesthood and Kingship.

Nikephoros' primary model for the fool's high priestly initiation was St. Paul himself. The Elevation liturgy celebrated Paul's ascent to the Third Heaven as an implied prefiguration of Constantine's vision of the Cross.93 The climax of Andrew's visionary journey is his ability to hear the secret

88 Ibid., P. 211.

89 Ibid., P. 216-219, 297-313 on these curtains.

90 VAndrew, P. 54-55; Лидов А. М. Иеротопия... С. 212 describes a possible model, a large golden cross behind Hagia Sophia's altar.

91 VAndrew, P. 57.

92 Barker M. Temple Theology. P. 29-30. In Russia, Novgorod readers would have been especially open to this symbolism. Antonii of Novgorod in his Kniga Palomnik mentioned this katapetasma. See Лидов А. М. Иеротопия... С. 212 and Гордиенко Э. А. Варлаам Хутын-ский и архиепископ Антоний в житии и мистериях. XII-XVI века. СПб., 2010. С. 43-47, 80-84.

93 Festal Menaion, P. 148 and 2 Cor. 12:2-4.

words coming from God's throne in the same way as Paul.94 This motif represents yet another way to place Andrew on a par with Constantine. Ni-kephoros thus implies that Andrew's holy foolishness disguises communion in the same divine glory that the emperor openly displays by his magnificence.

1.2.2 Horizontal Reflections of the Vertical Axis: Lower Polarity

The manifestation of the divine Presence by emperor and fool hinged on their identification with the lower polarity of the vertical axis-the archetype of Christ's human suffering and degradation. They achieved this identification through dramatizing typologies of sacred combat and atoning sacrifice.

Nikephoros could not find relevant material in the Elevation liturgy for this typology since this liturgy's triumphal celebratory mode undercut its sacrificial symbolism, despite the long Gospel reading about Christ's torments.95 References to the sacrificial aspect of sacred combat were entirely missing whereas evocations of high priestly atonement were reduced to mere mentions of Constantine's piety.9 In the first military-royal half of imperial procession the typology of sacrificial combat also remained latent. However, the "nails" of the Cross thought to be in Constantine's statue in the forum associated the victorious emperor with Christ's sacrifice and suffering.

1.2.2.1 The Military Royal Side

Nikephoros assimilated Andrew to this Wisdom typology of sacrificial combat with the Cross by calling on St. Paul. Andrew's holy foolish spectacle is a boast and a call to combat in the spirit of St. Paul's boast: "We are fools for Christ's sake ... we ... both hunger and thirst ... are poorly clothed, and beaten and homeless (1 Cor. 4: 9-13)."97 Accordingly, Andrew's "nakedness" becomes functionally analogous in a paradoxical way with the Cross as "armour," and as weapon of battle.98 Andrew also performs the Elevation liturgy's agonistic metaphor for Christ's suffering on the cross, a wrestling match that overthrows the Deceiver in "headlong fall." In this way, Nikephoros placed the fool latently in a parallel relation with the emperor's implied sacrificial combat with barbarian "deceit."

1.2.2.2 The High Priestly Side

Nikephoros found rich material for associating his fool with the imperial high priestly typology for Christ's degradation. This typology, the sacri-

94 VAndrew, P. 59.

95 Festal Menaion, P. 161-3 (John 19: 6-11, 13-20, 25-28, 30-35). See also the hymns on P. 158.

96 Ibid., P. 137 for references to Constantine's "faith and love."

972 Corinthians 11:30, 12: 9: "If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity ... And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast of my infirmities."

98 Festal Menaion, P. 152.

fice of atonement, was actively invoked in the second half of imperial procession by rituals enacting the emperor's penitential self-humiliation.99 Once the emperor entered the narthex of Hagia Sophia, he engaged in a set of ritualized gestures prior to passing through the imperial doors into the nave. He gave up his crown and then prostrated himself three times.100 The meaning of this gesture is condensed in iconic form in the narthex mosaic over the imperial doors (figure 6).101

The narthex mosaic depicted the emperor Leo VI in a "sacrificial" penitential pose before Christ's throne presumably in atonement for adulterous behavior.102 This pose represented an act of self-humiliation that was both an appeal for divine intercession, and a sign that it had been granted. Thus the emperor's prostrate posture simultaneously symbolized his entrance into the Light and his own intercessory powers to take his people with him. At the same time references to John's Gospel, chapters eight and twelve associate the emperor with the Wisdom/Light of the Cross. These chapters illuminated the significance of the emperor Leo VI's repentance in ways that were directly relevant to Nikephoros' depiction of Andrew holy foolish spectacle as an expiatory act.

The emperor Leo VI in proskynesis is dramatizing the import of the Cross in the King's halo, which refers to the Path of Christ's enthronement and illumination. His gesture shows that he has become "a son of light" as Christ had urged when meditating on this future crucifixion: "Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you . While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light (John 12: 32-36)." The citation from John 8:12, displayed by the enthroned Christ, alludes to the larger framework for interpreting the adulterous emperor's gesture. In this chapter, Christ is interceding for an adulteress whom a crowd is stoning to death, exclaiming: "'He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone .'"(John 8:7).

By humbling himself, the emperor shows that he does not consider himself higher than the adulteress. He, like the shamed crowd, has already "convicted [himself] by [his] conscience" (John 8: 9) for his own adultery and is in a position to identify with and intercede for all sinners. His gesture makes a spectacle of the penitential self-awareness that endows him with the intercessory Power of the Cross. At the same time, it represents his public recognition of Christ's sovereignty, a humble refusal to compete with or "usurp" Christ's divine authority as Judge. In this regard the emperor identifies with the human Christ who ceded to the Father his power to judge sinners (John 12: 47-49) while judging his immediate adversary, the Tempter

99 This humiliation was foreshadowed in the ceremony of a military general's triumphal return from the field of battle, when he temporarily gave up his crown. See Dagron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 64-65.

100 For description of this ceremony see Dagron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 115-123.

101 Also, Ibid., Рlate 1, P. 100, 101-103.

102 Leo VI engaged in a non-canonical fourth marriage that was considered adulterous. See Dagron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 114-124.

himself: "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me (John 12:28-36) [my italics]."103

This interpretation of the emperor's imitation of the Cross represents the underlying context for understanding the Wisdom in Andrew's suffering and endurance. Implicitly, his nakedness in "The Winter Storm" and during "Combat at the Forum" displays his own public avowal that he was above no one in righteousness (by analogy to Leo VI.) It identifies him with the lowest common denominator of human vulnerability and weakness. His nakedness, like the emperor's prostration is an open acknowledgement of Christ's sovereignty that demonstrates his and humankind's dependence on divine intercession for salvation. At the same time, his extreme lowliness is his own radical manifestation of the Cross' intercession power to draw "all men" to Christ, even the worst sinners like himself.

Two medallions on either side of the Christ-King in the narthex mosaic make the archetypes of the emperor's and the fool's intercessory powers more explicit. These medallions allude to the combined mercy and judgment of the Cross in the persons of the Mother of God (Theotokos) and an archangel, respectively. The Theotokos is functioning as high priestess before God's throne, compassionately intervening on behalf of the repentant emperor and his subjects. The archangel, according to Dagron, is Michael who is known in the tradition as both the archangel of death, and warrior general of the Lord of Hosts at the Last Judgment. His fierce expression shows him to be the angry emissary of Christ's judgment on the "prince of the world" which frees the repentant supplicant from the captivity of Darkness. The archangel's presence endows the scene with apocalyptic implications that integrate the "ritual present" into the Cross's power of universal deliverance.104

These medallions are the key to Nikephoros' representation of Andrew's holy foolishness as an intercessory process in the episode "Combat at the Forum." There, reenacting the Archangel's clarifying justice, Andrew attacks the principle adversary, the Spirit of Deceit: he exposes the hypocrisy of those who refuse to condemn themselves in their consciences. When Darkness (a crowd of demons) literally "overtakes" them and subjects them to the judgment prophesied by Christ in John 12, Andrew changes tack. He lifts the demons' "mark" from them by ardent intercessory prayer in the spirit of the Mother of God. In this way, he delivers the sinners who are in captivity to a state of self-deception and unbeknownst to themselves are destined for hell. The dynamics of this scene and its scriptural allusions show that Andrew has embodied the intercessory powers of the Cross evoked by the emperor, the Mother of God and the archangel in the narthex mosaic.

103 Festal Menaion, P. 143.

104 On the similar roles of the Archangel and the Mother of God in the Byzantine Sermon "On the Second Coming of Christ, on the final judgment and future torments," by Palladius, and its influence on Russian spiritual songs, see Сахаров В. Эсхатологические сочинения... С. 153-156.

Nikephoros does not directly allude to this interpretative context. The Mother of God and the Archangel are present latently in this episode as archetypes of the fool's intercessory powers. Moreover, the fool goes beyond the Mother's of God's compassionate intercession for the repentant emperor of the mosaic and intercedes for his unrepentant attackers. The episode thus marks the fool's radical instantiation of the Wisdom of the Cross that makes him indispensable to the imperial mission of delivering "all men" to Christ. Nonetheless, the Mother of God emerges into the plot as an archetype of Andrew's extreme compassion when he sees her spreading her veil in the Bla-chernae Church.105

Thus Nikephoros made use of the epiphanic grid of mediations instantiated in the Elevation liturgy and in imperial spectacle as a context for interpretation of Andrew's Wisdom. It is far from accidental that the episode that most fully actualizes Andrew's place at the center of the grid brings the Emperor Constantine's statue on the scene. This statue is present there as a magical "touchstone," evoking the larger connotative field for interpreting Andrew's parallelism with the emperor. The system of allusions to Andrew's role as an alter-ego to Constantine, to Leo VI, and to the living emperor in procession leave no doubt about Nikephoros's agenda. His goal was to place his fool's spectacle on the front line of the imperial mission to display the Cross's sanctifying Wisdom. He thus makes holy foolishness a beacon for all the saints called to "assist" the emperor in the Synaxarion of Basil II.

1.3 Mediating Terms in Pauline Holy Foolish Spectacle

Nikephoros's great accomplishment was to portray Andrew as a poetic nexus where the epiphanic metaphorical grid of the Cross meets with the paradigm of holy foolish spectacle in Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians. This strategy was doubtless inspired by the implied reference to holy foolishness in the epistle reading of the Elevation liturgy from 1Corinthians (1:18-24). Nikephoros found pathways in Paul's paradigm of holy foolishness that interfaced with the Elevation liturgy's mythological narrative.

The key pathway is Paul's concept of "hidden Wisdom" (1 Cor. 2: 7). As we have seen, Nikephoros draws on the Elevation liturgy and imperial spectacle to evoke Andrew's hidden wisdom. However, Andrew's use of holy foolish disguise to manifest this Wisdom derives from the Pauline paradigm of spectacle and distinguishes the fool from the emperor (and normative saints). Paul advocated that Christians embrace holy foolishness to show that Divine Wisdom was radically Other than worldly Wisdom. For Paul,

105 On the Mother of God's likeness to the "fool" in the Acathistos hymn, see Limberis V. Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople. London, 1994. P. 150, 156: She is: '"The recalling of the fallen Adam", "O height beyond human logic," "vessel of God's wisdom ... who proves the wise to be unwise ... the sophists as foolish." On her apocalyptic role as intercessor for the damned with the Archangel Michael's assistance, see Сахаров В. Эсхатологические сочинения... on the "Хождение Богородицы по мукам". С. 192-198.

holy foolishness secretly manifested Wisdom in the same way as Christ's human degradation on the Cross manifested the hidden Holy Name.

Paul set an example for Andrew's portrayal when he embraced holy foolishness as an active power. It was a way to challenge the self-deception that failed to distinguish between divine and worldly wisdom and to acknowledge Christ's sovereignty: "Let no one deceive himself . for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written [Job 5:13]: 'He catches the wise in their own craftiness' ... therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours (1 Cor. 3: 18-23)." The fool's blatant refusal to live up to worldly expectations was a disguise for inner strength (2 Cor. 12: 9), a choice to avoid self-deception, the consequence of militant moral clarity. Yet it was also a temptation to untested Christians since it could provoke mockery from the self-deceived. As such, his disguise was a boast and a call to combat. It was a gauntlet thrown down, a military feint, since those drawn into the trap of mocking him risked subjecting themselves to mockery by openly displaying their hypocrisy (1 Cor. 1: 27-28).106

Andrew acts out this scenario in the episode "Combat at the Forum." Outwardly filthy and disgusting, he inwardly "glories in the Lord," and challenges others to bear witness to this glory as well. The differing reactions to this challenge separate his spectators into the divinely wise and the worldly wise, and thus clarifies for Andrew who is in danger of perdition and in need of intercession.

When Nikephoros portrays Andrew's spectacle in these Pauline terms, he also has the Elevation liturgy in mind. This liturgy alludes to the foolishness of the Cross by associating the Cross with trickery that catches the antagonist off-guard: "For he who by a tree deceived our forefather Adam, is by the Cross himself deceived. And he who by tyranny gained possession of the creature endowed by God with royal dignity, is overthrown in headlong fall."107 Nikephoros involves Andrew in just this kind of trickery in the "Wrestling Parable" when the fool unexpectedly overthrows a large Ethiopian. This comic episode announces Nikephoros intention to integrate the Pauline motif of foolish disguise with the Elevation liturgy's evocation of the hidden Wisdom of the Cross.

The Elevation liturgy portrayed Christ's suffering as a cover concealing his inner sovereignty. This provided Nikephoros another pathway for integrating Paul's concept of disguise into the Elevation liturgy's metaphorical system: "He [who] covers heaven with clouds ... is clothed in a cloak of mockery ... is struck by a hand of clay ... is smitten upon His back. He ac-

106 "For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise ... for since in the wisdom of God, the world through [its] wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe (1 Cor.1: 19)." When Paul insists on boasting of his infirmity (2 Corinthians 11: 30) he is alluding to (Jeremiah 9: 23-24): "Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, and let not the strong man boast in his strength, and let not the rich man boast in his wealth/but let him that boasts boast in this, the understanding and knowing that I am the Lord that exercise mercy and judgment, and righteous upon the earth."

107 Festal Menaion, P. 134.

cepts spitting and scourging, reproach and buffeting; and ... endures for me that am condemned."108 The metaphor, "clothed in a cloak of mockery" implies that the divinity hidden in Christ's displayed humiliation is "cloaked" by the violent response of the uninitiated. In several of the core episodes, we see Andrew actively bringing onto himself this violent response as part of his holy foolish disguise and trickery.

Another correspondence between Paul's paradigm of foolishness and the Elevation liturgy is a rhetoric of boasting. Just as Paul "boasted" of his weakness, the display of the Cross in the Elevation liturgy was, ". the boast of the faithful and succor of the persecuted, glory of the apostles, the champion of the righteous."109 In the "Wrestling Parable," Andrew appears comic and ridiculous when he boasts despite his weakness. But he successfully "champions the righteous," personified by group of white robed elders (martyrs before God's throne) who observe his wrestling match from the sidelines. The functioning of his boast provides yet another example of Ni-kephoros' ability to integrate the two paradigms of the Wisdom of the Cross.

By integrating the two paradigms, the "Wrestling Parable" plays a foundational role for the ensuing core episodes. There Nikephoros took his first steps in creating a metaphorical structure that combines allusions to both. As a result, he went beyond VSymeon and invested the spectacle of holy foolishness with the eschatological messianic implications of the Elevation liturgy's Wisdom mythology and the associated imperial ritual. Ni-kephoros transformed the Pauline fool into a warrior of the Cross like the emperor. Yet the enemy that Andrew attacks during his "Combat at the Forum" is not the state of "deceit" of pagan barbarians; it is the self-deception of the average hypocrite. His attackers represent Paul's main enemy, the worldly wise, who, lacking spiritual eyes, attack Andrew instead of trembling before him. Whereas the emperor in royal procession exhibited his weapons, the spear, and the Cross, Andrew made a spectacle of the disguise that was his secret "armour" and weapon for deliverance - his uncouth nakedness.

Thus the major pathways in ¡Corinthians for integrating Pauline foolishness with imperial spectacle were first of all hidden Wisdom, and then the use of disguise or trickery to manifest, protect, and uphold this Wisdom. This trickery involved a display of upside down or inverted boasting that deliberately appeared ridiculous. In the "Wrestling Parable" and elsewhere, VAn-drew instantiated this boasting by the use of comic motifs drawn from popular culture. These motifs function as a poetic mechanism of inversion that disguises Andrew's role as the ruler's alter-ego in Wisdom. This precedent set the stage for Russian holy foolish hagiographies that drew from the "carnival" "anti-world" to represent the stereotypical relationship between the fool and the king. Yet VAndrew also realizes the higher context for the use of popular motifs - a "well-balanced" system of spectacle: A metaphorical modeling of the Cross as an epiphanic grid combining the Pauline and the imperial paradigm of Wisdom.

108 Festal Menaion. P. 158.

109 Ibid., P. 134.

2.0 The Mystical-Didactic Import of Core Episodes of VAndrew

Nikephoros announces his new brand of holy foolishness in a set of core episodes. Their "biographical" narrative also serves as mystical-didactic teaching in the form of paraliturgical performance of the Wisdom of the Cross. They assimilate the Pauline paradigm of foolish Wisdom into a fully developed symbolic matrix. The "Wrestling Parable," "Winter Storm", and "Personal Apocalypse" describe Andrew's initiation into and perfection of holy foolishness for the sake of his own personal deliverance from the Devil's wiles. They prepare the stage for the climactic episode, "Combat in the Forum" that describes Andrew after he has redirected his holy foolishness to the deliverance of the city. Here Nikephoros makes the emperor Constan-tine's statue present on the scene, bringing to the narrative surface the underlying parallelism between the fool and the emperor as living icons of the Elevation and "talismans" for the city. In the episode "The Future Patriarch's Vision," Nikephoros also evoked Andrew's analogy to the emperor but in an ecstatic transcendental mode.

The analysis of these five episodes, each discussed in a separate subsection, will elucidate the common mythology that re-contextualizes the Pauline paradigm of foolishness in an imperial messianic context. This section will conclude with an examination of the reception of Andrew's spectacle by its immediate viewers - the woman Barbara, Andrew's attackers at the forum, the emperor (in the form of Constantine's statue at the forum), and finally the future patriarch, Andrew's disciple, Epiphanios. Nikephoros's portrayal of Andrew through these seers' viewpoints made his paradigm of holy foolishness an experiential didactic teaching for Byzantine (and later Russian) readers.

2.1 The Wrestling Parable

In the first episode, the "Wrestling Parable," Andrew's dream about a wrestling match functions as a parable within a parable. The whole episode operates as a master-parable announcing the function and meaning of the episodes devoted to Andrew's foolishness. This episode is foundational because here Nikephoros first interprets the fool's actions as a metaphor for the Elevation. The metaphorical keystone to his strategy surfaces in the dream when Nikephoros uses the phrase, lifted up, to describe Andrew's position in a wrestling match with a champion of the "prince of this world."110 His comic, mystical-didactic narrative melds motifs from the Epistles to the Corinthians and to the Hebrews into the mythological matrix derived from the Elevation liturgy. This strategy allowed Nikephoros to add another dimension to the Pauline motifs of deception, boasting, and glorying in the Lord, and of competition between divine and worldly wisdom that relates the fool to imperial Wisdom mythology. In Nikephoros's rendition, the fool becomes a defender of Christ's kingship and sovereignty, and thus of the sacred basis

110 VAndrew, P. 17-19.

of the emperor's legitimacy. However, despite their innate seriousness, Andrew's actions are inherently comic since they inversely (foolishly and ridiculously) parallel the splendor of royal spectacle.

Andrew is still a slave in his master's house in Constantinople when he followed Paul's advice to "glory in the Lord" and unwittingly calls out the Lord's competitor for spiritual combat. The secret boast occurs in the form of Andrew's recitation of Psalm 118 during midnight prayer. He implicitly repeats the Psalmist's frequent praises of the Lord's Sovereignty as a direct challenge or teaching to worldly kings: "I spoke of thy [the Lord's] testimonies before kings and was not ashamed" (118: 46). The fool's witnessing to his allegiance to the true Sovereign provokes the usurper, the "prince of this world" to enter the scene. When the "prince" knocks loudly at Andrew's door, open combat ensues. Andrew immediately takes up his weapon, a disguised display of the foolishness of the Cross. He suddenly retreats under his bedcovers, making a spectacle of his weakness (1 Cor. 1: 27). The prince falls for the bait and answers with a taunt: "Look at the bean eater! And he is taking up arms against us!"111 Nikephoros, smiling from behind the scenes, has transformed the bedcovers into a comic instantiation of the military feint, the "cloak of mockery" that disguises Christ's inner kingship in the Elevation liturgy. Thus the fool makes his first move to "catch the wise in their own craftiness."

In this competition between appearance and reality, the Lie and the Truth, the prince who appears to be powerful, is in fact weak and vice versa. Although the fool appears to be vulnerable, it is the prince who is in danger of being caught off-guard since he has discounted the fool's real, but hidden, strength. In the next scene, comprising Andrew's dream-vision, Andrew's advantage in combat is represented in the plot and Deception is undone. Andrew catches the Devil's champion off-guard in a wrestling match, overthrowing him in "headlong fall" as Christ did in his match with the Deceiver in the Elevation liturgy.

The match is arranged by a "bright youth" from another world, who is later revealed to be Christ himself. Calling on Andrew to trick the Devil's champion by a "cross-wise" maneuver, he alludes to the true nature of Andrew's weapon—the Wisdom of the Cross. Accordingly, Andrew discovers that he is acting as champion of a "team" of white robed elders, who personify the "persecuted righteous" championed by the Cross in the Elevation liturgy. Andrew engages in single-handed competition against a large gloating Ethiopian, backed by a dark team, personifying the prince's demonic servants.112 As he had previously, Andrew initiates the combat with a foolish boast: "'Come on, Sooty, let the two of us wrestle with each other!'" The ridiculous presumption of his tone is meant to provoke his looming adversary

111 Ryden L. The Life of St. Andrew the Fool. V. 1. P. 304, note 3 confesses not knowing how to translate this insulting compound phrase that the Devil uses. He only claims that it contains a pun on salos, or fool.

112 Brakke D. Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity. Cambridge, 2006. P. 157-182.

into underestimating and mocking him as their "prince" had earlier. The Ethiopian grins contemptuously as he approaches Andrew.

In this dramatic context, Nikephoros offers the reader the verbal keystones to the latent mythology that transforms Andrew's actions into an iconic, ritual performance. The "bright youth" advises: "'When he lifts you up, do not be afraid but grapple him crosswise, and you will see the glory of God.'" "Crosswise" is a technical wrestling term, but here it is also a pun. It implies that Andrew's skill in wrestling demons is like Christ's ability to overthrow Satan in "headlong fall" when "lifted up" on the Cross (John 12: 32).113 When the fool vanquishes his opponent by his own power to deceive, the amazed demonic crowd "disappears with great shame." The episode is thus a parable about how the "weak things of the world put to shame the things which are mighty (1 Cor. 1: 27)." It shows how the fool's manipulation of perception expresses the clarifying Wisdom of the Cross. Andrew has overthrown Deceit by deceit, since his wily disguise of weakness has exposed the lie behind the demon's blustering strength.

Next, Nikephoros widens the spectrum of themes that integrate the holy fool with metaphors for the Cross' Wisdom. By overthrowing the Devil's champion, Andrew has implicitly recovered the "royal dignity" lost by Adam celebrated in the Elevation liturgy. For this reason, the coach promised Andrew three magnificent crowns (in the form of victory wreaths) as a reward. The particular promise of a flowering wreath associates Andrew's crown with Aaron's flowering rod in the Elevation liturgy, the sign of election to high priesthood.

This promise implies that Andrew has proved himself a high priest as well as a king, worthy to join the white-robed elders-martyrs who cheered him along.114 Nikephoros thus introduces his stratagem of associating Andrew with the Elevation liturgy's royal-high priestly archetypes of Christ's Sovereignty. He is preparing to realize Andrew's implied parallelism with the emperor Constantine's statue as a spectacle of this Sovereignty later in the episode, "Combat at the Forum." There the fool fights for this Sovereignty against the same Ethiopians. Only this time, they now appear as demons who have tricked the people into worshipping the Devil in Christ's

113 The Slavonic translation does not preserve the Greek wording "lifted up" in the "coaches" advice and thus does not translate the Greek allusion to Christ's elevation on the cross. Instead the sacral connotations of this episode are conveyed by the slavonic verb, "being caught up" (въсхытити), that is used to describe the Ethiopian when he actually raises Andrew off the ground (эфиоп дыша и грозяся въсхытити Андрея) and also the holy men when they raise Andrew up in celebration ("въсхытиша праведника на высоту руками своими") [my italics. - P. H.]. This usage of the same verb to signify Andrew's humiliation and his victory associates him with the paradoxes combined in the Wisdom of the Cross. The translator was no doubt alluding to the use of this same verb in the Slavonic bible to refer to Paul's journey to the third heaven after he boasts of his weakness (2 Corinthians 12:4) as repeated in the Elevation liturgy. See footnote 93 in this article. The Slavonic version translates the original Greek pun "crosswise" by playing on the shared root between "распинать" (to crucify) and "запинать"(to trip up). SeeМолдован А. М. ЖАЮ, C. 164-5.

114 Festal Menaion, P. 145.

name, and transformed them into secret idolaters. "The Wrestling Parable" introduced the essential characteristic of Andrew's holy foolishness - its role of providing witness to the Sovereignty of Christ through the up-side-down spectacle of the Wisdom of the Cross.

The foundational episode reaches an ideological climax when the "coach" offers advice about how to enter into His kingdom: "Run the good race naked. Become a fool for my sake and I shall make you a partaker of many good things in my kingdom." His words combine references to ¡Corinthians and the Epistle to the Hebrews. The "good race" is the "race" of "endurance" to Christ's Cross and to God's throne (Hebr. 12: 2). The reference to "nakedness" harkens back to Paul's description of the tribulations that make holy foolish spectacle a feat of endurance (1 Cor. 4: 11-13). These Pauline metaphors for sacred combat and entrance into the kingdom serve as pathways for the complete melding of holy foolishness with the mythology of imperial spectacle that takes place later.

This episode also endows Andrew's spectacle with eschatological resonances that echo the Elevation liturgy. They place Andrew's wrestling match in a proto-apocalyptic framework. The white robed wrestling team for which he fights are the future apocalyptic elders, the "kings" and "priests" before God and the Lamb (Rev. 1: 6). "Washed [clean] in the blood of the Lamb," they are members of an apocalyptic army of martyrs fighting for the Lord of Hosts to purify the universal city (Rev. 19: 12-16). They are liturgical celebrants before the Holy of Holies - the throne of the Lamb and the God in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 7: 13-15.)115 After Andrew overthrows the Ethiopian, these same future elders anoint him with unction to show that he has been inducted into their royal high priesthood. This induction implies that he has taken on their mission of warrior-priestly combat in the emperor's

service.116

This episode establishes how a Pauline fool-in-Christ manifests both polarities of the Wisdom of Cross. Andrew's fight entails lowly sacrifice when he presents himself as a weakling (lower polarity) in order that his triumphal kingship and high priesthood (upper polarity) be "cloaked" in mockery. This episode also sets a precedent for Andrew's use of sacred trickery to uphold and manifest the Sovereignty of Christ and to defeat the Devil and Deceit. It lays the basis for Andrew's future role as the emperor's alter-ego since, by personifying both polarities of the Wisdom of the Cross, he has of-

115 VAndrew, P. 15. "'Who are these arrayed in which robes and where did they come from?'. These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb /Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple (Rev. 7: 13-15)".

116 For an imperial parallel, see also Dagron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 210 describing the meaning of the Macedonian emperor's movement from the throne room to the Nea Ekklesia, with its symbolism of "Judaic kingship." There "a few souvenirs of Constantine (his cross and his shield ...) recalled that the Christian basileus succeeded to David and Solomon by unction and for the eschatological conclusion of the Second Parousia, that is, the return of Christ on the Last Day".

fered an up-side-down, disguised comic enactment of the sacred basis of the emperor's authority.

2.2 The Winter Storm

This episode about Andrew's miraculous endurance of a winter storm develops the implications of the wrestling match. It functions as a test of Andrew's capacity to remain faithful to the Sovereign and victorious over the Usurper.11 The motif of the test is introduced on a subtextual level by an allusion to the Book of Job. There the Devil, acting behind the scenes, tests the righteous Job's faith in God by subjecting him to unthinkable suffering and degradation.118 In this episode, accordingly, the Devil never appears, but he too is acting behind the scenes as the force who inflicts a punishing catastrophe on the poor and vulnerable of the city in order to get at the righteous fool.

On a mythological level, the storm is the Slayer's answer to the boast Andrew made by his conscious display of nakedness as a "fool-for-my-sake." This provocative form of "glorying in the Lord" challenges his antagonist to again attempt to undermine the fool's allegiance. The storm's fury symbolizes the Slayer's unmitigated outrage about Andrew's presumption of being free from his authority (the rule of Sin and Death). It stands for the Devil's last-ditch effort to mock and expose the fool's pretensions to be more powerful than he. Instead of heaping verbal abuse on the fool (as he did when Andrew retreated under the bedcovers^, the Devil causes the wind to flail the fool's apparently vulnerable naked body. Nikephoros thus again associates the naked fool with Christ in the Elevation liturgy, covered by the "cloak of mockery."

Yet, Andrew's uncovered body put on display his belief that the true Sovereign would protect and save him. His display of vulnerability was a testimony to strength, his metaphorical armour or shield of faith. His miraculous survival of the two week storm shows that he endured the Cross, "finished the race," has suffered through a complete and cleansing examination of his conscience. This experience proves him victorious in battle and worthy of divine intercession. By outlasting the Devil Andrew has turned Satan's own craftiness against him. Andrew's nakedness fools the Devil because it covers over his superiority to the fallen Angel: it hides the truth that against all odds, (foolishly), Andrew inwardly stands firm in the certain knowledge that the Lord will deliver him.119

117 VAndrew, P. 43-47.

118 Ryden L. The Life of St. Andrew the Fool. V. 1. P. 310, note 2, the reference to Job 30: 3. In another episode, the Devil openly threatens Andrew with Job's trial. See VAndrew, P. 109.

119 Nikephoros puts rhetorical emphasis on Andrew's nakedness to mark its key importance as symbol of suffering on the Cross in the typology of holy foolishness: "My heart was heavy with sorrow for the servant of God, for his body was naked and he had neither a tunic, nor a woolen cloak, nor a Cicilian coat, nor a sleeping-mat, nor a hut, but was completely destitute ... I kept saying to myself, "now he is dead!" See VAndrew, P. 43.

By functionally realizing the motifs of "boasting" and "sacred-combat-through-trickery," this episode harkens back to the dream-parable in the foundational episode. At the same time Andrew has acted out aspects of the Elevation liturgy's metaphorical system (the motifs of "covering with mockery" and "armour" in its inverted form as "nakedness") and blended them with motifs of Pauline holy foolish spectacle. At the most extreme moment of his test, Andrew still is boasting in the Lord: 'Blessed be the Lord! If I die, surely it will be reckoned to me as a testimony ... He who made the frost will also give me the endurance! [my italics]" His act of blessing the Lord echoes ¡Corinthians: "Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted we endure, being defamed, we entreat (1 Cor. 4: 11)."

His remarks are functionally equivalent to sacred combat (by analogy to the emperor's combat in the field against "deceit."); they also imply a prayer for intercession, the "entreaty" of the man who has examined himself in his conscience and acknowledges his complete dependence on God (by analogy to the emperor's prostration in the Hagia Sophia). Immediately afterwards his prayer is answered when an inner warmth revives him and a bright youth touches him with a "flowery branch," the sign that he on the path of the Cross into the Light. Andrew has been living out the Pattern of entrance through the door (of the Cross) symbolized by Leo VI's prostration in the narthex mosaic. The ensuing episode, "Andrew's Personal Apocalypse" marks his fulfillment of the Pattern: He experiences an ecstatic transcendental journey equivalent to the mystical symbolism of the emperor's approach to the altar in Hagia Sophia. Thus the episode of the "Winter Storm" functions as the first half of a typology that implicitly associates Andrew's foolishness with the emperor's Wisdom, as foreshadowed by the theme of sovereignty hidden in the foundational episode.

This episode also carries through on apocalyptic connotations of the "Wrestling Parable" that are integral to the fool's developing parallelism with the emperor. Andrew's miraculous survival of the two week storm alludes to his escape from the apocalyptic catastrophe since, as L. Ryden has pointed out, the duration of the Last Judgment in the vision in St. Niphon's Vita also was two weeks.120 The ensuing mystical journey shows him experiencing his deliverance in advance of the Second Coming.

2.3 Andrew's Personal Apocalypse

In the episode on Andrew's "Personal Apocalypse," Nikephoros allows us to see beyond Andrew's cover to his hidden Wisdom.121 It comprises Andrew's report to the author Nikephoros of his deliverance into the Glory of the kingdom (as promised by the bright youth in the Wrestling Parable). Nikephoros draws from the Elevation liturgy's hymnology when he conceives of Andrew's mystical journey by direct analogy to Paul's ascent to the

120 Ryden L. The Life of St. Andrew the Fool. V. 1. P. 310, footnote 1.

121 VAndrew, P. 47-59.

Third heaven, i.e. as an entrance into the Holy of Holies where he is granted the secret words of the Holy Name.122

On the way, Andrew lives out the mythological meaning of the emperor's procession to the altar of Hagia Sophia. He moves through a series of curtains (veils) ever deeper into the mystical liturgy around the Elevated Cross and God's throne: "I looked up, and behold, a great cross ... with four curtains around it like a shining cloud, . Around the cross stood singers of hymns, beautiful, tall and white like light . chanting a song for the glory of the Crucified."123 Finally a dove descends on a curtain, an allusion to the katapetasma over the altar in Hagia Sophia. This imagery heralds the fool's presence before the transcendental archetype of Hagia Sophia's altar, the Throne of the God-Man.

"behold, an immense dove came flying down from above and settled on the curtain. Its head was gold, its breast purple, its wings shining like flame of fire, its feet scarlet, and from its eyes rays of light . came forth . When this curtain, too, was raised and I looked up . and thought I saw an awe-inspiring throne . and gazed at the magnificence . of the God-Man . overcome by ineffable trembling, joy and shivering."124

The imagery suggests that, like the emperor in the liturgy, Andrew reflects the God-Man's Sovereignty, Wisdom, and Glory. Earlier in Paradise, he experiences the state of inner transcendence that prepares him for this moment. He describes himself moving and dressing "like a king;" a flowering wreath interwoven with gold is on his head, a red belt is around his waist, and he experiences a sense of "being above the human condition."125

By laying bare Andrew's hidden Wisdom, Andrew's "Personal Apocalypse" expresses an underlying paradox: When Andrew takes up his Cross and exposes his naked body in the earthly city, he is still inwardly wearing the dazzling garment of a king and offering an epiphany of the Wisdom of the Cross. Nikephoros temporarily lays aside the disguise so that the reader can understand its mythological function: His display of nakedness and degradation is a foolish, up-side-down way of putting Christ's high priesthood and sovereignty on view. To the spiritual eye, his holy foolish spectacle comprehends both polarities of the grid of the Cross. The inner journey to the celestial liturgy realizes the upper polarity; it is simultaneous with his realization of the lower polarity, his "outer" peregrinations as a cross-bearing fool. Thus Andrew enacts a living liturgy of the Elevation that is parallel to the emperor's movement from the field of combat through the imperial doors to the altar of the universal Church. This latent parallelism finds objective expression in "Combat at the Forum."

122 VAndrew, P. 59, and 2 Cor. 12: 4 as recalled in Festal Menaion, P.148.

123 Ibid., P. 55.

124 Ibid., P. 57-59.

125 Ibid., P. 49.

2.4 Combat at the Forum

The episode "Combat in the Forum" brings to light the underlying system of parallels between the Wisdom of Andrew and the Emperor. Although the real emperor does not enter the plot, as he will later in Russian holy foolish narratives, he is present symbolically in the form of his statue. The action takes place in the forum under the shadow of Constantine's porphyry column with the sculptural image of Constantine on top. This statue's presence presages analogies between fool and emperor that unfold as the episode progresses. Both fool and statue offer a spectacle at the symbolic center of Constantinople that enacts the mythology of the Elevation of the Cross in Hagia Sophia. The fool and the statue functions as "icons" of triumphant sovereignty realizing the connotations of Constantine's vision in the Elevation liturgy. 26 In this way the episode connotes the fool's and Constantine's shared intercession and guardianship over the universal city.

This episode offers several viewpoints on Andrew that reflect the problem of "reading" with the spiritual eyes so as to see the iconic signs of Christ's presence in the world.127 We are given the conflicting viewpoints of Andrew's uninitiated attackers, and of the pious passer-by Barbara, as well as, implicitly, of the emperor himself, the model initiate into Wisdom. Presiding over the forum, the emperor (in the form of his statue) also presides over the fool's field of "athletic combat" in a similar way as the Byzantine emperors viewed sacred games in the hippodrome. The "emperor" is implicitly "viewing" his symbolic alter-ego. The fool in a similarly iconic way is ritually performing the mythology of the emperor's own sovereignty in all its eschatological connotations. Barbara makes this clear when she sees beyond Andrew's cover to the glorified kingship-in-Christ hidden underneath.

In this episode's opening scene, Andrew passes by "the column erected by the Emperor Constantine . now among the saints, . he [Constantine]

126 VAndrew, P. 243-7. In the Slavonic version of Andrew's Vita published by Молдован А. М. ЖАЮ, С. 389, the column of Constantine is referred to as an "idol" (болван) that Constantine established "out of pride" (гордяся). "Above" the idol are the nails of the Cross for the "glory of God" and for the "protection" (покров) and guardianship (съблюдение) of the city's allegiance to the church. The reference to the idol alludes to the statue's origination in Constantine's pagan period. The reference to the nails "above" alludes to Constantine's conversion and the triumph of Christianity over idolatry. This symbolism introduces the theme of the battle against idolatry that is developed as the episode progresses. Compare with VAndrew, P. 242.

127 This concern with the icon may have been inspired by the presence in the Blachernae palace of the miraculous cloth from Edessa with the Holy Face, brought there in 944. The related Mandylion iconography represented "the archetypal image that authorized all images." By the eleventh century, fringes were added to the cloth to express its association with the temple veil (according to Numbers 15: 37-40). See: Kessler H. Configuring the Invisible by Copying the Holy Face // Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God's Invisibility in Medieval Art. Philadelphia, 2000. P. 5-77. This cult object may have worked together with other cult objects of the Blachernae sanctuary (the True Cross and the Virgin's robe) to offer inspiration for Nikephoros' narrative. On the place of the Holy Face in the system of images signifying the Cross as manifest Holy of Holies, see figures 2 and 3.

... they say, took the precious nails which had pierced Christ's life-giving body and built them into the surmounting statue for the glory of God and as a protection and a talisman for the imperial city [my italics]." A tradition inspired by Eusebios identified the embedded nails with the seven rays around the emperor's head.128 The nails comprising the light around his head symbolically endowed him with a "cruciform" halo that likens him to the enthroned Christ depicted in the Hagia Sophia narthex mosaic (figure 6). "Surmounting" the column, the glorified Constantine is also like Christ elevated on the Cross, glorifying the Father's Name. This latent symbolism is inherent in the statue's nature as an apotheosis of the ideal of triumphant sacred kingship.

The nails have a symbolic value that associates the statue of Constan-tine with the high priestly sacrifice of atonement that remits Divine Judgment. Andrew associates the statue with this meaning later, when describing the fall of the universal empire to his disciple. He states that the nails in the statue will deliver it from the final apocalyptic inundation of the city.129

Nikephoros next sets up a series of parallels between the "surmounted" statue and Andrew's open spectacle of foolishness. Fool and statue share imagery of wisdom/glory and sovereignty. Barbara sees that Andrew is "flashing like a fiery pillar, and "lifted up into the air, dazzling like a beam of fire [my italics, P.H.]." Implicitly, he is lifted up like the statue into the "glory of God", and is, like the statue, an icon of Christ's glorification on the Cross. The comparison of the fool to a "pillar of fire" identifies him with the Lord as Holy of Holies leading the chosen people from captivity into the promised land: "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud . and by night in a pillar of fire" (Exodus 12: 21, my italics).130 This evocation of his powers of deliverance makes him analogous to the statue with the salvific light-bearing nails.

The episode now turns to another analogy between fool and statue -their shared associations with sacred combat. In this regard, the forum acts as the real-life counterpart to the athletic stadium of Andrew's dream. Here Andrew's boast consists of his metaphorically displaying his "nails of the cross," by forcing his misery on the people's eyes. This boast, predictably, is taken as an affront and the spectators react in a familiar way, by covering over the fool's innate sovereignty-in-Christ with the "cloak of mockery." "Some foolish people slapped him on the neck, others hit him on the back of his head. Many who saw him said in disgust, 'Lord, may not even our ene-

128 VAndrew, P. 342, footnote 1. The interpretation of the nails as the sun's rays is an image of glorification by the Cross.

129 Ibid., P. 277.

130 Ibid., P. 342, footnote 2. The Emperor traditionally carried Moses' rod in all processions. Moses and his rod, then, constitute a typological prefiguration of the emperor's messianic role as evoked in the Elevation liturgy. See Festal Menaion P. 135: "Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea ..." This whole passage, quoted from Exodus 15: 22 - 16: 1, as well as a second reference to the bitter waters (see Festal Menaion, P. 151) is the scriptural basis for the episode "Andrew in the heavenly king's palace. The bitter and the sweet taste." See VAndrew, 25-27.

mies meet with such misery!'"131 This scene is fraught with irony: The people who believe they are invoking Christ are actually invoking their false idea of Christ, i.e. the devil in disguise. Having unwittingly fallen prey to the Devil's deadly deceit, they are now also caught in Andrew's truth-exposing trap. When they persecute Andrew, they reveal themselves to be crucifiers of Christ, and they are undergoing, unbeknownst to themselves, the judgment of the Cross (John 12: 32).

Andrew's sudden and unpleasant appearance places Andrew's attackers before the judgment seat of their own consciences; it offers them the trial that Christ offered the sinners who wanted to stone the adulteress when he invited them first to look into themselves (John 8: 12). Andrew's filthiness is, implicitly, the outward mirror of their own unrecognized inner moral state. Their negative reaction to it is a witness to their own blindness, to their inability to see themselves in the light of Truth and to show humility before Christ's sacrifice on the Cross. Their absence of the shame demonstrates their failure to convict themselves in their own consciences and their movement into Darkness according to Christ's admonition, "walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you" (John 12: 36).132 The implications of their stance are realized in the plot. A group of dark demons, strolling behind, get close enough to overtake Andrew's attackers and mirror their sentiments: "'Yes, may God ... never again let such a man arise, for nobody has burnt our hearts like this idler! Not wanting to serve his master, he pretends to be mad and mocks the world!'"

The demon's remarks are typical of the "normal" reactions of anyone looking at a holy fool with worldly eyes. The irony in their remarks exemplifies the Devil's "craftiness" - his method of covertly reversing values, undermining the sacred, and turning people into unwitting idolaters.133 They begin by appealing to God to save them from Andrew; they offer a negative acknowledgement of Andrew's divine power of judgment over their hearts and the conscience; they reverse the value of the holy foolish trick by which Andrew testifies to his obedience to his divine Master. They reinterpret his conscious pretense to be mad as idleness, unwillingness to serve his worldly master. They thus offer a distorted (reversed) version of Truth that corrupts its essence, and transforms it into a Lie. In this way they perfect their service to the wisdom of the ruler of this world, the Deceiver.1 4 Their almost comic guise reflects their function as a "parody" of the sacred.135

131 Here Nikephoros is alluding to the mockery of Christ (Luke 22: 63, Mark 14: 65).

132 John 12: 39-41: "Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: 'He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts '. these things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him" (Is. 6: 1).

1 On the Archpriest Avvakum's polemic with the Nikonians for exercising this same method of subversion to degrade holy foolishness to mere rebelliousness, see Hunt P. The Theology in Avvakum's 'Life' and His Polemic with the Nikonians // The New Muscovite Cultural History / Ed. by M. Flier, V. Kivelson, N. Kollman and K. Petrone. Bloomington, 2009. P. 125-140.

134 In Romans 1: 18 - 2: 3, Paul describes this process as a "reverse" worldly sort of foolishness that brings about the divine Judgment: ". because, although they knew God, they did

The attackers have earned themselves signs of Judgment, the Devil's imprint. Barbara notices that "dark demons marked those who hit the righteous man, saying, '... they have stricken one of God's elect unjustly and in their case there will be no salvation.'" Now the demons have branded Andrew's attackers with the Devil's "name," transforming them into dwellers in an inverse Holy of Holies (the fires of hell, and condemnation). The marks allude to the judgment that they have brought on themselves that will determine their fate on the "last day" (John 12: 31, 48).

The marks transform Andrew's attackers into anti-icons equivalent to the idol.136 They exude "darkness," and engage in "tyranny" and self-deception. They wear the same fiery marks that the apocalyptic First Beast places on the hand or the forehead of those who worship "his image" (Rev. 13: 12-16).137 In contrast to the Name-bearing number of the saints, they represent the number who shall fall with the apocalyptic Babylon: ".'for the hour of His judgment has come'. Babylon is fallen, ... that great city ... /If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, /he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of god ... (Rev. 14: 7-10)." The fool's role of uncovering hidden Truth thus likens his appearance to the ultimate eschatological revelation. His refusal to allow them to remain "lukewarm" alludes to Revelation (3: 16), and shows that the present trail is indeed a rehearsal of the Last Judgment.

Now true to his mission to champion the Cross, the fool changes from spiritual warrior to compassionate intercessor. He engages in the act of atonement that is the metaphorical other side of sacred-combat according to Christ's prophecy: "'... I did not come to judge the world but to save the world (John 12: 47).'" Andrew acts on the assumption that his attackers have

not glorify Him as God . and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools (18: 21-22)".

135 The demon's parody of Christ's sovereignty is comic in an antithetical way to the fool's up-side-down disguise of Christ's sovereignty. This difference reflects the antithesis between "foolishness" and "foolishness-in-Christ." The devilish parody functions in a Wisdom context rather than a folk one. Unlike the parody temporarily offered by a comic mock king in rites of status reversal, demonic parody symbolizes an on-going foolish state of mind that deceitfully apes Wisdom: It is the opposite of Paul's mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2: 16), and similar to Paul's "debased mind" (Rom. 1: 28) associated with the foolishness of worldly wisdom. On the Devil as a signifier of a mental state, see Brakke D. Demons and the Making of the Monk. P. 70-73.

136 On Andrew's view of idols at the forum in another episode, see VAndrew, P. 141.

137 This "deceitful" beast has taken on the image of a Lamb. In a parody of Pentecost, he "causes all . to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads"; He makes "fire"' come down by means of deception and sorcery. See Orthodox Study Bible. P. 615-616, the footnote on Revelation 13: 13-15. The editors note that "Statues were often 'brought to life' by sorcerers" who use 'illusion and occult practices to make idols seem alive,' as noted by St Irenaeus, Clement, Justin, and Eusebius in commentaries on Acts 8: 9-24. Here Nikephoros is implicitly contrasting the "statue" of the emperor and Andrew as "icons" and Andrew's attackers as idolatrous "statues." This implied contrast may be inspired by the shared themes between the Elevation liturgy and the liturgy of the Celebration of Orthodoxy, which marks the reinstatement of icon veneration after the iconoclastic controversy.

been victims of deception, according to Christ's observation that "he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going (John 12: 35)." When demons' boast, "'At the moment of their death we shall surely be able to condemn them' ... the blessed man heard this [and] argued: 'You are not permitted to mark these men, for I have besought my terrible Lord not to reckon as a sin that they strike me. They do not know what they are doing ...' Andrew checks the demons by echoing Christ's prayer from the cross: "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23: 24)." Andrew is himself then "filled with mighty power from God", and "wipes out their marks with divine spirit."

Up until now, the fool has offered the trial of the conscience of John, chapter eight; this is the same trial evoked by the image of the prostrate emperor in the narthex mosaic of Hagia Sophia. Now Andrew reflects the intercessory powers of the Cross personified by the Mother of God and the Archangel Michael in the same mosaic. Like the former, he engages in compassionate supplication for the sinners while using his "mighty power" to remit judgment like the latter.

This imagery implies that Andrew is acting in parallel to the emperor's own intercessory powers in the narthex mosaic. The narrative goes on to show that Andrew is crowned with Christ's Light in a similar way to the Light that "crowns" the head of the prostrate emperor. In the mosaic, the emperor's kneeling position evokes the Pentecostal kneeling ritual celebrating the Spirit's descent.138 Nikephoros invokes similar Pentecostal symbolism to allude to Andrew's symbolic crowning. A heavenly dove of the Spirit literally lands on the fool's head.

The dove's descent brings Andrew's foolish performance of the Wisdom of the Cross to a climax. He has become like the emperor who has passed under the descending dove in the composition over the imperial doors, has reached the altar and, implicitly, assumed Constantine's crown (with the dove descending on the Cross). (See figure 6). He now participates in the emperor's powers of deliverance but in their mythological implications.

The dove imagery fulfills the import of a series of typological Old Testament allusions that signify the fool's power to undo the force of the Last Judgment.139 First the heavens open and a multitude of "delightful swallows c[o]me out." They are an allusion to Proverbs 26: 2: "Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow, so a curse without cause shall not alight."140 The reference to the lifting of the curse also alludes to Revelation "... there shall be no

138 Gavrilovich Z. The Humiliation of Leo VI the Wise (the mosaic of the Narthex at Saint Sophia, Istanbul // Cahier archeologiques.1979. V. 28, P. 92-93.

139 On a similar typology as it pertains to the Macedonian emperor in procession, see Da-gron G. Emperor and Priest. P. 210, 311.

140 VAndrew, P. 343, footnote 7. Nikephoros may also have had in mind Jeremiah 8: 7, which picks up on the theme of "not knowing": "Even the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times . the swallows observe the time of their coming. But My people do not know the judgment of the Lord."

more curse (22: 3)." Next the large dove emerges carrying an olive branch down to Andrew. This gift likens Andrew to Noah receiving the sign that he has reached dry land after the flood (Gen. 8: 11). It shows that Andrew like Noah has delivered his people from a judgment that prefigures the Last Judgment, as prophesied by Christ (Matt. 24: 27). Indeed on this typological level, Andrew-as-Noah has delivered his attackers from a flood - the same apocalyptic inundation of the city that the glorified statue of Constantine will survive.

The symbolism now identifies Andrew with divine Kingship. He reflects the latent apocalyptic symbolism of the emperor's statue and of other ceremonial evocations of the emperor's triumphal high priestly kingship. The dove-Spirit brings the twig from the "Almighty Father and Son Saboath" (the whole victorious Trinity that ushers in the cosmic New Jerusalem in Revelation)}41 The gift vests Andrew with the power to deliver the earthly city. The name of the giver, "Almighty Father and Son Sabaoth," announces the activation of the military-royal metaphorical system that, in Revelation, is seamlessly blended with its high-priestly counterpart. Outwardly cloaked in "mockery," Andrew inwardly partakes of the war-like majesty of the Lord of Hosts [Saboath] and his army of martyrs who have overcome Babylon and inaugurated the reign of the celestial Jerusalem.142

The dove sings a hymn of praise for Andrew: "'The Lord will glorify you again and again and his holy name shall be exalted (John 12: 28) [my italics]. '"143 This hymn is a quotation from the Father's answer to His Son's expressed wish to glorify the Father's Name during his elevation on the Cross. The fool himself is now exalted in a similar manner, the object of liturgical adoration. He thus is analogous to the emperor in procession, to the glorified Cross in the Elevation liturgy, and to their higher archetype, the Trinity's throne in the New Jerusalem.

The dove's words show that the same Andrew who received the secrets of the Name in the heavenly Jerusalem now personally embodies the power of the Name in the earthly city. This context of meaning expands the symbolism of Andrew as a fiery "pillar" by alluding to Revelation (3:12):" I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God ... I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem.[my italics, P.H.]"144 The "loud chirping of the swallows" that Barbara now hears is analogous to the chorus of angels surrounding the risen enthroned Christ

141 The dove gives the reason: "because you are merciful and benevolent in the same way that he is merciful and compassionate".

142 According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 15 (New York: Robert Appleton Co., 1907-1912), the Hebrew term Saboath refers to "host" or "army" and is a name of God as "Lord of Hosts." Here the term Saboath also alludes to the Word enthroned as the Lamb in Revelation (19: 11-16).

143 John's Gospel (17: 22, 26): "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them ... and I have declared to them Your Name ... that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."

144 This passage is followed by the warning to the Laodiceans not to remain "lukewarm" (Rev. 3: 16), that informs Andrew's relationship to his attackers.

(and to the urban, courtly acclaimers of the victorious emperor). This chirping exalts Andrew for lifting the curse when he erased the Devil's marks on his attackers.

When this dove, crowned with a cross of flowers, sits on Andrew's head it signifies Andrew's re-consecration into the Wisdom/Glory mystically displayed by the Elevation. Other of the dove's attributes personify Andrew's power to exalt God's name and foolishly manifest the Holy of Holies in the city's midst, triumphant over the "prince of this world." The dove was "white as snow and very large," "completely covered with silver;" "its breast was yellow gold."145 These attributes allude to the hymn of praise in Psalm 67: "Sing to God, sing praises to His name ... God in His holy habitation ... [who] went out before Your people . You will be like the wings of a dove covered with silver, /And her feathers with yellow gold. /When the Almighty scattered kings in it, / It was white as snow in Zalmon ... (Ps. 67: 4,7,11,1314) [my italics. - P. H.].

The dove's colorful "armour" alludes to Andrew's true nature as a martyr-warrior in the army of the Lord of Hosts. The dove associates Andrew directly with the Lord of Hosts: Its eyes were "like precious pearls, its feet . dipped in imperial dye." The Lord of Hosts in Revelation has eyes "like flame of fire," with a robe dipped in blood" who "had a name written that no one knew except Himself ... (19: 12-16)."

Thus the symbolism of the dove has many functions in the text. It evokes the apocalyptic framework informing the typology of Andrew as a pillar of fire leading the people into the Promised Land. As such, this symbolism enhances parallels between Andrew and the emperor's statue, with its power to deliver the city from preordained apocalyptic destruction. The dove was also a poetic device for showing that Andrew as a fool is inwardly experiencing a triumphal realization of his "Personal Apocalypse." The dove's symbolism associates Andrew's holy foolishness with participation in the liturgy of the cosmic Jerusalem that destroys Satan and lifts the curse.

Nikephoros raised the mythology of Andrew's Wisdom to an eschato-logical level. He identified the fool wandering in the city with the apocalyptic archetypes of the military royal and high priestly narratives that express the emperor's Wisdom of the Cross. When Andrew mitigates the Devil's power over his attackers, like the Archangel Michael in the narthex mosaic, he is also ritually performing the "military" coming of the Lord of Hosts; and when he prays for them afterward, like the Mother of God in the same mosaic, he implicitly is identifying with the high priestly sacrifice of the Lamb

145 Its golden breast is a distant echo of the golden breastplate worn by the high priest Aaron in Exodus 28: 26-29, according to the Septuagint: "And thou shalt put the Manifestation and the Truth on the oracle of judgment; and it shall be on the breast of Aaron, when he goes into the holy place before the Lord; and . bears the judgments of the children of Israel on his breast ... continually." Aaron also wears on his forehead a golden plate engraved with the name of the Lord: "And Aaron shall bear away the sins of their holy things ... (Exodus 28: 34-35)".

(Son) on the throne with the Father. Nikephoros thus portrays Andrew as the emperor's messianic alter-ego.

The unfolding metaphorical system in this episode augments the meaning of Andrew's juxtaposition with the emperor's statue. This episode's pathos, however, relies on Barbara's vision of Andrew's crowning, glorification and redemptive power. Her viewpoint shows that the fool, like the emperor's statue stands before the people as a true icon and as an antidote to their secret idolatry. The scriptural allusions indicate that she sees Andrew as a kingly-high priestly intercessor for the city who manifests the Holy of Holies in a way no less brilliant that the Cross-as Light around the statue's head.

Barbara has the last word in this episode and she speaks for the reader. She articulates our wonder at why Andrew does not allow the people to know about his glory. He himself is aware that they "do not know where they are going" or "what they are doing." Yet, when Barbara lamented: "What luminaries he [God] has on earth, and nobody knows it," Andrew instructed her to keep his glory secret and God Himself sealed her lips.

This rhetorical ploy makes a statement about the fool's special mission to "mediate" the emperor's Wisdom before the people. The signs of Constan-tine's sacred Sovereignty are openly apparent in his statue. Yet the peoples' response to Andrew has demonstrated that they are not able to read them with spiritual eyes. Andrew's God-given job as the emperor's alter-ego is to resolve this problem of idolatry. He fights and intercedes as a fool so that the people may see the true Christ in his own and the emperor's Wisdom. God cooperates with Andrew's tactic of hiding his glory, because it is the fool's special prerogative to test and hone the peoples' vision and expose their self-deception. The fool must be allowed to use confrontational tactics as well as intercessory powers to save false Christian from the consequences of their blindness. By addressing this otherwise unreachable group of hypocrites, the fool assists the emperor in realizing the Cross's "universal" salvific power.

The divine sanction against revealing Andrew's glory shows how God favors the fool's display of Wisdom's hidden nature. This display's overt, sometimes comic, grotesque character offers an object lesson about Divine Wisdom's essential otherness from the "world" and the distance between the kingdoms of Light and Darkness. Andrew offers a messianic holy foolish counterpart to the sword of the Cross wielded by the emperor against barbarian "deceit."146

Barbara personifies what should be our own reaction to the holy foolish spectacle. When an "invisible power" prevented Barbara from speaking about Andrew's glory, she reacted with terror and awe: "trembling enters my bones and my strength is troubled within me." Her trembling eludes to the prophet Habakkuk's response to the imminent approach of the Lord with His Anointed in anger:

146 Revelation 19:15. On the first monastic holy fools as "secret servants," see Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 1-2, 42-48.

"You went forth for the salvation of Your people, for salvation with Your anointed. You struck the head from the house of the wicked ... When I heard my body trembled; my lips quivered at the voice; rottenness entered my bones; and I trembled in myself that I might rest in the day of trouble (3: 13,16) [my italics]."147

She personifies the pious reader's reaction to the fool's exercise of his "sword"-- an awakening of the conscience and fear for one's salvation from the imminent Judgment.

2.5 The Future Patriarch's Vision

Nikephoros offers us one more privileged view of Andrew's inner Wisdom that lays bare another aspect of his analogy to the emperor. In a vision, Epiphanios sees Andrew in his chamber in the heavenly city.148 The fool is located amongst the flashing angelic thrones, "cherubim, and seraphim and powers," surrounding a Throne of immense height where sits a "king, shining like a sun with balls of fire proceeding] from his face."

"[Epiphanios entered into a] chamber that was like a flash of lightening. And behold, blessed Andrew came out . as if portrayed in a picture (eikon), conforming in appearance to the awesome image of the king, his face surpassingly bright like the sun ... his garments were many-colored as if made of sun-beams or flashing rays and lightening. He had a wreath on his head and a cross from the imperial crown [stemmatos Basilikou] on his forehead. In his left hand he held a scepter ... and in his right a cross."

Epiphanios sees Andrew's place in the celestial liturgy of the heavenly city. Bearing the Holy Name (the Cross) on his forehead, he reflects Christ's royal High Priesthood. He is analogous to the risen glorified Christ, who in his human body, has returned to the Holy of Holies (the Trinity's throne). The inscription on Andrew's scepter, "Holy, Holy, Holy," associates him with the highest rank of angels around God's throne, filled with his Wisdom.149 This static hieratic image symbolizes Andrew's manifestation of Christ's Divinity, of the Presence - the Light from the "divine counte-

nance.'"150

147 VAndrew, P. 343, footnote 10.

148 Ibid., P. 129-131. After receiving this vision, Epiphanios "thanked God who had revealed to him the secret and hidden things of his ineffable wisdom (1 Cor. 2: 1-3; Ps. 50: 6).

149 The inscription on the scepter is from the Seraphic hymn that is sung in preparation for the rite of the anaphora, the sending down of the Spirit onto the gifts in the liturgy of the terrestrial church. On the angelic hierarchy as a source of the Wisdom-Light manifest in the liturgy, see Hunt P. The Wisdom Iconography of Light: The Genesis, Meaning and Icono-graphic Realization of a Symbol // Byzantinoslavica. 2009. V. 67, P. 70-77.

150 Festal Menaion, P. 63 (Ps. 4: 7).

When Epiphanios sees Andrew in this pose, he is receiving a revelation of Andrew's immovability (apatheia). This revelation implicitly contrasts with Barbara's vision of Andrew as a fiery column that leads the people into the Promised Land. Each viewpoint represents a different level of initiation beyond the veil of Andrew's foolishness. While Barbara sees in Andrew's glory the Pattern of history's providential movement, Epiphanios sees to the unchanging archetype of this pattern (Logos).

Рис. 9. Император Иоанн Комнин. Фрагмент мозаики на западной галерее Софии Константинопольской. XII в.

At the same time, the imagery that Nikephoros uses to portray Andrew's Wisdom evokes latent parallels with the emperor as a manifestation of

Divinity.151 Andrew holds a scepter and a cross, while the emperor typically held a scepter and an orb (with a cross on top).152 The light imagery evokes the brilliance of hieratic mosaic depictions of emperors as "'an image [eikon] of the signs of God"153 (see figure 9).154 Epiphanios' depiction of Andrew also echoes the rhetoric of imperial eulogy, as in the following description of the emperor Manuel I Komnenos presiding in splendor over games (jousts): "The emperor wears a gold crown that ... flashed like lightening, the pearls appeared white, and the precious red stone glistened, these being a mirror of the treasury of wisdom that resides in the emperor's head."155 The cross from the imperial crown imprinted on Andrew's forehead signifies his treasury of Wisdom in parallel to the (undescribed) cross on top of the emperor's jewel-studded crown (figure 9). This Wisdom flashes through his many-colored raiments just as the emperor's raiments flash in the mosaic iconic portraits.156 The light and other symbolism suggests that Andrew is a spectacle of the Wisdom of the Logos, of the Word itself (that Andrew received directly from the Trinity's throne during his "Personal Apocalypse.") In this regard, the words, "Holy, holy, holy" on his scepter identify him with the Four Evangelists (typically depicted as the "four living creatures"), the rung immediately beneath the seraphim in the hierarchy manifesting Wis-dom/Glory.157 They also have apocalyptic connotations, since the four "living creatures" before God's heavenly throne in Revelation (4: 8): "... do not rest day or night, saying: 'Holy, holy holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!'" Andrew's association with the Wisdom of the Evangelists justifies his own exalted role as teacher in the Questions and Answers

151 Eusebios emphasized the apatheia in Constantine's nature even as he compared him with Christ as Sun. See Drake H. In Praise of Constantine: A Historical Study and New Translation of Eusebius' Triennial Orations. Berkeley, 1976. P. 84, 89-91. His thought "mirror[s] [Wisdom's] virtuous rays ... Through exalted contemplation, he has raised his thoughts beyond the heavenly vault . Turning his attention inward, he sees in himself the nature common to all . Not even the sight of . the myriads of his armies . excites him . [He] laughs at his raiment, interwoven with gold . but . clothes his soul in raiment embroidered with temperance and justice, piety ...".

152 An example is an ivory depicting Leo VI, the Wise, in Maguire H. Style and Ideology in Byzantine Imperial Art // Gesta. 1989. V. 28: 2. P. 224, Figure 3.

153 Psellos's description of imperial portraiture in Maguire H. Style and Ideology P. 224. According to Maguire, the iconic imperial portraits symbolized the emperor's unchanging nature, his "immovable rectitude," "unmoved by excesses of motion".

154 For this mosaic of John II Komnenos in the south gallery of Hagia Sophia, ca. 1122, see The Glory of Byzantium, P. 187.

155 The Glory of Byzantium, P. 187. Manuel I holds a labarum that alludes to Constantine's victory Cross. On the labarum, see Gage J. La victoire imperial. P. 387-389.

156 The depiction of the fool recalls Eusebios' description of the Logos that illuminates the emperor Constantine in the Tricennial Oration: "Would that one were to able adequately envision Him, but light flashing forth about Him shields the sign of His divinity from all." See Drake H. In Praise of Constantine. P. 84.

157 On the symbolism of the "four living creatures" in the theophanic hierarchy and in the iconographic program of the church (as Wisdom's house), see Hunt P. The Wisdom Iconography of Light. P. 71-76 and figure 5. See also Plate 2 showing a mosaic of the glorified Cross in the dome of the Mausoleum at Galla Placida.

section. There he sees through the veil of Scripture to the founding mysteries and patterns that he communicates to Epiphanios and the reader.

The representation of the fool's Wisdom in Epiphanios' vision is indicative of the profound changes in the paradigm of holy foolishness that Nikephoros has accomplished. It re-contextualizes the monastic interpretation of the fool's apatheia in VSymeon into an imperial-liturgical image of the fool's prophetic Wisdom derived from the mythology of the Constantine cult.158 It manifests imperial glory in holy foolish form, fulfilling the archetypal import of Constantine's vision of the Victory Cross in the sky and the correlated Elevation of the Golgotha Cross.159 Thus the "Future Patriarch's Vision" episode brings the mythological structure developed in the core episodes of VAndrew to an apotheosis. It offers an initiated view on the fool's inner reflection of the upper polarity of the epiphanic grid. Implicitly, Andrew has perfected his likeness in Wisdom to the emperor Constantine in a more intense way than Constantine's royal successors. As such, Andrew is an enhanced version of the saints evoked in the Synaxarion of Basil II. Andrew "assists" the emperor during his own lifetime in preparing for the Last Judgment. He surpasses all as the emperor Constantine's secret alter-ego in realizing the empire's and the city's messianic destiny.

Nikephoros has represented Andrew as a radical solution to the apocalyptic crisis looming over tenth century Byzantium. The fool on the home front draws "all men" to Christ through the weapon of the Cross just as the emperor does on the battlefield. While still alive on earth, Andrew exercises the powers that Andrew of Caesarea attributes to the saints in heaven: To "judge . demons" and to be "glorified with Christ until the consummation of the present age." He already "officiate[s] and reign[s] with Christ" in ways exemplary for the emperor himself.

Russians drew inspiration from Andrew's mythological association with the emperor's Wisdom when they allowed their fools to stand forth as the ruler's teacher, spiritual eyes and conscience. They were also inspired by the apocalyptic resonances that surround Andrew, and by the apocalyptic prophecy that Andrew offers, as well by other prophetic writings, beginning

158 On Symeon's apatheia see the description of the fool's single combat against the adversary in VSymeon, P. 132-133. On Andrew's apatheia, see Панченко, Смех. C. 118. For the story of Andrew's collaboration with a stylite, a pillar dweller, who acts out divine immobility on earth, see VAndrew, P. 135-136. The stylite, Daniel, recognizes that Andrew is a brother whose more active role hides the impassive center: "Come, good runner and holy Master of the stadium, you who outshine the sun in the middle of the turmoil, come let us invoke the Lord together ... that he may save the imperial city ...". On the "silence (bezmolvie)" characteristic of the pillar dweller or stylite in relation to the fool's apatheia and by analogy to Andrew's role as a "fiery column" see Руди Т. Р. О топике житий юродивых // ТОДРЛ. СПб., 2007. Т. 58. С. 479-480.

159 An episode of VAndrew, P. 133-4, associates the fool with Constantine's vision when he sees the Cross "hanging in the air like a flame of fire" and calls out "Let the light of thy countenance, O Lord, be manifested towards us!". The fiery cross leads him to a vision that prefigures the rebuilding of Constantine's oratory into the new church of the Holy Apostles by a future "pious emperor" (Justinian).

with Andrew of Caesarea's commentary on Revelation. It was a response both to the widespread fear of the corruption of the universal Church, and to the belief in the ruler's piety as the primary safeguard against the fall of the universal city and the End of Time.

This apocalyptic framework for Andrew's holy foolishness implied that the fool would achieve an apotheosis when he confronted a sinful ruler, since he would be fighting to win back Satan's most important conquest (for his demonic agenda of usurping territory from Christ). He would be carrying through on Andrew's own battles with the Archdeceiver exemplified in the "Wrestling Parable," the "Winter Storm" and elsewhere. Taking seriously Andrew's mission to speak "of thy [the Lord's] testimonies before kings," the Russian fool embraced the Old Testament prophet's messianic obligation to keep the covenant between the Lord and his anointed ruler in tact. Episodes like "Combat at the Forum" showed the Russians that failure to fear the fool and tolerate his antics would reflect back on them in terrible judgment. To defuse this danger, Muscovite rulers ultimately involved their fools in court life and ritual.

The viewpoints that Nikephoros offered on Andrew also set important precedents for Russia. Epiphanios's ability to see Andrew's hidden Wisdom offered authority for VAndrew's reception by influential Church hierarchs. At the same time, the woman Barbara offered the broadest authority for the reception of VAndrew and of Russian holy foolishness among rulers and people alike. She saw the fool as an awesome, frightening and necessary remedy against divine punishment. Her reaction to Andrew highlighted the fool's special way of keeping even the pious vigilant and assuring that the greatest possible number of people can be delivered into the kingdom.160

Thus the core episodes of VAndrew had a mystical didactic meaning with profound cultural depth integrating the fool into imperial mythology. The resulting new paradigm represented holy foolish performance as a paraliturgical ritual act, analogous to imperial spectacle. It made the holy fool an upholder of the emperor's Wisdom in conditions of apocalyptic anxiety. It also laid out the prescribed set of reactions to this spectacle, directing the viewpoint of the other ritual participants. These contributions to the model of urban holy foolishness inherited from VSymeon were determinative for Russian holy foolish tradition.

3.0 The Russian Reception of VAndrew

VAndrew served as an authoritative text at the very formation of East Slavic political and religious self-consciousness. As early as the eleventh century, the Florilegia (Izbornik of 1073) of Grand Prince Sviatoslav of Kiev contained translated excerpts from this encyclopedic work intended for personal edification. A full translation into Slavonic occurred at least by the

160 On filling out this number, see Magdalino P. The Year 1000 in Byzantium. P. 258.

twelfth century.161 The early translation of excerpts suggests that VAndrew had prestige as a part of a larger spectrum of cultural material being introduced from Byzantine in such spiritual centers as the Kiev and Novgorod Wisdom churches, and the Dormition (Uspenie) Churches of the Kievan Caves monastery and the Grand Principality of Vladimir. It arrived together with the Elevation liturgy, and the liturgy of the Deposition of the Robe.162 Doubtless, readers (reciters and listeners) of VAndrew were aware of Ni-kephoros' indebtedness to the imperial Blachernae cult objects for the mythological framing of Andrew's experience. As noted earlier, the Blacher-nae complex housed the True Cross (used in imperial procession from its Church to Hagia Sophia on the feast of the Elevation) as well as the miraculous robe of the Mother of God that inspired the episode of Andrew's vision of the Mother of God's intercession with her miraculous veil.163

Although the manuscripts of Andrew's Vita that have come down to us from Novgorod are of a later period, there is no reason to doubt that VAn-drew was appreciated in Novgorod as early as in Kiev. The Elevation liturgy was the patron feast of Novgorod's ancient Wisdom cathedral, and the Cross of Constantine and Helena and the cult of the Holy Sepulchre were its dominant Wisdom archetypes.164 Moreover the Blachernae cult of the Mother of

161 Moldovan, ЖАЮ, C. 18. On Andrew's cult in Kievan Rus' as evinced by calendars of saints and the Prolog, see Bubnov N Iu. Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Fool of Constantinople, P. 326-7; Vakareliyska C. M. The Absence of Holy Fools from Medieval Bulgarian Calendars, Holy Foolishness in Russia, P. 232, 236-7.

162 On the Blachernae cult, see Pentcheva, Icons and Power, P. 12-20, 47-77, 145-165; Плюханова М. Б. О традициях Софийских и Успенских церквей в Русских землях до XVI века // Лотмановскии сборник. 2, О.Г.И. М.: РГГУ, 1997, С. 483-510. She notes the connection of Uspenie (Dormition) churches in Rus' and Muscovy to the Blachernae Virgin cult and their complementary symbolism to Wisdom churches oriented on the Holy Sepulchre and Elevation cult. Just as Hagia Sophia was a symbolic double of the Jerusalem church of the Holy Sepulchre, so also the Blachernae church was a «restoration» of the destroyed Jerusalem Uspenie church believed to be over the Mother of God's empty grave (where she left her robe behind). Pliukhanova shows that the two traditions intersect in Muscovy beginning at the end of the 15th century, as will be exemplifed by our discussion of the intercession icon (section 3.1). The integration of the Blachernae protection cult within the dominant Christ-oriented Wisdom cult was expressed by monumental mosaic of the Mother of God in the apse of St. Sophia of Kiev below the mosaic of Christ as "Great High Priest" in the arch above the apse. See Pentcheva, Icons and Power, P. 77 and fig. 44; Аверинцев С. С. К уяснению смысла надписи над конхой центральной апсиды Софии Киевской // Древнерусское искусство и художественная культура домонгольской Руси. М., 1972. С. 25-49, esp. C. 25-27, 40-49; Лившиц Л. И. Премудрость в русской иконописи // Византийский временник. М., 2002. Т. 61 (86). С. 138-150, esр. 139. On the Wisdom cult and the Kievan iconography of Christ as High Priest, see also Брюсова В. Г. Толкование на IX притчу Соломона в "Изборнике 1073 года" // Изборник 1073: (Сб. ст.). М., 1977. С. 292-307.

163 VAndrew, P. 255.

164 Гордиенко Э. А. Варлаaм Хутынский... esр. С. 43, 48, 80-84. She documents Archbishop of Novgorod Antonii's role as a founder of the Wisdom cult of the Holy Sepulchre. See also Плюханова М. Б. Церковное предание о Константине, Елене и о Воздвижении креста в церковной жизни и в словесности древнего Новгорода // Contributi ital-

God was represented in Novgorod by its own church of the Deposition of the Robe (Polozhenie rizy), and by the development of the iconography of the Virgin of the Sign (Znamenie) and the idea of the Virgin's intercession (Pok-rov).165

There is evidence suggesting that the Grand Prince Andrei Bogoliub-skii of Vladimir-Suzdal in the twelfth century may have been responsible for a new liturgy, the Feast of the Intercession, based on the fool's vision of the Mother of God's intercession at the imperial Blachernae shrine.166 This episode was a suitable catalyst for marking Vladimir Suzdal as a political successor to Kiev. The royal liturgy of the Intercession in Vladimir Suzdal reen-acted the Virgin's protection of the political and spiritual center of the Russian land. It brought to Vladimir-Suzdal the implications of the monumental mosaic of the Mother of God raising her arms in prayer before Christ, the Great High Priest in the Kiev Wisdom cathedral.

Thus even at this early stage in Russia's cultural development, VAn-drew was perceived as an important resource for the ritual appropriation of Byzantine rulership ideology. However, VAndrew could not serve as a model for urban holy foolishness until cultural conditions were ripe, i.e. until the population was sufficiently Christianized to embrace the providential historical framework that endowed VAndrew with relevance. By the fourteenth century, Novgorod represented such a case. Unlike the rest of Rus' it had not been destroyed by the Mongol Horde and flourished as an independent "theocratic republic" founded on Wisdom until its take over by Moscow in the late fifteenth century (1478).167

VAndrew's function of addressing apocalyptic anxiety must have been an important factor in its power to elicit a heretofore unrealized type of urban behavior and hagiography in Novgorod.168 In the fourteenth century, at the

iani al XII Congresso Internazionale Degli Slavisti. Cracovia 26 Agosto - 3 Settembre 1998. Napoli, 1998, P. 61-86.

165 On the Virgin of the Sign and the Blachernae cult, see Pentcheva, Icons and Power, P. 146-147; On the Intercession (Покров) cult in Novgorod, see Гордиенко Э. А. Варлаaм Хутынский... С. 63-73, 94-103, 136-139; Плюханова М. Б. Сюжеты и символы Московского царства. СПб., 1995. С. 31-37. Both Pliukhanova and Gordienko argue that the Intercession cult may have originated in Novgorod rather than Vladimir-Suzdal, and in any case had an autonomous development there. On the scholarly debate on this question, see Pliukhanova, Siuzhety i simvoly, P. 52-63.

166 Hurwitz E. Prince Andrei Bogoliubskii: The Man and the Myth. Firenze, 1980. P. 6884; Ryden L. The Vision of the Virgin at Blachernae and the Feast of Pokrov // Analecta Bol-landiana. 1976. V. 94. P. 74-82; Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 256.

167 On the correlation between the spread of manuscripts of Andrew's Vita and the spread of holy foolishness in Russia from the northwest (Novgorod region) to the center, see Молдо-ван А. М. ЖАЮ. С. 27. On Andrew's popularity in Novgorod, see Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 257. See also Kobets S. The Russian Paradigm of iurodstvo and Its Genesis in Novgorod // Canadian-American Slavic Studies. 2000. V. 34: 3. P. 337-364.

168 An icon combining symbolism of the Last Judgment and the Elevated Cross expressed these anxieties and offered the intercession of the Cross as the solution. See Hunt P. Confronting the End: The Interpretation of the Last Judgment in a Novgorod Wisdom Icon // Byzanti-noslavica. 2007. V. 65. P. 275-325. For the apocalyptic tenor of the time see Синицына Н. В.

time when urban holy foolishness may have first appeared, Novgorodians were coming to terms with the anxiety caused by their unique deliverance from the Mongol onslaught. The first holy foolish vita to come down to us is from the late fifteenth century.169 In the fifteenth century Novgorodians were experiencing anxiety over Byzantium's fall in 1453, their conquest by Moscow in 1478, and the expected ended of the world in 1492.

VAndrew's Wisdom symbolism and apocalyptic orientation made it relevant to imperial Muscovy, which fully embraced Byzantine eschatology to define its role as Byzantium's successor.170 The Metropolitan Makarii, formerly Archbishop of Novgorod, used all the resources available in the Novgorod Wisdom cult to create a program to articulate Muscovy's messianic role after Ivan IV's coronation as tsar in 1547 officialy raised him to the level of emperor.171 The erudite Makarii must have received VAndrew in Muscovy as part of the larger cultural inundation of Novgorod Wisdom rituals and narratives that served as resources for expressing the new Tsar's legitimacy.172

Makarii's program carried into Muscovy the same matrix of imperial mythology that informed VAndrew.173 Other iconographic texts and artifacts

Третий Рим: Истоки и эволюция русской средневековой концепции (XV-XVI вв.). М., 1998. С. 183-187; FlierM. Till the End of time: The Apocalypse in Russian Historical Experience before 1500 // Orthodox Russia: Belief and Practice under the Tsars / Ed. by V. Kivelson and R. Greene. University Park, 2003, 127-158.

169 On early signs of the cult of Prokopii the fool, see Власов А. Праведный Прокопий, Христа ради юродивый, Устюжский чудотворец и литературная история его жития // О древней и новой русской литературе. (СПб., 2005). С. 175, and Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 259. Ivanov S.. P. 257, notes that a church in Andrew's name was mentioned in the Novgorod chronicle under 1371. On the first holy foolish vita see Gladkova O. "Agiograficheskii kanon i 'zapadnaia tema' v 'Zhitii Isidora Tverdislova, Rostovskogo iurodivogo,'" Drevnaia Rus', 4 (2001) P. 80-92. On its debt to VAndrew, see Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 265.

170 On the popularity of the illustrated Apocalypse with the commentary of Andrew of Caesarea in Muscovy and the use of apocalyptic themes in the Kremlin cathedrals and in contemporary political writings, see Качалова И. Я. Апокалипсис в стенопись Благовещенского собора // Благовещенский собор Московского Кремля: Материалы и исследования / Ред. Л. А. Щенникова и др. М., 1999, 30-53.

171 On the apocalypticism of Ivan IV's reign, see Хант П. Личная мифология Ивана IV о собственной царской харизме // НИС. 2002. Вып. 9 (19). P. 254-271. She describes the mythological structure of the official paradigm of the Tsar's Christ-like Wisdom including metaphors of martyrdom, sacred combat and enthronement; Плюханова М. Б. Сюжеты и символы... С. 49-51,73-83, 199-201; BogatyrevS. The Heavenly Host and the Sword of Truth: Apocalyptic Imagery in Ivan IV's Muscovy // The New Muscovite Cultural History. Bloomington, 2009. P. 77-93 as well as his comprehensive footnotes 5 and 6 on P. 78 for works of A. Iurganov, A. Bulychev, and M. Flier on this theme.

172 Плюханова М. Б. Сюжеты и символы..., 4 notes VAndrew's increased importance at this time.

173 Хант П. Личная мифология... C. 254-261. I will explore this further in Hunt P. The Four Part Icon of the Kremlin Annunciation Cathedral: An Initiation into the Tsar's Wisdom scheduled to appear in American Contributions to the Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Slavists. Minsk, 2013; On the interpretation of Tsar Ivan IV and his wife as a

of the royal cult made use of the military-royal and high-priestly metaphorical systems present in the Elevation liturgy. 74 VAndrew's reflection of this imported imperial ideology assured its reception as an authoritative text.

Makarii included VAndrew in his Great Menalogion (Velikie chet'i minei) next to the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, the authority on Divine Wisdom. In the mid-sixteenth century, he canonized Andrew.175 Somewhat later the Book of Royal Degrees (Stepennaia kniga) associated holy foolishness with royal status when it described Vladimir, the "new Con-stantine" and baptizer of Rus', as a fool (urod)}16 Ivan IV adopted holy foolishness as a behavioral model for expressing his own Wisdom.177 Makarii testified to the impact of VAndrew's mystical didactic parable, when he commissioned Ermolai Erazm to write the Tale of Peter and Fevroniia of Murom about the sacred basis of the Tsar's legitimacy. Like the foolishness episodes in VAndrew, the Tale also proved to be a didactic-mystical parable (prichta) about the Elevation of the Cross.178

"new Constantine" and Helena, see Thyret I. Between God and Tsar: Religious Symbolism and the Royal Women of Russia. DeKalb, 2001. P. 25-28, 48-54.

174 Scholars have described these artifacts but not placed them within a higher system. For the high priestly system, see for example, Успенский Б. А. Царь и патриарх: харизма власти в России (Византийская модель и ее русское переосмысление). М., 1998. С. 440-449; Самойлова Т. Е. Княжеские портреты в росписи Архангельского собора Московского Кремля. М., 2004, esр. С. 79-87; Thyret I. The Katapetasma of 1555 and the Image of the Orthodox ruler in the Early Reign of Ivan IV // The New Muscovite Cultural History. Bloom-ington, 2009. P. 43-63. For the related royal military system in the icon, "Blessed is the Host of the Heavenly Tsar" see Bogatyrev S. The Heavenly Host and the Sword of Truth. He references the original work on this icon by D. Rowland, N. Kvlividze, and A. Kochetov in footnotes 2-4, 77-78. For an artifact integrating both systems, see Flier M. The Throne of Monomakh: Ivan the Terrible and the Architecture of Destiny, in Architecture of Russian Identity: 1500 to the Present / Ed. by J. Cracraft and D. Rowland. Ithaca, 2003. P. 20-36.

175 Великие Минеи Четии, собранные всероссийским митрополитом Макарием. Октябрь, дни 1-3. Изд. Археографической комиссии. СПб., 1910. Стб. C. 80-236. On this canonization, see Ryden L. The Vision of the Virgin at Blachernae. P. 75, footnote 1.

176 Степенная книга царского родословия // Библиотека литературы Древней Руси. СПб., 2003. V. 12. C. 322: ".самовольною нищетою, и странствием, и богомудростным претворения уродством, и бездомствием во отечествиих и в чужеземствиих..."

177 Панченко A., Смех. C. 141; Хант П. Личная мифология. C. 267-271, 278. She describes Ivan's self-identification with the violent intercessory powers of the avenging fool who inverted the power of the Archangel Michael. On Ivan's self-perception as a "new Con-stantine" with the intercessory powers of the Archangel Michael and the Mother of God, implicitly participating in the army of the Lord of Hosts, see Ibid., C. 281. Tsar Ivan IV's dramatization of an apocalyptic interpretation of holy foolishness to enact his Wisdom is indicative of his debt to VAndrew.

178 Hunt P. The Tale of Peter and Fevroniia: Icon and Text // Elementa. 1997. V. 3. P. 291-308, esр. P. 295-296. Instead of the holy fool as the king's alter-ego, the author draws on the folklore motif of the "wise" peasant woman who outwits and marries the king. This choice likely reflects the typology of the Kievan Olga that later surfaced in the Stepennaia kniga, C. 332-341, 347. It focuses on her sacred trickery and especially her ability to shame the Byzantine emperor into NOT marrying her: ""Царь, обличаемый совестью своей и стыдом, . и раскаялся . ибо подивился он великой премудрости её слов, и благоразумию её ответа ." Her return from Constantinople to Kiev with gifts from the emperor symboli-

As part of the same program that elevated VAndrew's status, Makarii canonized a number of known Russian holy fools.179 Makarii's active development of holy foolish cults extended to commissioning new hagiographies that drew in marginal figures such as the Novgorod monastic elder, Mikhail of Klopsk. Mikhail's new Muscovite Vita exhibited pro-Moscow characteristics associated with the fool's power of prophecy. This Vita connected Mikhail to the royal line, thus concretizing the association between the fool and ruler.180 By the end of the sixteenth century during the reign of Tsar Fedor, the uniquely prophetic form of holy foolishness inspired by VAndrew was fully institutionalized within the messianism of the State, as observed by Giles Fletcher: 'These they take as prophets and men of great holiness ... So that if he reprove any openly ... they answer nothing, but that it is po graecum, that is, for their sins."181 A mid-sixteenth century Novgorod icon of the Intercession (to be discussed in Section 3.1) symbolizes the higher prophetic providential framework for the fool's intercessory role as modeled by Andrew.

The Muscovite seventeenth century saw the establishment of a canon of Russian urban holy foolish vitae.182 Dominant typologies of intercession and judgment in this canon reflected an age when every local crisis seemed to portend the ultimate punishment for the peoples' and rulers' sins.183 Such a typology is evident, for example, in the Vita of Arsenii of Novgorod when the fool "would go along the street ... passing quickly by" and suddenly request alms. If the people were slow in responding, he would not turn back.

cally founds the parallelism between the two as sacred cities. Olga's baptismal name "Helena," associates her with Constantine's Mother, discoverer of the True Cross. These themes link Olga to Fevroniia by way of 1) the latter's association with the healing powers of the Elevation, and 2) references to Constantine's universalistic agenda that transform Murom into a symbol of the new Constantinople-Jerusalem.

179 Голубинский Е. Е. История канонизации святых в Русской церкви. М., 1894. С. 54-55. The existence of iron chains and weights for the mortification of the flesh (verigi) embellished with metal icons of the Cross and the Mother of God suggests that actual living fools followed VAndrew in their archetypal interpretation of their intercessory powers. See the reproduction of such verigi in Brostrom K. Archpriest Avvakum: The Life Written by Himself. Ann Arbor, 1979. P. 90.

180 On Mikhail of Klopsk, see Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 270271. See also Swoboda M. Reworking the Tale: The Textual History of The Life of Mikhail of Klopsk // The New Muscovite Cultural History / Ed. by M. Flier, V. Kivelson, K. Petrone. Bloomington, 2009. P. 255-271.

181 Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 303-310; Руди Т. Р. О топике житий юродивых // ТОДРЛ. СПб., 2007. С. 457.

182 Ivanov S., Holy Fools..., P. 318-324.

183 On typologies of judgment manifest in comic holy foolish form, see for example, Панченко, Смех. C. 140, 149, 142: Prokopii of Viatka "sat in the governor's chair as though he were himself the judge;" The famous "draught of blood," that Vasilii Blazhennyi offers Ivan IV refers to the apocalyptic judgment (Rev. 14: 19-20; 16: 18); According to Silvestr Medvedev, the actual fool "Ivashko" offers a political prophecy in an apocalyptic mode. His spiritual guide, "a man, young in appearance and very handsome" resembles Andrew's numerous "bright youths." Moreover, this "angel" holds a rounded sword that appears to be an apocalyptic reference (Rev. 6:4).

His behavior is a graphic demonstration of two interrelated scriptural texts: "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming (Matt. 25: 13)"; and, "Surely I am coming quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! (Rev. 22: 20)."1 4 This and other hidden apocalyptic teachings in Russian holy foolish vitae suggest that the holy foolish canon may have emerged in response to the two apocalyptic events that framed the century, the Time of Troubles and the Nikonian church reforms of the Council of 1666-7 (marked by 666, the number of the Beast)185.

As Panchenko noted, holy foolishness had a strong institutional presence in the court of Aleksei Mikhailovich. Panchenko claimed that the tsar "inherited" these fools from his father.186 However their presence testifies to the tsar's earlier spirituality, his embrace as a young man of the messianic, penitential movement of the Zealots of Piety, led by Ivan Neronov, and including Avvakum and the future patriarch Nikon.18 Moreover, the intimate relations that Panchenko describes between Aleksei Mikhailovich, Nikon and a certain fool, Vasilii, suggests that tsar and Patriarch saw holy foolishness as a necessary complement to their authority, in the same way as Ivan IV and Makarii. They had the same reasons, - dedication to the Wisdom of the Cross as the basis of their legitimacy.188 When the ideology of the state changed with the rationalizing church reforms pronounced at the ominous Council of 1666, so also did the official status of the fool.189 The tsar's repudiation of the traditional religious bases of his legitimacy destroyed the context in which holy foolishness had developed and made cultural sense.

This cultural dynamic explains the willingness of holy fools to act together against the Church reforms at the end of the seventeenth century.190 They were expressing a shared response to the realization of the traditional culture's worst fear, the apostasy of the rulers of the universal Christian empire. Fools were acting on premises established in VAndrew when they took

184 Панченко. Смех. C. 119 did not note the apocalyptic connotations of this episode.

185 Magdalino P. The Year 1000 in Byzantium. P. 262.

186 Панченко. Смех. C. 138.

187 Ibid., C. 133. On this penitential piety, and its prophetic aspect, see Хант П. Пятая челобитная Аввакума к царю и ритуальный процесс // Герменевтика древнерусской литературы. М., 2010. T. 14. С. 652-690. This is an updated Russian translation of Hunt P. Av-vakum's 'Fifth Petition' and the Ritual Process// Slavic and East European Journal. 2003. P. 483-510.

188 Панченко. Смех. C. 132. On Nikon's Jerusalem cult of the True Cross, see I. Thryet, Between God and Tsar, P. 64-70. By establishing an analogy between Moscow and Jerusalem, it also implied the necessity of fools being guardians of Moscow's messianic status.

189 Панченко. Смех. C. 133-138, 150-154.

190 Ibid., C. 141-143. On Avvakum's holy foolishness as a response to the collapse of the mystical-ascetic-messianic Wisdom ideology of the state, see Хант П. Премудрость в Житии протопопа Аввакума и проблема новаторства, Книга и литература в культурном пространстве эпох (XI-XX вв.) / Ред. О. Н. Фокина, В. Алексеев // Новосибирск, 2011, 869-906; and Hunt P. The Theology in Avvakum's 'Life'. P. 125-140. On Avvakum's use and imitation of the "corporation" of fools, see Hunt P. The Holy Foolishness in the "Life" of the Archpriest Avvakum and the Problem of Innovation // Russian History / Ed. by L. Langer and P. Brown. 2008. V. 35: 3-4. P. 275-309.

direct aim at the "impious" Tsar in the streets and in written correspondence; they were fighting against Aleksei Mikhailovich's betrayal of his responsibility for national and universal salvation, in hopes that his repentance could forestall the Last Days.191

Holy fools and their vitae raised the alarm. The letters and hymns of the Moscow fool, Stefan Trofimovich, gave voice to penitential angst while making veiled references to the Tsar's impiety.192 A new folk Vita of Vasilii of Moscow appeared that featured the fool's denunciations of the Tsar.193 Additionally, as Panchenko has observed, the Archpriest Avvakum brought holy foolishness to a national apotheosis when he confronted the Nikonians at the church Council of 1666-67 at the climax of his autobiographical Vita.194 Avvakum's fateful words, "We are fools for Christ's sake" extended the paradigm of holy foolishness to all the saints of the past and of the present who stand up for the Divine against worldly wisdom.195 His speech was an invitation for all to be fools to assure the continued triumphal progress of the faithful into the heavenly Jerusalem, despite the tsar's apostasy. His call for a universal holy foolishness was based on the premise, established in VAndrew, that the fool was the emperor's ritual alter-ego in guaranteeing the deliverance of the universal Church.196

In this brief overview, it has been argued that Russia, from Kievan to Muscovite times, received VAndrew as part of a Wisdom cult that articulated

191 On Avvakum's evocation of an apocalyptic framework in his attempts to elicit the Tsar's repentance, Хант П. Пятая челобитная Аввакума к царю. С. 652-690; Hunt P. Justice in Avvakum's Fifth Petition to Aleksei Mikhailovich // Christianity and its Role in the Culture of the Eastern Slavs, California Slavic Studies / Ed. by B. Gasparov and R. Hughes. Berkeley, 1993. P. 276-297.

192 Понырко Н. В. Письма юродивого XVII в. // Лихачев Д. С., Панченко А. М., По-нырко Н. В. Смех в Древней Руси. Л., 1984. Прил. I. С. 205-214, esр. С. 209; Понырко Н. В. Автор стихов покаянных и распевщик юродивый Стефан // ТОДРЛ. СПб., 2003. Т. 54. С. 220-230.

193Кузнецов И. И. Святые блаженные Василий и Иоанн, Христа ради московские чудотворцы // Зап. имп. Моск. археол. ин-та. М., 1910. С. 79-93 and Ivanov S. Holy Fool. , 318-324.

194 Панченко. Смех. C. 133.

195 For an analysis of this passage, and on Avvakum's use of holy foolishness to defend the messianic Wisdom ideology of the state, see Hunt P. The Holy Foolishness in the "Life" of the Archpriest Avvakum and the Problem of Innovation, P. 290-295.

196 On Avvakum's self-perception as both fool and the tsar's alter-ego, see Хант П. Пятая челобитная Аввакума к царю. С. 652-690; Hunt P. Justice in Avvakum's Fifth Petition to Aleksei Mikhailovich, P. 276-297. Самойлова Т. Е. Вера и власть. Эпоха Ивана Грозного. М.: Московский Кремль, 2007. С. 150-151. This icon combines elements from Suzdal and Novgorodian tradition. See FlierM. Envisioning the Ruler in Medieval Rus': The Iconography of Intercession and Architecture // Dubitando: Studies in History and Culture in Honor of Donald Ostrowski. / Ed. by D. Rowland, R. Martin, B. Boeck, Bloomington: Slavica, 2012, in press. On the Novgorod iconography, see also Гордиенко Э.А. Варлаaм Хутынский и архиепископ Антоний... С. 101-103.

national identity in universal redemptive terms. As an extension of this cult, VAndrew established the cultural framework in which Russian urban holy foolishness developed, i.e. as part of a messianic ideology of empire that embraced the fool's prophetic, intercessory and revelatory powers as a force for deliverance into the kingdom.

3.1 Andrew's Iconic role in Russian culture

Under the Metropolitan Makarii's patronage, in the mid-sixteenth century, a Novgorod iconographer produced a variant of the Intercession icon (Pokrov) that realized parallelisms between the ruler and fool implicit in VAndrew (figure 10).196

Рис. 10. Покров Богоматери. Икона. Середина XVI в.

The iconography expressed their complementary roles as sacred intercessors, embodying the Wisdom of the Cross on both a visual and symbolic level. This framework for linking fool and ruler offered a basis for Russian tradition to develop the stereotypical relations between the ruler and the fool.

This iconography reflects Makarii's agenda of including the Intercession cult in the imperial ideology he was constructing from aspects of the Byzantine Wisdom cult passed down through Kiev, Vladimir-Suzdal and Novgorod. Below the Mother of God and her heavenly retinue, in its lowest register, the Novgorod iconographer placed a Byzantine emperor, Leo VI the Wise (886-912), and a Byzantine patriarch Tarasios (730-806).197 They are singled out from the surrounding people by their size, their haloes, and their placement on their own special ambos (They are on either side of the sixth century Byzantine hymnographer, Romanos the Melode, the sole figure traditionally placed in an ambo.) 98 They function as sacred models (types) for their Russian counterparts who are now at the head of the universal Church-Empire. A haloed empress and her attendants stand behind the emperor Leo VI. They reflect the Muscovite royal cult of the tsaritsa.199 In an opposite and symmetrical corner to the royal women, a haloed Andrew the fool, together with his haloed disciple, the "future patriarch," Epiphanios, stand behind the patriarch Tarasios. Together these haloed historical "living" figures form a sacred triangle of intercessors whose apex is the heavenly Mother of God, gesturing "upwards" to Christ above.

This iconography does not literally depict Andrew's vision as described in VAndrew itself, where neither Andrew's contemporary emperor

197 See Самойлова Т. Е. Вера и власть... C. 150 has identified the figures in the icon based on inscriptions.

198 On Romanos the Melode's presence in the icon by association with the Blachernae cult, see Ryden L. The Vision of the Virgin at Blachernae. P. 75. It descended from the Suzda-lian iconographic tradition of depicting the haloed emperor Constantine among the congregation of departed saints accompanying the Mother of God as she enters the church. See Flier M. Envisioning the Ruler, figure 5. In this earlier iconography, representatives of the heavenly sphere surround Romanos the Melode, who functions as a marker of the liturgical present. In the mid-16th century Muscovite icon, the representation of the liturgical present has broadened to include the "living ruler," while Constantine is no longer among the heavenly saints. A mediating link is a late 15th century Novgorod Intercession icon, reproduced by Flier, Ibid., fig. 8. There the whole lower register has become a marker of the liturgical present. It includes other unhaloed figures beside the choristers and a "living" haloed emperor and high prelate (who are not yet on ambos). They are iconic of the successors of the heavenly Constantine and sainted bishops represented in the Suzdalian tradition. Thus, once Novgorod had fallen under Muscovite rule, its iconographers made use of rulership motifs carried down from Vladimir-Suzdal.

199 On the role of Anastasia Romanov as an expression on the home front of Ivan IV's sacred intercessory role as military-martyr and on her dedication of seven chapels (pridely) within the Intercession cathedral, built to celebrate Ivan IV's military victory over Kazan, see ThryetI. Between God and Tsar: Religious Symbolism and the Royal Women of Muscovite Russia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001. S. 46-51. Andrew's symmetrical placement to the royal woman may reflect a perception of their shared function relative to the emperor and patriarch, respectively (where the patriarch functions as the emperor's high priestly alter-ego).

nor the patriarch was present.200 Rather the iconographer represents this vision's ritual reenactment during the liturgy of the Intercession as it occurs over time (As a marker of the on-going liturgical present, Russian saints are included in the Mother of God's retinue, including Sergei of Radonezh and Peter of Murom.) Although developed in Rus', the liturgy is anachronistically placed in the Byzantine period to emphasize its imperial connotations, according to the belief that the Mother of God's robe was a palladium for the empire.

Andrew is not represented as a direct participant in this on-going liturgy. Rather he is placed slightly in the foreground in his own micro-world where he looks and gestures in a different direction than the other figures in his register. He alone directs his disciple to a higher mystery that the royal and priestly figures can see only as mediated by the liturgy. (They look towards the hymnographer's upheld liturgical scroll, and towards his right arm pointing upward). However, Andrew initiates not only Epiphanios, but also the viewer into the liturgical mystery.201

The iconography interprets the liturgical present in terms of the mythology that Moscow and VAndrew share, based in the Holy Sepulchre cult of the Renewal of the Temple and the Elevation. The iconographer's strategy of blending the Christ-Wisdom and Blachernae cults reflected the spiritual hierarchy in Novgorod: There the Blachernae cult of the Virgin of the Intercession and the Sign existed under the aegis of the dominant cult of Christ-Wisdom in Novgorod St. Sophia (that itself recreated the Constantinoplian cults of the Holy Sepulchre and the Elevation of the Cross). However, the iconographer was also following the same strategy as Nikephoros, who included the episode of Andrew's vision at the Blachernae church under the aegis of to the core mythology dedicated to the Wisdom of the Elevated Cross.

The architecture in this icon presents important evidence of this ideological synthesis. Traditionally the action was located in the five-domed Bla-chernae church. Here, the iconographer has added visual references to the imperial Byzantine Hagia Sophia and to the royal Moscow Kremlin churches of the Annunciation and the Archangel Michael.202 When he surrounded an

200 VAndrew, 255 and MondoBaH A. M. C. 398-400. MondoBaH. Ibid, C. 116 has noted that the iconography was built from the twelfth century Prolog version of VAndrew. Nikephoros anachronistically describes his "contemporary" Andrew as living in the reign of the emperor as Leo I, the Great (457-474) not of Leo VI, although the symbolism of the Vita derives from the Macedonian period when the latter emperor ruled. See MondoBaH A. M. ^Aro, C. 8-9, 159.

201 Andrew is analogous to the prophet Daniel in Last Judgment iconography who also occupies the lower internal left-hand corner. For a Novgorod example, see Hunt P. Confronting the End..., P. 285, plate one. Like Andrew, he abides in the place where he received the vision that is represented in the icon as a liturgical mystery. Daniel on the mountain looks towards his vision's fulfillment, while Andrew at Blachernae points towards it For the architectural references to the Kremlin cathedrals, see Flier, Envisioning the Ruler.

202 Flier. Envisioning the Ruler, notes the depiction of the equestrian statue of Justinian in the internal upper right hand corner. We argue that it associated the church with Hagia

image of the theophanic Christ with many white bays (a sacred combination of 7 and 8), he was representing this synthesis of churches as a type of the heavenly Jerusalem.203

The iconographer depicts a theophanic hierarchy, occurring along the central axis that ultimately links king and fool in a sacred triangle. It culminates in the liturgical showing forth of Wisdom by the three haloed central "historical" figures. Three crosses elevated on three domes of the heavenly Jerusalem Temple announce the mythological context of this theophany. They symbolize the Wisdom from the Trinity's Throne and also refer to the dominant Jerusalem-Holy-Sepulchre- Constantine cult (an allusion enriched by the adjacent figure of Justinian). This Wisdom's theophany begins with the blue mandorla around Christ and with the cherubim. These fiery angels allude to the renewal of the temple. They are analogous to cherubim that covered the Ark, but now serve as Christ's accessible throne. Christ's inclusive open handed gesture reflects the eschatological orientation of the Holy Sepulchre cult. It mirrors the iconography of Christ's Second Coming in a Novgorod Wisdom icon, suggesting that the church's present experience of the Wisdom flowing through the Virgin's veil is a precursor to eschatological deliverance.204

The next hierarchical level of Wisdom's manifestation continues the system of references to the renewed Jerusalem temple. It is the Virgin's red veil directly underneath and the Virgin herself.205 The veil's red color and contiguity with the cherubim associate it with the temple veil.206 The vertical layering of the groups below this veil models degrees of immersion in its

Sophia. Justinian was the ruler who built up Hagia Sophia, celebrated as the "new Solomon." His statue was located near this imperial Wisdom church.

203 On the portrayal of the heavenly Jerusalem as a synthesis of many churches, see Ли-дов А. М. Образ Небесного Иерусалима в восточнохристианской иконографии // Иерусалим в русской культуре / Ред. А. Л. Баталов и А. М. Лидов. М., 1994. С. 15-34. As Flier, Ibid., does note, the repetition of seven bays in the architecture of the church is an allusion to "Wisdom's house" of Proverbs 9. This allusion associates this church with Solomon's original Jerusalem temple, that was renewed in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and ritually identified with Hagia Sophia, transforming both into archetypes of the universal Church and images of the heavenly Jerusalem.

204 For a reproduction and description of this icon and its relation to the Elevation of the Cross, Hunt P. Confronting the End: The Interpretation of the Last Judgment in a Novgorod Wisdom Icon.

205 This icon signifies the Mother of God's implied place in the hierarchy of manifestations of the Holy of Holies portrayed along the central axis of the sixteenth century Kremlin processional cross reproduced in Vera i vlast. See figure 2, footnote 59.

206 According to tradition, the Virgin was dedicated to the temple, and was sewing an actual temple veil at the time of the Annunciation. This symbolism reflects meanings present in the Intercession liturgy. Hurwitz E. Prince Andrei Bogoliubskii. discusses the Prologue Narration and Service Hymn of this feast, P. 74-78. The liturgy portrays the Temple of Sion in the New Jerusalem as an archetype for the earthly city, and the veil of the Ark of the Covenant as an archetype for the Mother of God's veil. On the Novgorod St. Sophia Prologue narration of the service of Pokrov, see Гордиенко Э. А. Варлаам Хутынский и архиепископ Антоний...

С. 96.

light, of entrance "beyond the veil." By placing the emperor, empress, patriarch and fool at the base of the sacred triangle and endowing them with haloes, the iconographer implies that they are equal in initiation to the saints above. Their place in a three cornered triangle allows them to reflect the three crosses on high that represent the highest archetype of the icon's Wisdom symbolism. The emperor and patriarch's symmetrical positions opposite each other allude to their sacred duality as king and priest, a status that extends to the whole triangle. Together they symbolize the redeemed church of the apocalyptic "kings and priests" before the throne, overcoming the distance between the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem.207

Andrew occupies a special place at the base of the triangle signifying the "bottom" of this theophanic hierarchy. The viewer, who was familiar with Andrew's Vita, knew that mystically the fool had passed directly "up" this hierarchy through a series of veils and stood inwardly as high priest and king before the Trinity's throne despite his earthly disguise as a fool. His spiritual sight entitled him alone to see the Virgin's veil and endowed him with the prophetic authority to stand forth as the viewer's teacher about the ruler's and the empire's consecrated status.

Andrew points upward through the Mother of God's veil to the protective Wisdom of the Cross flowing down into the present day Muscovite church. He shows the viewer that the prayers of the royal and ecclesiastical courts had equivalent efficacy as his own in safeguarding the empire. At the same time, the holy fool-prophet is in a chain of royal-high priestly media-tors-intercessors.20 He is the ruler's partner and even his sacred alter-ego like the tsaritsa on the other side. Their combined intercessory power is projected onto the praying emperor and patriarch who face intently towards the prayer written on hymnographer's scroll.

The icon places the fool in a rich universalist, providential context. He is a prophet of the empire's fulfillment of messianic promise (by contrast to VAndrew, where his apocalyptic prophesy addresses the empire's final struggles). This icon articulates the triumphalist understanding of Pokrov that, by the 1560s, had entered into the Stepennaia Kniga. There Andrew's intercession serves as a typology for interpreting Russia's providential historical development.209 The same Stepennaia Kniga entered the fool, Vasilii of Moscow, into a system of correspondences with Andrew as the prophetic visionary of Blachernae.210

207 The contemporary fresco of the Apocalypse in the Annunciation cathedral shows the Byzantine emperors and Russian princes, beginning with Olga and Vladimir, among the righteous holding crosses. The mythological first ancestors, Constantine and Helena, abide over the "tsar's place" in the cathedral. See Качалова И. Я. Апокалипсис в стенописи Благовещенского собора, С. 30-53, esр. 50-51.

208 The "Vision at Blachernae" in VAndrew emphasizes the Virgin's royal nature, while making her high priestly powers explicit in the plot.

209 See ПлюхановаМ. Б. Сюжеты и символы... С. 44-47.

210 Плюханова М. Б. Сюжеты и символы... С. 44-45. Popular tradition also associated the Intercession cathedral on the Moat with Vasilii of Moscow and official circles followed suite. After the Tsar Fedor had the fool's remains translated to this cathedral, it became known

Andrew's place in the icon implies that the holy fool is crucial to the empire's capacity to avert apocalyptic catastrophe. In the episode "the Vision at Blachernae" the fool together with anonymous "people stand[ing] around" are praying in the soros (rotunda) holding the Virgin's robe, a relic famed for its power to protect the city. They have prayed through the night into the early morning, implicitly out of fear for the consequences of their sins, perhaps "trembling" as had the woman Barbara in the episode "Combat at the Forum." When the Mother of God responds by entering the Church through the royal doors (from narthex to nave), she stops to pray at the ambo. As L. Ryden has pointed out, her tears likely referred to the "impending Doom and the drowning of Her city" that Andrew prophesies to his disciple later in the text.211

Nikephoros created the episode of Andrew's vision to associate the fool's radical form of penitential intercession with the robe's salvific grace. When, in the icon, Andrew points towards the Mother of God's on-going act of mercy, he is showing the fruits of radical repentance and self-humiliation. Portrayed in semi-nakedness, he embodies the spiritual qualities that are the key to avoiding the impending eschatological crisis facing the universal empire and its rulers. His presence suggests that an actual local fool, such as Vasilii the Blessed, is a necessary complement to the rulers who are protecting the city. Thus a late sixteenth century copy of a Preamble to the Vita Va-silii of Moscow (VVasilii) includes a scriptural citation that alludes to this Russian fool's hidden high priestly kingship and his role of initiating others: "And He has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen" (1: 6).212 The iconographer also took care that the contemporary ruler, Ivan IV see himself as a spearhead of this collective repentance. For this reason, he offered Leo VI as Ivan's

as St. Vasilii's (Basil's). This cathedral was likely constructed after the creation of this icon since the icon does not make architectural references to it.

211 VAndrew, P. 344, footnotes 3, 4, 5.

212 Панченко А. М. Смех. С. 139; Кузнецов И. И. Святые блаженные Василий и Иоанн. [hereafter VVasilii], С. 43-44. For this redaction of the Vita, see Ibid., C. 33-75. The narrative describes the contemplative liturgy taking place in the fool's mind as he makes his beaten and reviled body a sacrificial altar of atonement like the high priest Aaron's: "блаженный же Богови предстоя всегда умом и душею и сердцем, жертвенник свое тело сотвори. в нем же зряше жертву хваления Аронови жертвы ."[my italics]." This redaction emphasized the fool's desire to gain "Wisdom's unattainable depths" by following Christ's Cross and engaging in intense spiritual battle (желанием крестоносно Христу последовав пучину неизследимыя премудрости вшед .)". Vasilii's mental "ascent" and inner "standing before God" as before the Old Testament Holy of Holies echoes Andrew's situation in the icon. The perception of the fool as an "icon" of the royal high priesthood before the apocalyptic throne may explain his cultural immunity. As the Apocalypse frescoes of the Annunciation cathedral emphasize, the final punishment will follow the earthly martyrdom of the last of these white-robed royal-priests who fills out the preordained number (Rev. 6:10): «'Доколе Владыка святый и истинный не судишь и не мстишь живущим на земле за кровь нашу?'» See Качалова И. Я. Апокалипсис на стенописи Благовещенского собора. С. 39.

model, since this Byzantine emperor was known for both his wisdom and his self-humiliation.213

The icon embodies Andrew's cultural significance in condensed form.214 His iconic image legitimized the status of Russian fools. It sanctioned the stereotypical pairing of fool and tsar that occurred in Russian hagiographical tradition, in oral legend and also in actual holy foolish behavior.21 For instance, the late 16th century Vita of Vasilii Blazhennyi stressed the "godly-wise" fool's (богомудраго юрода) close relations with both Ivan IV and the Metropolitan.216 Its linking of fool and emperor went beyond VAndrew's plot but built logically from VAndrew's Constantinian-Elevation-Blachernae mythology.

The icon's reflection of the fool's role as teacher and prophet in the face of imminent divine punishment established his right to act as the ruler's conscience when the latter's sinfulness threatened himself or his people with punishment.217 Thus, according to the 1573 narrative of the Englishman, Jerome Horsey, the fool Nikola of Pskov made the "emperour [Ivan IV] to trembell" and ask for "preyers for his deliverance" when he warned the rampaging ruler to leave the city, "to gett him thence before the fierie cloud, God's wrath, wear raised, ... beinge in a verie great and dark storm at that instant.

This Muscovite iconography of the Intercession prepared the ground for the institutionalization and development of holy foolishness in Russia: It

213 The ruler's depiction in prostration in the Four Part Icon of the Annunciation cathedral is suggestive of Leo VI's self-humiliation in the Hagia Sophia narthex mosaic For this icon, see Хант П. Личная мифология. Рис. 1, the lower (internal) right-hand panel. One wonders whether the iconographer's choice to portray Tarasios, the patriarch who presided over the Seventh Ecumenical Council against iconoclasm, was a nod to Nikephoros' use of holy foolish narrative to address problems of idolatry.

214 For this reason, perhaps, Andrew was commemorated on the day of the Intercession instead of on the day of his presumed death. See Ryden L. The Vision of the Virgin at Blacher-nae. P. 75, footnote 1.

215Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 295 and Панченко, Смех. C. 148-149. Hagiographers even represented their fools as the rulers' teacher about the state of mental of ascent that they were expected to achieve, similar to the fools". See Панченко, Смех. P. 145.

216 Makarii. See Кузнецов И. И. Святые блаженные Василий и Иоанн. C. 43-45.

217 An archetypal basis of the fool's role as the tsar's denunciator may have been his status as prophet. In the episode, the «Wrestling Parable», Andrew follows the advice of the «prophet» David: "I spoke of thy [the Lord's] testimonies before kings and was not ashamed" (118: 46). Thus, when he confronts Satan himself, he places himself in the line of prophets confronting unjust kings. The fresoes of the Apocalypse in the Kremlin Annunciation cathedral illustrate the theme, «prophesy before kings». They depict Elijah who, after annointing and denouncing kings in his own lifetime, returned to battle with the kings of Babylon and the Antichrist at the Second Coming. See Качалова И. Я. Апокалипсис в стенописи Благовещенского собора, C. 44. Kobets S. The Paradigm of the Hebrew Prophet and the Russian Tradition of Iurodstvo // Canadian Slavonic papers 2008 V. 50: 1-2. P. 17-32. She notes that after VSymeon, «Nikephoros takes the next step in the development of the holy foolish pra-digm: by explicitly portraying Andrew as a prophet, he elevates his social role, charisa and asceticism to a new level».

clarified the shared mythological framework between the Byzantine VAn-drew, the Vladimir-Suzdalian and Novgorod Blachernae cult, and the Novgorod Wisdom traditions, as appropriated by Makarii to sanction Muscovy's imperial status. By drawing on the ancient imperial Byzantino-Russian religious cults, melded together in the great Makarian synthesis, this icon's paradigm of fool and ruler resonated deep in the Russian psyche. Makarii was offering another ritual safeguard of the empire's messianic promise along side the emperor when he sponsored and elaborated the Intercession cult, canonized Russian fools and encouraged hagiographers to sanctify their behavior.

3.2 Literary Typologies and Stereotypes of Urban Holy Foolishness

Andrew's significance in the iconography of the Intercession proved to be archetypal for the formation of the Russian holy foolish canon. Cults and biographical plots were built around Andrew's role as prophet and intercessor for the universal city, especially with the Mother of God. The Russians, however, typically re-instantiated this meaning on a microcosmic, local level, translating the apocalyptic cataclysm that Andrew faced into ominous impending catastrophes threatening the collective salvation, be they natural weather events or impious authorities.

When they developed motifs about the fool's "biographical" existence, they presented the vitae of Symeon and Andrew as their primary sacred models.218 These motifs related exclusively to their protagonists' foolishness and were constructed by analogy to corresponding episodes in earlier model vitae, both Byzantine and Russian. Furthermore, as Panchenko has demonstrated, hagiographers followed Nikephoros's lead in enlivening their plots about this foolishness with folklore motifs circulating in the population at large. At the same time, Russian hagiographers paid their debt to the fool's Wisdom in their introductory eulogies, where they alluded to the fool's presence now in the future heavenly Jerusalem, his light-bearing nature as a "beacon" for his city (as Andrew was in Barbara's eyes). They thus implied that their fool paralleled Andrew in Wisdom.219

The question remains whether the Russian hagiographers' debt to VAndrew extended to its underlying mythology, derived from the Elevation liturgy and mediated through the Blachernae cult. Our hypothesis is that the analogies to VAndrew in the vitae of Russian holy fools occurred on a typological level that offered a framework for the fool to denounce authorities. The substantiation of this hypothesis represents a new approach to interpret-

218 Руди Т. Р. О топике житий юродивых // ТОДРЛ. СПб., 2007. Т. 58. С. 446-447. When Т. Р. Руди (C. 443-461) lists the topoi of Russian urban holy foolishness, she (C. 461484) stresses their relationship to the ascetic-monastic tradition that informs VSymeon. She (C. 445, 467) acknowledges the importance of the epistle to the Corinthians, and of the imitation of Christ's crucifixion but makes no reference to VAndrew's primary importance for the tradition.

219 On the motif of the fool's "wisdom," see Руди Т. Р. О топике житий юродивых, C. 458.

ing the topoi of Russian urban holy foolishness. This approach illuminates how these topoi instantiate cultural myths and offer keys to a given vita's poetic integrity.

Up until now, scholars have limited their investigation of VAndrew's impact to identifying the surface borrowings rather than typology, since VAndrew's mythological structure and its place in imperial ideology had yet to be uncovered. Yet the typological patterning associating Andrew with the epiphanic grid of the Cross was known to contemporaries and doubtless influenced their reception of VAndrew (as evidenced by the sixteenth century Intercession icon). It is therefore worth exploring whether Russian hagiogra-phers invoked similar typologies integrating their holy foolish heroes within imperial Wisdom mythology. VAndrew represents a special case of poetic integrity, because it was produced by one person at one time, unlike the typical Russian holy foolish vitae. Each accumulating Russian vita tradition needs to be looked at as a separate case study. However, our goal here is limited: to lay out an argument for investigating the relevance of VAndrew's typology to the plots of Russian vitae, including the stereotypical relationship between king and fool.220

To what extent did Russian vitae reflect Andrew's mythological role as victor over and intercessor for a city mirroring a "universalist" collective by analogy to Jerusalem-Constantinople-Moscow?221 Can holy foolish topoi be interpreted as local, cultural variants of the lower polarity of Wisdom's grid of the Cross and its typologies of sacred combat/atonement through self-humiliation. The evidence suggests that Russian hagiographers alluded ellip-tically (in introductions and main narratives) to the fool's instantiation of the Wisdom grid's upper polarity, i.e., to royal-military metaphors for entrance into the universal earthly-heavenly city and to high priestly metaphors for entrance into the Holy of Holies.22

A brief investigation of the Vita of Prokopii of Ustiug (VProkopii) will demonstrate the processes by which hagiographers assimilated VAndrew on the level of poetic structure and function. The redaction of Prokopii's vita discussed here was completed between 1650-70, and circulated among Old

220 Russian vitae differed in their level of sophistication and referentiality to the culture's core mythology. Each vita was a site of competing and overlapping traditions and influences that ideally were integrated on a typological level. Unfortunately it is difficult to study these differences in cultural self-consciousness and poetic integration between holy foolish vitae because so few have been published. naHueHKo, CMex... C. 85 recognizes the Russian vitae's primarily didactic function, but does not explore the possibility that episodes may function, typologically, as a mystical parable about the cross.

221 On an antique precedent for the use of loosely organized episodes in which a former slave engages in a public performance of wisdom to avert civic disaster, see Kurke L. Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose. Princeton, 2011. esp. P. 7-10.

222 For Vasilii of Moscow's open association with the typology of high priesthood in a preamble to his Vita, see footnote 212 in this paper.

Believers at the end of the seventeenth century.223 The introduction celebrates holy fools and Prokopii in particular within the universalist framework established by Andrew's intercession for the imperial capital. The eulogy places Prokopii in a list of Russian fools in cities throughout Muscovy, and celebrates them as intercessors, and war-like guardians (strazh i khranitel' i zastupnik) for the whole "land."224 They are praised for attributes clearly manifest by Andrew (not Symeon) i.e. for being glorified in their lifetimes and for opening the doors to Paradise by taking on the Cross.225 To celebrate their intercessory role, the eulogy thus links them with the typology of the city as a threshold to Paradise and ultimately to the cosmic (universal) heavenly Jerusalem.226

The underlying influence of VAndrew is more self-conscious in VPro-kopii 's plot. Scholars have identified two episodes that clearly parallel the "Wrestling Parable" and the "Winter Storm" both in plot and function.227 Here we investigate a third episode in which Prokopii reinstantiates the typology of Andrew's intercessory powers as they relate to the Mother of God (in the episode at Blachernae) and the Cross (in the episode, "Combat at the Forum.")

In this episode, Prokopii intercedes with the Mother of God and the Savior for the collective against a divine calamity facing the city.228 This redaction of the vita rhetorically amplified the fool's prophetic powers, his

223 Завадская С. В. Житие святого праведного Прокопия, Христа ради юродивого Устюжского чудотворца. М., 2003 [hereafter VProkopii]. This redaction of Prokopii's vita does not include some of the key episodes discussed by Панченко, in Смех. See also Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 258-260, 264-266 and Kobets S. The Russian Paradigm. P. 371. On the cult and the vita tradition, see VProkopii, P. 21-23,105. See Молдован А. М. ЖАЮ, С. 116 on the relationship between the manuscript tradition of Prokopii's vita and VAndrew.

224 VProkopii, P. 109.

225 Ibid., P. 12: "Яко же бо тии святии в житии своем силою Пресвятаго Духа взяша крест Христов на рамех своих и последоваша Ему, и того ради отверзе им Господь дверь райския породы, да внидут в радость Его и насладятся вечныя жизни". In the plot this contention is modestly echoed: "Бог . его прославил в сем мире . И не только в этом веке, но и в будущем бесконечном Царстве сторицей воздает ему великую свою Благодать". Ibid, 27.

226Власов А. Н. Культ юродивого Прокопия Устюжского в историко-этнографическом освещении: (на материале памятников письменности XVI-XVIII вв.) // Традиционная духовная культура народов Европейского Севера. Сыктывкар, 1990. С. 78-89 explores the pagan mythological basis for this universalism and other characteristics of Prokopii's cult.

227 Ibid. P. 25-31 alludes to the "Wrestling Parable" in the proper place, the opening episode establishing Prokopii's feat of holy foolishness. There the reference to the Epistle to the Hebrews, 11-12 is an allusion to a similar reference in VAndrew (section 2.1 of this study): "... все те досаждения ... терпел, устремив свой взор и упование на предстоящий подвиг, на Начальника веры и совершителя Исуса ." Other more obvious examples that have been identified by scholarship include the modeling of an ensuing winter storm episode directly on VAndrew. See Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 283-284.

228 Власов А. Н. Культ юродивого Прокопия... С. 82 notes that the biographical tradition aggregated around this founding miracle for the fool's cult.

ability to elicit collective repentance, and entreat the Mother of God. The anonymous author may have been using the narrative to model the appropriate response to his present-day crisis (since this version of the vita was produced during the time of the Church Schism).

The episode begins during an unnamed liturgical feast. One assumes that it is the liturgy of the Savior on August First since this liturgy offers the most obvious poetic motivation for this episode's thematic development. As M. Pliukhanova has noted, the Savior liturgy borrows its hymnology from the Elevation liturgy. It is oriented primarily on the fulfillment of God's messianic plan (promysl') through divine corrective punishments followed by merciful intercession. It mixes hymns to the Savior with hymns to His Mother.229

The episode begins when the people in the Church are involved in this liturgy, and imploring God the Savior and his Mother for protection and well being. Prokopii, who is praying with them, alerts them to their need to confront their consciences and repent if they are to avoid a terrible divine punishment (similar to the disaster facing Andrew's Constantinople): "... at the end of a matins service in the cathedral when the deacons began to raise the honorable crosses [nachali vozdvigat' chestnye kresty] in the holy cathedral ... church of our Most Holy Mother of God, ... and the [clergy] were singing litanies to Our Lord God and his Most Pure Mother," Prokopii announced a "revelation:" "Repent, brothers ... if you don't ... you will perish by fire and water together with your city."230

The people avoid confronting their consciences by dismissing Prokopii as mad. The fool however does not hold their failure to recognize his Wisdom against them. Probably, he assumed that they did not know what they were doing (like Andrew in a similar position at the forum). Although Pro-kopii continues to publically weep, wail and pray for the people, his actions are not enough to fend off the corrective, clarifying judgment that they have brought on themselves by their blindness. A terrible cloud arrived with thunder and lightening that shakes the earth. Shocked finally into recognizing the Wisdom in the fool's prophecy, they stream into the church for collective repentance, where Prokopii leads them in fervent and lengthy prayers to the Mother of God. Now they are analogous to the people praying in the early morning hours at the Blachernae rotunda in the episode of Andrew's vision of the Mother of God's intercession. Accordingly, the storm miraculously abates. Healing myrrh from the Mother of God's icon has a similar protective symbolism as the spreading of her veil over the faithful. In both cases, they are signs of the people's merciful deliverance from a punishing catastrophe thanks to the fool's pivotal role in the high priestly intercessory chain.

229 On this feast in relation to the cult of Constantine's Cross, see Плюханова М. Б. Сюжеты и символы. С. 124-132, esp. C. 127. The kondak and ikos refer to the anguish of repentance, and hope for victory over enemies. "Творим бо невидимым промыслом сохра-няеми и покровом, видимыя и невидимыя враги побеждаем. Твою пресвятую Матерь имеюше Помощницу".

230 VProkopii, P. 29. [my translation].

Thus this episode reworks themes of "Combat at the Forum" and "The Vision at Blachernae" about non-recognition of the fool's inner Wisdom, self-entrapment and its dire consequences, and the fool's use of prophetic and intercessory powers to deliver sinners from punishment. The hagiogra-pher has called on the Russian Savior liturgy to translate into his national and local context the intercessory archetypes of VAndrew from the Elevation liturgy and the cult of the Blachernae Mother of God. He has mediated his debt to VAndrew and the Elevation liturgy through his own traditions.231

Another example of this mediation occurs in an episode that Panchenko made famous. He noted that Prokopii's act of divinizing with pokers (kochergi) combines allusions to ancient pagan fire cults and to a prophetic Christian ritual, associated with harvest cults, performed by the archbishop on the day of the Elevation of the Cross.232 The theme of the pokers is an encoded reference to the Elevation liturgy. It pays homage to the paradigm of holy foolish spectacle in VAndrew, even as it exemplifies the common practice of blending two kinds of ritualized (etiketnoe) behavior, liturgical and folk.233

The methods of plot construction described here are indicative of shared mechanisms of cultural synthesis that gave rise to the creative local variations of a "collective subject" within the "open tradition" inspired by VAndrew and its Russian successors.234They provide evidence of the active use of typologies from VAndrew and the icon of the Intercession in Russian

231 An imitator of Prokopii of Ustiug, Prokopii of Viatka, himself enacts the whole typology associated with non-recognition of the fool's Wisdom. He first punishes and then intercedes, when he kills a baby and then resurrects it. See Ivanov, Holy Fools, 325. For the presence of this typology of punishment and deliverance in Muscovite historical narratives, see Плюханова М. Б. Антиномия победы и гибели в словесности московского периода // Сюжеты и символы..., С. 73-83, 177, 330.

232 Панченко А. М. Смех. 107-110, 112. See also Власов А. Н. Культ юродивого Про-копия. С. 85 and 89 (footnote 22).

233 А. Н. Власов (Власов А. Н. Культ юродивого Прокопия. P. 89, footnote 22) notes that, while Prokopii may appear to be parodying church ritual when he carries the pokers in his left hand in the church at night, he is only "externally" engaging in magical behavior, since his behavior is filled with .a different content." Vlasov's source, Лотман Ю. М. и Успенский Б. А. Новые аспекты. C. 162-3 notes that the fool "is surrounded by a sacred microspace" separate from his viewers. For this reason the fool's behavior takes on an "upside-down" character ^рактер перевернутости) that is not the same as parodical ritualized (игровое) folk behavior. The fool's behavior is in "didactic counterpoint" to the world and encodes a reversal of values. The world now represents "antibehavior" (антиповеднue) and mere appearance while the fool embodies reality and seriousness.

234 Russian holy foolish vitae typically accumulated plot and structure over time and were worked on by more than one person. A given vita tradition was subject to variation and change in content. Unabashedly transferring motifs and topoi from one vita tradition to the next, these texts were virtually "authorless." For repeating motifs, see Панченко, Смех. C. 118, 146-9. They acted as a "collective subject that is simultaneously the creator and the user of the work . [that] gives voice to a message, continually adapting it to suit the practical requirements of a given community." See GarzanitiM. Bible and Liturgy. P. 138-139. On the collective authorship of the hagiographical corpus concerning Prokopii in Ustiug, see VProkopii, P. 120.

holy foolish vitae. They also testify to an ability to give native expression to these typologies.

The authority for constructing episodes that manifest the stereotypical relationship between king and fool was the "Wrestling Parable." When Andrew, acting for Christ, overpowers the "prince of the world" in a contest over sovereignty, he models the fool-prophet's mission to engage in shameless actions and discourse that speak "thy [the Lord's] testimonies before kings" (Ps. 118: 46). When Andrew outwits the usurper king through verbal and behavioral feints—buffoonery, word-play (punning or riddling), inappropriate boastings, exchanges of place, and sudden reversals—he is a setting a precedent for how the Russian holy fool will interact with the ruler.

Russian vitae reinstantiated this strategy through the use of folk motifs and "carnivalesque" gestures.235 They were residues of a pagan mythological-ritual framework in which scenarios of symbolic mediation between op-posites took the form of playful, comic reversals, and inversions.236 In VAn-drew, the use of similar material functioned as upside-down structures in a metaphorical grid signifying the fool's ritual mediation of the Cross. In this way Andrew's buffoonery set a precedent for the Russian fool to embrace a rhetoric of disguise meant to disarm his royal rival's false pretenses and gain the upper hand. The language of this disguise was popular and "pagan," so as to be accessible to the uninitiated, even as it functioned as an inverted mirror of the fool's divine Wisdom.

While VAndrew models the use of circulating popular lore for Russian hagiographers and readers, it also models the hidden sacred context of this use. A. M. Panchenko was looking only at this spectacle's surface nature when he described it as a variant of "carnivalesque" behavior. Scholars need to investigate the hidden territory in Russian holy foolish vitae if they are to understand holy foolish spectacle, it's meaning for contemporaries, and its function in Russian culture. Our close analysis of the mythological pattern signifying the Wisdom of the Cross in VAndrew offers a new framework for understanding the poetics, meaning and function of Russian holy foolish vi-tae. It provides a basis for investigating how Russian hagiographers located their vitae within Muscovite imperial ideology by building on VAndrew in function as well as plot.

The limited evidence we have brought to bear suggests that hagiogra-phers received VAndrew as an authoritative paraliturgical (etiketnoe) narrative for producing an "open tradition." This narrative operated within early Russian culture as a typological model for the generation of poetic structures on the theme of holy foolishness that ritually reenacted (in disguised form) the dominant cultural mythology. As such VAndrew functioned as a dominant "ritual symbol."237 It embodied the full mythological structure of media-

235 For Russian examples of this behavior, and the use of riddles, see Панченко, Смех. C. 125, 140, 147.

236 On the comic, see Ryden L. The Life of St. Andrew the Fool. V. 1. P. 59.

237Turner V. Forest of Symbols. Ithaca, 1967.P. 27-32; Хант П. Личная мифология. C. 248.

tions that linked the holy foolishness narrative to the meta-narrative of imperial legitimacy, the Blachernae cult and the Elevation liturgy's Wisdom mythology. The on-going relevance to early Russia of these meta-narratives made the genesis of a holy foolish tradition from VAndrew a cultural imperative. VAndrew's continuing impact placed early Russia's urban holy foolishness squarely within the messianic ideology of the State.

Conclusion

In this study, the modern method of poetic analysis has offered insights into Vita of Andrew of Constantinople (VAndrew) - a 10th century Byzantine Wisdom compendium dedicated to Holy Foolishness by a priest of Hagia Sophia, Nikephoros. This method allows the modern reader to understand otherwise hidden meanings that were available to Byzantines and Russians who saw reading as an act of spiritual recollection. Such an analysis has uncovered an underlying mythological organization that transformed the episodic structure of its "biographical" part into a ritual (etiketnoe) performance that symbolically parallels imperial Byzantine displays of royal charisma associated with the Emperor Constantine. These and other discoveries, yielded by poetic analysis serve to highlight the genius and esoteric meaning of a text that up until now scholars have underestimated, focusing primarily on VAndrew's overtly didactic and novelistic aspects. Its author, Ni-kephoros, proved himself a consummate artist by his success in blending the Pauline paradigm of foolishness with imperial mythology. The result, as we have shown, is an entirely new and foundational paradigm for later Russian urban holy foolishness.

This analysis has allowed us to appreciate key ways in which VAndrew set the stage for the reception of holy foolishness in Russia on an institutional level as part of the the imperial mythology of Muscovy as Byzantium's successor. At the same time, it throws light on the underlying apocalyptic resonances of VAndrew's core episodes. These resonances assure holy foolishness a special place in Muscovite eschatological self-consciousness based on the belief that its prophetic-intercessory dimension and its stereotypical relation between king and fool were safeguarding the empire against the Final Judgment.

This recognition of VAndrew's underlying mythology has opened up a new reading of VAndrew. This reading offers a base-line for understanding the emergence and development of a specifically Russian tradition, with its own variations on the Byzantine model. It elucidates the founding paradigm for holy foolish performance. This paradigm goes to the heart of the mirroring process integral to the divine Wisdom according to the following formulation by Dionysius the Areopagite: "'So too the divine Wisdom knows all things by knowing itself.'"238 Andrew set this mirroring process in motion by giving his viewers the opportunity to know themselves through their willingness to know Christ in him. He thus exemplified the secret way that the fool manifests hidden Wisdom. In all of holy foolish tradition, VAndrew alone

238 This passage from The Divine Names, VII: 3, 869B is quoted by P. Hunt in the Wisdom Iconography of Light, P. 70.

brings this Wisdom out of hiding when Nikephoros describes Andrew as mystical high priest and crowned king reflecting the Light from the Trinity's throne. In this way, VAndrew lays bare an inner spiritual dynamic signifying the Wisdom of the Cross. It endows holy foolish spectacle with an epistemo-logical, gnoseological function associated with seeing beyond the "veil."

VAndrew also explicates the basis for the Russian fool's privilege of teaching and denouncing the ruler: first, the fool's role as the emperor's inverted sacred alter-ego, an upside-down mirror of the Wisdom endowing the ruler with legitimacy; second, the fool's prophetic mission to testify to divine source of worldly power and the sovereignty of kings, so that no one "boasts in men," and becomes an unwitting idolater. This mission is epitomized by Andrew's use of sacred trickery to expose the wiles, and pretense of the Usurper Prince, Satan. Andrew, in regard to this Prince takes on the prophet's traditional role of shamelessly speaking "thy [the Lord's] testimonies before kings" (Ps. 118:46).

Nikephoros set an important precedent for the way Russian fools would later denounce the earthly king by his use of comic folklore antics as a disguise ennabling Andrew to deflate his adversary's pride. Furthermore, VAndrew's mythology allows us to see a hidden aspect of the fool's nakedness which makes it more than just the fool's defining "costume" as identified by Panchenko. Functionally, his nakedness is his secret "armour of kings;" it is his way of "boasting in the Lord;" it serves as a call to combat with the Devil and with his human attackers that elucidates the holy fool's characteristic moral militancy and aggression.

Nikephoros' success in integrating urban holy foolishness with imperial ideology offers a compelling explanation for its rise in Russia at the same time as the Muscovite imperial state. From earliest times Rus' built its own narratives of political and national legitimacy from key Wisdom narratives of Byzantine imperial triumph, evident in the liturgies of the Elevation of the Cross and the Deposition of the Robe. The metaphorical reflection of these liturgies in VAndrew, and its role of inspiring the Russian liturgy of the Intercession activated the cultural context for the rise of urban holy foolishness. With these Wisdom narratives came an apocalyptic anxiety that intensified VAndrew 's relevance to Russia's contemporary situation from the time of the Mongol Conquest to the Great Schism and beyond.239 Thus the key determinative factor for VAndrew's impact was Russia's Byzantine inheritance, a factor that explains why holy foolishness flourished in Russia alone in the Christian world.240

239 ПлюхановаМ. Б. Антиномия победы и гибели..., С. 73-83, 177, 330.

240 For reasons why holy foolishness did not take root in the Orthodox Balkan countries, see Vakareliyska C. The Absence of Holy Fools from Medieval Bulgarian Calendars, P. 225244. Since the institutional church did not look favorably on its own holy foolish cult, countries with a history of less ecclesiastical autonomy than Russia, such as Bulgaria, tended not to develop a full-fledged native holy foolish tradition. On the Byzantine tradition, see Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 104-244, esp. P. 213. In the fourteenth century, the triumph of Hesychasm provided a new impetus for holy foolishness in Byzantium (especially Mt. Athos) and the Balkans due to the heightened Wisdom orientation. (See Hunt P. The Wis-

These factors suggest that, without ancient Novgorod, Russia would have never developed an urban holy foolish tradition. Spared from the Mongol invasion, it carried forth into Muscovy an ancient Wisdom cult that had been richly elaborated from Kievan times. When Muscovy absorbed this cult to construct an imperial ideology, it opened itself up to continuing the Novgorod tradition of holy foolishness.

In sum, the mythological parameters of the Byzantine VAndrew endowed holy foolish spectacle with a Christian paraliturgical "etiket," substantiating the model of medieval poetics advanced by Likhachev, and others. In VAndrew, the appeals to folk etiket functioned within this Christian framework as a means of holy foolish disguise. This framework transformed Andrew's performances into a spectacle of the Wisdom of the Cross (not just of the "Way of the Cross" as asserted by Panchenko).241

Our analysis has supported Panchenko's hypothesis that behind the folk-carnival-like appearance of holy foolish spectacle lay a deeper paradigm, a "well balanced" "antique" (mid-Byzantine) system. We have identified this system as a metaphorical grid instantiating the paradoxes of the Cross that was realized in the Elevation liturgy and imperial procession. Andrew's ritual reenactment of these metaphors (by analogy to the emperor Constantine) made his performances a sacred center in their own right, like Constantine's statue in the forum and by analogy to the Elevated Cross: They embodied a paradoxical unity of the historical present and its providential pattern, of outer appearance and inner substance, of foolishness and Wisdom, suffering and glorification. They resolved these paradoxes by modeling the high priestly sacrifice of atonement and gnostic initiation (in the Holy of Holies) on the one hand, and military royal sacrificial combat and repossession of usurped sacred territory (the universal city, Jerusalem) on the other hand. They thus associated Andrew with the apocalyptic archetype of the royal-high-priesthood in the New Jerusalem before the Trinity's throne, the transcendental pattern signifying the deliverance of the universal church-empire. As a reflection of the medieval state's inherited messianic ideology, VAn-drew resonated with Russia's deepest national ideals, endowing holy foolishness with a cultural relevance that continues to the present day. 42

VAndrew's interpretation of holy foolish spectacle through the functionality of this grid gave rise to a typology of holy foolishness that a Novgorod iconographer of the Intercession blended with Muscovite imperial Wisdom mythology; he thus made explicit the higher framework informing

dom Iconography of Light. P. 75, 99-113). This acceptance of holy foolishness may have been partially due to the authority of the tenth century mystic of Divine Light, Symeon the New Theologian, whose mentor played the holy fool. See Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 174-190, 221-222, 235-240, 249-252. See also Lazarova N. Holy Fools in the age of Hesychasm: A comparison between Byzantine and Bulgarian Vitae // Scripta & e-scripta. 2004. V. 2. P. 355-389. Any possible further development of this trend was cut short by the loss of national independence with the Turkish invasion.

241 nameHKO, CMex... 113.

242 A. M. naHHeHKO (naHueHKo A. M. CMex. P. 142) notes that even "anti-superstitious" westernizers among the elite of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, continued to grudgingly acknowledge and sometimes exploit the "fool's" power of prophecy.

Andrew's representation, and demonstrated Muscovy's cultural awareness of VAndrew's esoteric meaning. The presence of this typology in VAndrew endowed Russian holy foolish hagiography as a "collective subject" with a structuring principle capable of generating an "open tradition." While this study provides very limited evidence of the poetic devices that Russian hagi-ographers used to build this tradition, we have introduced a foundation and method for further investigation of the cultural function and meaning of urban holy foolish tradition in Russia.

VAndrew embedded holy foolishness in the mystical-liturgical messianic form of Orthodoxy that the Muscovite empire inherited from Byzantium to justify its role as the world-Christian empire. Its ability to reflect this messianic ideology elucidates why Russian urban holy foolishness took root in Russia and in a preeminently national form, without direct parallels in the

West.243

«Житие Симеона Эмесского» (VII в.) и «Житие Андрея Цареград-ского» (X в.) являются ключевыми текстами при рассмотрении стереотипа взаимоотношений царя и юродивого в русской традиции городского юродства. В частности, «Житие Андрея» содержит подробную модель родственного зрелища, исследование и истолкование которого находится в центре внимания настоящей статьи. Согласно данной модели, зрелище юродства является теофаническим проявлением божественной Премудрости и аналогично по смыслу архетипическому зрелищу Воздвижения Креста в византийской литургии на одноименный праздник. Таким образом юродственное зрелище оказывается мифологически параллельным зрелищу царского ритуала, в свою очередь отождествляющему императора с Премудростью Воздвигнутого Креста. Никифор сознательно ссылался на этот параллелизм, изображая своего юродивого в виде ритуального близнеца императора, так что оба воспринимались как живые «иконы» Креста.

Таким образом, эта модель служит основанием, на котором впоследствии строятся всевозможные вариации данного стереотипа, возникающие под влиянием региональных традиций, культурных и фольклорных мотивов. В ходе настоящего исследования будет показано, что 1) юродственное зрелище относится не столько к карнавальным обрядам, как утверждает Панченко, сколько к царской литургии и зрелищам, ассоциируемым с культом Константина; 2) что стереотип взаимоотношений царя и юродивого в русской традиции городского юродства восходит к византийскому образцу, развитому в «Житии Андрея»; и 3) что этот образец отвечал насущным культурным запросам России как государства-преемника Византийской империи в условиях эсхатологических тревог.

243 The ideological role of the Constantine cult of the Holy Sepulchre and the Elevation in Novgorod and Muscovy explains why Russia, alone, of all of Slavia Orthodoxa developed an enduring cult of holy foolishness. This holy foolishness cult was stronger and more prestigious than in Byzantium because in Russia it was perceived as integral to the development of political and national identity. On the Byzantine tradition, see Ivanov S. Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. P. 104-244, esp. P. 213.