{"id":17718,"date":"2017-12-01T22:37:25","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T22:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=17718"},"modified":"2017-12-01T22:37:25","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T22:37:25","slug":"the-differences-between-menologion-menaion-and-synaxarion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2017\/12\/01\/the-differences-between-menologion-menaion-and-synaxarion\/","title":{"rendered":"The differences between Menologion, Menaion, and Synaxarion"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are various medieval lives of St Nicholas of Myra.\u00a0 The Greek texts were collected by G. Anrich in Hagios Nikolaos<\/em>, which is still useful today.\u00a0 One of the sections of this book (section VIII) is devoted to “Synaxarientexte” – texts from various types of synaxarion.\u00a0 I placed online a translation of this material a few days ago.<\/p>\n

But I found myself in difficulty.\u00a0 Like most people, the word “synaxarion” does not mean anything to me.\u00a0 I also ran across terms for similar-sounding material, all equally baffling\u00a0– “menologion”, and “menaion”.\u00a0 This was rather confusing.\u00a0 In fact there is a short\u00a0article on these three terms in the Analecta Bollandiana<\/em>, by Jacques Noret, although I have no access to it (if you do, I’d be glad of a copy),[ref]Jacques Noret, “M\u00e9nologes, synaxaires, m\u00e9n\u00e9es. Essai de clarification d’une terminologie”, Analecta Bollandiana<\/em> 86 (1968)\u00a0p.21-24.\u00a0 Brepols Online has first page here<\/a>.[\/ref] in which he frankly admits that the Byzantines themselves used the words interchangeably!<\/p>\n

What I am interested in are the Lives<\/em> (=Vitae<\/em>) of the Saints, and specifically those of St Nicholas of Myra.<\/p>\n

Fortunately I have access to the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, which gives a definition for all three terms.\u00a0 Here is the opening for one, which gives a fairly clear distinction:<\/p>\n

\n

Menologion<\/strong> (\u03bc\u03b7\u03bd\u03bf\u03bb\u1f79\u03b3\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd<\/span>, from \u03bc\u1f75\u03bd<\/span>, “month”, and \u03bb\u1f79\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2<\/span>, “catalog”), a collection of VITAE arranged according to the date of each saint\u2019s celebration in the church calendar. Although the terminology is by no means consistent in the sources (J. Noret, AB 86<\/em> 1968) 21-23), a menologion should be distinguished both from a synaxarion<\/strong>, a collection of simple notices or very short biographies of the saints, and a menaion<\/strong>, which contains liturgical poems and prayers for the saint’s annual celebration. In addition to the vitae, many of considerable length, the menologion often contains a few homilies as well, to be read at the same commemorative service. A. Ehrhard (infra, 1:21) claims that the mention by Theodore of Stoudios of a collection of martyria in 12 deltoi<\/em> (PG 99:912B) is the first real evidence for a menologion, though it is unclear whether the texts were arranged in any chronological sequence. The earliest surviving menologia\u00a0manuscripts date from the 9th C. Though various equivalent projects may have been afoot in both the 10th and 11th C. (N.P. Sevcenko, infra 3, 216. 11.16), the late 10th C. collection of nearly 150 texts in ten volumes compiled by Symeon Metaphrastes was to become the standard edition of the menologion; its regular use in monasteries (the texts were read aloud at Orthros) is attested by the 12th C. …<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That’s quite clear.\u00a0 But does it survive contact with the definitions for the other two?<\/p>\n

\n

Menaion<\/strong> (\u03bc\u03b7\u03bd\u03b1\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd<\/span>, from \u03bc\u1f75\u03bd<\/span>, “month”), a set of 12 liturgical books, one for each month, containing the variable hymns and other texts (lections, synaxarion notices, kanones) proper to vespers and orthros of each feast of the fixed cycle, that is, those feasts that fall on a fixed date in the church calendar. Although the cycle of feasts itself had been established since the 10th C., …, the first systematic menaia with hymnography for each day of the year appear only in MSS of the 11th-12th C. ..<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That’s OK.\u00a0 Finally:<\/p>\n

\n

Synaxarion<\/strong>\u00a0(\u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03c7\u1f71\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd)<\/span>, a church calendar of\u00a0fixed feasts with the appropriate lections indicated for\u00a0each one, but no further text. The synaxarion is often appended to a Praxapostolos or Evangelion. It is rarely illustrated, but one MS., Vat. gr. 1156 of the 11th C, has an image of a\u00a0saint for\u00a0each day from Sept. through Jan. as well as scattered ones thereafter (Lazarev, Storia<\/em>, fig.205). There also exist “calendar” icons, with portraits of saints and feasts for each day of the year (Soteriou, Eikones<\/em>, figs. 126-35), that must be\u00a0based on\u00a0this type of synaxarion.<\/p>\n

The term\u00a0synaxarion is also used in Byz. Greek for a specific collection of brief notices, mostly hagiographical: the Synaxarion of Constantinople. The Synaxarion of Constantinople was probably formed in the 10th C. (the earliest MSS already include notices on Joseph the Hymnographer and on Patr. Anthony II Kauleas (895-901), and there are Arabic, Georgian, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions. These daily commemorations, which average only about a paragraph in length, stress the martyrdom of the saints and inform us where in\u00a0the city the commemoration\u00a0took place. The Menologion of Basil II is, despite its name, an illustrated version of this type of text, as are those icons and frescoes that have images of the martyrdoms of the saints, rather than just their portraits (see\u00a0Hagiographical Illustration). Some of the frescoes use verses from the metrical calendar of Christopher of Mytilene as captions; these verses had been incorporated into certain recensions of the\u00a0Synaxarion of Constantinople\u00a0from the 12th C.<\/p>\n

These texts were incorporated into the\u00a0menaion\u00a0<\/strong>and the triodion and usually read after the sixth ode of the\u00a0kanon at orthros. They are not to be confused with the much longer notices, similarly ordered, found in a menologion<\/strong>. …<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So there we have it.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Synaxarion = a calendar of saints’ feast days, in calendar order, with the bible readings for the day.\u00a0 The Synaxarion of Constantinople is a collection of one-paragraph saints’ lives in the same order.<\/li>\n
  • \u00a0Menologion = a collection of long saints’ lives in the same order.<\/li>\n
  • \u00a0Menaion = a 12-book collection, one per month, of the bible readings, hymns, synaxarion entries, etc, for the feast day of each saint, in calendar order.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Nice to have that clear!<\/p>\n

    So the St Nicholas stuff in Anrich section VIII is from the synaxarion, and its brevity makes that plain.\u00a0 The long life of St Nicholas by Symeon Metaphrastes is from\u00a0the Menologion compiled by Metaphrastes.<\/p>\n

    All this stuff is unfamiliar to me, but if we must work with hagiographical texts, at least we can get clear on this bit.<\/p>\n

    \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There are various medieval lives of St Nicholas of Myra.\u00a0 The Greek texts were collected by G. Anrich in Hagios Nikolaos, which is still useful today.\u00a0 One of the sections of this book (section VIII) is devoted to “Synaxarientexte” – texts from various types of synaxarion.\u00a0 I placed online a translation of this material a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[807,1474,1576],"class_list":["post-17718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-hagiography","tag-santa-claus","tag-st-nicholas-of-myra"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}