Palladius of Helenopolis, in his Lausiac History (56), refers to *Olympias (deaconess and abbess of Constantinople, ob. c. 408, S01414) as a confessor. Written in Greek at Aspuna or Ankyra (both Galatia, central Asia Minor), 419/420.
Evidence ID
E03332
Type of Evidence
Literary - Hagiographical - Monastic collections (apophthegmata, etc.)
Major author/Major anonymous work
Palladius of Helenopolis
Palladius of Helenopolis, Lausiac History (BHG 1435-1438v; CPG 6036), 56
56. Olympias was a woman of very noble descent, who, although briefly married, was believed to have died a virgin. She distributed her fortune to the poor, struggled on behalf of truth, was a catechete of women, and lived as a confessor.
2. (……) ἧς τὸν βίον ἐν ὁμολογηταῖς κρίνουσιν οἱ Κωνσταντινούπολιν οἰκοῦντες, οὕτως τελευτησάσης καὶ πρὸς κύριον ἐκδημησάσης ἐν τοῖς κατὰ θεὸν ἀγῶσιν.
‘The inhabitants of Constantinople judge her life to be one of the confessors, for she finished her life like that and departed for the Lord, while struggling on behalf of God.’
Text: Bartelink et al. 1974.
Summary and translation: E. Rizos.
Non Liturgical ActivityOral transmission of saint-related stories
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Oral transmission of saint-related stories
Composing and translating saint-related texts
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Ecclesiastics - bishops
Source
Born in 364 in Galatia in central Asia Minor, Palladius became a monk in 386, spending some years in Palestine, before moving to Alexandria. In c. 390, he joined the monastic community of Nitria, where he spent nine years, under Makarios of Alexandria and Evagrios of Pontus. In c. 399, he returned briefly to Palestine and then left for Constantinople where he became closely associated with John Chrysostom. By 400, he was ordained bishop of Helenopolis in Bithynia (north-west Asia Minor), probably by Chrysostom. Palladius stood by his new protector throughout John’s conflict with Pope Theophilos of Alexandria over the affair of the Tall Brothers and the Council of the Oak. One year after John’s exile in 404, Palladius visited Rome in order to plead on John’s behalf with Pope Innocent I (401-411). Returning to Constantinople, he was arrested and one year later (406), he was exiled to Syene (Aswan) and Antinoe in Egypt. There he received the news of John’s death in Pontus (407) and wrote the Historical Dialogue on the Life of John Chrysostom (in 408 or shortly after, E02400). In the 410s, he was allowed to return to his native Galatia, and was restored as a bishop in the imperial church, being appointed to the see of Aspona.After his return from exile, in c. 419/420, Palladius published the Lausiakon (‘Book for Lausos’, widely known as the Lausiac History), a book commissioned by and dedicated to the patrician Lausos (imperial chamberlain in 420-422). Along with the History of the Monks of Egypt (E03558, composed in 395/397), Palladius’ work inaugurates the monastic genre of edifying stories and apophthegms. It immediately became a success: two decades after its publication, the ecclesiastical historian Socrates used the Lausiac History as a source (4.23.78), and it was translated into Latin and Syriac. There are also Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Arabic translations. Its copious manuscript tradition (242 manuscripts) and unstable transmission render a definitive critical edition of the text very difficult. On the manuscript tradition of the Greek text, see:
http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/oeuvre/6840/
Like all monastic collections, the Lausiac History was mainly written to provide exemplars of ascetic virtue and edifying stories for broader spiritual benefit, rather than to encourage the active cult of the men and women included within it – indeed some of them serve as negative examples to avoid. It was, therefore, difficult for us to decide how to treat this work in our database, focused as it is on the cult of saints. At one extreme, we could have entered every (positive) figure within it as a saint, while, at the other extreme, we might have ignored the text altogether. In the end we came to a compromise position, with one overview entry for the full text (E03176), where all the holy men and women are named, and individual entries for chapters that either reveal interesting incidental details of saintly cult or cover major figures who, in time, came to attract cult. The Lausiac History in its many manuscripts and its many translations was in fact one of the principal ways these figures came to be known, and often venerated, across the Christian world. Some of its chapters were, indeed, later detached from the collection, and circulated as independent pieces of hagiography.
Discussion
Although receiving only a brief notice in the Lausiac History, Olympias is one of the people whose memory Palladius is certainly most interested in preserving and saving from the stigma of heresy, as a follower of John Chrysostom. He discusses her life extensively in his Historical Dialogue on the Life of John Chrysostom, whereas here he simply states that the people of Constantinople remember her as a confessor. Olympias is also adduced as an exemplar of a noble Christian woman involved in charity and asceticism, a model for Palladius' female aristocratic readership which included the women of the imperial family.Bibliography
Text:Butler, Cuthbert. The Lausiac History of Palladius: Greek Text Edited with Introduction and Notes. Texts and Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904.
Bartelink, G. J. M., Barchiesi, M. and Mohrmann, C. Palladio, La Storia Lausiaca. Scrittori Greci E Latini. Milano: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, Arnoldo Mondadori, 1974. (with Italian translation)
English Translations:
Wortley, J. Palladius, the Lausiac History, Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2015.
Meyer, R. T. Palladius, the Lausiac History, Westminster MD: Newman Press: 1965.
Lowtber Clarke, W. K. The Lausiac History of Palladius, London: Macmillan, 1918.
Further reading:
Katos, D. Palladius of Helenopolis: the Origenist Advocate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Rapp, C. ‘Palladius, Lausus and the Historia Lausiaca.’ In C. Sode, S. Takács (eds.), Novum Millennium. Studies on Byzantine History and Culture Dedicated to Paul Speck, 19 December 1999, Aldershot: Ashgate, 279-289.
Record Created By
Efthymios Rizos
Date of Entry
02/08/2017
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S01414 | Olympias, deaconess and abbess of Constantinople, ob. c. 408 | Ὀλυμπιὰς | Certain |
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