"The Holy Apostle Luke Painted this Image" ~ The traditional Lucan origin of the icon of the Hodegetria

15th century Greek representation of St. Luke painting the Hodegetria icon.

Today is the feast of Saint Luke, a father of the ancient Church renowned as Evangelist, Historian, and Physician. We should be aware of one additional title that is traditionally attributed to this early disciple of Christ: Artist. For the name of Saint Luke is attached to one of the most venerable works of art of the ancient Church—the Hodegetria icon which resided in Constantinople until its destruction in 1453. 

While the origins of the Hodegetria icon are shrouded in mystery, its connection to St. Luke is based upon traditions stretching back to the early centuries of Constantinople as a Christian capital. Among the most ancient sources to record this tradition is a manuscript known as the Anonymous Mercati, a document penned by an English pilgrim who journeyed to Constantinople in the 11th century AD. A translation of the key passage may be found in Pentcheva's work, Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium. Here is a snippet:

“In the part of the palace near the church of Hagia Sophia, very near to the great palace by the sea, is situated the monastery of the Mother of God, Theotokos. And in this monastery there is a holy icon of the Theotokos, called Hodegetria, which can be translated as “She Who Leads the Way.” … The holy apostle Luke painted this image of the Mother of God holding the Christ Child on her arm.” (Pentcheva, Icons and Power, page 126).

There is a further legend that explains how this icon of the Mother of God, presumably painted by St. Luke in Antioch (Luke’s presumed home town), Jerusalem, or some other city in the Levant, became associated with Constantinople. A late 14th century text known as the Logos Diegematikos holds that the icon was sent from the Levant by the empress Eudocia to her sister-in-law, Saint Pulcheria, in the mid-5th century AD:

“In fact, the empress Eudocia, upon receiving these holy and divine gifts [the Hodegetria icon and relics] from those holy monks like some much-valued treasure, sent them to the empress Pulcheria….Which gift, Pulcheria, as one could say, receiving it with great joy, deposited in the famous and holy sanctuary of the Theotokos and ordered the holy and sacred icon to be in the church as a protection of the palace, the entire city, and the whole world.” (Pentcheva, Icons and Power, page 128).

A previous post on this blog notes that Eudocia was indeed resident in both Antioch and Jerusalem for a time. Readers will also recall posts about Saint Pulcheria here and here, as well as a post demonstrating Pulcheria’s keen interest in bringing relics to Constantinople. Another post, citing a passage in the writings of St. John Damascene in the 8th century, indicates that Pulcheria and her consort, the emperor Marcian, had an interest in Marian relics and had specifically sought (though in vain) for the body of the Mother of God.

Pentcheva believes that the late recording of these acts make it likely that they are mere interpolations of medieval writers. An alternative viewpoint may be found in Grotowsky's The Hodegon: Considerations on the location of the Hodegetria sanctuary in Constantinople (Byzantina Symmeikta, Volume 27). This excellent work compiles and interprets the fragments of history on the Hodegetria that have come down to us. 

This story of St. Luke painting the famous icon has served as fodder for other artists down through the centuries. The version shown at the top of this post was painted by an unknown Greek artist, likely in the early 15th century shortly before the fall of Constantinople to the Turks. Below is a fanciful version, showing Our Lady and the Christ child actually sitting for their portraits, with both the artist and the subjects dressed in Renaissance garb and looking very Dutch.

Saint Luke Painting the Virgin, Derick Baegert, ca. 1470.

Next, we see an even more fanciful, proto-Baroque rendition of the same event as imagined by Florentine artist Giorgio Vasari, complete with Saint Luke’s symbol (the ox) and the heavenly Virgin attended by cherubs. 

Saint Luke Painting a Portrait of the Madonna, ca 1565

As recorded by the 15th century Greek historian Constantine Dukas, the original Hodegetria icon was destroyed by the Turks after the sack of Constantinople in AD 1453. As the story goes, four Turkish looters found it in the Chora monastery where it had been placed to protect the city during the siege. The Turks debated over which of them should possess it, and utilizing the wisdom of Solomon, decided to break it into four pieces. 

There are many likely spurious accounts, however, which maintain that the true icon was spirited out of Constantinople at some point during its long history, with several cities in Italy, including Venice, claiming ownership. The Poles also claim that the icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa is the original Hodegetria. For more on these claims, see, Wolff, "Footnote to an Incident of the Latin Occupation of Constantinople: The Church and the Icon of the Hodegetria" (Traditio, vol. 6 (1948), pp. 319-328).

Left: Image of the Madonna Nicopeia from Saint Mark’s Basilica, Venice. Right: Icon of
Our Lady of Czestochowa which is housed in Jasna Gora Monastery, Czestochowa, Poland.

Pope Vigilius Celebrates Christmas by Jumping from a Window to Escape Justinian's Henchmen ~ December 23, AD 551

Scene from the life of Joseph the Patriarch as taken from the mid-6th century
throne of Maximian, bishop of Ravenna. The late-Roman garb of the figures,
particularly the soldiers, is notable.

Two days before Christmas, on 23 December 551 AD, a most curious scene took place which involved a Pope squeezing out of a palace window in the middle of the night, boarding a boat, and fleeing pell-mell across the Bosporus to seek sanctuary from the menaces of the Christian Roman emperor.

In a previous post, I provided a summary of the miserable reign of Pope Vigilius, who reigned from AD 537 to 555. At the time of the abovementioned episode, Vigilius had already been detained in Constantinople by the emperor Justinian for several years. The Pope and the Emperor had been squabbling over the so-called “Three Chapters” controversy—part of a debate over the nature of Christ during which accusations, threats and excommunications had roiled the Church for decades. Elected to the papacy as a pawn of the empress Theodora, Vigilius had been spirited away to Constantinople when he had refused to do the bidding of the Empress and lift the excommunications on her monophysite allies.

Vigilius was no stranger to Justinian’s strong-arm tactics. A few years before, he had been man-handled by the emperor’s guardsmen who attempted to remove him physically from a place of sanctuary at the church of Saint Peter in Constantinople. He was only saved by the reticence of Justinian’s soldiers who felt the duty unseemly and fled, spurred on by an angry mob that had gathered in support of the Pope. Vigilius had later been convinced to emerge and negotiate with the emperor again, taking up residence in the Palace of Placidia after oaths were given ensuring his personal safety. But after additional diplomacy produced no good fruit, Justinian again lost patience. Writing in the late 19th century, Thomas Hodgkin describes the situation of Vigilius, drawn directly from the Pope’s encyclical letter to the Catholic world written a few months after the event:

Notwithstanding all this swearing, the situation of the Pope after his return became daily more intolerable. His servants and ecclesiastics who remained faithful to him were publicly insulted. Every entrance to the palace was blocked by armed men. He had reason to think that a violent attack was about to be made upon his person. After making a vain appeal to the imperial envoys whose plighted oath was thus being violated, he quitted the palace again by night two days before Christmas-day. The shouts of men-at-arms penetrated even to his bed-chamber, and only the urgent terror, as he himself says, could have impelled him to the hardships and dangers of a nocturnal expedition. [Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, p. 599]

According to Hodgkin’s footnote on the above passage, it seems that the Roman Pontiff was forced to squeeze his not inconsiderable person through a small window or hole in order to escape. Once out of the palace, Vigilius boarded a boat and made a perilous night-crossing of the Bosporous, taking refuge at the church of Saint Euphemia in Chalcedon. This was a symbolic move on the Pope’s part – Saint Euphemia was the Church where the Council of Chalcedon had met nearly a century before. It was this Council that Vigilius was defending against attempts by the emperor to water down its authority.

The Pope remained in St. Euphemia for a little over a month before Justinian sent a delegation of the most illustrious Romans to attempt to coax him forth. These included no less than the master of soldiers Belisarius, the Roman senator Cethegus, Peter the Patrician, the emperor’s great-nephew Justin, and the emperor’s secretary Marcellinus.

A few days after this meeting, Pope Vigilius wrote the encyclical letter mentioned above. Here are the Pope’s own words from the introduction of the encyclical, as translated in Fr. Hugo Rahner’s book, Church and State in Early Christianity:

We sought asylum in this church for no financial or personal reasons but solely because of the scandal afflicting the Church, which, because of our sins, is known to all. Therefore, if the controversy rending the Church is resolved, and the peace which our most religious sovereign negotiated in his uncle’s [Justin I] time is restored, then I have no need of oaths—I will leave immediately. But if the controversy is not ended, then oaths are of no avail, for I will never agree to leave the Church of St. Euphemia until the Church is rid of this scandal. [Rahner: Church and State in Early Christianity, p. 175]

The balance of this letter is well worth reading. Regardless of what one thinks of Vigilius and his subsequent knuckling-under to the emperor’s wishes, one is forced to admire his steadfastness here in the face of an irresistible political will and threats of physical compulsion. The letter also gives us an idea of the complexity of the political and religious situation in the Roman Empire at the time—when Christian doctrine could be confected and enforced using the most naked partisan tools including threats, intimidation, bribery, intrigue, forgery and even brute force.

One might also wish that our modern Church leaders would show even a fraction of this type of steadfastness when defending traditional Christian doctrine against diabolical innovations.

The Trier Ivory - A 5th century(?) procession bringing relics to Constantinople

Here is a high-resolution photo of the Trier Ivory which is housed at the treasury of Saint Peter's Cathedral in Trier, Germany. Click the image to see more detail.

It shows a sacred procession bringing relics of a saint to a church in Constantinople. The Roman emperor and empress may be seen meeting the procession at the doors of the church, surrounded by a crowd of nobles, ecclesiastics, and common people. The style of the artwork as well as the dress of the subjects seems to indicate a 5th-6th century AD date of origin, though this is the subject of debate by scholars. It is felt that the empress portrayed here could anyone from Helen, the mother of Constantine (d. AD 330) to Irene (d. AD 803).

I had never seen this particular late Roman artifact prior to yesterday. I find it to be a beautiful and evocative piece. It's a shame we have so little context for it.

Book Review: Hero of Byzantium

This book has been dancing around in my peripheral vision for a couple years now. Amazon.com knows my reading habits frightfully well based on my past purchases and they've been prodding me about this book in their "you might also like" way for some time. Well, I finally put the book on my wish list and, voilà! received it as a gift from my adorable wife.

I must admit, though, for a book that seemed tailor made for me, it left me a bit cold. First off, let me say that the author should be commended for his attempt. Belisarius is a fascinating historical figure who lived during a fraught and intriguing period in history and I applaud anyone who tries to tackle the subject. Also, given all that we know about Belisarius, attempting to fit his entire eventful life into one 176 page book is a daunting task.

The author should also be congratulated for working aspects of Christianity into his tale--and not in the sneering, patronizing way the Faith of the 6th century is often treated by modern writers.

Sadly, though, this book is a good example of what happens when an author with a great idea goes the self-publishing route. First off, the interior layout of the book is clumsily done. There are no paragraph indents throughout the entire book and the text is littered with really basic typos. The dialogue is stilted and has an artificial feeling to it--like watching one of those dubbed Italian gladiator movies from the 1950s. No real insight is provided into why the characters, other than Belisarius, do what they do. The descriptions of the many battles are cursory and the peeks into the private life of Belisarius and Antonina were awkwardly handled.

The history is also shaky. Of course, the author should be given some leeway considering that this is a novel and not a proper biography. But for heaven's sake, there are three errors in the book's first sentence!

"In the year 529 C.E., the Persian Emperor Khosrow the first, having recently ascended to his father's throne, sent a great army to the west to conquer the walled city of Dhara in northern Syria."

1. Khosrow was not the King of Persia in AD 529.
2. It was not he, but his father Khavad who sent an army to conquer Daras.
3. Daras was located in Roman Mesopotamia, not Syria.

The errors go on from there, but admittedly, they are fairly inconspicuous and don't hamper the story too much. More annoying was that the author continuously uses the anachronistic C.E. (Common Era) for dating, even when he is directly emulating the writing of Procopius. Although A.D. would have been anachronistic as well, it would at least have been more in keeping with the Christian theme of the work than the post-Christian "C.E." More amusing than annoying are the uncaptioned photographs of miscellaneous Greco-Roman ruins in the middle of the book. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what these have to do with Belisarius.

I think the author's biggest problem with regard to the history is that he only did surface research before setting out to write this book. The sources he cites at the end are scanty and of the works of Procopius, the most indispensable historian of all for the period, he only cites the scandal-mongering libel known as the Secret History. How an author can write a tale about Belisarius and not consult the extensive public histories of Procopius is beyond me. It's also clear that the author never dipped into either Agathias or the Chronicle of John Malalas--two other near contemporaries of Belisarius that contain a wealth of information on the great general and the 6th century Roman Empire.

So Hero of Byzantium gets only two stars from me, I'm sad to say. It was a noble attempt but riddled with too many problems to be a satisfying read.

Justinian 31, Factionists 10: The Nika Rebellion of AD 532

A 5th century relief showing the emperor Theodosius II in the imperial Kathisma
at the Hippodrome, Constantinople.

It’s a safe bet that most of you reading these words have been to a professional football game. Many of you—particularly those who live in Philadelphia—have probably witnessed the occasional brawls between the home crowd and those foolish enough to wear an opposing team’s colors. A few of you, I dare say, have been involved in such altercations.

But how often have you witnessed football fans actually kill opposition partisans? Well, perhaps I should qualify that by saying American football fans. When was the last time you heard of agitated sports nuts rioting in the streets and burning down half their city? OK, again, Chicago and Detroit excluded.

In AD 532, the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire, was also home to the most rabid sports fans in recorded history. Their sport of choice wasn’t three yards and a cloud of dust on the gridiron, but the old passion of the ancient Romans—four teams and a cloud of dust around the spina. Since the gladiatorial games had been banned nearly 150 years before, chariot races of the variety most memorably portrayed in the film Ben Hur became the singular mania of the Romans. Practically every city in the empire had its track. But Constantinople was the big leagues. Only the greatest charioteers got to race before the 80,000 raucous lunatics who packed into the sprawling Hippodrome.

So central were the races to Roman life in Constantinople that the Hippodrome directly abutted the palace complex, the seat of government. And the emperor’s box, the Kathisma, had a corridor linking it directly with the imperial residence itself. There had traditionally been four teams or factions in Roman chariot racing, each identified by a color: Red, Green, Blue, and White. By the 6th century AD, the Reds and Whites had become the equivalent of the Arizona Cardinals with the Blues and Greens achieving dominance.

But the Blue and Green factionists were more than just drinking buddies who got together to watch the races. They were combination sports clubs, political parties, street gangs, and organized crime syndicates whose goals were usually limited to beating the rival faction—literally.

The 6th century historian Procopius describes the factionists as barbarian wannabes, who let their beards grow long and shaggy. They apparently invented the “mullet” as well, cutting their hair short in the front but letting it grow long in the back. As to their dress, they favored tunics that were wide at the shoulders and narrow in the waist, designed to make them look Terrell Owens-esque. However, as Procopius reports, when they threw up their arms at the races, sunken chests and blubber guts abounded.

Until the ascendancy of Justinian in the 520s, the factionists generally spent most of their energy fighting with each other. Justinian, however, seemed to show an unusual favoritism toward the Blues, effectively making them immune from criminal prosecution. As a result, the Blues left off merely stomping on the Greens and started attacking the general public as well. Procopius describes a familiar scene for anyone who’s ever lived in a bad neighborhood: honest folks went around armed, wore shabby clothes so as not to draw attention to themselves, and scurried home before it got dark.

But eventually the depredations of the Blues went too far and Justinian was forced to take action. The city prefect, Eudaimon, began rounding up the ringleaders of both factions and convicted seven of them on charges of murder. All seven were condemned, but during the executions, the scaffold collapsed. Two of the factionists, a Blue and a Green, survived and were spirited away to sanctuary in a church by some monks. Not to be deterred, Eudaimon set guards around the place to seize the men if they tried to escape.

At the Hippodrome three days later, the Blues and Greens suddenly found a common cause not at all associated with the races—clemency for their brethren holed up in sanctuary. Throughout the day, the factions together appealed to the emperor to have mercy. But Justinian turned a deaf ear. By the 22nd race, the factionists were fed up. Their leaders took counsel—something as unheard of as Redskins and Cowboys fans planning a tailgate together—and the united factions marched out of the Hippodrome chanting “Long live the merciful Blue-Greens.” They were determined to take action, and to prevent imperial soldiers from infiltrating their ranks, they devised a watchword—“nika” or “conquer.”

The mob made its way to Eudaimon’s headquarters, and when their demands were rejected once again, proceeded to burn the place down. Unfortunately, fires in ancient cities were not easy to contain and this particular fire quickly consumed the nearby buildings, including the monumental great church of Hagia Sophia, originally built by Constantine, and rebuilt by Theodosius II. The rioters then began looting private homes and killing the soldiers sent out to suppress them.

Realizing that the situation was spiraling out of control, Justinian sent out the patricians Basilides and Constantiolus to address the mob. When asked why they were rioting, the factionists now gave a more ambitious response. They demanded the ouster of Eudaimon along with two of Justinian’s other top ministers: John the Cappadocian, the ruthlessly efficient head tax collector, and Tribonian, a legendary jurist who was also notorious for selling justice to the highest bidder. To their shock, Justinian gave in immediately, dismissing all three and appointing others in their places.

Far from quelling the riot, Justinian’s concessions had the same effect as failing to penalize illegal chop-blocks in the first quarter of a Raiders’ game—the bad behavior just got worse. Soldiers were again deployed to curb the mob, but the result was more fires and the destruction of part of the palace, the upper stands of the Hippodrome, the famous baths of Zeuxippus, and the Senate house. The emperor was now effectively besieged in the palace which was surrounded by charred and smoking ruins. The factionists ruled the rest of the city.

It was at about this point that the riots took an even more ominous turn for Justinian. The crowds descended on the house of a patrician named Probus, the nephew of the deceased emperor Anastasius, and the cry went up, “Probus for emperor of the Roman world!” In response, Probus fled—a credit to his foresight—and the mob expressed their disappointment by trying to burn his house down. But Anastasius had two other nephews, the patricians Hypatius and Pompeius, both of whom were now holed up inside the imperial palace with Justinian.

Justinian’s next move was more concessions, with the same predictable result. In an effort to placate the angry crowd, he entered the  Kathisma of the Hippodrome carrying the Gospels and pledged a general amnesty. “By this power, I forgive you this wrong-doing and order that none of you be arrested,” the emperor declared. “Be at peace, for the fault lies not with you, but with me. For my sins made me refuse what you asked of me.”

This speech invited the sympathy of a few of the Blues, who cried out, “Augustus Justinian, you conquer!”

But others began chanting for Hypatius. Justinian probably tried to rebuke them, but they yelled back, “You are breaking your oath, you donkey!” Justinian was silenced by this mockery and left the Hippodrome in what must have been a state of extreme agitation.

After this disquieting audience, the emperor likely feared that some of those trapped with him in the palace, to save their own hides from the mob, would kill him and put Hypatius or Pompeius on the throne. Therefore, upon his return from the Hippodrome, Justinian ordered the nephews of Anastasius to their homes. The two men protested, saying that it would be wrong for them to abandon their emperor during such a crisis. But their objections seemed to cement Justinian’s fears, and he remained adamant that they leave at once.

The two managed to escape in secret to their homes, but once word of this got around, the crowds immediately descended upon them and declared Hypatius emperor. The patrician’s wife, Mary, grabbed hold of her husband and urged him to refuse, crying out that the people were leading him on the road to death. But the mob would not be refused. Placing a gold chain on Hypatius’s head in lieu of the imperial diadem, they led him to the Hippodrome and there acclaimed him.

Inside the palace, Justinian, all-powerful emperor of the Roman world, was ready for drastic action--flight. Gathering up his treasure, he had a boat prepared to take him across the Bosphorus out of harms way. However, his wife, the Empress Theodora, stood up and barred the way, doing the Byzantine equivalent of “getting in his grill.” A hard woman who had survived a youth of grotesque debauchery among the same factionists who were now torching the city, Theodora was not about to climb down from the pinnacle of power without a fight. “If it is your wish to save yourself, O Emperor, there is no difficulty,” the empress declared, “As for me, I approve of a certain ancient saying that royalty makes a good burial shroud.”

Theodora’s pep talk fired up Justinian and his remaining loyalists. Among these were two of his best generals—Belisarius, a first-round draft pick fresh from campaigns against the Persians, and Mundus, a Gepid free-agent acquisition who had just returned from the province of Illyricum. Also present was the crafty offensive coordinator, Narses, Justinian’s head chamberlain. From him came the idea of dividing the factionists by means of bribes. And this he did, secretly distributing money to some of the Blues. When these began loudly acclaiming Justinian in the Hippodrome, the partisans of Hypatius bombarded them with rocks.

While Narses was busy sowing discord, Belisarius and Mundus set out with several hundred armed and battle-hardened soldiers in a desperate gamble to crush the rebellion. Out numbered fifty-to-one, their first attempts to force their way into the Hippodrome from the palace were rebuffed by imperial guardsmen who refused to take sides until one or the other was victorious. In desperation, Belisarius and Mundus led their men out of the palace through the dangerous smoldering ruins of the city to approach the Hippodrome from the outside. Entering through gates on opposite ends, the generals knew that they would have to hack their way through the vast multitude gathered inside to reach the conspirators in the imperial box.

And hack they did.

As soon as the mob realized that the fight was on, they attempted to resist. But since few of them were properly armed and their opponents were well-trained soldiers attacking in formation with shield, arrow, and sword, the battle soon turned into a massacre. Breaking away from the main fight, Belisarius and some of his bodyguards fought their way to the Kathisma and there arrested Hypatius and Pompeius. More soldiers poured into the Hippodrome via the passage from the palace and with no way to escape, the rioters were cut down without mercy. The death toll was estimated to be 30,000 or more.

The next day, Hypatius and Pompeius were executed and their bodies thrown into the sea. The body of Hypatius later washed up on shore and Justinian ordered it buried in a cemetery for criminals. Over top of it, he erected a stone which read, “Here lies the emperor of Louppa.”

Justinian I offers his Hagia Sophia to the Blessed Virgin
and Christ Child.

The one enduring result of the so-called Nika rebellion may be seen to this day towering above city of Istambul—Justinian’s magnificent Hagia Sophia, built over the ruins of the previous church destroyed by the rioters.

So the next time you hear someone say that they bleed Eagle Green or that they’re dying to see Eli lead Big Blue to the Super Bowl, just remember that 1,500 years ago, maniacs who made the ephemera of sport their religion and the stadium their cathedral did literally bleed and die for their misplaced passion.

Paolo Belzoni is the author of Belisarius: The First Shall Be Last, a novel of the early life of this Late Roman hero. A detailed description of the Nika Revolt is included in his follow-up novel, Belisarius: Glory of the Romans. He is also a long-suffering fan of the Philadelphia Eagles.

NB: This is article that I wrote several years ago for the sadly departed magazine, Catholic Men's Quarterly. There's also a detailed but novelized account of the Rebellion in my book, Belisarius: Glory of the Romans.