Symeon Metaphrastes (Logothete)

SYMEON METAPHRASTES (Logothete). - Hagiographer of the 10th century. He is the author of a great collection of hagiographic legends, compiled between the years 961-64.

In composing his work S. had aims that were rather moral than historical; but the accusation that he invented martyrs and legends is not justified. This work enjoyed immense success and went on growing in the times that followed, so that it is not easy to establish the Metaphrastian core. Only the sagacity of A. Ehrhard, the collector of hagiographic codices, was able to demonstrate that 149 lives of this work were compiled by S. M. himself. From the encomium of S. written by Michael Psellus it is known that the acts of the martyrs and the legends of the ancient saints were not to the taste of the literati of Byzantium and that for this reason S. undertook the work of compiling for his contemporaries the ancient biographies in a new rhetorical style.

Ehrhard distinguishes three categories in the transformations made by S. M.: 1) lives incorporated almost without changes, a minimal number; 2) lives changed totally in style, and these are the greater number; 3) lives compiled anew. However, the questions connected with the work of S. will be able to be resolved only when all the material collected by Ehrhard has finished being printed.

Besides the hagiographic collection S. also composed collections of moral sentences from the works of St. Basil the Great, of Macarius of Egypt and of other authors, two discourses in honor of the Madonna, nine letters to friends, prayers and poems, and a chronicle, works whose authenticity still requires further study.

Giorgio Hofmann