Metaphrasis: A Byzantine Concept of Rewriting and Its Hagiographical Products represents a first and authoritative discussion of rewriting in Byzantium. It brings together a rich variety of articles that treat the topic of hagiographical rewriting from various angles.The contributors discuss and comment on different kinds of texts in Greek and other languages, including Apophthegmata Patrum, Passions, Saints’ Lives, Enkomia, Miracle Collections, Synaxaria, and Menologia which date from late antiquity to late Byzantium. The volume offers a series of case studies examining how the same legends evolved through time by the process of rewriting. It is shown that the main driving force behind such rewriting was adaptation to different audiences and contexts. This work argues that rewriting is central to Christian cultures in the Middle Ages.


Contributors are Andria Andreou, Anne Alwis, Stavroula Constantinou, Koen de Temmerman, Kristoffel Demoen, Marina Detoraki, Bernard Flusin, Laura Franco, Martin Hinterberger, Christian Høgel, Daria D. Resh, Klazina Staat, Julie van Pelt, Robert Wiśniewski, and † John Wortley.