The Clairvoyant as “Individual-outside-the-world” in Middle Byzantine Hagiography
The Clairvoyant as “Individual-outside-the-world” in Middle Byzantine Hagiography

Summary/Abstract: The article explores the applicability of Louis Dumont’s “individual-outside-the-world” to the clairvoyant holy man in several Middle Byzantine hagiographies. Clairvoyance is considered here as a prophetical charisma used for spiritual guidance and moral warning apart from political prophecy and from the Visio Danielis genre. The hagiographical revision of this charisma marks the shift from the preoccupation for the destiny of a community, to the interest conferred to the future of the unique person. After a short review of Weberian historiography on the roots of modern individualism, the article identifies five aspects of spiritual growth towards the status of “individual-outside-the-world”, which are common to early, Middle Byzantine and late medieval Western Christianity. The clairvoyant’s authenticity is confirmed by his ability to describe or to unveil for his disciple experiences, landscapes and interactions with beings of the otherworld. Thus, the clairvoyant displays a number of features which connect him to the main flow of Christian mystical tradition. Of particular importance is the reference to the immortal humans who continue to accompany the Christians towards the eschaton. As an outcast, stranger, fool or any other socially peripheral figure, the clairvoyant unveils the interaction of spiritual powers in this and the other worlds with human consciousness and its ability to identify personal guilt and responsibility. A matrix-type imagination represents the clairvoyant in a permanent pendulation between two worlds and several times and places in these worlds. The clairvoyant enjoys total spiritual freedom and boldness (παρρησία), passes it to his disciples, but remains at the same time the perfect “hidden servant”, the stern defender of a non-social conception of humanity.

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