Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 118 h Dimitrios G. Letsios Continuing the hagiographical testimonies depicting the life circumstances and the historical development in the area, we mention briefly two more examples: The Narrationes of Anastasios of Sinai (d. ca 700) 15 and the Life and the Passio of Bacchos the Younger 16 . The Narrations are grouped in a genre of hagiographical literature identified as “apologetic collections” and relate stories of Fathers who lived in the desert around Mt Sinai. The last one of Anastasios’ collections was composed at the very end of the seventh century. During his years as a monk in Sinai, Anastasios also assembled another collection of about forty stories concerning the Desert Fathers from around Mt Sinai (BHG 1448p). 17 The author known as Anastasios of Sinai is now recognized as an important witness to the conditions in the region immediately following the Arab conquest. His stories are important on the subject of ethnic and religious identity in the Sinai and they inform us that that “the pre-Islamic Arabs at Sinai seemed to have lived in relative peace with the monks and solitaries”. 18 This is indeed the spirit reflected in the stories included in the first collection attributed to Anastasios. These stories must have been assembled around ca. 660–670. 19 A different world is reflected in the stories of the second collection. They must have been written some thirty years later (ca. 690) and describe “some of the 15 Narratives on the Fathers of Mt Sinai ( BHG 1448p–1448pg), ed. F. Nau, ‘Le texte grec du moine Anastase sur les saints pères du Sinaï’, OC 2 (1902), 58–89; French tr., Idem, Les récits iné- dits du moine Anastase. Contribution à l’histoire du Sinaï au commencement du VIIe siècle , Paris 1902; Edifying Tales (BHG 1448q-1448qo), ed. F. Nau, ‘Le texte grec des récits utiles à l’âme d’Anastase (le Sinaïte)’, OC 3 (1903), 56–79; and S. Heid, ‘Die C-Reihe erbaulicher Erzählungen des Anastasios vom Sinai im Codex Vaticanus Graecus 2592’, OCP 74 (2008), 71–114; English tr. Caner, History and Hagiography from the late Antique Sinai , 172–99. On the date of the collec- tions, cf. Ibid. 128 and n. 149. 16 Passio of Bacchos the Younger (BHG 209), ed. F. Combefis, Christi martyrum lecta trias, Hyacinthus Amastrensis, Bacchos et Elias novi-martyres, Agarenico pridem mucrone sublati , Paris 1666; éditée, traduite et commentée par André Binggeli et Stéphanos Efthymiadis, I. Les nouveaux martyrs à Byzance, Vie et Passion de Bacchos le Jeune par Étienne le Diacre , II. Études sur les nouveaux martyrs réunies par André Binggeli et Sophie Métivier, Paris 2021. 17 Cf. André Binggeli, Collections of Edifying Stories, in: The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography , ed. St. Efthymiadis, vol. II, 143–179, here 149f. 18 R. G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 13), Prince­ ton 1997, 99. Cf. N. Koutrakou, “Language and Dynamics of Communication in Byzantium: the ‘Image’ of the Arabs in Hagiographical Sources”, in: Negotiating Co-Existence: Communities, Cultures and Convivencia in Byzantine Society , eds. Barbara Crostini, Sergio La Porta (Bochumer Altertumswissenschaftliches Colloquium; Bd. 96), Trier 2013, here 48–49, the example of the prototype ascetic saint Anthony the Great living in harmony with Saracens who brought him sub- sistence. 19 Caner, History and Hagiography , 173 and n. 4.