Divine Inspiration in Byzantium
Notions of Authenticity in Art and Theology

The first sustained examination of the interrelated conceptions of divine inspiration, authenticity, and authority in Byzantine religious literature and art.

Karin Krause (Author)

9781108830997, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 June 2022

492 pages
26 x 18.2 x 2.8 cm, 1.42 kg

In this volume, Karin Krause examines conceptions of divine inspiration and authenticity in the religious literature and visual arts of Byzantium. During antiquity and the medieval era, “inspiration” encompassed a range of ideas regarding the divine contribution to the creation of holy texts, icons, and other material objects by human beings. Krause traces the origins of the notion of divine inspiration in the Jewish and polytheistic cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds and their reception in Byzantine religious culture. Exploring how conceptions of authenticity are employed in Eastern Orthodox Christianity to claim religious authority, she analyzes texts in a range of genres, as well as images in different media, including manuscript illumination, icons, and mosaics. Her interdisciplinary study demonstrates the pivotal role that claims to the divine inspiration of religious literature and art played in the construction of Byzantine cultural identity.

1. The early Christian iconography of divine inspiration: Novel approaches to an old pictorial theme
2. Inspiration and the Bible in the post-iconoclastic era
3. Inspiration continued: The writings of the church fathers
4. Divine inspiration beyond the fathers
5. Inspired icons
6. Acheiropoietos: The Mandylion as “the radiance of God's glory and exact imprint of God's very being”
 7. Allegories of divine artistry: The Mandylion and its multiples.

Subject Areas: Medieval history [HBLC1], History of art: Byzantine & Medieval art c 500 CE to c 1400 [ACK], Art styles not defined by date [ACB]