Pagona Papadopoulou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Recent studies have shown that the role of the Old Testament in Byzantium, albeit much more limited than that of the New Testament, is less marginal than we thought. Besides their role in liturgy, Old Testament texts are related to different aspects of the Byzantine society: they are often quoted by Byzantine writers and poets in almost every literary genre, and are used for educational purposes (especially the Psalms). Moreover, Old Testament figures offer models for monks, priests and emperors, but also for every subject of the empire since the Byzantines considered themselves the chosen people, the new Israel. It is in this context, that, during specific historical periods, episodes from the Old Testament – such as the Babylonian captivity, the return to Jerusalem or certain prophecies – acquired a particular meaning in Byzantine imperial ideology as parallels for the empire’s present or predictions of its future.

And yet, Old Testament figures and episodes represent only a very small percentage of the iconographic repertoire of Byzantine art and – with two Palaiologan exceptions – are absent in imperial coinage, whereas the instances of the use of Old Testament names for children are scarce – although the Byzantines might have chosen prophetic names upon taking the monastic habit. 

It is within this context that the proposed paper will investigate the presence of the Old Testament – both as text and image –in the corpus of surviving Byzantine seals in an effort to measure through another medium this book’s resonance in Byzantine society.