ABSTRACT
Before examining the dossier of individual Byzantine warrior saints, it would be desirable to sketch in their cultural background. Notoriously, Byzantine culture was hybrid, incorporating elements from Old and New Testament tradition, from Antiquity and from other sources, which exercised an influence more particularly on the Eastern regions of the Empire and on Egypt. These latter sources can be treated later in passing, but it is necessary to insist at once upon the Byzantine debt to what is recorded in the Bible, commented and developed by the Fathers of the Church, and upon the heritage of Greek and Roman tradition.
