ABSTRACT
The last few years have seen a remarkable surge of interest in the subject of the cult of the Virgin in late antiquity and Byzantium, and it shows no sign of abating. An important milestone was certainly the exhibition of icons of the Mother of God held at the Benaki Museum in Athens in 2000, with the rich catalogue edited by Maria Vassilaki, containing many essays by specialist scholars as well as entries on the objects in the exhibition, and the subsequent conference volume also edited by her.1 These two volumes brought together the work of historians and art historians alike, and this has been a major feature in other recent publications. Another milestone was the publication of Nicholas Constas’s article, ‘Weaving the body of God’, in 1995,2 which opened many eyes to the possibilities of studying the language and imagery of Marian homilies, followed by his book on the homilies of Proklos of Constantinople.3 Brian Daley’s modest translation and commentary on some early Byzantine Marian homilies is a mine of information on some of the still mysterious homilies of the seventh and eighth centuries.4 Mary Cunningham has since published a supplementary volume of translations, with commentary, on the eighth-century festal sermons.5 Leena Mari Peltomaa’s redating of the Akathistos Hymn to the fifth century required a real mental adjustment to those
1 M Vassilaki, ed., Mother of God, Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art (Athens and Milan, 2000); eadem, Images of the Mother of God. Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium (Aldershot, 2004).
