ABSTRACT
The life of the ninth-century poet Joseph the Hymnographer contains two episodes of particular interest. The first is an event that took place while the saint was in captivity on Crete, probably in the year 842, just before the end of Iconoclasm. As related in the Vita of Joseph, written soon after the saint's death by his successor Theophanes, the story unfolds like this:
Joseph, while on a mission from Constantinople to Rome, was captured by the Arabs on the high seas, and imprisoned, with his fellow passengers, on the island of Crete. There, 'exulting in his chains', as the text says, he set about encouraging the disheartened prisoners with prayers and hymnody. He even succeeded in converting a prominent bishop from his heretical, iconoclastic beliefs. One night a dignified figure appeared to Joseph in his prison cell, a figure described only as t£po7tp£7tl'Jc;, clad in a stole. The figure announced that he had just come from Myra. 'You all know who he is', says the author of the vita, but he does not identify the mysterious figure -presumably St Nicholas-by name. 'Take this scroll', said the visitor. So Joseph took the scroll in his hands, and read it, singing out the words: Taxuvov 6 oi KTIPJ..I.WV Kat (J1t£U{)OV we; £A£l'JJ..LWV Etc; 'tTJV Pol'J8£tav llJ..LWV ... ('Hasten, merciful one, and in compassion come quickly to our aid ... '), a refrain from Romanos' kontakion on the Three Hebrews. Early the next morning, says Joseph's biographer, that which had been sung about
miraculously came to pass. Joseph was released and returned to Constantinople.1
