Parallel topoi in saint’s lives and histories demonstrate the consolidation of rhetorical strategies and shared ambitions: to portray the adult as divinely inspired from conception.[63] As early as the sixth century, the Byzantines wrote that an individual’s characteristics were developed even before their birth. Sixth-century Sabas was recorded to have been ‘predestined from the womb’, and his contemporary, Nicholas of Sion, was said to be ‘chosen by God, from his Mother’s womb (κοιλίας)’.[64] Ninth-century Tarasios preserved his immutability of mind ‘from the time he was in his mother’s womb and in swaddling clothes.'[65] In the twelfth century, Theodosios Goudeles writes: ‘But He who knows our affairs even before our birth…'[66]This contrasts with Roman and Late Antique sources, wherein we find no mention of foetuses’ characteristics before birth.[67] Looking at the Late Antique Life Course, Alberici points out that Ambrose’s talents were considered to be apparent from birth.[68] In the fourth century, Menander had advised subsequent rhetoricians to make note of miraculous signs after birth.[69] But this precedent seems to have been reinterpreted; in Byzantine hagiographical texts it is common for the writers to record the occurrence of symbolic events after the conception of a predestined pious individual.[70] In the Life of George of Amastris, who lived in the eighth century, it was written: ‘Nor is it fitting to neglect the divine wonders that were worked before the birth of the saint; how he was chosen from above, and how he had his name not from men, nor on account of men, but rather was anointed and dedicated a priest before being born from the womb (πρὶν ἐκ μητρῴων ἐκσπασθῆναι λαγόνων).'[71] In the same vita, the city leaders dreamt that his mother, Megethos, was carrying a ‘holy babe’ in her womb.[72] In the ninth-century vita of Theodora of Thessalonike, it is written:
And thus the Devil shamelessly lay in wait for upto the time of her death, although she reconciled herself to the from the time she was in her mother’s womb through her monastic office and had directed her entire life in a manner pleasing to God.[73] More proof on the life issue from the Byzantine period.
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