Michael Psellus

Byzantine philosopher and historian

• Born: 1018
• Birthplace: Nicomedia, Byzantine Empire (now İzmit, Turkey)
• Died: c. 1078
• Place of death: Constantinople, Byzantine Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey)

Psellus infused both Byzantine state theory and Orthodox theology with a revived classical tradition, while preserving a history of the personalities and events of his time.

Early Life

Constantine Psellus (PSEHL-uhs), who took the name Michael only when he withdrew to a monastery in 1054, was born into a family with imperial connections but only modest means. The coemperors at the time were the elderly brothers Basil II (r. 976-1025) and Constantine VIII (r. 976-1028). Psellus’s own family is poorly known. Although nothing is recorded about his father, his mother, Theodote, was the subject of one of Psellus’s seven extant elegies. In addition to introducing her son to the Orthodox faith and the study of Scripture, she secured the Platonist John Mauropus, later the archbishop of Euchaita, as his tutor. Under Mauropus’s influence, Psellus made several lifelong friends: Constantine X Ducas, Constantine Leichudes, and John Xiphilinus. These friends would later assist one another amid the intrigues of the Byzantine court.

Before Psellus reached the age of sixteen, his education in rhetoric had progressed far enough to bring him into the imperial circle. At the court, the youth regularly saw “and on one occasion actually talked with” the elderly emperor, Romanus III (r. 1028-1034). Psellus also attended the imperial funeral; in writing of this period, he would describe himself as one who “had not yet grown a beard” and was just beginning the study of the classical poets.

Psellus’s studies were extensive: He memorized Homer’s Iliad (c. 750 b.c.e.; English translation, 1611), and the frequency with which various phrases from the Odyssey (c. 725 b.c.e.; English translation, 1614) were used in his later writing demonstrates his educational base. He also knew the works of Greek and Latin historians and debated constantly the distinction between true history and panegyric or scandalmongering. Astrology, auguries, soothsaying, and magic practices used for sexual potency (“arts” accepted at the imperial court) as well as arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy received his attention. He learned enough medicine to practice. Finally, he read enough on military strategy and equipment of war to go into the field.

Because of his family’s financial difficulties, which included the need to provide a dowry for his elder sister, Psellus was forced to curtail his education for a time. He briefly became a tax collector and judicial clerk in Philadelphia, before resuming his studies at the age of twenty-five. Although he was married, nothing is known about his wife. In his own works, he refers to the loss of his beloved daughter, Styliane.

Once back at his studies, Psellus trained his tongue with rhetoric, shaped his mind with philosophy, and integrated the two so that he might give voice eloquently to the art of reasoning. This oratorical ability would take him directly into the service of Emperor Constantine IX (r. 1042-1055).

Life’s Work

The death in relatively quick succession of three aged emperors Basil II, Constantine VIII, and Constantine’s son-in-law, Romanus III left in control Constantine’s daughters, Zoë (978-1050) and Theodora (980-1056), who both, by imperial law, held the title of augusta. Romanus, while married to Zoë, in his old age had preferred a mistress; Zoë was left to engage in an affair with a younger court official. She secured the crown for her lover, whom she married; he reigned as Michael IV from 1034 to December 10, 1041. Although he died prematurely, in anticipation of his death, a nephew was adopted to establish the succession. When this heir took control as Michael V (r. 1041-1042) and exiled Zoë, the populace revolted and Theodora had him executed. Alexis, the patriarch, then permitted a violation of Church and state law so that the empress Zoë could marry a third time; she chose Constantine IX, who was one of the last members of the ancient family of Monomachi. Constantine, who became coruler with the sisters, brought directly into his service Michael Cerularius as patriarch, Constantine Leichudes as president of the senate, and Constantine Psellus as secretary.

Psellus relates that under Michael V he had been “initiated into the ceremonies of entry into the imperial presence.” He witnessed, from the outer porch of the imperial palace, the uprising of the people on behalf of Theodora. Psellus had no difficulty surviving the short interlude when the gynaikonitis (women’s quarters) served as the imperial council chamber and the two empresses continued the business of administration. According to his later account, however, “they confused the trifles of the harem with important matters of state.”

A major event in the reign of Constantine IX was the establishment of faculties of law and philosophy for an imperial university at Constantinople in 1045. The faculty of law was to be headed by a salaried nomophylax (law professor), which was assigned to John Xiphilinus. There was also established a chair of philosophy for Psellus. Only the barest hint of these events appears in Chronographia , apparently written after 1071 (English translation, 1953), and the dimensions of his scholarship must be deduced from the orations and treatises that have survived. Latin had been the language of Old Rome; New Rome had lost its use. It was being revived in the late tenth century, however, and Romanus III could speak it. The study of law required it, and Psellus gave some time to its study.

As a rhetorical philosopher, Psellus was a master of words and the boundaries of their meaning. He saw everything in terms of Orthodox theology and the mysteries of Scripture. Military victories were accomplished by “the Mother of the Word” carried into battle as the “ikon of the Savior’s Mother.” Although religious subjects raised many unresolved questions, his mastery of words prevented any accusation of heresy against him as he taught the relationship of classical philosophy to Christian faith.

Psellus perceived that certain Platonic allegories and Aristotelian doctrines related to dialectic or proof by syllogism had received no proper explication. His own studies led him from the teachings of Plato and Aristotle through those of the Neoplatonists Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus to the writings of Proclus in the fifth century. In his studies, he found a mean between material nature and pure ideas, which he proceeded to synthesize in the manner of geometrical proofs so that he could give logical demonstration in elegant oration. He carried these studies full circle back to “the mystery of our Christian religion”; thus, its dualities of human and divine nature, of finite and infinite time, and of faith capable of proof yet divinely inspired could receive the same logical, elegant demonstration.

He produced commentaries on the Song of Songs, on Plato’s doctrine of ideas, on Timaeos (360-347 b.c.e.; Timaeus, 1793) and Phaedros (388-368 b.c.e.; Phaedrus, 1792), and on Aristotle’s De interpretatione (On Interpretation) and Categories (collectively known as Organon, 335-323 b.c.e.; English translation, 1812). He paraphrased the Iliad and studied Homer’s poems allegorically. Two composites gathered up his broadly defined “scientific” thinking: In the “Dialogue on the Operation of the Daimons,” considered his literary masterpiece, he opposed a variety of heretical movements; “On Teaching Miscellany” was written for his young pupil, the future Michael VII Ducas. This latter work began in Orthodox fashion with Christian propositional dogmatics, but it climaxed with Neoplatonic interpretations of reality.

Psellus also wrote on Athenian judicial terminology and the topography of Athens, as well as on the “character” of Church fathers Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom. Some five hundred letters remain extant, filling out glimpses of his time and personality.

Zoë died in 1050 at age seventy-two. Constantine IX reigned on, but he appeared to have switched loyalties from Psellus and his friends learned, self-made men back to their opponents of the old aristocracy and the military establishment. Constantine Leichudes and John Xiphilinus turned to the Church and underwent monastic tonsuration. Psellus followed their example, receiving the monastic name Michael before retiring to the monastery on Mount Olympus.

When Constantine IX died in 1055 without leaving an heir, power passed again to the empress Theodora. Having never married, she chose no man as a coruler, but she required the rhetorical and literary services of Psellus. Even early in the reign of Constantine IX, Psellus had been consulted by the empress in dispatching confidential letters and conducting other private business. Such services may have contributed to his departure; they certainly brought him back to power.

Theodora’s reign did not last. Her death in 1056 at the age of seventy-six precipitated a search for a successor. Michael VI (called “the Aged”) was at best a temporary choice (r. 1056-1057), although Psellus continued to support him. All interests those of the people, the senate, and the army had to be satisfied by any selection. The army acclaimed Isaac Comnenus in 1057 (r. 1057-1059); a battle with the emperor’s men followed shortly thereafter at Hades, near Nicaea. After Isaac’s victory, Psellus led an embassy of three, including Theodorus Alopus and Constantine Leichudes, which negotiated the transfer of power. Isaac was proclaimed emperor by the populace in September of that year, and Michael VI abdicated, intending to die in peace. As a result of their efforts, Constantine Leichudes became patriarch and Psellus was honored as the president of the senate. Despite (or because of) his success, however, Isaac fell ill; to preserve the fragile peace, he was tonsured by the new patriarch and went to live in a monastery. Constantine X Ducas (r. 1059-1067), Psellus’s other longtime friend, was chosen by Isaac (on his apparent deathbed) as the new emperor.

In 1064, John Xiphilinus was forced to leave his abbacy to become the new patriarch, while Psellus functioned as prime minister. Psellus stayed on under Constantine X’s wife, Eudocia, who ruled briefly with her two young sons until she remarried. When Constantine’s successor was captured at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, Eudocia’s older son, Michael, became emperor as Michael VII Ducas (r. 1067-1078). He was the product of Psellus’s teaching, and a contemporary chronicler, John Scylitzes, condemned the philosopher for having made Michael unfit to rule.

Psellus finished Chronographia with a panegyric to Michael VII and his family. The history abruptly ends with a comment on the role of Divine Providence, stating that the dictates of Fortune for even the most important men are reversed. The chronicler Attaleiates simply records the death in 1078 of “Michael, monk and hypertimos” (most honorable).

Significance

Psellus began his Chronographia with a discussion of the reign of Basil II to link it to the earlier historian Leo the Deacon. Psellus’s work was later overlapped, supplemented, copied, or continued by numerous others. Psellus explicitly rejected the chronicle form, saying that unlike Thucydides, he had neither numbered his work by Olympiads nor divided it into seasons.

John Italus, one of his students and his successor to the chair of philosophy, was tried for heresy, having too fully revived the ancient notions of the soul and its transmigration, as well as of the eternalness of matter and ideas. An anonymous satire of the twelfth century contrasts Psellus’s favorable reception by philosophers in the underworld with that given to Italus. Because of the energy he spent on the re-creation of the university in Constantinople, Psellus came to be viewed as a harbinger of the Renaissance, and renewed study of him has continued. Not all of his works in manuscript have been published, however, and only a few have been translated.

The schism of Eastern and Western churches of 1054, between Constantinople and Rome, left no mark on Chronographia, though a treatise written by Psellus against the Latin theologians survives. His denunciation in late 1058 of the patriarch Michael Cerularius, who was subsequently removed by the emperor, was not unrelated to the events of the schism. Yet its force was blunted within a few months by the necessity for Psellus to give a laudatory oration at Cerularius’s funeral.

This species of elegy, like his speeches of imperial panegyric, clearly illustrates how in his public conduct Psellus was a man of his time, with the ability to survive, accommodate himself, be of service with increasing influence, and provide criticism of the past in each new administration. Psellus thought highly of himself, as is clear from Chronographia, and he was genuinely convinced that he was well regarded by the many rulers under whom he served.

Bibliography

Hussey, Joan M. Church and Learning in the Byzantine Empire, 867-1185. 1937. Reprint. New York: Russell and Russell, 1963. The context and function of both university and monastery in the Byzantine Empire, in particular the life of Psellus, are treated thoroughly.

Hussey, Joan M., ed. The Byzantine Empire. Vol. 4 in The Cambridge Medieval History/Middle Ages. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1967. While Psellus is cited intermittently, the sections included on his scholarship and literary achievements are particularly valuable, and the bibliography is prodigious.

Ierodiakonou, Katerina, ed. Byzantine Philosophy and Its Ancient Sources. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Discusses philosophical thought in the time of Psellus, who is the subject of two chapters. Includes a section on research in Byzantine philosophy, a bibliography, an index of places, and an index of names.

Kaldellis, Anthony. The Argument of Psellos’ Chronographia. Boston: Brill, 1999. A study of Psellus’s philosophy and his studies on religion in Chronographia. Includes a bibliography and index.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). Vol. 2 in The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. Perceives Psellus as the central figure among the eleventh century Orthodox theologians who rose to the defense of classical philosophy within a Christian Hellenism.

Psellus, Michael. Fourteen Byzantine Rulers: The Chronographia. Translated by Edgar R. A. Sewter. 1966. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1982. The only major work by Psellus translated into English, Chronographia provides his character sketches, in varying length and degree of partisanship, of the imperial figures, both male and female, from Basil II to Michael VII.

Runciman, Steven. The Eastern Schism. 1955. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1983. The schism’s relative lack of mention in Psellus’s writings makes this historical discussion important, especially that on the role of the patriarchs of Constantinople with whom Psellus was closely associated.

Vasiliev, A. A. History of the Byzantine Empire, 324-1453. 2 vols. 2d rev. ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964. With extensive notes and bibliography, this account of the Eastern Roman state discusses political, dynastic, social, literary, scholarly, and artistic events and achievements. Chapter 6 covers the time and life of Psellus, though his impact appears throughout other discussions.