Podcast episode
August 28, 2024
Episode 192: Hagia Sophia and the Problem of ‘Esoteric Architecture’
We discuss Hagia Sophia, Justinian’s greatest architectural accomplishment and, to this day, a major focal-point for interconfessional politics and symbolic storytelling. We use this extraordinary building to do a few things relevant to the podcast-project both specifically and generally: specifically, we look at the evidence for Hagia Sophia as an esoteric Late Platonist symbolon masquerading as a Christian church and for a coterie of polytheist Platonists operating unseen at the very highest levels of Justinian’s regime; generally, we explore just how treacherous the territory becomes when we try to say that architecture means something, especially when we are saying that it means something esoteric.
Featuring a cameo-appearance from the Great Pyramid at Giza.
Works Cited in this Episode:
Primary:
Justinian:
- For Justinian compared to Solomon, see e.g. Victoria Gerhold. Defeating Solomon: Intertextuality and Symbolism in the Legend of Hagia Sophia / Vencer a Salomón: intertextualidad y simbolismo en la leyenda de Santa Sofía. Scripta, 11(1):1138, 2018.
- Sets out to build Hagia Sophia almost immediately after the Nika riots: Chronicon Paschale 127 [a well-informed Constantinopolitan chronicle].
Hagia Sophia:
- Innovation of construction: see e.g Cyril Mango. The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312-1453. Toronto, 1986, p. 65: ‘No architect at the time could have calculated, even approximately, the thrusts that would be generated by a masonry dome of that size.’
- Used to be clad in marble: see Mango 1986 (cited just above) 59-68.
- Procopius’ ekphrasis of Hagia Sophia’s dome: On Buildings 1.1.46, for which the Loeb edition is handy: Procopius Vol. VII, Buildings, General Index. Translated by H.B. Dewing and Glanville Downey. Cambridge, MA/London Harvard University Press/William Heinemann, 1940.
- Allegedly designed by an angel, who passed the plans on to Justinian: 8th or 9th century text known as Narratio de ædificatione Sanctæ Sophiæ, cited Peter Sarris. Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint. Basic Books, 2023, p. 172.
- The Golden Chain passage in Homer: Il. 8.19.
The Great Pyramid at Giza:
- Hermes’ alchemical laboratory: Ibn al-Nadīm’s Fiḥrist, Book 10, doesn’t exactly say that Hermes’ alchemical laboratory was in the great pyramid, but he almost does: Hermes invented alchemy, is buried in one of the two main pyramids (his wife is in the other one), and, atop the great pyramid, there is a kind of alchemical tomb which, it is implied, holds Hermes’ body.
- As esoteric emblem in stone: see e.g. Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Ægyptiacus (3 vols., Rome 1652–54).
- In modern occultism: Aleister Crowley of course famously spent a night of his honeymoon in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid, where his wife first made contact with the strange entity who would later dictate the Book of the Law – see somewhere in his autohagiography. Compare e.g. Blavatsky, who saw the chambers in the pyramids as initiation-temples: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. The Secret Doctrine. Theosophical University Press, New York, NY, 1888; II, pp. 462.
Westminster Abbey pavement: the inscription is now lost, but can be consulted in this article by Ellen Moran.
For Phokas: See Lydus, On the Magistracies 3.76; A.C. Bandy, ed. and tr., Ioannes Lydus On Powers, or, The Magistracies of the Roman State (Philadelphia, PA, 1983); M. Dubuisson, J. Schamp, eds. and tr., Jean Le Lydien: Des magistratures de l’État romain, 2 vols. (Paris, 2006).
John Lydus:
- his teacher Agapius studied under Proclus: On the Magistracies 3.26.
- Agapius admired by Damascius: De vit. Isid. = The Philosophical History fr. 107 Athanassiadi.
For the architects Anthemios and Isodorus, see Procopius, Buildings 1.1.24, 2.3.7–14; Paulos, Ekphrasis of Hagia Sophia 265–271, 550–555; Agathias, Histories 5.6–9.
The sixth-century Dialogue on Political Science, preserved in part by Photius: see Peter N. Bell, trans. Three Political Voices from the Age of Justinian: Agapetus, Advice to the Emperor, Dialogue on Political Science, Paul the Silentary, Description of Hagia Sophia. Number 52 in Translated Texts for Historians. Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 2009; Dominic O’Meara. The Justinianic Dialogue On Political Science and its Neoplatonic Sources. In K. Ierodiakonou, editor, Byzantine Philosophy and its Ancient Sources, pages 49-62. The University Press, Oxford, 2002.
Secondary:
Umberto Eco. Foucault’s Pendulum. Secker and Warburg, London, 1989 [sorry, I forget the page number, but the reference is definitely there!].
Anthony Kaldellis. The Making of Hagia Sophia and the Last Pagans of New Rome. Journal of Late Antiquity, 6(2):34766, 2013. We quote p. 366.
Michael Maas. John Lydus and the Roman Past: Antiquarianism and Politics in the Age of Justinian. New York, 1992, pp. 72-3.
Dominic J. O’Meara. Geometry and the Divine in Proclus. In T. Koetsier and L. Bergmans, editors, Mathematics and the Divine: A Historical Study, pages 133-45. Amsterdam, Elsevier Science, 2005.
Recommended Reading:
Listeners interested in the Hagia Sophia in her more exoteric dimensions might wish to consult the lavishly-illustrated scholarly coffee-table book Rowland J. Mainstone. Hagia Sophia: Architecture, Structure, and Liturgy of Justinian’s Great Church. Thames & Hudson, London, 1988; Mango 1986 (cited above); the essays collected at Robert Mark and Ahmet Cakmak, editors. Hagia Sophia from the Age of Justinian to the Present. The University Press, Cambridge, 1992; there are many other fine studies from art-historical, architectural, and other historical perspectives.
For contemporary and later East-Roman appreciations of the church, see Gilbert Dagron. Constantinople imaginaire. Études sur le recueil des Patria. Gallimard, Paris, 1984; Cyril Mango. Byzantine Writers on the Fabric of Hagia Sophia. In Robert Mark and Ahmet Cakmak, editors, Hagia Sophia from the Age of Justinian to the Present, pages 41-56. The University Press, Cambridge, 1992.
For the construction of Hagia Sophia vis à vis acoustics, light, and other sensoria, see e.g. Nadine Schibille. Astronomical and Optical Principles in the Architecture of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Science in Context, 22(1):27-46, March 2009; B. Pentcheva. Hagia Sophia and Multi-
sensory Aesthetics. Gesta, 50:93-111, 2011.
This open letter from the International Association of Byzantine Studies to the Turkish authorities has some interesting things to say about the current religio-political-art-historical situation of Hagia Sophia.
For various esoteric Hagia Sophias, see this document:
SHWEP Episode 192 Recommended Reading
Themes
Ammonius Hermeiou, Esoteric Architecture, Esoteric Hermeneutics, Hagia Sophia, John Philoponus, Late Platonism, Orthodoxy, Proclus, Solomonic Tradition, Temple of Solomon
Eemil Matias Pohjalainen
September 1, 2024
I take it to be an event of providence that this episode comes out as I start doing my own reading into the architectural details of another text-in-stone, the Chartres Cathedral. Fantastic stuff.
Earl Fontainelle
September 1, 2024
But what does Chartres Cathedral MEAN?
Eemil Matias Pohjalainen
September 1, 2024
I can only sincerely hope that the podcast may answer that question, in a few years
James Butler
September 4, 2024
You mention – very briefly – the astonishing acoustics of the space, which would have been very often echoing with song. A few years ago Cappella Romana released a ‘Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia’ recording, which sets Byzantine chant in a reverb environment based on the spatial and acoustic measurements made by the Stanford team in (IIRC) 2010 or so. It’s an interesting experiment, which gives some approximation of how it might have felt to be surrounded by those warm, apparently eternal, tonal washes. Well worth seeking out, and I believe it is available on the accursed streaming services.
(Parenthetically, it’s hard to resist making a connection between the experience of Byzantine chant in spaces like the HS – which must have been an astonishing synthesis of light and sound in total, perduring suffusion – and the interest in ‘perpetual prayer’ of one kind or another which interests some Orthodox theologians. This must have been especially so with the _ison_, the background drone in so much chant.)
Earl Fontainelle
September 4, 2024
Nice! Thanks for the suggestion.
Thomas Kiefer
September 4, 2024
A propos of the (mis-)uses of the Hag: When I was in Thessaloniki in 1997 the host of the student group, who was a university administrator (so an average Greek), INSISTED that Istanbul/Constantinople was THEIR city, and they “were going to get it back some day”.
Less relatedly, she said “we” (meaning from Thessaloniki) identify much much more with Byzantine/East Roman civilisation than ancient Greece.
I wonder if Greek sentiments have changed in the last 25+ years.
Fotis Panagoulias
September 15, 2024
The sentiment you vivdly describe is still there, all those cities in Asia Minor were thriving with Greek populations only 2 generations ago and the collective memory is strong. Main reason for such narratives to be commonly heard in Thessaloniki is that the city received a significant amount of the Greeks persecuted away from Constantinople in the 1955 pogrom (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_pogrom) . It also follows the legend and folk songs about the fall of Constantinople, the eternal return of the last emperor etc..
Thomas Kiefer
September 24, 2024
Thank you for this information. I learned first hand about the ‘population exchanges’ between Greece and Turkey prior to WWII–just madness all around, especially in a case like Izmir where a place which had ethnic Greeks for 2500+ years had virtually none overnight, all for ‘nationalistic’ reasons.
Albert Hand
September 4, 2024
Podcasting about esotericism is like dancing about architecture.
Earl Fontainelle
September 4, 2024
Hmmm. What does that make listening to podcasts about esotericism, though?
Albert Hand
September 5, 2024
Listening to writing about music.
Fotis Panagoulias
September 15, 2024
Just a quick note as I’m listening to the piece, Dome translates to “Θόλος ” in Greek, which of course still relates to the sky dome “ουράνιος Θόλος ” and the cosmos-sphere. Sphere is just “Σφαίρα” -or the male “Σφαίρος” principle of Empedocles.
Earl Fontainelle
September 15, 2024
Hiya. Σφαιρα is used quite regularly as a metaphorical way of speaking of the sky in ancient sources. Check Liddel and Scott s.v.
Fotis Panagoulias
September 16, 2024
Thanks for your attention Earl and once again for your wonderful effort providing us these insights. The orb/sphere is indeed another way to talk about the cosmos (re the orb on Byzantine emperor’s scepter, orbs in paintings etc) but my point was in relation to the dome – Θόλος. You mentioned in the podcast that Θόλος translates to Σφαιρα, which isn’t the case. I found the original abstract from Prokopius:
“45 τούτου δὲ τοῦ κυκλοτεροῦς παμμεγέθης ἐπανεστηκυῖά τις σφαιροειδὴς θόλος ποιεῖται αὐτὸ διαφερόντως εὐπρόσωπον. 46 δοκεῖ δὲ οὐκ ἐπὶ στερρᾶς τῆς οἰκοδομίας ἑστάναι, ἀλλὰ τῇ σφαίρᾳ”
In my liberal translation this means “A spherical dome lay upon the immense circular structure, which gives the impression that it -the dome- sits not on the structure but upon the heavens”. Just a clarification for the sake of accuracy.
Btw, i expected to hear about the “Solomon, I have outdone thee” quote from Justinian, drawing a direct lineage of succession to the figures of the old testament, as roman emperors before him drew a line from Aeneas….
Fotis Panagoulias
September 16, 2024
Source here: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Procopius/Buildings/1A*.html