The Icon and the Axe

Lacking any knowledge of political systems in the past or much experience with them in the present, the Muscovite vaguely sought a leader on the model of the divinized sun-kings of the East and the princes and saints of popular folklore. The victory in the Christian East of Platonic idealism, which was exemplified by the veneration of ideal forms in the icons, led Russians to look for an ideal prince who would be in effect "the living icon of God."40

Unlike the Platonic ideal, however, the ideal Russian prince was to be not a philosopher but a guardian of tradition. The highest good in Muscovy was not knowledge but memory, pamiaf. Where one would now say, "I know," one then said, "I remember." Descriptions, inventories, and administrative records in the prikazes were all known as pamiati; epic tales were written down "for the old to hear and the young to remember." There was no higher appeal in a dispute than the "important, good and firm memory" of the oldest available authority.41

Thus, Muscovy was bound together not primarily by formal codes and definitions or rational procedures, but by an uncritical and unreflective collective memory. Special authority tended to devolve on those local "elders" whose memory went back furthest toward the apostolic age and whose experience made them most knowledgeable in Christian tradition: the ascetic starets in the monastery, the respected starosta in the city, and the epic stariny (tales of old) for the popular imagination. Rarely has a society been more attached to antiquity, but Muscovy looked to the past for tales of heroism rather than forms of thought, rhetoric rather than dialectic, the "golden-tongued" sermons of St. John Chrysostom rather than the "cursed logic" of Aristotle.42 Even the princes had to trace their genealogies and heraldic seals back to a sacred past in order to gain respect in the patriarchal atmosphere of Muscovy.43

An essential element in making Muscovite authority effective throughout Russia was monastic support. The monasteries had reunified Russia by lifting men's eyes above the petty quarrels of the appanage period to a higher ideal. The Muscovite grand dukes made innumerable pilgrimages to the leading cloisters; corresponded with monks; sought their material aid

and spiritual intercession before undertaking any important military or political action; and were quick to bestow on them a large share of newly gained land and wealth. In return, the monasteries provided an all-important aura of sanctity for the Grand Duke of Muscovy. He was the protector of monasteries, the figure in whom "the opposition between the principle of Caesar and the will of God was overcome."44

The ideology of Muscovite tsardom, which took shape in the early sixteenth century, was a purely monastic creation. Its main author was the last and most articulate of the great monastic pioneers, Joseph Sanin, founder and hegumen of Volokolamsk. Like the others, Joseph established his monastery out of nothing in the forest, whence he had fled in despair of existing cloisters and in the hope of creating the ideal Christian community. A man of striking appearance and ascetic personal habits, Joseph insisted on absolute obedience to detailed regulations covering dress, seating precedence, and even bodily movements. His central conviction that acquired, external habits have internal, spiritual effects placed him in diametric opposition to his contemporary and rival, Nil Sorsky; and their fundamental philosophic conflict came to a head in the famous controversy over monastic property. Against Nil's doctrine of apostolic poverty, Joseph defended the tremendous wealth which had accrued to his growing chain of cloisters through the bequests of the brother of Ivan III and other wealthy patrons and novices. Joseph was neither an advocate nor a practitioner of luxurious living. He insisted that monastic possessions were not personal wealth but a kind of sacred trust given in thanks for the sanctity and intercession of the monks, and in the hope that their holiness would radiate out into society.45 ,

The controversy between the "possessors" and "non-possessors" was essentially a conflict between two conceptions of monastic life. All major participants were monks who conceived of Muscovy as a religious civilization with the grand duke its absolute sovereign. The real issue was the nature of authority in this patriarchal monastic civilization: the physical authority of the hegumen against the spiritual authority of the elder; centralized organization and regular discipline against loosely bound communities of prophetic piety.