The Theotokos as selective intercessor for souls in Middle Byzantine Apocalyptic

The Apocalypse of the Holy Theotokos, first edited from a single manuscript in 1866, has only recently become available in an English translation and commentary. However, the work enjoyed enormous popularity in the later Byzantine period of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, when the Greek text was translated into almost a dozen other languages. An equally popular work of the mid-tenth century was the Vision of Anastasia. This paper considers Mary's role in the two Apocalypses of the ninth to eleventh centuries in the broader context of Byzantine apocalypticism of the period. In particular, I focus on Mary's role as a selective intercessor for Christian souls in torment, but not Jews. The increasing recognition of Mary's humanity in the cult of the Theotokos (Mother of God) emerges as the justification for her discrimination against those who were perceived as the murderers of her son.