LMR opens with Theophilos persuading his companions to search for the world’s end. They secretly leave their Mesopotamian monastery and travel to Jerusalem to visit the holy sites. Next, they cross Persia and arrive in India, a turning point in the narrative, where they are captured by local androgynes and eventually released. Their journey continues through the lands of the dog-headed people and the apes, dangerous mountains, desolate regions populated by terrifying and exotic creatures, such as giant snakes and unicorns, and pitch-dark forests. They then traverse hell, where they encounter the lake of judgement, and pass the river of fire and the fountain of life. Eventually, they reach an enormous river (presumably Ocean) where they survive what appears to be a pygmy attack, before crossing the river to arrive at the world’s end, twenty miles from Paradise.29 There, they meet Makarios, who explains where they are and recounts his own story of fleeing a forced marriage, succumbing to the Devil’s temptations in female disguise, and spending three years buried alive as penance, emerging in perfect health. After hearing Makarios’ tale, the monks return home, retracing their journey and sharing the story of the holy man.

This hagiographic narrative follows a familiar pattern, famously evidenced by Jerome’s Life of Paul of Thebes, where an anchoret’s autobiographical story is embedded within a circular frame narrative about a monk setting out into the wild and discovering there a great solitary ascetic.30 In LMR, this structure is combined with the hagiographic motif of a pious man’s journey to Paradise.31 At the same time, LMR innovates these paradigms through distinctive elements including a cosmographic quest and a Christian katabasis.32 Scholars have commented on its unconventional character, particularly noting that the central story about the saint is structurally embedded within “a kind of marvellous travelogue.”33 But they have largely overlooked its connection to paradoxography.34 Depicting a wondrous journey Eastward to the world’s end, encompassing the bizarre inhabitants and natural features of India, LMR also presents concrete paradoxographic topoi such as kunokephaloi or dog-headed people (§ 9),35 a land of apes (§ 9),36 exotic animals like unicorns (§ 10),37 and a dwarfish race, possibly pygmies, living near the waters of the world (§ 20).38 While other saints’ Lives shaped by the travel-and-discovery paradigm also feature marvels and thaumata to various extents (particularly the Life of Paul, featuring a hippocentaur and a faun as part of Antony’s journey), they do not go nearly as far as LMR in developing this aspect.39 Furthermore, certain manuscript witnesses of LMR explicitly label the story a “wondrous narrative (διήγησις παράδοξος)” alongside the hagiographical designation of “life and conduct (βίος καὶ πολιτεία).”40 Finally, in LMR the trip is initially motivated by curiosity.41 It is presented as a spontaneous idea stemming from a sheer desire for discoveries: “The following thought came into my mind (εἰσῆλθεν ἐν τῷ νοΐ μου λογισμὸς τοιοῦτος) […] all the years of my life I have wanted (ἤθελον) to walk until I could see (περιπατεῖν ἕως οὗ ἴδω) where the heaven rests.” (LMR § 3)

One explanation for LMR’s paradoxographic character is that the depicted journey is modelled on the so-called ‘wonder-letters’ from the Greek AR.42 This work is notoriously difficult to capture in terms of genre.43 Presenting itself as a biography of a historical figure, it features large parts describing the (natural) wonders in the East encountered on Alexander’s adventurous campaigns. Alexander’s first letter to his mother Olympias (AR II. 32–44) reports encounters with bizarre races, including lion-faced giants and Fish-eaters, and Alexander’s explorations of a dark land during his search for the Isles of the Blest. The Letter to Aristotle about India (which survives in Latin, known as the Epistola, cf. AR III. 7–16) recounts among other things the ‘night of terrors’ during which wild creatures attack Alexander’s men. Finally, the second letter to Olympias describes further marvels including dog-headed people and architectural marvels (AR III. 27–29). Richard Stoneman identifies these letters as evidence of AR’s paradoxographic character.44 And while he argues that the wondrous material serves a narrative of fear and adventure rather than of scientific curiosity, these motivations need not be mutually exclusive.45 Indeed, Alexander’s first letter to Olympias portrays his travels as driven by exploratory desire, while the Letter to Aristotle is framed as a report at the service of scientific knowledge, explicitly connecting Alexander’s wish to explore India to the possibility of witnessing “something incredible (aliquod incredibile).” (Epistola § 47)46

LMR particularly recalls the first letter to Olympias from AR’s late antique beta recension.47 Reporting Alexander’s travels to the Land of the Blest or makaroi (AR (β) II. 39, 132.8: ἡ καλουμένη μακάρων χώρα), this letter suggests a salient parallel with the monks’ destination: Saint Makarios.48 Moreover, several similarities between the monks’ and Alexander’s travels imply a meaningful relation between the texts. For instance, the goal of the monks’ journey is the same as Alexander’s: to find the end of the world.49 Certain desolate regions featured in LMR mirror those described in Alexander’s first letter.50 A landmark near the world’s end in LMR, the fountain of life, echoes the letter’s mention of a translucent spring which turns out to be a source of life-giving water when Alexander’s cook throws in a dried fish that comes to life.51 Finally, the monks cannot reach their goal since, as Makarios explains, they are denied entrance to the terrestrial Paradise beyond which the heaven rests. Alexander, too, is denied access to the Land of the Blest.52

These similarities are not a coincidence. When the monks lose their way in the darkness (LMR § 12; cf. AR (β) II. 37, 130.3), a God-sent dove guides them to an arch. The inscription on the arch reads: “Alexander, the king of the Macedonians, erected this arch,” and adds that, “these are the dark lands which he went through (Tαῦτα δέ εἰσιν τὰ σκοτεινὰ ἃ διῆλθεν).” (LMR § 12) This explicitly links LMR’s storyworld to that of AR: the monks are literally travelling in Alexander’s footsteps.53 The inscription also offers directions:

This mirrors events from Alexander’s first wonder-letter. When Alexander is lost in the darkness, he decides to explore the region. He first travels leftward but turns back, finding the area impassable. Turning to the right, he discovers a large murky plain, where the life-giving spring is situated. Convinced that he has found the world’s end, Alexander erects an inscribed arch offering directions: “You who wish to enter the Land of the Blest (οἱ βουλόμενοι εἰσελθεῖν ἑν τῇ μακάρων χώρᾳ), travel to the right (δεξιᾷ πορεύεσθε) and avoid destruction.” (AR L [β]) II. 41.7) Although the inscriptions do not match (see infra), LMR suggests that this is the arch found by Theophilos and his companions.

While not a case of direct stylistic borrowing, the thematic parallels and concrete intertextual connection suggest that Makarios’ hagiographer knew, drew from and referenced AR (possibly from memory).54 Moreover, LMR itself may have influenced later Byzantine versions of AR.55 This places LMR within the broader reception history of AR, which underwent progressive Christian reworking in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Interestingly, this tradition also displayed a growing interest in the marvelous.56 The hagiographer’s specific choice to engage with the first letter to Olympias—one of AR’s most elaborate ‘paradoxographic’ sections—aligns with this trend. Thus, the hagiographer’s intertextual approach to writing the life of saint Makarios illuminates the text’s conception within a framework that inherently combined the (today seemingly contrastive) goals of historicizing life-writing and imaginative, marvelous storytelling.

LMR is a prime example of the contradictory features traditionally associated with hagiography. It combines a series of authentication strategies, meant to establish the narrator’s reliability and the account’s accuracy, with wondrous and (from a modern viewpoint) fantastical contents, which have led scholars to treat it as entertainment literature without much religious or historical significance.57 Of course, fiction—defined as untruth meant to be recognized as such (supra)—also features authentication strategies to enhance its reality-effect, without therefore precluding the simultaneous presence of fantastical elements.58 But can LMR be considered fictional? Developing text-based arguments about authors’ and readers’ mutual understanding of how saints’ Lives were to be read is inherently challenging. While certain contextual factors, particularly its religious function, have reasonably led to caution in applying the modern fictional paradigm to Byzantine hagiography, it is difficult to know how individual texts functioned.59 The genre’s hybridity is a warning against overgeneralization, and reader responses could always vary across time and space. To navigate these difficulties, I propose to interpret LMR’s authentication devices and fictive contents in light of the contemporary literary frameworks it engages, particularly the paradoxographic framework activated by its overt reliance on a narrative about Alexander’s wondrous journeys Eastward.

Among the authenticating strategies operative in LMR, scholars have noted Theophilos’ tendency to offer indications of distances, thus claiming “quasi-historiographical objectivity.”60 Theophilos mentions, for example, that they walked “for forty days (ἐπὶ ἡμέρας τεσσαράκοντα)” (LMR § 9) or “for seventy days (ἐπὶ ἡμέρας ο’).”61 (§ 12) Additionally, the narrative’s circular structure emphasizes the act of reporting, as “the return journey recapitulates the inward trip with ritual thoroughness” since Theophilos “mentions in turn each of the places they passed on the way in.”62 Although the return journey is described much more briefly, its careful narration underlines the importance of the monks’ homecoming and ability to divulge their experiences: “After we entered the monastery […] we told them in detail about the wonders of God (ἀπηγγείλαμεν αὐτοῖς καθ’ ἑξῆς πάντα τὰ θαυμάσια τοῦ Θεοῦ) and the life of Saint Makarios.” (LMR § 49) The narrative’s apparent authenticity is further reinforced through its choice of a homodiegetic narrator (a first-person narrator who participates in the story),63 which allows for firsthand reporting, and through frequent references to direct observation (εἴδομεν, ἰδόντες, e.g. LMR § 10, § 14, § 18, § 20, etc.), underlining Theophilos’ eyewitness-status. What is more, the text itself is presented as the written record of the first-person account of the narrator’s journey: “And when we spoke about (ἐξηγησάμενοι) the great and incomprehensible power (ἀκατάληπτον δύναμιν) of God our Savior and the life of Saint Makarios, all those who heard glorified God and recorded in books (συνέταξαν εἰς βίβλους) the whole life of Saint Makarios.” (LMR § 48, my emphasis) As a result, LMR poses as documentary travel writing. Finally, although the monks never reach their destination, they receive a detailed description of Paradise and the world’s end from Makarios, who was informed by an angel. Theophilos emphasizes the chain of transmission, from the angel, via Makarios, to him, highlighting his divine and therefore trustworthy source.64

While authentication strategies in general are common in Byzantine saints’ Lives, several of the specific devices described are also found in AR.65 Notably, the wonder-letters feature detailed spatio-temporal markers not found elsewhere in AR, such as Alexander’s mention of traveling “for eight days (ἡμέρας ὀκτώ)” (AR (β) II. 32, 125.9–10) and arriving “in two days (διὰ δύο ἡμερῶν)” at a region where the sun does not shine.66 (AR (β) II. 39, 132.7–8) Furthermore, LMR’s emphasis on reporting echoes the specific character of Alexander’s letters, which are first-person travel reports posing as eyewitness testimony and frequently referencing vision.67 This alignment reflects broader paradoxographic literary conventions.68 Ancient accounts of the wondrous centralize testimony and credibility since “the unusual will not produce its proper effect on the reader unless this reader is brought to believe that the phenomenon described is part of reality.”69 Claiming autopsia, i.e. eye-witnessing, and including references to authoritative sources, strategies adopted by Theophilos, are common practice, not just in hagiography, but also in paradoxographic literature.70 Finally, the main intertextual element linking LMR to the paradoxographic tradition, Alexander’s arch, anchors the narrative in historical time and space. Its presence suggests that the monks’ journey takes place, not in some fantasy-land, but in the real world, in regions once conquered by Alexander the Great.

At the same time, LMR presents that world as the one created by the Judeo-Christian God, following Genesis. The inscription on Alexander’s arch directs the monks to “follow the sound of the waters (τὴν φωνὴν τῶν ὑδάτων ἀκολουθείτω).” (LMR § 12) AR’s inscription (discussed above) does not mention water. The water-element aligns instead with Genesis 2:10, according to which the four rivers of the world spring from Paradise, suggesting one can reach earthly Paradise by following them upstream.71 Thus, the historical framework of Alexander’s explorations of the world’s edges intersects with the truth of the biblical universe. Similarly, Theophilos’ spatio-temporal markers are not just specific but also meaningful: they tend to be biblical numbers, imbuing the events with truthfulness. The monks walk for forty/seventy days in the examples above, and they have wept for precisely seven days before the dove appears who guides them to Alexander’s arch.72 Finally, while paradoxographic literature typically establishes authority through textual sources, LMR appeals instead to divine revelation by choosing an angel, God’s messenger, as its authoritative source. Using these devices, then, the hagiographer blends the literary framework of paradoxographic travel accounts with a Christian approach, presenting LMR as a true story set in the real world, anchored both in historical and biblical time and space; as a narrative that invites its Christian audience to adhere fundamental belief to it.

The problem for modern interpreters is that this view of LMR seemingly conflicts with certain other parts of the narrative, e.g. those featuring the hybrid races of kunokephaloi and donkey-centaurs, or people measuring about a half meter. Today, such elements are clearly fictive because they do not correspond to our scientific notions about the natural world, which are sufficiently advanced to produce generally-held assumptions of the non-existence of these creatures. But they would arguably have seemed incredible even to a late antique audience. Of course, their understanding of the world was more limited than ours and therefore less constrained by preconceived notions about what is possible. Still, such creatures would defy their reasonable expectations of the plausible based on common human experience: readers may have seen mountains and rivers and doves, but never creatures that are half-human-half-animal. Yet, the sense that something is too strange to be believed is inherent to ancient paradoxographic literature, where it does not preclude an overall historicizing stance or the notion that an incredible phenomenon could in fact be true. Paradoxographers anticipated skepticism among their readership.73 In fact, they sought out the “unbelievable (adoxon),” to turn such “apista” into “pista.”74 The paradoxographic deliberately sparks the reader’s imagination, capturing ‘otherness,’ while simultaneously requiring fundamental belief. It relies on the paradoxical combination of both, creating cognitive dissonance, to generate a sense of wonder.75

In light of LMR’s relation to the paradoxographic letter to Olympias, this framework is fruitful to explain its representation of the unbelievable as part of a true story. By depicting the marvelous, LMR likewise inspires wonderment in the reader. To that effect, it combines authentication with a tendency to exploit phantasia. Describing reality outside the oikoumenē and beyond the scope of normal human experience, LMR relies on the audience’s capacity to imagine things—to visualize what they have never seen and will never see. For instance, twice the narrator strategically emphasizes his inability to fully describe certain elements: when encountering wild creatures like unicorns and donkey-centaurs (LMR § 10), Theophilos admits being unable to name all species, and when describing four holy men guarding the river of fire, he calls their appearance “indescribable (ἀνεκδιήγητον).” (§ 18) Although both passages contain explicit remarks of narratorial failure, in both, what follows is quite a detailed description of other aspects of the scene. Thus, these remarks appear a deliberate strategy to spark the audience’s imagination, inviting readers to creatively fill in the blanks. This way, the described phenomena become potentially more grotesque.

Another strategy to spark the reader’s imagination and enhance the otherness of described phenomena occurs when the monks cross a giant river, identifiable as Ocean, before discovering Makarios’ cave (LMR § 20).76 From its banks, they gain a unique vantage point of the world. Theophilos describes this entire setting as counterintuitive. The light is double its normal intensity (φῶς διπλάσιον τοῦ φωτὸς τούτου), and “the winds there do not blow (οὐκ ἔπνεον ἐκεῖ οἱ ἄνεμοι) like the winds here (οἱ ἄνεμοι τῶν ἐνταῦθα); for the winds there had a different way of blowing (οἱ ἄνεμοι τῶν ἐκεῖ ἄλλην πνοὴν εἶχον).” The colors of the cardinal points are partially reversed, with the north corner having “the hue of pure blood (χροιὰν αἵματος καθαροῦ)” and the south corner being “white like snow (λευκὴν ὡσεὶ χιών).”77 Furthermore, the stars shine “brighter than lightning (λαμπροτέραν ἔχουσιν ἀκτῖνα λαμπηδόνος),” the sun is “seven times hotter than ours (θερμότερος ἑπταπλάσιον τούτου),” the mountains there (τὰ ὄρη ἐκεῖνα) are “higher and more beautiful (ὑψηλότερα καὶ εὐειδέστερα),” and the birds have “a different appearance (ἄλλην ἰδέαν) and they sing differently (ἄλλως κελαδοῦσιν).” Moreover, the earth is paradoxical, having “a double character, fiery as well as milky (διπρόσωπός, πυροειδὴς καὶ γαλακτίζουσα).” Here, we sense that the monks have truly arrived in an otherworldly reality. The descriptions stress that the normal order of the inhabited world is reversed, an effect fueled by a ‘here’ vs. ‘there’-structure and several comparatives. Thus, specific narrative choices again reinforce the otherworldly character of the narrated sights and events. Just as Theophilos’ admissions of narratorial failure, the emphasis on the counterintuitive and fundamentally ‘other’ nature of what is described activates the readers’ imagination by inviting them to visualize the abnormal or seemingly impossible. It is the combination of such imaginative elements with an historicizing narrative stance that induces the sense of wonderment generated by LMR, just as it does in Alexander’s wonder-letters—a combination typical of paradoxographic literature in general. The framework of wonder-literature therefore explains LMR’s contradictory tendencies as part of one coherent narrative strategy.

This framework also sheds new light on a curious detail: the inscription on Alexander’s arch in AR directs travelers to the right, whereas the inscription in LMR’s corresponding episode indicates the left. The difference has been explained as either an error or a deliberate correction of the hagiographer.78 Yet, besides the discrepancy between source text and target text, an inconsistency arises within LMR itself. Its inscription clearly warns travellers that the right side is dangerous, due to mountains and a lake full of snakes and scorpions (LMR § 12: λίμνη παμμεγέθης, ὄφεων καὶ σκορπίων μεμεστωμένη), wherefore the monks wisely choose the left path. However, they quickly encounter a foul smell, signaling their entry into hell, and find a pool full of snakes (LMR § 14: λίμνη παμμεγέθης, γέμουσα πλῆθος ὄφεων): the lake of judgement. Although they chose the left, they have evidently ended up in the place that was described as being on the right. The description of the lake in § 14 matches the text on the arch closely and therefore invites readers to notice the mismatch.79 Given the otherworldly character of the regions described afterwards (supra), the inconsistency can be read, not as an error or a correction of the source text, AR, but as a means to convey increasing disorientation and the alienating effect of what lies beyond the known world. Left and right are backwards to signal that the monks, by journeying beyond Alexander’s arch, have crossed into some kind of ‘other’ reality.

Indeed, in the space between the arch and Makarios’ cave, the monks pass apocalyptic scenes from hell, the river of fire guarded by holy men of indescribable appearance, and the fountain of life: having left the territory of earthly inhabitants behind, “the area of the Creation,” they have entered a divine realm, “the territory of the Creator.”80 Moreover, on their return journey, Makarios’ pet-lions escort the monks back to the arch, from where they can find their own way home. The arch thus functions as a critical border, marking the boundary between the remote world, of which certain wondrous aspects may require imaginative visualization, and a divine reality, one that is entirely otherworldly and can only be conceived through imaginative contemplation.

In LMR, historicizing and fictionalizing strategies emerge as part of a paradoxographic report of a wondrous journey to the world’s end. Yet, this report serves as the frame narrative in a hagiographic text. Although the hagiographer has a Christian approach to specific authentication strategies (e.g. biblical numbers as spatio-temporal markers and the fusing of historical and biblical worldviews: cf. supra), superficial attempts to Christianize such techniques do not fully explain why he chose to embed a saint’s story in a paradoxographic travel account. Nevertheless, additional elements suggest a more profound Christianization of the paradoxographic framework, shedding light on the author’s broader purposes.

The Christian character of LMR’s paradoxographic account is evident in its differences from its model, AR’s wonder-letters. Both Alexander and the monks face numerous dangers on their exploratory journeys, and both texts emphasize the travelers’ fear.81 However, while the encountered races in AR tend to be violent, with Alexander and his men overcoming their attacks with physical force (cf. e.g. AR (L [β]) II. 33.2 and 33.6), in LMR, a recurring theme is the unexpected lack of violence from dangerous creatures, rendering physical force unnecessary (the androgynes in § 7–8 and the pygmies in § 20 are exceptions). For example, the dog-heads in AR are violent whereas in LMR they simply observe the travelers without causing harm (LMR § 9).82 Similarly, to their own surprise, the monks are left alone by the apes (§ 9), the wild animals (§ 10) and the elephants (§ 11). They attribute their safe passage to divine intervention, repeatedly glorifying God for protecting them, e.g.: “We glorified the Lord, who saved us from their mouths (ἐδοξάσαμεν τὸν Κύριον, τὸν ῥυσάμενον ἡμᾶς ἐκ τοῦ στόματος αὐτῶν)” (LMR § 9; compare also § 10: “At God’s command (τοῦ Θεοῦ κελεύοντος), we suffered no harm from them”).83 The idea of divine intervention is further supported as the monks are not only portrayed as watching (supra) but also as being watched (e.g. LMR § 7: ἰδόντες ἡμᾶς, § 9: προσεῖχον ἡμῖν, § 15: ἰδὼν ἡμᾶς): this suggests a potential threat that does not materialize, a fact that is ascribed to God’s will. And in another reversal of the expected paradoxographic dynamic, not the monks but the dog-heads are “in awe (ἐθαύμαζον),” staring intently (τρανίζοντες) at their human visitors. While the reader may be inclined to marvel at the strangeness of the encountered creatures, for the monks, the main cause for wonderment is that God’s power protects them from these beasts.

Similarly, the monks are amazed and glorify the Lord for guiding them through dangerous terrain. He sends animal guides to lead them, first, across a “huge and terrifying cliff (μεγάλου καὶ φοβεροῦ κρημνοῦ)” (§ 11) and, next, through the dark lands (§ 12). Each time, the monks prayed for help in their desperate situation. The animals’ miraculous appearance therefore demonstrates the virtue of religious faith. The specific animals in this role are meaningful too: a stag, symbolizing Christ or baptism, and a dove, symbolizing the Holy Spirit.84 The animals embodying a hazardous presence are innate to India and the far East according to contemporary traditions about these regions: snakes, elephants, kunokephaloi, and unidentifiable creatures. But the hagiographer expands the typical Indian fauna with another animal type, a helping kind, recognizable as divine agents following Christian animal symbolism.

From the monks’ arrival in India until their discovery of Alexander’s arch, it is primarily God’s guiding help through perilous adventures that causes wonderment. In the journey beyond, however, it is the terrifying and awe-inspiring divine territories themselves. In hell, the frightened monks call the punishments of those who have renounced God “strange and extraordinary secrets (ξένα καὶ παράδοξα μυστήρια).” (LMR § 16) Similarly, the location of Paradise and the end of the world, the kernel of knowledge sought by the monks and revealed by Makarios, is described as “all the wonders of God (πάντα τὰ θαυμάσια τοῦ θεοῦ).” (LMR § 26) Terminology related to extraordinary discoveries and amazement (ξένα, παράδοξα, θαυμάσια) now denotes the wonders and miracles of the Christian world order.

With this in mind, we can appreciate the position of the saint in the text. Makarios and his story are placed at the very center of the circular travel account, at the very end of the marvelous journey, and (almost) at the end of the world. This narrative structure suggests that the saint is the greatest marvel of all. Makarios is also portrayed as a marvel. A detailed description aligns his physical appearance with animalistic features:

Also, Makarios does not wear clothes; instead, “we saw […] someone dressed in white hair (ἐνδεδυμένον ἀπὸ λευκῶν τριχῶν) […] the hair of his head covered his entire body, having grown over time.” (LMR § 22) Hairy and wild-looking desert ascetics are a topos in early Christian and hagiographic literature. It has been connected to the goal of representing saints’ liminality and otherworldliness.85 But the saint’s furry looks also challenge the human/animal binary, much like many paradoxographic creatures.86 Moreover, Makarios’ story is what inspires the monks to go back: they ask for his blessing, “so that we may return to the world (ἵνα ὑποστρέψαντες εἰς τὸν κόσμον), and tell your story (ἀπαγγείλωμεν τὰ περὶ σου), and make your holy life known everywhere (τὴν ἁγίαν σου πολιτείαν κηρύξωμεν πανταχοῦ).” (LMR § 46) In fact, the monks initially did not intend to ever return (LMR § 4: “we made the sign of the cross upon ourselves like people who did not expect to see this world again (ὡς μὴ προσδοκῶντες ἔτι ἰδεῖν τὸν κόσμον τοῦτον)”). Meeting Makarios triggers their return: he is the marvel that must be made known.

As such, the purpose of this Christian paradoxography appears connected to narrating holiness. Scholars have noted that sanctity is inherently paradoxical and highly elusive because it cannot lay claim to itself.87 By embedding his story in a marvelous travel account, the saint is inserted into the paradoxographic framework, which, as explained above, combines elusive contents with truthful reporting. By virtue of imagination and wonderment, one may conceptualize what lies outside the norm, grasp the unknowable, and narrate the extraordinary.88 The hagiographer exploits these aspects of paradoxographic narration to convey a Christian story of sanctity.

LMR has been described as “an imaginary narrative which permits its readers to travel mentally through real and fantastic places.”89 While most scholars acknowledge its literary and fictive character, few have explored what ‘imaginary’ means in the context of this Life, and how this quality relates to the text’s ‘historicizing’ aspects. The latter have largely gone unrecognized, or, when considered, they usually lead to puzzlement over the presentation of obviously fabricated literary material as real.90

To make sense of LMR’s contradictory status between truth and fiction, I have approached it through the lens of paradoxography, a literary framework that is evoked by its intertextual engagement with AR’s wonder-letters. The combination of imaginative and historicizing dynamics is typical of paradoxographic literature: wonderment at the marvelous arises from the cognitive dissonance between a sense of disbelief and a recognition of truthfulness. Facts about strange lands beyond the inhabited world are by definition foreign and unverifiable for readers. For this reason, paradoxographic accounts (particularly paradoxographic travel accounts) are paradoxical: the audience is expected to rely on the authenticity of the report but also to engage with the imaginative quality of the otherworldly phenomena it describes, which remain a mental creation for the reader.

I have argued that LMR follows the paradoxographic model by combining concern for authenticity with creative imagination. Its ‘imaginary’ features must be understood, then, not as elements that signal invention or lack existence, but as elements that spark readers’ imagination in quite a literal sense: readers must imagine them because they have never experienced them directly. Such imaginative activity does not undermine the presentation of the events as authentic or real. Rather, it is the combination of otherness and authenticity that creates the desired effect of amazement. LMR’s intertextual engagement with AR, itself a text between truth and fiction, is an important part of this double dynamic. It anchors the story both in historical time and space and in the paradoxographic tradition. Moreover, combining this with a biblical framework and a Christian world order, LMR adopts a specifically Christian approach to the paradoxographic. As the narrative progresses, the focus shifts from a traditional motivation for travel, namely curiosity regarding the physical world, to travel as a means to recover a Christian spiritual truth: God’s marvelous creation and the saint himself are the true wonders reported in this text. LMR is a true story that references the real world (both earthly and divine), some aspects of which require the reader’s imagination. It is precisely by capitalizing on imaginative aspects that LMR can express the unfathomable character of God’s creation, the Christian world order, and particularly the notion of sanctity.