This thesis explores the literary topos in which heresy is defined in terms of disease, focusing particular attention on the reign of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118). By examining the portrayals of two heretics – the philosopher Ioannes Italos and the dualist Bogomil heresiarch Basileios – in a body of interrelated source material, conclusions are drawn related to the contemporary thought-world, which influenced the authors, their works and their understanding of the heterodox threat. This, in turn, is used to gain insight into the contemporary dynamics of imperial propaganda and power. There are four main chapters, the first of which discusses the methodological approach adopted throughout this study. This section treats various questions related to the problems inherent in heresy scholarship, such as the ever-changing definition of ‘heresy' and the use of source material that is fundamentally antagonistic towards the heretical subject. The second chapter traces the transmission of the focal topos, ‘heresy as disease', within heresiology from its origins in the fourth-century Panarion of the bishop Epiphanios of Salamis up to the twelfth century, where it is found used prevalently by the court of Alexios I. Chapter three then offers a detailed analysis of the primary sources that are employed in the case studies of Italos and Basileios: Anna Komnene's Alexias, Euthymios Zygabenos's Panoplia Dogmatike, the Synodikon of Orthodoxy and trial proceedings preserved from the synodal examination of Italos. The final chapter explores the surviving presentations of both men – their depictions as ‘outsiders' and the specific association developed between their teachings and disease – within the context of the newly emerging and insecure Komnenian dynasty. ‘Heresy as disease' is found to transmit an ideological framework, allowing Alexios to reinforce his unstable position by capitalising on the image of the great Orthodox doctor, providing a cure for the common soul.

As a debate over the legitimacy of the liturgical use of images, the Byzantine Iconoclastic controversy (ca. 726-843) had important political and theological implications, which modern scholarship generally tends to treat unconnectedly. The primary object of this study is to explicate the relationship between the political and theological dimensions of the controversy and to reconstruct the debate over images in a comprehensive approach that accounts for both its political and theological dimensions. / The main argument of the thesis is that the question of images was a politico-theological problem and the prospects of 'political expediency' and 'theological propriety' were correlated in the minds of both the Iconoclastic reformers and their Iconodule rivals. Indeed, it was through their respective soteriologies that the two parties gave meaning to the theological and political dimensions of the debate in relationship with their respective theological first principles. Therefore, the Iconoclastic debate is explained as a soteriological dispute where the worldview represented by the traditional Byzantine religio-political ideology and the worldview represented by the proponents of images were set over against each other. / The main contribution of our thesis to modern scholarship of the Byzantine Iconoclastic controversy is to reconstruct the debate in the light of the contending theological paradigms of the two parties, which shaped not only their attitudes towards images but also their political stands in relation to the Byzantine Empire's involvement in ecclesiastical politics. This new synthetic reading explains the debate in reference to two essential theological cornerstones of the Byzantine tradition---the Eusebian "Imperial Theology" and the Christological definition of the council of Chalcedon---both taken as key reference points, against which the political and doctrinal stands of both parties were constructed and interpreted.

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