The Book of Miracles of St Stephen (2.2) recounts how a woman suffering facial paralysis touched with her head the relics of *Stephen (the First Martyr, S00030) in a church in Uzalis (Proconsularis, central North Africa), in c. 420. Written in Latin at Uzalis in the 420s.
E00307
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Book of Miracles of St Stephen 2.2.6
This chapter tells at considerable length the story of a noble woman from Carthage (central North Africa) suffering from facial paralysis. Her healing goes through several stages, the final one in Uzalis, at the relics of Stephen.
Duodecimo igitur die ex quo cum sua ad amicum Dei Megetia uenerat matre, dum orat ad locum sacratae memoriae, pulsans fidei pietate, non solum affectu cordis, uerum etiam motu corporis, ipsa ostiola memoriae impulsa patefecit, ac uim faciens regno dei, caput suum interius intromisit, et super cubile sanctarum reliquiarum confixit, lacrimisque suis omnia illic lauit atque rigauit.
'Twelve days after she and her mother had come to the friend of God [i.e. Stephen], Megetia was praying at the place of the holy memoria, and driven by the power of her faith she was knocking, not only by affection of her heart, but also by the movements of her body, and she finally threw open the little door of the memoria against which she had pushed. And doing violence to the kingdom of God, she inserted her head inside and put it on the place of rest of the holy relics, and she rinsed and dampened everything there with her tears.'
Text: Meyers 2006, 326.
Translation: Robert Wiśniewski.
Cult building - dependent (chapel, baptistery, etc.)
MiraclesMiracle after death
Healing diseases and disabilities
RelicsBodily relic - unspecified
Touching and kissing relics
Reliquary – institutionally owned
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Aristocrats
Source
The Book of the Miracles of St Stephen was written in Uzalis (North Africa) some time after some relics of Stephen, whose grave was discovered in Caphargamala (Palestine) in 415 (see E07606), arrived in Africa (most probably via Minorca) around 417. The number of miracles recorded suggests that the book was written sometime after the arrival of the relics; on the other hand, the absence of any mention of the Vandals suggests that the text was composed before 429, when Africa was invaded. The book was written by an anonymous author, but was probably commissioned by Evodius, bishop of Uzalis and former pupil of Augustine. The book (actually two books) is based on a collection of libelli or testimonia of those who were healed thanks to the power of Stephen's relics. This is the earliest text of this kind that we know about - the next one in time is the collection of the miracles which took place in the sanctuary of *Thecla in Seleucia (see E05879).The idea of writing down the testimony of those who experienced healing was perhaps formulated for the first time by Augustine. He took care to collect such testimonies in Hippo (North Africa), which also possessed some relics of Stephen, and quoted them in his sermons and in Book 22 of the City of God (see E01109, $E01111, $E01116, $E01117, $E01118, $E01119, $E01120, $E01125, $E01135, $E01988). The libelli of the healed were also collected in Calama, another north African city of which the bishopric was also held by a pupil of Augustine, Possidius, and in which some relics of Stephen were deposited around 420 (see E01125). None of these collections, however, is extant.
Discussion
This passage is one of the oldest testimonies of the practice of touching relics, or at least touching their container, based on the belief that relics' miraculous power can be transferred in a physical way. It suggests that the point was not just to achieve close physical contact with the relics, but to touch them with the suffering part of the body. The little door in the memoria (presumably a shrine built over the reliquary itself) was not installed in order to make such practices possible, since the text explicitly states that Megetia did 'violence to the kingdom of God' in forcing its door open; but for the author her gesture was perfectly understandable.The term memoria (literally 'memory' or 'memorial') is used by Augustine both for the shrines of martyrs (as here) and, more narrowly, for their relics. Since it is evident that, for Augustine, a memorial shrine (memoria) of a saint contained relics of that saint, there is often no substantive difference in the ways he uses the word.
Bibliography
Edition, French translation, and collection of studies:Meyers, J. (ed.), Les miracles de saint Étienne: Recherches sur le recueil pseudo-augustinien (BHL 7860-7861) (Hagiologia 5; Turnhout: Brepols, 2006).
Robert Wiśniewski
17/02/2015
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00030 | Stephen, the First Martyr | Stephanus | Certain |
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