Rufinus of Aquileia, in his Church History (10.11), recounts the conversion of Iberia (eastern Georgia) by an unnamed captive woman, [identified as *Nino (S00072) in later Georgian texts], with subsequent miracles, including the miraculous raising of a column. Written in Latin in Aquileia (northern Italy), c. 402.
E01402
Literary - Other narrative texts (including Histories)
Rufinus of Aquileia
Rufinus of Aquileia, Church History 10.11
Rufinus recounts the story of the christianisation of the 'people of the Iberians, which lives in the Pontic region' (Hiberorum gens, quae sub axe Pontico iacet) through a captive woman. Rufinus neither names the woman nor tells us where she was from. The woman was exceptionally pious and a miracle-worker. Apart from preaching and teaching the Gospel, the woman performed a series of miracles:
A desperate mother brought her dying child to her, asking her if she knew a remedy for its illness.
Illa se humani quidem remedii nihil scire testatur, deum tamen suum Christum, quem colebat, dare ei desperatum ab hominibus salutem posse confirmat. Cumque cilicio sue parvulum superposuisset atque ipsa desuper orationem fudisset ad dominum, sanum matri reddidit infantem.
'She answered that she knew of no human remedy, but declared that Christ her God, whom she worshipped, could give it the healing despaired of by humans. And after she had put the child on her hair shirt and poured out above it her prayer to the Lord, she gave the infant back to its mother restored to health.'
Word of this miracle spread across the kingdom and reached the queen, who was also terminally and desperately ill. The queen ordered that she be brought to the captive's hovel:
Quam similiter supra cilicium suum positam, invocato Christi nomine, continuo post precem, sanam et alacrem fecit exsurgere. Christumque esse Deum, Dei summi Filium, qui salutem hanc contulerit, docet: eumque quem sibi auctorem suae sciret esse incolumitatis et vitae, commonet invocandum. Ipsum namque esse, qui et regibus regna distribuat, et mortalibus vitam.
'Having placed her likewise on her hair shirt and invoked Christ’s name, no sooner was her prayer done than she had brought it about that she rose up healthy and vigorous, and taught her that it was Christ, God and Son of God most high, who had conferred healing upon her, and advised her to invoke him whom she should know to be the author of life and well-being, for it was he who allotted kingdoms to kings and life to mortals.'
The queen returned joyfully to her husband the king, who having rejoiced in her wife's sudden recovery, wished to send gifts to the woman. The queen, however, said that she accepted no gifts, and rejected silver. The only gift she would receive was if the royal family worshipped her God, Christ.
The king, however, was hesitant and put it off for the time. Then, one day, when he was hunting in the woods with his companions, it happened that
obscurari densissimis tenebris diem, et per tetrae noctis horrorem luce subducta, caecis iter gressibus denegari. Alius alio diversi ex comitibus oberrant, ipse solus densissima obscuritate circumdatus, quid ageret, quo se verteret nesciebat: cum repente anxios salutis desperatione animos cogitatio talis ascendit. Si vere [Al. vero] Deus est Christus ille, quem uxori suae captiva praedixerat, nunc se de his tenebris liberet, ut ipsum ex hoc omissis omnibus coleret. Illico ut haec nondum verbo, sed sola mente devoverat, reddita mundo dies, regem ad urbem perducit incolumem.
'a thick darkness fell upon the day, and with the light removed there was no longer any way for his blind steps through the grim and awful night. Each of his companions wandered off a different way, while he, left alone in the thick darkness which surrounded him, did not know what to do or where to turn, when suddenly there arose in his heart, which was near to losing hope of being saved, the thought that if the Christ preached to his wife by the woman captive were really God, he might now free him from this darkness so that he could from then on abandon all the others and worship him. No sooner had he vowed to do so, not even verbally but only mentally, than the daylight returned to the world and guided the king safely to the city.'
The king returned to his wife and immediately summoned the captive, saying that from now on he would venerate no God but Christ. The captive instructed him further on how to make petitions and offer reverence to God and advised that a church be built.
The king then called his people and made them too accept Christ. They started building the first church. First they constructed the outer walls. They then set up the first and the second column; when, however, they were about to erect the third one, the oxen could not raise it above to an inclined position. The king grew desperate and no-one knew what to do.
Sed cum interventu noctis omnes abscessissent, cunctique mortales et ipsa opera cessarent, captiva sola in oratione pernoctans mansit intrinsecus: cum [Al. cumque] ecce matutinus et anxius cum suis omnibus ingrediens rex, videt columnam, quam tot machinae ac tot populi movere non quiverant, erectam, et supra basim suam librate suspensam, nec tamen superpositam, sed quantum unius pedis spatio in aere pendentem. Tunc vero omnes populi contuentes et magnificantes Deum, veram esse regis fidem, et captivae religionem praesentis miraculi testimonio perhibebant. Et ecce mirantibus adhuc et stupentibus cunctis, in oculis eorum sensim supra basim suam, nullo contingente, columna deposita, summa cum libratione consedit.
'But when nightfall intervened and everyone went away and all mortal labors ceased, the woman captive remained inside alone, passing the night in prayer. And when the worried king entered in the morning with all his people, he saw the column, which so many machines and people had been unable to move, suspended upright just above its base: not placed upon it, but hanging about one foot in the air. Then indeed all the people looking on glorified God and accepted the witness of the miracle before them that the king’s faith and the captive’s religion were true. And behold, while everyone was still in the grip of wonder and astonishment, before their very eyes the column, with no one touching it, gradually and with perfect balance settled down upon its base.'
After this the remaining columns were also raised and a magnificent church was built. Then an embassy was sent to the emperor Constantine explaining to him what had happened and asking him to send priests, which the emperor joyously did.
Haec nobis ita gesta, fidelissimus vir Bacurius, gentis ipsius rex, et apud nos Domesticorum Comes (cui summa erat cura et religionis et veritatis) exposuit, cum nobiscum Palaestini tunc limitis Dux, in Jerosolymis satis unanimiter degeret.
'That this happened was related to us by that most faithful man Bacurius, the king of that nation who among us was captain of the court garrison and whose chief concern was for religion and truth; when he was the frontier commander in Palestine, he spent some time with us in Jerusalem in great concord of spirit.'
Text: Mommsen 1909, 971.
Translation: Amidon 1997, 396-400.
Summary: N. Aleksidze.
Cult building - independent (church)
Place associated with saint's life
MiraclesMiracle during lifetime
Miracles causing conversion
Power over objects
Healing diseases and disabilities
Healing diseases and disabilities
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesMonarchs and their family
Ecclesiastics – unspecified
Source
In 402-403, some time after his return to Italy from Palestine, Tyrannius Rufinus, or Rufinus of Aquileia, translated the Church History of Eusebius into Latin. He added a few passages in books 1-9 and wrote two entirely new books (10-11), which continued Eusebius' narrative down to AD 395. He described mostly contemporary events and his sources are difficult to identify.This is the earliest account of Iberia's conversion to Christianity by an anonymous 'captive' woman, who is later recorded in the Georgian tradition as St Nino. Since we do not have any other parallel sources, we usually accept that Rufinus had indeed heard this story from the Georgian prince Bacurius.
Discussion
Thelamon suggests that behind the story of the captiva who introduced Christianity to their land there lay a typical Georgian narrative regarding the foundation of a cult or shrine. Such accounts often feature a woman called a kadagi who is a possessed intermediary between the divine and human realms and who is often referred to as “captive” or “seized.” It is, however, difficult to evaluate whether Rufinus' story is based on an actual Georgian story which was later also reproduced in the Georgian Conversion of Iberia (E01138) and the ninth-century extended Life of Nino, or whether these later Georgian accounts all depended ultimately on Rufinus' story.In Rufinus' account, the captive woman is an anonymous vehicle of conversion, and it is not his intention to introduce or establish her cult. Indeed, in Rufinus' account we learn nothing about her posthumous cult and veneration - which, of course, she was later to receive (as Nino in Georgian, Nunē in Armenian). Rufinus' main concern is to show how the peripheries of the Empire were christianised through Constantine's efforts.
The three miracles performed by the woman - the healing of the child, of the queen and the indirect miracle of the conversion of the king - were all subsequently elaborated on and expanded in the Georgian tradition.
Bibliography
Edition:Mommsen, Th., Eusebius Werke II/2. Historia ecclesiastica (Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller 9.2; Berlin, 1908), 973-976.
Translation:
Amidon, P.R., The Church History of Rufinus of Aquileia: Books 10 and 11 (Oxford, 1997).
Further reading:
Haas, Ch., “Mountain Constantines: the Christianization of Aksum and Iberia,” Journal of Late Antiquity 1.1 (2008), 101–26.
Horn, C., 'St. Nino and the Christianisation of Pagan Georgia", Medieval Encounters 4/3 (1998), 243–264.
Plontke-Lüning, A., "Frühchristliche Architektur in Kaukasien: Die Entwicklung des christlichen Sakralbaus in Lazika, Iberien, Armenien, Albanien und den Grenzregionen vom 4. bis 7. Jh. (Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung XIII) (Vienna, 2007), 156–61
Synek, E.M., ‘The Life of St Nino: Georgia’s Conversion to its Female Apostle’, in G. Armstrong and I. Wood (eds.), Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals (Turnhout, 2000), 3-13.
Thelamon, F., Païens et Chrétiens au IVe siècle. L'apport de l'«Histoire ecclésiastique» de Rufin d'Aquilée (Paris, 1981).
Nikoloz Aleksidze
21/03/2024
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00072 | Nino, Enlightener of Georgia | Captiva | Uncertain | S00518 | Saints, unnamed | Certain |
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