The Miracles of *Artemios (15) recount how *Artemios (martyr of Antioch under Julian, S01128), at his shrine in Constantinople, healed a repentant young man, Narses, from a disease of the testicles, inflicted on him in punishment for his scepticism about the saint's power; the saint appears in a dream and slays a dove over the afflicted testicles; their recovery is helped by an application of kerote. Written in Greek in Constantinople, 582/668; assembled as a collection, 658/668.
E04235
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Miracles of Artemios (BHG 173), 15
There were two young men, both by the name of Narses, who were in service of the same official. One was devoted to the all-night vigil of the Forerunner every Saturday. By contrast, the other frequently chided the former's devotion. He mocked those involved in the vigil who were singing hymns, and even uttered blasphemous words, undermining the very saint Artemios' power of healing hernias. The former Narses warned him that he would bring misfortune upon himself, but the latter persisted all the more.
And so it happened that the blasphemer Narses got severely ill and his genitals became swollen with a hernia. The pious Narses visited him and conveyed him on a litter to the church of the Forerunner. The blasphemer regretted what he previously used to say.
καρτεροῦντα οὖν αὐτὸν μετὰ πολλῆς κατανύξεως ὥρᾳ δευτέρᾳ μιᾶς τῶν ἡμερῶν ἔτυχεν ὑπνῶσαι, καὶ ὁρᾷ τινα φοροῦντα πατρικιότητος σχῆμα, καθὼς αὐτὸς διηγήσατο, καὶ ἐρχόμενον ἀπὸ τοῦ νάρθηκος, οὗτινος προηγεῖτο περιστερὰ λευκὴ ἄσπιλος. εἰσελθὼν δὲ εἰς τὸν ναὸν καὶ ἀνακάμψας ἦλθεν εἰς τὸν ἀριστερὸν ἔμβολον διὰ τῶν ἄνωθεν καγκέλλων ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ σκευοφυλάκιον, καὶ ἔστη ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ νοσοῦντος, καὶ λαβὼν τὴν προηγουμένην αὐτοῦ περιστερὰν ἔσφαξεν κατὰ τῶν διδύμων τοῦ νοσοῦντος· ὁ δὲ ἔξυπνος γενόμενος ἀφηγεῖται τῷ προσμοναρίῳ τὸ ὄναρ. οὔσης δὲ ὥρας λοιπὸν τοῦ κοινωνῆσαι αὐτὸν καὶ γεύσασθαι, μόλις ὑπὸ τοῦ προσμοναρίου κουφισθεὶς ἀνίσταται· ὑφ’ οὗ παρακρατούμενος κατήρχετο εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν σορόν, πιεῖν ὀφείλων κατὰ τὸ εἰωθὸς καὶ ἐκ τῆς κανδήλας τοῦ ἁγίου.
'So while he was waiting, feeling very repentant, one day at the second hour he happened to fall asleep, and saw someone dressed in the garb of the patrician class (as he related). This person was coming from the direction of the narthex, preceded by a spotless white dove. Upon entering the nave and then making a turn, he entered the left colonnade through the upper railings [proceeding] as if in the direction of the sacristy and stood before the sick man; taking the dove which had preceded him he slew it against the sick man’s testicles. Narses woke up and related the dream to the church warden. Since thereafter it was the hour for communal eating, he stood up, lifted with difficulty by the church warden. Supported by him, [Narses] descended to the holy tomb, intending to drink from the saint’s lamp in the customary manner.'
Then he noticed some moisture on his legs and robe. He touched his testicles and realised they were ruptured and that the moisture was caused by blood and pus. He fainted from fear and fell down.
βαστάσαντες δὲ αὐτὸν οἱ παρόντες ἤγαγον εἰς τὴν στρωμνήν, ὕδασίν τε χλιαροῖς καὶ σπόγγοις καθά-ραντες αὐτοῦ τὰ σκέλη καὶ τὸ ἕλκος, δίκην ἐμπλάστρου τὴν κηρωτὴν τοῦ ἁγίου μάρτυρος ἐπέθηκαν, καὶ οὕτως ὁ ἀσθενῶν ὑγιὴς ἐγένετο.
'Those present lifted him up, carried him to his bed, washed his legs and wound with warm water and sponges and applied the holy martyr’s salve like a plaster and in this way the ailing [Narses] recovered.'
Text: Papadopoulos-Kerameus 1909.
Translation: Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 104-5.
Summary: J. Doroszewska.
Chant and religious singing
Cult PlacesBurial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Cult building - independent (church)
Descriptions of cult places
Activities accompanying CultFeasting (eating, drinking, dancing, singing, bathing)
Rejection, Condemnation, SceptisismScepticism/rejection of specific relics
Scepticism/rejection of miracles
Condemnation/rejection of a specific cultic activity
Uncertainty/scepticism/rejection of a saint
Condemnation of other activity associated with cult
Non Liturgical ActivityVigils
Saint as patron - of a community
Incubation
Visiting graves and shrines
MiraclesMiracle after death
Healing diseases and disabilities
Specialised miracle-working
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Contact relic - other
Eating/drinking/inhaling relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesSlaves/ servants
Source
The Miracles of Artemios is a collection of 45 miracle-stories, effected by the saint at and around his burial and cult site in the church of St. John the Baptist in the Oxeia quarter of Constantinople. Artemios was an Alexandrian dux and martyr of the reign of Julian, who has an independent Martyrdom (E06781). The Miracles does not include this passio, although the stories on occasion show some acquaintance with it. Nothing is known of the cult before the period described in the Miracles.The Miracles’ vignettes stretch from (at least) the reign of Maurice (582-602) to that of Constans II (641-668). The current text was compiled in the period 658-668: the terminus post quem is provided by the last datable event mentioned within the text (Mir. 41: 4 October 658) and the terminus ante quem by the fact that Constans is there described as still alive (as he is too in Mir. 23).
The text is not, however, the product of a single pen, but seems instead to be a compilation of several parts. Those narratives at the beginning and end of the collection (Mir. 1-14, 42-45) are short, somewhat unembellished, healing narratives of a more-or-less standardised kind; while those of the central section are far more elaborate and varied, and seem to fall into rough thematic doublets or groups. One such group is conspicuous because all of its miracles (24-31) conclude with some sermonettes on secular medicine. The most obvious explanation for this basic dissonance is that the collection as we have it has been composed from at least three different parts: first, an earlier, more simple collection which opens the text; second, an original composition in the central section (where the addition of the sermonettes to some miracles perhaps indicates the exploitation of another, pre-existent collection of miracles); and third, a final addition of the four concluding miracles.
Besides pre-existent collections of written material preserved within the shrine itself, the text also draws, no doubt, on the oral traditions then circulating amongst the shrine’s clientele. The text itself describes in vivid terms the community of clerics and lay devotees who gathered around the shrine, in particular for its weekend vigil, and several such persons are the protagonists of individual miracles. One such person is an anonymous devotee of the saint’s vigil who features in two long and detailed miracles (Mir. 18, 22); another is George, a cleric and devotee of Artemios, who features as protagonist in three different miracles (Mir. 38-40). It seems clear, then, that the compiler draws from the oral accounts, or perhaps even written records, which the saint’s clerics and devotees produced, and which provide these central miracles with their vivid detail and insight. Indeed, although the compiler of the collection is anonymous, it is reasonable to suppose that he is also a lay devotee of the saint, and perhaps even one of those persons who feature prominently in the text.
Through descriptions of this vigil, and other scattered details, we are offered an unparalleled perspective both on the layout of the church of St. John—which can be reconstructed in some detail—and on the practices of Artemios’s devotees. The saint’s cult was an incubatory healing cult, in which the sick came to the shrine and slept overnight, in the hope of a miraculous cure. The collection underlines the importance of performing ‘the customary rites’ in advance of a cure, which seems to mean the dedication of a votive lamp and other offerings. The weekly vigil is also presented as especially efficacious, for on this night it was possible to sleep in and around the crypt where the tomb which contained the saint’s relics was sited (see e.g. Mir. 17).
Almost all of the cures occur within the church of St John itself, or else upon those who have spent some time there and then withdrawn. The principal mode of healing is a miraculous dream, sometimes in combination with the application of holy oil taken from the tomb’s lamps, or a wax-salve imprinted with the image of the saint. Almost all of the miracles concern healing, but also of a particular kind. For Artemios was a specialist in diseases of the male genitals and groin, which dominate the entire collection. Sick women at the shrine could expect a vision of the martyr *Phebronia, who appears in several places as Artemios’ female equivalent (Mir. 6, 23, 24, 38, 45).
In contrast to equivalent collections, Artemios does not collaborate with secular doctors, or depend on quasi-Hippocratic cures. Indeed, one of the most striking features of the text is the series of sermonettes which punctuate the central miracles and denounce in virulent terms the inadequacies of contemporaneous Hippocratic medicine (Mir. 24-31).
The text was compiled at a moment of high drama for the eastern Roman Empire, in which its territorial holdings, and revenues, had been dramatically reduced through the Arab conquests. This context is however strikingly absent from the collection, which instead paints a picture of vivid and thriving urban life, in particular amongst the capital’s middle classes, who make up the vast majority of the saint’s devotees. Nevertheless, it has been suggested the text offers a powerful political metaphor related to the perceived disease of the body politic: that the cure for all ailments, whether derived from sin or from natural causes, is not to turn to other men, but rather to propitiate and to trust in God.
Discussion
This, at the same time punishing and healing miracle belongs to the central section of the collection of Artemios' miracles that consists of elaborate and varied narratives (Mir. 15-41; see above, Source).Bibliography
Text:Papadopoulos-Kerameus, A., Miracula xlv sancti Artemii, in idem, Varia graeca sacra [Subsidia Byzantina 6] (St. Petersburg: Kirschbaum, 1909): 1-75.
Translation:
Crisafulli, V.S., and J.W. Nesbitt, The Miracles of St. Artemios. A Collection of Miracle Stories by an Anonymous Author of Seventh Century Byzantium (Leiden, New York, Köln: Brill, 1997).
Further reading:
Alwis, A., “Men in Pain: Masculinity, Medicine and the Miracles of St. Artemios,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 36. (2012), 1–19.
Busine, A.,“The Dux and the Nun. Hagiography and the Cult of Artemios and Febronia in Constantinople,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 72 (2018), 93–111.
Déroche, V., "Pourquoi écrivait-on des recueils de miracles? L’exemple des miracles de saint Artémios," in C. Jolivet-Lévy, M. Kaplan, J.-P. Sodini, (eds), Les saints et leur sanctuaire à Byzance: textes, images, monuments (Paris, 1993), 95-116.
Deubner, L., De incubatione capita quattuor scripsit Ludovicus Deubner. Accedit Laudatio in miracula Sancti Hieromartyris Therapontis e codice Messanensi denuo edita. (Lipsiae: Teubner, 1900).
Efthymiadis, S., "A Day and Ten Months in the Life of a Lonely Bachelor: The Other Byzantium in Miracula S. Artemii 18 and 22," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 58 (2004), 1-26.
Grosdidier de Matons, J., “Les Miracula Sancti Artemii: Note sur quelques questions de vocabulaire,” in E. Lucchesi and H.D. Saffrey (eds), Mémorial André-Jean Festugière: Antiquité, Paienne et Chrétienne (Geneva: Cramer, 1984), 263-266.
Haldon, J., "Supplementary Essay: The Miracles of Artemios and Contemporary Attitudes: Context and Significance," in Crisafulli and Nesbitt, Miracles of Artemios 33-75.
Kaplan, M., “Une hôtesse importante de l’église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de l’Oxeia à Constantinople : Fébronie," in D. Sullivan, E.A. Fisher, S. Papaioannou (eds), Byzantine Religious Culture: Studies in Honor of Alice-Mary Talbot (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 31–52.
Krueger, D., Writing and Holiness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East (Phildelphia, PA, 2004), 63-70.
Mango, C., “History of the Templon and the Martyrion of St. Artemios at Constantinople,” Zograf 10 (1979), 40–43.
Rydén, L., "Kyrkan som sjukhus: om den helige Artemios' mirakler," Religion och Bibel 44 (1987), 3-16.
Simon, J., “Note sur l’original de la passion de Sainte Fébronie,” Analecta Bollandiana 42 (1924), 69–76.
Philip Booth, Julia Doroszewska
27/07/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S01128 | Artemios, martyr of Antioch under the emperor Julian | Ἀρτέμιος | Certain |
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