The Miracles of *Artemios (17) recount how *Artemios (martyr of Antioch under Julian, S01128), at his shrine in Constantinople, healed the relative of a patrikios from a hernia, and temporarily punished with the same affliction an Alexandrian actor. Written in Greek in Constantinople, 582/668; assembled as a collection, 658/668.
E04237
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Miracles of Artemios (BHG 173), 17
Under the reign of the emperor Heraclius [r. 610-641], there lived a certain man named Sergios. He was a member of the senate, a patrikios and an imperial judge. He had a relative approximately 40-years old who suffered from a hernia. Following someone's suggestion, Sergios decided to send his relative to saint Artemios, having provided him with the obligatory offering. It happened that a certain Alexandrian actor learnt about the entire matter and proposed to escort the sick man in order to entertain him along the way. When they came to the church, the sick man prayed at the tenth hour and invited the church officials (hebdomarioi) to dinner.
μετὰ δὲ τὸ δειπνῆσαι παρεκάλει αὐτοὺς λέγων· “Ἄφετε κοιμηθῶ κάτω εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν σορόν”. οἱ δὲ διεκώλυον αὐτὸν λέγοντες, μὴ ἐξὸν εἶναί τινι ἐκτὸς Κυριακῆς διαφαυούσης κοιμηθῆναι κάτω· ὁ δὲ ταῦτα ἀκηκοὼς ἐστύγνασεν. ἵνα δὲ μὴ δόξωσιν οἱ ἑβδομάριοι σκανδαλίζειν αὐτόν, ὡς προφάσει τοῦ ζητεῖν αὐτοὺς λογάριν ταῦτα λέγειν, παρεχώρησαν αὐτῷ κοιμηθῆναι ἐν τῇ ἁγίᾳ σορῷ, ἅμα δὲ καὶ ὡς τῶν ἐνδόξων ὑπάρχοντι. πολλὰ δὲ ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεὺς γελοιάζων, ἐφιλονείκει καὶ αὐτὸς κάτω κοιμηθῆναι, ἀλλ’ οὐ παρεάθη ὑπὸ τῶν ἑβδομαρίων, μόλις αὐτὸν πεισάντων ἄνω εἰς τὸν ναὸν κοιμηθῆναι. καὶ δὴ κοιμᾶται ἔμπροσθεν τῆς εἰκόνος τοῦ ἁγίου Ἰωάννου, ἔνθα ἡ τροπικὴ κατὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς δεξιᾶς καταβάσεως. κατὰ δὲ τὸ μεσονύκτιον πρὸς ὕδωρ ὁ σκηνικὸς ἐπείγετο, καὶ γυρεύσας ὅλον τὸν ναὸν καὶ μὴ εὑρὼν ἐξελθεῖν, διὰ τὸ κατὰ τὸ εἰωθὸς ἀσφαλιζομένου αὐτοῦ κατὰ νύκτα μετὰ καὶ τῶν ἐκ δύο πλευρῶν τεσσάρων καγκέλλων, στὰς κατὰ τὴν δεξιὰν τοῦ ναοῦ πύλην, παρ’ ἥντινα τὸ φρέαρ ἐστὶν καὶ ἡ γραφὴ τῆς Σαμαρείτιδος, οὔρησεν ἐκεῖ. καὶ μετὰ τὸ οὐρῆσαι αὐτὸν κατασπᾶται αὐτῷ κήλη φθάζουσα κάτωθεν τῶν γονάτων αὐτοῦ.
'After dinner he exhorted [the hebdomarioi] and said: ‘Come, let me sleep below by the holy coffin.’ But they prevented him, saying no one was permitted to sleep below except on Sunday before dawn. Upon hearing this he was dejected. But lest the hebdomarioi gave the appearance of offending him, as if the denial were a pretext for extorting some money, they allowed him to sleep by the holy tomb, and especially as he was one of the grandees. The Alexandrian scoffed greatly and strove also to sleep below but was not allowed to by the hebdomarioi who scarcely persuaded him to sleep above in the church. In the end he lay down before the icon of John the Baptist, where the arch is situated at the top of the right staircase leading downward. About midnight the actor was forced to urinate, and making a circuit through the whole of the church but not finding an exit (because normally the church is secured at night along with the four chancel barriers on either side), he stood by the right-hand entrance to the church (nearby is the well and the representation of the Samaritan woman), and there he urinated. And after urinating he developed a hernia which reached below his knees.'
He cried out in pain and dismay, accusing the saint of being an impostor who afflicts people with hernias instead of curing them. Hearing his cries, the other man who was resting by the martyr's tomb came up to reprimand the actor, as he thought that the latter was making jokes. But the actor asked him to lift up his garments. The sick man did so and discovered to his great joy and surprise that he was delivered from his hernia. The actor, being upset and invoking saint Menas, showed him his hernia, saying that the saint had sent it to him instead. They returned home and went to dine with Sergios the patrikios. The actor told him what happened that the saint had sent him the other man's hernia. All who were listening to his words both wept and laughed in confusion. But suddenly the actor's affliction disappeared, so that they were astonished and glorified God.
Text: Papadopoulos-Kerameus 1909.
Translation: Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 108-11.
Summary: J. Doroszewska.
Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Burial site of a saint - sarcophagus/coffin
Descriptions of cult places
Use of ImagesPraying before an image
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
Saint as patron - of a community
Bequests, donations, gifts and offerings
Incubation
Visiting graves and shrines
MiraclesMiracle after death
Specialised miracle-working
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesAristocrats
Officials
Other lay individuals/ people
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Foreigners (including Barbarians)
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 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).Imperial judge - literally a 'divine' judge (theios dikastes) - one of the twelve judges who heard cases at the request of the emperor or of the high officials (Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 249).
The hebdomarioi, according to Lampe's Patristic Lexicon, were "church officials on duty for a week".
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 | S00020 | John the Baptist | Certain | S00073 | Menas, soldier and martyr buried at Abu Mena | Μηνᾶς | Certain | S01128 | Artemios, martyr of Antioch under the emperor Julian | Ἀρτέμιος | Certain |
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