The Miracles of *Artemios (21) recount how *Artemios (martyr of Antioch under Julian, S01128), at his shrine in Constantinople, healed from a disease of the testicles, after failed surgery, Stephen, deacon of Hagia Sophia and official of the Blue Faction, who narrates his cure in the first person. Written in Greek in Constantinople, 582/668; assembled as a collection, 658/668.
E04240
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Miracles of Artemios (BHG 173), 21
There was a man named Stephen who was a deacon in the Great Church [Hagia Sophia] and an official (poietes) of the Blue Faction. He had a rupture in his testicles which resulted either from shouting acclamations or from his heavyweight. It happened to him shortly before the death of the emperor Heraclius [641]. Out of shame, George sought an opportunity to bathe alone in the small hours. Eventually he disclosed his misfortune to his parents and after having tried many treatments, he was advised by them to entrust himself to surgeons in the hospital of Sampson. On the fourth day of his stay there, the surgery was performed on him. He was restored to health, but shortly afterwards the same disease recurred and he was restored to his former state. He thus decided to approach the martyr Artemios who performed many great miracles.
καὶ παραμεῖναι μὲν τῷ πανσέπτῳ ναῷ οὐκ ἤθελον, αἰσχυνόμενος καὶ τοὺς φίλους καὶ τοὺς γνωρίμους ὀφθῆναι αὐτοῖς ἐν τοιούτῳ ὑπάρχων νοσήματι. συνεχῶς οὖν παρῄην (ἔμενον γάρ, φησί, τὸ τηνικαῦτα ἐν τῇ Ὀξείᾳ), καὶ κατερχόμενος ἐν τῇ ἁγίᾳ τῶν τιμίων αὐτοῦ λειψάνων σορῷ ἔβαλον αὐτοῦ τῆς εὐλογίας εἰς τοὺς διδύμους, τὴν ἴασιν οὕτως ἐλπίσας πορίσασθαι.
'Still I was unwilling to wait in the venerable church, feeling ashamed before friends and acquaintances to be seen by them in such a condition. But I frequently used to pass by (for at that time, he said, I was staying in the Oxeia) and so I descended to the holy tomb of his precious relics and I cast some of his holy blessing [i.e. oil] on my testicles, hoping to procure a cure in this manner.'
And he kept frequenting the church and praying the martyr for deliverance from his trouble. One day he went out of the church and had dinner with Kosmas who also was an official (dioiketes) of the Blue Faction. When he was returning home in the late evening. Suddenly a thought occurred to him to buy candles and approach the martyr.
ἄρας οὖν τοὺς κηροὺς κατέλαβον τὸν οἶκον τὸν ἅγιον καὶ ἧψα αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸν οἶκον τὸν ἅγιον, προσκλαύσας αὐτῷ ἐκ ψυχῆς. εἶτα κατελθὼν ἐν τῇ ἁγίᾳ σορῷ ηὗρον τὰ θυρία τὰ ἔμπροσθεν ἀνεῳγμένα καὶ κατεπληττόμην, ὅτι τοιαύτῃ ὥρᾳ ἦσαν ἀνοικτά. τοῦτο δὲ ἦν ἔργον τοῦ μάρτυρος, ἐλεῆσαί με θέλοντος. ἁπλώσας δὲ ἐμαυτὸν πρηνῆ ἐπάνω τῆς ἁγίας σοροῦ διεσκέλισα, καὶ οὕτως ἐτεχνασάμην, ὥστε τὴν γωνίαν τῆς αὐτῆς ἁγίας σοροῦ ψαῦσαι τοῦ τόπου, ἔνθα ἐνόσουν.
'So taking the candles, I headed for the holy house and I lit them in the church, crying out to him from my soul. Next, after descending to the holy tomb, I found the doors in front open and I was astounded that they were open at such an hour. This was the doing of the martyr in his desire to pity me. Stretching out face down on the holy coffin, I straddled it and thus contrived to rub the corner of the same holy tomb on the spot where I was ailing.'
And with tears he prayed to the martyr. After some days he went to the bath at dawn in order not to be seen by anyone. When entering the hot chamber he still had the injury, but upon exiting he found himself delivered from it.
Text: Papadopoulos-Kerameus 1909.
Translation: Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 126-31.
Summary: J. Doroszewska.
Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
Saint as patron - of a community
Bequests, donations, gifts and offerings
Visiting graves and shrines
MiraclesMiracle after death
Specialised miracle-working
Healing diseases and disabilities
RelicsTouching and kissing relics
Contact relic - other
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - lesser clergy
Other lay individuals/ people
Physicians
Cult Related ObjectsOil lamps/candles
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).The poietes was a person who composed acclamations and songs to be sung by the demes during ceremonies (Chrisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 257). The hospital of Sampson was located in the vicinity of Hagia Sophia (Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 257). The dioiketes was the head of the Blue Faction (Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 259).
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. “Gaza, Emesa and Constantinople: Late Ancient Cities in the Light of Historiography”, in L. Rydén, J.O. Rosenqvist (eds), Aspects of Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium (Uppsala: Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 1993).
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
28/07/2019
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S01128 | Artemios, martyr of Antioch under the emperor Julian | Ἀρτέμιος | Certain |
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