The Miracles of *Artemios (22) recount how *Artemios (martyr of Antioch under Julian, S01128) healed a man (the same man as in Mir. 18), who was suffering in hospital with a hernia, after he invoked the saints of Artemios' shrine in Constantinople: *John (the Baptist, S00020), *Artemios himself (martyr of Antioch, S01128) and *Phebronia (virgin and martyr of Nisibis, S01588). Written in Greek in Constantinople, 582/668; assembled as a collection, 658/668.
E04241
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Miracles of Artemios (BHG 173), 22
There was a certain 62-year man who suffered from water in his chest and was in danger of developing dropsy. He was advised by a man who was a xenodochos of the Christodotes Hospital to let himself be put to bed in this hospital. Although the chief physicians were caring for him and treating him in various ways, after 10 months he was not healed at all. In addition, he even developed an enormous hernia so that he could not join his knees together. One of the doctors to whom he disclosed his state told him that the hernia was incurable but nevertheless offered him some treatment. Yet the patient refused to be treated.
καὶ καθ’ ἑαυτὸν γεγονώς, θρῆνον ἔρρηξεν ἐγκάρδιον, τοῖς δάκρυσιν βρέχων αὑτοῦ τὴν στρωμνήν, ἐγκαλῶν τε τοῖς ἁγίοις καὶ λέγων· “Ναί, ἅγιε Ἰωάννη καὶ ἅγιε Ἀρτέμιε καὶ ἁγία Φεβρωνία, οὕτως ὑμῖν ἀπὸ δεκαέτους καὶ ὧδε χρόνου δεδούλευκα, ἵνα εἰς τὸ γῆρας ἀνάπηρος γένωμαι. εἰ τῶν ἐπὶ γῆς ἀνθρώπων τινὶ προσεκαρτέρουν, εἶχον ἂν συγκροτήσεως καὶ ἐπιμελείας καὶ προνοίας ἀξιωθῆναι. ἰδὲ εἰς ποῖον πλήρωμα ἦλθον”. καὶ ταῦτα εἰπών, πάλιν πρὸς τὸν ἅγιον Ἀρτέμιον ἔλεγεν κλαίων καὶ ἐλεεινῶς αὐτῷ προσφθεγγόμενος· “Ἅγιε Ἀρτέμιε, δεῖξον καὶ ἐν ἐμοὶ τὰς θαυματουργίας σου”. τοιαῦτα καὶ τὰ τούτοις ὅμοια λέγων δι’ ἁπάσης τῆς ἡμέρας οὐκ ἐπαύσατο· τῆς δὲ νυκτὸς ἐπιστάσης, ἥτις ἦν διαφαύουσα τὴν ἑορτὴν τοῦ σωτηριώδους γενεσίου τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ τῶν ὀδυνῶν ἐπιτεινουσῶν αὐτῷ σφοδροτέρως, μικρὸν ἀνεθεὶς τρέπεται εἰς ὕπνον καὶ ὁρᾷ τὸν ἅγιον ἐν σχήματι φίλου αὑτοῦ τινος πάνυ εὐπρεποῦς, ὃς ἦν μειζότερος τοῦ τότε τῆς πόλεως ἐπάρχου Εὐλαμπίου, φοροῦντα λῶρον ἐπαρχικόν, ὡσεὶ χιόνα λευκόν, καὶ πρὸ ποδῶν ἑστῶτα τῆς κλίνης αὐτοῦ. ὡς δὲ εἶδεν αὐτὸν ἐν τοιούτῳ σχήματι, ἐν ἑαυτῷ διελογίζετο λέγων· “Ποτὲ καὶ ἄλλοτε οὕτως ἐφόρεσεν”. ὁ δὲ ἅγιος ἐσκυθρώπασεν, καμμύσας τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς, χεῖλός τε πρὸς χεῖλος συνάψας, καὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν κατὰ τοῦ εὐωνύμου αὐτοῦ κλίνας ὤμου ἔστη δῆθεν ἐνεός, καὶ ὥσπερ ἀποστρεφόμενος τὸν δεξιὸν εἶχεν ὀφθαλμὸν ἐπιβλέποντα τῷ νοσοῦντι τρανῶς· καὶ ἀναβαλόμενος οὗ ἐφόρει λώρου τὰ δύο μέρη, τήν τε δεξιὰν αὑτοῦ χεῖρα εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ μασχάλην ἐμβαλὼν ἐξέβαλεν σμίλην ἰατρικήν, καὶ σηκώσας δι’ ἑαυτοῦ τὰ τοῦ νοσοῦντος σκεπάσματα καὶ ἅπερ ἐφόρει ἐγκοίτια, τῇ ἀκμῇ τῆς σμίλης ἥψατο τῆς δορᾶς τοῦ δεξιοῦ διδύμου τοῦ νοσοῦντος. ὁ δὲ ἀνακεφαλίσας ἰδεῖν τί ποιεῖ, εἶδεν ἑαυτὸν ὑγιῆ.
'And when he was by himself, he broke out into heartfelt lamentation, wetting his cot with tears and exhorting the saints, saying: ‘Indeed, St. John and St. Artemios and St. Febronia, have I served you thus from the age of ten right down to the present, that I might become disabled in my old age? Had I so attended upon any man on earth, I would have been deemed worthy of support and of care and of providence. Behold what recompense I have achieved! And after saying this, he spoke again to St. Artemios with tears welling up and pitiably addressing him: "St. Artemios, for me too display one of your miraculous feats! Such things and the like he kept saying all day long. When night approached (the eve of the feast of the redemptive Nativity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ) and his pain had greatly intensified, after getting a little relief, he fell asleep and saw the saint in the garb of a very distinguished friend of his (who was steward of the then city eparch, Eulampios), wearing the eparchal loros white as snow, and he stood at the foot of his bed. When he saw him in such a garment, he thought to himself as follows: "From time to time he would dress in such a way." But the saint scowled, closing his eyes and pursing his lips, and bending his head down towards his left shoulder he stood somewhat dumbfounded and as if in abhorrence; he kept his right eye staring fixedly at the patient, throwing back the two parts of the loros which he was wearing and thrusting his right hand into his armpit, he pulled out a surgeon's scalpel and without assistance lifted up the sick man's bandages and the bed clothes on top; with the point of the scalpel he touched the skin of the patient's right testicles. The latter, lifting up his head to see what the other man was doing, saw himself restored to health.'
When he woke up, however, he realised he was still in the same condition, except for the spot that was touched by the saint with a scalpel which now was oozing small drops of a foul smelling moisture. It was a feast day and doctors were celebrating with others, so nobody came to look after the patient. At night, the saint dressed like the chief physician on duty for the month appeared to one of the assistants and commanded him to run to the hospital and care for the patient with the diseased genitals. He also told him what he ought to do. The assistant woke up and ran to the hospital. He raised the patient from bed and saw that the hernia was significantly diminished, and that from the hole in it pus was hanging. So he began draining the testicles so that he filled two buckets with fluid, blood and pus. The assistant applied to the incision what he was ordered to by the saint. Suddenly the hospital was filled with a beautifully smelling fragrance. The assistant fed the patient and left the hospital not saying anything to anyone. On the next day the chief physician came and was astonished by the beautiful smell. The assistant pretending not to know anything asked him to examine the patient. Upon seeing his good condition, the doctor was astonished and from that day he passed the sick man without examining him any more.
ὁ δὲ ὑπουργός, ὅσα ἐκ τοῦ ἁγίου ἐκελεύσθη, ἐπιμελῶς ἐποίει καὶ μέχρι τῶν ἁγίων Θεοφανίων, τουτέστιν εἰς ἡμέρας δώδεκα, ὁ κλινήρης οὗτος παρ’ ἐλπίδας ὑγιὴς ἐγένετο. καθ’ ἑαυτοὺς δὲ γενόμενοι ὅ τε ὑπουργὸς καὶ ὁ ἰαθεὶς ἐθάρρησαν ἀλλήλοις τὰς ἑαυτῶν ὀπτασίας, τὰς γενομένας ἐκ τοῦ ἁγίου καὶ θαυματουργοῦ Ἀρτεμίου, καὶ ἅμα ἐδόξαζον τὸν θεόν.
'But the assistant scrupulously did whatever was ordered by the saint, even up to the Holy Epiphany, that is for twelve days; this bed-ridden patient was cured beyond expectation. When they were by themselves, the assistant and the cured patient confided to each other their own visions which came about through the holy wonder-working Artemios and together they would glorify God.'
Text: Papadopoulos-Kerameus 1909.
Translation: Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 132-37.
Summary: J. Doroszewska.
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).By virtue of the protagonist, it is linked with Mir. 18 (E04238); on both narratives, see Efthymiadis 2004. In Mir.18 the man is 52-year old, and here he is 62-year old. Since Mir. 18 can be dated at some point between 619 and 630 (see 'Discussion' there) and this miracle appears to happen 10 years later, it can therefore be dated to some point between 629 and 640.
The xenodochos at the Christodotes Hospital was a priest or deacon, functioning as the head of the administration; his main responsibility was to supervise the work of the chief physicians (Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 262). The Christodotes Hospital was located, as the text states, near the church of Anastasia by the colonnades of the portico of Domninos. This portico was a structure which extended along the street which constituted the north/south axis that intersected the Mese between the Fora of Constantine and Theodosius, where the bronze Tetrapylon stood, and then continued south toward the old port of Julian (Mango 1985, 31 and Plan II).
The steward (meizoteros) of the then city eparch Eulampios: Eulampios will have been an eparch of Constantinople at some point between 629 and 640 (Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 263).
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
28/07/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00020 | John the Baptist | Ἰωάννης | Certain | S01128 | Artemios, martyr of Antioch under the emperor Julian | Ἀρτέμιος | Certain | S01632 | Phebronia, virgin and martyr of Nisibis | Φεβρωνία | Certain |
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