The Miracles of *Artemios (24) recount how *Artemios (martyr of Antioch under Julian, S01128), appeared in a dream to the mother of a girl with a hernia, and advised her to supplicate his co-healer, *Phebronia (virgin and martyr of Nisibis S01632), in the same church as Artemios lay; the girl was cured. Written in Greek in Constantinople, 582/668; assembled as a collection, 658/668.
E04243
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Miracles of Artemios (BHG 173), 24
A certain woman had a daughter who was engaged to be married, but after the betrothal she suddenly developed a hernia. Both women approached the martyr. They spent 15 days in the church, but since they obtained no cure, they returned home in despair.
τῇ δὲ νυκτὶ ἐκείνῃ φαίνεται τῇ μητρὶ αὐτῆς ὁ ἅγιος καί φησι πρὸς αὐτήν· “Ἄπελθε εἰς τὴν ἀδελφὴν Φεβρωνίαν καὶ αὐτὴ ἰατρεύει αὐτήν”. ἔξυπνος δὲ γενομένη καὶ τὸ μυστήριον τῆς ὀπτασίας λογισαμένη, λαβοῦσα τὴν ἑαυτῆς θυγατέρα δρόμῳ τὸν ναὸν τοῦ ἁγίου προδρόμου καὶ βαπτιστοῦ Ἰωάννου κατέλαβεν· ἐν γὰρ τῷ αὐτῷ ναῷ ὑποκάτω μὲν τοῦ μεγάλου θυσιαστηρίου ἔστιν ἡ σορὸς τοῦ ἁγίου μάρτυρος, ἐκ δεξιῶν δὲ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου εὐκτήριον τῆς ἁγίας μάρτυρος Φεβρωνίας. ἐν αὐτῇ οὖν τῇ νυκτὶὁρᾷ πάλιν ἡ αὐτὴ τῆς παιδὸς μήτηρ γυναῖκα εὐοπτοτάτην, μοναχικὴν περιβεβλημένην ἀμφίασιν, ποιήσασαν ἔμπλαστρον ἐκ τῆς κηρωτῆς καὶ ἐπιθεῖσαν τῷ κρυφίῳ τῆς παιδὸς καὶ εἰρηκυῖαν αὐτῇ· “Ἄπελθε, εὐχαρίστησον τῷ θεῷ καὶ τῷ ἁγίῳ Προδρόμῳ καὶ τῷ ἁγίῳ Ἀρτεμίῳ”. καὶ ἅμα τῷ ταῦτα εἰπεῖν αὐτῇ διυπνίσθη ἡ τῆς κόρης μήτηρ, καὶ τῆς κοίτης ἐξαναστᾶσα, κηρούλλιόν τε ἅψασα καὶ ψηλαφήσασα τὴν ἑαυτῆς θυγατέρα ηὗρεν τὸ μὲν ἔμπλαστρον ἐπικείμενον καθὰ εἶδεν, τὴν δὲ παῖδα ὑγιῆ ὡς ἀπὸ γεννητῆς γεγονυῖαν. [...]
ὅρα γὰρ καὶ Φεβρωνίαν τὴν μάρτυρα ὑπουργὸν τοῦ ἁγίου ἐν τῇ ὀπτασίᾳ γεγενημένην τάχα, εἰ χρὴ λέγειν, διὰ τὴν αἰδῶ τῆς πασχούσης, ἀρχὴν τοῦ ἰατρεύειν τὰ τοιαῦτα πάθη λαβοῦσαν ἐντεῦθεν, ὥστε κηρωτῇ τῇ ὑπὸ τῶν κηλοτομεῖν ἐξησκημένων γενομένῃ ἐπὶ τῇ τοιαύτῃ ἰατρείᾳ τοῦτο δὴ τὸ νόσημα ἰᾶσθαι.
'The saint appeared to her mother that very night and said: ‘Go to sister Febronia and she will treat her.’ Awakening and contemplating the mystery of the vision, she grabbed her daughter and running reached the church of St. John the Forerunner and Baptist. For in that church, whereas the coffin of the holy martyr is below the main altar, to the right of the altar is an oratory of the holy martyress Febronia. This very night the same mother of the girl once again saw a most attractive woman dressed in monastic garb, making a plaster from wax-salve and applying it to the girl’s genitals and saying to her: "Go, give praise to God and to the holy Forerunner and to holy Artemios." And as soon as Febronia siad this to her, the young girl's mother woke up, and getting out of bed, she lit a small candle and upon touching her daughter she found the plaster set in place, just as she had seen, while the daughter was healthy just as from birth. [...]
For observe also the martyress Febronia who became the saint's assistant in the vision, [the reason], I suppose, if one must say, because of the female patient's sense of modesty, [Febronia] undertook henceforth to treat ailments of this sort, so that she cured this medical problem by [the use] of a wax-salve made for such a treatment by those practiced in hernia operations.'
Text: Papadopoulos-Kerameus 1909.
Translation: Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 140-45.
Summary: J. Doroszewska.
Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - crypt/ crypt with relics
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Burial site of a saint - sarcophagus/coffin
Non Liturgical ActivitySaint as patron - of a community
Visiting graves and shrines
Incubation
MiraclesMiracle after death
Healing diseases and disabilities
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
RelicsContact relic - wax
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesOther lay individuals/ people
Women
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). Mir. 24-31, however, constitute a conspicuously separate subgroup within it, as they all conclude with some sermonettes on secular medicine.Phebronia/Febronia had an oratory at St. John's (located to the right of the main altar). As explained in this miracle-story, she was Artemios' counterpart, healing diseases of the female genitals (Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 265).
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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