The Miracles of *Artemios (34) recount how *Artemios (martyr of Antioch under Julian, S01128), at his shrine in Constantinople, healed a girl, Euphemia, from the plague; the story also tells of veneration of an icon of *John (the Baptist, S00020), in the same church. Written in Greek in Constantinople, 582/668; assembled as a collection, 658/668.
E04250
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Miracles of Artemios (BHG 173), 34
Γυνή τις ὀνόματι Ἄννα, ἡ τὸ ἐπίκλην Τὰς ἀγάπας· αὕτη ἐκ γονικῆς παραδόσεως ἧπτεν κανδήλαν ἐξ ἰδίας αὐτῆς ὑποστάσεως ἔμπροσθεν τῆς εἰκόνος τοῦ ἁγίου ἐνδόξου προφήτου προδρόμου καὶ βαπτιστοῦ Ἰωάννου, τῆς εἰς τὴν τροπικὴν ἑστώσης κατὰ τὴν πύλην τοῦ ὄντος μεσιαύλου ἐν τῷ ναῷ τοῦ Προδρόμου, ἔνθα καὶ τὰ γραδίλιά εἰσιν· ἐν ᾧ τόπῳ τοῖς τότε καιροῖς ἦν καὶ ἱστορία τῆς ἀθλήσεως τοῦ ἁγίου θαυματουργοῦ Ἀρτεμίου.
'There was a certain woman named Anna with the nickname ‘Charities’. As a matter of family tradition she was in the habit of lighting a lamp at her own expense before the icon of the holy and glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John. The icon is situated in the arch by the entrance to the atrium in the church of the Forerunner, where there is also a flight of stairs. In this place in those days there was also a representation of the martyrdom of St. Artemios the miracle-worker.'
Anna had a female neighbour of bad reputation named Ioannia Maxima who had a 12-year daughter named Euphemia. Euphemia often helped Anna to prepare and to light the lamp of the Forerunner. It happened that in that time, during the reign of the emperor Heraclius [r. 610-641], a deadly plague arose and among many others hit Euphemia. She developed a bubonic tumour in her armpit and her body was covered with black spots which announced an imminent death.
αὐτὴ <δὲ ἡ> Εὐφημία, περὶ ἧς ὁ λόγος, ἐν τῷ γονικῷ αὐτῆς οἴκῳ κατακειμένη, ἐν ταῖς δυσὶν ἡμέραις κατενεχθεῖσα, καθὼς ἀνανήψασα διηγήσατο, ἑώρακεν, ὡς ἔφη, ἀγγέλους τοῦ λαβεῖν αὐτὴν καὶ τὸν ἅγιον Ἀρτέμιον ἐλθόντα καὶ τῇ δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ χειρὶ ἐπιλαβόμενον τῆς παιδὸς καὶ εἰπόντα τοῖς ἐπειγομένοις ἆραι αὐτήν· “Τί ποιεῖτε; οὐκ ἐπαίρετε αὐτήν· ἐάσατέ μοι αὐτήν, ἐγὼ γὰρ αὐτὴν ἀνεδεξάμην καὶ ἐμή ἐστιν”. καὶ σὺν τῷ λόγῳ ἐπιλαβόμενος αὐτῆς ὁ ἅγιος Ἀρτέμιος, ὁ μάρτυς τοῦ θεοῦ, εἰσάγει αὐτὴν ἐν τῷ ναῷ καὶ κατάγει αὐτὴν ὡσανεὶ ἐν τῇ ἁγίᾳ αὑτοῦ σορῷ· καὶ ἀνοίξας τὰς θύρας, ὡς ὑπέδειξεν, ἁπλοῖ αὐτὴν εἰς τὸ ἔδαφος ὑποκάτω τῆς μολιβδίνης θήκης, ἔνθα τὰ ἅγια αὐτοῦ ἀπόκεινται λείψανα· καὶ ἐάσας αὐτὴν ἐκεῖσε ἠσφαλίσατο, βαλὼν ὡσανεὶ καὶ τὸ κλείδωμα.
'Euphemia herself (about whom we are speaking) was lying in her parents’ house, laid low in two days by the plague, as she related after regaining consciousness, and had seen, as she said, angels taking hold of her and St. Artemios coming and with his right hand clasping the girl and saying to those [angels] who were rushing to lift her up: ‘What are you doing? You are removing her. Leave her to me, for I have accepted her and she is mine.’ And with these words St. Artemios, God’s martyr, seized her, brought her into the church and led her down as it were to his own holy coffin; and opening the doors, as she indicated, stretched her out on the floor below the leaden chest where his sacred relics are stored. And leaving her there he secured the place shooting, so it seemed, the bolt.'
On the third day the girl came to herself and asked for some food and drink. She recounted her vision to everybody.
ἡ δὲ μήτηρ τῆς ἀνανηψάσης παιδὸς λέγει τῇ παιδί· “Εἶδες, κυρία μου, ἀγγέλους”; ἔφη ἡ παῖς· “Ναί, ὄντως εἶδον”. λέγει αὐτῇ ἡ μήτηρ· “Ποίῳ σχήματί εἰσιν”; ἡ δὲ παῖς ὑπέδειξεν αὐτῇ ἐν εἰκόνι γεγραμμένους ἀγγέλους ἑστῶτας ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ ναῷ, εἰς ἥν ἐστιν μέσος ὁ κύριος. πάλιν ἐρωτῶσιν αὐτήν· “Τὸν ἅγιον Ἀρτέμιον ποίῳ τρόπῳ ὄντα ἑώρακας”; ἡ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτῇ· “Ὅμοιος ἦν τῆς ἑστώσης εἰκόνος ἐν τῷ εὐωνύμῳ μέρει τοῦ αὐτοῦ ναοῦ, ἐν τῷ τέμπλῳ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου, ἔνθα μέσον ἐστὶν τὸ λαβδάριν, ἐν ᾧ γέγραπται ὁ κύριος, καὶ εἰς τὸ δεξιὸν εἰκὼν τοῦ Προδρόμου.
'The mother of the revived girl said to her child: ‘Did you see angels, my mistress?’ The child replied, ‘Yes I really did.’ Her mother said to her, ‘How did they look?’ The child indicated to her the angels situated in the same church portrayed on an icon in whose center is the Lord. Again they asked her: ‘In what form did you see St. Artemios?’ She said to her: ‘He resembled the icon standing on the left side of the same church on the templon of the sanctuary where in the middle is the lambda-shaped area in which the Lord is depicted and on the right an icon of St. John the Forerunner.’'
There follows a long and elaborate disquisition in which Artemios' tomb is compared to an abundant spring of blessing, that concludes:
αὕτη οὐ μόνον ἐστὶν πηγή, ἀλλὰ καὶ θησαυρός, ἐν ᾧ τεθησαύρισται ἡ τῶν νοσούντων ῥῶσις, ἥτις ἐστὶν παντὸς πλούτου τιμιωτέρα. ὑπάρχει καὶ λάρναξ ἔχων ἔνδον ἀθλητικῶν ἀγωνισμάτων Ἀρτεμίου τοῦ μάρτυρος μέλη τίμια ἰάσεις χορηγοῦντα· πέφυκε δὲ καὶ τάφος ἀψευδής, διακατέχων ὀστᾶ Ἀρτεμίου τοῦ μάρτυρος, τοῦ συντρίψαντος τὴν τοῦ ὄφεως κεφαλήν, Ἀρτεμίου τοῦ μετὰ θάνατον παντὶ ᾀδομένου καὶ ἀνυμνουμένου καὶ τοῖς πέρασι γνωριζομένου διὰ τοῦ ἐνισχύοντος αὐτὸν Χριστοῦ τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν.
'It is not only a spring but also a treasure in which has been stored the strength of patients which is more precious than all wealth. There is also a coffin holding within itself the martyr Artemios’ precious limbs celebrated for the struggles of his martyrdom that provides cures; it is also a real tomb containing the bones of the martyr Artemios who crushed the head of the snake, of Artemios who after death is universally celebrated in song and hymn and who is recognized to the end of the earth through Christ our true God Who empowers him.'
Text: Papadopoulos-Kerameus 1909.
Translation: Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 176-185.
Summary: J. Doroszewska.
Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Burial site of a saint - sarcophagus/coffin
Use of ImagesPraying before an image
Public display of an image
Other forms of veneration of an image
Non Liturgical ActivitySaint as patron - of a community
MiraclesMiracle after death
Healing diseases and disabilities
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Children
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).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
29/07/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00020 | John the Baptist | Certain | S01128 | Artemios, martyr of Antioch under the emperor Julian | Ἀρτέμιος | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Philip Booth, Julia Doroszewska, Cult of Saints, E04250 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E04250