The Miracles of *Artemios (40) recount how *Artemios (martyr of Antioch under Julian, S01128) healed of a hernia, George (the same George as in Mir. 38 and 39), then a deacon in a monastery on the island of Plateia; the saint appeared to him in a dream and cured him; George visited Artemios' shrine in Constantinople and there, in a dream vision, saw the saint in his tomb. Written in Greek in Constantinople, 582/668; assembled as a collection, 658/668.
E04255
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Miracles of Artemios (BHG 173), 40
There was a 18-year-old man named George who was a deacon. He was staying on the island Plateia. He was helping the monks with building and gardening works. It happened that when he was transporting stones and lifted a one of them, he was severely troubled in his intestines. He fainted and fell to the ground half-dead. His left testicle became swollen and he suffered terribly from pain. The monks were preparing to bury him. But one night George saw in a dream Artemios in the guise of a handsome man. The saint examined his testicles and made the sign of the cross over his testicles and lower abdomen. The injured man said that he wanted to go to the church of the Forerunner [in Constantionople] and wait upon St. Artemios, but he could not do it. He proposed that he would hold a banquet of fellowship for the stranger and a liturgy, but the latter refused saying that he was hurrying for the celebration and a gathering of the clergy in the church of the Forerunner. He started to leave and then George woke up and urged the monks who were sleeping near him to get up and stop the stranger, whom he held to be a doctor, from sailing away. Upon his request they got up and examined the area and the seashore and found nobody. When they reported it to George, he realised that it was an intervention of Artemios. He rejoiced and celebrated a liturgy. Then he fell asleep once again and saw the same man in a dream. The man blessed him again with the sign of the cross. Upon waking, George found himself healthy. He enquired of the brothers what day it was. They consulted the synaxarion and found out it was the day of the martyrdom of St. Artemios, 20 October. When George learnt this, he begun to pray to God begging Him to be allowed to kiss Artemios' holy relics and to anoint them.
καὶ ταῦτα αὐτοῦ λογιζομένου, ὁρᾷ αὐτῇ τῇ νυκτὶ τὸν ἅγιον Ἀρτέμιον λέγοντα αὐτῷ· “Τί θέλεις ἰδεῖν τὰ ὀστᾶ μου καὶ δυσπιστίᾳ συνέχῃ; εἰ ἰδέσθαι αὐτὰ θέλεις, ἐλθὲ ὅπου κεκληρωμένος εἶ, καὶ θεωρεῖς αὐτά”. ὁ δὲ ἔρχεται ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ ἑβδομάδι ἐν τῷ ναῷ τοῦ Προδρόμου. ἦν οὖν παννυχίς, καὶ ἐν τῷ καθέζεσθαι αὐτὸν ἐν τῷ ἱερατείῳ. ἦν οὖν παννυχίς, καὶ ἐν τῷ καθέζεσθαι αὐτὸν ἐν τῷ ἱερατείῳ ἀπεκοιμήθη καὶ ὁρᾷ δύο ἱερεῖς, οὓς ἐδόκει εἶναι τοῦ αὐτοῦ ναοῦ, ἐπιδόντας αὐτῷ κλειδὶν καὶ εἰπόντας· “Λάβε καὶ κάτελθε· ἄνοιξον, ὡς ἐπετράπημεν, καὶ ποίησον ὃ θέλεις εἰς τὰ λείψανα τοῦ μάρτυρος”. ὁ δὲ λέγει· “Ἀπομυρίσαι αὐτὰ ἤθελον”. καὶ ἐδόκει ἐν τῷ ὕπνῳ ἀνοίγειν τὴν σορὸν τοῦ ἁγίου Ἀρτεμίου· καὶ ἀνοίξας, ὡς ἐπιλαμβάνεται μυρίζειν, ὁρᾷ τὸν αὐτὸν ἄνδρα, ὃν ἐν τῇ νήσῳ ἦν ἑωρακώς (ὃς καὶ ἐπεσκέψατο αὐτόν), ἀνακείμενον καὶ ἀνακαθίσαντα, ὥστε τόν ποτε νοσοῦντα θεασάμενον ἐκστῆναι καὶ εἰπεῖν αὐτῷ· “Τί ἒν κῦρι; πῶς ἦλθες ὧδε; οὐκ εἶ αὐτὸς ὁ ἰατρεύσας με ἐν τῇ νήσῳ”; καὶ εἶπεν· “Ναί· τοῦτο δὲ ἐποίησα, ἵνα πεισθῇς, ὅτι ἐνθάδε εἰμὶ καὶ ὧδε τὰς οἰκήσεις ποιοῦμαι”.
'And since he was considering these things, that very night he saw St. Artemios speaking to him: "Why do you wish to see my bones and why are you possessed by disbelief? If you want to see them for yourself, go where you have been enrolled and you shall see them." In the same week he went to the church of the Forerunner. Now it was the all-night vigil and while he was sitting in the sanctuary, he fell asleep and saw two priests whom he supposed to be of the same church handing over to him a key and saying: ‘Take it and go down; open [the chest of relics], as we were bidden, and do what you want to the martyr’s relics.’ He replied, ‘I wanted to anoint them with oil." And in his sleep he seemed to be opening the tomb [soros] of St. Artemios; and after opening it, as he was about to anoint, he saw the same man whom he had seen on the island (the man indeed who visited him) reclining and [then] sitting up so that the formerly injured man was astounded at the sight [of him] and said to him: "Why, Sir, are you in here? How did you come here? Are you not the very man who treated me on the island?" And he said: "Yes, I did this in order that you might believe that I am here and that I make my home here."
Text: Papadopoulos-Kerameus 1909.
Translation: Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997, 208-11, lightly modified.
Summary: J. Doroszewska.
Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Burial site of a saint - sarcophagus/coffin
Non Liturgical ActivitySaint as patron - of a community
MiraclesMiracle after death
Healing diseases and disabilities
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Touching and kissing relics
Other activities with relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - lesser clergy
Ecclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
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).It is linked with two other miracles: Mir.38 (E04254) and Mir.39 (E07822), in which George is also the protagonist. In Mir.38 he is a 9-year old boy, a reader in the church of John the Baptist in Constantinople (where the body of Artemios rested). In Mir. 39, as a young man, he joins a community of monks on the island of Plateia and is ordained a priest at the age of 22.
Plateia is one of the Princes Islands, in the Sea of Marmara, near Constantinople.
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
30/07/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00020 | John the Baptist | Ἰωάννης | Certain | S01128 | Artemios, martyr of Antioch under the emperor Julian | Ἀρτέμιος | Certain |
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