Gregory the Great, in his Dialogues (3.26), describes three miracles effected by *Menas (hermit of Samnium, 6th c., S01772) in Samnium (southern Italy). Written in Latin in Rome, c. 593.
Evidence ID
E04499
Type of Evidence
Literary - Hagiographical - Other saint-related texts
Major author/Major anonymous work
Gregory the Great (pope)
Gregory the Great, Dialogues 3.26
Summary:
Menas lived the life of a holy solitary in the province of Samnium. Once, a Lombard attempted to steal his beehives. Menas rebuked him, and the thief fell to the ground, tormented by an evil spirit. On another occasion, a bear attempted to destroy the beehives. Menas was able to beat off the bear with a stick, although bears normally do not fear even swords.
Local people heard of Menas’ holiness and sent him gifts. One man, a landowner called Carterius, entered an illicit marriage with a woman, although he had dedicated his life to God. Carterius did not visit the holy man, but continued to send food anonymously. Menas was able to identify which food was sent by Carterius and rejected it.
Text: de Vogüé 1978.
Summary: Frances Trzeciak.
Non Liturgical ActivityBequests, donations, gifts and offerings
MiraclesMiracle during lifetime
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesAnimals
Bequests, donations, gifts and offerings
Visiting/veneration of living saint
MiraclesMiracle during lifetime
Punishing miracle
Miracle with animals and plants
Revelation of hidden knowledge (past, present and future)
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesAnimals
Foreigners (including Barbarians)
Other lay individuals/ people
Source
Gregory the Great (Pope, 590-604) wrote his Dialogues on the Lives and Miracles of the Italian Fathers (Dialogi de vita et miraculis patrum italicorum) in Rome around 593. Organised into four books, the first three are a collection of lives and miracles of various Italian saints. The longest is the Life of Benedict of Nursia, which comprises the entirety of book 2. The final book consists of an essay on the immortality of souls after death. As a whole, the work documents and explains the presence of the miraculous in the contemporary world and the ability of saints to effect miracles both before and after death. The attribution of the Dialogues to Gregory has been disputed, most recently by Francis Clark who argued that the work was created in the 680s in Rome. Others - such as Adalbert de Vogüé, Paul Meyvaert and Matthew dal Santo - have, however, strongly argued for Gregory's authorship and it is broadly accepted that Gregory was responsible for the Dialogues.For a discussion of Gregory's devotion in writing the Dialogues, see E04383, and for the role of the Dialogues as a tract justifying the nature of miracles and theorising on the immortality of souls, see E04457.
Gregory's principal aim in collecting the miracle stories of the holy men and a very few women of sixth-century Italy was to show the presence of God's power on earth as manifested through them, rather than to encourage the cult of these individuals. Indeed, though posthumous miracles at the graves of a few individuals are recorded (and also a few miracles aided by contact relics of dead saints), there is very little emphasis in the Dialogues on posthumous cult; some of the miraculous events that Gregory records (e.g. E04429) are not even attributed to named individuals. Although very few of the holy persons in the Dialogues are 'proper' saints, with long-term cult, we have included them all in our database, for the sake of completeness and as an illustration of the impossibility of dividing 'proper' saints from more 'ordinary' holy individuals.
Discussion
Menas is otherwise unknown.Bibliography
Edition:Vogüé, A. de, Grégoire le Grand, Dialogues, Sources chrétiennes 260 (Paris: Cerf, 1979).
Translation:
Zimmerman, O.J., Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great, Fathers of the Church 39 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1959).
Further Reading:
Clark, F.,The 'Gregorian' Dialogues and the Origins of Benedictine Monasticism (Leiden: Brill, 2003).
Dal Santo, M., "The Shadow of A Doubt? A Note on the Dialogues and Registrum Epistolarum of Pope Gregory the Great (590–604)," Journal of Ecclesiatical History, 61.1, (2010), 3-17.
Meyvaert, P., "The Enigma of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues: A Reply to Francis Clark," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 39 (1988), 335–81.
Pietri, Ch. and Pietri, L., Prosopographie chrétienne du bas-empire, 2 Prosopographie de l'Italie chrétienne (313-604), 2 vols (Rome 1999-2000: École française de Rome), vol. 2, 1497, 'Menas 2'.
Vogüé, A. de, "Grégoire le Grand et ses Dialogues d’après deux ouvrages récents," Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 83 (1988), 281–348.
Record Created By
Frances Trzeciak
Date of Entry
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S01772 | Menas, hermit of Samnium, 6th c. | Menas | Certain |
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