The Greek Martyrdom of *Mokios (martyr of Byzantion, S01265) recounts the tale of a priest in Amphipolis who preaches against participation in the festivities of the Dionysiac cult and, after being interrogated and tortured by two successive proconsuls of the province of Europa (southeastern Thrace), is referred to an eparch (prefect), conducted through Heraclea-Perinthus to Byzantion, and executed there by the local council. Written, probably in Constantinople, possibly in the 6th century.
E06221
Literary - Hagiographical - Accounts of martyrdom
Martyrdom of Mokios (BHG 1298b)
Summary:
§ 1: In the fourth year of the emperor Diocletian, during the proconsulate of Laodikios in Europa, the pagans celebrate highly popular Bacchic festivals throughout the Empire. In Amphipolis, a pious and well-known local priest named Mokios urges the people to abandon idol-worship and to turn to the one just and equitable God. Mokios continues to preach his message day after day, shunning the festival, while everyone else engages in the orgiastic rites.
§ 2: The proconsul Laodikios arrives in Amphipolis to partake in the festivities, whereupon some local citizens, fearing the conversion of the pagans, denounce Mokios’ conduct to him. An angered Laodikios sets up court and orders that the priest be brought before him. Mokios arrives at the scene, his face radiant, and is interrogated by the proconsul. An indignant Laodikios demands to hear Mokios’ motives for preaching a novel deity, a mere convict, and for deceiving the people into abandoning the sacrifices, whereupon the priest professes his faith in Christ and denounces the idols. The proconsul attempts to convince him to sacrifice and be spared torture, but the saint counters by appealing to the much greater punishments meted out by God.
§ 3: Without further ado the proconsul orders Mokios to be made an example of by being strung up and his flesh lacerated until his bones show. While being tortured, the saint prays in a loud voice to God, the bringer of various good things, for success. Meanwhile the court servants inflict such wounds on him that the internal anatomy of his body can be observed by all present. Worn down by their efforts, the torturers cease and the proconsul orders the saint to be taken down; Mokios, however, is able to stand upright despite his wounds, eliciting cries glorifying God from the onlookers. Laodikios attempts once again to convince him to sacrifice, but Mokios rebuts the offer and launches into an angry tirade mocking the proconsul as a servant of the Devil, his god Dionysos as a mute and powerless idol, and his torments as feeble and unable to cause the martyr any pain, despite the apparent severity of his injuries.
§ 4: Laodikios, however, credits Mokios’ superhuman endurance not to God but to magical trickery and threatens to have him burned to ashes in a pyre. He orders a great fire to be built up in a furnace with pitch and brushwood, commands the saint to be brought to him and asks him once again whether he will sacrifice, only to be met with silence. The proconsul threatens him with a 'fitting punishment' and, boasting about the protective might of Dionysos, once again prompts him to sacrifice. Mokios replies that he will not sacrifice to something that is deaf, blind and mute, and claims Dionysos is not a god but merely a 'carved image' (ξόανον); Laodikios denies this angrily, stating that the god’s power resides within the idol.
§ 5: Suddenly, Mokios appears unexpectedly to have changed his mind, and offers to sacrifice to Dionysos in order to make the latter’s power manifest, something the proconsul gladly consents to. The saint makes the sign of the cross upon his forehead and, entering the temple, prays before the idol – to God the Creator of all, bringer of life and conqueror of the Devil, requesting his aid in order that all present might know Him as the only God, and that shame be brought on the worshippers of Dionysos. He then addresses the idol, berating it and commanding it to fall down and crumble. There is at once the sound of thunder, and the idol crashes down and is pulverised, causing turmoil in the crowd as the triumphant saint rebukes the proconsul for his idol-worshipping folly.
§ 6: Taken aback at the loss of the statue, Laodikios commands at once that the priest be consigned to the flames. After being cast into the furnace, Mokios can be seen standing inside the blaze with three other figures, the face of one of whom radiates a light as bright as the sun. The saint gives a prayer of thanks to God and begs Him to show His might by scorching the impious Laodikios and his followers. At once, a burst of flame shoots forth from the furnace, utterly incinerating the proconsul and nine priests of Dionysos. The onlooking crowd is paralysed by terror, and the saint emerges unscathed from the furnace.
§ 7: After the proconsul’s demise, his chief of staff (πρίγκιψ, princeps officii), Thalassios, throws Mokios in gaol and, after a delay of 26 days, a new proconsul, Maximinos, arrives. Having learned of the preceding events, Maximinos is filled with wrath and summons his subordinates to a council to deliberate how to destroy the saint. On the third day he sets up court at an elevated place called 'Phoros' [i. e. Forum], has Mokios brought before him and proceeds to question the saint about his name and his parents’ social standing. Mokios’ father, Euphrates, had twice organised the public games in Rome [δὶς κάνδιδα ... τελέσας; Delehaye corrects to κανδιδᾶτος, but see Halkin 1955, 64 and 1965, 9], and his mother, Eustathia, was the daughter of the thrice-consul Lampadios, son of Klaros. Maximinos wonders how such a highborn man came to commit such acts against the god Dionysos, a friend of the emperor [i. e. Laodikios] and the sacrifices; Mokios counters the accusation by stating that what he destroyed and mocked were an idol of Satan, a friend of the Devil and sacrifices to the Devil, reaffirming his commitment to confession and martyrdom and denying accusations of miscreancy. Maximinos attempts to persuade Mokios into sacrificing to Apollo, but the saint warns the new proconsul not to incur divine vengeance by persisting in his predecessor’s folly.
§ 8: Maximinos then has the saint thrown under two wheels, whose motion should tear his body apart, but Mokios tolerates the pain easily and taunts the proconsul, affirming that the torture only serves to reinforce him. The martyr’s blood runs all over the wheels and onto the ground beneath. Mokios opens his mouth in prayer, thanking God the saviour for his endurance and asks that God not allow his resolve to falter. The wheels break apart and the saint emerges, bloodied but unwavering.
§ 9: By now Maximinos despairs of defeating the saint and has him incarcerated. After three days, he commands that Mokios be fed to wild beasts. As Mokios is brought to the theatre, he appears completely unhurt and people even have trouble recognising him. When the kompiovinator [from the Latin venator, 'hunter (gladiator)', here perhaps 'overseer of animal fights'; for a possible explanation of kompio-, see Halkin 1955, 65] orders the release of the animals, the beast-keeper raises the hatch and a huge lioness emerges. However, to everyone’s surprise, the animal sits meekly at the martyr’s feet for an hour, embraces him with its paws and licks his blood. When one of the beast-fighters tries to draw the lioness back into her cage, she kills him, greets the martyr and enters the cage. Next, they send in a lion which has been kept hungry for two days; it too embraces the martyr, wagging its tail and 'kissing' him. The crowd yells for the righteous man to be released, and the beast does obeisance to the martyr and returns to its cage.
§ 10: Upon hearing the popular verdict, Maximinos gives the order for Mokios to be sent to Philippesios the eparch in the city of Heraclea in Thrace, called Peirinthos [more correctly Perinthos – see Discussion], with an accompanying letter. After eight days in custody there, Philippesios has him taken to Byzantion for questioning. Once there, Mokios is interrogated by the council (βουλευτήριον) and gives an account of the preceding events. A sentence is then passed, that he be executed by beheading. The saint makes his final prayer, giving thanks to God and asks for the sins of the people against him to be forgiven and for them to find the truth. He asks for his soul to rest in peace and for those remembering him [i.e. observing his cult or invoking him in prayer] to be rewarded. Mokios is beheaded on 11 May and his martyrdom is greeted by a voice from the heavens. Afterwards three bishops, Philippos, Dalmatos and Kyriakos collect the saint’s body and bury it at a distance of one mile from Byzantion, where his body still accomplishes [miraculous] healings (in the original this passage reads as follows):
Μετὰ ταῦτα ἔλαβον τὸ τίμιον σῶμα τοῦ ἁγίου ἱερομάρτυρος Μωκίου Φίλιππος, Δαλμάτος καὶ Κυριακὸς ἐπίσκοποι ὄντες καὶ ἔθαψαν αὐτὸ ἐν τόπῳ σεμνῷ ὅπερ ἀπόκειται ἀπὸ ἑνὸς μιλίου τοῦ Βυζαντίου ἐνθα καὶ πολλαὶ ἰάσεις ἐπιτελοῦνται παρ’ αὐτοῦ (p.175.15–19).
'After that, Philippos, Dalmatos, and Kyriakos, being bishops, took the sacred body of the holy martyr Mokios and buried it in a holy place situated one mile away from Byzantion. There many healings are performed by it [i.e. by Mokios’ body].' (trans. C. Papavarnavas)
Text: Delehaye 1912, 163-176.
Summary: N. Kälviäinen.
Burial site of a saint - unspecified
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
MiraclesMiracle at martyrdom and death
Punishing miracle
Power over elements (fire, earthquakes, floods, weather)
Miracle with animals and plants
Miracle after death
Healing diseases and disabilities
Miracles experienced by the saint
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - lesser clergy
Ecclesiastics - bishops
Pagans
Torturers/Executioners
Officials
Animals
Crowds
Source
The text is currently known in seven manuscripts (9th–11th century), four of which were collated by Delehaye in his edition:http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/oeuvre/17151/
As opposed to the text considered primary by Delehaye and summarised above (BHG 1298b), other branches of the manuscript tradition (1298, 1298c) offer in certain places a text which diverges from it: in § 5, the saint’s prayer to God inside the pagan temple invokes directly certain acts of God in the Old Testament comparable to the destruction of the Dionysiac idol (such as the destruction of the Babylonians’ idols in the Book of Daniel and the salvation of the three Hebrew youths – a scene which is already invoked by Mokios and three other figures in § 6 – as well as the Pharaoh’s demise in the Red Sea). In addition to this, the second half of § 6, the first half of § 8, all of § 9, and the heavenly voice in § 10 and the ending of that section are paraphrased with different wording and with differences in details to varying degrees. The essential contents, however, remain the same.
In addition, a further witness to the text is the so-called Martyrdom of Theoktistos (BHG 2424), which in reality is simply that of Mokios (BHG 1298c) with the martyr's name and date of death changed and the reference to the burial one mile outside Byzantium removed (Halkin 1955, 62-63). (There is no independent evidence for a saint Theoktistos of Amphipolis in the period examined in this database.) This text is transmitted in a single manuscript, ms. Patmiacus 273 (10th century), which contains a number of other such plagiarised texts (cf. E06837, E06826), most probably the handiwork of a single medieval scribe (see Lackner 1970):
http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/54517/
Discussion
The martyrdom account of Mokios is a textbook example of an 'epic' Passion, in its present form clearly much removed in time from the events it purports to describe. It is written in the low-level koine Greek style typical of the epic Martyrdoms, with the usual stereotypical turns of phrase, and contains a large number of the standard tropes of this genre (for which see Delehaye, H., Les Passions des martyres et les genres littéraires (Bruxelles, 1966 (2nd ed.)), 171-226), such as, for example, the saint’s immunity to pain and his ability to shrug off the most heinous of injuries (and the later miraculous healing of these), the accusations of magic levelled at him by the judge, the feigned capitulation ending in the destruction of the idol, the supernatural punishment of the wicked judge, and the saint’s final prayer establishing his cult and his patronus-like relationship to his devotees.Structurally the text follows the normal pattern (although lacking a distinct prologue) of a brief description of the saint’s background and activities and his arrest, followed by his interrogation and repeated torture scenes punctuated by the saint’s prayers. However, the martyrdom is here prolonged by duplicating the process first with the one and then the other proconsul; this device is also present in a number of other Greek martyr accounts, such as for example those of the also Thracian martyrs *Akakios (E05363) and *Philippos (E06896), the Bithynian *Thyrsos (06222), as well as certain Coptic ones (see Delehaye, “Les martyrs d’Égypte”, Analecta Bollandiana 40 (1922), 140).
The possible connection of the text with historical events and persons is harder, perhaps impossible, to determine. As it stands now, the text seems replete with statements that are at odds with historical reality and/or with each other: a common state of affairs for Martyrdoms of this genre, usually written much later than the events which they purport to describe as well as being heavily influenced, on the one hand, by the state of affairs at the time of their writing, on the other, by literary clichés drawn from earlier hagiographic and other Christian literature. For example, the date given (287/8) is probably too early for Diocletian’s administrative reforms, in which the province of Europa was created (see S. Williams, Diocletian and the Roman Recovery (New York/London, 1985), 104 and 248). Apart from this, Europa should at this time be governed by a consularis (ὑπατικός), not a proconsul (cf. A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284-602 (Oxford, 1964), vol. 3, 386) unless ἀνθύπατος might be taken to stand for consularis (ODB I, 111) or unless this is an anachronistic echo of the 'archon proconsul' who presided over Constantinople and Europa after the city’s foundation and before his office was replaced by that of the city prefect, that is ca. 336-359 (R. Guilland, Recherches sur les institutions byzantines (Berlin, 1967), vol. II, 68).
Furthermore, regardless of his title, the seat of the governor of Europa should be in Heraclea (the ancient Perinthus; see ODB II, 915), but in this text the proconsul is presented as crossing over his jurisdictional limits into Macedonia and presiding over a trial in Amphipolis (cf. Halkin 1955, 61); later on, the saint is actually sent by him to Heraclea in order to meet another official, the eparch Philippesios. Laodikios, Maximinos and Philippesios are all of doubtful historicity, being only known from this text, and Philippesios (i. e. Philippensis?) is probably to be understood as an itinerant praetorian prefect (see PLRE I, 495, 576 and 695), but it is not explained why, after taking over from his subordinate Maximinos, he should then promptly hand the trial over to a mere municipal council, and not even that of the provincial capital Heraclea, but of nearby Byzantion.
The position taken by Bollandist scholarship (Delehaye 1912, 226 and Halkin 1965, 6), not without reason, has been to dismiss the geographical details of the saint’s journey as a fiction intended to provide a reason for the originally Byzantine saint’s later veneration also in Heraclea and Amphipolis. It is telling that, despite most of the action taking place in Amphipolis, the final execution takes place in Byzantion at the behest of the local town council (βουλευτήριον). In the time of the persecutions it would make little sense for a praetorian prefect temporarily based in Heraclea, even if he wanted to get the case out of his hands, to delegate it to the local authorities of another, lesser, town in the same province; but from the viewpoint of a later patriotic devotee, this βουλευτήριον might naturally, if anachronistically, be seen as representing the Constantinopolitan senate.
In support of this view Mokios’ final prayer (§ 10) may be adduced, in which he beseeches God not to 'remember the sins of ignorance of this people, the things that they committed against us humble ones because of You, but illuminate the eyes of their intellect and lead them to knowledge of You'. This is surely intended first and foremost to exculpate or 'redeem' the people of Byzantion, that is the ancestors of Mokios’ present-day devotees, whose council executed him. (During the earlier trials in Amphipolis, the people either do not really participate in the spectacle or do so in favour of the saint.) This interpretation might potentially also help to explain why, since the cult is based in Constantinople, so much of the action takes place elsewhere (even if the cult was brought to Constantinople from elsewhere, as suggested by Berger 2013, this by itself would still not be a sufficient explanation, given the tendency of hagiographical legends to be renewed and replaced, unless the text as well was taken over from an earlier version). The hagiographer avoids staining his own fellow citizens with the taint of being associated with the torturers of the saint, while the actual execution that does take place in Byzantion is a very neat and clean affair, with only a faceless and voiceless council quickly passing a sentence without any intimidation or torture, practically a mere rubber stamp officially granting the saint both martyrdom and Byzantine 'citizenship'.
A not entirely dissimilar case may be seen in the final episode of the Martyrdom of the centurion Akakios (E05363), who is brutally tortured in Heraclea-Perinthus and Byzantion by the military officer Vivianos, but is ultimately transferred to the jurisdiction of the proconsul Flakkinos in Byzantion. Flakkinos' wife is a Christian and he has promised her to show Christians relative leniency; he actually reproaches his colleague for subjecting Akakios to excessive torture, before having the saint beheaded. It must be stressed that a description of this kind is quite unusual for this literary genre, in which the pagan judge is normally presented as the villain par excellence. It might not be stretching the imagination too far, then, to ask whether the hagiographers of both Mokios and Akakios, although out of necessity showing the officials (imperial and local) of the martyrs' time as persecutors, were perhaps inclined to present those of Byzantion in a slightly more positive light.
As for Mokios’ cult in Constantinople, it is relatively well documented; his established feast day of 11 May (which shows some variation in the earliest martyrologies) coincided, quite possibly intentionally, with that of the inauguration of the city. Indeed, the construction of his martyrion, situated outside the gate of Constantinople, was later attributed to Constantine himself (see Delehaye 1912, 227, and idem, Les origines du culte des martyrs (Brussels, 1912), 267-270). The existence of this church is first securely attested in the year 402/3, when the Egyptian bishop and ascetic Dioskoros was buried there (see E02728 and E02729). In the 6th century it was rebuilt by Justinian I (according to Prokopios; see E04339). Before the 9th century, the church of Mokios became a monastery. For further information about the dating and location of the church, see Janin 1969, 367-371, and Müller-Wiener 1977, 172 and 297.
Near the church there was also a cistern named after Mokios (the modern Altımermer Çukurbostanı), which was constructed by the emperor Anastasius I (491–518), on which see Janin 1964, 33 and 205; Müller-Wiener 1977, 220 and 363.
As for the date of composition of the martyrdom account, some potential evidence may be pinpointed in the text itself: as was pointed out by Berger (2013, 175-176), the names of the three bishops Philippos, Dalmatos and Kyriakos, who, according to the text, bury the saint's body, are most probably derived from those of three foundations located in the same general area as the saint's church (the church of the Apostle Philip, dating from the reign of Anastasius, the monastery named after the abbot Dalmatos (c. 416-438) and the so-called monastery of Kyriakos, first attested in 518). This strongly suggests that the Martyrdom in its present form is not earlier than the 6th century. It was also proposed by Halkin (1965, 9) that the name of Mokios’ maternal grandfather, Lampadios the thrice consul, might perhaps have been suggested to the hagiographer by a man of that name who held the consulship in 530 and was not replaced in office until 533.
Nevertheless, we cannot entirely discount the possibility that the nucleus of the legend had already emerged earlier, especially given that Mokios' cult is securely attested from at least the beginning of the 5th century, if not earlier. A possible, though not certain, indication to this effect may be the statement in the text that the martyr was buried 'one mile from Byzantion' (most probably referring to the city as delineated by the Constantinian wall, although the actual distance is much less than a mile, as pointed out by Berger 2013, 176-177; the distance to ancient Byzantion is of course much more than just one mile), since after the construction of the Theodosian wall in the early 5th century this area came to be inside the city.
Bibliography
Text:Delehaye, H., “Saints de Thrace et de Mésie,” Analecta Bollandiana 31 (1912), 163-176.
Further reading:
Berger, A., "Mokios und Konstantin der Große. Zu den Anfängen des Märtyrerkults in Konstantinopel," in: V. A. Leontaritou, K.A. Bourdara, and E. Sp. Papagianni (eds.), Ἀντικήνσωρ. Τιμητικὸς τόμος Σ.Ν. Τρωιάνου γιὰ τὰ ὀγδοηκοστὰ γενέθλιά του (Athens, 2013), 171-172.
Halkin, F., “Une passion de saint Mocius martyr à Byzance,” Analecta Bollandiana 83 (1965), 5-22.
Halkin, F., "La Passion de saint Théoctiste," Analecta Bollandiana 73 (1955), 60-65.
Janin, R., Constantinople byzantine: développement urbain et répertoire topographique (2nd ed., Paris, 1964).
Janin, R., La géographie ecclésiastique de l'Empire byzantin, 1st pt.: Le siège de Constantinople et le patriarcat oecuménique, 3rd vol.: Les églises et les monastères (2nd ed., Paris, 1969).
Lackner, W., "Eine verkappte Hesychios-Passio," Analecta Bollandiana 88 (1970), 5-12.
Müller-Wiener, W., Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls: Byzantion – Konstantinupolis – Istanbul bis zum Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 1977).
Nikolaos Kälviäinen with additions by Christodoulos Papavarnavas
20/08/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S01265 | Mokios, martyr of Byzantion | Μώκιος | Certain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Nikolaos Kälviäinen with additions by Christodoulos Papavarnavas, Cult of Saints, E06221 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E06221