The Miracles of *Mary (mother of Christ, S00033) at the Monastery of Choziba, by Antonios of Choziba, includes a reference to the healing miracles that occur at the tomb of the first five holy monks of the monastery, *Promos, Elias, Gannaios, Aian, and Zenon (monks of Choziba, S02757). The tomb also produced a miraculous flow of healing oil. Written in Greek at the monastery of Choziba (Palestine), between 614 and 628.
E07176
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Antonios of Choziba, Miracles of the Mother of God at the Monastery of Choziba (CPG 7986, BHG 1071)
Summary:
1. A noble woman (patrikia) from Constantinople comes to the Holy Land, hoping to be healed of an incurable ailment. Mary appears and instructs her to go to Choziba, although no women are admitted to the monastery. She explains to the monks, and they allow her to stay in the diakonikon. She is healed, and converts to Orthodoxy, for she had been heterodox. This was the only visit of a woman to the monastery.
2. The uncle of a Roman (i.e. western) monk called Vitalios falls from a height, while drunk, but is miraculously saved from injury.
3. Rescue of a monk from a similar accident.
4. Mary assists a monk to kill a snake which had repeatedly tried to bite him.
5-6. The monastic settlement of Choziba was founded by five Syrian monks, *Promos, Elias, Gannaios, Ainan, and Zenon, who lived there in succession. They built a small oratory of *Stephen (the First Martzr, S00030), and the funerary chapel which houses their tombs. The rest of the monastery was built by *Ioannes (monk of Choziba, S02030), who later became bishop of Caesarea in Palestine. Healing oil used to flow miraculously from the tomb of the five holy monks, covering its surface, but the miracle stopped when a verger accidentally spilled the oil from the saints’ crucible (chone). Yet the saints still perform miraculous cures.
7. Epilogue.
Text: Houze 1888.
Summary: Efthymios Rizos.
Cult building - monastic
Cult building - dependent (chapel, baptistery, etc.)
Burial site of a saint - sarcophagus/coffin
Burial site of a saint - crypt/ crypt with relics
Cult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivitySaint as patron - of a community
Visiting graves and shrines
Construction of cult buildings
Composing and translating saint-related texts
MiraclesSaint denying or suspending miracles
Miraculous protection - of people and their property
Miraculous behaviour of relics/images
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Myrrh and other miraculous effluents of relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
Source
For the manuscript tradition, see:https://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/oeuvre/9361/
Discussion
The brief Collection of Miracles of Mary of Choziba is appended by its author to the Life of Georgios of Choziba (E07175). It is a homage to the patron of the monastery of Choziba, the Virgin Mary, and its five founding ascetics, whom the monastery apparently held in great honour. The text was written after the Persian invasion of 614, the consequences of which it describes vividly, and probably before 628, since it does not mention the reconquest of Palestine by the Byzantines.Bibliography
Text:Houze, C., "Miracula Beatae Virginis Mariae in Choziba," Analecta Bollandiana 7 (1887), 360-370.
https://archive.org/details/AnalectaBollandiana1887_424/page/n367
Translation:
Vivian, T., and Athanassakis, A.N., The Life of Saint George of Choziba and the Miracles of the Most Holy Mother of God at Choziba (San Francisco, 1994).
Further reading:
Flusin, B., "Palestinian Hagiography (Fourth-Eighth Centuries)," in: S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Companion to Byzantine Hagiography I: Periods and Places (Farnham, 2011), 199-226.
Efthymiadis, S. "Collections of Miracles (Fifth-Fifteenth Centuries)," in idem (ed.), The Ashgate Companion to Byzantine Hagiography II: Genres and Contexts (Farnham, 2014), 103-142.
Efthymios Rizos
17/12/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00030 | Stephen, the First Martyr | Στέφανος | Certain | S00033 | Mary, Mother of Christ | Θεοτόκος | Certain | S02030 | Ioannes/John, ascetic of Choziba and bishop of Caesarea, ob. c. 535 | Ἰωάννης | Certain | S02757 | Promos, Elias, Gannaios, Aian, and Zenon, monks of Choziba | Πρῶμος, Ἡλίας, Γανναῖος, Ἄιαν, Ζήνων | Certain |
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