The Greek Miracles of *Menas (1), ascribed to Timothy of Alexandria, recounts how Menas (soldier and martyr buried at Abu Mena, S00073), appeared on horseback and brought back to life a pilgrim, murdered and dismembered by an innkeeper while on his way to the saint’s shrine; the murderer becomes a monk. Written in Greek in Alexandria, probably in the 5th/6th c.
E07441
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Timothy of Alexandria, Miracles of Menas (CPG 2527, BHG 1256-1269)
Miracle 1: The pilgrim (BHG 1257)
Summary:
A rich man from Isauria arrives for private business in Alexandria, and, hearing about the miracles taking place at the saint’s shrine, he decides to visit it and pray. He crosses the lake and arrives at a place called Loxoneta where he seeks hospitality at a man’s store. During the night, the landlord murders him, and steals his purse of money. He cuts the victim’s body into pieces and hides it in a basket, intending to throw it into the lake. Immediately, the martyr Menas himself arrives on horseback, in the form of a spatharios, followed by a great crowd. The saint reveals the crime and the murderer confesses his act, begging for forgiveness and promising to give to the spatharios the victim’s money plus 100 pieces of gold, and to become a monk at the shrine of Menas. The saint asks him to place the basket before him, he prays and raises the dismembered man from the dead. Menas reveals himself to the victim and the murderer and disappears. Both men come to the shrine and make dedications. The murderer declares his act, while his victim is astonished to hear that he was slain. The murderer becomes a monk and lives at the shrine for another seven years, while the victim returns to Alexandria and declares the miracles, causing the conversion of many pagans and heretics.
Text: Pomialovskii 1900.
Summary: E. Rizos.
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivitySaint as patron - of an individual
MiraclesMiracle after death
Punishing miracle
Power over life and death
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
Miracles causing conversion
Miraculous protection - of people and their property
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
Source
The collection is preserved, not always intact, in 69 manuscripts, on which see:https://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/oeuvre/9359/
Discussion
For the context of this story, see E07440. This story is Miracle 2 in the Coptic collection of Menas' miracles (see E01222).Bibliography
Text:Pomialovskii, I., Житие преподобного Паисия Великого и Тимофея патриарха Александрийского повествование о чудесах св. великомученика Мины (Zhitie prepodobnago Paisiia velikago, i Timofeeia patriarkha Aleksandriiskago Povestovanie o chudesakh sv. Velikomuchenika Miny), (St Petersburg, 1900), 61-89.
Further reading:
Delehaye, H., "Les recueils antiques de miracles des saints," Analecta Bollandiana 43 (1925), 5-85, 305-325.
Efthymiadis, S., "Collections of Miracles (Fifth-Fifteenth Centuries)," in: S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography II: Genres and Contexts (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 106.
Efthymios Rizos
07/04/2019
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00073 | Menas, soldier and martyr buried at Abu Mena | Certain |
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