The Greek Miracles of *Menas (4), ascribed to Timothy of Alexandria, recounts how Menas (soldier and martyr buried at Abu Mena, S00073) uncovered the fraud of a Christian man, who attempted to seize an amount of money entrusted to him by his Jewish friend, and then committed perjury at the saint's shrine. Written in Greek in Alexandria, probably in the 5th/6th c.
E07444
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Timothy of Alexandria, Miracles of Menas (CPG 2527, BHG 1256-1269)
Miracle 4. The Jew and the Christian (BHG 1260)
Summary:
A Jewish merchant from Alexandria entrusts a Christian friend with a sealed purse of money, asking him to keep it safe while he is away on a journey. When he returns, the Christian refuses to return the money, pretending that he never received it. The Jew proposes to go to the church of Menas and take oaths. Assuming that the oath cannot harm him, since his conflict is with a Jew, the Christian accepts. They both pray and, against the Jew’s hopes, nothing happens to the Christian. On their way back, the Christian falls off his horse, and loses the keys of his safe, but is left unharmed, which makes him happy, as he assumes this to be a modest consequence for his perjury. They arrive in Loxoneta and stop to buy food. While the Jew despairs, suddenly the Christian’s slave appears, carrying the Jew’s purse and the Christian’s keys. He reports that a great soldier on horseback visited the Christian’s wife, gave her the key and instructed her to send the Jew’s money to her husband, because he was being tormented by the saint. The Jew receives the purse and rejoices, declaring the greatness of the Christian faith. He offers one third of the money (1000 pieces of gold) to Menas’ shrine and is baptised. The Christian offers half of his fortune to the shrine, and spends the rest of his life there as a penitent.
Text: Pomialovskii 1900.
Summary: E. Rizos.
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivityOath
Visiting graves and shrines
Bequests, donations, gifts and offerings
MiraclesMiracle after death
Punishing miracle
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
Miracles causing conversion
Miraculous protection - of people and their property
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesJews and Samaritans
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.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 | Μηνᾶς | Certain |
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