The Greek Miracles of *Menas (11), ascribed to Timothy of Alexandria, recounts how Menas (soldier and martyr buried at Abu Mena, S00073) punished a soldier who attempted to seize some timber offered to the saint's shrine by a donor. Written in Greek in Alexandria, probably in the 5th/6th c.
Evidence ID
E07451
Type of Evidence
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Timothy of Alexandria, Miracles of Menas (CPG 2527, BHG 1256-1269)
Miracle 11. The donor of timber (BHG 1267)
Summary:
A certain Theophilos offers a quantity of timber to the shrine, but, while it is delivered and transferred, it is requisitioned by a passing soldier who ignores the pleas of the servants of the shrine and even beats them up. Suddenly, the soldier is lifted up in the air by an invisible force which holds him by his hair and transfers him to the shrine. In front of an astonished crowd, the soldier confesses his sin and is safely brought down to the ground. He offers twelve pieces of gold and leaves happily.
Text: Pomialovskii 1900.
Summary: E. Rizos.
Cult PlacesMiracle after death
Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivityBequests, donations, gifts and offerings
MiraclesMiracle after death
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
Punishing miracle
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesSoldiers
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.
Record Created By
Efthymios Rizos
Date of Entry
08/04/2019
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00073 | Menas, soldier and martyr buried at Abu Mena | Μηνᾶς | Certain |
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