The Greek Miracles of *Menas (13), ascribed to Timothy of Alexandria, recounts how Menas (soldier and martyr buried at Abu Mena, S00073) punished a man who kept stealing pigs from the saint's shrine. Written in Greek in Alexandria, probably in the 5th/6th c.
E07453
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Timothy of Alexandria, Miracles of Menas (CPG 2527, BHG 1256-1269)
Miracle 13. The man who stole pigs (BHG 1269)
Summary:
A poor pagan man called Pastamon frequently steals the best pigs from the shrine. The saint appears to him and asks him to stop, because there are also other poor people who need to be fed. Pastamon defies the warning and steals another pig which he slaughters, intending to salt the meat. Yet the meat is suddenly transformed into stone and the man is infuriated and vows to keep stealing. The saint appears in a dream and threatens him again, but Pastamon wakes up determined to steal the best pig of the saint’s sty. He sneaks in early in the morning, but is immediately paralysed, and stays there like a log, till the herdsmen find him. They take him to the shrine, where he confesses his sins and remains there as a penitent for the rest of his life.
Text: Pomialovskii 1900.
Summary: E. Rizos.
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
MiraclesMiracle after death
Punishing miracle
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesPagans
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
08/04/2019
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00073 | Menas, soldier and martyr buried at Abu Mena | Μηνᾶς | Certain |
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