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The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity


from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world


Sophronius of Jerusalem, in his Miracles of the Saints Cyrus and John (44), recounts how *Kyros and Ioannes/Cyrus and John (physician and soldier, martyrs of Egypt, S00406) healed Anna, a young religious virgin from Herakleion (close to the shrine), from a stomach disease, at their shrine at Menouthis (near Alexandria, Lower Egypt). Written in Greek in Alexandria, 610/615.

Evidence ID

E07560

Type of Evidence

Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles

Sophronius of Jerusalem, The Miracles of Saints Cyrus and John, 44

Summary:

There was a certain Anna who was a virgin under religious vows [monastria]. She lived in the village (ktema) of Herakleion with other virgins. She was around twelve years old, which is a dangerous age for humans, because they lack experience and are particularly prone to demonic machinations. The girl isolated herself from her companions and began to play with reeds, picking them up, putting them into her mouth and throwing them back on the ground. She then came across a reed which was inhabited by three poisonous lizards named samamithia. When Anna picked up the reed and put it into her mouth, the reptiles fell down into her stomach. They immediately endeavoured to exit, but did not know the way. They began to move in all directions, tormenting by these movements the intestines of the girl. She suffered incessantly, so she turned to the martyrs, because she did not know physicians who would be capable enough to cure her.

The martyrs appeared in a dream to another brother who was in their sanctuary, because he was ill. They told him to instruct the virgin to go to one of the taverns without having drunk or eaten anything, and force herself to drink three cups. She would be immediately healed thereafter.

The man woke up and informed the girl of what he was told by the martyrs in his dream. The virgin went to the tavern and drank three cups of wine. When she finished, she started vomiting and expelled the three reptiles. She was thus delivered from her suffering and escaped the death prepared for her by a demon. She sang hymns in honour of the martyrs and left their shrine.


Text: Fernández Marcos 1976, lightly modified in the light of Gascou 2007
Summary: J. Doroszewska

Cult Places

Martyr shrine (martyrion, bet sāhedwātā, etc.)

Non Liturgical Activity

Saint as patron - of a community
Incubation

Miracles

Miracle after death
Healing diseases and disabilities
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation

Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Women

Source

Sophronius (c. 560-c. 637) was born to a Chalcedonian family in Damascus, and was probably familiar with both Greek and Syriac culture. He was educated as a teacher of rhetoric, but in c. 580 became an ascetic while in Egypt, and entered the monastery of St. Theodosios near Bethlehem. He travelled widely to monastic centres in Egypt, the Near East, Aegean, and North Africa, accompanying his friend, the monk and writer John Moschus, who dedicated to him his treatise on the religious life, the Spiritual Meadow (Leimon pneumatikos). In 633-634, Sophronius travelled to Alexandria and to Constantinople in order to persuade the patriarchs to renounce Monoenergism. In 634, he was elected patriarch of Jerusalem. He is venerated as a saint in the catholic and orthodox churches; in the Byzantine rite he shares with John Moschus a feast day on 11 March. He died in Jerusalem in about 637.

His extant doctrinal writings include a
Letter to Arcadius of Cyprus and the Synodical Letter against Monenergism. Other works have also been preserved, such as an encomium on the Alexandrian martyrs Cyrus and John (in gratitude for healing his vision), The Miracles of the Saints Cyrus and John, a collection of 23 Anacreontic poems, and several patriarchal sermons on such themes as the Muslim siege of Jerusalem and on various liturgical celebrations.

The Miracles of the Saints Cyrus and John comprise 70 stories; this number, as explained by the author in the Preface to the Encomium on the saints Cyrus and John, consists either of 7 decades or 10 heptades, both of which refer to biblical and pagan (Pythagorean) arithmetic, where 7 is a mystic number and 10 is a perfect number. References to the number 7 and its multiple (14) recurs in the work several times (Miracles 5, 15, 23, 39, 43; Gascou 2006: 11 with notes). The significance of other numbers has also been noted: for the number 3, see Fernández Marcos 1975: 42, n. 15; for the number 67 (Miracle 1), see Nissen 1939: 377, n. 2. 

All 70 stories concern miraculous healings performed by the two martyrs, considered saints of the first rank by Sophronius (
Miracle 29), in their sanctuary at Menouthis, near Alexandria. The first 35 miracles concern Alexandrians, the next 15 Egyptians and Libyans, mostly of the Alexandrian region, and the last 20 foreigners of whom some were settled in Alexandria. Sophronius wanted to flatter in this way the self-esteem of the Alexandrians who were the possessors of the saints' relics. He also argued that the miracles of Alexandria were particularly credible, since they delivered plenty of verifiable facts. For the same reason, the miracles selected by him were limited to those of his own times and concerned persons who were still alive and could testify to the events. Sophronius seems also to have had at his disposal earlier and parallel collections. A powerful feature of the miracle stories is a disdain for secular doctors, but not medicine per se, who are seen as ineffective in comparison to the power of the saintly healing of Cyrus and John. The collection is also notable for Sophronius’ polemic against Miaphysites, who evidently attended the shrine.

The most recent edition of Sophronius' text is Fernandez Marcos 1976, but Gascou in his translation of 2007 includes several textual emendations which we have followed when they occur.


Discussion

'She lived [...] with other virgins.' - on the ascetism of women in Egypt, see Wipszycka 2002, 355-396.

Bibliography

Text:
Fernández Marcos, N.,
Los thaumata de Sofronio. Contribución al estudio de la "Incubatio" cristiana, Manuales y anejos de "Emérita" 31 (Madrid, 1975), 243-400.

Translation:
Sophrone de Jérusalem,
Miracles des saints Cyr et Jean (BHGI 477-479), trans. and comm. J. Gascou (Paris, 2006).

Collections grecques de Miracles, sainte Thècle, saints Côme et Damien, saints Cyr et Jean (extraits), saint Georges, trans. and comm. A.-J. Festugière (Paris, 1971).

Sophrone de Jérusalem,
Récit des miracles des saints Cyr et Jean, trans. and comm. D. Peltier (Paris, 1978, unpublished).


Further reading:
Déroche, V., "Représentations de l'Eucharistie dans la haute époque byzantine", Mélanges Gilbert Dagron, Travaux et Mémoires 14 (2002), 167-180.

Duffy, J., “Observations on Sophronius' Miracles of Cyrus and John,”
Journal of Theological Studies, 35 (1984), 71-90.

Duffy, J., “The Miracles of Cyrus and John, new old Readings from Manuscript,”
Illinois Classical Studies, 12 (1987), 169-177.

Gascou, J., "Recherches de topographie alexandrine: le Grand Tétrapyle,"
Ktema 27 (2002), 337-343.

Gascou, J., “Religion et identité communautaire à Alexandrie à la fin de l'époque byzantine, d'après les Miracles des saints Cyr et Jean,” in J.-Y. Empereur, C. Décobert (eds.),
Alexandrie médiévale, 3 (Cairo, 2008), 69-88.

Gascou, J.,
Les origines du culte des saints Cyr et Jean, electronic version at https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00009140/document

Le Coz, R., “Les Pères de l'Eglise grecque et la médecine,”
Le Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique 98 (1997), 137-154.

Maraval, P., “Fonction pédagogique de la littérature hagiographique d'un lieu de pèlerinage: l'exemple des Miracles de Cyr et Jean,” in
Hagiographie, culture et sociétés (IVe-XIIe siècles), Actes du Colloque organisé à Nanterre et à Paris (2-5 mai 1979), Paris 1981, p. 383-397.

Nissen, Th., “Sophronios-Studien III, Medizin und Magie bei Sophronios,”
Byzantinische Zeitschrift 39 (1939), 349–81.

Papaconstantinou, A.,
Le culte des saints en Égypte des Byzantins aux Abbassides. L'apport des inscriptions et des papyrus grecs et coptes (Paris, 2001).

Sansterre, J.-M., "Apparitions et miracles à Ménouthis: de l'incubation païenne à l'incubation chrétienne," in E. Dierkens (ed.),
Apparitions et miracles (Bruxelles: Éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles, 1991), 69-83.

Schönborn, Ch.,
Sophrone de Jérusalem. Vie monastique et confession dogmatique (Paris, 1972).

Wipszycka, E., “Les confréries dans la vie religieuse de l'Egypte chrétienne,” in her É
tudes sur le christianisme dans l'Égypte de l'antiquité tardive (Roma, 1996), 257-278.

Wipszycka, E., “L'ascétisme féminin dans l'Égypte de l'antiquité tardive,” in H. Melaerts, L. Mooren (eds.),
Le Rôle et le Statut de la Femme en Égypte Hellénistique, Romaine et Byzantine: Acts du Colloque International (Bruxelles-Leuven, 202), 355-396.


Record Created By

Julia Doroszewska

Date of Entry

14/05/2019

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S00406Kyros and Ioannes/Cyrus and John, physician and soldier, martyrs of EgyptΚῦρος καὶ Ἰωάννης Certain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Julia Doroszewska, Cult of Saints, E07560 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E07560