John Diakrinomenos in his Ecclesiastical History mentions the acquisition by the emperor Anastasius of a thumb of *Sergios (soldier and martyr of Rusafa, S00023), and the refoundation of Rusafa (north-east Syria) as the city of Sergiopolis in his honour. Written in Greek in Constantinople, c. 513/515.
Evidence ID
E07733
Type of Evidence
Literary - Other narrative texts (including Histories)
John Diakrinomenos, Ecclesiastical History, excerpts from Book 8
Μέρος τοῦ λειψάνου Σεργίου τοῦ μάρτυρος τὸν μέγαν δάκτυλον πέμψας <...> ἔλαβεν Ἀναστάσιος καὶ διὰ τοῦτο Σεργιούπολιν τὴν πόλιν ὠνόμασε καὶ μητροπόλεως αὐτῇ παρέσχετο δίκαια.
'He sent a part of the relic of Sergios the martyr, the thumb (…) Anastasius received it and, for this reason, called the town Sergiopolis and granted it the rights of a metropolis.'
Text: Hansen 1995, 156.
Translation: Efthymios Rizos.
Places Named after Saint
Towns, villages, districts and fortresses
RelicsBodily relic - arm/hand/finger
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesMonarchs and their family
Source
John Diacrinomenus (Ioannes Diakrinomenos) was the author of an ecclesiastical history, which covered the period between the First Council of Ephesus (431) and c. 512. He wrote under the emperor Anastasius (491-518), and is known to have been a moderate Monophysite (hence his epithet Diakrinomenos, ‘the Hesitant’). However, only brief excerpts of the ten books of his history survive. In the 9th century, Photius had access to Books 1 to 5 (Bibliotheca cod. 42). Most of the fragments survive through their inclusion in an epitome of ecclesiastical history produced by an unknown author in the early 7th century (the same work through which most of the fragments of Theodore Lector survive): on the epitome and its transmission, see Hansen 1995, xxiv-xxxix.Discussion
John's fragment is the only attestation of the fact that Rusafa/Resapha was named Sergiopolis already at the time of its foundation by Anastasius. This contradicts the testimony of Zachariah of Mytilene, who reports that the city was initially named Anastasiopolis.Bibliography
Text:Hansen, G.C., Theodoros Anagnostes. Kirchengeschichte. 2nd ed. (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte NF 3; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995).
Further reading:
Fowden, E.K., The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius Between Byzantium and Iran (Berkeley, 1999).
Treadgold, W., The Early Byzantine Historians (Basingstoke, 2006), 168-169.
Record Created By
Efthymios Rizos
Date of Entry
20/08/2019
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00023 | Sergios, soldier and martyr of Rusafa | Σέργιος | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Efthymios Rizos, Cult of Saints, E07733 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E07733