John Diakrinomenos in his Ecclesiastical History mentions the miraculous survival during an earthquake of the church which housed the tomb of *Gregory the Miracle Worker (bishop and missionary in Pontus, S00687) in Neocaesarea (northern Asia Minor). Written in Greek in Constantinople, c. 513/515.
E07734
Literary - Other narrative texts (including Histories)
John Diakrinomenos, Ecclesiastical History, excerpt from Book 8
Ἐν Νεοκαισαρείᾳ σεισμοῦ τηνικαῦτα μέλλοντος γίνεσθαι στρατιώτης τις ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν ὁδεύων δύο στρατιώτας ἀπιόντας ἐπ’ αὐτὴν ἐθεάσατο καὶ τούτων ὄπισθεν ἕτερον κράζοντα· «φυλάξατε τὸν οἶκον ἐν ᾧ ἡ θήκη Γρηγορίου ἐστίν.» καὶ ὁ μὲν σεισμὸς ἐγένετο καὶ τὸ πλεῖστον μέρος τῆς πόλεως ἔπεσεν, ὁ δὲ οἶκος τοῦ Θαυματουργοῦ διεσώθη.
'At that time, an earthquake was about to occur in Neocaesarea, and a soldier travelling towards the city saw two soldiers heading towards it and another behind them shouting: “Keep the house where the tomb of Gregory lies.” The earthquake took place, and the greatest part of the city collapsed, but the house of the Miracle-Worker survived.'
Text: Hansen 1995, 156.
Translation: Efthymios Rizos.
Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
MiraclesApparition, vision, dream, revelation
Miraculous protection - of church and church property
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesSoldiers
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
This being a brief extract that survives out of context, we cannot know for certain who the three soldiers who saved the church were. Presumably they are implied to have been three of the soldier-saints popular in Asia Minor and the Near East.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:
Treadgold, W., The Early Byzantine Historians (Basingstoke, 2006), 168-169.
Efthymios Rizos
20/08/2019
ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00687 | Gregory the Miracle-Worker (Thaumatourgos), bishop and missionary in Pontus, ob. c. 270 | Γρηγόριος | Certain |
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