Pseudo-Neilos' Narrations of the Slaughter of the Monks of Mount Sinai and the Capture of Theodulos tells the story of a barbarian attack on Mount Sinai, in which several monks are killed, and of the abduction and eventual freedom of a boy named Theodulos. Written in Greek, somewhere in the East, between the late 4th and the 6th c. Skeleton entry
E08287
Literary - Hagiographical - Accounts of martyrdom
Narrations of Pseudo-Neilos of Ancyra (BHG 1301-1307)
We have not examined this text.
Daniel Caner, however, has produced a useful very short summary of the story (Caner 2010, 53), which we reproduce here:
'Ps.Nilus' Narrations tells the adventures of a father (the unnamed narrator) and his son, Theodulos. On 14 January, as the two are visiting minks on Mount Sinai a week after Epiphany, unnamed barbarian nomads attack. After killing many monks, they seize Theodulos, intending to sacrifice him to their god, the Morning Star, at dawn. The father escapes to nearby Pharan, where he describes what happened, and then explains how the barbarians' customs differ from those of the Sinai monks; there ensues a discussion of why God failed to act in the monks' defence. The rest of the tale tells how father and son reunite. The Pharanites send the father north to seek the help of a barbarian 'king' named Ammanes, with whom they have a treaty. Meanwhile Theodulos' captors, having missed the time of sacrifice by sleeping past dawn, decide to sell him as a slave. Having failed to do so in the town of Sbeita (i.e. Sobata in the Negev), they sell him off to the bishop of Elusa. There the father eventually finds him and obtains his release. The story ends with both returning home to fulfil vows of asceticism; as stated in its coda, both live happily ever after.'
For a full translation: Caner 2010, 84-135.
Composing and translating saint-related texts
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesForeigners (including Barbarians)
Ecclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
Discussion
This story is not a martyrdom account; it is rightly described as a 'novella' or a 'romance' by Daniel Caner. Although monks are killed in the attack and solemnly buried (IV. 14, V.11-20, VI.10-11), the focus of the story is on discussions of topics such as divine justice, and on the story of the abduction and eventual liberation of Theodulos.None the less, the story became enmeshed with that of the Forty Martyrs of Sinai and Forty Martyrs of Raithou (E06949), so that in the Greek tradition, these martyrs came to be venerated on 14 January (when the attack on Sinai happens in the Theodulos story), not on 28 December, when the Martyrs of Sinai and Raithou were killed according to the earliest versions of their own story, and when they are commemorated in the Calendar of Ioane Zosime (E03972).
There is a good discussion of this text in Caner 2010, 51-63 and 73-83.
Bibliography
Text:Combefis, F., Illustrium Christi Martyrum Lecti Triumphi (Paris, 1660), 88-132.
Tsames, D.G. and Katsanes, K.G., Τὸ μαρτυρολόγιον τοῦ Σινᾶ (Thessaloniki, 1989), 194-234.
English translation:
Caner, D.F., History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai (Translated Texts for Historians 53; Liverpool, 2010), 83-135.
Further reading:
Detoraki, M., "Greek Passions of the Martyrs in Byzantium," in: S. Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography II: Genres and Contexts (Farnham, 2014), 78-79.
Devreesse, R., "Le christianisme dans la péninsule sinaïtique des origines à l'arrivée des Musulmans," Revue Biblique 49 (1940), 205-223.
Bryan Ward-Perkins
15/4/2022
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S01620 | Forty Martyrs of Sinai and Forty Martyrs of Raithou (monks killed by Arab and Blemmyes raiders) | Uncertain |
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Bryan Ward-Perkins, Cult of Saints, E08287 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E08287