Five miracle-stories, preserved in a Mount Athos manuscript, recount healing miracles of *Kyros and Ioannes/Cyrus and John (physician and soldier, martyrs of Egypt, S00406) at their shrine at Menouthis (near Alexandria, Lower Egypt). Written in Greek, possibly at Menouthis, probably in 633/641.
E08588
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Five miracles of Kyros and Ioannes (BHG 479b)
Summary:
Miracle 1 – A priest Markos relates to the author how a large rock fell upon his foot and broke it. When recourse to human doctors proved ineffective, he went to the saints instead. Having remained there for nine months without cure but with the wound deteriorating, out of of listlessness (ἀκηδία) he went to a Jew reported to be accomplished in medicine, who recommended amputation. In fear Markos then fled back to ‘the surgery (τὸ ἰατρεῖον)’ of the saints, where he lay down to sleep at ‘the tomb containing the saints’ relics (τῇ σορῷ τῶν ἁγίων λειψάνων)’. In his sleep he saw a monk and a soldier [i.e. the saints] coming ‘out of the grill of the saints’ tomb (ἐκ τῶν καγκέλλων τῆς σοροῦ τῶν ἁγίων)’. They attended to him and recommended grinding down some husks of green nuts and plastering them upon the foot. He awoke and upon recounting his dream was told that he had been visited by the saints. He mixed the recommended cure with the saints’ wax-salve (κηρωτή), and applied it to his foot, which then came out in large boils. The next night, the saints appeared again and now recommended grinding sycamore fruits with wax-salve and then applying it. He awoke and did so, and then fell into a deep sleep for an entire day, during which the boils burst and the foot was completely restored. Upon waking, Markos devoted himself to prayers and thanksgiving, and that night was granted a third visitation of the saints, in which they instructed him to leave. He gave thanks at the tomb of the saints’ relics, and departed.
Miracle 2 – Markos’ son Stephanos had an illness of the lower abdomen which was unknown to, and incurable by, men. His father frequented the saints’ shrine and prayed for his son. One day he returned home with ‘a pious woman who used to attend the shrine and assist in fulfilling their commands (γυναῖκα τινὰ εὐλαβῆ, εἰς τὸν ναὸν τῶν ἀγίων παρεδρεύουσαν καὶ τοῖς αὐτῶν ἐπιτάγμασι ἐξυπηρετουμένην)’. Finding a small hole in Stephanos’ stomach, she drew moisture through it with her mouth, and then twice more extracted with a needle around a cubit of coagulated liquid. Markos then took his son to ‘the common surgery’ of Cyrus and John, where the woman, under inspiration from the saints (ἐκ τῶν ἁγίων παρορμηθεῖσα), took ‘a blessing of wax-salve (λαβοῦσα ἐκ τῆς εὐλογίας τῆς κηρωτῆς)’, ground it up with dates, and applied it to the wound. The next day, three holes opened up on Stephanos' abdomen and groin, and a large amount of liquid flowed out; when he went to the bath, water filled the holes and then poured out for an hour. A doctor who was then living near (προσπαραμένων) the shrine was critical of the woman, proclaiming the condition incurable. But Markos had faith and persisted with the cure, so that his son was healed.
Miracle 3 – The same woman told how, when a girl, she developed leukomas in both eyes. Sleeping with faith near the shrine of the saints’ relics, she saw one of the saints who told her to grind ox dung and rub her eyes with it. She did so and was cured. Let no-one, the author adds, mock the strangeness of the order, for it is through the eyes that the passions creep in and sins are committed, and the saints also gave aid against the pleasures of the flesh, in imitation of Christ (cf. Jonn 5:14). Thus through their order the saints aided the eyes of the soul as well as those of the body.
Miracle 4 – A man from Byzantium was terribly afflicted in his insides and expected to die. He fled to the saints’ shrine, where he lay down to sleep by ‘the tomb containing the saints’ relics’, and prayed for an end to his suffering. The saints appeared to him and ordered him to take a snake, grind it together with a small fig, mix it with ‘a blessing of wax-salve’, and plaster it on himself. Upon waking, the man recounted his vision, which was judged to have come from the saints. The cure was fetched and applied, and soon the man felt better, and fell into a deep sleep. Upon waking the next day with his pain once more alleviated, he applied the plaster again, and a few days later he was completely cured.
Miracle 5 – The author recounts that certain people had told him of a woman who had a cancer, and fled to the ‘surgery’ of the saints, where she prayed constantly at the tomb of the relics. The saints appeared and told her to drink a broth of cooked wild fennel. Having drunk it, she then expelled the broth along with the cancer, which was displayed at the shrine in a lamp.
Text: Déroche 2012, 199-220
Summary: P. Booth
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivityIncubation
MiraclesMiracle after death
Healing diseases and disabilities
RelicsContact relic - wax
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Physicians
Source
A tenth-century menologion contained in the Athonite manuscript Koutloumousiou 37 includes at its end (fols 366v-369v = BHG 479b) an anonymous collection of five miracles of the saints Kyros and Ioannes/Cyrus and John, which were published and elucidated by Vincent Déroche in 2012.The collection is evidently a sample of a larger work. It has no formal introduction or conclusion; and an internal reference shows that the extant miracles were once preceded by at least one more which is not transmitted. The collection is distinct from the more famous collection of seventy miracles penned by Sophronius of Jerusalem in the 610s (E08545), although the setting, the saints’ shrine at Menouthis near Alexandria, seems to be the same.
The first miracle is set in the 24th year of the reign of Heraclius (633/4), during the patriarchate, or initial vicarate, of Cyrus of Alexandria (c. 633-642), and when one Theodore, a deacon, was the shrine’s oikonomos or administrator. Since neither Heraclius (d. 641) or Cyrus (d. 642) is indicated as dead, this miracle, and probably the wider collection, must have been composed before 641.
The first four miracles are unique to this collection, but the last appears also, in different form, in Sophronius’s collection; see Miracles of the Saints Cyrus and John 19 (E07063). The two must therefore share a source, whether written or oral. Nevertheless the concerns of the Athos collection seem distinct from that of Sophronius. Although the sample for comparison is small, we note here, in contrast to Sophronius, emphases on the saints’ relics and on the mediation of dreams and cures through persons at the shrines; and, in turn, an absence of doctrinal polemics and, for the most part, rhetorical flourishes. It might well be, in fact, that the new collection represents an attempt to replace that of Sophronius, who in the year of its composition is said to have confronted Cyrus over his christological stance. At the least, it shows that more than one collection was then in use around the saints’ cult.
Bibliography
Edition:V. Déroche, ‘Un recueil inédit de miracles de Cyr et Jean dans le Koutloumousiou 37,’ Rivista di studi
bizantini e neoellenici 49 (2012), 199-220 (with French translation and discussion).
Further reading:
P. Booth, ‘Between Texts and Shrines in the Greek Cult of Saints (5th–7th Centuries),’ in V. Déroche et al. (eds), Culte et hagiographie : accords et désaccords (Paris, 2020), 23-38.
Philip Booth
06/05/2025
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00406 | Kyros and Ioannes/Cyrus and John, physician and soldier, martyrs of Egypt | Certain |
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