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E04229: The Miracles of *Artemios (martyr of Antioch under Julian, S01128) recounts the miraculous healing by the saint at his shrine in Constantinople of a man from Amastris with a boil on his testicles. Written in Greek in Constantinople, 582/668; assembled as a collection, 658/668.

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posted on 2017-10-30, 00:00 authored by julia
Miracles of Artemios (BHG 173), 3


Ἐκ τῆς χώρας Ἀμάστριδός τις ὑπῆρχεν ἐνδημῶν τῇ πανευδαίμονι καὶ βασιλίδι πόλει. τοῦτον ἔτυχεν κατὰ τῶν διδύμων πώρωμα ἐσχηκέναι, ὥστε διὰ πολλῶν ἰατρῶν ἐλθόντα μηδὲν ὠφεληθῆναι, ἀλλὰ εἰς τὸ χεῖρον ἐλάσαι. ὑπὸ δέ τινος
εἰσηγηθεὶς προσέδραμεν τῷ ἁγίῳ καὶ θαυματουργῷ. παραμείνας οὖν ἡμέρας τρεῖς καὶ ἐπὶ πλέον ταῖς ὀδύναις πιεζόμενος, παρακλήσεις προσάγει τοῖς ἱερομύσταις τοῦ ναοῦ, αἰτῶν δοθῆναι αὐτῷ τῆς τοῦ Προδρόμου καὶ τοῦ μάρτυρος κηρωτῆς. λαβὼν οὖν καὶ ποιήσας ἔμπλαστρον ἐπέθηκεν ἐν ᾧ ὠδυνᾶτο τόπῳ. ὥρα ἦν ὡσεὶ τετάρτη, τῷ δὲ μεσεμβρίῳ ἐπέστη αὐτῷ ὁ ἅγιος τοῦ θεοῦ θεράπων, καὶ προσποιησάμενος αὐτὸν ψηλαφᾶν δέδωκεν αὐτῷ μετὰ ξίφους τομήν· καὶ παραχρῆμα διαρραγέντος οὗπερ εἶχεν πωρώματος, δυσωδίας ἐπληρώθη ὅλος ὁ ἅγιος οἶκος, ὥστε καὶ τοὺς παρόντας ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτῶν θεωμένους τὴν τοῦ μάρτυρος θαυματουργίαν καὶ μὴ φέροντας τὴν δυσωδίαν ἀγαγεῖν ὕδατα θερμὰ καὶ σπόγγους καὶ δι’ ἑαυτῶν ἀποσπογγίσαι τὸν ἰχῶρα τοῦ ἕλκους. τινῶν δὲ συμβουλευόντων αὐτῷ ἀνακλιθῆναι εἰς τὸν ξενῶνα, οὐκ ἠνέσχετο, ἀλλὰ πάντας ἀπεπέμπετο φάσκων· “Τῶν ἔνθεν οὐκ ἀναχωρῶ, ἀλλὰ τῇ ἐμπλάστρῳ ταύτῃ χρήσομαι τῆς τοῦ ἁγίου κηρωτῆς”. καὶ τοῦτο ποιήσας ὑγιὴς κατέστη καὶ ἀπῆλθεν δοξάζων τὸν θεόν, τὸν ἰασάμενον αὐτὸν διὰ τοῦ ἁγίου μάρτυρος.

'There was a certain man from the region of Amastris staying in the divinely favored and imperial city. It happened that he had a boil on his testicles so that, although he had visited many doctors, he did not derive any benefit at all, but grew worse. After he was brought in by someone, he ran to the saint and wonderworker. Waiting then three days and becoming more and more distressed by pain, he directed entreaties to the priests of the church, requesting that there be given to him some of the wax-salve (kerotes) of the Forerunner and of the martyr. So after receiving it and making a poultice, he applied it to the painful area. This took place about the fourth hour, but at noon the holy servant of God stood near him and pretending to touch him made an incision with a scalpel; immediately the boil which he had burst and all of the holy house was filled with a stench, so that those present who witnessed the martyr's miracle with their own eyes, but could not bear the stench, brought warm water and sponges and with their own hands sponged off the effluvium from the sore. Although some advised him to lie down in the hospital, he refused and sent them all away saying: "I am not going to withdraw from here, but I will use the poultice of the saint's wax." And doing so, he was restored to health and went away glorifying God Who had cured him through the holy martyr.'


Text: Papadopoulos-Kerameus 1909. Translation: Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997.

History

Evidence ID

E04229

Saint Name

Artemios, martyr in Antioch on the Orontes, ob. 362 : S01128

Saint Name in Source

Ἀρτέμιος

Type of Evidence

Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles

Language

  • Greek

Evidence not before

658

Evidence not after

668

Activity not before

582

Activity not after

668

Place of Evidence - Region

Constantinople and region

Place of Evidence - City, village, etc

Constantinople

Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)

Constantinople Constantinople Κωνσταντινούπολις Konstantinoupolis Constantinopolis Constantinople Istanbul

Cult activities - Places

Cult building - independent (church)

Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs

Visiting graves and shrines

Cult Activities - Miracles

Miracle after death Healing diseases and disabilities Specialised miracle-working

Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy Other lay individuals/ people

Cult Activities - Relics

Bodily relic - entire body Contact relic - wax

Source

The Miracles of Artemios is a collection of 45 miracle-stories, effected by the saint at and around his burial and cult site in the church of St. John the Baptist in the Oxeia quarter of Constantinople. Artemios was an Alexandrian dux and martyr of the reign of Julian, who has an independent Martyrdom (E06781). The Miracles does not include this passio, although the stories on occasion show some acquaintance with it. Nothing is known of the cult before the period described in the Miracles. The Miracles’ vignettes stretch from (at least) the reign of Maurice (582-602) to that of Constans II (641-668). The current text was compiled in the period 658-668: the terminus post quem is provided by the last datable event mentioned within the text (Mir. 41: 4 October 658) and the terminus ante quem by the fact that Constans is there described as still alive (as he is too in Mir. 23). The text is not, however, the product of a single pen, but seems instead to be a compilation of several parts. Those narratives at the beginning and end of the collection (Mir. 1-14, 42-45) are short, somewhat unembellished, healing narratives of a more-or-less standardised kind; while those of the central section are far more elaborate and varied, and seem to fall into rough thematic doublets or groups. One such group is conspicuous because all of its miracles (24-31) conclude with some sermonettes on secular medicine. The most obvious explanation for this basic dissonance is that the collection as we have it has been composed from at least three different parts: first, an earlier, more simple collection which opens the text; second, an original composition in the central section (where the addition of the sermonettes to some miracles perhaps indicates the exploitation of another, pre-existent collection of miracles); and third, a final addition of the four concluding miracles. Besides pre-existent collections of written material preserved within the shrine itself, the text also draws, no doubt, on the oral traditions then circulating amongst the shrine’s clientele. The text itself describes in vivid terms the community of clerics and lay devotees who gathered around the shrine, in particular for its weekend vigil, and several such persons are the protagonists of individual miracles. One such person is an anonymous devotee of the saint’s vigil who features in two long and detailed miracles (Mir. 18, 22); another is George, a cleric and devotee of Artemios, who features as protagonist in three different miracles (Mir. 38-40). It seems clear, then, that the compiler draws from the oral accounts, or perhaps even written records, which the saint’s clerics and devotees produced, and which provide these central miracles with their vivid detail and insight. Indeed, although the compiler of the collection is anonymous, it is reasonable to suppose that he is also a lay devotee of the saint, and perhaps even one of those persons who feature prominently in the text. Through descriptions of this vigil, and other scattered details, we are offered an unparalleled perspective both on the layout of the church of St. John—which can be reconstructed in some detail—and on the practices of Artemios’s devotees. The saint’s cult was an incubatory healing cult, in which the sick came to the shrine and slept overnight, in the hope of a miraculous cure. The collection underlines the importance of performing ‘the customary rites’ in advance of a cure, which seems to mean the dedication of a votive lamp and other offerings. The weekly vigil is also presented as especially efficacious, for on this night it was possible to sleep in and around the crypt where the tomb which contained the saint’s relics was sited (see e.g. Mir. 17). Almost all of the cures occur within the church of St John itself, or else upon those who have spent some time there and then withdrawn. The principal mode of healing is a miraculous dream, sometimes in combination with the application of holy oil taken from the tomb’s lamps, or a wax-salve imprinted with the image of the saint. Almost all of the miracles concern healing, but also of a particular kind. For Artemios was a specialist in diseases of the male genitals and groin, which dominate the entire collection. Sick women at the shrine could expect a vision of the martyr *Phebronia, who appears in several places as Artemios’ female equivalent (Mir. 6, 23, 24, 38, 45). In contrast to equivalent collections, Artemios does not collaborate with secular doctors, or depend on quasi-Hippocratic cures. Indeed, one of the most striking features of the text is the series of sermonettes which punctuate the central miracles and denounce in virulent terms the inadequacies of contemporaneous Hippocratic medicine (Mir. 24-31). The text was compiled at a moment of high drama for the eastern Roman Empire, in which its territorial holdings, and revenues, had been dramatically reduced through the Arab conquests. This context is however strikingly absent from the collection, which instead paints a picture of vivid and thriving urban life, in particular amongst the capital’s middle classes, who make up the vast majority of the saint’s devotees. Nevertheless, it has been suggested the text offers a powerful political metaphor related to the perceived disease of the body politic: that the cure for all ailments, whether derived from sin or from natural causes, is not to turn to other men, but rather to propitiate and to trust in God.

Discussion

This healing miracle, a short and to some extent standarised account, belongs to the first of the several sections that make up the collection of Artemios' miracles (Mir. 1-14; see Discussion).

Bibliography

Text: Papadopoulos-Kerameus, A., Miracula xlv sancti Artemii, in idem, Varia graeca sacra [Subsidia Byzantina 6] (St. Petersburg: Kirschbaum, 1909): 1-75. Translation: Crisafulli, V.S., and J.W. Nesbitt, The Miracles of St. Artemios. A Collection of Miracle Stories by an Anonymous Author of Seventh Century Byzantium (Leiden, New York, Köln: Brill, 1997). Further reading: Alwis, A., “Men in Pain: Masculinity, Medicine and the Miracles of St. Artemios,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 36. (2012), 1–19. Busine, A.,“The Dux and the Nun. Hagiography and the Cult of Artemios and Febronia in Constantinople,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 72 (2018), 93–111. Déroche, V., "Pourquoi écrivait-on des recueils de miracles? L’exemple des miracles de saint Artémios," in C. Jolivet-Lévy, M. Kaplan, J.-P. Sodini, (eds), Les saints et leur sanctuaire à Byzance: textes, images, monuments (Paris, 1993), 95-116. Deubner, L., De incubatione capita quattuor scripsit Ludovicus Deubner. Accedit Laudatio in miracula Sancti Hieromartyris Therapontis e codice Messanensi denuo edita. (Lipsiae: Teubner, 1900). Efthymiadis, S., "A Day and Ten Months in the Life of a Lonely Bachelor: The Other Byzantium in Miracula S. Artemii 18 and 22," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 58 (2004), 1-26. Grosdidier de Matons, J., “Les Miracula Sancti Artemii: Note sur quelques questions de vocabulaire,” in E. Lucchesi and H.D. Saffrey (eds), Mémorial André-Jean Festugière: Antiquité, Paienne et Chrétienne (Geneva: Cramer, 1984), 263-266. Haldon, J., "Supplementary Essay: The Miracles of Artemios and Contemporary Attitudes: Context and Significance," in Crisafulli and Nesbitt, Miracles of Artemios 33-75. Kaplan, M., “Une hôtesse importante de l’église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de l’Oxeia à Constantinople : Fébronie," in D. Sullivan, E.A. Fisher, S. Papaioannou (eds), Byzantine Religious Culture: Studies in Honor of Alice-Mary Talbot (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 31–52. Krueger, D., Writing and Holiness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East (Phildelphia, PA, 2004), 63-70. Mango, C., “History of the Templon and the Martyrion of St. Artemios at Constantinople,” Zograf 10 (1979), 40–43. Rydén, L., "Kyrkan som sjukhus: om den helige Artemios' mirakler," Religion och Bibel 44 (1987), 3-16. Simon, J., “Note sur l’original de la passion de Sainte Fébronie,” Analecta Bollandiana 42 (1924), 69–76.

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