E07446: The late 4th to 6th century collection of Miracles of *Menas (soldier martyr of Egypt, S00073), ascribed to Timothy of Alexandria, recounts the story of the miraculous rescue from rape of a Samaritan woman who was travelling to the shrine as a pilgrim. Written in Greek in Alexandria.

Timothy of Alexandria, Miracles of Menas (CPG 2527, BHG 1256-1269)

Miracle 6. The Samaritan woman (BHG 1262)

Summary:

A Samaritan woman, after suffering from chronic migraines for three years, is encouraged by Christian women to pray at Menas’ shrine. Keeping the pilgrimage secret from her husband, she departs with her friends for the shrine. On their way, they lodge at an inn by the lake, and the innkeeper attempts to rape her. While he is about to assault her with a sword, she invokes Menas, and the offender’s arms are instantly paralysed. The saint appears on horseback, breaks down the doors of the inn and rescues the woman. She goes to the shrine, requests from the chief presbyter (archipresbyteros) to be baptised, and spends the rest of her life as a nun at the shrine. Later, the innkeeper comes to the shrine, with his arms still paralysed and holding the sword, and for seven days implores the saint for forgiveness. Menas appears in a dream and orders him to follow the instructions of the steward (oikonomos) of the shrine. Next morning, the oikonomos asks him to go down to the saint’s crypt (katabasis) where the archipresbyteros anoints his arms with oil from the saint’s lamp, and his arms are healed. The man donates all his fortune to the shrine, and spends the rest of his life there, serving together with the woman he had attempted to rape.

Text: Pomialovskii 1900.
Summary: E. Rizos.