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FIVE MIRACLES OF ST. MENAS John Duffy and Emmanuel Bourbouhakis
The cult of St. Menas, an Egyptian martyr whose feastday is celebrated on November 11, led to the development of one of the most popular pil-grimage centers of the early Middle Ages. It was located in the Egyptian desert southwest of Alexandria and Lake Mareotis and consisted of a l a rge complex of buildings whose full extent was brought to light by the excavations of C. M. Kaufmann in the opening decade of the last centu-r y.1Sophronius of Jerusalem in the early seventh century described the s a i n t ’s shrine as “the pride of all Libya”.2Many examples of St. Menas flasks, image-bearing clay ampullae for carrying blessed water from the shrine, have been found throughout the territories of the Byzantine Empire and further afield, thus bearing witness to the far-flung fame of the saint and his influence.3
In addition to the physical traces of the cult we have a collection of miracle accounts, attributed in part of the Greek tradition to Patriarch Timothy of Alexandria (380-384), though there is not a shred of evidence to support the ascription apart from a manuscript title, and it hardly deserves to be taken seriously.4 Alongside Greek, the miracles of Menas survive in one form or another in various other languages including Coptic, Ethiopian, and Slavic. As far as the Greek text is concerned, there is essentially only one serviceable printed version of thirteen miracles, namely that published in 1900 on the basis of a single Moscow manu-script by the Russian scholar I. Pomjalovskij.5 Writing some ten years
1 Kaufmann (1910).
2 In the Miracles of Cyrus and John, no. 46: TÚ Mhnç toË mãrturow t°menow ka‹ tÚ prÚ toË tem°nouw domãtion pãshw LibÊhw kay°sthke frÊagma. In the edition of N. F. Marcos (1975), the text is on p. 351.
3 See the article “Menas Flasks” in vol. 2 of the ODB 1340.
4 A sentiment expressed long ago by H. Delehaye in an article of considerable importance for Menas studies: Delehaye (1910) 117-150 (present point 127-8).
5 Zhitie prepodobnago Paisija Velikago i Timofeja patriarkha Aleksandrijskago povestvo -vanie o chudesakh Sv. velikomuchenika Miny (St. Petersburg: 1900) 62-89. The manuscript in question is Moscow Sinod. gr. 379 dated to the eleventh century. We should also mention another, rather strange, printing of the first five miracles from a different Greek manuscript of similar date. In “De Wonderverhalen van den Heiligen Menas,” R. Miedema (1918) 212-21 provides from Vaticanus gr. 866 a transcription that not only omits accents entirely but also reproduces the myriad orthographical peculiarities of the copyist. The transcription does help us, however, in one place; see below n. 20.
66 JOHN DUFFY AND EMMANUEL BOURBOUHAKIS
later Delehaye remarked how that Russian edition continued to remain u n n o t i c e d .6 He also drew attention to the fact that there were quite a few other manuscripts in existence which would be worth examining. A f t e r the lapse of a century, however, the groundwork of collecting and com-paring all the surviving witnesses has still not been carried out and the absence of much basic information, therefore, imposes limits on the ongoing discussion of these documents.
On the other hand, Delehaye himself had looked at a sufficient num-ber of the manuscripts to determine that not all offered the same numnum-ber of miracles, noting that in some the collection was confined to the first five. This was also the case, he added, in the menaia for November 11 , whose texts were “notablement abrégés”.7
It is our purpose here to publish the first account, consisting of text, translation and notes, of one of these abridged versions that were spe-cially tailored for use in liturgical books. The manuscript witness is a lit-tle-known synaxarion of the 12th century, formerly housed in the monastery of St. John the Theologian on the island of Lesbos, but pur-chased by an American bibliophile from a dealer in New York in 1947 and bequeathed to Harvard College in 1984. It is now in the Houghton Library at Harvard University and carries the designation Ms. Typ 243H.8 The text of this six-month synaxarion, covering the feastdays of saints from September to February, is severely truncated in its present state, having suffered the loss of its first eleven quires. The surviving part begins with the commemorations for November 11, i.e. with a brief account of the martyrdom of St. Menas, followed by the short collection of miracles.
The five miracles of St. Menas found in the Harvard copy are a rep-resentative selection of one of the oldest and most popular genres of Christian literature, the beneficial tale. These versions are interesting examples of the final installment of the story of such beneficial tales and religious literature of this type more generally. For by the tenth century much of it was being gathered, abridged, and having its language adjust-ed (usually up, but occasionally down) to more canonical forms and v o c a b u l a r y. In the process the original verve was often dampened and even extinguished. One need only compare the miracle of the crippled man and the mute woman (no. 4) with the longer, earlier version that we have reprinted from Pomjalovskij’s edition and translated here for the
6 Delehaye (1910) 128.
7 Delehaye (1910) 128.
8 See John Duffy (forthcoming). For a very brief and incomplete description see also Bond and Faye (1962) 26.
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FIVE MIRACLES OF ST.MENAS
first time into English. Not only has a kind of Byzantine bowdlerization taken place, a fact quite significant in itself, since it tells us something about what was deemed appropriate for the audience of a twelfth-centu-ry commemorative service, but the extreme distillation of this and the other stories into their most salient elements has put them on the marg i n s of narrative; they appear less and less as vivid accounts of singular events and rather more as illustrations of important lessons.9 Nevertheless, they are still quite revealing, both for the changes they have undergone and for what they preserve. Indeed a significant core of motives and values survives from the longer into the abridged versions.
The mercantile community of lower Egypt portrayed here, with its ser-vants, horses, and purses of gold, remained familiar to a middle Byzantine audience. Theft and trickery amongst this class must not have been so foreign as to render the stories implausible, at least not in the eyes of some. Finally, the intervention of the saint in such situations, resulting in one story at least in a sizeable donation to his shrine, reflects the role which an immanent spiritual world was believed to play in the daily lives of Byzantine Christians. The stories published here represent the continued efforts to ensure the recognition of that role and the con-sequences for those who failed to heed its lessons.
9 It is no surprise that the eye-catching original version of no. 4 drew comments from mod-ern scholars. Delehaye (1910) 131 characterizes it as a “plaisante et peu édifiante histoire” and Karl Krumbacher, in a short review of Pomjalovskij’s work ( BZ 10 [1901] 343-4) must sure-ly have had it uppermost in his mind when he referred to the “zum Teil sehr sonderbaren und zur Lektüre von Comtessen wenig geeigneten Wunder des hl. Menas”!
68 JOHN DUFFY AND EMMANUEL BOURBOUHAKIS
TEXT. I
Pot¢ d° tiw éperxÒmenow proseÊjasyai §n t“ na“ aÈtoË, §d°xyh parã tinow efiw monÆn. ka‹ §pe‹ ı ÍpodoxeÁw ¶gnv tÚn Ípodexy°nta
§gkÒlpion f°rein xrusÒn, énaståw §n m°sƒ t∞w nuktÚw fone¤&
xeir‹ toÊtƒ §p°yeto: ka‹ melhdÚn katakÒcaw efiw spur¤da §n°bale ka‹ éph≈rhse, tØn ßv §kdexÒmenow. ka‹ ∑n loipÚn §nag≈niow …w pÒte ka‹ poË épagãgoi §n éfane› tÒpƒ katakrËcai boulÒmenow.
Ka‹ …w §n toÊtoiw ∑n ≤ mel°th, ı ëgiow toË XristoË mãrtuw
¶fippow …w §n tãjei strati≈tou énafane‹w per‹ toË §ke›se katalÊsantow ±reÊna j°nou. toË d¢ fon°vw mhd¢n gin≈skein dia-bebaioum°nou, toË ·ppou épobåw efis∞lyen §n t“ §ndot°rƒ ofikÆmati, ka‹ katagagΔn tØn spur¤da ka‹ t“ fone› blosurÚn
§mbl°caw, “t¤ §sti toËto;” fhs¤n. ı d¢ Àsper ¶kplhktow genÒmenow ÍpÚ d°ouw to›w pos‹ toË èg¤ou pt«ma deinÚn •autÚn kat°bale.
Tå goËn katatmhy°nta m°lh ı ëgiow sunarmologÆsaw ka‹
proseujãmenow én°sthse tÚn nekrÚn efipΔn “dÚw dÒjan t“ ye“.” ı d¢ …w §j Ïpnou énaståw ka‹ katanoÆsaw ˜sa ka‹ oÂa pãyoi parå toË Ípodejam°nou §dÒjase tÚn yeÒn, ka‹ t“ fainom°nƒ strath-lãt˙ eÈxaristÆsaw tØn proskÊnhsin §d¤dou. énastãntow te toË fon°vw ı ëgiow tÚn xrusÚn épÚ toÊtou labΔn doÁw aÈt“ ¶fh “t Ø n ıdÒn sou poreÊou.” tÚn d¢ fon°a §pistrafe‹w tÊcaw …w efikÚw ka‹
kathxÆsaw pros°ti, ka‹ tØn êfesin toË §gklÆmatow xarisãmenow, ka‹ Íp¢r §ke¤nou proseujãmenow, toË ·ppou §pibåw ép°pth épÚ t«n Ùfyalm«n aÈtoË.
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FIVE MIRACLES OF ST.MENAS
TRANSLATIONS. I
There was a man once who having gone to pray at the saint’s church was given a place to stay by a certain individual. And because the man who received him realized that the guest was carrying gold on his p e r s o n ,1 0he got up in the middle of the night and set upon him with a murderous hand. And cutting his body into pieces he put him in a bas-ket, suspended it, and waited for morning. And then he was filled with anxiety about when and where he might take (the remains) to hide them in some remote place.
Now while his mind was preoccupied with these things, Christ’s saintly martyr appeared on horseback dressed as a military man11a n d began to inquire about the stranger who had spent the night there. A n d although the murderer assured him he knew nothing, the saint dis-mounted from his horse, went into the inner part of the building and bringing down the basket and fixing a fearsome stare on the murder-e r, hmurder-e said “What is this?” And thmurder-e man, going into a statmurder-e of shock from fright, cast himself at the feet of the saint like a wretched corpse.
The saint then reassembled the severed limbs and, having prayed, he raised up the dead man, saying “Give glory to God.” While he, rising as if from sleep and realizing the extent of his sufferings at the hands of the man who had given him lodging, praised God, and thanking the per-son dressed as a military officer he made obeisance to him. And when the murderer got up from the ground, the saint took the gold from him and gave it to the other saying “Continue your journey.” And turning to the murderer he chastised him as was fitting and lectured him as well, granting him pardon for the crime. Then he offered a prayer on the man’s behalf, got on his horse and disappeared from his sight.
10 The Greek phrase §gkÒlpion f°rein could possibly be interpreted to mean that the man was wearing a gold cross or some other type of phylactery. However, later in the story we are told that the saint returned “the gold” to its owner, and that also agrees with the longer version published by Pomjalovskij (1900) 63-5, in which the coveted object was money carried in a purse or money-bag (balãntion).
11 This may be a reflection of some accounts of the saint’s earlier career which make him a soldier. Beyond that Delehaye (1910) 135 draws attention to the fact that St. Menas as horserider fits into a general pattern for Egyptian saints.
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II
ÜEterow d° tiw d¤skon §j érgÊrou t“ èg¤ƒ §paggeilãmenow para-labΔn t“ texn¤t˙ dÊo toÊtƒ d¤skouw kataskeuçsai Íp°yeto ka‹
§pigrãcai §n m¢n t“ •n‹ tÚ toË èg¤ou ˆnoma, §n d¢ t“ •t°rƒ tÚ
•autoË. kataskeuasy°ntvn oÔn t«n d¤skvn, §pe‹ xari°sterÒw te ka‹ lamprÒterow ı toË èg¤ou §de¤knuto, t∞w §pigraf∞w mhdÉ ıpvsoËn melÆsaw •aut“ toËton prosÆrmose.
<ToÊtou> to¤nun ka‹ katå yãlattan diå toË ploÚw tØn pore¤an poioum°nou ka‹ §n tª nh˛ toË de¤pnou diå toË §juphre-toËntow aÈt“ eÈtrepisy°ntow tå paratey°nta §n t“ toË èg¤ou d¤skƒ énupostÒlvw ≥syie. metå taËta t∞w trap°zhw §k m°sou genom°nhw ı §juphret«n aÈt“ doËlow labΔn tÚn d¤skon prÚw tÚ
§kplËnai toËton §n tª yalãtt˙ §bÊyizen. Íposure‹w dÉ ı d¤skow §k t«n xeir«n aÈtoË, p«w ên tiw e‡poi, §n tª yalãss˙ éperr¤fh. ı goËn doËlow sÊntromow genÒmenow ka‹ deil¤& susxeye‹w ¶ti d¢
katanarkvye‹w Ípoxaun≈saw •autÚn éperr¤fh ka‹ aÈtÚw katapÒdaw §n tª yalãss˙.
ToËto fidΔn ı kÊriow aÈtoË §leeinologoÊmenow ¶legen, “o È a ¤ moi t“ éyl¤ƒ ˜ti zhl≈saw tÚn toË èg¤ou d¤skon prosap≈lesa sÁn aÈt“ ka‹ tÚn doËlon. éllå so‹ kÊrie ı yeÒw mou tØn §paggel¤an taÊthn pepo¤hmai, ˜ti §ån tÚ le¤canon ka‹ mÒnon toË paidÚw eÍrÆsv, d¤dvmi t“ yerãpont¤ sou èg¤ƒ Mhnò ka‹ toËton tÚn d¤skon ka‹ tØn toË épolesy°ntow diat¤mhsin.” ka‹ §jelyΔn épÚ
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II
Another man, having promised a silver plate to St. Menas, employed the services of the silversmith1 2and commissioned him to make two plates for him and to engrave the saint’s name on the one and his own on the other. When the plates had been made, the one dedicated to the saint turned out to be more elegant and dazzling, so the man kept it for himself, totally disregarding the inscription.
And while <he>1 3 was making the journey by sea1 4 his dinner was prepared for him aboard ship by his servant and he ate the food placed on the plate of the saint without misgivings. Later, when the meal had been cleared away, the servant took the plate and dipped it in the sea in order to wash it. And the plate, snatched one might say out of his hands, fell into the sea. Whereupon the servant became ter-rified and, seized by fear and reduced moreover to numbness, he slackened his grip a little and he, too, fell immediately into the sea.
Seeing this, the servant’s master said in a piteous voice, “Woe to me the wretch, for in coveting the plate belonging to the saint I have lost not only it but my servant as well. But to you Lord, my God, I make the following promise: if I should only find the remains of the b o y, I shall give your servant St. Menas both this plate and the value of the one that has been lost.” And disembarking from the ship onto
12 The Greek reads paralabΔn t“ texn¤t˙, which, in spite of the unexpected use of the dative, we have translated in the sense of “ to hire”; cf. Lampe’s Lexicon, meaning no. 6. Still, it could well be the case that the participle has undergone an easy corruption from para-bal≈n. That verb would provide a good reason for the dative and give the sense “having gone to a craftsman”, which would have the added benefit of more closely approximating the Pomjalovskij text, ép°rxomai efiw texn¤thn, “I am going to a craftsman”.
13 We have restored a missing subject, toÊtou, in the Greek.
14 Although the Havard version has katå yãlattan, the longer Greek version refers not to any sea but to a lake. In the original form of the story the lake is without question Lake Mareotis which lies between Alexandria and the nearby desert region in which the shrine of St.
Menas was located. Fraser (1972), 1, 144-6, describes the system of ports and boat travel which would have ferried most pilgrims to the shrine of Abu Mina. The change from “lake” in the older version to “sea” in the synaxarion illustrates an interesting element of metaphrasis, namely, the removal or replacement of locally significant references in a bid to produce more universal and less specifically rooted contexts. A generic reference to a “journey by sea” would have been familiar to most Byzantine pilgrims of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. “The lake” and similar references to Alexandria, when taken out of the synaxarion text, deprive the account of local color but on the other hand enhance the sense that the saint may intervene any-where, anytime. This in turn would be in tune with the ecumenical cult of St. Menas whose shrines proliferated around Christendom. He became a saint that the faithful could call upon at any time or place.
It should be noted that, in using the term metaphrasis above, we are not claiming any asso-ciation with the specific rewriting activity of Symeon Metaphrastes. Further research, in the first instance into the whole of the Greek manuscript tradition of these Menas stories, would need to be conducted before any such connection could be confidently proposed.
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toË plo¤ou §p‹ tØn jhrån ép°blepe prÚw tØn parãlion karadok«n ka‹ Ífor≈menow §n Ùfyalmo›w e‰nai tÚ zhtoÊmenon, ka‹ diå toËto égvni«n e‡pvw dunhye¤h yeãsasyai tÚ toË paidÚw le¤canon. ka‹
…w prose›xen §pimel«w e‰de tÚn doËlon §rxÒmenon épÚ t∞w yalãsshw metå toË d¤skou ka‹ ¶frije. ka‹ krãjaw megãl˙ tª fvnª
§j∞lyon ëpantew épÚ toË plo¤ou. ka‹ …w e‰don tÚn doËlon kat°xonta tÚn d¤skon §j°sthsan ëpantew dojãzontew ka‹
eÈlogoËntew tÚn yeÒn.
Punyanom°nvn d¢ toÊtvn maye›n tÚn trÒpon t∞w svthr¤aw aÈtoË, diesãfhsen ı doËlow l°gvn ˜ti, “ëma t“ §naporrif∞na¤ me tª yalãss˙, énØr eÈeidØw mey’ •t°rvn dÊo kratÆsant°w me, Àdeu-san sÁn §mo‹ xy¢w ka‹ sÆmeron m°xri t«n œde.”
III
ÉAllå ka‹ gunÆ tiw éperxom°nh efiw tÚn ëgion ka‹ biasye›sa parã tinow efiw afisxrån m¤jin tÚn ëgion efiw boÆyeian afithsam°nh, oÈ pare›den aÈtÆn, éllå tÚn biastØn paradeigmat¤saw éblab∞
taÊthn diefÊlaje.
DÆsaw går tÚn ·ppon ı énØr efiw tÚn dejiÚn aÈtoË pÒda
±sxole›to prÚw tØn guna›ka. ı d¢ ·ppow égrivye‹w katå toË fid¤ou despÒtou oÈ mÒnon efiw perikopØn t∞w afisxrçw m¤jevw §gegÒnei, éllå ka‹ toËton ßlkvn katå g∞w êxriw ín tÚn toË èg¤ou naÚn kat°laben oÈk ¶sth. aÈt¤ka går megãla ka‹ puknå §pixremet¤saw, flkanoÁw §jÆgage prÚw yevr¤an: •ort∞w går égom°nhw, pl∞yow laoË
§ke›se sun°trexen.
ÑO d¢ toËto peponyΔw fidΔn tØn toË laoË sun°leusin, tÚn
·ppon te §p‹ ple›on égrioÊmenon ka‹ •autÚn ÍpÚ mhdenÚw bohyoÊmenon, ptohye‹w mÆpote Ùleyri≈terÒn ti Íposta¤h ÍpÚ toË fid¤ou ·ppou, éneruyriãstvw §n≈pion pãntvn §sthl¤teuse tÚ
•autoË énÒmhma. ka‹ eÈy°vw ı ·ppow pausãmenow ¶sth §n
≤merÒthti. ka‹ luye‹w ı §pibãthw efis∞lye prÚw tÚn ëgion, ka‹
prospesΔn §d°eto toË èg¤ou mØ peirasy∞nai ¶ti.
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dry land, he looked off toward the shore with hope and trepidation to see the thing he had asked for, and for this reason agonized whether he might somehow catch sight of the boy’s corpse. And as he looked carefully he saw the servant coming from the sea with the plate and he was filled with dread. And crying out with a loud voice, everyone came from the ship. And when they saw the servant with the plate in his hands they all were amazed and gave praise and glory to God.
And when they asked him to find out how he was saved, the ser-vant explained, saying, “As soon as I fell into the sea a handsome man together with two others took hold of me and they journeyed with me yesterday and today until we arrived here.”
III
But a certain woman as well, while she was on her way to the saint, was forcibly seized by a man who wanted shameful intercourse with h e r. She asked the saint for help and he did not ignore her, but mak-ing an example of the rapist he kept her unharmed. For the man had tied his horse to his right foot while he was busy with the woman. But
But a certain woman as well, while she was on her way to the saint, was forcibly seized by a man who wanted shameful intercourse with h e r. She asked the saint for help and he did not ignore her, but mak-ing an example of the rapist he kept her unharmed. For the man had tied his horse to his right foot while he was busy with the woman. But