Crisis of Empire. Phil Booth
and with the additional, parenthetical explanation that “both happened to be there, nobly struggling against the demonic and heretical mania of the godless Acephali”; and ibid. 16 [Festugière 364], in which, “because of the innumerable heretics who lived in the county” (“Theodosians, Gaianites, Barsanuphites, and other impious heretics”) John “appointed those aforementioned men of eternal memory—that is, John and Sophronius, favored with the grace of God and illuminated through the divine wisdom of the blessed new Noah, Modestus, who occupied the seat of the city of Christ, who had not acquired a unique ark but who restored all the holy arks of God.” On John and his relationship to Moschus and Sophronius see further Usener (1907) 80–107; Chadwick (1974) 49–59; Rapp (2004). On Leontius of Neapolis and his hagiographies see Mango (1984); Déroche (1995); Krueger (1996). Though not considered here, it should be noted that John the Almsgiver is the author of a much-neglected Life of Tychon; see Usener (1907).
44. Leontius of Neapolis, Life of John the Almsgiver 37 [Festugière 386f.]. It is tempting to suppose that such disputations occurred at the Ennaton, which appears in Anonymous Life of John the Almsgiver 9, Epitome of the Life of John the Almsgiver 9, Sophronius, Anacreontics 21, and in John Moschus, Spiritual Meadow 145–46 (with Maisano [1982] 246 for the former), 171, 177, and the additional tale at Paulus Evergetinus, Synagōgē 850f. These authors all present the Ennaton as Chalcedonian, but for the presence there of anti-Chalcedonians (both Syrian and Egyptian) in the precise same period see, e.g., History of the Patriarchs [Evetts 473–84]; and Hatch (1937) and Baars (1968) 1 on the biblical translations completed there by the Syrian scholars Thomas of Heraclea and Paul of Tella ca. 615–17. For the existence of disputations between Chalcedonians and anti-Chalcedonians in Egypt in this period cf. also Anastasius of Sinai, Hodegos 1.1 [Uthemann 9].
45. See below n. 223.
46. For this shrine see Grossmann (1998). For the rivalries between different local cults (or different shrines of the same saints) see, e.g., Egyptian Miracles of Cosmas and Damian 18; Miracles of Cosmas and Damian 12; Miracles of Thecla 4, 29. On the latter Davis (2001) 78f. This competition is also expressed in claims to the precise same miracles; see, e.g., Sophronius, Miracles 30.13, and cf. Miracles of Cosmas and Damian 2 and 24 and Delehaye (1925) 48f. (here attributed to Menas). On the potential competition between different saints in the same shrine see also Nesbitt (1997) 13f.; Davis (2001) 133–36.
47. On the rivalry between Menuthis and Mareotis see Sophronius, Miracles 46.1, 51.7.
48. For this phenomenon elsewhere see, e.g., Miracles of Thecla 10, 14; Miracles of Cosmas and Damian 17; Ecclesiastical Canons 3–4; with Booth (2011a). For pagan supplicants see Miracles of Thecla 11, 40, with Dagron (1978) 80–94; Miracles of Cosmas and Damian 9. Cf. Egyptian Miracles of Cosmas and Damian 23.
49. Sophronius, Miracles 36.15 [Marcos 325].
50. Sophronius, Miracles 38.6 [Marcos 334]. For a similar tale cf. Sophronius, Miracles 37, with Maraval (1981) 388f.
51. See, e.g., Sophronius, Miracles 8.15 [Marcos 256]: “Let us now do the same things as he, and sharing with him the singing of hymns to [the saints], let us move our account on to the miracles that were similarly performed upon his wife by the martyrs.” On these formulaic endings see Krueger (2004) 64–70.
52. For a multiplicity of cultic authorities both official and unofficial within a single shrine see esp. Miracles of Thecla 41, and the (often derogatory) references to other contemporary rhetors ibid. 19, 21, 30, 38–40.
53. Sophronius, Prologue to the Miracles 7 [Bringel 8].
54. For Christodorus’s status as a cleric see his performance of liturgical functions at Sophronius, Miracles 31.4, 32.7. Although he is never called presbuteros, see the descriptions of his predecessor George at Sophronius, Miracles 51.11–12, described also as “leader of their congregation” (51.6: hēgoumenon tēs autōn homēgureōs), who “for some time miraculously presided over the temple” (ibid.: chronon tina tou naou thaumastōs hēgēsamenos). See also ibid. 51.10: “For [the saints] raised him in their temple like ancient Samuel, and made him virtuous, and promoted him bit by bit in the clergy, when he was of the appropriate age for each stage. And when he was able to manage it, they judged him worthy of their administration.” Pace Marcos (1975) 49, 52; Gascou (2006) 178 n. 1063. The steward appears in Sophronius, Miracles 8, 9, 10, 32, 35, 39, 40, 67, and his secretary ibid. 39.10. They no doubt controlled the treasury (gazophulakion) referred to ibid. 40.6. Two deacons are mentioned within the text: a John (ibid. 11.2) and a Julian (ibid. 36.13, 36.19, 36.23). It is unclear, however, whether these two were exact contemporaries. Ibid. 67 refers, more ambiguously, to hoi tōi neōi diakonoumenoi (67.4), hoi tēn hupēresian tou temenous poioumenoi (67.5), and hoi tēn leitourgian tōn hagiōn poioumenoi (67.7). It appears that clerical members of the saints’ staff are implied. These were aided by janitors (67.5, 67.7) and philoponoi (5, 35.6, 56.2); see Wipszycka (1970).
55. Sophronius, Miracles 8.1 [Marcos 253]. Cf. also Sophronius, Miracles 9 and 10, which concern Christodorus’s wife and daughter, respectively.
56. See ibid. 39.10.
57. Ibid. 31.7 [Marcos 308].
58. Sophronius, Miracles 32.8 [Marcos 311].
59. Cf. the author of the Miracles of Thecla, a priest who was twice excommunicated by the local bishop and turned to abuse; see Miracles of Thecla 12 (against the bishop Basil), peroration (against the bishop Porphyrius). The author, therefore, is a controversial figure on the margins of the saint’s official cult, in which context the Miracles of Thecla also circulated and was performed. See also Krueger (2004) 79–93.
60. Sophronius, Prologue to the Miracles 31 [Bringel 34]. Cf. Miracles of Thecla 44.
61. Sophronius, Prologue to the Miracles 31 [Bringel 34].
62. Sophronius, Prologue to the Miracles 33 [Bringel 36].
63. For similar statements of the methodology see Miracles of Thecla prologue, 44; John of Thessalonica, Μiracles of Demetrius prologue, 3; Miracles of Artemius prologue.
64. Sophronius, Prologue to the Miracles 3 [Bringel 3–4]. For the cooperation of the saints cf. Sophronius, Miracles 8.1; also Miracles of Thecla 31; Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Euthymius 60 [Schwartz 83], with the analysis of Krueger (2004) 77–78.
65. Sophronius, Miracles 20.1 [Marcos 280]. Cf. Sophronius, Miracles 18.4. 32.11–12.
66. Sophronius indeed hints at other miracle writers ibid. 35.1. An alternative Alexandrian collection of the Miracles of Cyrus and John does indeed survive within an unpublished manuscript at Athos (BHG 479i). The first miracle is situated in Heraclius’s twenty-fourth year, between October 634 and October 635, although the collection itself is later; see Gascou (2007) 247. It is tempting to speculate that the composition of a new group of the saints’ miracles represents an attempt to dethrone Sophronius as the preeminent impresario of the saints’ cult, in particular if the author was a devotee of Cyrus of Alexandria, whom Sophronius confronted in the summer of 633; see below p 209. The collection is now the subject of a much-anticipated study by Vincent Déroche. The existence of various (nonextant) literatures is well attested for other cults; see, e.g., the alternative miracles or encomia of Cosmas and Damian described at Miracles of Cosmas and Damian 26; Egyptian Miracles of Cosmas and Damian 10; Lucius (1904) 258 n. 4 (for the Suda’s witness to a collection by one Christodorus of Thebes); or Basil of Seleucia’s Acts of Thecla, described in Photius, Bibliotheca 168 [Henry vol. 2, 161].
67. Pace Maraval (1981) 394 n. 8.
68. On this “pedagogic function” see also Maraval (1981).
69. See Miracles of Artemius 8, in which a patient at the shrine chatters incessantly and keeps all the other supplicants awake; the saint then appears and threatens to double his disease if he does not leave.
70. See, e.g., Amundsen (1982); Miller (1985) 53–61; Larchet (1991); Temkin (1991). For this integrative tradition see also, on hospitals and monasticism, Miller (1985) 50–67, Crislip (2005); on holy men and medicine Horden (1982) and (1985), Harvey (1984). In the seventh century it is best represented by Anastasius of Sinai’s Questions and Answers, in which, for