however, was no doubt more casual (and contested) than he might confess. A prominent ascetic and advisor to the Alexandrian patriarch, he nevertheless held no discernible position within the shrine’s staff. That ambiguous status in turn transfers to the text itself, for whereas certain features—such as the formulaic narrative endings that conclude most miracles51—perhaps indicate the text’s liturgical function (or at least its intention for that function), other characteristics point to an author engaged in an attempt to establish his own preeminence, and that of his text, within the cult.52 Indeed, the context of cultic competition with which the Miracles of Cyrus and John engages is immediately apparent: “Let each man honor the saints in his own way,” Sophronius says in his Prologue, “triumph in their gifts by various means, and herald their good deeds in multiple ways: some with the erection of mighty temples and others with the adornments of various marbles; some with compositions of resplendent pebbles, others with bright arts of painters; and some with offerings of gold and of silver, others with silk or silken robes. To put it simply, let all strive toward the honor of the martyrs, according to each man’s capacity and desire. And in these things let each seek to outdo the other and display the love that is within them for the saints.” Sophronius then proclaims his own project superior, for he will honor the saints with the word (logos), “more precious than any earthly substance, inasmuch as it pours forth not only from the material tongue but also from the spirit.”53 In particular, Sophronius appears to vie with one Christodorus, a cleric and the shrine’s steward (oikonomos), a patriarchal appointment.54 In Miracles 8, Sophronius describes him as “worthy of remembrance not only through the virtue that he obtained (for he was very much a lover of virtue and of learning) but also because of the earnestness and diligence that he showed toward the saints, and the favor of the martyrs toward him.”55 Yet the cumulative picture is somewhat less sycophantic. At one point, for example, Christodorus’s secretary (notarios), Menas, is revealed (and punished) as an anti-Chalcedonian heretic, perhaps thus implicating the orthodox credentials of the steward himself.56 Elsewhere, furthermore, Christodorus is presented as irresolute and ignorant. In Miracles 31, for example, upon the completion of a miracle, “Christodorus was amazed,” Sophronius tells us, “for he was completely unaware of what was happening.”57 In similar circumstances in the subsequent miracle Sophronius claims (somewhat unnecessarily), “But Christodorus was ignorant (for he learned everything later from a child).”58 Sophronius thus sets his own cultic insight (through mastery of his narratives and their meanings) against the ignorance of the shrine’s preeminent cleric.59
That claim to special cultic status is constructed also through the collection’s proclaimed methodology. The seventy miracles that Sophronius selects are, he says, “brought together from the innumerable mass, like a few countable drops compared to an inestimable sea.”60 Yet, he says, “I shall not recall those miracles that happened long ago, nor shall I relate those that occurred in the too distant past, lest I refuse the aid of time, and the haters of God are able to reject them. I shall instead write down the things that occurred in my own time, some of which I saw personally, and others of which I heard about from others who had seen them. Indeed the majority of those who suffered (or rather were cured) are still alive with us, look upon the sun, and engage in present business. They provide witness of the truth to me and have reported these things to me with their own mouths (both for the glory of God and for the honor of the saints). But some had already gone to the Lord and were released from affairs here below. These had announced the things that had happened to them to many people and thus left behind for me reliable witnesses of the things that were said—that is, those who had both seen and heard them happen.”61 Against “pagans” who might doubt the truth of his narratives, Sophronius again reiterates his personal experience of the saints’ miracles: “Whereas before I had only heard about [the saints’] grace (like all those who are separated from their temple by a great distance), now also I became a witness to the truth of the things that I had heard. For I went to them on account of a disease of the eye (as was said previously), and I myself was cured and saw others reaping their cures.”62 Sophronius thus claims both for himself and for his narratives an authority based both in personal experience and in meticulous (verifiable) investigation.63
Sophronius presents the saints as the eager patrons of his project. The truth (and thus authority) of his narratives is thus established both by detailed inquiry on the ground and by divine verification from above. His text is presented as the cult’s official history, inspired by the saints and mediated through the pen of their select impresario:64
Not knowing what to do, I fled to the martyrs and asked them what needed to be done in their service. And they welcomed the purpose of my zeal and did not dishonor it for its rashness but committed to me the task of writing and agreed to confer their help. And so they often appeared to me as I wrote, fulfilling their promise. At one point they provided me with ink and pen; at another they took my parchment and corrected my errors. Sometimes also they took pleasure in my tales, and their faces lit up with joy, for they experienced in the telling the pride that we often feel when we come to words or to passages that are rather pleasing. Countless times they rebuked me while I was engaged in other pursuits and chastised me for being negligent. They said, “For how long will you leave the truth unfulfilled?” and they called the present writing, the encomium in their honor, the truth.
Imbued with divine approval, Sophronius’s text assumes an extraordinary supernatural status of its own: “There is vast benefit in the recounting of miracles. In like manner it benefits all those who hear it and strengthens their souls with their bodies. To their souls it bestows a more abundant faith and to their bodies an aversion from somatic disease, and equally to both bodies and souls a pure and long-desired cheer and a pleasure full of spiritual exultation that a speech is not able to convey to its audience.”65 The Miracles of Cyrus and John, then, is so implicated within the saints’ cult that it recapitulates within its audience the saving power of the saints.
Sophronius’s purpose in composing his Miracles of Cyrus and John, therefore, is complex. Far from simply celebrating Cyrus and John, he attempts also to establish Menuthis both as a Cyrillian foundation and as the preeminent Alexandrian center of the saints’ cult (as Gascou has observed). At the same time, and in the face of a doctrinally diverse clientele, the Miracles presents orthodox (Chalcedonian) faith as essential to a successful supplication and chastises those heretics or pagans who attempt to circumvent that same imperative. Through constructing that normative paradigm of cultic belief, moreover, Sophronius claims a special status as commentator on the saints’ cult. Against rivals who honor the saints in various ways, he offers his text as the highest form of praise and positions himself as superior to other cultic authorities. His Miracles, therefore, cannot be conceived in simplistic terms as the shrine’s official memory but rather as one of several competing visions of the saints’ cult (both written and oral), visions through which rival authorities attempted to impose their own particular interpretations of the cult’s history, doctrine, and practice.66 Thus, just as the dominant Cyrillian foundational myth cannot be regarded simply as the Menuthis cult’s official history, neither can Sophronius’s text be viewed uncritically as the shrine’s official literature.67 The Miracles, like other equivalent collections, should instead be considered as a polemical text composed within a context of, and in opposition to, numerous competing discourses.
MEDICINE AND MIRACLE
The attitudes that Sophronius and other such miracle writers attempted to instill within their audiences were not limited to questions of religious adherence but embraced a whole range of issues both practical and theological.68 Within their narratives, those authors instructed supplicants in various aspects of a cult’s existence, including the most immediate and mundane of demands—not chattering at night, in one memorable tale.69 Here, however, we first focus on one particular concern of all such authors: that is, the provision of appropriate attitudes to Hippocratic medicine. Over time the authors of saints’ miracles became increasingly hostile
