ON ST. OREOZELA, MARTYR
AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
Critical Collection.
The cult, the eulogy, and its author.
Oreozela, martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
However unknown this holy Martyr is to all the Fasti of the Greeks which it has been permitted us to consult, if you except a few copies in which her name is inscribed; so much do we judge that even from these alone we can be sufficiently instructed concerning her most ancient cult, She is noted in the Greek Fasti as to grant her too a place here. In the manuscript Synaxarium of Chifflet, therefore, on this day she is thus reported: Μνήμη τῆς ὁσίας καὶ καλλινίκου μάρτυρος Ὀραιοζήλης. That is: The memory of the holy and gloriously victorious martyr Oreozela. There follows a long eulogy; at whose end Papebroch wrote: See the things pertaining hereto from Sirmond after the 27th; but whether they were deliberately omitted from being transcribed, because they supplied little or nothing of new information; or whether it was done from forgetfulness; I certainly could nowhere find in our Sirmondian copies what things, pertaining hereto, from the same after the 27th, namely of this month of July, are designated to be consulted.
[2] We are, however, made certain from the testimony of Papebroch that our Saint was there inscribed, and indeed with a eulogy. The memory of the Saint, with a eulogy; That she was not passed over in the Mazarine Menaea, Henschenius indicated, when to our manuscript Latin index, containing both the Saints noted in the printed Menaea and those taken in from other Greek tables, he added the initial letters of the said copy, Maz.; where he also added Sirm.; whereby are confirmed the things which I was just now saying on the credit of Papebroch. The Menaeum of Chifflet, if this ought to be distinguished from his Synaxarium, and be not an extract of it, on the 26th of this month has: Ὀραιοζήλης μ. That is: Of Oreozela, martyr. But with how great celebrity her cult was frequented at Constantinople from the eighth century, is clear from the conclusion of the eulogy, such as it is, in the praised Synaxarium of Chifflet, which, with some correction, I bring forward here transcribed in Greek: Καὶ αὕτη μὴν τυχοῦσα τοῦ ποθουμένου, χαίρει αἰωνίως συμβασιλεύουσα τῷ ποθεινοτάτῳ νυμφίῳ Χριστῷ.
[3] which is given Συγχαίρει δὲ ταύτῃ .. Ἰωσὴφ, γλυκερίας μὴν πόνημα καὶ τελεσφόρημα, τῆς βασιλικῆς καὶ παντοκρατορικῆς ταυτησὶ μονῆς καθηγέτης καὶ ἀρχηγὸς, ᾠδαῖς ἀσμάτων καὶ κανόσι ταύτην τιμήσας, καὶ ἐν τῷ παρόντι συγγράμματι. Ἐν δὲ τῷ μαρτυρίῳ αὐτῆς τῷ πλησίον ἀρχ., ὅπου κείμενον τῆς ἁγίας μεγάλης Μάρτυρος λείψανον ἀναπαύεται ἐν ᾧ καὶ σύναξις αὐτῆς τελεῖται, ἰάσεις τε παντοῖαι, καὶ νοσημάτων λύσεις γίνονται, καὶ μαρτυρεῖ ὁ προσελθὼν παραλυτικὸς καὶ συσφιγχθεὶς, αἱ στειρεύουσαί τε γυναῖκες εἰς τεκνογονίαν μεταβαλλόμεναι, καὶ αἱ τοῦ γάλακτος τὰς πηγὰς καταξηραμένας, καὶ λιθώδεις σχεδὸν φέρουσαι, ὑποστρέφουσαι δὲ οἴκαδε πλήρεις ταύτας δεικνύουσαι, καὶ τοῖς νηπίοις τῇ θαυματουργίᾳ εἰς κόρον τὸ γάλα βλύζουσαι. Οὕτως Θεὸς οἶδε δοξάζειν τοὺς αὐτὸν δοξάζοντας, καὶ ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ προθύμως τὸ αἷμα ἐκχέοντας. Αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα πρὸς τοὺς αἰῶνας. Ἀμήν.
[4] Which I render into English thus: And she indeed (our Saint), having obtained that which she desired, rendered from the Greek, rejoices in perpetuity, reigning with Christ, her most desired spouse. But together with her rejoices … Joseph, a monument of sweetness, and a fruit-bearing perfection of virtues, the moderator and founder of this imperial and august monastery; who honored her with odes of songs and canons, and in the present writing. But in the shrine sacred to her (the Martyr), which is near the church of the archangels; where the deposited remains of the holy great Martyr rest, and in which also her solemnity is celebrated, healings of every kind, and cures of diseases, take place. Whereof the paralytic who approaches, and the contracted, bears witness; and likewise barren women, who are given fruitfulness. But those who bear the fountains of their milk dried up, and hard almost like stone, returning home, prove them to be filled, and pour out milk to their infants, not without a signal miracle, to satiety. Thus God knows how to glorify those who glorify Him, and who eagerly shed their blood for Him. To Him be glory forever. Amen. And this indeed is the conclusion of the eulogy.
[5] By Joseph, praised in the same, and distinguished by certain characteristics, drawn from the text of the same I understand St. Joseph the Hymnographer; whose Life was illustrated by us on the 3rd of April; where, page 268, is asserted to him the title of possessor of the holy monastery which is called of St. Nicholas τῶν Κασούλων. Certainly from the Life of St. Joseph, the same place, page 273, we have that, his former dwelling being left, he sought the temple of St. John Chrysostom: where so great concourses of men took place, that, to feed their ears and mind with his discourse, which flowed sweeter than honey from his mouth, they were quite excluded by the narrowness of the place. And so, although the place was on every side vast and desert, yet there a monastery was raised, most celebrated for the great throng of disciples; which perhaps afterward became so illustrious that it was called by the title of an imperial and august monastery, if the compiler of the above eulogy proclaims true things. But it is to be lamented that those odes and canons, with which St. Joseph is said to have honored our Saint, have either wholly perished, or at least have not come to our knowledge. But in so far as they perhaps recorded the history of the Saint, I doubt not that they were of the same bran as the eulogy, whose compiler not obscurely, by the τὸ ("the thing") and
in the present writing, indicates that the pen of Joseph went before him.
[6] It is another matter, if the discourse be of the shrine sacred to the Saint, of the relics and miracles wrought by her patronage: with some observations, for since all these are attributed to Constantinople, where both the praised Hymnographer and the anonymous compiler of the above eulogy professed the monastic life, each of them indeed might have had better and surer information upon that subject than upon the very history of the Martyr, of which very many inept things are narrated, as will presently be said, nor is anything known which could approach the truth even with a shadowy likeness. As concerns the μαρτύριον, that is, the shrine sacred to our Martyr, or oratory; first, an account is to be given to the reader of what has been done by me about it. In our copy it is written that it was πλησίον ἀνχούπου. But what does that ἀνχούπου mean? A place so called I could indeed find nowhere at Constantinople; nor is it a doubt to me that a corruption crept in here; which I judged should be emended, a slight separation being applied on both sides, such as the sense of the discourse manifestly requires. I therefore put for ανχ, with a slight difference, αγγ or αρχ, that that oratory may be understood to have been πλησίον τῶν ἀγγέλων or τοῦ ἀρχαγγέλου or ἀρχαγγέλων, That is: near the temple of the angels, or of the archangel, or of the archangels; or ἀρχιστρατηγοῦ, That is: of the leader of the heavenly host, ὅπου, That is: where the deposited relics etc. And thus the sense of the discourse stands, and the antecedents and consequents cohere.
[7] by which it may in some way be restored. Moreover, concerning the various sacred buildings which were dedicated to St. Michael, the angels and archangels at Constantinople, Du Cange treats in the Christian Constantinople, book 4, from page 97. But another way of restoring the aforesaid place in some manner may be applied, if by the τὸ ανχου, thus expressed by an abbreviation, is to be understood Ἀντιόχου, of Antiochus, so that the shrine of St. Oreozela was situated near the palace of Antiochus, or the building whence the district τὰ Ἀντιόχου had its name; concerning which place the praised Du Cange, in the same work, book 2, page 168. And these indeed are our conjectures, which let the reader not be grieved to take in good part, until either from an inspected copy of good note, or from elsewhere, some learned man shall suggest something better. But now let us proceed to discuss the eulogy of the Saint: which will not be brought forward by us whole, so that word may answer to word in Latin: because it merits nothing of the kind.
[8] It is discussed The writer of the eulogy, therefore, having prefaced a few things, that this queen of cities (Constantinople) has, among others, the lives of those men and women who adorn and honor her, etc., reckons in the number of those Saints who are known from their miracles alone the uncontaminated dove, the martyr Oreozela: for of what region she was born, or of what parents, is not found handed down in writing. But since to that writer of the eulogy there was nothing at hand whence he might draw out something to the praise of his Martyr truly and conveniently enough, and yet would not be altogether silent concerning her, he so most wretchedly conducted his business that he rashly babbled certain trifling ineptitudes, obtruding a gross ignorance in historical matters to be felt with the hand, and so not illustrating even a whit the history of the Saint, buried in the densest darkness of oblivion. For after he had asserted that she, born of gentile parents, in the times of the Apostles was drawn out from the abyss of the madness of idols, and baptized by St. Andrew the Apostle in a certain sacred building, erected by him in the name of Michael the leader of the heavenly host; he adds that she diligently labored to propagate the proclamation of Christ, two other virgins being joined to her, whom she had led to His knowledge, contending for the palm among themselves in the exercise of various virtues with pious emulation:
[9] The eulogy of the Saint And these things indeed, he says, up to the days of the impious emperor Decius; whom he presently brings on the scene, as though indeed he ordered blessed Oreozela, drawn away from the other two women, to be set before his tribunal. But that fabulous trifler, the eulogist, ought to have observed how absurdly he stumbled against the chronological reckoning, when, accommodating Oreozela both to the times of the Apostles and of the emperor Decius, he combines things which are separated by an interval of about two centuries. Then, after an arranged dialogue of Decius with the Saint; she indeed is beaten with rods, etc.; but he, his sight being lost, becomes blind: the Saint saying that his former light would not be restored to him unless he anointed his eyes with the blood of her cut-off head. Who presently orders her to be beheaded, and, his eyes being anointed with her blood, immediately saw the light of heaven. And, a new catastrophe of many gentiles converted to the faith of Christ being subjoined to these, the compiler of the eulogy concludes his narration with that clause which we have now given, rendered from the Greek. Now we shall note some things concerning its author.
[10] However utterly he thus lies hid from us on every side, and its author is treated of. so that he has left us scarcely anything to be noted concerning himself, yet he inserted a very few characteristics into his eulogy, by the help of which we observe these things. 1. That he professed the monastic life, and indeed at Constantinople, is an argument that which he says above, number 4, concerning Joseph and the monastery, of which he was the moderator and founder: according to those things which we noted above on this matter. 2. Whence it follows that he did not write his eulogy before that St. Joseph, who lived and flourished toward the end of the eighth century. 3. He had the writings of Joseph concerning our Saint before his eyes, as is clear from what was said in number 5; but whether he received from him only those things which treat of the cult, sacred building, and miracles; or whether he transcribed thence besides a history more worthy of silence than of letters, who shall say?