Artemii Passio

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The Artemii Passio is a late antique or middle Byzantine hagiographic work.

The work, written in Greek, deals with the (suffering) story of dux Aegypti Artemius , an " Arian " Christian who had served under Constantius II . It was written in the time of Justinian at the earliest , but mostly one tends to a much later date (8th or even 9th century).

Artemius had pagan temples destroyed, which is why he was charged with misconduct and executed in 362 by Emperor Julian , who adhered to the pagan gods cults. Artemius was later venerated as a saint and martyr.

The exact author of the work is not known. In some manuscripts an otherwise unknown John of Rhodes is mentioned, in others John of Damascus . Whoever the author was, seems to have had little knowledge of the historical Artemius. The author seems to have been unaware that Artemius was an Arian; he also added some dubious statements. Nevertheless, the work is generally regarded as not entirely unimportant for the history of the 4th century, especially since the author used the church history of Philostorgios , which is only preserved in excerpts, as a source .

expenditure

  • Bonifatius Kotter (ed.): Johannes von Damaskos: The writings. Volume 5: Opera homiletica et hagiographica. Berlin 1988 (= Patristic Texts and Studies 29), pp. 183–246.

literature

  • Samuel NC Lieu, Dominic Montserrat : From Constantine to Julian: Pagan and Byzantine Views. A source history . New York 1996, pp. 210ff. (with English translation).

Remarks

  1. ↑ Philip R. Amidon (ed.): Philostorgius. Church History . Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta 2007, p. 165, note 2.
  2. ↑ See Ammianus Marcellinus 22,11,2; on Artemius see also Arnold Hugh Martin Jones et al. a., The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire , Vol. 1, Cambridge 1971, p. 112, sv Artemius 2, and Otto Seeck : Artemius 2 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 2, Stuttgart 1896, Col. 1444 f.
  3. ↑ The historian Lieu called the Artemii Passio "a work of pious fiction" : Lieu, in: Lieu / Montserrat, From Constantine to Julian , p. 218.
  4. ↑ See Joseph Bidez , Philostorgius. Church history. With the life of Lucian of Antioch and the fragments of an Arian historiographer . Leipzig 1913, p. XLIVff.