Decisiones territoriales

It is clear in the evidence found in the Libellus miraculorum Cosmae et Damiani that images played an important role at the shrine at Kosmidon. In MCD 30, the

202 _{There was a similar process at shrines to Asclepius where he was imagined in visions in forms}

sanctioned by images, usually statues, at the cult site. Vikan, “Icons and Icon Piety in Early Byzantium” 572-573.

narrative described the function of two different painted images at the sanctuary, and as a result appeared in the writings in defence of images at the second Council of Nicea in 787.203 In the tale a man with an incurable fistula had repeatedly visited the church of the saints at Kosmidon but had not been cured. Eventually he prayed in front of an icon in the narthex of the church that depicted the Virgin between SS. Cosmas and Damian and a dignitary called Leontios. The next night the saints appeared to him in a vision in the same manner as they had been portrayed in the icon, with the Virgin between them. As a result of the vision he was healed and in gratitude he arranged to have the miracle portrayed, “in the colonnade at the left, above the entrance to the diakonikon.”204 The first image acted as a stimulus to the man’s vision and subsequent healing, the second he left as a votive gift that would serve to inspire visions and devotion in future suppliants

The appearance of the saints in the manner of a familiar image was not unusual in hagographic narrative. In the early seventh century Life of Theodore of Sykeon, Theodore was described as having a painting of SS. Cosmas and Damian above his bed in his private rooms at his monastery in the village of Mazamia. When he fell deathly ill the saints were describes as appearing to him in a vision

203 _{MCD 13, 15 and 30. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum, 63-64. There was an increase at this time}

in records of the use of images and their power, particularly in hagiography and popular fiction. Kitzinger points out that quite a few were connected to/used at the Second Council of Nicea and some were probably designed for that purpose, but others can be shown to have come from sixth or seventh century texts. Ernst Kitzinger, “The Cult of Images in the age Before Iconoclasm,” The

Art of Byzantium and the Medieval West(Bloomington, 1976)95-96.

204 _{Deubner does not choose the manuscript with this ending, but Festugiere believes this}

manuscript is equally valid. Festugière, Collections Greques de Miracles, 169-172. Also Mansi,

in exactly the same manner in which they were portrayed in his icon above his bed. They examined him like doctors and then interceded on his behalf with Christ.205

In MCD 13, a soldier called Constantine, who was a great devotee of SS. Cosmas and Damian, had to leave Constantinople when he was posted away by the army to Laodicea. For protection he took with him the image of the saints in a small painting that he carried in a wallet under his arm.206 A short time after his wife, a local Laodicean woman, developed an abscess in her jaw and was in significant pain. He had forgotten about the image he carried and could not see how to help her. He explained that were they in Constantinople he would get some kerote from the home of the saints and she would be cured. She, impressed by his tales of the efficacy of the doctor saints and was filled with desire to approach them and promised to visit the shrine of Cosmas and Damian immediately upon their return to Constantinople. That night she had a dream vision in which Cosmas and Damian appeared to her in the manner in which they are represented saying, "we are here with you". When she woke up she asked her husband what they look like and in what state they come to visit the sick. He described them and their saintly characteristics. He then remembered the image in his wallet and showed it to her and she recognized them and realised that the

205 _{A.J. Festugière, ed. Vie de Théodore de Sykéôn, Ch. 39. Subsidia Hagiographica 48 (Brussels,}

1970) 34-38.

206 _{Carries it ‘out of faith’ and ‘for his own protection’ a phylactery, an amulet or talisman}

believed to ward off evil familiar in many cultures. John Lowden, Early Christian and Byzantine Art, (London, 1997) 150. Kitzinger, “The Cult of Images in the age Before Iconoclasm,” 109, n.98.

saints really were with them as they had said. The following night the saints appeared to her once more and asked, “Did we not say we were with you? What do you suffer from?” One of them inserted his finger into her mouth to clear the abscess. In order to further confirm her faith and they left some kerote under her pillow and explained that if she applied an ointment of it every evening before bed she would not be troubled by her pain anymore. Once the soldier and his wife returned to Constantinople, the wife was able to visit the home of the saints in gratitude and recognition.207 In this case, the woman had not seen the painted image as it had been forgotten, but was able to use the image to recognize the saints after they had appeared to her.

The idea of recognition does invite speculation over whether there was a specific manner in which they were portrayed in the sanctuary in Constantinople that made them recogniseable or whether these tales are individual with each suppliant recognising the saints from the image they owned. It seems likely that there was a dominant manner of representing the saints in the church. As can be seen at the church built over the tomb of Saint Demetrius at Thessalonike,

Demetrius, recognisable from the visual decoration of the church, was reproduced with various individuals he had helped on the pillars and walls of the

sanctuary.208 _{The appearance of the saint in the main icon, now lost, which was}

once kept in a silver canopy in the church, was reflected in some of the images: a youthful figure in an officer's cloak presented frontally with his hand raised in

207 _{MCD 13, Festugière, Collections Greques de Miracles, 125-127.}

prayer as recounted in the visions of the time. The image was then reproduced around the church in a number of variations as requested by the donors.209

The same practice is decsribed at Kosmidon in MCD 30 in which the man creates his own votive image after his vision was inspired by a similar painted votive including a dignitary called Leontius. In the case of the soldier Constantine it seems that his personal image was very similar to an image or images he was familiar with at the shrine in Constantinople. The appearance of the saints in the dream vision is described as matching their appearance in the painted image and as helping the wife to recognise them. Yet in this case the image was not just a focus for devotion or stimulation to a vision, as the saints themselves point out they were actually present in the painted amulet.210

Cosmas and Damian also presented the woman with kerote, the most popular of the relics associated with the shrine at Kosmidon. The kerote, which featured in numerous miracles, was the wax collected in the sanctuary that was given out both in response to specific requests and regularly on predetermined days.211 Gary Vikan writes extensively on such relics, or eulogiai that were common to Byzantine healing shrines and were intended to be carried away from the shrine itself both as a remembrance of pilgrimage, and also in order to protect

209 _{Belting, Likeness and Presence, 82-88.}

210 _{Ernst Kitzinger points out that this dramatizes the objective power of the icon, and makes clear}

the actual presence of the saints in the image. He emphasizes that they did not remember they had the icon when it began to work. It is not clear if it was written before or after the iconoclastic controversy. Kitzinger, “The Cult of Images in the age Before Iconoclasm”, 148.

211 _{For example MCD 13, 16, 30. Also oil from the lamps was distributed, see MCD 22, 23.}

Delehaye, les recueils antiques des miracles, 13. In MCD 30 it is explained the wax was handed out on a regular day. Festugière, Collections Greques de Miracles, 125-127, 169-172.

the bearer in the future.212 In this case the wax the woman received magically was to be applied as an ointment daily. There were also many forms of eulogiai that included images and inscriptions, such as iconically stamped earthen tokens.213 Items such as these were perceived to carry or invoke the presence of those who were portrayed in them and they also stimulated visions. Vikan describes a bronze cross from the sixth or seventh century that depicts the Virgin and Child and SS. Peter, Paul, Cosmas, Damian and Stephen. The invocations, ‘Christ help me’ and ‘Saints Cosmas and Damian grant your blessing’ or ‘Saints Cosmas and Damian bless [me]’ would seem to indicate that the object was not merely representative of a single cure rather that it was intended to continue to work for the owner much like the image carried by the soldier Constantine in MCD 13 (Figure 1).214

The third miracle of SS. Cosmas and Damian that appeared in defense of images at Nicea was the most unusual. Here, although the woman was a great devotee of the saints who visited the shrine at Constantinople regularly she also had an image of them painted in her home. Despite the presence of the image she developed terrible pains that would not stop and one day, left alone in her home, she went to the painting and scratched it with her nails. She then mixed the dust

212 _{Another example is the holy dust given out at the grave of St. Symeon. Gary Vikan, “Art,}

Medicine and Magic in Early Byzantium” DOP38 (1984) 65-86, 72, n.43.

213_{Eulogia, often earth, terra cotta, wax or pewter were probably modeled on icons displayed}

around a shrine. Vikan, “Icons and Icon Piety in Early Byzantium” 573.

214 _{Now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Cloisters Collection, 1974.150.}

with water, drank it and was miraculously healed.215 Although the woman was carefully described by the author as going to thank Christ for giving the saints the power to heal, the distinction between the image and the saints represented in it is not made.216 _{The presence of the saints and their power seemed to reside in the}

fabric of the image itself.