The Christian religious tradition includes the worship of saints as one of its pillars. The similarities with the Greco-Roman custom (at least) are too great not to know.
A miracle of the Hermitage-Sanctuary of San Tirso and San Bernabé (Merindad de Sotoscueva). Photo by MJ Valiño.
We can distinguish at least two details in the miraculous Christian tradition. One is the early emergence of similarities between pagan heroes and Christian saints, for example, a pair of saints that is, curiously, very similar to what the classical tradition claimed about the most famous doctors in mythology. Cosme and Damián were two medical twins born to Christian parents and dated to the 3rd century. They practiced medicine in Cilicia, especially in the Aegean Sea (modern Ayas), it is even said to be free. If their knowledge was not sufficient, their faith in God gave them the most necessary healing, to the point where they succeeded in converting many pagans. His death took place during the persecution of Diocletian: they were arrested together with his three younger brothers and subjected to torture, stoning, crucifixion, but they survived. Eventually, his decree was enacted, which apparently was effective.
The legend of these martyrs does not only include the miracle of their persistent resistance to torment. It is very interesting to note how, once they died, they behaved like another immortal doctor, Asclepius, who during sleep did the cure or inspired the remedy. Thus, perhaps the most famous miracle of these saints is the healing of a foot affected by critical ischemia. Deacon Justinian, attached to the basilica of these saints in Rome, suffered from dangerous gangrene in one of his legs. One night, after praying a lot for the brothers, they appeared to him in a dream discussing how to cure the problem. They decided to amputate and then replace the leg with one of a recently killed Ethiopian, who “no longer needed his own.” Upon awakening, the deacon felt restored and found that his illness had already disappeared from his body.
The resemblance to the miracle of Asclepius that I mentioned in post 049 is great. And even more so is the fact that the saints were brothers, like the mythical Machaon and Podalirio, who appear in the Iliad as doctors of the Greek army. The best known of these is the one they obtained for Philoctetes, one of the Greek leaders who, during his trip to Troy, was bitten by a snake on the island of Tenedos. The incident produced a horrible rotten and smelly infection that caused his comrades to abandon him on the island. When, as a result of an oracle, Philoctetes was taken to Troy to conquer the city, the brothers cured him of this type of gangrene.
The second interesting detail of the Christian tradition about the holy miracles (in fact almost all), is the existence of many shrines that celebrate extraordinary healings: through paintings, sculptures and poems that relate (sometimes in the form of the previous modern comics) which I recorded perfectly in Epidaurus, where Asclepius inspired healing during dreams. An example among many is the image that leads this fast, made in the sanctuaries of San Tirso and San Bernabé in the caves of Ojo-Guareña. The ceiling of the cave and the walls at a certain height are covered with frescoes that represent miracles helped by poems to explain the images.
Regarding the peculiarity of miracles, this time related to the figure of Jesus of Nazareth, here is a link to an interview that Gabriel Andrade gave me a few months ago:
Warm greetings.