Saintly Saturday: St. Patamius the Righteous of Thebes

Today is the feast of St. Patapius of Thebes. He was born into an aristocratic family of Thebes in A.D. 380. They were faithful Christians and when the saint showed an interest in theology, they sent him to a catechetical school in Alexandria. There he came under the influence of a blind teacher named Didemus, who encouraged St. Patapius in his desire to pursue an ascetic way of life.

After the death of his father, St. Patapius went into the the desert where he became well known, so much so that people flocked to the desert to seek his advice. This began to distract him from his ascetic rule, so he fled the desert.

He spent seven years in Corinth at a skete in Geranian mountains and then went onto Constantinople, where he arranged to secretly enter the monastery of Blachernae where he was able to enter into a cell in the city wall. He spent the rest of his life in prayer, fasting and performing miracles in disguise as a simple monk. He died at the age of 83 in A.D. 463 and his relics remain incorrupt.

When Constantinople fell, his relics were moved to his skete in Corinth, where they were hidden in a wall behind the iconostasis (altar area) of a chapel built there. The relics remained hidden until the 20th century when a particularly tall priest needed some changes to the chapel to accommodate his height. He was visited by St. Patapius and was warned to take care when the wall was broken through, because, as the saint explained, he was there. Not only were the relics incorrupt, but the leaves that he was buried with were as fresh as the day they were picked.

It seems that I am to continue meditating upon the campaign idea I extracted from the Prophecy of Nahum last week. If you recall, one of the potential ruins for the party to explore was the decimated city of No-Amon, also known as Thebes.

There are four themes that inspire me about the story of St. Patapius that I would like to use:

• The image of this saint inside the wall of both Constantinople and the skete in Corinth.
• The idea of this very holy and famous man roaming through the streets of Constantinople in disguise while going on missions of mercy.
• His flight from both the desert and the fall of Constantinople.
• His role as this wise man that people from all over sought out, even in the remote desert.

For purpose of fitting him into the Nineveh Campaign (as I suppose I would call it), since both No-Amon and Constantinople were conquered, it would be appropriate that the saint’s relics had been in No-Amon when it was sacked, but secreted out before the final destruction. Thus, the home base for the entire campaign can be either a monastery or a small keep in the mountains in the region of No-Amon and the saint’s relics are ensconced inside the walls.

This monastery could be famous for being the home of a wise man that many seek, but very few are able to actually see; however, there is a humble monk that is known to wander the streets and help those in need. Both, of course, are the saint.

This sets up an interesting mystery at the home base as well as a pair of potential patrons that the party could seek out and/or be recruited by (with both being the same person of course). I would look forward to the reveal of St. Patapius the Wise buried inside the wall — someone who had passed away years before the fall of the very ruin the party begins their adventuring career exploring.

Saintly Saturday: St. Nahum the Prophet

Today is the Feast of Nahum the Prophet, who is one of the Minor Prophets. His prophecy is three chapters and foretells the destruction of Nineveh. He is unique among the prophets in that he does not chide Israel for its ungodly behavior.

According to the textual witness of the Book the bears his name, he lived sometime between 663 B.C. and 612 B.C. He mentions the fall of Thebes (No-Amon) to the Assyrians in 663 B.C. and the destruction of Nineveh by the Babylonians and Medes occurred in 612 B.C. This means he was contemporaneous or shortly after the prophets Daniel and Habakkuk, both of whom help understand how all of this vitriol and violence has anything to do with Christ.

According to the Fathers, Nahum prophesies Christ with this verse (alluded to by St. Paul is his Letter to the Romans 10:16):

Behold, on the mountains
The feet of him who brings good tidings,
Who proclaims peace!
O Judah, keep your appointed feasts,
Perform your vows.
For the wicked one shall no more pass through you;
He is utterly cut off. — Nahum 1:15 (2:1 LXX)

Compare this to these passages of Habakkuk and Daniel, in which the Fathers equate the mountain in each with the Virgin Mary:

God will come from Teman,
The Holy One from mount Paran — Habakkuk 3:3

You saw while a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and ground them to powder. — Daniel 2:34

In other words, Christ is born of a Virgin and the Wicked One (sin and death) is utterly cut off by Christ’s victory on the Cross. This, then invites us to read Nahum metaphorically where the city is an icon of sinful humanity and the great enemies of sin and death.

While this reading of Nahum is both beautiful and powerful, there are a number of images, seen from an historical point of view, that are not only fascinating but very useful in imagining an ancient ruined city as adventure or megadungeon. For those interested, the most useful translation for this exercise is the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) (which uses the LXX numbering):

• The city was either ruled by or under the influence of one of Belial’s counsellors, where Belial is the name of a demon (1:11)
• The ruins have desecrated and cursed tombs (1:14)
• The city is devastated by warriors dressed in scarlet armor and red shields (2:4)
• The city has been flooded (2:7, 9)
• The palace has been melted (2:7)
• There is a huge amount of treasure in both god and silver (2:10, 3:1)
• The city is called a lion’s den (2:12)
• The ruined city is covered by a mass of dead corpses (3:3)
• There is a reference to the temple prostitutes of Ishtar, who was the patron pagan god of Nineveh (3:4)
• The city of No-Amon was leveled by the evil forces of the city (3:8-10)
• There are people of the city still extant, leaderless and scattered in the mountains (3:18)
• The king of the city has a wound that will not heal (3:19)

What emerges from all of these references is a potentially interesting site-based adventure with several features that make for a number of different adventure expeditions or even an entire campaign:

• There is a nation/city-state that represents Lawful (Christian) Civilization which features red/scarlet as the main heraldric color
• There are demons (both a stand-in for Belial's counsellor and for Ishtar and her prostitutes)
• There are undead (lots of them)
• There are evil humanoids (lion-men? gnolls?), some of whom roam in unorganized bands raiding from the mountains in the surrounding area
• There are large sections that are flooded (making them great ambush points for undead encounters)
• The central palace is known as the Melted Palace (one of the mysteries of the adventure may very well be why it melted)
• The king is some kind of undead with a wound that won’t heal (is he secretly repentant and a potential ally?)
• There is another ruin (No-Amon) that may very well have clues as to some of the things that can be found in the city
• There is a lot of treasure to be found

Yes, yet another cool campaign idea/dungeon/adventure inspired by simply reading the Old Testament. For those inspired to move forward, here is a map of ancient Nineveh:

a map of a palace built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib:

and a map of ancient Thebes (No-Amon):

Have fun.