ABSTRACT
This chapter constitutes a first attempt to approach the interaction of children and mothers in early Byzantine healing miracles (4th–7th c.AD) in which the suffering patient is a child. Taking its cue from the different treatment observed in miracle structure and plot when the protagonist is a child instead of an adult, the interpretation focuses on three important parameters: the ritualistic miracle structure, the role of the mother as an intercessor between the child and the saint(s), and the body of the child as a locus of cure. The study of these parameters aims to showcase that miracles involving children constitute a special category in which mothers and children form narrative pairs, and that this pairing was consciously acknowledged and narratively exploited by Byzantine hagiographers.
