ON SAINT EUTYCHIUS,
PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
IN THE YEAR 582.
PrefaceEutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople (Saint)
BHL Number: 2790
AUTHOR G. H.
[1] There flourished in the sixth century of Christ the most holy Patriarch of the Church of Constantinople, Eutychius, born in the year 512, Saint Eutychius born 512 as is clearly demonstrated from the remaining course of his life and the seventy years he spent in it. He was created Presbyter when he was thirty years old, Created Presbyter in the year 542 around the year of Christ 542. Then having taken the monastic habit among the people of Amasea, he lived first as a monk, then as Archimandrite, up to the year 552, in which Saint Menas the Patriarch of Constantinople died on August 25: Patriarch of CP in the year 552 in whose place Saint Eutychius, already previously sent to Constantinople as Apocrisiarius of the Metropolitan of Amasea, on the very day on which, as Theophanes writes, Menas' body was still lying exposed in the sacred sanctuary, was substituted as Patriarch: and in the following year 553 he presided with the other Patriarchs over the Fifth Ecumenical Council held at Constantinople. When with illustrious virtues he was ruling the Patriarchate in its 13th year, exiled, taken to Amasea in the year 560 and was bravely opposing the errors of the Emperor Justinian, in the year 565, Indiction XIII, he was carried off on January 22, first to two monasteries successively, then to the Princes' Island, whence he was banished to Amasea, and John Scholasticus was put in his place on April 13: who afterwards on August 31, Indiction X, in the year 577, being extinct, recalled to his See in the year 577, when Eutychius had lived for twelve years and five months in exile in the monastery of Amasea, famous for very many miracles, he was recalled by the Emperor Justin and Caesar Tiberius to his Church of Constantinople, which he entered on the third of October, a Sunday, performed the sacrifice of the Mass, and for six hours distributed the sacred Eucharist. He lived afterwards four years and six months, died in the year 582 being seized by a sharp fever in the year 582, on the very feast day of Easter, on which he had offered the sacrifice of the Mass and refreshed his people with sacred communion. Easter fell on the 29th of March, with the Moon's cycle XIII, the Sun's III, Dominical letter D. When he had been ill that whole week, with firm mind he prayed to God until the seventh hour of the Second-first Sunday after Easter, on the night of April 6. which fell on the 5th of April. And when he had blessed all, at last around the ninth or tenth hour of the night, which already looked toward Monday and the 6th day of April, his spirit being commended into the hands of God, he departed from this life. Thus in his Life: with which Theophanes agrees, thus writing in the fourth and last year of Tiberius: "In this year, on the sixth day of April, Indiction fifteen, Eutychius the Patriarch closed his last day. He had foretold to the Emperor Tiberius, when he was visited by him in his last illness, that a swift death was at hand for him: and the event taught this to be true. For four months afterwards the Emperor departed from life." So it is read below in the Life. then Emperor Tiberius on August 14. Which also in the Chronicle of Constantinople, commonly called Alexandrian, are thus confirmed: "In the fourth year of the Empire Tiberius was sick. In the fifth year, on August 15, Indiction, Caesar Maurice Tiberius was created, and on August 13 crowned Augustus, his daughter Constantina being given to him as wife. On August 14 Tiberius dies." There had then elapsed from the death of Saint Eutychius only four months and eight days. The same Theophanes confirms.
[2] But who could better have indicated this to us than Eustathius the Presbyter, writer of the Life of Saint Eutychius, the death of neither is to be deferred to the year 586 who lived as a familiar of his household, and went with him into exile and returned with him to Constantinople, never departed from his side, and accurately observed the years, months, days, and hours: so that it is marvelous how otherwise by Baronius his years, and indeed the years of Tiberius too, could be arranged, and the death of both placed in the year of Christ 586, since he transferred the principal part of the Life of Saint Eutychius, written by Eustathius the Presbyter, into his own Annals and wrote thus in no. 7: "As for the death of Eutychius, the same Eustathius relates that on Easter day after the evening office he was seized by a sharp fever, and so, his entrails being consumed by that fire, after seven days, namely the following Sunday, he departed from this life." But in the year marked by Baronius 586, Easter fell on the 17th day of April, and the following Sunday on the 24th day of April, and thus his natal day ought not to be assigned to April 6, but to the 25th of the same month. Moreover, in the year 586 the Indiction was the fourth: but on the contrary Theophanes twice indicates the fifteenth Indiction for the death both of Saint Eutychius, who died on April 6, and of the Emperor Tiberius, who died on August 14, "when," he says, "he had reigned three years, ten months, and eight days." After Tiberius reigned Maurice from August 14 of the year 582 for full twenty years up to the year 602, killed on November 27, Tuesday, Indiction VI; which year, month, and day of his murder he affirms, but to his Empire he attributes only 16 years, contrary to the consensus of all writers. The twenty years of his Empire are most accurately arranged by Simocatta in his History of the Emperor Maurice in eight books, by Theophanes, by the Author of the aforesaid Chronicle, and by others.
[3] Under the rule of Maurice, Eustathius the Presbyter wrote the Life of Saint Eutychius, the Life written soon after his death: when eighteen years had elapsed since he had predicted his Empire as an exile among the people of Amasea: and in the presence of the same Emperor, in a most solemn panegyric he recited it, as appears from the Epilogue, where, whom he especially calls "divine and sacred head," no other is to be understood but the Emperor himself. He recited it, as we conjecture from the subtracted reckoning of times, and from the congruence of the thing itself, at the anniversary conclusion of the funeral rites of the just in the year 583; when the prediction made eighteen years before is most conveniently referred to the year 565, which was the first of his exile. This Life existed in Greek in the Venetian Library, whence Lipomanus had received it, and from him Surius, translated into Latin by Peter Francis Zino. We, having obtained another copy from the Vatican Library, when we saw that the translator, as if stunned by the sight of so prolix an oration, had with a sluggish and less attentive mind approached the making of the translation, and had stumbled in very many places, we deemed it necessary to prepare a new version from the Greek. Another Life of Saint Eutychius we obtained from the Codex of the Most Serene Christina, Queen of Sweden, another contracted from the former which had been of Paul Rhamnusius and friends: in which were only the Lives of the Saints whose relics are at Venice in the monastery of Saint George Major. This Life Fabianus of Crete, a monk of the Cassinese Congregation, otherwise of Saint Justina, had translated from Greek into Latin. In this Life, of which we received another transcript written by the hand of Ferdinando Ughelli from him himself at Rome, under the name of Saint Eustachius "Eustachius" is called instead of Eutychius, and these few things near the end are had concerning the translated body: "The most holy Eustachius was buried under the altar of the Saints, with the translation of the body to Venice; where also the venerable relics of Saints Andrew, Timothy, and Luke are deposited. In the year of the Lord 1246, the illustrious Andrea Dandolo being Doge of the Venetians, Innocent IV being Supreme Pontiff at Rome, and Frederick II Emperor, his most holy body was carried to Venice, and in the church of Saint George, surnamed Major, honorably laid up in the altar on the twenty-second day of the month of April, where it is most devoutly venerated by the monks with daily prayer of hymns and praises." Thus there. They agree on the year 1246, the Pontificate of Innocent IV, and almost the Empire of Frederick II, against whom Henry, Landgrave of Thuringia and Hesse, had been designated Emperor the preceding year, the Empire of Frederick having been abrogated by the general Council of Lyons. But the greater difficulty is with Andrea Dandolo, who in the following century and in the year 1336 is reported by the writers of that Republic to have been created Doge of the Venetians. Bellinus of Padua inscribed in his Martyrology according to the custom of the Roman curia most of the Saints whose relics are preserved at Venice in the said monastery of Saint George Major, and on the mentioned 22nd day of April has these things: "Likewise in the monastery of Saint George Major at Venice, the translation of Saint Eustachius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in the year of the Lord 1246." and inscribed in Martyrologies on April 22 Bellinus is followed by Maurolycus, Felicius, Molanus, Canisius, Galesinius, and Ferrarius. A Florentine MS. preserved in the library of Senator Strozzi agrees. and on February 19. The same Bellinus on February 19 again refers to the memory of Saint Eustachius, Patriarch of the Church of Constantinople. Again all the previously cited authors follow, from whom Canisius adds that he is treated of more fully on July 16, perhaps thinking that he is Saint Eustathius, Archbishop of Antioch, who is venerated on that day. We have said more on February 19 among the Omitted and those rejected to other days, which may be seen there. For the rest, what is in the aforementioned Life of Saint Eutychius by Fabian of Crete, we do not wish to put forward, because it is a compendium of the other Life, not without various errors composed.
[4] sacred cult among the Greeks: The Greeks celebrate the feast of Saint Eutychius with a most solemn office on the 6th day of April, in the printed and handwritten Menaia, such as we found at Rome, Florence, Milan, Turin, Paris, and Dijon: so that it is plainly marvelous that he was excluded from Sirleti's Menology: for both in the metrical Ephemeris and in the tables of the Muscovite Calendar he alone is named. In the MS. Menology of the Emperor Basil is this elogium: "On the sixth day of April, Memory of our holy Father Eutychius, elogium from the Menology of Emperor Basil. Archbishop of Constantinople. Our holy Father Eutychius lived under the empire of the great Justinian, sprung from the region of Phrygia. Excellently educated by *Hesychius the Presbyter and Thaumaturgus, his grandfather; and exercised in sacred Scripture with assiduous study and meditation, he was received by the Bishop of Amasea, and first initiated as a monk, then as a Presbyter, he led a tranquil life in the monastery of Saint Meletius. Then, when the fifth Council had been gathered by Justinian, since the Bishop of Amasea at that time was detained by infirm health, Eutychius was sent in his place, who in the Council so excelled among others that Menas the Patriarch said of him: 'This man shall be my successor.' And so after his death he was elected Patriarch. But when afterwards he fell into the hatred of the Emperor, he was banished into exile. After the death of Justinian he recovered his See from Justin and Tiberius. When however he had wrought many miracles and checked by his prayers the onset of a great mortality, and had foretold the death of Tiberius, as also before his reign, he departed from this life, buried in the church of the holy Apostles." The same things are found in the new Anthologion,
which Arcudius dedicated to Pope Clement VIII. Longer elogies of his Life are contained in the Menaia, in which near the end these words are read: τελεῖται δὲ ἡ ἀυτοῦ σύναξις ἐν τῇ ἁγιωτάτη μεγάλῃ ἐκκλησίᾳ, "His feast day is celebrated in the most holy great church." he is also called Thaumaturgus. In the odes his zeal for defending the orthodox faith and suppressing heresy is praised; and on account of the various miracles wrought by him, he is called Thaumaturgus in the very Acrostic of the said Odes, which is this:
Τον θαματουργὸν Εὐτυχιον θαυμάσω I will admire Eutychius the worker of wonders.
Before the elogium already recited this distich is prefixed, with an allusion to the name of Eutychius, which signifies fortunate or enjoying good fortune:
Ἐυτύχιον θανέντα τιμῶν τοῖς λόγοις, Ἐμαυτὸν ἐυτυχέςατον κρίνω.
Honoring the dying Eutychius with my words, I judge myself most fortunate.
[5] Cult approved by Molanus, Ferrarius, Baronius, John Molanus in his Appendix to Usuard on the 6th day of April celebrates his memory, and in the first edition this elogium of him exists: "At Constantinople, the natal day of our great and blessed Father Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, whose life and miracles were written by Eustachius, a humble Presbyter." The same is celebrated by Ferrarius in his general Catalogue: and Baronius, having reported his death under the year 586, no. 7, asserts that not without reason he is venerated as a Saint by the Greeks, and his natal day celebrated on the anniversary. and others. To these may be added Bellinus and six other Martyrologists, although these celebrate him under the name of Saint Eustachius, on April 22 and February 19, as we have noted above: which Ferrarius repeats on the 2nd of May with these words: translation to May 2. "At Venice, the translation of the body of Saint Eutychius, Bishop of Constantinople." In the notes is cited the Calendar of the Church of Saint George Major, in which the body is preserved, which was translated from Byzantium to Venice into the said church in the year of the Lord 1246, as the MS. monuments of the monastery of Saint George have it.
Note* indeed, Eutychius
LIFE
By the author Eustathius the Presbyter, his household familiar.
From a Greek MS. of the Vatican, Interpreter D. P.
Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople (Saint)
AUTHOR EUSTATHIUS FROM GREEK MS.
PROLOGUE.
[1] The author, conscious of his own slenderness, A great subject has been set before us, but the faculty to explain it is slender: the mind burns, but the tongue is cold, nor can it narrate the admirable things and the best-ordered life of a great man: the thought is ample, but the expression narrow: much material is at hand for building a Davidic tower; but the architect is inexperienced and rude. Nevertheless the Lord provides, because the Almighty God gives wisdom to the foolish, and supplies to those preaching the word with great power; and he by his finger, that is, the Holy Spirit, opens the ears of the deaf: and makes eloquent a tongue scarcely or not at all movable to speak, he who can raise up from the stones sons of Abraham. I know also that although he be rich in all things, yet he so receives two mites as to prefer them to gold and topaz: for he has promised not to spurn even a cup of cold water, given only in the name of a disciple. What then ought to deter us from taking up this office? Nevertheless he presumes to praise Eutychius to the best of his ability That the abundance of speech is wanting in us, with which we might be able to praise the divine man according to his dignity? By no means. For, as Saint Basil the Great says, we do not refuse to behold, as much as we can, the space between earth and heaven, because we cannot measure it with our eyes. And so I too, although I labor with poverty of speech, and the subject proposed is difficult, will not embrace idle and inert leisure; nor will I liken myself to those who, on account of fear and ignorance of seamanship, at the mere sight of the sea are so terrified that they dare not even touch the waves near the shore for the sake of experiment. Rather, trusting in the help of the most blessed man, I will strive to satisfy to the best of my ability the zeal of the people: who, I know, desire only that which is found with poor me, not what is owed to so great a man.
[2] Truly, not only was he received by God who offered precious calves and sheep for sacrifice; but whoever offered fine flour and a turtledove and a dove, small indeed and cheap, yet pure little gifts, was praised: for everyone is reckoned from what he has, not from what he lacks. Luke 11:9 Wherefore, trusting in him who said, "He who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened": though I am not ignorant of my lack of skill, higher than all praise, I will yet explain the illustrious deeds of this great man; or rather I will give occasion to those more skilled to praise him who is higher than all praise, and who is himself his own greatest praise. For, as the Wise Man says, the tongue of the just is fired silver, and the lips of the righteous drop graces: for from his truthful speeches a great splendor shines forth. Prov. 10:10 As therefore the sun is illuminated by its own light, not by another's; so neither does the great light and teacher of the world Eutychius need the praises of others to be shown to have been perfect: nor is there need to impose on him a crown of glory received from elsewhere; because as, according to the Prophet David, all the glory of the King's daughter is from within, surrounded with variety, so that divine and sacred head is adorned with all kinds of virtues; and the same, like some lofty torch, perpetually shines for all navigating on this sea of life, at which looking, they may be led into a most safe and tranquil harbor to rest. Ps 44:15
[3] This man therefore, altogether greatest and servant of God, holy Pontiff, constituted not by men, nor through men, but by Jesus Christ, just, and to be compared with Saint Job. pious, true, free from all reproof, has been shown similar to Job by his patience. But since mention of Blessed Job has occurred, it will be worthwhile from his history to exaggerate the praises of this Pontiff to be remembered, both on account of the many adversities which befell him, and on account of the fortitude of soul with which he bore such things. And first indeed Job was a man in the land of Uz, rich in flocks, herds, and money: but the riches of Eutychius were in this, that he had nothing, possessed nothing. That man offered to God for his seven sons a sacrifice of calves and goats; this one not for seven, but for ten thousand, nay, for innumerable peoples, offered the unbloody victim, which is daily distributed without partition. And since the history of Job also commemorates the dignity both of place and of race, come, let us also consider the country and parents of this admirable hero. We shall see him born and from his earliest infancy brought up by Christian and orthodox parents and grandparents: let us search the root, of which there is the branch, and know the tree from the fruit: for from the tree of justice, the fruit of life arises. It will therefore be necessary to understand (if indeed there are any who are ignorant) from what region and place, or from what root, this great fruit was born; you might rather say, a flourishing vine, abounding in branches of perennial life, enwrapped with the tendrils of charity, exuberant in the beauty of morals as in an abundance of leaves, and abundantly bearing the sweet and ripe clusters of virtues, whence flowed the wine that gladdens the hearts of men; also made as it were earth, receiving seed and multiplying the fruit, here a thirty-fold, there a sixty-fold, or a hundred-fold: which fruit indeed he himself brought forth, to be enjoyed by the more perfect and those having sense, the more exercised to discern good from evil.
CHAPTER I.
Saint Eutychius's homeland: parents, upbringing, studies.
[4] This great man was sprung from the region of the Phrygians, born in the village of Theium, that is, Divine, born at Theium in Phrygia for so is called the divine village whence the Saint came forth: to which therefore such a distinguished appellation alone might suffice for praise. For what can be found more illustrious than such a name? By which it is signified both that its inhabitants were of God, and that it brought forth a divine man, or rather that it received the very designation by a certain prophetic spirit on account of him: who also rendered it a worthy repayment, surrounding it with an impregnable wall, where he built a temple to the Forty Martyrs, when in it he erected a temple to the glorious forty Martyrs, effecting in many ways that it should be a certain divine refuge for the salvation of very many souls, especially of those who there embraced the solitary and angelic life. Moreover, since in that region many tares sown by the enemy of the human race were growing up, germs, I say, of heretical depravity; the parents of this Saint appeared more splendid than the stars, having the words of life, and trampling down all the power of the venomous beasts: having received from the Father of lights the power of walking upon asps and scorpions and all the power of the enemy.
[5] Who, having attained the same homeland with him, is ignorant of the grandfather of this eminent man, homonymous with him himself? He had as grandfather Eutychius the Presbyter, famous for miracles, Eutychius, I say, both preeminent among Priests, and having received from God the grace of casting out demons and curing diseases: whom those vexed by impure spirits dreaded even to look upon, unable to bear the grace shining forth from his face, without at once falling down and doing those things which they are wont to do when they are delivered to the unclean spirit, by God's providence, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the dreadful day of judgment: to whom so laboring, the clement and merciful God, not allowing those who are tested by temptation to be vexed above what they can bear, gave a cure along with the way out of the temptation, through the hands of the holy man laid upon them. From this priestly root sprouted a daughter, his mother Synesia, by name Synesia, really answering to this her appellation, as having been truly made the mother of prudence: who, when she had grown up well brought up, in due time was joined in the Lord with a man most similar in morals and sense, as the things which we shall shortly set forth show.
[6] She conceived and bore a first-born son, Eutychius the great Patriarch: for before God formed his servant in the womb, like Anna, the mother of Samuel: he knew him; and before he came out of the womb, he sanctified him and imposed this name on him: for whom God foreknew, these he also called; and whom he called, these he also sanctified. Blessed indeed was she who carried him, and was the mother of so great a Father: in no way less than Anna, because more than Samuel is here. She was bound to consecrate to the Lord the son whom she should bear; for praying to God, "If," she said, "you give me male seed, I will consecrate him in your sight all the days of his life": but this woman did something greater, and forewarned from heaven about the future holiness of her son that bound by the necessity of no vow, she offered her son to God. That woman, obtained by prayers, brought forth into light Samuel, priest of one nation and prophet of the whole world: this one, mother of him whom we praise, brought forth holily the Pontiff of all the East and Father of the Fathers, given willingly, and reared him congruously to the vision she had had. For this was manifested by the light which shone around her when she was bearing the child in her womb. For she used to tell about herself, saying: "When on a certain night
I was lying in bed, a great light shone around me and the bed on which I was lying, so that I was not lightly disturbed by the novelty of the spectacle, and I thought much, saying, 'What does this mean that I see?' It portended, as I think, that there would arise from her a morning star, nay, a just man seven times brighter than the sun; who, as the outcome taught, confirming the truth of the presage, would enlighten many sitting in ignorance, and would arouse those lying in sloth."
[7] What moreover shall we say of her husband and the father of this great Father of Fathers? father Alexander, pious and a brave soldier. Shall we pass over his notable deeds in silence, or shall we also touch briefly on a few things about him? Who was as noble as Alexander? for this was his name: who was so dear, so honored by the Emperor and the Princes? By the powers of this world, I mean: for how pleasing he was to God, the eternal Emperor, is shown by the honors of the son begotten by him. The right hand of the one who then commanded the armies was invincible in wars; (I mean Belisarius b, whom he himself also esteemed greatly and held in great honor, as one preeminent above all others among strenuous and brave men) honored with the service of the Scholarii c. Although he obtained great glory both with the Emperor and with the Princes, and was also a soldier of Christ; yet in nothing was he more venerable than that he was the father of such a son. Sprung therefore from such ancestors and parents, men truly Christian and orthodox and workers of wonders, this great and admirable Eutychius; brought up and nursed among them, he spent his earliest childhood.
[8] It is fitting not to pass over in silence the very place of his upbringing; how namely this too by its name pre-signified his future great and happy city of the Augusti, piously brought up at Augustopolis with his grandfather when we find Paul also mentioning his birth and upbringing, saying that he was sprung from Tarsus of Cilicia, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. Let us see, therefore, what land nourished the great Eutychius. It was Augustopolis d, in which he also received holy baptism, himself through it about to regenerate many sons, and about to provide for the upper world. Admirable, however, is what his grandfather then taught him. For the excellent man used to relate that when he was being led by him to the sacred laver, he had learned from him that because he was baptized there, he should always come thither, and bend his knees, and pray thus: "Grant me a good mind, O Lord, and make me surpass my companions in learning letters." Which instruction indeed proceeded from the Holy Spirit, that he should remember and surely know he had received the holy baptism of the Catholic and Apostolic Church. Brought up therefore with his grandfather in his most holy church near Augustopolis, where he was a Presbyter and keeper of the sacred treasure, he learned in his earliest childhood his letters, and composed his morals, forming his gait and bearing and the cheerful modesty of his countenance, fully perceiving all those things that pertain to the perfection of virtue.
[9] In childish play But since even a boy must do something, I judge it fitting not to pass over his childish games unnarrated. But what were they like? I shall say briefly. The house in which he remained with his aforesaid grandfather is even today called "of the Branches": and obtained this designation because the brothers dwelling in it were surnamed e Clonades, that is "Branches": for there were twelve brothers of the grandfather, all tall, whence the reason for the name was taken: for of a great tree the branches also are great. In this house therefore, many boys having gathered on a certain day, those things were being done which are fitting for boys. What were they? That they should give and receive among themselves the names of Princes and Priests: some also wrote their names with their own hand on the wall, with the dignity that each one chose. But this great man, divinely inspired, He designates that he will be Patriarch. when he had also written his own name there, affixed to it the title of Patriarch: and even to this day in that place these words are seen, formed in the boyish letters of his hand: "Eutychius Patriarch." Who would not admire this? Isaac indeed played with Ishmael, but silent was the patriarchal dignity, although he was the son of a Patriarch and indeed an only-begotten, and from him God had promised Abraham a multitude of tribes, and that he would be the father of many nations. Athanasius too f once seemed, that great Bishop of the Alexandrians, to have established a similar play with his coevals, as those who have written his Life relate: but neither did he write or say such a thing of himself. Only Eutychius, as another Samuel, foreseeing from infancy the future, moved by the divine Spirit, pre-signified the patriarchal dignity to be conferred on him, and the grace he was to receive from the Father of lights: for every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, as the divine James speaks. James 1:17
[10] When therefore he was already twelve years old, and the time now called him away from his grandfather's house to another place, at twelve years old he is sent to Constantinople for the sake of studies. that the things foreordained for him by the Lord might be fulfilled: he did not hear, as Abraham, "Go out from your land and from your kindred" (for neither his parents nor kindred were adversaries to God, as Terah in Haran), but as Jacob, blessed by Isaac and Rebecca, he was sent by his parents and the grandfather whom we have mentioned to the queen of cities, for the sake of receiving secular disciplines; but on such an occasion about to do there something greater, as shall appear. For as Jacob, having set out into Mesopotamia, received Leah and Rachel, daughters of Laban, as wives (which Laban indeed bears the figure of the world, and his daughters signify the Church gathered from Jews and Gentiles), so also God, the ordination that shortly followed, appointed the new Jacob and great Patriarch Eutychius as Pontiff of new Rome, joining to him a Church collected from both peoples. But when the disciplines, and after his outstanding progress in them, each of which both the common people and the wise admire, he had run through all as if a single one, taking in a few things from each at hearing; and in declamations and other exercises had surpassed his peers, he gave himself wholly to that which is true and alone wisdom; drawing nothing from those unwise philosophers from that old and thorny discipline and doctrine scattering the stink of Egyptian leaven (for so was he affected toward divine things), but plucking only that which in them was good and consonant with religion, according to the proverb in which it is said, "Pluck the rose and beware the thorns."
[11] For he had learned and persuaded himself that the wisdom of this world, and greater in the true wisdom: as the Apostle says, does not descend from above but is earthly, animal, and diabolical, nor does it bring any spiritual fruit to those embracing it; but that wisdom which is from above is chaste, peaceful, modest, persuadable, full of mercy and of the fruits of good works, in which its followers delight. James 3:15 Embracing this with the utmost zeal, this great man of God took good counsel, which should not be taken from him, but by which he himself should be preserved: for so says the Wise Man: "Good counsel shall keep you and prudence shall preserve you." Prov. 2:11 And he immediately carried it into execution through the efficacy of the Holy Spirit, not deferring the grace nor saying, "Tomorrow I will come and accomplish it"; but when he had said, "I will," the effect immediately followed. The author of this admirable counsel was God: He resolves to bid farewell to the world. because every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, descending from the Father of lights. But what was that counsel? This, namely, that he should leave all earthly things to the earth, and, burying every Egyptian affection under the sand, should hasten to the mount of virtues, that is, to the angelic choir of monks, as we shall shortly set forth more fully.
NOTES.
CHAPTER II.
The reception of the ecclesiastical grades: monastic life.
[12] After he had thus, as we have said, resolved upon the taking of the monastic habit, thinking about the monastery and, being built upon the rock which is Christ, seemed to have a firm and stable foundation; God so acting, there was offered a certain occasion which somewhat impeded that counsel. For as travelers on a journey, and in that journey conversing together, if they are struck by some sudden thunder, for a little time interrupt both the journey and the talk; but when it ceases, he is called to the Episcopate they resume both: so it exactly happened to this admirable man. For while he is turning over in his mind as much as possible thoughts of entering the solitary life, a Pontifical dignity was offered, the Bishop of Amasea a and some others with the utmost zeal striving that he should undertake the Episcopate of Lazichene b. Compelled by their will and prayers, since he thought God willed it so, he yielded to necessity, and gave himself up like an innocent lamb to the Metropolitan of Amasea, then dwelling in the Royal City.
[13] And first indeed he received the spiritual grace of Reader, which the Lord himself initiated in person, when he received a book and read, and returned it folded to the minister. It is to be noted that he first deposited his hair, not in some obscure place, but in a sacred shrine, and that chosen for a reason full of reverence and religion. Let us hear, then, what that place was. Known to all is the temple of our glorious Lady, the Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary, c called "Urbicii" and situated in the Strategium. In this, from his earliest age, this great man used to give himself day and night to divine prayer, who while in the church of Our Lady. and in the same he was first deemed worthy of the communion of the holy body and precious blood of Christ our God: wherefore
he also deemed it fitting that in the same, when the time now required it, he should receive the spiritual graces of clerical rank. Truly you have been shown another Sion, holy church of the Mother of Christ: since in you the Holy Spirit was sent upon this divine and Apostolic man: and you, man of God, did not with vain desire desire the grace which you loved, whose beauty you had long desired, and which in the very sanctuary you sought to receive.
[14] so that he was tonsured as a Cleric near the baptistery, What then was done? There was ready one who should shear his precious head: a place secret from the crowd was sought, and a worthy one was found for a worthy man. What was it? The holy baptistery: thither they withdrew. And when they did not find where to sit, by God's providence it came about that Eutychius sat upon the base of the nourishing laver: and against both his and the shearer's intent, yet by divine counsel, it happened that all his hair fell into the sacred font. Worthy of admiration indeed are all the things that happened to this great man. For the holy font which had regenerated him as a mother, as if extending a hand, was again made his mother, while it also received his hair. What was done, in my opinion, signified that an innumerable multitude of men was to be regenerated through him in the sacred font of this august city. For as no one can number the stars of heaven, or the sand of the sea, or the hairs of the head: so no one will be able to comprehend by number the royal priesthood and holy nation, his hair fell into the sacred font. which, regenerated through water and the Spirit, the holy man offered to God. Nor is that other thing which I have indicated—the falling of his hair, I say, into the sacred font—to be passed over in silence: for he himself received all that happened to him as ordained by God, and observed it diligently. Since then these things were among them, he resolved never to wash nor to wet his head with common water: which also in fact he performed, persevering unwashed even to the end of his life; and therein observing the divine commandment, "Vow and render to the Lord your God"; and, "It is good for a man when he has borne the yoke from his youth." Ps. 25:12, Lam. 3:27
[15] And these things indeed were performed concerning his first orders: but what afterwards? When a little later he had taken on the yoke of the Deacon, Afterwards ordained Deacon another Stephen appeared, mighty in word and deed, teaching and instructing many by his life and morals how it is fitting to perform the divine ministry and to conduct oneself in the house of the Lord, which is the Church of the living God. In this grade of the Diaconate, according to the prescription of the divine Canons, he remained a short time: then, that he might deserve well of many, and at the age of 30 a Presbyter, he was advanced to the chair of the Presbyters. Consider, however, in what way, order, and reason all things came to him. Nothing was short of the age, all things were perfect, all things were full of divine grace. The order of reason is best both in universal matters and in the grades of Religion. When he was thirty years old, d he was created Presbyter; attaining also the perfect measure as to the age of the body. Christ, God above all, seems to have honored this age, who was baptized when he was thirty years old, taking me and all my things through the conjunction of his person, so that I might receive what is his. When, therefore, he was sitting in the seat of the Presbyters, and they, as David sings, were exalting him in the church of the peoples and praising him in the chair of the elders; he also adorned that grade by his example: for he was not at once sown and brought forth, as the fables feign of the Giants, or like certain sudden ones, as if formed in one day from mud, presidents of the peoples; not, I say, did he suddenly come to that grade; because he was not one who pursued a grade: but the grade followed him, as the Scripture says, "Your mercy, O Lord, shall follow me." Ps. 106:32, Ps. 22:6
[16] When thus by divine law all things had been perfected, and he was now honored with the sacerdotal order and state, and had come into hope of the See of Lazichene, since another had been given as Bishop to the Lazicheni he was prevented from acceding to that administration: for God changed his counsel, who always provides better and more excellent things for his servants. For "my thoughts are not your thoughts," says the Lord through the Prophet; for "man looks on the face, but God looks on the heart." Isa. 55:8 After then that zeal was dissipated and the Episcopate of the city of Lazichene went to another, this excellent man runs back again to the first counsel which he had loved from the beginning: he trades incorruptible riches, and imitates the prudent householder, who bringing forth from his treasures things new and old, bought the precious pearl and gained above it. For so also the admirable man beautifully exchanged the enticing pleasures of life and those flattering to the senses, giving temporal things to receive the eternal. After the example also of the Apostles, who, having left all, followed Christ for the sake of the excellent greatness of knowledge, he gave himself wholly to the solitary life and put on the garb of a monk. Embracing however in reality and in habit and in speech that philosophy which he had loved from his mother's womb, he imitated Elijah the Tishbite and John the Baptist, He becomes a monk in the monastery of Saints Meletius, Seleucus and Uranius who, showing the way of exercise to those wishing to imitate them, were the first to inhabit the desert. Although the great Eutychius did not inhabit a desert, nor Carmel; but he chose the metropolis of the Amaseni, where he might satisfy his desire. For in this city there is a holy monastery, which the most holy Bishops of old Meletius, Uranius e and Seleucus caused to be built: of whom indeed Meletius and Seleucus, having ruled the most holy Church of the Amaseni, fell asleep in it holily, and even to the present day work miracles and cures: moreover, of the great Seleucus is told a sign which God worked through him while still living.
[17] A most grievous famine once occupied the region, and no moderate danger was threatening. For when from the granary, which still remains, all the grain had been carried out, the keeper, unable to bear the importunity of those demanding, came to Saint Seleucus and returned the keys of the granary; "There is no grain in the granary," he said, "and I cannot bear the multitude of the demanding people." (of whom Saint Seleucus the Bishop in time of famine The holy man took the keys and placed them in his little bed, not ceasing to pray to God through the whole night, that according to custom he would show his admirable power, whereby he might feed and sustain the people. The next morning the most religious Clerics come to the holy Bishop as usual: then Seleucus to the keeper of the granary, "Take," he says, "the keys, Brother, and come to the aid of the poor's need." But he again affirmed with an oath that there was no grain in the granary. he filled an empty granary by prayer Seeing him then persist in his unbelief, the great man, turning to the Clerics, "Blessed," he said, "be the Lord: go with him, and learn whether he speaks truth or not." But when they had gone and wished to open the door, they could scarcely enter for the multitude of grain. The description indeed of the grain carried out is even to this day handed around in these words: "And from the prayer of Saint Seleucus, ten myriads." And these things about Blessed Seleucus. But the tomb of Uranius, who adorned the chair of Ibora f and was buried there, even at present works cures: and this is manifested by the sick, who every day lie down in that church in which the Saint rests: the tomb of Uranius is renowned for miracles) of whom each one, not according to his dignity, but as it happens to come upon them, enter and approach the burial of the Saint, and, freed from diseases, run away in health, glorifying the Lord.
[18] The monastic habit therefore the great Eutychius put on in this great monastery, and presides there over the whole monastic order which he afterwards enlarged both with buildings, and with divine worship, and with increases of revenues necessary for these things. And having his loins girt with truth, and having taken up the armor of the Holy Spirit, he undertook the charge of governing the entire monastic Order in that Metropolis, and from that office he was called Catholicus or General. Not in the least puffed up by this dignity, he did not think great things in his heart or lift up his eyes on high: but scorned as empty all the splendor of this fallen and miserable life: for he was not ignorant that the glory of man is as the flower of grass: and therefore, although he was the greatest and first of all, he conducted himself as if he were one of many: for thus the Lord commands: "Whoever wishes to be first among you, let him be the last of all and servant": because he plainly kept in mind this saying of the Wise One: "Have they made you ruler? Do not be lifted up: be among them as one of them." Mark 9:43, Sir. 32:1 Moreover, since for a time not small, namely the space of ten years, for ten years: living in the same monastery and presiding over it, he had done all things and taught, and had gained many to God by his exhortations and doctrine, observing that Gospel saying, "He who does and teaches, this one shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven": and that, Matt. 5:19, Prov. 22:1 "A good name is better than much wealth": he deserved to hear those words, "Well done, good and faithful servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I shall set you over many"; and thus he became illustrious, so that he who was like a burning but hidden lamp under a bushel, was chosen to be placed on a candlestick to enlighten all the faithful, and to become known to all, as a city set on a mountain. Matt. 25:21 But how were these things done? It happened by God's providence that in a certain matter pertaining to all Christians, the work of this great man was required: which indeed I judge to have been moved for his sake alone, because through him alone it came about that a beginning was given to the appropriate correction. The matter was of this kind.
NOTES.
Urbicius and Master of the Soldiers of the East, one hundred and eighty years after the founding of Constantinople": therefore around the year 510, in the time of Emperor Anastasius. Greek ἐν τοις Οὐρβικίου. Zino rendered it, "in the region of Urbicius in the field of the Emperor." But we think that the shrine, not the region, was called "of Urbicius"; as when it is said ἐν τᾶις Ροὐφιανᾶις; and that this shrine was in the Strategium, that is, the Praetorian forum, which Petrus Gyllius in his Topography of Constantinople attributes to the 5th Region.
CHAPTER III.
The occasion of the journey to Constantinople; election to the Patriarchate.
[19] To the Fifth Ecumenical Council You all know, as many as are here desirous of learning and knowing, that the holy Fifth Council was celebrated in the Royal City, during the reign of Divine Justinian, the Emperor, who was most zealous for the Christian religion, and most diligent in gathering the most holy Bishops against the Three Chapters, that is, the writings of Theodoret, against the twelve chapters of Saint Cyril; and the letter written to Maris the Persian, which was called Ibas's; and the Judaizing trifles and maledictions of Theodore Bishop of Mopsuestia; which, diligently examined and justly reproved, were deservedly condemned by the very holy Ecumenical Council itself. Since therefore all the most holy Bishops were being summoned, the Metropolitan of the Amaseni too was called, that he might betake himself to this Queen of cities for the sake of the aforesaid questions. But he was prevented by the infirm state of his body. God so disposing, going in place of the Metropolitan of Amasea, that the hidden treasure of this holy man might be made manifest. So the Metropolitan first through other worthy and venerable men tried to persuade him to go to the ruling city; then he himself exhorted him to comply, and in his stead to set out eagerly for the Council, inasmuch as he was most learned in divine dogmas. The holy man yielded to the exhortations: for he was as prompt to obey where the gain of salvation was hoped for, as he was slow to comply where a detriment or loss to the soul was set forth.
[20] Although at the beginning he bore the thing unwillingly, as Moses once did when he was sent into Egypt to liberate the sons of Israel, he is warned through a vision this new Moses also saw, if not a burning bush, yet a blazing furnace like Abraham; and heard a voice, not saying, "Do not approach here," or "Loose the sandal from your feet" (by which it is commanded that earthly and carnal thoughts be laid aside), but words similar to these: "Abraham, Abraham: by myself I have sworn, says the Lord, blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you, and your seed shall be as the stars of heaven": for such and so many are the sons who, not from blood, nor from the will of the flesh, nor from the will of man, but from water and the Spirit and other spiritual graces have been born to him.
[21] What that vision was which he saw, and the voice which he heard, is worth recalling: concerning the Patriarchate to be conferred on him: for again this great man appeared as a new Joseph, a new Daniel. "I saw," he said, "in a vision of the night, the finger of the hand of the Lord in the firmament of heaven, and a mountain towering over this holy monastery (for that mountain is very lofty, on which we see the church of the holy Martyr Thalalaeus constructed): and the finger showed me the summit of the mountain, and a voice was heard saying: 'There you shall be Bishop.'" Who would have believed that by that mountain anything else was signified than the queen of cities, as the event also declared? For she herself is the summit and pinnacle truly of cities or mountains of the rest, concerning which David says: "Watering the mountains from his higher places": for whether you understand angelic virtues or the mountains themselves and cities, the truth appears in either way. Ps. 103:13
[22] When therefore he had had this vision, he kept beseeching God, who had shown it, to transfer from him that sacred office and the peril of rendering account for each one, and rather to grant him in the future life to enjoy those goods which are promised to justice, and to hear, "Be over ten cities." But God, and approved to the Patriarch and the Emperor who brings clouds from the ends of the earth, and who called David from the flocks of sheep and anointed him a Prophet and King, chose also this meek man, and by the occasion I have mentioned brought him into the greatest of cities. He stayed however with the Patriarch, who was called Menas b, and was a most holy and divine man: who, leading an angelic life and foreseeing the future, exhorted the great Eutychius not to depart from him; and showing him to his holy clergy said: "This monk will be my successor." Immediately Eutychius, sent to the Emperor, when there was dispute before him about the proposed matters, appeared most fully instructed in all human and divine learning; and the heretics having engaged with him—men accustomed to dispute not for utility but for the overthrow of the simpler—were not at all able to resist the wisdom and spirit in which he spoke. When some denied that those who after death were found to have been heretics should be subjected to anathema, in refuting the heretics, he himself by the testimony of the divine Scriptures showed that they were so to be punished: for even King Josiah, as had been prophesied of him, after the death of those who had sacrificed to the calves, dug up their bones and burned them: the same therefore is also to be done to heretics, that they should be punished even after their death.
[23] The Emperor and those who stood by were astonished, and thereafter greatly reverenced and respected him. If, however, Eutychius was moving more freely within the royal court, from this point the riches of his learning were more manifested before God and men. But the Emperor loved him, nay, the Lord of all Emperors and Kings; to whom, since all things are known before our birth (for whom he foreknew and predestined, these he also called and glorified), called the great Eutychius also to the Pontifical dignity. For after a few days the holy servant of God Menas, Patriarch of the Royal city, of whom we have already made mention, in good old age and full of days passed with the grace of God, migrated to the life of the Angels and holy Fathers: at news of whose death brought to the most Christian Emperor, many with zeal were striving to corrupt with promises and gifts the friends of the Emperor, that the Pontificate might be conferred on unworthy men. But He who makes and changes all things, he is chosen in place of the dead man. and who searches the hearts and reins, God, holding in his hand the heart of the King with the ends of the earth, inclined the mind of the most serene Emperor to this most worthy man. Wherefore to one of the more honored Referendaries (this man was called Peter) he straightway commanded that he should seek out, hold, and guard with fitting honor the great Eutychius; which he did.
[24] But hear the vision which he, while being kept, beheld. "I seemed," said that great man, "to behold a certain large and splendid house, along with the visions both to Eutychius himself and a bed splendidly spread, on which lay a woman named Sophia: who when she had called me and shown me her ornaments, I soon saw a solarium adjoining the house filled with snows, and a boy standing on the solarium, Sotericus by name, who, unless I, coming up, had preserved him by drawing him from the snow from falling, seemed about to fall from the solarium." But by this vision what else was signified, than the most beautiful works of the most holy Church, designated by that ornamentation? And by the boy endangered in the snow were indicated the dogmas of saving doctrine. Both certainly obtained the necessary rectitude, the holy man presiding and governing. which were shown to the Emperor, What happened before he was ordered to be kept confirmed the counsel which from the beginning the most Christ-loving Emperor had conceived concerning him, both with the most holy Clergy and with the sacred Senate. For wishing to persuade these, as one who had had a divine vision concerning him, sleeping in the church of Saint Peter the Coryphaeus of the Apostles which is in Athyra c (for he was holding his Procession there), he said that he had seen the Prince of the Apostolic senate in his sleep, showing him the great Eutychius, and saying: "Take care that this man be made Bishop." When he confirmed on oath that he had seen it thus, they, seeing the Emperor's insistence, and how much zeal, joined with a certain divine illumination, he showed, unanimously all, with common mind, judgment, and voice, d ahead of time cried out, "Worthy, Worthy."
[25] and by the consent of the Clergy of Constantinople he is ordained, All things being duly performed according to the prescription of the Canons, when now the time was that the Father and Master of all should be consecrated by the imposition of sacred hands and initiation, he is led to the holy altar, about to lead to it many priests and pontiffs afterwards: he is consecrated by the hands of those praying, and with divine and venerable prayers, and is filled with the Holy Spirit, who being himself sanctified, sanctified all the pontiffs present: he takes the figure of the wandering sheep e on his shoulders: he ascends the lofty throne and sits upon it, and imitating Christ, the chief of shepherds returning into heaven, who himself uttered that binding and conjoining, or rather conservative, voice, he said to all the people: "Peace to all," which in return they all wished back to him. Indeed the divine David marvelously cried out beforehand concerning him: "How magnified are your works, O Lord! In wisdom have you made all things": for what has been done concerning this divine man is full of wisdom, and affects all the faithful with gladness. Ps. 91:6
[26] Moreover, it is worth knowing above all the number of his years, at the age of 40. so that how perfect and full he came may be understood: for it was fitting that in a perfect man all things should be perfect. He was therefore consecrated Patriarch in his fortieth year of age, which number is found in the divine Scriptures as mystical and perfect. For Isaac, Abraham's only-begotten son by Sarah, remaining a virgin until he had attained the age of forty years, then at last received Rebecca as wife, expressing the mystery of Christ and the figure of the Church to be gathered from the nations. Gen. 25:20, Acts 7:23 & 30 And what of Moses, the great servant of God? Did he not, when he attained his fortieth year, visit his brothers in Egypt, and seeing a certain Egyptian doing injury to a Jew, The mysteries of this number having killed him, bring aid to the one suffering injury? Did he not, after another forty years had been completed in Midian, become worthy of that divine vision which he saw on mount Sinai, that a bush burned with fire but was not consumed, and heard a voice saying to him, "Seeing I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt and heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver
them: come and I will send you into Egypt"? What does this signify? Nothing but that he himself was ordained as chief priest and liberator of the sons of Israel. Now how did he receive the divine laws, inscribed by the finger of God on tablets? Was it not after he had fasted forty days and forty nights, in which he also learned the mysteries of the new testament? And deservedly indeed Moses doubled this number, for it was the law, and what is under the law: the law, however, is imperfect; not so the ministers of grace. What finally of Christ, the Savior and liberator of all and the fulfiller of the law; did he not himself also honor this number, when, fasting forty days and nights, enduring every temptation and insult of the enemy, he gave to the human creature power to tread upon the asp and the scorpion and the whole power of the enemy? And after his resurrection, did he not again converse variously with his Apostles and disciples for forty days, and, having given his blessing, was lifted up from them, and was carried into heaven, leaving them peace, and through them his Church, which he had acquired by his own blood? And I have proposed these few things out of many, wishing to show that all that was done concerning this holy man was so ordered by a certain divine grace, that they were most worthy of consideration.
NOTES.
CHAPTER IV.
The Fifth Ecumenical Council, the heretics attacked: the Emperor Justinian seduced by them.
[27] But who was he thereafter, once consecrated and having received that divine dignity? Full of the Holy Spirit Such holiness as descended in fiery tongues upon the Apostles, such also rested upon him, and full of the Holy Spirit he a began to speak, as the Spirit gave him to utter. Rightly someone here could apply that whole passage of Scripture, "There were in Jerusalem religious men from every nation that is under heaven." Acts 2:5 For truly from every nation the most religious b Bishops had gathered in the new Jerusalem, Constantinople, on account of those Three Chapters which I have previously mentioned. When therefore the multitude had assembled, they heard him astonished, speaking in another tongue against the different tongues of the heretics: for another is the tongue of one speaking rightly, distinct from that which speaks in its own dialect; that is, of those remaining in the confession of the true faith, against the tongue of those who in their pride speak iniquity against the Most High. And so the fiery tongue of the man took them up in the end, the Holy Spirit helping and the most holy Bishops assisting; as when Moses brought help to the Israelite and struck the Egyptian. For the dogmas of heretics are regarded by the true Israelites as dark and execrable; and therefore, he confounded the heretics. condemned, they are buried under the sand.
[28] What moreover was moved, done, and defined in that great Fifth Council, you know, most learned men, so that there is no need that anything be said about them by us; and those who do not know can easily know them. But to this point fits what was said by David: "Let your Priests be clothed with justice and your Saints exult"; and likewise that which was said by the Apostle: "Put on the armor of the Holy Spirit, by which you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the enemy." Ps. 131:9, Eph. 6:11 Being therefore clothed with the breastplate of justice, and shod as to his feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; taking in all things the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God; he cut off the thorns, and made the rough ways plain; and, the stones being cast out, that is, the evil-speaking and detestable discourses of heretics, and he explicated the faith from the way of the true faith, restored peace to the most holy Churches; loosing the middle wall of partition, through the exposition and approval of the holy dogmas. An admirable thing and worthy of his soul happened, such as, as I think, nay, I know most certainly, has not hitherto come about, nor will come about in the future. For although many holy Councils have been celebrated in diverse places and in that Synod times, since the Christian religion was established, no one however remembers that, except in the time of this great man, four Patriarchs met together. Therefore all doubts and controversies being dissolved, not by violent coercion, nor by party zeal, but by the efficacy of demonstrations and persuasions, the highest peace and great tranquility in God's Church followed.
[29] The four Patriarchs were these: c Vigilius of old, and this Eutychius of new Rome, d Apollinarius of great Alexandria, e Domninus of Theopolis: who, as if melted into one body from four elements, unanimous and of the same mind, joined hands among themselves, to which the 4 Patriarchs were present, as that oracle of the Psalm testifies: "Let the rivers clap their hands in this very thing, the mountains shall exult"; and what was said by Zachariah: "In that day there will be a great tumult of the Lord among them, and a man shall lay hold of the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall be joined to the hand of his neighbor; and Judah shall fight also against Jerusalem, and the strength of all the nations round about shall be gathered." Zach. 14:10, Ps. 97:8 Forming therefore a certain great and as it were fourfold and golden chain, they entered into the temple of God, that is, into the great church; and offered together the divine and unbloody sacrifice, imitating Christ, the Lord and Prince of Shepherds, who by a single oblation sanctified all, having suffered once at the end of the ages; not to say that the Priest once a year entering the Holy of Holies, expressed a figural and shadowy latreia.
[30] These four spiritual rivers, lifting up the crushings of the intellectual mountains, according to that: "The rivers have lifted up their waves"; cast out the opinions of heretics, which among the faithful are certain spots and stains; from the voices of many waters, that is, the testimonies of Scriptures and of the Fathers; and begat joy and gladness to the holy mountains, that is, the Churches of Christ, and condemned the Three Chapters. Ps. 92:3 Who has seen, who has heard such things? Beautiful indeed and very beautiful are the rivers which go out of paradise: yet much more to be praised are these four, who have entered into paradise. For paradise is the Church of God, in which we were planted in the mountain of inheritance, in the prepared dwelling, which the Lord sanctified, which his hands prepared, who reigns for ever and ever. By the consent and conjunction of these, therefore, the Lord our God, strong and mighty in war, cast the chariots of Pharaoh and his army into the sea, drowning the chosen supporters of the heresies f and the impiety of the Three Chapters; the new Moses, namely, lifting up his hand, and with the rod, that is, with the Cross, suffocating in the water of the sea the sons of contumacy: but the sons of Israel walked through the dry land in the midst of it.
[31] Afterwards Eutychius ruled his Church, When therefore the four Shepherds, through concord and right sense, had become one sheepfold and one Shepherd, and all the moderation of discipline rested upon the Priests of the Lord and his people; they departed with great joy each to their own cities and peoples; and for a long time then indeed all the churches of God were in peace (for they walked and were built up in the fear of God, and were filled with the consolation of the Holy Spirit); but left alone at Constantinople was the new Jacob in all things and the great Patriarch Eutychius; compared to Jacob in his pastoral solicitude and as he once wrestled at the ford of the torrent Jabbok, not with a man as was that man's wrestling (if indeed that was a man who blessed Jacob and changed his name to Israel, and said, "Because you have been able to wrestle with God"), but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world both visible and invisible. For alone for Christ our God he undertook war, alone he bore the solicitude of the Churches and resisted even to blood, fighting night and day against the enemies of truth: because the grievous g Abaric wolves did not cease to assail the flock of God, thinking evil and speaking perverse things, and leading captive the souls of the simpler.
[32] The servant of God therefore, the flock entrusted to him by the Prince of Shepherds, placed upon the water of refreshment and in the place of pasture, preserving what was firm, binding up what was broken, strengthening what was weak, bringing back what was straying, as a skilled shepherd, by his discourses and reasonings, and that for no short time. He was burned by the heat of the day and the cold of the night, like Jacob the Patriarch, who served Laban for Leah and Rachel, pasturing his flocks for fourteen years. But that man bore labors for sheep devoid of reason, whose reward was manifest (for the things of loftier contemplation—namely that that marriage of Jacob with two sisters, for 12 years in full peace: bore before it
[32] For the rest, the envious enemy of honesty and the devil could not long bear this, until by the envy of the demon things were disturbed, who insolent and proud said, "By the strength of my hand I have taken away as the mighty resting on high, and my hand has found as a nest the strength of peoples; and as the eggs that are left are gathered, so I have gathered all the earth." Isa. 10:14 When he saw the flourishing and full field of Christ, and the ripe and multiplied grain reaching up to heaven; what the sower of tares and enemy of our race did, what that crafty one plotted to do evil, how he cast tares into the grain, let us see. Rom. 10:2 Under the appearance of piety and religion (for it happens, as the Apostle says, that some have zeal, but not according to knowledge), that boar from the wood and singular wild beast, through some simpler people, attacked to devastate the beautiful vineyard of the Church, and sent winds and storms into the well-built house, or, more truly, into the rock itself; which yet remained firm, those things a little later being dissolved swifter than dust and than the wind. But what this zeal was, or what appearance of piety, let us explain in a few words.
[33] With the Emperor holding that Christ's body was incorruptible. You all know, who have known the zeal of the pious Emperor Justinian concerning divine dogmas, how he bent himself especially to that care, that he might reprove and overturn all the reasonings of the heretics together with the heretics themselves; which he also overcame, as many other things, refuting them both by arguments and demonstrations and by testimonies of the Scriptures. This man, by what author and teacher I know not, began under the appearance of religion to approve that execrable and detestable and pernicious opinion, which asserted that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, on account of the conjunction with his Divinity, had been incorruptible: and that opinion, creeping and devouring like a cancer, would have destroyed almost the whole world, had not our Phineas by forestalling resisted. What then was that propitiation, as far as was in him, and what plague was cured? Many testimonies of the holy Apostles and Prophets and Doctors, and demonstrations which he used to suppress that pestiferous plague: for it is altogether a pernicious plague to affirm that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ before the Resurrection was free from corruption: for who is so foolish as to assert this, which being granted, it necessarily follows that the assumption of human flesh was feigned and simulated? For how could an incorruptible body suffer, that this is heretical or be circumcised, or be wrapped in swaddling clothes, or be nourished with milk? But if we believe this flesh, the giver of life, underwent these things, and confess the cross and the marks of the nails and the wound of the lance, it cannot be called incorruptible, unless only in this sense, that it was never defiled by any stain of sin, nor dissolved in the sepulcher. But if we wished to pursue these things we should be more prolix, and they have been diligently and keenly disputed by the great Eutychius even in writings, from which one will easily be able to understand the truth, if anyone is ignorant of it. Rather let us see what followed after he set forth the testimonies of the Fathers.
[34] The Patriarch shows, When this great man in a long discourse had proved to the Emperor that this was not the dogma of the Catholic Church, he himself indeed freed his soul, as the Prophet Ezekiel says, setting forth those things that pertained to the matter; but the inventors of evils died in their iniquity. Ezek. 31:19 For those surrounding the Emperor prevailed, and he being persuaded, they hollowed out the rock like drops often falling. Indeed I willingly omit to name the teachers of that impious opinion, defending the dogmas of the mad Origen, Evagrius, h and Didymus, lest I seem to repay evil with evil, and follow up calumny with abuse, and act contrary to the purpose and morals of Saint Eutychius, who by the blessed command of our Savior taught in deeds and words, that evil is not to be returned for evil, but rather, contrary, those who curse are to be blessed, and for those who persecute we are to pray. And indeed since the things that were done at that time seem rather to be passed over in silence than to be proclaimed; I think it fair that what by his examples we have learned to do, things worthy of silence we should silently pass over.
[35] and he proved the divine justice against the guilty. Meanwhile the ever-watchful eye of divine justice did not permit malice to go unpunished; but it completely uncovered and laid bare the calumny: to such a degree that they themselves with their own mouths confessed the conspiracy and praised the equity of vengeance. Those who plotted these things were not only from the number of those who were most influential with the Emperor, but also distinguished ones among the Priests, and prelates of great Churches (if indeed men calumniators and wicked are worthy of the name of Priests), and justice punished them all, stopping the lips speaking iniquity against the just in pride and contempt. These therefore, as has been said, by their zeal for execrable and impious dogmas, perverted the simplicity of the Emperor, and on the occasion of the word "Incorruptible," iniquitously, as is clear, and against the divine Canons and ecclesiastical institutions, did whatever they perpetrated against the blessed man: whom indeed the just Judge did not pass over, not even in this life; but in many ways made into an example, both they and all those consenting with them, descended with grief to the underworld.
NOTES.
CHAPTER V.
After a double captivity Saint Eutychius is banished to the island of Principus, then to Amasea.
[36] When by the zeal of those perverse men whom I have mentioned the long-lasting force of the disease had increased, Refusing to subscribe to the heretical opinion, and the wound, difficult to treat, nay, had already become incurable; the Emperor, taking up a paper in which was contained that blasphemous opinion, that the Lord's body, from its conjunction with the divine nature, had been incorruptible, read it before the divine and great champion Eutychius, demanding that he approve it with his suffrage and judgment. But he, as was right, first using exhortations, denied that it was the doctrine of the Apostles, nor as to sense or words assented, casting every thought upon the Lord. Persuading and exhorting much, he could not be persuaded to do anything against the Catholic Church and right dogmas: but using that Apostolic saying, "because I have withheld nothing useful, but that I might announce to you," he promptly gave himself up to bear all things that are thought grievous on account of the faith in Christ: "For I am persuaded," he said, "that neither death nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor tribulation, nor distress, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor sword shall be able to separate me from the charity of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Acts 20:20 But whether he said these things only in words, or also fulfilled them in deed, is plain to all, since words were followed by deeds.
[37] For when he would not accept the error of the false dogma and approve the a Aphthartodocetae; at once the inventors of evils, the patriarchate being occupied by enemies ready to dare all things, the Princes, I mean, and the Priests of that year, gathered in the auditorium and meeting together, meditated vain things against the Lord and against his Christ; and persuaded the Emperor to expel from his See the man adorned with all virtues, and to establish in it b another, who would consent to his zeal and opinions: as was also done. For on the feast day of Saint c Timothy, while it was being celebrated in the new palace called Hormisdae, and Saint Eutychius was performing the divine service; he waits the end of the affair in the temple a Tribune of the soldiers and the tribune's attendants, or rather the ministers of a huge wild beast, invaded the Patriarchate; and seized and carried off the familiars of the holy man, who should testify against him, so that in any way they might make it seem likely that he had not without cause been deposed from the Pontificate. But the great man, when he had understood their invasion of the Patriarchate, and that some of the number of his people had been violently dragged thence and thrown into prison; the Sacrifice performed and the holy Communion distributed, remained in the sanctuary: for it had been told him by some who thought they knew it for certain, that his life also was in peril, if he went outside the sacred precincts;
because certain armed men placed in the palaces called "of Antiochus," were waiting for him outside with such a counsel. Perceiving these things therefore, the blessed man stood before the altar after the people had been dismissed, and clothed in his usual vestments and superhumeral (which he always bore with him), with hands extended in prayer, persisted up to the third hour of the night, beseeching God that he preserve the right dogmas and his Church in tranquility.
[38] The prayer being finished, the monks and priests who were present exhorted him to take food; and thence dragged off elsewhere, which being taken, when he had rested a little, there was present with swords and staves and with much military force, that great beast, Aetherius I mean; and having seized the holy man, naked and having nothing, he carried him to the monastery called Choracudis. In which place, after he had tarried one day, then brought to Chalcedon, and on account of the poverty of that same monastery had been ill-treated, his adversaries, moved by mercy (for they too admired the virtue of the man), placed him in the monastery called of Hosia, near Chalcedon: and no longer inquiring whether he had been deposed lawfully or unlawfully, an illegitimate ordination having been performed, and an assembly of Bishops being called together after the eighth day, the holy man, whom they had ejected without the cause being stated, they summoned to court to clear himself, because libels had been presented against him to the assembly. But what these contained is necessary to hear and to laugh at: to wit, that d he had eaten little delicate birds, that he had prayed for many hours kneeling, and other similar things, even more ridiculous than these. He was therefore summoned to clear himself of such crimes.
[39] But he, to the Bishops and Princes bringing the message by the command of the Synod, said, "To whom do you come, and whom do you call me?" They, compelled by the truth, answered, "To our Lord and Father." He is cited to a pseudo-synod to plead his case: To whom he again said, "Who is your Lord and Father?" They, as if scourged by some hidden virtue, said, "We come to Lord Eutychius, our Patriarch." "I am Patriarch," he said, "by the grace of God, nor shall any one of men take this dignity from me. But who is he whom you have established in my place?" At which they were silenced, and returned confused to those by whom they had been sent. Again the same session, doing all things against the Canons, refusing to appear before it caused a second and third citation to be made to the holy man, according to the prescription of the Canons. To which he always responded congruously: "If canonical judgment is granted to me, let my Clergy and patriarchal order be given to me, then I will come and answer, and I will take my own accusers as witnesses." Hearing these things, doing nothing consonant with reason, they pronounced against the holy man a sentence worthy of themselves; which the blessed man, anticipating, subjected them all to the canonical penalties until they should repent.
[40] The games of that session being finished, he who scattered the counsel of Ahithophel, and banished to the island of Principus. and broke the axles of Pharaoh's chariots, also dissipated their machinations, entangling them among themselves. Meanwhile, although they had not found an honorable occasion against the Just Man, yet that what they had done against right should seem duly done (they were moreover both accusers and judges), they transferred him from the place where he was to the island called e of the Prince. The blessed man arrived at it in winter and on a f Saturday and deep in the night: but when morning came, before he did anything else, he saw a Cross painted on the wall with this inscription: "Christ is with us: stand firm." At which sight greatly refreshed, he gave thanks to God, who had brought him this consolation. Then after he had spent three weeks under numerous military custody on that island, the decree of exile to Amasea at last as that time demanded, it was decreed again by the same judges that he should seek the metropolis of the Amaseni, and should remain in the monastery which he had formerly established: as was done. But what was there written and done against him I forbear to say, lest I be too long: for it is enough what Ezekiel said suitably to this argument in the person of God: "In that time I will turn my face from them, and they will defile my episcopate, and will enter into my holy places unguarded, and will make a great pollution." Ezek. 7:22 But let us see what followed after.
[41] The faithful servant of God Eutychius is again declared similar to Paul, again this one's history can be referred also to him: for so it is written of that one: "And when it was judged that he should sail into Italy, Paul was delivered with other prisoners to a centurion named Julius," so also it was done with the Saint. Acts 27:1 For after many things had been rashly deliberated, at length, as we have said, it was decreed that he should betake himself to the metropolis of the Amaseni, and live in his own monastery. But he, what? Luke 4 Did he murmur? Or did it occur to him what the Lord had foretold, receiving it with much testimony of patience, "No prophet is received in his own country"? By no means: but with ready mind he underwent all things: for he rejoiced that he had been accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of God; and he took care not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him, because faith without works is dead. He imitated also in this above all the Lord, who gave his back to the scourges, and his cheeks to the blows, and did not turn his face away from the foulness of spitting; by whose bruise we are all healed: who also said, "If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also; if they have called the father of the family Beelzebub, how much more his household?" Matt. 10:25 This the servant of God understood and did, certain to suffer all bitterness rather than betray the faith; and that by his example many might be confirmed, and remain stable and immovable in the right confession. Which also he obtained: for all the Patriarchs and many Bishops, especially the Easterners, refused to subscribe to the Imperial opinion, and resisted it both through a Synod and through writings; especially the most holy Patriarch of Theopolis g Anastasius, who bore the same—shall I say hardships or crowns?—as the great Eutychius.
[42] When therefore, the cause being unheard, he had been condemned to exile, and all things were prepared for his transportation; through various inconveniences of the journey. we also resolved to bear persecution with him and exile for Christ. But he, having understood this, having kissed all with the holy kiss, with his mouth those who were present on the island, as Paul kissed the Ephesians on the shore; but in mind the whole Church entrusted to him; commended it to the Lord, from whom he had received it. Delivered then to those who were to lead us, we were transferred to his monastery; into exile indeed, as those who had sent us there supposed; but as he himself thought, for salvation and the occasion of many good things. What however was done then on the way, no less full of trouble and bitterness than of miracles and cures, I willingly pass over, that the length of the discourse may be avoided. Meanwhile these things and greater ones h the public road itself manifests, when it celebrates the feast of his return, which the great and brave man had through it.
[42] He descended there as Abraham and Jacob into Egypt. The great champion Eutychius therefore went down into Amasea, as once Abraham and his grandson Jacob into Egypt, both Patriarchs, because of the famine: for as for our Savior Jesus Christ descending into the same Egypt, as a more excellent matter, we pass over with honor, on account of the light cloud and on account of the fall of the man-made idols. But this descent was famous for many miracles; for what wonder if the presence of God clothed in human flesh works wonders? I confess: but that former descent of the great Patriarchs was also not lacking in miracle, as is easily shown by the vision divinely offered to Pharaoh on account of Abraham and Sarah, on account of which he dismissed them with honor: and Joseph's manifestation; and Jacob's and his sons' journey to him. But perhaps indeed they enjoyed such miracles, but was the great Eutychius without such grace? he is illustrated by miracles. By no means: but this also God, the worker of all things, granted to him: what and how many these were, omitting many, let us see: for we ourselves have seen them, and heard, and our hands have handled them, and what we have seen we bear witness to. For he who said, "He who believes in me, the works that I do, he also will do, and greater than these will he do"; and, "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Remove and be cast into the sea,' and it will be so"; he himself gave to his servant the grace of healings, that he might cure diseases and cast out demons.
NOTES.
CHAPTER VI.
Various miracles performed by Saint Eutychius at Amasea.
[44] For cures to be effected it is necessary both that the faith of those to be cured be present and the virtue of those curing: if either of these is lacking, the other will avail nothing; but on the contrary, both, when both concur, operate. Therefore the Evangelist, speaking of the Lord, says, "He could not there work many signs, on account of their unbelief." Matt. 13:58 Hence too those who approached this holy man with faith received more grace, since all things are possible to the believer; and he himself was girt with the grace delivered to him from the Father of lights. I shall begin therefore from the cures: you who delight in such narratives, attend. But from where, or from what grace should the beginning be taken? There are more eminent miracles, but from this one must begin,
I think.
[45] There was in the city of Amasea a a certain couple, joined in lawful marriage, who, when they often tried to procreate children, were frustrated in the outcome; To a couple afflicted by the early death of their children for the infants dying immature almost before they came out of the womb, and afflicting the parents with great grief, because they endured the pains indeed, but were deprived of joy. What then do they do? They take useful counsel: they have recourse to God, who can call back to life even the dead through his servants. They imitate the widow of Sarepta, whose son Elijah raised up; they imitate the Shunamite woman, who ran to Elisha when her son lay dead in the upper room. They too have recourse to the blessed man: they supplicate, that by his prayers he would obtain that surviving infants be born to them. He, praying for them, anointed them both with holy oil, both that which is from the precious Cross and that which is accustomed to flow from the image of the holy and pure Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary our Lady at Sozopolis b, He obtains a surviving offspring; saying, "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ": for so he was wont to do to all the sick who came to him; as also Saint James commanded, saying, "Is anyone infirm among you? Let him call in the presbyters of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick: and if he be in sins, they shall be remitted him." James 5:14
[46] and discerning the sex of the one not yet born, When therefore he had finished praying, and as if inspired by a certain grace had for a little been silent, presently he said: "You will give him the name of Peter, and he will live": for the woman was pregnant. But I, who was present, answered: "But if she bears a female, what name shall they give her?" "By no means," he said, "but they will call him Peter, and he will be safe." At these words rejoicing, as though they were already carrying the boy not yet born in their arms, they returned home. He commands him to be called Peter When the time was fulfilled, she bore a son, as the servant of God had foretold and seen. The parents therefore saw to his being baptized, and named him Peter: afterward coming together with him to the holy man, they embraced his feet, and confessed what God had done for them, and how he had had mercy on them. The holy man, laying hands on the boy, blessed him. And when he who had been brought forth into light from foreknowledge and prayers had grown up, another was also born to them. So coming again they brought both sons to the holy man, and praising God asked by what name the last should be called. He, looking on both, gracefully took up that saying of Solomon: "Brother," he said, "who is aided by brother, is like a strong city." Prov. 18:19 and his brother John, And he said to their parents: "You will call this one John, because in the church of Saint John the Lord heard your prayers." And the boys grew up, and it was published throughout that whole city, and all praised God together. But let us see another admirable thing done by the holy man with God's help.
[47] A certain c Presbyter, from a village belonging to the most holy greater church, had a deaf and dumb son, He cures a dumb and deaf boy. about fourteen years old: whom bringing to the holy man he supplicated that he would obtain help for him from God. When he had poured out prayers for him, he anointed all his senses with holy oil, and three times called "Nunech" (for that was his name). And on the first day indeed he answered obscurely. But when he had stayed there three days, and had been anointed with holy oil, the bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke and heard rightly. And when the father wished to leave him in the monastery, the servant of God was unwilling. The presbyter therefore, taking his healed son, returned home with great joy. Let us hear another notable miracle.
[48] Another man of the same place, who had been enrolled among the Clerics of the most holy Church of God, Likewise another. Cyril by name, had a son of five years and more, who nevertheless could neither speak, nor take food, nor live at all, nor even die. When they had brought him to the holy man, he applied his usual prayers, and imparted the holy Communion: and blessing common bread, he gave it to him and dismissed him. From that day, his tongue was loosed and he spoke, and ate and drank, health being received through God's grace. Let us hear also another like to this, nay rather more admirable.
[49] There is a certain little town d Zela, near the metropolis of Amasea itself: from here certain ones coming brought a four-year-old boy to the holy man, taking nothing except a little nourishment from his mother's breast. He was moreover almost devoid of flesh and body, nor did he have any color; but as an ear of corn spoiled by wind, a boy drying up in his whole body which, not yet firm, has a certain thin and empty appearance of grains and awns; so too that boy seemed, so that whoever wished could number all his thin ribs and nerves and bones. When the great man of God beheld him so dried up, and his parents wasting away with grief, imploring the help of God, who makes things be from things that are not, anointed the whole body of the boy with precious oil, and imparted the holy Communion to him: and blessing common bread gave it to the parents, and commanded that they should dip it in pure wine and present it to the boy. And when they had done this, anointing with oil and giving communion, they obtained their desire. For the next day we saw a great change of flesh in him: he took moderate nourishment and increased: on the third day we saw him quite different. For he held bread in his hand, and ate in the presence of his parents; and moved his eyes, which before were sunken and could scarcely be seen, and beheld each of the bystanders. His parents also said that from the hour in which the holy man had prayed for him, he was unwilling to touch his mother's breasts, but was nourished with offered food. Glad therefore, they returned to their little town with their healthy son. Here if someone asks makes him well: why the boy did not at once receive complete health, let him know that the judgments of God are a great abyss. We see also our Lord, by some hidden counsel, not at once curing some sick. For when he had anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, "Go," he said, "to Siloam and wash": and he washed and saw. And when he had laid hands on another, he asked whether he saw anything: and he answered, "I see men as trees walking." From which it is clear that health was granted to some little by little by the Lord, for those causes which he knows, who knows what is useful to each one. But enough on this point. Let us explain another miracle.
[50] The son of a certain artisan of Amasea, seized by a sudden illness, had approached the gates of death. Likewise another dying man His father, putting him in his arms, carried him to the monastery, that he might offer him to the holy man, that by his prayers he should recover health. That man was at the time detained by other affairs, for some had come to be instructed by him, and he did not have leisure at the time to receive the boy. Wherefore, when the father had waited a sufficient time, he wished to depart: "For why," he said, "should I further trouble the blessed man, since the boy is dying?" But considering that God can even call the dead back to life, I detained the man a little, and we saw the boy really altogether failing in the greatest part of his body. Moved therefore by his peril, I summoned the holy man: who without delay came to the oratory, and applying prayers laid his hands on the boy, and anointed him with holy oil and dismissed him home. The next day the father returned, with tears giving thanks to God for the health of his son. Asked however how the boy was, he answered that by God's grace and the prayers of the holy man, he had altogether recovered: "All night long," he said, "he played, and awake was merry." Not long after we saw the boy too, and praised God together, who restores life even to the dead. But enough also on this: let us pass to another miracle.
[51] A certain rustic woman, with her seven-year-old son, had come to the city for certain reasons: and another weak in his feet, there by the attack of a demon the boy's feet suddenly grew stiff, to such a degree that he could in no way stand upon them. The mother, therefore, sad and mourning, carried her son to the holy man, who applied holy oil with prayers to the boy's feet: but when the prayer was finished, the mother, wishing to test whether the boy could stand, set him down. And he indeed at first trembling, seemed about to fall; but when little by little he took courage (for with soothing voices those who were present encouraged him), he stood undismayed, and was not at all disturbed. With his soles and ankles therefore suddenly made firm, he returned home with his mother, leaping and praising God. We too who had seen the miracle, how, that is, having entered the temple on another's feet, he was going out on his own; we praised God together, who in our times had bestowed such grace on his servant. Let us hear also another miracle more venerable, since the disease was more pitiable and new.
[52] Adjoining the city of Amasea is a monastery of women, called of Flavia, from these certain ones brought to the best man a girl of about e five years old, saying that she would not at all receive the holy Communion: a girl unable to communicate but when it was to be received, she was seized by great fear and trembling, cried out, was sad, and rejected the holy drink. And when it was Sunday, and the sacred body and blood of Christ were being distributed; we, not giving credence to the things said, before the holy man applied the usual prayers over the girl, commanded that she should come and communicate. But when she began to approach the sacred mysteries, we found that what had been said was true: for what with great labor she had taken into her mouth, she cast out with vomiting and wild clamor; and a certain one of those standing by, putting out his hand, received it, and cast it into the fire. We, therefore, sad and frightened, sent the girl back home, exhorting her to return the next day. freeing her from a demon hindering this: But to the returning girl the holy man applying his customary prayers, anointed all her senses with blessed oil: but when he came to her mouth, she, emitting a wild voice, vomited up a great foulness, or rather an unclean spirit that was afflicting her. Afterward, by command of the holy man, she went to receive the sacred Communion, and by God's grace, without any shock or fear, took the Lord's body and his precious blood. Then sighing vehemently the girl, now well, said: "Behold, Colothim (for so the children of that region call the oblation, that is, bread not yet consecrated), henceforth shall I receive." And all praised God together, who does admirable and new and incredible things, of which there is no number, even through his servants: for God is wonderful in his Saints.
[53] A certain young man, skilled in making f mosaic work, in the house of Chrysaphius of pious memory, in the very city of Amasea, was exercising his art. But as he was removing
from the wall an old mosaic, representing the story of Venus (for that man wished from his own house to make a chapel of the Archangel, because it was raised up on high, he cures a hand inflamed by the same: and from the lower part a chapel of the holy and immaculate Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary our Lady, which was also done), when he was chiseling out the foul image of impudent Venus, the demon who inhabited it so invaded his hand, that it swelled inflamed; and afflicted with a grievous cancer it was said necessarily to be amputated by those who saw it. Knowing this danger the young man took useful counsel, and fled to the holy man, that through him he might obtain help from God. But he, when he had prayed for him, anointed his right hand, laboring with inflammation and cancer, with holy oil: and this being done for three days, by divine aid the hand recovered, and was restored similar to the other. He himself, in the place where he had received the injury, in the same, for the sake of memory and of a grateful mind, painted the image of the holy man, so that the hand, which had received the benefit of healing, might testify to its physician second after God. Like to this another miracle also happened.
[54] A certain sculptor brought to the blessed man a boy vexed by an unclean demon: who, when he was standing by the great man praying; a certain one of the bystanders, because the boy was little, said to the sculptor: "Lift the boy in your arms, that he may receive the sanctification." This being done and the prayer finished, both departed. The next day the sculptor came, he does the same in another case, mourning and grieving, because he could not bear the torment of his hand. And when it was asked of him why he mourned, what ailed him: "After I held the boy," he said, "my hand began to be twisted with incredible pain: for the demon, having left the boy, clung to me; and he indeed has been cured, I, however, am in danger." even after medicines had been applied Hearing these things the blessed man, smiling, despised the demon doing such things; and praying for that wretched man, he freed him; commanding him to do nothing else except to devote himself to prayer. But he, neglecting the command of the man of God, and fearing the swelling and burning of his hand, had recourse to physicians, so as to fulfill that which is written: "He who offends in the sight of him who made him, shall fall into the hands of the physician": for he was about to lose his hand. Sir. 38:15 And so, spending all on physicians and wandering through baths, the evil grew worse. perceiving no help, but rather laboring more, again he came to the physician who does not require silver, but imparts his service gratis. Who, not moving or hesitating at all, besought the merciful God that he might be freed: which he also obtained. But he afterwards devoting himself to prayers, as the Saint had commanded, was freed from the pains and inflammation, so that praising God he practiced his accustomed art. But since we have fallen upon the mention of those who, vexed by unclean spirits, were freed, let us speak about a certain apostate, because this matter can bring no small utility to those who make light of and reject the monastic habit.
[55] A certain young man was vexed by a wicked and grievous demon in such a way that whenever it afflicted him he could be restrained by no one: for he overcame all and broke all of them. Laboring in vain for a certain energumen, This wretched man they brought to the holy man, who had received from God the grace of driving away such a spirit, who when he had applied the weapon of the precious Cross, dreadful to demons, and his oil to the forehead of the vexed man; he the man, as if transfixed by the sign of the Cross as by a fiery nail, began to cry out and foam, and to rage, and to gnash his teeth, so that he seemed to be vexed not by one but by many demons: and although many monks held him, he overcame all and afflicted them; and being long vexed, at last he lay as dead. We thought him altogether freed: but the next day he returned suffering worse. When therefore he had been long afflicted and vexed by the demon, he understands he had apostatized from the monastery, the servant of God wondered, and wondered within himself why the demon did not depart from him; and said to me that I should ask the wretched man who he was, and whence such an attack of a wicked demon had come upon him. So when the wretched man had recovered his reason, I began to ask him in detail about his state and conversation from his earliest childhood. He himself said: "As a boy, having entered the monastery of Saint John Acropolitanus (for Acropolis is the name of the place of his monastery which is at Amasea), I remained there for no little time; and at length wearying of pious exercise, having despised the monk's habit, I went out of the monastery, and at the same time I changed my life with my habit: for I knew a woman, and committed many other sins. And so now, as you see, I am in this state, and am wretchedly held and afflicted by an unclean spirit. Do you, if you can do anything, help me."
[56] When the holy man had learned these things from us, nay rather we from him (for unless he himself had known, and by this example he instructs his own, he would not have commanded us to ask the vexed man about his state, intending indeed by such an example to confirm us, and to provoke to repentance those who despise the monastic and angelic life and those tempted about dismissing it), he suggested to us those words of Job: "Seeing my plague, fear"; and, "Let not your foot be moved"; and, "No one putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God." Job 6:21, Ps. 120:3, Luke 9:62 He having uttered these and many other similar things for the confirmation and utility of the monks present, had mercy on the vexed man on account of what he had said, and deeply sighing and praying continuously, pronounced these words of David in the person of that wretched man: "I said, I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord, and you have forgiven the impiety of my sin." So indeed the holy man pronouncing the Psalm up to this verse: but it is not unfitting that we should add also the following verse, for after he said, "And you have forgiven the iniquity of my sin," follows this verse: "For this, he shall pray to you"—not anyone, but who? "every Saint in a fitting time": but the fitting time is when those things are asked of God which are pleasing to him: "Ask," he says, "and it shall be given you; knock, and it shall be opened to you." Ps. 35:5, Luke 12:9 When therefore the vexed man had confessed, and when persuaded to return frees him. the holy man again offered his usual prayers for him to God, and exhorted him to return to his monastery, and to recover the habit which he had cast off and treated with insult. And when he had zealously done this, he was no longer vexed by the demon, but remained in the monastery, and conducted himself prudently and modestly. Wherefore those who were there praised God, and said, "Today salvation has been done for this world: because this brother of ours was dead, and has come alive again; he was lost, and is found." That too was fulfilled: "The assiduous prayer of the just avails much." James 5:16 He who had been cured also heard from him: "Behold, you have been made well, sin no more." But let us now pursue the rest of the miracles. g
[57] A certain man laboring under that disease which devours the whole body, fled to the holy man, supplicating that he would obtain mercy for him from God. Seeing the wretched man almost consumed by the disease, he cures a leper, he was no little moved. Applying therefore prayer, he anointed his eyes and hands with holy oil, and commanding that he should taste no wine at all, dismissed him. He willingly obeyed, knowing that things impossible for men are easy with God, and by the example of Naaman the Syrian returned home. But when the space of a year had passed, the same man came back again, giving thanks to God and praising him, because the disease no longer crept, but was restrained and was failing.
[58] Another man came to the holy man, saying that he was from Polyandus h of the Comani, and for a full year now had not seen the light, and that for this reason. On account of a controversy which was between him and another in court he was compelled to swear, he restores sight to a man blinded on account of perjury: he perjured himself, as if perjury were no crime: but God, looking to his salvation, blinded him. Afflicted with which punishment, since he could not see the light, and was led by hand, he came to the man of God, and confessing the sin of perjury indicated the blindness of his eyes that had followed; rightly judging that God had given to the Priests the greatest power through the holy Apostles, to whom he said, "Whatever you bind upon the earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose upon the earth shall be loosed also in heaven." Matt. 18:18 Accordingly, since the admirable man had the office both of loosing (for each one is bound with the chains of his sins) and of curing; he prayed Almighty God that he would grant him both pardon for his perjury and health for his eyes. The prayer over him being finished, he anointed him with holy oil for three days and freed him. Thus it came about that he who had come led by another's hands and eyes, returned to his own city on his own, praising God.
[59] But we have mentioned these few out of many who were cured, and whom we know by face: he gives abundance of milk to dried-up breasts for daily a great multitude of men, women and children fled to him: who laboring with various diseases, both manifest and hidden, all obtained the mercy of God. Women also came with children still nursing: who, when they were lamenting and complaining, because they lacked their nourishment; the mothers themselves grieved, because the fountains of milk had dried up for them. It was a pitiable spectacle, and the sighs and groans and various cries. What should the great man of God do, seeing at once mothers and sons lamenting and crying out, these indeed because of hunger, those because they saw themselves bereft of their sons? Was it not necessary that his soul should be vehemently moved; especially since he was so meek, so gentle, so merciful toward all? He was moved plainly, and therefore also obtained their requests: for praying he said those things which that great Moses said: "Lord, forgive them this fault, or if you do not, blot me out of your book which you have written." Ex. 32:32 With which words beseeching God, he caused him to have mercy on those who needed his mercy.
[60] It is worthwhile, however, that of the women suffering the same things and fleeing to him and being cured, he imparts even superabundance. we should remember one, who being healed returned to the monastery and proclaimed the grace of God in these words: "Having been deprived of milk I came to the holy man with my son: but after he, having prayed for me, had given oil, as I was going out from the gates of the monastery the breasts gave milk, and for a long time flowed in such abundance that I was nursing other women's children too: but all who had known me before praise God, because before indeed I was begging others' milk, going from house
to house, to nourish my little infant; but now I do not cease to do the same and at the same time to repay those from whom I had received, explaining the reason to all, and narrating the mighty works of God: for such is the grace of God, that where affliction abounded, now grace superabounds." Does this seem small to some? I indeed do not think anyone of sound mind thinks so: rather, it is to be equaled with that miracle which befell the barren woman. For as she had a nature formed for bearing children, yet could not bear: so this woman's breasts ought naturally to have had the flow of milk, but it had dried up, that through the servant of God it might flow abundantly. I speak the truth in Christ: many women, both laboring with this disease and with many other hidden and grievous ones, came and obtained God's help. Moreover, concerning cures of this kind, although many more things could be said, let these suffice.
NOTES.
CHAPTER VII.
Saint Eutychius in a famine preserves provisions without failure, foretells the Empire to certain men, bids farewell to the Amaseni.
[61] Now let us see also another grace granted by God to this holy man, which indeed, as I judge, does not differ much from that which the Prophet Elijah manifested at Sarepta. On the occasion of the Persian war Although the Tishbite indeed, after he had brought in famine according to the word of his mouth, being benignly received in hospitality by a widow neglecting herself and her son, repaid this by the benefit that neither flour should fail in the jar nor oil in the cruse. But this man, as a certain second Elijah, did not himself bring in famine, but sustained many laboring with famine by his prayers, on such an occasion as I undertake to set forth. The incursion of a the impious Persians into our commonwealth, by which the new Nebuchadnezzar Chosroes came to b Sebasten and Melitene, all know. When therefore matters were brought into great straits and peril, almost all the neighbors from c Nicopolis, d Neocaesarea, Comana, Zela, and other neighboring cities, were betaking themselves to Amasea, as if to a most fortified place, having brought in a scarcity of grain trusting not so much in the garrison of the city as in the prayers of the holy man: for all both natives and immigrant inhabitants, who for the great part were Iberians, and the other guests had placed their hopes next after God in him; and they were preserved hanging from his mouth and hearing his words. Rightly therefore in such a tumult an innumerable multitude of men ran to the city; but when it had tarried there a long time, a great scarcity of provisions followed. And so all fleeing to his holy monastery, as to the safest harbor, that together with their bodies they might also feed their minds, a great expense was being made daily: and meanwhile the famine grew day by day, the Saint relieves by his liberality, both on account of our armies and on account of the adversaries of God and of the commonwealth; whence we were all in great sadness; because while bread was being supplied to the multitude, the chests of the monastery, in which the flour was kept, were so emptied, that there was not even the food of one week remaining in them.
[62] Then the keepers of the granary, most holy monks, seeing the flour diminished and the multitude of those demanding growing, came to the great man, taking up that passage of Scripture: "Passing over into Macedonia, help us: because flour now fails in the chests, and the hope of sustenance is taken from us." Acts 16:9 But he, without any delay or hesitation, the chests of the monastery being almost exhausted, but trusting in the opulent mercy of God, having entered into that place in which were the chests, now almost empty of flour, after prayers poured out to God, consoled the ministers, saying: "Be of good heart: for what you impart to the needy, the Lord our God will restore doubled: for I hope, as of old flour did not fail in the jar, so now it will by no means fail: for although you have poured out from this to that (as is said in the Psalm), that is, from full to that which is empty; yet the dregs of it shall not be exhausted, but all shall eat and be satisfied, and shall praise the Lord our God." Ps. 74:9
Filled with joy at these words, the most religious monks eagerly executed his commands, yet not failing. distributing bread sufficiently to all who came; and in this way for a long time they nourished a great crowd of people laboring with famine; with so much greater miracle, that although nothing was added to the flour prepared for the year, and so much was daily consumed; yet not only did it not fail but even after new flour was brought in, the old flour for a long time, nay, always, was sufficient; as it is written: "You shall eat the oldest of the old, and the old you shall throw out when new comes in: for the gifts of God are without repentance." Lev. 26:10
[63] And concerning the miracles which were done by the holy man, let it suffice to have related these few, dismissing the rest to those who will wish more sublimely to investigate and write about him: it will nevertheless not be foreign to recount what was done in him himself. But what is that? That, namely, Having spent 12 years in exile, which pertains to his return to his own See, which he had never at all abandoned. When therefore he had remained e twelve years and more in the monastery constituted by himself, and had accomplished by God's help the admirable things hitherto recounted and many others; the sum of the miracles done by him was this grace, which God showed concerning him: for not a Legate, not an Angel, but God himself, who through the cloud and whirlwind had addressed Job, who is slow to avenge and swift to reward, who does not leave the rod of sinners altogether over the lot of the just, that the just might not learn wickedness, at the end of the contests clearly addresses his champion: Job 40:2 "Gird your loins like a man; I will question you, and you will answer me. Do you think I speak with you otherwise than that you may appear just?" This is the medicine of wounds, this the crown of the contest, this the recompense of patience, this the pledge of the future reward: the same one who causes to grieve, again refreshes you.
[64] Let no one think that he passed all the time in his monastery without temptations and afflictions and grievous dangers: and many hardships having been endured in it, for there were no lack of enemies visible and invisible, who threw him into the furnace of temptations, and kindled the flame of disturbances, and added to his pains an increase, so that he could say that verse of the Psalm: "Upon the grief of my wounds they added." Ps. 68:27 All afflicted the holy monastery in such a way, that it wearied us even to live, unless the Angel of the Lord had descended, and had shattered the flame of the fire, and had made the midst of the furnace as the blowing of a wind of dew. Since therefore it was fitting that the tested gold should be drawn from the furnace, that it might appear more splendid (for such are the Saints, who pass through temptations, under whose person David says, "We passed through fire and water, and you have brought us out into refreshment"), God also brought forth into refreshment that excellent warrior, who dissolves temptations, saying, "I will not desert you nor forsake you": as also the Apostle says: "God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you can bear, but will make with the temptation the way out." Ps. 65:12, 1 Cor. 10:13 But let us briefly see what manner of liberation his was, what return.
[65] When he who had crept into the See of this noble and great man f had migrated from this life (into what place, he knows who for certain hidden reasons permitted it to happen), the pious people, demanding back their Shepherd and Teacher, he is restored through Justin and Tiberius began to cry out to the Emperors Justin and Tiberius, and above all to the true Emperor and King of all Emperors and Kings, our God, that there should be restored to them the guardian of the faith, the trumpeter of the Trinity, and defender of the right religion, who became all things to all that he might gain more. But they, whom now blessed rest contains, feeling the same, receiving the divine zeal and ardor of charity of the most faithful people, with which they too had long burned toward the holy man, granted what they were being asked, and what they themselves had always wished, both for many other reasons and especially for this, that he had foretold that they would be future Emperors. Concerning which, although we should be restrained from the progress of our narrative, yet since the time demands this, a few things must be said: lest the peril of him who had buried the talent should have place in us too. Therefore I will mention what things were foretold to them.
[66] About three years before g the Empire of Justin, it was disclosed to the great Pontiff foreseeing the future, to whom he had foretold the Empire that he himself would reign. Who, without any delay, in order to confirm him in the fear of God, and to make him more carefully institute his life in piety, when the Processus was being held at the Jucundianae, on a certain day, called him aside into a secret place, where there was a window (for this was taken as a sign, as once a heap of stones was a testimony), and said, "Hear, Lord Curopalates; though I am humble, yet a servant and
[67] First, he himself placed Tiberius, then a Notary with Justin, before he was Emperor: then when he was at h Sirmium on account of the Avar war, the admirable man wrote to him: the occasion of writing he had in this way. To Tiberius by letter: A certain Tribune of the soldiers dwelling at Amasea, desiring to gain favor with Tiberius, having received letters of commendation from the holy man, eagerly set out for Sirmium. But the content of the letter was such that it contained also a foretelling of the Empire; for after the preface followed these words: "Now indeed God has committed to you the helm of the commonwealth in part, but soon he will grant it in full." None of us took notice of it then: but when i he was made Caesar we first understood: for receiving the letter, he preserved it, as we afterward learned. And concerning the prediction of the two Emperors let enough have been said: but what he foretold of the present Maurice the most zealous for Christ, let us explain.
[68] He foretold the same concerning Maurice at Amasea, Eighteen years before he began to reign, while the Saint was living in the monastery, as the vicissitude of changed affairs was then bearing, it happened that all those who administered the province of Pontus, the questors k I say and procurators of the public money, and those to whom the care of the Moderatian Legion was committed, came from l Arabissus, whence certain of them were sprung, and these kinsmen and relatives of the most faithful Emperor now reigning. All these therefore, as was fitting, came to the Blessed Man, to receive much utility from him: but as in conversation it is often wont to happen, some praised their own province, others another region. When such things were being moved this way and that, the great man of God, pleasantly but yet so as it appeared that he was in no way speaking contemptuously, brought in discourse about Arabissus itself, and set forth its praises. And he indeed seemed to be saying such things to us and to others sprung from the same place, for the sake of urbanity and company: but the end showed the event of his words. What and what kinds of things are they that the holy man prophesied about it? praising his homeland, Whenever he made mention of Arabissus, he said graciously, with us all and the Princes who were from there hearing: "Great is your city: and therefore it is said of it, 'Can anything good be from Nazareth?'" But he did not say, "I say," lest he should show himself lofty, but humble: for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.
[69] And these things indeed were foretold at Amasea: but when it pleased God that he should be restored to his See, m two years before the death of the Emperor Tiberius, it happened that Tiberius himself fell into an illness: and the servant of God visited him, and he recovered: for by a vision he had understood that he was not then to die; and again at Constantinople. and to many asking about his successor, if anything should befall him humanly, the great man said, "He will not die": but when they named various ones, the Blessed Man answered nothing. But when someone named this most pious Emperor Maurice, he, recollecting himself, openly revealed what he had previously known and foretold, saying, "Truly you have no other one," and affirming this with an oath. Then also we remembered what had been said at Amasea: wherefore let no one doubt these things: and therefore we have expressed the persons, times, places, and occasions, lest anyone suppose we have fabricated these things in his favor. "He who receives, let him receive"; and he who will not believe, let him not believe: for what is it to me to judge of those who are outside? But let us return to that whence we had digressed, when we were speaking about the recall of the holy man.
[70] After therefore the Emperors n Justin and Tiberius had heard the clamors of the most Christian people, they immediately with great swiftness and joy sent the most noble o Scribones to the holy man, to lead him back to the royal city even unwilling and refusing. These coming to him delivered the letters of the Emperors: which he having read through, looking up to heaven and weeping, gave thanks to God: Recalled to the City "Behold, Lord," he said, "I will not restrain my lips, because you have known my thoughts from afar, you have searched out my path and my line, and have foreseen all my ways: your knowledge is become wonderful from me, it is confirmed and I shall not be able to attain unto it. Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Who shall dissipate the things which the Most High has decreed? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, 'Why have you made me so?' I have heard your hearing, and I have feared; I have considered your works and was afraid." He departs from Amasea, With these and many other similar words, having given thanks, and in the holy monastery sitting upon his throne, having offered the divine sacrifice (for it was Sunday, after which we also had splendidly celebrated the memory of the saving Cross [p] on the fourteenth day of the month of September), he blessed the monastery and all who dwelled in it, and the whole city; and commending all to God, undertook the journey, the Archbishop accompanying him as far as the royal city.
[71] It was then possible to see a plainly new spectacle and worthy of his divine soul, namely contraries mingled together, grief and joy, mourning and gladness. For when some indeed grieved at his departure, others rejoiced at his recall, their eyes poured out diverse tears, with tears of the citizens following some full of mourning, some of joy; nay indeed, on account of their excessive exultation, they burst forth for all: for tears, as all know, arise even from preceding great joy, which do not afflict the heart, if they do not proceed from the twisting of the entrails and the labor of the mind: for where sin did not precede against what was lawful, neither do pains follow. The Prince of the Apostles had sinned, therefore he is said to have wept bitterly; with grief and joy mingled, but if sins be lacking, tears flowing are to be called not so much tears as streamlets of joy. We see both happen in the vine: which when it is pruned and dug around, weeps as it were grieving, but on the contrary when it luxuriates and has clusters hanging on all sides, it shows tears of joy and hilarity to those who shall have cut it. In this way then the servant of God affected all the inhabitants of the city with gladness and joy; and having commended them to the Lord, at last was scarcely able to be torn from them and to set out.
NOTES.
p The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross made by Constantine the Great is still among the Greeks, and had fallen on Tuesday: and accordingly the preceding Sunday here mentioned had been on September 12, Dominical letter C.
CHAPTER VIII.
Return to Constantinople to the Patriarchate: distinguished endowments of body and mind.
[72] Who can explain worthily the admirable things which then took place? What tongue can suffice to narrate the continuous and various meetings, some differing from others in splendor, and the joyous acclamations of all, with one clear voice saying, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," and, On his journey he is honored by miracles "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace." They knew who thus cried out that it had been said by the Lord, "He who receives you, receives me: and he who receives a just man in the name of a just man, shall receive the reward of a just man." Matt. 10:41 They were bringing moreover the sick
beside the road, that even the shadow of the brave man might touch them; and these received help from God according to the measure of their faith. For when the holy man was leaving a Euchaita, a certain woman going forward with her sick son at Euchaita. was pushed by the multitude and fell under the beasts of burden, so that all despaired of her life and that of her son, as if they were already dead: she herself however remained unharmed, and the disease which held the boy departed. And thus we completed all our journey.
[73] And when we had come to the metropolis of Nicomedia, we seemed to ourselves to have come into another world, and as if awakened from sleep we wondered whether what was happening was true; as history relates of the Prince of the Apostles, He passes through Nicomedia with congratulations of all, that after the Angel touched Peter's side and said to him, "Gird yourself and put on your sandals, and follow me"; passing the first and second guard, they came to the iron gate, which was opened to them of its own accord; but Peter thought he saw a vision. So also it happened to the great Eutychius, and coming to Nicomedia we truly knew that the Lord had sent his Angel, and had snatched the imitator of Peter from the hand of all who had plotted against him. For not only the faithful and Christian people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, made fitting acclamations and gave thanks to God; but even the unbelieving and alien-to-our-flock crowd of Hebrews, almost imitating those boys, cried out, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord"; and, "Let the faith of the Christians grow."
[74] He returns to Constantinople like Athanasius to Alexandria, With no less honor therefore did our champion return to the queen of cities from his illustrious exile, than that great and by many contests celebrated Athanasius to Alexandria, of whom the divine Gregory b thus writes: "A colt indeed carried him, [and almost (which I beg you not to censure as foolishly said) almost, I say, as that colt my Jesus, signifying either the people of the Gentiles whom, loosed from the bonds of ignorance, he brought to him by well-doing and mounted, or whatever else you wish to understand under that symbol;] branches however received him, and cast down beneath and before him spreadings of various and manifold garments [in this alone he seemed inglorious, he who is supreme and most perfect and has no equal. But they were even a certain image of Christ entering] crying and leaping before him, except that not only the crowd of boys glorified him, but every tongue concordantly discordant of those wishing to surpass one another; and saying this, I pass over the public applause, the incenses kindled, the all-night vigils, and the whole city lit up with light, and the common and private feasts, and everything which cities exhibit for the display of joy, all of which were shown beyond measure and almost excessively. received with the greatest applause of the citizens, In this manner therefore also now the great and admirable Eutychius returned to his own city, and with such celebrity, that although from all past time many honorific receptions of many have been made, not only of Princes but also of more illustrious Priests and Palatines, none is remembered to have been more crowded or more glorious, but this one alone excels and has surpassed all: so that you might rightly say the saying of the grandiloquent Isaiah fits this place: "And their brothers shall bring (that is, the faithful Levites and Priests) a gift to the Lord, and on litters of mules with awnings to the holy city Jerusalem." Isa. 66:20 Was it not so indeed? Nay indeed, the faithful people led their Father and Shepherd and Teacher into the holy city, the new Jerusalem and queen of cities. Who could match by saying the admirable things and the pomp of ships meeting him: then done on sea and land? how namely the sea was paved, and subjecting its back to the ships was made similar to the land, so that without impediment all could walk upon it, and no one could distinguish water from ground because of the multitude of men, both however being one lip and voice divine and heavenly of all, celebrating the glory of their Lord and Creator.
[75] And let these things be said that they who know may remember, and those who do not know may learn. Shall we then pass over the rest? By no means: but what are those? It was by divine counsel that from where the beginning of his departure was, thence also his return had its beginning. and the night spent in the palace of Hormisdas For when the feast day of Saint Timothy was being celebrated in the palace of Hormisdas, as we said before, the pious man was taken from there making the sacrifice, and endured what we have described: but when he had completed his course, like the sun he exulted as a giant, running his way from the highest heaven and going to its extremity. Seeing that in the same palaces of Hormisdas he was restored, like a bridegroom proceeding into his bridechamber, nor was there any who hid himself from his heat, and did not enjoy it. For all the faithful became partakers of his holiness and grace, by sight or touch, many also by salutation and sweet encounter; others were delighted by hearing, because the fame of this thing a little after spread through the whole land.
[76] The night after this was spent in the aforesaid church, he took up his Superhumeral, which he always wore with him; he proceeds to Blachernae and with his holy clergy he betook himself to the august church of our holy and immaculate Lady the Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary at Blachernae: for there were the Emperors Justin and Tiberius, who receiving the holy man with cheerful face and great honor, and speaking things suitable to such a time, dismissed him, because it was Sunday and he wished to perform the divine sacrifice. Who here should not appropriately use those words of the Psalm, "Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge." Ps. 18:3 For if anyone compares that day and night of storm or temptation with this of his recall and return, of highest peace and tranquility, he will find great wisdom and knowledge in both the time and the affair. For at that time it was Sabbath c and winter, since the holy man was tempted and ejected on January 22: On October 3, on which day his adversaries previously had died, Addaeus, but he was restored on October 3, which was a Sunday: on which day also those who had plotted against him and cast him out into exile, Aetherius and Addaeus, the latter Prefect of the city, the former d Curator of the palaces called "of Antiochus," died: and as both had taken care to have the holy man expelled and the adulterine ordination made, so both received a worthy reward. On this day therefore both the best man received back his Church, and they themselves were deprived of life many years e before he was recalled. Here also can be applied those prophetic words: "And it will be in the place where it was said, 'Not my people' (as seemed to some), it will be said, 'Sons of the living God.'" Hos. 1:10 For in the palace of Hormisdas, as has been said, the restoration was made… For those who were looking at f "stadia" were not understanding that, "Blessed are those who suffer persecution for justice, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 5:10 & 11 Blessed are you when men shall curse you, and persecute you, and say every evil thing against you, lying on my account: rejoice and exult, because your reward is great in the heavens."
[77] and Aetherius suffered the same that he had inflicted, Now also something must be said concerning the superhumeral, which was not taken from him in his overthrow, but remained with him. For when certain of the Clerics were urging Aetherius to take it from the holy man, he, neglecting their words, refused to do it. And so when he himself had incurred the indignation of the Emperor, he confessed to those coming to visit him, saying: "What I did to Lord Eutychius, all have fallen back on me heaped up: through his men I attacked him, through my men I have been attacked: his vestments I carried off, all mine have been carried off: only one thing I did not take, that has been left to me too; for when the Clerics were urging me to take away the Superhumeral, I did not do it: and behold, even in this calamity there remained to me the girdle with the insignia of dignities." He indeed said this grieving, but did not find the time of repentance, although with tears he was seeking it. And concerning these things enough: let us return to the narration begun.
[78] He is restored to his See in the church of Saint Sophia, After the holy man, as has been said, had met with the Emperors and had been with difficulty torn from them; seeing the people zealous for Christ and its Shepherd incessantly giving thanks to God, he prayed the common Lord that he himself would be their rewarder: and so with the whole crowd of the faithful he entered into the church, and that as into the kingdom of God, not without labor: because a great multitude was pressing which had occupied the divine temple. He then ascended into the ambo, as once Moses onto the mountain Sinai; and there, with hands raised up to God, he seemed to offer the prayers and supplications of the people to the heavenly God and Father, and to draw down his mercy to the people; for because of the multitude of the people nothing else could be done. The thunders and growing sound of trumpets, that is, the fitting readings of the divine oracles, being pronounced more clearly and more vehemently, were performed with fear and great compunction. Finally the divine cloud covered the holy altar: and imparts holy communion to the people upon which when he had offered the unbloody sacrifice, he distributed its communion to the faithful people, from the third hour until the ninth: because they all wished to receive it from his hands.
[79] For whenever he distributed communion all both then and always came to it in crowds. concurred to him without satiety, as at the beginning: because at the sight of him no one who was wont to feel rightly could be satisfied: but the more one clung to him, the more vehemently he was drawn, affected toward him in the same manner as iron toward a magnet, which is drawn naturally by a certain hidden force: for so the admirable man lovingly drew to himself all who looked at him. For he was gracious in his whole bearing, and beautiful in the beauty of soul and body; lofty in work, humble in sense, venerable in virtue, benign and affable in meeting, gentle, merciful; sweet in speech, but sweeter in morals; Angelic in aspect, but more in soul.
[80] I cannot explain all his both spiritual and bodily endowments: the fitting conformation of all his members, whereby the inner man is commonly known; the cheerfulness and grace of his countenance, about which Solomon says, Eutychius is praised for the conformation of his members. "A joyful heart (namely in God) g gladdens the face"; his joyful eyes and well-guarded pupils, for such look on right things and assent to just things; teeth
white, because pure and heavenly is the food of the just; fiery lips, from which pure and ardent words of grace flowed; drawn-in and straight ears, suitable to receive every divine voice; a neck, like the tower of David built up, and fitted to bear the spiritual yoke of Christ and divine charity and the solicitude of the Churches; the snowy hair of his sacred head and his beard, like that of Aaron, by which was signified the splendor and perfection of life; moreover the fragrance of his body, like the ointment that descends to the hem of the sacerdotal vestment; the moderation of his age, which showed it perfect according to Christ; broad hands, indications of the amplest liberality; fingers congruous and fit for writing divine sermons and sound dogmas; feet entirely straight and firm, inclining neither to the right nor to the left, but walking along the well-trodden royal road which the ox and the ass, that is, the Christian people gathered from Jews and Gentiles, tread. Prov. 15:13
[81] Who shall describe his composed gait and the beautiful motions of his whole body: for so walk the modest and comely feet of those proclaiming peace, of those proclaiming good things h, from which the divine and perpetual motion of souls is understood? and by the bearing of his whole body, Who shall worthily praise his pallor, so blossoming in his face, as the rind of a pomegranate or of any other pale fruit is wont together with a sweet odor? Such indeed is the life of the truly temperate and mortified, of those who contain the sweetness of various and best fruits in their spiritual cells, and flame and breathe forth to some indeed, as is written, "the odor of death unto death," but to others "the odor of life unto life," being made according to each one's will. 2 Cor. 2:16 Who does not admire the firm, stable, and constant discourse of his doctrine, which night and day he did not cease to make, so that (as the divine Gregory i says of the great Basil) he gently reproved and praised instructively, nor harmed either way by immoderation; but used paternal correction, masterly praise; neither loose in gentle matters nor austere in grave ones; but applied discretion to these and prudence to those, k and both were in him in the humblest measure, if you attend to the figure of speech, sufficient yet for instruction; and had the least indeed of the rod, on account of the modesty of his speech; less too of the cutting, on account of the most moderate use of the rod itself.
[82] How shall I describe the man to you? Already long before Paul expresses him, and that when he praises that great Pontiff penetrating the heavens: for up to there the discourse dares to ascend, since I have learned that they are Christs and by the adornment of morals, who live according to the precepts of Christ. This man was wholly sweet, wholly lovable: who while still on earth, taken up in spirit, had left the earth, and was always outside the flesh and the world, and led a life higher than these visible things, receiving those divine forms which are not mingled with these lower and changeable things: who was always a pure mirror of the Deity, adding light to light, clear even to dim sight: who conversed with Angels, praised the Lord together with Archangels, performed the priestly office with God, and created the upper world through holy baptism and other spiritual offices. Who will recount these and similar things of this divine one worthily? What orator, what writer of sacred narratives will pursue them as is fitting? Would that the divine Gregory were present, to praise even now the great Basil! For the many and great virtues of this holy man come near the measure of Basil: but it is enough for the disciple, worthy of a praiser like Gregory of Nazianzus. the Lord says, if he be as his master. Blessed indeed is he who shall worthily explain them: but not I, who am suitable neither by the faculty of speaking nor by knowledge, to narrate the acts of the divine man, as it is fitting they be written; yet fearing lest I should be found similar to the servant, who received the talent and buried it, and should fall into the same peril with him, I have suggested the argument and matter to those who will be able to describe the things done by the Saint.
NOTES.
CHAPTER IX.
Miracles performed at Constantinople: the doctrine defended.
[83] But we are still at the foot of the mountain: and we must however set forth what the best man did after his return, The same after the return as he had been before, again taking up the words which the aforesaid Gregory wrote about the great Athanasius. Did he perchance indeed live as it was fitting those who were about to preside over so great a people should live, but not teach as he lived? Or did he not contend as he taught? Or was he less in peril than others who have undergone contest for some doctrine, or did he bring less praise from that contest itself? Or finally, did anything done afterward obscure the splendor of those things that were done upon his entrance? By no means; all things agreed with each other, as it were in one harp and the same symphony, the life, doctrine, contests, perils followed his return. For at once, as soon as he came to the church, [(he was not affected as those are wont to be who, blinded by excessive wrath, thrust out or strike whomever first comes to hand, however worthy that the hand should be kept from him, fury prevailing. But he considered this above all to be the time for proving himself (for it often happens that the one suffering adversities is more moderate, but having obtained the power of repaying injury, bears himself more insolently)] he acted so mildly and so gently toward those by whom he had been afflicted, that not even to those themselves, so to speak, was his return unpleasant. But let others admire and praise these things, who have leisure to proclaim even the small things done by him: or even greater, when I say "small" I compare him with himself, and his own things among themselves; for nothing could yield to the glory of that glorious man, however illustrious it might be, on account of the overflowing glory of that man, because, as we have heard, even his least and slight things would suffice for illustrating another not a little. What then through this new Athanasius after his return God wrought, let us see. Did he perchance, from the past disturbance of affairs, suffer any loss of spiritual goods, or was the grace granted him from heaven in any way diminished? By no means, as some might think: but on the contrary these things were to him increased and heaped up, as the Lord says, "And greater than these you shall do"; as may be known from the few things we shall mention out of many.
[84] You are not unaware, as many of you as retain the memory of his return, that a great and long-lasting mortality was present before he returned, a supplication having been instituted which would have borne away every age promiscuously, had not God's chosen one come as another Phinees, "who stood and placated, and the quaking ceased." And how was God placated? By that supplication which he with the Christian people instituted, from the most holy great church up to the church of our holy and immaculate Lady the Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary at Blachernae. For while Christ our God, whom she bore incarnate of the Holy Spirit, was thus being entreated, he spared the people, and restrained the Angel who without interruption was smiting the city. The admirable man imitated in this the Prophet David, who, when the pestilence was raging on account of the numbering of the people, he makes the pestilence cease, said to God, "I the Shepherd have sinned, let me bear the penalties: what have these deserved?" But when he saw the Angel in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, and prayed him, nay rather the common Lord in him, that he should not stretch forth his hand further upon Jerusalem, he was heard: wherefore he also set up an altar in that threshing-floor, and sacrificed oxen to the Lord, and upon his being placated death ceased to rage. Did not the great and gentle Eutychius, offering a reasonable and unbloody sacrifice to God, do the same? Surely, unless he had obtained salvation for the people, he would not have lowered his outstretched hands. From that day therefore, as long as the blessed man was alive, Christ our God restrained the Angel smiting the people. And this indeed was his first work on return, by which he obtained common salvation for all: now let us see another, which through him the Lord Almighty did.
[85] A certain boy of the nobler sort, who lived with Calopodius, Primicerius of the Augusta, he cures a wounded eye: nay
had been brought up by him, had received an injury in his eye from some adverse accident for a notable time, and at length so was in peril that he believed it ought to be entirely removed, and none of the physicians could help him: for the more they tried to cure him, the more grievously the eye was injured. When the evil had been brought to this point, he fled to the most powerful physician, who by prayer alone could heal the injury: as he did: for a prayer made over him, he anointed the infirm eye with venerable oil; and presently it appeared sound like the other. Let us see now another admirable sign.
[86] A wife had lived many years with Cyril a Cinarius, who laboring with dropsy was in extreme danger, so that she herself, he cures a woman with dropsy: after many expenses made on physicians, receiving no benefit, despaired of her health. Her her husband, taking her, was leading around from one suburban place to another, hoping for some relief from the goodness of the air. It happened about that time that the Saint was living in b Pyleaticum: which when the pious man knew (for he was known to him), without any hesitation he led his wife to him, supplicating that he would pray to God for her being freed from the disease. When we had seen her, we were all astonished at the great mass of her heavy belly: but the Saint praying for her anointed her with holy oil and dismissed her. After several days, the holy man again being in Pyleaticum, the man again led his wife, giving thanks to God, and showed her to all, relieved of the weight and pressure of before: for so had the mass of the belly disappeared, and so sound did she stand, that she seemed never to have been ill. Many therefore, understanding the miracle that had been wrought, glorified God: because it was more than forty years that the woman was in whom this sign of health had taken place.
[87] But lest I seem to some to narrate incredible things, I think it fitting not to go further in these; and he is also famous for other and greater miracles. for one ought not go beyond the pillars of Hercules, as the divine Gregory says: but Gregory of Nyssa also, teaching that discourse is not to be prolonged beyond the measure of graces, speaks thus of his own c sister: "All these things were done by her: which indeed, to those who diligently investigate, are believed to be true, although they are above belief, but among those who are too addicted to the flesh are thought to be outside verisimilitude. But these indeed are ignorant that according to the measure of faith the distribution also of gifts is made, so that to those little in faith little is given, but great things to those who excel in amplitude of faith. But lest an occasion be given to the unbelieving for carping at God's gifts, we have omitted the more sublime miracles, judging these that we have recounted to be enough for the history." Which words, indeed, may be understood as said and written also concerning the great Eutychius.
[88] Therefore the servant of God completed his course, having kept the faith, Finally in his 70th year of age expecting for the rest the crown of justice laid up for him, after, from his return and restoration to the Patriarchal chair, having passed four d years, in all having lived seventy e years; and having published his discourses, written in quiet with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit against whatever heresies; and having expounded them to all the true and faithful sons of the orthodox Catholic Church, and fulfilling in deed the writings there written, plainly and clearly having taught that one must not cling to dung and mire, to this temporal life I say and to fallen things: for such is the potter's work that it is always filled and moved: after his sermons were issued for I leave to others the wish to ponder the manifold turning of the moon, representing the volubility of this life. Doing therefore many other illustrious things, so that his life and morals were a norm of the Episcopate, and his doctrine a rule of orthodoxy, at length he desired to be dissolved and be with Christ, although for the salvation of many he judged it more necessary to remain in the flesh. he prepared himself for death. Nevertheless it was fitting that he also should be shown to be a man, and should undergo the disjunction of soul and body: wherefore he philosophized daily about it, and felt and spoke the same things as his Fathers Basil and Gregory: of whom one says, "Despise the flesh which passes; care for the soul, which is immortal": but the other, "Would that I were stripped of this heavy tunic, that I may receive a lighter."
[89] Turning and meditating on these things in mind, and so living with the great Fathers, that he breathed the dogmas of Basil, of both f Gregorys, and of the great g Dionysius and of the rest of the holy Doctors, Prophets and Apostles no less than this air, yet by some imperfect in mind he was suspected as if he differed from them in the matter of the resurrection h; for foolish men did not understand he is rashly brought under suspicion either what he affirmed or about what he spoke. But what wonder if those knowing childish things thought so of him, when our Lord and God, casting out demons by the finger of God, was thought to cast them out by the prince of demons? Is it not about Saint Paul, speaking in the Areopagus about Jesus and his resurrection, that it was said, "What does this babbler want?" Was not Basil, the foundation of virtues and defender of the Holy Spirit, by the ignorant judged not to confess his divinity? as though not feeling rightly about the resurrection; What wonder therefore if of this sacred head also, of the great, I say, and divine man Eutychius, who was a pillar and light of the Church, and in all things similar to the venerable Fathers, some suspected such a thing, who did not grasp the mode of the future resurrection: for far be it from him ever to have felt contrary to the right dogmas of the holy and Apostolic Church.
[90] His sermons are full of sentences of the holy Fathers on this matter; such as that of Saint Gregory: "If anyone says that Christ has now so laid aside his flesh, which his words prove to have been otherwise that he asserts his Divinity, stripped from it, is and is to come, let him not see the glory of his coming." How then could it be that he who inserted this opinion in his sermons should differ from his sense? Did he perchance feel otherwise than he spoke? Far from it. If a perverse heart never clung to him, much less a double opinion. He had learned what the conjunction of soul and body is, as far as is possible to man; and according as the soul should have used its ministry, so together with it he was to enjoy the immortal goods; and that the body, if afflicted and reduced to servitude, together with the soul would avoid everlasting punishments: and so that both together should be either condemned or crowned. For "all must stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive as he has done in his body, and the evident authority of sacred Scripture. whether good or evil": because both together are wrought in this life, and therefore both together shall appear before the tribunal of Christ. And that tribunal will be just, nor shall there be there any respect of persons, or judgment made only from the middle part: but as Ecclesiastes says, "All things that are done the Lord will bring into judgment for every hidden thing, whether it be good or evil." Which judgment indeed shall be just, because after the resurrection neither the body without the soul, nor the soul without the body, with which it lived always, shall be found; but with the beauty of immortality the soul at once and the body shall be adorned.
NOTES.
CHAPTER X.
The illness, death, and burial of Saint Eutychius.
[91] eagerly desiring to be dissolved, Thinking and teaching these things and things more sublime, he desired to depart from the body and go to the Lord; using again and again those words of David, "As the hart desires the fountains of waters, so does my soul desire you, O God"; and, "When shall I come and appear before your face?" Ps. 41:2 He also saw the calamities to come upon this great city, and our institutions and pursuits that were not good; and therefore day and night he prayed the merciful God, that he would either remit his threats and bring no evil upon the city, or take away his life, that he might not witness its affliction. And indeed he obtained what he had prayed for: for "the Lord does the will of those who fear him, and hears their prayers and saves them." But he was heard in the manner which the Prophet indicates, saying, "While you are still speaking, I will say, 'Behold, I am here.'" Isa. 58:9 & 65:24
[92] The day of the completion of time was at hand, the crown of the year, nay rather the goodness of the years, the feast of feasts, the beginning of the universal resurrection, the a Resurrection of Christ our God, to which heaven and earth sing a triumphal hymn; of which the divine David says: Ps. 117:24 "This is the day which the Lord has made, let us exult and rejoice in it: the Paschal feast celebrated, appoint a solemn day in thickets even to the horn of the altar, that is, to the angelic virtues"; when, as the rent veil also declares, the heavenly things were revealed to the earthly, and every rational creature began to praise its Creator with one and the same voice, according to that, "Your will be done, as in heaven and in earth." When therefore he had splendidly celebrated this day, he who had always spoken of it as no other, and had purified the most holy great church with incense, and had performed the holy baptisms, he kissed all the Bishops and Priests, the Emperor too and the Senate and the whole people of the Lord, commending himself to all in spirit. and having given the last kiss to all, Although it was unknown to many what was being done, and from the custom of the feast day they suspected it so to happen, he alone knew what he was doing.
[93] But O how? I could not now say it without tears. For I wretched more often than was my custom on that day kissed his Angelic face: and when I had done it two and three times, among whom the writer also, I could not be satisfied: asked by him why I did so often, I prophesied against myself (which I wish had not been) saying, "Because I have this day only": for I alone have died before him, I alone have been left an orphan, I alone
have lost my precious pearl, I alone have hidden my treasure in the field, I alone have wandered like a sheep having no shepherd, I alone mourning and sorrowing walk about the whole day. A little after, all who have been partakers of his goods, will, I think, pronounce these words with me: "Extinguished is the light of our eyes, the light of our souls has been taken from us, the support of life has been torn away, the seal of concord has been dissolved, the bond of charity has been removed, the firmament of the weak has been broken. On account of you, Father, even night shone as day, illuminated through your illustrious life; now day shall be turned into darkness." But one must not indulge in laments, especially before the time, lest we hear from him, "Weep not over me."
[94] When the good Shepherd had completed the whole order of the divine Office, and had distributed the most holy body of the Lord to the whole faithful people, he is seized by a fever around vespers; returning to the holy Episcopal palace, he took a modest refreshment with his usual familiars cheerfully. But after food and a brief rest, when the time of Lychnicum was at hand, and he ought to be present for the vesper Office, a certain contraction seized his whole body: wherefore certain of his most religious Clerics begged that he should rest. But by no prayers could he be induced not to attend the vesper office. Confirmed therefore by the Holy Spirit, he betook himself to the venerable church of God, and these things also performed by himself, where the people were waiting for him; because all, always indeed, but then especially, desired to see him, when he came forth clothed in the Apostolic stole. In which when he had completed the manifold prayers of the Vesper Liturgy, kissing the holy altar, he commended the flock of the faithful to God. Then from the visible altar as to the invisible, progressing from virtue to virtue, with his senses closed and far from the people, he performed his prayers. Then returning to the Episcopal palace, he lay down on his little bed, he lies down on his bed: and was seized with a vehement fever around midnight; and so he remained seven days, constantly devoted to prayers, and fortifying himself with the sign of the Cross.
[95] Meanwhile it came to the ears of the most religious Emperor Tiberius, he refuses all medicine, that the force of the disease was increasing: who, greatly disturbed by this matter, all civic cares being interrupted, solicitous only about him, sent most excellent physicians to cure him, by whom many and various diseases had been cured. And these indeed received more help from his teaching than they themselves conferred: seeing that he allowed no medicine to be applied to him, saying: "He has set a commandment, and it shall not pass away: I have another physician, he is visited by the Emperor Tiberius, who will cure me according to his own judgment." Hearing these things the Emperor, with great desire and faith, visited the blessed man, first indeed to receive a blessing from him, then to understand who after him was the Shepherd to rule the people. He himself however blessed the Emperor, but about the other kept silent, for certain reasons known to him by God's revealing. And so speaking to the Emperor things fitting to the matter and time, he dismissed him fortified with his blessing, and he foretells the imminent death. with joyful and cheerful countenance. I then learned from certain familiars of the Emperor, that the holy man had foretold to him his death coming swiftly: which prediction the event confirmed: for the most Christ-loving Emperor departed from the living four b months afterward.
[96] When the Saint, simple in morals, he dies on the Octave of Easter but manifold in the skill of governing, wise in words but wiser in sense, the great Patriarch Eutychius, I say, had been ill for the whole week; with firm mind having prayed to God for all, up to the seventh hour of the Second-first Sunday c after Easter (for it was fitting that at the seventh hour he should perform those things that are proper to quiet sleep), after a blessing given to all, as Jacob once gave to his sons, himself a new Jacob stretched out his feet: at the beginning of the night, and around the ninth or tenth hour commended his spirit into the hands of the Lord, and departing from this life in good old age, was raised by Angels to the heavenly choirs. while the people were crying out Kyrie eleison How we learned this afterward? From two signs which then occurred. For at the same time in which his soul was being separated from his body, the whole people in the church cried out with a clear voice, "Kyrie eleison"; after the Hebdomadarius d, finishing the lychnic prayer, had said, "Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us according to your great mercy: Lord hear and have mercy." Then indeed, turned to those voices which we have said, the people, with great clamor, the graceful posture of the dead body. sent the soul of their Shepherd and Teacher to God, himself so moderating the matter. Who does not admire this? Who would not also admire that neither his eyes nor the rest of the parts of the body had to be composed by anyone's hand; since his eyes, as in those naturally sleeping, were laid down becomingly under their lids; his lips were found closed and his hands folded before his breast, and his whole body had of its own accord taken so fitting a position that no one's hand needed to be applied to it; but it appeared that that very composition of the extinguished body was the work of a more divine soul. But let us see what followed.
[97] Again he appeared similar to Basil, of whom the great Gregory says: "When the city perceived its loss, complaining that it had been left orphaned, it accused the necessity of dying as a tyranny; the funeral rites were honored, and desired to seize the soul, as if by hands or by prayers it could be retained. All things being prepared for the funeral, the Saint himself was being carried lifted up by the hands of Saints, each one eager to touch either the hem of his vestment or the sacred bier. For what is purer or holier than that body? Of others wishing to approach those who carried him, of others wishing only to enjoy the sight, as if from this also utility might come, the streets were full, full the porticoes, all the windows of houses, all the tops and peaks of the roofs. Those who preceded and those who followed pressed one another, those who were near and those who were approaching, an innumerable multitude of men of mixed age and sex, with which all who were with the Emperor in any rank of dignity, especially the Prefect of the City, surpassing all in honoring the funeral of the holy man: the Emperor himself would have been present, had he not thought it necessary to take care that no tumult should arise in the people: but there were present all the orders of soldiers and priests and an infinite assembly of monks. and celebrated with the greatest concourse, The chants of psalms contended with laments, the philosophy of ours yielded to disturbances along with the externs, the externs contended with ours, whose mourning more should receive more consolation. That moreover was admirable and almost incredible, that out of so many thousands of men no one fell into any danger, especially when many were being pressed down by the very weight of those standing above them e for the sake of seeing the body. For the rest, that I may finish in a few words in the manner of an epitaph: [God] f honors his entrance by honoring his more glorious departure, exciting many tears indeed, but leaving more in the souls of all, beholding the greater glory surrounding him."
[98] Meanwhile, the hands of those snatching having with difficulty been avoided, the body was brought into the church of the holy Apostles; and according to the institution of the holy Fathers, a Patriarch was placed with Patriarchs, burial in the temple of the Apostles a Preacher with Preachers, a Martyr with Martyrs, having followed the footsteps of the Apostles: whose body also is near the bodies of those same holy Apostles Saint Andrew, Luke, Timothy, buried along the length before the altar at its base, rests: for this place he himself had chosen while living, that his body might not, even after death, recede further from the holy altar. Because while his soul was assisting at the heavenly altar, and there with the holy Angels and Apostles pouring out prayers for all the people, it was also fitting that the body joined to it, and which had walked together certainly and truly, should not even in the earth ever be separated from the nourishing altar; but with the Priest supplicating, and God offering the divine victim, should in some manner supplicate for its own people and city. For the bodies of Saints have equal power with their souls: because "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints"; and "I will protect this city," says the Lord, "on account of me and on account of David my servant": and therefore the Saints are to us great consolation, who through faith conquered kingdoms, obtained the promises, and after the change of life have greater power. 2 Kings 19:34
[99] Come now also you praisers of great Basil; and help me laboring under a want of speech. Synopsis of his virtues, I indeed desire to pass over many things: but one draws me after another, and as in a body equally beautiful in all parts, whatever occurs seems more beautiful, and turns the discourse to itself. Come then, pursue the distinguished endowments of him, of which you are both praisers and witnesses. Undertake an excellent contest among yourselves, men and women alike, young men and virgins, old and young, priests and people, monks and cenobites, both you who are in contemplation and you who are in action. Let one praise his zeal in fasts and prayers so constant, as if he were without a body: another the constancy of vigils and psalmody: another the harsh and incredible rigor of his way of life, or the humility of mind: another his forgetfulness of injuries in him especially excellent, according to the precept of the Apostle saying, "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath." Eph. 4:26
[100] Therefore the whole choir of those present who stand around me, as many of you as belong to the upper part and g as many as belong to the lower part of the temple, and who of ours and who of the number of externs are present, for which he is to be praised by every kind of men. compose the praise with me, and one of you celebrate one, another another of the virtues of this new Basil. You who preside in judgments, praise the lawgiver; you who rule the city, the citizen; you who are of the people, the popular one; you who delight in erudition, the master; you who rejoice in solitude, the lover of it; you who in crowds, the judge; you who in simplicity, the leader; you who in contemplation, the theologian; you who are in prosperous things, the moderator; you who in adversity, the consoler; virgins, the virgin; spouses, the chaste one; old age, the staff; youth, the discipline; poverty, the bestower; opulence, the guardian. They seem to me also the defender of the widow, father of the orphan, to praise him as zealous for the poor, hospitable to guests, the lover of brotherhood to brothers, the physician of every disease to the sick, the preserver of health to the healthy; and finally all to extol with praises him who became all things to all, that he might gain all or most. I indeed, thus mixing with praises the virtues of both Fathers, have set before the delicate guests thin dainties of speech, that is, cabbage with pasties as a delicious preparation, by no means shall I be without praise, because I presumed what was honorable: but to you, who with such zeal have paid the just dues to great Eutychius, I would counsel nothing else, except that, always looking to him, you should think that you see him and are in turn seen by him: for this will be the crown of his right doings, in this consists the treasure of the man's virtues.
NOTES.
EPILOGUS.
It remains that you who have benignly heard me, and you especially, divine and sacred head, The author excuses the slenderness of his diction pardon the poverty of my speech, considering that Mosaic commandment about the eating of the lamb: "On the tenth day of the first month let each man take a lamb through his houses and families: but if the number is less than can suffice for eating the lamb, he shall take his neighbor who is next to his house." Ex. 12:3 If he commanded many to be summoned for the eating of one lamb; what would he have commanded for the praise of some Shepherd and of such a Shepherd? I, holy Father, not being able to be equal to the proclamation of your praises, obeying the law, summoned not my poor neighbors, but your equals and peers, outstanding men, not that they might see the eating of one lamb, but that they might praise the companion of the pilgrimage of the Shepherd. It is fair indeed that those passing along the way and tenuously furnished with viaticum, that is, poor in eloquence and doctrine, and in the elegance of becoming and sonorous composition, should go to living water and drink from the very brim of the fountain and well: for it is not fitting to approach another's doctrine, I mean, and erudition. And so what I could attain in speaking from your right deeds, holy Father, I have promptly set before the thirsting: but what surpassed my powers, and could not be comprehended by my speech, I have left to men divinely wise and to their discourses: whose words, as it is written, are "goads and as fiery nails": "Give moreover an occasion to a wise man, and he will be wiser; teach a just man, and he will hasten to receive." Eccl. 12:11, Prov. 9:9, 2 Cor. 8:14 But the Apostle says, "Let your abundance supply their want, that their abundance also may be the supplement of your want, that there may be equality": and "I fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh": and again, "What was wanting to me the Brothers coming from Macedonia have supplied." Col. 1:24, 2 Cor. 11:9 You therefore, perfect men, who are the praisers of this holy and divine man, Father and master, and are his true sons, take in good part the zeal and propensity of my soul; and what is wanting to the praise, supply; nay rather, take the whole of this burden upon yourselves, that what is written may be fulfilled, "A brother who is aided by a brother is as a firm city, and is strong as a kingdom shut up with a bar." Prov. 18:9
[102] But you, most holy and most blessed Father, look upon us from heaven, and direct the course of our life to salvation, and he invokes the Saint, so that when we depart hence you may receive us into the bosom of Abraham and into the eternal tabernacles of the just, where more purely and perfectly we may see those things that we have learned from you about the holy and eternal Trinity of the same essence. Entreat the same, Father, for us your servants, and for your flock, this most faithful and most Christ-loving people, that we may obtain the eternal goods, in Christ Jesus our Lord; with whom to God the Father be glory and adoration, together with the holy and good and life-giving Spirit, now and always, and unto ages of ages. Amen.