ON SAINT JUSTA,
AMONG THE GREEKS.
CommentaryJusta, among the Greeks (St.)
D. P.
On the present April 26 the Greeks celebrate a certain holy Matron, named Justa, concerning whom in the printed Menaea and in some manuscripts and in Maximus Bishop of Cythera these things are reported: "On the same day, Saint Justa rested in peace." There is added a distich, by which her illustrious sanctity is declared:
Τρόπῳ σελήνης, πλησιφαὴς, Ἰούσταν, Ἐργοις λάμψασαν, μνήματος ἔνδον, κρύπτει.
"Justa shining in her works after the manner of the moon, The day of the full moon hides within the sepulcher."
Thus Lexicographers explain the word πλησιφαής, and cite Suidas as authority: yet so that this sense might be extracted from the Greek text, at the beginning of the first verse, where τόπον was printed (which could form no sense), we have substituted τρόπῳ. And indeed, as often elsewhere, here too some error of the Menaea (which were rather unskillfully printed) must be acknowledged. So will be understood a certain circumstance of the day on which Justa died or was buried, which could hardly otherwise seem to have been obtained than from a Life written at greater length: to which if yet some other circumstance of time were added, it would not be difficult even to find the year to which that death would be referred. Now all things lie hidden in obscurity. If someone more daring in conjecture should judge that the first verse is to be changed thus, Τόπος σελήνης πλησιφαοῦς, so that it signifies "the Place of the fully shining" or of the "full moon," so called from the proper name, in which would have been the sepulcher of St. Justa, we shall hardly oppose it; yet we shall wish that some vestige of a place so called might be shown among authors, and where it was, indicated.