ON SAINT NESTOR,
MONK AMONG THE GREEKS.
CommentaryNestor, Monk among the Greeks (St.)
D. P.
Hitherto we have given several Saints called by the name of Nestor, but distinct from this one. Among these was Nestor, Bishop of Trimethus in Cyprus, reported on March 7. Another was Nestor, Bishop of Magydus, and Martyr at Perga in Pamphylia, celebrated on February 27. Another is a Martyr in the same city of Perga on March 2: two others on the 7th of the same March suffered at Antioch and in Thrace: another finally, at a place not indicated, suffered on February 26. About this one, neither Bishop nor Martyr, but simply a Monk, in the printed and manuscript Menaea and in Maximus Bishop of Cythera these things are reported: "On the same day, April 26, Saint Nestor, who, leaving his parents, embraced the monastic life, and finished it in peace." This distich is added in the Menaea:
Τοὺς οὐρανοὺς ἱδρῶσι Νέστορ ἐπρίω, Δι᾽ οὓς φύσει τύραννον ἠρνήσω φύσιν.
"With sweats, Nestor, you bought heaven well, By which you denied a nature tyrannical by nature."
Where the nature of demons seems to be opposed to human nature, and the word τύραννος used adjectively. Nesterion the Great Abbot, who was the friend of Abbot Anthony, is often praised in the Lives of the Fathers; and most of those praised there are venerated as Saints by the Greeks: but since the names differ, who would dare to say that Nesterion is venerated on this day under the name of Nestor, only because nowhere else in the sacred fasts is found the name of the so much praised Abbot?