Elias the Younger

ON ST. ELIAS THE YOUNGER, MONK,

AT AULINÆ OR SALINÆ IN CALABRIA,

In the year 903.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Elias the Younger, monk, in Calabria (St.)

BY J. P.

§ I. Why the Saint is not announced at Thessalonica; his country, parents, name, and twofold captivity.

Although Thessalonica, the most celebrated and most flourishing city of Macedonia, Though he died at Thessalonica, he is announced elsewhere. has this singular thing in common with our Saint, that, being summoned by the emperor Leo to Constantinople, while he was about to pass through the said city, he departed in it to a better life and to the immortal glory of his merits prepared for him in the heavenly court — nevertheless it has not seemed good to us to announce him under that title of Thessalonica: because it befell by chance that he died in that place; but rather at Aulinæ or Salinæ, a place of Calabria, where he practiced the ascetic life, had his monastery, and ruled its brethren, his sacred body having been translated to that place after he had ceased to live. For the rest, of the said place more will be said below in §2, number 15. The reader therefore being forewarned of these things, we now undertake to illustrate the man's deeds, beginning with his native soil.

[2] The writer of his Life, to be praised more fully hereafter, in chapter 1, number 3, says: The most holy father Elias … was by race a Sicilian, born in the city which is called Enna. He was born at Enna Stephanus, On Cities, whom Thomas de Pinedo the Portuguese rendered into the Latin tongue and illustrated with observations, writes this at pages 263 and 264 of the Amsterdam edition of the year 1678: Enna, a city of Sicily, founded by the Syracusans seventy years after the founding of Syracuse. And in the observations concerning the celebrity, antiquity, and situation of that city the following is noted: It was famous for a most celebrated temple and for an image of Ceres, the most ancient of all. That on account of that temple of Ceres this city held the chief fame among all the cities of Sicily, Mela is the authority, book 2, chapter 7. The city was situated in a very lofty and precipitous place, on the authority of Livy, book 24: "Enna, situated in a lofty place and precipitous on every side, was both by its position impregnable and had a strong garrison in the citadel." And so great was the veneration among the heathen of the Ennean Ceres, who was worshiped in this city with the greatest religion, that in the times of the Gracchi, when recourse was had to the Sibylline books, and it was found in them that the most ancient Ceres must be appeased, the priests of the Roman people from the most ample decemviral college — although there was in the City a most beautiful and magnificent temple of Ceres — nevertheless journeyed all the way to Enna, as Cicero reports in his 9th Oration against Verres, and after him Lactantius Firmianus, On the Origin of Error, book 2. Her image Verres carried off, on the authority of the same Cicero, Against Verres, Oration 5; which he himself in the Oration cited describes as having been "such that men, when they saw it, thought either that they saw Ceres herself, or an effigy of Ceres made not by human hand but fallen from heaven."

[3] Near Enna was a grove which was called the navel of Sicily. For it was in the middle of the island, abounding in every kind of flower, in Sicily, so that by reason of the exceeding fragrance dogs could not track wild beasts by scent; whence they fabled that Pluto carried off Proserpina, on the authority of Diodorus Siculus, book 5. Thus he. Cellarius, in the Notitia orbis antiqui, observes that this name is also written with the aspirate, book 2, chapter 12, page 645; and he had exhibited the situation of that city on the map of ancient Sicily at page 619. Baudrand says: It is now a little town called Castrogiovanni, in the Val di Noto, near the river Chrysas; but it has few inhabitants, and there still stands the citadel entire, in which Frederick the Second long stayed. Our Ottavio Gaetani, in his Animadversions (which under his name — to say this here once for all — we shall hereafter cite, whether they be his or another's, when they are brought forward to our purpose, since they are appended to his work on the Saints of Sicily) — Gaetani, I say, in his Animadversions on the Life of our St. Elias, in vol. 2 of the Saints of Sicily, page 23, reports that this place was called Castrum Johannis also by Geoffrey, likewise a monk; who may be consulted in the Sicilian History, most recently published among the Writers of Italian Affairs, vol. 5, where in book 2, chapter 32, of that History, pages 567 and 568, Castrum-Joannis occurs more than once. But today, by a word corrupted among the common people yet approaching the old one, it is called Castrogiovanni. These are the words of Friar Thomas Fazello, of the Order of Preachers, On Sicilian Affairs, book 10 of the first decade, chapter 2; where he has left these and very many other things noted concerning that place, from page 203 of the Frankfurt edition of the year 1579.

[4] but not at Rhegium. But why do I linger so long over the name of the place, and pursue so studiously ornaments sought from the superstitious dreams of the heathen? — since St. Elias, who received from that city the enjoyment of the light, repaid it with great interest, in place of such empty ornaments, the splendor of the true light and glory, when through the whole course of his life he showed himself such in holiness of manners, in prophecies and in miracles, that Enna may deservedly glory in the Lord in so great and so wondrous an alumnus as it brought forth. Meanwhile, from this anonymous writer, sufficiently trustworthy, who composed the Life of the Saint, Bernardinus Rheginus is plainly convicted of error, who relates that St. Elias and his disciple Daniel, of whom there is mention in this Life, were men of Rhegium — as Gaetani rightly observes in the place cited — whereas Elias was of Enna and Daniel of Tauromenium in Sicily, as this writer declares. The cause of the error I shall mention in the final notes: it arose, namely, from this, that Elias of Enna was confused with a namesake of Rhegium, as will become plain below on another occasion.

[5] Our Saint, moreover, was born, as the biographer testifies at number 3, of illustrious and pious parents, His parents; by whom his first name was given who also drew their descent from the most noble family of the Rachetæ. But since nothing has thus far occurred to us by which we might trace the illustrious ancestors of that family further back, and since the Saint by his virtue — which alone and singly is nobility — and by his wondrous deeds won for it more splendor than any fleeting and perishable ornaments of nobility, we shall therefore pass on to other things. To the infant just brought forth into the light the name of John was given by his mother, as may be seen in the biographer in the place cited; but afterwards he was called Elias by the Patriarch of Jerusalem of the same name. The matter is thus narrated in the Life, number 19: Elias the Patriarch held the church of Jerusalem … To him his coming was indicated from heaven; who, going to the man and perceiving the grace of the Holy Spirit which was in him, said: "I see in this secular habit a monastic purpose and monastic dispositions." And when he had opened all the counsels of his mind to the most holy man, straightway, prayers being poured forth by the Patriarch on holy Calvary, he clothed him with the sacred habit and called him Elias after his own name. But whence was he called Elias the Younger? By comparison with the great prophet Elias, both in prophetic spirit and in zeal and in the working of wonders, as Gaetani notes. And presently he adds: A little after, this writer says that our Elias, entering upon the same steps by which Elias had gone, was endowed by God with the same grace. But because, as I shall say at the end, there was also another St. Elias later than he, and in most things like him, ours by comparison with him is called the elder, and the other the younger. But we, with Gaetani, shall treat of this matter elsewhere.

[6] and at what time But at what time, at what age of our Saint, did that change of name befall? The praised Gaetani in his Animadversions, page 24, could not conveniently enough untie this knot: for he there speaks thus: Obscure is the mark of the times, from which you would not easily enter upon a reckoning of the years of Elias the Sicilian. For we cannot learn in what year, either of Christ or of his own age, he made his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But since Jerusalem was occupied by the Saracens in the year of Christ 636, it came about that the succession of the patriarchs of that city

(for the Greeks endeavored to continue them) has been unknown to us; for which reason Nicephorus's catalogue of the bishops of Jerusalem ends with Sophronius, under whom Jerusalem was taken by the Saracens. Genebrard observes that Theodore was patriarch at Jerusalem in the year 759; Elias in 787; John in 795; Thomas in 802. Long after Thomas there presided the Elias of whom there is mention in this Life. Let us therefore see whether we can bring anything more correct and more ascertained to the explanation of this difficulty.

[7] Before vol. III of May there is in our work the Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, his name was changed: where at page XLII there is marked among them Elias III, who in the year of Christ 881 wrote a letter into Gaul, as may there be read at length. At that time, therefore, that patriarch Elias governed the see of Jerusalem; but in what year he began to govern it is not ascertained by us. Nor indeed can anything more certain be elicited from what our biographer had premised at number 17 concerning the Saint's arrival in that city: In the month of April at last he came to the Holy City. For what could you hammer out from that month for the present matter, when the year is not added? Nor would you draw out anything better to our purpose from Pagi, who at the year 785, number 6, writes of the exile of Elias, patriarch of Jerusalem, as also at the year 787, number 4; and of his return to the patriarchate and his death at the year 795, number 7 — which he says are unascertained. Add that from the predecessor of the praised patriarch the year here sought can by no means be determined. For in the said History, page XLI, the patriarch Elias is preceded by Theodosius (in Pagi, at the year 787, number 4, I find Eusebius, who in the same Pagi at the year 766, number 7, is said to have succeeded Theodore) — that Theodosius, I say, is indeed said in that chronological History to have presided in the year 870; but how long he sat is not said. Since, then, no thesis can be laid down from these, let a hypothesis be laid down, and in it let it be established that that prelate survived until about the year 875, in which the patriarch Elias succeeded him, and about which time the things could have been done which we reported above from the biographer. But since St. Elias the monk was born in the year of Christ 823, as will afterwards be said, it follows that at about the 52nd year of his age he received the name of Elias, together with the monastic habit, from the patriarch Elias, according to what has been said. And from these things at least some light comes to this fact, which Gaetani left altogether undetermined and obscure. But let us return to the Saint's earlier times, from which we have for a while digressed on this occasion — namely to the eighth year of his age.

[8] The biographer in chapter 1, number 3 and following, records certain things concerning the Saint where his boyhood was passed, which can be made clear by a brief explanation. When the Carthaginians were about to lay waste that city (namely Enna), his parents, taking their son and a little of their wealth, betake themselves to the Castle of St. Mary. And while they abode in that place, they took great joy in seeing the boy, now reaching his eighth year, both obedient to them and making progress in the way of virtue. On this passage Gaetani observes in his Animadversions, page 23: In the Greek Life, a little after, these Carthaginians are the same as the Saracens. For the Saracens had poured themselves out of Africa and Carthage into Sicily. But in what year did they lay waste Enna? I should judge in the year of Christ 831; which I gather from this writer thus. The Saracens plundered Enna when Elias was in his eighth year. But he was born in the year of Christ 823 (as has just been said in passing, and as we shall prove more fully elsewhere). Therefore Elias's eighth year is the year of Christ 831. But of the place which was just named the Castle of St. Mary he advises in the same place as follows: In Greek the writer calls it the Castle of St. Mary, and a little after a city. Its position is uncertain. It certainly seems to have been in the interior.

[9] when, From this passage you may plainly convict of error those who have written that the Saracens got possession of all Sicily in the year of Christ 828: for that is altogether false. They advanced, forsooth, little by little in occupying the cities. That they took Palermo in the year of Christ 820 Leo of Ostia relates, but others in the year 826. That they laid waste the territory of Enna in 831, and the Castle of St. Mary in 835, is sufficiently established from this writer; and that they again ran out plundering into the fields of the same cities in the year 838; in which year, however, the cities of Enna and St. Mary had not yet been taken by the Saracens, as this same writer signifies. Syracuse was taken and destroyed, as we said above, in the year 880. John Curopalates (in Nicephorus) is the authority that, when Syracuse was taken by the Saracens of Africa, the whole island also was occupied. But this too wavers. For Tauromenium was stormed in the year 903. But of the year of this storming we shall treat below. Now let us return to our Saint.

[10] and how piously it was passed until the 15th year of his age. The writer of the Life, after he had reported at number 4 that he had been informed in a dream of his captivity among the Africans, and of the most diligent watchfulness of his parents that this should not befall, says: But when he had grown to his twelfth year and was heaped with much greater grace, he began to give himself longer to sacred prayer, &c. To this age of his the biographer also refers at number 5 the disaster foretold by him which was to befall the said castle or city of St. Mary after three days; likewise his preaching there, in which he bore himself beyond his years; at number 6, the fulfilment of the captivity which he had before foretold; and finally at number 8, the restoring to him in wondrous manner of his former liberty to live with his parents. But when he had spent three years with his parents, as is there subjoined, his father yielded to nature; his mother, widowed of her husband, had placed all her hopes after God in her son. These things, therefore, pertain to the fifteenth year of his age, and the year of Christ 838, to which also seem to be referred what follows at numbers 9 and 10, and which treat of the voice divinely brought to the ears of our youth: Go forth out of thy land and from thy kindred … and, the most perilous sea being crossed, pass over into Africa … Not long after, behold, an irruption of the Hagarenes far more cruel than the former. And when the youth was far from those towns which I mentioned above … he is seized by them, and, being again bought by a certain Christian man, is carried off into Africa; where, what befell the holy youth, the biographer then sets forth; and we, following him, shall observe some things also in the next paragraph.

§ II. Another captivity; his name and manner of life changed; his monastery divinely foreshown; his pilgrimages; his prophecies, his disciple, &c.

He gives a signal example of chastity in captivity: That the most holy youth was carried off into Africa by the Saracens and there sold to a certain Christian tanner, the author of the Life narrates in chapter 1, number 10; then in chapter 2 he describes his illustrious victory, which he won over a shameless woman who left nothing untried that, the integrity of the most chaste hero being stormed, she might lead him to lust and defile his most pure soul with the filth of Venus. But all her enticements and all her wiles and engines the excellent warrior overcame, the false accusations which for that cause were fastened upon him being turned into a testimony and praise of his innocence. In the same place, at number 14, the biographer reports: But he, when he had redeemed himself with a price and was now master of his liberty, departed from that household. Then he began to frequent the holy oratories, to pass his nights in singing psalms and hymns; and he vehemently desired to set out into Palestine, that … he might venerate the Savior in the places in which He had suffered, and there might put on the holy habit of monks. Meanwhile various things excellently done by him are recorded at number 15 and following. At number 17: Thence he sets out to the Holy City … And in the month of April at last he came to the Holy City.

[12] But in what year? Here is Rhodes, here is the leap, as the proverb has it. He sets out for Jerusalem (where his name and life are changed) But according to what was premised in §1, numbers 5 and following, concerning Elias the patriarch of Jerusalem, who gave him the sacred habit and imposed on him the name of Elias in place of John, by which he was before called, his entry into the Holy City seems to be deferred until about the year of Christ 875, in about the 52nd year of his age; and about 43 years from his second captivity, according to §1, number 10. So great an interval of years, I confess, although it does not altogether please me, I cannot on that account convict of falsehood. But I would have it observed that in the Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem indicated above there are marked, before the praised Theodosius, from the Latin catalogues, Sergius and Solomon in succession, without any mark of time, and known only by name alone. What then if another Theodosius preceded that namesake of his, who was passed over in the said catalogues? If this were established, the present difficulty would be met, and that long space of time of which we spoke would be shortened. But I have nothing at hand save mere conjecture. Now therefore from this to other matters.

[13] The journey to the Holy Land is neither new among the Sicilians nor singular and proper to our St. Elias alone. after a custom usual among other Sicilians: For, as Gaetani has it in the Animadversions, page 24: This is an ancient religious practice among the Sicilians, to go abroad to Jerusalem, to the places consecrated by the footsteps and blood of the Lord, and to Rome, to the tombs of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. And indeed there undertook the pilgrimage to Jerusalem from Sicily St. Gregory bishop of Agrigentum, St. Elias of Enna, St. Simeon of Syracuse, a monk of St. Benedict, St. Marina the Sicilian virgin from the town of Scanio, St. Conon of Nesus, of the family of the great Basil. There went to Rome to venerate the holy Apostles St. Gregory bishop of Agrigentum under the emperor Decius, St. Mamilianus bishop of Palermo, St. Nympha the virgin and St. Golbodeus, martyrs of Palermo, about the times of the tyrant Maxentius; St. Elias of Enna, St. Vitalis the abbot from the town of Castronovo, St. Leo Lucas of Corleone while the Saracens held Sicily, St. Silvester of Traina, a monk of St. Basil, and others. But now let us follow St. Elias journeying elsewhere. And indeed, although those who journey much are seldom sanctified, by the various journeys which he undertook you would say that he had contrived for himself as it were so many steps of a road to the heavenly country: so great was the profit he drew for himself and for others from that frequent traversing of lands.

[14] he saw the holy places, Alexandria and Antioch; Let the biographer be heard at numbers 18 and following: Our traveler showed not only that the inspection of the places of the Holy Land was dear to him, but that he was above all delighted with those in which Elias had dwelt. When therefore he had arrived here and had stayed three years, he diligently observed the practices and pursuits of each of the Fathers, and learned one virtue after another, and into his own

profit he studiously turned them day by day; as the biographer narrates at length. But, he says, departing thence after three years, he came to Alexandria; yet before he entered the city, a certain man met him who, oppressed by a demon, was coming out of the city, whom he freed by the sign of the cross. Very many diseases also driven off by him, and exercises of piety undertaken, may there be seen. Then he betook himself into Persia, to venerate those places of which there is discourse in the same place, chapter 3; but being hindered from setting out thither by reason of a tumult of barbarians, he seeks Antioch the metropolis. And while he was staying in that city, as the biographer testifies, he who had again and again appeared to him now at last appears to him, admonishing him to seek again his own country and to gird himself for the contests of the exercises, showing him also the mountain where he should set his ascetic wrestling-place. And he, showing himself obedient to the word, sets out on the way.

[15] where the place of his ascetic life is shown to him beforehand. To one who asks what mountain that is which was divinely foreshown for the ascetic exercises of St. Elias, we answer out of Gaetani, who in the Animadversions just cited, page 24, observes this: Below, the place to which St. Elias sailed into Calabria, and which had been shown him that he might establish there an ascetic wrestling-place, that writer of the Life calls Salinæ; elsewhere Aulinæ. It seems to have been in that part of Calabria which is washed by the western sea, over against the Æolian islands, above the old town of Taurianum; which the same writer shows at the end of the Life, when he describes the road by which the body of St. Elias was carried to Salinæ or Aulinæ; to receive which he says that monks came forth to meet it at Taurianum. I should judge that this place, the ascetic wrestling-place of St. Elias, called Salinæ or Aulinæ, is the mountain overhanging the town of Palmi in Calabria. There still exists in it a cave, which today is sacred to St. Elias. But they are mistaken who think that St. Elias of Rhegium lived his life in this place and that the crypt is dedicated to him: for he lived and departed this life in the mountains above Seminara. These things being noted in passing concerning that place, let us go on with the Saint into Africa.

[16] Other journeys: a prophecy While he made his journey thither, he taught twelve Saracens the manner of life of the orthodox and their faith at once, and refuted the heresies and the Jewish superstition and the lust of the Mahometan sect, carrying on the matter with so strong an energy of speech that, besides those twelve, he joined to the true faith eight other unbelievers, washed in the saving font of baptism: which things are reported at length by the biographer in the aforesaid chapter 3. In the same place, at number 23, the author of the Life says: But when, having sailed past Africa, he landed in Sicily … he found his mother at Palermo … whom, when he had lovingly embraced and had told her all that God had wrought through him in his pilgrimage, he stayed with her many days. But this rest of the Saint was a restless one, as will be plain from a new pilgrimage after he had done certain excellent things there. Understand the matter from the praised writer: At that time, when the prince of the Hagarenes was preparing a fleet and an army against the people of Rhegium, our most Christian emperor (this was the most clement Leo) appointed a certain Basil, surnamed Nasar, as commander, and sends him to Rhegium with forty-five ships to resist the enemy. Then Elias … plainly foretold to all both the victory of the Greeks and the defeat of the Hagarenes; as it is narrated in the same place at number 24 to have in fact come to pass.

[17] Gaetani, expounding this passage in the Animadversions at the page just designated, confirmed by the outcome of the event. says this: That emperor of the East was Leo VI, surnamed the Philosopher, who took the empire in the year of Christ 888 (rather 886). For then he succeeded his father Basil the Macedonian, being made emperor from being colleague in the empire. But concerning the commander Basil, surnamed Nasar, he observes this: His illustrious deeds and the victories he won over the Saracens John Curopalates records under the emperor Basil; but this writer under the emperor Leo, Basil's son. He therefore was famous for Saracen trophies under the reign of both. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in the History of Basil the Macedonian, page 187 of the Paris edition to be designated a little later, treats of the illustrious victory won by Nasar over the Saracens, and of the things well done in Sicily at page 188. But as regards the reckoning of the time, St. Elias did not utter the prophecy of that illustrious victory, of which the biographer speaks, before about the 63rd year of his age, and the year of Christ 886, according to what that author reports, connecting the matter with the reign of the emperor Leo, and according to the chronological reckonings noted above by us concerning the Saint's age. And in this matter one seems bound to stand by the judgment of our biographer, both because he was near enough to this deed, and because he likely drew it — as also the other things which he reports of St. Elias — from the documents or the narration of contemporaries, as may be gathered from what is to be said below, where we shall commend his merits in writing.

[18] After the outcome of the event itself, therefore, had confirmed the man's prediction, With a disciple joined to him he journeys: departing from Palermo he came to Tauromenium; and when he had stayed there some days, a certain young man, truly worthy of admiration and of honorable birth, came to him, asking that he would give him the sacred habit. No sooner said than done. Therefore, having stayed in that place a short space of time, he said: "Let us depart hence, my disciple: for I now foresee that the greatest calamities and evils are hanging over this city from the Hagarenes, and that the commander Barsamius will be conquered by the barbarians"; and straightway with his disciple he sails to the Peloponnesus. Symeon Magister and Logothete, in his Annals, among the writers of Byzantine history after Theophanes, published at Paris at the royal press in the year 1685, page 463, treating of the thirteenth year of Leo's reign, which coincides with the year 899 of the common era, says: At that time Tauromenium was surrendered to the Saracens — or, as it is in the Greek, to the Hagarenes. But for that reckoning of time we shall assign another below. But being carried into the territory of Sparta, he drives off diseases and demons, and raises up his disciple Daniel who had been prostrated by them. Hence he passes into Epirus, then to Corcyra, and finally into Calabria; everywhere endowed with singular favors from God; concerning which the biographer may be consulted at number 26 and following. Hence also it is established that, on account of the very frequent miracles which he is reported to have wrought at number 31 and elsewhere throughout the course of the Life, he may most deservedly be called a great wonderworker. To these add from the biographer his sweetness of manners, his rigor of fastings, his contempt of worldly things, as you may see in the same author, chapter 4, numbers 32 and 33. But setting out for Rome, when he had come thither … he was honored with no common honor by him who held its chair. And this was Stephen, a plainly admirable man, who at that time, holding the helm of the Roman Church, was leading a life most worthy of that pontificate.

[19] Setting out for Rome Pope Stephen of this name the VI (elsewhere he is placed as VI or VII) sat from the year of Christ 696 to the year 697. But to Gaetani in the Animadversions, page 24, he is Pope Stephen VI, who, when he had administered the Roman Church six years, departed this life in the year of Christ 891, on the XII of the Kalends of July. There is therefore here designated by Gaetani Pope Stephen V, otherwise VI, who held the seat of Peter from the year of Christ 885 to 891; but of the days by which he sat beyond the years nothing certain can be defined, as may be seen in Francis Pagi in the Breviary of the Roman Pontiffs, vol. 2, page 168, where moreover you will find that he was and should be called Stephen V, not VI, and that he departed this life about the end of the month of September. But that this is the Stephen by whom our Saint was honored with no common honor when he had set out for Rome, that brief but honorable eulogy of him persuades us: a plainly admirable man, who … was leading a life most worthy of that pontificate, as our biographer said. For these things agree with the praise which is found in the aforesaid Pagi, page 164, and which runs thus:

[20] he is honorably received by Pope Stephen: By his chastity, learning, charity toward the poor, and every kind of virtue he deserved the highest dignity. On the very day on which he was elected, and before he reached the Lateran palace, a rain long desired after a long drought and scarcity of grain was granted from heaven so abundantly "that by an open judgment God showed that by the merits and prayers of so nourishing a man He willed to be propitious to all peoples," says the same William the Librarian in his Life; who afterwards adds that, when he had found the Lateran patriarchate plundered — a most wicked custom having now grown up, that after the death of a Pontiff all the furniture of the Apostolic palace should be seized — he bestowed his father's goods upon the poor; chose ministers renowned for their reputation of probity and wisdom; daily fed orphans; called to his table nobles reduced to poverty and refreshed them at the same time with the word of God; celebrated the sacrifice of the Mass every day, unless he had to give himself to the offices of charity; and at last destroyed with holy water, after a long prayer near the church of the holy Apostles, the locusts which were devouring the crops and vineyards far and wide. What is here reported in brief you will find set forth at length in Anastasius the Librarian, On the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs, published not long ago at Rome, vol. 1, pages 439, 440, and 444. And from what has been said it is clear to about what times belongs the prophecy by which St. Elias, dwelling at Rome, foretold to his disciple Daniel the death of his father, at number 34.

[21] He foresees the disaster to be inflicted by the Saracens. Meanwhile, when in spirit he foresaw the most hideous disaster to be inflicted by the Hagarenes upon Rhegium, leaving the monastery which was at Salinæ … he seeks Patras together with his disciple, as the Life relates at number 35. Gaetani, in the volume cited above, page 60 and following, published the martyrdom of St. Procopius, bishop of Tauromenium, and of his companions, written by John, deacon of Naples; in which that disaster is described. The same Gaetani, in the Animadversions on that martyrdom, page 22, observes concerning the stormer of Tauromenium and the reckoning of time that Abraym perished in the same year in which he stormed Tauromenium, which was the year of Christ 903, as Peter the Deacon rightly says, and as is certain from John, deacon of Naples, who says that Tauromenium was taken in the 24th year of the emperor Leo from his coronation, which year is that of Christ 903. Moreover that stormer is named Brachimus in the Life of St. Elias; but in the Animadversions upon it, page 24, Gaetani advises this concerning him: He is called Abrachen in the Greek Menæa, who at that time held sway over all Africa; king of the Africans by John, deacon of Naples. The Menæa which I cited may be consulted on the XXIII day of September, and the Animadversions of Gaetani on the Martyrdom of St. Procopius just mentioned, page 21. But the reckoning of time marked a little before will be examined afterwards. Meanwhile it will be useful to remember these things premised here by anticipation, when we shall afterwards treat of the death of that tyrant in the Annotations to chapter 5 of the Life which we illustrate, letters m and n, whither we send the reader.

[22] But on what occasion the storming of Tauromenium befell, John Curopalates relates at folio

48 of the Compendium of Histories, published in Latin at the Venetian press in the year 1570, when he records this of the emperor Leo: And the emperor, honoring his former wife Theophanes (elsewhere she is called Theophano), founded in her name a most beautiful church next to the Holy Apostles, and built another church at the place dedicated to St. Lazarus, in which he laid the body of the Saint that had been brought thither, and that of his sister Mary Magdalen. And while the fleet was occupied with buildings of this kind, the fleet of the Hagarenes stormed Tauromenium in Sicily, with great slaughter of the Romans. Meanwhile Pagi may be consulted in the Critique of Baronius at the year 901, number 2, where he mentions the year of Theophano's death, her miracles, virtues, cultus among the Greeks on the XVI day of December, and a panegyric.

Thus far we have followed as it were step by step the narrative of our biographer; but since we have come to the time at which the Saint closed his last day, the prophecies, virtues, wholesome admonitions, healings, and miracles by which he is shown wonderfully to have excelled in the rest of the history of the author of the Life may be read in him, as also our Annotations, in which we shall endeavor to illustrate the things reported by him. Now, therefore, discourse will be set forth concerning certain points immediately preceding and following his most holy death.

perhaps locum.*

§ III. The circumstances of his death; in what year it befell does not seem to be established from the characteristic marks in Gaetani, but from elsewhere.

And now so far and wide had the wondrous manner of life and the miracles of St. Elias spread abroad that Leo, emperor of the Greeks, summoned to himself at Constantinople a man so conspicuous for so many heavenly prerogatives, as the Saint had foretold to Daniel his disciple, The Saint died at Thessalonica, in the presence of his disciple Daniel, on the biographer's testimony, chapter 6, number 61. But when, complying with the emperor's will, he was traversing Greece, and being brought to a certain place not far distant from Illyricum, he was seized with a sickness not indeed grievous or troublesome: for he learned from God in heaven that he should give Columbus a letter of commendation and send him to the emperor, according to the biographer, chapter 7 (for this cause, namely, that that Columbus, guilty of a capital crime, might be absolved, as the same biographer had premised at number 61). When therefore he had sent him away, he himself hastened to Thessalonica … And so, when Elias was in that place, his sickness now growing worse, he asks that a bench be brought him; and when it had been brought he lay down there. But since the place was by no means fit for taking rest, he removed to Camini (it is a certain place). Here, calling to him his disciple Daniel, he said: "I, Daniel, sweetest son, as it is written, am entering the way of my fathers: the time of our dissolution is now at hand, since I am eighty years old."

[24] Here let us pause a little and hear Gaetani in the Animadversions, page 25, noting this: an octogenarian. Since St. Elias is said by this writer to have died at eighty years of age, and since he died in the year of Christ 903, he must needs have been born in the year 823. But although that year of birth and of death seems then to have befallen, it is not so according to Gaetani's chronological marks, as we shall endeavor presently to show. Meanwhile we have three things as certain from the biographer's words, namely: 1) that the place of death was Thessalonica; 2) that the Saint's age when he ceased to live was eighty; 3) the presence of Daniel his disciple. Hence Bernardinus Rheginus deserves to be corrected, because he left it recorded in writing that our Saint died at Rhegium in Calabria, in the presence of another Elias the Younger, as may be seen in the Annotations on chapter 7 of our biographer, letter g. The day of death is expressly determined by the same biographer as the XVII of August. Whence Castellanus, marking our Saint on the XIX day of July, marks him on a day not his own, as will afterwards be said. It is likewise certain from the biographer that St. Elias passed to a better life under the reign of Leo the Philosopher. For among the other things with which St. Elias addressed his disciple Daniel before his death, at number 64, he said: Neither leave our body buried here, nor by any means suffer it to be carried to Constantinople to the Cæsar: for the emperor will ask, I well know, and will search for it. Which, since I had received it from the divine providence, I long ago gave thee a little letter to the Cæsar, that after our death he might allow the body to be carried to his monastery … Moreover, if I remember rightly, that letter is with thee: keep it carefully; and when these things shall have come to pass (and they will come to pass very soon), send it to the Cæsar: what is written therein, I know he will accomplish … Having said this … with great gladness and cheerful countenance he expired, and was laid with his fathers on the XVI of the Kalends of August.

[25] It is discussed The oft-praised Gaetani fixes the year of death, which our biographer left in this place untold and unstated, in these words at page 25 assigned a little before: In the year of Christ, as we have just said, 903. For in that year Tauromenium was stormed by the Saracens, as has been proved by me in the Notes to the Martyrdom of St. Procopius, bishop of Tauromenium (consult what was said above, §2, number 21); and in the same year befell the expedition of Himerius against the Saracens, and the disaster of Thessalonica, in which St. Elias closed his last day, as is sufficiently established from this History. Moreover Baronius places the expedition of Himerius, first secretary of the emperor Leo, in the year 902; not rightly. For John Curopalates records it together with the disaster of Thessalonica, and says that the Saracens, after the destruction of Tauromenium, stormed Thessalonica. Therefore in one and the same year, that is, of Christ 903, all these things befell: the destruction of Tauromenium, the expedition of Himerius, the disaster of Thessalonica, and the death of St. Elias. Thus Gaetani combines these matters with the death, yet not so certainly and clearly but that they seem to need to be sifted by further inquiry — and each of them singly, whether and why he rightly enough attaches them to the year of Christ 903.

[26] John Curopalates so records those deeds that he does not distinguish them by chronological marks of years. in what year But after he had reported that Tauromenium was stormed by the Hagarenes (we assigned the words and the place above, §2, number 22), he presently goes on to narrate that the head of the emperor, who had come forth in a public supplication, was so heavily struck by a certain man with a thick and strong rod that little was wanting but that he should have been killed by the violent force of the blow, had not the force of it been deflected — as John Curopalates records at length, folio 48 verso. There too the monk Mark is brought in addressing the emperor among other things thus: It behooves thee therefore, O lord, to hold the empire from this time ten years more. Which indeed came to pass: for after ten years he died on the same day on which he had been struck. Now since the emperor Leo, of whom here we treat, died in the year 911, that blow ought, according to what has been said, to have befallen in the year 901. And yet, as Gaetani asserted, Tauromenium was destroyed in the year of Christ 903, in which, on the testimony of John the Deacon in Gaetani in the place cited by us above, it was stormed. It follows therefore that the argument which Gaetani brought forward above from the alleged conjunction by Curopalates of those three matters of which we treat, in respect of the destruction of Tauromenium, is even from Curopalates's own words a weapon unwarlike and without a stroke.

[27] Nor does what he takes for the same year 903 from the expedition of Himerius appear stronger, St. Elias which, as he said, was joined by Curopalates with the destruction of Tauromenium. For after a very few things interposed following the narrative of the blow inflicted on the emperor Leo, that author indeed goes on thus: Himerius therefore, the first secretary, being entrusted with the naval forces, he sent him against the Tripolitan … But nevertheless, seeing the enemy superior both in number and in alacrity of spirit, he did not even dare to approach them; but the Tripolitan, drawing back, betook himself to Thessalonica and stormed it, its governor Leo, whose surname was Tharsilacius, being also taken; and much blood was shed, and many were made captive. But neither the expedition of Himerius nor the disaster of Thessalonica favors the year 903, which Gaetani marked from John Curopalates. Not the expedition of Himerius, of which Pagi in the Critique of Baronius at the year 902, number 3, says: Himerius undertook various expeditions against the Saracens in the reign of Leo the Wise. But that which Baronius here records from Metaphrastes was undertaken, on the testimony of Metaphrastes himself in the Annals attributed to him and published under the name of Symeon Magister and Logothete by Combefis (Pagi suspects, however, that those Annals were not written by him), in the year 904. For the same Logothete writes: "In the eighteenth year (namely of the emperor Leo) the naval army of the Hagarenes went up with the Tripolitan against Byzantium, &c. Thessalonica was taken and plundered; and after great slaughter of the citizens, they carry off many captives also," &c.

[28] departed this life, Then Pagi concludes thus: Wherefore, since the Byzantine annalists begin the years of the emperors from the Kalends of September with the civil year, Leo began the 18th year of his reign on the Kalends of September of the following year of Christ (namely 903); in the year 904, spring opening, he sent Himerius with a fleet against the Hagarenes; and these on the 29th day of the month of July of that year, as we shall then show, plundered Thessalonica, and, had not Symeon the Logothete, making good use of the emperor's money, hindered it, would have overthrown it; as may be seen both there in Pagi and in Curopalates, folio 48 verso. But Leo the Wise, or the Philosopher, succeeded his father Basil the Macedonian in the year 886 from the Kalends of March, according to Labbe in the Chronological Compendium, and Pagi in the Critique of Baronius at that year. And so from the said Kalends the year of Christ 903 ran together with the eighteenth year of Leo's reign, as is manifest to one who reckons the calculation; but since the destruction of Thessalonica did not fall in the year 903 but in 904, as will presently be proved, the 18th year of Leo, marked above from Symeon the Logothete, must be begun, after the manner of the Greeks, from the Kalends of September of the year 903 of the common era, according to what was premised from Pagi — so ordering the chronological reckoning that the coming of the barbarian ships to that tragic expedition may be combined with the XXIX day of August, on which it truly befell in the year of Christ 904, and also with the 18th year of Leo's reign, which so computed was still running on the said day.

[29] But lest any one think that these things are said by us gratuitously, they must now be proved. certain arguments being set forth John Cameniates wrote a Narrative on the Destruction of Thessalonica, published among the writers of Byzantine history after Theophanes by Combefis, and printed with the others at Paris in the year 1685; and he wrote not only with the highest fidelity, being as he was a spectator, witness, and party of that most mournful tragedy, but he so sets forth everything, on Allatius's testimony in the Diatriba on the writings of the Simeons, page 149, that he seems not to write but to paint, and to set before the eyes. The praised author of this destruction, therefore, at page 336, recording the arrival of the barbarian fleet, says: Meanwhile, while these things were being done by us in vain, there came one who announced that the barbarian ships were now close by Ecbolus (of which mention was made above)

had come to the neck of land. It was then dawning Sunday, the IV of the Kalends of August, in the year 6412 from the creation of the world. The report therefore being spread through the whole city, all were thrown into confusion, &c. But those years of the world's creation, 6412, reckoned according to the Greeks, correspond to the year 904 of the common era, as Du Cange exhibits them in the Glossary of Barbarous Latin at the word annus, as you may see in vol. 1, in the second part of the chronological table, column 483 of the latest edition. Since these things are so, we conclude, against Gaetani's opinion, that neither the destruction of Tauromenium, nor the expedition of Himerius, nor the catastrophe of Thessalonica befell in one and the same year of Christ 903; and therefore that upon that ruinous foundation the year of St. Elias's death can by no means be built. From elsewhere, therefore, it must be dug out and constructed.

[30] and after weighing It is established from our biographer that St. Elias departed this life at Thessalonica on the XVII day of August. It is established, moreover, from John Cameniates that that city was not made desolate by the horrible scene of which we spoke before the XXIX day of July of the year 904. It is established, thirdly, that the city was not taken on the same day on which the hostile fleet landed; see Cameniates, pages 340 and 364. It is established, fourthly, that the barbarians drew out their stay there for ten days when it had been taken. For the same author at page 365, reporting that life had to be ransomed with money by the captives of Thessalonica, and taken from those who lacked it, presently subjoins: These things were protracted through ten whole days and nights, while a multitude of money was continually carried out of the city, &c. And at page 370, when he had written of the burning of the city likewise ransomed with money, being about to treat of his own departure and that of the barbarians from it, he says: On the tenth day of the destruction, sailing out of the harbor and being carried to the Roman gate, we spent the rest of the day there, &c. For the rest, the things which our biographer narrates from number 63 as having befallen St. Elias and his disciple Daniel about the same time in the month of August plainly do not agree with this most deplorable tragedy of the Thessalonians; and therefore there can be no doubt that the death of that most holy man and its circumstances, which befell in that place, must be referred to another year, as will be shown at length a little later.

[31] Nor can we closely and concisely determine the year of his death from the destruction of the city of Tauromenium: various chronological marks for besides that it is elsewhere attached to the year of Christ 902, and elsewhere to 903, the epoch of this deed shows not so much that the Saint died at that time as that he was then still surviving. For, according to our biographer, chapter 5, he not only expressly foretold that disaster as to come, but also lived on after it, since he set out from that city to Amalfi with his disciple Daniel; where, while they were staying, a few days afterwards news is brought them of the destruction of Tauromenium, as you have there at number 48. Moreover Gaetani, in vol. 2 of the Saints of Sicily, binds that destruction, as also the martyrdom of St. Procopius, bishop of Tauromenium, to the year of Christ 903; for upon this mark of John the Deacon of Naples, with which he begins to write it, at page 60 — In the 24th year of the reign of Leo and Alexander, &c. — he observes this in the Animadversions, page 21: That thou mayest have the right chronology explained, and the year of the slaying of St. Procopius and his companions, know, my reader, that we can reckon the years of the reign of Leo VI, surnamed the Philosopher and the Wise, of whom here is discourse, in two ways. One way is from the death of the emperor Basil his father, which befell in the year of Christ 886; the other from the coronation of Leo. But the emperor Basil the Macedonian willed his son Leo to be crowned by Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, on the solemn day of the Theophany, in the year 870. He who was present testifies it, Anastasius the Librarian (in his notes, as is added in the margin, on the 8th synod. See Baronius at that year, toward the end).

[32] John the Deacon therefore reckons the years of the reign of Leo and Alexander of chronology. from the day of the coronation, from which Leo reigned with his father Basil. This is most certain from the mark of the storming of Tauromenium, which befell in the year 903, as we have proved in the notes to the Life of St. Elias of Enna (to us, however, it has seemed otherwise above, at number 26). And the 24th year of Leo from his coronation rightly agrees with the year of Christ 903, in which, Tauromenium being stormed, St. Procopius was crowned with martyrdom. Thus Gaetani; but it is manifest that both in the text of John the Deacon of Naples and in Gaetani's notes upon him, for the 24th year the 34th must always be written, that the chronological computation may hold together. And indeed that error could most easily creep into Gaetani's posthumous work through the carelessness of the typesetter or the editor — an error the more likely in numerals especially — so that 24 was wrongly put for 34. Pagi, in the Critique of Baronius at the year 902, number 16, from the Anonymous Continuator of Theophanes, who is found among the writers of Byzantine history after Theophanes, page 225 of the royal Paris edition, in the Life of Leo the Wise, recites this: Tauromenium in Sicily is taken by the Africans, and a great disaster of the Romans is wrought. The Hagarenes, having got possession of Lemnos also, carry off a great multitude of captives. And he at once adds from Symeon the Logothete (page 463 of the same royal Paris edition) that the island of Lemnos was taken in the 15th year of Leo the Wise; and therefore that both disasters were inflicted upon the Christians by Mutatid, caliph of Babylon, of whose death he had treated a little before. But Symeon the Logothete in the place cited had just premised, treating of the thirteenth year of Leo's reign: At that same time Tauromenium was surrendered to the Saracens. But the 13th year of Leo coincides with the year 899 of the common era. The testimonies, therefore, do not agree.

[33] From our conjectures But we do not care to dispute at length in which of these two named years the tragedy of Tauromenium befell; in whichever it befell, we allow it; but we seem, both from this fact and from what the biographer narrates of St. Elias just before his death at Thessalonica, to dig out some light, so as to attach his death to the year of Christ 903 — not indeed by arguing from Gaetani's principles, which we have already refuted, but in this way. The Saint was still among the living after the desolation of Tauromenium, and therefore in the year 902 or the next following, according to the premises. But he seems to have come to Thessalonica before its deadly calamity, and therefore to have died one year before it. For if he had come thither after it, our author would seem likely, when he speaks of that city, to have made mention at least with a single little word of so famous and lamentable a catastrophe as having taken place — since he speaks of it as about to take place, from the Saint's prediction, as you have at the end of chapter 6. Besides, he afterwards so speaks of the said city as though no evil had befallen it. For at number 63 he reports this of St. Elias: He hastened to Thessalonica, which city he would not enter, but stayed before the entrance in a certain church dedicated to the holy Apostles; and on the following day at noon, when the churches are free from the throng of the people, he asks the monk who presided over that church that he would take him over into the church of the holy martyr Demetrius. Do these things suit a city so recently and so horribly laid waste, or one populous and flourishing — especially if you add what follows at number 65? When his death was made known, a huge number of monks and of people was gathered, and even the commander himself with his army. Do these things, I say, suit that tragic theater? Or the narrative of the eyewitness Cameniates, page 350? The barbarians were scattered through all the places of the city, and every age and every kind of men is at once butchered by them. And page 351: It came to pass that in a brief moment of time the city, which a little before was almost too narrow for its inhabitants and packed with people, became worthless and deserted. To which add the crowding together and carrying off of the captives at page 371.

[34] the Saint died in the year 903. What of this, that the Saint's words which the biographer recites at number 63 seem to indicate some presage of the disaster hanging over the city — a thing so frequent with him in foretelling other events? When the holy father beheld the city, he uttered a sigh, and, like one grieving in mind, calling upon the martyr, said: "Where in the world art thou, Demetrius, most glorious martyr of Christ; in what places at last dost thou tarry? In what tract of the heavenly spheres dost thou wander?" When the monk who was guiding Elias heard this, being not a little offended, he cursed him to himself. But Elias, his prayer being ended, turning to the monk, said: "Why art thou offended, dearest brother, as though indeed I thought ill or spoke ill? Yet nevertheless where there is even moderate penitence and probity abounds, there the mercy of God is found many times greater." And these indeed are our conjectures, on account of which it has seemed good to fix our monk's death in the year 903 of the common era; and according to them we wish the noting of that year, which we marked at the beginning of this Commentary, to be taken, and no more weight to attach to it than the reasons just adduced deserve — not being ignorant that by them the present matter is plainly not proved. Observe in passing that the time of his life is too vaguely determined by Ferrari when in the Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, on the XVII of August, he writes in the notes that he lived about the year of salvation 860.

perhaps edidit.*

§ IV. His burial, the translation of his body, St. Elias confused with a namesake; his public veneration.

His body buried at Thessalonica, Our St. Elias, who had breathed out at Thessalonica his soul pleasing to God, was also buried in that same place. Let the biographer be heard, who, after he had narrated his death as befalling on the XVI of the Kalends of August, says: On the following day they laid it piously and religiously in the church of the holy martyr Gregory (perhaps George, as our Greek text has it). That that church was not among the three chief ones which John Cameniates enumerates in his Narrative on the Destruction of Thessalonica, page 326, I gather from this, that he does not there mention it. But the body remained there at least ten months. For Daniel, the Saint's disciple, since he could by no means carry the relics of the holy man to his own monastery, stayed there ten months, according to the biographer, number 65; who adds at number 66: The Cæsar … orders the body of the blessed man to be carried to him like rich treasure and a most opulent hoard, as the Saint had foretold; but the emperor, having read his letter, desists from his purpose and permits that sacred deposit to be translated from Thessalonica into Calabria. Moreover the brethren of his monastery, being endowed with the mantle of the younger Elias — that is, with his sacred body — were made partakers of a double spirit, says the biographer at number 67.

[36] Gaetani, in the Animadversions, page 26, on occasion of this translation observes then it is carried into Calabria: today's Saint that two Eliases of the same name have been unskilfully confounded into one by certain persons, whom he there refutes in these words: It is sufficiently established from this passage that the body of St. Elias was carried from Greece into Calabria and laid in his own monastery at Salinæ (or Aulinæ?). What became of it is unknown to me. Philip Ferrari

in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, on the XI day of September, relates that in this age it is preserved in the town of Galatro in Calabria, in the church of St. Elias; while others record that his head, enclosed in silver, is honored in the shrine of the monastery of St. Philaretus near Seminara. But these confound Elias of Enna with him of Rhegium, and attribute to the one what is proper to the other. Therefore, that I may free thee, my reader, from many perplexities, I would have thee know that there were two Eliases outstanding in sanctity: the one a Sicilian, born in the city of Enna; the other born at Rhegium in Calabria: whom very many wrongly confound. But whence that hallucination drew its origin, the praised author recounts thus:

[37] The causes of the error are many: that they lived at nearly the same time, famous for the report of their sanctity and miracles; with another that each was a monk of the Order of St. Basil; that Elias of Rhegium was for some time in Sicily, and Elias of Enna dwelt longer in Calabria; that each — yet separately and at different times — went to Rome to see the relics of the holy Apostles; that each, staying at Rhegium, foretold its disaster. Yet that they were different is most certain: for the one, Elias the elder, was born at Enna in Sicily; the other, Elias the younger, at Rhegium, or, as others say, at Bocia in Calabria. The former died at Thessalonica in Macedonia in the year of Christ 903, on the XVI of the Kalends of August; the latter in his own monastery in the mountains above Seminara in Calabria in the year of Christ 1050 (rather 960, if the number 57 immediately following here stands) on the III of the Ides of September. Therefore he survived Elias the elder by 57 years. Moreover it is the body of St. Elias of Rhegium which is said to be in the town of Galatro; and the head, which is honored in the monastery of St. Philaretus near Seminara. Although others say that his body is in a cave near a church dedicated to the same St. Elias, not far from the town of Melicuccà. For the rest, that from a comparison of the lives of both Eliases the truth may be believed, we give a summary of the life of the divine Elias of Rhegium … excerpted from that which Bernardinus Rheginus of the Order of Capuchins composed. That summary is subjoined immediately to that note on the same page 26.

[38] by various writers But from these things which have now been alleged concerning the place of the death and translation of our St. Elias, the same Bernardinus Rheginus is convicted of error, when he signifies that he died at Rhegium in Calabria in the presence of another Elias the Younger. The words in which he declares this we here transcribe from the said summary: At that time there were in the region of Rhegium, and were celebrated with great fame of life and sanctity, the Sicilian men Elias the elder and his disciple Daniel, monks of the family of St. Basil, leading an ascetic life in a certain cave near the church of St. Donatus the martyr, and working many miracles there. Moreover Elias the younger came to this elder Elias, who, famous for the spirit of prophecy, foretold the destruction of many cities, and also his own death to Elias the younger, to whom he commended his disciples. Thereafter Elias of Rhegium was sent by St. Arsenius to the Castle of Cappa, which was in the territory of Rhegium … that he might be present at his death. How immensely these differ from the place of the death and translation of our St. Elias, everyone sees.

[39] confused: In our Passed-over in vol. IV of July, on the XIX day of that month, page 580, there is marked from the Universal Martyrology of Castellanus Elias, a monk of the Order of St. Basil, at Salinæ in Calabria; but since these marks are proper to our Elias of today and not to his namesake, of whom Ferrari, cited above, treats on the XI day of September, he ought not to have been deferred to that day of September, as was there done in the said Passed-over of the month of July, the matter being then still too premature; but to this day, to which he properly belongs, the XVII of August. Castellanus we shall deal with afterwards. Let us now go on to the public veneration of the Saint, which followed upon his most blessed death.

[40] the concourse to his body, its incorruption, favors conferred upon others: Just as God, who is wonderful in His Saints, rendered Elias illustrious by prophecies, miracles, the intimate discernment of minds, and also by great integrity of life and most holy manners, so long as he lived among mortals, so also, when he had put off the mortal body, He adorned him with singular ornaments, by which He willed it to be attested how precious in the sight of the Lord was the death of this Saint. For when his death was made known, says the biographer at number 65, a huge number of monks and of people was gathered, and even the commander himself with his army; and all that day and the following night, with many lights and funeral hymns to be chanted, and most sweet perfumes burned, they honored the sacred and venerable dwelling of the most holy father. Then, the tomb being opened after the burial, the body was found altogether entire … and having suffered no harm at all. Besides this, it breathed forth such sweetness of odor that the whole place was abundantly filled. Which happened again when it was translated from Greece to Aulinæ or Salinæ, and that in the tenth month at least after his death, according to what the biographer has at number 65. For indeed all the monks of Salinæ … came forth to meet it at Tauriana most honorably, as was fitting. Moreover what was the concourse of the people on that day, no one could easily set forth. Presently, the casket being opened, they find the most holy body untouched and entire, breathing the sweetest odor of all odors, on the testimony of the same writer of the Life at number 67; where you will also find that at the castle of Besianum a certain youth was freed from a demon; to the narration of which deed there is subjoined mention of other heavenly favors by which the miseries of men were relieved, the grace of this Saint interceding with God. From these things the ancient cultus which St. Elias had is abundantly established.

[41] Now as regards the Greek Menologies: in none have we hitherto found his name inscribed on this day, the announcements and for that reason we must have recourse to the more recent Latins. Ferrari, in his Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, announces him thus on this day: At Enna in Sicily, St. Elias, monk of the Order of St. Basil; and he adds in the notes, from the Sicilian Martyrology and the monuments of the church of Enna. You see that here the Saint is announced at Enna, where he was born. In the Sicilian Martyrology, which is found in Gaetani in the Idea of his work on the lives of the Sicilian Saints, this is noted on the same day: At Enna, St. Elias, monk of the Order of St. Basil. The announcement of Castellanus, of whom above at number 39, we shall here give entire: At Salinæ in Calabria, St. Elias, monk of St. Basil, whose name was given to the crypt of the mountain of Palmi. Thus he in his Universal Martyrology on the XIX day of July: on which day where he found the Saint marked we do not know; this is established, that he is marked on a day not his own. Nor of better stamp is what he adds concerning the name given to the Saint: for whether he drew it from Ferrari or from another, it is plain that our monk of today was by him confounded with his namesake of Rhegium, or, if you will, of Tauriana, of whom we have said much above.

[42] For in the Breviary or Summary of his Life alleged in that place this is found: of more recent hagiologists. He betook himself into the mountains above Seminara, that he might give himself more quietly to God. At whose foot he built a monastery in a certain cave, where he lived famous for many miracles and for the spirit of prophecy. But Ferrari, in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, on the XI day of September records thus concerning him: He first led a solitary life near Tauriana, a city destroyed in Calabria, on a mountain near the town of Palmi; where the crypt of St. Michael the Archangel (in which he dwelt, and which was afterwards called that of St. Elias) is still shown. Our Francis Carrera, in his Sicilian Pantheon, page 210, sets him down under this title: St. Elias the Younger, monk, of Enna, the XVII of August, and then follows it with a notable eulogy; but nothing of it need here be noted, since he drew it from a Greek manuscript codex of the monastery of St. Salvator, from a copy of which also is taken the Saint's Life, which we shall exhibit reprinted, after we have illustrated it with a few observations.

§ V. The writer of the Life, the translator, the copies.

Answer is given It may be asked, 1) what manner of life the author professed who transmitted the deeds of St. Elias to posterity. But although nowhere in the course of them did he express his name and kind of life, yet to Gaetani in the Animadversions, page 23, he seems to have been a monk at Salinæ or Aulinæ in Calabria: since, as the same author observes, he so greatly extols that monastery; and by the very writing he shows himself clearly enough a monk. See the Life at numbers 67 and 68. It may be asked, 2) when he lived. That he lived, as Gaetani notes in the place cited, not long after the times of that same St. Elias, or at nearly the same times, is shown by this, that at the beginning he addresses hearers who had well known and seen the most holy man. For he there speaks thus at number 2: But you, people of God, holy nation, royal priesthood, as many of you as are present, citizens or natives, as many as have seen the man with your own eyes, as many as have received his fame with your ears, I pray and beseech you so to hear my words that there be none among you who should dare to call them into doubt, or be unwilling to give them credit. For now you who knew him are made more certain, &c.

[44] to various It may be asked, 3) of what character his writing is, and how great the writer's credit. The style of the Life, in Gaetani's judgment, is careless and simple enough; but the history, he says, I judge to have been written with great fidelity, because there was no room for lying, the memory of the men being recent, and among those who had both known and heard of St. Elias and his deeds, if not all, at least in some part. Nay, I should believe that a good part of the matter was received from Daniel, St. Elias's disciple, as the writer hints. And indeed the biographer candidly professes that he was as far as possible removed from too affected an artifice of adorning and polishing, when in the preface he speaks thus of his own slenderness: Besides, I judged it superfluous to bring forward now the same things which you have lately recounted, which, on account of our humble and unpolished manner of speaking, I well know will be approved by few. Add that in chapter 6, number 62, treating of the prophetic spirit in which the Saint wondrously excelled, he records this: Many more things than these blessed Daniel used to relate after the falling asleep of the holy man. What of this, moreover, that, as Gaetani notes, he recounts very many names of persons and places, and the times, candidly enough, as it seems. Which is of very great weight for winning credit.

[45] questions concerning the writer of the Life. It may be asked, 4) with what selection of matters he wrote. Let him be heard himself, setting forth this toward the end of the Life: And these are the things which, gathered out of many, we have written down: although, to confess the truth, there are also many things which we have judged must be passed over,

lest by the multitude of matters we should be odious and burdensome to our hearers, or lest by heaping up many things our discourse should grow too great. Wherefore, keeping the middle and going by the royal road, as they say, we have chosen the more important and better known things, that neither should the hearers be wearied by the tedium of a prolix discourse, nor by the slenderness of the matter should they hold a great man in contempt. He composed his history, therefore, with a selection of matters and with the discernment of judgment. These things, to conclude with Gaetani's words, it has pleased me to note, because this writer everywhere records such wondrous prodigies that one might somewhat doubt of their truth. But let us remember that God is wonderful in His Saints.

[46] But of his own copy he advises the following in the same place: For the rest, we had the Life in Greek from the manuscript parchments of the monastery of St. Salvator, Its copy. of the family of St. Basil the Great, near Messina: which Father Augustine Florito of our Society rendered into Latin. A Greek transcript of the Life is with us also, but faultily transcribed; whence it was taken is distinctly indicated in these words which are appended to it: From the library of St. Salvator near Messina, codex 41, page ρϟ, that is, 190 to 205. It is in Latin in Gaetani, in the Sicilian Saints, vol. 2, page 63. Moreover it is headed with this title: Βίος καὶ πολιτεία τοῦ ὁσίου πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἠλίου τοῦ νέου. That is: The Life and deeds of our holy father Elias the Younger. There will perhaps be those who will not unwillingly read here the beginning of that Greek Life. It runs thus: Τῶν τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀθλητῶν καὶ τῶν τῆς εὐσεβείας ἀγωνιστῶν τοὺς ἀγῶνας καὶ τὰ κατορθώματα ἀγαθὸν καὶ δίκαιον καὶ πρέπον, καὶ ταῖς διὰ λόγων γεραίρειν καὶ δημοσιεύειν τιμαῖς, καὶ θεοπρεπέσι καὶ πανδήμοις πανηγύρισι μακαρίζειν. These are the things of which I had to forewarn the reader; more will be given in the Annotations to the several chapters of the Life. This, therefore, I now exhibit, divided after our manner into the following headings and numbers.

THE LIFE

By an anonymous author, a monk, as it seems, contemporary or nearly so,

From a Greek manuscript codex of the monastery of St. Salvator near Messina.

Elias the Younger, monk, in Calabria (St.)

By an Anonymous author.

PROLOGUE.

The author, about to write of the Saint's excellent virtues It is worth the labor, in the case of those who have strenuously contended for virtue and piety, not only to adorn their combats and illustrious deeds with words and to exalt them with praises, but also to honor and venerate them with most frequent and most religious festivals. For what more excellent thing can any one attempt, even by mere recollection? What more profitable, what more apt for the acquiring of holiness and for directing the mind's thoughts to the precepts of discipline? What more keen for impelling the souls of hearers to virtue? For neither is it right that the lives of men abhorrent from piety should be commended to letters, while those who have accomplished the whole course of their life in holy and pious exercises should be hidden in silence, and their deeds, worthy of everlasting memory and admiration and most fitted for the profit of all, should be despised and, through the height of sloth, passed over without any honor. Since these things are so, being compelled by your authority to compose the most illustrious deeds of our most celebrated father Elias the Younger ^a, I feared at first, indeed, lest with unwashed hands, as they say, I should seem too boldly to handle things which by no means ought to be handled before I had learned to weigh with myself how I ought to approach them and to speak of the admirable prodigies of God, the Best and Greatest; for they are truly God's, although His servants, each according to his own measure of virtue, seem to work them.

[2] confesses his own slenderness. Besides, I judged it superfluous to bring forward now the same things which you have lately recounted, which, on account of our humble and unpolished manner of speaking, I well know will be approved by few. But nevertheless, since I see that grave peril hangs over the servant who has buried in the ground and hidden the talent received from his Lord, and has neglected to increase it with any interest, laying all else aside I approach the matter itself, bringing to you the most abundant fruits of illustrious deeds from that husbandman most worthy of all admiration, who from the very tract of the heavenly spheres looks upon us and entreats for us the author and bestower of all good things — from that tiller, I say, and father of souls, whom in this discourse we have set out to praise and adorn. But you ^b, people of God, holy nation, royal priesthood, as many of you as are present, citizens or natives, as many as have seen the man with your own eyes, as many as have received his fame with your ears, I pray and beseech you so to hear my words that there be none among you who should dare to call them into doubt, or be unwilling to give them credit. For now you who knew him are made more certain; while you who do not know the singular virtue of the most holy man will marvel. And I know for certain that from marveling you are to be led over to his imitation. For, to say what the matter is, the life of this most illustrious ascetic lays down and fortifies for those who are carried away by zeal for him a most sure and most safe way to heaven; and, trusting greatly in his prayers, I now begin my narrative.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

His birth, holy boyhood, captivity, prophecies.

His parents, his country, his boyhood illustrious in holiness. The most holy father Elias, that most blessed inhabitant of heaven, who shone forth to the whole world with the splendor of miracles and by his illustrious deeds lighted a torch before us as we press on to God — the best example of monks and a rule, very like indeed to those most ancient fathers who were most renowned for virtue and miracles, an earthly angel truly, a man indeed heavenly — was by race a Sicilian, born in the city which is called Enna ^a, of parents illustrious and pious, who also drew their descent from the most noble family of the Rachetæ. And as soon as his mother brought him forth into this enjoyment of the light, she gave him the name of John — that even hence you may recognize how, as he obtained the same name as the Forerunner of Christ, so from his very cradle the greatest grace was imparted to him by the all-powerful God, and how, being about to walk in the same steps as Elias, he was endowed with the same grace. When the Carthaginians ^b were about to lay waste that city, his parents, taking their son and a little of their wealth, betake themselves to the Castle of St. Mary ^c. And while they abode in that place, they took great joy in seeing the boy, now reaching his eighth year, both obedient to them and making progress in the way of virtue. For God had given him to foresee far off the issues of things to come, loving him as of old Samuel from his mother's womb, and already from boyhood, as Jeremiah, enrolling him in the number of the Saints.

[4] He, while he slept at night, seemed in a dream to hear one saying: His barbarian servitude is foretold him: It behooves thee, John, to be carried captive into Africa and to serve the barbarians in slavery, that thou mayest direct and strengthen in the way of virtue many there who are not sufficiently firm in religion. As soon as he disclosed this to his parents, he was watched with such diligence that he was not permitted by his father to go a hair's breadth outside the city. But when he had grown to his twelfth year and was heaped with much greater grace, he began to give himself longer to sacred prayer, as one who had heard from the Apostle: Pray without ceasing. Moreover he had been wont to pray not only before but also after sleep. He gave diligent labor to the divine Scriptures, and what he had excerpted from them he continually turned over in his mind, striving to answer worthily to Him who had called him to Himself. But when he recalled to memory what he had seen in a dream concerning his servitude, he prayed the more earnestly: Lord Jesus Christ, who dost the will of them that fear Thee and hearest their prayers, since it has so seemed good to Thy goodness, grant that I may fall to an upright master.

[5] Being therefore breathed upon by the Holy Spirit, he began to foretell what was to befall the town ^d, namely how the enemy would make an assault upon the city after three days he foretells the disaster to come: and would work slaughter of many men, naming by name those who were to meet death in that disaster. Therefore the people, gathering to him, greatly desired to hear the matter more fully from him. Then he, opening his divine mouth, exhorted them to penitence, that they should refrain from crimes and outrages, should lead a life illustrious in virtues, should strive for charity unfeigned, as the Apostle says, and for sanctification, without which no one can ever see God; and at the same time should heed that word of the Gospel: Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire. When he preached these things, all the good rejoiced, recognizing in his tender age a certain mature and aged prudence. And some indeed lent attentive ears to him as to a divine seer, others as to a man initiated into the sacred mysteries by those heavenly intelligences. But the foolish, and those of the dregs of the people, nevertheless observing the grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the youth, kept saying that he divined and prophesied and boded evil.

[6] But when the coming of the Saracens now more nearly threatened, he is taken the matter being known to him from God, he charges the people to beware and to watch over their affairs, announcing without dissembling the wholly certain incursion of the barbarians. But when his parents, compelled by necessity, had set out to some village or other, he alone remained at home. Meanwhile on a certain day he is compelled by his companions to go out with them a little way outside the city. And so, when they had gone forward not very far, the Saracens, straightway attacking them, take them all; among whom, when the boy most acceptable to God saw himself a captive, he at once wore himself out with weeping, calling to memory what God had told him in his rest — namely that he was one day to be carried off into Africa. But by the providence of God, who accomplishes all things with easy work, it came to pass that he was bought by a certain Christian who was of that region.

[7] by the Saracens; but, a vision going before, Therefore, when they were setting sail thence and committing themselves to the deep, he complained very bitterly at being torn and separated from the embrace of his most dear parents, so that through excessive grief of mind he was overtaken by sleep. There in his sleep there seemed to be present with him one ^e who said: Why, my son, dost thou so afflict thyself with tears and anguish? And the boy said: Why should I not weep, when at this tender age I see myself bereft of my parents? And he: Do not so torment thyself: for God will restore thee to thy parents this very day, and with thee all who are with thee — who were two hundred and twenty. But he said to the man whom he saw: Who art thou, lord, who announcest to me things so prosperous and favorable? — I am, he said, the disciple and apostle of Christ, Ananias. But we shall assuredly understand more rightly that he was not so much Ananias as the heavenly grace conferred by God, which adorned and honored the youth in a wondrous manner even from his earliest age: for what else does Ananias mean than

a gift of grace, or the grace of God, or even glory ^f?

[8] he is restored to his parents. This vision was also presented to those who held the chief place in the ship, who seemed to hear: Come now, turn back your course and let this boy go, as being the possession of God; but if not, know for certain that this very day you shall fall into the hands of Greek soldiers ^g. But they, laughing at what they had learned by the vision and making nothing of it (for to impure minds nothing good can be offered which they will recognize as deserving credit), pursued their course. The eighth hour had already passed when a ship appears, as though it had sailed from Syracuse — very great and by far the swiftest, manned with men most robust and warlike and most skilled in hurling javelins; who at once outstripped the enemy, and with easy work and in good season, suddenly attacking those most wicked pirates, take them. The captives are set at liberty, and the most holy boy is restored to his most dear parents: since the Lord despises not them that hope in Him, as it is in the Psalms; and The Lord is nigh unto all that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth. But when he had spent three years with his parents and had shown himself in all ways obedient to them, his father yielded to nature; his mother, widowed of her husband, had placed all her hopes after God in her son, as having none other by whose help and support she, unhappy woman, might sustain herself.

[9] Being forewarned from heaven of the matter, Since these things were so, a voice was brought from heaven to the ears of the holy youth: Go forth out of thy land and from thy kindred, like that illustrious patriarch Abraham; come now, betake thyself to us, and, the most perilous sea being crossed, pass over into Africa, as was shown thee of old from the beginning. Then he, taking up with right willing mind the commands of God, the Best and Greatest, and inflamed with a great desire of journeying, besought Him that He would accomplish the matter as soon as possible and would keep him safe in so great a crisis of affairs. He reflected thereafter with himself that it was in every way better for a man fortified with the grace of Christ to be abroad than to pass at home with kinsfolk and friends a most pleasant life heaped with all delights.

[10] Not long after, behold an irruption of the Hagarenes far more cruel and monstrous than the former. And when the youth was far from those towns which we mentioned above he is carried off by the Saracens and sold. (for he was now being called to illustrious contests), he is seized by them, and, being again bought by a certain Christian man, is carried off into Africa. He sold him to another Christian also, a tanner abounding in much wealth; who, perceiving the youth's noble aspect and the sweetness and discipline of his manners, and also his assiduous zeal in prayer, his diligence in service, his mind simple and without all guile and pride, obedient and gentle, began to love him vehemently; and, as Pharaoh set Joseph over Egypt, so he set him over his house and entrusted and committed all his affairs to his care and fidelity. In that place he kept that manner of living which was most acceptable to God, pressing down and taming the flesh by the rule of the spirit, so that he was both looked up to and commended not only by the Christians who dwelt there but by the very Ishmaelites.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

The Saint's chastity assailed in vain; the healing of a dying man and of the sick; his own deliverance from death; his visit to the Holy Land; the change of his life and name; his deeds at Alexandria.

But that most hostile enemy of all good things, who is ever wont to envy and hate the faithful, seeing so great a virtue in the youth, bore it with an unfair mind indeed; but, carried away by madness and fury, he sets and builds against him from every side all the engines of his snares. The demon devising many things against the Saint, a lustful woman Now he wretchedly disturbs and harasses the man, now he suggests depraved thoughts to his mind; a little after, calling to memory the parting from his most sweet mother and his kinsfolk, he grievously afflicted the boy. But he, relying upon prayer and great confidence in God, excellently eluded all his attempts and wiles and utterly overthrew them. Moreover, when he perceived that by these devices he could by no means catch the most holy youth, but that he was far superior to his contendings, he tries to assail the man otherwise: for it is wonderful how easy his zeal for evil is. But by what means he brought this about, hear.

He assails the wife of his master, who was desperately dying for love of the dear youth, with wiles almost infinite, and casts in such goads that the wretched woman could not bear the heat of love. And so she anoints her face like a painter, so brightly and shiningly, and paints it with rouge and white lead, that you would say a milky whiteness and glowing roses had grown upon her cheeks, and that her eyes and her whole face breathed wantonness and petulance; she elegantly arranged her hair curled with the tongs, fitted to herself very prettily and neatly her garments and all her adornment, and did in short whatever the worst and most senseless of women would have done, that by these arts she might allure to herself one who should look up in amazement at so great a force of beauty and elegance.

[12] assails his chastity, but in vain. But the new Joseph, as one held by a most ardent love of continence, setting himself like a most firm wall and a most strongly fortified bulwark against all the darts which the new Egyptian woman hurled, resisted excellently — taming his body with vigils and temperance, harshly wearing down and consuming his flesh with sleeping on the ground, and with the delights of a softer bed and of the bath put away. For the rest, many days after, when his master had gone abroad for trade and the servant had been left at home, the most shameless minister of the devil, roused by much sharper goads of lust, began to rage more and more, and not only to display in all she did the frenzy of intemperance, but even petulantly to assail the youth with all the enticements of lust; who, leaping back as it were as far as possible from a fire, refrained from insult and reviling, out of reverence for the rights of his master. And he used the same words as Joseph: Behold, my master, having delivered all things to me, knows not what he has in his house, nor is there anything which is not in my power, or which he has not delivered to me, except thee, who art his wife: how then can I do this evil and sin against my master? And he added: If I should dare this outrage, would not the earth gape and swallow me and cast me down into the depths of hell? Would not heaven hurl its lightnings against me? Wherefore, woman, thou mayest love another of these impure and filthy men according to thy lust; but as for me, do not hope by the blandishments and enticements of thy words to lead me into fraud and ensnare me.

[13] Hence he is accused of a crime committed, and most ill treated; But she, when she sees herself frustrated of her wish, accuses the youth to her husband — who had just then returned from trading — by this imposture. Why, she said, hast thou brought hither this Sicilian boy? Doubtless that he might make sport of me. For most confidently and most shamelessly he thought to induce me to undertake a wicked crime. But I, utterly abhorring the outrage, as befits chaste and honorable matrons, turned my ears and my face elsewhere. And now, terrified by the greatness of his boldness and shamelessness, I was minded to punish him with stripes; but fearing the flight of a most worthless servant, I was compelled to hide the infamy of the insult by silence of tongue. Now therefore thou hast the matter; do thou see what ought to be done. As soon as the man heard this, he turned his former love into hatred, as was natural, and for the crime committed began to treat the most brave athlete with dire examples: now beating him with scourges, now flying at his hair, often too punishing him with chains and cudgel. Then might one see the most holy youth daily beset with evils on every side, and enduring great torment and a contest of pains; yet glad and cheerful in the hope of the reward and the crown, and singing with St. Paul: Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? Neither tribulation, nor distress, nor famine, nor persecution, nor peril. Addressing his soul with words of this kind, he bravely bore adversities, keeping well in memory that word: He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.

[14] Therefore, while he was engaged in these hardships and calamities, but afterwards, his innocence being discovered, he thinks of Palestine: he felt divine help at hand. For as he was giving himself to nightly prayers, there stood by him one who said: Be of good courage, young man: for soon thou shalt be snatched from the evils that beset thee: for that impure and wicked harlot, who has cast thee into these evils, shall fall into the pit which she has made, and shall be taken in the works of her own hands. Scarcely had two days passed when her husband caught the most shameful woman with an adulterer and at once cast her out of the house. But afterwards, when he learned from the servants that the youth had rather been harassed by the woman, and that, since he had been unwilling to consent to that crime, this imposture had been devised by her, he then began to hold him in great honor. But he, when he had redeemed himself with a price and was now master of his liberty, departed from that household. Then he began to frequent the holy oratories, to pass his nights in singing psalms and hymns; and he vehemently desired to set out into Palestine, that in those places in which our Lord bore most bitter torments for our salvation he might venerate God and the Savior, and there might put on the holy habit of monks.

[15] To him thus pondering with himself the Ruler of his affairs appeared and said: he heals a dying man, How sound and how acceptable to God are thy counsels! Follow, then, prosperously the journey thou hast begun, and even now thou shalt receive the power of healing and curing all evils and diseases. The outcome of the matter confirmed this vision: for when a certain Christian and an Ishmaelite were contending with each other, the Christian, drawing a cudgel, bruised and broke the head of the Ishmaelite. He is carried aloft by his kinsfolk and laid upon a bed breathing out his life; presently they set both before the emir ^a, who

wondering at the wicked deed, orders the Saracen to be carried home, who seemed presently about to breathe out his spirit, and the Christian to be beheaded. When the admirable man learned this, he ran with all speed to the dying man, embraces his head, and, secretly impressing the sign of the cross, restored him to his former health; so that rising at once he went to the prefect and published the miracle to the people. When he heard this, his anger being turned to admiration (for virtue is wont to break and soften even the most savage and hardest of men), he both acquitted the man guilty of the slaying and permitted the holy youth freely to work these things.

[16] But when so great a prodigy had been everywhere spread abroad, all of the Ishmaelite race, as many as were afflicted with diseases, fleeing to him, were duly healed; and therefore they held him as a man sent down from heaven to heal and save them, and all judged him worthy and he cures other Saracens of various diseases. to be admitted into their houses as a man of God and to impart his blessing. And he persuaded some of the Ishmaelites to depart from the vain religion in which they were held and to be washed with holy Baptism; and this he performed by night, priests being called in: for there were not wanting there at that season worthy priests who might offer to the all-powerful God the sacred sacrifice of the Mass; among whom shone the most blessed bishop Pantaleon, most excellently adorned with piety and the other virtues, who both taught by words and confirmed his words by his manners. Once, when he was performing the sacred rites, the man of God saw a most white dove flying about above his head.

[17] [For the orthodox faith he is condemned to death; but is delivered from heaven and enters Jerusalem.] Therefore, when these marvels, as has been said, were being wrought by the most holy man, and his teaching was flowing forth everywhere through the whole region, the chief men of the Ishmaelite race summon him to judgment before the Ameramnes ^b, as one who was bringing a new religion into the city, and preaching the Son of Mary coeternal and consubstantial with some Spirit or other and with the Father, and who despised the Prophet ^c with the utmost dishonor and held his oracles as nothing. Then that most faithful satellite of Satan orders the most innocent man to be thrust into prison, meaning to take his life on the morrow. What meanwhile did the noble and robust wrestler ^d? He did not lose heart, did not despair of his affairs, did not fear the tyrant's threats, did not shudder or grow dismayed in mind at the capital sentence passed against him; but stood firm, unmoved, undaunted, awaiting the help that should come to him from God, of which he was made master. For a voice came to the man from heaven: Hail, athlete: tomorrow thou shalt come forth unharmed from this prison. And at first light, he who presided over that province and had cast him into chains gives him leave to depart freely. But the holy man of God, tarrying a little that he might confirm the faithful of Christ, sets out thence to the Holy City ^e; and continually lifting his hands to heaven, he implored God as the helper of his weakness, saying: Direct me, Lord, in Thy paths, and I will walk in Thy way. And again: I have chosen the way of truth, and I have not forgotten Thy judgments. And: Thy good Spirit shall lead me into the right land, and into Thy holy mountain, and into Thy tabernacles; and other things of that kind suited to a journey, frequently repeating them, in the month of April ^f he came at last to the Holy City. There he venerated the sacred and venerable sepulcher of our Lord Jesus Christ, whence the grace of the resurrection shone upon us.

[18] [There he puts on the monastic habit, is called Elias, visits the holy places, &c.] At that time Elias ^g the Patriarch held the church of Jerusalem, an admirable man and most adorned with heavenly prudence, who by his incomparable wisdom and orthodox teaching wondrously made the church illustrious. To him his coming was indicated from heaven; who, going to the man and perceiving the grace of the Holy Spirit which was in him (for when the mind is free from the depraved lusts of the flesh and illumined with a divine and incomprehensible splendor, it can easily discern the motions of another's mind), said: I see in this secular habit a monastic purpose and monastic dispositions. And when he had opened all the counsels of his mind to the most holy man, straightway, prayers being poured forth by the Patriarch on holy Calvary, he clothed him with the sacred habit and called him Elias after his own name. Having thus obtained his wish, the new Elias stayed some days in that city, that he might survey and venerate the most holy places; thence he goes forth to see the others in which our Lord wrought our salvation. And first he sets out to the Jordan, the most holy of all rivers; thence, when he had drawn incredible delight from its most sacred waters, he hastened to see Gennesaret, there to survey the place where the holy Apostles had eaten the bread and the fish which Christ the Lord had distributed to them after His resurrection. Hence to Mount Tabor, and to the place which they call the Twelve Seats ^h; afterwards to Sinai, where God, the Best and Greatest, openly showed the sacred mysteries to Moses His servant. Thus as it were through painted tablets he attained the truth: not that the new Elias, when he greeted those places which had been made illustrious by divine appearances, thought that the divine Godhead could be circumscribed by place; but because he knew that those who are inflamed with vehement love toward God find most dear and most delightful not only the places which He Himself had trodden and traversed, but are also greatly delighted with those in which Elias had dwelt.

[19] When therefore he had come hither and had stayed there three years, He comes to Alexandria, drives out a demon, and many diseases from the sick. he diligently observed the practices and pursuits of each of the fathers, and contemplated the grace of this one, the striving after first principles of that one. In one he learned a gentle mind, and far removed from anger; in that one meekness and kindness; and finally from all, piety, religion, and mutual charity, the closest concord, clemency, magnanimity, vigils, sleeping on the ground, temperance. Gathering all these things, he strove to make daily great progress in the way of perfect and complete virtue. But after three years, departing thence, he came to Alexandria; yet before he entered the city, one met him who, oppressed by a demon, was coming out of the city. He, beholding the plainly divine man, fell flat upon his face on the ground, and, fouling his mouth with foam, was direly tormented. Then the most holy man, pitying his lot, when he had formed the sign of the cross upon the man, restored him to his former health, the evil spirit being driven far away. Very many others also who were in ill health God freed from disease through him. Moreover, often going forth at evening to the holy churches of the martyrs, to make supplication to God all night long, he went to those of Mark the Evangelist ⁱ, and of Peter, bishop and most celebrated martyr ^k, of Mennas ^l, of Cyrus and John, martyrs likewise most illustrious.

ANNOTATIONS.

c. Understand Mahomet.

CHAPTER III.

Other journeys, some Saracens converted to Christ, prophecies, discernment of minds, the ascetic life, miracles.

He seeks Persia, thence Antioch and Africa; he instructs Saracens But when he saw his pursuits interrupted and himself honored with the greatest honor, that excellent despiser of glory and lover of quiet, secretly escaping from the city, hastened to Persia, being kindled with a great desire of seeing those places in which the three Children and the most holy prophet Daniel ^a had entered upon their contest, and of duly venerating their relics. But, a sedition having been stirred up there by the barbarians, he was hindered from setting out thither. Wherefore he betakes himself to the metropolis of the Antiochenes. And while he was staying in that city, he who had again and again appeared to him now at last appears to him, admonishing him to seek again his own country and to gird himself for the contests of the exercises; showing him also the mountain ^b where he should set his ascetic wrestling-place. And he, showing himself obedient to the word, sets out on the way: for that most pure man well knew whom he must obey. Therefore, making his journey into Africa, in twelve

Saracens in number he fell in with, who, being weary with the length of the journey, thought they should rest at the same time. Then the Saracens began to ask St. Elias what our religion was, and what we thought of the mystery of the most august Trinity. And he, answering them, said: Our Christian faith is most pure and stained with no filth, which the most holy prophets and Apostles approved by their testimony and which most holy men established and confirmed by signs and prodigies: and therefore, following a manner of life pure and untouched by any stain of crimes, and sending back word of refusal to the perishable things of this world, and embracing poverty, we commend chastity and even virginity, endurance and frugality together.

[21] We use garments to protect the body; and those who through sloth and heedlessness neglect the care of the body, we exhort and, so far as we can, urge to see to what necessity requires. But we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; concerning the orthodox religion, and refutes their superstition, we do not think that there are three godheads or three natures or three gods greater or less among themselves: for we acknowledge no other god besides these three Persons, which are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in whom we confess one God, and one origin of one godhead, one dominion, one power, one energy of acting, one counsel, one will, one manner of ruling and administering, of one nature and substance in three Persons. But your Ishmaelite superstition, patched together out of divers sects, cannot in any way hold together. For since you attribute divinity to the Father alone, who is without generation, you fall into the heresy of Arius; and when you affirm that Christ is a mere and simple man and a prophet, you slip back again into the dogma of the same Arius; likewise, when you assert that He underwent death and the most bitter cross not truly but feignedly and in pretense and as it were by a phantom, you assail the King of heaven. And now, when you circumcise yourselves, you follow the law of the Jews; and marrying several wives, you set yourselves against God. For God gave to man one helper, not several; and since you have your loins ungirt and loosed, you are intemperate in pleasures, and in your lusts not far unlike the beasts.

[22] And yet the very brutes know some measure in the impulse which nature has implanted; and converts them to the true faith. but you, defiled with every kind of wicked lust, set no end to your foulness. And not without cause indeed, since your prophet, to whom you render divine honors, plucking out of all sects whatever was worse, and handing on those things which would be pleasing and most suited to all who are overmuch given to the pleasures of the flesh, has miserably deceived you; and, keeping these things, you think you attain holiness of life. And we indeed in our own cause, if there be need of witnesses, can produce and cite plainly not one witness only, but two and three and even more; but you, since you have but one single witness of your superstition, ought to be exceedingly ashamed of him. When he had said this, the minds of the barbarians were moved, and they earnestly asked him to dip them in the laver of heavenly grace. Which when he had done, he changed them from sons of servitude into sons of liberty through holy Baptism. Together with these twelve, eight others came to the font of regeneration. And such was our Elias, and his speech was so seasoned with divine salt that he easily led over unbelievers and those ignorant of divine things to faith and to the knowledge of God.

[23] Being carried into Sicily But ^c when, having sailed past Africa, he landed in Sicily, like a very great merchantman laden with many and various wares, he found his mother at Palermo ^d, heaped with every kind of virtue: whom, when he had lovingly embraced and had told her all that God had wrought through him in his pilgrimage, he stayed with her many days. At that time, when the prince of the Hagarenes was preparing a fleet and an army against the people of Rhegium ^e, our most Christian emperor (this was the most clement Leo ^f) appointed a certain Basil, surnamed Nasar ^g, as commander, and sends him to Rhegium with forty-five ships to resist the enemy. Then Elias, as one whose most keen edge of mind the divine splendor had illumined, plainly foretold to all both the victory of the Greeks and the defeat of the Hagarenes; and therefore the commander was of blessed and uplifted mind, for report had already spread everywhere the power of prophecy and the holiness of life of that most upright man.

[24] he foretells a victory: thence he betakes himself into the Peloponnesus. Therefore, when the fleet of the Hagarenes was setting out from Palermo ^h to Rhegium, all the inhabitants, fearing the horrible assaults of the enemy, were thinking of departing; but our Elias, who was filled also with Mosaic gifts, said: Fear not, men; the Lord will fight for you, and you shall be permitted to enjoy peace and quiet. Then the commander Basil, meeting the enemy with some chosen soldiers, routed part of the barbarians, cast part into the sea and drowned them, and took some survivors while by delaying they sought safety for themselves, so that he might raise a trophy of victory over them; thus the outcome proved that the prophecy of our divine father Elias was by no means vain. For the rest, he, departing from Palermo, came to Tauromenium ⁱ; and when he had stayed there some days, a certain young man, truly worthy of admiration and of honorable birth, came to him, asking that he would give him the sacred habit. But the holy man of God, by the grace of the Holy Spirit which was in his breast, when he foresaw that that candidate would lead his life in the monastic institute with great piety, enrolled him in the number of monks, his hair being shorn; and that he might the more bravely resist the arms of the adversary, he changed his old name into that of Daniel. Therefore, having stayed in that place a short space of time, he said to his disciple: Let us depart hence, for I now foresee that the greatest calamities and evils are hanging over this city ^k from the Hagarenes, and that the commander Barsamius ^l will be conquered by the barbarians. And straightway with his disciple he sails to the Peloponnesus ^m.

[25] He heals the sick: he raises up his disciple prostrated by a demon: But when they were in the territory of Sparta ⁿ (this is a city of the Laconians), they come to a certain church dedicated to Cosmas and Damian ^o, most glorious martyrs, and abide there. And although Elias diligently strove to hide himself, yet a heavenly splendor shone in him; so that all the inhabitants, judging him truly a divine man, brought to him those tossed with heat and fever; whom he all duly healed with the sign of the cross. Among these were two maidens grievously harassed by evil spirits, for whom those who had brought them asked the most holy man to make supplication to God. Them, being sealed with the sign of the life-giving cross, he straightway healed. Then the maidens, being now made mistresses of a sound mind, give thanks to God for having endowed the holy man with such a gift. Moreover, at evening, when Elias and Daniel had paid their accustomed prayers to God, each goes to rest apart according to custom. There was, opposite the church, a deep and gloomy cave. Entering hither, therefore, Daniel passed the whole night sleepless in prayer; which the demons that lurked in that cave, being by no means able to bear, suddenly attack the young man, who suspected nothing of the kind, and, plucking at him direly, dragged him outside, leaving him plainly lifeless. But the divine Elias, seeking him in the morning, found him lying and gasping at the cave. And when he had learned the whole matter from his disciple, he said: There is no cause for thee to wonder, my son; for thou art not the only one who has suffered such things, but another ruler and teacher of monks as well. Presently, the Lord's Prayer being recited over him, holding out his hand he raised him from the ground, and straightway he recovered who a little before, prostrate on the ground, was unable to lift himself from the soil; yet his shoulders, as he said, were seen livid, as though struck with most powerful sinews.

[26] Meanwhile there befell Barsamius, commander of the army of Tauromenium, what the divine father had long before [p] foretold. And thence they sailed to Buthrotum [q]. This is a city of old Epirus [r]. At that time there was there Epinius [s], who held the second place after the commander of the army, an impious man, puffed up and insolent. He, when he had beheld the holy men, nevertheless observing the divine grace of the Holy Spirit inhering in them (for an impious mind renders even the very senses of the body sluggish in discharging their duties), inveighed against them with harsher words, calling them Hagarenes and abandoned spies of the city. Yet they, prostrate at the man's feet, besought him not to suspect such things of pilgrim monks. But he, although asked even by the prefect (for Elias was known to the prefect), could never be brought to lessen his anger; but with proud and lifted brow he orders the innocent men to be thrust into prison and duly and with great diligence kept, meaning to punish them the next day as guilty of an atrocious crime; for it was already evening. But when they were being led into custody, the divine Elias, grieving for his disciple's lot and bearing it hardly, said: Vengeance is Mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord.

[27] But lest any one wonder that he hears the just at times tormented, let him know that they are handed over to tyrants not that they may be punished, but rather that they may be tested; God avenges. They land at Corcyra. A mad woman is healed. not that they may be convicted, but that they may shine forth in glory, and may be examples and incitements to us, who thoughtlessly lead an idle life, for the embracing of patience. What then? Did God delay to avenge the injury of His servants? By no means: but on the following day that unjust judge, being grievously struck in the breast by the hooves of his own horse, straightway breathed out his soul; and the people, when the divine vengeance was known, sang thanks and praises to God, the Savior and Ruler of all. Therefore, being let go, they resolve to hasten to Rome; but being hindered they land at Corcyra [t]; there, turning aside to the bishop [u], they hid themselves in a certain chamber. But the most illustrious light of Elias could by no means lie hidden: for he is asked by certain men of that church to pour forth pious prayers to God for a certain mad woman. She, being bereft, as she kept saying, of a most dear son, wearing herself out with excessive grief and sorrow, had departed from her mind and from herself. The holy man refused. Again they press him to allow the woman to come to him; which indeed he would not bear, but said: Let prayer first be made to God, and ye shall perceive the power of God, whose mercy is spread far and wide among all nations. And so, prayer being made, at that same moment of time the priests, going to the woman's house, find her in possession of her mind and sound.

[28] Being carried into Calabria they practice the ascetic life. Then, departing from Corcyra, they sailed prosperously into Calabria, and coming to the place which had been shown to St. Elias, surnamed Salinæ [x], they established there an ascetic wrestling-place. While Elias and Daniel dwelt in that place and tilled a field sown with divine virtues, they stirred up very many to follow that manner of life, and afforded to many a way to eternal salvation, calling them back from evil and depravity to better fruit. For what is useful and profitable is ever wont to follow upright men. Therefore the Lord taught His disciples: So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and

glorify your Father who is in heaven. Often, though they removed to other places, these two fathers most acceptable to God in no wise changed their quiet and tranquillity of mind, but were always the same, both when they exercised themselves in the monastery and when they were amid the noises of the world and changed from place to place. For to those who order their life according to the laws of God every place is thoroughly safe and free from danger: for virtue is not circumscribed by place.

[29] St. Elias's excellent admonitions to virtue: For the rest, the divine Elias excelled — if any man anywhere — in the healing of souls, breaking off by his exhortations the course of many in the way of crimes, and persuading them not to goad the flesh against the spirit, nor to indulge the body in what lust demanded, but in what necessity required; to restrain their eyes and ears, to curb the smell, to spare the tongue, to check the touch, to forbid anger, to set a certain measure to their desires, to give themselves wholly to God, to hold prayer as their armor and fasting as their strongest wall, to shrink vehemently from pride and haughtiness, to strive after lowliness; to give no heed at all to what others did; to savor the things that are above, to seek the things that are above, as the Apostle enjoins; to do nothing joined with virtue for ostentation, but to have a right intention in these things, and a mind gentle and merciful toward others. These and more than these he enjoined upon those who came to him, sending them away far other than they had come, from being men of outrage made cultivators of uprightness.

[30] his prophecies, discernment of minds: In the gift of prophecy he was strong, equally with those ancient divine fathers, foreseeing and foretelling things to come. Nor is it wonderful, since he had God within him, disclosing and showing him things far removed. For to many he foretold the end of life even a week before, exhorting them to prepare themselves for so long a pilgrimage. Those who had sinned he admonished secretly and apart, that they should abstain from evil. But when he saw them in no wise obedient to him, he often rebuked them before all. He foretold to the peoples long beforehand the incursions of the Hagarenes, and whether they were to be conquered or conquerors. Nay, foreseeing before his eyes the towns of Sicily [y] that were to be miserably devastated before the barbarian irruption, he told it to the brethren. Once he saw a rod stretched out over the regions of Calabria, and said assuredly that it portended vengeance upon those who lived wickedly and shamefully. If any came to him who were shaken by base motions of body and mind, he knew by the keenness of his mind both by what lust they suffered themselves to be conquered, and what lust they themselves conquered.

[31] But how great a power of miracles was in Elias, his excellence in every kind of miracles. all have experienced who were afflicted with various kinds of diseases; of which not only the monuments of letters are witnesses, but the living voices of all. How many men and women harassed by evil spirits were restored to their health by his touch or by a saving prayer to him! How many sick, whose bodies were ill wrought upon, were cured by the mere presence of the holy man! How many suffering in the head were healed! How many pressed by hidden calamities were freed by Elias! How many tossed by a storm of sea and winds, taking refuge in the prayer of the holy man, were snatched from danger, when they beheld him leaning upon the oars and struggling with the waves and bringing the ship into the harbor of safety! How many, falling headlong from the tops of trees, their limbs grievously crushed and broken, obtained health by his presence! Yet nevertheless, when he wrought these things, he professed that thanks were to be given not to him but to God alone. For this is not mine, he said, that you should render me thanks, but the all-powerful God's, who deigns to distribute virtues and gifts to men as it shall please Him; wherefore there is no cause why you should marvel at the power of miracles and call those happy and fortunate who work them; but rather I would have you praise those who strive with all their sinews after virtue, hold these blessed, and strive to imitate their life: for on the last day a man is not to be condemned to the eternal burnings of the flames because he has not wrought marvels, but because he has violated the divine laws.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Long before; but how many years or months before is hidden from us. But of the time of that event our Commentary treats in §§2 and 3.

q. Buthrotum, commonly Botronto, on the coast of the Ionian Sea and of the Gulf of Buthrotum, opposite the city and island of Corcyra; Cellarius in the place cited above, page 697, calls it a town of no mean note, where he says more of it. See our Annotations below on chapter 7, letter p.

r. Of old Epirus. Cellarius in the same place, page 693, treating of Epirus, a region of Greece, divides it into old and new; and the old indeed he defines, while the new, which many centuries after, he says, was made up out of the Illyrican peoples of Macedonia, we reserve for the geography of the Middle Ages. In Labbe, vol. 4 of the Councils, among the letters of Pope Hormisdas, at column [ ], one is entitled with the title of a synod of old Epirus, addressed to the same Pope; and also others of this Pope to the same synod, at column [ ].

s. The divine vengeance against him is reported below at number 27.

t. Corcyra, commonly Corfu, a most well-known island of the Ionian Sea, and a city on its shore facing Epirus. Of the islands, says Pliny, book 4, chapter 12, opposite Thesprotia is Corcyra, twelve miles from Buthrotum, and fifty miles from the Acroceraunian mountains, with a city of the same name, Corcyra, a free state, and the town of Cassiope and the temple of Cassian Jupiter, extending ninety-seven miles in length: called by Homer Scheria and Phæacia, by Callimachus also Drepane … Nor far from these (namely the two Paxi islands) before Corcyra is Ericusa, of which will be said below. Moreover Corcyra in Greek is called Κέρκυρα.

u. The antiquity of this bishopric is gathered from this, that in Labbe, vol. 2 of the Councils, column 53, among the bishops of the island province who subscribed to the Council of Nicæa, Apollodorus of Corcyra is noted. Charles of St. Paul in his Sacred Geography, page 198 of the later edition, reckons Corcyra to the province of Nicopolis or of old Epirus. But who is that anonymous bishop of Corcyra who is noted here in the Life? In the collection of Councils which our John Hardouin published, vol. 5, column 928, in the year 870 Michael, bishop of Cercyra, subscribes to the fourth Council of Constantinople. That prelate of Corcyra, therefore, lived indeed in the times of St. Elias; but whether he survived so long as to have received the Saint as a guest at Corcyra is not clear: for this deed, at least regarding the order of our biographer's narrative, must have befallen long after the year 870. But perhaps it was Demetrius or Pachomius, of whom the biographer makes mention afterwards in chapter 4, number 35.

x. Gaetani in the Animadversions indicated above, page 24, says: But below the same writer names Aulinæ. I have already said that this place was on the mountain which overhangs the town of Palmi on the Tyrrhenian Sea. See what has been said by anticipation in our preliminary Commentary, §2, number 15. But in the Blaeu Geography, volume 8, on the map of Calabria Ultra, as they call it, it is written not Parma but Palma, and it lies on the shore of the Tyrrhenian Sea not far from Seminara; and between these two places a mountain is set with the name of St. Elias.

y. From this passage also we learn, says the Gaetani cited a little before, that in the reign of the emperor Leo the Philosopher most of the towns of Sicily had not yet been occupied by the Saracens. See what has been premised above.

CHAPTER IV.

His sweetness of manners, his fastings, his contempt of worldly things, the calming of the sea, his prophecies.

His sweetness of manners, his fastings, How sweet he was in his discourses, how pleasant, how courteous! Walking by the royal road ^a, he neither had a lofty spirit without lowliness, nor a lowliness despised and contemned; but he bore himself accurately, like the plumb-line and the most exact rule of the monastic institute; not prone to anger, not crafty; of an aspect* so serene that from it alone gladness and tranquillity of mind shone forth. Which was the reason why he drew many to the confession of hidden crimes: for there was no one who blushed to disclose his errors to him, when he saw how he was moved with compassion toward him, and how, bidding him be of good courage and have hope, he undertook that he too would take part of the penance. And he kept repeating that sins which are not expiated by confession rush on to worse and are wont to kindle heavier fires for us in the world below. For what is the fuel of that fire but the crimes of mortals? Now what shall I say of his fasting, which he perpetually observed? Bread with salt was to him a rich and sumptuous banquet; a pure spring afforded him drink, the turf a bed. In place of the pleasant company of friends, to stand on his feet whole nights; in place of baths, to send forth tears and sighs; and continually to turn over in his mind the death that presses upon us. And yet in this harshness and severity of life he shone forth readier for prayer and fairer and more joyful than those who, born for their belly, spend the whole time of their life in the care of their skin. But if by those who were joined to him by the bond of kinship some dish was set before him, he took it courteously and calmly. And such was the holy man's manner of life.

[33] his contempt of worldly things But now our discourse invites us to set about explaining, so far as may be, the things which follow in their order. When he had need to go to the field of Pentadactylus ^b, and was fording with Daniel a pool which was there, his disciple, coming up, showed him a Psalter beautifully wrought and fashioned by himself; which, when he had seen it, he said: Go now and cast it into the pool. The young man, knowing already what it was to violate obedience, straightway performs his master's command. And they had now gone six miles when Elias said to Daniel: Return, my son, and take back the Psalter. And he, returning, found it entire and untouched by the waters; which, showing it to his master, he was held in great wonder as to how it had taken no harm from the waters. To whom the holy man answering said: Thy obedience, my son, has kept the book unharmed. Yet nevertheless it is worth our while to embrace poverty with the utmost zeal, lest perchance those heavenly intelligences laugh at us who profess to have renounced the world and to follow the monastic institute. For as no man is to be called healthy who suffers in even one member of his body, so neither is a monk truly poor and free from the sicknesses of the mind who is held by any one desire of perishable things.

[34] he utters a prophecy at Rome: Having entered the oratory of the holy martyr Pantaleon, he seemed in a dream to see two men conspicuous with a brilliant light, in the appearance and habit of Peter and Paul, the princes of the Apostles, who said: Tomorrow without any delay set out with thy disciple for Rome. And he related that he and his disciple had been arrayed by them in shining garments — with the breastplate, I suppose, of justice, and the shield of faith, that they might easily repel the darts and blows of the demon. Then at cockcrow, with his disciple as companion, he took the road to Rome. When he had come thither, prayers being first poured out to God, he was honored with no common honor by him who held its chair. And this was Stephen ^c, a plainly admirable man, who at that time, holding the helm of the Roman Church, was leading a life most worthy of that pontificate. Having stayed here many days, he said once to his disciple: At this very hour, dearest son, Jonas thy father departed from this life; but do not grieve overmuch, since he passed the time of his life in piety. And yet Tauromenium is distant from Rome, where Elias then was, a journey of twenty days; but Daniel noted the hour and the day on which his most holy master showed him his father's death; and when he returned from Rome into Calabria, he found that on that very day and even hour his father had met his death, as the holy man had foretold. And indeed one may admire the purity of that soul, who, being absent at so great a distance, straightway knew it and disclosed it to his disciple.

[35] and at Rhegium; he calms the angry sea: Another thing was not unlike this. When they were once at Rhegium, while the morning prayers were being paid, going up to a certain man named Demetrius, who held the first place among the priests, he said: Bless us fittingly, bishop. He, thinking the holy man mistaken in mind, as asking a blessing of one man in place of another, said: Pardon me, father, for I am not a bishop. Then he: Why deniest thou that thou art a bishop, whom I see clothed with the bishop's omophorion ^d? Assuredly the reason does not escape me; and what God has once appointed He will altogether accomplish. But Demetrius, who had before known that the divine Elias was strong in the gift of prophecy, laid up and kept the holy man's prophecy deep in his mind. And not long after, setting out for Constantinople and meeting its Patriarch, he is appointed bishop of the holy church of Corcyra in place of Pachomius, a most illustrious man. Meanwhile, when in spirit he foresaw the most hideous disaster ^e to be inflicted by the Hagarenes upon Rhegium, leaving the monastery which was at Salinæ (for he had already heard the Lord saying, When they persecute you in this city, flee into another), he seeks Patras ^f together with his disciple. Which voyage, like the others, fell out for him prosperously and happily, since the breath of the Holy Spirit breathed upon him everywhere, and his mother's prayers brought no small help. There, while he was in the greatest tranquillity of life, he drove out unclean spirits from four men, prayers and the sign of the cross being applied. Presently he told others at a distance that the enemy had already withdrawn from Rhegium; and therefore he hastened his return. While therefore he was sailing the Ionian Sea, behold, a sudden tempest, a violent wind, rains, storm-clouds, gales, whirlwinds are stirred up. Then all who were carried in the ship, since they saw death almost with their eyes, take refuge with the holy man, that by his prayers he might be present to those who, tossed on the deep, were in so great a crisis of life. Then he, complying as usual with the passengers, rises and impresses the sign of the cross upon the sea: straightway the winds lay down, the crash of the waves falls, the sea is spread out most calm. Thereafter ^g, enjoying a favorable voyage, they reach Rhegium; thence they revisit their monastery at Salinæ.

[36] But when he sees himself importuned by many, fleeing the empty breath of popular favor, he foreknows his mother's death: he hides himself in the mountains of Mesobianum ^h, to spend, forsooth, a quieter life. Here, imitating the skilful and diligent bee, he went about the honey-making of the true philosophy, with his disciple as companion and helper. Having thus stayed many days in great tranquillity of mind, an assault of the barbarians being shown him from heaven, he went back to Salinæ. Sitting once in that place, as he was wont, as it were in a rapture of mind, while he pondered with himself with what rewards the good enjoy in heaven and with what punishments the wicked are afflicted in the pit of Tartarus, he turned toward Sicily, a man plunged in the deepest sea of contemplation. And a little after, sending forth sobs and tears, he said to his disciple: Bring the censer, and let us pour ourselves out in funeral prayers: for now my mother, most dear to God, having put off her mortal spoils, has flown to the heavenly Lord; and I give and render Him immortal thanks that He has received her not without rewards, but has repaid the most abundant fruits of her labors with great interest. Which Daniel duly noted. And not long after, certain men coming thither from Palermo announce on what day the holy man's mother had yielded to nature. Then Daniel, drawing forth his writing, found that it was that very day on which St. Elias had offered funeral prayers to God.

[37] A certain man named Constantine, sprung from Scylla ⁱ (now Scylla is situated between the Sicilian and the Tyrrhenian sea), being direly tormented he heals the pains of an arterial disease: with what they call arterial pains, is carried to the holy man, praying that through his holy prayers God might have mercy on him: for all held it for certain that whatever he wished he would easily obtain from God by prayer, as one who had always obeyed the divine precepts. He therefore, perceiving the atrocity of the disease and pitying the sick man, said: It cannot be that thou shouldst ever emerge from that disease, unless first thou emerge from the mire of the outrages in which thou wallowest. But if thou undertakest to do this, I come into hope that through our prayers — of a most abject little man — God the Best, being appeased, will restore thee to thy former health: for thou hast brought upon thyself that fierceness of disease by the immoderate luxury of thy revellings, and hast plainly ruined thyself. Assuredly ill health is wont to be more useful than good to those who live basely. For what does God so desire of a Christian man as sincerity of faith, cleanness of body, and beauty of soul? Then Constantine promises that he will gladly keep the laws of God inviolate. The promise being received ^k, the great Elias, rising with Daniel, they pour themselves out in prayers for the sick man. Scarcely had the seventh day passed when the fierce force of the disease abated, and left him who was expecting impending — nay rather pressing — death, plainly safe and sound. And sending the man away in good health, he said: Go, brother, in peace, and let no forgetfulness ever seize thee of what thou hast promised us: for if thou cast thyself into the same filth of crimes, thou shalt be harassed, believe me, with a heavier disease, and shalt close the end of thy life with a bitter death. For indeed it is better (to speak plainly to thee) that those should die whose life fault defiles and dishonors. The man departed, who took up not the same but even far baser crimes, holding the venerable father's admonitions at a farthing's worth; but all the things which had been chanted to him beforehand by Elias came to pass.

[38] he foretells the disaster of the people of Rhegium; Moreover his speech was efficacious enough, and his zeal, as we read of old concerning Elias the Tishbite, most acceptable to God. To him once as he prayed (for he wore away in the work of prayer the greater part of day and night — the greater part, do I say? nay, whole nights entire; such was the holy man's care and zeal in polishing his soul, so that he indulged the necessity of the body only in passing) — to him, I say, as he prayed there was shown from heaven the irruption of the Ishmaelites and the plundering and devastation of Rhegium; and as the prophet Jonah is sent by God to the Ninevites to announce to them the divine vengeance hanging over them, so he to the people of Rhegium. But the Ninevites indeed, doing penance, escaped the heavenly wrath; whereas the people of Rhegium, with stopped ears, neglecting the penance preached by the holy father, brought those evils upon themselves. So some of them were led away into servitude, others

butchered with the sword. And so, when that disaster was impending, Elias and Daniel, men plainly worthy of admiration and excellent worshipers of Christ, set out to the castle of St. Christina ^l. There, while in their exhortations they speak of penitence, mutual charity, and continence, their hearers gain two advantages: they both correct their corrupted manners to better fruit and are kept unharmed from the enemy's disaster. For God has set help enough in penitence for those whose life is wretchedly imperiled.

[39] and to the commander Michael These things being done, they return to the monastery, from which for some time they resolve by no means to depart. While they abide there, the prefect of the fleet, named Michael ^m, goes to them toward evening, being not unknown to the holy man; who, when he had greeted him reverently and honorably, discloses his wish: namely that, by the disclosure of those above, he might be permitted to know whether he should have a prosperous voyage and would bear away the victory over the enemy — for all held him a seer and a familiar of God. And he gave this answer to the prefect: If, dearest man, thou hast in mind to rout the enemy and to raise a trophy of victory over them, purge thy people utterly, according to God's precept to Moses: for if the shadow and the figure demanded so great a purification, how great, thinkest thou, is owed to the truth? Nothing, so God love me, does He so detest and abhor as the filth and foulness of life. Hast thou not sometimes heard that fornication of old delivered the people of God to death, and that fornication joined with drunkenness betrayed the most brave and most robust Samson as a mockery and a jest to a foreign nation?

[40] Since these things are so, do not by any means suffer them basely to pass their life in revellings and in wine and among harlots, and to be defiled with every kind of outrage. victory under a certain condition. But do thou again and again lift thine eyes and mind to the heavenly help, and behold the broken ranks of the enemy. The man gave credit to Elias's words, and charged all his soldiers to refrain from depraved counsels and deeds; setting over them men who surpassed the rest in piety and reverence. And not long after, standards being joined with the enemy, battle is waged: thanks be to God, who utterly overthrows and ruins the counsels of the impious, the enemy were conquered and routed, so that many captives of Rhegium were set at liberty. And when this had been so done, the prefect never ceased to marvel at the matter, declaring that Elias was truly the servant of God, since, unless he were borne in the eyes of God, he could never at all have foretold and taught such things.

ANNOTATIONS.

read vultu.*

CHAPTER V.

His self-contempt, wholesome admonitions given to others, the destroyer of the city of Tauromenium punished, a captive freed in a wondrous manner.

He esteems himself below all others, But this is worthy of great admiration, that although he was abundantly heaped by God with so many and so great gifts, yet he was not puffed up, nor, when he knew his prayers were heard by God, did he insolently glory in it; but held himself the most abject and contemptible of all. Thus he hid himself in the monastery, most secluded from the company of all (for he was now advanced in age); yet he received all who came to him, who shared with him, as most dear sons with a most loving father, all the hardships and evils which they had endured in servitude under the detestable Ishmaelites. For often grief, when it breaks forth in speech, is lightened and taken away. Then the good father, gently exhorting them to endurance, said: Fall not in spirit, my sons, amid hardships: for Tribulation, as it is in St. Paul, worketh patience; and patience trial; and trial hope; and hope confoundeth not. Bear then and endure: for God is able to make with the temptation also issue. But I judge that evils are sent upon us by God for two causes: either because He wishes to test our endurance, whether we bear them bravely and with even mind; or because He wishes to correct us to better fruit, so that what we would not do in the utmost tranquillity and happiness of things, that we may now do, being taught in the heat of evils and hardships. Therefore whoever knows himself pressed by the adverse blows of fortune must needs search out the cause. And if he shall find that he has done injury or, as they say, deceit to no one; that he has not arrogantly held himself just and rashly condemned others; that he has not laid snares for another's bed; that he has not been given to harlots, to wine, to foul lusts — then let him, in my judgment, be of good courage and not be sad; and let him know that those evils are brought from heaven to try and test his constancy, that God may gloriously honor with the crown of patience him who bravely endures.

[42] to those who came to him Such was St. Job, who said: I will wait till my change come, and Thou shalt appoint me a time in which Thou wilt remember me. Blessed is the man whom God correcteth; refuse not therefore the chastening of the Lord: for He woundeth and He healeth; He striketh, and His hands shall cure. In six troubles He shall deliver thee, and in the seventh evil shall not touch thee. And David: Prove me, O Lord, and try me. Seest thou one who calls temptations to himself and challenges them? For what cause? That being tested he may appear more illustrious and more famous. Yet he was touched by the consciousness of no fault: for he cried out: Lord, if I have done this, if there be iniquity in my hands, if I have rendered evil to them that repaid me, let me deservedly fall empty before my enemies. Such also was Paul, when he said: I rejoice in tribulations, in necessities, in persecutions. But to return to our purpose: if a man shall find that he has committed many sins, let him know for certain that for that reason he has fallen into those hardships and evils, that through them he may come to his senses and detest sin as the cause of those evils, and may embrace virtue, the reconciler of peace.

[43] What? Do you not see, my sons, that many mortals, because of their outrages, are wretchedly harassed and tormented not only by strangers he suggests but by their own? Upon this one war is made by his own wife, and she becomes an enemy to the man who was given him by God as companion and helper. That one his own sons persecute. Another is wronged by his brother: for it often comes about that those with whom we have been joined in long intimacy, turning love into hatred, with mind estranged from us hate us the more earnestly. Such hatred is from God, and therefore cannot be softened even by words. Hear the psalm saying of the Egyptians: He turned their hearts to hate His people. For to those who do not well observe the laws of friendship, hatred is better; and to those for whom peace is a meeting-place of destruction and evil, enmities are a crop and matter of virtue. But why do I speak of domestic evils? Is not the body itself, than which nothing is more domestic to us, nothing more our own and nearer? This, when we sin, we find a foe and an enemy, when through fevers and other kinds of diseases it inflicts on us incurable wounds, torments and harasses us. There is none among you, though endowed with singular wisdom, who is able either to recount or to conceive it. But if we had not sown sins, assuredly neither thorns nor thistles would be brought forth at home. But that God uses even kinsfolk as His attendants to punish the outrages of criminal men, we may gather from the sacred Scriptures if they be more attentively weighed. Assuredly God permitted Joseph to be sold not indeed for his sins, but because of his brothers' hatred toward him, that afterwards the greatness of their fraternal hatred might be reproved and made conspicuous to all. There is therefore no cause why you should torment and disturb your minds; and if you have sinned in anything, strive diligently to correct it: for thus you shall behold with your own eyes the enemies themselves routed and broken.

[44] But since so many and so great evils beset us, wholesome admonitions, even to bishops: and we know so great a force of enemies and hardships within and without, so that, as we have said, we must struggle even with our own body — and yet we do not cease to heap sins upon sins and vices upon vices — what, immortal God, should we be if we enjoyed quiet and tranquillity? Since these things are so, it is assuredly expedient to wipe away and expiate the filth of our past life with the tears of penitence, lest, the long-suffering of God the Best being despised, we be, beyond these calamities, condemned to eternal punishments. When the divine ^a Elias said these things, the sorrowful drove sadness from their minds and received no small relief and consolation who were tossed by various waves of troubles; readily every anger and quarrel

was laid aside by those who burned with the desire of vengeance; those who were weighed down by the burden of poverty gave thanks to God; young men were formed to continence; those who were carried away by the heat of wicked thoughts were directed to a most ready haven of quiet: and, to free myself with a single word, all confessed that, as from a common and inexhaustible treasury, or from a most limpid fountain flowing with a perennial gushing of waters, they drew consolation for the soothing of the sicknesses of the mind, all received no common profit, all finally returned steeped in immense joy. Many bishops also flocked together to hear his words; whom he, receiving them modestly, embraced as fathers and reverenced as shepherds, striving that they should win God to him by their prayers; for although he was set upon the highest summit of virtue, yet he never exceeded the bounds of modesty.

[45] he is greatly esteemed by the emperor Leo; he commends penitence, His fame also was brought to the ears of the Cæsar; and the most devout and most religious Leo, whom we mentioned above, learning the man's gloriously wrought deeds, so looked up to him that he asked the holy man not to think it a burden continually to pray God for the empire and for the right administration of the commonwealth. For the rest, after some time the holy ^b fathers were eager to cross over to Tauromenium, piously to venerate the sacred relics of St. Pancratius ^c. When they were there, Elias learned from heaven the deadly coming of Brachimus ^d, that most hostile enemy, from Africa, and the devastation and disaster of the city. And so he began to preach to the citizens in this manner: Assuredly it may come to pass, brethren, that through penitence and pious prayers we may avoid the impending evils; let both younger and elder press on toward that zeal with all our sinews. For I see a huge heap of outrages in this city, and that there is no kind of crime or vice which does not here range unpunished; which things certainly need much correction and amendment. But if you neglect and despise my words, I for my part will gladly forbear to speak of the evils to come; yet you shall behold them wretchedly with your own eyes. With equal freedom and boldness, rebuking the patrician Constantine, he said: Why, prefect, dost thou not restrain from most shameful deeds the peoples entrusted to thy care and fidelity? Why dost thou not strive with all thy might that they refrain from doing injuries, from adulteries, from murders, from taverns? For he who prepares to wage war ought to have singular continence. For what is so cowardly and abject as sin? What so brave and noble as temperance? Be ashamed, Christians, at the philosophy of the heathen.

[46] and from the example of the heathen exhorts to virtue, on occasion taken Epaminondas ^e, that most celebrated commander, kept himself far from the immoderate use of banquets and from the company of women and from the other enticements of delights. So also Scipio ^f, the Roman commander, was strong in the same continence as Epaminondas; and therefore the one, winning a signal victory over the Lacedæmonians, and the other over the Carthaginians, raised most illustrious trophies. If then even the heathen, who were held by depraved desires of the mind, made so much of temperance, with how great a straining of mind ought we, who are called Christians, upon whom the light of the Gospel has shone, whom the doctrine of the Apostles has taught, whom the precepts of the holy Fathers form, to shrink from all foulness? With what zeal to detest injustice and avarice, especially when so great a cohort of evils presses and even urges upon us? But thou, prefect, if thou shalt restrain these crimes from the people, shalt find God the Best propitious and appeased toward thee, such is His kindness and mercy toward men. For my part, so far as my part goes, whatever has been shown me from heaven I have plainly foretold to you; but if you will give me credit, I would have you know that, as of penitence, so also of mercy you will be partakers with the Ninevites; but if you set our admonitions at little worth, you shall be taken and bound and led away into most bitter servitude.

[47] These words of the divine father were reckoned as trifles and fables both by the patrician Constantine of the disaster hanging over the city of Tauromenium, and by the citizens. But when, as being worn with age, he lay upon a bed in the house of Chrysion, turning to his host he said: Seest thou, Chrysion, the couch on which I now lie? On the same shall Brachimus lie, most greedy of human blood; and the walls of this hall shall see very many of the chief men of this city butchered with the sword. Then Chrysion, mocking, set not a farthing's worth on the holy man's words. Moreover the good old man, rising from his bed, announced that he would set out for the city of the Amalfitans ^g. But when he was in the middle of the city, he lifted his garment up to his knees. Then Daniel, amazed at the strangeness of the thing, said: What is this, father? But he: I now see rivers of blood overflowing; and these proud and magnificent buildings, which thou seest standing, shall be utterly overthrown by the Hagarenes. These things the holy man plainly declared, after the example of the prophet Jeremiah, who with great freedom rebuked a people by no means obedient to the divine laws, and set before their eyes the yoke of servitude hanging over their necks, not only by oracles but by unwonted deeds: for he is bidden by the Lord to place a linen girdle upon his loins, and elsewhere to wear now iron and now wooden chains upon his neck, and so to prophesy, with this design, that he might rouse the terrified people to better pursuits and to winning God's friendship by prayer.

[48] Since these things are so, curb your tongue with a bridle, and do not rashly let it be carried where it will; which he foretells, and knows, though absent, has come to pass; but rather consider attentively that many things have been shown to holy men from heaven for the rousing of the slothful and senseless. For who would not be greatly moved and astonished when he beholds a divine man wearing now wooden, now iron bonds? Who at last of the number of those who are counted wise would not inquire what was the cause why St. Elias lifted his garment up to his knees? As therefore God, the framer of all things, ordered that to be done for the rousing of those who were leading their life in the utmost senselessness and torpor, so He set forth that new and unheard-of spectacle, that He might call away the beholders from base deeds. But they not only gave no credit, but even thought to treat the holy men with evil dealings. Then they, according to the Lord's precept, said: Behold, we shake off the dust from your city; nevertheless keep in memory what we have foretold you. And so, setting sail from the city, they undertake the voyage to Amalfi. Meanwhile, while in a certain narrow bay they go out of the ship to refresh their spirits a little, behold, straightway a viper bites the foot of one of the passengers. The poor wretch cries out, swells all over, and is wretchedly stretched on the ground like a most foul corpse; yet* the holy man, coming and taking the sick man's foot and impressing the sign of the cross, raises the man up with his health recovered; presently they pursue the course they had begun. When therefore they reached Amalfi, they are kindly received by the bishop ^h. While they abide here, a few days after news is brought them of the destruction of Tauromenium.

[49] For the African, equipped with many ships ⁱ, and attacking the people of Tauromenium with great force, but with heavenly arms he lays low its destroyer. takes it with easy work, overthrows and burns the city, and butchers very many of them with the sword. These are the tragedies of the unbelieving: this the honor of those who abuse the divine patience. The city therefore being overthrown, and the neighboring villages burned, the tyrant, raging in insolence ^k and arrogance not only against the Christians but even against Christ, crosses over to Rhegium, and thence to Cosenza ^l. When the holy father learned this, kindled with divine zeal and fortified with heavenly grace, he arms himself against the proud enemy. But his arms were by no means bodily — not iron, not bronze, not helmet, not shield covered with hide, not coat of mail, not sword — but those which, with God's good help, are easy for the winning of victory: hope, which is the garment of faith, justice, and the spiritual sword, which is the word of God, according to the judgment of St. Paul. To these, long fasting, continual prayer, sleeping on the ground, tears, sighs, beatings of the breast, frequent adorations, cries uttered from the inmost heart and striking heaven itself. Why say more? He who had set his mind upon seizing Constantinople — that Brachimus, fighting bravely, struck ^m by the prayer of the just man, dies wretchedly at Cosenza in Italy ⁿ.

[50] He drives away a fever; a captive of the barbarians But to return to Amalfi: the prefect of that city, his sister laboring under a grave disease, asked Elias to deign to visit her; and he, complying with the prefect, betakes himself to the sick woman's house; and as soon as he enters the door, the fever leaves the maiden, her pulse is composed to its natural motion, her strength, shattered and almost extinct, is raised and confirmed; sleep, which the troubles of the disease had either disturbed or driven far away, embraces her most sweetly and calmly. Thus the poor woman, the disease being put to flight by the mere presence of the holy man, was restored to her health. For the rest, when the venerable old man returned with his disciple to the monastery, a certain woman not unknown to him frequented the monastery in a manner odious and importunate enough; whom the absence of her son-in-law wretchedly urged and pressed — a man whom the barbarians, having taken him in the disaster of Rhegium, had carried off into Africa. But after she had striven with great assiduity with the most gentle father that he would entreat God for him, he answering said: Return home, woman, and because thou hast believed, be it done to thee as thou askest. The woman departed, doubting nothing of the old man's promise; and behold, thirty days after, her son-in-law returns home out of servitude.

[51] he transferred in a wondrous manner to his former liberty and country. And being asked in what way he had been made master of his liberty, he narrated the matter thus: I, he said, while I was held in prison, daily expecting the sword hanging over my neck, behold, in the dead of night I seemed to see the prison door as it were unbarred, and a monk advanced in age entering, conspicuous with light and lighting up the whole dwelling, most venerable with his long beard and white hair, and bent with age. He, standing by with cheerful face, addresses me in this manner: "Basil" (for this was his name), "rise and return whence thou wast carried off." But when I still hesitated, he said again: "Dost thou know me?" And I: "How can it ever be that I should know thee, unless thou first disclose to me thy name?" But he: "I am Elias the monk, whom thy mother-in-law bade at Aulinæ ^o to send forth prayers to God for thee. Do thou meanwhile, laying aside fear, depart without any hesitation now into thy country." I obeyed, I departed, I came, from a slave made free. And this prodigy, in my judgment at least, is in no way inferior to that which the sacred Scriptures say befell Habakkuk; and most rightly it both struck all the minds that were then present with incredible admiration, and moved those who were absent to sing praises to God, the artificer of all things. And yet Habakkuk was carried through the air by an angel from Jerusalem to Babylon, that he might minister to Daniel; but our Elias, being at Aulinæ, by prayer alone, as it were by a kind of angelic means, offering himself to be seen by the captive in prison, makes him free and returning home to Rhegium: but by what wings

was he lifted, by what chariot carried, as the divine histories record once befell Elias? What to this prodigy is the Lydian chariot [p]? What Pegasus to the Argives [q]? But perhaps these are not fables or fictions of the poets, which men so greatly admire, since the Greeks have commended them to their histories?

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Λύδιον ἅρμα, that is, the Lydian chariot, is a proverb. By this gibe were marked those who in any contest were far inferior to the rest; and παρὰ Λύδιον ἅρμα θέεις, that is, thou runnest beside (or past) the Lydian chariot … Some refer it to Pelops the Lydian, who with his chariot conquered his father-in-law Oenomaus; among whom is Gregory Nazianzen, so using it as to say that he is as much inferior to Basil's excellent virtues as a footman is behind the Lydian chariot, which is most swift. These and more things are found in Paul Manutius among the Adages published at Ursel in the year 1603, page 514.

q. Πηγάσου ταχύτερος, that is, swifter than Pegasus, is set down in the same place, page 1031, and is a hyperbolical expression concerning those who excel in swiftness. But of Pegasus, the winged horse, most celebrated in the fabulous fictions of the poets, the mythologists treat.

perhaps tum vero.*

CHAPTER VI.

Various miracles of the Saint, his gentleness and severity, his prophecies.

The heavens being shut for five months But our discourse hastens to far greater things, and perhaps to many what shall be said will seem incredible: for very many are wont to measure by what are called the laws of nature; and if they hear anything which exceeds them, they suspect it as empty and light. But this fault is wont to be ascribed to men unskilled in divine things, whom we rather call mad. But of you, hearers, who are indeed instructed in these matters and daily learn from the sacred Scriptures the power of God, there will be none, I well know, who will dare call them into doubt; but, pressing his tongue in silence, will lend empty ears: for what we have hitherto reported is not so wonderful as what we shall recount hereafter.

Once, through the greatest drought, the fields had so utterly dried up that in the whole space of five months not even one little cloud was seen in the sky; but the earth, barren and useless for cultivation, gaping everywhere, admitted deep within itself the most burning rays of the sun; the springs also, which perpetually gushed, had failed, and great rivers had dried up. On which account the inhabitants take refuge with the new Elias, that he would be willing to deprecate for them the common calamity and to entreat rain from God. The man, plainly modest, refused; they pressed and urged. At length Elias said: Do you wish that I should set forth the cause of this turning of the seasons and this disturbance and confusion of things? But it is manifest and plain to all even though I be silent: because when we see the needy we are by no means willing to relieve their want, nor to have mercy on those who are pressed by miseries. Now we have banished brotherly good will from us, charity has grown cold, injustice flourishes and grows strong: therefore heaven is shut, the rain is withheld.

[53] he obtains rain by his prayers: But nevertheless, since God the Best and Greatest never is wont to turn His clemency and providence toward mortals into hatred of them (since His nature is unchangeable), let us make supplication to Him, let us cast ourselves at His knees in a spirit of humility and with contrite mind, and He will receive with open ears the voices of us all crying by night and by day. Having said this, turning to his disciple he said: Let us go to St. Mary's, that we may satisfy the requests of our brethren. Presently to the people: Do you also help us a little with your prayers; for the Lord, I know, will show His mercy with us. And so, when Elias and Daniel, going forth without any witness into the church, had worn away a whole night there in praying to the Godhead, God heard them, being moved to compassion by our calamities: for He doth the will of them that fear Him. Then the air, which was clear and not

covered by any cloud, as it had continually appeared until that day, is straightway wrapped in clouds: the Lord opens the gates of heaven, visits the earth and waters it abundantly; the things that had dried up, receiving moisture, are cherished, grow, and increase, and the seasons of the year are recalled to their due temper. These things assuredly are most certain proofs of Elias's great confidence in God.

[54] He is carried dry-shod to the opposite bank of a river. When also he wished to cross the river which they call Secrus ^a, together with his disciples Daniel and Sabbas, it was borne along with such force that neither could a skiff carry him over nor could any one in any way swim across; for at that time, besides the accustomed waters, most rapid torrents also came down from the neighboring mountains, and the bridge was far distant from them, so that both disciples despaired that so long a journey could be accomplished by the old man. While their minds were engaged in this thought, behold, they see him by the river on the other bank; and when they had crossed the river by the bridge, with great wonder they see the man at a distance, and drawing nearer they find that his feet were not even the least bit wetted with water. And he earnestly and repeatedly urged them never in any way to disclose this to any one so long as he himself enjoyed this light of day; but the pious and religious monks, struck with immense wonder, from fear and reverence dreaded to draw near the holy man: for they judged that it could by no means be performed by any mortal weighed down by the heavy burden of the body, but by God alone, whom all created things obey, or by him to whom He Himself had promised it — as once befell St. Philip, who, being snatched from the eunuch by the spirit, is reported to have been found at Azotus.

[55] To his thirsting disciple he obtains a spring, and is enlightened from heaven. Therefore, when they had come to waste and desert places without water (for they were often wont to do this to avoid the tumults of men and to give themselves more freely to prayer), Daniel, from great labor and heat, began to be tormented with thirst, and, no longer able to stand, casts himself on the ground. But the old man, when he saw his disciple in that peril, being moved with immense compassion (for he vehemently loved him, knowing him obedient and in all things compliant to him), withdrawing not far from them, pours himself out in prayers; and straightway the Lord shows a most limpid spring, flowing with most cold waters; and calling his disciple he said: Drink, my son, and refresh thy strength to bear with even mind the discomforts of which the desert is wont to be most fruitful. And he, when he had quenched his thirst with the water, washed and refreshed his strength, was rendered, as he said, more robust and more eager both for the labors of ascetic discipline and for bearing the harshness and severity of life. And it befell that Daniel, praying to God with the holy man, saw him wholly kindled and inflamed like fire. Then the disciple, surrounded with an immense light, fell prone on his face to the ground. But the great old man, as one who well knew what was the cause of his fear, raises the man from the ground and bids him be of good courage in matters of this kind and conceive no fear.

[56] And not long after, when they had come to the castle of St. Cyriaca, to a paralytic now at the point of death he hears that there a certain priest named Malachias was struggling with a long and dreadful disease: for he had already lost the use of his feet, and the other members of his body lay torpid, unstrung by paralysis. Besides this, he was now held by fever, now tormented with pain of the head. Thus, destitute of all hope of health, while every art and every aid of medicine sweated in vain, he lay upon his bed, now at the point of breathing out his soul; and since the holy man of God, besides the other ornaments of his virtues, was of wondrous clemency toward the sick, so that he was wont to visit them, straightway he betakes himself to the man with great zeal; and drawing nearer the bed, he began kindly to ask how he did and how he bore the force of his disease. Then the poor man, with a dying voice which could scarcely be heard, begins to tell of the torments of his disease and of labors by no means to be borne and harsh in the suffering.

[57] But the old man, placing in the sick man's right hand the staff on which he was wont to lean and to support his steps, restores gait and health. said: In the name of Jesus Christ, leaning on this staff, rise and walk. Straightway the paralytic, taking the holy man's staff, rose and walked about, and a few days after duly recovered. In which matter this is worthy of great admiration, that the sick man, harassed by a long disease, straightway leaped up sound from the bed on which he had so long lain, that the power of the heavenly physician might appear the more clear. Nor need any one wonder if that most holy man wrought such and so great prodigies: for that is the word of our Savior: Amen, amen I say to you, if you shall ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it you: ask and you shall receive. For he never healed diseases unless he had first implored God the Best and Greatest with much prayer. Wherefore he is not to be reckoned the author, but God, the framer of all good things, who through His servant declared His kindness to others. He could bring nothing else but prayer, purity of mind, pious exercise, and faith in God.

[58] Moreover he was, as we have heard of Moses, the gentlest of all mortals; That the Saint was and the same man was most keen against those who in word or deed assailed what is good and honorable, no account ever being had of any man: for he did not fashion himself to each man's pleasure, as we see very many do, who like the chameleon* ^b are changed into various colors; but constant and tenacious of his purpose, and endowed with singular prudence, he gratified no one at all beyond what was just and lawful. But if anything was to be granted to any one, he plainly granted it; the rest he left to flatterers and sycophants. And in passing sentences and in judging he was most fair, as will be plain from the things which we have partly recounted and shall partly tell. That Michael whom we mentioned above, who over the Ishmaelites, as has been said, by the counsels or prayers of the venerable father won no common victory, is set over the province of the Calabrians. While he holds this prefecture, he finds a certain Columbus, a senseless man, eager for new things and plainly his adversary. This Columbus, lifted up overmuch with arrogance and pride, having gathered forces and being surrounded by armed men, ranged through the city and villages; and, his wickedness swelling, he grievously harassed very many who refused to obey him, and, their goods being plundered, overthrew their houses. Him the prefect Michael, having taken him by an ambush, punished with every kind of torment without any clemency, and that for many days; at last, half alive, he thrust him into prison, purposing to behead him on the morrow.

[59] gentle, When the man of God, who by his own disposition was ever mild and clement toward all, had learned this, running to the prefect he uses this speech: I count it excellently done for thee, prefect, since all things have fallen out for thee as thou wouldst: for in punishing a most factious and abandoned man thou strikest terror into others by this example, that they may not dare hereafter to hurl themselves into crimes and outrages of this kind. Yet nevertheless I ask this of thee again and again, that thou pardon me his life; and that I may obtain it, I embrace thy knees. So speaking, he fell upon his knees and made no end of entreating: Pardon him who, through the utmost madness, violated thy dignity: let humanity overcome anger. What of this, that thou hast in heaven a judge who will measure back to thee with the same measure with which thou shalt have measured? Hast thou not heard that word, Thou shalt not judge twice for the same thing? Then he, thinking the holy man's petition by no means fair, sharpened his sword and bent his bow for the killing; yet he put the matter off in such a way that some room for repentance seemed to be given. At last, when Elias perceived that he was by no means softened or bent by his prayers, but stuck most obstinately in the same purpose, he assails the prefect again with these most excellent words: For my part, most excellent commander, what I judged to be for thy good, that I strove with all my might to persuade thee and to obtain from thee by entreaty; but now, when I see thee so stubborn in thy purpose and of so hardened a mind, assuredly thou shalt bear the most ample fruit of thy obstinacy. Thus leaving the man, he departed grievously saddened. Seven days after, through the immoderate anger of his mind, he fell into a grave disease; and vainly summoning the holy man by messengers, he sees no room left him for the recovery of health. Presently, on the following day, God so avenging, he perished. But Columbus, beyond expectation delivered from the capital sentence, was held bound in prison, placing his hopes in God and in Elias.

[60] and, where the matter required, severe, is shown by examples. Not long after, there came to St. Elias at Aulinæ a certain man of the number of those who seem to themselves wise. He, putting on the person of a preacher, questioned him concerning a promise, or, as they say, a vow. But he said: When didst thou utter thy vow? Then he: Before Rhegium was taken by the enemy, before the bishop I devoted myself to God; but with very many others I too, being seized by the barbarians, was carried captive into Africa. Here Elias added in order the rest of what he had done, and said: Thou, forgetting thy promise, didst fall in love with a woman, lying to the bishop and — what is the chief thing — to God: for although thou wouldst have hidden this from me, yet my heart is within thee, as was said to Gehazi by Eliseus the most holy prophet, and thou couldst in no way lie hidden from me; and indeed, wretched man, thou thinkest this a light fault, and therefore thou extenuatest and lessenest it; but, according to my mind's judgment, the devil aims at this, that by lessening and wearing away faults he may without any fear lead men into far graver crimes and outrages. Now what shall I admonish thee? Shall I pour forth words into the deaf ears of a corpse? For he who thinks himself wise and yet does not meanwhile know himself, all labor in helping him is utterly wasted. Why, wretched man, when thou hast admonished and taught others, dost thou neglect and pass over thyself, so unlearned? Having said this, he drives the man from his sight, since he now clearly saw with the keenness of his mind that he would never in any way be corrected to better fruit. Such then was Elias toward men of that sort: keen, unconquered, undaunted; and most rightly: for he who suffers himself to be easily overcome is despised by all; and he who by no means assents to the opinions of the crowd, no force will be able to storm.

[61] Moreover, his old age now growing heavy, he had need to keep at home; He betakes himself to the emperor Leo, and on the way and a little after he says to his disciple: Now, Daniel, the day is at hand on which the most religious Cæsar shall summon us: which was long before indicated to me from heaven. For Leo, emperor of the Greeks, hearing the admirable manner of life and the prodigies wrought by the holy man proclaimed and extolled with praises by all, was held by a desire of seeing him, that he might draw some light also from his holy

prayers for the ruling of the empire. For he was zealous for the monastic institute and strongly inclined to honorable pursuits. Therefore, while they were pondering these things with themselves, behold, a certain courtier came to the monastery, who should conduct Elias to the Cæsar with great honor, as was fitting (his name was Musonius). He, falling at the feet of the most holy father and receiving his blessing, gives him letters from the Cæsar; which when he had received and read, he said: What has the Cæsar to do with me, a vile and abject old man? Passing over the most limpid springs of Olympus, he has set his mind upon a muddy torrent. For what cause has he exposed thee to so great a peril of life? Doubtless that thou mightest see a monk greater in fame than in deeds. But since it so seems good to God, setting at naught the discomforts of old age and weakness, I will boldly take to the road: but I would have this be the fruit of these labors for me, that Columbus, guilty of a capital crime, be absolved. And when he had assented to this petition with a right willing mind, taking Columbus and Daniel as companions, he sets out with the courtier to the imperial city.* Meanwhile, calling Daniel aside, he discloses to him that, although they were beginning the journey, yet it would never come to pass either that he should see the Cæsar or the Cæsar him; and yet that he did not undertake that journey in vain, since a most ample reward for him was the safety and life of a man condemned to death.

[62] Therefore, having landed at Ericusa (this is an island at the very entrance of the Ionian Sea, he is enlightened with a prophetic spirit. not far distant from the borders of Epirus ^c), they meet Chrysion of Tauromenium, to whom the holy man had foretold, when he was at Tauromenium, that in the same bed in which he himself lay Brachimus would lie. He, embracing the venerable old man, said: We have borne, in our misery, most excellent father and seer, what thou didst long before announce to us, since we by no means hearkened to thy counsels and most wholesome admonitions ^d. But what shall befall us hereafter — at least to me, who both hold and venerate thee in a parent's place — do not think it a burden to disclose. — I, answered the old man, foretell this to thee: not many days hence thou shalt depart this life. Which came to pass as the most holy man had spoken. Setting sail hence, they reach Naupactus ^e; and there they find a rumor going about that the Syrian fleet of the Hagarenes, which was aiming at Constantinople, was ranging over all the seas. Then the man of God and glorious seer said: It shall not so fall out, not as men commonly think, but as God the Best has determined that it be done: nor do they sail to Byzantium and plot its overthrow; but in the mid course of the Hellespont ^f they shall turn back, and, running along the Illyrian gulf ^g, shall attack and lay waste Thessalonica. Hearing this, Musonius was very greatly astonished. For, he said, if these things so fall out, I count this knowledge of things to come like a portent and above all human power, and this more than enough to declare the purity of the holy man. For what else, immortal God, if this be not a prodigy, is it for a mortal to foretell freely and boldly long beforehand things which have not yet come to pass, just as if they had already come to pass or he had learned them from another? Many more things than these blessed Daniel used to relate after the falling asleep of the holy man ^h.

ANNOTATIONS.

read Chamæleontis.*

* Gehazi.

* that is, Constantinople.

CHAPTER VII.

His sickness; his death; the burial, incorruption, and translation of his body; the concourse to it; miracles; the munificence of the emperor Leo.

Being carried into Greece he is seized with sickness. Come now, let us speak of the end by which the holy father closed his life: which I judge both useful for us to record and most pleasant for you to hear. And his passing from this life was not unlike that which is recorded of Jacob ^a, the most ancient patriarch; nor was it wholly unknown to the holy man, but, as to Moses ^b, shown to him long beforehand. And so, setting sail from Naupactus, he traversed Greece, and, being brought to a certain place not far distant from Illyricum, he was seized with a sickness not indeed grievous or troublesome: for, being enlightened from heaven, he learned from God that he should give Columbus a letter of commendation and send him to the emperor. When therefore he had sent him away, he himself hastened to Thessalonica, which city he would not enter, but stayed before the entrance in a certain church dedicated to the holy Apostles; and on the following day at noon, when the churches are free from the throng of the people, he asks the monk who presided over that church that he would take him over into the church of the holy martyr Demetrius [c]; and he willingly assented. And as they went, when the holy father beheld the city, he uttered a sigh, and, like one grieving in mind, calling upon the martyr, said: Where in the world art thou, Demetrius, most glorious martyr of Christ; in what places at last dost thou tarry? In what tract of the heavenly spheres dost thou wander? These and other such things he kept saying, both in the church and as he drew nearer to the tomb ^d of the holy martyr. When the monk who was guiding Elias heard this, being not a little offended, he cursed him to himself. But Elias, his prayer being ended, turning to the monk said: Why art thou offended, dearest brother, as though indeed I thought ill or spoke ill? Yet nevertheless where there is even moderate penitence and probity abounds, there the mercy of God is found many times greater. Then the monk, perceiving that his thoughts had by no means lain hidden from his guest, casting himself at his feet begs him to be willing to pardon him this fault; which when he had forgiven the man, being filled with great wonder and hastening with all speed, he related the matter in order to as many as met him.

[64] [His sickness growing worse at Thessalonica, he meets the death he had before foretold, on the 17th of August:] And so, when Elias was in that place, his sickness now growing worse, he asks that a bench be brought him; and when it had been brought he lay down there. But since the place was by no means fit for taking rest, he removed to Camini (it is a certain place). Here, calling to him his disciple and most dear brother Daniel, he said: I, Daniel, sweetest son, as it is written, am entering the way of my fathers: the time of our dissolution is now at hand, since I am eighty years old ^e. But thou hast followed my teaching, my training, my purpose: in these do thou bravely and constantly

persist; nor give thyself to idleness, but strive to polish thyself with pious exercises and pursuits. And so live that thou mayest think thyself as it were about to die every day, of which I would have the rest of the brethren also again and again admonished. Moreover, neither leave our body buried here, nor by any means suffer it to be carried to Constantinople to the Cæsar: for the emperor will ask, I well know, and will search for it. Which, since I had received it from the divine providence, I long ago gave thee a little letter to the Cæsar, that after our death he might allow the body to be carried to his own monastery ^f; which would be of no use at all to the imperial city, nor would God bear it with even mind. Do you rather claim what is yours, and by no means suffer the memory of us, as of a most loving parent, to fall from your minds. Moreover, if I remember rightly, that letter is with thee: keep it carefully; and when these things shall have come to pass (and they will come to pass very soon), send it to the Cæsar: what is written therein, I know he will accomplish. For the rest, farewell and be well, my son: for now Elias departs and shall no more enjoy this light of day. Having said this, and having bidden farewell to and gently embraced all who were devoted to him, with great gladness and cheerful countenance he expired, and was laid ^g with his fathers on the XVI of the Kalends of August ^h.

[65] When his death was made known, a huge number of monks and of people was gathered, and even the commander ⁱ himself with his army; and all that day and the following night, his burial, the incorruption of his body, and its sweet odor: with many lights and funeral hymns to be chanted, and most sweet perfumes burned, they honored the sacred and venerable dwelling ^k of the most holy father. On the following day they laid it piously and religiously in the church of the holy martyr Gregory ^l. But Daniel, since he could by no means carry the relics of the holy man to his own monastery, stayed there ten months. Meanwhile a certain man renowned in the dignity of patrician (this is Bardas ^m, whose name is carried about in the mouths of all), hearing of the man's holiness and miracles, coming to Daniel, asks him again and again to be willing to open the blessed father's tomb for him, since he was held by a great desire of venerating his sacred relics. And when he had done this, the body was found altogether entire and unharmed, and having suffered no damage; and it* breathed forth such sweetness of odor that the whole place was abundantly filled. When the illustrious man had seen this prodigy, with great piety and religion he venerated, saluted, and kissed the most holy body; and after his example all alike who were present did the same. Then he straightway orders a wooden casket to be made, and the body, wrapped in most clean garments, to be laid in it and placed in the same church; and at the same time he informs the emperor of the whole business, Daniel not knowing.

[66] The Cæsar, the matter being known through the patrician, orders the body of the blessed man, which, while by the emperor's order it is translated to the Saint's monastery, like rich treasure and a most opulent hoard, to be carried to him; that from this too it may appear that his prophecies were by no means vain nor fell out to no effect. Then Daniel gives the patrician the letter to the Cæsar, and at the same time informs the man of what his master had before, while living, charged him. The patrician sends the letter by a courier to the Cæsar; and he, when he had received and kissed it and read what was written in it, straightway does what he is bidden. Then, summoning George, a Calabrian by race, an active man and sprung of illustrious birth, who at that time was staying at Constantinople, he entrusts this charge to him. He, as soon as he had been brought to the place which they call Camini, having received the sacred relics, traversed all the provinces of the empire ⁿ and Greece itself, Thesprotia ^o and even as far as Buthrotum [p]. Embarking thence, and enjoying a prosperous voyage, he lands at the town of the Rusiani [q], and afterwards, borne on horseback [r], comes to the castle of Besianum [s].

[67] There a certain youth was direly tormented by a spirit, so that he was often driven to go to desert and waste places, it shines with miracles, as also in the place of its laying. and sometimes even to make his way into the tombs of the dead; and the demon had driven the poor wretch to such madness that he devoured his own excrements and filth. He, when he drew nearer to the relics of the holy man, suddenly, the tyrant being driven out, was made sound and master of himself; and giving thanks to God he sets out to Salinæ [t], to announce [u] to the brethren the translation of the holy body. And they, as soon as they learned the matter, were partly eager and heaped with immense joy at the recovery of the most blessed father's relics; and partly grieved not a little, since they understood themselves bereft of that man whom they had always honored and loved in a parent's place. Yet all with willing and eager mind came forth to meet it at Tauriana [x] most honorably, as was fitting. Moreover what was the concourse of the people on that day, no one could easily set forth. Presently, the casket being opened, they find the most holy body untouched and entire, breathing the sweetest odor of all odors. Here what shall I say of the possessed healed by the touch of the holy relics? What of those assailed by various kinds of diseases restored to their health? What of those suffering in the eyes and head duly cured? Nor indeed did the fount of graces and miracles stand still, but even today [y] it flows abundantly to those who approach it with faith. Moreover the brethren of that monastery [z], being endowed with the mantle [aa] of the younger Elias — that is, with his sacred body — were made partakers of a double spirit: for, formed by his precepts, they are admonished to the attaining of perfect virtue; and cleaving to his most holy footsteps they make incredible progress in the way of that same virtue, exhorting, goading, and impelling one another.

[68] [The emperor Leo enriches the Saint's monastery. The biographer's apostrophe to it.] But the most religious emperor Leo, such was his reverence toward the holy father even after death, most liberally assigned revenues and estates to his monastery, so that it stood forth the most famous and most celebrated of all the monasteries which are in Italy: for although it yields to them in antiquity, yet it far surpasses them in glory. For since it had been the seat of the new Elias and as it were a new Carmel [bb], it has been rendered as it were a paradise of delights [cc], planted with spiritual plants which bear the most abundant fruits of virtues, and with leaves never shaken off by any whirlwind of winds — which is the constant confession of faith. But thou, O house once blessed of the holy man (for now my discourse turns to thee), think not thyself at all bereft of thy most dear parent, but that thou art under his protection and patronage no less at this season, in which he has been carried to heaven, than before, when he was alive and surviving. For although he is by no means discerned with the eyes, yet he is present in spirit, keeps and directs his sons, and knows his sheep and is himself known by his own; he himself guards his fold and defends it from the snares of the most savage wolves. And this he performs the better, the nearer he sees himself to God, being now taken out of the bonds of our mortality, and fixing more freely the most pure keenness of his mind upon that inaccessible light and the origin of all blessedness. And these are the things which, gathered out of many, we have written down: although, to confess the truth, there are also many things which we have judged must be passed over, lest by the multitude of matters we should be odious and burdensome to our hearers, or lest by heaping up many things our discourse should grow too great. Wherefore, keeping the middle and going by the royal road, as they say, we have chosen the more important and better known things, that neither should the hearers be wearied by the tedium of a prolix discourse, nor by the slenderness of the matter should they hold a great man in contempt. For the rest, I pray immortal God that we may perpetually be not only hearers but imitators of the holy father's deeds; that we may also be endowed with the same rewards which he has most abundantly obtained in heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. As far as Buthrotum. Besides what was said in the Annotations to chapter 3, letter q, this may be added from the Animadversions designated before: To Strabo, book 7, a city in Epirus; Pliny calls it a colony; the Gulf of Buthrotum, of the region of Epirus, in Ptolemy. There is also a Buthrotus, a river in Magna Græcia not far from the city of Locri, Livy book 29: but here the discourse is of the Buthrotum of Epirus.

q. The castle of the Thurians. To Antoninus, Roscianum; to Procopius, Ruscia; to Leonardo Aretino, Ruscianum. Procopius, On the Gothic War, book 3: "Ruscia is a promontory of the Thurians. Beside it, at seven and a half miles, the Romans built a most strong garrison." Aretino, On the Italian War, book 4: "Ruscia is a castle (correct: promontory) of the Thurians, and above it a town set farther from the sea in a steep place, which they call Ruscianum." Thus the Animadversions repeatedly indicated.

r. In our Greek manuscript it is πεζοπορήσας, that is, going on foot, or setting out on a journey by land.

s. To Stephanus, On Cities, Bescia, a city of the Ausonians. In Livy, book 30, Besidiæ, a town of the Bruttii. The same Gabriel Barrius also thinks in his Calabria: but indeed it is certain that the western coast of Calabria was anciently called Ausonia, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus relates. Strabo likewise, book 2, says that the Ausonian sea is that which is afterwards called Sicilian. Lycophron declares that Philoctetes, the companion of Hercules, was slain by the Ausones, who dwelt on the bank of the river Crathis. But Crathis to Theocritus, or Cratheis to Pliny, is a river of the Bruttii near Scylla. And this in Apollonius Rhodius, On the Argonauts, book 4, is the Ausonian Scylla, as may be seen in the same Animadversions, of which above.

t. Of the formation of this word it has been said above more than enough.

u. In the same place: Ἐκεῖθεν Δανιὴλ προσλαβὼν παραγίνεται ἐν Σαλίναις μηνύσων τὴν ἀνακομιδὴν τοῦ Ὁσίου τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς — Thence Daniel, having taken up the body, sets out to Salinæ, to signify to the brethren the translation of the Saint. What therefore in this printed Life is attributed to that possessed youth, is in our manuscript ascribed to Daniel.

x. We should more correctly say Taurianum. In Mela, book 2, chapter 4, Taurinum; in Pliny, book 3, chapter 5, Tauroëntum was read. But Taurianum must be read in both places, as Hermolaus Barbarus and Nonius Pintianus correct; just as in Stephanus, On Cities, Taurania is read for Tauriana. It is a city in the Bruttian territory between Metaurum and Scylla. Thus the Animadversions, of which above.

y. Hence it is gathered that the biographer did not write these things immediately after the translation.

z. The body, therefore, of our St. Elias was translated from Greece into Calabria to the monastery which we have now most often named. But what has been noted on this occasion is contained in our preliminary Commentary, §4, number 36.

aa. In our manuscript I read ὡς ἄλλην μηλωτήν — as it were another sheepskin mantle. Concerning which kind of garment there may be consulted in our work the historical Commentary on St. Elias the Prophet, vol. V of July, on the 20th day, §8.

bb. I should say a new Carmel: for Carmel, in Greek Κάρμηλος, is a most celebrated mountain of Palestine; and I read that Carmel is also a promontory of the same Palestine near the mountain of like name. Pliny, book 5, chapter 19: The promontory Carmel, and on the mountain a town of the same name, formerly called Ecbatana.

cc. Ἥντινα παροικήσας ὁ νέος Ἠλίας, ὡς ἄλλος ἐκ νεότητος Κάρμηλον, ἔδειξεν νέον παράδεισον. This, drawn from our manuscript, I thus interpret: Which (seat) the new Elias, dwelling in it, as another dwelt in Carmel from his youth, rendered a new paradise.

quod.*