Achilleus

ON SAINT ACHILLEUS, CONFESSOR.

Achilleus, Confessor (Saint)

From various sources.

[1] The Greek Menaea and Maximus of Cythera have on this day: "Saint Achilleus rests in peace." The Menaea add this distich: Feast of Saint Achilleus.

"By arms Achilles laid waste the earthly cities below: By labors Achilles enriches the city on high."

Raderus considers this to be the same as Achillius, or Achillea, Metropolitan of Larissa, who is recorded in the same Menaea and the Menologion on May 15. To us he seems rather to be the one who is more frequently praised in the Lives of the Fathers as Achillas, or Achilles, or Achilleus the Abbot, and is nowhere recorded in any Martyrology that we have seen. Concerning him, therefore, Rufinus (or whoever the author of book 3 of the Lives of the Fathers may be) narrates the following, numbers 9 and 107.

[2] When one of the Fathers came to Abbot Achillas, he saw him spitting blood, and asked what this was. He generously restrains his desire for revenge. And the Abbot replied: "It was a word of a brother who had grieved me, and I resisted so as not to repeat it, but I asked the Lord to take it from me; and that word became blood in my mouth, and after I spat it out, I found rest; and I have also forgotten both the sadness and the word itself." The same is related in book 5, booklet 4, on continence, number 9.

[3] Another brother asked Abbot Achillas, saying: "Why, sitting in my cell, do I suffer from acedia?" The elder said to him: "Because you have not yet seen the rest, He suggests a remedy against acedia. my son, which we hope for, nor the torments which we fear. For if you were diligently to consider these things, even if your cell were full of worms up to your neck, you would still lie among them, persevering without acedia." The same is found under the heading of an unknown author in book 5, booklet 7, number 28.

[4] In book 5, booklet 10, number 14, his notable discernment is described thus: Some elders once came to Abbot Achilles, and one of them had a bad reputation. One of the elders said to him: "Abba, make me a fishing net." And he said: "I will not make one." He strives not to sadden a Brother. And another said to him: "Make one for us, so that we may have a memorial of you in our monastery." And he replied: "I do not have the time." The third, who had the bad reputation, said: "Make a net for me, so that I may have a blessing from your hands, Abba." And he immediately replied to him: "I will make one for you." Then the first two, to whom he had not consented, said to him privately: "How is it that when we asked, you were unwilling to make one, and to this man you said: 'I will make one for you'?" The elder replied to them: "I said to you: 'I will not make one, because I do not have the time,' and you will not be saddened; but if I do not make one for this man, he will say: 'Because of my reputation, which is bad, the elder heard about it, and therefore he was unwilling to make the net'; and immediately we would be cutting the rope to calm his spirit, lest he be swallowed up by that kind of sadness."

[5] Finally, in book 7, chapter 25, number 4, an excellent apophthegm of his is related concerning the attack of demons: A certain brother asked Abbot Achilles: An evil will is the devil's handle. "In what way can the demons prevail against us?" The elder replied: "Through our own wills." And he added, saying: "The trees of Lebanon said: 'How great and tall we are, and yet we are cut down by the smallest iron tool: therefore let us give nothing of ourselves to it, and it will not be able to cut us down.' So men came, and made a handle for the axe from the same trees, and thus cut them down. The trees, then, are souls; the axe is the devil; the handle is our own will. Through our evil wills, therefore, we are cut down."