Euthymius the Great

ON ST. EUTHYMIUS THE GREAT, HEGUMEN IN THE DESERT OF THE HOLY CITY.

Year 473.

Euthymius the Great, Abbot near Jerusalem (St.)

From various sources.

Section I. The Difference between a Laura and a Monastery. The Monasteries of St. Euthymius and Others around Jerusalem, and His Early Training.

[1] Palestine recognizes St. Hilarion, disciple of Anthony the Great, as the first founder of the monastic order. "For not yet," says St. Jerome in his Life, The first monastic institution in Palestine, "were there monasteries in Palestine, nor did anyone in Syria know monks before St. Hilarion: he was the founder and teacher of this way of life and pursuit in this province." And shortly after: "And so, by his example, innumerable monasteries began to exist there." In these monasteries St. Basil (Epistle 79, to Eustathius, Bishop of Sebastia) admired the monks' temperance in maintaining their diet, their endurance in bearing labors, and their vigor in prayer, observing how, unconquered by sleep or by any other necessity of nature, they always maintained a lofty and invincible disposition, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, etc. Sozomen writes similar things (History of the Church, book 6, chapter 32) and lists by name many monks celebrated for their holiness -- of whom we treat elsewhere, especially on September 28, concerning St. Chariton, who was a contemporary of St. Hilarion, and who built the first monasteries in the desert of the Holy City, of which more shortly; and on May 28, on which day the holy monks killed there by the Saracens are venerated. And in places around Jerusalem. Cassian (Conferences 6, chapter 1) mentions monks of the greatest life and sanctity who dwelt for a very long time near the village of Thecue, six miles from Bethlehem, in a vast wilderness that extends toward Arabia and the Dead Sea. Of their voluntary ministry, by which, running through the extended pathways and traversing the desert that stretches toward the Dead Sea, they collected thin twigs and small splinters of wood for cooking food, Cassian treats (Institutes, book 4, chapter 21); and concerning the rule of these monasteries regarding the solemnity of Tierce, Sext, and None, he discusses (ibid., book 3, chapters 1 and 3). What is narrated by Cassian about the monks who either preceded St. Euthymius in these parts or lived alongside him before the Laura was founded is likely told of these.

[2] The first monasteries there, by St. Chariton, Celebrated at that time was the Laura of Pharan, and likewise that of the Old Souca: both, with a third near the Jordan, were built by St. Chariton. The former was six miles to the east on the Jericho road from Jerusalem, named after a village ten stadia to the east of it. The latter was in the aforementioned wilderness beyond Thecue, near which was the Theocorum monastery, also called Thecoum (of which see nos. 86 and 124). From its ruins the New Laura was built, and by SS. Euthymius, Sabas, and Theodosius, in which Cyrillus wrote the Life of St. Euthymius, shortly after the year of Christ 500. Not far from it, at the cave of Saul, in the wilderness formerly called Engaddi and then Ziphon, St. Euthymius built a monastery. But he did not remain there long. He spent the greater part of his life on the Jericho road: first in a cell outside the Laura of Pharan, then in the lower monastery over which he had placed St. Theoctistus, ten miles from the Holy City; and finally in the Laura called St. Euthymius's, which was three miles south of the lower monastery of St. Theoctistus, to the right of the Jericho road. From there, thirty stadia distant, was the Tower erected by the Empress Eudocia (mentioned below, no. 84), where afterward Scholarius built a monastery under St. Sabas, who in the valley below and all around built two other monasteries, and especially, guided by an Angel, founded at the Torrent his primary Laura. From it, thirty-five stadia nearer to Jerusalem, was the monastery of St. Theodosius; and ninety stadia toward the inner wilderness, Susacim of St. Quiriacus, near which the rivers of the Souca and the New Laura both converge -- which are said to be those of which David spoke to Christ: "You dried up the rivers of Ethan" Psalm 74:15 -- as stated in the Life of St. Theodosius on January 11, nos. 18 and 19 of the Prolegomena. These and very many other monasteries of these regions are called, in the Council of Constantinople held under Pope Agapetus and Patriarch Mennas in the year of Christ 536, and also by John Moschus and other writers, the said monasteries of the desert of the Holy City, "the holy places of Christ, our true God, and the monasteries of the desert of the Holy City." From this, Francis Quaresmius (Elucidation of the Holy Land, volume 2, book 6, pilgrimage 3, chapter 9) is to be corrected, where he asserts that in the Laura of St. Sabas the cell of St. Euthymius and others who flourished there in learning and holiness of life are shown -- whereas Euthymius died far from there in his own Laura, long before the Laura of St. Sabas was built, as will be clear shortly in Section 4.

[3] Quaresmius disputes in the same place concerning the distinction between a monastery and a Laura, asserting that only those monasteries which contained more than a thousand monks were called a Laura. A Laura differs from a monastery not because of the multitude of monks; He claims to have received this from the Greeks. But from modern Greeks, neither trustworthy nor aware of any antiquity. Certainly, although the Laura of St. Euthymius was not inferior to the Laura of Pharan, as is clear from his Life, no. 41 -- indeed it was prosperous and thriving, and its multitude was being enlarged, no. 45 -- the number of the Brethren was brought to fifty. And under St. Sabas, the congregation grew so much that at first seventy serving Christ were gathered in his Laura; and when that number was doubled, there were one hundred and fifty. The number grew still further, but not so as to fill several hundreds. St. Gerasimus likewise (see below, no. 89) built a very large Laura in the wilderness of the Jordan, which had no fewer than seventy Anchorites. On the other hand, the monastery of St. Theodosius was very large, with four distinct churches. From the very many monasteries of the entire desert, ten thousand monks came to Jerusalem in the year of Christ 516; these were led by SS. Theodosius and Sabas, appointed as universal inspectors by Patriarch Salustius. From this again Quaresmius is to be corrected when he claims that ten thousand monks, scattered here and there through cells and caves, led a solitary life, while four others lived in a monastery, of all of whom St. Sabas was Abbot. Seven monasteries or Lauras were built by Sabas himself, three by Euthymius, and many more by their disciples, associates, and contemporaries. They differed in this: that in monasteries those lived who practiced the common life; but in Lauras, those who led a life separated from society and quiet. So Cyrillus in the Life of St. Sabas. but because of the practice in separate cells, And below, nos. 45 and 98: in the Laura of St. Euthymius, a cell was built for each person; and the cells of the Brethren were separated from one another in the midst of the wilderness. And St. Gerasimus placed a monastery in the middle of his Laura, in which monks were first trained; and when they had reached the measures of perfection, he placed them in the cells of the Laura, calling them anchorites. of the few and the perfect, Into their number, neither youths nor beardless boys were admitted; and for this reason St. Sabas was sent by St. Euthymius to the monastery of St. Theoctistus, and St. Quiriacus to the monastery of St. Gerasimus; and St. Sabas, following the example of St. Euthymius, sent beardless boys away to the monastery of St. Theodosius. On the Laura, Suidas says: "And Laura: a narrow dwelling place of monks."

[4] The same manner of life for anchorites in these Lauras was the same as for the Nitrian anchorites in Egypt, these anchorites were similar to the Nitrian ones in Egypt, as described by Palladius in the Lausiac History, chapter 69, and by Rufinus, book 2 of the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 21. "They inhabit," says Palladius, "a deserted place and have cells separated from each other by a great distance, so that no one can be recognized from afar by another, nor quickly seen, nor a voice heard; but they live in great quiet, each one enclosed by himself. Only on Saturday and Sunday do they gather in the churches and receive one another." Conforming things are related below, no. 89, and in the Life of St. Sabas. Nor is it surprising, since the same discipline flourished here The mutual communication between both groups, as among the Egyptians. Hence the feast day of St. Anthony, as the common Patron, was observed with a solemn vigil by these monks, as is indicated below, no. 106, and in the Life of St. Sabas. St. Euthymius imitated the virtues of St. Arsenius, who was then living in Egypt, or even surpassed him in some respects, no. 59. He deterred his monks from vices and incited them to virtue by the example of Egyptian monks, nos. 51 and 64. Finally, he kindly received and fostered the Nitrian monks Martyrius and Elias -- who afterward became Patriarchs of Jerusalem -- when they took refuge with him during the persecution stirred up by Timothy Aelurus, no. 94.

Section II. The Sanctity of Euthymius, and His Feast Day.

[5] The discipline of all monastic training throughout all the provinces of the East, and indeed of the rest of the world, St. Euthymius, the second Father of monks after St. Anthony, was founded by the institution of Anthony the Great. Nevertheless, those who dwelt in the desert of the Holy City acknowledged Euthymius the Great as their own and particular -- if not author and parent, at least trainer in the ascetic course and teacher who formed their characters for heavenly pursuits -- and they followed his life as a perfect pattern of religious virtue. Wherefore, as Cyrillus attests in the Life of St. Sabas, Euthymius was accustomed to set out on the fourteenth of January into the vast wilderness, he is venerated in Palestine, and to remain there in divine contemplation during the days of fasting, showing himself to no one and speaking to no one; and the Blessed Sabas also used to do this in consequence, with only a slight change in the time -- since Euthymius departed on the fourteenth, as we said, while Sabas departed on the twentieth day of the month. For after the commemoration of the divine Anthony, Sabas, celebrating the feast day of Euthymius the Great on the twentieth day of the month, would thus withdraw to the wilderness and remain there until the feast of Palms, just as Euthymius had done. "There flourished," says Nicephorus (book 14, chapter 30), "preeminent in the ascetic arena and illustrious in the monastic life, Euthymius the Great, who reduced the wilderness to the form of a city; indeed, he was the canon and model of the monastic institute," as shall be stated in the following section. A translation of his body also took place. Patriarch Anastasius honorifically translated his bodily remains to a sacred church not long after his death, below no. 112; and his successor Martyrius held a distinguished synaxis and vigil at them, with many lamps and incense, no. 122. Indeed, the feast of a miracle worked at them was celebrated annually, no. 153.

[6] The Greeks, imitating the Syrians, celebrated his feast with a most solemn festivity in the most holy great church of Constantinople, His feast among the Greeks, as their Menaea and the Anthologion published under the authority of Clement VIII, and Maximus Cythyraeus, teach. In these the following summary of his Life is found: "This holy and great Father of ours, Euthymius, lived under the Emperor Trajan read: Marcian, born of noble parents, Paul and Dionysia, in Melitene, the metropolis of Armenia; and, like the great John, he was born from a barren and unfruitful womb; whence also he received his name by promise. For when his parents prayed for offspring to be given them, a voice was sent from heaven, which bade them euthymein* -- that is, to be of cheerful and glad spirit. After his father's death, he was brought by his mother to Otreius, the great Bishop of Melitene, and enrolled in the clerical order by him. Having then been trained in sacred studies, and surpassing all his contemporaries in religious practice and in the progress of virtues, he was, though unwilling, ordained to the priesthood and entrusted with the care of the sacred monasteries. In the twenty-ninth year of his age he set out for Jerusalem and dwelt with St. Theoctistus in a cave on a mountain, where he cured many of grave diseases. It is said that here, in the name of the Lord, with a few small loaves, he fed four hundred who had turned aside from the road to the monastery. Not only was he himself born through divine power when the sterility of his parents was dissolved, but he also rendered several other matrons, who were barren, fruitful by his prayers. He himself also, like the great Elijah of old, opened the gates of heaven and relieved the earth when it was suffering from drought and barrenness. A pillar of fire that those standing around saw descending from heaven and standing beside the Saint throughout the entire time of the sacrifice also revealed his interior radiance, as he offered the unbloody sacrifice. Furthermore, this is a testimony to his most holy and pure mind: that he could perceive the state of those who approached the participation of the divine Communion, and could discern which of them was of pure and which of evil conscience. When he was ninety-seven years old, he departed to the Lord under Leo the Great. He was of distinguished form, with sincere character, fair complexion, a venerable and comely old age, with hoary hair and a beard hanging down to his thighs. It is related of him that, when a certain monk who was popularly believed to be temperate and continent -- but in reality was not, but rather dissolute -- was near death, the Blessed one saw an Angel tearing out his soul with a trident, and at the same time heard a voice revealing the hidden impurity of that monk. His feast is celebrated in the most holy great church." So the Menaea. What is narrated here about the dissolute monk was lacking in Gentian's translation, supplied from the Greek manuscript, in which Euthymius relates that he received it from the Egyptians, as no. 65 shows.

[7] Besides the cognomen "the Great," which is given to him by all, he is also called Theophoros God-bearer by some. In the Greek Horologion: "Of our holy and God-bearing Father Euthymius the Great." The Menologion published by Canisius: "Of the holy and God-bearing Father Euthymius the Great." The same is recorded in the Menologion of Christopher, Proconsul of Mytilene, and in the Calendar published by Genebrard. Among the Latins, Molanus writes in his additions to Usuard: "On the twentieth day, of the holy and Theophorous Father Euthymius the Great." and among the Latins. Hence the occasion for Ferrari in his General Catalogue of Saints to err, and to establish a certain St. Theophorus as different from Euthymius. "In Palestine," he writes, "on this day, of St. Theophorus the Confessor," and cites the Greek Menologion. Of Euthymius the Roman tables say: "In Palestine, the feast of St. Euthymius the Abbot, who flourished in the Church for his zeal for Catholic discipline and the power of miracles, in the time of the Emperor Marcian."

Side Note* Read Marcian.

Section III. The Life of St. Euthymius.

[8] Cyrillus wrote his Life, Cyrillus wrote the Life of St. Euthymius. He reveals his own name in the epilogue, no. 163. He is praised by Baronius (year of Christ 475, no. 43) as a diligent and truth-loving author, and as a historian who flourished in those times. About whom he had earlier pronounced (year 391, no. 15): "Let it be said without envy that I have found no one after SS. Athanasius and Jerome a most trustworthy author, who has written the acts of the most holy men with greater fidelity and Cyrillus himself: since he transmitted, as a sacrosanct deposit to posterity, the sincere truth of what he himself saw or learned from the accounts of men of all-surpassing sanctity, without the slightest suspicion of falsehood" -- namely, the Acts of Euthymius, and likewise of Sabas and John the Silentiary. In the Acts of St. Euthymius, the miracles he narrates from no. 135 onward, he himself witnessed in person; the rest he testifies that he received from various Fathers. For he was not a disciple of St. Euthymius, as Baronius supposes (cited no. 43), nor did he live in the fifth century, as the same writes (year of Christ 420, no. 31); but in the sixth century, around the year of Christ 530, he was brought as a boy by his parents from Scythopolis, where he was born, to St. Sabas, a monk of the monastery of St. Euthymius, and was deemed worthy to be received as his disciple and to be tonsured by the Metropolitan and established in the ecclesiastical grade. He came to the monastery of St. Euthymius, into which the Laura had been converted, in the year 543, as below no. 135, and as he himself narrates of himself in the Acts of SS. Sabas and John the Silentiary.

[9] From that time, what the Fathers and elders narrated concerning St. Euthymius, instructed by SS. Euthymius and Sabas appearing to him, as he states in nos. 18, 135, and 161, he wrote down most accurately, though in a confused and disordered fashion. But after the Fifth Synod held at Constantinople in the year of Christ 553, in the New Laura, he spent two continuous years pursuing the work he had begun, having by divine benefit obtained -- through the appearing to him of SS. Euthymius and Sabas -- the grace to write their deeds in a fitting manner. The Fathers, and while St. John the Silentiary survived, who communicated to him most things about the virtues of St. Euthymius, were St. Quiriacus (or Cyriacus), St. John the Silentiary, and the latter's companion Thallelaeus, of whom more at no. 71. As a young man he had acquaintance with St. John and his disciples, because they used to lodge at the house of his parents in Scythopolis, as at their own guest-house, and would receive annual blessing, or alms, from his parents for the monastery and the regions of the Laura -- an arrangement Sabas had made with them, as we have said. Then, by John's counsel, he came to the monastery of St. Euthymius, as Cyrillus himself narrates below at no. 136; and in the Life of St. John, to whom he afterward departed from the monastery of St. Euthymius to the Laura of St. Sabas, and became his secretary for correspondence with St. Quiriacus. and St. Quiriacus. This Quiriacus he met in the Laura of the Old Souca. When Quiriacus understood that Cyrillus belonged to the great monastery of Euthymius, he immediately said with great joy: "Behold, O Brother, you are of the same monastery as I" (for he had been clothed in the monastic habit from the very hands of St. Euthymius), and he began to recount in narrative the deeds of SS. Euthymius and Sabas. And when Cyrillus had clearly learned these from the Blessed Quiriacus, he wrote down each particular in the books he composed about them, as anyone can learn from there, if he reads them not lightly and casually, but carefully (especially nos. 48, 49, 58, 60, and 76, where the witnesses are produced from whom Quiriacus himself had learned most things). And thus indeed the divine Quiriacus. When Cyrillus had filled his mind with this discourse and these narratives, he departed in peace. But when a certain desire to visit Quiriacus again seized Cyrillus, he went to him at Susacim in the 99th year of Quiriacus's age, the year of Christ 546. Finally, during the time when these Lives occupied Cyrillus in the New Laura for two full years, he continuously visited St. Quiriacus in the cave of the Great Chariton, and received great profit and benefit from this Saint, who was then reckoning one hundred and seven years of life. These things are in the Life of this Quiriacus on September 30. Baronius supposes Cyrillus to be the author, which is still doubtful to us and will be discussed more fully there. He also supposed him to have written the Life of St. Theodosius, which we have stated on January 11 was not convincing to us.

[10] Whence the Life is published here. This Life, written by Cyrillus, was incorporated by Metaphrastes into his Lives of the Saints for January 20. The Latin version, donated by Gentian Hervet, was published by Aloysius Lipomanus (volume 5), and from him by Laurence Surius; in abridged form by Zacharias Lippelous and Franciscus Haraeus; and Baronius inserted it in various places of his Ecclesiastical History. We give it here collated with a Greek manuscript, but (alas!) a mutilated one; for a few things were missing at the beginning, and more toward the end, from no. 97. From this manuscript, the passages reported at nos. 64, 65, and 66 -- omitted by Gentian, though mention of them is found in the Menaea and in Nicephorus (of whom shortly) -- have been supplied. We prefix the Prologue, which was annexed to the manuscript Life of St. Sabas and more properly belongs here. Metaphrastes had struck it out, substituting another of his own -- as was almost his regular practice, as can be seen passim throughout this whole work, and just recently on January 22 in the Acts of St. Anastasius the Persian, and on the 23rd in the Acts of St. John the Almsgiver. The rest after the prologue is the genuine production of Cyrillus, and sufficiently vindicates itself by its own consistency. Nor does it anywhere disagree with the Life of St. Sabas, which we shall give more fully on December 5, translated into Latin many years before the age of Metaphrastes, from which we have here restored the Prologue, as having been prefixed by the Author to his first book. For Cyrillus himself designates the Life of St. Sabas as his second book or discourse in the Acts of Sabas and St. John the Silentiary, and these occupy the third place.

[11] A summary of the Life from Nicephorus. Nicephorus Callistus mentions Euthymius in various places of book 14; specifically he writes the following in book 14, chapter 52: "Under the same empire of Marcian, that great and illustrious Euthymius also excelled in Palestine. He was born under Valens by promise, and duly taught and educated by the great Otreius and Acacius, Bishops of the Church of Melitene. Then, enrolled in the order of Priests, he concerned himself only with sacred affairs. Afterwards, in Palestine, together with the admirable Theoctistus, he established a workshop of virtue in a certain cave, and having built many and various cells for storing the honey of a holier philosophy, he founded a great monastery. He so distinguished himself by virtue that, being the canon and model of the monastic institute, he also obtained a renowned name for working miracles. For he restored to health the son of a certain Persian tribune, freed him from disease, and opened the gates of heaven and by his prayers obtained fertility for a barren land. He also caused very many loaves to be made from very few, with which four hundred men were refreshed. He made barren women fruitful. When he was performing the sacred rites, a light from heaven, shining like a pillar, surrounded him, as though declaring by a voice issued forth how great was the purity of life of this man. And by secret revelation he discerned the disposition of each of those who approached to receive holy communion, and who among them was of a pure and who of an evil conscience -- which was assuredly the clearest proof of his supreme sanctity. The blessed man departed to the Lord when he had lived ninety-seven years, under Leo the Great. He was moderate in his way of life and of the simplest character; fair in complexion, with a beard hanging to his thighs, thick and full. Of him history records that, when a certain monk was dying who had obtained an excellent reputation for virtue and chastity -- but was in fact thoroughly unchaste -- this holy man saw an Angel with a terrible aspect tearing out his soul with a heavy trident in a cruel manner from the body, and at the same time heard a voice from heaven openly revealing the hidden deeds of that monk's impurity. It is also related that he beheld another man, a certain poor fellow, lying naked on the ground, ragged and covered with vile rags, whose soul the many Angels who attended him reverently summoned forth; and David also was present with the cithara of supreme harmony, as it were soothing and drawing forth that soul with his songs."

Section IV. The Chronology of St. Euthymius, His Disciples, Successors, and Six Patriarchs of Jerusalem.

[12] Cyrillus extends the history of St. Euthymius and his successors to his own times, in which he wrote the Acts of Euthymius, St. Sabas, and St. John the Silentiary. The sequence of events during the lifetime of St. Euthymius. The same was done in the Acts of St. Quiriacus, whether by Cyrillus or by some other contemporary and associate of his. Careful account has been taken of places, and especially of times and persons. Indictions, consulates, the years of Emperors, and the Patriarchs of Jerusalem are diligently noted. Wherefore we have thought it worthwhile to set them briefly before the eyes, as in a table. St. Euthymius is born in the fourth consulship of Gratian, in the year of Christ 377, Indiction V, perhaps in the month of June, as in the Life, no. 3. After his father's death, he is offered to Bishop Otreius three years later, at the beginning of the Emperor Theodosius's reign. He is raised in studies; as an adult he is ordained to the priesthood. He departs for Jerusalem in the 29th year of his age, the year of Christ 406, and dwells near the Laura of Pharan. After five years spent at Pharan, he withdraws to a cave in the year of Christ 411. He builds the lower monastery of St. Theoctistus. In later years, sprinkled with grey hair, he builds another monastery in the wilderness of Engaddi. He founds the Laura that was later known by his name. The church of the Laura is dedicated by Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, when he had reached 52 years of age and the year from the nativity of Christ was 429. The Ecumenical Synod of Ephesus is convened on June 22, year of Christ 431, in the 54th year of St. Euthymius's age. St. Sabas is born in January, when Emperor Theodosius was Consul for the 17th time, year of Christ 439. Theodosius the Younger dies in year of Christ 450; toward the end of his reign St. Quiriacus is born, around year of Christ 448, since he was in his 18th year in the 9th year of Leo, and in his 26th in March of the year of Christ 475, as is established from his Life and that of St. Euthymius. The Ecumenical Synod of Chalcedon is held in October, in the 75th year of St. Euthymius's age, year of Christ 451. In the 4th year of Marcian, year of Christ 454, Indiction VII, John the Silentiary is born. The Emperor Leo succeeds Marcian in the year of Christ 457. The following year Juvenal departs this life, and Anastasius is ordained Patriarch in his place, year of Christ 458. St. Sabas, in his 18th year of age, year of Christ 457, comes to Jerusalem. He dwells in the monastery of St. Passarion. He visits St. Euthymius in the 82nd year of the latter's age, year of Christ 458; he is sent to the monastery of St. Theoctistus. St. Theoctistus dies in the 90th year of St. Euthymius's age, year of Christ 467, when Sabas had already been living with him for ten years. Maris succeeds Theoctistus; after two years Longinus succeeds him, year of Christ 469. Meanwhile, St. Quiriacus comes to Jerusalem at the age of 18, in the 9th year of Emperor Leo, the 8th year of Patriarch Anastasius, year of Christ 465. Having spent the winter at the house of Eustorgius in Jerusalem, he visits St. Euthymius; clothed by him in the monastic habit, with Theoctistus now dead, he is sent to St. Gerasimus.

[13] At last, full of merits, having chosen Elias as his successor, St. Euthymius dies on January 20, when he died, a Saturday, during the night, in the 16th year of the reign of Leo -- who, when one year had already passed after the death of the great Euthymius, also departed this life; thus below at nos. 105, 109, and 113. It is added in the manuscript Life of St. Sabas that he rested in the 15th year of the prelacy of Anastasius. All of these particulars coincide with the year of Christ 473, Dominical letter G -- not the preceding year 472, in which Baronius writes (no. 8) that he died, for in that year January 20 fell on a Thursday, and it was at least in January only the 15th year of Leo. Aloysius Lipomanus had noted that he died in the year of Christ 475; others report other dates, whose conjectures collapse from what has been said. There is another difficulty: that it is stated at no. 109 that he came into the wilderness around the twenty-ninth year of his life, spent sixty-eight years in it, and departed this life in the ninety-ninth year of his age -- whereas ninety-seven is calculated from the two numbers cited above, which is the way Nicephorus expressed this passage in book 14, chapter 52: "The Blessed Euthymius departed to the Lord at one hundred years of age, less only three." The Menaea, the Anthologion, and Cythyraeus also report that he died in his 97th year of age. But one who was born in the year of Christ 377 and died on January 20, year of Christ 473, as has been demonstrated, did not live quite a full ninety-six years. However, because Cyrillus, both here and in the Life of St. Sabas, is accustomed to refer events that pertain to the following Indiction to another year of age as well, whether of Euthymius or Sabas, the first and last incomplete years are to be counted, and thus the total comes to 97 years. That the year of death is there stated at no. 109 to be the year of Christ 465 is according to the practice of certain Orientals, who began their era from the nativity of Christ eight years later than we do, on which matter Herwart should be consulted in his Chronology, chapter 237. The same observation applies in the Life of St. Sabas, written by the same Cyrillus.

[14] The sequence of events after the death of St. Euthymius, After the death of St. Euthymius, St. Sabas, in his 35th year of age, year of Christ 473, departs from the lower monastery to St. Gerasimus. In the year following the death of St. Euthymius, the Emperor Leo dies, year of Christ 474. His grandson Leo succeeds him; and when this Leo had not lived long, his father Zeno succeeds in the same year. under the Hegumens St. Gerasimus dies (no. 95) on March 5, Indiction 13, in the second consulship of Zeno Augustus, year of Christ 475. St. Cyriacus, in his 27th year of age, returns to the Laura of St. Euthymius and remains there a long time -- that is, ten years -- no. Elias, 49 and in his Life. Basiliscus seizes the empire by treachery, year of Christ 476. Patriarch Anastasius dies at the expiration of the fifth year after the death of Euthymius, at the beginning of the month of January, year of Christ 477, having completed 19 years in the Patriarchate. In the same year Zeno recovers the Empire, and Martyrius is created Patriarch, as indicated at no. 113 and in the Notes to chapter 20. The same is repeated in the Life of St. Sabas, who is said, having previously formed a friendship through a certain Anthus (or Florus) with St. Theodosius the Cenobiarch, to have migrated to a cave, where in his 40th year of age he began to gather disciples and found a Laura. St. John the Silentiary becomes Bishop in Armenia in his 28th year of age, year of Christ 481. Meanwhile, the Laura of St. Euthymius is changed into a monastery; Patriarch Martyrius celebrates its dedication on May 7, in the 12th year after the death of St. Euthymius, year after Christ's birth 484. St. Cyriacus departs from the monastery of St. Euthymius in 485 to the Laura of the Old Souca, and survived there and in neighboring places for nearly seventy years, no. 48, and in his Life. Patriarch Martyrius dies on April 13, Indiction IX, year of Christ 486, which was the 48th year of St. Sabas's age. Salustius succeeds Martyrius. After the death of the Emperor Zeno, Anastasius obtains the empire, Indiction XIV, in which same Indiction, on December 13, the basilica of the Laura of St. Sabas was dedicated, in the 53rd year of his age, year of Christ 491. In the same year, John the Silentiary, having left his bishopric after administering it for 10 years, comes to the Laura of Sabas in the 38th year of his age; as in the Lives of both. SS. Sabas and Theodosius the Cenobiarch are placed over the remaining monasteries by Salustius on his deathbed, who, having completed 7 years and 3 months of his Patriarchate, died on July 23, leaving as his successor St. Elias, to whom St. Euthymius had predicted that dignity, no. 95. This year was the year of Christ 493, the 56th year of St. Sabas's age. This Elias dedicates a new church of the Virgin Mother of God, built by Sabas, on July 1, Indiction IX, year of Christ 501, in the 63rd year of St. Sabas's age. St. John the Silentiary withdraws to Ruban, Indiction XI, in his 50th year of age, year of Christ 503; he returns to the Laura of St. Sabas, Indiction II, in his 56th year of age, year of Christ 509.

[15] Elias, the first Hegumen of the monastery of St. Euthymius, having administered that office for 38 years, dies in the year of Christ 511. Simeon of Apamea succeeds him; Simeon, Stephen, and three years after his death, Stephen the Arab, year of Christ 514. In the year of Christ 518, according to Cyrillus in the Life of St. Sabas, the Emperor Anastasius dies on July 1, and St. Elias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, on July 11. Justin the Elder succeeds Anastasius; John succeeds Elias, and dies seven years later on April 22, Indiction II, year of Christ 524, leaving Peter as his successor. When Justin too died, after 9 years of empire, on August 2, year of Christ 527, Justinian succeeded, having already been promoted to the empire the previous April, on Maundy Thursday. In the year 529, St. Theodosius the Cenobiarch ceased to live, Indiction VII, January 11. St. Sabas departs for Constantinople in the month of April, Indiction 6, year 528; he returns in the month of September, Indiction IX, year of Christ 530. He soon proceeds to Caesarea, thence to Scythopolis, where he admits Cyrillus, the writer of these Lives, as his disciple, and not long after dies, Indiction X, December 5, in the 94th year of his age, year of Christ 531. Melita succeeds St. Sabas, and in the monastery of St. Euthymius, after Stephen the Arab dies, year of Christ 534, Thomas of Apamea; to him on March 25, year of Christ Thomas, Leontius, 542, the 70th year after the death of Euthymius, succeeds Leontius, to whom Cyrillus, sent by St. John the Silentiary, was admitted among the Euthymian monks, Indiction 6, in the month of July, year 543. After the Fifth Synod held at Constantinople, he departed to the New Laura in the year of Christ 553, spending two years writing the Lives of SS. Euthymius and Sabas. Around that time St. Cyriacus died; but St. John the Silentiary still survived, in the 104th year of his age, year of Christ 557, when Cyrillus published his Life. Meanwhile, Leontius in the government of the monastery of St. Euthymius was succeeded by Gerontius of Medaba, of whom -- being very well known to him -- and of his father and grandfather, Cyrillus treats in the Life of St. Sabas. Gerontius. But what this Gerontius narrated is reported by John Moschus and Sophronius the Sophist in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 21. These two survived into the following century and were counselors of St. John the Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria, of whom more in his Life.

PROLOGUE OF CYRILLUS,

From an Old Latin Manuscript.

Euthymius the Great, Abbot near Jerusalem (St.)

BHL Number: 7406

Author: Cyrillus the Monk.

To the venerable and magnificent man, my spiritual Father, namely George the Priest, and also Hegumen, Cyrillus, an unworthy Priest and monk, sends greeting in the Lord.

Since you, venerable Father, by your command have ordered me to set forth something concerning the deeds of great men -- that is, of Euthymius and the most blessed Sabas -- for the sake of a memorial for those to come, perceiving myself to be inadequate for this task, I have resolved to bow down and entreat your assistance, so that aided thereby I might more fully carry out the duty laid upon me. Psalm 81:10. I wish indeed that you would implore the help of Him who said through the Psalmist: "Open your mouth, and I will fill it." Although I consider myself weak and very unworthy of God's gift, nevertheless, constrained by your commands, I have presumed to advance beyond my powers, shuddering at the evil of disobedience, indeed dreading the Lord's sentence by which it is said to the disobedient and slothful servant: "You wicked and lazy servant, you ought to have invested my money at the table," etc. And so, with God's favor, I shall undertake to weave a history of the life of the aforesaid Saints, showing the places, times, and persons, just as I carefully learned them from faithful and truthful men. Luke 19:23. I beseech all who shall read these things, or hear them read, to give credence to what they read or hear, beseeching God with all the bowels of their hearts, that He may make me a partaker of those whose deeds, destined to benefit many, I run through in a very humble style.

(a) Of the New Laura. At that time Conon presided over the Laura of St. Sabas, and Gerontius over the monastery of St. Euthymius. They were called hegumenoi, which Gentian below translates as Prefects, from hegoumai -- I lead, I preside, I am first.

(b) Metaphrastes composed another exordium and prefixed it, which it seems worthwhile to append here, since it appears in Surius and Lipomanus as though it were Cyrillus's own, cohering in continuous sequence with the rest of the narrative: "The practice indeed of any endeavor can hardly and with difficulty be rightly carried out without an example; Prologue of Metaphrastes. but much more so the working of virtue, which is more difficult and laborious and requires perpetual labor and endurance. For this reason, those who have resolved to enter upon this harsh life need many examples and much history of the deeds performed by others in their lives -- things which both make the way smoother and do not allow those who look upon how harsh and steep it is to grow weary. For in these you will find by what means, counsels, and precepts, and by what method, things have gone well for them; and also what rewards they themselves have obtained and will obtain. Even if one's mind be dull and blunt, even if he be sluggish and supine, he will nevertheless wish at some time to be aroused and kindled to a like emulation and to undertake imitation. Such indeed seems to me the Life of the great Father Euthymius -- at once most pleasant and most laborious, and most apt to gladden and delight those who read it and to stir them to the pursuit of similar things; so that if anyone should wish to imitate him, he would be most illustrious both in life and in death. About his affairs, therefore, I must begin to speak from the beginning, and they must be narrated to the most pious ears possible."

LIFE

BY CYRILLUS THE MONK,

TRANSLATED BY GENTIAN HERVET,

Collated with an Old Greek Manuscript.

Euthymius the Great, Abbot near Jerusalem (St.)

Author: Cyrillus the Monk.

CHAPTER I.

The Birth and Education of St. Euthymius.

[2] When the impious Julian had shortly before wretchedly lost both his life and his empire, and then shortly afterward the empire had been conferred upon Valens, While Valens persecuted the Church, difficult wars on account of the bitter communion of Arius beset the Churches on every side; and when paganism had ceased, Arianism was growing exceedingly strong, and the Churches were openly suffering. Now at Melitene, which is a city of Armenia on the Euphrates, there was a certain man named Paul, whose wife and life-companion was named Dionysia; both were distinguished in virtue and in lineage. Since she was barren and without children, she considered this no moderate misfortune nor worthy of small concern, but was agitated by grave anxieties and torn by sorrows; her heart and bowels were as it were set on fire because of the lack of children, for she desired the fruit of the womb -- a son, Euthymius, is promised from heaven to the sterile parents: a thing most greatly desired by very many women, and most pleasing to the eyes, and which can bring them glory and cause their gaze not to be lowly and abject, nor their confidence and freedom to be diminished in their husbands' eyes. Being therefore in this state and pressed by such a calamity, she came with her husband to the nearby temple of the divine Martyr Polyeuctus (for she had taken as her partner in the vow him whom she had necessarily had as her companion in sorrow), and they persevered there many days in prayer. They asked that the bonds of sterility be loosed for them, and prayed that they might see offspring born from themselves. And one night, while they were praying separately, a certain divine vision appeared, saying: "Be of good cheer, be of good cheer. For God gives you a son, who shall receive his name from a good and tranquil spirit -- that is, from euthymia -- and shall have character worthy of that name. And in his birth, God also gives tranquillity of spirit to His Churches."

[3] And they indeed, having marked the time of the vision -- because it was a wondrous spectacle -- returned home, and professed that they would dedicate to God whatever should be born. Soon afterward the swelling of the womb also confirmed the conception, he is born, and Dionysia's heart was filled with joy. Then, when a boy was born to them in the fourth consulship of Gratian, they named him fittingly after the vision: Euthymius. The vision was followed by its fulfillment, and the war against the Orthodox began to be settled, and the Churches were now breathing again after the difficult storm; peace restored to the Church. and the springtime of piety was dawning, and their sorrows were being turned to tranquillity. For when persecution had vexed the Churches in the time of Constantius, and in the time of the Tyrant Julian, as we have already said, and of Valens, who was Emperor of the East -- and the Arians had breathed their mighty blasts against piety for no less than forty years -- with Euthymius now born, to whom the name was justly given from tranquillity, all the sorrows of the Churches were composed and settled. For Valens, when not yet five months had passed after the birth of Euthymius, Valens having died, leading his army against the barbarians who were freely ravaging and plundering Thrace, after his forces were cut to pieces, himself also afterward paid the penalties which his impiety deserved. For barbarians making incursions captured him in his shameful flight to a certain village near Adrianople and burned him together with the village -- he receiving the fire that is temporal, as a prelude to the fire that is to come in the hereafter.

[4] Three years later, Paul, the father of Euthymius, departed this life. His mother, left alone and a widow with her son, bringing the child, approached her brother Eudoxius, whom Otreius, the Bishop presiding over the Church of Melitene, had made his assessor; and placing the boy before his knees, she earnestly prayed, He is offered to Bishop Otreius. shedding tears from her eyes and believing them to be a powerful medicine of persuasion. She begged that he would have pity both on the child and on herself, and would bring the boy to Otreius and offer him to the Bishop in place of his father. And the mother indeed saw that her petition had succeeded as she wished; and the boy was offered to Otreius, and through him to God, just as Samuel had been long before by Hannah.

[5] When Otreius had seen him, he not only beheld him with his eyes but also penetrated at the same time the depth of his soul, conjecturing also with the greatest acuteness, as far as was possible, certain of his more hidden inner movements. And when he had heard about the mother's sterility, and about the divine vision, and how his conception had been the work of prayer, and that before he was born his parents had dedicated him to God, he was a true prophet of what was to come. "And truly," he said, "the Spirit of God shall rest upon this child." He is made a Reader; his mother a Deaconess; Then, having baptized him and sheared the hair which is shorn from children according to the law, he enrolled him in the grade of Readers. And he ordained his mother Dionysia -- since she was constantly devoted to divine things -- as a Deaconess of his Church. Having adopted the boy, he was not only his nurturer and tutor, but also his father and mother in affection, gratifying himself no less than the boy by this, and desiring to take charge of such a child. Under the Emperor Theodosius. When therefore Euthymius had been thus consecrated to God from his earliest age and enrolled in the sacred Ecclesiastical catalogue, immediately afterward the great Theodosius obtained the empire; and so at one and the same time God wondrously and beyond expectation brought peace both to civil affairs and to the Church -- providing Theodosius for the former and bestowing Euthymius for the latter -- so that in them events also corresponded to their names.

(a) June 26, year of Christ 363.

(b) After Jovian had reigned about eight months, his brother Valens was raised to the empire by Jovian's successor Valentinian on March 29, year 364.

(c) His martyrdom, accomplished at Melitene under Decius, we shall give on February 13. More about the city of Melitene itself may be found on January 10 in the Life of St. Domitian the Bishop.

(d) Year 377. The Consuls were Gratian Augustus IV and Flavius Merobaudes.

(e) Constantine the Great died in the year 337, on the very day of Pentecost; Constantius, succeeding him in the East, soon professed himself a patron of the Arian heresy.

(f) Perhaps "fifteenth" should be read, and thus we would say he was born in the month of June. Valens perished on August 9, year 378, when in that year he himself was Consul for the sixth time and Valentinian for the second, as Idatius in the Fasti, Socrates book 4, last chapter, Ammianus book 31, and others write. But it is evident that St. Euthymius was born in the preceding year, and indeed in Indiction V, of which some months remained, until September, at which the 6th Indiction and the year among the Orientals began. Hence events that took place after the beginning of September are referred to the following year of Euthymius.

(g) The rest is briefer in Greek: "As a prelude, as it were, of the fire to come."

(h) Otreius attended the Second Ecumenical Synod of Constantinople and condemned the Macedonian heresy with the other Bishops in the year of Christ 381.

(i) Greek: synedron. Incorrectly printed as "Confessor" in Surius. Hervet translates "Assessor"; correctly.

(k) Below at no. 109, this is expressed thus: "At three years of age he was consecrated to God, namely at the beginning of the reign of the great Theodosius." Theodosius was raised by Gratian to a share in the Empire on February 14, year 379, Indiction VII, and therefore that year was reckoned as the third year of Euthymius.

CHAPTER II.

Studies. Priesthood. The Anchoretic Life.

[6] As time went on, when he had already passed out of infancy, the Bishop entrusted him to teachers of letters. These were Acacius and Synodius, who were distinguished in the choir of Readers for their nobility, wisdom, and moderation, He studies letters, well trained in the divine scriptures, and who had also not neglected secular learning. After enduring many struggles for Christ, both were placed -- each separately and in his own time -- over the administration of the Church of Melitene, whose very many illustrious narrations of their deeds the city of Melitene most delightfully enjoys to this day, as befitting both the government of the Church and the care of souls. The boy, then, entrusted to these men, having received the abundant seed of doctrine in the bosom of his mind, quickly produced exceedingly great fruit and beyond his age. and of Sacred Scripture. For he was immersed in the divine scriptures, studying and applying himself to them with diligence and care. Whenever he found in them a mention of any ancient and divinely-inspired man that pertained to virtue, Euthymius pursued him with the utmost zeal and diligence, immediately conceived a desire for that very man, and was kindled to a like emulation of him. Such is a good soul, studious of what is noble: if it has received even a small occasion for virtue, it is like a razor to a whetstone, a brand to fire, a horse on the plain, as the saying goes. So much so that Euthymius at all times had at hand the task that occupied him with great zeal: namely, to read through the books of the divine scriptures and to commit to memory the force of what they contain.

[7] Furthermore, he was also an emulator of the character of his teacher Acacius, He imitates the character of his Master, imitating it with all his strength, so as to show himself a disciple not only of his doctrine but also of his deeds, and as he lent his ears to the teacher's words, so he also fittingly and zealously turned his eyes to his actions. As for food, he used what was not varied, elaborate, or superfluous, but simple, necessary, and unrefined; but he set before his soul sumptuous and magnificent delights in the words of the Spirit. devout in prayer, And the divine office of the ecclesiastical rule he performed with attentive mind and contrition of heart at the appointed times -- not giving his mind to laughter and whispering, as many do, but as one who stood before the eyes of the common Lord and King of all and spoke with Him face to face.

[8] In the time that intervened, resting at home, he was not occupied with any idle conversation or meditation on vain things, vigorous in the exercise of virtues, but meditated on the law of God day and night, and bore fruit in his season, like trees planted beside waters, as the Psalms say. It was the time of anger and fury; but he produced gentleness and charity. Psalm 1:3. Again, it was the time of gluttony and luxury; but his excellent fruit was continence. Thoughts of vainglory he conquered by moderation of spirit; the desire for many possessions he conquered by voluntary poverty. And so by each virtue he routed and vanquished the opposing vices.

[9] He becomes a Priest: Having been thus raised and educated, and having advanced through the entire sequence of ecclesiastical grades, he was ordained a Priest, against his will -- his virtue commending him -- by the then Bishop of Melitene, and the care of the monasteries and asceteries in the city was entrusted to his faithfulness. He is placed over the monasteries: But since from his earliest years a great desire for quiet and silence possessed him, he came constantly to the shrine of the divine Martyr Polyeuctus and to that of the Thirty-Three Holy Martyrs, and spent the longest time in them. He withdraws into solitude: Moreover, he would withdraw entirely from the city itself after the great festival of Lights, and would spend the honored days of fasting on a nearby mountain, which at that time was indeed a wilderness and had been called the Mount of the Assumption by the local inhabitants, but is now a monastery not unworthy of admiration, built near the city.

[10] While things were thus, and Euthymius had for a long time been a lover of quiet -- which indicated the composure and tranquillity of his inner soul -- judging that the care of the monasteries brought him impediment to virtue, he entrusted himself to flight just as he was, and departing secretly from the city in the twenty-ninth year of his age, he secretly departs for Jerusalem: he went with a ready and eager spirit to Jerusalem, to worship the sacred and venerable places. Having visited the Fathers who were in the wilderness and learned the manner of life of each, his ardor became more intense and he was, as it were, lifted on wings to a height. Stung by a more vehement impulse to lead a similar life, he came from there to the Laura of Pharan, which is six miles distant from Jerusalem. And having found outside the Laura a certain cell he dwells near the Laura of Pharan: very well suited for quiet and silence, he thenceforth took up his abode there, weaving palm branches in it and making his labors common to himself and the needy, so that he not only burdened no one -- not looking to the hands of others -- but also worshipped God, and while he himself was rather a helping hand to others, having freed his mind from all care of earthly things, he so disposed himself as to depend entirely upon the hope of future goods.

[11] Now there was a certain one of his neighbors, named Theoctistus, who practiced the same life as he with St. Theoctistus he withdraws annually into the wilderness. and claimed the same way of life. Love of the same pursuits and fellowship in labors bound them with such a bond of charity, and they were so tempered together by the love of the Spirit, that each of them was placed in the soul of the other, and what one felt was also dear to the other's heart. Since there was so brotherly an agreement between them, they used to depart annually into the wilderness of Cutila on the eighth day after the festival of Lights, separated from all human society and conversing with God alone through prayer, spending the entire intervening time in the wilderness until the feast of Palms arrived. Then each would return to his cell, bearing great riches of virtue, which they would offer to the risen Christ -- far more precious than the gold which the Magi offered to Him at His birth. In benignity and simplicity of character and in distinguished humility, the great Euthymius excelled, and therefore his confidence toward God daily increased, and he called forth a more abundant grace of the Spirit.

(a) Acacius, Bishop of Melitene, attended the Third Ecumenical Synod of Ephesus against Nestorius, year of Christ 431; concerning his zeal, see below, no. 54. Another Acacius, Bishop of the same Church, but a century earlier, is venerated by the Greeks on March 31.

(b) Synodius succeeded Acacius in the Bishopric of Melitene; he was followed by Constantine, who subscribed to the Fourth Ecumenical Synod of Chalcedon, year of Christ 451. Synodius is mentioned below at nos. 41 and 54.

(c) Greek: semneion, meaning a sacred place. Hervet translates it as "monastery."

(d) On these we shall treat on November 7. Their leader was St. Hieron. Chrysaphius is said to have erected a temple for them there, in their Acts. It is distinct from that of St. Polyeuctus. Hervet had made them one, writing here: "and spent the longest time in it." The Greek reads: "and spent the longest time in them."

(e) Below, no. 11 and 105: on the eighth day after the festival of Lights he departs into the wilderness. And nos. 68 and 103: after the eighth day of the holy Theophany. This pious custom of Euthymius, of withdrawing annually into desolate places, was imitated by SS. Sabas, Gerasimus, Quiriacus, Zosimas (of whom on April 4), and other colleagues of his.

(f) Cyrillus again mentions this Laura at nos. 12, 41, 119, and 154. John Moschus in the Spiritual Meadow, chapters 40, 41, 42, and 139, describes the virtues of certain monks of this Laura. He himself lived in it for ten years.

(g) To the east, on the Jericho road.

(h) We shall treat of St. Theoctistus on September 3. His death is described below in chapter 17.

(i) Greek: Koutila. Lipomanus and Surius have Catilae; below at no. 94, however, they also call it Cutila. John Moschus, chapter 53, has Kothylan, where it is translated as Tuthela, near the Dead Sea, to which an elder from the monastery of St. Sabas is said to have descended. In the Life of St. Theodosius the Cenobiarch, January 11, no. 26, Koutila is translated Gutilla; from where he traveled to the shores of the Asphaltite Lake, or Dead Sea. Below at no. 94 it is joined to the wilderness of Ruban, of which see chapter 5.

CHAPTER III.

The Retreat to the Cave. The Monastery of St. Theoctistus Built.

[12] When he had spent five years at Pharan, he departed from there with Theoctistus at their customary time of retreat, He dwells with him in a cave: and advancing through the wilderness, they came upon a steep and deep torrent, where they found a great cave at the northern precipice of the torrent, drawn as it were by some guiding hand. Gladdened in heart by this, and judging that this was not shown to them without the will of God, they established their dwelling there. What had formerly been a refuge of wild beasts afterward became a sacred temple and a habitation of Saints. And for a long time they remained hidden in the cave. No one came to them, nor did anyone share with them anything necessary for their use; but they were nourished, as they could, solely by the herbs that grew nearby. He lives on herbs. But when God could no longer endure that their virtue be hidden (for how should the benefit of a closed garden or a sealed fountain be lost to many?), but rather wished them to be a cause of salvation to others as well, and a rich and common good -- He used this plan and providence toward them.

[13] Certain of the shepherds of Lazarius once brought their sheep to the torrent, he is discovered by shepherds: and having cast their gaze into the cave, they saw the monks perched above them. Frightened by the sudden and unwonted sight, those shepherds immediately took to their heels and fled. But the monks, most aptly removing their fear, said in the kindest and gentlest voice they could: "Do not be afraid, brothers, do not be afraid. For we too are men, even though on account of our sins we have resolved to inhabit this present place." Then the shepherds dared to climb up to them, and entering the cave in which they dwelt, finding nothing of those things that are useful for the body, they departed in great wonder and disclosed all to their own people. After that, the inhabitants of Lazarius never ceased to minister to them he receives necessities for living from the Lazarians: the things that were needed, God wisely and kindly dispensing that they should have what they needed for the body's use, and that they in turn might give to those who supplied them what is far better -- namely, the salvation of the soul.

[14] When the inhabitants of Pharan also had inquired about them and learned where they dwelt, they came to them continually. He admits other companions: And first two of the Brethren, Marinus and Lucas, came to them and did not return again; but captivated by their words and virtue, as by certain sirens -- but by no means deceitful ones -- they gave themselves over to them as to fathers and healers of souls. When the great Euthymius had received them with open arms, he so finely taught them the discipline of monastic training that these men also, in the time that followed, became renowned in the places around the village of Metopa, and built monasteries, and led the great Theodosius -- who was the chief and founder of the cenobitic monasteries in the wilderness -- to monastic perfection. When such fame of Euthymius spread in every direction in a short time, many flowed to him daily, as if moved by some fragrance of ointment; and each of them begged to be allowed to dwell with him and to live under his guidance and compose his soul, he places Theoctistus over them: and to be taught spiritual things. But he, wishing to possess the pure and unmixed good of quiet and silence, entrusted the entire care of those who came to the Blessed Theoctistus. And Theoctistus, who never refused to obey him, immediately received the charge and administered all things according to the mind of Euthymius.

[15] Then they were also engaged in building a place to dwell, he builds a monastery: and they had in mind to establish a Laura in the cave, after the pattern of Pharan. But the ruggedness of the place, and the fact that it was nearly impassable, did not allow any Laura to be established there. Instead, at the very entrance of the precipice they built a monastery for the Brethren, and converted their own cave into a church. In this church, sitting in quiet and silence, the great Euthymius was a healer of souls and a most skilled physician of those wounds and injuries which they receive from vices and which often afflict them grievously. He heals the souls of his men: For the Brethren came to him daily, not hesitating to lay open their thoughts to him, and he gave to each one a remedy suited to his affliction -- which he had gathered from experience, prudence, and an excellent science of discernment; so much so that in him was nearly fulfilled that word of the divine Jeremiah: "I have set you as a tester of my people; and while you test, you shall know their way." Jeremiah 6:27.

[16] Indeed, he often admonished them paternally and discoursed with them in common, saying that those he instructs them with counsels: who renounce the world and the things that belong to the world ought everywhere to attend to obedience and humility, and not to follow their own will, and always to hold death before their eyes, and to shudder at punishment and desire the kingdom of heaven; and to devote themselves at all times to labors and the craft and work of their hands -- especially if one is young and whose appetite and impulse are stirred by his age. For then it is necessary, besides his other safeguarding, to exercise the body also with much affliction, so that it may obey reason and the fervor of youth may flag; and that, as imitators of Paul he teaches that idleness must be avoided, and fulfillers of his divine laws, we may not only avoid the crime of idleness -- since he does not even judge him worthy of food who is so dull and negligent: "For the idle man," he says, "let him not even eat" -- but also have the same hands as he. 2 Thessalonians 3:10; Acts 20:34. "For these hands," he says, "have ministered to me and to those who were with me." For it is absurd that men who live in the world should feed their wife, children, and entire household by the labor of their own hands, and that annual tribute should be paid by them, and that they should even give to God the first-fruits of their labors and do good according to their means, while we do not even share with others the fruit of our own hands.

[17] Moreover, these precepts of his also are worthy silence must be kept in the church and the refectory. of being committed to memory. He urged them to embrace honorable silence in the temple of the Lord, and in the assembly of the Brethren to say nothing at all while the sacred mysteries were being performed; and also not to let loose the tongue when the Brethren were gathered for supper in the dining hall, but to remain in the same silence in both places. He was displeased that certain of the Brethren, and especially the young, displayed to the rest a fasting greater and more public than the norm, and broke the common rule of the Brethren by following their own will and law. For he did not wish the good to be trumpeted What is the best abstinence. or to be open and public, but rather to be hidden as much as possible. And therefore he said that the best abstinence was that which forestalls satiety and restrains food while we are still in need -- which is indeed to take somewhat less nourishment than is necessary -- and to resist secretly the affections of the flesh, and to be securely armed on every side with the weapons of monks. And these are: kindness, moderation, meditation, discernment, obedience that comes from God, and the virtue that truly imitates God. With such doctrine from that most sweet tongue the Brethren were daily nourished.

(a) Year of Christ 411.

(b) Greek: Angelon katoiketerion -- "a dwelling-place of Angels."

(c) Palladius mentions this Lazarius in the Lausiac History, chapter 103. The inhabitants of Lazarius are called Lazariotae below at no. 132.

(d) Ortelius conjectures that it might be somewhere around Arabia, but he had recourse to this needlessly, since they remained in the desert of the Holy City and did not cross the Jordan.

(e) We have treated of him on January 2.

CHAPTER IV.

The Conversion of Aspebetus, Duke of the Tribe, Son of Terebon, and His Family.

[18] Our narrative now begins to proceed to the affairs of the elder Terebon. All these things were narrated to me by all the elders with a concordant voice; but more accurately by that Terebon who was the grandson of this elder Terebon, and who presided over a tribe among the Saracens, and among them left the greatest name for renown. But we must begin the narrative from a higher starting point, so that the account may be more easily understood by us. There was among the Persians a certain Greek named Aspebetus, who had been the Duke of a Saracen tribe. When, toward the end of King Yazdegerd's reign, a persecution was stirred up by the Magi against the Christians -- those men, reckoning that this must be their great endeavor, Yazdegerd persecutes the Christians: to hunt down all Christians -- appointed all the tribal chieftains among them, including Aspebetus himself, to guard all roads diligently, so that no Christian might be able to flee secretly to the Roman Empire. This Aspebetus, therefore, seeing such an onslaught and madness against the Christians, Aspebetus favors them, and moved by compassion for their calamity, not only did not prevent them from fleeing, but also gave them a helping hand. For this reason he was accused before King Yazdegerd, and fearing the king's cruelty, he immediately took his possessions, his family, and his son Terebon and flees to the Romans: and defected to the Romans. When Anatolius received them -- for he was then one of the Prefects of the East -- he settled Aspebetus in Arabia and delivered into his hands the command of the Saracens who were subject to the Romans in that region, he is placed over a Saracen tribe, thus openly showing that his reception was sincere and free from all deceit.

[19] When he had thus come over to the Romans, his son Terebon, who was still a youth and indeed truly a boy, had been struck by the scourge of a demon, so that the right side of his body was half withered and like dead matter, and could not function at all. This condition extended from his head to his feet; and so, although his father had spent the greater part of his resources on physicians, he brings his half-withered son Terebon to Euthymius: Terebon received no help from their art. After they had moved to Arabia, the boy saw something in his sleep; and, awakened by the vision, he told it to his father. His father immediately took the boy and many of the barbarians who were under his command and came to the cave of Euthymius and Theoctistus. For the vision that had appeared to him commanded him to go there. When the Brethren saw so great a multitude, distress and fear seized their hearts, and they did not know what would become of them. But the Blessed Theoctistus, having cast that fear from his mind, approached the barbarians with bold heart and asked what need had brought them there. "We have come," they said, "to see Euthymius." But the Blessed Theoctistus said: "He is now at rest and in silence, and does not come into anyone's sight until Saturday, nor does he converse with anyone." Then Aspebetus, taking the hands of Theoctistus, showed him his son, who was half-withered and whose right side was as though dead. Then he also nodded with his brows to his son. And the boy, beginning, narrated the whole matter in order.

[20] "When I," [to whom Euthymius had previously appeared, condemning the vanity of superstitions and magical arts,] he said, "had received this plague in Persia, having been ground down by many arts both of medicine and of magic, I received no further benefit from them, except only that I condemned them and could by no means place great confidence in them. Then, after we came to this region of Arabia, here too I continued to wrestle with my former calamity and was vexed by similar ills. One night, thinking by myself and considering whether I might find any deliverance anywhere from this disease -- since I saw no cure for the evil among those around us -- I spoke thus with myself: 'O Terebon, where now are the medical and magical arts so renowned among the Greeks and the Persians, and the trifles that are in them, and their vaunted usefulness? Where are the tricks of the astrologers, the fables of our superstitions, and the useless invocations? All are in truth manifest frauds and mockeries, which can accomplish nothing, I say, without the Creator and Lord of all.' When I had said and reasoned thus with myself, I most earnestly prayed to God and asked of Him deliverance from my disease, and in return I promised Him a change of life and pledged that I would become a Christian.

[21] "Meanwhile, while these things were happening and I was thus supplicating God, being gradually drawn into sleep, Euthymius appeared to him, I seemed to see a certain monk, with a shaggy beard hanging down, who was already growing old and sprinkled with grey, asking me what the disease was and inquiring what evil had befallen us. When I showed him the disease, he said: 'Will you fulfill all that you have promised to God?' Then, when I had again promised that I would fulfill all things with a ready and eager spirit, he said: 'I am Euthymius, and promised healing, who dwell in the eastern wilderness, in the torrent near the road that leads toward Jericho, ten miles distant from Jerusalem. If you wish therefore to find the resolution of your evil, come to me, and God will heal you through us.' When I had seen these things in my sleep and was awakened, I immediately told my father, and behold, having set all things aside, as the vision commanded, we have now come here. And we earnestly and insistently beg you to show us the one who was revealed to us through the vision -- the truly divine and admirable physician."

[22] When the Blessed Theoctistus had heard these things and marveled at the vision as a manifest sign of God's grace, he interrupted the quiet and silence of Euthymius and recounted to him all things in order: the boy's disease, the lack of a physician, the promises made by him to the common Lord, that sleep, the vision shown; and, to say it all at once, he narrated each particular. Euthymius, having himself also been persuaded that this affair was guided by some divine plan, which he bestows by prayer and the sign of the Cross, immediately descended to the barbarians; and having prayed earnestly for the boy and made the sign of the Cross over him, he had no need of any further time, nor of persevering longer in prayer, but immediately made him well and perfectly sound.

[23] The barbarians were astonished at what had been done, and more quickly than the body of the one who had been ill, and converts his companions to the faith, their souls too were healed; or rather, they all received the healing of their souls together and immediately became believers. Wherefore, falling prostrate upon the ground, they begged that holy soul that they might be sealed with the sign of Christ and obtain the portion and name of Christians.

[24] It was by no means fitting for a pious and God-loving man to hesitate in matters of this kind. And so Euthymius showed no hesitation in these things. But seeing that they were seeking the sacred baptism with their heart rather than their lips, he ordered a small pool to be made in a certain corner of the cave, which indeed stands to this day. He baptizes them; Having said the prayers that are customary and performed everything that the law requires in these matters, he first baptized Aspebetus, naming him Peter; then Maris, the brother of Aspebetus's wife -- both illustrious in birth and distinguished by wealth, or rather adorning their wealth with wisdom and virtue, or rather using their very riches as a cause and instrument for the exercise of virtue -- then Terebon, and after him the rest. Having kept them with him for forty days, and having admonished and carefully taught them piety and religion, and in every way made firm and stable the things that pertain to salvation, he dismissed them in peace -- but no longer as Hagarenes or Ishmaelites, but as descendants of Sarah and certain heirs of the promise through divine baptism.

[25] Maris, who was the uncle of Terebon, no longer wished to look back, among them Maris, his uncle, who soon becomes a monk, nor did he any longer endure at all to depart from the monastery. But having consecrated all his possessions to God and made little of whatever things are in the world, nor deeming any worldly desire worthy of his noble and exalted spirit, he clung to God alone and resolved to live under him for his entire life, using him as a great guide and teacher.

(a) The birth of this man is indicated below at no. 62. He was the Hegumen of the lower monastery of St. Theoctistus.

(b) Beyond what is reported about him in this chapter, he is treated again at nos. 62, 78, and 97.

(c) This man was soon called Peter in baptism, and then, being very fully instructed in the dogmas of the Christian faith, was made Bishop of the Saracens, no. 39, and attended the Synod of Ephesus, no. 55.

(d) Marcellinus in his Chronicle, under the Consulship of Theodosius IX and Constantius III: "A persecution raged against the Christians in Persia." This was in the year of Christ 420. Theodoret, book 5, chapter 38, says: "At the same time" (when Theodotus succeeded Alexander as Patriarch of Antioch, which we stated on January 8 in the Life of St. Atticus to have taken place in the year of Christ 420, and this is here confirmed) "at the same time, therefore, King Yazdegerd of Persia stirred up a persecution against the Churches; or rather, as he grew enfeebled by old age and illnesses, the Magi stirred it up." This was atrociously propagated by Yazdegerd's son Bahram; for this reason Socrates (book 7, chapter 18) and Nicephorus (book 14, chapter 19) describe Bahram as the author of the persecution.

(e) These Magi counted the elements, and especially Fire, among the gods. They stirred up this persecution, driven to madness because St. Abdas had destroyed a pyrethion, or fire-temple, as we shall relate on May 16, and as Theodoret and Nicephorus narrate.

(f) This Anatolius is called Dux Orientis by Procopius (book 1 of the Persian War), but Praetor Orientis by Theophanes (book 14, chapter 8). He was sent as an ambassador by Theodosius to Bahram, King of Persia, when he had made war against the Roman Empire.

(g) After the death of St. Theoctistus, this man became the Hegumen of this monastery, as below at no. 102.

CHAPTER V.

Flight into the Wilderness of Ruban, then into Ziphon. Another Monastery Built.

[26] Euthymius heals many sick persons: When the miracle had been spread through many parts of the wilderness, many who were suffering from diseases and sicknesses flowed to the divine Euthymius from every direction; and thus, receiving their healing without charge, readily and easily, they returned joyful. Wherefore he so quickly became famous throughout the entire wilderness that not even all Palestine could contain his name, but it passed also to the surrounding prefectures and was greatly celebrated in them. What might have been a source of pleasure to others he plans flight to another place: came very much to Euthymius's mind to resent and bear with difficulty -- not only because he shunned human glory, but also because he remembered his former quiet and silence, and how he had been inseparable from it and alien to all tumult. And therefore he resolved to withdraw secretly to Ruban. Theoctistus dissuading, he defers it.

[27] But the divine Theoctistus, having somehow perceived the plan he was contemplating and having signified this to the Brethren, both gathered them all together and offered up common and urgent prayers that he would have mercy on their desolation, and would not so despise the flock which he himself had established -- a flock which after his departure was to be pitifully torn apart by the common enemy of all. This he said and persuaded him not to depart for the present, nor to leave them.

[28] He goes into the wilderness of Ruban: But when afterward the love of quiet and silence assailed him more vehemently, and he knew not what to do, taking with him a certain companion whose name was Domitian -- a native of Melitene, and no negligent lover of virtue -- he departed with him, with no one having perceived it, and came to the wilderness of Ruban, which inclines toward the south, near the Dead Sea. And then he ascended a certain high mountain, remote from other mountains, which is called Marda, "passing over to the mountains like a sparrow," as the divine David says, and "fleeing the bow of sinners." Psalm 11:1. On this mountain, having found a well and ruined buildings lying on the ground, he raised up a church and erected an altar -- which indeed stand to this day -- and there he spent some time, he raises a church on the mountain: procuring from the herbs that grow there what was necessary for the body, and using them as though they were a splendid table.

[29] Then, when a certain thought entered him of going into the wilderness of Ziphon, which is near the village of Aristobulias (to see, I say, those caves which once received David when Saul was pursuing him), he obeyed it. 1 Samuel 24:1. Having arrived, he withdraws into the wilderness of Ziphon: and the place having pleased him, he built a monastery there. But to pass over the reason for the building of this monastery would be a loss to the pious.

[30] A demoniac, calling out his name, The son of a certain man in the village of Aristobulias was gravely ill and tormented by an evil spirit. While he was thus suffering and being tormented by the savage demon, he cried out the name of Euthymius in a loud voice -- indeed he cried out of himself, not of his own will, but the one who exercised tyranny over him was openly compelled to do so. His parents therefore and those related to him by kinship, seeing that he constantly had the name of Euthymius on his lips, especially when that accursed spirit attacked him more violently, went about asking who this Euthymius was and were greatly concerned to learn something about him. They did not labor long in this inquiry (for his fame and name had already filled the world), and they heard that he was between Parabarichos and Aristobulias. Taking the boy, they immediately went to him. But when Euthymius became visible to the youth while they were still far off, the spirit dwelling in him, as though sensing beforehand the operation of the good Spirit dwelling in Euthymius, looked to flight -- not unlike timid and faint-hearted enemies who do not even wait for armed soldiers still approaching them but withdraw before they engage in battle. He frees him from a distance. And so, having suddenly convulsed and torn the youth, the demon vanished. For it was fitting that evil should do evil, and that its departure should be shown to be furious and disturbed. After it had departed, the man was seen to be modest and of sound mind, showing that the preceding storm and heavy waves had belonged to another, not to himself.

[31] When the miracle had quickly pervaded the entire wilderness, from Aristobulias itself A monastery is built for him. and the surrounding villages, they flocked to him in great numbers and built a monastery for him, in which many pious and religious persons resolved to remain, with God providing them from above with what was necessary for the body's use.

[32] Not only were those beasts that are perceived by the mind -- I mean the malignant spirits -- He dwells unharmed among wild beasts: thus subject to him, but also, living among those beasts of sense, both carnivorous and venomous, in the wildernesses, and having familiarity with them, he never suffered any treachery from them, nor received any harm. Let no one think that these things are not to be believed, who knows how invincible is the power of the good Spirit, and how it can easily do all miracles. To what I say, the sea bears witness, which is cleft by a staff, and the sun which is halted by a mere command and prevented from advancing further, the fire which is changed into dew, and whatever other miracles have been wrought beyond expectation.

[33] Another event also took place in that wilderness of Ziphon, worthy of the mind of its author Euthymius and of perfect piety. For having found certain persons who labored under the madness of Mani, he converts certain Manicheans, and whose disease was always increasing because no one came who was capable of curing it, he devoted himself to visiting those who were so gravely ill and offered himself as their most apt physician. He attacked them with such art, and so truly caused them to depart from the disease (which is the same as saying, from the heresy), that they openly renounced Mani himself their father, subjected him to a clear anathema, and themselves became a part of the Apostolic and Orthodox faith.

(a) This man was henceforth his inseparable companion for more than fifty years, and departed this life on the seventh day after his death, as will be clear from what follows, especially chapters 18 and 19.

(b) St. Euthymius frequently went into this wilderness of Ruban, below at nos. 77, 84, 95, where it is joined to the wilderness of Cutila. Into this same wilderness of Ruban, SS. John the Silentiary, Sabas, Gerasimus, and Quiriacus also withdrew, as their Acts indicate. John Moschus mentions this wilderness in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 167. From Ruban, St. Sabas passed directly to the river Jordan. Wherefore we strongly suspect the wilderness of Ruban to be the desert in which Christ fasted for 40 days and nights, which is called by more recent writers the Desert of Quarantana. Adrichomius in the tribe of Benjamin, chapter 97, and Quaresmius, book 6, pilgrimage 6, chapter 12, may be consulted; the latter reports from various sources that monks, following the example of Christ, formerly used to do penance there.

(c) It is a mountain near the Dead Sea, called Mardes, "very lofty," says Moschus, chapter 158. It seems to be called the Mountain of Quarantana, to which Christ was taken by the tempting devil. On this, see Quaresmius above.

(d) Moschus, a contemporary of Cyrillus, testifies that in his time it was inhabited by anchorites. And Boniface, an eyewitness, reports through Quaresmius that innumerable bodies of holy anchorites are found there, so intact that not even a hair is missing from the head.

(e) The same Moschus writes that there was a garden of the anchorites at the foot of the mountain, near the shore of the sea.

(f) That wilderness is called Engaddi in 1 Kings (1 Samuel) 24, in whose cave David cut off the edge of King Saul's cloak. It is in the tribe of Judah, and is about six miles from Bethlehem and about seven from the Dead Sea, as Quaresmius observes (book 6, pilgrimage 3, chapter 10). And Adrichomius states above that the Desert of Quarantana extends as far as the desert of Thecua and Engaddi.

(g) Quaresmius testifies that two caves still exist, 24 palms wide and about 50 long. In one of them he says he observed a particular hollow, in which he believes David lay hidden.

(h) Greek: "Between Parabarichos and Aristobulias."

(i) Quaresmius testifies that near the caves the foundations of a building still survive, and a cistern.

CHAPTER VI.

Withdrawal to a New Cave. A Laura Built.

[34] When here too he again saw many flocking together (for the wilderness itself was surrounded on all sides by villages, Intending to return to the former monastery, and the treasure that resided in him summoned the lovers of these spiritual and heavenly riches), taking his disciple Domitian again, he returned to the Brethren and the Blessed Theoctistus -- a return no less desired by their eyes than water in summer by those who suffer from great thirst. But when he had come to a certain place that was three miles distant from the monastery, and had found it well suited he remains in a nearby cave, -- whether one considers the nature and position of the place, or its climate, since it was refreshed by the most pleasant and serene air and was in every way quiet and tranquil -- he entered with his disciple a small cave there and took up his abode in it.

[35] When the divine Theoctistus learned of his arrival, he could no longer contain himself but set out to him, driven by a vehement desire. Having gladly both seen and been seen, and having embraced him spiritually, he did not wish to be separated from him, bound by the inescapable bonds of love and held fast by the unerring charms of Euthymius. He therefore begged him to come down to the monastery and the Brethren and live a common life and train together with them. But Euthymius, held by a great love of quiet and silence, did not grant this to Theoctistus; On Sundays he comes to the synaxis. but he promised that he would come to him each Sunday and would also be present at the synaxis.

[36] When his arrival had been made known somehow to Aspebetus, who was afterward surnamed Peter, one could immediately see a multitude of Hagarenes gathered together. For having assembled many of them of every kind and every age, since he himself had first tasted the good He baptizes many Saracens converted by Duke Peter. and was eager that they too should partake of the sweetness, he came to Euthymius. Euthymius, greatly rejoicing that he had brought them, having looked upon them with cheerful eyes and according to custom blessed them, led them to the Brethren and the monastery. Then, having baptized and instructed them there, and having spent seven days with them from that time, he no longer deemed it tolerable to dwell with many. But captured, as we have said, by a great desire for quiet and silence, he returned again to his accustomed solitude.

[37] At whose expense a cistern, cells, and a church are built for him: When therefore Peter saw him homeless and sitting destitute in the wilderness, in return for the greatest benefits -- baptism, I mean, and salvation -- rendering a modest enough thanks, he summoned builders at great cost and dug a large cistern with two openings in the garden, which remains dug to this day. He also built a bakery near the cistern and constructed three cells for Euthymius. Among these he also raised an oratory, so that Euthymius lacked nothing of those things that pertained to daily use.

[38] The multitude of the Hagarenes, however, who, as I previously said, had been baptized by him, always desiring to drink from that most sweet stream -- which was clearly the tongue of Euthymius -- He assigned a village to the converted Hagarenes, no longer endured even the slightest separation from him, but vehemently insisted on remaining with him and receiving the delights and water of life -- namely, his prayers. But he, preserving for himself the inseparable good of quiet and silence, did not allow them to abide there. Instead, having led them elsewhere, and having marked out for them a church and dwellings (the place is between the two monasteries), he ordered them to build these according to the figure and size of the plan, and to dwell in them. Having built houses for themselves in that place and persevered there from that time on, the great Euthymius came to them regularly and always visited them to see how they fared. For he knew what profit he derived from this; nor did he cease doing this until he had purified and trained their souls, he appoints a Priest, and caused them to be subject to a Priest and Deacons. Wherefore they willingly remained there -- not only those who had been baptized first, but also many others from among those who came to him daily and were baptized.

[39] When therefore the children of Hagar were multiplying so greatly and being brought to true nobility and growing into diverse bands, the divine Euthymius sent word to Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem, requesting that a Bishop be ordained for them. Juvenal sent to him Peter, the father of Terebon, as being fit to preside over souls and lead them to salvation. Peter was thus the first to be ordained Bishop of the encampments He procures Peter to be given as their Bishop. that were in Palestine. The multitude of the Saracens, like the streams of rivers, flowed continually: and those who now came were added to the former ones; and all of them, sealed with the sign of baptism, were numbered with the flock of Christians. But concerning these matters, what has been said is sufficient. Our discourse must now be directed to the point from which we digressed to relate these things.

[40] The great Euthymius had not in mind to build either a monastery Three Brethren come to him. or a Laura at all in that place. Therefore whenever some came to him, whether renouncing the world or bringing some things necessary for bodily use, they were sent on by him to the Blessed Theoctistus. But when now the divine providence from above wisely ordained that this wilderness should be inhabited, knowing well what was to come -- namely, that this would be a cause of salvation for many -- there came to him three men, brothers according to the flesh, who were offshoots of Cappadocia, raised in Syria, where they had trained themselves in virtue and learning: Cosmas, Chrysippus, and Gabrielius. But he, doing as he was accustomed, did not admit even these, openly alleging their youthful age and the mutual desire of nature, which is also wont for the most part to undermine the constancy of spiritual training, and especially because Gabrielius was still an adolescent and beardless. He is commanded from heaven to admit them: For these reasons he was entirely unwilling to admit them. But that night someone came to him in a dream, commanding him to receive the brothers: "For they have been sent," he said, "by God Himself; and henceforth be ready to receive anyone who comes and wishes." In the morning, therefore, having received that beautiful brotherhood and family, as the vision had commanded, he does not permit the handsome younger one to go outside the cell: he said to Cosmas (for he was the eldest in age among the brothers): "I have done as God commanded me and admitted you here. Now it is fitting that you keep the younger brother Gabrielius within the cell and by no means permit him to go out. For it is a very dangerous and treacherous thing for the eyes of others to behold a feminine-looking appearance that is so smooth and polished." Then he also disclosed to him some of the things that were to come: "I do not think," he predicts the future, he said, "that you will live here a long time, but the governance of the Church at Scythopolis will soon be entrusted to you." These things indeed were done on the occasion of their reception.

[41] He admits many others. After these, he then permitted all who wished to enter, and was from that time most ready to receive them. For he received a certain Domnus, who had set out from the city of Antioch and was a cousin of John who presided over that Church. He also received three others, brothers by birth, Melitenes by homeland, relatives of that Synodius who had reared Euthymius together with Acacius. Their names were Stephen, Andreas, and Gaianus. After them, John also, a Priest from Raitho, and Anatolius, and Thalassius. Then also a certain Cyrion from Tiberias, who was himself also a Priest of the temple that is built at Scythopolis for the Martyr Basil. Having received these, he encouraged Bishop Peter to build small cells for them and skillfully adorn a church for them; and so in a short time he established a Laura there, He founds a Laura, which was in no way inferior to the one at Pharan.

[42] Then Juvenal the Patriarch himself also, having taken with him St. Passarion, who was then the Chorepiscopus, and Hesychius the Priest, came to the Laura and dedicated the church that was there, when Euthymius had been born fifty-two years. He also ordained as Deacons Domitian and Domnus, whose church is dedicated by Juvenal of Jerusalem, since John and Cyrion had been raised to the rank of Priests. On account of these things the great Euthymius rejoiced and had a soul full of tranquillity, especially because he saw Passarion with the Patriarch and the divine Hesychius -- who were distinguished in the remaining choir of those who practiced the ascetic life -- dwelling in the Laura. But the holy Passarion, having not yet spent seven months from that time, departed from this life in a deep old age.

(a) Concerning his death and the time of his Patriarchate, see below at no. 96.

(b) Greek: Episkopos ton parembolon, "Bishop of the encampments," the form in which he subscribed to the Synod of Ephesus in the year of Christ 431. Peter, parembles, Bishop of the camps, castrametations, or tents. See what is said concerning the customs of the Saracens on January 14 by St. Nilus in the history of the massacre of the Sinai Fathers.

(c) The acts, virtues, and death of these men have been inserted by Cyrillus into this history, especially at no. 103.

(d) Below at no. 57 he is reported to have been made a Priest and guardian of the Holy Cross at Jerusalem; and at no. 103, Bishop of Scythopolis.

(e) Below at no. 60: the Oeconomus of the Laura, guardian of the Holy Cross, first in the Laura no. 87, then at Jerusalem no. 103; famous for his writings.

(f) A Priest, founder of a new monastery, distinguished for his miracles, no. 103 and elsewhere.

(g) This man succeeded his uncle John in the Patriarchate of Antioch. On both, see below chapter 9.

(h) Below at no. 57, he was made Bishop of Iamnia; he was present at the Synod of Chalcedon in the year of Christ 451.

(i) He was the Hegumen of the monastery of St. Mennas, as stated at no. 87.

(k) Below at no. 97, he is appointed Bishop of Medaba.

(l) He is called Bishop of the Saracens below at no. 72; he attended the Synod of Chalcedon. On Raitho, see January 14.

(m) Anatolius the Priest received St. Quiriacus as a guest in the year of Christ 465.

(n) Another Thalassius from this one is venerated on February 22, the spiritual father of St. Limnaeus. See chapter 22 of Theodoret's Philotheos.

(o) Scythopolis, formerly Bethshan, on the borders of Judaea and Galilee, near the exit of the river Jordan from the Lake of Gennesaret, receding slightly southward from Tiberias. It is mentioned frequently below. Scythopolis, a city. To which Martyr Basil a temple was there consecrated, we have not yet read; we shall treat of several Basils elsewhere in this work. Concerning the temple of St. Procopius the Martyr and the basilica of St. Thomas the Apostle in the same city of Scythopolis, Cyrillus -- a native of that city -- treats in the Life of St. Sabas.

(p) St. Passarion. St. Passarion is mentioned again at nos. 60 and 74; and St. Sabas is said to have been received as a guest in the monastery of St. Passarion at Jerusalem. On which day he is venerated, however, we do not recall having read.

(q) Photius in his Library, section 269, cites an encomium by Hesychius the Priest of Jerusalem on the Blessed Thomas. In section 275 he also writes that he read works by the same Hesychius on James the Brother of the Lord and David the God-ancestor. An epideictic oration of Hesychius, Priest of Jerusalem, on St. Andrew the Apostle, Hesychius, Priest of Jerusalem, an ecclesiastical writer; translated by Charles Fabianus, was published at Lyon by Thomas Galletus, and thence in the Library of the Fathers at Cologne (volume 15, i.e., in the Supplement). Two sermons of Hesychius, Priest of Jerusalem, on the Blessed Virgin survive in the Library of the Fathers in the threefold Parisian edition and the Cologne edition. Finally, Rabanus Maurus in his prologue on Leviticus, addressed to Freculphus, Bishop of Lisieux, writes thus: "I found this book quite fully expounded by the venerable Presbyter of Jerusalem, Hesychius" -- from whom Rabanus himself collected much, as the Glossa Ordinaria on Leviticus states in its preface. It survives in print at Paris, and in volume or century 7 of the Library of the Fathers (Cologne edition). He also wrote commentaries on Ezekiel, which he mentions in his preface on Leviticus, and likewise on the Epistle to the Hebrews, as Sixtus of Siena notes in his Bibliotheca Sancta, book 4. By him Hesychius is said to have been a hearer and disciple of the Blessed Gregory Nazianzen the Bishop, and to have flourished under the Emperor Honorius around the year of the Lord 400. All of which we judge to apply precisely to this Hesychius; and therefore Euthymius, seeing him in the company of Passarion and other illustrious men in the Laura, rightly rejoiced. Different from this Hesychius is the one in Moschus, chapter 46: the Blessed Isychius, Priest of the Church of Jerusalem, who afterward succeeded Amos as Patriarch of Jerusalem in the year of Christ 601, according to the calculation of Baronius, no. 14; he died in the year of Christ 609, and St. Zacharias succeeded him, not a Bishop. as Baronius states, no. 5. There survives an epistle of Pope St. Gregory to him (Epistle 40 of Book 9, from the Register), where in all editions -- Gallotius's, Pamelius's, and Sixtus V's -- he is called Isychius; Nicephorus in his Chronicle calls him Isaacius. To this latter figure the Glossa Ordinaria, because the other Hesychius was unknown, attributed the commentaries on Leviticus; followed afterward by Possevinus, Bellarmine, Miraeus, and others -- although nowhere does he call himself Bishop or Patriarch, but frequently calls himself Priest, with which Photius, Rabanus, and the titles or inscriptions of the works agree.

(r) Year of Christ 429.

CHAPTER VII.

Provisions Divinely Multiplied. A Disobedient Man Punished.

[43] When this great and admirable Euthymius and the Brethren who were with him were pressed by a great lack of necessities in that new Laura, the providence of God did not cast aside the care of His own; and the hand He hospitably receives guests. that opens and fills every living thing with blessing was then also opened with admirable care. For it happened that a multitude of Armenians, numbering no fewer than four hundred, descending from the Holy City to the Jordan, turned aside from the road to the right, as though someone were leading the way before them, and came to that Laura -- this being wisely dispensed and governed, as I believe, by providence, so that the great virtue of that Father might become still more illustrious. When the great man saw them turn aside there to refresh themselves somewhat from the labor of the journey, he called Domitian, to whom the stewardship of that Laura had been entrusted by him, and ordered him to set a table before them. But when Domitian alleged their poverty and replied that he did not have even one day's food for the Brethren, Euthymius, relying on Him who had provided abundant nourishment to the widow on account of the abundance of her good will, ordered Domitian to go to the bread store. "For you shall know," he said, "what human calculations may intend, and what divine grace can dispense and provide beyond expectation."

[44] When Domitian immediately obeyed and went there (O Your inexplicable miracles, O Christ!), he found by some divine and wise providence the room so full of bread bread divinely multiplied, and other provisions, that it was not even easy to open the door slightly, since it was blocked by the abundance within. Having therefore called the other Brethren and together with them forced the door open, he saw what was inside -- namely, an indescribable multitude of bread, and also a great supply of wine and oil, altogether befitting the excellent generosity of Euthymius in giving.

[45] He shows that the reward of almsgiving is the increase of goods. When Domitian saw these things and concluded that it was the work of divine grace, he fell at the feet of the great Euthymius, asking his pardon and repaying his sordidness and parsimony with vehement repentance. Euthymius, extending to Domitian a kindly mind and hand and raising him up, said: "O son, he who sows in blessings shall also reap in blessings. Those therefore who offer a common roof and salt to those who come to them, unwittingly acquire for themselves a copious supply; since they do not give as much as they receive. This must be observed by you too, O Brethren, if you wish to please God and to obtain a generous supply of necessities." From this point the accumulation of goods was established by his words; the Laura began to be prosperous and flourishing, and its numbers to be increased. The number of the Brethren was brought to fifty, and for each of them a cell was built, and the sacred mysteries were celebrated daily.

[46] When the steward considered that so great a multitude of Brethren would also require a great ministry, The monk Auxentius, when he refuses the assigned care of the mules, he also procured mules for the Laura. Now there was in it a certain man, Asian by birth, named Auxentius, who was suited to serving the mules. When the Oeconomus asked him to undertake this ministry, he put it off and did not obey. Since the matter was necessary and useful, the Oeconomus, taking with him also the Priests John and Cyrion, again asked Auxentius with them. But when he still would not listen, and Saturday had now arrived -- the time when it was permitted to visit the great Euthymius -- the Oeconomus reported everything about Auxentius to him. Euthymius immediately summoned the Brother, urged him to obey and not to be so contumacious and disobedient, following his own will and refusing a ministry that was commonly useful to the Brethren. But when he had not reverenced either the exhortation or even such a man's gaze, but even so openly refused, and offered every pretext to show that his will alone was in his own power -- now alleging that he was a foreigner and unskilled in the language of that region; now the snares of the flesh and the various arts of the Evil One -- "Lest perhaps," he said, "finding me removed from your eyes, he may trip me up and work the deed of his malice; and moreover, lest, accustomed to cares and tumults, I may remain henceforth discordant and estranged from quiet and tranquillity of mind."

[47] While he said these things and put forward harm to his soul, as though that should be sufficient to move them, the great Euthymius said again: "But we shall pray to God, O son, that on account of your obedience you may not be captured by any of those things that harm." For His voice is: "I came not to be served, but to serve"; and, "I do not do My own will, but the will of the Father who sent Me." Matthew 20:28. But when Auxentius was still more irritated by these words and would by no means yield, the divine Euthymius, inveighing against him more gravely, said: he is suddenly punished with a grave illness, "We, O son, have counseled what seemed profitable for you yourself; but you, remaining in the same disobedience, will soon know what the fruit of disobedience is." John 5:30. He had not yet finished the words, and Auxentius, suffering some sudden agitation and convulsion of his body from I know not where, fell wretchedly to the ground, deserving only tears for his calamity. The Brethren who were present, moved by compassion for him because he was so pitifully afflicted, begged Euthymius, supplicated and besought him to bring aid to the fallen man, who had already paid heavy enough penalties for his disobedience. And he, in order to obey them concerning one so contumacious and disobedient, was at hand; and taking Auxentius in his own hands, still trembling and suffering punishment through nearly every member of his body, he made him rise. Then, having also applied the sign of the Cross upon him as a kind of remedy, he heals him by the sign of the Cross, he freed the man from that affliction and rendered him sound at once.

[48] When therefore Auxentius had come to himself, and his disobedience had come to mind, and he had understood the affliction that had fallen upon him, and was not unaware that it was the work of disobedience alone, he suffered greater penalties from his conscience, and a vehement repentance came over him. Indeed, he also fell at the feet of Euthymius, partly asking pardon for what he had done, partly seeking security for the future. and renders him obedient. When Euthymius immediately forgave him (for a mind that had barely at last been turned to anger -- how would it not swiftly run to compassion?) and had provided for his future through prayer, Auxentius gladly and with a ready and eager spirit took up the ministry of the mules. Thus the discipline of the Lord, to speak with the divine Scripture, both opens the ears and plainly adds understanding; and he who had offended, before he was humbled and brought low, by his disobedience, was found, after the humility and discipline he had received, to be prompt and ready for obedience. Isaiah 28:19. These things were narrated to me by Cyriacus the Anchorite -- that Cyriacus, I say, who had been tonsured from his early youth in the monastery of Euthymius; and after spending a sufficiently long time with his successors and learning accurately from them his entire training and the whole institution of his life, he afterward trained himself for nearly seventy full years in the Laura of the Old Souca, illustrious for every virtue and for the right deeds of an honorable life.

(a) On St. Cyriacus, or Quiriacus, see the prolegomena, no. 9. On his age, nos. 12 and following. We shall give his Life on September 29.

(b) By St. Euthymius himself; whose blessed hands touched his sacred head, at once both clothing him in the monastic habit and invoking upon him a more abundant operation of the Spirit. His Acts. This took place in the year of Christ 465.

(c) He was sent by St. Euthymius to St. Gerasimus because he was beardless. After the death of St. Gerasimus, he returned to the Laura of St. Euthymius in the year 475, and remained there for 10 years, as is read in his Acts.

(d) On this, see no. 2 in the prolegomena. The qualifier "of the Old" is added because of the New Laura, built not far from it.

(e) These seventy years are reckoned from his departure from the monastery of St. Euthymius: of these, he served 39 years in the Laura of the Souca; spent 10 in the wildernesses partly of Natupha, partly of Ruba; remained 7 at Susacim; 5 in the cave of St. Chariton; and again 8 at Susacim; and finally, having spent 2 years in the cave of St. Chariton, he died -- so his Acts.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Inconstancy of Maro and Clematius Corrected.

[49] The same Cyriacus also narrated to me that two of the Brethren, Maro and Clematius, wearied by the harsh and difficult life they led in the Laura, agreed between themselves to flee secretly from there and to steal away by night. This they spoke to each other and planned within themselves. Isaiah 60:19. But He who reveals secrets, and who says through Isaiah to those who are dedicated to Him: He divinely perceives the temptations of others: "The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor shall the rising of the moon illumine your night; but the Lord shall be your everlasting light" -- He Himself also revealed this to His servant. And He did so in this way: for when this great and admirable Euthymius was once resting in silence, he saw the Evil One casting a bridle upon Maro and Clematius, as though set before the Saint's eyes, and dragging them into a most grievous snare.

[50] Having immediately perceived the trap, he summoned the Brothers Maro and Clematius, persuading, admonishing, beseeching, teaching, expanding at length in a long discourse on endurance and on the need everywhere for diligent guard and caution. Then also bringing them the example of Adam and Job: of whom the one in paradise did not keep the commandment, while the other displayed every kind of virtue upon a dung heap. Nor did he pass over the point that a monk must not admit the thoughts he exhorts them to constancy, suggested by the Evil One -- whether he proposes sadness, hatred, injustice, or migration to another place -- and must not from the beginning attend to him at all, but repel and reject them with full force, lest perhaps he should craftily trip us up in our heedlessness and hurl us into a lamentable fall. And if anyone here perhaps cannot practice virtue, let him not suppose that if he goes elsewhere he will be able to do more easily and rightly what he is striving after. For the working of good comes not from the nature of the place but from the free disposition of our mind. On the contrary, this is both dangerous for monks and what can render them weak and lacking in the fruits of virtues. For not even a plant that is constantly transplanted can bear fruit.

[51] For greater confirmation of what he had said, he also narrated to them concerning certain Egyptian elders. He said that there was a certain Brother in Egypt who dwelt in a monastery: this man, being constantly stirred to anger, was carried away and disturbed, and bitterness and indignation filled his mouth. When a certain repentance came over him -- because on account of this anger and readiness to be disturbed he was waging war with himself, and was even losing whatever good he had previously acquired -- he persuaded himself to leave the monastery and live alone by himself in quiet, by the example of an Egyptian monk who rashly changed his place: since solitude would greatly conduce to his tranquillity and freedom from disturbance. For he supposed that if there were no one at whom to be angry and upon whom to use his indignation, that vehement and most quickly kindled fire of wrath would gradually be altogether extinguished, and he would henceforth be mild and gentle and full of all tranquillity and quiet. Having thus reasoned with himself, he departed from the monastery and lived alone in quiet and silence. And when once, for some need, he had filled a cup with water and wished to set it on the ground for a moment, by some art of the Evil One it was overturned. When this had happened not once but twice and three times, the Brother grew angry; and when he was overcome by the impulse of anger, he immediately threw the cup on the ground just as it was and broke it. And so he was made an even greater and more violent laughing-stock by the enemy.

[52] The one who laughs at sound advice is rebuked; At this Clematius laughed, as one whose spirit was delighted by the witty tale. But when the divine Euthymius observed this, he said: "Are you too, Brother, moved by some evil demon, that you laugh so shamelessly and so impudently, when you ought rather to weep for him who admits that one's persuasion -- if He speaks true who will then be our judge, calling blessed those who mourn, since they too, He says, shall receive consolation; but wretched those who laugh and do not attend to themselves? Matthew 5:4; Luke 6:25. And in any case, it is a mark of manifest folly and ignorance of discipline if a monk speaks beyond measure, or is moved at anything whatsoever, or uses in speaking an excessively profuse license. The Fathers also call license plainly the mother of all vices."

[53] Having thus rebuked Clematius, he entered into his inner cell; he is punished by divine action. but vengeance immediately pursued him, and falling face-down upon the ground, he was agitated with trembling and shuddering. When Domitian saw Clematius lying thus, and at the same time admired the gentleness and austerity of Euthymius -- how excellently they were tempered in him -- and was at the same time moved by compassion for what had befallen the Brother, he gathered some of the Fathers to intercede for him, and introduced them together with Maro to Euthymius. And since Euthymius was by nature inclined to mercy and by no means despised their intercession, he went with them to Clematius as he lay, and extinguished his shuddering by the sign of the Cross, he heals him by the sign of the Cross. immediately stopping the trembling and granting him perfect liberation from that affliction. "Attend to yourself," he kept saying, "and do not despise the teaching and admonition of the Fathers; but become all eyes, as we have heard of the Cherubim, looking around yourself on every side, since you always pass through the midst of snares." Having thus counseled and suggested these things to Clematius, and by his example made the others more cautious, he dismissed him in peace. But this is of such a nature; what follows next is no less remarkable, if not indeed much greater and more illustrious.

(a) Rufinus -- or whoever the author of that book -- narrates this in the Lives of the Fathers, book 3, no. 98; and Pelagius in book 5, booklet 15, no. 225.

(b) Pelagius has "a small pot." Rufinus has "a vessel."

CHAPTER IX.

Zeal for the Faith against Nestorius. Other Virtues.

[54] When the great and ecumenical Synod was then first being assembled at Ephesus, Synodius -- who with Acacius had been the teacher of this great Euthymius when he was still a boy -- after coming to Palestine to worship the venerable places, From Synodius he learns of the heresy of Nestorius, also came to the Laura, in the fifty-fourth year of the age of the great Euthymius: partly to see Euthymius himself, partly to greet his own cousins Stephen, Andreas, and Gaianus. Having seen Euthymius, he told him about the very impious heresy of Nestorius, who impiously (O justice and shame of the Priesthood!) presided briefly over Constantinople, and with his profane and corrupt doctrines disturbed nearly the entire world. He also explained to him about Cyril of Alexandria and Acacius of Melitene -- how they showed a keen and vehement zeal for the Orthodox faith -- the zeal of Cyril of Alexandria and Acacius of Melitene, and that an ecumenical Synod was soon to be assembled at Ephesus against that impious man. When these things had been said by Synodius, Euthymius was glad in heart, having heard such things about Acacius, whom he used to visit as a boy and by whom he was instructed in letters. Then, when Synodius had bidden him farewell, he departed from the Laura, taking his cousin Stephen, and went to the Holy City, and persuaded the one entrusted with the administration of the Church to enroll Stephen too among the number of his Deacons. And he ordained together with him also Cosmas the Cappadocian, and enrolled both in the choir of Deacons.

[55] [He commands Peter, Bishop of the Saracens, to assent to these things at the council.] When the bishops were already being assembled from every quarter for the Council, and the bishops of Palestine were also soon to convene there, the great Euthymius commanded Peter, Bishop of the Saracens, to join Cyril of Alexandria and Acacius, Bishop of Melitene, and to declare that whatever seemed right to them, he too would assent to. When the Council was concluded, Peter returned to Euthymius and explained to him in detail everything that had occurred in it and how matters had proceeded. When Euthymius learned, among other things, of what had been done by the bishops of the East, and that John, who presided over Antioch, though he was Orthodox, had been induced to hold the same opinions as Nestorius, his heart was gravely wounded with sorrow.

[56] He foretells the repentance of John of Antioch, Domnus, John's cousin, was affected in the same way. He therefore asked Euthymius to be allowed to go to Antioch, so that he might restore his uncle, who had been led astray, and raise up one who was, as it were, already fallen. But Euthymius, foreseeing that his journey thither would be neither safe nor useful or profitable to him, said: "By no means, my son; you must not withdraw from the Laura. For he has no need of your presence. Even if he has deviated slightly from the right faith, God, who knows that his heart is rightly disposed, will Himself convert him and bring him back to what is good. And you too, my son, and what will befall Domnus, if indeed you remain perpetually in the place to which you have been called, will advance and will attain glory -- true glory, I say, which is from God, and which never fails. But if, neglecting these things and despising the thoughts of patient endurance, you attempt to depart from the Laura, you will indeed obtain the office that your uncle holds; but wicked men and impostors will take it from you again, after you have first been seduced by them through ignorance." And these things, indeed, Euthymius, who is among the Saints, said.

[57] But Domnus, not paying much heed to these instructions, departed for Antioch, and did not even bid the Saint farewell, which came to pass. nor did he in any way indicate his departure to him. When he arrived there, everything that had been foretold to him came to pass; and afterward, seized by great repentance for not having obeyed, he returned to Euthymius, tormented by deep anguish in his heart and bitterly lamenting. Juvenal, meanwhile, ordained Stephen of Melitene as Bishop of Jamnia; and Cosmas the Cappadocian he restored to the rank of the Presbyters and entrusted to him the custody of the Crosses.

[58] Euthymius was extraordinary in abstinence, silence, and vigilance, These things were related to the monk Cyriacus by Euthymius's close companions and successors. Cyriacus, moreover, disclosed everything to us: that no one ever saw him eating except on Saturday or the Lord's Day; not conversing with anyone, and in no way meeting with anyone, unless some necessity demanded that he be consulted; never lying on his side, but sometimes sitting and closing his eyes slightly, and sometimes grasping with both hands a rope that hung from some corner of the cell's roof, and thus moderately tasting a little sleep -- perhaps saying to himself that saying of the great Arsenius: "Come hither, wicked servant." For they affirmed that he was also an emulator of Arsenius -- Arsenius, I say, who educated and instructed the Emperors Arcadius and Honorius in certain paternal ways, and therefore was called by the appellation of Father by the holy Fathers, of course; and afterward was illustrious for his virtues in the solitude of Egypt.

[59] An imitator of St. Arsenius. This Arsenius, then, Euthymius most diligently imitated, and to those monks who came from Egypt and reported something of his manner of life, he gladly lent his attention, and he took care to inscribe the good deeds of that man upon certain tablets, as it were, of his own soul, and he imitated his quietude and humility and his silence; and furthermore, the humility of his clothing, the abstinence of his stomach, the watchful and attentive sobriety of his mind, and that saying of his, "Arsenius, why have you gone forth?" And his compunction -- how shall I describe it? His tears, his nocturnal vigils, his love of solitude, his avoidance of all company, and moreover his compassion, his power of discernment, his readiness and constancy in prayer, and his remarkable fortitude in all things? Now, since he so imitated the manner of his life, was he not also worthy of his charisms? Or was he worthy, but not of equal ones? By no means; rather, in truth, he even surpassed him in some respects. But leaving other matters aside for the present, we shall truthfully show how he knew and foretold future events.

(a) The Council of Ephesus was held from June 22 of the year 431.

(b) He was consecrated, as witnessed by Marcellinus in his Chronicle, Socrates, Book 7, chapter 29, and others, in the consulship of Felix and Tautus, in the year of Christ 428, on the fourth day before the Ides of April.

(c) We shall treat of St. Cyril on January 28, where more will be said about the Nestorian heresy.

(d) He is called a Saint by Baronius in his Annals. In no Martyrologies, however, have we thus far found his name. Acacius, Bishop of Melitene. His zeal shone brilliantly in the council, especially in a sermon full of the Spirit delivered before the Fathers, in which he prophesied that peace would soon come, and exhorted all to revive, take courage, and raise up their failing strength. Consult the Acts of the Council of Ephesus published by our Peltanus, volume 6, chapter 11.

(e) Juvenal.

(f) Nicephorus, Book 14, chapter 34: On the fifth day after Pentecost, Juvenal came with the Palestinian bishops. When they were thus assembling, the celebrated and great Euthymius commanded Peter, Bishop of the Saracens, as he was departing, to follow entirely the opinion of Cyril of Alexandria and Acacius of Melitene, declaring them to be pillars and pinnacles of the right faith.

(g) He, along with three other bishops, had been sent by the Council to Nestorius to urge him not to be absent from the assembly of the Council, as is read in Part 1, Act 1.

(h) How tenacious he was of that instruction is shown by these words spoken by him in the council: "I," he said, "subscribe myself as a partner to this opinion (by which the Nicene Council was approved), and I praise and approve the letter of the most holy and most sacred Cyril as one that contains right and pious doctrine." Part 2, Act 1.

(i) He stirred up a schism by convening a counter-council of 43 bishops against the Council. The acts of this, together with the Council of Ephesus, are extant.

(k) In the same year, having convened a council again, he condemned the Nestorian heresy, sending synodical letters to the Roman Pontiff Sixtus III and to Cyril of Alexandria.

(l) Domnus succeeded his uncle John upon the latter's death. He participated in the reprobated Council of Ephesus in the year of Christ 449, in the month of August. Nicephorus assigns him eight years in his Chronicle.

(m) He was condemned in the said council and yielded the patriarchate to Maximus; repenting of his action, he had sought to have his written declaration annulled, by which he had previously approved the condemnation of Flavian and Eusebius.

(n) Lipomanus and Surius have "Ismeniae," incorrectly. Better, subsequently more often "Jamnea" or "Jamnia" is expressed by them. So our Greek manuscript reads here. And thus Stephen, Bishop of Jamnia, is frequently read in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, Jamnia, an episcopal city. in which he participated. Jamnia is an episcopal city under the metropolis of Caesarea in Palestine, on the Mediterranean Sea, near Joppa, in the tribe of Dan. Consult Adrichomius there, no. 33. From this it is clear that not only in later times, as he supposed, was there a bishop in that city.

(o) We shall treat more fully of St. Arsenius on July 19.

CHAPTER X.

Predictions. Healings.

[60] Anastasius, to whom had been entrusted the custody of the sacred vessels of the Holy Resurrection, and who was a Chorepiscopus, He arranges for Anastasius to be received as a guest, and had been at once a disciple and imitator of St. Passarion, very much desired to see him. Since he was seized by so great a desire to see Euthymius, he shared that noble longing with Phidus, Bishop of Joppa, and with Cosmas, whose duty it was to guard the Crosses. And having taken them along, and also another Phidus, the nephew of Bishop Phidus (who was still young in age and had been enrolled in the choir of Lectors, and who afterward transmitted and recounted these things to the monk Cyriacus), he set out with them to the great Euthymius. When they were already near the Laura, they were as yet unknown to the others, since they had not yet arrived, but the Spirit revealed them to Euthymius by some hidden means. Immediately calling Chrysippus, the Steward of the Laura, he said: "Have ready for yourself what is necessary for receiving guests. For behold, together with your brother, the Patriarch also comes to us."

[61] [He foresees by the prophetic Spirit that Anastasius will be Patriarch of Jerusalem.] When they had now arrived, the great Euthymius, seized by a certain more divine contemplation, was conversing and discoursing with Anastasius as with the Patriarch of Jerusalem. All who were present marveled; and Chrysippus himself, also astounded, leaning toward Euthymius's ear, said: "But the Patriarch is not among us, venerable Father; this man is Anastasius, the guardian of the sacred vessels. Do you see what his clothing is?" -- pointing out his garments, which were splendid and silken -- "which," he said, "it is not fitting for the Patriarch of Jerusalem to wear." But when the elder had restrained himself for some time and, as it were, come back to himself, he said: "But believe me, my son; I saw him clothed in a white garment, such as befits a Patriarch, and I think I was not deceived. But what God has foreknown, He will also bring to its end. For His gifts are without repentance." He said these things, then, in the hearing of many, and the outcome of events followed accordingly.

[62] That Terebon, who was a Saracen by race, living with a barren wife, was not begetting children, He dissolves barrenness by the sign of the Cross. which plainly rendered his life not worth living, and was a cause of unbearable grief. And so he came at some time with his wife to the admirable Euthymius, beseeching, supplicating, doing everything that might move one to compassion, that this defect of nature might be resolved and her womb might be opened for bearing. Euthymius, having thrice made over them the sign of the Cross and then touched that stony womb, said: "Go, rejoicing in the Lord. For He grants you to be seen as parents of three sons." And they, placing their trust in his word as in the reality itself, departed full of joy. Already, moreover, the time of birth had come, and first she bore a certain Peter, the father of Terebon, who truly and openly narrated these things to the companions of Euthymius. When much time had passed after this, the truthful promise of Euthymius also gave two other brothers to Terebon.

[63] There was a brother in the Laura, a Roman by birth, named Aemilianus, [He recognizes from a foul odor that Aemilianus is beset by the spirit of fornication,] who practiced a good life and embraced modesty and self-restraint most especially from his very youth. One night, when it was the Lord's Day, the enemy stirred up a grievous war against him through the flesh. Despairing of being able to resist perpetually, he yielded and succumbed to the thoughts. Being in this condition, and besieged by that disturbance of mind, in the morning he encountered the Saint, who was coming to the synaxis. A certain foul odor emanated from him, which signified to that Great One the grave disturbance of his soul. When therefore the divine Euthymius had perceived the odor and recognized the snare, he rebuked the evil demon that was tormenting him. And immediately the brother lay on the ground, convulsing, tearing at himself, and thrashing about, and casting forth foam from his mouth.

[64] Many monks also gathered around him. When therefore the great Euthymius ordered a light to be brought, because the place was dark and gloomy, he said to them: "See the brother, O Fathers; see him who from boyhood conducted his life with virtue and had care for temperance: because he yielded a little to carnal thoughts, he now lies before us all as a pitiable spectacle. He admonishes his own to beware of base thoughts, Wherefore it behooves each one to guard his own heart with all vigilance, lest the enemy, creeping upon us through some fantasy, deceive us and cast us headlong into the pit of perdition. For if some absurd thought has been aroused in us that incites us to base desire, and we do not immediately strive to overcome it but merely admit it willingly into our mind, we shall not be free from sin: indeed, even though we do not commit fornication in body, yet we shall be judged as having already committed adultery in mind.

[65] By the example of a certain lascivious hypocrite who perished miserably; He then narrated to them something of the following sort, which he said had been told to him by certain Egyptian elders. There was a certain man in a city, held by all to be of admirable life, who was believed to have acquired great familiarity with God; but in truth, he frequently wounded himself by the hidden impulse of his heart, giving assent to wicked thoughts, so that although not in deed itself, yet in thought he easily sinned. At length he was seized by a grave illness, and now, reduced to his last breath, he was at the point of death. An immense lamentation arose throughout the city: every age mourned; all wished, if it were possible, to die in his place, deeming it better to undergo that than to witness the departure of so celebrated a man. Meanwhile, a certain contemplative man entered the city, observed the grievous and public mourning, and heard the people invoking him with wailing, crying thus: "O Holy One! O Father! O our Savior, through whose intercession before God we were to be saved! What remaining hope of salvation will be ours? What security after him?" Hearing and observing these things, he too hurried diligently to the man, impelled by the desire of obtaining some prayer or blessing from him. But when he drew nearer, he saw indeed the leading citizens, the sacred clergy, even the bishop himself, all holding torches in their hands and awaiting the funeral procession of the body. But when he had pushed aside the crowd somewhat and entered to the dying man, he found him still breathing slightly; yet he perceived with his inner eyes a spectacle both horrible to behold and grievous to hear. For he seemed to see a certain fiery trident penetrating to that man's heart and thence violently and cruelly tearing out his soul (alas!), and then to hear a voice from heaven: "Just as that soul did not allow me to rest even for a single day, so too you shall not cease to tear it apart, cruelly rend it, and torment it."

[66] When Euthymius had related these things to the brothers who were present, he then began to admonish them, urging them to be attentive and always prepared for the soul's departure. "Let this Aemilianus," he said, "be an example for us: whom God permitted to be so foully and miserably oppressed in the sight of all by the savage demon of impurity, so that you may become better and reap profit from his punishment. Let us, however," he said, He heals Aemilianus by his prayers. "pray to God that he may be delivered from such snares." And he immediately prayed for the brother. The place was at once filled with a foul odor, as of some burning sulfur; and the foul odor was followed by a voice saying, "I am the spirit of fornication," and then the brother rose up, temperate and of sound mind, so that from that very time he himself became, as the divine Apostle says, a vessel of election.

(a) This Phidus subscribed to the Council of Ephesus in the year of Christ 431.

(b) On this still-celebrated port of Palestine, Quaresmius treats at greater length, Book 4, Pilgrimage 1, chapter 1.

(c) On him, more will be said below frequently, especially in chapter 20. He finally became Bishop of the city of Doron, no. 122.

(d) The following passages are absent in Lipomanus and Surius. They have been inserted by us from the Greek manuscript.

(e) These events are asserted to have taken place not in Egypt but in the company of St. Euthymius by the Menaea and Nicephorus, above in the prolegomena, nos. 6 and 11.

CHAPTER XI.

Rain obtained from heaven.

[67] Around that time, when the land was suffering from drought because it had not rained, to the extent that the sky overhead was, as it is said, like bronze, and the earth below like iron; and the cisterns in the Laura were dry within and full of dust -- the brothers were greatly afflicted and, approaching the great Theoctistus, begged the great Euthymius (for they knew He refuses to pray for obtaining rain. how great was his confidence before God) to open the sky through his prayers and bring down water from above to those who were suffering wondrously from the drought. Deuteronomy 28:23. But he would not bring himself to do it, calling this matter God's discipline and a chastisement brought on account of sins. "For your ways," says the divine Jeremiah, "and your doings have caused these things to befall you, and therefore perhaps He will not hear me when I ask His goodness. Jeremiah 4:18. For do not pray," says the same Prophet again, "for this people, and do not make supplication for them, for I will not hear you." Jeremiah 7:16. And thus the divine Euthymius deferred asking God about this matter, on account of his remarkable modesty.

[68] But when the scourge intensified and the drought and lack of rain grew worse, and then also the surrounding villages were pressed by a more grievous necessity -- since it was the eighth day of the holy Theophany, and the appointed day had already arrived on which he used to go out into the vast wilderness -- an innumerable multitude streamed to him, bearing crosses in their hands and compelled by the concourse of the multitude, invoking "Kyrie eleison," that is, "Lord, have mercy," in the customary way, not only with the mouth but also with the lips of the heart. Moved by their entreaties, he went out to them, saying: "For my part, O children, I have no confidence before God, nor boldness to address Him freely, since I am a sinner and more than anyone else need His clemency; and especially in such a time of His wrath against us, it would be excessively audacious of me to offer prayers to God, who, as the divine Isaiah says, gives the bread of affliction and the water of distress: who will open, and none shall shut: and will shut, and none shall open. Isaiah 30:20; Isaiah 22:22. For our sins separate between Him and us. We have defiled His image, polluted His temple, served our lusts and various pleasures, clung to envy and avarice, and have become hateful to Him while we hate one another. He pours forth prayers, Nevertheless, since the Lord is kind and merciful to us, needing only an occasion, and forthwith abundantly pours out all mercy, let us prostrate ourselves as suppliants before Him and pray to Him fervently; and I know that He will pardon us and do what is His own, and decree refreshment for us, and exercise fatherly care over us. For the Lord is near to all who call upon Him, says the divine David, in truth." Psalm 145:18. While he was still speaking, they, answering as with one tongue and voice, said: "Do you yourself pray for us, O venerable Father. For the Lord surely knows how to do the will of those who fear Him."

[69] Since the divine Euthymius could not despise these things and the like, and had instructed the people to pray intently, while he himself had taken with him those monks who were present, and he obtains abundant rain: he enters the oratory with them; and casting himself upon the ground, he prayed to God with tears. And God heard the prayer, and immediately a sound of a mighty wind was heard, and the air was filled with clouds, and thunderclaps burst forth, and a violent rain fell with great force, and the earth was drenched with the flowing waters.

[70] When he had risen from the ground and shown himself to the crowds, he said: "Behold, the Lord, having heard your prayers, has visited the earth with His visitation, and drenched its furrows, and has multiplied to enrich it. Psalm 65:12-13. He will bless the crown of this year above all others, and the fields will be filled with abundance; the fair places of the wilderness will grow rich, and the valleys will abound with grain, He foretells fertility. and the hills will be girded with exultation." Having said these things, he dismissed the multitude, and the outcome of the prophecy soon followed, and the earth rejoiced, bringing forth from its depths. That violent rain indeed fell so heavily that it long prevented him from withdrawing into the wilderness. What then? Are these things sufficient from among the good deeds of Euthymius? Or shall we cause harm to pious souls if we pass over the rest of his good works? Those things, therefore, must also be narrated which John the Silentiary -- that is, both Silentiary and Bishop -- and Thallelaeus the Presbyter (who are still alive and exercising themselves in the Laura of Blessed Sabas) transmitted to me.

(a) Nicholas Serarius, our fellow Jesuit, defends the ancient practice of Litanies in his two Litaneutical treatises. "Kyrie eleison" is employed in the same manner in the Acts of St. Simeon Stylites, above on January 5.

(b) We shall give the Life of St. John the Silentiary on May 13. On Cyril's familiarity with him, see the prolegomena, no. 9; on his age, nos. 12 and following.

(c) This is Thallelaeus the Cilician, who spent sixty years in the monastic life, never ceasing to weep and continually saying: "This time has been granted to us for repentance, and much will be required of us Three Thallelaei, holy men. if we neglect it." So says Moschus, chapter 59. Different from this one is Thallelaeus the Cilician, who, a full century earlier, spent ten years of monastic life near Gabala in Syria, whom the Menaea celebrate on February 27 and Theodoret, who visited him, in the Philotheos, chapter 28; at which passage Rosweyde, no. 81, confused the two. Yet another is Thallelaeus the Martyr in the Menaea on May 20, from whose martyrdom recorded in Book 1 of the Sacred Garden, Raderus makes one person out of these three Thallelaei. But this Martyr lived under Numerian, entirely distinct from the others.

(d) Around the year of Christ 554. Indeed, he wrote the Life of St. John while he was still alive, in the year of Christ 557. See the prolegomena, no. 15.

CHAPTER XII.

Defense of the faith and of the Council of Chalcedon.

[71] For they said that this admirable man was a source of admiration to many others and also to the divine Father Sabas himself: namely, that although his moderation and gentleness were so great, he brought such zeal for the right doctrines of the Church that he was in truth at once mild and a fighter; and, to say it once for all, against all who did not think rightly, he was of great and burning zeal; but especially against the Manichaeans, He abhors heretics. and those who defend the nonsensical opinions of Origen. Since these were numerous at that time in the regions around Caesarea and came to him under the pretext of piety, he was like a lion against foxes, unconquerable in argument and impossible to withstand, powerfully crushing and suffocating them with demonstrations drawn from the divine Scriptures; and, as Jeremiah says, causing them to be confounded by their boasting, overturning and demolishing with all his strength the pre-existence and restoration that they vaunt through their fables. Moreover, against those who labored under the madness of Arius and Sabellius, he was of mighty spirit, and, as the Prophet says, he pursued them with perfect hatred.

[72] In the seventy-fifth year of the great Euthymius's life, the Council was assembled at Chalcedon, to which nearly all the bishops from every part of the world gathered. Psalm 139:22. For they were summoned to convene on account of the innovations that had been made at Ephesus -- by Dioscorus of Alexandria, I mean -- whom, together with those who defended his doctrines, they cast out from the sacred registers and set forth an accurate decree of faith. In that council, distinguished disciples of Euthymius also took part: Stephen of Jamnia and John, Bishop of the Saracens, since Peter had already departed this life; but Auxolaus, who had succeeded him, had sided with Dioscorus and had therefore (alas!) ended his life hateful to the great Euthymius. These two, then, He approves the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon: Stephen and John, when they had attended the Council, as soon as the decree of faith had been committed to writing, immediately set out on their journey and came as quickly as they could to Euthymius. For what reason? Wishing to know whether he too would consent to what had been written. For they were not a little alarmed by what had happened to Auxolaus; nor did they know whether they should assent or defer until they knew his opinion. But when he had read it and found that what was written was correct and in harmony with the right rule of truth, the report suddenly spread throughout the entire wilderness that the great Euthymius also followed the Council of Chalcedon.

[73] This would have drawn nearly all the monks to it, had not a certain Theodosius -- a monk in habit, Theodosius, the Eutychian pseudo-bishop of Jerusalem but a most troublesome impostor in character and thoroughly corrupt in mind -- come to Palestine and, having wickedly fabricated certain things about the said Council -- that it overturned the dogma of the right faith and introduced or rather recalled the dogmas of Nestorius -- captivated Eudocia, who was then dwelling in Palestine. Through her he led astray all the monks; and then he also shamelessly (O justice!) and impudently invaded the See of Jerusalem, and having obtained power by authority, he waged war against the divine canons and laws. Thence it came about that upright and moderate men were expelled from their Sees and from the sacred places, and some were even slain by him, and he polluted his wicked hands (alas!) with the blood of bishops; while malefactors and impostors and plagues and men more deserving of prisons than of Sees were appointed as interpreters of sacred things and as priests, and obtained great power with this wicked and ruinous man.

[74] But while he thus held all the monks dependent upon himself and led them wherever he wished, those alone who were followers of the great Euthymius fled his communion as though it were some crime and sacrilege. Since the impious Theodosius also attempted to win him over and summoned him to himself, while Euthymius refused even to hear his words, he again sent to him an embassy, Elpidius and Gerontius: of whom one was the successor of the great Passarion, and the other of the blessed Melania -- requesting that if he would not come to him, he abhors him, they might at least both meet at some place and discuss with each other the positions each held. But he, crying out vehemently at this, said: "Far be it from me to share communion with Theodosius, either in the unjustly shed blood of bishops or in heresy." But they said: "It is necessary, however, that you commune with Nestorius, since he too defends two natures" -- which indeed to this very day we have not accepted from anyone -- "and the Council of Chalcedon followed him."

[75] and the calumnies against the Council of Chalcedon; But the great Euthymius replied: "I have not yet considered individually everything that was decreed by that Council; but as regards the definition they set forth, I cannot find fault with what seemed right to them. For it too decrees that the opinion of the three hundred and eighteen holy Fathers who assembled at Nicaea be followed; and it urges acceptance of the Council of the one hundred and fifty Fathers who were assembled at Constantinople; and it commands that those who assembled at Ephesus against the impious Nestorius be followed; and it associates with itself Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, as one of the same opinion, and declares him to be a master of right doctrine; it freely names the holy Virgin as Mother of God, and asserts that the only-begotten Son of God was born of her; without time indeed and without a body from the Father, but in time and according to the flesh from His mother -- one Christ, He sets forth the confession of the Council of Chalcedon. who is known by us without confusion, without change, and without division in two natures; and on account of those who dare to introduce a certain division in the inexplicable and mysterious union that was effected in the hypostasis, that is, in the person, in the womb; and those who say by conversion that the flesh was made the Word of God, and assert that the flesh of the Only-begotten is of the same essence as the divinity; and moreover on account of those who do not confess that the Word was united to the flesh in the hypostasis, but by confusion and coalescence, and then also assert impiously and monstrously a 'synousiosin,' that is, a co-essential union -- who indeed say that there was one nature of the divinity and the flesh; so that, if the things they say beyond reason are considered, neither can that which pertains to Christ's capacity for suffering be preserved, on account of the impassibility of the divinity, nor that which is impassible, on account of the passibility of His humanity. Fittingly, therefore, in accordance with the purpose of this right doctrine, the phrase 'in two natures' was added to the decree by the Council: not as dividing Christ separately and by parts, but confessing the same in both, and both in the same."

[76] As Euthymius continued his exposition, Elpidius praised him He evades the wicked endeavors of Theodosius, and acknowledged that what had been said was correct, even though he did not withdraw from communion with Theodosius, and he soon showed a change. Gerontius, however, remained in the same opinion; and thus they returned, not in agreement with each other, and reported Euthymius's answers to Theodosius. When Theodosius heard these things, since he already held sway over everything in Palestine, he applied greater effort to draw him into his net; and he continually set snares for the great Euthymius, and baited him, and every day sent people to him who would urge, of course, what was good and useful -- namely, that he should depart from what had rightly and piously seemed good to him, and should agree with Theodosius and embrace his communion. But Euthymius, bearing with difficulty that they came every day, what did he do? Having convened all the brothers under him and instructed them to take diligent care that they in no way yield or assent to the wicked opinion of Theodosius, but rather stop the mouths of those who think thus and lead them to the truth as far as they were able, he now again withdrew into the vast wilderness, having caused many others also to imitate his withdrawal.

[77] There was also there a certain great Anchorite who had recently come from Lycia He departs into the wilderness. and was called Gerasimus; who, having displayed every manner of life that befits monks in his homeland, had also endured many labors against the spirits of wickedness. He, then, exercising himself well in the wilderness near the Jordan, and often striking the demons, was himself also struck, or rather tripped up, by their wickedness, and was led astray by the heretics. But since he heard from nearly all the anchorites about Euthymius and had his ears filled with what was commonly reported about him, he once came to him at Ruban; and having spent a long time in his company and drunk the most sweet stream of his tongue, He leads Gerasimus and others back to sound doctrine. he vomited out the heresy, as it were, like some disease, and returned to the sound faith, filled with great repentance for having been deceived, and chastising and punishing with the goad of sorrow his heart that had been corrupted by vain words. After him, other anchorites also followed: Peter surnamed Gournitis, and Marcus, and Julon, and Silvanus -- they too had been following the harmful communion of Theodosius.

(a) In the year of Christ 451, the Council began on October 8, and after 13 sessions was concluded on November 1. It is called the 75th year of Euthymius, when in reality it was only the 74th, because the Easterners began the year from September, and September contained the beginning of that 75th year.

(b) Six hundred and thirty.

(c) Both are read to have subscribed to Acts 1, 2, and 6, where John is called Bishop of the nation of the Saracens.

(d) This Auxolaus participated in the reprobated second Council of Ephesus and subscribed against St. Flavian together with Dioscorus. This is revealed by the Ephesine Acts, which are interwoven with the Council of Chalcedon near the end of the first Act.

(e) On this Theodosius, see Evagrius, Book 2, chapter 5; Nicephorus, Book 15, chapter 9.

(f) This man, having been detected in malefactions by his own bishop, was expelled from his monastery; and because, while he happened to be in Alexandria, he had attached himself to Dioscorus, and as a seditious person had been lacerated with many blows, placed upon a camel in the manner of malefactors, and led around the city. So says Evagrius, and Nicephorus following him.

(g) The widow of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger, about whose conversion, learning, and marriage we treated on January 8 in the Life of St. Atticus, no. 40.

(h) In order to lead a life of quietude, free from turmoil, the opposite of which she experienced, having been seduced into the Eutychian heresy.

(i) He was intruded into the See on the very feast of the Resurrection in the year of Christ 452, when Juvenal had gone to Constantinople.

(k) Among these was St. Athanasius the Deacon, of whom the Roman Martyrology treats on July 5.

(l) Among these was St. Severianus, Bishop of Scythopolis, who is venerated on February 21.

(m) Elpidius presided over the monastery of St. Passarion when St. Sabas came to Jerusalem, and was sent by him to St. Euthymius. So says Cyril in the Life of St. Sabas.

(n) This Gerontius remained exceedingly obstinate in heresy and was the leader of the rest.

(o) This is Melane, otherwise Melana and Melania the Younger, whose life we shall give on December 31, where more will be said about the monasteries, including those of men, built by her in Jerusalem.

(p) We shall treat of St. Gerasimus on March 5. His virtues are described below in chapter 15; by Moschus in the Spiritual Meadow, chapters 107 and 141; and in the Lives of St. Sabas and St. Quiriacus.

(q) Moschus, chapters 16, 17, and 18, mentions the monastery of Abbot Peter near the Jordan, but whether it is this same man, we do not determine.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Sacrifice of the Mass. Communion.

[78] When a second year had passed after these events, Theodosius departed secretly from the sight of men; During the unbloody sacrifice he is surrounded by heavenly fire: and the great Euthymius returned from Ruban to the Laura. On a certain Sabbath, he was ministering to God and offered to Him the unbloody sacrifice; Domitian stood at the right hand with that mystic fan. When the Trisagion was about to be chanted, Terebon the Saracen and Chrysippus's brother Gabrielius -- one standing nearby, the other standing between the altars -- (O great, Christ, is Your grace toward Euthymius!) beheld fire, spread out as upon a certain sheet, descending from above, and indeed the great Euthymius himself, and Domitian with him, enclosed within it; and thus it remained about them from the beginning of the Trisagion until the completion of the sacred ministry. Terebon, he says, was seized with fear and terror and withdrew from the altar, and never again rashly ventured to enter the sanctuary; but he stood in the vestibule of the church with great reverence during the synaxis, as the anchorite Cyriacus afterward narrated to me, having heard these things from Terebon and Gabrielius, who had seen them.

[79] And not this alone, but he also told me the following about Gabrielius: that he was a eunuch by nature, and after twenty-five years was then for the first time approaching the synaxis of the brothers. Furthermore, this too was reported by the Fathers: that it had been given by God to Euthymius He sees the secrets of minds. to perceive the inner movements of the soul from the outward appearance, as through a kind of mirror, and to know accurately with what thoughts each person struggled, and which ones he overcame, and by which he was overcome through the instigation of the evil one.

[80] He sees Angels performing the sacred rites with him, And they say that he also once told certain brothers who were apart with him privately that he often saw a terrible vision of Angels ministering to God alongside him and handling the sacred things, and that in the reception of the Lord's Body he saw some of those who approached being illuminated by it, Some are illuminated by the reception of the Eucharist, others darkened. while others were as though darkened and put to death -- namely, all who were unworthy of that light and splendor. Wherefore he did not cease to testify to the brothers and to admonish them most aptly with that word of the Apostle, that each one should attend to himself and prove himself, and thus with trembling take the bread and the cup, knowing well that he who approaches eats and drinks judgment upon himself who receives them unworthily. 1 Corinthians 11:28. For this very reason, as soon as the priest first offers the sacrifice, he, as it were, fortifies and bids the multitude beware, crying out to them: "Let us lift up our hearts"; and when he has received their assent, then he dares to offer the oblation.

[81] Sins must be washed away before communion. And when that too is completed, he again raises his hands to heaven and, as if showing them that the mystery has been dispensed for our salvation, proclaims aloud: "Holy things for the holy," as if someone were to say: "Since I am a man like you, subject to suffering, not knowing how each of you has lived, I therefore openly testify beforehand and suggest this common examination to your conscience: If anyone has been captive to hatred and the remembrance of injury received; if anyone to envy, or anger, or pride; if anyone to cursing, or foul speech, or wicked desire, or any other vice -- let him not approach until through repentance he has been cleansed of his offense. For these holy things," he says, "are offered not to the profane but to the holy. Whoever therefore trust in your conscience, approach Him and be illuminated, and your faces shall by no means be put to shame." But I do not know how the sweetness of the teaching of Euthymius, seizing me even against my will, has broken the sequence of what preceded and nearly caused a disorder. It is therefore necessary that you recall the narrative again to memory.

(a) For twenty months the seditious Theodosius exercised tyranny over the See of Jerusalem, and then fled to Mount Sinai. Nicephorus.

(b) Because the man himself was married.

CHAPTER XIV.

The return of the Empress Eudocia from heresy to the orthodox faith.

[82] The blessed Eudocia, then, as we have already shown, was captured by the snares of the wicked Theodosius Eudocia, deceived by Theodosius, adheres to the Eutychians, and was separated from Catholic communion, and thereafter strove with all zeal against the Orthodox. She also induced all the monks who dwelt in the wilderness and in the holy city, and persuaded them to defend and approve the same views as she held. But after justice assailed Theodosius and he was driven far away, and Juvenal recovered his See and the disturbances that afflicted the Churches were resolved, letters were frequently sent by her brother Valerius and her son-in-law Olybrius to the Empress Eudocia for this reason: that she should abandon the communion of the Eutychians and follow what had been decreed by the Catholic Church. But at first she hesitated and deferred the change; nor did she know how to relinquish the views she had adopted.

[83] But after she learned from Thrace that her son-in-law had been slain, and that her daughter and her granddaughters were in the power of the enemy Corrected by the calamities of her family, and were being led captive to Carthage -- her heart deeply wounded and deeming that her most precious losses were a recompense for her errors -- she found calamity to be a teacher of what is right. "For your own discipline," she said, "will instruct me"; and led back through it to the right and true faith, she resolved henceforth to devote herself to men of God, instructed by them and using them as guides to salvation. And so she sent Anastasius the Chorepiscopus, with certain others who attended her, to Antioch, to Simeon Kionites, that is, She sends to Simeon Stylites: the Column-dweller, who was raised much higher by virtue than by his column and was truly a wonder of the whole world, signifying to him the intention of her heart by letter and asking to receive from him in turn what his opinion was. What did he answer? "Know," he said, "that the evil one, seeing the riches of your virtues, has desired you, to sift you as wheat, She is referred to St. Euthymius: and through that pestilent Theodosius has corrupted your pious and devout soul. But be of good courage, for your faith has not failed. But it comes to my mind greatly to marvel at this: that though the fountain is near to you, you despise it and seek to draw the same water from afar. For you have the divine Euthymius, and by following his teaching, you will not stray from salvation."

[84] She summons him to herself, Having heard these things, Eudocia was not negligent or supine in the pursuit of good. But when she had at once inquired about the man and learned that he had resolved never to approach any city, she built a tower in the wilderness that faces toward the East, on a very high promontory not more than thirty stadia from the Laura. And she ascended into it so that, with nothing to hinder her, she might enjoy to the full the teaching of Euthymius. She immediately sent Cosmas, the guardian of the Cross, and Anastasius the Chorepiscopus, whom I mentioned above, to seek him. And they, bringing a zeal to obey as ardent as their commission was urgent, arrived at the Laura without delay. But having learned that he was not present but had long since passed over to Ruban, not even so did they desist from their endeavor; but, taking the blessed Theoctistus with them, they went to him and fervently entreated and besought him and at last persuaded him to come to the Tower, where the monastery of the Scholarius is now built.

[85] She prostrates herself at his feet: When the Empress Eudocia beheld him, she did not look at him lightly, but as one who thirsts for water in summer. Falling at his feet with joy, she said: "Now I know that God has visited me." But he, having imparted to her his customary blessing, said: "But you must, O daughter, henceforth be attentive to yourself and take diligent care for the future. For since you were led astray, even a little, together with Theodosius, therefore painful things have befallen you in your dearest possessions. But so that you may abstain throughout your entire life from this contention opposed to reason, you must, in addition to the three holy and ecumenical Councils -- namely, the Nicene, which assembled against Arius, and the Constantinopolitan, She acquiesces to his admonitions: which itself too was assembled against Macedonius, and the first Ephesine against Nestorius -- accept also the decree that was published by the one recently assembled at Chalcedon; and having separated yourself from the communion of Dioscorus, you must absolutely commune with Juvenal, the Archbishop of Jerusalem, and be in complete agreement with him."

[86] Having said these things, and having prayed for the Empress and then bidden her farewell, he departed. She leads many back with her to the Catholic Church. She immediately carried out in deed what had been commanded; and entering the holy city, she communicated with Juvenal and the Catholic Church and led in a great and numerous multitude of monks and laypeople, so that she served as the best example of communion just as she had been of dissension. Among these was also the Archimandrite Elpidius. For Gerontius, having preferred to grow old in evil, was a cause of destruction not only to himself but to many others as well. Two men entered upon a path similar to his and leading likewise to ruin, Marcianus and Romanus, from the company of Elpidius; and each built monasteries -- one near holy Bethlehem, the other in the village of Theocorum.

[87] And the blessed Eudocia summoned the brothers from the Laura of the guardian of the Cross -- namely, Chrysippus and Gabrielius -- and had them ordained as Presbyters. Chrysippus, having been distinguished in the presbyterate, left writings worthy to be committed to memory. To Gabrielius she entrusted the governance of the monastery of Stephen the Protomartyr. And the pious and God-loving Bassa, having summoned from the Laura Andrew, the brother of Stephen, Bishop of Jamnia, made him pastor and overseer of the monastery that had been built by her; and it had been built in the name of the Martyr Menas.

(a) Greek: Aleriou. Nicephorus mentions him, Book 15, chapter 12. Through him and Olybrius, both Patricians, Eudocia was reconciled to the Empress St. Pulcheria, of whom we shall treat on September 10.

(b) Olybrius, a prince of the Roman people, having fled from the city of Rome when it was captured by Genseric, King of the Vandals, to Constantinople, was in the court of the Emperor Marcian. Placidia, the granddaughter of Eudocia and daughter of the Emperor Valentinian by Eudoxia, the daughter of Eudocia, had then been betrothed to him. Evagrius, Book 2, chapter 7. Olybrius the Emperor. Nicephorus, Book 15, chapter 11. Olybrius then, in the consulship of Marcian and Festus, Indiction X, in the year 472, having been substituted for Anthemius in the Western Empire, died in the seventh month of his reign. Marcellinus in his Chronicle.

(c) Greek: en thrakei, an error; we emend to ek thrakes, from Thrace -- that is, she learned from Thrace.

(d) The Emperor Valentinian was stabbed by the treachery of Maximus on the Campus Martius on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of April, in the year of Christ 455.

(e) Eudoxia had summoned Genseric to Italy to avenge the murder of Maximus; by him, after the city was captured, she too was led captive to Africa with her two daughters, Rome captured by Genseric. one of whom, betrothed to Olybrius, was sent back to Constantinople with her mother in the year of Christ 462. The other, Eudocia, married to Huneric, son of Genseric, bore him Hilderic. At length, having secretly escaped, she fled to the Holy Places in the year 472, and long afterward kissed the tomb of her grandmother Eudocia.

(f) He is simply called Bishop by Nicephorus, Book 15, chapter 13, where he narrates the same events from this source.

(g) St. Simeon Stylites was treated on January 5.

(h) St. Sabas came to a certain mountain where formerly the blessed Eudocia, dwelling there, had imitated the virtues of the great Euthymius. So says Cyril in the Life of St. Sabas, from the ancient manuscript translation, which agrees with the Greek manuscript, although it is incorrectly read in Lipomanus and Surius in three editions as "she received the fruit of the teaching of the most celebrated Theodosius" -- misled by which bad reading, we had noted this above on January 11, in the life of St. Theodosius, no. 20, in the prolegomena.

(i) This was built by St. Sabas. Moschus mentions it in chapter 178.

(k) Marcianus, below at no. 123, brought the schism to an end.

(l) The end of Romanus and Gerontius in their obstinacy is narrated below at nos. 123 and 124.

(m) The Greek manuscript reads "Thekoton"; below at no. 124, "Thecorum." In the Life of St. Sabas, "Theocoum" -- from whose ruins the New Laura was afterward built.

(n) On these matters, see below, no. 103.

(o) Below, no. 99, she arranges for the dedication of the church of St. Stephen. It was not a full stadion distant from the city of Jerusalem, according to Evagrius, Book 1, chapter 22, where he is believed to have been stoned. Nicephorus, Book 14, chapter 50.

(p) Blessed Bassa was always importuning Eudocia to hold the same religious views as she did. Blessed Bassa, Abbess. So says Nicephorus, Book 15, chapter 13. Bassa was Abbess of a monastery in Jerusalem, to whom Pulcheria wrote and warned that the deceits of the pseudo-bishop Theodosius were to be avoided. That letter, rendered from Greek into Latin, is extant in Baronius, volume 6, year of Christ 453, no. 17 and following.

(q) We shall treat of St. Menas the Martyr on November 11.

CHAPTER XV.

The Novitiate of St. Sabas. The Virtue of St. Gerasimus.

[88] In the eighty-second year of Euthymius's age, the blessed Sabas approached, still a young man who did not yet have even the first down of a beard St. Sabas becomes a monk under Euthymius: to cover his cheeks, and asked to remain with him and to exercise himself in virtue under his guidance. Euthymius at first received him and entrusted him to his disciple Domitian. Then, having summoned him back, he said: "It is not fitting, my son, for you, being so young and beardless, to dwell in a Laura. For it is more expedient that those of such an age live in a coenobium." Having said this, he sent him through one of the brothers to the blessed Theoctistus, saying: "Receive this young man, and let him be diligently exercised and nurtured under your care. For as it seems to me, he will be distinguished in the monastic discipline and in righteous deeds." And he foretold these things about Sabas, and a fitting outcome confirmed the prediction. For there is not now, there is not, neither city, nor region, nor wilderness, in which the deeds of that divine man are not celebrated, bringing delight both to the one who speaks and to those who listen. His sanctity foretold. Of these it is not fitting to make mention in passing among the deeds of Euthymius; but if it pleases God, we shall compose an entire work about them, since it is neither pious nor holy that the lives of pagans should be honored among outsiders with columns and writings, while we judge such illustrious deeds of virtue to be worthy of silence and condemn them to eternal oblivion.

[89] It is fitting, moreover, to treat also of the great Gerasimus, and of the rules and forms he gave to those who were exercised under him, and to weave in the narrative as a kind of seasoning, which assuredly has great usefulness. This great Gerasimus, then, who was both a citizen and patron of the wilderness of the Jordan, having built a very large Laura there, The Laura and coenobium of St. Gerasimus. which contained no fewer than seventy anchorites, and besides that having most advantageously placed a coenobium in its midst, took care that those who were newly introduced as monks should remain in the coenobium and exercise the monastic life; but those who had trained themselves through frequent and prolonged labors and had already reached the measures of perfection, The diet and discipline of the anchorites, he would place in what are called cells and commanded them to live under this rule: that for five days of the week each should keep silence in his cell, tasting nothing that was food except bread, water, and dates; but on Saturday and Sunday, coming to the church, after they had partaken of the sanctified elements, they should eat cooked food in the coenobium and take a small amount of wine. In the cell, however, no one was permitted either to light a fire or to taste anything cooked. Their poverty was a matter of as much concern to them as nothing else; and they were especially adorned with humility.

[90] Each one, moreover, bringing the labor of his hands that had been performed during the week manual labor, to the coenobium on Saturday, and toward the evening of Sunday receiving the supplies for the week -- namely, bread, dates, and water in some vessel, and palm fronds -- returned again to his cell. They were so removed from every solicitude clothing, bedding, and so separated from human affairs that they had nothing beyond what they wore, so that there was no second garment. And what was their bedding but a mat, and what they usually call a centonium and an embrymium, and an earthen vessel for water, which served at once both for drinking and for moistening the palm fronds?

[91] The cells left open, This rule was most excellently established for them by Gerasimus: that when they went out they should leave their cells open, so that anyone who wished might enter and take whatever he wished from those poor and necessary belongings, no one preventing it; and moreover, that they themselves might be seen living in the manner of the Apostles, and that even among those who dwelt in the wilderness, their heart and soul might similarly be one; since no one among them judged anything he possessed to be his own, but all things were equally common among them. Acts 4:32. Furthermore, this too is told about the anchorites: when some approached him and asked to be allowed to heat water and eat cooked food and read by lamplight, Observance of the rule: the great Gerasimus is said to have replied: "If you wish to live in this way, it is far more expedient for you to live in the coenobium. For I will by no means permit this to happen among the anchorites during my entire lifetime."

[92] Food sent by the people of Jericho When the people of Jericho heard that the manner of life of those under Gerasimus was so austere and devoid of every consolation, and was exceedingly harsh and rigorous, they imposed upon themselves the custom of going to them on Saturday and Sunday and bringing them no small consolation. This is indeed the praise of the people of Jericho and a manifest proof of souls that love virtue. But when many of the combatants under this great Gerasimus saw that many worldly people came to them with this purpose and intention, so far was their arrival welcome and pleasant to them that they could not even bear to see or tolerate them anywhere in the region; but rather they fled and avoided them as persons who would do them great harm. For they knew well they are declined. that abstinence is the mother of perfect temperance, able both to expel base thoughts and to lighten the heaviness of sleep -- having learned this most excellently from their Father, not only in words but also in deeds.

[93] For they said that he so valued abstinence that he would pass the forty days of the fast without eating, sustained by the participation in the Sacraments alone. The remarkable abstinence of St. Gerasimus, Having lived in this way, and having been a pattern of virtue and a means of salvation for those under him, he met the common end on the fifth of the month of March, in the thirteenth indiction, in the second consulship of Zeno Augustus. But we must now return to where we digressed. and death.

(a) In the year of Christ 458.

(b) These matters are described more fully by the same Cyril in the Life of St. Sabas.

(c) Moschus, chapter 107, reports that the monastery of Gerasimus was about one mile from the Jordan.

(d) A cento is a garment stitched together from various patches, and centonium, it seems, signifies the same thing here.

(e) What an embrymium is, Cassian explains in Conferences 1, chapter 23: "Thus the blessed Moses, bringing our conference to an end, An embrymium, what it is, urged us -- still eager and hanging upon his words -- to taste a little sleep, directing us to lie down upon those same rush-mats on which we had been sitting; and placing embrymia alike beneath our heads in place of pillows -- these being coarser papyrus reeds fashioned into long slender bundles. Which, bound together at intervals of a foot, now provide a very low seat, serving as a stool, for the brothers sitting in the synaxis, and now, placed beneath the necks of those sleeping, furnish a not excessively hard but manageable and suitable support for the head. These monastic furnishings are considered especially suited and appropriate for these purposes, because they are not only somewhat soft and are prepared with little labor and cost -- papyrus growing plentifully along the banks of the Nile, which anyone who wishes may freely cut for his own use -- but also because they are of light material and handy nature for removing or, when necessary, for moving." More recent grammarians Scaliger, Whence the word is derived. Casaubon, and Martinius discuss the word; and the last indeed wonders whether it may be a Celtic or Germanic word, from brem, that is, broom or esparto, with which the embrymia were stuffed in place of feathers and padding. But it would be necessary that the use of embrymia had originated especially among the Celts or Germans, in order for the name together with the thing to have been conveyed to the Syrians and Egyptians.

(f) The Life of St. Quiriacus, September 30, and the Roman Martyrology agree, though the Greeks commemorate him on March 4.

(g) In the year of Christ 475. The Greek Menaea err, placing him in the interior wilderness of the Thebaid under the reign of Constantine Pogonatus, the grandson of Heraclius, two centuries after these times.

CHAPTER XVI.

Various Works of Mercy. Death of the Empress Eudocia.

[94] When the pious and Christ-loving Leo had already succeeded Marcian in the empire, a certain Timothy, surnamed Aelurus, Euthymius receives as guests the exiled monks of Nitria: was shaking and disturbing all of Alexandria. Then, after he had even murdered the Patriarch of the city himself (O wicked and impious hands!) in the baptismal font, he boldly and shamelessly seized the See. When everything in Egypt was therefore full of tumult and uproar, two anchorites named Martyrius and Elias -- one a Cappadocian, the other an Arab -- coming from Mount Nitria, arrived at the great Euthymius, and each of them dwelt in a separate cell under him for a long time. This divine man embraced them by the law of friendship and constantly invited them to conversation, and made them partners in his withdrawals and descents to Cutila and Ruba as well. Together with them, and with Gerasimus and other anchorites henceforth, those holy hands received the undefiled sacraments each Lord's Day.

[95] He foretells to them the Patriarchate of Jerusalem: The great Euthymius foresaw with the keen eye of his soul what was to befall Martyrius and Elias: namely, that each of them would be a successor of the See of James, who was renowned in the choir of the Disciples. After this, Elias went down to Jericho and built himself a cell before the city, which, gradually enlarged by his additions, was transformed into the monasteries that are now seen. Martyrius, however, entered a certain cave to the west, fifteen stadia distant from the Laura; and having remained there a sufficient time, he too built there a great and notable monastery.

[96] In the following year, Juvenal the Patriarch departed this life in the forty-fourth year of his patriarchate. Anastasius, by the common vote of all, was elevated to his See -- the one about whom Euthymius's predictions had been made and concerning whom there had been true promises. Remembering these at once, Anastasius ordained as Deacon Pheidus, who had come to the Laura with him and had heard those predictions, and sent him again to the great Euthymius, both indicating the fulfillment of the prophecy and asking permission to come down to him. He does not wish to be visited by Anastasius, Patriarch of Jerusalem. Euthymius gave this reply: "I have always desired to see your perfection and thus to gain spiritual profit. But your former visit was free from all disturbance and separated from all business. Now, however, the greatness of your office gives you a different place and rank, as God wills. Wherefore your presence far surpasses my weakness. I beg you, therefore, do not trouble yourself further by undertaking the journey hither. Otherwise, I will indeed receive you when you come with a prompt and eager spirit, but then it will be necessary that I cannot turn others away any longer, nor will I be able henceforth to dwell here, since I would be overwhelmed by the multitude of those who come." But as for the great Patriarch, so the matter stands. The narrative now requires that we return to Terebon.

[97] This Terebon, Prefect of the Saracens, having come to Bostra for some reason, was falsely accused by one of his colleagues, He arranges for the liberation of Terebon, who was unjustly imprisoned, and was seized and thrown into prison by the one to whom the administration of the region had been entrusted, in which he was condemned to dwell for the long time that intervened. When the great Euthymius learned of the slanderous proceeding, he wrote to Antipater, who then governed the Church of the Bostrians, and along with the letter sent Gaianus, the brother of Stephen, Bishop of Jamnia, so that they might use every diligence to free Terebon from his bonds. Antipater, having received the letter and welcomed Gaianus, freed Terebon from all accusation and supplied him with the funds he needed for his journey, and sent him to the great Euthymius; but Gaianus, as though he were certain sparks of the virtue of Euthymius, he resolved to retain, and ordained him Bishop of Medaba.

[98] Eudocia builds many pious places and monasteries: The blessed Eudocia, having built very many churches for God and having piously constructed almshouses for the elderly and the poor, and monasteries beyond easy count, ordered that in one of the churches she had built, which is sacred to Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and is situated opposite the Laura of Euthymius, not less than twenty stadia distant, a cistern of great depth and breadth be dug for some necessary purpose. When she came at some time to inspect it, she saw the Laura of Euthymius set in the midst of the wilderness, and how the cells of the brothers were separated from one another, and having pondered within herself that passage of Scripture, "How fair are your tents, O Jacob, your tabernacles, O Israel!" and being thereby deeply moved in spirit, she immediately sent Gabrielius to him, asking permission to approach him, to enjoy his discourse and teaching, and also to give revenues to the Laura. Numbers 24. The purpose was that the brothers might henceforth be furnished with a sufficient supply of necessities.

[99] But he first addressed her thus: "Since your departure is at the door, why are you anxious, O daughter, She learns from Euthymius of her approaching death, and distracted about many things? Let only those things be prepared for you that pertain to your departure from this life. And as for us, do not remember us as regards revenues and money; but remember the common Lord, before whom we ask that you may rather remember us." Hearing these things, she had her mind divided between two feelings: wonder and distress -- attributing the former to the great Euthymius's foreknowledge, and how he perceived long beforehand what she was revolving in her mind; and the latter because she had been disappointed in her hope. For she wished to leave him money and revenues, as we have said. From there she came to the holy city, and having summoned the Patriarch Anastasius and explained to him what she had heard from the divine Euthymius, she did what corresponded to her former intention, and was entirely generous. First she dedicated the church of Stephen the Protomartyr of Christ, which had not yet been fully built, on the fifteenth of the month of January. Then, having also assigned to it much revenue and entrusted its care to Gabrielius, she did not neglect the other churches that had been built by her either; but she attended to them very diligently as well, both dedicating them and assigning sufficient revenue to each. But when four months had already passed after the dedication, she too, leaving this human life, departed to the Lord.

(a) In the year of Christ 457.

(b) On Aelurus, see Evagrius, Book 2, chapter 8; Theodore Lector, Book 1, Collection; Liberatus in the Breviarium, chapter 15; and especially the Clergy of Alexandria and the orthodox bishops of Egypt in their letter to the Emperor Leo, which is extant among the letters given by various persons in support of the Council of Chalcedon, Part 3, letter 22.

(c) St. Proterius, who is venerated on February 28.

(d) They had been instructed by St. Cyril, as St. Sabas told the Emperor Anastasius concerning St. Elias. Elias is venerated on July 4. We have not yet found the name of Martyrius in the sacred calendars, although he is commonly called Saint and Blessed, unless perchance he is the one who is commemorated with Rubentius on January 17 in the East.

(e) St. Euthymius imparted the divine sacraments to them in the wilderness of Ruba every Sunday until Palm Sunday came. Life of St. Quiriacus.

(f) He means St. James the Apostle, the brother of the Lord, the first Bishop of Jerusalem, of whom we treat on May 1.

(g) Just as St. Elias here as a monk did not drink wine, so neither did he drink it when made Patriarch, but kept the same rule. Moschus, chapter 35.

(r) This monastery will be discussed below at nos. 119, 125, 131, and 138. It is mentioned in the Council of Constantinople under Mennas, year of Christ 536.

(i) In the second year of the Emperor Leo, the year of Christ 458. Baronius places the death in the preceding year 457, on account of these words from the printed Life of Sabas: "When Sabas was in the eighteenth year of his age, In what year Bishop Juvenal died, at which time Marcian and Juvenal, both pious and religious, the one from the empire, the other from the pontificate, ceased by death," etc. But that passage reads thus in the ancient Life by Cyril: "At that time, Marcian held the pinnacle of power, and Juvenal presided at Jerusalem." The chronology of Juvenal's death is confirmed by the succession of Anastasius, whose eighth year coincides with the ninth year of the Emperor Leo; and in Leo's fifteenth year, St. Euthymius dies. See the prolegomena, nos. 12 and 13.

(k) This passage bristles with errors. From Hervetus's translation, he dies in the fourteenth year of the patriarchate. But in the year of Christ 431 he participated in the Council of Ephesus. Our Greek manuscript reads: "Juvenal the Patriarch departs this life in the forty-fourth year of his office." But this would require asserting that he was consecrated in the year of Christ 415. Yet in that year, Bishop John translated the relics of St. Stephen in December, and he was succeeded by Praylius, the predecessor of St. Juvenal. In the Chronicle of Nicephorus, twenty years are assigned to Praylius (whom he calls Paulinus), and thirty-eight to Juvenal, but in both there is an error. How long he held office. We therefore believe the reading should be "in the thirty-fourth year" -- from which Hervetus more easily read "in the fourteenth," and another "in the forty-fourth" -- and accordingly he would have been ordained bishop in the year of Christ 424 or the following. Nicephorus Callistus, Book 14, chapter 30, supports this conjecture.

(l) It was a very strongly fortified and most ancient city in Arabia Deserta, assigned to the tribe of Manasseh beyond the Jordan. See Adrichomius, chapter 27.

(m) His predecessor, Constantinus of the city of Bostra, the metropolis of Arabia, subscribed to the Council of Chalcedon.

(n) Medaba is a city beyond the Jordan, subject to Arabia. Life of St. Sabas. Formerly the chief city of the Ammonites, afterward of the Amorites, on the torrent of Arnon; the birthplace of Gerontius, who was the Hegumen of the monastery of St. Euthymius when this Life was written by Cyril. See Adrichomius in the tribe of Reuben, chapter 47.

(o) So large that ten thousand monks from every desert assembled in it. Life of St. Sabas.

(p) In the fourth year of the Emperor Leo's reign, the year of Christ 460, in the month of May. She is buried in the church of St. Stephen. Nicephorus and Evagrius.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Deeds and Death of St. Theoctistus, and of Other Disciples of Euthymius.

[100] A long time later, when Euthymius was already ninety years old, St. Theoctistus dies, the holy Theoctistus also fell into a grave illness; and he was so near to death that he himself also indicated he would soon depart, since his old age was already very advanced and he was full of human days. When therefore the great Euthymius came to visit him and is buried by the Patriarch and Euthymius: and saw that he was in great danger, he resolved to remain with him for a few days, so that when his holy soul departed to the Lord, he might perform the funeral rites for the body and carry out in it all that custom required. When the Patriarch learned that Euthymius was sitting by Theoctistus and judged it a sufficiently opportune occasion for visiting him, after the blessed Theoctistus had departed to God on the third day of September, he came to him, and together they performed the burial of the relics.

[101] Then the Patriarch did what his intense longing for Euthymius compelled him, and having gently grasped those sacred hands and clung to them, he warmly embraced him and during the embrace spoke words testifying to his longing: "I have long desired these holy hands, and behold, God has fulfilled my desire for me. The mutual homage of both. But I beg you, venerable Father, and most earnestly beg -- first, that you pray to God that your predictions concerning me may be perpetually preserved. Then, that you write to me regularly about what seems right, whatever the law commands a son." He spoke these words most kindly to Euthymius, and whatever else the occasion demanded and their meeting after a long time recalled to memory. Euthymius replied with his characteristic modesty: "This I rather ask of your blessedness: that in your intercessions and supplications to God, you also remember us." He answered: "By no means, O Father, shall I concede this request to you. For this," he said, "is what I ask to receive first from you. For I have already had beautiful experience of the operation and power of the divine charisms that are in you." But Euthymius said, very placidly and gently: "Grant, venerable Father, and be entreated to care for this present monastery, for my sake and yours and for the sake of the brothers themselves, and to provide for it as is fitting." To this the Patriarch replied: "When the holy Theoctistus was still alive, you presided over this wilderness and made it a city distinguished by the number and virtue of its inhabitants, and you rendered it, as it were, another Jerusalem for Christ; and now again, since he has departed this life, he leaves his charge to you." Having said these things and bidden farewell to the Saint, the Patriarch returned to his own dwelling.

[102] Successors of St. Theoctistus. The great Euthymius, having appointed Marin, the uncle of Terebon, a man living virtuously and already advanced in age, as head of the monastery, himself returned to his own Laura. After Marin had lived two years in the governance of the monastery and then departed this life, the great Euthymius descended again, piously deposited his sacred body in the great tomb of Theoctistus, and entrusted the care of the monastery to a certain Longinus, a man worthy of praise for his manner of life.

[103] Immediately after the death of the great Theoctistus, when Olympius, Bishop of Scythopolis, had departed this life, [The deeds, virtues, writings, and death of the brothers Cosmas, Chrysippus, and Gabrielius.] Cosmas, the guardian of the Cross, was ordained as Bishop in his place; and to Chrysippus was committed the ministry of the guardian of the Cross, and in this too the prediction of Euthymius was not disappointed. The blessed Cosmas, having remained in that office for a full thirty years, distinguished himself in the Second Province of Palestine by great and noble deeds of virtue. Chrysippus, who was also his brother, after discharging the office of guarding the Cross for twelve years, departed this life, leaving behind writings both numerous and praiseworthy for the subjects they treat. Their brother Gabrielius, after serving, as we previously said, as Presbyter and overseer for twenty-four years, built himself a small monastery in the valley of the venerable temple to the East, which had been named after the Holy Assumption. To this, in imitation of the blessed Euthymius, he would withdraw after the eighth day of the divine Theophany and remain there until the feast of Palms. Being studious, he also had native talent to aid him, so that he exercised his tongue in the speech of Greeks, Romans, and Syrians alike. He died in the eightieth year of his age in the monastery, and there was made a tomb for a man who is renowned for very great miracles. And such are the matters that pertain to the disciples of Euthymius, and such was the passing of each one.

(a) In the year of Christ 467. We shall treat of him on that day.

(b) Euthymius buried his body with great honor. Cyril in the Life of St. Sabas.

(c) Marin, a worthy and admirable man. In the same Life.

(d) In the year of Christ 469.

(e) He is mentioned also in the Lives of Saints Sabas and Quiriacus. Paul succeeded Longinus, and the younger Terebon succeeded Paul.

(f) Scythopolis was the metropolitan see of the Second Palestine; Caesarea was the metropolitan see of the First; both were under the Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

(g) Few of these writings survive. First, his is a sermon on the Most Holy Mary, Mother of God, published by John Picus of Paris along with others and inserted in the Library of the Holy Fathers in three Parisian editions Chrysippus, an ecclesiastical writer. and the Cologne edition, but placed in the sixth century, Part 2, because his date was unknown. Second, his is an Encomium written on St. Theodore the Martyr, in which mention is made of Lucian the Presbyter, to whom Gamaliel revealed in what place the bodies of Saints Stephen, Nicodemus, Gamaliel himself, and his son Abibus lay hidden, in the year 415. Indeed, his is a written account of their martyrdom. Consult Photius's Library, section 171.

(h) Palladius in the Lausiac History, chapter 104, mentions oratories on the Mount of Olives, on the Hill of the Ascension, whence Jesus ascended. It is to the east of the holy city.

(i) We shall treat of him on January 26.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Day of His Own Death, and That of Domitian, Foretold by St. Euthymius.

[104] I now return to the subsequent deeds of his righteous life. For these things too John the Silentiary and Bishop, and Thallelaeus the Presbyter, narrated to me together with the other matters. For they said that when they were once in the wilderness, the blessed Sabas, encountering them, was conversing and saying that when he was still in the coenobium, he had gone up after the death of Theoctistus together with Longinus, the head of the monastery, to the great Euthymius. After they had spent some days around Ruban with Martyrius and Elias, and St. Gerasimus was also with them, he said: "Since the great Euthymius sees me and Domitian in good spirits, taking us both, he passed through the interior wilderness. St. Euthymius draws forth a spring by his prayers: Our food was the roots of wild plants. Then we came to a certain land that was exceedingly uncultivated, dry, and entirely devoid of water. I, being quite untrained and inexperienced in the ways of the wilderness, was overwhelmed by the most violent thirst and was losing heart, and did not even have the strength in my feet to continue the journey. The great Euthymius turned," he said, "and when he saw me already so failing and exhausted, he was moved in spirit on my account; and withdrawing a little from us and prostrating himself on the ground, he prayed, saying: 'Lord, give water in this thirsty land, comforting the thirst of the brother.' And rising after his prayers, he seized the mattock with which we used to dig up the roots of herbs and prepare our food, and he broke the ground a little, and immediately water gushed from the earth and allowed us to drink." Having drunk and driven away the thirst that oppressed him, he gave thanks to God, who through His servants performs such miracles beyond all expectation.

[105] Since, then, Euthymius had such confidence before God and had attracted from above such grace of the Spirit, not even the time of his common death was hidden from him, He foretells the day of his death: nor whatever was to happen in his Laura, as the divine Fathers narrated to me about these things. For they say that on the eighth day after the feast of Lights, on which he was accustomed to set out for the inner wilderness, those who were to escort him assembled, and all who wished to be companions of his pilgrimage -- among whom were also Martyrius and Elias. But when they found nothing prepared, nor anything suitable for the retreat, and indeed found him completely unprepared, they asked whether he was not going to depart the next day. But he said: "I shall be with you in the Laura for the entire week, and at midnight on the Sabbath I shall be separated from you. On the feast of St. Antony the Abbot, he addresses his own for the last time," By this he was first indicating that he would then die.

[106] On the third day that followed, then, when the feast day of the divine Antony had arrived, he commanded that they keep vigil in the church through the entire night; and when those nocturnal hymns had been completed by him, taking the Presbyters into what is called the Diaconicum, he said: "I shall celebrate no more vigils with you, O brothers. For God now calls me from this present life. But now go out and summon Domitian to me; and in the morning let there be, as it were, a council of the Fathers." In the morning, therefore, all assembled before him with great eagerness; and after pausing briefly, he began to address them thus.

[107] He commends charity, "My Fathers and beloved brothers in the Lord, and children: I am now entering upon the last journey of my Fathers. It behooves you to show your love for me in the keeping of the commandments, of which the chief is charity, which is the bond of the perfection of the virtues. For what salt is to bread, that is charity to the virtues. Nor without it can virtue rightly conduct itself, since every virtue is recognized as firm and stable through charity and humility. For humility indeed knows how to raise the one who practices it to the summit of right deeds; but charity both holds one firmly and does not permit one to fall from that height. Charity is, moreover, greater than humility, as is manifest from the very example of the Lord and Creator. For on account of His charity toward us, He voluntarily humbled Himself and was made like us. It is fitting, therefore, to confess Him perpetually and offer hymns to Him. For all men, to speak once for all, it is honorable to practice these things. But for us especially, both on account of the covenants we have made with Him, and because, free from every disturbance and not distracted by the business of providing for a livelihood, we lead our life apart and attend to ourselves alone. chastity, And it is necessary, O brothers, always to keep bodies and souls chaste, and the customary glorification in the synaxis and the rule handed down to us from above must be preserved by you with all diligence. Care must be taken of those who are afflicted, as far as you are able. Whoever among the brothers struggles with wicked thoughts, care for the tempted, let him always be strengthened by you and enjoy perpetual admonition, instruction, and encouragement, lest he be unwittingly undermined little by little and be cast down by a grievous fall at the hand of the devil. Furthermore, I also add this last commandment to you: Let the door never be closed to those who come, hospitality. but let it always be open to every traveler and, as it were, most ready to receive them. Indeed, let the very roof be shared with guests and wayfarers, and let what you possess be set forth as common property for those in need. For thus you will obtain an abundant supply from on high."

[108] Having given them these commandments, he then also asked them whom they wished to rule and preside over them. They all replied, as if with one voice: "Domitian." But he said: "That cannot be. He foretells the death of Domitian. For Domitian will not remain here long after me; but having passed only the seventh day, he will follow me on the next." This astounded all who were present, since it had been spoken so openly and so freely. When therefore they had given up hope regarding Domitian, they requested a certain Elias, the Steward of the lower monastery, a man of Jericho by birth. The great Euthymius, turning to him directly, said: "Behold, all the Fathers choose you as their shepherd and overseer. See to it, then, He appoints as his successor Elias, chosen by the brothers: that you attend to yourself and to the entire flock. It is necessary, moreover, that you know this above all else: that it is God's will that this Laura shall before long become a coenobium." He then also instructed Elias about where the coenobium should be built and how it should be constructed, and about the reception of guests, the psalmody, and the diligence to be applied to the rule, and about not neglecting the brothers, especially those who are burdened by wicked thoughts. And lastly he said this to all: He gives him instructions. "If I shall find any confidence before God, this will be the first grace I shall ask from God: that He may be with you and with your successors, always together in spirit, forever."

(a) The following events are also narrated in the Life of St. Sabas.

(b) We have said above that the octave of the Theophany is celebrated by the Greeks on January 14; and we gather from this passage that this custom was observed by the Syrians as well, since the feast of St. Antony fell on the third day after it.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Death of Euthymius and Domitian. Burial.

[109] Having said these things, he dismissed all except Domitian; and having remained three more days in the diaconicum, on the night of the Sabbath he fell asleep in peace and passed to the blessedness that is there, a truly old man and full of days, on the twentieth day of the month of January, in the year from the creation of the world He dies: -- reckoned according to the chronologies written by Hippolytus, who was ancient and known to the Apostles themselves, and by Epiphanius of Cyprus, and by Heron the philosopher and Confessor -- the five thousand five hundred and sixtieth; and of the coming in the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, the four hundred and sixty-fifth. Let these things too be known about Euthymius: that in appearance he was entirely unaffected and most gentle; of countenance, round and fair, and very cheerful and pleasant to look upon, entirely white-haired on account of his age, What stature he had, somewhat short in stature, with a thick beard hanging down to his waist, sound and whole in his members, so that neither a finger, nor a nail, nor a tooth, nor any small or great part was missing from his body. He was born, as was said above, as a result of revelation. At the age of three he was consecrated to God, at the beginning of the reign of the great Theodosius. His body entirely whole to the end, Having passed through all the ecclesiastical orders, he came to Jerusalem around the twenty-ninth year of his own life. Having spent sixty-eight years in the wilderness, in the ninety-seventh year of his age and the sixteenth of the reign of Leo, he departed this life.

[110] A great throng of people, When the report had quickly spread through every region, such a multitude of monks and laypeople was gathered that it could not easily be counted. The Patriarch Anastasius of Jerusalem also came, taking with him a company of clergy and soldiers. With him were Chrysippus and Gabrielius, and also the deacon Pheidus. The anchorites dwelling in the wildernesses also gathered from every quarter, among whom was also Gerasimus. The unbroken succession of miracles astonished them all. In the presence of the Patriarch, When therefore this almost innumerable multitude had assembled, the sacred body was kept from burial, since it was already the ninth hour, until the soldiers, as they had been commanded by the Patriarch, pushed back the crowd; and thus at last, with great difficulty, the divine Fathers were given access to perform the funeral rites for that body which had fought so valiantly and endured so much, and to lay it in a richly furnished coffin with fitting hymns. The grief of being deprived of Euthymius was a cause of many tears for many; but it touched Martyrius and Elias far more keenly, He is buried. and they wept profusely. But when the Patriarch had consoled them through Chrysippus, the guardian of the Cross, and had given them the admonitions they needed, he encouraged them to visit him more frequently. Having left Pheidus in the Laura as deacon, he entrusted to him the task of building; and having returned to the holy city, he sent workmen and materials for the work, so that the blessed relics of Euthymius might be deposited in a suitable and fitting place.

[111] Domitian, summoned by him, dies. Domitian, who was truly the great and genuine disciple of the Great One, as one who was the most exact imitator of his life, having served the Saint for more than fifty years, did not depart from the place but remained there until the sixth day from that time, as one who had resolved that he should no longer live nor bear to look upon this light at all. But when the seventh day had come, Euthymius appeared to him joyfully at night, saying: "Come hither to receive the glory prepared for you. For behold, God has granted that we too may dwell here together." Domitian announced these things to the brothers when he came to the synaxis. And thus he departed this life in joy and in the hope of good things to come.

[112] The deacon Pheidus, having gathered many workmen and applied great effort, transformed the cave that from the beginning had sheltered the silent divine Euthymius into a most beautiful and spacious church: The cave of Euthymius is changed into a church. assigning the middle to the tomb of that great Father, he fashioned tombs on either side for the Presbyters, the heads of monasteries, and the other holy men. After everything had been completed, the Patriarch immediately sent from Jerusalem a slab to be placed upon the tomb, a silver urn, and railings. Then he himself also came down to the Laura, and having entrusted that holy body of the blessed man to his own hands with lamps and proper hymns, he transferred it to the church that had recently been built and placed it in its sacred coffin, His body is transferred. so that it could never again be opened, and no relics, however small, could be taken from it. Having placed the slab, he fixed the urn above it, as though near the chest. And from that time to the present day, it gives every kind of grace to those who approach it faithfully. And having thus nobly accomplished the translation of the relics on the seventh day of May, taking Martyrius and Elias with him, he returned once more to the holy city and ordained them Presbyters and enrolled them in the clergy of the Holy Resurrection. And these things are thus.

(a) In the year of Christ 473. See the prolegomena, no. 13.

(b) Eusebius, Book 6, Ecclesiastical History, chapter 16: "Hippolytus, in addition to many other commentaries he was composing, wrote a work on the Paschal feast, in which he set forth a series of chronological computations," etc. Our Aegidius Bucherius treats at greater length of his Paschal Canon. He is venerated on August 22.

(c) We shall treat of him on May 12. In his books against heresies, he discusses chronology at many points, especially in Heresy 51, called that of the Alogi, which Dionysius Petavius, our fellow Jesuit, examines in lengthy and learned dissertations.

(d) Sixtus of Siena, Possevinus, Bellarmine, Miraeus, and others have not yet mentioned this man; and there are various Saints of this name; but which Confessor this is remains unknown to us.

(e) We touched on this era of the Easterners in the Prolegomena, no. 13.

(f) It has been shown in the same place that "seventh" should be read.

(g) In the Life of St. Cyriacus: "The great Euthymius departs on that fair journey to God. The soul of St. Euthymius is conducted to heaven by Angels. Gerasimus sees his sacred soul being conducted by Angels and ascending gloriously to the heavens, whence it had been called. Immediately, therefore, taking Quiriacus with him, he went up to his Laura and buried his holy body with grateful hands, with the reverence that was due, and having performed all that was customary, he returned."

CHAPTER XX.

The Occasion of the Transformation of St. Euthymius's Laura into a Coenobium.

[113] It now remains for us to relate for what reason and in what manner the Laura of Euthymius was transformed into a coenobium. To the Emperor Zeno and Acacius, Patriarch of Constantinople, It is necessary, however, to trace the narrative somewhat further back, so that we may make the account clear and lucid. When one year had already passed after the death of the great Euthymius, that great and Christ-loving Emperor Leo departed this life, leaving his grandson Leo, still a mere infant, as his successor in the empire. When Leo had lived only a short time in the empire, his father Zeno succeeded him; but when a certain Basiliscus treacherously seized the empire, Zeno fled to Isauria. When Basiliscus had seized the empire, he held a counter-council against the divine Council of Chalcedon; emboldened by which, the party of the schismatics in the holy city, having appointed a certain Gerontius as their Archimandrite, made many innovations against the Church -- no fewer than those Theodosius had previously dared. By Martyrius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, In the fifth year after this, Anastasius the Patriarch died as the month of January was just beginning; and Zeno, having returned from exile, defeated Basiliscus, who still held the empire, and recovered the rule he had lost. Martyrius, of whom I have frequently spoken above, succeeded to the See of Jerusalem. He wrote to the Emperor Zeno himself and to Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, about the schismatics and their blasphemy and the heresy to be avoided; The deacon Phidus is sent: and having given letters to the deacon Phidus, he also entrusted to him no few matters to be communicated orally.

[114] When Phidus had reached Joppa and boarded a ship bound for Corycium, while on the Parthenian Sea itself, He is snatched from shipwreck by St. Euthymius, he fell into a great storm and tempest and suffered shipwreck at midnight. When he was already sinking and could not at all raise himself above the waves, but was perishing because he was in the middle of the sea and the night was dark and uncertain, he came upon a piece of timber unexpectedly -- or rather because God had provided it. Having swum to a certain spot and recovered somewhat from so great a calamity, the admirable Euthymius came to his mind, and he immediately implored his help against the danger, stretching both his hands toward him and frequently invoking his name. While he was thus struggling, the great Euthymius appeared to him from somewhere, walking over the sea and treading securely upon the waves themselves. When Phidus suddenly saw him, he was struck with admiration. But wishing to free him at once from his anguish and fear, Euthymius addressed him with the same manner of speech he had always used before: He is commanded to transform the Laura into a coenobium: "Fear not. I am Euthymius, the servant of God. Know that this journey is not pleasing in the sight of God. For it will bring no benefit to the mother of the Churches. Therefore you must return to him who sent you and command him in my name not to be anxious about the separation of the schismatics; for not long hence, but while he holds the pontificate, union will come, and all who are in Jerusalem will be one flock under one shepherd. But you must come to my Laura and demolish the cells of the brothers from their very foundations, and build a coenobium there where you built my cemetery. For it is not a Laura but rather a coenobium that God wishes the place to be."

[115] He is transported to Jerusalem, covered with his cloak, which soon disappears: Euthymius gave these commands to Phidus and clothed him in his own cloak. Thereupon Phidus was immediately caught up in reality and not in a dream -- perhaps not unlike the manner in which Habakkuk was transported -- and so easily and in a moment of time was set upon the shore, and as though he had risen from sleep (O divine providence!) he found himself in the holy city. Thus preserved beyond all expectation in his own home, he put aside that divine cloak of Euthymius, which had made him traverse so great a sea more swiftly and more safely than on wings, and put on his usual garment; and that cloak (but let the reader be attentive, for a miracle akin and similar to the first follows) was snatched away as by a certain hand, and vanished and was taken from their midst. When Phidus came to himself and considered what evils had beset him -- the waves, the billows, the night, the despair, and all the horrors of the tempest -- and then pondered the sudden dissolution of this invincible calamity, and the great Euthymius, and how, when he was already exhausted and being violently suffocated, he appeared walking upon the waves and extending, as it were, that joyful hand and countenance and voice together, and giving the commands that have been related, and finally placing upon him his cloak and transporting him over so great a sea as though winged through the air and restoring him to his home imperceptibly -- when Phidus had considered these things within himself, he uttered these words with great wonder: "Now I know that the great Euthymius is a true and genuine servant of God, and that one sent by him has delivered me from calamity."

[116] He narrates the admonition of St. Euthymius to his mother and to the Patriarch. Afterward he also narrated these things to his mother. And she, gladly lending her ears to them (for she loved not only her son but also God), and being delighted by the story of both the one who saved and the one who was saved, and shedding tears from her eyes as well, counseled her son to carry out everything. Then, going also to the Patriarch, Phidus reported everything to him. The Patriarch, marveling at the narrative, which surpasses all reason and expectation, said: "Truly, the great Euthymius is a Prophet of God, and great and unspeakable is the confidence he enjoys before Him. For concerning the things that were to befall the Laura, he foretold them when about to reach his consummation in Christ, while we all were witnesses." Having said these things, the Patriarch also permitted Phidus to build the coenobium and granted him leave to proceed to the task, also professing that he himself would undertake the work with all his strength.

(a) In the year of Christ 474, in the month of January.

(b) From his daughter Ariadne, married to Zeno.

(c) For ten months.

(d) In the year of Christ 476, in the consulship of Basilius and Armatus, as may be gathered from a letter of Pope Simplicius, dated to these consuls on the fourth day before the Ides of January, in which he urges Zeno to act in certain matters as Emperor; nor did he remain there long, as will be apparent from the return.

(e) A pseudo-bishop against Anastasius, as Baronius rightly notes, year 476, no. 41.

(f) After the death of St. Euthymius, in the year of Christ 477, having presided for eighteen years, as stated in the Chronicle of Nicephorus, and some months.

(g) Twenty months after he had been expelled, as Cyril in the Life of St. Sabas and Victor of Tunnuna report. Pope Simplicius congratulates Zeno on the recovery of the Empire on the seventh day before the Ides of October, after the consulship of Basiliscus and Armatus, in the year of Christ 477.

(h) Corycus is named by Ptolemy, Pliny, Strabo, and Quintus Smyrnaeus. It is a town of Cilicia; the Corycian promontory and the Corycian cave are there, in which the finest saffron grows.

(i) More properly, the Parthenian or Parthenium Sea. Macrobius, Saturnalia 7, describes it as part of the Mediterranean Sea between Asia and Africa.

CHAPTER XXI.

The Building of the Coenobium.

[117] The coenobium is built; When Phidus had received a large workforce of laborers and builders, and one of the engineers, he went down to the Laura, and having built the coenobium and enclosed it with a wall and a ditch, he assigned the old church to the brothers as a dining hall and built another church above it. Within the coenobium he raised a tower that was conspicuously a bastion, as it were, of the entire wilderness, and placed it in the middle of the cemetery. As for the lay of the land on which this sacred coenobium is situated, I shall describe and show in words, as well as I can, that it is beautiful on account of its evenness and suited to monks for their exercises because of the most temperate climate.

[118] where it is situated There is a certain very small hill between two valleys, which from east and west gradually converge and to the south merge into one another. But to the north extends the most beautiful plain of a field, about three stadia, devised as excellently as possible for pleasure and delight. Through its middle flows a torrent, which descends from the heights of the hill that lies to the east, and forms, as it were, a kind of belt for the place. On the very incline of the hill toward the plain, and at their graceful blending and junction, rises the tower like a summit and citadel; and beyond the tower follows the gate, which faces the plain and agreeably lets out those who exit, as if looking down from a watchtower upon the beautiful sights of the plain. But why should one describe the nature of the place -- how it is mild and fertile; of what tempered air above; and how it employs neither greater heat nor cold than is needed, but, having fled the discomforts of both, holds excellently to the mean of each; and is warmer to the colder, yet in turn moderately cooler to the warmer, and accordingly drier than the very humid and more moist than the immoderately dry, with the proportionate moderation suited to each?

[119] It is completed in three years. Since, then, the entire building and adornment of this coenobium required no more than three years, on account of the many hands and the vigorous and intense labor, the divine Fathers wished to restore and dedicate it with full decoration and the solemnity of the Church, but the scarcity of water again held them back. For in that wilderness it rains only in winter. And since the winter had been for the most part dry and waterless, their water had failed them, especially around the spring equinox -- unless perhaps in some hollow cisterns some small remnants of water might remain. This indeed made them very anxious and perplexed, Those suffering from a shortage of water, as they were pressed by the inexorable necessities of nature. The Overseer Elias and the deacon Phidus informed Longinus, the head of the lower monastery, and Paul, the head of the monastery of Martyrius, to have their pack animals carry water to them from Phara.

[120] It is promised by St. Euthymius in a dream, On the following night, while they were preparing for the journey and the pack animals had already been assembled, that great Euthymius appeared that night to the blessed Elias, asking: "What is the meaning of your gathering pack animals today?" When Elias answered, "To bring water from Phara, since it has now completely failed us," Euthymius rebuked him, saying: "O you of little faith, why have you not asked God? Could not He who made water flow from a steep rock for a disobedient people, and who once made water spring forth from the jawbone of an ass for Samson, also supply it for your use, if only you offer your petition with faith?" Then he also forbade them the journey to Phara as unnecessary. "For your cisterns will be filled to overflowing if you wait not even three hours."

[121] When the blessed Elias had been awakened from sleep by this vision and had immediately reported it to Phidus and the rest, he released the pack animals from their appointed service; and when the night had now passed and the sun was illuminating with its rays all the land it surveys, a cloud from somewhere suddenly enveloped the sky above the coenobium and at once burst into rain. And it is given by divine power. All the surrounding area was still being punished by the same scourge of drought; but they alone who were in the coenobium had obtained water beyond all expectation, just as if someone had circumscribed the rain and not allowed it to advance further. After the cisterns were full of water and there was no longer any need for rain from the sky, the cloud was immediately dispersed, and the violent downpour of rain was at once restored to fair weather.

[122] When the miracle had quickly pervaded the entire wilderness and had already reached the Archbishop Martyrius himself, he came down with a large retinue to the coenobium and conducted a splendid synaxis and vigil with many lamps and incense. The church is dedicated. He performed a splendid and magnificent dedication, depositing beneath the altar certain portions of the relics of the Martyrs Tarachus, Probus, and Andronicus, on the seventh of the month of May. It was now the twelfth year after the death of Euthymius. When some time had passed, the deacon Phidus also received the episcopate of the city called Doron.

(a) Of St. Theoctistus.

(b) The Patriarch Martyrius, whom this Paul succeeded; Martyrius had him as his second, or coadjutor, in the governance of the other coenobia, appointed by the dying Patriarch Salustius in the year of Christ 493. Cyril in the Life of St. Sabas.

(c) They suffered under Diocletian at Tarsus in Cilicia. The Roman Martyrology treats of them on October 11.

(d) In the year of Christ 484.

(e) Doron, Dora, Dor, Ador, etc., is a maritime city, eleven or, as others say, nine miles from Caesarea of Palestine, proceeding toward Ptolemais. See Adrichomius in the tribe of Manasseh west of the Jordan, chapter 26.

CHAPTER XXII.

The First Three Successors of St. Euthymius. Peace of the Churches. Oil of St. Euthymius.

[123] But since I have come to this point, it comes to mind to add the following about the schismatics, which also seems to me worthy of mention, so that the prophecy of the divine Euthymius at sea may be more clearly shown from this. For when the Patriarch Martyrius, trusting in the admirable vision of Phidus and in what the Great One had predicted at sea, ceased to worry about these schismatics -- not much time passed before, as if by some more divine visitation, Marcianus, Marcianus resolves the schism between bishops and monks by the casting of lots. whom I mentioned a little earlier, summoned them all to his coenobium, which he had built in holy Bethlehem, and said: "How long, O brothers and Fathers, shall we continue to divide the body of the Church into factions, when we ourselves are not even sure what God's will is, but entrust the matter to our own judgments? We must therefore consider, lest when we think we are walking the right path, we chance to fall upon byways. Wisdom 9:14. For the thoughts of men are uncertain, the sacred Scriptures say; and if it seems right, following the Apostolic example and, as it were, using it as a precedent, let us cast lots in the presence of the bishops and monks: and if the lot falls to the monks, we must absolutely persevere in the positions we now hold and approve; but if it falls to the bishops, we must commune with them." Acts 1. When Marcianus brought forward this proposal, there was no one present who did not praise it. The lot was cast, and the monks received it; and all immediately communed, deeming it to be recognized from God -- except Gerontius alone and Romanus. And all offered themselves as willing supporters of the union of the Church and henceforth rendered to it sincere and genuine communion.

[124] A festival of peace is celebrated in Jerusalem. When the Patriarch had received them graciously, not only, as one might say, with open hands but also with the depths of his heart, he held a splendid and celebrated festival. For the blessing of peace had arisen most beautifully for the city, and the streets of Jerusalem rejoiced, and God was glorified in everything. Gerontius, however, and Romanus -- the one having presided over the monasteries of the blessed Melania for forty-five years, the other having built a monastery in the region of Thecorum, as we said above -- were then shamefully expelled from these places on account of the impiety of the views they held, and, wicked men, departed hither and thither in wretchedness. But these things took place in the times of Zeno.

[125] In the following years, when Anastasius had received the empire after him, barbarians made an incursion and devastated and ravaged a great part of the wilderness, even destroying the very tents of the Saracens Incursions of the barbarians. that the great Euthymius had recently set up for them. Then those who were more prominent among them built other dwellings for themselves in the monastery of the monk Martyrius and erected churches. But when the barbarians attacked them again, they killed some, led others captive, and drove some into other villages -- namely those who had survived this sudden danger -- the barbarian incursion there having been great and very grievous.

[126] Successors of Euthymius: 1. Elias, 2. Simeon, 3. Stephen. The blessed Elias, who rightly governed the flock of Euthymius, having administered the governance for a full thirty-eight years and having accomplished many illustrious and excellent works in it, and having left behind a great love for himself among the brothers that continues to this very day, he too happily departed to the Lord. When a certain Simeon of Apamea had received the administration after him and had lived in it only three years, Stephen, an Arab by birth, succeeded him; and when he died, his brother Procopius gave six hundred gold pieces from their paternal goods to the monastery.

[127] Around the same time, a certain Caesarius of Antioch, who had frequently gained a good reputation in civil offices, came to the holy city, and having stayed there for a sufficiently long time, fell into a very grave bodily affliction. Since there was no hand to heal him, Caesarius is healed by oil flowing from the tomb of St. Euthymius. and his condition surpassed all endurance and the consolation of friends, having nothing more to do, he took refuge at the tomb of the admirable Euthymius; and the oil that flowed from it immediately became a remedy for freeing the man, once the disease was merely anointed with it. Returning thanks for the benefit, he gave money to the monastery of the Saint -- some splendidly and magnificently already at that time, and he promised to give more annually.

[128] Returning home, when he had visited the Bishop of Tripoli, in the way the mind in such matters gladly recalls serious events that have already passed, He narrates these things to the Bishop of Tripoli: he recounted to him in detail how the illness had attacked him, and how the hands of physicians and the presence of friends -- those for healing, these for consolation -- had availed nothing; and how, when all hope was lost, he had come to the tomb of Euthymius, and how, merely anointed with the oil there, immediately, and more quickly than one would dare to hope or even to wish, he found a cure.

[129] His cousin therefore becomes a monk, He narrated these things in detail to the bishop. A certain Leontius, his cousin, who was very young in age and happened to be present for the narration, was at once stirred in spirit when he heard it and, entertaining greater thoughts than befitted his age, condemned all worldly things -- by which youth is most often easily deceived and captivated -- and went straight to the monastery of the great Euthymius and took up the monastic life. When he had become distinguished in virtue, Bishop Stephen summoned him and entrusted to him the care of the monastery that had been founded in honor of the great Martyr Leontius. A little later, having also left a successor to the See, Stephen departed this life on the twenty-second of January, having presided over the coenobium for twenty-one full years. Leontius, moreover, the Bishop of Tripoli, this man's cousin, having hospitably received a certain Nilus, a Presbyter of the coenobium, who was going to Antioch, and having found him suitable from what he had at hand, ordained him Bishop of Orestias. And these things are thus.

(a) Marcianus was afterward a man of the highest distinction; in his granary, grain from a single seed was miraculously doubled in one night by divine power, Marcianus, a holy abbot, as was said in the Life of St. Theodosius on January 11, nos. 61 and 62. In the Life of St. Sabas he is called a holy abbot and a man of surpassing excellence, who had been divinely instructed in a heavenly vision to provide for the needs of St. Sabas. He died as universal Archimandrite of all the monasteries, appointed by the Patriarch Salustius; Saints Sabas and Theodosius were chosen as his successors.

(b) Perhaps "ardent"; as is noted in Surius and Baronius, year 477, no. 29, where he records these events, although they occurred long after, as the order of the narrative requires.

(c) In the sole consulship of Olybrius, in the year 491, Indiction XIV. Life of St. Sabas.

(d) Theophanes, Book 15, chapter 10, records that the incursion of the Saracens into Phoenicia and Syria took place again (that is, a second time) in the eleventh year of Anastasius. This first incursion seems to have occurred before the death of Elias the Hegumen.

(e) In the year of Christ 511.

(f) In the year 514.

(g) Surius notes that the reading should perhaps be "his." From no. 96 onward, the Greek manuscript fails us.

(h) Tripoli, an opulent and celebrated city of Phoenicia, is described by Adrichomius among the foreign places, chapter 30.

(i) St. Leontius, who suffered at Tripoli, is venerated on June 18.

(k) We suspect that "Orthosiadis" should be read. Orthosias is near Tripoli, opposite Cyprus, and is also an episcopal city, together with Tripoli, under the Metropolitan of Tyre. It is described by Adrichomius among the foreign places, chapter 29.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Successors of St. Euthymius. A Sacrilegious Man Punished. The Date of Cyril the Writer.

[130] We must return now to the monastery of the great Euthymius, and add to the narrative what follows next. Fourth successor: Thomas After the death of the Overseer Stephen, Thomas, who traced his origin from Apamea, having received the monastery in a flourishing and prosperous state, diminished and curtailed it. During the time he held the administration of the monastery, the Antiochene Caesarius came to him again, and having been received by him humanely and kindly, when he had reclined at the same table with him and then, as is customary, they had engaged in conversation, Caesarius learned that in the Diaconicum there were portions of that wood He gives a particle of the Holy Cross to Caesarius. on which the Lord, by His wonderful plan, had been crucified. He asked Thomas to be permitted to adore those holy relics and to receive some small portion of them. When the head of the monastery assented, he opened both doors of the Diaconicum for him at that very hour, and unsealed the chests of precious things, acting with somewhat excessive ardor and affection; and Caesarius entered with his attendants. After they had worshipped and embraced the relics, they also received a portion of that salvific and venerable wood. Then, having entered the inner room of the Diaconicum, they turned again to refreshing themselves.

[131] A monk steals 600 gold pieces, But a certain Theodorus the Galatian, who was serving them, frequently going in and out through the Diaconicum and entering to them, snatched from those sacred chests, which had been left open, the six hundred gold pieces of which we spoke before, which had been placed in three purses. The Overseer, intent upon Caesarius and his companions, did not notice what had been done. Rising in the morning, however, Theodorus pretended to be angry and displayed great indignation because he was not permitted to enjoy quiet and silence. Wherefore he departed from the monastery, ostensibly because he desired a place free from tumult, but in reality because he wished to hide and conceal the gold. While he was on the road to the holy city, He hides them, when he was opposite the monastery of the monk Martyrius, sitting down gradually and placing the purses on his knees, he took fifty gold pieces from one of them and placed the rest under a great stone; and having marked the spot and made it recognizable to himself as best he could, he proceeded straight to Jerusalem and thence to Joppa.

[132] Having hired horses and given a deposit, he returned to the stone under which the gold was hidden; and when he was already near (O all-seeing Eye! O most just judgments!), he saw a serpent of the greatest size and most terrible appearance He is kept by a serpent from recovering them. that had crept out from the stone and was, as it were, stationed to guard the gold, endeavoring to keep him from another's property. Struck with fear, he then returned empty-handed; on the following day he came again, and again found that terrible guardian of the gold watching so diligently over its custody that he was not even permitted to approach the stone. Indeed, when he persisted in his attempt, the serpent pursued him for so long that he counted himself fortunate to withdraw from there alive. On the next day he came again to the spot, and immediately a certain aerial power swooped upon him, He is punished by divine power, and having struck Theodorus as with a kind of club and dealt him a sure blow, it knocked him down and left him nearly lifeless upon the ground. But certain men from Lazariote, happening to pass by and finding him lying in such a wretched state, picked him up and carried him to the hospital in the city.

[133] Warned in a dream, he confesses his crime and shows the gold, While lying there for a long time, he saw in his dreams a certain elder sternly rebuking him and saying: "You shall not be permitted to rise until you first return the stolen money to the monastery of Euthymius." Thereupon he summoned the one who was in charge of receiving the sick, confessed the theft, revealed the fraud, brought to light the true reason -- which until then had been hidden -- for his departure from the monastery, and disclosed: how he had deposited the gold under a certain stone, and how when he had repeatedly gone there and attempted to remove it, first a serpent of terrible size and appearance that had crept from the stone had driven him away in a marvelous and unexpected way; and then a certain power that had swooped upon him from somewhere had dealt with him thus.

[134] When the Overseer Thomas and Leontius received this account, they immediately went up to the holy city, and having placed Theodorus in a vehicle so that he might show them the place where the gold was hidden, they found it indeed placed under the stone, but the formidable guardian (O miracle!) was nowhere to be seen -- He recovers, as if he had yielded the treasure to its rightful owners. And they immediately took up the gold pieces, paying little attention to those that had been consumed by Theodorus. Theodorus himself felt no more ill effects and was whole in body.

[135] Thomas, who had governed the monastery of Euthymius for eight years, was called hence by the kind and merciful Lord on the twenty-fifth of March, Fifth successor: Leontius. in the seventieth year after the departure of Euthymius. Leontius succeeded him in the governance of the monastery, by whom I, who have committed these things to writing, am enrolled in the register of brothers of that flock. What therefore the Fathers narrated to me about this divine and admirable Euthymius, to whom Cyril, the writer of the Life, came, to speak as the divine David, I have not hidden from their sons, from generation to generation. But it is absolutely necessary not to disregard those things that have occurred in my own time, since those who have received the benefit are still alive and are present in the affairs at hand and have the testimony of their own sight; and even to the present day, miracles beyond all expectation occur, which are a proof and perfect seal of what went before, that nothing whatsoever is to be doubted about them.

[136] In the sixteenth year, then, after I had taken the monastic habit, and was seized by an ardent desire for quietude and silence and for dwelling in the wilderness, I sought an honorable occasion by which I might obtain these things. Finding no other, I professed to be seized by a great desire to see the dedication of the Church of Jerusalem and asked permission to go there. Having been released by the Overseer, when I was about to depart from the metropolis of the Scythopolitans, my mother gave me this instruction: that I should do nothing concerning the soul on my own without the advice and counsel of John the Silentiary. "Lest perhaps," she said, "from the very beginning you may unwittingly be ensnared by the error of the Origenists." When I came therefore to the holy city By the counsel of St. John the Silentiary, he goes over. and had worshipped the sacred places where the Lord tarried for our salvation, and had also worshipped the wood of the divine Cross, I then betook myself to him. He, after giving me other admonitions and counsels, finally also gave me this instruction: "If you wish to be saved, go to the monastery of the great Euthymius and dwell in it." Having heard these things, I came through the wilderness as quickly as possible to the Jordan; and after spending a sufficiently long time with the Fathers who were there, I was brought to the monastery of that great man and was received. Leontius was the one to whom both the care of admitting newcomers and the governance of the monastery had been entrusted.

(a) "Of the Overseer" had been incorrectly added as "of the Bishop." This is Stephen the Arab, brother of Procopius, mentioned above at no. 126. He died in the year of Christ 534, as may be gathered from no. 135.

(b) In the year of Christ 542.

(c) He reports these same things, citing this passage, in the Life of St. John the Silentiary, where he adds Indiction VI, and the ninetieth year of St. John's age, and the month of July in which he came to the monastery of St. Euthymius; which necessarily occurred in the year of Christ 543, the second year of the governance of Leontius. See the Prolegomena, no. 9.

(d) Rather, the thirteenth. St. Sabas returned from Constantinople to Palestine in September, Indiction IX, year of Christ 530. From Jerusalem he traveled to Caesarea, When Cyril received the monastic habit. then to Scythopolis. He acquired the boy Cyril as his disciple, whose head the Metropolitan Theodosius tonsured, placing him in the first ecclesiastical grade. Sabas returned to the Laura and, after a short time there, fell ill, from which illness he died in Indiction X, December 5, year of Christ 531. From Indiction IX, therefore, to the following sixth, only the thirteenth year had elapsed -- unless he is said to have received the monastic habit earlier, which that passage in the Life of St. Sabas barely permits us to suspect.

(e) In the Laura of the blessed Sabas.

(f) Especially with the elderly monk Seniculus in the guesthouse of the Abbot Euthymius, at Scythopolis, at the admonition of St. John, who appeared to him in a dream. In the Life of St. John.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Sacrilege Punished.

[137] A demoniac monk is healed at the tomb of St. Euthymius: While I was dwelling there, I saw at that time a certain man, a Cilician by birth, a monk in habit, Paul by name, who had come from the monastery of Martyrius, whom an evil spirit possessed; and he was brought by those who belonged to him to the monument of Euthymius. When the monk had been placed at the reliquary, the great Euthymius appeared shortly afterward, at midnight, and put the demon to flight. The sure proof of the healing was this: for on that very night Paul went up at the hour of the nocturnal psalmody, became one of those who were singing, and in the presence of us all confessed that he had been cured by God. When the monks of the monastery of Martyrius learned what had happened, they came to take him back to their monastery. But he, wishing to show his gratitude and keeping the grace inscribed, as it were, within himself, remained thenceforth in the coenobium and cheerfully undertook every labor and ministry together with the brothers.

[138] When we were once gathering food in the wilderness -- it was what is commonly called Manuthia -- while collecting it, we asked Paul, who was himself also present, what had happened to him, why he had come to the coenobium, and what cure he had obtained at the reliquary. He, being by now familiar with us and unable to dissemble before us, openly recounted everything: "I," he said, "when the ministry of the Diaconate had been entrusted to me in the monastery of Martyrius, was afflicted in some way by avarice and was seized by the love of money. Being without resources and not knowing whence I might procure for myself even a single drachma, the thought came to me to steal some of the sacred vessels and to sell each one for a price, and thus to acquire some possessions for myself. He had committed sacrilege, drunkenness, and admitted base thoughts, Having been overcome by these wicked thoughts and having cast off the fear of God, I stole the keys from the altar; and having opened the place where the sacred vessels were deposited, some of them I kept for myself, while others I contemptuously distributed to others as well. Then, when I had discharged that office of the Diaconate, I returned the keys, replacing them at the altar. When I had come to dinner with some of the brothers and had sated myself with wine, I lay down wretchedly upon my bed. Immediately every thought of intemperance flooded my soul, as though all had converged at once. And I, whose mind was still corrupted by drunkenness, willingly surrendered myself to these thoughts; and they seized upon me and so affected me that I seemed to feel a woman who was with me and to be lying with her.

[139] Possessed by the devil, Immediately a certain dark and murky cloud came upon me; and this was the accursed demon that had invaded me. Overcome by him as by some enemy, I remained a captive, tormented by him for a long time, and what evil did I not suffer? For when would the enemy take his fill of doing harm, when doing so was in his power? -- until my brothers, moved by compassion, took me up and brought me to the reliquary of the Saint. And immediately, as if I had come to my senses and returned to myself, I prayed with hot tears that the great Euthymius might have mercy on me and deliver me from this outrage of the accursed demon; and in the evening I lay supplicating on account of it, and did not cease to pray. Now around midnight I seemed to find myself in a certain divine and wondrous place, whose setting, beauty, and grace one might wish to see but could by no means express in words. It seemed to me that a certain black cowl, full of wool, had been placed upon my head; And tormented greatly, but that wool (O deliverer from evil, servant of God, Euthymius!) -- may it never be placed upon anyone else. For on the inside, instead of wool, it was furnished with thorns -- and those not at all tolerable or moderate, but similar in size and length to the points of iron styli. It pierced my head terribly and did not even allow me to open my mouth or to breathe.

[140] While being oppressed by so great an evil, I seemed to be turning on my tongue the name of Euthymius and imploring him. He is rebuked by the appearing of St. Euthymius, And he immediately appeared to me, surrounded by much light, white-haired, grave in aspect, cheerful in his eyes, short in stature, with a long beard, clothed in a dark garment, and holding a staff in his hand, and said: 'What is it you need? And what do you wish me to do for you?' When I answered timidly and tremblingly, 'Have mercy on my calamity and deliver me from the grievous demon,' he replied more sternly: 'Are you persuaded by what has happened that nothing escapes God's notice? Have you learned from what you have suffered how great an evil it is to despise the property of the Church, or rather of God, and to pour it out rashly and recklessly? For just as the grace of things consecrated to the Church openly passes to God, and He in turn knows how to bestow recompense from on high, so those who misuse them are insolent not against another but against Him Himself, and pay Him the penalties they deserve. For if long ago Ananias and his wife, when they stole from what they themselves had offered, paid such penalties that they themselves died together with the theft -- what pardon will he obtain who does not spare even another's offering? He is admonished about amendment, Nevertheless,' he said, 'if you make a solemn promise that you will never again lay unjust hands on sacred things, nor delight yourself sweetly by admitting wicked thoughts, God,' he said, 'will comfort you and heal you. Ezekiel 18:23. For He is kind and merciful and does not wish the death of the sinner, as the divine Scriptures teach, but rather that he should be converted and live. For the present evils have befallen you because, although the ministry of sacred things was entrusted to you, you did not keep yourself faithful to God; but immediately you turned to deceit and theft, reaping, as I truly say, where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter. Hence comes the abandonment by Him; hence the assaults of the flesh and intemperance, and hence this grievous flood of demons has poured upon you.'

[141] When I had heard these things, I promised him that I would exercise caution in the future. And he is delivered. 'And then,' he said, 'when he had roared against the accursed demon and had seized my cowl with his hand, he tore it,' he said, 'with difficulty and by force from my head; and it immediately changed its form, and it seemed to me to be a small Ethiopian in the hand of the Saint, with eyes like fire. There seemed also to be a very deep pit dug before his feet; and he cast him down into the pit, and turning again to me, he spoke the word that Christ spoke to the paralytic: "Behold, you have been made whole; sin no more, but attend to yourself, lest something worse befall you." John 5:14. And having been delivered from that affliction, giving thanks to God all the more ardently, I have been preserved from that time to the present day, afflicted by no evil.' When Paul had narrated these things to me, I added the account to the common collection.

(a) We are pleased to append the learned conjecture of Adrian Crommius (a name always to be mentioned with honor by both of us, from whom we were instructed in sacred letters and theological disciplines) about this word, found nowhere else to our knowledge. "I believe," he says, "it is a Hebrew word, and should be written manot-ya, that is, 'portions' or 'shares of God,' Manuthia, what it is, or provisions obtained without purchase, which they gathered in the wilderness from the bounty of God, from trees or plants. A similar word is found in Esther 2:9 in the Hebrew, where 'portions' are said to have been given to Esther. Hebrew: 'her portions,' or things necessary for her sustenance and care. But in that passage the final letters signify the plural number and the feminine affix. It could also be a word composed of Hebrew and Greek, so that manouthia is quasi manna heothinon, so that there is an allusion to the man, or manna, of the Hebrews, which according to Exodus 16:21 and Wisdom 16:28 had to be gathered before sunrise. And the man itself is called, as it were, a portion or share that was given to them by God and was obtained without labor, although our Interpreter also gives another etymology from the Septuagint, Exodus 16:15, so that manhou is quasi 'What is this?'"

CHAPTER XXV.

Demoniacs Delivered.

[142] But now my discourse is again stirred to feed your ears with other matters. For the unbroken succession of miracles does not allow it to rest, ever provoking the narrative onward and ever striving ardently to press forward to what lies ahead -- which is more excellent and more delightful -- as if contending with itself and wishing the things that went before to be surpassed by those that follow. For two cisterns, The cisterns at the entrance of St. Euthymius's property. which tradition says the Amorites originally dug, situated two stadia from the coenobium, the great Euthymius renovated while he was still upon the earth, as we have already declared; and having placed a covering over the mouth of one, he assigned it to the Laura for water supply; while the other he granted to the Saracens whom he had baptized, for a fixed period of time. Since the cisterns were thus arranged, one assigned to the Laura and the other given to the Saracens, the wilderness, which was otherwise arid and almost devoid of water, was invaded by a scarcity of rain. Those who dwelt in the Laura, therefore, fearing a shortage of water, secured the mouth of the cistern with locks and bars.

[143] When the Prefects who were under Roman authority, Aretha and Asuades, A barbarian soldier breaks through. had taken up arms and war against each other, barbarians often scattered through the wilderness both plundered money and destroyed houses and did all the other violent and tyrannical things that are customary in such affairs. When we were once sitting before the entrance of the coenobium, two barbarians approached, and with them was also a certain Christian named Thalamas, a kinsman of the Saracens who had once been baptized by Euthymius. He is invaded by a demon: They were bringing one of their own number, a barbarian who was himself also possessed by a certain savage demon. When they approached, Thalamas explained to us the cause: namely, that when the barbarians had once come to the Laura to water their camels and had found the covering placed upon the cistern, this man whom the demon possesses, being somewhat more savagely barbarian in temperament, broke it with a heavy stone; and a demon immediately struck him in return far more heavily, and thenceforth he lay convulsing and writhing, with his mouth filled with foam.

[144] "I then approached," he said, "and grieved at the barbarian's condition, together with these men I lifted him up He is delivered at the tomb of Euthymius and is baptized. and brought him to the reliquary of the Saint, so that from the same source whence he received calamity, he might also find a remedy for his affliction. For it belongs to the same one both to chastise on account of audacity and to heal again on account of mercy." When the sufferer had been placed at the coffin and not much time had thereafter elapsed, he found a cure greater than he had sought -- not only freed from his affliction but also having his mind illuminated by a more divine light, and being baptized not many days afterward.

[145] A girl is delivered; The daughter of the sister of this same Thalamas was held in the power of an unclean demon. She was therefore carried from Lazarium (for that is where Thalamas lived) to the reliquary, and no other remedy was applied except the sanctification of that coffin; and no more than three days sufficed for complete deliverance from the one who oppressed her.

[146] What shall one say of the son of the Saracen Argobos? For that was the name of the father. A young man; When a certain accursed spirit invaded him while he was pasturing flocks in the wilderness, he was perverted not only in mind but also in his gaze and eyes. He too was brought to the reliquary, and in a very short time was restored, and having everything returned to its proper place, was given back to his father.

[147] One could recount many other things of this kind, indeed innumerable. For a certain woman who lived with her husband in the village of Betabudison A woman: was gravely attacked by a demon one midday while sitting at home; and for six full months she struggled with it, making life for her husband worse than death. When he could bear the misfortune no longer and could find no consolation for his distress, he resolved to take refuge with the great Euthymius; and having taken his wife in such a state of frenzy, he came with her to the monastery. Since women are not permitted to enter, she sat in the vestibule, doing what she could -- employing fasting and prayer, and each evening drinking from the sanctification of the reliquary with the oil of the lamp. On the third night following, the great Euthymius appeared to her and said: "Behold, you have been made whole; go to your house." Immediately the disease was dissolved, the madness ceased, and the woman returned home of sound mind. From that time, mindful of the benefit she had received from the Saint, she came to the monastery every year, and embracing and kissing the very threshold and the ground before the entrance and the very dust, she invited the brothers to a feast and entertained them as hospitably as she could. And this event is of the same kind and yields to none of the former in its magnitude.

[148] The following, moreover, the very man who suffered the calamity and obtained the cure at the tomb of the Saint -- since he still survives in the monastery and is one of the monks in it -- likewise the monk Procopius: testifies in his own tongue and voice. For there is a certain brother in the monastery, a Galatian by birth, named Procopius. This Procopius, then, while still occupied in the tumults of the world, was seized by an evil demon and had it dwelling with him for a long time, filling his inner being with uproar, as he himself told me. After he left the world and came to the monastery and was received by the community of the brothers and worshipped the reliquary, the evil demon was immediately exposed, as light exposes darkness, and was brought into the open, and Procopius was recognized as being possessed, suffering all the things that are characteristic of those so afflicted: frequently being torn apart and cast upon the ground; and moreover having his tongue bound, not even being permitted to speak as he was accustomed. The great Euthymius healed him too and freed him from both the affliction and the madness and from the bonds of his tongue, as is shown to the present day by his presence in the monastery -- not only healthy and free from every affliction, but distinguished by all temperance and endurance, and bearing therein the sweet yoke of Christ according to his strength.

[149] To these things it would be fitting to add what happened to Xenicus. For when we were once sitting at the entrance of the monastery, holding a certain hoe in our hands and cleaning, and Xenicus. this man arrived with a great commotion, driven like a tempest by the evil demon, and crying aloud: "What have I to do with you, O Euthymius, servant of God? Where are you violently dragging me? I will not go out!" Then the evil demon cast him before the doors, and he fell with a crash pitiable to those who saw it. When we rose up with the doorkeeper Babyla and with difficulty lifted him, we led him to the reliquary. But he continued to employ similar cries, exclaiming thus: "Why do you tear me away and pull me apart by force? Why do you lead me to my enemy? Why do you drag me violently to him who always burns me? O violence! I will not go with you, but I shall depart and remain no longer." After we had reached the very tomb of the Saint with Xenicus, greatly exhausted, the demon again cast him down; and having passed that entire night in complete silence, in the morning he arose, moderate and of sound mind, without the slightest remnants of his former condition. When we had joined him at table, during the meal we asked him what had happened to him the day before, how he had come here, and what he had been shouting. He said he knew nothing of any of it, and neither how he had come here nor what he had shouted did he know at all.

(a) In the nineteenth year of Justinian, the year of Christ 545, Edessa was besieged by Chosroes the Elder. Around this time, or shortly after, this internal war between the commanders may have occurred.

(b) That a woman was not permitted to enter the Laura is stated by the same author in the Life of St. John the Silentiary. A similar prohibition regarding the enclosure of St. Simeon Stylites was mentioned on January 5.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Lethargy Removed.

[150] These events, being of such a character and leaving nothing, as regards the nature of miracles, that surpasses them, yield only to those that occurred in the village of Betagabaei, to which our discourse now turns. For there was a certain Presbyter in the monastery, born in that village, named Achthabius, who had spent forty-five years in it and had shown himself to have faithfully carried out the commandments of Christ. He also had a certain brother by birth in the village of the Tagabaeans -- A certain man is afflicted with lethargy and dropsy through magical arts: which village is at the twelfth milestone from Gaza -- who did nothing similar or akin to his brother. Romanus (for so he was called) lived delicately and idly. When a certain man envied his possessions, he wickedly plotted against him and attempted to steal them. When he missed his mark and was pierced by a more violent sting of envy, he went to Eleutheropolis and procured against him a certain sorcerer, the wretch purchasing the ruin of another at great cost. And that one employed the arts he knew. Romanus, however, having foreseen nothing of what was being done, was living in the countryside, in no way guarding against the maleficent spells that were being prepared against him; and suffering also from a torpor of the body (since God was interrupting his great negligence and recalling his mind to zeal and diligence, and had therefore permitted him to be somewhat overcome by the snares of the evil one, as will shortly be shown by what follows), he was carried home. Then, as the evil grew worse, he lay dropsical and was utterly despaired of by the art of physicians. His relatives and friends sat around him, shedding their final tears of separation on his account.

[151] When he was therefore so gravely afflicted and was expecting death itself, having barely and dimly opened his eyes, so that they could scarcely be seen, he begged those present to withdraw a little; and being left alone and turning to the wall, as the great Hezekiah once did, he prayed in the contrition of his heart as follows: He invokes St. Euthymius. "God of hosts, who said, 'When you turn and groan, then you will be saved,' look upon me Yourself and deliver me from this necessity and calamity that oppresses me. 2 Kings 20:2. Meanwhile, as it came to mind, he called upon the great Euthymius against this affliction and offered him to God as an intercessor, and through him begged to be delivered."

[152] Then, as if in an ecstasy, he saw a certain man in monastic dress, white-haired, standing beside him and saying: "What do you wish me to do for you?" And he, divided, he said, between fear and joy, asked: "Who are you, Lord?" And Euthymius said: "The one whom you yourself just called upon; and do not fear my appearance at all, but let me see what you suffer and what part of the body has received the affliction." When he had shown his belly, Euthymius, raising his joined fingers and using them as a scalpel, He is healed by the appearing Saint: cut open what had swollen in the belly, and extracted and dispersed that affliction, and drew out from the belly something like a thin plate made of tin, which had certain characters upon it, and placed it before his eyes on the table. Then, having joined the incision with his hand and anointed it, and made the part whole and sound, he thereupon recounted the whole affair to him: the envy arising from his wealth, the hiring of the sorcerer, the invocation of demons. "But not even thus," he said, He had been exposed to sorcery because of his neglect of the Sacraments. "would the machinations of the enemy have prevailed against you, had you not yourself given him occasion. For see how long it has been since you bothered to come to church or to approach the undefiled Sacraments; but you have lived without care or concern, at least as far as your soul was concerned! Since therefore God has been moved to mercy for you, henceforth attend to yourself and do not neglect the care of your salvation any longer."

[153] When Romanus had heard these things, he immediately rose up healed, since the swelling in his belly had already dispersed; and calling together his relatives, He commemorates the miracle annually. he reported to them the coming of the Saint, and that novel and strange dissection by means of fingers, and, in a word, the entire vision. Then he came to us as well and narrated these things to the Overseer of the monastery, and to his brother Achthabius, and to all of us. On the day on which the miracle occurred, he celebrates a very great festival to this very day, and gives thanks to the Saint every year. But this is of such a nature.

(a) Perhaps Thabatha, or Tabacha, or Tabasa, the birthplace of St. Hilarion, a village about five miles from Gaza? On which see St. Jerome in his Life, October 21.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A Perjurer and a Thief Punished.

[154] What the narrative is now about to relate, I fear may seem incredible to many and not sufficiently in keeping with his character and clemency; so greatly does it show his ardor and so perfect a zeal against those who commit perjury. There is a certain village toward the rising sun, ten stadia from the Laura of Phara, Fraudulently detaining another's sheep, which is itself also called Pharan -- which, I believe, did not receive the name as a surname, but rather itself gave the name to the Laura. A certain man named Cyriacus, born there, was pasturing a flock; and while he was pasturing the flock through those wildernesses, ten additional sheep belonging to a certain man from the same village, who was himself also poor, were entrusted to his care, to be pastured together with his own. After some time had passed, the poor man was reduced to a necessity so inexorable that, having nothing else, he immediately looked to his flock and found it necessary to sell it. But since Cyriacus was of a dishonest disposition, it seems, and preferred not even a small gain to the truth, he returned only eight and asserted that he had received only that many from the beginning. When the poor man demanded the other two beyond those, Cyriacus denied it, and the matter tended toward contention, and they both stirred up a great quarrel between themselves.

[155] He accepts an oath upon the relics of St. Euthymius: Certain arbiters received between them deferred the oath to the one who wished to swear, so that the dispute might be settled in this way. When Cyriacus had determined to swear, the poor man demanded from him an oath by the reliquary of the great Euthymius; and already a day had been fixed for them, and he was going down to the monastery to swear -- or rather to commit perjury -- by that very reliquary, together with the poor man. When they had taken the road that leads from Jerusalem to Jericho, and the monastery was already visible to them, the poor man, seeing Cyriacus entirely given over to perjury and having the oath, as it were, on the very tip of his tongue, was seized with fear, as though he himself were about to swear or perjure himself, and said: "Come, brother, let us turn back. For the mere willingness to swear suffices for our trust, and there is no need to add anything further." Having said this, he begged him not to swear. But Cyriacus would not bear it; unless he also completed the perjury in deed, he thought he would be doing something absurd. He commits perjury: After he entered the monastery, therefore, and perpetrated that grievous act against the reliquary and brought the perjury to completion, he -- being truly foolish, as it were -- said in his heart, "There is no God"; or rather, having himself forgotten God, he supposed that God would also overlook him.

[156] He returned home then, foolishly elated by a certain access of profit gained from perjury. But the next day, while he himself lay in bed, awake, around midnight, it seemed to him that with the door of his house opening of its own accord, a certain elderly monk approached with five younger ones, He is flogged: holding a staff in his right hand, illuminating the entire house with abundant light, fixing him with a terrible gaze, and saying in a stern voice: "What have you dared against the reliquary of Euthymius?" And when his mouth was constrained and he could find nothing to excuse himself, but was as if deaf and tongue-tied, Euthymius commanded him to be handed over for punishment to those around him. Then, when four had stretched him out, he placed the rod in the hand of the fifth and commanded him to beat him severely, so that he would not be a despiser of God, nor a perjurer, nor a defrauder of others' property. After he seemed to have had enough of the blows, staying the young man's hand, he seized him by the hair and said: "Do you know, O impious one, that there is a God who judges these things on earth? Behold, this night they demand your soul from you. What you have wickedly taken -- whose will it be? Therefore this punishment has been inflicted upon you, so that others may become better from it and may flee the danger that threatens from perjury -- or rather, may avoid the very oath itself altogether, even if they intend to speak the truth."

[157] When Euthymius had threatened and spoken these things to Cyriacus, he immediately departed with those who were around him. Cyriacus himself, both disturbed by the vision He asks to be brought to the relics of St. Euthymius: and unable to bear the pains inflicted by the blows, cried out with a piercing voice and called those who were nearby and showed them the wounds and plainly confessed the perjury and bewailed his calamity before them. Then he begged them to carry him to the reliquary of the Saint, saying: "Perhaps the one who inflicted these intolerable blows will more readily heal, since he is the disciple of one whose nature it is to do good rather than to punish. For against such pains the hand of physicians would scarcely suffice." When they had heard these things and also seen how severe the wounds he had received were, being themselves also seized with no small fear, they nonetheless yielded to his desire and devised this means of carrying him: they filled two sacks with straw and, having placed them crosswise upon a certain donkey, they set him between them and carried him to the monastery and to the reliquary. When they had narrated to us everything that had happened to him and had shown the wounds he had received on his back, they instilled such fear in the brothers that from that time forward no one would either permit anyone to swear by the reliquary of the Saint or, as far as it was in their power, defer an oath to another.

[158] When they had spent one day with us and had seen Cyriacus deprived even of the faintest and feeblest hope of life and tending toward death, since his bowels had given way and his mouth could not suppress even the slightest vomiting, they took him up and carried him back home. He dies. He barely survived that night and died the next day.

[159] At that time, a certain foreign pilgrim, received as a guest in the monastery, having gone to the church for the purpose of praying and having contemplated everything in it, at midnight approached the tomb of the Saint and carried off with not merely unwashed, as the saying goes, He steals the silver chone, but truly profane hands the silver chone that stood above it, and by night, unseen by anyone, he left. Of all who were in the monastery, no one detected the fraud, and what had been done remained unknown. But in the morning, Procopius, who was in charge of the door -- the same man who had earlier obtained a great cure from the Saint -- going a little way from the entrance, found the foreigner (O miracle!) in some way fixed like a pillar. Perplexed in his mind and not knowing what to do, he disclosed the secret to the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper then brought him into the monastery and had him confess the miracle in the presence of all the brothers. He narrated something novel and almost incredible. For he said that around midnight he had stolen the silver chone; He cannot flee. and that he had immediately gone out with the pack animals of the monastery, and had indeed set out at a swift pace through the night for no less than thirty stadia, but had not at all passed beyond the boundaries of the monastery; rather, at dawn he was found before the monastery itself, as though bound and unable to move in the slightest. For the stolen object had, as it were, bound the thief and caused those who had suffered the theft to remain in possession. We were all astounded at these things and marveled at this great power of the Saint. Having therefore received back the sacred chone and given the man (for he was poor) sufficient provisions for the journey, we dismissed him to depart for home.

(a) Chone means a funnel. An ampulla or similar vessel destined for sacrifice seems to be meant.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Epilogue. Reason for the Composition.

[160] These are a few of the many deeds of the great Father Euthymius, which we ourselves have seen and which we have received by hearing; so that neither the life he led in the flesh nor the miracles performed by him after his death may be unknown to posterity -- since both agree with each other and beautifully cohere. For deeds of such a kind performed after death cannot belong to anyone other than the one who displayed such a life upon earth; nor could anyone else have led such a life except the one who after death is illustrious for such miracles. Cyril is stirred to inquire about the life of St. Euthymius: For I, who have myself also received many graces from him and been benefited by him in many ways in body and soul, when I saw his reliquary constantly abounding in many miracles, was always marveling within myself and reflecting on how he had obtained such great confidence before God; and my mind was stirred by a vehement desire to know accurately what his life had been, and what his exercise in virtue, and whence he had such great familiarity and union with God.

[161] What he learned from the elders he writes down: When I had encountered many of the Fathers who were in the wilderness, some of whom had rightly heard of the deeds of Euthymius and some of whom had also been in the company of the blessed Sabas himself, whatever each of them narrated to me about either of them, I wrote down most carefully, but in a confused and disordered fashion. When in the course of time the fifth holy Council was afterward assembled at Constantinople, and the doctrines of Origen and Nestorius had been struck by its anathema, and the Origenists who had held the New Laura were expelled from it, He departs for the New Laura, and faithful and orthodox Fathers had migrated back into it, with the permission of the admirable John the Silentiary -- him, I say, who was a Bishop -- I departed from the coenobium and myself took up residence in this Laura. When I had moved to it, following the paternal letters that were carried by me, He composes the Lives of Saints Euthymius and Sabas over two years, directing me to compose the history of the blessed Euthymius and Sabas, I then spent two continuous years in the Laura and pursued the work I had begun.

[162] But since I was unable to make a beginning to the narrative, not having been trained in external learning, I did not cease weeping and imploring and beseeching most earnestly. Already I was considering abandoning the endeavor, which was so difficult and beyond my powers. When I was once uncertain and perplexed, sitting in my usual chair, holding the paper in my hand and deep in thought, around the second hour of the day, sleep came upon me; and immediately the great Euthymius and the divine Sabas appeared, dressed as they were accustomed, By the appearing of these Saints, and I seemed to hear them conversing, with the venerable Sabas beginning the conversation and saying to the great Euthymius: "Behold, your Cyril holds in his hand the paper of the commentaries; yet though he has applied great study and diligence, he has not yet been able to set even a beginning to the narrative." And when Euthymius said: "And how could he have done this, if the grace from above has not aided him?" the divine Sabas answered: "Then do you give him the grace, holy Father." And thereupon the divine Euthymius, with a gesture of assent, having thrust his hand into his bosom, drew forth from it a certain silver box of honey, in which, having dipped a pen, he thrust it into my mouth three times. Its appearance was similar to oil, but its taste (O the graces that are there!) truly cannot be explained or expressed in words; and indeed to compare it with honey would be plainly to do the matter an injustice. For even when I awoke on account of the inexpressible pleasure, He receives the grace of writing. its remnants still remained in my mouth; and thus filled with this divine sweetness, I undertook the present work and attempted also in another work to write the deeds of Sabas. May there come, through their intercessions, great benefit to the hearers, to the glory of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one and inseparable Trinity, to whom belongs glory, honor, and adoration, now and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

(a) In the year of Christ 553.

(b) On that condemnation, more is said by the same author in the Life of St. Sabas.

(c) On the New Laura and its first Hegumens, Cyril treats at greater length in the Life of St. Sabas. See the prolegomena.

(d) On these, the same Cyril writes in the Life of St. Sabas.

(e) He had relinquished the Bishopric of Colonia in Armenia.

(f) Around the year of Christ 555.

LIFE OF ST. PETER THE TAX-COLLECTOR,

Sixth Century.

From the Greek Menaea.

Peter the Tax-Collector, of Constantinople (St.)

Christ calls you, Peter, from the tax-collection First to virtue, now to the delights of heaven.

This man, during the reign of Justinian, having been named a Patrician, received the administration of all Africa; at first so harsh, unkind, and merciless toward the poor that he was commonly called and regarded as "the Miser."

[2] Peter presides over the taxes of Africa, harsh toward the poor: A certain beggar approached him, not so much in the hope of receiving as to test him; and when the beggar asked for alms, Peter seized a bread (for a baker happened to be bringing freshly baked loaves from the oven for Peter) and hurled it at the petitioner like a stone, not without anger. Not yet had two days passed when Peter fell ill and saw that he would have to render an account of all he had done; He is converted by a heavenly vision: and at the same time a scale seemed to be present, in which both sides would be weighed. At the left pan, he saw a great throng of Ethiopians assembled, heaping his many wicked deeds into the pan; and at the right, he saw men in white but of fearsome appearance, who could find nothing good to place in the pan except that bread which he had angrily thrown at the poor man.

[3] He gives his possessions to the poor: As soon as he recovered from the illness, he distributed all his wealth among the wretched; and even the very clothes he was wearing he gave to a certain beggar, in which he afterward saw Christ clothed. He sees Christ clothed in his garments; he sells himself: Whence he even sold himself and gave the money thus raised to beggars. After he had been thus sold, foreseeing that he would be recognized, he commanded a deaf doorkeeper to open the gate for him, and at the same time conferred upon him both hearing and speech; He heals a deaf-mute; he dies. and fleeing, he came to Jerusalem and finally to Constantinople, where he rested in the Lord, his body being deposited in the place called "of the Ox," in his own house.

(a) Justinian began to reign in the year of Christ 527. He subdued Africa, having captured Gilimer, King of the Vandals, in the year 534. He died in the year 565.

(b) In the Life of St. John the Almoner, he is simply called a Tax-Collector.

(c) The following is described more fully, received from the mouth of St. John, in his Life on January 23, chapter 7. St. John himself had once had a servant in Cyprus who previously lived with St. Peter in Africa.

(d) The Greek word is Pheidolos. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 4, chapter 1, places Pheidoloi among the species of avarice.

(r) Thus far from the Life of St. John the Almoner. The rest is from the Menaea, which are reported also by Maximus of Cythera.

(f) Leontius in the Life of St. John says that he wished to be sold in the Holy City; but whether he was sold and recognized in the holy places or outside of Jerusalem -- since it is said here that he fled there -- is unclear. Metaphrastes says he was sold and recognized at Jerusalem, and therefore there is an error in the Menaea.

(g) He is venerated both by the Greeks, as the Menaea already cited attest, and by Maximus of Cythera; and by the Egyptians, as is clear from the Coptic Calendar.