ON ST. PETER THE PATRICIAN
IN THE 9TH CENTURY
A PRELIMINARY LITTLE COMMENTARY.
Peter the Patrician Abbot Confessor, at Constantinople (S.)
BY J. P.
Not from the Menaea of the Ambrosian library alone, comprising the brief epitome of the life which will presently be given, is the sacred cult of this holy Peter made known, in which it is thus read: Memory of our holy father Peter the Patrician, Cult who professed the institute of the monastery of Euander. He is expressly indicated elsewhere in more than one place. One Turin codex on the first day of this month, likewise another Turin codex, on the third of the same month mentioned him, as I find observed in our apograph, described by the hand of Father Henschenius; who also notes that after the words "in the Lord," with which word the life of Peter in the said Ambrosian Menaea ends, there is subjoined in the Turin codices: His spirit indeed was carried over to the embrace of God; but his venerable body he left here, and imparted to it the power of putting to flight every disease. And he is said, when advanced to manly age, to have worn within a hairy mat, with which also he was buried.
[2] In our Ms., supplying the defect of several Saints passed over in the printed Greek Menaea, which we keep composed partly from the parchment Ms. Synaxarion of Father Sirmond, it is established. partly from the paper Ms. of Chifflet, I read our Saint announced in these words: Memory of our holy Father Peter the Patrician, who was of the company of Euander. The two little verses added I transcribe and render in Latin English: Leaving the glory of the earth, and the sweet things of the earth, dying Peter obtained the glory of heaven. The earthly ornaments, the earthly riches Peter, leaving them after death, obtains the glory of heaven. Cardinal Baronius, reviewing the Bulgarian war and the death of the emperor Nicephorus in the words of Theodore the Studite for the year of Christ 811, on the same occasion announces these things to our purpose:
[3] The occasion of a better life. Serving in that battle, Peter the Patrician, by the wonderful kindness of God, is freed from danger: he was not ungrateful to his benefactor; since, the world being dismissed, he offered himself wholly to God, when he handed over what remained to him of his life-time to be spent in monastic observance, which he so diligently pursued and fulfilled, that he flourished with distinguished holiness, and so after his death deserved to be inscribed among the Saints in the ecclesiastical tables with this elogium, on the 1st day of the month of July: [Peter our holy Father, of Constantinople indeed, was under the most pious reign of Irene, son of Constantine the Patrician, from whom also he learned all writing, gentile and Christian. Afterward, joined also to a wife, he was made Patrician, and on account of his fortitude chosen as a familiar by Nicephorus the prince, father of Stauracius. And having set out with the emperor on the expedition against the Bulgars, after his slaughter and the flight of his son Stauracius, he was intercepted with fifty others, and freed from his bonds by the prayer and apparition of St. John, the world being left, he took up the monastic life, and on Mount Olympus exercised himself with holy Joannicius. But after his passing, seeking the royal city, and residing in a temple built by himself in the place of Euander, and discharging every virtue, and working many miracles, he was consummated.]
[4] When this our Saint lived These things Baronius from the Greek Menology, which agree with our apograph of the Menology of Grottaferrata, published by command of the emperor Basil, and to be printed in Greek at the end of this volume. As to the reckoning of the time in which this our Saint lived; I compose it in a few words in this manner. He is reported to have come into the light in the times of Constantine and his mother Irene. Who began to reign in the year of Christ 780. He was therefore born about the year 788. He afterward informed himself in the more polished literature, of which he is believed to have been most studious, even to the year 810. this Saint. Then he gave his name to the military service, and in the following year 811 set out into Bulgaria with the emperor Nicephorus and was captured. Freed in the same year by the work of St. John the Evangelist, he betook himself to Mount Olympus, to embrace the institute of ascetic life; in which he persevered 54 years, and so to the year of Christ 865, of his age 77. Add some years, which he spent in the monastery of Euander, built by himself, and another eight years, which living apart he spent in a hut; and by probable conjecture you will easily attain the whole series and duration of his life, namely that our Saint was more than ninety years old, and lived on to the end of the ninth century.
THE LIFE, From the Ms. Menaea of the Ambrosian library F. O. number 148, collated with the Ms. Basilian Menology.
Peter the Patrician Abbot Confessor, at Constantinople (S.)
He was, in the times of Irene a the most pious Augusta, and of Constantine her son, the son of rich parents. From boyhood having frequented the school of letters, and having gathered all the best things, he laid them up with himself. Dismissed from the schools, and joined in matrimony, while he was Patrician b and domestic c of the schools, he set out with Nicephorus the emperor into Bulgaria. But war having arisen, the Romans first strongly conquer the Bulgars. But the things which followed after, it is well to pass over in silence d. For they were overcome; and the Blessed one, together with the fifty leaders e intercepted by the Bulgars, is kept, about to pay the penalty. As they prayed, by night there stood by them John the Evangelist and Theologian, and frees them from their bonds, and carries them over into the land of the Romans.
[2] After these things the Patrician, having departed to Mount Olympus, embraced the institute of the monastic life together with the great Joannicius f, reckoning all his faculties as dung. Having passed there four years above fifty, and having traversed the stadium of every virtue, he betook himself to the Royal g city, and resided in a temple built by himself, whose name was of Euander h. And his wife and his son having departed from life, in a hut which he had built, he lived far from the sight of men for eight years, his whole body clothed with a hairshirt, and walking with bare feet. Having therefore rightly and graciously conversed with God, he rested in the Lord.