ON ST. SARA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS,
OF SCETE IN LIBYA.
ABOUT THE END OF THE 4TH CENTURY.
A notice from the Greek tables and the Lives of the Fathers.
Sara, Virgin and Abbess, in Scete of Libya (S.)
J. P.
The memory of St. Sara, unknown on this day in other Synaxaria, I find in the Menaeon of Chifflet: who is also inscribed in the Supplement to the printed Menaea from the Synaxarium of Sirmond and the manuscript of Chifflet in these words: The memory of the Saint among the Greeks; Τῇ αὐτῇ ἡ ὁσία Σάῤῥα ἐν εἰρήνη τελ. On the same day (the thirteenth of July) St. Sara died in peace; with these little verses added:
Κόλπους ἐποαχὼν, τῶν νέαν Σάῤῥαν δαέχου Ὁ τῆς παλαίας Ἀβραὰμ Σάῤῥης ἄνερ.
Receive the new Sara into your promised bosom, O Father Abraham; whose wife the old Sara was.
[2] That St. Sara was placed by Arturus in the sacred Gynaeceum on the XXX of May, according to his accustomed license, whom Arturus announces on a day not his own. with no more ancient example, we noted
in the Praetermissi on that day; from which she has been drawn back hither by us, following the two above-mentioned Synaxaria of the Greeks. Moreover it will not be foreign to our purpose to transcribe the announcement which the said Arturus has in the same place: At Scete in Egypt, of St. Sara, virgin and abbess, who in the time of Theodosius the elder shone forth remarkably in the virtue of chastity, wisdom, and monastic observance. But there are not lacking more ancient things which may illustrate the name of the holy Abbess.
[3] For indeed her lofty mind, most heaped up with virtues, From the Lives of the Fathers her chastity is shown; is expressed in living lineaments in Rosweyde in the Lives of the Fathers; whence I cull the few things that pertain here. And first of all, how tenacious of her purpose St. Sara the virgin was, how endowed with an unconquered breast against the machinations of the impure spirit, by which for a long time she was much and sharply harassed, is made plain from book 5, page 574, where I read: They related concerning the abbess Sara, that she remained for thirteen years bravely assailed by the fornications of the demons: and she never prayed that such a battle might depart from her, but only said this: Lord, give me strength. The same things Cotelerius has among the Apophthegmata of the Fathers, in volume I of the Monuments of the Greek Church, page 651.
[4] But how averse she was from vainglory; how certainly she held it persuaded, her hatred of vainglory, that all her sufficiency was from God, is proved from the same place: They said again of her, that at one time the same demon of fornication, more hostile to her, pressed upon her more strongly, casting into her thought the vanities of the world. But she, not relaxing her mind from the fear of God, and from her purpose of abstinence, went up once upon her bed [*] to pray; and the spirit of fornication appeared to her bodily, and said to her: You have conquered me, Sara. But she answered: It is not I who have conquered you, but my Lord Christ. Which also Cotelerius has in the cited place.
[5] She excelled in a custody of the eyes almost beyond belief, a wonderful custody of the eyes, as the words in the same place, page 587, make credible; where these things are related: They said of the abbess Sara, virgin of blessed memory, that she dwelt above the channel of a river for sixty years, and was never bent down to look upon the river itself. Which things Cotelerius also recounts, as the two following, pages 691, 692.
[6] manly fortitude, Now that in a womanly sex she bore a manly spirit, joined with the virtue of penitence, no one will doubt who has read in the said Lives, page 603, the following saying of hers: There came once two old men from the parts of Pelusium to the abbess Sara. And as they walked, they said to one another: Let us humble this little old woman. And they said to her: See that your mind is not lifted up, and that you say not: Behold, solitary men come to me, who am a woman. And the abbess Sara said to them: In sex indeed I am a woman, but not in mind.
[7] integrity of heart. Our Saint had the most earnest care for a pure and whole heart. Hear her speaking in the same place, page 609: Again the abbess Sara said: If I should ask of God that all men be edified in me, I should be found doing penance before the doors of each; but I rather pray that my heart may be pure with all. And these are the things which it was permitted to find concerning St. Sara in the same place; and which afterward gave matter to Peter de Natalibus, book 11, chapter 46; to St. Antoninus, part 2 of the Histories, title 15, §2, page 144 verso; and to Vincent of Beauvais in the Mirror of History, book 17, chapter 9. I add a few things from Cotelerius, page 692: She said again: I set my foot upon the ladder, about to ascend; and I place death before my eyes, before I make the ascent. This also she uttered: It is good even for the sake of men to do almsgiving: for although it be done from a zeal to please men, yet afterward it proceeds to a zeal to please God. Once the monks of Scete came to Mother Sara, who set before them a basket. But they, leaving the good apples, ate the bad. And she said to them: Truly you are men of Scete. Peter Thomas Saracenus of Bologna the Carmelite wrongly inscribed St. Sara in the Catalogue of the many Saints and Blessed hermits of both sexes of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, appended to the notes of the Carmelite Menology, published by him, and to the feasts to be resumed.
[8] Of the place and time in which she flourished. For the rest, that this holy Abbess flourished in Scythis, a solitude of Libya, in the time of Theodosius the elder, Peter de Natalibus is the authority; whose opinion we followed, and assigned St. Sara to Scete in Libya in the title; and attached her life to the close of the fourth century; how much beyond it she prolonged it, whether and how long, is hidden from us; no indication having been found by us among the Greek Hagiologists of the place in which she lived, or of the time in which she flourished: which may perhaps seem wonderful to someone: because among the Greeks she was not at all ignoble, as is gathered from the Triodion of the Greeks, in whose canon, wont to be recited at the Parasceve before the Sunday of the Tyrophagi or Quinquagesima, and where the God-fearing Fathers who excelled in monastic exercise are commemorated one by one; in whose Triodion canon, I say, ode seven, which is of the Holy Women, mention is made of her: Marina, wise in heavenly things, let her now be honored with the great Matron. But Syncletica and Sara, together with Justa, as wise virgins, let them be celebrated with songs.
Annotation* Cotelerius reads "roof," in Greek δωμάτιον.