ON ST. MACRINA, VIRGIN,
IN CAPPADOCIA, OR RATHER IN PONTUS.
IN THE YEAR 380.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The cult, birth, death, and Acts of St. Macrina.
Macrina, Virgin, in Cappadocia or in Pontus (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR P. B.
St. Macrina the virgin, sister of St. Basil the Great, was long ago most celebrated throughout the whole East, both for her remarkable contemplation of heavenly things and for the wholly admirable holiness of her life, and was inscribed in the Fasti of almost all the churches there on this same day, the 19th of July. St. Macrina long venerated on this day, The Synaxarium from the Menologion collected by the order of the Emperor Basil, whose Greek text we gave at the end of the first volume of this month, sounds thus in Latin: The memory of St. Macrina, sister of the great Basil. St. Macrina, adorned with beauty of body and excellent manners, was indeed betrothed to a man; but when, the union not yet made, he who had destined her for himself died abroad, she, separating herself from all worldly commerce, clung to her mother, giving herself to the divine Scriptures, and in the place of a second mother educating the brothers born after her: for among the children, ten in all, she herself was the eldest by birth. And since she also lived holily in the ascetic manner of life, she was of profit to very many: for she was a teacher not only by words, but also by works: for whoever shall have done and taught, says the holy Gospel, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. But when near to death, she philosophized with her brother, Gregory of Nyssa, who had come to visit her, both about the soul and about certain other questions of the sacred Scriptures. And thus, prayers having been poured forth, she departed hence to God, whom she had served.
[2] Nearly the same things have the printed Menaea, and the manuscript of Chifflet, the Menologion of Sirletus, Maximus of Cythera, and the New Anthologion printed at Rome in the year 1598. through the Eastern churches, The printed Menaea besides, in addition to the acrostic hymns, whose initial letters this little verse contains:
Νύμφην ἁγνήν σε Χριστοῦ, Μακρίνα, στέφω.
I crown you, chaste bride of Christ, O Macrina.
Besides these hymns, I say, and others which they have, where her commemoration is noted a second time, they also prefix these little verses to her historical eulogy:
Φρονοῦσ᾽ ἀδελφὰ τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς Μακρίνα, Τούτοις ἀδελφὰ συγκατοικεῖ καὶ πόλον. Τῇδ᾽ ἐνάτῃ δεκάτῃ Μακρίναν νόες ἔνθεν ἄειραν.
That is:
Macrina, the sister seeking heaven for her brothers, / Joined to her brothers, the sister dwells in heaven. / On this nineteenth day the spirits bore Macrina hence.
[3] The Typicon of St. Sabas thus announces her on the same day: somewhat later at last also Of our holy mother Macrina, sister of the great Basil; understand, the solemnity or feast. In agreement are the Horologion of Grottaferrata, the manuscript Menaea of the Ambrosian library, the Horologion printed at Venice in the year 1607, the Calendar of the Greeks edited by Genebrard, the Slavo-Russian Menologion, the Calendar of the Muscovites. Others have merely, without any addition: Of St. Macrina, as the Arabic-Egyptian Martyrology translated by Grazia Simonio, the Ruthenian Calendar in Possevino, and the Synaxarium of that same nation sent here to us by Fr. Georgius David. And hence, as before
I intimated, it may be conjectured how celebrated among the Eastern churches was the memory and cult of this holy Virgin; so that it is a wonder that she at last became known so late to the Western church; which you may marvel at the more, because she was neither born in an obscure place, and had as the herald of her exceptional holiness and virtues not some stranger or an author of whatever sort from the common crowd, but her brother, a bishop, a river of eloquence, and a father of the Church, St. Gregory of Nyssa.
[4] But indeed this lucubration of Gregory's was rather late brought into the light among his other works: she began to be venerated in the West. but once it appeared and, through the translator Francesco Zino, began to be read in Latin, immediately among us too the name and virtues of St. Macrina became famous; first indeed among the biographers, Lippomano in the year 1553 in the Lives of the Saints, volume 2, and Surius and other later writers on the 19th of July, then also in the Martyrologies; for Molanus inscribed her in his Usuard in the year 1573, and a decade later she was adopted into the Roman, the same day, the 19th of July, being kept in both, which all the Easterners, whom I recounted before, constantly assign to her alone. But whether this holy Sister of their holy Father was known or venerated earlier among the Basilians who follow the Roman rite in Spain, I know not: now certainly they celebrate her feast in the manner of a double of the second class with an Octave, as is noted in the Order of reciting the office printed in the year 1718. There are also those who would have that skull to be of this holy Virgin, which is preserved among the Benedictines in the monastery of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés near Paris, as a certain recent French legend-writer asserts; but he adds that he would do a service if someone would confirm that matter with just names and titles. Thus far concerning the cult.
[5] Of the rest there is no need here of a long commentary: She seems to have been born about the year of Christ 315: for her ancestors, parents, and kinsmen are all common to her with St. Basil the Great; and they have been treated of in his Life on the 14th of June from page 815, and elsewhere, as will be noted below in the Acts. Concerning her country there may seem to be doubt; whether it was the same for her as for Basil, namely Caesarea of Cappadocia, or rather Pontus, outside of which her father does not seem ever to have had a fixed domicile; as may be gathered from Macrina's own words below, chapter 4, number 24. Yet she can also in this way be said to have been born in Cappadocia; since that province, taken more broadly, also included Pontus, as Constantine Porphyrogenitus teaches, book 1, Theme 2. The time also in which she was born is not easily defined: this one thing is established, that she was earlier than Basil the Great, who was the eldest by birth among the four brothers. We, when we fixed the epoch of the birth of Basil the Great, which is itself also greatly disputed, at the year of Christ 316, in the place cited from page 811 to 814; there also we established that our Macrina arose in the preceding year; and indeed in that chronology of ours probably enough: for if St. Basil was born in the year of Christ 316, and Macrina preceded him, as is certain, she could not have been born later than about one year before Basil; nor can she be supposed born much earlier; because it is not probable that her parents thought of marriage before the most atrocious persecution was altogether removed, that is, before the year of Christ 313. But a certain epoch can be less conveniently fixed and determined by those who contend that Basil the Great was born about the year of Christ 329, with Tillemont, volume 9 of the Monuments of ecclesiastical history, note 1 on St. Basil, and note 4 on St. Gregory Nazianzen: since in that opinion it could easily have happened that between Macrina and Basil some daughters, and thus several years, intervened.
[6] She died in the year of Christ 379, as some will have it; Concerning the year of her death there is also some dispute: for our Predecessors (where they treat of St. Peter of Sebaste on the 9th of January, page 589) assert that Macrina died on the 19th of July in the year of Christ 380; while in the same place they refer the death of St. Basil the Great to the Kalends of January of the year of Christ 379. But on the contrary, on the 9th of March, in the historical Commentary on St. Gregory bishop of Nyssa, §1, number 6, it is said, though only in passing, that Macrina died in the same year as Basil: which opinion afterward Hermant followed in his Life of SS. Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, book 8, chapter 31, Tillemont on St. Gregory of Nyssa, articles 4 and 5, and others. Both opinions are defended by these words of Gregory of Nyssa, below, chapter 2, number 17, taken from the Life of St. Macrina: It was the ninth month after this loss (that is, the death of Basil), or a little more, when a council of bishops was summoned at Antioch, at which we likewise were present. But after each of us had departed to his own home, before the year had passed, a desire fell upon me, Gregory, to visit my Sister. But the day after he had reached her, he closed the eyes of the dying Macrina, as is established from what follows. The question is asked, from what point St. Gregory begins that year which had not yet passed, when he went to his Sister. Bollandus, the asserter of the former opinion, thought it was reckoned from the summoning of the Council of Antioch, that is, from about October of the year 379; and so ran out until about October of the year of Christ 380, on which he judges that Macrina's death occurred on the 19th of July: but others think that the beginning of that year is to be sought from the death of St. Basil, which they defend as having happened, with us, on the Kalends of January of the year 379; and consequently they terminate that year on the last day of December of the same year 379, and so deny that the happy passing of Macrina could have occurred later than that month.
[7] I, in this matter, would rather subscribe to the former opinion, nay, more probably in the year 380, on July 19; and with Bollandus say that St. Macrina died on the 19th of July, and so in the year of Christ 380; whether that Gregorian year is to be said to have flowed from the Council of Antioch, or was civil, and flowed, in the manner of the Greeks, from September to September, such as here seems to me to be understood. And that the nineteenth day of July was consecrated by her most blessed death, this is an argument, that Latins, Greeks, Arabs, all assign that one day alone as the feast and solemnity of St. Macrina, as many as anywhere celebrate her memory in the sacred Fasti, as we saw above; and that she died on that very day the Menaea, once printed at Venice, testify besides in express words. This is not, you say, a very weighty authority. Be it so indeed: yet it is not nothing, especially in so great a consent of the churches: and give me a weightier one that asserts otherwise. But if you confess that that day was Macrina's last: now you cannot deny this either, that she departed from among the living after the year of Christ 379: since that happened after the completion of the Council of Antioch, which was gathered in the year of Christ 379, about the month of October; as St. Gregory himself, cited in this Life, just now teaches.
[8] But lest anyone think that only the Martyrologies or Menaea are our patrons; so that against Tillemont and others; let them say, I beseech, who will have our Virgin to have passed to heaven in the year of Christ 379, in about what month they think it happened; (for I do not exact of them the day, which they cannot define.) In the month of November or December, says Tillemont, Monuments of ecclesiastical history, volume 9, where he treats of St. Gregory of Nyssa, article 5, following Hermant, who had affirmed the same in so many words in his Life of SS. Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, book 8, chapter 31. Nor indeed can that death then be supposed to have happened earlier; unless one should think that the Council of Antioch was altogether perfunctory, in which matters so trifling were to be treated, that in one day or another the whole cause was finished, and the synod dissolved; which is absurd; since it was a council of the whole Eastern church, to which at least a hundred and forty-six bishops had come; as may be gathered from the Epistle of Damasus and others to the bishops established throughout the East, in Holstenius in his Roman Collection, page 177. Deservedly, therefore, scarcely before the advanced part of November or even December do they either dare or are able to place Gregory returned from Syria in Pontus, who contend that in the year of Christ 379 he was present at the dying Macrina.
[9] But this opinion by no means seems capable of being reconciled with the narrative of St. Gregory in this very Life, number 21; it is proved from St. Gregory of Nyssa. where in his first conversation with his Sister he introduces her thus: It is time, she says, father, that you rest a little and care for your body, who are wearied from a long journey. Then Gregory adds concerning himself: But I, … having found in the neighboring gardens a certain pleasant lodging prepared, was resting under the shade of the shrubs. Who would not say that these things indicate either late spring or midsummer? Who in mid-November or December either seeks or finds the shades of shrubs in gardens? And who then would have devised pleasant lodgings in gardens and shades? Since then the sunshine is much more pleasant than shade, according to that saying of Ovid: In winter suns, more pleasant is summer shade. But how much more does this hold in Pontus? Where how long and harsh the winters are may be conjectured even from this, that at Sebaste in neighboring First Armenia, which inclines more to the south than Pontus, the Forty Martyrs, of whom we treated on the 10th of March, were killed by frost upon a pond frozen into ice, and that in the same month of March. See also, if you please, on this matter, St. Basil and our Gregory in their Homilies on the 40 Martyrs. Add that the very time at which Gregory withdrew to the gardens and shades was almost evening, as is manifestly gathered from the whole narrative, especially from numbers 17 and 24. Who then, wearied by a hurried journey, in mid-November or December, would seek in the evening in gardens, under the cold air, little shades for resting? To me indeed these things seem so alien from all likeness of truth, that they altogether compel us to defer the death of St. Macrina to the following year and the summer season. See below, chapter 3, number 25, note h.
[10] The objections are dissolved, Nor do I dwell on the arguments which Tillemont opposes to Bollandus, which are indeed weak; as when he says, in note 5 on St. Gregory of Nyssa, that manifest violence is done to the Gregorian text (which I cited in number 6) unless that year, which he there says had not yet passed, is reckoned from the death of St. Basil. I read the text both in Greek and in Latin, and weighed it carefully; yet I could not detect that manifest violence. Certainly it is not so manifest as if you should say that Gregory asserted that he saw the shades of shrubs in Pontus in the month of December most pleasant. Likewise
that which he has in the same place, note 11, namely that Gregory returned from the Council of Antioch, and then went to his Sister, before he undertook the journey to Jerusalem and Arabia; which, however, he must be said to have undertaken before the year 381, in which he was present at the Council of Constantinople. It is clearly evident, he says, from what St. Gregory affirms (at the beginning of the Life to be given below) that he met Olympius at Antioch, when he was about to go to Jerusalem, etc. That that Antiochene journey was different from the one which he had undertaken to that same city of Antioch in the year of Christ 379, in order to be present there at the council: otherwise he would have expressed this rather as the cause of his journey, as far weightier than that one. Besides, says Tillemont in the same place, he does not seem to have resolved on the journey to Jerusalem except on the occasion of the commission imposed on him by the Council of Antioch for Arabia; therefore he had not then come to Antioch with the intention of going to Jerusalem. Grant that the matter is so; although I see nothing here so clear. Grant this, I say, to the adversary. What then afterward? Could he not have met Olympius at Antioch then for the first time, when, having recently received the commission from the council, he had resolved to go to Jerusalem? Thus indeed both these weapons are easily blunted. And if the principal cause is always to be expressed; I ask, which was the stronger reason for Gregory's going to Jerusalem, the vow, or the commission of the council? For St. Gregory alleges the cause of the vow alone for that journey in the preface of this Life; but in the Oration on Those Who Go to Jerusalem, he commemorates the commission of the Council of Antioch as the sole cause of that same journey. I pass over many other things which could here be replied, if it were worth the trouble: for the adversary does not conceal that these arguments of his, however clear, are exceedingly weak, when he adds:
[11] and our opinion is confirmed. Finally (which is, he says, of greater weight than the rest) he composed the Life of Macrina, of which the chief part is the history of her death, at the request of Olympius then (namely when, about to seek Jerusalem, he met him at Antioch): it is therefore as certain that Gregory did not think of Jerusalem except after the death of St. Macrina, as it cannot be doubted that St. Macrina did not die except after the Council of Antioch; so that consequently there is no reason why his text should be tortured; as if he had said, as Bollandus will have it, that he came to St. Macrina before a year had elapsed from the Council of Antioch. Thus Tillemont. I answer that St. Gregory in the Preface of the Life of St. Macrina by no means signifies that he was then asked by Olympius for the history of the Life of St. Macrina, when, about to go to Jerusalem, he had met him at Antioch; he only says that he then made mention of Macrina; he could therefore have been asked this by Olympius by letter a long time later, and then have complied with it by a letter of reply. And as for the fact that in describing his Sister's death he is somewhat more diffuse there; he could have done this because he had narrated to Olympius the other things which pertained to her life and virtues fully enough face to face at Antioch, so that it sufficed him to repeat them summarily; but concerning her death, which had happened later than that Antiochene meeting, since in it there were many things both marvelous in themselves and until then unheard by Olympius, he deservedly had to treat more fully. Finally, that St. Gregory had returned from Jerusalem (which he visited only once, if the Oration On Those Who Go to Jerusalem is his) before he visited his Sister, he sufficiently intimates below in the Life, number 24, where among the labors which he had sustained (ἐν οἷς ἤμην) he recounts to his Sister the struggles to which the disturbance of the churches had called him after the persecution of Valens, which certainly must be understood of the journey into Arabia and thence into Palestine, says Tillemont in the same place, note 5. Already therefore after the Council of Antioch he had visited Arabia and Palestine, when he came to his dying Sister: he could not therefore have come to her before the year 380; as our Bollandus rightly noted, and so there seems to be no reason why anyone should deny that she died then even in midsummer, that is, on the 19th of July, when a full year had not yet elapsed, whether the civil year of the Greeks, or that reckoned from the Council held at Antioch.
[12] The Acts of St. Macrina, which I shall now subjoin, of how great value they are, The Acts and their translation. and of how great trustworthiness, the author himself sufficiently indicates both by his name alone, and also by the preface which he prefixes to his history. St. Gregory wrote them to the monk Olympius, a man, as it appears, most dear to Gregory, and one of the few eager for Christian perfection, as is clear both from the prologue of this Life and from that of his other lucubration On Perfection; for he inscribed both little works to the same Olympius, at whose exhortation he had undertaken both. I do not exhibit the Greek text, since anyone may consult it entire in his published Works, which is indeed to be lamented that, at least in the edition which I use, it is printed so faultily. Therefore it seemed best to give here only its Latin translation, which Pietro Francesco Zino of Verona elaborated elegantly enough; but not everywhere faithfully enough. For which reason, lest I here seem to have done the same as Surius and others, who published Zino's version simply as it was, I shall take care to enclose in brackets of this kind [] those things which I shall observe to differ from the Greek text, and further to offer a more genuine translation of them in the Annotations; or if ever there can be no place for brackets, I shall at least add letters as indices of the notes, some minutiae being nevertheless neglected, where the matter will bear it. Where no note is added to those things which lie between the brackets, there I supply the Latin text myself from the Greek.
LIFE
By the Author St. Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, Pietro Francesco Zino of Verona being the translator.
Macrina, Virgin, in Cappadocia or in Pontus (S.)
A. S. Greg. Nyss.
PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.
The occasion and cause of writing this Life. This kind of volume seems, from its inscription, to be a letter: but its length exceeds the measure of a letter, and comprises the just size of a book. Yet the subject, which you commanded me to consign to writing, defends me. For it is greater and richer than can be enclosed within the limits of a letter. You certainly ought not to have forgotten that custom of ours, when we met at the city of Antioch a, at the time when you were seeking by a vow, b Jerusalem, to visit the monuments of Christ's pilgrimage while he was in the flesh c, and the discourses which we held together on various matters. For that meeting could not be silent, since your prudence supplied manifold occasion of conversation. During our discussion, therefore, as happens in meetings of this kind, we fell into mention of a certain virtuous Woman. If indeed she is to be called a woman by us from her nature, who was more excellent than the condition of her nature. But the discourse did not make its narration trustworthy from the words of others: rather, she diligently pursued those things of which experience had been her teacher, and confirmed almost nothing by the testimony of another's hearing. For neither was the Virgin, of whom we spoke, a stranger to us by lineage, so that the admirable things to be said of her we should have needed to learn through others: but she was born of the same parents; inasmuch as she, as the fruit of the first-fruits, had first sprouted from the maternal womb. Since therefore you judged the history of good persons to be fruitful, lest the example of the life of that Virgin, who reached the summit of human virtue through the pursuit of wisdom, should lie hidden from posterity, and lest, wrapped in silence, it should pass without fruit, I thought I must do this, to obey you, and to set forth her life in unadorned and simple speech, as briefly as I could.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
The birth, education, pursuit of virginity of St. Macrina, and her piety toward her mother and family.
The virgin's name was Macrina, so called by her parents, because formerly a certain notable Macrina a had been in our family, [The names of Macrina, likewise the holiness of her grandmother and mother, and the latter's vision.] namely the mother of our father, who in the time of the persecutions b had fought for the confession of Christ. By this common name indeed she was called by her relatives, but she had another secret and hidden name, by which she had been marked through a vision before she was brought into the light by her mother c through the pains of childbirth. For her mother too was of such virtue that she governed herself in all things by the counsel of God, and above all loved a pure and blameless manner of living, so that not willingly, but in a manner unwillingly, she married. For when, bereaved of both parents d, she was in the very flower of her age, and the fame of her beauty incited many to desire her for a wife, and there was danger, unless she were willingly placed in marriage with someone, lest by force some adversity should befall her: (for, captivated by her beauty, they were looking to abduction) that she might provide for her safety, she chose a man esteemed and commended for the gravity of his life, and by her first childbirth became the mother of this one. But when the time of childbirth drew near, lulled to sleep, she seemed to carry in her hand that which she still held within her womb, and to behold one more august in human appearance and form, who called the little Daughter by the name of Thecla; of that Thecla, I say, most celebrated among the martyrs e. And when, repeating it three times, he had left it attested, he departed f. But she was at once released from sleep, and easily relieved by childbirth; so that she was both awakened from sleep, and beheld accomplished what she had seen in her rest. This therefore was her secret name. But it seems to me that he who had appeared in her rest pronounced that word, not so much to indicate by what name she should be called, as to show by the likeness of the name the same pursuit and manner of living.
[2] The little Girl therefore is brought up, and although she had her own nurse, The education of pious Macrina and her studies in tender age: yet she was nourished almost in her mother's hands. But when she had passed the age of infancy, she showed a very docile nature in learning those childish lessons
She showed. For whatever her parents judged she should learn, in that the girl's talent excelled. But her mother took care that her daughter should indeed be educated, but not, however, in that external series of disciplines, by which for the most part the first ages of learners are imbued from the reading of the poets. For she thought it altogether base and unbecoming that a tender and well-formed mind should be infected either with the tragic perturbations of women, whence the poets took the beginnings and subjects of their writing, or with the foulnesses of comedies, or with the shameful deeds of those who had endured so many hardships at Troy, g and should in a manner be defiled with less serious narrations about women. Accordingly, she set before her to be learned those things which, dictated by the divine Spirit, seemed easier and more suitable for that first little age, namely the Scripture. And above all the Wisdom of Solomon, and that especially from the part of it which most conduced to life and morals. She was also by no means ignorant of the Psalms, and ran through an appointed part of them at set times. For whether she rose from her little bed, or came to her studies, or departed from them, or took food, or withdrew from the table, or betook herself to bed, or rose up to pray, she always had, as a good companion never deserting her at any time, the song of the Psalms.
[3] her surpassing beauty and betrothal. While she is educated in these and similar institutions, and exercises her hand excellently in handling wool, h, she reaches the twelfth year of her age. At which time indeed the flower of youth began wondrously to shine, and, what is worthy of admiration, although the Girl's beauty was concealed, yet it could not lie hidden. Nor in that whole country did anything seem equally admirable as her form and beauty; so that not even the hands of painters could attain her comeliness; and the art which contrives and fashions everything, daring the greatest things, and expressing by imitation the images even of the elements themselves, could not imitate the felicity of her form. Wherefore a great swarm of young men, seeking her in marriage, stood about her parents. But her father, who was indeed prudent and experienced in judging honorable matters, preferred above the rest a certain young man honorable and approved both in lineage and in manners, who was recently coming forth from the schools of letters, i, and betrothed his Daughter to him, if he should reach the proper age. Meanwhile that youth stirred up a great expectation of himself, and in the courts, by defending the accused, displayed an excellent faculty of speaking, and thus gave, as it were, a pleasing gift of betrothal to the Girl's father. Yet this illustrious hope envy interrupted, snatching him away from life in his very pitiable youth.
[4] The nuptials spurned, the virgin But the Girl was not ignorant of what had been determined by her father: for by the death of the young man she learned her father's counsel. And so k calling his judgment a marriage, as though that which her father had decreed had been accomplished, she resolved to remain with herself for the remaining time of her life: and she persisted in her resolution more constantly than was demanded of that age. For when frequently the discourses of her parents were brought to her about marriage, because there were many who, led by the fame of her beauty, desired to join her to themselves as a wife, she said it was absurd and unjust that she should not be permitted to keep that marriage by which she had once been bound by her father: but that she should be forced to look to another; since by nature there is one marriage, just as one birth and one death. But she contended that he to whom she had been betrothed by her parents was not dead, but, in the hope of the resurrection, living to God. Wherefore she judged that he had not died, but had gone abroad, and that it would be impious if she did not keep faith with a spouse gone on a journey.
[5] By such reasonings repelling those who tried to persuade her, she clings to and serves her mother, she resolved to persist in that which she had proposed to herself, and not even for a moment of time ever to depart from her mother's side. Wherefore her mother often said to her that she had carried the rest of her children in the womb for a certain appointed time; but that she in a manner bore her perpetually in her own bowels. Yet the Daughter's living together brought neither labor nor loss to her mother. Nay rather, her dutiful diligence was equal to that of many handmaids, and a certain mutual remuneration flourished between them. For the one guarded the soul of the Daughter, the other served the body of the mother, and ministered to her in all the remaining offices; so that with her own hands she even provided bread for her mother. This, however, was not her chief care. [But m after she had satisfied the sacred offices, thinking this to befit her manner of life, from her own labor she supplied her mother's sustenance. And this was furnished by her not only to her, but besides to three princes:] since her possession was scattered among so many peoples n.
[6] Since therefore on this account the mother was distracted by various cares (for the father had already yielded to nature o), in administering the household, the father being dead, in all these labors she showed herself a partner to her mother, and, taking upon herself part of the anxieties, relieved her of the heavy burden of troubles. And at the same time, by her mother's discipline, she kept her life entire from all reproach, since she always acted in her mother's sight, and was approved by her testimony: and in turn she offered herself to her, by the example of her own life, as a guide to an equal goal of philosophy, drawing her little by little to a purer and more perfect life. But when the other sisters had been honorably settled by their mother; from the public schools of letters, in which he had long been engaged, returns the great Basil, the brother of Macrina herself: whom she, thinking him greatly puffed up with knowledge and eloquence, and despising all dignities, and surpassing in pride those who were in magistracy, with such swiftness incited to the same pursuit of wisdom, that, the renown of the world being set aside, and the glory of eloquence despised, embracing this laborious and toilsome manner of living through perfect poverty, he built for himself a ready way to virtue. But his life and the institutions which he thereupon held, by which, celebrated in all parts of the world that are illumined by the sun, he obscured by his glory the splendor of all who are illustrious in virtue, require a long writing and much time. Wherefore let our discourse return thither, whence it digressed.
[7] When she had cut off from herself all the material of a more turbulent life, rousing her mother and brothers to a holier life. she persuaded her mother that, leaving her former manner of life and her more lofty way of living, [she should be willing to be of the same lot and rank with those maidservants whom she had held in subjection by her skill, p, and had employed as handmaids for her own uses, and should lead her life together with them among the virgins] q. But I wish to interrupt the thread of my narration a little, lest we pass over in silence a matter by which the sublimity of the Virgin is more declared. Of the four brothers, he who was the eldest by birth after Basil was called Naucratius [s], a young man then endowed with such gifts both of talent and of body. For in beauty, and strength, and swiftness, and a certain aptitude for accomplishing all things, he excelled the rest. Who, when he had completed the twenty-second year of his age, and by speaking in public had given such a specimen of his studies that the whole theater of hearers was moved with admiration of him, led by a certain divine providence with a great impulse of mind, spurning all things which he had in hand, betook himself to a solitary and poor life, carrying nothing with him besides himself. There followed him one of the household, Chrysaphius by name, who both loved him, and was held by the same pursuit of life.
[8] Among these Naucratius, suddenly dead, Having therefore obtained a certain retreat near the Iris he devoted himself solely to himself. (Now the Iris is a river [t] which flows through the middle of the province of Pontus, taking the beginning of its origin from Armenia itself, and through our region [u] flows into the Euxine Sea:) Near this river the young man, having found a certain place, planted with dense groves, and hidden by a hill stretched over the ridge of a lofty mountain, dwelling in it far from urban tumults, and from all the perturbations and din both of military service and of the courts, was leading his life, and, freeing himself from those troubles by which human life is vexed, he cared with his own hands for certain old men living together x, laboring under want and disease, thinking that pursuit and business not foreign to his manner of living. Hunting therefore that vigorous man caught fish, and since he was most skillful in every kind of hunting industry, he sought food for the old men y, and by these labors likewise subdued his youth: nor on that account did he cease with alacrity of spirit to obey his mother's will, if anything was ever commanded by her, so that, rightly ordering his life with a double pursuit, he both by labor extinguished the fervor of his age, and by obeying his mother strove by the direct way toward God through the divine commandments.
[9] he smote his mother with incredible grief; Thus philosophizing, therefore, and by his life making his mother blessed, he had spent five years, when both he was equipping his breast with temperance, and was obeying with all his strength his mother's will, when a grievous and tragic wound, by the wiles, as I think, of the adversary, was inflicted on the wretched woman, which afflicted the whole family with calamity and mourning. For suddenly the young man is snatched from life [z], carried off by an untimely death, not by any disease or any usual cause; but when he had set out for the hunt, by which industry he supplied to those worn out with age the necessaries of sustenance, he is carried home dead together with that very companion, most closely joined to him on every way, Chrysaphius. But the mother was far off, removed by a three days' journey from that calamity. Who, although she was perfect in every kind of virtue, yet when she had received so bitter a message from someone, nature, as is fitting, prevailing, collapsed and, fainting, all but lost her spirit at once with her voice. For her reason, overcome by the greatness of the grief, gave way, and she herself, like some noble athlete, lay stricken by an unforeseen wound.
[10] whom St. Macrina admirably consoles. Here the virtue of the great Macrina appeared. Who opposing reason to feeling not only kept herself unconquered and upright, but also propped up and sustained her mother's weakness. For raising and refreshing her mind, cast down by the most grievous chance, by her own unconquered strength, she trained her to fortitude and endurance. Thus therefore at last the mother resisted her grief, and admitted nothing unworthy or effeminate, so as either to cry out, or rend her garment, or wail, or intensify her lamentations with mournful clamors. But by reason she gradually drove off the impulse of nature, both her own counsels and those of her Daughter bringing medicine to her sickness. For then especially the Virgin's mind stood forth lofty and sublime. For although in her nature exerted its force (for he was her brother, and the dearest of her brothers, who had been cut off by so bitter a kind of death), yet, becoming more sublime than nature, she both relieved her mother by her reasonings, and, instructing her by her own example to patience and virtue, brought it about that she stood superior to grief. Although her life too, always excelling in virtue, allowed there to be no time in which her mother was rather anguished on account of sadness than rejoiced in a present good.
ANNOTATIONS.
the preliminary Commentary of the Life of St. Basil the Great on the 14th of June, §3.
p. Arte (by skill) for Ante (before) (κατὰ τὸν ἔμπροσθεν χρόνον) is read in all the Latin editions which I have been able to consult; I do not think, however, that it is the fault of the translator, but of the typesetter, which Lippomano and others thereupon seized.
q. The translation is somewhat more confused. Thus the Greek text has: She persuaded her mother that, leaving her former manner of life, and her more lofty way of living, and the services of the handmaids to which she had before been accustomed, she should make herself equal to the condition of the common folk, and mingle her life with the manner of the virgins; and should reckon as many maidservants and subjects as she still had with her as sisters and of equal rank with herself.
r. These she had, namely St. Basil the Great, Naucratius, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Peter of Sebaste, of whom, if you except Naucratius, we have treated long ago.
s. Naucratius, no otherwise than his brothers, Nicephorus Callistus numbers among the Saints, Ecclesiastical History, book 11, chapter 19; but in no Fasti, whether Greek, or Latin, or Syriac, that I have seen, is he inscribed.
t. This river, here described accurately enough, they now call the Casalmach.
u. Namely the Pontic.
x. "Living together" is not in the Greek; and so it is redundant in Latin: for it is πενίᾳ καὶ ἀῤῥωστίᾳ συζῇν, to labor under want and disease, and nothing more.
y. In the Greek it is read: by the hunt he prepared for them the food in which they delighted.
z. The time of this death can somehow be defined from the time of the birth of St. Basil, on which see the preliminary Commentary, number 5: for Naucratius could not have been much younger than he. According to our opinion it seems to have happened about the year 347; but according to Tillemont and others, about a whole decade later.
CHAPTER II.
The monastic life of St. Macrina, and likewise of her mother St. Emmelia and her brother Peter. The pious death of SS. Emmelia and Basil the Great: the coming of St. Gregory of Nyssa to his Sister lying sick.
Since therefore she had now been freed both from the care of nourishing the children, and from the anxiety of their education and settlement, She persuades her mother to follow the monastic life, and the domestic troubles had for the greater part been divided among the sons themselves: the Virgin was, as has been said, the author to her mother a that she should betake herself to this pursuit of wisdom and a pure manner of living, and she led her away from all other things and from her former manner of life to the proper moderation of a humble and lowly life, so that in that multitude of virgins she lived on the same condition with them, and used one table, a like little bed, and finally an equal and even manner in all things which pertain to life, every difference of dignity being removed from their life. Wherefore such was the order of life, and so great the excellence in the pursuit of wisdom, and so grave the discipline of living both in the daily and in the nightly offices, that it can be described by no faculty of speech. For such as are the souls which, loosed from the bonds of the body and freed from its troubles, have flown away from this prison of life: such was their life; inasmuch as, alien from all vanity of human affairs, it came very near to the likeness of the life of the angels.
[12] Neither anger, nor envy, nor hatred, nor suspicion nor anything else of this kind was discerned among them: whose idea is here depicted: all desire of honor, glory, and other vain things of that sort, all pride and haughtiness, and the remaining like vices, were cast out thence. They placed their delights in temperance: they thought their glory placed in this, that they were known to no one: their riches, in this, that they possessed nothing, and that they had shaken off all earthly abundance from their bodies as dust. But they judged every pursuit vain which was placed in caring for and cultivating this life. There alone flourished the care of divine things, and a perpetual pursuit of prayer, and the assiduous chanting of the Psalms, which at no time, neither by day nor by night, was interrupted: so that in that matter both their work and their rest alike consisted. What human power of speech, therefore, could unfold this manner of living? Their life was set between the human and the heavenly nature, partaking of both, bordering on both. For insofar as she had vindicated herself from human perturbations, she was more excellent than the condition of man. But insofar as she was seen in the body, and was contained in the figure of a man, and used the instruments of the senses, she yielded to the angelic nature and that which is without a body. One might perhaps dare even to contend that she was not inferior. Since, living with the flesh, after the likeness of the Powers that are free from the body, they were not pressed by the burden of the body: but lofty and sublime was their life; inasmuch as with a high and erect mind they consorted with those heavenly Powers. In this manner of living they had lived for no small time, and with time their virtues grew; increasing the pursuit of wisdom by assiduous accessions of goods discovered, as they approached a greater purity of soul.
[13] in it St. Peter, trained by Macrina, aids them both, But for attaining this so illustrious a goal a certain brother was a great help, born of the same womb, who was called Peter, in whom the mother had ended the pains of childbearing. For he was the last son received by his parents; who was at once both born and orphaned. For at the time when he was brought into the light, his father departed from life. Him, she who was the eldest among the children, of whom this discourse is composed, having taken from the nurse's breast a little after his birth, at once nourished herself, and educated with excellent discipline, instructing him from boyhood in the sacred lessons so much that she granted him no leisure by which he could give himself to vain studies. For she offered herself to him as father, and teacher, and guardian, and mother, and counselor to all the best things: and rendered him such that, before he departed from boyhood, in that tender flower of age he had ascended to a lofty grade of philosophy. He was indeed of such goodness of talent, that he seemed to be born for thoroughly learning every kind of arts suited to him, even b those which are exercised with the hands. Wherefore with no guide he attained a perfect skill in those things which others learn with much time and labor from teachers c.
[14] He therefore, spurning the occupations of external studies d, embraced the same manner of living. and having a talent apt for grasping all good disciplines, and always looking to his Sister, whom he had proposed to himself as the goal of all good, made such progress toward virtue, that in the remaining life he was judged to be in no way inferior to the great Basil in excellence of virtue. But then to his Sister and mother he was in the place of all, and together
with them he strove toward that angelic life. But when at a certain time there was grievous suffering from want and famine, and many, stirred by the fame of his beneficence, flowed together from every side to that retreat which they inhabited, he supplied by his industry so much of provisions to the poor, that by the frequency of those who came that place seemed to be not a solitude, but a city.
[15] The mother dies and blesses her sons. Meanwhile the mother, now very aged, dying in the hands of both sons, migrated to God e. What her blessing was, which she used toward her children, it will not be foreign to commemorate. For when she had made loving mention of the absent ones one by one, so that none was without a blessing; then especially she offered the present ones herself to God in her prayers. For when they sat by her on both sides of the bed opposite, touching each with one hand, she addressed God with these last words: To you, Lord, I dedicate both the first-fruits and the tithe of the fruits of my womb. For this Firstborn f holds for me the place of the first-fruits: and the tithe, this last tenth son g. But to you both are owed by law, and they are your gifts. Upon this Firstborn of mine, therefore, and upon this tenth, let holiness come: by a plain prayer designating her Daughter and son. Thus she set an end at once to her blessing and to her life, having first charged her sons to lay her in her father's tomb h. When they had done this for her, as they had been bidden, for the remaining time they strove toward the summit of wisdom, always contending with their past life, and endeavoring to surpass their former good deeds by later ones.
[16] Meanwhile i Basil, distinguished among the Saints, was declared prelate of great Caesarea, and consecrating his brother by his mystic sacrifices, Macrina bears the death of St. Basil with moderation; advanced him to the sacred dignity of the presbyterate. And here again the course of his life was directed to graver and holier things, when the dignity of the priesthood, joined to the pursuit of wisdom, was heaped up. But afterward, eight years being passed and the ninth begun k, Basil, most celebrated throughout the whole world, departed from men to God, affording a common occasion of mourning to his country and to the Church. When rumor had brought this calamity to Macrina, in mind indeed she could not but be moved at so great a loss. (For what grief would not touch the Sister, by which even the enemies of the truth were affected?) Nevertheless, as they say that gold is tried in various furnaces, so that, if it has escaped the first, it may be judged in another, and again in the last all the dross mingled in that material may be washed out: but that the exquisite proof of the best gold is, if, passing through all, it emit nothing of dross: so it happened to her, that, tried by various chances of troubles, by the probity of that excellent soul, nothing sordid, nothing counterfeit, was anywhere found in her. And first indeed the trial had been made in the death of the other brother: then in the mother's funeral, when the common ornament of the family, the great Basil, died. She stood, therefore, like an unconquered champion, in no way shaken by the assault of calamities.
[17] It was the ninth month after this loss, or a little more, whom then St. Gregory of Nyssa visited, led by a sinister presage; when a council of bishops was summoned at Antioch l, at which we likewise were present. But after each of us had departed to his own home, before the year had passed m, a desire fell upon me, Gregory, to visit my Sister. For a great interval of time had intervened, during which we had not been able to enjoy the mutual sight of each other, the troubles of temptations hindering, which, driven from my country by the leaders of heresy n, I had everywhere sustained. For when I measured out the space of time which had meanwhile flowed, while our meeting was hindered by perturbations of this kind, it seemed about eight years. When therefore I had already accomplished much of the journey, and no more than one day's way remained, a vision through my rest showed me a manifest indication of the things that were to happen. For I seemed to myself to carry in my hands the relics of martyrs, from which a splendor shone, such as comes forth from a smooth mirror, if it be set opposite the sun: by which brightness of light my eyes were dazzled. But this vision occurred to me three times in the same night, nor could I clearly conjecture what it portended. And so, anxious in mind, I pondered and observed it, that I might judge its meaning by the event.
[18] monks come out to meet him; the nuns receive him at the church. When now, approaching the retreat in which she was passing the angelic and heavenly life [*], I first asked a certain one of the household about my brother, whether he was present: at whose answering that he had departed four days before, learning that he had come out to meet us by another road, I then also inquired about that Great one. And when he had answered that she was laboring under a certain illness; kindled with greater zeal, I hastily took up what remained of the way. For my mind, terrified also by a certain fear, presaged the future. But when I drew near the place, [a gathering of men (for rumor had already announced to the brethren that I was present) flowed together to us from the places in which they dwelt.] o For it is their custom, out of honor, to go forth to meet friends. But the choir of virgins modestly awaited our arrival at the church. But when we had made an end both of praying and of blessing, and they, having first bowed their heads to the blessing, honorably departed to their own places, and not one of them had been left with us, I easily conjectured what was the case, that their Leader [p] was not among them.
[19] He finds St. Macrina sick on a hard bed, And, one going before and opening the door, I entered that sacred house in which was that Great one. But she was then grievously ill. Nor indeed on a bed, or any couch, but on the ground she was resting, a board laid under sackcloth, and another board supporting her head, which in the place of a pillow, with its notable [q] figure, went under her neck, and comelily [r] received her neck into itself. When therefore she had seen that I was near the doors, raising herself upon her elbow, she indeed could not run to me (for the fever had exhausted her strength), but nevertheless, fixing her hands upon the ground, and pushing herself, as much as she could, from the humble little bed, she showed the honor which she could not show by coming to meet me: but I, running up, and lifting her with my hands, raised her cast down upon the ground, and restored her to her wonted couch. Here she, her hands raised to God: I give you thanks, she said, Lord God, who have bestowed this also upon me, nor have denied to my soul what it desired: but have impelled your servant to visit me your handmaid. And lest she cast any trouble upon my mind, she softened her groaning, and tried to conceal the difficulty of breathing, and by every means recalled herself to cheerfulness, both seeking herself an occasion of pleasant discourse, and affording us matter by her questions.
[20] whose fortitude in that state and sublime discourses he admires, But when the very series of the discourse had led us to the mention of Basil, my mind indeed was moved, and my face fell for sadness, and tears flowed from my eyes. But she was so far from being cast down with us by the same perturbation, that, seizing from the memory of Basil the material of a loftier philosophy, she disputed of these matters, seeking out the causes of human affairs, and by her speech laying open the hidden providence of God in adverse things, and running through the things which pertain to the future life, as though inspired by the divine Spirit, so that my mind, roused by her words, and set by her discourse in the heavenly sanctuaries, seemed to be placed outside the nature of man. And just as Job, as we read in his history, although his whole body wasted away with corruption, ulcers rotting on every side, did not by reasoning lower his sense to the pain: but felt pain indeed in body, yet in mind was made in no way weaker for his proper action, nor interrupted a discourse instituted on higher matters: so I discerned in that Great one.
[21] For although the fever had dried up all her strength, which being finished, he is dismissed to the gardens; and, chilling her body as with a certain frost, was driving it to death: yet it held her mind free, and as it were unharmed by the disease, in the contemplation of sublime things. And did I not fear lest my discourse be drawn out immoderately, I would have pursued all in order [s], how she was carried on in speaking, so that she both disputed of the soul of man, and ran through the reason of this life in the flesh, and to what end man is, and how mortal, and for what cause immortal, and what is from hence the dissolution to the other life. All which things, as if snatched by the force of the spirit, she declared wisely and distinctly, her discourse flowing easily, as water from some fountain, and borne down without any impediment along a downward slope. But when she had made an end of speaking: It is time, she said, father, that you rest a little, and care for your body: since you are wearied from a long journey. But I, although in her sight and discourse on such grave matters I greatly and truly found rest; yet, because it was so pleasing to her, that I might not fail to obey my Teacher in all things, having found in the neighboring gardens a certain pleasant lodging prepared, was resting under the shade of the shrubs.
[22] But I could receive no pleasure from pleasant things, where, as he was pondering the sad presage, a joyful message is brought to him. since my mind within was pressed by the expectation of sad things. For the enigma of those things which I had beheld in my rest seemed to be explained by the things present. For the spectacle set before me truly represented the relics of a holy martyr, which, dead indeed to sin, shone with the indwelling grace of the Spirit. And these things I set forth to a certain one of those who had heard before my dream. But when with dejected mind we were expecting sad things, she, I know not how, guessing our thoughts, sent one to announce more joyful things, bidding us be of good cheer, and conceive a better hope of her, for she had felt the disease turn for the better. But these things were not said to deceive us, but from the truth, although at that time we were ignorant of it. For truly, like some runner, the adversary being overcome, and now at last reaching the goal of the course, and drawing near to the prize, and beholding the crown of victory, as if he were now made master of his wish, rejoices, and brings to himself and his friends the joyful message of victory: so she too, thus affected, bade us hope better things of her. Now beholding the prize of the heavenly calling, and all but saying those words of the apostle even of herself: For the rest there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the just judge will render to me, since I have fought the good fight, and have finished the course, and have kept the faith.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. Hence it appears that St. Macrina presided over this sacred convent of virgins.
q. In the Greek, ἐν λοξῷ τῷ σχήματι, that is, in an oblique figure.
r. Καταθυμίως, that is rather, aptly, conveniently, according to the mind's wish.
s. This St. Gregory nevertheless did thereupon, through that long Dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection, which is inscribed the Macrinia. But if anyone should marvel with me that so sublime and likewise prolix a dissertation could be permitted, nay even extorted, by Gregory from his Sister, now altogether failing in strength and dying, he himself will give the cause in that same Dialogue, volume 2, page 674. For he feared lest, if from the disease of his Teacher (so he everywhere there calls his Sister) something should happen after the manner of men (which indeed also happened), there should no longer be anyone to dissolve those things which are objected to us by outsiders concerning the Resurrection. Furthermore, what is to be judged of this treatise may be seen in Labbe and other Catholic describers and censors of books and libraries.
* Read: I had approached.
CHAPTER III.
The last conversation of St. Macrina with St. Gregory; her most holy death; and the tears of her Brother and of the virgins; then the utmost poverty of Macrina, and the relics of the holy Cross found with her.
[Refreshed therefore by the good message, we rose up, that we might enjoy the things present. But these were various, She commemorates God's benefits to her family, and an equipment full of joy a.] For thus far had that Great one condescended by her care. But when we had again come into her sight, she did not permit the time to be consumed vainly: but recalling from her childhood the memory of the things that had happened, she recounted all as if from a written record, not omitting those things which she remembered of the life of our parents, and which had happened either before or after my birth. But the proposed end of her narration was to give thanks to God. For she showed the life of our parents themselves to be not so much illustrious and famous for wealth, as increased and heaped up by the divine goodness, since, on account of the confession of Christ, our father's parents b had been attacked and vexed: but the maternal grandfather c royal indignation had taken off, and had distributed all his goods to other masters. And yet that they had so grown through faith, that at that time none was more illustrious than they. But the family estate, although, according to the number of the children, it had been divided in a ninefold manner d, yet the divine clemency had received such an increase, that the wealth of the parents was surpassed by the portion of each of the children: but that she had made nothing remain to herself from the equal partition among the brothers, but had dispensed all by the hands of the priest, at the divine command, and, God supplying, her life had been such that she neither then, according to the precept, ceased to labor with her hands, nor ever looked to man, or placed her hope of living honorably in anyone's beneficence. Nay rather, as she never repulsed those who asked, so she never sought out those who gave: since God by a certain hidden reason brought her small labors, as seeds, to a manifold fruit by his goodness.
[24] and reproves her brother for ingratitude, when he related his adversities, But when I recounted my own labors which I had sustained: first, when by the Emperor Valens we had been driven into exile for the faith: then, when the disturbance of the churches called us to struggles e and sweats: You will not cease, said that Great one, to be unmindful of the divine benefits; will you not restrain the vice of an ungrateful mind? Will you not compare yours with our parents' accounts? And yet if, as far as pertains to this life, we glory in this, that we were born of an illustrious lineage and sprung from honorable parents, our father indeed in those times and as a young man so flourished, that among the citizens and in the courts his glory stood; but afterward his erudition indeed raised itself further f, yet his fame did not go beyond Pontus. For it was enough for him to be illustrious in his country. But you, she said, are famous among cities, peoples, nations. They send and call g you to bring help, to set in order the affairs of the church. Do you not behold the gift of God? Nor recognize the cause of such goods? For the prayers of your parents raise you to this height, who have nothing or very little of domestic help toward that end.
[25] and delights him wondrously by her conversation, While she was pursuing these things, I indeed wished that the day might be drawn out longer, that she might not cease to delight our ears with her sweet discourse: but the voice of those chanting called me to the evening thanksgiving h. Wherefore, when she had dismissed me to the church, again that Great one drew near to God in prayers. And thus indeed the night was passed. But when it had grown light, it was to me manifest from the signs that that day would be for her the end of this life, since the fever had consumed whatever of strength there was in her nature. But she, regarding the weakness of our thought, pouring forth in those illustrious discourses what remained of her afflicted soul, in the utmost difficulty of breathing tried to draw us away from the sadder hope. But then my mind was affected in various ways by the present spectacle. For both nature itself impelled me, as is fitting, to sadness, since I no longer hoped that I should hear such a voice, but thought that the common glory of our race would soon migrate from human life, and my mind, from the things which it beheld, was as if inspired by a divine power, and judged that she had truly departed from the common nature.
[26] and by the joy with which she awaits her approaching death. For while she drew her last breath, to feel nothing new in the hope of her migration, nor to fear at the very exit of life: but with a lofty mind judging of this life the same things which she judged from the beginning, to philosophize as long as she breathed, seemed to me no longer of a human being, but of a certain angel, who by divine providence had assumed a human form, and was joined by no kinship or bond with this mortal life; and thus, admitting nothing unbecoming, she remained without perturbation of mind, the flesh not drawing her to its proper affections. And so it seemed to me that she then showed to those who were present that divine and pure love of the heavenly Bridegroom, which she had nourished hidden in the secret places of her soul, and disclosed the affection of her heart, hastening to him whom she desired, that, freed from the bonds of the body, she might swiftly meet him. For truly she was directing her course toward virtue, since none of the things which are pleasant in this life turned her eyes toward itself. St. Macrina ceases to address men, that she may deal with God alone.
[27] Now the greatest part of the day had passed, and the sun was drawing near to its setting. But she did not relax the alacrity of her mind: but the more she drew near to her exit, the more clearly beholding the beauty of the Bridegroom, with greater haste she strove toward her beloved, no longer addressing us who were present, but him himself, whom with fixed eyes she contemplated. For her little bed faced the East. Ceasing therefore to speak with us, she thereupon spoke with God by prayers, supplicating with her hands, and murmuring softly with a thin voice, so that the things which were said were moderately heard by us. But such was her prayer, that there was no doubt but that it was poured forth to God, and heard by God from her.
[28] You, she said, Lord, have wiped away from us the fear of death. The prayer of the dying woman. You have made the end of this life to be for us the beginning of the true life. You give our bodies for a time to sleep, and again raise them from sleep at the last trumpet. You commit to the earth our earth, which you formed with your hands, as a deposit, and again require what you had given it, adorning with immortality and grace what in us is mortal and deformed. You have freed us from the curse and from sin, being made both for us. You have crushed the heads of the dragon, who had seized man by the throat through the gulf of contumacy. You, the gates of Tartarus being broken, and him weakened who had the empire of death, have opened for us a way to the resurrection. You have given, for the destruction of the enemy and the security of our life, to those who fear you, the sign, the mark of the holy Cross. Eternal God, to whom I have been devoted from my mother's womb, whom my soul has loved with all its strength, to whom I have consecrated both flesh and soul from my youth up to this very time: send to me an angel of light, to lead me to the place of refreshment, where is the water of rest, into the bosom of the holy Fathers. You who broke the flaming sword, and restored to paradise the man who was crucified with you, and had fled to your mercy
remember me too in your kingdom. Since I too have been crucified with you, nailing my flesh through fear of you, and fearing your judgments. Let not that dreadful chaos separate me from your elect. Let not the envious one hinder my way. Let not my sins be found before your eyes: if, through the infirmity of nature having fallen, I have sinned in word, or in deed, or in thought, pardon it to me, you who have on earth the power of forgiving sins, that I may be refreshed, and in the stripping off of the body may be found before your sight having no stain in the form of my soul; but that without reproach and blemish my soul may be received into your hands, as incense in your sight.
[29] Saying these things, she set the sign of the Cross upon her eyes, and mouth, and heart. [She signs herself with the Cross and, praying with her heart and the motion of her lips, expires.] But her tongue, gradually dried up utterly by the fever, no longer expressed words, and her voice was faltering. Wherefore by the mere opening of her lips and the motion of her hands, we knew that she was intent on prayer. When meanwhile the evening had come, and a light had been brought in, she suddenly opening the orb of her eyes, and looking to the brightness, showed a mind ready to pronounce the evening thanksgiving: but, her voice failing, she satisfied her purpose by her heart and the motion of her hands, and moved her lips to the inward affection. But when the thanksgiving was finished, she moved her hand to sign her face, and declared that the end of her vow was at hand, and, drawing a certain great and deep breath, she terminated at once her prayer and her life.
[30] St. Gregory touches rather than closes the mouth and eyes of the deceased. When therefore she breathed no more, and lay motionless, I, mindful of the things which she had charged me at our very first meeting, saying that she wished my hand to close her eyes for her, and to render the accustomed office to her mouth; applied to her holy face a hand languishing with grief, lest I should seem to neglect her charge, rather than because such an office was necessary to her eyes: since they, as in a natural sleep, were comelily covered by the eyelids. And her lips likewise closed, and her hands gracefully clinging to her breast. In short, the whole posture of her body was composed with such dignity, that it needed not the hand of those who adorn. But my mind was doubly anguished, both on account of the things which I beheld: and on account of the mournful voices of the virgins, with which my ears resounded round about.
[31] The mourning of the holy brother, For hitherto they, keeping quiet, had borne themselves bravely, and, holding the grief enclosed in their mind, had suppressed the impulse of weeping, observing her, and fearing, although her body was now silent, lest they be rebuked: or if any voice broke out against her precept, lest the Teacher should take trouble from that matter. But when the grief could no longer be restrained by silence, no otherwise than as if a certain fire consumed their conquered minds, they at once broke out into bitter and incredible mourning: so that my reason no longer stood firm in its purpose: but, as if overwhelmed by the rush of some torrent, gave way to perturbation, and gave itself wholly to lamentations. But the virgins seemed to me to have a fair and just cause of grieving and mourning. For they grieved not that they were bereaved of custom, or of any human governance, or of other things of this kind, which men bear heavily in their calamities: but they wept as though they had been separated from their very hope in God and the salvation of their souls.
[32] and the laments of the virgins; These things in their lamentations they complained, saying: Extinguished is the light of our eyes: taken away is the light which went before our souls on the way: scattered is the safeguard of our life: removed the model of integrity: cut off the bond of concord: crushed the firmament of the weak, taken away is the healing of the sick. Under your guidance, night was to us in place of day, illumined by the splendor of your life: but now even day will be turned into darkness. But more grievously than the rest they intensified their mourning, who called her their very mother and nurse. But these were they whom, in the time of want and famine, cast out in the distribution of food, she had taken up in the roads, and nourished, and formed to a chaste and incorrupt manner of living.
[33] which he bids be exchanged for prayers: But after I had collected my mind as if from a certain deep anguish, fixing the edge of my eyes on that sacred head, as if reproved by her on account of that disordered din of those making a tumult, crying with a great voice: Look, I say, to this one, virgins, and remember her precepts, by which you were trained by her to all comeliness and honesty. That divine soul prescribed to us one time for tears, bidding it be done when we were free for prayer: which now too you can do, exchanging the clamor of lamentation for the pious chanting of the Psalms. These things I said with as clear a voice as I could, that I might overcome the din of those complaining. Then I exhorted them to withdraw into the neighboring house, only some being left, whose service she, while she lived, more gladly used.
[34] Among their number was a certain most noble woman, illustrious in riches, meanwhile he deliberates about adorning the funeral: and lineage, and beauty of body, and by other titles, set in her very youth. She had been placed in marriage with a certain most honorable man, but for a short time had lived with him. Wherefore, freed from wedlock in her youthful body, she had chosen great Macrina as the guardian and teacher of her widowhood, and was very much among the virgins, that she might learn from them the right manner of living from virtue. Vestiana i was her name: her father was called Araxius, one of the number of the senators of the highest council. To her I said: Now indeed it will not be invidious, if we add to the deceased a more splendid adornment, and clothe that pure and immaculate flesh with brighter garments. But she answered that we ought to understand what would have been approved by that holy woman in this kind. For it was not lawful for anything to be done by us against her will. But altogether, what was pleasing and acceptable to God, that same would be agreeable to her.
[35] There was a certain woman set over the choir of virgins in the grade of ministry k, but since the most poor Macrina had left nothing for adornment, by name Lampadia, who said that she plainly knew her opinion about funeral pomps. She, questioned by me about these matters (for she happened to be present at the consultation), answering with tears: By living wholly and purely, she said, the holy woman prepared for herself an adornment, which both adorned her life and her burial. For as regards the adornment of the body, she neither received it while she lived, nor reserved it for this use. Wherefore not even if we should wish is it any longer permitted, since for this matter no equipment is at hand. Is nothing, I said, stored up, with which the funeral rites and obsequies can be adorned? What, said she, do you tell of anything stored up? Whatever there is stored up, you have in your hands: behold the mantle, behold the head-covering, and the worn shoes of the feet. These are the riches, this the furniture. Nothing besides what you see lies hidden in caskets or chambers. She knew one cell of her riches, the heavenly treasure: there she placed all, she left nothing on earth.
[36] Then I: What, I said, if for adorning the funeral I bring forth something from those things which are prepared for me, her brother provides this of his own. will she think it inconsiderately done? That this would be against her opinion, she answered she did not think. For even if, she said, she were living, for two causes she would not repudiate your honor, either on account of the dignity of the priesthood, which she always venerated; or on account of the bond of nature: for she would not reckon foreign that which was from her brother. Therefore she charged that her body should be cared for even by your hands. When therefore it had so seemed good, and that sacred body had to be covered with garments, dividing the task among us about her, we thought each a different thing. And I indeed bade a certain one of mine to bring a garment.
[37] But she of whom we made mention, Vestiana, adorning with her own hands that holy head, when she had put her hand under her neck, [An iron Cross and a ring with relics of the holy Cross are found at the neck of the deceased; this falls to the Brother.] Behold, she said, looking to me, what an ornament of a necklace hangs from the neck of the holy woman. And saying this, the bonds being loosed behind, she held out with her hand an iron sign of the Cross, and a certain ring of the same material. Both of these, hung by a slender band, always clung to her heart. And I: Let this be, I said, a common possession. And do you indeed have the token of the Cross: but for me the inheritance of the ring will suffice: since on its bezel too a Cross was impressed. But the woman, looking at it, again to me: In choosing, she said, you have not erred. For the ring is hollowed out under the very bezel, and there has a particle of the Wood of life stored up, which the bezel lying over it signifies by a like mark.
ANNOTATIONS.
to Jerusalem; which last seems to have lacked the wished-for success, from the epistle of the same holy Father to Eustathia, Ambrosia, and Basilissa.
CHAPTER IV.
A trace of a miracle in the body of the deceased; the funeral rites carefully performed by St. Gregory; the place of burial, miracles wrought in her life.
But when the time demanded that the chaste body should be covered with a garment, which office indeed by the charge of that Great one pertained necessarily to me; A mark was found in the body, and when she was present, and at the same time handled those things which had been sharers with me in that great inheritance of hers, Do not omit, she said, to behold the greatness of a marvelous thing wrought by this holy woman. What is that, I said? But she, laying bare part of the breast, You see this, she said, thin and faint mark under the neck? (It seemed like a point, made with a fine needle) and at the same time she moved the lamp nearer to the place shown me. What, I said, is marvelous, if there is a thin mark in this part? And this, she said, is a monument of the divine help left in the body of the great Macrina.
[39] For when this part had once bitterly swelled, a monument of her notable chastity and of a miracle. and there was danger lest the tumor should have to be cut, or lest the evil, creeping more widely, should become incurable, if it drew near to the region of the heart, her mother often asked and besought her to admit the physician's hand: for that art too had been shown by God for the health of men. But she, judging it graver than the disease itself to open any part of the body to strange eyes, in the evening, when she had done her wonted service to her mother with her own hands, entering the most holy chapel, prostrate the whole night, supplicated God for a cure, and, mingling with earth the water which flowed from her eyes, applied the mud of tears as a medicine to the disease. But to her mother, dismayed and urging that she use a physician, she answered that it was enough for her, to expel the disease, if her mother herself with her own hand should fortify the place with the holy sign. When therefore her mother had put her hand into her bosom to sign that part, she made indeed the sign, but the disease departed. But this small mark appeared in the place of the horrible tumor, and remained to the very end, that it might be, as I think, a token of the divine help, by which she might be continually moved to give thanks to God.
[40] A dark garment is spread over the adorned corpse, and even so it shines. After we had put an end to our task, and had adorned the body from the domestic supplies, that ministering woman said it was not fitting that a body adorned after the likeness of a bride should be set before the eyes of the virgins. But there is, she said, a black mantle of your mother's garments, which rightly, as I at least think, could be laid over, lest by that external and adventitious ornament of dress this sacred beauty be illustrated. Which opinion having prevailed, and the mantle being added, she nevertheless, in the dark covering, the divine power, as I think, adding even this grace to the body, so shone, that, just as the vision in my rest had shown, certain rays seemed plainly to shine forth from her beauty. Meanwhile, while we were doing these things, and the place resounded with the singing of the virgins mingled with lamentations, rumor at once, I know not how, spread abroad on every side, all the neighbors flowed together to the funeral, so that the vestibule could not hold those who ran together.
[41] [A most numerous people flows together to the funeral rites with the bishop of the place.] When therefore the nightly vigil at her side, as in the celebration of Martyrs, had been completed with the singing of Psalms, and the dawn had come, the multitude of men and women flowing together from all the neighboring places interrupted the chanting of the Psalms with weeping. But I, although in mind I was dismayed on account of the calamity, yet, as far as could be done from things present, gave heed that nothing should be lacking in such a funeral. And so, distributing the flowing people into classes, and mingling the multitude of women with the choir of virgins, but assigning the crowd of men to the company of monks, I strove to constitute one fitting and harmonious order from both, as in a gathering of those singing Psalms, aptly joined from the common concert of all. But when the day gradually advanced, and the place of all that retreat became too narrow for the multitude of those flowing together, the bishop who was set over that region a, Araxius by name, rising (for he was present with the whole multitude of priests), directed that the bier should gradually go before; for both a long enough interval of way intervened, and the multitude would otherwise, by its more excited movement, have brought an impediment. Then he exhorted all whom he had as ministers and helpers in discharging his office, that by their presence they should honor the body.
[42] But while these things, thus arranged, were being carefully carried out, [The order of the funeral procession and the delay on account of the influx of the multitude.] I, going under the bier, called him to sustain the other part: but the hinder parts of the bier two other distinguished men of the clergy went under. Gradually therefore the procession went on, since both those who went before advanced step by step, and we likewise followed by degrees. For since the thronging people stood about the bier, and could not be sated with so marvelous and sacred a spectacle, it was not easy for us to make our way. But on either side there went before a not small number of deacons and ministers: who all, advancing in order, carried lighted candles in their hands. Which procession indeed did not lack mystery, since from the beginning to the end the chanting of Psalms was accomplished with one voice, and with a triple order of singers, like that song of the three children. Furthermore, since between the retreat and the church of the holy Martyrs, in which the bodies of the parents also rested, seven or eight stadia b intervened, we consumed almost the whole day in traversing that space: for the multitude of those meeting, which was continually more increased, did not allow us to advance according to our purpose.
[43] But when we halted within the doors of the church, at last, A tumult arising at the tomb from those wailing is scarcely calmed. the bier being set down, we turned ourselves to prayer. Which prayer indeed afforded the people matter of grief. For silence being imposed on the singing of the Psalms, when the virgins had beheld that sacred face, and the tomb of the parents was now laid open, into which we had determined to bring her, and one of them, crying out more perturbedly that we should not after that hour any longer behold that divine head, and the rest of the virgins thereupon following with the same outcry, a certain disordered confusion followed that rightly constituted and sacred singing of the Psalms. For the minds of all, broken by the mourning of the virgins, were moved. And so, we imposing silence by a nod, and a herald going before, and calling out the accustomed voices of the Church c, the people scarcely at last composed itself to prayer.
[44] But, a fitting end being made of prayer, St. Macrina is buried beside her mother, as she had asked. a certain fear invaded me, considering that precept by which we are forbidden to uncover the nakedness of father or mother d. And how, I said, shall I escape this judgment, if in the bodies of my parents I shall see the common nakedness of human nature, since it is likely that they, fallen and dissolved, have come to a base and disordered deformity? But as I thought these things, the indignation of Noah e increased my dread: whose history admonished me what was to be done. Before therefore the bodies were exposed to our eyes, they were covered with a pure linen cloth. For when the lid had been raised on both sides at the top, a linen was cast in: with which linen the bodies of the parents being covered, I and that bishop of the region, of whom I made mention, lifting that sacred body from the bier, laid it beside the mother, and thus fulfilled the vow of both. For with one consent they had always prayed God that they might be joined in body after death; that the union which had been between them in life might not even in death itself be dissolved.
[45] But when, the just rites lawfully performed, we had to depart, prostrate at the tomb and kissing the dust, sad and weeping I departed; thinking how great a good life had been bereaved of: [As St. Gregory returns from the funeral rites, a kinsman, a general, meets him weeping;] [f when on the very journey a certain man illustrious in military affairs, who was general of the army in a city of Pontus called Augusta g, having heard of the calamity, and taking it ill, came kindly to meet me with his subordinates. For he was joined to me both by the bond of blood and of friendship. He narrated to me a miracle concerning her] which alone adding to the history, I shall make an end of writing. For when, setting a measure to our tears, we had begun to converse, he said to me, Hear what and how great a good has migrated from life: and thus he began his discourse: A great desire once fell upon me and my wife of seeing the training-place of virtue. For thus, he said, I think that place must be called, in which that blessed soul dwelt. But with us was our little daughter, whose eye a calamity from a pestilent disease had seized, so that, a film being drawn over the pupil, and the white contracted,
it was a foul and pitiable spectacle.
[46] and narrating a miracle, Having entered therefore that divine house, we were separated in that place of those who give themselves to wisdom, so that I indeed turned aside where the men dwelt, over whom your brother Peter presided: but she within, where the virgins were, was with holy Macrina. Here, when we had tarried a little while, we thought it was time to depart. And now we were making ready our departure, when from both sides a certain human force was brought to bear on us. For both your brother bade me stay, and become a partaker of the table of those given to study: and that Blessed one would not dismiss my wife, but, bearing the little daughter in her bosom, said she would not give her back before she had prepared a table, and received us with the riches of philosophy. But having kissed the little girl, and moving her mouth to her eyes, when she saw the pupil affected: If you will grant me this, she said, that you consent to be with us, I will render you a favor not unworthy of such honor. What, said the little girl's mother? There is with me, answered the Great one, a medicine set ready to cure this eye. Which promise, when it had been announced to me by a certain one from the chamber of the virgins, we gladly stayed, the necessity of departing, which pressed us, being set aside.
[47] by which, while St. Macrina yet lived in the monastery, When therefore the banquet, which the great Peter had served with his own hands, and had seasoned with his humanity and grace, had an end and satisfaction had been done to our wish, and my wife, refreshed by holy Macrina with every fitting pleasantness, had been released, full of joy and gladness, we set out on our way. And the things which had befallen each of us, we narrated as we went: I indeed recounted whatever I had either seen or heard in the chamber of the men. And she in turn, repeating each thing as if from a history, thought that nothing at all, however small, should be omitted. And so, when, no otherwise than from a written record, weighing as in another scale, she ran through all in order, and had now come to that part which contained the promise of curing the eye, interrupting her narration: What, she said, have we done? How have we neglected her promise? That eye-salve, I said, which she had promised us?
[48] And when I likewise accused the negligence, and bade someone quickly run to demand it, she had suddenly healed by prayer the ill-affected eye of her little daughter. the infant meanwhile, who was in the nurse's hands, by chance looks at her mother: the mother too, fixing the edge of her gaze on her eyes, Cease, she said, to be angry at our negligence; pronouncing this with a great voice for joy and astonishment together. Behold, in good faith is fulfilled what she had promised. For she has shown us the true medicine of diseases, which is made by prayers, whose power was such that not even a trace of the disease was left in the eye: so plainly was it cured by that divine medicine. And so speaking, taking up the little daughter, she put her into my hands. Then I, embracing in thought the miracles which are narrated in the Gospel as incredible, What wonder, I said, that from the hand of God the blind received the power of seeing, when now his Handmaid through faith in him works those cures? For we behold a work not much inferior to those miracles. While he narrated these things to me, a sob interrupted his voice, and an abundance of tears followed. And these things indeed from the soldier.
[49] But the things which I received from those who lived together with her, Gregory omits many other of her miracles on account of the unbelieving. and who had her whole life plainly surveyed and known, I do not judge should be woven into this narration. For most people believe the things which are said in proportion as they themselves can accomplish them. But the things which exceed the powers of the hearer, as remote from the truth, they assail with suspicions of falsehood. Accordingly, I pass over that marvelous husbandry in want and famine. How the grain cast out for the use of the poor, neither while it was distributed, nor after, was diminished, but remained in the same measure and number, and other things far more admirable than these, cures of diseases, expulsions of demons, and true predictions of things to come: all which things are established to be true by those who diligently examined them, although they seem to surpass belief, and are judged not to have been able to happen by those who are more addicted to the flesh, who know not that the distribution of gifts is made in proportion to faith: and that small things indeed are given to those having small faith, but great things to those who are endowed with great faith. Wherefore, lest those be offended who are weaker for believing the divine gifts, we pass over in silence her more sublime miracles, thinking it enough to have concluded her history with the things which have been said.