CONCERNING SS. BENJAMIN AND BEJOCUS
ANCHORITES IN EGYPT.
From the metrical Abyssinian Hagiology.
CommentaryBenjamin, Anchorite in Egypt (S.)
Bejocus, Anchorite in Egypt (S.)
D. P.
On the custom of the Anchorites of keeping the Eucharist Cardinal Bona, of Liturgical matters
book 2 chapter 18, about to demonstrate,
how usual always
was to the faithful Christians Communion
under a single species; when he had referred the Reader
to the examples of the preceding chapter,
of the Eucharist kept at home,
sent to the absent, and on long journeys
and voyages by the faithful carried;
namely to be taken in the sole species of bread; thus further
reasons: Nor otherwise did the Anchorites communicate
in the vast solitudes, than with the Particles,
which they carried with themselves, when on more solemn
feasts they came to church, or
to them the Priests sent or carried them.
[2] So altogether seem to have done SS. Benjamin
and Bejocus, whom the Ethiopian Hagiologist on this day
thus invokes; they seem to have had it too, I say salutation to Benjamin and Bejocus,
who persisted in assiduous prayers,
until to them was sent an Angel, ordering
them to eat the serpent, which had eaten of
the blessed body of Christ. For from this so
succinct brevity I can gather no other sense,
than that both those, in a little cupboard or some
hole of their cell or cave, but to have found it gnawed by a serpent; having laid up
the Body of the Lord, and it on the set day religiously
about to take, found a serpent, which had gnawed part.
Hence perplexed they hesitated, what they should do; and
the serpent indeed more cautiously kept alive or dead,
then in praying persisted, that they might be divinely taught
what was needful to be done: but an Angel sent
by God commanded, that they themselves should eat it;
and thereby learn, that it was as easy for Christ
to keep his Body from the serpent, as he preserved them
from its poison, if it had pleased him: and so
both their faith of the truth of the Eucharistic mystery he confirmed,
and at the same time made them more cautious in keeping it.
[3] therefore they seem to have been Egyptians, How holily they lived both before, and afterward,
must be learned from the Synaxaria of the nation, when
they shall be found. Meanwhile to the Anchorites of Egypt rather than
of Ethiopia, I prefer to reckon them: because of the Ethiopians
Job Ludolf the renowned man asserts, in book 3 of the History
of Ethiopia chapter 6 number 80, that their sacrificial bread,
which they call Corban, daily fresh
they bake, and wonder that the Latins keep it
for the morrow: and number 83, that outside the sacred building,
into private houses to carry the Mysteries, the greatest
wickedness they think; and that this neither the King, not Ethiopians. nor
the Metropolitan would arrogate to himself. But this
superstitiously rather than religiously, while with all the other
Churches of the East, even (unless I am mistaken) with the Egyptians
it was once the custom, to carry it to one's home; and
even now it is usual, to keep the same in the churches
for the use of the sick, as often as necessity
requires it. And perhaps, as to the first point,
nothing else is intended, than that in Abyssinia bread is not
used for the Sacrifice except baked on that very day; but consecrated,
as also among us, is kept: for (to say nothing of
the sick) to infants they are wont with Baptism to confer it:
but who would believe that none are baptized,
except at the time of Mass? I define nothing, but to a further
disquisition I willingly leave matters so far distant.