ON S. DAVID THE SOLITARY
OF THESSALONICA IN MACEDONIA.
ABOUT THE YEAR 540.
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
On his cult, life, age, and knowledge of him, derived also to the Latins.
David the Recluse, of Thessalonica in Macedonia (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
On this day there obtains a chief cult in the Patriarchate of Constantinople, as much in the Typicon as in the greater Menaea, our holy Father David in Thessalonica, The chief cult on this day as the title has it: which also the metrical Ephemeris indicates, which is prefixed to the first volume of our May, noting his day by his name thus:
On the twentieth and sixth day David passes the gates of life.
To an elogium or compendium of the life (which we also find at Paris in a double Manuscript, one of Cardinal Mazarin, the other of the Preachers in the street of S. Honoré) is prefixed in the printed Menaea this Distich of this sort:
To the old David the new David is made like, Slaying, as another Goliath, the affections of the flesh.
[2] The elogium itself is as follows: This Blessed one, drawing his race from the East, Elogium concerning his ascesis lit up the West like a star shining with much light. For from his tender nails (i.e. from earliest childhood), subjecting by temperance and purity the passions of the flesh, he was seen as an Angel clothed with a body. And when, like a singing bird, he had built himself a nest in an almond trunk, he indeed delighted all with his discourses; but he himself raised his own mind, as though winged, into divine sublimity: whence also he attained the efficacy of miracles. He seemed therefore to be a most luminous column, illuminating all with miracles. For, constricted by cold and scorched by heat, he had attained a certain impassibility, as it were; and like one who had burned away the pleasures of the flesh, holding live coals in his hands, he stood in the sight of the Emperor, censing him thus, and remained unburnt. Therefore, having brought all human nature into amazement by his life and miracles, he passed to the Lord, whom he had longed for from infancy. Which I render thus into Latin:
[3] and with live coals harmlessly handled before the Emperor. This man, drawing his race from the East, illumined the West, after the manner of a star shining in manifold ways. For from his tender nails, subjugating the passions of the flesh by temperance and purity, he was seen as an Angel clothed with a body. And when, like a singing bird, he had built himself a little nest in an almond trunk, he indeed delighted all with discourses; but he himself raised his mind, as though winged, into divine sublimity: whence also he attained the efficacy of miracles. He seemed therefore to be a most luminous column, illuminating all with miracles. For, constricted by cold and scorched by heat, he had attained a kind of impassibility; and as one who had burned away the pleasures of the flesh, holding live coals in his hands, he stood in the sight of the Emperor, censing him thus, and remained unburnt. Therefore, bringing all human nature into amazement by his life and miracles, he passed to God, whom he had longed for from boyhood.
[4] With these agree the Stichera prosomoia, similar verses, which begin the Ecclesiastical Office, in this manner.
Similar things are found in his Office, I. Father David, most blessed, illuminating thy mind most excellently through temperance, thou didst raise it up to the first cause of good things, and thou didst appear as a most luminous column, enlightening all with words and miracles, who came to thee always with a mind persuaded of divine things; wherefore we praise thee, and proclaim thee Blessed. Father David, most blessed, illuminating thy mind most beautifully by temperance, thou didst raise it to the first cause of good things; and thou didst appear as a most luminous column, illuminating with words and prodigies those who came to thee with a mind persuadable to divine things; wherefore we praise thee, and proclaim thee Blessed. II. Like a singing bird, in the ascent of a tree thou didst make thyself a nest, O Father, being constricted by cold and toasted by heat, thence didst thou receive golden wings of impassibility and perfection, and thou didst ascend to the heavenly sublimity, ever praying for those who celebrate thee. As a singing bird, making thyself a nest in the ascent of a shrub, and constricted by cold and toasted by heat, thou didst receive, as it were, golden wings of impassibility and perfection; and thou didst ascend to the heavenly sublimity, ever praying for those who celebrate thee. III. By the divine love of impassibility burning away the pleasures of the flesh, thou didst remain inconsumable, holding the live coals in thy hands before the face of the Emperor, who was astounded at thy brightness; wherefore He granted thee thy requests, having enriched thee with grace as the greatest advocate before God, O Blessed one. By the divine love of impassibility burning away the concupiscences of the flesh, thou didst remain unburnt; thou didst carry the live coals in thy hands before the Emperor, who marveled at thy clarity: wherefore, granting whatever thou didst ask, He merited to have thee as the greatest advocate before God, O Blessed one.
[5] The author of these little verses we may believe to be the same who also composed the Canon, S. Joseph, by the author Joseph of Thessalonica. Bishop of Thessalonica, brother of S. Theodore the Studite, who died about the year 840, which will be more accurately determined at the 14th of July; meanwhile we learn that David was older than he, and flourished under some one of the pious Emperors (who, would that he were named) before the times of the Iconomachs. We receive somewhat more light from John Moschus's Spiritual Meadow, chapter 69, where the Author thus narrates concerning the Abbot Palladius seen at Alexandria: Being asked by us, In the Spiritual Meadow he is said to have lived enclosed for 8 years, that for our edification he would tell us by what reasoning and by what thoughts he had come to the monastic state; he narrated to us, saying: In my region (he was an old man of Thessalonica) a certain old man was enclosed outside the walls of the city, about three stadia off; from Mesopotamia, by name David, greatly adorned with virtues, merciful and continent; and he passed almost eighty years (elsewhere it is read seventy) enclosed in a little cell. And because, on account of the fear of barbarians, and lit up with nocturnal fires. the walls of the city were guarded by night by soldiers, those who watched that part of the wall which looked upon the old man's cell, on a certain night observed that fire was issuing from the windows of the cell. The soldiers therefore supposed that barbarians had cast fire into the old man's cell. But in the morning, the soldiers entering, found both the old man unharmed and the cell wholly unburnt, and they were astounded. Again therefore, the following night, seeing the same fire, they marveled. And not only on the following night did fire appear in the old man's cell, but also for a long time; so that it became manifest to the whole city, and very many often kept watch by night on the walls for the sake of beholding the fire. And that fire was seen until the death of the old man. Having beheld this miracle, not once and twice, but more often, I said within myself: If in this world God bestows so great a glory upon his servants, how great, thinkest thou, has He reserved for them in the future, when their faces shall shine as the sun? This, my little sons, was the cause for me of taking up the monastic habit.
[6] The plan of going to Egypt, with his disciple Sophronius, not yet a Monk, Died about 540 Moschus had taken at the beginning of Maurice, who began to reign in the year 579, as I have shown at the Life of S. Sophronius, the 12th of March, number 10. If from this thou subtract about forty or fifty years, during which Palladius had professed himself a monk, before Moschus and Sophronius met him now an old man; it is necessary that David died about the 30th or 40th year of the 6th century, in the time of Justinian the Great; who, most pious in the beginning, began to reign in 527; after his uncle Justin, constantly excellent, advanced to the government in 518. Before them had gone Zeno and Anastasius, both heretics, he may have begun about the year 460, successors of Leo the Great, who from the year 457 to 74 held the scepter. Under the beginning of this man, therefore, David may have come from Mesopotamia into Macedonia; and may have set his cell in a tree, as many Anchorites also do today among the Muscovites, who have even learned to paint S. David thus in their figured Calendars. Nor does there remain anything else that we may say concerning his Acts, the Life being wanting, which, if (as is likely) it was once written, it is to be wished that, preserved somewhere, it may at some time come to light: and perhaps it will come, if the arms of Christians recover Thessalonica.
[7] As regards the Canon, of which I have already begun to make mention, this, like others composed by the aforesaid Joseph of Thessalonica, has his own name woven into the Acrostic, in this manner:
I hymn, O Blessed one, thy life with divine words. JOSEPH.
In divine hymns I sing thy life, From the Canon it is understood that he appeased the wrath of the Emperor. O Blessed one. JOSEPH. Ode VI of this Canon thus begins, Thou wast known as a house of the divine Spirit, O holy David, shut up in a little dwelling: which confirms the words of Palladius, concerning his reclusion: and the second Strophe of Ode IX also does something toward understanding when and for what cause he approached the Emperor, with these words: Thou, O holy David, foreseeing most prophetically thy departure, didst foretell it to the peoples; and then, being sent, O Wise one, thou didst stay the most grievous indignation against them. Thou, O holy David, foreseeing thy departure with a most prophetic eye, didst foretell it to the peoples; and then, being sent, O Wise one, thou didst stay the most grievous indignation against them: namely that of the Emperor Justinian, but why he was angry here against the Macedonians, is not easy to divine.
[8] Molanus, having obtained the Greek Horologion, printed at Venice in the year 1532 (which we then have reprinted in the year 53 of the same century), inserted these words into his Additions to Usuard: Whence the knowledge spread to the Latins. On the twenty-sixth day, of the holy Father David of Thessalonica. Earlier than he, Genebrard, before the Davidic Psalter printed at Paris in the year 1577, had recorded in the Calendar of the Greeks the name of David of Thessalonica. And these things shining before them, the composers, rather than revisers, of the Roman Martyrology under Gregory XIII
inserted it thus into the same: At Thessalonica, S. David the Hermit. To which words Baronius in his Annotations: Concerning whom the Greeks also treat on this day in the Menologium, and indeed narrate many of his deeds; and in this especially they report that he won for himself great praise before God and men, that, imbuing the frequent people who came to his little hut with salutary teachings, he restored them, freed from their sins, to the sincerity of Christian discipline. Indeed I know not what those many things are, by which the Commentator says his deeds are narrated by the Greeks: for in the Menologium of Sirletus which Canisius published, and which alone Baronius is thought to have had, in Greek matters elsewhere generally following Sirletus; only this is read: At Thessalonica, our holy Father David, distinguished by continence, chastity, and the splendor of miracles: who, having a lodging near the city of Thessalonica, gladdened all who came to him with the pleasantness of his discourses, and converted them to a better life.
[9] Jacobus Gualla, in book 4 of the Sanctuary of Pavia, chapter 14, toward the end, Are the relics at Pavia? notes that on the 24th day of July of the year 1504 there were found, at the chest or sepulcher of King Liutprand, existing in the church of S. Peter in the Golden Heaven at Pavia, in a certain wooden casket, sheathed with iron, the following relics: namely the bones and ashes of S. David the Hermit, and of Thomas the Martyr, and of S. Liutprand, and one whole jaw of S. Mary Magdalene, very miraculous; and also of the relics of SS. Primus and Felician. Concerning these we have treated on the 9th of June: this one we judge to be rather of some S. Mary or Mary the Martyr, from whom it was cut off amid torments: for concerning the Magdalene we cannot suspect any such thing. We know of no S. Liutprand, except the Milanese Priest, whose Life and Miracles, written by his nephew Landulf, we shall give on the 27th of this month, after the Acts of SS. Arialdus and Herlembaldus. He died in the year 1113, on the 6th of January, in the monastery of Pontida in the Milanese diocese, where, that his body or sepulcher is no longer held in any honor, we shall cease to wonder, if we are willing to believe that his bones were translated to Pavia: and then it would also be permitted to think that S. Thomas the Martyr, otherwise unknown, is of a more recent age, and perhaps slain for a similar cause by Simoniac and Nicolaitan Priests; but the relics of David the Hermit, of whom we treat, were translated into Italy on account of the Iconomachs or on some other occasion, but then also we might suspect that on a similar occasion something of S. Thomas was brought thither, a celebrated Ascetic at Maleus, a promontory of the Peloponnese, of whom we shall have to treat on the 7th of July: for to those coming to Italy from Thessalonica, the Peloponnese must be crossed by a long winding.
[10] The same S. David is present also, seated upon his almond tree, in the figured Ephemeris of the Muscovites, The likeness in the Ephemeris of the Muscovites of the year 1149. such as they, as regards the Saints, seem to have received in common with the Greeks, and augmented with native Saints, to have explained in their native tongue, Ruthenian, in the year 1149. For the first in order of those tables persuades us to believe this date of them, containing September, the first month of the Greek and Muscovite year. There, what before, unobserved, I neglected, and now for the first time order to be transferred into our copper plate, over the last of the Saints of the month September, Gregory, is noted IND. BI., that is, Indiction 12, and below, TH. M, that is, year 49; namely of that century in which a table of this kind was first engraved among the Muscovites. But that the centuries are here not reckoned from the founding of the world after the manner of the Greeks, so that the last number anticipates the same number among the Latins by eight years, and the year is indicated as the six-thousand-six-hundred-and-forty-ninth, which corresponds to our 1141; but after the manner of the Latins from the Incarnation; this I demonstrate from the fact that that year 49, neither of the 67th century among the Greeks, nor of any other six-thousand-five-hundredth following, in which the Muscovites were first converted, concurs with the 12th Indiction; but the year 1149 of the Latins concurs with it. The year 1349 indeed also concurs with the same Indiction: but since it would seem to follow thence (which is not likely) that those tables, which we have followed, were engraved two and a half centuries before, and have endured hitherto not yet entirely worn away; I should prefer to think that there is noted the 12th year of the century, in which such things first began to be engraved, afterward more often renewed, but always without variation of the year noted once in the beginning.