Theophanes

ON ST. THEOPHANES, HEGUMEN OF MAGNUS AGER IN SIGRIANA NEAR CYZICUS, AND CONFESSOR.

CIRCA YEAR 820.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Theophanes, Priest, Hegumen of Magnus Ager in Sigriana near Cyzicus, and Confessor (Saint)

§ I. The name, writings, and era of St. Theophanes up to his entry into monastic life.

[1] The feast of St. Theophanes, Hegumen and Confessor, is referred to March 12 by all the books of the Greek calendars, both printed and manuscript: His cult at Constantinople the Synaxarium of our Paris College manuscript specifically adds that his feast was celebrated both in the great church of Constantinople and in the monastery which he himself built in Sigriana. and in Sigriana Now Sigriana is a mountainous region near Cyzicus in Asia Minor on the shores of the Propontis, separated from the Olympene region by the river Rhyndacus, as is clear from the first chapter of both sets of Acts to be presented by us; especially from those falsely ascribed to Metaphrastes. For in number 8 it is said that Theophanes, having been occupied for a longer time listening to Gregory, was prevented from returning home because the hour was late, and was compelled to rest with his companions in the place where nightfall had overtaken him; for he had his home in Cyzicus, and Gregory

was dwelling in Sigriana. Moreover, in number 26, the body of the same is said to have been brought to a certain place twelve stadia distant from the monastery, which they say is called Hiera. Furthermore, in Ptolemy one finds Hieragerma, which by his reckoning lies in the same degree of longitude and latitude as Cyzicus, distant from it fifteen minutes in longitude and twenty-one in latitude. And therefore it is in the interior of Lesser Mysia: in the region of Mysia: which Stephanus of the Cities does not express sufficiently clearly, simply asserting it to be near Cyzicus.

[2] From these things you may gather that the monastery was about twenty-two Roman miles distant from Cyzicus, and the same distance from the sea; that the Sigrian mountains (which Constantine Porphyrogenitus in Ortelius mentions) are separated from the mountains and region of Olympus by the river Rhyndacus, the monastery of Magnus Ager which in the second set of Acts, number 9, is called the Great River; and that the Sigrian region is part of Lesser Mysia, extending from the Propontis between the streams of the Rhyndacus and the Aesepus or Asapus, which divides the Troad from Mysia. In this region, because the most famous among other monasteries was thereafter this one which Theophanes built in the place anciently called "Ager" (the Field), the monastery itself is sometimes simply called "Sigrian" without addition: as in Nicetas in the Life of St. Ignatius the Patriarch; and Theophanes is very often called Hegumen of Sigriana or in Sigriana, over which Theophanes presided. as in the Anthology and the title of the second Life — although in that region there were many monasteries, and among others Polychronium, over which Strategius presided, and Little Field, over which Christopher presided, as we shall see from the Acts below. In comparison with this latter, it is credible that this monastery of St. Theophanes began to be called by the name of Magnus Ager (Great Field): whence the surname Megalagrites is said by Allatius to be found applied to Theophanes the Confessor in the pseudo-Photian Analecta.

[3] Which it will therefore be useful to observe, lest from that diversity of appellations, which led Baronius at the year 814, number 31, and 816, number 1, to believe that Theophanes of Sigriana and Theophanes of the Field were two different Abbots, you too should be led into error: often simply called "of Sigriana" for that one and the same person is signified by both names, even if this were not sufficiently clear from what has been said, the Menaea alone would prove it, which, like the manuscript Synaxarium, mark the memory of this Saint in this manner: μνήμη τοῦ ὁσίου πατρὸς ἡμῶν Θεοφάνους τοῦ ὁμολογητου τοῦ της Σιγριανῆς, τοῦ ἐν τῷ μεγαλῳ ἄγρῳ κειμένου — and in the Life of St. Joannicius in Surius: He sailed to venerate the tabernacle of St. Theophanes, which is in Sygriana. The same is also called Isaacius by the Greek interpreter of the Acts in Lipomanus, whom Surius and Baronius followed: but, as Goar rightly observes in his annotations, the words τοῦ καὶ Ισαακίου should not have been rendered in Latin as "who was also called Isaacius," but "who was also of Isaacius," understanding "the son" — a phrase customary among the Greeks, for whom it is on the contrary unusual to give someone a double name, or to add the father's name in the nominative as a surname to the son.

[4] And this indeed is said on the supposition that in both the Venetian codex and in that which the interpreter of the Life used in Lipomanus, one should definitely read τοῦ καὶ Ισαακίου. For lest this remain entirely free of scruple, Was Theophanes also called Isaacius? there is the text of Anastasius Bibliothecarius's Ecclesiastical History published by the royal press in Paris in 1659, from a Vatican manuscript collated with other manuscripts — which had previously been collated with the most ancient Cassinese manuscript from which it was known to have been transcribed. For this author, who rendered almost the whole of Theophanes into Latin, as he professed he would do in his Preface, after brief gleanings from George Syncellus, presents this title from the year of the World 5777: From here, Isaurius (another reading in the margin, Hysaucius) who is also Theophanes. From which it might seem to someone or Isaurius? either that Anastasius himself so understood the Greek text that he thought Theophanes was also called Isaacius, for which Hysaucius crept in by the fault of transcribers; or that the same Theophanes was surnamed Isaurius, either because he drew his lineage from that people or from the Emperor Leo the Isaurian himself (for that he was most closely connected by blood to the Emperors is apparent from the fact that his dying father appointed Constantine Copronymus, Leo's son, as guardian of his three-year-old son); or finally that he himself, before he became a monk, bore the same name as his father — although this would be alien to Greek custom, and it would be strange for it to be passed over in silence by the authors of his Life, since in its summary it is so expressly reported that he imposed on his wife, who was previously called Megalo, the name Irene when she was tonsured as a nun.

[5] Seven others of the same name to be distinguished from him: Moreover, whether you call him son of Isaac, or Hegumen of Sigriana or of Magnus Ager in Sigriana, or even Isaurius, you will sufficiently distinguish this one, whom we are treating, from others of this name, whether Saints or writers, whom Goar lists in his Notes on the first page: namely three more ancient than our subject (of whom the most notable is he who, in the sixth century, is mentioned by Photius as having encompassed in ten books the Persian War and Roman affairs under Justin the Younger, that is, in his own time); and four contemporaries, namely Theophanes Graptus, brother of Theodore, Bishop of Nicaea, an outstanding Confessor under Theophilus, confused with our subject in (what you may wonder at) the very Greek Triodion, in the reading of the sermon on the feast of Orthodoxy on the first Sunday of Lent; a second under Michael, son of Theophilus, who wrote the encomium of St. Nicephorus, a Superior or Hegumen of certain monks; a third under Basil the Macedonian, Bishop of Taormina in Sicily, called Ceramenus; and finally a fourth, a Priest and Monk, by whom the Life of St. Joseph the Hymnographer was written.

[6] Moreover, beyond that praise which is derived from illustrious birth and virtue attested by a glorious confession of faith, he wrote a chronography, what made our Theophanes famous was his Chronographic work, which from the first year of Diocletian (to which George Syncellus had brought his work begun from the creation of the world) pursues the universal history, primarily of the Eastern Empire, down to the end of Leo the Armenian (as the manuscripts have it, some perhaps augmented by an appendix from another author); and in computing the years follows the Alexandrian reckoning, whose use was predominant in the Church and among monks: He used the Alexandrian Era. which, to convert it to the civil Roman calendar, sixteen years must be added to the years counted by the Alexandrians before Christ, but eight years to those which the same reckon from the Nativity of Christ. You will observe, however, in Theophanes and others using the same chronology, that from the fifth year of Phocas (which was really the sixth, corresponding to our year 608), because of one year of Phocas omitted, there is a discrepancy of nine years between our years and the Alexandrian ones, until you come to the penultimate year of Copronymus, which Theophanes adds to make up for the earlier chronological defect. See these matters fully explained in the preface to this volume, along with various useful observations on the aforesaid Chronography.

[7] Error in reconciling the twenty-first year of Theophanes with the death of Leo Concerning the years of St. Theophanes' life, it is altogether uncertain how many years he completed. That he was weighed down by old age when he was taken from the monastery to be brought before the tyrant, the Acts indicate. But the Menaea make this matter controversial when they assert that Theophanes was in his twenty-first year of age when Leo Chazares died — by which reckoning he would have been born in the year of Christ 758, the seventeenth year of Constantine Copronymus; for this Leo died in 779. But since Theophanes died in the year 817, he could scarcely have reached his sixtieth year of age. However, it does not appear how such a tender age at the time of Leo's death can be consistent either with Theophanes' own narrative about himself, or with the same eulogy asserted from the Menaea, or the Acts of his Life. Refuted, first from Theophanes himself, For first, at the twenty-third year of Copronymus, the year of Christ 764, he narrates how from the beginning of the month of October, which precedes the beginning of the Latin year, there was such cold that on the northern shores of the Pontus the sea froze to a hundred miles in length and thirty cubits in depth to the hardness of stone... and in the following month of February such ice was broken up into many and various pieces resembling the appearance of mountains, which, driven by the force of the winds... through the straits of the Pontus into the City, filled all the maritime shores. Of which, he says, we were eyewitnesses: for about thirty of us of the same age climbed in play onto one fragment of it. But who would believe that all these were six-year-old boys (which would necessarily follow from the above-stated twenty-first year of age coinciding with the death of Leo), and not rather much older — young men who had long since entered the period of adolescence?

[8] Moreover, at the beginning of the aforesaid eulogy, it is said that Theophanes had lived for eight years with the girl betrothed to him long since from his twelfth year of age (received, that is, into the women's quarters of his mother's house): secondly, from the Acts, after which, when his mother was dying, he was compelled by his father-in-law, with the authority of the Emperor interposed, to complete the solemnities of marriage. But when these were celebrated and they continued nonetheless by mutual consent to preserve their virginity, and distributed their wealth more generously to the poor, the father-in-law had taken care to complain to the Emperor, so that Theophanes might be sent away to Cyzicus on the pretext of some public office, with the purpose, naturally, of turning the young man, entangled in secular affairs, from his resolution; in which it is necessary to conceive a stay of about one year, after which, having completed the business committed to him, he returned to Constantinople. Finally, it is said that the father-in-law and Leo died before three years had elapsed from Theophanes' return. From all this the following count of years is deduced: that at the time of the betrothal he was twelve, and at the wedding at least twenty. After which, because it is necessary to find not only that three-year period from his return but also other years between the wedding and the return, it appears that these must extend beyond twenty-five or twenty-six before he could have been made his own master through the death of Leo and his father-in-law.

[9] Finally, it is altogether contrary to reason that the father-in-law should complain to the Emperor about a youth barely eighteen years old, thirdly, from reason: that he was being frustrated in his hope of obtaining posterity through his daughter because the young man was not applying himself to begetting children — since, with the couple studiously concealing their resolution, the father-in-law could not have suspected this except from the experience of several years passing without offspring, if the spouses were so young in age. Moreover, how could it have happened that one who was almost still a boy was placed in charge of the construction of the fortress at Cyzicus by the Emperor, as the eulogy says was done after the father-in-law's complaint? Add that in the Acts, number 11, it is expressly said that from the Cyzicene journey he betook himself to the great Strategius, dwelling in Polychronium, which he himself had long since given to him. For who does not see that no such donation would have been made by a boy, and one placed under the guardianship of the Emperor, the most bitter enemy of all monks — a donation which therefore must have been made by him when already of age, whether before or after the celebration of the nuptials; say, after the death of Copronymus, when, with Leo still suppressing his own impiety through dissimulation, the orthodox

breathed again with brief truces conceded. Finally, from the fiftieth year of his age he is said to have begun to be tormented by the disease of the stone, between which and the year of his arrest it is necessary to interpose more than four years, in order for the very words of the eulogy to hold, and especially what is said in the Acts, number 21, that he was worn out by disease and old age. For who would speak thus of a man who had barely passed his fifty-fifth year? — to say nothing of that great authority with which he is reported to have wielded influence at the Council of Nicaea, celebrated in the year 788, which no one would easily conceive as so great in a young man of thirty years, among so many Fathers venerable for age, fame, and dignity.

[10] Therefore I shall not be afraid to assert that an error has crept in at this point through the fault of those it is more credible that he was then thirty-one years old who read and wrote κα (21) for λα (31): so that, arrested when already past his sixty-fifth year of age, and dying in his sixty-seventh year, he would have completed a just span of life in both secular and religious life, and sufficient for the deeds performed in each. For he would have been born in the year of Christ 748, and as a fourteen-year-old youth would have climbed upon that prodigious ice. He would have been compelled to celebrate his marriage in the very first year of Leo, which is the year of Christ 766, being twenty-eight years old, with that girl to whom, with Copronymus as guardian arranging the match, he had been betrothed at twelve and with whom, the same man urging that the bride be brought home, he had cohabited for a full eight years, devising ever new delays for the celebration of the nuptials, until Leo was elevated to the empire. At this age, so mature for both begetting children and conducting affairs, not many months, let alone years, were needed for the father-in-law to recognize that his hope of seeing grandchildren from his daughter was vain. The other things that happened afterward obtain a just span of time: for if it is said that he spent the first year of Leo in continent matrimony at Constantinople, then in the second year he was sent to Cyzicus and spent at least half a year there in public affairs, and after this, having returned, did not complete a full three years at Constantinople before Leo and his father-in-law died.

§ II. The year of death: The Acts of his Life:

[11] Concerning the last year of St. Theophanes as well, darkness has been cast by writers, to be dispelled by a careful examination of events and dates. Baronius fixes it at 816; The question of the year of death Goar at 818 of the same century: the latter because he followed the Appendix of an uncertain author asserting that Leo was crowned on June 10, Indiction 7; the former because he believed the persecution was raised by Leo in the very first year of his Empire — neither of which you will easily find to be consistent with the truth. If you observe, first, that this uncertain author asserts that Michael, in the second year of his Empire, Indiction 6, having set out against the Bulgars, suffered that disaster from which, returning to the city, he was compelled to cede the Empire to Leo the Armenian — whom either Theophanes himself, or he who added a supplement to him, describing the event itself as it was happening, writes was crowned on July 11, Indiction 6, a Monday, by the Patriarch Nicephorus. Since, moreover, it is evident from the very Appendix, which seems to say otherwise, entangled by false reasoning, as well as from Theophanes or his supplement, that only twenty days' interval elapsed between Michael's return and Leo's coronation, and that both fall in the year of Christ 813 (which Baronius also holds, being incorrectly cited by Goar as if he placed these things at the year 814), it is necessary to admit that some error has crept into the Appendix, through which those things are said to have been done on July 10, Indiction 7; and consequently there is no foundation for Goar's year 818 — to whom, however, I object nothing as to the matter itself, since I shall say shortly afterward that the death of St. Theophanes could have fallen in this year.

[12] This established, I proceed to show, against the other opinion, that Leo did not raise the persecution until after two full years had elapsed in his Empire, and consequently that Theophanes did not die in the year of Christ 816; and this from that very Appendix of the uncertain author, which (if you remove that single error about the time of the coronation) follows all of Leo's deeds most accurately, almost day by day: The persecution of Leo the Armenian not in his first, it narrates, therefore, how immediately after the said coronation the City was besieged by the Bulgars; but when Crumnus, their leader, was almost killed by an ambush, the City was indeed freed from that fear, but the ruin wreaked by the barbarians thirsting for vengeance spread in all directions, Leo not stirring himself for any of this but tyrannically holding the Empire; who, having celebrated the feasts (namely Christmas), crowned his still small son, whose name was Symbates, falsely calling him Constantine... Spring had not yet come... around Holy Thursday, Crumnus, the Prince of Bulgaria, who had planned to seize the City, met the end of his life... Elated by these things, Leo began to plunder the Church, and in the second year of his Empire, having secretly formed a plan to abolish images, he enlisted as his helper John, son of Pancratius the sciastes; and through him, collecting old books from everywhere, he found the codex of the Pseudo-Synod of Copronymus, and joined other associates to himself, studying this one thing: how to persuade the people from old books that images should not be worshipped. Therefore, they contended, but raised in his second year. those who followed John and Hylilas, to heap up books against the truth: in the month of July they added as a companion Antonius, and thereafter until December they carried on their secret deceit (do you see a second December before which nothing had yet been publicly done against images?)

[13] Around the month of December, Leo signified to the Patriarch that the people were offended on account of images: the image of Christ was removed from the bronze gate of the Palace. Monks and Bishops, gathered before the Patriarch and having discussed the matter, swore to defend the faith. Leo, warned by the Patriarch, on Christmas Day processed to the church and before the altar worshipped and kissed the corporal, in which Nicephorus the Patriarch was expelled, distinguished by the sacred image of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ depicted on it — which, having at last laid aside his mask, he neglected to do on the following feast of Candlemas, that is, Epiphany; and when the solemnities of the feasts had been completed, he began, like Pharaoh against Israel, to attack, and to draw some of the Bishops by blandishments to his side... While these things were happening, the Patriarch fell into illness... but when Leo learned he had recovered, he arranged to send soldiers secretly into the Patriarchate and to remove him silently. Now it was the beginning of the Lenten fasts. When he was expelled, and the Patricians refused to admit John, son of Pancratius, as Patriarch on account of his youth and low birth, the ordination of Theodotus was celebrated on Easter. After Easter a pseudo-synod met, from whose decree that monstrous persecution against images and their defenders and monks arose — about which we shall say more on the following day, when we treat of St. Nicephorus the Patriarch. For now it suffices to confirm what has been said so far by the testimony of Leo the Grammarian, whose very words are these: Leo, after two years of Empire (not, however, fully completed), drove into exile Nicephorus, from whom he had received the crown, and ordained in his place Theodotus as Patriarch, an ignorant man and more voiceless than fish; and raised a persecution against the Church, not to be interrupted by any truces.

[14] Theophanes brought to Constantinople, In this persecution, since the cunning cruelty of the shifty tyrant spared none of the Orthodox who had any authority among the Clergy or Monks, but strove to draw all to his side by threats or blandishments, the famous name of Theophanes also came to his notice. Wherefore he made every effort to summon him and lead him away from his constancy; and when other means had been tried in vain, he finally wore him down with two years of imprisonment and banished him to Samothrace, where within a few weeks he found the end of his afflictions and the beginning of a happier life, dying in his glorious confession. In what year? It is indeed difficult to say, since the persecution lasted five years, never abating, but always raging with the proscriptions, torments, and deaths of the pious, as long as the tyrant lived. We say, therefore, that Theophanes could have lived until the March of the year 820, but could not have died before 818, but not before the year 816: if indeed he spent a full two years in prison. Nor is it likely that Theophanes, absent for a long time in Mysia and impeded by the most bitter pains of his diseases from being able to rush voluntarily into the contest, was among the first upon whom the tyrant's fury was unleashed. Rather I would believe that the first frenzy of rage was poured out on those who, in and around the city of Constantinople, were opposing the impious enterprises and decrees of the holy men; from there the cruelty gradually spread, and finally dragged into the light others who were hidden and lurking, who, more remote from danger, believed they were also living more remote from it. According to this reasoning, if you suppose that around January of the year 816 (for you cannot place it earlier) or, more probably, at the beginning of the year 817 or even 818, Theophanes was brought to Constantinople: he died around 820. he would have lain for two years in prison, suffering things similar to St. Theodore the Studite, and having been cast into exile around the twentieth of February, he would have expired on March 12, in one of the last three years of Leo the Armenian. A coin to be presented below supports the year 818 more than 820.

[15] Having explained these difficulties regarding the reckoning of dates, I come to the Acts of St. Theophanes themselves: The Acts of St. Theophanes praised by Anastasius concerning which Anastasius Bibliothecarius, in the Preface to his Ecclesiastical History, in which he rendered almost the whole of Theophanes into Latin, speaks thus: Moreover, what shall I say of the other? (he had previously spoken of George Syncellus) since his Life, written out, describes clearly how, having sold his ample estates, he bore his cross; how, having followed Christ and serving as Abbot in the Monastery of the Field, he shone with virtues, gleamed with miracles, and died a Confessor — openly enough, through Byzantium and the surrounding regions, for those near and those far away, it proclaims. Was it published under the name of Metaphrastes? But also his studies, having reached us, reveal to the discerning what sort and how great a man he was. Now Anastasius flourished about fifty years after the death of Theophanes. But what is this Life? Is it the one which we have under the name of Metaphrastes, translated into Latin in Lipomanus and Surius, and which Baronius at the year 777 says is believed to have been written by Theodore the Studite, but at the year 816 is attributed to an uncertain author of the same period?

[16] I think that Anastasius is referring to another, much fuller and more accurate Life than that one: Or rather different from these: from which was taken that summary which we shall present from the Menaea in the following section — because it contains various circumstances of events and times which are not found in either of the Lives, or rather encomia, that we shall give. Who the author of this fuller Life was, while it remains hidden, we should not try to divine. The author of the encomium to be presented from the Sfortian Codex (whom the most learned Allatius in his diatribe on the writings of the Simeons, from the character of the style, judges to be Metaphrastes himself, whose name the older version in Lipomanus falsely bears, supporting this with a sufficiently probable conjecture) — the author of this encomium, I say, states at the beginning that the entire Life of the Saint, of the sort that Patriarch Methodius wrote? by the exertions of certain wise and holy

men, is held to have been set forth in detail; from which he himself collected the chief points, dispersed through various sources. And then at number 11 he excuses himself for having omitted writing about the struggles and miracles of the wife, now clothed as a nun (about these, however, nothing in the Life of Theophanes), because the part of the deeds nobly performed by her is known to have been made public for the benefit of readers by the most holy Patriarch Methodius in the writing which he composed concerning her and her blessed husband.

[17] Therefore Methodius, who departed this life in the year 847, From where were the earlier ones published here? already famous from the year 829 for his manifold confession, wrote the Life of St. Theophanes; others wrote as well, from whom Metaphrastes or whoever the other anonymous author was drew an encomium rather than a Life, to which we prefer the older one, having removed the name of Metaphrastes that was wrongly prefixed, which we present from the Greek manuscript of Venice, prefixed to the Chronography, using for the most part the translation by François Combefis. Since the same lacunae are found in it that appear in the translation of Peter Francis Zini Lenati, Archpriest, in Lipomanus, Combefis rightly judged that he had used that same Venetian codex — which we too had concluded, when among the codices left to the Republic by Cardinal Bessarion we found those concerning the Lives of the Saints. That its author, if not Theodore the Studite, a writer of a not dissimilar style, was certainly a monk is indicated by the possessive term by which he claims Theophanes for his order, calling him "our holy Father." That he was ancient and almost contemporary in age appears from the fact that in the very prologue, professing that he undertook to write this eulogy at the urging of many, he nowhere suggests that others had done so before him. In this Life, however, because various things were lacking, it may be believed that Methodius wished to write something fuller and more accurate, which was then used by both Metaphrastes and the author of the shorter eulogy found in the Menaea.

[18] The Metaphrastean encomium, as we said it seemed to Allatius, we arranged to have copied at Rome from the manuscript codex of the Sfortian Library, From where was the other encomium obtained? and we thought it should be given in second place, because it contains very many things omitted or less clearly reported in the earlier Life. Nevertheless, we consider that the earlier one should be preferred whenever the matter is narrated differently, until it is established from where Metaphrastes obtained that diversity — although he professes that he will say nothing of his own, but will excerpt from those who before him had treated the deeds of this Saint. The eulogy excerpted from the Menaea, which is found more briefly in the Anthology and the manuscript Synaxarium — although it is perhaps more recent than either — we nonetheless thought should be placed before the rest, because it sheds a certain chronological light upon them, and, illustrated with necessary notes, makes the passage through those more prolix encomia more expeditious. Since, moreover, neither in any of these, nor in the Life of St. Nicephorus, is what Cedrenus narrates about both of them found recorded, we present that very passage here.

[19] Theophanes and Nicephorus, neither seeing the other, salute each other. When, however, Nicephorus was being taken to Proconnesus, Theophanes the Confessor, Prefect of the monastery of Magnus Ager, sensing by divine inspiration that he was passing by in a ship, while he himself was in a certain part of his estate, honored him with incense and candles; and Nicephorus in turn, with hands outstretched, saluted Theophanes, and bending his knees deeply venerated and blessed him — though neither could see the other; but perceiving each other mutually with the eye of the spirit, they showed worthy honor to one another. And when one of those sailing with him asked whom he was saluting with hands raised on high, he replied: the most holy Theophanes, Confessor and Prefect of the Field, who has received us with torches and incense. Not long after, the outcome showed Nicephorus's prediction to be true: for soon Theophanes too, along with many others, was ejected from the Church, and harassed in countless ways, he carried off the crown of Confession, nor was it given to him henceforth to see the Patriarch — lest his prophecy prove false even in this respect. The same events are reported somewhat more briefly by Zonaras. And indeed we learn from the Acts that his arrest followed within a short time; but because Baronius understood the same to apply to his death, he made him a different person from the Sigrian, with no just foundation, as it appears.

§ III.

SUMMARY OF THE LIFE FROM THE MENAEA.

[20] He was born of his father Isaac and his mother Theodota. When his father died while holding the Prefecture of the Aegean Islands, He is joined to a bride at age twelve: he was raised and educated under his mother's care. Having reached twelve years of age ^b, he was betrothed to a girl, and lived with her socially for eight years. Both were exceedingly wealthy in possessions. ^c Now, induced by the counsels of a certain domestic servant, he was possessed by an immense desire to embrace the monastic state. When his mother was taken from life and immense riches were left to her son, the father-in-law pressed him to fulfill the lawful rites of marriage. Therefore, when the appointed day arrived, the bridal chamber is prepared, the wedding hymn is sung, and the remaining solemnities of marriage are performed. But when the time was now pressing the blessed man to seek the private chamber with his wife, and compelled to marry after the death of his parents, then he revealed the secret of his soul to the girl, who gladly assented and firmly affirmed that whatever he wished she would promptly do. Hearing this, he gave thanks to God. From that time onward, therefore, both together devoted themselves to prayers day and night. This ^d the impious Emperor Leo and his father-in-law learned, and is sent away to Cyzicus. and they set about preventing the young couple from their resolution. For the Emperor sent Theophanes to the fortress of Cyzicus, to lend his service to the construction that was then in hand. Going there, the excellent young man completed at his own expense what was required by the Emperor's commission.

[21] Now in his ^e twenty-first year of age, both Emperor Leo and the man's father-in-law departed this life, When the Emperor died and henceforth not only the young man but the world itself was free, with the Empress Irene subsequently ruling the Empire. Since all things had therefore succeeded according to his desire, he distributed his substance to the needy and the poor, and granted freedom to his slaves. To his most noble wife he bestowed much money and tonsured her in the monastery that is called ^f "of the Prince," ^g her name being changed from Megalus to Irene. He himself then consecrated himself as a gift to the Lord in the monastery which, situated on the mountain of the ^h Sigrians, bears the name of Polychronium. ^i Having become a monk, he would in no way consent to preside: He embraces the monastic life with his wife. but sitting in his cell, he procured his sustenance by the labor of his hands, devoting himself to the copying of books, spending six continuous years on the island of ^k Calonymus, in the monastery which he himself had built ^l; and then he returned again to the mountain of Sigriana ^m.

[22] In the fiftieth year of his age he incurred an infirmity of the bladder turning to stone, and of the kidneys tormenting him with troublesome pain; afflicted in his health by this disease, Amid the pains of the stone he spent the rest of his life lying in bed and immobile. After this Leo the Armenian seized the scepter of the Empire ^n; what happened to him everyone knows. This man, as he was demented and wicked, sent to the man of God and commanded him to come and pray for him, because he was about to undertake an expedition against the enemies ^o. The Saint, because he could not move his sick body, was transferred from ^p a wheeled litter to a boat and conveyed to the royal city; He is compelled to come to the Emperor: yet the tyrant did not permit him to come into his presence, but sent a minister to him, saying: If you comply with my exhortation, I will do well both by you and by your monastery; but if not, I will hang you publicly from a gibbet by a rope, and make you a terror to the rest. To this the Confessor replied: Do not pour out the treasures of your gifts upon me; but prepare rather the wood of the gallows or even fire today; for I earnestly desire this for the love which I bear toward Christ. Hearing these things, and variously tempted, the shameless tyrant handed him over to ^q John the diviner, a man who boasted much in words and was full of hatred, an iconoclast against the faithful by engrained malice, thinking that by his cunning he would bend him to the contrary ^r.

[23] Taken up into the monastery of Hormisdas, of Sergius and Bacchus, which adjoins the palace, and having engaged in dispute with the diviner, he overcame him, struck down by the force of his extraordinary wisdom, and having nobly displayed his constancy, after two years of prison sent him back confused to the insane tyrant, since the wretch brought back to himself the reputation of a rustic rather than an orator. Ascending therefore to the Emperor, he said: You would more easily soften iron with wax than bend this man's spirit to what you desire. Hearing this, the tyrant transferred him to the ^s palace of Eleutherius and shut him up in a dark little cell, also assigning guards, so that no service would be rendered to him by anyone. When two years had been spent in this manner ^t, worn out by hardships and pains, he struck shame even so into the tyrant. And when force was applied daily to make him conform his mind to the tyrant's plans, and he relaxed nothing of his mental firmness, he was at last banished to the island of ^u Samothrace. That removal into exile was shortly followed by his departure from the body: for after twenty-three days, He dies in exile having completed the course of his life on that island, he rested there, passing to the Lord in holiness and peace. But what need is there to tell how great a blessing he brought to the place, and how many gifts of healing through him that region received?

^a In the Notice of the Empire, among the Governors of the Asian Provinces, in the seventh and last place is named the Governor of the Islands — namely those in the Archipelago or Aegean Sea pertaining to Asia.

^b Betrothals were legally valid after the age of seven. Goar wrongly suspects this passage of falsity, on the ground that by Roman law twelve-year-olds could not enter marriage; for it is clear from what follows that this concerns not marriage but a betrothal contract, about which Modestinus, in book 4 of the Differences (l. In sponsalibus, ff. de sponsalibus), states: In contracting betrothals, the age of the contracting parties is not defined as in marriages; wherefore betrothals can be entered into from the beginning of age, provided that both parties understand what is being done, that is, if they are not less than seven years old. And although Augustus, as Demsterus teaches from Dio book 54, Zonaras, and Suetonius, decreed that only those betrothals should be approved and admitted to which lawful and legitimate nuptials could accede within two years, so that girls under ten years of age would be considered betrothed in vain — this was enacted only so that no advantage or profit could immediately be obtained under the name of betrothals contracted before that age; so that if Theophanes was twelve and the bride ten, all the legal niceties could be said to have been observed in that contract by those who were looking only to the fruit and advantage.

^c The first Acts have a lacuna here; in the second there is no mention of this servant.

^d Leo Chazares, son of Copronymus, born in 749 and admitted by his father, through the efforts of Patriarch Anastasius, as a co-regent and sharer in the Empire and crown, Leo Chazares persecutes the orthodox: reigned alone after his father for five years, to be counted from September 14 of the year 775; who only in the last year of his reign, around the middle of Lent, publicly revealed the impiety he had until then concealed, as Theophanes says:

having arrested James the Protospatharius, and Pappias the Strategius, and Theophanes the Cubicularius and Accubitor, as well as Leo and Thomas the Cubicularii, and other religious men, on the charge of having venerated the holy images: and having cruelly beaten and tonsured them and led them with ignominy through the middle of the city, he cast them into the praetorium to be guarded. Among these, the aforesaid Theophanes died, having obtained the crown of martyrdom as a Confessor; all the rest, after the Emperor's death, became most approved monks.

^e Rather in his thirty-first, or at least his twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth year, as has been demonstrated in §1, number 7, in the year of Christ 780.

^f [The island of Principo, formerly Pityodes; the location of it and neighboring islands,] Ἐν τῇ Πρινκίπῳ Theophanes has in various places: the name, being Latin, does not seem older than the time of Constantine. Gyllius thinks that by Artemidorus and Pliny it was called Pityodes by the older name, from the abundance of pines or pitch-pines; and not without reason. For although it has near it a small island of four stadia in circuit, which even today is called Pitys, it is by no means fitting to suppose that they, and especially Artemidorus, who lists Pityodes, Chalcitis, and Antigonia in order, wished to mention this tiny island while neglecting the much larger one; and perhaps Pityodes in Pliny should be understood in the plural, as if he meant to include both the larger and the smaller under a common name. All the named islands (as also Prote, so called because it is the first to meet those coming from Byzantium and Chalcedon) are about sixty stadia from the Bithynian shore; they are so placed in relation to one another, are they today the Pauonarae? that from the side of Prote, looking toward Principo, toward sunrise one seems to see a single sinuous island, as Gyllius says in book 3 on the Thracian Bosporus — the channels interposed not being noticed unless you approach more closely. Because this also happens with the Cyanean rocks or Symplegades at the exit of the Bosporus into the Pontus (which the ancients therefore feigned to be movable in the sea, colliding and then receding from one another), Benedict Bordonus in his Insulary confused the latter with the former; whence it happens that you cannot tell whether they or these are today called by the new name Pauonare, according to his testimony; although he places them in his map at the location where all agree the said four islands are situated. They are distant from Byzantium about 30 to 40 Roman miles according to the description of Bordonus and Ortelius; nor does Nicetas seem to suppose a lesser distance when he narrates that full triremes of Latin refugees from Constantinople, setting out from the ports of the City into the Hellespont, on that day reached the islands of Principo and Prote and others near the City, not situated in the open sea. The monastery of Principo. Of these, Principo has a village of the same name; on its shore facing east, says Gyllius, are seen the sumptuous foundations of an ancient monastery where more than five hundred solitary women, almost all daughters of princes, used to live. Cedrenus and Theophanes make Justin Curopalates the founder of the monastery, who built it in the fifth year of his Empire, the year of Christ 570, on this suburban island in his jurisdiction; which was then either restored or augmented with new buildings by the Empress Irene (unless you prefer that she built another there), which provided refuge to her when she was later expelled from power, and then a tomb and veneration when she was transferred from Lesbos — as can be seen in Theophanes, Zonaras, and Cedrenus, around the year 804.

^g The Acts are silent about this change of name, nor do they express the former name.

^h In the Acts it is almost always written Sigrianorum; occasionally, however, I also find Singrianam in the Sfortian manuscript.

^i Strategius the Abbot presided over this, as is said in the Life, number 11.

^k Calonymus Island, otherwise Besbycus. I find mention of this island in Nicetas, narrating how the Sicilian fleet around the year 1186, having burned Calonymus island and neighboring places in the Gulf of the Hellespont, proceeded home. Today it is called Calomio; and under that designation it is reported by Benedict Bordonus and Jerome. Likewise by Bellonius and Mercator, cited by Ortelius, who adds that by Stephanus, Pliny, and Strabo it is called Besbycus — a name which Gyllius also uses from Dioscorides. Bordonus says the whole island is mountainous and inhabited only by wild animals; but in defining its location he greatly differs from other geographers and from his own maps. For he says that Proconnesus is 60 miles from Sestos, and from it to Calonymus is 30 miles eastward; from Calonymus to the Bosporus 50 miles. But from Sestos to Byzantium is only an interval of two degrees or 120 miles by direct route, from which if you turn to the shores of Mysia, about halfway you encounter the mouth of the river Rhyndacus, facing which lies the island of Calonymus or Besbycus. Whence it follows that it is about 70 miles from Sestos and Byzantium.

^l And in which, after the death of the Hegumen he had appointed, he refused to accept the Prelacy.

^m Around his fortieth year of age, and having established there the new monastery of Magnus Ager, he governed it with the authority of Hegumen; which in the second Life is called νεουργηθὲν "newly constructed," and therefore not long before the convocation of the Seventh Synod, or the year 787.

^n In the year of Christ 815, whose deeds are most accurately described by the Anonymous writer in the Appendix to Theophanes.

^o The Bulgars, namely, who at that time were especially burdensome to the Empire and were even threatening Constantinople itself, having with their leader Crumnus repeatedly raided the surrounding region with impunity even up to the very gates of the city.

^p I believe this was a push-cart, formed like a litter on two wheels, by which, propelled by one or two of the Brethren, he was wheeled about the monastery as need required; for that he was not useless for conducting affairs despite the force of his disease, his very Chronography can testify, brought at least to the end of Nicephorus, when he was already in his sixtieth year of age.

^q Leo the Grammarian says John was also called Simon: most notorious for divinations from a basin, prestidigitation, and sorceries. John, the chief instigator of iconoclasm and pseudo-patriarch, But that these two names were added to him on account of magic and simony, Theophilus makes clear, speaking of his promotion to the Patriarchate. When Anthony had died, John the Syncellus was ordained in his place — a true new Jannes and Jambres (read and correct Mambres), most notorious for prestidigitations and divinations by basins and every impiety. We shall treat of his unhappy end carefully on April 7, in the Life of St. George, Bishop of Mitylene. You have a similar encomium of this John in the Life of St. Theodore the Studite, with the title of Lecanomancer and Coryphaeus of the Iconoclasts. And indeed, according to the Appendix appended to Theophanes, the first person Leo the Armenian enlisted when planning iconoclasm was this John, son of Pancratius the Sciastes, who from boyhood had an indwelling demon, agitated by disorderly behavior and deprived of his mind, whom they called Hylilas — which, as others report, is rendered in Hebrew as "Precursor and Helper of the Devil." Him, having made a promise of transferring the Patriarchate to him, he had sent to seek out old books from everywhere in churches and monasteries; him he used to set before the Orthodox Fathers, together especially with Anthony, for disputation, boasting that he had found certain inescapable authorities in ancient books that discouraged the worship of images.

^r In Greek ἐν τῇ Ὅρμισδι μονῇ, Σεργίου καὶ Βάκχου τῇ παρακειμένῃ τῷ γαλατίῳ, where Ὅρμίσδι stands for Ὅρμίσδου; The Hall of Hormisdas, consider it either entered through error or adopted in a later century. Justinian, writes Procopius describing his buildings, first built a temple dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul near the royal hall, which was formerly called Hormisdas; for he had made this house his own, so that the palace should appear sumptuous with the beauty of its construction. But after he became Emperor, he joined it to the other royal buildings; where indeed he also constructed another temple dedicated to the illustrious Saints Sergius and Bacchus. He then proceeds to describe both temples in detail; I, passing over that description, consider this passage taken from Gyllius's more faithful translation than the commonly available one, and from it seem to gather that this monastery was assigned the very buildings of Hormisdas, The temple and monastery of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, near the Palace, indeed adjacent to it, as well as the temple of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, and this attributed to the monks for the use of sacred rites. Whence by either or both names together the monastery was customarily called. Cedrenus supports this, speaking thus of the same: To the temple of Sergius and Bacchus, those parts which are from the Palace toward the sea; and to the neighboring temple of the Holy Apostles, that which he had previously had as his own house; and consecrating to these two temples all his former substance, he endowed from them a monastery of illustrious men. It is credible that the name Hormisdas remained with those buildings from the second son of Narses, King of the Persians, who escaped from the custody of his brother Sapor, who was seizing the throne through injustice to his brothers, who were his superiors by right of birth; and who was most kindly received by the Romans.

^s This is a part of the city, at the place (as it seems) where now stands the principal palace of the Grand Turk, The palace of Eleutherius, called the Seraglio. Here the Empress Irene had constructed buildings, as Zonaras attests, in which she was commanded by her son Constantine, who was arrogating the empire to himself alone, to live a private life.

^t Not quite full, if this day on which he is venerated is also the day of his death; for Theophanes cannot be conceived to have been brought to the City before mid-April (on the first day of which in the year 815 Easter fell, profaned by the consecration of Theodotus).

^u This island is in the Aegean Sea, midway between Lemnos and the mouth of the river Hebrus, Samothrace Island, distant about 20 Roman miles from each, according to Ptolemy's calculation; commonly called Samandrachi, with a small circuit of 20 miles, excellently inhabited, abounding in plentiful honey and goats — as Bordonus says, correcting Ptolemy's calculation insofar as he says it is forty miles distant from Lemnos; 60 Roman miles from the mainland (as all the more recent tables of the geographers have it).

LIFE

By St. Theodore the Studite or another contemporary monk.

From the Greek manuscript of the Library of St. Mark, Venice.

Theophanes, Priest, Hegumen of Magnus Ager in Sigriana near Cyzicus, and Confessor (Saint)

FROM AN OLD GREEK MANUSCRIPT.

PROLOGUE

[1] Just as it commonly happens to merchants, who, crossing this visible sea and distant waters for the sake of greater profit, As for those tossed by tempest, if, caught in an inescapable storm and amid waves furiously battling one another and with the raging winds, so that with safety now nearly despaired of they expect shipwreck, a saving star should shine from somewhere with the sky somewhat serene — they themselves, revived by the brightness of the appearing star, set aside in their minds that excessive sadness, and urge the helmsman sitting at the rudder to perform his duty more briskly: a saving star, who, raising his eyes upward and using that radiance as a guide for the way, strives to overcome the fury of the storm by skill and to hold a straight course of navigation. So it has usually happened also to those who navigate that sea of life which we conceive with the intellect, and strive to reach the tranquil harbor of the age to come.

[2] For when they are tossed by the ineffable tumult of temptations and enveloped in the densest darkness amid the snares of the attacking demons, this happens in the sea of this life the deeds of the Saints, as if placed before their eyes, dispel their darkness by their own splendor; while by a more divine teaching, composing the waves of disturbed passions, they fill them with a most pleasant tranquility and easily convey them to the desired homeland, laden with precious merchandise and rejoicing. The lives of Saints, when read, are beneficial. Among these Saints whom I have mentioned, you will find one adorned with virtues more than others: this one more manifestly confirms by his own deeds the rigor of abstinence to be followed; that one most vigorously teaches by what method the dominion of intemperance may be overcome, or how great is the splendor of continence; there is one who counsels that human life, like a principal painting, should be distinguished by the acquisition of various virtues, as though by colors; another instructs in the contempt of the whole world; another finally effectively trains in the spurning of vainglory. But if you approach the consideration of the deeds of our Most Holy Father Theophanes, you will find in him every form of virtue, as if planted and cultivated in a flowery garden.

[3] especially those of St. Theophanes: When urged to celebrate these in a panegyric, I readily complied, confident that I would receive the help of his prayers — not in order to win glory for him (for what glory would a discourse far inferior to the deeds nobly done by him bring?) but rather, on the contrary, wishing both to adorn my own discourse with his commemoration and to furnish an argument of the greatest usefulness to all who are zealous to imitate him. But before I cross the threshold of my oration and begin to labor more strenuously at the panegyric itself, I feel my spirits failing: to be praised for his homeland, parents, character, and virtues. for the one who is set before us for praise, him his homeland, his lineage, his character — which is more excellent than either — and his virtue, which far surpasses even this, all loudly claim for themselves; so that from all these things presented at once in the beginning, it is not easy to find what can more fittingly be preferred to what. For his homeland, armed with the laws of praise, contends to carry off first place before all others, as being the first cause of his existence, and with entreaties begs not to be deprived of its own ornament; but his parents, glorying beyond this even in his upbringing and education, thrust it behind with their elbow; ^a while his virtues, boasting in the possession of him who set them above all things and looking about magnificently, raise their glorious neck and press upon their opponents with a great clamor, that they, regarding only his zeal and soul, should yield an easy victory over themselves. For me, therefore, appointed judge amid things that do not suffer themselves to be conquered, what remains to be done? Nothing else, surely, than to linger briefly on the former matters, only to show how great were the things he despised, bound by love of the Creator, and then to devote myself entirely, according to the plan of his purpose, to setting forth his virtues.

^a So that the latter number may correspond to the former enumeration of parts, a few words about his character are missing, which perhaps fell out through the carelessness of the copyist.

CHAPTER I

The chaste and religious life of Theophanes in marriage, the administration at Cyzicus, frequent visits to the monks of Sigriana.

[4] That homeland which, adorned with imperial dignity, St. Theophanes's homeland, Constantinople, surpasses all others as much as a queen surpasses her subjects, produced this admirable man. I would say much about it, but I am prevented both because its qualities cannot be expressed by any speech and because they are known to all who inhabit whatever parts of the earth the sun looks upon. He was born of parents worthy of such a homeland, who abounded in wealth, military glory, and all virtues. These were loved not only by all those who are dear to God and who are won by the pursuit of virtue and honor, Born of his parents Isaac and Theodota: or by those who were distinguished with equal dignities, though possessed of a very bad disposition and feigning friendship for their own advantage; but even the Princes and Emperors themselves, revering the excellence of their virtue, loved them above all. Isaac and Theodota, if their name is of any concern to you, they were called. To these was born the heir of a most ample inheritance, he whom we are now to praise. Brought forth from his mother's womb in the autumn season, the extraordinary beauty of his body indicated a similar excellence of soul. For he seemed not a mortal man's child but God's, sanctified from his mother's womb ^a (as we read written of the great Prophet Jeremiah), and excelling in all virtues from his very birth to the end of his life.

[5] But his father, having lived for a short time in this world, leaving the child himself, when he was still three years old, to the Emperor's care and governance, completed the appointed term of everyone's pilgrimage. But his mother...

Several things are missing here.

They sang that canticle by which the three Youths, after the concert of the royal music, despising the tyrannical command, ^b sang a hymn to their Savior in the name of every creature.

All celebrated that nuptial feast, pouring forth in joy and gladness; after the wedding solemnities but these things by no means dulled a mind devoted to divine things and intent on bringing the decree of the soul to effect. At night, therefore, approaching the bedroom and his bride together, after he sat upon the marriage bed, he surrendered himself wholly to God; and having testified by a groan the emotion of his soul, he began to address her thus.

[6] He exhorts the bride to contempt of the world, The course of life, O wife, as is clear to all, is brief and altogether uncertain; for to no mortal is it manifest when death will come and send him hence to that future judgment, common to all, to be subjected to severe inquiries into his deeds. Hence it sometimes happens that a man, unprepared and weighed down by a great burden of sins, is banished forever from the beatific beauty of the Creator and consigned, alas, to eternal fires; and that he who had possessed only slight and apparent goods is entangled in innumerable afflictions, which claim the end of life as their own. But what among the goods that this life affords is firm and stable? Are riches? But certainly those, which when not rightly administered serve vice more than virtue, being subject to the plots of many, often slip away before they are acquired as desired. Or the beauty of the body, which arises from a certain sweetness of complexion and a fitting figure of limbs? But that is either extinguished by time or fades by disease. The display of human glory? But what is more abject than that, O dearest wife, especially if compared with the eternal glory which no eye has seen, nor ear heard? For that which is of such a nature that when you have attained it in the morning you know not whether it will last until evening — why should it be counted among good things? Since these things are so, if it please you, let us, having obeyed the laws of nature for a time, attend to ourselves and to heavenly things, having opportunely rejected all those things which do not endure in the age to come.

[7] She in turn proposes to him that virginity be preserved: These and many other things he spoke, young in body but old in prudence; when the pure and spotless dove and turtledove of Christ, more desirous of solitude and chastity than of marriage, and far surpassing the love for Christ that the wife of the Martyr Mardarius ^c had kindled — insofar as she who counseled better things ^d was his partner in all those words — responded in this manner: And with him institutes a religious life. How much more fitting it would be, dearest spouse, always to preserve the beauty of virginity intact, than to defile it for the greater part? For who would guarantee that for those who serve this world and devote themselves to the procreation of children, that good which is uncertain will come to pass, and will not rather, having been snatched from the best hope, convict it of vanity? It will be far more splendid if, taking up the light yoke of Christ from our youth, we make ourselves worthy of the beatitude that will follow, than if, clinging as it were for a brief time to those vain things, with our thought meanwhile firmly fixed on them, we remain in worse conditions. At these words the young man was astonished, for he had heard a thing new and beyond all expectation. And first indeed, prostrated on the ground, he gave thanks with tears to the Creator; then, looking upon his wife with a more joyful countenance and promising that he would have her as his companion in all honorable pursuits and in the age to come, he embarked with her upon a noble work. And immediately, pursuing the monastic way of life in the secular state, they adorned their life with every kind of virtue. A holy pair indeed, joined together for this purpose: to plow spiritual furrows and to store in celestial granaries a harvest likewise spiritual. They delighted Christ, having become his good odor; and in turn, perceiving the fragrance of his ointments, they enjoyed his presence.

[8] When therefore, in the manner of betrothed persons, they had passed that night together, Confirmed by a heavenly fragrance and vision: the whole house was filled with an excellent odor which, surpassing by a great interval every sweet scent, indicated the presence of the Lord, approving the purpose of the admirable couple and refreshing them with his visitation. Prostrating themselves, therefore, on the ground, they besought that the fountains of mercy might flow for them: ^e and soon, when that divine apparition had passed, emptying their treasures they consigned them to the hands of the poor, and began to prepare themselves diligently for retirement. But the envy of the common enemy, hostile to all good things, opposed them, as did also the father-in-law, who had placed all his hope for this life in them alone, and who bore so ill what was happening He is sent to Cyzicus, to be diverted from his purpose: that he drove even the Emperor himself to great indignation. This was Leo, the son and successor of Copronymus, who, grieving for the young man's sake and wishing to gratify his friend, threatened with an oath that he would deprive the youth of his eyes unless he desisted from his purpose. Therefore he sent him to Cyzicus, with the administration of most honorable ^f affairs entrusted to him, so that, ignobly occupied with vain things passing away with time, he would consign to oblivion the excellence of things that always endure.

[9] But the young man, embracing the departure from the city as a gain offered to him, and having turned aside from his route to Sigriana, encountered a man admirable in all respects, ^g Gregory by name to whom Gregory in Sigriana (if indeed it is worth knowing his name as well), who, besides the other gifts with which he shone, was illuminated also by the grace of prophecy — one who by many labors had freed his soul from perturbations and had made himself apt both for the contemplation of divine things and for the knowledge of things to come. To him Theophanes signified the purpose of his soul and hinted that he was meditating flight. But Gregory, illuminated as was his custom by the Holy Spirit ^h, said: You have no need of flight, O young man, who predicts the death of his father-in-law and the Emperor: since after a short time you will have the faculty of your desired retirement with no one preventing it; for your father-in-law and the Emperor himself, having departed this present life, will be transferred to the companionship that awaits them in the next. Then ^i with a slight motion of his lips he whispered to the one who was with him that the illustrious young man would in due time carry off also the crowns of the Martyrs.

[10] Meanwhile he himself attended to the elder's ^k beast of burden, and gloried more in that service than in the ^l royal ministry of horses with which he was honored: On one occasion when he was returning late from him, and while occupied

for a longer time in hearing his teaching and lingering over visits with other fathers, the later hour on one occasion prevented him from returning home, and compelled him to remain with his companions in whatever place chance had brought him and he was equipped for. Therefore he and his companions were seized by great heat and thirst; yet he was neither saddened by the unexpected event, nor turned to anxiety on account of the absence of water, nor did he even beseech his Lord to be allowed to quench his thirst; but offering his customary prayers to him, he reclined upon the carpet that was at hand, to relieve the discomfort of thirst with a little sleep. But God, the worker of wondrous things, looking upon the young man bearing labors willingly for his sake, water is divinely provided to relieve their thirst. honored him with a great miracle. For he who poured forth streams from the hardest rock for a rebellious people — why would he not provide what was necessary for a virtuous youth?

[11] Near the place where he lay, therefore, a wondrous spring flowed forth by divine command, and by its touch roused the servant of God and revealed itself to him. Calling his companions, he showed them the remedy for thirst given by God. Drawing water with cupped hands in abundance, they gave due thanks to God, the giver of all good things. And lest anyone should suspect that the spring, having been hidden in secret, had burst forth into the open by sudden chance, that very night it vanished so suddenly that not even a trace of it was left in the morning. This was a sign of the love with which this Saint, even from his very adolescence, pursued God — a sign greater than those which Moses the Beholder of God performed, inasmuch as Moses obtained them by prayers, but this man did so without even asking. Moreover, Moses, moved by the necessity of a murmuring people, impelled the Lord to give; but this man, using patience and thanksgiving with his companions, moved his own Lord. Furthermore, they (not to mention Moses) tainted the gift they received with doubt; but this man commended the heavenly gift with the resolution of his integrity.

^a Jeremiah 1:5. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came forth from the womb I sanctified you. And Isaiah 49:1. The Lord called me from the womb, from the womb of my mother he remembered my name. The author seems to have been referring to both passages in writing this, or to have confused both through a lapse of memory.

^b In Greek πανκόσμιον, that is, most adorned, most elegant; for this is the positive meaning of κόσμιος. The adjective, however, seems here to be taken as derived from κόσμος, "World": for this is truly a hymn of the whole world, as it were, in which all creatures are invited one by one. Daniel 3, verse 5 and following.

^c He is venerated on December 13, having suffered in Armenia under Diocletian and Maximian with Eustratius and companions, The wife of St. Mardarius encourages her husband to martyrdom, whose Acts, described by Eusebius the Monk of Sebastea, we shall present on that day, from the ancient translation by John of Naples; meanwhile see them published through Metaphrastes with altered style in Lipomanus or Surius, and accept this specimen of the ancient version made under Athanasius the Younger around the end of the ninth century: Meanwhile a certain Mardarius, an uneducated man living in modest circumstances, had built himself a house in those days, and was living on the roof. Looking out, he sees the Saints, in their midst, like a shining star, Eustratius, and immediately leaping from the roof, he said to his wife in the Armenian tongue: Do you see, O woman, our neighbor, who was so glorious in the greatness of his lineage and possessions, and how splendid in military service — how, having despised all things, he goes to become a holocaust to God, that he may be worthy of the heavenly kingdom. Blessed is he, etc. To whom his wife: My sweetest husband, what prevents you from following him, and indeed climbing that road more quickly, so that you may be worthy to enjoy blessedness with him? You will be a guardian, I believe, of me and these little children, and of all your family.

^d That is, than those things which had been proposed to her by the bridegroom: since the wife of Mardarius only confirmed the good intention of her husband by assenting. For I do not think the author's intent is that virginity, even preserved in such an arduous manner, should be preferred to martyrdom; nevertheless, there stands this saying of Ambrose, book 1, On Virginity: Virginity is not praiseworthy because it is found in Martyrs, but because it itself makes Martyrs.

^e Here too something is missing, and the suspicion of a lacuna is confirmed by the Angelic vision which is related in the following Life, number 7, which this mention of a divine apparition suggests fell out at this point.

^f Gregory, Prefect of the Agaurians. Namely, the construction of a new fortress there, as you have in the Summary of the Life.

^g Since these things occurred around the year of Christ 776, and from the Life of St. Joannicius we learn that Gregory was Hegumen of the Monastery of the Agaurians on Mount Olympus, to whom Joannicius, who was to become a monk, betook himself after the defeat of Constantine, son of Irene, by the Bulgars under their leader Cardamus, which Theophanes records as having occurred in the year 784 — it might seem to someone that this is perhaps the very same man: because in both places a most celebrated sanctity is proclaimed as that of a man known to all; and it could have happened that after Theophanes' departure he moved from Sigriana to Olympus, barely more than a day's journey away.

^h In the following Life, number 10, this prediction is attributed to an Angel who appeared to him while he was praying alone; but nothing prevents both from being true.

^i To his wife? It is consistent that she accompanied him as a companion on the journey to Cyzicus; for it is not likely that the father-in-law wished to separate those whom he was so striving to induce to the use of marriage. But the context of the following Life implies that he alone disembarked; although the passage about "companions" might perhaps be understood not of his wife but of other companions, since the wife was privy to all the husband's secrets.

^k When he himself would stay in Sigriana at intervals, for the sake of spiritual discipline, or when the elder would in turn come to Cyzicus to confirm a disciple of such great expectation.

^l His was a dignity of no ordinary sort in the royal household: he was the curator of the finer royal horses among those whom the Order customarily names Stratores; so the following Life, number 9.

CHAPTER II

Having become a monk, he becomes renowned for virtues and miracles.

[12] Three years had not yet passed ^a when his father-in-law When the affairs of the Church changed with the change of Empire, and the Emperor were removed from their present glory and transmitted to a dwelling befitting them. And Irene, that strong and divine woman, received the reins of government with her son — if indeed she should be called a woman who displayed a manly spirit against enemies and disturbances. Then the human race, which had labored in prolonged wars, was reconciled both with itself and with God ^b; and when it was thoroughly purified, all things took on a more joyful appearance. Then the Sun, which illuminates all things, brought forth a clearer and freer day, and putting off the grief and sadness which had long occupied the world, shone brightly. Then, therefore, this chaste pair of spouses also, adorned with the jewels of their holy counsels and made their own masters, bringing forth the abundant wealth that was at home, distributed it to all who labored in want. Thus one house of God-lovers, and having veiled his wife, providing to many the necessaries of life and eminently relieving the calamities of the poor who had dedicated themselves to God, greatly delighted God himself, who had made these things their own.

[13] When they had accomplished these and many other things, she indeed settled in the monastery on the island of Principo, having bestowed her possessions upon it; he returned to the great ^c Strategius, dwelling in ^d Polychronium, which is in Sigriana, he himself becomes a monk in Polychronium: and had been given to him by himself of old, for the sake of leisure and quiet; and there he was tonsured by his hands, or rather offered as a sacrifice — holier than the sacrifice of the great Isaac by as much as what is voluntary is more excellent than what is done against one's will, and that which is actually accomplished surpasses that which lacked completion of the deed. After he had established a monastery for him from his own possessions, which he offered in great abundance for that purpose, by his counsel and will he crossed over to the island called Calonymus, and converting the small farm he had there from his patrimony into a monastery from what remained to him, in Calonymus he builds a monastery: he gathered monks there from the monastery of that Theodore, whom those who knew him call the "Monacherary"; and how full of virtue he was, even a popular proverb clearly declares.

[14] where, devoting himself to one exercise of virtues, Having consigned to these the governance of the monastery and appointed the most approved of them as Superior, he exhibited himself to the rest as a model of obedience, and excelled in such humility that he believed no one more wretched than himself; and he was so distinguished by the exercises of a more austere life and sleeping on the ground that he left all far behind him. Devoting himself constantly to the copying of divine books, he mastered that skill fully, not from human training but from constant labor and divine grace, and pursued it with singular diligence. Surpassing even himself in the purest prayer, he was borne through entire nights toward Christ, the goal of his desires, and won his benevolence. And while he held anger as if bound by military oath against the demons and the sicknesses of the soul, toward all others he appeared mild and gentle, like another Moses. Having entirely renounced the desire for earthly things, he clung only to divine things; and how great a fortitude he displayed, and contempt for labors and hardships, his final times especially showed.

[15] While he thus flourished in virtues, the Superior of the monastery, departing this temporal life, passed to immortal rest, He refuses the Prelacy offered to him: and immediately all came running to him with tears mixed with entreaty, begging that he would consent to preside over them and be the guide of their salvation — he who, holding the lowest place until now, had surpassed all by the splendor of his virtues and actions. But they moved nothing in a soul firm in the purpose of humility, striving only for this: that the more virtue surpasses all things, the more he should adorn himself with it. Therefore, making light of all transient things, He returns to Sigriana and establishes the monastery of the Field. and grasping his staff in hand and the hope on which he leaned throughout his entire life, putting on Christ as a breastplate fitting for him, he betook himself to the mountain of Sigriana, and having purchased a small farm anciently called "Ager" (the Field) from a certain farmer (with money, indeed, borrowed from religious men, since he possessed nothing beyond his soul and the cheap garments covering his body; his senses restrained lest they make noise, rising above flesh and the world), he established there his dwelling for the rest of his life. And given by God an industry of hands for working, he made such progress that, before a year had elapsed, he was able both to repay the debt to those who had lent the money and to procure what was necessary for himself from the fruit of those same hands. And makes great progress in virtue therein: Growing better than himself day by day, and forgetting the things that are behind (to use the Apostle's words), he pressed on toward the things ahead; for he did not consider perseverance in good beginnings to be his progress, but considered it the greatest misery not to advance in them — having as his helper in all things the grace that had rested upon him from childhood and continually

illuminated him. Phil. 3:13.

[16] Who could explain with due dignity what were those ecstasies of his mind toward God, caused by the constancy of his prayer, which, having thoroughly cleansed him from earthly things, made him a most apt instrument of divine operations? Who could narrate the glory of his chastity, which, uniting him to the incorporeal beings, made him a most pure dwelling for God within himself, and, raising him to the very sight of the Divinity, showed him the future as though it were present? What discourse, even if it took wings and transcended the heavens, would presume to set forth his inexhaustible charity toward God and neighbor; or the firmness of his faith, free from all duplicity; or the constancy of his hope, with which he had been armed from boyhood, and which, considering the enjoyment of future things as present, strengthened him? Moreover, the great virtue of the man, radiating with bright torches, by which many were invited to submit themselves to his discipline: invited many to imitation. Whence those who had taken upon themselves the sweet yoke of Christ gloried in possessing him as the guide of their life, by whom they might be animated to virtue. For armed with the precepts of careful charity toward his neighbor, he overcame through it every humble opinion of himself. For he so acted as their Superior that, although a more intense self-abasement seemed rather apt to engender negligence in those whom he had undertaken to lead to virtue, nevertheless, revering his virtue, they showed him an obedience corresponding to the love he bore toward them.

[17] Since he was endowed with that disposition, illuminated by divine grace, He meanwhile strives to profit from the examples of others, by which he most easily perceived what was fitting for each person, while he visited monasteries throughout Bithynia and dealt more familiarly with other men of the religious profession elsewhere, turning his eyes upon them as upon meadows of virtues, he plucked their contests like the roses with which they shone, and carried them home to his own; bearing about in himself the teachings of perfect charity and sublime humility. Hardened by continual abstinence, when the presence of visiting friends called him to take food, holding its propriety in second place, he wished the queen of virtues to be preferred to it — he who, in the manner of the great Paul, knew how to be satisfied and to suffer want, and who fled the domination of vainglory. Phil. 4:12. A most beautiful deed of his nearly escaped me: for when the Council had been convoked at Nicaea for the second time, he too ^e was summoned to it along with other Fathers. And while all came adorned with excellent horses and splendid garments, he, clad in his customary sackcloth of hair, and riding upon an ass, joyfully undertook the journey. When all saw him, who had formerly abounded in riches, and exhibits at the Nicene Synod a rare example of humility, now glorying in his humble attire, they were filled with great joy, having received greater benefit from him than from the rest. He himself, having strenuously championed the truth and overturned the error, returned adorned with faith, which is the noblest of virtues.

[18] But when the demons, the authors of malice, envied his noble deeds, He overcomes the vexation of demons by the power of the Cross, they attempted to mock him impudently while he slept briefly at night: for seizing the thumb of his hand with their teeth, like wild boars, they inflicted a sharp pain, and in that dislocated part of his body they left the marks of their teeth. But he, transfixed by the love of God and bearing a spirit superior to the wickedness of the demons, did not even so allow the envious demons to glory in that deed; but as quickly as he could, ^f anointing the dislocated hand with the oil of the venerable Cross, he restored it, quicker than words can tell, free from all injury. O wondrous thing! For the divine grace, always present to his labors and the humble movements of his soul, illuminated him with the grace of Apostolic gifts and made him a worker of admirable things. Indeed, if I wished to enumerate all the gifts which the divine grace dwelling in this holy man bestowed, I would both exceed the laws of panegyric and my discourse, like a vessel set loose, would perish navigating in the vast sea; but if I recall a few things, omitting the many, my discourse will keep to the shores, as it were, and be safe, and from what has been said the rest will easily be conjectured.

[19] One of the companions who was there, oppressed by the assault of a fierce demon, had suddenly lost the power of his mind; He heals a demoniac, and tearing his own flesh as though it were another's, he was troublesome to all who approached. Therefore, many joined their strength to bind him and put him in fetters, to be watched by guards appointed for the purpose. But the prayer of a single evening, poured out to God, showed him freed from the vexing spirit, with his bonds suddenly bursting apart, and returning to the church in sound mind — he whose encounter, when he had been out of his mind, had been fearsome to all. It happened He calms a tempest. that the holy man was traveling to a ^g small town; but in mid-course a great storm arose, by which the sea swelled immensely, and the fierce waves made the way impassable for his return. But the holy man, relying on his accustomed faith, said to the one performing his duty: Tell your fellow servant to rein in the tempest and spread calm waves beneath us, that we may peacefully complete our journey homeward. He had scarcely spoken the word, and the effect followed, so that Christ our God was shown in this matter also, as in all others, to have spoken truly when he promised that his servants would accomplish greater things than he himself had done.

[20] Although he excelled in all virtues, he nevertheless applied greater diligence to the care and relief of the poor. He multiplies grain for the use of the poor. For since he was most especially bound by fraternal love, he especially embraced the mercy that flows from it. And indeed, extending a healing hand to those who approached him, in the fourth month he poured out generously the grain that the monastery had, which was small, scarcely sufficient for the needs of the household. And when the steward of the domestic ministry bore this badly and affirmed with an oath that it was not even enough for the household, he bade him count the grain in a gentle voice. When the man had done this, he found the same quantity that had been there before the distribution, not even one bushel being short. But it would be easier to count the waves of the sea or to measure the ocean with a cupped hand than to embrace in a laudatory oration the multitude of things wondrously done by him. Wherefore, leaving other things for others to commemorate, we shall pursue those which are more relevant and of chief importance to the matter at hand.

^a Whether from his first arrival in Sigriana or from his return to Constantinople, neither from this nor from the following Life can be determined.

^b That orthodox faith began to breathe again and be restored from the very beginning of this reign, Theophanes testifies at the year 781; but it openly raised its head when, in the fifth year of the same reign, St. Tarasius, elected Patriarch, delivered that famous oration for restoring the concord of the Churches and stabilizing the veneration of images by Synodal authority — which see in the same Theophanes; who also narrates that peace was made in the year 782 with the Arabs, by whom alone war was being waged against the Empire at that time.

^c Three Strategii who suffered for the veneration of images, I find three Strategii in Theophanes, all Patricians, of whom the first two underwent illustrious martyrdom under Copronymus. One, the Domesticus of the Excubitors, together with his brother Constantine, Logothete of the Public Post, surnamed Podapagurus, was beheaded in the year 765 after a humiliating procession through the circus. The second was the nephew, through the aforesaid Constantine, of the former, and was condemned to death two years later, along with Macarius the recluse of St. Auxentius, whom the Emperor had used to expiate the crimes of obscene intimacy in confession. The third, in the year 780, is numbered among those whom Leo, son of Copronymus, had beaten with disgrace and shut up in the Praetorium, all of whom after his death became most approved monks. From these you may gather that this was a popular and frequent name among the Roman nobility at that time, from which I am persuaded this Strategius too was sprung and compelled to the solitary life by some similar occasion, and known to Theophanes. In the following Life, the one from whom Theophanes received the monastic habit is called Christopher, and he is afterward numbered among the Fathers of the Nicene Synod as Hegumen of Little Field. I consider them to be different persons and both honored and endowed with estates by Theophanes; but as to the reception of the habit, I would rather rely on the first text than on the second.

^d What moved the translator in Lipomanus to omit the names of the island of Principo and of Strategius, and to render the name of Polychronium as "the great elder," I cannot divine, since it is clear that he used the same text or its copy, from the lacunae, and the text itself is most clear.

^e Over forty years old, as we indicated above in the Prolegomena, number 9. The published Acts of the Council nowhere express his name in the subscriptions; but since in only one, the Fourth Session, are subscribing monks found, and not all of them, and not the same ones in the Greek and Latin texts, it is not surprising that many of that profession who were present at the Council are not found named there.

^f τίμια ξύλα, that is, the wood of the Holy Cross, In Greek ξύλων τιμίων, "of venerable or precious woods": but take care not to understand a natural medicine from the virtue of some wood; because when the Greeks say τὰ τίμια ξύλα without addition, they mean no other than the wood of the Holy Cross. Since this is well known to all, it suffices to cite as a witness that very Theophanes whose Life we are treating, who uses these words in more than one place, and specifically at the years 626 and 757, which for us are 634 and 765. With particles of this Cross scattered throughout the Christian world, water or oil was blessed, customarily used devoutly by the faithful — which the present-day practice of both Churches sufficiently confirms.

^g In Greek πρὸς τὸ πολίχνιον: so that it should be taken not indeterminately for some small town, as others translate, but determinately for a certain place near the monastery itself or the city of Cyzicus, which had no other name.

CHAPTER III

Confession, death, miracles, translation.

[21] The excellent state of the Church, The field of the Church abounded in all good things, copiously irrigated by orthodox doctrine and overflowing with deeds congruent to it. For the God-loving Emperors gloried in these things more than in the amplitude of their empire; and he who had been raised to the sublime chair of the Pontificate ^a, like the sun, kindled the lights of virtue throughout the whole world; no less did the Bishops under him, without reproach, lead their respective flocks like a ship safely into port. The Rectors of monasteries too, whose president and, so to speak, most luminous sun was this admirable man, taught their disciples the way leading to heaven, showing stripped of his wealth him who had formerly held wicked dominion. But the envious serpent could not bear to see the Church flourishing with so many good things; and therefore, enlisting as his ally in the work the great wickedness of many, he set about to pervert the beauty of the Church, God thus permitting.

[22] He therefore sought a man capable of all his wickedness, and found one more suitable than he could have wished: Leo, Leo the Armenian disturbs it, I say, a most wicked man, who, drawing his lineage from the Armenians ^b and Assyrians, imitating the cunning and deceit of the one people and the ferocity of the other — indeed surpassing both by a great distance — exceeded frauds by savagery and savagery by frauds ^c; prompt to lie and capable of persuading what he lied about; regarding the ability to deceive as virtue, and using it even against those most closely united to him. This man,

rising against the Empire, which had been tranquil until then and from which much honor was shown to him ^d, cast out the most splendid and unsetting sun ^e from the Church; and together with him expelled almost all the Bishops; and making nothing of the tradition handed down to us from the Apostles, he ordered the divine image of Christ dwelling in the flesh to be destroyed, a dire persecution raised against the Orthodox, and by the same action shattered the venerable images of his mother and of all the Saints, filling the Church with the densest darkness, far heavier than the Egyptian ones. Hence, joining native madness to the violence of the tyrants that paganism had produced, he spoke iniquity on high, surpassing the ancient Rabshakeh; and undertook to shake the city of God — the Church, I say — by many machinations. And so the entire commonwealth, not even attempting to resist the violence, immediately suffered shipwreck under that storm; and those who by the merit of their sublime virtues were leaders of the rest toward heavenly things were carried away by the waves of his wickedness, although they afterward repaired the damage by penance. But of those who, taking no account of earthly things or even of themselves, had overcome the crime by mental acuity, some were wasted by hunger, others savagely tortured with beatings, and some cast into the sea by night ^f.

[23] Theophanes is summoned, At such a time, therefore, this admirable man also was summoned to the City, not indeed by violent or tyrannical power, but perhaps to be softened by the blandishments customary to the Emperor. I am about to undertake an expedition against the enemies, he said, and I need first to be armed with your prayers before I engage the foe. Theophanes knew the man's wickedness; in addition, he suffered from such chronic kidney pain and difficulty of urination that physicians, in order to clear a passage for the fluid excrement, if possible, by their skill, would insert instruments through the natural channel into the bladder, to break up the stones that had formed in it and partly to expel them. While he was afflicted with these troubles although he was gravely ill: and continually lay sick in bed, he nonetheless crossed by boat to the royal city. When that most wicked man learned this, and hesitated to bring him into his presence — reflecting, I think, upon the extraordinary fortitude of the man — through a certain one of his household he communicated this to him.

[24] He is tested by promises and threats, If you have come to comply with my requests — which your well-known gentleness of character leads me to hope concerning you — know that you will enjoy as many good things as it is fitting for those to enjoy who put their own obstinacy above the request of the Emperor. Moreover, with your monastery exalted with favors of every kind, and your relatives honored with the highest dignity, you will obtain the first place in my friendship and favor. But if, what is scarcely right to imagine, preferring a stubborn spirit to my entreaties, you despise my counsel and reject the good things proposed to you, you will bring upon yourself the greatest disgrace and calamity, when even against your will you will do what you had refused to do willingly.

[25] But the most holy man, laughing at him by whom such foolish things were said, and is unmoved by these, sent back the messenger sent to him with these words: I have need neither of money, nor of possessions, nor of any other goods of this life; for what I rejected as a young man, when I could have enjoyed them, seized by the love of Christ, how should I embrace now as an old man, having rejected him whom I desired? Especially when the increasing diseases of my body signify that I must shortly depart hence, and demonstrate the vanity of possessing those things which I have mentioned. The care of my monastery and my relatives will belong to God, to whom I commend them, inasmuch as he can help them better than Kings and Princes. But if, as schoolmasters frighten ill-bred boys with a switch, you hope to terrify me, worn out by disease and old age, with threats — let the pyre be kindled, let torments be prepared, and every kind of torture, and those of such a kind as to surpass all force of resolution and exceed all ingenious methods — so that you may know most clearly that the virtue of Christ is perfected in my infirmities. I, who am utterly unable to walk on the ground, having overcome my present infirmity of health by the promptness of my soul, will hasten to leap into the pyre.

[26] Hearing these things, that most base man admired indeed the constancy of a brave soul; He is matched against John: but he did not abandon hope of victory, relying on the most valiant of his champions, who, more schooled in magic tricks, sophistic impostures, Greek divinations, and inspections of entrails than in proper disciplines, nonetheless held the first place of power with the Emperor, into whose abyss of impiety the wretch had dragged him; who also delivered the blessed Theophanes to him, hoping he would certainly be deceived by the charm of his words. but having overcome this man too, But he was caught like an ass at a lyre, and marveling more vehemently at the invincible freedom of speech in the holy man, he confessed himself defeated before he even engaged, and announced to the Emperor that he was too excellent to be overcome by any speech or threats; indeed, that if he remained there longer, he would deter the minds of others, already about to yield, from their purpose. O mind firmer than adamant, yielding to no machinations assaulting the truth! O incredible force of love toward the Creator, which could be dissolved by no temptations of the world!

[27] He is cast into prison: The man, however, full of tyrannical cruelty, did not desist from his assault; but he ordered the holy man to be consigned to the strictest prison in the palace of Eleutherius, with guards posted so that no one, moved by humanity, would bring any consolation to him who was suffering for Christ. And so his body, worn out by prolonged hunger, was gradually tending toward corruption and suffering the detriment of a death soon to be endured. Moreover, the diseases, having gained license to rage through the absence of physicians, raged more severely and claimed him as one dead rather than living. But he himself, unconquered in all things, holding in his delights the most desirable beauty of him who holds the primacy of all desirable things, bore with a patient and equable mind things that are not even tolerable to others to hear. The Angels rejoiced when, in a most happy spectacle, they saw the power of endurance, which had long been exiled from human affairs, returned by right of restoration; and exulting in his outstanding virtue against the enemies, they sang to him the proclamation of victory. The demons shuddered because they were forced to see again flourishing in very deeds the Saints whose very names they could not bear to hear, and whose images they were assailing; and, wretchedly driven by envy, they accused their own satellites and ministers of weakness. Christ at last adorned his champion with a triumphal crown, gracing him with favors surpassing all power of speech.

[28] and finally, banished to Samothrace, he dies, Having therefore endured two years of the most bitter prison, he was deported to the island of Samothrace; which he had foreseen with the eye of his mind and had foretold to the one who ministered to him. There, having spent twenty-three days, he was offered as a sweet sacrifice to the common Lord; and committing his sacred and most holy spirit into his hands, he hastened to the inheritance long desired. Nor did the due rewards fail his body, and shines with miracles. in which he had achieved victory and which had been the companion of his soul in all virtue, insofar as was possible. For, placed in a wooden coffin by the hands of pious men and carried forth with fitting chants as the time allowed, it was illuminated with admirable graces by God. For when a plague was raging against the livestock of the island, so that they suddenly fell dead, the people sprinkled water that had been poured over the outer edges of his coffin (for they had not dared to touch the body) upon the suffering animals, and freed them from the impending pestilence.

[29] Not long after, that fierce boar of the Church of Christ expiated the guilt of his many crimes with a single punishment, With Leo slain, and ^g shamefully lost his life in the sacred places against which he had wickedly raged. Wherefore, with the dense fog briefly dispelled, an obscure sun of freedom emerged, shining faintly through the thinnest clouds. Then, therefore, the disciples of the holy man, having taken courage, sailed by ship to the island, the body is brought to Hiera, to the church of St. Procopius: and taking up that illustrious body, resplendent with the most splendid graces, together with the coffin, they brought it to a certain place twelve stadia distant from the monastery, ^h which they say is called Hiera, ^i and deposited it in the temple of St. Procopius the Martyr.

[30] Here he who honors with honors those by whom he is honored, in order to declare the state of the future glory of his Saint, made all the inhabitants of that region sharers in his gifts. For those who labored under the most grievous diseases, where he shines with miracles, admitting no cure, streamed in like waves, eager to share in his blessings; and indeed those vexed by demons, resisting and testifying to their pain with excessive crying and groaning, when dragged here by force, by the mere touch of the coffin, or even by water applied to the contact of the coffin, were freed from the vexation of wicked spirits, and giving due thanks to God who had made them whole through him, returned home. Those who secretly suffered from that plague, with the demons likewise betraying themselves by necessity and fleeing at the command of the athlete, were set free from them. Paralytics, who could scarcely be carried in their beds, with their limbs strengthened by the virtue of the Saint, carrying their beds on their shoulders, returned with praises. The blind, who, deprived of all bodily light, were led by the hands of others and had come to seek their eyes, their true guides, having been granted their wish, returned so easily that they escaped the need of a guiding hand along with their blindness.

[31] The lame, who in order to reach that place had dragged on the ground those parts of the body not accustomed to walking, or had borrowed the hands of others for the journey, departed leaping on straight legs in the manner of goats. Others, deprived of hearing or speech, when they heard the words of others speaking, gave thanks in a voice equal to theirs. Women too, who, suffering from a perpetual flow of blood, were tending toward death through the departure of innate heat, touching not the hem of the Lord but the coffin of his servant, with the flow miraculously dried up, rivaled perennial fountains in giving thanks with a grateful mind. A document full of shameful deeds, when it was sealed and brought near the coffin, they all saw clean, as if nothing had ever been written on it; and all marveled at the Apostolic ^k power flowing from this coffin. But what speech could narrate in detail the multitude of things done by him at that time, when they can scarcely be set forth even in general? Who would suffice to record them in writing, even if ten tongues and ten mouths had been granted to him by happy fate?

[32] Having therefore remained for a full year in the temple of the illustrious Martyr of Christ, Procopius, and after a year is conveyed back to the monastery. lest they should hold back the supplicants from seeking the divine gifts of the blessed man, they at last directed their way straight to his monastery, arranging themselves in a fourfold order around his bier. For, placed in the middle among the Fathers, noble men raised it upon their shoulders, carrying it like an ark — in which there was not a vessel preserving the food of an ungrateful people, and stone tablets, and a rod... ^l of the body, which had displayed virtue superior to all reproach, and had blunted the stings of envy by his innate tranquility; who had been eminently distinguished by the marks of charity; who, armed above all with faith, to which nothing is doubtful, had through it overthrown the fortifications of the adversaries;

who, shielded and protected by the most firm hope in Christ as by a breastplate, had shown the weapons of the enemies to be utterly vain and foolish; who was a river of the gifts of the Spirit; who gladdened every heart with the graces that flowed from him; who in the firmament of the Church was a sun that knew no setting, and always luminous; who had dazzled the eyes of the heretics with the splendor of his teaching and had directed the souls of the pious toward blameless faith.

[33] Prayer of the Author to the Saint. O physician of the ailing, O propitiation for sinners, grant me a swift cure of my infirmities, so that, having recovered my health, I may come again as a suppliant to you, bringing testimony of a grateful heart. Deliver me from the perils that daily threaten, so that when I have devoted myself to the most beautiful deeds with all my strength, I may clearly acknowledge you as their author. Praying that the sins of my ignorance and my youth be abolished by divine clemency, as once you did for him who placed his document upon your coffin, show yourself my noble patron before the dread tribunal of the Judge. Repelling with wondrous dexterity the most vile weapons of envy stirred up against us, preserve us safe and whole from the plague of the envious, so that, completing the path of salvation under your protection without offence, we may celebrate with joyful hearts the trophies of your venerable contest — in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion...

^a He means St. Tarasius, who held the See for twenty-two years, from the fifth year of Constantine and Irene to the likewise fifth year of Nicephorus, during which entire time the peace of the Church stood unshaken. We gave his Life on February 20.

^b Inasmuch as he was the son of Bardas, Duke of the Armeniacs, who in the year of Christ 781, in the first year of Irene and Constantine, on account of a conspiracy entered into for the purpose of asserting Nicephorus, the former Caesar, to the empire, was, along with his accomplices, after beatings and the shaving of their heads, banished, as is read in Theophanes.

^c See these accurately described in the Appendix to Theophanes; and on account of which the Patriarch Nicephorus was accustomed to call him a Chameleon. Michael is stripped of the Empire by Leo the Armenian.

^d He means Michael Curopalates, a most pious and excellent Emperor, whose praises Theophanes celebrates at length; who recalled Leo, son of Bardas the Armenian (as the author of the Appendix says), who had been convicted of treason, beaten, tonsured as a monk, and sent into exile by Nicephorus, and, having honored him with the dignity of Patrician, made him Duke of the Eastern army. Leo abused that honor against his benefactor and was the cause of the defeat to be received from the Bulgars, so that he might divert the Empire to himself from Michael, as though he were lazy and unfit to administer the Republic.

^e Nicephorus the Patriarch, the very man by whom the Emperor had been crowned not twenty-two months earlier, as we shall see in his Life on the day immediately following.

^f These things were done by the authority of the Pseudo-Synod convoked at the Blachernae, which they called the seventh, The insolence of the Iconoclasts, to which certain irreligious Bishops, coming together, did everything at the tyrant's pleasure; dragging orthodox Metropolitans and Bishops by force into their midst, they trampled them underfoot and, stained with their own blood and handed over to soldiers, thrust them into prisons and dungeons; and after detaining them there for some days, they brought them out again and examined them, and finding that they had not complied with their demands, sent them into exile — the Emperor being informed of these matters, who in addition sent torturers to those placed in exile and afflicted them with various punishments. These things and more are related by the author of the Appendix toward the end.

^g Hear Cedrenus: The Emperor, sensing the conspiracy, withdrew into the inner part of the altar and, having seized the chain of the censer The killing of Leo. — or, as others report, struck by the divine Cross — received the blows of his assailants. But they, not individually but in a wedge formation rushing upon him, one aimed blows at his head, another at his belly, another at another part of his body. Leo defended himself for a time with the Cross, repelling the blows of the swords, until, like a wild beast attacked from all sides, he succumbed.

^h Hiera-germa, He who transcribed the Greek text from the Venetian codex read ἱέρια and indicated with dots that he had been unable to read certain things that followed; whence I suspect that not ἱέρια but ἱέραν should have been read — especially since the first translator in Lipomanus rendered it "to a certain sacred place called." Ptolemy, as stated in the Prolegomena, calls it Hiera Germa; Stephanus simply Germen. Whether they navigated from the Hellespont up the river, or avoided it and returned by a land route through the Troad, it follows that the monastery was twelve stadia farther from Cyzicus than Hiera was.

^i These words, lacking in the printed copy, are supplied from the text of the first translation.

^k Namely, the power of remitting sins, granted to the Apostles in John 20:23.

^l Combefis observes that one folio is missing here, and that the same defect exists in Lipomanus, although the translator he used connects everything as if there were no lacuna. It would have corresponded to the other folio which we saw was missing at the beginning; and just as that must have contained the betrothal, the mother's death, and the wedding solemnities, so this would have contained certain miracles performed at the monastery itself after the translation.

ANOTHER LIFE

by Metaphrastes, as it appears.

From the Greek manuscript of the Sfortian Library, Rome.

Theophanes, Priest, Hegumen of Magnus Ager in Sigriana near Cyzicus, and Confessor (Saint)

FROM THE GREEK MANUSCRIPT, SFORTIAN

PROLOGUE

[1] Just as a blooming meadow, adorned with various flowers, The Lives of Saints adorn the Church: delights those who wish to gaze upon the fragrance of its beds arranged harmoniously among themselves, and, changing place for place, compels them to return to the very spot from whence they departed, or at least to turn back their eyes, voluntarily turned aside — in precisely the same way the Church of Christ, adorned with the multiform example of the Saints who have been from of old, impels its hearers to the confession of divine praise; and those for whom one feast after another is appointed are stirred to proclaim with exultation the honor due to each, as the appellations of the days alternate in turn. For to this end even those who are more religious than the rest come together, striving to increase their own virtue; while others, sluggish and otherwise insensible, condemning the apathy of their way of life, are compelled to turn their mind to piety. Among these, Theophanes, To one wishing, therefore, most beloved, to proclaim a holy man, lend attentive ears, and receive readily and wisely the narrative of this day concerning him. But who is this? He, he who is celebrated among ascetics — Theophanes, the great defender of the orthodox religion, the champion of true doctrine; who willingly surrendered himself to those who wished to rage, and refuted with eloquent learning the impiety of the ruler; who, refined from earliest childhood in life, work, and speech, utterly despised what commonly seems pleasant, cultivated continence in marriage, and distributing temporal riches to the poor, treasured up for himself, as the Psalmist says among the Prophets, justice enduring forever and ever. Ps. 111:8.

[2] Since, therefore, the memory of the just is to be recalled with praises, described by various authors, do not, I pray, impute to my rashness the praise I give to one whose life I have not yet narrated. Prov. 10:7. And indeed it would have been fitting to set it forth first; but since, by the exertions of certain wise and holy ^a men, we have a detailed account of this blessed man's conversion from his very birth and his inclination toward the worship of God, as well as his exercise and most pure manner of life in the monastic state, and his elimination of imperfections, his display of right faith, and his constancy in enduring afflictions — by which his life is adorned more than with gold, pearls, and precious stones — here set forth in summary. I could by no means be induced to add anything to them; but I thought that what had been dispersed should be collected from those very narratives into one structure, as stone-cutters do, knowing that he who undertakes to do the impossible perversely distorts every method of proceeding. Using, therefore, a summary narrative, I have put together only a rough outline of his upright deeds.

^a Among others, St. Methodius the Patriarch, as stated in the Prolegomena, number 16.

CHAPTER I

Birth, marriage, life in the world.

[3] Of noble and orthodox parents, This blessed man, dearest Fathers and Brothers, having received his name from the seal of the Christian religion, was the son of noble parents conspicuous in dignities, who in the time of Constantine Copronymus ordered their lives according to the rules of right faith, though secretly. And indeed from such a beginning of his birth this star was destined to shine, which was to bear a name befitting the mystery of God manifested in the flesh; for this most pure pearl would not be set before us today if in that darkness of perverse opinions his parents had not openly gleamed with piety. Since he was their only child, taught divine letters from boyhood and initiated into the knowledge of all Scripture, he was not deficient even in profane wisdom; but whatever was most beautiful in it he hid within the treasury of his mind, while what was fabulous he bade depart far away, orphaned as a child, and despised it as was fitting. While he was still quite young and had not yet entered the years of puberty, his parents departed hence to the Lord, and he alone remained amid copious riches — perhaps by the arrangement of heavenly providence, lest their love be an obstacle to one who was about to proceed by the straight way to God.

[4] After the sacrilegious Constantine ^a shamefully breathed out his shameful soul, Leo received the empire, called by his maternal surname ^b Chazares; during whose reign a certain patrician bore the same name as the Emperor, a man altogether barbarian and of fierce character, at length unwillingly joined to a wife: an associate of the heretical company in faithlessness and a defender of it by his authority. This impiety so won him the Emperor's favor that he had him both as a daily dinner companion and as a most intimate friend in all things. When this man learned how great was the wealth of the blessed young man, he joined his daughter to Theophanes, using the terror of an imperial command to arrange those nuptials. For these, a bridal chamber was prepared befitting the dignity of both parties, though Theophanes reluctantly and with resistance, yet out of fear of the more powerful one, permitted them to take place. Therefore, when the solemnities of the nuptials had been duly and auspiciously celebrated and evening had fallen, the most pious young man and the most illustrious virgin were led alone into the chamber, furnished with the appropriate apparatus for delights and pleasure. Where, while deep sleep and widespread night held all, through those silences opportune for his deliberations, the young man turned to the girl and addressed her in this manner.

[5] The present life, dearest wife, is brief, [whom he exhorts to the resolution of religious life after a brief use of marriage,] as is known to all, and is often held by great uncertainty about the future; but a severe judgment awaits those who in this life abound in good things and pleasures. Therefore, although the use of marriage is by no means rejected by God, yet the worldly cares that accompany it empty and alienate a mind full of the divine spirit, and do not allow one to gaze with pure eyes upon the future. We know that Lazarus in the Gospels, through the miseries he endured here, was carried into Abraham's bosom; and that the rich man, burning in hell, could not even obtain this much, that Lazarus should be sent to him; to whom, when even a drop of water was denied, that funereal word resounded: You have received your good things in your life. Nor does any of the Evangelical beatitudes contain a promise of blessings made to the rich; but to those who weep now, because they shall laugh there; or to the poor in spirit, or to those suffering persecution for the sake of justice, or to those enduring reproach for Christ's

sake. And to conclude once and for all in a single word: Narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leads to life; but wide and spacious is the way that leads to perdition — so that it is altogether impossible for us to escape tribulation. For if we live pleasantly in this life, tribulation will await us in the future. Wherefore, if it please you, dearest, being united in body for a little time on account of the insolent ferocity of your father, let us withdraw ourselves from this rough and polluted way of life and embrace the monastic life, that we may enjoy eternal rest.

[6] What did the pious woman say to this? Did she refuse? Did she speak anything unbecoming? In turn by her, Why do you obscure the beauty of my youth, she said, and excluding me from hoped-for happiness, turn my joy into lamentation? If you had determined to care for your salvation in this manner: you are not the only young man among the nobles; it would have been proper, therefore, before the marriage was entered into, to renounce the betrothal and not to make my newly blossoming beauty, as it were, wilt. She said nothing of the kind; but, as good earth receiving seed produces much fruit, so the venerable woman, strengthened by the noble exhortation of her spouse, readily assented and responded: I am indeed not ignorant, she is mutually impelled to preserving virginity by mutual consent. O sweetest spouse, of the divine promises; for our Savior plainly proclaims in the Gospels: He who does not leave father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters and houses and fields, and take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me. Why then do we not, if it please you, present ourselves pure and undefiled to the heavenly Bridegroom, preserving even our outward person immaculate? What profit will it bring us if we must, even for a brief time as you say, enjoy each other's embrace? For who will guarantee that in that short time we shall not beget offspring, which, once born, will be an impediment to us? And indeed, if it be male, a share of our possessions and our affection will have to be cut off for it; but if female, behold a double evil — for we shall have to wait for the age suitable for marriage and devote the rest of our care to her. And yet the end of life, as you yourself said a little while ago, is uncertain, and the snares of this life are innumerable. But if we live cultivating chastity in secret, I am certain that our desire will be brought by God to its wished-for end.

[7] To which both are divinely animated by an Angel. The most blessed young man was astonished at so generous a mind in the girl, and responding graciously said: What is profitable, God will make clear to us. They therefore spent the whole night in prayers, calling upon God to deign to consult and provide for them in this matter. Around dawn it happened that both fell asleep and at that time saw one and the same dream: they saw a certain one shining with extraordinary beauty, who, using a gentle voice toward them, said: The Lord, receiving the purpose of your heart, has sent me to seal you for this end, that you may offer yourselves to him intact and whole. And immediately sealing them over the entire body, he vanished from the eyes of the beholders. When they awoke and narrated to each other what they had seen, without any discrepancy, they gave glory to God, who is so easily found by those who seek him; and from then on they lived in appearance as husband and wife, but in reality as siblings. O wondrous thing! The Lord knows who are his, and since they sought God alone, he was immediately found as their helper and aid according to their desire. How is this inferior to that miracle which we admire as having been performed around the three youths in the furnace? There an Angel, changing the burning flame of fire into a blowing wind of dew, preserved them unharmed. Here similarly an Angel, transforming the excited fiery ardor of pleasure into a dew of continence, kept the spouses innocent and taught fire to be joined with hay without harm. Dan. 3:50.

[8] Now since we have abundantly declared the life of the Saint from his birth to his marriage, come, beloved of Christ, and let us at last bring some specimen of his contests to your hearing for our common instruction. When these things had therefore been thus arranged by divine will, the father-in-law, offended by their generous almsgiving, since they had in a short time secretly divided great treasures among the poor — or rather stored them up for themselves through the hands of the poor — they could not long remain hidden from the girl's father, a severe man indeed, merciless, inhuman, and devoid of all feeling of compassion. The wretch, therefore, learning the excellent way of trafficking that the new couple had established, he complains to the Emperor about his son-in-law, and not attributing what he learned to piety but to the greatest misfortune, went to the palace to the Emperor and spoke thus: O how miserable I am, Emperor, because of my son-in-law's idleness! For squandering his wealth in the worst ways, he has not even abstained from the substance of my daughter and has already dissipated the greater part of it; nor is my unhappy daughter found worthy of the procreation of children from him. Therefore I consider him in every way wretched and lazy, whom she came to know under a plainly inauspicious omen. But if your majesty consent, so that my old age may take some relief from such indolence, you will order him sent far away, to attend to some public business somewhere, lest my poor daughter be numbered among those completely despoiled. Indeed, from where he learned that insane way of living I cannot understand — he who remains immovable as a bronze statue toward the desires of pleasure; and what is even more troublesome, as often happens, giving most easily whatever has been asked of him by anyone he meets, as those who are out of their minds often do, he is daily deprived of his resources, being most generous especially to those who feign poverty. Assuredly he will not even have an abundance of children unless, made wiser as quickly as possible by the poverty that surrounds him, he becomes fit to retain his property.

[9] The Blessed one was therefore immediately summoned before the Emperor and sent by him to the region of Cyzicus, who sends him on public business to Cyzicus, for the sake of certain public affairs; for he held a position of royal dignity at court — not, however, among those who held the first place with the Emperor, but as a minister of the finer royal horses ^c among those whom the Order ^e of ^d Stratores was accustomed to name. When he had received this commission and was filled with no ordinary joy by it, as though a new occasion for utterly abandoning the world was being divinely offered to him, he prepared as quickly as possible whatever was necessary for the journey, and under the pretext of feigned illness sent all his servants ahead by the public post. He himself, however, boarding a swift vessel, arrived at the mouth of the Great ^f River; and then, approaching the region that is there, he was making his journey at a tranquil pace, when, skirting the precipitous shores of the mountain that is in Sigriana, by a certain divine providence he found a grove of a deep ravine — wild indeed and cavernous. Descending from the boat to this spot and making his landing, he went off alone, compelled by the weariness of the journey, ordering the rest in the boat to wait for him there in rest.

[10] He disembarks at Sigriana, Carefully surveying the place and rejoicing to have found it most suitable and useful for spiritual exercises, he withdrew to a part to pray, beseeching God to reveal to him what was expedient. Exhausted by a lengthy genuflection of many hours, when he had rested for a little while, he fell as into an ecstasy, and with waking eyes he saw the same splendid man who had previously appeared to him in the bridal chamber; who, designating the place with the finger of his extended hand, said: Your father-in-law and the Emperor, who is of the same mind as he, will depart this life within a short time; and is divinely instructed concerning life to be led there: then, having freely distributed your goods to the poor with no one opposing, you will come here and establish a life pleasing to God. Instructed, therefore, by this apparition, the Blessed one learned what was conducive to his advantage, and having shortly afterward arrived at the region of Cyzicus and completed the business assigned to him as quickly as possible, he steered a direct course to Constantinople; and rendering a fitting account to the Emperor of the things he had sought, he was honored by him with an even higher rank and enrolled among the ^g Spatharii, and there he then lived with his bride, awaiting the outcome of the vision, which he also saw come to pass.

^a In the year 775, having gone out against the Bulgars, he was seized by a disease of carbuncles, The death of Copronymus, divinely inflicted upon his legs, and afflicted by a subsequently most vehement fever and a burning unknown to physicians because of the intensity of the fire. Carried on the shoulders of his subjects on a litter to Arcadiopolis, then proceeding to Selymbria on September 14, having boarded a ship, he was conveyed to the fortress of Strongylum, where he met an unhappy death on the vessel, crying out and saying: Even while alive I am consigned to a fire that shall never be extinguished. So Theophanes.

^b Irene, mother of Leo, I think Leo's mother was called Chazar not by a personal name but by the name of the nation; for she was, as Theophanes says, the daughter of the Chagan, Prince of Chazaria, afterward called by the Christian name Irene — a most praiseworthy Empress, for the restoration of orthodoxy after Leo's death.

^c Namely those which Codinus Curopalates, chapter § no. 11, calls συρτοὺς βασιλικοὺς ἵππους, "royal horses led by hand," horses σορτοὶ βαςιλκοὶ into one of which, when the Stratores had lifted the Emperor, there followed a magnificent retinue of riderless horses. Codinus traces the origin of this institution to the Emperor Theophilus, who, having once yielded his horse to a woman who was claiming that it had been taken from her by force, and being compelled to mount the first horse he encountered, decreed that henceforth riderless horses should follow in case of any eventuality.

^d The duty of the Stratores was to hold the horse by the bridle and to assist the Emperor in mounting; so Goar explains in his notes on Cedrenus, Stratores, naming the authorities he follows, what the duty of the Protostrator was — whom he shows was sometimes called both Count and Domesticus of the Stratores, was held to be of Senatorial rank, and, as the Empire declined, often led an army.

^e That is, the nomenclature and distribution of court offices and ministries.

^f This river separates the Olympene region from the Sigrian; to Ptolemy and Plutarch (says Ortelius in his Thesaurus) it is called the Rhyndacus; The river Rhyndacus. formerly called the Lycus, according to Pliny; but by the more recent name, as is found in the Scholiast on Apollonius, Μέγιςος, "the Greatest."

^g So called from the spathae, that is, the broader swords which they carried, nobles placed around the Emperor for the protection of his person: Spatharii. whose chiefs are called Protospatharii. That there were several, Goar gathers from Eustratius in the Greek Law, who names four at the same time. From this, however, I do not think it rightly follows that all Spatharii were customarily honored with the more distinguished title of Protospatharius; for why should the Spatharii not have been greater in number, with their own centurions under one head, distributed into centuries, themselves also called either Spatharii or Protospatharii? Why should not many have been called Protospatharii not for the ministry but for the dignity, since we read that provinces were often committed to them — like that Sergius, Duke of Sicily under Leo the Isaurian, in Theophanes?

CHAPTER II

The monastic life of Theophanes and his struggles for the veneration of images.

[11] He separates from his wife: For not much time elapsed before both of them departed this life, leaving them full freedom to use their possessions as they wished;

which they immediately divided among the poor, also granting liberty to their domestic servants. They themselves, clad in ragged garments, bade farewell to each other, the blessed man strengthening the pious woman with saving admonitions to observe the divine commandments, to exercise spiritual charity toward her neighbor, to devote herself as much as possible to sincere and undisturbed prayer, to maintain an irreproachable life and the highest humility; who was renowned for holiness, and saying to her in parting: Save, save your own soul. Thus they were separated from each other's company. What sort of life the most pious woman led, all who dwell in the region of ^a Bithynia know: namely, how she voluntarily reduced herself to the status of a servant by selling her possessions; and when recognized by some, she fled from there. Who could encompass in writing all her struggles, whether on the island of Principo or on Calonymus, where the grace of working miracles also shone forth in her? She is praised by St. Methodius, — especially since the part of the deeds nobly performed by her has been made known for the benefit of readers by the most holy Patriarch Methodius in the writing which he composed concerning her and her blessed husband.

[12] But what of Theophanes of blessed memory? Boarding a ship, he sought the shores of Sigriana, He himself becomes a monk in Sigriana, and having disembarked there, he quickly hastened to that wooded precipice where, mortifying his body over many years and clothed in the monastic habit by ^b Christopher, the most splendid star of that era and region, he himself also became famous thenceforward; for a city set upon a mountain could not be hidden. As people flocked to him day by day, embracing the angelic form of life under his direction, he converted that solitude into a monastery, which even now and henceforth is shown and will be shown flourishing with divine virtues. Contending spiritually in this place, and with his companions institutes a most austere life, he became a genuine mystic of the most holy Trinity and a contemplator of the greatest visions. A cheap mat sufficed him for a bed, a hair shirt for a covering, and a stone for a pillow. There was no ostentation in his clothing, no softness, nor was there need for fullers to labor on it. He never possessed a horse or mule for his own use; he knew nothing of cooks' artifices in the preparation of food fitting for him, nor did he irrigate his palate with fragrant wine; but his food and drink were the hardest bread and very little water.

[13] To the Seventh Synod, at which all things were restored, Meanwhile it happened that when the Emperor had died, and Irene with her son Constantine was piously governing the helm of the kingdom, after the death of ^c Paul — the one who had been made a monk after being Patriarch — there was created, by the Empress, the entire Senate, and the chosen assembly of those who held right doctrine in their opinions, as Patriarch of Constantinople Tarasius, the most holy light of the true faith, and an Ecumenical Synod was convoked, by which the six holy Synods that had preceded it were confirmed; ^d Constantine ^e and Nicetas, heresiarchs and fraudulent Patriarchs, were subjected to anathema; the most holy Patriarch Germanus ^f was inscribed in the diptychs; and the foolish error of the iconoclasts was removed from the midst and dissolved like a spider's web. There had assembled from every region Fathers ^g and teachers, and Vicars of the Apostolic Sees, and Primates of the monks: ^h Plato, I say, that most illustrious star from among those of Sacudeon, ^i Nicetas and Nicephorus, Fathers memorable to all, from the monastery of Medicius, and the aforesaid ^k Christopher from Little Field. Then, by the summons of this spiritual congregation, the Blessed Theophanes also came to the Synod, he approaches in humble garb, like a most luminous star — compelled indeed by force; yet he came, although he always sought and greatly loved quietude, abhorring the tumult of crowds.

[14] And they all came with a great multitude of horses, mules, attendants, and ^l courier horses; but the holy Father, as truly a Father, came with his hair-shirt cloak and his pastoral staff. And pronounces his opinion with great energy. When the venerable Synod had sat down, the Fathers did not despise the Father, conspicuous though he was in humble garb, since he shone forth in piety above all; but they invited him to declare his opinion publicly. For they knew, and knew well, how worthy a worker of the Holy Spirit he was. He, embracing much in few words, with arguments drawn from nature, Scripture, and the discipline of the Church, refuted and silenced the arrogant and execrable Iconoclasts, and restored to the Church its former glory. O miracle! What can be said more magnificent than this? Namely, the Holy Spirit breathes where and as much as he wills. When these things had been accomplished and the Fathers were returning to their homes, the Blessed one again retired to the monastery recently founded by him, and most resembling heaven itself; for as in heaven the sun with the stars shines and illuminates the whole world with the splendor of its light, so on earth the Blessed one, with his chosen monks in the spirit and his companions in the holy contest, shining upon the whole world, illuminated it with the radiance of his angelic way of life.

[15] The rays of Orthodoxy, therefore, were being spread in all directions; Leo the Armenian again disturbs the Church by overturning images: but after the passage of some years, by divine permission, there arose a Leo of the same name as the Former, who, as soon as he was declared Emperor, ordered the sacred images to be overthrown, extinguished the beauty of the Church; and like a fierce boar afflicted the assembly of the orthodox, to whom it was then truly permitted to say: O God, the nations have come into your inheritance, and what follows. Ps. 78:1. For the Fathers who were defenders and champions of the orthodox faith he put to a cruel death, subjecting them to many beatings and pressures; among whom he also expelled the most holy Theodore, Archimandrite of the Studium, into exile after prolonged harassment, because he condemned his foolish edict; by whose letters, but with a deceitful mind he sent flattering letters to Blessed Theophanes, by which he asked him to subscribe to his wicked opinion and not to be reluctant to come to him. To these Theophanes wrote back in this form.

[16] Know, O Emperor, that he who bestowed the Empire upon you, through whom kings reign Theophanes responding generously, and tyrants rule over the earth: know, I say, how God, although uncircumscribed, nonetheless deigned to be circumscribed by assuming our nature, made like us in all things except that he did not have sin. According to which nature he raised the dead, gave sight to the blind, cleansed the lepers, and worked the rest of his miracles in order; by reason, according to which same nature he willingly underwent death, inflicted by the madness of the Jews, and rising on the third day gloriously ascended into heaven, never to be separated from the seat at his Father's right hand. Because the book of the Gospels teaches us this nature, we reverently embrace it and believe we show honor to Christ. If we are not accused for embracing it, how will we rightly be accused if we wish to receive and venerate the history of the same teaching portrayed in images, and establishes the use of images by authority, through which even those who come to us from among the barbarians to be instructed in the faith of Christ are most easily taught the entire truth of the matter? How many who are ignorant of letters, while they behold the divine miracles, as it were, with their own eyes, glorify Christ who suffered for us — the salvation of whom you have envied? What Council ever pronounced this to be an unspeakable sacrilege? Did not Christ himself transmit the image of his own face, formed by no aid of hands, ^m to Ancarus? Did not the Apostle Luke ^n hand down to us a likeness of the Virgin Mother of God expressed in colors? And what will you oppose to the doctrine handed down by the Fathers? For ^o Basil, that searcher of ineffable mysteries, says: The honor paid to the image passes to the prototype. Similarly John, with his golden mouth: I have loved also an image molded from wax. ^p And Cyril, the lyre of the Holy Spirit: Often have I seen the image of the Passion depicted, and have not passed it without tears. And the rest. If, therefore, the first six Councils did not disapprove of the sacred images being worshipped relatively with reference to their prototypes, do you reckon yourself wiser than they? It is yours, O Emperor, to wage war against enemies; the doctrine of the Church will be the care of the Fathers.

[17] When the Blessed one had replied in this manner to the letters sent by the Emperor, for which reason, with his monastery destroyed, he is arrested, the tyrant, not bearing such constancy of the man, sent a certain person of rank, through whom he burned the monastery down to the very pavement, scattered the monks after beating them, and brought the Blessed man, arrested and bound, to Byzantium, and, at the tyrant's command, confining him in a dark prison, afflicted him for many days. With what confidence? Namely, because he hoped that the fortitude of the holy soul, once softened, would be easy to consent to impiety. The day before the Emperor was to summon him, therefore, he ordered the aforesaid Theodore, ^r Hegumen of the Studium, to be brought — whom, after long testing with proposed terrors and torments, he thought to break; but when he was on the contrary freely rebuked by him, as one who did not know the God who beholds hearts, and after the exiled St. Theodore the Studite, he confusedly condemned him to exile, having pronounced sentence against the Saint.

[18] On the following day he had also ordered Blessed Theophanes to be brought before him; but the Emperor was addressed by his counselors, who suggested he is ordered to be brought forward, that it was altogether unbefitting for the imperial majesty to be rebuked and slighted by any of these vile men, especially by this one already ordered to be summoned, who was more insolent than all others brought into his presence, and who, because of his obstinate defiance and austerity, was likely to insult his authority with some notable affront. But then denied access, after beatings, He therefore restrained his impulse and sent one of his chief officers with the command to have him lacerated with three hundred strokes of the hide upon his chest and back, and to order him shut up again in prison. On the following day, when the same torture had again been inflicted upon the Saint and it appeared that he had relaxed nothing of his firm trust in God, the wretch, despairing on account of the Saint's great alacrity, pronounced sentence against him and sent him into exile to the island of Samothrace, which is situated in the part of the sea near ^s Maroneia, a most desolate place ^t and difficult for all wishing to approach it. He dies a holy death in exile. There, pressed by hunger, thirst, and distress for some years, the Blessed one departed this life for a better one, his body and soul preserved without fault; by whose holy prayers, beloved hearers, may we be strengthened, giving glory and thanksgiving to Christ our most benign God, and together with the Father who has no beginning and the life-giving Spirit, now and always, and through all unending ages of ages. Amen.

^a Bithynia is a region of Asia Minor, encircled by the provinces of Phrygia, Pontus, and Galatia, Bithynia, which the Sangarius river traverses with many bends before finally flowing through the Pontus into the Euxine.

^b Paul, Patriarch of Constantinople. The preceding Acts have Gregory.

^c This man, Cypriot by birth, a Lector by rank, eminent in learning and virtue, was installed by force as Patriarch in the last year of Leo Chazares, the year of Christ 780, although he was very reluctant on account of the heresy then prevailing. Truly he was found to have suffered in this matter especially, that during the solemnities of his ordination he subscribed a promise never to worship images. He persevered, however, in that dissimulation, while otherwise presenting an excellent example to the Church by his holy and most religious

conduct, until the year 784; when, no longer able to bear the stings of conscience rebuking a mute pastor, and falling into illness from grief, he sent his resignation from the throne and betook himself to the monastery of Florus. There, the Empress being unaware of his intention, he assumed the monastic habit; and shortly afterward, having earnestly advised those who had been sent to him by the Empress concerning the convocation of a Synod and the correction of the error, he fell asleep in peace, to the great sorrow of all. So Theophanes relates, more or less.

^d This man had been Bishop of Sileum and by the impious Copronymus, after the Pseudo-Synod held at Hieria in 753 for the abolition of the veneration of images, Pseudo-Patriarchs of Constantinople, Constantius and Nicetas. was on August 8 led to the ambo of the temple of the Blachernae, with the Emperor himself leading the acclamation in these words: Many years to Constantine, Ecumenical Patriarch. Then in the year 764, induced by the same Emperor to publicly abjure the veneration of images and to commit many things unworthy of his rank, shortly afterward he fell into the hatred of the one who had promoted him and, cast down from the throne, was banished to the island of Principo; and in October of the following year, brought back to the City, condemned by his successor and led around in mockery, he was finally beheaded — a tragedy which see accurately described in Theophanes.

^e This man, sprung from the Slavs, on November 16 of the aforesaid year 764, being a eunuch, was crowned against the right of the Canons by the Emperor's vote; he proved his impiety by the erasure of images, and died on February 6, 780.

^f His feast is observed on May 12; we shall treat of his noble confession in defending the veneration of images against Leo the Isaurian on that day. What it means to be enrolled in the Diptychs? Moreover, concerning this enrollment of his in the diptychs, no mention is made in the Acts of the Council as they exist at this time. Now the Diptychs are to the Greeks what the Latins call "ecclesiastical tables": John Meursius observes in his Glossary that these were of two kinds: some of the living (such as our baptismal books among us), in which the names of the baptized and sponsors were recorded, as is clear from Pachymeres in his Paraphrase of Dionysius; others of the dead — not of just anyone, but of Patriarchs only, and not even all of them, but those whom integrity of faith and singular virtue had proved worthy of that public cult among the Saints which the Latins call Canonization. Hence that grave and prolonged difficulty about enrolling John Chrysostom in the Diptychs, about which see the Prolegomena to the Life of St. Atticus, January 8, §§6 and 7, whence I repeat here from Theodoret: The Bishops of the West were unwilling to communicate with the Bishops of Egypt and the East and the Bosporus and Thrace until they had enrolled the name of that most holy man in the tables in which the names of deceased Bishops were contained. Until finally, as Socrates says, Bishop Atticus directed that mention be made of John in the prayers, as is customary regarding other Bishops.

^g That Synod had 350 Bishops; no reckoning was made of Hegumens and other illustrious persons from the Clergy or the monastic order. Synod VII, Nicaea II. Only at the end of Session IV, after about 260 Bishops had subscribed, are also found to have subscribed more than 130 superiors of monasteries, who necessarily were far more numerous.

^h The Greeks commemorate him on April 4; Surius placed the encomium written by St. Theodore the Studite on December 6. The monasteries of Sacudeon, He is found to have subscribed to Session IV in these words: Plato, President and Archimandrite of the Saccudeans, similarly as the Greek text has it, for which in the Latin editions of the Councils, even the Royal Parisian edition, one reads "of the holy" etc. Whether Sacudio, as it is written here, or Sacudeo, as in the Latin translation of the Council (for in the Greek it is Σακκουδεῶν, "of the Saccudeans"), was the founder of the monastery over which St. Plato presided, or the name was taken from some other cause, I am unable to determine.

^i I find altogether five men named Nicetas who subscribed to the said Session in the order of the Hegumens, of whom the first was τοῦ ἁγίου Αλεξάνδρου, of St. Alexander; the second τῶν Γουδιλᾶ, of the Gudilaites; the third τοῦ ἁγ. Ηλία, of St. Elias; the fourth τῶν Οκτάων, of the Octaeans; the fifth της ἁγίασ Θεοτόκου της μονῆς τού κάςρου της Τίου, of the Holy Mother of God, of the monastery of the Castle of Tios. Of these not even one is found in the Latin editions. I believe all of them to be different from this one, and of St. Sergius of Medicion: since he is joined with Nicephorus as if from the same monastery, which the Latin editions call "of St. Medicius," where they have the subscription of this Nicephorus; but in the Greek text one reads τοῦ ἁγίου Σεργίου τοῦ Μιδικιῶνος, "of St. Sergius of Midicion" — about which I have no more to say than about Saccudeon. These things seem to be added for the distinction of other monasteries named after the same Saint; for thus John the Priest of τοῦ ἁγίου Σεργίου τῶν Γερμίων, "of St. Sergius of the Germians," subscribes to the same Session. But the reason for such surnames remains to be discovered.

^k Among all the Hegumens I found only one Christopher, and he τῶν καυδήλων, "of the Caudelae," as the Latin translates it; it is not likely that he is the same as this one.

^l These are horses destined and accustomed to faster running, of the sort used by public couriers — hence called veredarii, Vered horses, whence the name? who however took their name from conveying carriages (redis), according to Festus — as was briefly indicated on January 16, at number 13 of the earlier Acts of Pope St. Marcellus. Vossius in his Etymologicum learnedly confirms Festus's opinion with many arguments, demonstrating from reliable authorities that the ancient couriers' public post was vehicular.

^m The Prince of the city of Edessa is variously found written as Augarus or Abgarus, and among the Latins also Abagarus and Agabarus: the image of Christ sent to Augarus: the Greeks celebrate the feast of this image on August 16 and relate the History in the Menaea — the day on which it was translated from Edessa to Constantinople; whence the Genoese now religiously venerate it, received at the suburban temple of St. Bartholomew of the Armenians, committed to the care of the Barnabite Fathers after the Basilian monks were removed not many years ago. The miracle of its preservation from fire under Chosroes, from the Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius, we find read in Session V of the Second Council of Nicaea, and mention of it elsewhere passim. See our Gretzer in his distinguished treatise which he published on Images not made by hand, which for the most part is entirely about this one, and has now been reprinted with royal magnificence in Paris after George Codinus Curopalates, on the offices of the Church and Court of Constantinople, illustrated by the commentaries of the same Gretzer and the notes of Goar.

^n This image, sent from Jerusalem by the Empress Eudocia to the Empress Pulcheria, to whom a temple was built at Constantinople called τῶν ὁδηγῶν, and of the Blessed Virgin painted by St. Luke. that is, "of the Guides," is reported by Nicephorus. The words of St. Germanus the Patriarch, related in the Life of St. Stephen the Younger, seem to refer to it: We know an image of the Virgin Mother of God painted by the Evangelist Luke, which was sent from Jerusalem. See the same Gretzer in chapter 18 of the aforementioned treatise, treating of this, and refuting the nonsense of Cuspinianus in the following chapter.

^o Both these passages of Basil and Chrysostom are also cited by Pope Gregory in his Letter to St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, read in Session IV of the Second Council of Nicaea. In which same Session this saying of Chrysostom is adduced by Theodosius, President of St. Andrew at Nesium, as taken from the oration whose subject is "That the lawgiver of the Old and New Testament is one."

^p Rather Gregory of Nyssa; for Adrian the Pope professes this passage to be his — of one making a discourse about Abraham the Patriarch — in his Letter to the Emperors Constantine and Irene, recited in Session II of the said Council. But this lapse of memory is to be forgiven the author of this eulogy more readily than others, with whom the last and most beautiful act of this Confession seems to have been confused; for the earlier Life author, who was nearly contemporary, is rather to be followed, and it should by no means be believed either that the monks were harassed and the monastery destroyed before Theophanes had proved his constancy at Byzantium, but rather that these acts of affliction followed afterward; or that Theophanes was expelled to Samothrace on the third day after Theodore's ejection.

^r It is remarkable that in the Life of St. Theodore the Studite no mention at all is made of this last bringing before the Emperor; in which only this is briefly added, after narrating his efforts to confirm the brethren by word and writing: that the tyrant, offended by these things and not knowing where to turn, since he could no longer bear the man's freedom and boldness, ordered him expelled from Byzantium and committed to prison. We shall give the Life on November 11, the day he died in the year 826.

^s This is a city of Thrace, retaining its old name even at this time, from which, therefore, as from a more notable place, that sea is rightly named. It is otherwise about 20 miles farther from the island of Samothrace than the island itself is from the nearest mainland, according to Ptolemy's calculations. Maroneia, a city of Thrace. There are those who think it is the Ismarus of Homer; but Pliny makes it different. Ortelius in his Thesaurus teaches that it was once called Hipparchia.

^t This too is said by way of exaggeration, as is clear from what was reported in the Prolegomena §3 about its present state, at least if the nature of the place is precisely considered.