Nicetas

ON ST. NICETAS, CONFESSOR, BISHOP OF APOLLONIAS.

UNDER THE ICONOCLASTS

Nicetas, Confessor, Bishop of Apollonias (Saint)

[1] The name of this Confessor is inscribed in the calendars of the Roman Martyrology in these words: "At Apollonia, St. Nicetas the Bishop: who, cast into exile for the cult of sacred images, gave up his spirit." In the Notes, the Menologion of the Greeks is cited: in which these words are read: "On the same day, of our holy Father Nicetas, Bishop of Apollonias, Confessor. His name in the sacred calendars of the Latins and Greeks: He, having suffered persecution for the defense of sacred images, because he refused to deny the venerable image of Christ the Lord and of His immaculate mother and of the other Saints, was sent into exile and tested by various afflictions, and making a blessed confession, surrendered his holy soul to God Himself." Somewhat more is read in the Menaea and in Maximus of Cythera, which we also add: "On the same day, the memory of our holy Father and Confessor Nicetas, Bishop of Apollonias. This holy Father and Confessor of ours lived in the times of the Iconoclasts as Bishop of Apollonias, not only a most vigorous champion of firm faith, observed piety, and the Catholic religion, but also generous in his kindness toward the poor and distinguished for his great knowledge of divine things and eloquence. Whence, when he was urged to renounce the cult of the sacred images of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His immaculate Mother and of the sacred and divine Angels and of all the Saints, and could not be induced to do so, he was condemned to various exiles: in which, when he was harassed by the greatest and intolerable troubles, at last worn out by these evils, he surrendered his holy soul into the hands of God."

[2] Thus far the Greeks, without any further indication of the time, under which Iconoclast Emperor he was driven into exile. The time of his life. Baronius inserted the words of the Menologion into his Annals under the year 733, number 2, and again under the year 735, where in number 2 from the Menologion of the Emperor Basil he narrates the eulogy of St. Theophilus, a monk who suffered much under Leo the Isaurian and was cast into exile, and then in number 3 adds that at that time also St. Eudaemon, Bishop of Lampsacus, Nicetas, Bishop of Apollonias, and others were also distinguished by the glorious title of confession. We treated of Euschemon (for thus the Greeks call him, not Eudaemon) on March 14, the location of Apollonias. and we also did not achieve any indication of time. Apollonias, however, among other cities of the same name, seems to be assigned to that which is situated in the borderlands of Bithynia under the metropolis of Nicomedia, because the persecution against the Orthodox worshippers of images prevailed especially in those regions.

ON THE TWENTY MONK-MARTYRS: JOHN, SERGIUS, PATRICK, COSMAS, ANASTASIUS, THEOCTISTUS, AND FOURTEEN OTHERS, IN THE LAURA OF ST. SABAS NEAR JERUSALEM,

YEAR 797

Preliminary Commentary.

John, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Sergius, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Patrick, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Cosmas, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Anastasius, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Theoctistus, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Fourteen Others, Martyrs, monks in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saints)

[1] About the year 484 of the Christian Era was being counted when, at the twelfth mile from the Holy City, the eighth from Bethlehem, at the torrent of Cedron, the beginnings were given Of 60 monk-Martyrs resting in the Diaconion, to that Laura which from the number of monks obtained the name "the Great," and from its founder the name of St. Sabas: whose Acts may treat more fully of its location, growth, disturbances, and desolation: for of all its parts, the Diaconion now deserves particular consideration, of which mention will be made both in the above-cited Acts of St. Sabas and below in number 47. Quaresmius calls it a Chapel in the Elucidation of the Holy Land, book 6, chapter 9, Pilgrimage 3, and says that in it, walled up and sealed by the Patriarch's order, he heard from the monks that about six hundred Religious killed by the Saracens rest. We persuade ourselves that Quaresmius wrote six hundred for sixty: and that only those are designated here who were not only killed by the barbarians but were also venerated there as Martyrs. For otherwise many more would have to be mentioned: since Radziwill testifies, as a matter most well known in those regions, that about a thousand anchorites of St. Sabas, coming to meet a new Governor with gifts, were ordered to be cut down by a certain Sandjak of the Turkish Emperor Selim: and in the years 718 and 741, when the Arabs raged against Christians, we believe there were also those from this Laura who augmented the number of Martyrs.

[2] 40 slain by the Persians under Chosroes are venerated on May 14. The sixty Martyrs whom we mentioned are composed first of those forty, concerning whom, slain around the year 614 in the Persian invasion under Chosroes, Baronius may be consulted in the Annals of the Church and the Roman Martyrology under the day of May 14: then twenty, whose venerable solemnity now recurs, and indeed with such celebrity that the entire Office of this day in the printed Menaea is found adapted to these alone, with a eulogy which we have also found in the Chifflet manuscript and others, in approximately these words: "These holy Fathers, gathered from various places and placed in charge of the monastery of St. Sabas, honored God

with every practice and exercise of the religious life: 20 by Ethiopians but the devil, who is motivated especially by envy and hatred against those who pursue virtue, stirred up impious Ethiopians against them, with the hope of finding great wealth. When they had searched everything and found nothing, they poured out their wrath upon them, beheading some and mutilating others. And they indeed pierced the innocent with goads and poured out their blood in various ways; but the Saints, with thanksgiving, surrendered their souls to the Lord, receiving the eternal and blessed life of the heavenly kingdom: on account of which they had endured with eager spirit both the contests of religious practice and the struggle of martyrdom." Hence in the Menologion which Canisius published in Latin, the "Contest of the Holy Fathers slain by the Ethiopians from the monastery of St. Sabas" is recorded.

[3] The Ethiopians or Moors (for so they are named at this point in the Typicon) were indeed to some extent the agents of the slaughter, or rather killed by the Arabs, on March 20 but not alone; and by no means the instigators: for they did nothing except in the presence of their Arab masters, by whose will and command, if not also by whose hands, this entire butchery was for the most part carried out: by Arabs, I say, not Avars, as the printed title before the eulogy reads: "of the holy Abbots slain by the Avars." More correctly indeed the Chifflet codex wrote "barbarians," as was read in the title of the Acts themselves: but in place of the indeterminate word, it would have been better to add another, more definite, as is done in the same place: "barbarians, that is, Saracens": so that these barbarians should be understood to be Saracens, about whom we have treated on February 7 in the Life of St. Moses, their Bishop. The Saracens, moreover, then holding Syria and Palestine, made everything dangerous by their mutual discords, and nothing was safe for any Christian.

[4] But this is not the greatest defect of the eulogy from the Menaea that was cited: the eulogy in the Synaxaries is incomplete. graver is it that these Martyrs are said to have been superiors of the monastery, when it is established that they suffered precisely because they refused to reveal who among their number presided over the others: lest those identified be tortured more cruelly by the barbarians, who wanted only those. The gravest error, however, seems to be that the manner of death is not expressed by the author of the eulogy, which for most was inflicted by smoke. And from this it is clear, as has been indicated more fully elsewhere, that the eulogies are much more recent than the Canons of the Menaea, and were sometimes patched together from memory or obscure tradition when the Acts had been lost. The Acts and Canons were written by For Stephen the Sabaite, the same one who wrote the Acts, composed the Canons distributed through the ecclesiastical Office: who, if he had also composed the eulogy, would surely not have committed so many and such errors in it. The said Acts, moreover, never seen by the author of the Eulogy, together with other Lives of Saints pertaining mostly to Palestine, we transcribed in the year 1662 from a most excellent codex of more than six hundred years belonging to Pierre Seguier, Chancellor of France, lent to us in Paris as a favor for the Reverend Father Francois Annat, Royal Confessor: for which codex we only wish another equal had been found, to fill the gaps of leaves missing here and there and to illuminate the more obscure passages.

[5] Moreover, that this Stephen the Sabaite, St. Stephen the Poet who is also noted as having written many other Canons, was the author of this narrative, is established from the Life of another Sabaite Stephen similarly named, whom we shall see called the Wonderworker and the Nephew of St. John Damascene on July 13 or 14. In that Life, moreover, our Stephen here is called the glory and ornament of the entire Laura, and deservedly: since the Jerusalem Typicon also prescribes that a festive commemoration of him be made on October 27, distinguishing him from the former by the title of Poet. We believe, moreover, that he wrote immediately after the departure of the barbarians, immediately after the event, when the Hegumen Basil, who had been absent, returned to the monastery: since the Life of St. Stephen the Wonderworker had not yet been written, as it needed to be collected more laboriously from the reports and testimonies of many. Otherwise, he had died before this tempest struck the Laura: which the Acts testify to have occurred "In the year from the creation of the world six thousand two hundred namely after Easter and eighty-eighth, according to the most accurate ecclesiastical computation, from the birth according to the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ, the seven hundred and eighty-eighth, the fifth Indiction," etc.

[6] These (according to what we have noted regarding the Chronology of Theophanes) indicate to us the year 797: for to the Alexandrine Era, following the common Era by eight years, of the year 797 one year must be added, taken from Phocas for the reason explained there, and so the indicated Indiction is reached: moreover, that this was truly the fifth when the event occurred, we conclude from the fact that in the Acts the time of the Lenten fast is signified as almost over when the thirteenth day of March was being counted, and the monks, disturbed by the incursion of the barbarians, saw that their hope was vain of spending the remainder of the Quadragesimal season, now nearly ended, in peace. For the day of Easter in the aforesaid year was March 23: going back ten days from which, we find that the first incursion of the Saracens occurred on the Wednesday after Passion Sunday, or (as the Greeks are accustomed to say) before Palm Sunday: which, just as it agrees perfectly with the said passage, so there is no year among the two preceding and two following years of which it could truly be said on March 13 that Lent was drawing to a close. From the aforesaid comparison of times we also learn that the incursion of those Barbarians, the Fathers having suffered on Thursday of Holy Week about whom the Fathers received the double report on the night of the Lord's Day (which was Palm Sunday) that they were coming upon them, while they watched in anxious vigils, was not made on the night that had been appointed: although the part of the Acts that would have explicitly narrated this is missing from us. We believe, however, that the assault was delayed not so much by any human chance or counsel as by the ordinance of the divine Will, deferring His Martyrs to the 20th day of March, that is, the Thursday of Holy Week, so that the closer memory of the Lord's Passion might animate the soldiers of Christ to the contest. Therefore there are missing from us, through the injury of time, the events of the four intermediate days.

ACTS OF THE MARTYRDOM

By Stephen, a Sabaite Monk, from the Greek manuscript of Pierre Seguier, Chancellor of France.

John, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Sergius, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Patrick, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Cosmas, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Anastasius, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Theoctistus, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saint)

Fourteen Others, Martyrs, monks in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (Saints)

BY STEPHEN, FROM MANUSCRIPT.

PROLOGUE

[1] It is right and fitting that those who have not yet purged their mind from the filth of sins, He excuses himself as a sinner and unlearned but still carry it subject to vicious passions, should keep silence incessantly: and should rather with hidden groans beseech Christ, who searches hearts and minds, to grant them freedom from the servitude to which they are enslaved; than rashly thrust themselves into composing sermons that must be recited in churches and sacred assemblies. Especially since they can rightly fear that voice of God rebuking through the Prophet: "But to the sinner God said: Why do you declare my statutes?" Psalm 49:16 etc. And if moreover someone should be unlearned and devoid of eloquence, what laughter should he expect from his audience, to be branded with the fault of rashness and madness alike, without being able to offer any excuse for either?

[2] But what shall I do? Indeed, recognizing myself as liable to all these charges, by the command of his Hegumen Basil I would prefer to hide and confine myself within the secrets of silence: but I am pressed by the command of my holy Superior, and with that command, like a spiritual scourge, stimulating my mind within, I am compelled to fear greatly the grave and unavoidable danger of disobedience. Therefore, judging it better and more useful to obey, I commit myself to the paternal command; and trusting in and strengthened by his reasons, and drawing in the grace of the Spirit from above at the very opening of my mouth, I begin a memorial and brief narration, such as this excellent Pastor Basil wished to be composed by our slender ability, to write this history concerning the incursion of the savage barbarians upon this our Laura of our holy Father Sabas, and concerning the slaughter of the blessed Fathers perpetrated by them in these our times, which I myself beheld with my own eyes, as an eyewitness being one of those who, inhabiting this sacred Laura, were found there in that fatal invasion: lest such great Christian virtue and fortitude of men contending for the truth should vanish as time passes, and covered by silence be consigned to inglorious oblivion, when it could prepare many for the practice of virtue and stir them to the desire and imitation of endurance.

CHAPTER I

The first expeditions of the Saracens against the Laura, with futile result.

[3] In the year from the creation of the world six thousand two hundred and eighty-eighth, according to the most accurate, By the civil wars of the Saracens namely ecclesiastical, computation; from the birth according to the flesh of God and Lord and our Savior Christ Jesus, the seven hundred and eighty-eighth, the fifth Indiction; when the most blessed Elias was Patriarch of the Church of Jerusalem, and the venerable Basil, filled with the divine spirit, was governing this great Laura of our Holy Father; in the region of the Palestinians, a great civil war broke out among the Saracen Tribes, instigated by the devil, who works in the children of unbelief, the perpetual enemy of the human race, and a murderer from the beginning: arising indeed from trivial causes, but with the quarrel and contention gradually swelling and easily drawing to arms those subject to sins and enslaved to the passions of an unbridled spirit; house was joined to house, family allied to family, nation collected with nation, of a people perpetually prone to sedition and breathing nothing but slaughter and blood; and finally between the most noble of their Tribes a capital dissension arose, between the descendants, I say, of Hagar and Ishmael, and those who trace their ancient lineage from ^a Jectan.

[4] With armies therefore constituted in two parts, which the same author and commander of evil led on both sides, Palestine is devastated: how many disorderly and unjust deeds they committed, how many plunderings and seizures of goods they carried out, how much blood they shed, how many unjust killings they perpetrated, how many places they left desolate after slaying or driving out the inhabitants, carrying off spoils, and setting them on fire; it is neither within my powers, nor of the present time, nor the purpose of my discourse to narrate one by one. For they depopulated the most populous cities, not a few: they made Eleutheropolis, with all its inhabitants carried off into captivity, a desert: they violently plundered Ascalon, Gaza, and ^b Sariphaea and other cities; and along the public highways, by distributing bands of robbers to ambush the roads, they stripped travelers of all their belongings, and, having inflicted wounds and injuries besides, sent them away naked, considering it no small favor that they had been able to escape the danger of death.

[5] Furthermore, the most wicked of men, having seized this opportunity, were not so much avenging mutual injuries

and exacting punishments for their own wickedness and depravity from one another, as each man was striving to seize something of another's property and was laboring to heap up riches for himself from another's possessions and goods. And if it happened that one of them had an enmity with another, especially a Christian, as if seizing the opportunity, he immediately sought to drive him from life by force and to claim his substance for himself. When such disorder of affairs prevailed everywhere and was destroying everything like a consuming flame, many of those who dwelt in the fields and villages, abandoning whatever they possessed in them, and regarding everything as secondary to their safety, fled to the more populous cities as to a kind of asylum.

[6] Indeed, even the inhabitants of the cities themselves, especially of that which we call the Holy City of our God, and Jerusalem itself is endangered: greatly stricken with fear, each person setting aside the care of his own works and business, began to dig trenches, build walls, block up gates, and organize nocturnal and diurnal watches against the sudden and unforeseen onslaughts of the plundering bands, that they might be able to repel the ultimate destruction. And indeed for those desolating firebrands, those savage and wild beasts, that is, the Tribe of Jectan, throughout the whole circuit of the mountainous region, no place had been left inaccessible; and they were already boasting that they would even attack the Holy City itself, seize it, and make it the fortification of their own ^c Fossatum. As indeed they attempted to do, when they all came unanimously with their whole multitude to besiege it: and they would have carried out this intention of theirs, had not a more divine power come to repel them, joining itself to the guardians of the city, though few in number, and wonderfully defeating and confounding the impure enemies and frustrating their hope: truly providing with the greatest concern for the venerable places and the holy Resurrection of Christ, and by no means forgetting the multitude of the faithful of both sexes dwelling therein and the many monasteries.

[7] the Laura of St. Chariton is plundered, Thereafter, gathered in the places surrounding the ancient Laura of our Holy Father Chariton, after they had consumed all the surrounding districts in the manner of locusts or of a divinely imposed punishment (for what can suffice for the insatiable gluttony of so many thousands?), they finally plundered the sacred Laura itself, the Old one, leaving nothing to those Fathers: but inflicting the gravest evils upon them and subjecting very many of them to various tortures. And already the impious devastators had spent no small number of days there, when they began to threaten us with fury and to sharpen their teeth against our Laura like fierce boars, and to roar like lions, desiring to devour this one also: for in the whole surrounding region nothing had remained that they had not plundered, except this Laura alone of our Holy Father Sabas, like a cluster of grapes on a vine after the harvest; with Christ our God stretching over it the palm of His almighty hand and wonderfully defending it as a demonstration of His invincible power and of His constant providence over it and singular love.

[8] For who would not admire, Brothers, and be vehemently astonished at the protection and providence of God, with God protecting the Laura of St. Sabas: considering that pestilential rabble of barbarians hateful to God so long disposed toward us that they daily threatened to make an assault upon the Laura and to bring about its utter ruin, and yet were repelled and prevented by an invisible and divine force from rushing upon us? And this was all the more wonderful, because certain enemies of Christ, who had been neighbors of this Laura for a long time, had long eagerly desired to bring it and its affairs under their own power, and had gratefully seized upon the time and occasion of such confusion and disturbance, which they had long and anxiously awaited, through which, freed from all fear and terror of the Magistrates, they were confident they would reduce the Laura to solitude and desolation.

[9] And indeed, since they were illustrious and prominent in that great Fossatum, whatever the neighbors might plot against it, they never ceased to incite and exasperate the multitude against us, endeavoring by every means to set them upon us: but their plan did not turn out as they wished, with God, through the prayers of our most blessed Father and true servant Sabas, fortifying His flock and dissipating the counsels of the adversaries, as once those of Ahithophel, and exhibiting in a wonderful manner, according to His own will, that guard with which He had surrounded us. 2 Kings 17:14 For on one occasion, our aforesaid enemies, with a band of impious men gathered, by enemies slain near Bethlehem, were rushing upon the Laura with such fury (as some of them afterward related) that they had resolved not simply to plunder it but to utterly devastate and destroy it. But while we rested in peace and were unaware, divine vengeance met them and led their adversaries out against them in battle. For the soldiers stationed to guard the city, sensing their movement and approach (since they had their own scouts who carefully observed and signaled everything that was being done among them from a distance), went out to meet those whom they believed were heading against the city, and joining battle near holy Bethlehem, they killed many of them and slew them as they fled through the wilderness: and so their nefarious plot was disrupted and vanished.

[10] At another time also, a furious multitude of barbarians, stirred up by the devil and the enemies of our Laura, on another occasion turned to mutual slaughter, had agreed to rise at first light and destroy the Laura; but the Lord, its defender, dissolved their agreement for evil, as once that of those who conspired in the time of Heber to build a tower: for when in a certain town many had found jars of wine hidden under bundles of vine-shoots, filled with immoderate drink, they began to fight among themselves in their drunkenness, and their plan together with their assembly was dissolved. Genesis 11:7

[11] meanwhile the Laura monks live in fear: While matters were proceeding in this way (for such confusion and disorder of affairs continued for many months), with the roads leading from every direction to the Holy City virtually devoid of travelers and everything being full of fear and the deepest despair; in what sort of fear, trembling, and anxiety do you believe, dearest ones, we lived during all that time? With what tribulation and expectation of the gravest dangers and evils did we contend? Our necessities were brought to us sparingly and scantily from the Holy City, and were often plundered along the way: we spent most of our time together in some elevated place, scorched by the divine heat and chilled by the nocturnal cold, awaiting the sudden arrival and assault of the impious: and to certain scouts stationed at a distance on the mountaintop, we had given orders to alert us by some signal of the presence of the barbarians, if they should appear anywhere: and so for one natural death we were dying a thousand times over, overcome by the fear of the tortures we might have to endure: especially since we held suspect the rage of those enemies whom we have mentioned before.

[12] How often, when some multitude of them from Arabia or elsewhere made their transit through us to their great Fossatum, as very frequently happened, gathering from all sides in crowds to one place, and (with the scouts giving signals of their presence as if they had come on account of us and against us) the beating and noise was made to summon the Fathers who were dispersed in their individual cells, we heard the cracking wood as signs of present death! But far more, the very sight of the barbarians, equipped with horses and arms and marching in groups, approaching us, disturbed and dissolved our spirits with fear; while, filled with our provisions and equipped for their journey, they looked around truculently, and declaring their evil intent toward us with their very eyes, they departed, with God averting them through the prayers of our Holy Father Sabas.

^a Or rather Jecsan: for Josephus reports that this son of Abraham by Keturah was directed by his father into Arabia, Jescanite Saracens and the Sabaeans, descended from Saba, the firstborn of Jecsan, make this plausible: but to Jectan, son of Heber, in Genesis 10, the habitation is said to have been made "from Mesha as you go to Sephar, the mountain of the east," within which borders interpreters generally with Jerome include the regions of the Indies, so that it appears the error crept in for the scribe in the similar names.

^b Perhaps Scariphaea or Scarphaea: for among the Fathers of the Council of Jerusalem there is Stephen, Bishop of Scarphia: Scarphaea and no name from those otherwise known comes closer to this.

^c "Phosaton" here, elsewhere "phostaton," and also "phousaton," is taken by the Greeks almost as the very camps themselves, Fossatum = camps. whence "phosaton poiein" and "phousateuein" mean to pitch camp, as occurs frequently in Theophanes: undoubtedly a word derived from the Latin-Barbarian languages to the Orientals, most commonly used by writers of the later age, but in a simpler meaning for "ditch," in French "fosse."

CHAPTER II

The steadfastness of the Fathers. The furious irruption of the Saracens into the Laura.

[13] Amid these things, while much time passed, the Fathers, placed as if in perpetual agony on account of their immense fear, insisting on supplications night and day, implored the mercy of God, that He might accomplish in them His good pleasure, The Fathers resolve to remain in the Laura, and whatever was more conducive to their salvation. For none of them emigrated from his hermitage, leaving the Laura, although he could safely depart from there and be saved in one of the cities, if he wished: but just as from the beginning, having left the world and all worldly things, they had given themselves entirely to following Christ, and having taken up the Cross as if dead to the world, had been led by Him into this desert; so they had resolved to persist and remain in it and to endure whatever danger and temptation: exhorting one another and with fraternal affection admonishing that they should believe that Christ, to whom they were betrothed and for whose sake, each leaving his own homeland, they had chosen to inhabit this wilderness, could easily free them, if He wished, from the hands of the barbarians: but if they were to be delivered to them for death, He would surely permit this as being more useful and excellent.

[14] "Let us therefore receive from the hand of the Lord what will benefit us," they said, lest they incur the mark of inconstancy, "and let us not, on account of the terror of savage barbarians, return to worldly tumults, giving everyone cause to suspect that we are afflicted with the disease of cowardice: since we are commanded by the Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ not to fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. If it is a beautiful thing to see those who, withdrawing from the world, retreat into solitudes, following the footsteps of Christ more closely: it is certainly shameful and disgraceful for those once separated from the world and having spent no small time in the desert, turned to flight by human terror, to return to the world. Let not the enemy of all taunt us that, terrified by his satellites, we fled to the cities, he who has so often been overcome by us and driven to flight, and like a cast-out dog has departed in the greatest confusion, with Christ our King fighting with us against him.

[15] and they exhort one another to place their trust in God: "We do not have walled and turreted cities in which to be kept safe: but instead of an indestructible wall, Christ is ours, to whom we have been taught to sing with David: 'Be unto me a God, a protector, and a house of refuge, and a fortified place, that you may save me.' Psalm 30 and 70:3 We do not have impenetrable mail coats, bronze helmets, and leather-covered shields with which to ward off the javelins of enemies: but the armor of the spirit is at hand, the breastplate of charity and hope, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, with which we are armed. Ephesians 6:13 etc. We lack the support of a military phalanx to defend us: but the Angel of the Lord will encamp

around those who fear Him, and will deliver them: for to us, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Psalm 33:8, Philippians 1:21 For no desire to preserve life drove us to this solitude. For what reason, then, did we decide to inhabit this uninhabitable place? Is it not evident that it was for the sake of Christ? If therefore we are killed here, we are killed for Christ's sake, for whose sake we dwell in this place.

[16] anxious lest, if they fled, the Laura would be utterly destroyed, With such words consoling one another and encouraging one another to dare, sincerely committing their bodies and souls to God, they persisted in the Laura. But also another consideration, equally pious and religious, persuaded them to fix their minds immovably upon constancy: namely, that they saw that nothing could befall their ill-disposed neighbors more welcome than to be able to devastate and overturn the Laura and to see it emptied of monks. For if they perceived that the Brethren had withdrawn even for a short time, it was certain that they would come without any delay with all diligence, to burn the church, destroy the cells and level them to the ground, and finally render the place itself completely uninhabitable for the future. So that this should not happen, those magnanimous men nobly remained there and persisted. They were not like reeds which are blown about by every wind: but like towers founded upon solid rock, they persevered unmoved and unshaken when the flood of temptation came and the storm of evil spirits raged. Matthew 7:25. Yet they did not believe they should undergo danger on account of stones or timber: but on account of the glory of Christ, glorified in that place both of old and now, and sincerely and holily worshipped, and adored in spirit and in truth.

[17] For who can be unaware that not so many are saved in harbors which was for so many the occasion of obtaining salvation: open for the reception of those who are in peril at sea, as many as this illustrious and divinely constructed Laura, receiving those who suffered spiritual shipwreck in the sea of life, has snatched from death; and thenceforth preserves those rescued among the living, and presents and sends them to Christ through an upright life and serious way of living. For the salvation of souls, therefore, both those now saved there and those to be preserved by God to all eternity, those valiant men judged that the risk of any danger was rightly and profitably undertaken, for which salvation Christ Himself, with the joy set before Him, chose to die; and His true imitators and servants, following in His footsteps, with immunity from dangers through flight set before them, preferred to suffer and endure however grave evils.

[18] O the resolution of a strong, lofty, and circumspect mind, one that savors only the things of God! thus disposed, God permitted them to be tested by the devil, O the pious intention, conformed to Christ, pleasing to God! How shall I worthily celebrate you, most blessed Fathers, both you to whom it was granted to meet death for Christ's sake and through it to migrate to Him: and you who, still living in the flesh, have been made Martyrs in spirit by your willing readiness for death? The Lord, contemplating such movements of their souls and searching the secrets of their wills, when He saw them held by so great and such ardor, accepted and approved the pious purpose of their minds, and crowned them by means of actual contests and the experience of torments.

[19] For after the all-seeing Christ had sufficiently preserved them, contrary to all hope, for the most part unharmed and uninjured, amid the midst of dangers, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, so that His singular protection and providence was a wonder to all: lest the enemy should say of them on that account what he once dared to answer about the righteous Job. Job 1:9. "Does Job fear God for nothing?" he said. "Have you not hedged him in on every side? But stretch forth your hand and touch all that he possesses; and also his bones and flesh, unless he will bless you to your face." Lest, I say, the tempter should say the same things about them, who also dared to ask for Peter, and so that Christ might cut off every occasion of excuse from the enemy, demonstrating in reality that His athletes, insuperable in adversity, would carry off victory from all things, He granted him the power to exercise them as he wished.

[20] And he, gladly taking up this contest, by whom the scattered Barbarians were gathered, immediately sought out his satellites and servants, through whom he had previously perpetrated unspeakable deeds, as was said before: the Barbarians, I mean, and having terrorized them with the reported approach of a power coming with authority, he found them indeed scattered and dispersed; yet finding a wicked company of no small number, and through the neighbors who had long been hostile and inflamed with unjust hatred against our Laura (whom we have mentioned elsewhere), gathering others from various places, he surrounded us with a band of more than sixty armed bowmen, hateful to God; whose approach, perceived from afar, some of the Brethren signaled by shouting and with signs.

[21] But we, although we were already hoping to be free from danger (for we had heard some time ago about the dissolution and dispersal of the barbarian armies), they approach the Laura: and expecting to spend the remainder of the now-passing holy Lent in peace, as soon as we perceived the inopportune din of beating and shouting, we gathered at a run upon the accustomed hillock on the thirteenth day of the month of March, in the second hour after sunrise. And now, seeing them approaching from afar and, as if prepared for battle, brandishing their swords and drawn bows, and at last drawing close to us, we were struck with terror and fainted, while they, divided into two parts, were striving to surround us in the middle. But certain of the Fathers, having regained their courage, went out to meet those who were now close by, hoping perhaps to soothe them with gentle words, addressing them as follows.

[22] some of the Fathers go out to meet them and try to pacify them, "What do you come for in this manner, as if against enemies from whom you have received the greatest injury, and as if having suffered the worst things at the hands of those who injured you, prepared as if to fight in open battle? We, O men, are peaceable toward all, and have never harmed you or any others with loss or injury; indeed we are so far from contention and fighting that we have left the world and all that was ours in it, and as you see, inhabit this desert, that, far removed from all the tumult, strife, and confusion of human life, we may unceasingly bewail our sins; and thus become more pleasing to our God. And not only have we done you no harm: but we have not ceased to do you good according to our abilities. For those of you who chanced to pass this way, we received with hospitality, and endeavored to refresh with food and rest. Do not therefore return evil for good; since you ought to help with all your strength, on account of the benefits that have always been offered to you. And even now we are prepared, by freely providing what we have for sustenance, to receive you kindly and to restore you with our customary hospitality."

[23] "We have come here not for the sake of food," they replied threateningly and insultingly, but in vain: money is demanded, "but for money: one of two things remains to be chosen: either you produce money for us (they named a sum) or you are slain by our arrows." To which our men again responded: "Believe us, O men, believe us, we are humble and poor; and so destitute of every kind of abundance that we do not even have bread to satiety: nor do we possess a plentiful supply of garments or clothing: and as for gold, if you demand it, we have not even thought of it in our dreams; for we live this life in mourning, content with bare necessities, and these sparingly and scantily provided." You would have said they were provoked by the gravest insult, so did they blaze with anger, they pour a shower of arrows upon the Monks, and at last hurl a savage shower of arrows, and did not desist until they had emptied their quivers: thus about thirty of the Fathers were wounded; most of them fatally, others merely grazed on the surface of the skin.

[24] When they had somewhat spent their fury by these means, which yet no surfeit of iniquity could satisfy, they went off to the cells, smashing the doors with great stones, and plundering what had been stored inside; meanwhile, unconcerned with these things, we were tending the wounded Brethren, whom, carrying the gravely afflicted to the nearest cell and extracting the embedded arrows, we bore in our breasts hearts no less pierced by the arrow of sorrow and compassion: whose wounds Thomas tends: for we were forced to see them covered with blood in those parts of the body where they had received wounds; some bearing arrows driven into their chest, others in their back, still others in their forehead: there were also those who, wounded in the head by stones, displayed faces fouled with blood; but all were seized by stiffness and trembling with the grinding of teeth and a deathly pallor: whom the excellent physician, and also the most pious Abbot Thomas (he who was afterward ordained Hegumen of the Old Laura), laying them down as best he could, provided each with the appropriate treatment.

[25] But those truly desolating firebrands, those fierce meanwhile they burn the cells, having ignited the manuthia, and deadly barbarians, as if they had done nothing worthy of their perversity, although they had killed many as far as was in their power and turned everything else into plunder, they ventured with furious audacity to set the cells on fire, using for this purpose bundles of scrub, which we call manuthia, which they found collected and stored by the Fathers in each one, suitable for setting fire to the dwellings: from which, when we saw flames erupting to heaven with copious smoke, we began to burn within our very hearts, and to be overcome with unspeakable grief and inner darkness and anxiety of mind, as if it were absolutely hopeless for the Laura: they deliberate about the same for the church, for they were also deliberating about destroying the church with fire: so that nothing now remained for the wretched but to raise their eyes to heaven and beg for help to be sent from there, imploring the patronage of our Holy Father Sabas.

[26] And it pleased God, the protector of the oppressed, who is near to all who call upon Him in truth, had not the suspicion of approaching help put them to flight. that a very few should be seen in the distance; whom the sacrilegious men, seeing and suspecting that they were coming to our aid, with others perhaps to follow, were checked by divine power, and gathering their spoils, they withdrew. But even after their departure, we were not relieved of all fear, because we dreaded their return: and therefore until the setting of the sun and the failing of the light, we remained motionless in that very place, looking this way and that, as if our hearts foreboded that they had departed only to return.

^a Life of St. Euthymius, January 20, number 138: "when we were gathering food in the wilderness, which is commonly called manuthia": which passage if you compare with the present, Manuthiae. you can understand nothing other than fuel for fire. For "thamnos" is translated as a density of small trees, a thicket, a bush. The etymology is clearly sought in vain from the Hebrew language, as appears from the conjectures offered at the cited passage. But our colleague Athanasius Kircher noted that "manuthi" in Arabic means a fortification: what if among the half-barbarian Greeks the Latin "Minutiae" passed into "Manuthias"? Or was it derived from "manus" in the meaning by which we say "manipuli" (handfuls)?

CHAPTER III.

The second incursion of the Barbarians into the Laura.

[27] On the next day, from early morning until late

Having gathered toward evening in the same place, the Fathers remained together the entire week, we spent the whole day

in pouring forth supplications and prayers to God,

fearing the same things: and likewise we carried on unceasingly throughout that entire week. Moreover, we all gathered together into one place, both because we drew no small consolation

from one another's presence (for we all shared the same wish, that we might either live together or die together),

and because we believed that by this means we could avoid the tortures which they inflicted upon those found alone; just as they had done in the Old Laura, burning some with fire, and devising various other kinds of torments against others.

[28] After that week had passed, on Saturday evening, around the second hour of the night, while we were keeping the customary vigils ^a of the Lord's day in the church, behold, two monks, strong and courageous, by whom the Palaeolaurites sent word, arrived at a run,

drenched in sweat: the venerable Fathers of the Old Laura had sent them to us, observing in this the precept of charity, and impelled by the ardor of fraternal compassion, to announce such things as these: Those impious

and defiled men, they said, who attacked you six days ago, having gathered accomplices in robbery and treachery from every quarter throughout this whole week, and having greatly increased their number, rage furiously and threaten to rush upon you this night, to devastate the entire Laura, and to exercise upon you whatever cruelty and savagery they can,

full of fury and wrath; as we were able to learn from some of their associates who are our neighbors.

And already the barbarians returning, threatening the worst, from our region toward you they began to set out at sunset: and therefore, terrified and

anxious for your safety, we have hastened here to advise you, by making known to you their approach along the way.

If therefore there is anything you must do, accomplish it at once.

[29] Upon hearing this announcement, as if each one had received a sword in his breast, those dismayed by the announcement, from want of counsel we were turned to stupor and a kind of darkness of mind, our strength failing us, and we felt the very framework of our limbs nearly dissolving;

and troubled and dismayed in spirit, we left some in the church to continue the psalmody, while most of us occupied the usual hill; and there, keeping vigil until dawn,

we were almost frozen stiff with cold; while

inwardly fear congealed our blood, and the outward cold coagulated it. Yet we did not forget prayer, even though we were by no means within the church:

but rather, gathering our entire mind and thoughts

and desires, recalled from outward wandering, we had recourse to God with diligence of prayers and urgency of supplications, who alone was able to rescue us from dangers,

as if we were preparing ourselves for the final end of this present life. Others, meanwhile, with eyes and ears intent in various directions, kept watch and observed

whence they might be able to see or detect those approaching.

Therefore, very often the sight or movement of any chance thing disturbed everyone, being taken for the very arrival of the impious.

[30] While we were in such a crisis and in extreme perturbation of mind and body, behold, two persons appeared approaching with the utmost haste: of whom,

when they drew nearer, one was seen to be an old monk of venerable white hair, from the monastery of St. Euthymius it is announced, with the other serving as his guard

and guide of the way: who, exhausted from running and hindered by grief, uttered words broken by breathless sighs, indistinct

and truncated: but holding out a small letter in his hand, he begged that from it we might learn the reason for his coming.

Opening it, therefore, since it could be read by the light of the moon, we recognized that it had been written in this sense by the Fathers of that sacred

monastery ^b which is named after our holy and standard-bearing Father Euthymius, united with us by the bond of fraternal charity.

We wish you to know, Fathers, as has been made known to us by those who had the matter carefully and certainly investigated, that a synagogue of the wicked, gathered from the northern parts of the Holy City to commit a crime,

intends this night to attack you, and to plunder and desolate the Laura: but guard yourselves and pray for us.

[31] From this letter we recognized that this was a different

band ^c from that about which the Palaeolaurites had given us warning. another band also coming against them: For the enemies of our Laura and of their own salvation, whom we mentioned before, had

not been content with one mob of the impious, but had also summoned another assembly and kindred of murderers, so that with both united they might attack us in the greatest number.

When this was understood, our terror was doubled, and the grief

was intolerable, because we saw the danger to be unavoidable. Since we hoped to find no help from men on earth, we raised our hands and eyes

to heaven, and laying before God, who beholds our afflictions and

distresses, those very same afflictions, we supplicated Him, saying:

[32] Look upon our lowliness and affliction,

O Lord, and do not turn Your face from Your servants. You know, O Lord, who turn their hope and prayers to God, that for the sake of Your holy name each one

of us, going out from his house and kindred, came into this rough and barren and desolate

wilderness: not for the sake of any earthly advantage, but lest we should lose Your glory and the blessed vision of Your face for eternity. And now come to our aid: for tribulation is near, for

there is none to help. Ps. 21:12 For behold, Your enemies have made a noise, O Lord, and those who hate You have lifted up their head:

they have said, Come, let us destroy them from among the nations, and let the name of spiritual Israel be remembered no more in this desert. Ps. 82:3

We know and believe, O Lord, that if You should wish to strike them with blindness, as once the Syrians under Elisha, or to slay them in a moment by Your Angel, as … 4 Kings 6:18 and 19:35

A folio is missing in the MS.

and they struck savagely with whatever weapon was at hand — javelin, sword, club, staff, or bow: but very many, seizing huge stones, as large as the hand could grasp, and

lifting them aloft with both palms, hurled them with all their strength against the Saints.

[33] But alas! How shall I make mention of that horrible and most wretched

time without tears? By what means shall I express in words what we ourselves saw with our own eyes? Surely not even if I had ten tongues now, and

as many mouths. For truly speech falls far short of the reality: nor can we imagine what we receive by hearing as we can those things which are set before our sight:

indeed, the very sense of experience itself affects one more deeply than either of those. Never do woodsmen sent into a forest thick with trees attack it with axes to cut it down the barbarians rage promiscuously against the Fathers

as those execrable, savage, and utterly inhuman barbarians, as if in a slaughterhouse, ruthlessly and without

compassion hacked at the bodies of the innocent Fathers. For they did not rage in any moderate way, as those who merely wished to instill fear or inflict slight

pain: but as if they were determined to kill all and to destroy them at last by a cruel death.

And indeed they struck the backs of some with swords, while they battered

the heads of others by hurling great and heavy stones: they beat the legs of these, the faces of those with clubs and rocks:

nor was there to be seen in the entire number anyone not stained with gore and drenched in his own blood. And

indeed, not otherwise than as wolves leaping upon a flock of sheep gathered together rage in their tearing, those

merciless ones did savagely; and like beasts rushing upon the gentle and rational sheep of Christ, they scattered their flock.

^a Those all-night vigils (παννύχιδες), that is, vigils to be continued through the whole night, were customary among monks, as the Life of St. Pachomius at May 14 will teach us.

^b It was east of the Laura at a distance of at least three miles, and somewhat closer to the Holy City than the Laura itself was.

^c In Greek κουστωδίαν: a word which Matthew also uses, as already known in that sense at that time.

CHAPTER IV.

The Martyrdom of John, Sergius, and Patricius. The Torment of the Fathers in the Hegumenion.

[34] After the barbarians had pounded the Saints for some time, like hammermen in a bronze workshop,

they drove them all from every side with a shower of stones and wild

barbarous shouts through the torrent into the church. Of these, some, unable to endure such violence, tried to hide themselves, entering

caves and clefts in the mountains: but very few managed to remain hidden. But as for the Hegumeniarch, that is, the one who was set over the pilgrims

lodging in the Hegumenion, ^a a young man named John, of excellent and virtuous character, when the minions of the devil recognized him, John the Hegumeniarch is cruelly dragged, they struck him

with a thousand blows, overwhelmed him with stones, and finally, having cut his sinews, left him half dead, and did not permit

him to enter the church on his feet: but (whether because the strength weakened by his wounds failed him, or because they wished to increase

his suffering) seizing him by the feet, the savage and cruel men dragged him over rocks and the roughest stones from

the top of the mountain all the way down to the church; as if someone were to find a log devoid of all feeling, or a lifeless

carcass of a beast: and stripping away all the skin of his back and posterior

parts in this manner (for the distance was not small, and the path was a steep descent),

they deposited him in the courtyard of the church barely breathing: and he, at last tortured by the smoke, surrendered his spirit to Christ with

the other Fathers, of whom, God willing, we shall speak.

[35] They had also sent some of their number to the upper places to watch whether anyone was attempting flight, Sergius flees,

and to intercept and prevent him, and to drive him back to the Laura and church, however much he might resist. You would recognize them as disciples of the worst master of all wickedness,

sons of the cunning serpent that harms, a brood of vipers. Therefore, a certain Damascene named Sergius,

when he saw how barbarously and with what blows the Fathers were being driven into the church, suspected that this had been devised

by those execrable villains in order to torture them there; and since he knew that in that place, in a deep recess, certain sacred

objects belonging to the church had been hidden (for he was a disciple of the holy Hegumen himself), he feared that perhaps human weakness, unequal to enduring the violence of torments, might reveal the secret,

and he himself would thereby incur divine judgment, as one who had given what is holy to dogs and handed over what had been offered to God to the ministers of Satan. lest he be compelled to betray the vessels of the church, Therefore the blessed man judged it wiser

to take flight and avoid the guilt of so great a crime.

[36] Him therefore, fleeing at full speed, and already

far from the Laura, and because when caught he refuses to return, the guards posted for this purpose

spotted, and descending, seized him, and prodding him with swords, tried to force him to return to the Laura. But he, confident in spirit and with an undaunted mind, replied: I

shall certainly not return at your command: for it is not for the sake of prayer or on account of the worship of God that you command us to enter the church

today. The barbarians were astonished at his unexpected

fortitude and constancy: nevertheless, again threatening and reviling him obscenely, they beat him with stones and

ordered him to go back: and when they could in no way have him obedient to their commands, they stripped off his garments,

and swore in many ways that they would cut off his head unless he went back where he was ordered. But the noble

athlete showed such strength of soul amid all this that, turning

to the East, and raising the eyes of his heart as well as his body to Christ who dwells in heaven,

he said: I shall by no means go back there at your command:

but if it has pleased you, as you say, to take my head, with Christ's permission, there is nothing, he said, to prevent it. And at the same time he voluntarily inclined his neck: as a certain Brother who was seized with him recounted, after he had returned once that man had been slain.

[37] The boiling rage of one of the deserters could no longer contain its fury: but at the instigation of the devil, with whom

he was filled, he is the first crowned with martyrdom, rushing forward, he wrested a sword from another companion and struck the neck of the blessed man. Nor was

a single blow sufficient for his insane rage: he inflicted a second and then a third. Then, having tumbled the body into the stream, they threw great boulders upon it, so that almost the entire

corpse of the Saint was crushed. Thus, having contended nobly against the wiles of the enemy, and resisting even unto blood in his struggle against sin, and allowing himself not even a little to be drawn down from the highest pinnacle of virtue,

either by the ignoble feeling of pusillanimity, or by the present terror of the death threatened against him, he truly shone forth as noble and

endowed with a certain divine constancy of soul, and was the first to deserve to be crowned with the crown of martyrdom. His sacred

body, stained and dyed with precious blood — or, to speak more fittingly, washed — we placed in reliquaries,

together with the rest of the company of holy Fathers taken on the same day. But these things occurred afterward: let us resume the thread of the narrative we had begun.

[38] The crafty authors of this most wicked plot,

scouts posted to prevent flight, and most cunning in bringing their wickedly begun work to completion, had sent some of their number across the torrent to the east,

from where the western parts are everywhere visible to the eye, so that they might point out and indicate to their accomplices in crime those who wished to flee or hide,

whether in some cave or cavern or in the recess of a cleft rock, by voice and hand. Hence it came about

that no one could in the end escape their deadly net and the snares drawn all around, once all had been searched for and discovered by informants, as we said. Now, since our discourse has progressed to this point, it would be wrong for me

to pass over him whom the constancy of a noble heart advanced to the supreme pinnacle of perfect charity, to be attained by deed itself: for it is not fitting

to leave unsung here so praiseworthy a disciple in the imitation of his master Christ.

[39] Some of the Brothers, having escaped from the hands and eyes of their pursuers, had fled to a cave they indicate that some are hiding in a cave, in which they hoped to hide securely and to escape the bloodthirsty robbers.

One of the scouts positioned opposite, to the east, looking across and observing them entering the cave, pointed them out to his companions with a shout, and soon someone, standing

over the mouth and entrance of the opening with drawn sword, began to threaten the hidden ones with a terrible

shout, and to order them menacingly to come out. Their spirits, as men who had been discovered

and were about to be dragged at any moment to a cruel butchering, began to fail: and indeed it would have been all over for those seven (for that was their number), had not one of them, most worthy of remembrance and praise, ^b an Adrene by race,

named Patricius, seeing his anxious Confreres shrinking from danger, been kindled with divine zeal, one of them, Patricius, voluntarily going forth, and full of love and

fraternal affection, roused himself, and addressed those hidden with him in this manner: Take courage, my most beloved

Brothers and those most closely joined to me in spirit: I

today undergo danger and death for you: I

hand myself over to the hands of the cruel barbarians for your freedom: but you, who would otherwise be involved in the same peril,

keep silence, and by no means leave the cave.

[40] Whispering such things to the trembling men, he rushed out, and

coming forth to the barbarian thirsting for blood, he said: Come, let us go where you command. But you, the other replied, bring out also the rest who have been hidden inside with you.

But the noble soldier of Christ and fearless warrior contended to the contrary, and with many words tried to persuade the executioner

that he alone had been inside. When the impious man was persuaded of this, he takes upon himself the danger averted from the other companions, the champion of fraternal charity immediately seized the path to

the church, most eagerly outrunning the barbarian himself. O brave soul, full of God! O

divine and extraordinary charity, which, having attained the utmost height of consummate

perfection, held fast to the limits of supreme love set by

the common Savior of all: for in this, He says, all men shall know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another: and He indicated what the measure of love should be,

adding: This is perfect charity, that a man lay down his life for his friends — which this most excellent and never sufficiently

praised Patricius demonstrated had been fulfilled by him in deed itself. John 13:35 John 15:13

[41] whose praiseworthy charity, Blessed indeed are you, thrice most fortunate one: because you were found to be not only a hearer

but a doer of the law, and of the new commandment which Christ left us, saying: A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: because,

pressing in the footsteps of Christ the Lord, you followed Him as a good servant and teachable disciple: because, having been made conformable

to His sufferings, you were consequently also a partaker of His glory in the heavenly kingdom. John 13:14 Remember therefore

us, O Venerable One, who ardently celebrate your virtue. Indeed, I desire and wish for nothing more

than to dwell upon your praises: for you, who are in no need of our applause and are above them, are yet worthy

of a thousand honors: but the whole company of Martyrs awaits me, who bore a similar fortitude, he is crowned with martyrdom,

who with the same constancy in a like resolve held fast to the sum of most perfect love to the very last

breath amid their torments, as this discourse will most clearly prove. Therefore, the God of all knowledge,

who is Christ the searcher of hearts and minds, graciously receiving the most generous readiness of this most noble young man,

adorned him at last with the crown of consummated Martyrdom: for he was found among those who gave up their spirits, suffocated by smoke; of whom I begin to narrate.

[42] Now the bloody devastators had gathered all the Fathers from every quarter, partly within the church, a great ransom is set for the Fathers, partly

forced into the Hegumenion; accordingly, the leaders of the robbers and those who were foremost among them in rank, first singled out

as many of the monks as seemed in any way to be eminent, and said: Redeem yourselves and your church with four thousand gold pieces: if

you do not, we order you all immediately to be beheaded, and we consign your temple to the flames. To whom they mildly

supplicated, saying: Spare us for God's sake, good men, and do not shed our blood today without cause. We neither possess nor have we ever possessed the sum of gold you demand: but if

it please you, here are the garments we wear: indeed, we will lead you to our own cells, and hiding nothing of our possessions, we will most readily display everything to you: leave us only our lives, even if naked.

[43] At these words the barbarians became enraged, as if provoked by the gravest

insult, and leading them out into the open area ^c of the Hegumenion, they called upon the Ethiopians the Ethiopians are brought in to terrorize those who make excuses (for they had with them

a multitude of Ethiopians also) to bring swords immediately and be at hand to behead the Fathers on the spot. And when

those black men stood there with barbarous howling and naked swords, no less dark in mind than in body, they entered together with them: and first

seizing the Oeconomus, they placed him against the wall with his arms spread out in the form of a cross, and drew taut and

fitted arrows to the strings of their bows, as if they were about to pierce him with arrows at any moment; and they threatened death

to all, unless they promptly brought what was demanded: But also, they said, bring forth from the hidden places of the church the vessels of gold and silver

and other treasures. The Fathers tried to placate them by whatever means they could, and to persuade them that they had neither gold nor knew of any treasures.

[44] Then show us, they said, your leaders and superiors, your stewards and the caretakers and custodians of the things belonging to the Laura and the church, that they might at least indicate the Prelates,

otherwise we shall this very hour expel you from life. But to these words also they replied again: We have already told you that we possess nothing of what you demand: if however you seek

our Hegumen, know that he is absent from here: the rest of us are equals, of the same rank. For indeed

our Hegumen, beloved of God, was at that time away from the Laura on account of some necessary business. When therefore they had terrified them greatly and for a long time, they again led them outside the Hegumenion

into a spacious place, where the camels were customarily unloaded: and stationing them there,

but in vain: they are driven into the church, and displaying the same rage, they put forward the same demands with fury and threats: and from the Fathers

the same answers brought back the same excuses. Finally, when they saw that they were accomplishing nothing, and that all were prepared to undergo death, having driven these also down

into the church, they heaped everyone together indiscriminately.

[45] Then indeed there was to be seen a pitiable spectacle,

most worthy of tears and sighs and lamentation.

One or more folios are missing in the MS.

choosing to live, whom they killed by suffocating with smoke, as will be told presently.

^a Just as now in monasteries the name Abbacy specifically designates that part of the house Hegumenion which is proper to the Abbot and also serves for receiving guests, separated from the common habitation of the monks.

^b Adra is an episcopal city of Arabia Petraea, close to Trachonitis. Adra, a city. William of Tyre, book 16, chapter 10, says it is commonly called by the name of Bernard de Stampis.

^c In Greek ἐν τῷ ξηροκήπῳ, a compound not found elsewhere by us, meaning, as it were, a dry garden. ξηρόκηπος

CHAPTER V.

The Torture of Smoke, by Which All Were Tormented and Eighteen Were Suffocated.

[46] The Physician is sought in vain. In truth, what happened concerning the Physician mentioned above must not be wrapped in silence — I mean Abbot Thomas, that man distinguished for Christian virtue, who at this very time was governing the Old Laura in holiness. Driven by I know not what sinister demon, enslaved to demons,

they persuaded themselves that money would be found with him: for he was especially famous. But since they did not know him by sight, they went around to everyone, demanding

that the Physician be shown to them. But the venerable Fathers, being religious and upright and most especially devoted to fraternal charity, never betrayed him by nod, word, or hand, even though he was standing in their midst.

The more enraged they became — those whom nature herself had made savage — the more they marveled at the Saints' mutual love for one another, and their steadfast affection toward their Brother; yet all the more they pressed on, beating them with clubs

and piercing with swords and javelins those who refused to reveal the one they sought. But

with their interrogation frustrated, since they accomplished nothing, exhausted, they drove them all into the inner cave.

[47] And here it seems by no means beside the point to describe the layout of the place itself, and to make it known to those unfamiliar with it. The layout of the church

The cave is very spacious, to which divine providence gave such a configuration that, being shaped in the manner of a church,

it thereupon obtained the name of one. ^a For toward the east it has what is like a conch: ^b

and on the northern side there occurs a certain recess deeply hidden in the fashion of a secret chamber, from which the Fathers, cutting away a portion,

once made a Diaconicon, ^c and within it a Treasury or Sacristy: and of the inner cave beside it

after which, proceeding still further inward, a deep fissure extends by a hidden passage and forms a narrow

channel, which leads upward in the manner of a spiral through certain inner chambers to the Hegumenion.

That our Holy Father Sabas was once accustomed to descend by this route into the church is recorded in his Life.

But afterward the succeeding Hegumens

blocked up such a passage from above, and this fissure remained without exit, impassable; so that this very closing off necessarily doubled the torture of the smoke in that place.

[48] Having violently thrust the Fathers into this opening, they kindled a great fire at the very entrance from damp reeds, in which the Fathers are tormented by smoke, from which a great and excessive

smoke arose: which, swirling about in such confined spaces and finding no passage for ventilation, grievously,

alas! and intolerably tortured and suffocated the Fathers, until, after some interval of time, when they were nearly killed, they shouted: Come out, monks, come out!

And indeed it was necessary for those wishing to exit to pass through the midst of the flames and embers: but everything

seemed more tolerable than the smoke, and lighter than the violent suffocation from it. What more? The footprints of most of the fighters emerging, and their hair and beards, as well as

the hairs of their eyelashes and eyebrows, were singed: and afterward they prostrated themselves on the ground as their breath failed them,

and tried to inhale fresh air.

[49] Those released are interrogated again: After this the torturers returned to resume the interrogation, thinking the athletes, subdued by torments, would easily

confess everything: And show us, they said, your Prelates and the hidden things of the church, unless you wish to perish even worse. But those men, brave even amid these very dangers,

preferred to devote themselves to prayer rather than to think about giving these men an answer: and one said, Receive, O Lord,

my spirit in peace: another, Remember me, O Lord, when You come into Your kingdom: another poured forth other prayers to God: but to the barbarians they gave no answer

as they wished, but only offered the same excuses as before: If you want our garments, and whatever is in our cells,

take everything, with no one begrudging or preventing you: but if you desire to kill us, remove us from your midst as quickly as possible: for you will hear nothing else from us.

[50] When therefore the bloodthirsty dogs saw that they were barking uselessly in vain, because of the unconquerable constancy and mutual love of those admirable

men, and being forced to enter the same place again, which they could not sufficiently esteem as it deserved, taking incentive for their own

madness, and giving rein to their boiling rage, they again cast into the furnace gold to be purified sevenfold —

I mean the holy Fathers — into those narrow caves, driving them with kicks and blows;

while the Fathers begged in vain that they be granted the mercy of being killed outside the cave, rather than being forced to undergo once more the peril of that smoky suffocation — their pleas

of course having no effect whatsoever upon the unmerciful bowels of the barbarians, harder than any bronze; but rather inflaming them all the more

to kill the Saints with the most bitter torments they could devise.

[51] They are tortured for a long time by more copious smoke: and 18 are killed. And so, having driven the Fathers into the same cave, they raised a more copious

smoke than before; and having left them there so long that they credibly believed many of them to have expired, they called for the Saints to come out: and immediately

passing through the very flames as before, they began, half dead, to draw in purer air, and to resume with difficulty

their gasping breath, which had all but entirely failed. But those who had been pushed further inside, being unable to endure the violence of the smoke,

commended their holy souls to Christ the Lord, and were found to number eighteen. Toward the rest,

those cruel barbarians, hardened like rocks, were so far from being softened even a little — their savagery being wearied rather than

sated — that they received those barely saved from fire and smoke and bereft of breath with prickings and beatings,

the barbarians, wearied by their savagery, plunder the cells, and rushing upon those prostrate on the ground, trampled them like untamed mules. When

they accomplished absolutely nothing by all this, and there was nothing further to which their deathly inhumanity — those men alienated from God from the womb — could extend itself, they dispersed through the cells,

broke down the doors driven in with great stones, and seizing as plunder whatever they found in them, in the Hegumenion, and in the temple,

loading it on the Laura's own camels, they withdrew, taking it away.

stronger than the rest rose up and began to search for those lying about, to examine wounds, to revive spirits nearly lost with the blood by sprinkling water on their faces or offering drink,

and to tend to those broken down and overwhelmed by blows, as best they could. Then around sunset, when the smoke had subsided somewhat, lighting candles

and entering that narrow cave, they found the holy Fathers prostrate on the ground, they are drawn from the smoky cave, their nostrils

pressed into the earth: some rolled over upon their faces in manifold contortion, as if looking around

to see whether they might somehow have been able to escape the excess of the increasingly heavy smoke — all lying face down and dead.

[53] O harsh and bitter death! Who could describe in words that narrowness, with the faculty of breathing cut off; they perished by the most terrible kind of death, who could describe

the separation of the soul from the body (I should have said expulsion), deprived of all comfort, or rather, most full of violence and labor?

For when the Most Blessed ones could no longer hold their breath, on account of the heat of the innate warmth burning their chests

and urging them to draw in pure and cool air; as soon as they opened

the passages of their mouth or nostrils, instead of refreshment they were forced to draw in and admit the suffocating vortex of smoke,

instead of cool relief, a burning heat. For when the smoke occupied all the pores and as many open passages as nature has, and had already

filled the chest as well; and being transmitted again through the broad openings of the nostrils and spread through the membranes of the brain,

tortured the wretches fatally; and finally occupying and constricting the very life-blood; it inflicted (as it seems to me) a death more prolonged, harsher, and more bitter

than every other kind of death; and violently compelled the soul to depart from the body joined to it,

the divinely fashioned bond of mutual union being dissolved, nay, tyrannically and hostilely torn asunder. O crime

against God! O inhumanity of murderers, utterly devoid of all compassion! Which did not shudder to rend asunder the handiwork of the divine

hand, and to disjoin, separate, and tear apart what the Creator had bound and joined together by His ineffable wisdom!

[54] But let us direct the course of our discourse to the sequence of the narrative. Sergius is joined to them. After the Fathers had at last, with great

difficulty, extracted those blessed ones from the place in which they had expired (for copious smoke still swirling through the place was bursting forth), with tears

thereafter and lamentation, placing them in the church, they added to them

as the nineteenth Abbot Sergius, whose head, as we said before, had been cut off. and the rites are performed for all together. It was a horrible

spectacle to behold so many wounded, as Scripture says, sleeping — that is, so many dead lying there,

all killed at once and at the same time. Ps. 87:6 Therefore, raising great weeping and lamentation, and having completed the customary Canon,

placing them one upon another in a single vessel, they laid them to rest. For they did not think they should first be washed and wrapped in funeral

linens, and cared for with the same rite as is customary for those who die a natural death:

but rather that they should be buried in their blood-stained garments, just as they were.

^a See the careful description of the whole layout and form in the Life of St. Sabas in Lipomanus or Surius.

^b St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, says: The altar is a concave place and a throne where Christ the King presides with His Apostles: the conch, a part of the church for

this reason in the apses of ancient churches, built around the altar in the form of a conch, you may see them sometimes depicted in mosaic work; whence the Italians now call it a tribune, which the Greeks here name a conch from its shape.

^c We call it

a sacristy, from which those who are properly vested proceed to perform the sacred rites; Diaconicon and elsewhere the same word is taken for the other side of the tribune itself, where during the liturgy the Deacons could sit opposite the Bishop and Priests.

CHAPTER VI.

Encomium of the Deceased, and the Difficult Treatment of the Rest.

[55] Happy are they whom barbarous ferocity unjustly removed by torment, happy because dead to the world and the flesh, and violently expelled from this mortal life:

for the sake of the heavenly kingdom, for the sake of Christ, they had renounced the whole world, and had cast off all the delights

and pleasures of the world, and had hidden themselves in this most harsh wilderness, alien to those things which can be pleasant or agreeable to the body, and had led their life therein — a life

unpleasant, if you look at the inclination of our corrupted nature, whose passions they were intent on overcoming and mortifying by the constant exercise of a stricter

rule, wasting their bodies with fasts, vigils, and sleeping on the ground, and avoiding the softness of the flesh, severely restraining themselves from its enticements: but a life abounding in the rewards of immense

blessings, if you look at the benefit to the soul, which they had made a kind of dwelling-place

or treasure-house of virtues through the continual meditation on the divine words and Sacred Scriptures:

loving God and neighbor more than themselves: for whose sake they gave themselves over to a bitter death, they also obtained the palm of martyrdom,

having tasted before death itself manifold tribulation, terror, and threat for the Lord's sake:

and thus they completed the fortunate course of a holy way of life, and having kept the faith to their very last breath, they obtained from the almighty hand the perfect crown of both justice and martyrdom.

[56] For who would hesitate to number them among the Martyrs, or would refuse to honor them with the appellation of so glorious a name?

What indeed? by equal or greater right, Did they not endure various torments, and were they not unjustly punished with death for the law of Christ?

Or does someone perhaps think that only those should be called Martyrs who die rather than deny Christ and worship idols?

I indeed, persuaded and convinced by the teachings of wiser masters who speak from divine inspiration, assert without doubt

that everyone who by his death preserves even one of the least of Christ's laws from being violated both is and ought to be called a Martyr, and obtains the crown promised to Martyrs without diminution.

[57] Nay more (although what I say may perhaps seem rash), yet I think it should be said with all confidence than those who are simply killed for the faith

that those killed for the observance of the commandments of Christ are in some way greater than those who were simply killed for faith in Him. For

to deny God, while it is certainly a great and gross sin and brings present death to the soul, often

rouses even the more sluggish and abject spirits to indignation and zeal. But to come into danger for some virtue is the thought only of a robust,

alert, and truly sublime spirit. Of this the same Apostle is my witness, who is also my teacher, declaring thus: For scarcely for a just man does one die: yet perhaps for a good man someone would dare

to die. Rom. 5:7

[58] But if he who relaxes one of the least commandments,

says the Lord, as being for the law of charity, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: it is evident that he who preserves one that is greatest and most broadly

and eminently commanding shall be called the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 5:19 For he who endures death for a commandment of Christ will much more willingly die for Christ Himself: but it is by no means

evident that he who chooses death for Christ would allow himself to be killed for His commandment. The proof

and sign of love is the observance of the commandments: For if anyone loves Me, He says, he will keep My word. John 14:24

But which of His saving precepts is the greatest and most excellent? Hear

the Master Himself answering the Pharisee who questioned Him: Master, which is the first commandment in the Law? Matt. 22:36

(and "first" here denotes the chief one) Jesus said to him:

You shall love the Lord your God, and your neighbor as yourself: on these two commandments the whole law depends, and the Prophets: and the Apostle says, The fullness therefore of the law is love. Rom. 13:10

[59] But the Savior, wishing to amplify the legal precept which says, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, and indeed having suffered for sanctioning it to the highest degree, and to establish its absolute and supreme limit,

said: Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends: for

he who dies for his neighbor loves him not merely as himself, but more than himself. John 15:13 Which undoubtedly

and manifestly these most blessed ones accomplished. For the same one thing was repeatedly chanted at them by their torturers:

Show us, O wretched and abject ones, your Prelates and those who are foremost in rank among you, and we will release you: otherwise

we will kill you. The true athletes of Christ therefore preferred to die rather than hand over their Fathers and Brothers to torments.

[60] I add that they put on a triple crown of combat and martyrdom: indeed adorned with a triple martyrdom: the first, because they were killed for the sake of

Christ: for if they cultivated this solitude for the sake of Christ, it is evident that they endured for His sake everything

they suffered in it. The second, because for the sake of the Laura and its preservation,

and for those saved and to be saved in it, as has been demonstrated above, they gave themselves up: for

the place and time for flight were not lacking to them, had they wished to use them: but they remembered, and inwardly suffered,

what is written: The zeal of Your house has consumed me.

For if Naboth merited praise for being killed for the inheritance of his father's field, from which nothing accrued to the salvation of his soul,

how much more laudably did these men fight for the house of God! Ps. 68:10, John 2:17, 3 Kings 21:30 The third, because they chose to die for their Brothers

and Fathers: and he who does this for a fellow-servant, how much more would he not endure to be killed a thousand times for his very Lord?

[61] But if only those whose contest was for the defense of the faith were otherwise not even John the Baptist Martyrs and were called such: then not even

the Precursor John himself would be reckoned among the Martyrs, whom we know to have been beheaded because

he would not silently leave unreproved one single iniquity of Herod. And what of the Maccabees?

Did they not, lest they transgress even one of the lesser precepts of the law, endure those incomparable sufferings which almost exceed belief? Was it so great

an evil to taste a tiny morsel of swine's flesh? nor the Maccabees:

Does not that which enters through the mouth fail to defile a man? The holy Fathers killed on Mount Sinai ^a and at Raitho also — were they not,

when money which they did not possess was demanded of them, most unjustly slaughtered by barbarians? nor the Fathers on Sinai and at Raitho And yet

the cause of those differs not in the least from that of the Fathers celebrated by us today. And finally,

that John Chrysostom, that most splendid light of the Church, nor St. John Chrysostom, would be martyrs, that teacher of the whole world — was he not punished with exile for defending virtue,

and did he not exhaust such great trials and labors to the very end of his life? Or

shall we perhaps say that because he did not suffer for the faith, he was deprived of the reward and recompense of Martyrs?

Away with that insane mind, that foolish thought!

[62] Moreover, it is not without wonder that those who

suffered among them were certain novices and unlettered men, were not all consummated in knowledge and the exercise of virtue: there were novices among them, ^b and there were

also unlettered men. But all had thoroughly learned to command their passions and to bring into servitude whatever in man

savors of carnal wisdom or makes one esteem and love pleasures or even life itself; they had thoroughly learned

to take delight in the law of God according to the inner man. Rom. 7:22 But the grace of the Spirit, bringing remedy to what is hidden

and granting understanding to little ones, itself receiving their purpose, strengthened them and brought them to the end, deeming them worthy

of the full prize and the excellent crown.

[63] But shall those who still live and dwell in this life the survivors too are to be numbered among Confessors, be judged unworthy of the illustrious rewards of martyrdom?

For if it is the saying of the divine Basil: Honor, then, freely him who has suffered martyrdom, so that you may be a Martyr in will; and in the end, without persecution,

without fire, without blows and stripes, you may be deemed worthy of the same reward as they: Basil, Homily 20, on the 40 Martyrs how much more just is it that those be called Martyrs

and Confessors who, having wrestled with the adversary through various labors and contests, and stained with their own blood, perhaps endured worse things than

those from whom the sense of their torments was taken away together with their life!

For various men, grievously wounded in diverse ways — some in the hands, some in the feet, others in some other member

of the body — whose treatment was so difficult, most of them with heads everywhere wounded and nearly

crushed, for no small time under the most skilled physician and most devout Abbot Thomas endured a long

and difficult treatment, with a steadfast and brave spirit, to be sure, but not without the most bitter sense of immense pain.

[64] For scraping around the wounds and laying bare the very bones of the skull, with a drill and chisel, driven by a mallet in workmanlike fashion,

he extracted particles of the shattered and broken bones; ^c so that the very membrane

enveloping the brain was visible, and not rarely overflowed with pus and discharge: so that a certain elder preferred to die and this

was not just one or two suffering such things, but very many: so much so that there was among the elders one whose hand had been dreadfully wounded with a sword,

and when the physician despaired of curing it and requested a saw in order to cut it off entirely from the arm, he, seeing

what great pains those Fathers who were under the surgeon's hand were enduring and with what difficulty they were being healed, refused all treatment altogether: whence, with the flesh putrefying

and swarming with a multitude of worms, within not many days, departing from the prison-house of this his little earthly body,

so subject to so many sufferings, a twentieth added to the rest, he passed over to a dwelling free from pain and labor, to be joined with Christ: and being added to the holy Martyrs,

he completed the number of twenty, just as the guard once added to the suffering forty holy

Martyrs sealed their number of forty.

[65] But lest anyone perhaps suspect that we, defining this matter by our own judgment, are bestowing upon these Blessed ones

the name and appellation of Martyrs, and in some way favoring ourselves, we adduce the very Doctor of the universal Church,

John Chrysostom, I say, in confirmation of what has been said thus far,

as one who most plainly proclaims and affirms the same things. In that first sermon ^d, therefore, which he composed in chapters

for those who are easily scandalized, in the nineteenth chapter he pursues such matters in these very words which I append.

[66] For not only those who are summoned before tribunals and ordered to sacrifice and do not comply,

these things are confirmed by the authority of St. John Chrysostom, because they suffered what they suffered, are to be called Martyrs: but also those who,

for any matter whatsoever that is pleasing to God, voluntarily chose to suffer something. And if anyone considers the matter carefully,

these deserve the name more than the former. For the merit is not equal when such destruction and ruin of the soul is set before one,

to be content to suffer something and not perish, and to endure this same punishment for some lesser good work. And not only those who were killed,

but also those who were prepared and ready for this, obtained the crown of martyrdom — both this

and what I said before I shall endeavor to prove by the testimony of Paul. For when the Blessed Paul began to enumerate those who

had been illustrious in the times of the forefathers, and had begun from Abel himself, then proceeded to Noah,

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, and Job, he added, saying:

Therefore we also, having so great a cloud of Martyrs imposed upon us. Heb. 12:1

[67] And yet not all of those were killed — indeed not even one, except two or three, namely Abel and John:

the rest ended their lives by a natural death. And indeed John himself was not killed because he was ordered to sacrifice and did not comply, nor was he led to an altar,

nor dragged before an idol: but for one word. For because he had said to Herod: It is not lawful for you

to have the wife of Philip your brother, he was cast into prison and endured that death. Matt. 14:4 And if he who avenged a marriage contracted against the laws — inasmuch as

it was in his power (for he did not correct what had been done amiss: he merely spoke, he was unable to prevent it) —

if then, when he had merely spoken, and contributed nothing else from himself, because he was beheaded, he is a Martyr and

the first of Martyrs: those who exposed themselves to so many deaths, and opposed themselves no longer to Herod but to the Rulers of the whole world;

and undertook the defense not of one unjustly contracted marriage, but of ancestral laws and ecclesiastical

rites, which others were attacking: and who both in words and in deeds showed such great

confidence, since they died daily — men, women, and children — do they not deserve to be enrolled a thousand times in the number of Martyrs?

[68] Since Abraham also, though he did not actually slay his son, sacrificed him in the purpose of his mind,

and heard that heavenly voice saying: You have not spared your only-begotten son for My sake. Gen. 22:12

Thus it is that wherever the purpose of the mind is perfected in virtue, it merits the full crown. And

if he, since he did not spare his son, was so celebrated: these men, since they did not spare themselves, consider what great

reward they shall receive; who not for one and two or three days, but for the entire time of their life stood in this battle-line; harassed by reproaches, insults, injuries, and calumnies.

Nor is this of small moment: for which reason the great Paul praises this also, saying: And

on the one hand you were made a spectacle by reproaches and tribulations, and on the other you became companions of those who so lived.

Heb. 10:33 But why should I also commemorate those who themselves also died, and incited those by whom such contests were undertaken?

[69] You have heard, dearest Brothers and Fathers, that resounding trumpet of the Church publicly confirming

and sealing our words: this humble and plain discourse of mine has shone forth, adorned by the sublime eloquence of so great a master, like

a diadem receiving a precious emerald. Our opinion has been strengthened and made credible to all

by the irrefutable authority of him who both received wisdom from God and was a singular herald of Christ.

We may seem to have obtained even more than we wished: for when John, that cicada of the Church, teaches these same things,

would anyone still be doubtful about them?

^a They are venerated on January 14.

^b Therefore they were not all Superiors of monasteries, about whom alone the eulogy treats: for although only these were sought, they were not identified while the others kept silence.

^c Our friend Francesco Maria Fiorentini, a physician of Lucca, suggested for the illustration of this passage Celsus, book 8, chapter 3, who teaches from Greek authors, as is his custom: Surgical instruments for wounds

If the defect is narrow enough for a trephine to grasp, that instrument is preferably fitted … if wider, the matter must be handled with a drill, and a hole is made at the very boundary of the diseased and healthy bone, then another, etc., until the whole area that is to be excised is surrounded by these cavities. Then the chisel, driven by a mallet from one hole to the other, cuts out what lies between them.

^d From this it is evident that the sermon of John Chrysostom divided into 23 chapters is undoubtedly genuine, A homily of St. John Chrysostom which our Fronto Ducaeus first brought to light: but whether the Saint wrote several on the same subject, or in what other respect this is called the first, is unknown to us.

CHAPTER VII.

Apparitions and Miracles.

[70] But so that it might appear more clearly and certainly how pleasing to God the passing of those Blessed ones was, At the very hour, Cosmas, one of the suffocated,

and so that it might be known that, having been received by Christ the Savior in glory, they had great power with Him, God, the worker of wonders, willed that some great and stupendous

prodigy should appear on that very day on which the Saints suffered; of which two persons entirely worthy of trust became the observers and witnesses. For after the second

exit of the Fathers from that penal cave, while the holy Martyrs who had been extinguished remained within;

and while the sacrilegious men were conducting the interrogation of them, as has been described, one of the Brothers saw a certain one of the dead

lying inside the cave, named Cosmas, ^a standing apart before the Sanctuary, ^b

with his head anointed with oil, is seen with a cheerful countenance before the Sanctuary, shining and resplendent

beyond measure: ruddy of face, cheerful of countenance, and showing great signs of an exulting soul,

and I marveled, he said, considering the thing within myself — first indeed at the serenity and pleasantness of his appearance,

especially in such a place and at such a time: and then, how is it, I said, that they do not bring him along with us to be interrogated

and tormented: but allow him to stand alone so fearlessly and unharmed? For up to that point

the Brother did not know that the one he saw was one of those who had remained inside, suffocated.

[71] But after the impious ones had departed, likewise also to Sergius when inspecting the bodies, a certain old

solitary among the Fathers, who had for many years led a life pleasing to God in the wilderness, named

Sergius, weeping and mourning over all the evils that had befallen them, and especially over the death of the Blessed ones, entered the holy church with a lamp lit,

in order to learn thoroughly how many and what sort of Fathers had fallen asleep: and behold, he beheld that very

Abbot Cosmas, who meets him as he enters, whom the aforesaid Brother also had seen in so splendid a bodily appearance, coming forth

from the cave: and when they had bowed their heads to one another in greeting in the customary manner, ^c Abbot Cosmas ^d

approached the sanctuary, speaking these words: Pray for me. Therefore Abbot Sergius, entering, examined and carefully touched

the faces of the Saints, and seeing among them this same Abbot Cosmas lying there lifeless

and dead — the one whom he had met coming out when he wished to enter — he immediately came out in haste,

struck with fear, hoping he might be able to overtake him as he wished: but searching for him everywhere, since he could

nowhere find him, he recognized that a certain vision had been divinely presented to him, to confirm more clearly their holy death

and the blessedness of the immortal life which they possessed.

[72] On that very night of their glorious falling asleep, when there had been a great drought that year in the Laura, an opportune rain falls through their prayers, a shower

so copious fell through the intercession of their prayers that it filled all the cisterns and reservoirs. And immediately

the Lord took vengeance for the blood of His servants unjustly shed, and rendered to our neighbors

sevenfold into their bosom, according to the words of Scripture: for a severe plague having arisen, those barbarians, both

those who had dared to perpetrate that injustice which none should dare, and those who, inciting them, had armed them against the Laura, the barbarians are divinely punished,

were consumed by disease, pestilence, and a most terrible death, so rapidly, one on top of another, that

they were not able to bury their dead and entomb them with the customary rites: but for the most part they buried them

by heaping a light covering of earth, or threw them into caves and caverns: whence, dug up and dragged out by dogs, they became prey

and food for them. Ps. 78:12 So that all marveled at the destruction coming upon them, the sudden and swift

extermination, as the impious failed before the swiftness of divine vengeance: and on everyone's lips

was that canticle of the Prophet David: How have they been brought to desolation? They have suddenly failed, they have perished

because of their iniquity, like the dream of those who awaken. Ps. 72:19

[73] I shall not hide in silence what a most trustworthy Presbyter narrated to me. A Syrian Presbyter receives skill in the Greek language

This man, endowed with great virtue, being a Syrian, burned with a vehement desire to learn the Greek language thoroughly: and now, knowing how to express the psalter with great labor, after a fashion,

he had begun to apply himself laboriously

and studiously to the reading of the divine Scriptures, wishing to accustom his tongue entirely to the plain and clear

pronunciation of the true dialect. And when this exercise of reading was progressing with difficulty, and not without tedium and frustration,

he finally began to lose heart. But

falling asleep, he was visited by one of the holy Fathers, Anastasius ^e the Protodeacon, of whom we made mention above,

who had been a familiar friend of this Father, from Anastasius appearing to him, and asked the cause

of his sadness. He explained his slowness in learning. To whom the Saint, smiling, said: Open your mouth

and extend your tongue to me: and producing a new cloth which he had with him, rubbing

and wiping it clean — a thick and slimy viscosity having been removed — he disappeared, and at the same time the sleeping Presbyter awoke.

He confirmed that from that day he experienced such facility in understanding that dialect,

such a ready fluency of his obedient tongue whether in reading or in learning, that he was a wonder to himself, and was amazed at God's care for him

and the grace of the Saints.

^a At the end of the Life of St. Stephen the Sabaite, a Cosmas is also named to whom the future glory of the same Stephen was shown in a vision shortly before his death.

^b Ἱερατεῖον signifies to the Greeks that part of the church which contains the altar and the seats and tables of those ministering within and outside the tribune, barring by a screen — indeed a solid partition — the access of the laity to the sacred precincts, and even their sight of them.

^c In Greek καὶ βαλλόντων ἀλλήλοις μετάνοιαν συνήθως: concerning which custom Goar in the Euchologion says: μετάνοιαν βάλλειν If they meet Priests and monks (the Greeks), within the space allowed for offering a greeting, with hand placed on the chest they say μετάνοια: both to indicate by this word that they are showing them honor, and to beseech through their prayers that a time of penance be granted them by God: and those receiving respond with the same word and with good wishes, gratefully returning both greeting and honor.

^d Thus the sense seems entirely to require: in our copy, however, it reads ἐξελθὼν, going out.

^e If the Acts were now complete, there is no doubt that we would have in them the martyrdom of this man by name, likewise that of Theoctistus, of whom mention is made in the cited Life of St. Stephen, and of many others by name.

EPILOGUE

[74] And these indeed are few and small tokens of the grace in which by how many titles the Blessed are to be called, O holy and God-beloved

Martyrs, you are strong: but the glory which you now enjoy by your merits, who would suffice to narrate? Truly blessed are you,

and blessed in God; because, violently cast out from the life that is on earth, you have been found worthy of another, more blessed life in heaven.

Blessed are you, most fortunate Fathers; because, anticipating natural death, you crucified yourselves entirely

to the world, and in newness of life you emulated an angelic manner of living in this world. Blessed

are you, most holy Fathers: because in this present life you subjected the desire of the flesh, opposed to the law of the mind, to the law of life.

Blessed are you, best of Fathers: because, destroying the passions of the body by the rigor of your discipline,

you made it obedient and compliant to the soul, and you made what was baser in you serve the worthier part;

and you subjected your soul with all obedience to the yoke of the law of Christ.

[75] Blessed are you, most glorious Fathers: because you kept your noble souls free, lest they serve the delights and pleasures of the flesh,

and preserving in them the nobility of the divine image uncontaminated, you retained the form

and color of all its lineaments unconfused and unchanged. Blessed are you, Fathers adorned with every virtue:

because, imitating excellent painters with these virtues as with tinctures of the finest pigments,

imbuing your souls from the discipline of the divine Scriptures and expressing in them the living

likeness of those virtues and a God-formed image, you displayed yourselves to the world. Blessed are you, Fathers most worthy of that very beatitude;

because nothing of those things considered pleasant in this life was able to beguile your heart

or deceive it; or to distract, draw away, or disturb it from continually contemplating God and finding its sole delight in Him.

Blessed are you, Fathers most deserving of every good: because whatever concupiscence was in your soul, you directed toward God and the enjoyment of the things of God:

and your anger you turned, as a kind of sword, only against sin and its inventor and father.

[76] Blessed are you, venerable Fathers: because you prudently refused to walk the broad way of pleasures, as one that leads to a ruinous end:

and chose to travel the strait and narrow way, as one that introduces its travelers into blessed and truly most happy

repose, never turning back or straying. Blessed are you, unconquered Fathers, because the adversary, seeking you out

just as Job who was proved through many contests, and emptying his entire quiver of wickedness and deploying every engine

against you, was unable to overthrow the insuperable strength of your soul. Blessed are you, Fathers endowed with divine wisdom:

because, sharing in the sufferings of Christ — first in your ascetical discipline, then also in your contest —

you were consequently made partakers also of His glory: for if we suffer together, says the Apostle, we shall also be

glorified together and reign with Him forever. Rom. 8:17

[77] Blessed are you, reverend Fathers, who, wrestling invisibly against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness

of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, and conquering;

again visibly, by the endurance of torments and unconquerable constancy even unto death, you put to flight the visible enemies of truth.

Eph. 6:12 Blessed are you, Fathers to be celebrated in all ages; because in both

kinds of contest you turned back both adversaries, who rushed upon you hostilely and

savagely, and fighting strenuously and with youthful vigor, and winning victory in various battles,

you most justly deserved from both perspectives to be crowned.

Blessed are you, thrice-greatest Fathers: because through the smoke and stench of a mortal and easily extinguished fire,

you entirely escaped the peril of an immortal and never-to-be-extinguished conflagration, and you plucked the sweet-smelling fruits of Paradise.

Blessed are you, most lovable Fathers: because, pressed by a suffocation of brief duration, you breathe freely and rest

in a place of pasture.

[78] Blessed are you, most honored Fathers: because, enclosed in a narrow and dark cave, and deprived of this momentary

life, you have passed over into those spacious and ever-green fields, in which imperishable flowers bloom,

where unfailing light that knows no evening ever shines, whence all mourning, whence every shadow of anguish and pain is banished.

Blessed are you, most holy Fathers: because you have become a desirable addition to Christ, and a glorious expression of the Martyrs

from the beginning of the world, having obtained the perfect palm of martyrdom even after the times of persecution.

Blessed are you, Fathers inspired by the divine Spirit; because, purifying and sanctifying your bodies

and souls with sacred fasting, you adorned and consecrated the season of Lenten abstinence; since in it, through your blood,

you drew near to Christ, and before His Passion which brought salvation to the whole world, having suffered yourselves with Him, you celebrate

the life-giving Pascha — that is to say, the liberation and complete freedom from sin, and from the spiritual Pharaoh, the exactor of servile

works, and from the error and darkness of Egyptian servitude — just as the glorious forty ^a soldier-Martyrs of Christ

brought back the crown as victors from the arena.

[79] Remember also us, Fathers ever to be remembered by us, He prays to the Martyrs that they would intercede for the Laura,

with whom, while you were living in the flesh, you lived in fraternal fellowship; although now, having left your earthly abode,

you dwell in joy and light with the heavenly ones. Do not forget our brotherhood and this your Laura

and the community that sent you ahead from earth to heaven: for through you, Most Blessed, we too are blessed,

because we have furnished such first-fruits, such rich and holy spoils to Christ the Lord, an acceptable sacrifice to God

in an odor of sweetness — sincere, irreproachable, and most pleasing. To the life-giving, divine, and consubstantial Trinity,

which has willed that you should stand before it forever, offer continual and persevering

prayer for our congregation: that we may be delivered from the manifold snares, ambushes,

and most wicked machinations of the malignant enemy; that we may be freed from the passions and defects of mind and body; that we may be saved from

the envy and deceits of visible as well as invisible enemies; and that, passing this life in peace and tranquility,

we may be found worthy of the participation in those immortal blessings of which you have been deemed worthy, and of the repose and place of never-ending life — we too,

although what we ask is great.

[80] for the Church Pray also for the common and uniquely orthodox Church: that, with the temptations and tribulations which are variously

devised and stirred up against it by the enemies of truth ceasing, peace and tranquility

may come to it, and cessation and rest from trouble and disturbance. And remember also your unworthy servant,

that he would intercede for himself, who offers you the humble first-fruits of his discourse

and sings hymns — worthless indeed and far inferior to your greatness, and deficient,

yet composed and adorned with the most willing spirit despite the weakness of his powers. For my humility,

beseech, O Fathers most worthy of being celebrated with every kind of praise, the remission of sins, the purification

of passions, the desired course of a tranquil life: that I may escape hell, be freed from torments,

and someday stand without shame before Christ the Savior, not far removed from the abode of your dwelling,

although such a petition exceeds my merit.

[81] And you, most august Father of the Holy Fathers, trainer ^b of ascetics, leader of monks, exerciser of fighters,

most blessed Sabas, He congratulates St. Sabas, and commends these most renowned dweller and cultivator of the desert: receive your children, who

so nobly contended against sin and its instigator and leader the devil, until by their sweat,

labors — indeed by their blood — they brought home the victory won by fighting manfully for virtue. Present them to Christ

the Judge of the Contest as chosen Martyrs and laurel-crowned victors: for it is nothing new for you to prepare your disciples

not only for monastic discipline, but also for the contests, and to render them fit for martyrdom.

I call to witness the memorable times of the Persian invasion, and the 40 former ones under Chosroes,

when the Holy City of Christ was also seized, and those venerable and adorable places and temples

were consumed by fire: for then, from the number of your children, you brought no fewer than forty ^c

to Christ to be joined to the Martyrs, upon whom the Persians, ^d worshippers of fire and the insane cult of Mithra, rushing

in one place, cut them all down together: they too preferring to die in their own Laura rather than flee from the face of their enemies

and redeem their life by leaving it and fleeing.

[82] I call to witness Christopher, worthy of his name, and a glorious soldier and Martyr of Christ: and Christopher, from a Saracen made a Monk and Martyr, whom

a few years ago, translated from infidelity to the worship of the true faith, and grafted from a Persian and unfruitful

wild olive into a fruitful olive, and marked with divine baptism, and clothed in the monastic and angelic

habit, and numbered among your holy flock, you presented as a crowned Martyr to the Lord. First, fighting excellently under the religious garb,

then no less nobly in the arena of martyrdom, he conducted himself well, when,

ensnared by an apostate from the faith and brought before the very King of the Saracens and the chief of the senate,

he made a fair confession, and his neck was severed with a sword, for the faith and piety of Christ, on the fourteenth day

of the month of April, on the third day of Holy Week, ^e three days before the Lord's Passion, by whose sufferings we have been saved.

[83] and finally commends the Laura to him Now then, most divine Father and our most revered Ambassador before God,

look upon your flock and the Laura which you established by your labors; and from the raids

of the savage enemies who surround us, both visible and invisible, vigilantly

guard it; until the second coming of the Savior from heaven, and His fearful manifestation, strengthening

your spiritual seed within it and gathering it from every quarter into it with Christ, and from it leading them into the joy

of your Lord: so that, presenting all the followers of your teaching without reproach before the Judge together with yourself, you may say:

Behold, I and my children whom You have given me, O God: and may we hear that desirable and most lovable voice:

Come, blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you in Christ Jesus our Lord,

to whom be honor, power, and dominion with the Father who is without beginning, and the Holy, good, and life-giving

Spirit, now and always and forever. Amen.

^a We treated of these who suffered at Sebaste in Armenia on March 10.

^b Properly signifies one who anoints those about to wrestle: but taken more broadly it is understood of the very prefect of the palaestra: see Cicero, book 1, letter 9 to Lentulus.

^c Indeed 44: their feast is observed on May 16: their martyrdom preceded the capture of the Holy City by one week.

^d It is established that the Saracens perpetrated that slaughter: but those who either served under the Persians, or sought impunity for their crimes under their shadow, seizing the opportunity.

^e And therefore in the year of Christ 789, when Easter fell on April 19, seven years before the suffering of these Fathers.

POEM ON THE SAME

distributed through the Odes of the Greek Office from the Great Menaea, by the same author Stephen the Sabaite.

ACROSTIC

Ὕμνοις γεραίρω Μάρτυρας ὁμοτρόπους.

I celebrate with hymns the Martyrs of like character.

John, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (S.)

Sergius, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (S.)

Patricius, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (S.)

Cosmas, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (S.)

Anastasius, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (S.)

Theoctistus, Martyr, monk in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (S.)

The other Fourteen, Martyrs, monks in the Laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (SS.)

figure

ODE 1

O Christ, to me who desires to praise the multitude of Your divinely inspired Martyrs, grant from heaven the light of understanding, moved by their prayers, that I may compose a song worthy of God.

All, instructed by the discipline of the Spirit, and governing by it your bodies and senses, you became holy temples of God, O God-bearing Martyrs: for Christ dwelt in you.

Leaving behind the transient riches of earth, and spurning the delights of life as dreams, you desired the unchangeable kingdom of Christ, which you now enjoy.

ODE 3

Your whole life, devoted to stillness, you entirely consecrated to the all-seeing God, O Saints; and offering yourselves as divine holocausts, you merited the perfect crown.

Embracing the monastic life out of desire for the stricter way, as true disciples of the God-bearing Sabas, you withdrew from the tumults of the world.

Cultivating the seed of the divine Word received in your souls, O Saints, and watering it with the streams of your tears, you brought forth fruit a hundredfold to God.

ODE 4

The enemy, moved by envy, fiercely assailed the Martyrs intent upon the exercise of virtues in the desert: but he was driven back as if by a battle-line drawn up against him.

The deceitful dragon, rooting error in his disciples, stirred up barbarian tribes to mutual slaughter, through which he also strove to expel the Saints from the wilderness.

The enemy, raising swelling waves against the immovable Saints, could not put them to flight, and having been defeated in the invisible contest, he undertook a visible battle in vain.

The Prince of evils, full of poison and fury, rushed upon them with his retinue; and incited to bestial rage against the Saints, he poured forth rivers of blood through unheard-of wounds.

While they were entrusting their mortal hopes to the earth, stored in corruptible gold, the noble Athletes, casting theirs into heaven, cried out: Glory to Your power, O Lord.

Raging mercilessly like wild beasts, they tormented the Saints with stones, clubs, and swords, ordering them to reveal their leaders: but these, strengthened by the law of charity, utterly refused to do so.

ODE 5

Taught by the instruction of perfect love, O Saints, Your law, O Savior, they laid down their lives for their friends, and imitated Your voluntary sacrifice for humankind.

Your commandment, O Christ, appeared more powerful than death itself, raising nature, born from the will of the flesh, above itself: for following Your law, they chose to die gloriously for their friends, these men endowed with a truly divine mind.

Sprinkled in mind with hyssop through baptism, you repaid your own household, O Saints, by shedding your blood for them, and tested by fire in the prison like gold, you became a sweet-smelling sacrifice to Christ.

ODE 6

Those who served Christ laughed at the threats of tyrants, because they had spent their whole life in the constant meditation of death.

The barbarians, suspecting them of abounding in treasures, barbarously tortured those who had nothing, and who, despising corruptible things, possessed only what is incorruptible.

The athletes of Christ, having put on indomitable strength, rendered vain the raging of the barbarians as much as that of the infernal Cerberus.

ODE 7

The assaults of both visible and invisible enemies were blunted, as they saw the Martyrs scorn their blows, and amid their wounds sing a hymn, saying:

Blessed and praiseworthy are You, O Lord God of our fathers.

Both family and fatherland and riches they renounced, espoused to You, O Christ, because they burned with love for You alone, who are truly lovable: and they fled to You, O Savior, God of our fathers.

The bloodthirsty barbarians did not deter Your lovers, O Christ, from serving God in the wilderness: for they did not fear those who kill the body, since they had Your commandments as an unshaken foundation.

Having the divinely written law on the tablets of their hearts, the Martyrs proclaimed the one and triune God, and cried out to Him: Blessed and praiseworthy are You, O Lord God of our fathers.

Singing psalms in their all-night vigils, the Saints, comparable to the angelic orders, sang: Bless, all you works, Christ forever.

ODE 8

Following You their Lord with their whole mind and taking up the Cross, the Martyrs sang: Bless, all you works, Christ forever.

Enduring showers of stones, and beaten with clubs, the Most Blessed sang this one thing: Bless, all you works, Christ forever.

With the full intention of mind and body, raising their spirit to Christ, the Saints sweetly sang: Bless, all you works, Christ forever.

ODE 9.

Having nobly and devoutly awaited the approaching barbarians, and stripped in various ways, the Athletes of Christ overcame their insolence and the dominion of this world: wherefore they also carried back double crowns from the just Judge of the Contest.

O blessed inhabitants of caves and caverns throughout your whole life, you are enclosed in the narrow opening of a single cave, and stained with blood, and overcome by the heat of fire and the vapor of grievously burning smoke, you appeared as victors.

We celebrate together your contests, by which you fought manfully against sin, as noble soldiers standing firm for Christ: for you conquered gloriously, and now standing before the Most High with the hosts of the Saints, remember us.

Help us by praying, O Saints, surrounded in heaven by a triple radiance, together with Sabas as Father and leader, as his true sons, that salvation of souls may come to your companions who sing of you, and that peace may be granted to all the holy Churches.

O Son of the Virgin, cast down the arrogant confidence of the fierce, and frustrate the counsels of the wicked, O Creator: but strengthen impenetrably the host of Your faithful, O God, exalting their horn and confirming their faith, that we may all magnify You.

Each ode was concluded with a special invocation of the Mother of God: which strophes, because they are found collected from the Menaea in Simon Wagnereck's work on the Greek Marian piety, are here omitted, especially since their initial letters are not contained in the elements of the acrostic: so that these too might be included, it was the concern of other authors of similar odes, especially Joseph the Hymnographer. As we shall see below at the twenty-eighth day in the odes on St. Hilarion the Younger.