CONCERNING ST. HESYCHIUS, PRIEST OF JERUSALEM.
YEAR 434
CommentaryHesychius, Priest of Jerusalem (Saint)
[1] We bring forth an illustrious testimony of the learning and piety of the great Doctor of the Catholic Church, Hesychius, from the Menologion of the Greeks, composed by order of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus in the tenth century of Christ: which is contained therein at the 28th of March as follows: The memory of our holy Father Hesychius. Our holy Father Hesychius was both born and educated in Jerusalem; Veneration and eulogy in the Menologion of the Emperor Basil and he meditated upon all Scripture in the highest perfection, and was enriched with the knowledge that pertains to God. For this reason he withdrew to Jerusalem, and having become a monk, led his life in the desert, approaching the holy Fathers who dwelt there, so that he might learn from each one and gather, like the industrious bee, the flowers of the virtues. But since such eminent virtue could not remain hidden, compelled by a certain force by the Archbishop of Jerusalem, he was ordained a Priest. Remaining at the holy Sepulchre of Christ and the other places where our Lord Jesus Christ endured His holy Passion for our salvation, he drained the fountains of all knowledge and wisdom: whence he interpreted all Scripture and explained it perspicuously, and set it forth for the benefit of many: for which reason he was most celebrated and admired on the lips of all. And when he had served God in all perfection, dying joyfully he hastened to Him. These things in the said Menologion.
[2] The time at which St. Hesychius flourished is indicated by Cyril, a monk of the monastery of St. Euthymius, a most faithful author in the Life of St. Euthymius, which we illustrated on the 20th of January, in which at number 42 the following is related: The Patriarch of Jerusalem, having received both St. Passarion, present at the dedication of the temple of St. Euthymius in the year 429 who was then a Chorepiscopus, and Hesychius as Priest, goes to the Laura, and dedicates the temple that is there, when Euthymius had been born fifty-two years. He also ordains as Deacons Domitian and Domnus, when John and Cyrion had been admitted to the rank of Priests. On account of these things the great Euthymius rejoiced and had a soul full of tranquillity, and especially because he saw Passarion with the Patriarch, and the divine Hesychius, who were distinguished in the rest of the choir of those who exercised themselves, dwelling in the Laura. But the holy Passarion, before seven months had elapsed from that time, departed from the living in profound old age. Thus far Cyril, who at number 3 writes that St. Euthymius was born in the fourth Consulship of Gratian, the year of Christ 377, and therefore the temple of the Laura, when he had been born fifty-two years, was dedicated in the year 429, at which time St. Hesychius was also of great age. For near the death of Theophilus of Alexandria, at the ninth Consulship of Honorius, but the fifth of Theodosius, or the year of Christ 412, Theophanes celebrates him thus: At that time the dormition of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, and the promotion of the divine Cyril and of Hesychius the Priest, was heard, in the year 412 celebrated for his learning and at the beginning of the following year (for Theophilus departed from life on the 15th of October) Theophanes continues thus: In this year Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, departed from the living, and in his place Cyril his nephew was appointed. In this same year Hesychius, Priest of Jerusalem, flourished in the learning of letters, in Greek ἤνθει ταῖς διδασκαλίαις, as though he had excelled in every kind of learning; by Anastasius in his History he is said to have blossomed in teachings. Again in Theophanes at the twenty-sixth year of Theodosius, the year of Christ 433 and the following, the following is read: In the same year Hesychius, Priest of Jerusalem, died on his last day, died in the year 434 and the Blessed Melania, granddaughter of the elder Melania, rested in Jerusalem in the exercise of religious virtues and perfection of life. St. Melania is venerated on the 31st of December, the day on which she departed from life, and indeed on a Sunday, namely in the year 433, the 22nd cycle of the Sun, the Dominical letter A. But if St. Hesychius had his last day on the 28th of March, the year 434 must be assigned to him, and thus by the Greek computation both died in the same year.
[3] John Trithemius in his work On Ecclesiastical Writers and Sixtus of Siena in book 4 of the Bibliotheca Sancta, relate that St. Hesychius was a man most learned in the divine Scriptures, whether a disciple of St. Gregory of Nazianzus? and had once been a hearer and disciple of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and after his example had written many small works of commentary on the divine books, and had composed various volumes on both the New and the Old Testament. St. Hesychius lived about forty-five years after the death of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, so that, if the testimonies of the ancients were available, we would readily concede that he was a disciple of Gregory; he expounded Sacred Scripture the eulogy given from the Menologion affirms that he interpreted all Scripture. But of all these lucubrations, Trithemius confesses that he had read only the notable work of great quantity, which he wrote to the venerable Deacon Eutychian on Leviticus in one book, or rather, as Sixtus corrected, and especially Leviticus in seven books. Rabanus Maurus in his Prologue on Leviticus to Freculphus, Bishop of Lisieux, writes that he found this book had been quite fully expounded by the venerable Hesychius, Priest of Jerusalem, from whom Rabanus himself collected much, as the author of the Glossa Ordinaria on Leviticus prefaces. Strabo also, a disciple of Rabanus, in the preface of his epitome on Leviticus, calls Hesychius, Priest of Jerusalem, sound in faith and supported by truth: the Author also calls himself a Priest, and in many places indicates that he wrote at Jerusalem. The translator meanwhile, when he found mention of Jerome's version, added on his own those words "our edition" or "translation."
There survive various encomia or Lives of Saints by the same St. Hesychius, Priest of Jerusalem, he published various homilies on Christ and the Saints and from these are listed by Leo Allatius in his book on the writings of the Simeons, those he composed On the Presentation of the Lord (Εἰς τὴν ὑπαπαντὴν τοῦ Κυρίου), On St. Michael, On SS. Peter and Paul the Apostles, On St. Andrew the Apostle, On the Four-days-dead Lazarus, and On St. Procopius the Martyr, and he indicates their Greek beginnings. Francis Combefis in his Bibliotheca Concionatoria published two Homilies on the Annunciation of the Virgin Mother of God Mary, another on the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ: likewise On James the Brother of the Lord, and On St. Andrew the Apostle, which in Photius is wrongly said to have been written in praise of St. Thomas.
[4] We also published in the second volume of this month at the 15th of March an encomium of St. Longinus the Centurion and his two Companions, and we judge it was written by this same St. Hesychius, also on St. Longinus the Centurion because at the end of number 16, page 389, the following is read: I, Hesychius, Priest of Jerusalem, having searched much and carefully, with difficulty at last and not without great labor was I able to find anything about St. Longinus the Centurion, who at the Cross of Christ said: Truly this was the Son of God. I found his martyrdom written in a little book in the library of the holy Resurrection, and I composed his confession with a eulogy. These words: which we wished to repeat precisely so that his careful diligence worthy of observation might be known.
There is also by the same St. Hesychius a brief discourse most useful for the soul, addressed to Theodulus, on temperance and virtue, other ascetic treatises that is ἀντιῤῥητικὰ καὶ ἐυκτικὰ, or on the manner of struggling and praying, containing ascetic chapters distributed into two centuries: and it exists separately and inserted in the Library of the Fathers. Finally, some Ecclesiastical History was written by St. Hesychius: an illustrious fragment of which survives in the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople and an Ecclesiastical History held in the year of Christ 553: in which the blasphemies of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the first instigator of the Nestorian heresy, are rejected: which Cyril, Rabbula, Proclus, and others who lived with St. Hesychius likewise do, and are cited in the said Council.