Pausicacus

ON SAINT PAUSICACUS

BISHOP OF SYNNADA IN PHRYGIA.

VII CENTURY

Pausicacus, Bishop of Synnada in Phrygia (St.)

G. H.

The Greeks celebrate this holy Bishop on day

XIII May, and indeed in the Menology of Basil

Porphyrogenitus the Emperor offer this his

eulogy: Our holy Father Pausicacus,

originating from the city of Apamea, Eulogy from the Menology of Emperor Basil. son of pious

parents, instructed in medical art, traversed cities and

regions, curing all the sick without any reward.

Then when he had hated the world, and

with the love of Christ was burning; into a certain monastery

withdrawing, was made a monk: and so far in

virtue advanced, fasts, vigils, and assiduous prayers

attending to, that he was endowed by God with the greatest graces, with bread

alone and similarly modest water accustomed to feed. On account of his

virtue, by Cyriacus the Constantinople Patriarch,

although he did not desire, of Synnada Bishop

was inaugurated under the Empire of Maurice; whom also

he himself from very grievous disease had cured. Afterwards entrusted

to him the flock rightly governing, he lived until the Empire

of impious Leo the Iconomach, and extreme old age

reaching, migrated to Christ. Thus there: with which

similar things are read in the MS. Synaxarium of the Constantinople Church

at Paris in the College of the Society of Jesus preserved, in MS. Synaxarium and Sirletus's Menology.

likewise in the Menology of Cardinal Sirletus, and everywhere is annotated

his highest and extreme old age, in Greek βαθὺ

γήρας.

And indeed according to the aforesaid he would have lived in his Episcopate XV or

XVI beyond a hundred years. For Maurice the Emperor, with whom

alive he was ordained Bishop, with monstrous age. by his successor Phocas killed

in year DCII, on day XXVII November, and Leo the Isaurian

received the Empire on XXV March of year DCCXVII, until whose

time to have lived St. Pausicacus is said in the just-related three

eulogies. Meanwhile in the great Greek Menaea, and in Maximus

Bishop of Cythera ἐν βίοις ἁγίων no mention of Leo is made,

in a sufficiently long encomium, which we subjoin and is of this kind.

[2] Pausicacus was born at Apamea, of illustrious

and noble parents and worshipers of the Christian faith. Another eulogy from the Menaea.

As an adolescent with hunger, assiduous prayers and the discipline of austere

life he emaciated and subdued himself: whence having entered the religious

and ascetic way, with modest bread and

water sustained life, and gave attention to medicine,

and at once cured bodies and souls: and with sharp war undertaken against demons,

them he turned to flight, abortions

he raised, bent old men he straightened, and other admirable

prodigies he did. But fame, which all things opens and

publishes, about him to the Constantinople Archbishop

(Cyriacus he was) brought, of Synnada

Church he is set in charge: where immediately with the sling of the divine word

men like wolves raging following, from the sheepfolds

he warded off, and with the sword of the word putrid limbs he cut off, lest

the sincere part of the Church by them be corrupted. Thus his

sheepfolds healthy and whole preserving, he triumphed. He came

then to Constantinople, and with Maurice the Emperor

having met, the disease by which he was held he cured:

and obtained, that to his citizens an annual tax,

namely a pound of gold, with a golden seal, in which an addition

to the annual pension was inscribed,

he should remit. Returning however to Synnada, in which no mention of so great age. when he was at Solinus,

with prayers alone he produced a spring of water,

and the thirst of his companions thence relieved. At length

after a life conducted illustriously and piously, and to many

salvation procured, from the human he departed, and to the desired

joys passed. Thus in the said Menaea, without

mention of extreme old age, and of impious Leo the Iconomach.

What if in his place were substituted the impious Emperor Monothelite

Constans, who in year DCXLII reigned? Even

great enough old age he would have attained, and for some time

under the Empire of Maurice would have been Bishop. If a Life of him

written by contemporaries should be found (for that some was written

is persuaded by the miracles, so specifically related in the latter eulogy)

something more certain could perhaps be drawn out. But Synnada,

or Synnadae is the metropolis of Phrygia Salutaris, from which about

LXXXV thousand paces distant is Apamea, the homeland of St. Pausicacus.

But Cyriacus the Patriarch, who him as Bishop

constituted, in the said Menaea is reported XXVII October.

Among the Latins recently St. Pausicacus in the general Catalogue

his Ferrarius reported, elsewhere about him hitherto nothing

we have found.