ON S. JOHN PSYCHAITA,
CONFESSOR AMONG THE GREEKS.
UNDER THE ICONOCLASTS
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
The eulogies from the Synaxaries: the surname of Psychaita whence to him given.
John Psychaita, Confessor among the Greeks (S.)
D. P.
[1] Celebrate this Christ's Confessor the Greeks in this month of May; but on so many diverse days inscribed in their sacred calendars, that deservedly to be doubted it can, to which chiefly day he ought to be attributed. Among the older calendars we reckon the Menology of Basil Porphyrogenitus the Emperor in which at the XXV of May he is praised in these words. The eulogy from the Menology of Basil the Emperor 25 May, John holy Father our, from his beginning age Christ with love embracing, and Elias's and John the Precursor's of living manner imitating, the world left: and into the laura of Psychaita going, the monastic life took up: and so far to a rigid life's institute himself addicted, that a gift from God he received both of demons putting to flight and of diseases curing. But when in the Iconoclasts' time skillfully he contended, and the orthodox doctrines defended; he was denounced to the tyrant reigning, and by him summoned a mandate received of abjuring of the sacred images the veneration, to the heresies of assenting, and to the party of abomination of subscribing. But he, to obey the commands refusing, nay rather the Emperor arguing, and him calling a heretic, into exile relegated was; in which when by the impious and iniquitous Iconoclasts very many to him inflicted hardships constantly he had sustained, his life with death exchanged. These in the Menology of Basil the Emperor, and from a Ms. Synaxary 24 May, at the day XXV of May at the end of the first tome in Greek brought forth. But on the day before, or the day XXIV of May, is celebrated his memory in a most ancient Ms. Greek Synaxary of the Church of Constantinople, which belongs to the college Clermont of the Society of Jesus at Paris, with this kind of encomium.
[2] Οὗτος ὁ Μακάριος, Ἰωάννου καὶ Ἠλιοῦ ἐκ νιπίου τοὺς
τρόπους μιμουμενος, ἄκρᾳ σκληραγωγίᾳ τὸν βίον ἑαυτου ῥηθμήσας, τοὺς πολέμους τῶν δαιμόνων ἐνίκησεν ἀνδρικώτατα· ταῖς τῶν δακρύων πηγᾶις τὴν ψυχὴν προκαθαρθεὶς, καὶ παννύχοις στάσεσι τὸν Θεὸν ἱλασκόμενος· καὶ ἰκμάδας προχέων δακρύων, ποταμοὺς ἐξήρανε τῶν ἁιρέσεων· τοῦ Χριστοῦ τὸ ὁμοίωμα προσκυνῶν ὡς σεβάσμιον, καὶ τῶν ἀσεβῶν τὰ βουλέυματα καταστρεψᾴμενος ἠρίστασεν, ἐξορίας πικρὰς καὶ φυλακὰς καρτερῶς ὐπομείνας· καὶ νόμων προἳστάμενος καὶ πατρικῶν παραδόσεων, νόμων βασιλικῶν κατέπττυσεν· ὅθεν καὶ αθλήσας καρτερῶς, καὶ ἀυτὸς τὸν ἴσον τοῖς ἁγίοις αγῶνα ὁμοιως καὶ τὸν, στέφανον ἤρατο, νοσούντων σώματα καὶ ψυχὰς θεραπεύων, ὡς τῶν θαυμάτων την χάριν ἐκ Θεοῦ δεξάμενος. Blessed this one, from his cradle of John the Baptist and of Elias the life having imitated, a rigid of living institute assumed, himself excellently exercised, and the hostile infestations of demons most generously overcame; after now before with tears' streams his soul he had purged, and through whole nights with assiduous of prayers station God to himself propitious had rendered, and with tears' founts the rivers of the heretics had dried up. The sacred indeed of Christ image as to be venerated he honored, and of the overturned of the impious counsels he triumphed. Grave and bitter exiles and prisons generously he endured, while the Fathers' constitutions and traditions he defended, and the decrees of the Emperor he spat upon and rejected. Whence also strongly contending, an equal he himself to other Saints contest underwent, and an equal with them crown carried back; and the from God of curations gift received, of many bodies and souls he healed.
[3] The same nearly are related at the day XXIII of May in Mss. Greek Menaea of Milan of the Ambrosian library, and in others on the day 23 and 26, likewise 7 and 28 May. and in another codex of Turin of the Duke of Savoy, in whose other he is ascribed at the day XXVI of the month, as in the Mss. of Dijon of Peter Francis Chifflet at the day of May XXIII; added a distich, by which his soul to the bosom of Abraham, with Lazarus the poor man, by Angels carried elegantly is intimated, on the occasion of his name, from the word ψιχή that is Crumb taken. It and whatever the interpretation, with a freer, as those we are wont to render, meter receive:
Δέξαι σύνοικον Λάζαρε Ψυχαΐτην, Ὃς τὸ πρὶν ἦρας καὶ τῆς τραπέζης ψίχας
Receive the Crumb-man, Lazarus, as a cohabitant, Who to have taken up are said the crumbs of the table.
The Synaxaries indeed and Menaea, however many we saw, not by I but by Y the surname of the Saint express: but that of writing manner, besides that the whole of the aforesaid Distich's it enervates elegance (for neither between ψυχή soul and ψιχή crumb any is of signification proportion) of error easily even by this is convicted, The surname of Pschaita, that no anywhere is known to be a place, ψυχή called, whence could the Psychaita name formed be said: there was moreover in the royal city (as in his Christian Constantinople book 2, chapter 16, number 76 teaches Du Cange) a certain place Psicha called, and it not far from the Forum situated: for thus suggesting the same Du Cange, I find in Leo the Grammarian, that before Christophorus the Caesar's death, which happened in the year DCCCCXXXIIII in the month of August, happened a fire immense and horrendous in the forum's portico, taken from a place of the city of Constantinople where he dwelt. to the temple of the most holy Mother of God neighboring, so that of the wax-makers and of the furriers the workshops μεχρι τῶν ψιχῶν (for so to be written it was not ψηχῶν, and so also has the Anonymous of Combefis the same fire narrating in Du Cange) so, I say, that the workshops even to Psicha were consumed. Nay also the Mica golden in the region second of old Rome set Publius Victor, whence to the new Rome of the same name into Greek rendered the use to have flowed could. And these therefore be said, for understanding, what otherwise we would not know, John, of whom we treat, to have been of the Constantinopolitan city an inhabitant, in Psicha near the forum a Recluse and solitarily living, just as others through the same city several did, in the midst of cities a hermitage for themselves finding. Finally in the Menaea printed twice he is related with the same encomium already last related, namely at the day VII and XXVIII of May. On each day, according to custom, he is related in Maximus Bishop of Cythera; but on none of these or of the aforenamed days in the Menology of Sirletus.
ON SAINT OLBIANUS
AMONG THE GREEKS.
from a Ms. Synaxary of Dijon.
CommentaryOlbianus, among the Greeks (S.)
Two of this name Saints in this month of May celebrate the Greeks, the one a Bishop of Aneum and Martyr, on the day XXIX; the other this XXV of May, on which day he is indicated in the Mss. Menaea of Dijon, in the college of the Society of Jesus with Peter Francis Chifflet once preserved; in which these few are related:
Ὁ ἃγιος Ὀλβιανὸς ἐν εἰρήνῃ τελειοῦται: Holy Olbianus in peace is consummated. and then this distich is subjoined:
Τὸν Ὀλβιανὸν, οὗ πανόλβιος βὶος, Λαβόντα καὶ πανολβίαν λῆξιν γράφω.
Because to Olbianus life thrice happy was, With a thrice also happy death loosed I say.
An allusion is made to the name. For to the Greeks βίος, Life; and ὄλβιος, Happy, fortunate, rich, wealthy is.