John of Dabra Bizan

ON ST. JOHN OF DABRA BIZAN, PRESBYTER AND ABBOT IN ETHIOPIA,

IN THE YEAR 1449

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY

John of Dabra Bizan in Ethiopia. (S.)

BY P. P.

[1] John of Bizan, Ever since that skilful investigator of Ethiopian matters, Job Ludolf, in the year 1691 published the sacred Calendar of the Ethiopian church, compiled by himself from the books of the Abyssinians [Job Ludolf, Ad suam historiam Aethiopicam commentarius (Frankfurt am Main, 1691), p. 398.], there became known — to those learned men, at least, who did not prefer to be wholly ignorant of eastern barbarism — a certain John, a presbyter, whose feast is announced on the 13th day of the month Hedar, that is, the 9th of November. At the name of the saint the same learned man noted this: "he is compared to Elijah; and his monastery Bizan, situated in Midra-Bahr, to Thisbe, whence Elijah the Tishbite" Same place, note (e).. But already then, for many years, if not from the letters and manuscript histories of the priests of the Society of Jesus who had lived in Ethiopia [Compare C. Beccari, Rerum Aethiopicarum scriptores Occidentales inediti a saeculo XVI ad XIX, vol. XV (Rome, 1917), p. 66; where you have the passages indicated from the works and letters of Pedro Paez, Manoel de Almeida, Manoel Barradas, Afonso Mendes, Luis de Azevedo, and others.], at least from the book of Fr. Balthazar Tellez, published at Coimbra in the year 1660 Historia geral de Ethiopia a alta, book I, chap. 35, p. 87., it was established that the monastery of Bizan is situated on the ridges of the mountains of the province of Tigray, one day's journey from the port of Massawa, and that in it monks from among the disciples of that Eustathius who in the fourteenth century renewed monastic observance in Ethiopia have their seat Compare Anal. Boll., vol. XXVI, p. 370.. a Monophysite, To no one, therefore, could it ever have been doubtful that the nursling of the monastery of Bizan, whoever he was, had belonged to the Monophysite confession [Thomas Barleto, in a letter written to Fr. Stephen da Cruz Maigoga on the 12th day of March, relates that a certain head of the monastery of Mount Bizan with some of his monks embraced the Catholic faith

in the year 1627. Beccari, work cited, vol. XII (1912), Relationes et epistolae variorum, part I, book III, p. 183 – 84.]. But, as has happened elsewhere, the censors nodded, who had not strained to keep watch over his foreignness. John of Bizan was received into his martyrology by Chastelain Martyrologe universel, on the 9th day of November.; numbered among the saints by no right. and the more recent compilers copied him out after their fashion [Our predecessors themselves used no less indulgence when they gave a place to SS. Arethas of the Kiev Caves and Simon, bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal (Oct. vol. X, p. 863 – 83); nay, even to the most Ethiopian of all Ethiopians, Tacla Hājmānot, whose person, however, they wished to change by a rather unhappy attempt (Oct. vol. XII, p. 383 – 90).]. It is not our business to drive out of that full complement the lodgers who were admitted by no lawful selection. For the rest, although in our judgement at least the aforesaid John was not to be reckoned among the saints of the universal church, yet in hagiographical literature his Life cannot be neglected, since with it very many things have grown together which belong properly to eastern monastic history and were derived by one channel or another from the histories of the Egyptian Fathers.

[2] His Life About the man himself, almost down to the present day, hardly anything was known besides his name. recently discovered Nor could anyone easily have dispelled this ignorance, by which no one seemed to be troubled. At last a body was added to that shadow, when in the year 1899 that learned man Carlo Conti Rossini found near Asmara in Eritrea, in a little rustic church, the Lives of St. Philip and St. John Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana, ser. 4, vol. I (1899), p. 115., with the Life of Philip his master of which he published the first entire, and the other with some passages omitted, in the transactions of the Royal Italian Academy [Il Gadla Filpos e il Gadla Yohannes di Dabra Bizan, in Atti della R. Accademia dei Lincei, ser. 5. Memorie, vol. VIII (1903), p. 62 – 170.]. Both documents, written in the Ethiopic language and style, most certainly came from the monastery of Mount Bizan, whose beginnings and first growth they are thought to relate. But although both had one origin and a common subject, so far are they from presenting the same history or fable, even in those places where the same men doing the same things are brought in by both. Accordingly, unless both Lives alike lack credibility, one or the other was at least more closely connected in antiquity with the things narrated. And in order that it may be discerned which of the two comes nearer to the truth, we must first see what can be gathered from both beyond controversy.

[3] The Life of Philip belongs to a certain singular kind of panegyrical eulogies. It is divided into eleven chapters, to each of which, from the second on, the name of a month is prefixed, from the month Ṭeqemt (October) to Ḥamlē (July). From this it is already plain by what artifice it was written. Its argument, so far as it concerns the present question, can be briefly summed up thus. Philip was born when his father, Ierdeana Egzie That is: may the Lord help us., a nobleman of the tribe of Ijāncarē, had already died [Life, Conti Rossini, volume cited, p. 71. On the tribe of Ijāncarē see the note of the editor, same place, p. 154.]. Magdalena, his mother, destined him from his tenderest age for the monastic life. When she herself had withdrawn into a house of ascetics, the boy too withdrew into solitude, and settled with Bacimus [Boris Turaiev conjectured that this is an Ethiopic corruption of the name of St. John Kama, or "the Black", (St Petersburg, 1902), p. 201 and following. Conti Rossini (volume cited, p. 154) thinks the name derived from (read: , concerning which BHO., p. 218. Neither is clear.], a disciple of Eustathius [In the Life of Philip seven spiritual generations are counted from Antony the Great to Bacimus. Conti Rossini, volume cited, p. 78 – 79. See the two genealogical trees which Conti Rossini himself drew up, same place, p. 157 and following. In fables and genealogies of this kind the Ethiopians take very great delight. See R. Basset, Les règles attribuées à S. Pakhôme (Paris, 1896), in Les Apocryphes éthiopiens, vol. VIII, p. 15 – 19. With how much zeal the Ethiopians are wont even today to inculcate the origins of their families into the memory of their boys is testified by Johannes Kolmodin, who very often attended this domestic school. Traditions de Tsazzega et Hazzega. Annales et documents (Uppsala, 1914), p. A VIII and following; compare p. A IX, note 2.]. Afterwards, departing from Bacimus, he attached himself to the abbot Samuel in the solitude which was called Afa Gāḥgāḥ [In the province of Šire. A. d' Abbadie, Géodésie d'Éthiopie (Paris, 1873), p. 354.]. Then, leaving Samuel likewise, he withdrew into the solitude of Baracā, which is called 'Abiï Vagr, [Compare below, nos. 7, 14 and the Life of John, §3.]. He changed his seat and his master repeatedly, wandered through uncultivated regions, until, being more than thirty years old, he gathered some disciples to himself, with whom he resolved to found a new monastery. Its site was divinely shown to two scouts whom he had sent ahead, on Mount Bizan. Founder of the monastery of Bizan. Thither, then, Philip made his way; he built a monastery under the title of St. Michael the archangel, into which he soon gathered a great multitude of disciples, collected especially from orphans; in the same place he dedicated a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary. By the labour of his monks he cultivated the neighbouring solitudes, which were changed into fertile fields. As the monastery grew day by day, Philip's fame spread through all Ethiopia, and princes and peoples from every side began to turn their minds to him. The Mohammedan prince of the islands of Dahlak [This seems to be the λιμὴν Ἐλαία which Strabo and others mention (Strabo's Geography, book XVI, 4, 8, ed. Car. Müller, Paris, 1877, p. 656, with the notes, p. 769); in Latin, Aliaeu. Pliny, Naturalis historia, book VI, 29, 173, ed. C. Mayhoff (Leipzig, 1906), p. 502. Compare R. Basset, Histoire de la conquête de l' Abyssinie, vol. II, in Publications de l'École des Lettres d' Alger (1887), p. 451, note; and especially the same, Les inscriptions de l'île de Dahlak, in Journal Asiatique, ser. 9, vol. I (1893), p. 77 – 111.] himself sent envoys to him for the sake of reverence and friendship. Philip's authority extended even further into the interior region. Some tribes of the nation of the Bari, who dwell to the north of Abyssinia, below Nubia, were converted to the Christian faith by his disciples. Among them, or among another Mohammedan nation, a colony led out from Mount Bizan founded a new monastery. Soon, however, this prosperity was disturbed by adversities. Into his monastic laws, which he had taken above all from the rule of Pachomius [A brief summary of the rules established by Philip, which with an excessive word indeed you might call the typicon of the monastery of Bizan, is comprised in the paragraph of the Life of Philip to be read in the month Yakātit. Conti Rossini, volume cited, p. 94 – 98.], Philip, following the discipline of Eustathius, had mixed certain Jewish rites, and above all the observance of the sabbath: this he inculcated on everyone everywhere with such unseasonable zeal that he stirred up against himself the indignation of King David [Who took the kingdom in the year 1382 and abdicated it in the year 1411. Compare A. von Gutschmid, in W. Wright, Catalogue of the Ethiopic Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1877), p. VI; compare R. Basset, Études sur l'histoire d'Éthiopie, in Journal Asiatique, ser. 7, vol. XVIII (1881), pp. 95, 132 – 33; where, however, the most learned Vasily Bolotov clearly showed that the numbers of the years, taken from the history of James Bruce, must be corrected according to the chronology of Alfred von Gutschmid, vol. XVII (1911), p. 248 – 49. See also Basset, Hist. de la conquête de l'Abyssinie, volume cited, p. 309, note.] and of the metropolitan Bartholomew [Bartholomew, the second of this name, seems to have held the see in the reigns of the kings David I (1383 – 1411) and Isaac (1419 – 1429). Compare I. Guidi, Le liste dei metropoliti d' Abissinia, in Bessarione, vol. IV (1899), p. 8, note 5; and below, no. 14, p. 253, note 3.]. And so he was summoned by armed force to the royal city to plead his case before the metropolitan. He put his disciple Iebārcana-Crestos (May Christ bless us) in charge of the monastery with vicarious authority; and he himself went to the royal city, where his accusers loaded him with many charges before Bartholomew. When he could not bend his mind by any arguments or by any cruelties, he banished him to the island of Lake Ḥaïq [In a moderate-sized lake, which is likewise called Haïq, in the province of Angot, to the east of the town of Magdala. There is there a celebrated monastery dedicated to St. Stephen. Thither ecclesiastical men who had been convicted of some crime were usually banished. The metropolitan Bartholomew himself was sent away to the island of Haïq by King Zarea Iacob. Compare Basset, Hist. de la conquête de l'Abyssinie, pp. 281, note 2; 326, note 2.]. Philip spent some years there, until King David, having changed his mind, recalled him from exile. But this pardon was obstinately held back by the royal curator of the sacred things [In Ethiopic: 'aqābē sā'āt, "keeper of the hours", or 'aqābē esāt, "keeper of the fire". This name seems to have arisen from the former by a certain homophony. Without cause René Basset, relying on the authority of August Dillmann, reproaches Ludolf and William Bruce as though they had confused two offices (Hist. de la conquête de l'Abyssinie, p. 438, note 3). For with them agree Pedro Paez (Historia de Ethiopia, book I, c. 14; Beccari, work cited, vol. II, p. 52 – 53), Manoel de Almeida (Historia Aethiopiae, book V, c. 6; Beccari, same place, vol. VII, p. 35) and others, who knew the Ethiopian court from long experience and saw these persons with their own eyes playing their part, as it were, on the very stage.], named Saraqa Berhān (that is: Light has risen), who had sworn that he would not come out of custody and that not even his bones would be carried out from there when he was dead. After his enemy had at last been taken from the living by a portentous disease, Philip was permitted to return from exile. Yet he did not go straight to Mount Bizan, but for four years in the province of Amḥarā he preached the restoration of the Mosaic sabbath. Finally, having returned to his own, he spent a short time in the administration of the monastery. He died in the eighty-fourth year of his age, having designated our John as his successor. This, roughly, is what the writer of the Life set forth with barbarous eloquence, with a disorderly multitude of portents added, which not a little diminish the credibility of the narrative. Of the chronology of this history there will be occasion to speak below.

[4] John's homeland and family. Most closely bound up with the deeds of Philip is the Life of John, whose chief heads we now sketch. He came from the province of Sire in the interior of Ethiopia, between the city of Axum and the river Takazze See Basset, Hist. de la conquête de l'Abyssinie, p. 126, note 1.; in which his grandfather, named Qaso, a powerful and noble man, dwelt, in the place which is called Achsea, (§1). He, compelled by the envy of his fellow-citizens to change his soil, migrated to the province of Bur, and there founded a new farm or great estate, which in memory of his former seat he called Achsea. He had a son named Gabra Crestos, or Christodulus: from whom and his wife Chryse — for that is what the name Acrosia means [The name seems derived from the pious matron, the wife of Faustus, who is said to have received the apostle Peter at Rome, in the Acts of Peter with Simon, Lipsius-Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum apocrypha, vol. I, p. 78 and following; compare E. A. Wallis Budge, Gadla Ḥawārjāt. The Contendings of the Apostles, vol. I (London, 1899), p. 8 and following; Synaxarium aethiopicum on the 5th day of Ḥamlē, in Patrologia Orientalis, vol. VII, p. 234.] — children were born, of whom the last, as it seems (§§2, 4), was our John. To him the name was first given in baptism Zar'a Hājmānot, that is, Seed of Faith [The Ethiopic text is cut off at this place. From the Italian epitome which the editor prefixed, it is understood that the boy John was assigned by his parents to pasturing the flocks. Conti Rossini, volume cited, p. 66.]. He had not yet passed out of boyhood when he by chance met Philip, who was making a journey through the province of Bur, in the solitude Quelquālā [A place unknown to us. In the Life of St. Abia Egzie (in the British Museum codex Orient. 695) there is mention of the tract Qualaquelā, "in the jurisdiction of our father Nazraui," which savage robbers inhabited, accustomed to feed on the flesh of mice and elephants. Compare B. Turaiev, pp. 108, 115.]; having been deemed worthy of his blessing and counsels, he began already then to aspire to the monastic life. When his father had died, he moved his mother by vehement entreaty to give him leave to take up the solitary life. First, as it seems, he stayed for some time in a certain vast region whose name is Angēbēnāj. Then, when he had learned that Philip had returned to his monastery, he asked a certain monk named Jonah to bring him to him. Educated by Philip, With this man, then, as companion, he came to Mount Bizan and was presented to the abbot Philip on the 12th day of the month Taḫśaś, when he was in the fifteenth year of his age. Philip, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, understood that he was the boy whom he had once met in the wilderness of Quelquālā. He received him most lovingly and entrusted him to his disciple and companion named Isaac, by whom he was educated in sacred letters and in all monastic disciplines (§5 – 6). When he had thoroughly learned these within a very short time, Philip clothed him in the religious habit and called him by a new name, John (§7).

[5] He succeeded to his place. Not so very long afterwards — although the exact interval of time cannot be determined from the loose and languid narrative — Philip learned by a heavenly admonition that his life was nearly finished. And so, not without a certain murmuring of the brethren, he designated John as his successor, and trained him in this office for a year (§9). Then he died (§10). Summary of the things done by him, John, having taken up the administration of the monastery, was at first not lightly harassed by the envy of some factious monks (§11), until God himself raised up his spirit by a wonderful portent (§12). By heavenly vengeance a plague broke out on the seditious (§13). The survivors were almost wiped out by a long famine (§14), from which at last they were freed by John's prayers (§15). Thenceforth the monastery began to flourish with an abundance of all things and especially with the beauty of religious observance (§16). his fame, The name of John himself soon became illustrious throughout all Ethiopia (§17). To his innate majesty and wisdom was added the power of the prodigies which God worked through him. miracles, The monk Christodulus, who had rolled down a precipitous mountain, he preserved unharmed by his wonderful presence (§18). Another, named Jacob, he wonderfully snatched from a torrent (§19). Six monks whom he had sent to take care of the affairs of the monastery are killed on the journey by Mohammedans (§20). That their slaughter might not be left unpunished, John calls upon God as avenger (§21). The choice is given him from heaven of the calamity with which he wished the robbers to be smitten. And so, after the example of the prophet Elijah [Hence the surnames of Tishbite and Thisbe, by which, as Ludolf already noted, the saint and his monastery are sometimes called. See above, no. 1, p. 247.], he proclaims a drought upon their fields (§22), and, while the angel of the clouds is indignant in vain, he prevails with the will of God that for three continuous years and seven months it should not rain upon the lands of the Agarenes (§23 – 24). They, consumed almost to extermination by famine and pestilence, resolve to take refuge in John's mercy; but by a new prodigy they are struck blind on the journey, and only after long wanderings do they reach Mount Bizan (§25), where they are at first rebuked by John with a heavy reproof; then, peace having been concluded with him in perpetuity, they depart and, while they are returning, are drenched with abundant rain (§26). Other monks making a journey, when they were incautiously spending the night in a place infested by robbers, are wonderfully warned of the danger by the saint, who was far away. And the weapons of the wicked men, flying back, pierce those very men (§27). The monk Elias is suddenly healed of a grievous disease of the head (§28). Again a Mohammedan prince, who had wished John's disciples to serve the delight of his lust, when the saint had rebuked him through a messenger, at once began to rage with madness and a little afterwards perished miserably (§29). A monstrous serpent which had crept into his cell he killed with a single touch (§30). He reproaches his disciple Gabra Amlac (or Cyriodulus), who was doubting his admonitions, with his silent thought, and declares that the inmost hearts of all men are seen through by him (§31). A fugitive monk who had accused him of sacrilege before King Isaac is convicted of false accusation, and, having confessed his lie, at once gives up his soul (§32). buildings John built three churches, of which he dedicated one to the name of the holy martyr Behnam, another to Gabriel, the third to Michael the archangel (§33). At last, when he had governed the monastery for forty-five years, being called to the Lord by that same Michael, who was his guardian angel, he spoke his last words to his disciples (§34), and set Saraqa Berhān over them in his place (§35). death. He passed to eternal felicity on the thirteenth day of the month Ḫedār, the day after the feast of St. Michael, in the seventy-ninth year of his age; and while he is received in triumph by the whole court of the heavens, he was buried amid the immense grief and sorrow of his own (§36).

[6] The Life to be compared cautiously In this, roughly, can be comprised the sum of the things which the writer of the Life amplified with a flowing pen; except that by cutting away his eloquence we have made the narrative itself less absurd. How much credit it has, no prudent man will judge before he has read through in full the absurdities with which it is stuffed; nor, I think, could the passages which were omitted by the editor have been much worse than these which he judged worthy of the press. But who, seeking elegant sobriety, would read the Ethiopian hagiographers? Let us discern, then, what in so tasteless a farrago seems to have been handed down with sufficient probability. with the annals To this inquiry very timely help has been brought by Johannes Kolmodin, a Swede, who, besides other documents which he carried off from Ethiopia, recently edited brief annals, found by him in two exemplars in the villages of Addi-Neammin and Tsazzega in the province of Hamasen Traditions de Tsazzega, p. A 23-A 27.. It would be long to weigh one by one what that learned man has set out about the origin, the writer and the codices of that little work Same place, p. A 9-A 15.. It is established that these annals were composed in the seventeenth century by the presbyter Mahsanta Marjam (Mary's Ward); nor is it improbable that the codex of the church of Addi-Neammin is the autograph of the writer himself Kolmodin, volume cited, p. A 11.. Whether this Maḥṣanta Marjam was a monk of Mount Bizan is not clear. which have preserved But he shows himself not moderately concerned about the affairs and little memorials of the monastery; whose library he certainly visited and whose domestic histories he had in hand. Would that this man of little learning had read them a little more carefully and excerpted them with a less halting style! To the Life of John pertain in one way or another the mentions which follow.

[7] certain traces of the same history. In the year of grace XXIV, Ḥasā Zagā was plundered; then was born our father John of Dabra Bizan. In the year of grace XXV there died the aqāṣan, [Otherwise 'aqānṣen, or 'aqānṣan. This was the proper title of the governor who, subject to the king's legate in northern Ethiopia, or "Lord of the sea", administered the province of Sarāwe. K. Conti Rossini, Historia regis Sarṣa Dengel (Malak Sagad), in Corpus Script. christ. Orient., translation, ser. 2, vol. III (1907), p. 185.], Tacalē; then the community of Bizan grew strong [Kolmodin, not very accurately: "alors fut établie la communauté de Bizan". Same volume and column, p. A 29 – 30.]. In the year of grace XXX, our father Philip ordered the law of Moses to be copied… In the year of grace XXXIV, … our father Philip set out for Baracā… In the year of grace XXXVI, our father Philip returned from Baracā,… In the year of grace XLI the church of Mount Bizan was founded… In the year of grace L, Pope Bartholomew came forth. In the year of grace LII, there set out [ a word you would seek in vain in the lexicons. The Arabic they departed agrees with it to some extent. Kolmodin: they went up. Compare below, notes 16, 17.] our father Philip and the disciples of our father Māqaba Egzie (Keeper of God) into the land of Amḥarā; and they were twelve [Read: eleven, unless the twelfth name has fallen out in the text. These are the eleven masters of Ethiopia who are related to have been converted to the observance of the sabbath at Philip's exhortation in his Life, Conti Rossini, p. 107, where, by the same error, twelve is read instead of eleven.

And so, from our Annals, those eleven masters of Ethiopia seem to have been summoned to the king's tribunal together with Philip, whose doctrine they had embraced. See, however, below, no. 14, p. 253, note 1.] in number: father Tavalda Madchen That is: The Saviour is born. of Dabra Marjām That is: Mount of Mary., father Moses of Dabra Salām That is: Mount of Peace., father Matthew of Māia Saglā, father Daniel Zagadamāui That is: anchorite., father Paul of Agued, father Mark of Adiābo, father Matthew of Māia A'rāf, father Timothy of Algā Bārjā, father Archelides of Māia Daguā'lē In the Life of Philip: of Daguālē.,

father Matthew of 'Adi In the Life of Philip: 'Ad. Qau'o, father Timothy of 'Adi Gabā. In the year of grace LVI, they returned to their seats. In the year of grace LVIII, our father Philip rested In both codices: they rested.… In the year of grace LXXXIII, Ta'auqē carried off the mules (of the monastery) of Bizan [Compare the Life of John, §20. But in that narrative would the mules taken away have moved the writer of the annals less than the monks killed?]… In the year of grace CII, our father John rested… In the year of grace CVII, our father Saraqa Berhān set out , in the plural, as above. for the land of Amḥarā. In the year of grace CIX, he founded a church in Magargero. In the year of grace CX, our father Saraqa Berhān rested; in the same year our father Peter was appointed… In the year of grace CXIX, our father Peter set out again. Compare the following note. for the land of Amḥarā, and after three years they returned to their lands So, in the plural number, in both codices.. How these things are to be reconciled with the Life of Philip and the Life of John will appear more clearly when we have seen in what way and how far those two agree with each other.

[8] With the Life of Philip Our John is brought into the history of his master in two places only, and not long before the end of the narrative. First, where it is related how Philip was at last permitted to return from exile. When the hagiographer had set this out, as he is wont, in many words, he goes on in this way: Then, as he was coming out of the sea, his disciples father John and father Saraqa Berhān received him, in the little narrative about John who were embarking on the sea. And they embraced him. He, not unaware, said to them: "Who were those who received father Macarius as he came out of the island on which he had remained in banishment?" They said: "Father John the Little and father Bisoes." He said to them: "You too have become like these." Then, raising his hands, he laid them on the head of father John, and said: "May the blessing of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and my blessing rest upon you above your brethren, and may your name be heard in the land of Azeb That is, Ethiopia.." Then, raising his hands likewise, he blessed father Saraqa Berhān, to whom he said: "May my blessing and the blessing of John rest upon you, because your labour has been most dutiful to me and has nourished me." Then all those disciples of his also came to meet him, rejoicing at the sight of their father Life of Philip, ed. Conti Rossini, volume cited, p. 119..

[9] That our John is designated here, and with him the third head of the monastery of Mount Bizan, named Saraqa Berhān, to whom when dying he was to commit the administration of the monastery, does not agree. is so evident that it needs no proof [With what purpose John, when dying, appointed as heir of his office an old man together with whom, about fifty years before, he had greeted Philip on his release from exile, is another question. But certainly the hagiographer wished to designate him. For the rest, that Saraqa Berhān who was head of the monastery of Mount Bizan a few years after John (compare no. 17, below, p. 254) had been a disciple of Philip (Life of John, §35), which adds a little to the credibility of the little narrative. Nor does the passage in the Life of John (§29) stand in the way, where Saraqa Berhān, certainly the same one we are now dealing with, is called the "boy" of John. For the boy, that is, the disciple, of a head of a monastery could, in monastic style, be called a man already of mature age. See below, nos. 16, 17, p. 254.]. Yet in the Life of John, so far as it is known to us, we do not read that he met his master on the shore of Lake Ḥaïq. Nay, not even a word is touched on Philip's exile and long captivity. Unless, then, both passages of the narrative where these things were related were cut out by the copyists, or neglected by the editor — which is even further from likelihood — it must be said that the memory of those matters in the Life of John was obscured either by chance or by design. Which cause is more probable we shall try to see afterwards. Meanwhile note that our John bursts rather unexpectedly into the Life of Philip, since he had nowhere been named before in the narrative itself.

[10] How John Not much more aptly does another passage of the Life of Philip agree with the Life of John, where the old man, already very near to death, is related to have admonished his disciples to provide themselves with another head of the monastery. Let the hagiographer himself speak: When his followers had heard these things, they burst into tears, saying: "Father, father, in what place do you leave us? And where shall we find a father like you, who will teach us, who will exhort us, who will give us the drink of life from the fountain of the holy scriptures?" Philip the martyr said to them: "That cannot be at all. was designated head of the monastery by Philip Choose one who is to be father to you." Then his disciples said to him: "Have you told us anything? Do what God has commanded you." For once, while he was still living, his disciples had asked him in these words: "Father, who is to be our shepherd after you?" Philip the martyr said to them: "He has not yet come." And when he had come, his disciples said to him: "A certain boy has come, comely in appearance." Philip, before he had looked upon his face, said to them: "This is the very one who will be your father after me." And when he had laid his hand on him, he saw with his eyes a procession of angels poured around him, who overshadowed him with their wings: some of whom fanned him with shining fans; before him went seraphim and cherubim; at his right and at his left the hosts of God surrounded him; and on every side a procession of saints and martyrs thronged around him.

[11] Then, raising his eyes to heaven, he beheld God sitting on the holy and lofty throne. And when he had approached him, to whom be praise, (He) said to him: "Hail, Philip the martyr. The time has come for you, and when, in which you are to depart from this world, to pass over to life everlasting." And Philip said to his Lord: "Lord, would that you would add a little delay for me, that I may set my house in order and give my last commands to my disciples and my monastery." His Lord said to him: "Enough for you is the length of life you have already traversed, for by the assiduity of your labour and contest you have surpassed all the just who were before you. And as for the rule of your disciples Text: read: , do not be anxious, for great and illustrious and lofty are their degrees (of dignity); in them my Father who is in heaven takes delight; and the Holy Spirit protects their contest. But you, Philip, my servant, come from infirmity to prosperous health, from labour to rest, from mourning to joy, from death to life. For those whom my Father who is in heaven has chosen, death on earth does not befit, but rather a dwelling in heaven." Philip the martyr said to his Lord: "Grant me a privilege Properly: covenant or testament., as once you granted me." His Lord said to him: "What is there that I have not given you? For I have granted you many privileges." Philip the martyr signified to his Lord that some things, nevertheless, were still wanting. His Lord said to him: "Ask me what you desire, and I will give it you." Then Philip said to him: "Hear me, Lord; and let not the rule of my monastery be loosed until your second coming." His Lord said to him: "Be it as you have said." Again Philip said to his Lord: "Further, let my monastery not be burned by fire." His Lord said to him: "Be it as you have said." Again Philip said to him: "I would ask, for my part, that pestilent disease may not rage through my monasteries." And his Lord said to him: "This too shall be, as you have said." Then Philip said to his Lord: "And to all those who have believed my teachings, what will you give?" His Lord said to him: "The mercy of my Father shall befall them." Philip answered his Lord and said to him: "And to those who shall have been clothed in my habit, who shall have kept my tomb, what will you give them?" His Lord said to him: "Devouring fire shall not fall to them as their dwelling on account of their works." Again he said to him: "And whoever keeps my commemoration with gladness, satisfying the hungry and covering the naked, what will you say (of him)?" And he 〈answered Supplied from the context.〉: "He shall be a sharer of your inheritance, in your land." After he had given him these and similar privileges, the Saviour said to him, by his oracle: "On this very day the assembly of the first-born will be gathered, who will wait for your coming. Heb. 12, 23. Quickly set your house in order, lay your hands on the head of John your son; bless him as Moses blessed Joshua; give him a double spirit as Elijah gave a double one to Elisha." Isa. 38, 1, 4 Kings 2, 9. At this Philip the martyr, stirred with joy, said to his disciples: "On this very day the assembly of the first-born awaits the soul of your father, to lead it out from you. Long ago I told you, and now I say it to you again, as my Lord says: obey John your father. Whoever obeys John obeys the Holy Spirit; but whoever resists John resists the Holy Spirit." As he said these things, he raised his eyes to heaven; and his most glorious soul went forth. And the Saviour received him into his hands… Conti Rossini, place cited, p. 122 – 24.

[12] It is related otherwise in the Life of the other. This passage, though rather long, we have copied out entire, so that it might be more evident that it is not amicably reconciled with the Life of John. In both, indeed, Philip designates John as his successor, but in one way in the one and in another way in the other document. In this one, Philip on the last day of his life and almost at the final hour commands his disciples to choose an abbot for themselves. They answer that this office has long since been provided for by the saint himself together with the will of God. And the hagiographer himself, as though prompted by a belated recollection, adds that it had once been divinely revealed to Philip, on the day on which John came to Mount Bizan, that this little boy, whom he had not yet seen, would be his successor. On the contrary, in the Life of John, the latter was already known to Philip when he first entered the monastery. Yet Philip discloses nothing of the youth's future dignity, so that a murmuring breaks out among the brethren when he announces that John has already been chosen by God himself. Nor does he provide for the government of his house on the last day of his life, but a year before his death. These things are certainly not in obstinate conflict with the Life of Philip. Yet not a few other things clash more seriously with each other, which it is superfluous to note point by point in each document. Thus in the very little narrative which has just been recited, God promises to the dying Philip that a deadly plague

would never break out in his monastery, while in the Life of John (§5) it is read that shortly after Philip's death Mount Bizan was laid waste almost to extermination by plague and famine. These and other discrepancies manifestly prove that neither writer took care to reconcile his narrative with the other.

[13] The chronology of the Life of Philip We come back to the same point if, having worked out the reckonings, we inquire into which year each of the things related of Philip and of John alike falls. But first of all a hinge must be found on which this whole chronology may rest. In the Life of John, where nevertheless the order of times is noted fairly accurately, no number of years whatever is read [Yet the year of John's birth seems to have been indicated, but to have dropped out through the carelessness of the copyists. Life §2; compare below.]; and in the Life of Philip only one, and that one certainly false or corrupted by a copyist. For Philip is said to have been born in the year 6591 from the creation of the world, 1099 from the nativity of Christ: let him believe it who does not know that King 'Amda Syon (Pillar of Zion), in whose reign Philip was born, ruled from the year 1314 to 1344 Gutschmid, place cited, p. VI – VII., and that King David, by whom he was driven out and restored, ascended the throne in the year 1382 and abdicated the kingdom in the year 1411. His contemporary was the metropolitan Bartholomew, who harassed our Philip See above, no. 3, p. 248.. With these marks of time at least the indications gathered from the Life of John clearly agree, as we shall see at once. From there, therefore, we must set out. Now, among the documents which are called Axumite there is recorded a diploma by which King David assigned some estates to Philip of Bizan in the year 7900 from the creation of the world, of Christ 1400 [K. Conti Rossini, Documenta ad illustrandam historiam. I. Liber Axumae, no. 11; in Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium. Scr. Aethiopici, text, second series, vol. VIII (1909), p. 23; translation, p. 26.]. Already then, therefore, Philip had been permitted to return to his monastery; unless King David is to be thought to have conferred his benefits on an exile whom he did not judge worthy of pardon. And Philip seems to have returned home not a long time before his death [This is clearly gathered from the narrative of the Life, as Conti Rossini rightly noted, Il Gadla Filpos, volume cited, p. 66.]. In this the annals of Addi-Neammin agree with the hagiographer, which relate that he was back home in the year "of grace" LVI and passed to the Lord in the year LVIII See above, no. 7, p. 250.. But we read in the Life of John that Philip was divinely warned to set his affairs in order in the year next before he died, on the feast of John the Baptist, the beginning of the annual cycle, which was a Sunday Life of John, §8.. Now after the year 1400 the 2nd day of September, which is certainly designated here, first fell on a Sunday in the year 1403, and then again in the year 1408. And so Philip died in the year 1404 [That learned man Conti Rossini thinks that Philip died in the year 1403 (Atti della Accad. dei Lincei, volume cited, p. 154); Kolmodin, however, from the Annals of Addi-Neammin, in the year 1406 (volume cited, p. A 31, note 2). The calculation or conjecture of both is opposed by the reasoning we have just set out, which will be splendidly confirmed by the chronology of the Life of John.], on the 5th day of the month Naḥase, July 29 Life of Philip, Conti Rossini, volume cited, p. 126., on which day he is also commemorated in the Ethiopian synaxarion [Ed. I. Guidi, Patrologia orientalis, vol. IX, p. 274; where note that the days of the months are numbered in the Gregorian style; and so for the 11th day of August read July 29.]. The other spans of his life can be determined roughly thus. He was born in the year 1320, or 1321 [In the Life of Philip, his birthday is noted after the manner of the Syrians and the Arabs: on the ninth day of the month of former Tishri (October 9). The hour of the night and of the day is likewise recorded with tiresome accuracy (ed. Conti Rossini, volume cited, p. 74). But nothing can be gathered from this for the present question.], if the 84 years of his age were computed by the same reckoning as the years of John, as we shall presently see. Some time after the year 1350 he founded a monastery on Mount Bizan, where he lived in flourishing age and fortune until the times of King David, by whom he was driven into exile, at an uncertain time indeed, yet not before the year 1387.

[14] to be dug out from elsewhere. So far the Life of Philip. He would be incautious who should wish, without applying selection and discrimination, to complete or correct it from those annals of Addi-Neammin. For besides its being uncertain from what starting-point their "years of grace" are numbered [By this name the Ethiopians indiscriminately call series of years computed from one starting-point or another. See Dillmann, in the lexicon at the word . On Ethiopian chronology, especially in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, most worth reading are the things which Vasily Bolotov touched on briefly in his posthumous essay , in Vizantijskij Vremennik, vol. XVII (1911), p. 248 – 49.], the numbers themselves, however they are computed, do not fit the intervals of time which are certain from elsewhere [Let these mentions be compared, for example, with one another and with the histories: In the year of grace 23 King Saïfa Ar'ād died… In the year of grace 89 King Zarea Iacob went down (to the city of) Axum… In the year of grace 162 King Lebna Dengel began to reign. Now Saïfa Ar'ed died in the year 1372 (Gutschmid in Wright, Ethiopic Manuscripts in the British Museum, p. VII). Zarea Iacob was crowned in the city of Axum in the year 1434 (Gutschmid, same place; compare J. Perruchon, Les chroniques de Zar'a Yâ'eqôb et de Ba'eda Mâryâm, in Bibliothèque de l'École pratique des Hautes Études, fasc. 93, 1893, p. XX). Finally Lebna Dengel took the kingdom in the year 1508.]. We are taught nothing clear, therefore, when we read that Philip died in the year of grace LVIII. Besides, if his journey to the province of Amharā, which is recorded under the year LII, and from which he is said to have returned in the year LVI, was in fact his banishment to the island of Ḥaïq, as is quite likely [Nevertheless it must not be passed over that Philip, after he was let out of custody, preached his doctrine for four years in the province of Amharā (Life, place cited, p. 120; compare Conti Rossini, same place, p. 66, and above, no. 3, p. 248). But whether the writer of the annals confused this journey with Philip's banishment, or, omitting the former, related only the latter, or finally whether the hagiographer himself of his own accord devised that Philip, besides the years spent in custody, travelled for a whole four years in Amharā, does not pertain to the present question to inquire. At all events it is suspicious that an exile, especially a decrepit one and anxious about his own, should not have hastened straight home on recovering his liberty.], then Philip was in exile from the year 1396 to the year 1402, and was banished from his home when King David assigned estates to him by that diploma which was recorded in the book of Axum See above, no. 13, p. 252.. Who would not rather suspect some error in the annals at this place? A more approved testimony also will have to be awaited before it is asserted without doubt that the metropolitan Bartholomew was created in the year 1394, ten years before Philip's death [Compare above, no. 3, p. 248, note 6. Kolmodin trusts his author too much, Traditions de Tsazzegga, p. A 30, note 9.].

[15] In the Life of John, As for John, his birth year was certainly noted by the writer of the Life, but dropped out through the carelessness of the copyists. Yet the principal periods of his life can be defined within almost certain limits. various intervals of time He governed the monastery for 45 years. He died, therefore, in the year 1449 [Kolmodin elicits the same year from the annals of Addi-Neammin, volume cited, p. A 32, note 4. Conti Rossini fixes the year 1448, volume cited, pp. 154, 170.], in which the 13th day of the month Ḫedār (November 9), the day after the feast of St. Michael, actually fell on a Sunday, as is related in the Life (§36). But if he lived 79 years, by our way of reckoning he must be said to have been born in the year 1370. But the hagiographer relates in express words that his birthday was the 12th of the month Ḫedār, on the feast of St. Michael, which day was a Sunday (§2). And this mark of time, expressed point by point, stands more firmly in itself than the number of the saint's years; since this number, even if it suffered no harm from the copyists, must have been computed from John's birth year, whereas the year and day of his birth were not found from the sum of his age. Now the 13th day of the month Ḫedār could not coincide with a Sunday before the year 1372 [In the annals of Addi-Neammin (compare above, no. 13), we read that John was born in the year "of grace" 24, which was 1371/1372 if the year "of grace" 102 falls in the year 1449/1450.]; unless we wish to go back even further from the year 1370. Either, then, the numbers in the codices have been corrupted, or the writer himself used a certain reckoning of his own in computing the saint's age: namely, he counted in the year which John had begun on the very day on which he died; and in addition he counted his birth year, as though it had already been completed by the saint: a reckoning which seems not to have been unusual among the Ethiopians, as also among the Persians [By this reckoning, namely, 28 years of reign were computed for King Saïfa Ar'ād and 10 for King Vedem Asfarē. Compare Kolmodin, volume cited, p. A 29, note 4.]. are more certainly noted. With this chronology the intervals of time agree quite aptly which are gathered from the annals of Addi-Neammin, where we read that John was born in the year "of grace" 24 and died in the year 102, 44 years after Philip, since the latter died in the year 58 Above, no. 13, p. 252.. The rest are disposed of with not much more difficult labour. The annals refer Philip's withdrawal into the solitude of Baracā to the year "of grace" 34, when John was about ten years old, and his return to the year 36 Same place.. It is worth noting that the annals in this place too stand nearer to the Life of John than to the Life of Philip, in which Philip is narrated to have withdrawn into the solitude of Baracā before he founded the monastery of Bizan. Our John, moreover, came to Mount Bizan one month after he had reached the fifteenth year of his age Life, §6., that is, on the 8th day of December of the year 1387, or 1386, if we use not our reckonings but the hagiographer's. And since he was received by Philip himself and shortly afterwards admitted among the monks, he

had certainly not yet been struck by the indignation of King David. Yet John did not have him as master for very long, for Philip, who in the year 1400 had already returned home, spent at least four years in exile Compare note 1 and the Annals of Addi-Neammin, above, no. 14.. He could first have turned Philip's eyes upon himself after the old man, already worn out with hardships and age, had at last betaken himself back to his own. From both Lives, of Philip and of John, it is established that some marvellous little story had to be devised to explain how a younger monk of about thirty years had been put in his place by the founder of the monastery, while that Iebārcana Crestos, who had acted as Philip's deputy during his exile, was still alive, as it seems.

[16] The Life of Philip Hence arises the question: to which of the two documents greater credit should be given, and how much? Neither can clearly be said to be earlier than the other. At first sight the Life of Philip has the prerogative of antiquity. Nay, in the very monastery of Mount Bizan, in the year 1891, there was shown to Leonillo Bettini a codex in which it is reported to have been written by Isaac, the saint's disciple Bullettino della Società Geografica Italiana, volume cited, p. 209.: which cannot be called false by a prejudiced judgement. But certainly that Isaac must have been long-lived, was not written before John's death, for he did not write while John was living. In that genealogy by which Philip's spiritual lineage is carried back to Antony the Great, Philip himself is said to have begotten John, and John Iebārcana Crestos Life of Philip, ed. Conti Rossini, p. 79.. But this name is so plainly false [Compare above, nos. 5, 8, 12, pp. 249, 250, 252, and the Life of John, §35.] that it may rightly be asked whether this passage was interpolated by some forger. But it does not thereby become any more probable that the Life of Philip, as it is now read, was composed while John was alive. For that would not have been done without his authority and counsel. Yet nothing of the kind is mentioned in the Life of John. Certainly it could also have happened that matters of less moment escaped a hagiographer, especially a careless and garrulous one. But in the history of Philip itself John certainly does not play the part which he would have had if it had been written at the time when he himself was administering the monastery. Of Philip's return to Mount Bizan and the things done by him at the end of his life hardly anything is touched on, which nevertheless a writer who had received the aged founder of the monastery back among his own from a long exile would have pursued vividly. And not only John but also his successor, Saraqa Berhān, is brought into the narrative in passing and with no display, as though he had already completed the brief years of his government and his majesty no longer dazzled the eyes of mortals See above, no. 12, p. 252..

[17] and displays the marks of a later age Moreover, not a few events have been transferred by a certain artful anticipation to the times of Philip himself, of which his contemporaries, or even those close to his time, saw only the first beginnings. To Matthias of Semaglen, that head of a monastery who had accused him with great hostility before the patriarch, Philip foretells that his own disciples, as the years glided by, would at last come out on top in their dispute with Matthias's disciples, and that a time would come when, while Mount Bizan flourished, the monastery of Semaglen would be overthrown by adverse fortune Life of Philip, Conti Rossini, volume cited, p. 120.. Clearer still and more open is the prophecy Same place. by which he is said to have foretold to one of his followers named Nathanael, in Darnobā, the victory of his doctrine, using these very words: From that king shall be born an upright king, who shall reign with justice: he shall ratify my law, and shall greatly enlarge my monastery. Displays the marks. That is to say, the hagiographer safely foretold these things which had already happened, when King Zarea Iacob (1434 – 1468) at last decided the case in favour of the Judaizers and infected all Ethiopia with their superstitions [Compare A. Dillmann, Ueber die Regierung, insbesondere die Kirchenordnung, des Königs Zar'a-Jacob, in Abhandlungen der kaiserl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Phil.-hist. Cl., Abth. II (1884), pp. 26, 45 – 47; Perruchon, Chroniques de Zar'a Ya'eqôb, volume cited, p. XXV – XXVI.] In what year he passed this law is not established; yet it is hardly probable that in the first years of his reign, his power not yet grown to maturity, he undertook a thing full of odium, which had so long stirred up the hatreds of the factions [The unknown writer who composed the Life of King Zarea Iacob in the reign of Lebna Dengel (between the years 1508 and 1540) testifies that, when he was younger, he saw with his own eyes how the Mosaic sabbath had once been held in contempt. Perruchon, volume cited, p. 80 – 81. Even if he set his hand to the pen on the very day on which King Lebna Dengel ascended the throne, the time at which he had seen these things as a boy would have to be put later rather than earlier.]. John certainly did not see triumphant the Eustathian doctrine in which he had been brought up by Philip. Nor does his successor Saraqa Berhān seem to have received any sign of royal goodwill. On the contrary, if the annals of Addi-Neammin deserve credit in this, in the year "of grace" CVII he committed himself to a journey which is exceedingly like an exile, and from which he is not said to have returned. Nay more, the fourth head of the monastery of Mount Bizan, Peter, who was created in the year "of grace" CX, in the year CXIX likewise travelled in the province of Amḥarā, from which he did not return until the year CXXII, certainly after the death of King Zarea Iacob See above, no. 7, p. 250.. This, then, is the only span of time in which there could have been room for the donation with which the same King Zarea Iacob is said to have enriched Taualda Madchen, abbot of Mount Bizan [Liber Axumae, no. XVII; Conti Rossini, Corpus script. christ. orient., volume cited, p. 25; translation, p. 28 – 29. Another, adulterated, exemplar of this diploma from the archive of the monastery of Bizan had already been published by the same learned man Conti Rossini, Il Gadla Filpos, volume cited, p. 164.]. In short: by not a few indications, which it is not worth the labour to collect into one, it is clearly shown that the Life of Philip was written no small interval after John himself had died.

[18] In credibility On the contrary, in John's Life such certain indications of a later age are not detected. Nothing prevents us from believing that it was really written by a disciple who knew John (§§31, 37). Certainly it is full of trifles and absurdities, and whoever cannot bear these had better not touch the Ethiopians at all. But even in that most absurd flow of speech one recognizes a witness who is credulous indeed but not dishonest, who tried to adorn the things known to him with hagiographical style and flowers. Where he nods, his dreams do not present the spectacle of another century. He barely touches with a single word the zeal of the Eustathian sect and the restoration of the Mosaic law, whether because, under John's moderation, this ardour cooled for a while in the monastery of Bizan, or because it had to be concealed for the sake of the times. Nay, he passes over in silence Philip's expulsion and the other hardships which he had experienced in championing that restoration, as though the hour had not yet come when those old hatreds could be stirred up again. Much less, in his narrative, does he anticipate the novelties afterwards introduced by King Zarea Iacob; nor does he unseasonably strive to make John appear to have been the standard-bearer of the party which at last prevailed in the Abyssinian church. Still more closely to our question pertains the fact that in the Life of John no traces are uncovered which lead to the Life of Philip. and perhaps in antiquity This, then, our writer did not read; nor certainly did he learn from it the things which he himself recorded of Philip. But could he have been ignorant of it if it had already been written then in the same monastery and lay open to all to be read and listened to? the Life of John is superior. There are not lacking, then, reasons why the Life of John should seem older than the Life of Philip [We have already noted that the Annals agree better with the Life of John than with the Life of Philip. See above, no. 15, p. 253.]. Yet in an obscure case it is better to suspend judgement; since of the two documents neither has been handed down to us with sufficient certainty.

[19] John's posthumous glory. Outside Mount Bizan and its neighbourhood the cult of St. John did not spread very widely. Of his Life only one exemplar has so far been found: the rest perhaps devouring time has destroyed; but it was certainly not through its injury that the commemoration of our John was sometimes omitted in the Ethiopian synaxarion [John is passed over in silence on the 13th day of Ḫedār in the codex of the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, Aethiop. 126. Zotenberg, Catalogue, p. 162 – 63.]. And in the exemplars where it is read, it lay hidden rather obscurely, until it was brought to light by Job Ludolf, as we have already said. In the very monastery of Bizan, John's glory soon became obsolete [Fr. Manoel Barradas S.J., who inquired of the monks on the spot about the origin of the monastery of Bizan, seems not to have heard even the name either of Philip or of John. Beccari, work cited, vol. IV, p. 267 – 68. Nor did the fame of either reach the other priests of the S.J. who visited Mount Bizan in the seventeenth century.]. Whether of the three churches which the saint is said to have built Life, §23. any at least survives today and has preserved any trace of its founder, we have not been able to find out. Yet on the topographical sketch which L. Bettini drew, on the northern slope of Mount Bizan there is marked a "Convent of the Vision" Bullettino della Società Geografica, volume cited, p. 207.. Perhaps it is situated in the place where John, having gone out of the monastery, is said to have complained to the Lord of the obstinacy of his monks and to have been consoled by a divine presence and portent [Life, §12. Nor does Bettini seem to have learned anything about the memory of John from the natives. The wholly fabulous history of Philip, which he took down from the mouth of the common people (Bullettino, volume cited, p. 209 – 210), has hardly anything in common with the literary monuments which have been reported above.]. More certainly to be referred to our John is the well of the abbot John, protected by a wall of masonry, of not unhandsome workmanship, which the same L. Bettini thinks was built in the fifteenth century, before the arts in Ethiopia, exhausted by old age and devastations, collapsed Bullettino, volume cited, p. 213.. Concerning the cult and posthumous glory of St. John nothing more has become known to us.

[20] Source and plan of the edition. The codex from which the Life of St. John was edited by that learned man Carlo Conti Rossini comprises 110 parchment leaves, 0m, 295 × 0, 26, written in two columns, of which the first is blank; leaves 2 – 62 are filled by the Life of Philip, and finally fol. 64 – 110 by the Life of John. Both were written by a copyist named Gabra Dengel (Servant of the Virgin), son of Valda Filpos (Son of Philip) and Ṣegē Hājmānot (Grace of Faith), whose handwriting, neat and not inelegant,

does not seem to display any certain mark of age. About 20 leaves were omitted by the editor for the sake of brevity, not with too great loss to the history. Yet, so as not to present a mutilated document, we asked that learned man Conti Rossini to communicate to us the passages he had omitted. He courteously answered us that he would most gladly do this if, for preparing the edition, he had had a complete transcript copied for him in Eritrea. Since matters stood thus, we thought it superfluous to publish the Ethiopic text again in selections. We have therefore translated it such as it was available to us [Of the copyists' mistakes we have noted only those which to some extent hinder the understanding of the narrative.]. And so that readers might in some way measure the gaps yawning here and there in the narrative, we have copied into the margin the numbers of the leaves from the edition of the renowned Conti Rossini.

LIFE OF ST. JOHN

John of Dabra Bizan in Ethiopia. (S.)

Translated into Latin from the Ethiopic edition of Carlo Conti Rossini. Compare Preliminary Commentary, no. 20.

[1] We begin, with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to describe the contest and the other deeds of John, father of monasteries, who was an offspring of the seed of the renowned, the powerful and the brave from the people of Aḥsea (and) from the princes of Sira [The province of Sira, in the kingdom of Tigray, stretches from the west of the town of Axum as far as the river Takazze. Compare Basset, Conquête de l'Abyssinie, volume cited, p. 126, note 1.]. f. 64, f. 64v. John's homeland, family, parents Now, on account of the contention which arose among them for the sake of rule and jurisdiction, a certain man of the princes of Sira, whose name was Qaso, changing his soil, set out and settled in the land of Bur [There were two cantons named Bur, of which one was called the greater, the other the lesser, in the maritime region of the kingdom of Tigray. Emm. Barradas, Tratato segundo. Do reino de Tygrê e seus mandos, c. I, Beccari, work cited, vol. IV, p. 85.], where he acquired a great quantity of gold and silver, herds, estates and fields. There too he founded a great farm, which he called the farm of Aḥsea [See Preliminary Commentary, no. 4, above, p. 248; Conti Rossini, Atti della Accademia dei Lincei, volume cited, p. 166 – 67.], situated not far from the Water of Balaslē, in which he took a wife and begot a son, to whom he gave the name Gabra Crestos That is, Christodulus., a vigorous man, defender of his kinsmen, skilled, rich in wealth, brave, fit for conducting the affairs of his own people and of his fellow-citizens, among whom this lot fell to him because from them was to be born a holy man and catholic prophet cātolicāui.. Gabra Crestos was an excellent man; who took a wife named Chryse See Preliminary Commentary, no. 4, above, p. 249.. And Chryse was a just woman, devoted to fasting and loving the poor, who gave alms secretly and openly and every day adored (God) a thousand times without intermission, until she streamed with sweat. and prodigious birth. Moreover she prayed to God and raised her eyes to him that he would give her a son who would be acceptable to God. And while, in the night of the Lord's day, on the 12th day of the month Ṭer [January 7, a day which does not coincide with a Sunday from the year 1369 to the year 1375. Yet the rest of the chronology of the Life is not shaken by this. For it is clearer than daylight that the day which is signified in this place was not handed down by memory or letters, but was gathered by the hagiographer from John's birthday by a futile reckoning.], on the feast of Michael, she was suppliantly beseeching God with a contrite heart and bathed in tears, a vision was shown to her … f. 65.

[2] In these days a pestilent fever infected this region; from which plague very many were dying, and hardly any recovered; but to the house of Chryse and of all who were near to her Text: to them; by syllepsis Chryse and her household are designated., the pestilence of this fever did not come nor enter (there), because the power of the Holy Spirit resided in the infant whom Chryse had in her womb. f. 65v. And when the time came for her to give birth, she bore a splendid, lovely infant of sweet countenance on the 12th day of the month Ḫedār, on the feast of Michael, on the Lord's day, in the 〈twenty-fourth Supplied from the Annals of Addi-Neammin; compare Preliminary Commentary, no. 7.〉 year of grace of John the evangelist, toward the end of the night … f. 66v. And when the infant reached the fortieth day, they carried him to the church and baptized him in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and gave him the name Zara Hājmānot [That is, seed or sowing of faith. In this place the hagiographer seems to have narrated how John's parents destined their son to pasturing the flocks. See Conti Rossini, volume cited, p. 66.]…

[3] Now when Mār [Here and in what follows , which in the mouth of the hagiographer seems to have sounded like a kind of proper name.] Philip came into that wilderness (of the province) of Bur whose name is Qualquālā See Preliminary Commentary, no. 4, p. 249, note 3., Having received Philip's blessing, which is situated near the farm [Or colony. By the same word a city or town can also be understood. Here Achsea is meant, which was the seat of John's parents.], he met that boy, whom he blessed with a pious benediction, saying: "May the blessing of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and the blessing of our Lady Mary, virgin in mind and body, the blessing of the prophets and apostles, and the blessing of the watchful angels, and the blessing of the just and of the martyrs, the blessing of virgins and of monks, and the blessing of the holy church, which is the assembly of the Apostles, rest upon you and remain unto the perpetuity of the ages of the age." f. 69, f. 69v. When the heavenly ones had heard these blessings uttered by Mār Philip, they said: "Amen, amen and amen." Then the boy conceived a spiritual resolve in his mind; He withdraws into solitude. and he said to his mother: "I am going to depart from you." His mother said to him: "Why do you desert me, son, since your father is dead? You are the solace of my heart and the gladness of my eyes. You are in the place of a staff to my old age and a lamp to my sight. Let not my life be in sorrow, nor hide yourself far from me." He would not hear (his mother's) voice; he said to her: "Bless me." She said: "Go, son, where you are to go; and may Michael the angel go (with you), who will lead you in the way of justice and peace, by which he led Israel. And I myself too will seek the ways of justice which you seek; and I will walk after you and follow you." And the boy's mind was filled with wisdom and understanding, according to what Scripture says: "〈That there may be given Supplied from Prov. 1, 4.〉 to the little child 〈subtlety, to the young man Supplied from Prov. 1, 4.〉 knowledge 〈and Supplied from Prov. 1, 4.〉 understanding"; and elsewhere it says: "God makes the little ones wise." Prov. 1, 4, Psalm 18, 8. And so he was brought up in prudence and grew up in reverence for God. Then unexpectedly he set out, alone by himself. Nor did Michael the angel desert him, but kept constant guard over him, lest the unclean spirits of Mastema Or of Satan. should molest him or approach him,

[4] To Philip, And when the boy had heard that Mār Philip had returned from the vast solitude See Preliminary Commentary, nos. 3, 15, above, pp. 248, 253., he took counsel with a certain monk of this region, which is called Angebenāi, and said to him: "By God (I beseech you), bring me to Mār Philip." f. 70. He took him with him and, setting out with him, brought him to one of the crossroads of this place. Evening was already at hand; night followed. And the blessed boy began to pray in these words: "In you, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded; in your justice deliver me and rescue me. Psalm 30, 2; 70, 1 – 2; 30, 3. Incline your ear to me, and make haste to rescue me." Likewise he said: "Have mercy on me, for my soul trusts in you, and in the shadow of your wings I have hoped." Psalm 56, 2. He also said: "For all who wait for you shall not be confounded. Psalm 24, 2 – 5; Let all who do wicked things continually be confounded. Show me your ways, O Lord, and direct me in your paths, and direct me in your justice." When Jonah the monk had heard him praying in these words, struck with admiration he said to him: "Who taught you these prayers?" He said: "Who taught the prophets and apostles, if not certainly their Lord himself, Jesus Christ, and the Paraclete, who gave them wisdom? The same taught me and made me wise." And while both were pursuing their journey together, they came to a certain plain stretched out in the middle of the solitude. f. 70v. Suddenly they met this boy's own brothers and all the other kinsmen of his father See Preliminary Commentary, no. 4, p. 249.. Catching sight of them far off on the road, he said to Jonah the monk: "Stop a little." And he stopped. (The boy) prayed from the bottom of his heart, saying: "Lord, my ruler, cover me with the shadow of your wings, hide me with the covering of your light, and let the voice of your command be my armour, with which I may be covered Text: and fertile (so), read: , God protecting him, lest they see me." Psalm 16, 8. When he had said these things, he heard a strong voice from heaven (saying): "I have appointed you a chosen vessel, like Paul, an ambrosial tongue, and I will make you father of multitudes by the thousand." Acts 19, 15. When these words had been said, (God) sent to him Michael the archangel, who was to cover him and carry him on his shining wings, so that his kinsmen should not see him. They, therefore, joined right hands with that monk, who seemed to them to be making the journey alone; and having kissed him they departed from him; but the boy they did not see: for their eyes were dimmed with darkness so that they should not see him. Luke 24, 16.

[5] he is brought; Then John the monk and that boy came to the monastery of Bizan, and stood at the door. One of the ministers came upon them, who said to them: "Where have you come from and what business have you?" They said to him: "We have no business except only to see the face of Mār Text: Mari. Philip. Go, then, and ask him in our words that we may be admitted to him." f. 71. The door-keeper went off and carried the message to Mār Philip, saying: "Behold, a monk has come, having with him a certain beautiful boy, full of grace, with sparkling eyes, whose body has not yet been worn thin." When he heard these things, who, admonished by divine will, Mār Philip, who was then staying in his cell, rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, and said to the door-keeper: "Why

have you ordered them to wait? Go quickly and bring them to me. For my Lord has revealed to me that this is the chosen boy: blessing him, when I was in the solitude of Qualquelā, I knew that the Holy Spirit dwelt in him. For he is the boy of whom I once forewarned you that he would be your father after me; who, enjoining things old and new, is to strengthen and exalt my house."

[6] He receives the boy, The monks, when they had heard the old man saying these things, marvelled and brought those whom they had just found to Mār Philip. He, as soon as he saw the boy, took him up in his arms, set him on his lap, and, with his hands clasped about his neck, imprinted a spiritual kiss upon him, and said to him: "Greetings, little son, who has brought you here, to the monastic solitude, which neither men nor women inhabit?" The blessed boy said: "The providence of God has brought me to you, that I might follow your footsteps and learn from you the sublime observance of his law and precepts." f. 71v The old man was filled with admiration when he had heard the sweetness of the boy's voice and (saw) the ardour of his face and the loveliness of his form. Now that day was the twelfth of the month Taḫśaś, on the feast of Michael the angel, at which time (the boy) had reached the fifteenth year of his age See Preliminary Commentary, no. 15, above, p. 253.. And Mār Philip said: "Go, to his disciple Isaac call that monk named Isaac [He is mentioned among the first disciples of Philip, concerning whom below, at §8.], (a man) wise and learned, one of the seventeen disciples who lived with me in the solitude; for (he is) a man given to ascetic labour and temperance." They brought him, and he stood before the old man, who said: "Isaac!" He said: he commits him to be educated "What is it, lord?" He said to him: "Take this boy, and teach him the oracles of God; form him for all good works and virtues, and see that he learns the eighty-one books of the law." Isaac said to him: "Be it done, lord, as you desire." And after a few days, with God's help, he had grasped all the books of the law and committed them to memory; he had learned the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Sirach; moreover he learned Job, Daniel and all the minor prophets; he learned also the (Mosaic) law, the Gospel, all the epistles of our fathers the Apostles, and all their expositions that concern Christ; and he was sharp and intelligent.

[7] And the old man Philip asked Isaac: "Is the boy learning the oracles of God diligently? See that you teach him what I commanded you." f. 72. He said to him: "Indeed, father, he has learned everything thoroughly. Nor did I teach him, but the Holy Spirit who dwells in him himself taught him, so much that he came out superior to all. To me indeed it seems, lord, that he learned with someone else." The old man said: "Glory be to my Lord, for the things which he has manifested to this boy." Accordingly Philip, and soon clothes him in the monastic habit. when he had found that he had advanced so far, ordered the monastic habit to be brought, and, prayer having been made over him, with his own hands he clothed him with the habit and the girdle [This is the first of the three degrees in the reception of the monastic habit, by the rite of the Abyssinians. See I. Guidi, in Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. I, col. 226.], in the year of age which he had then reached: for he had been ordered by a divine oracle to act thus. And he gave him the name John and instructed him in all the precepts of justice and the laws of the monastic life…

[8] When these things, further, had been accomplished See Preliminary Commentary, nos. 5, 15, above, pp. 249, 253., Mār Philip grew old, and, having reached the term of his life, felt himself worn out by excessive fasts and labours. f. 74v. And when he was near to death, Philip, called to the Lord, there came an angel of God whose name is Gabriel the prince: for he had been appointed to guard him Text: he spoke, read: , all his days. And he said to him: "Hail." The old man answered him, saying: "Who are you?" He said: "I am Gabriel the angel, who 〈have guarded you Supplied from the context.〉 from your infancy." f. 75. (The saint) said to him: "What do you say, lord?" (The angel) said to him: "My Lord has sent me to you. Isa. 18, 1. Set your house in order, and set over your own one who will guard them. For shortly you are to depart from this world to where there is neither fever nor disease." When he had heard the angel saying these things, he rejoiced and exulted in the Holy Spirit. And at the beginning of the annual cycle, on the feast of John the Baptist — which was a Sunday See Preliminary Commentary, no. 13, above, p. 252. — Mār Philip commanded that the signal be struck and that all his little sons should come together, he admonishes his disciples who were in number DCCCCLXVII. And he said to them: "Hear, my brethren and sons: I have grown old indeed, and the time has come for me to depart from this fragile world. I am setting out to God my Lord, as his angel who guards me has announced to me. But do you choose (him) who is to be your father after me and to take thought for the affairs of your souls." that they may choose a head of the monastery for themselves When he had said these things to them, they burst into bitter weeping and could not raise their voice before him, prevented by their excessive reverence for him. And again he said the same things to them as before.

[9] Then with difficulty and with amazement they answered him, saying: "While you are here, we do not need another master." He said to them: "Have you not, then, little sons, heard what the prophet said: 'Who is the man that shall live, and shall not see death?' And likewise Paul says: 'We tell you a hidden word: namely, we shall all die.' Psalm 88, 49; 1 Cor. 15, 51. Come, then, choose for yourselves one who is to be your father, and present him to me." f. 75v They said to him: and when they refuse, he himself designates John, "Only do what God has commanded you, and set over us whom you please, and by your word he will help us." Mār Philip said to them: "God has made John great among you and has appointed him to be your father: (so) obey his voice." And when they had heard these words uttered by Mār Philip, a very few of the brethren began to murmur, saying: not without the grumbling of the envious. "There are (men) of the highest rank in the monastery, who have grown old: father Iebārcana Crestos [May Christ bless us. One of the first disciples of Philip, who gathered to him in the solitude of Guadā, before he had thought of founding the monastery of Bizan (Life of Philip, ed. Conti Rossini, p. 88). He was ordered by Philip to lead out a colony of monks (same place, p. 109); and while Philip was in exile he governed Mount Bizan with vicarious authority (same place, p. 112); compare Preliminary Commentary, nos. 3, 15, 16, pp. 248, 253. In the Life of Philip, John's successor is called Iebārcana Crestos. See Preliminary Commentary, no. 16, above, p. 253.], who for the right faith was a martyr among the unbelievers; and father Jeremiah [A deacon, of whom the Life of Philip speaks in almost the same places as of Iebārcana Crestos.], a worker of miracles, who commands the clouds and at whose voice they pour forth rain; likewise father Frumentius [], who, blessing a plum tree with the sign of the cross, split it and showed a channel of water in it; and father Silvanus [Neither Frumentius nor Silvanus occurs in the Life of Philip. For the rest, the deeds and prodigies which are mentioned here in passing about these men, about Iebārcana-Crestos and Jeremiah, as though they were already known to the readers, must have been widely spread, whether from a hagiographical document or in some other way. Again, then, it is plain that a source flowed into the Life of John which is not the present Life of Philip.], who, like John the Baptist, washed the feet of our Lord when he came to him in the feigned guise of a pilgrim; and many others, who were men given to ascetic labour and contest." Mār Philip said to his disciples: "Those whom you have named I know to be excellent and holy. (But) when I was living in the solitude my angel spoke to me (thus), whose face, however, I did not see. Namely: obey John alone; for God has raised him above you; and do not resist him, lest you stumble into scandal." f. 76. And so all said together: "We yield to the word of God and to your word." But John, the precious gem, poured forth from the bottom of his heart a flood of tears, and in the midst of their whole assembly and before his father he said: "In truth I am the most unfit of all men, and human prudence is not in me. How should I be a father? I who have not profited myself will not profit others." And by very much pressing and very much entreaty (he was moved to) profess that he consented, and he obeyed his master's word. Thereafter for a year Philip, as he had said, went on instructing him and confirming him in the reverence of God, and foretold to him all the things that were to happen to him in future times and taught him beforehand by prophecy.

[10] Philip's last words, Then the time of dying came to Mār Philip; who summoned John, the precious gem, and said to him: "Son, be constant and stable, and strengthen your brethren too in the precepts of God and the laws of justice, which I myself have proclaimed. Know indeed that after my death, in your days, my disciples will be in a better condition than in this season in which we now live, and that much grace will be given to you, which men will proclaim; your name will surpass (the name) of many masters, and your oracles will gain a hearing for themselves throughout the whole land of Ethiopia, like (the oracles) of my father Eustathius. But do you, son, revere God, and lean on none but him. f. 76v. Do not fear; for my disciples will 〈not Supplied from the context.〉 resist you; nor will I desert you after my death; and great is he who guards you." When he had said these words, and death. he laid his hands on his head and blessed him, and at once his spirit went forth. John, the precious gem, falling prostrate upon him, burst into bitter weeping, and likewise all his brethren. And they buried him in the tomb which he himself had dug for himself while he lived. Thus, then, after the death of Mār Philip, John, having become father of the brotherhoods, began to instruct the brethren and to admonish them about their spiritual welfare…

[11] By a sedition of obstinate monks Many (moreover), listening to his voice, were edified and reached monastic perfection. f. 77. But a few men whom the devil had goaded with envy stirred up a sedition, disturbed the brethren and the whole house, invented things which were not, and did not restrain themselves from laying on him a lying charge of having violated the rule of the monastery, so as to throw him out of his office; since it is written: "If the master departs from the law of the house, let him fall from his chair [This seems to have been a sentence laid down in the typicon of the monastery. Yet it is not read in

the epitome of this, which we mentioned in the Preliminary Commentary, no. 3, above, p. 248, note 4.]." f. 77v. And when everything had been in vain for them, they went to him as if consulting him in good faith, and urged him to do something against what was right, wishing to ruin him in his deeds. He saw through their deceit and said that he would not assent to their counsels. Yet they did not cease from their evil deeds, as Solomon says: "They do not sleep who devour the food of sin"; and our Lord himself says in the Gospel: "An evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil." Prov. 4, 16 – 17, Matt. 12, 35.

[12] John, disheartened, When, then, John the head of the monastery saw that they would not give him rest in all their words and deeds, going out beyond the doors of the monastery to its eastern side See Preliminary Commentary, no. 19, above, p. 255., near the tombs of the saints, he fell prone on his face and prostrated himself on the ground, and, weeping bitterly and groaning from the bottom of his heart, he prayed in these words: "Lord, my ruler, who know the hearts and search the reins, you know that I have not been troublesome to them, nor have done anything against them or offended, and that I wish them good as I do myself. Jer. 17, 10, f. 78. But they provoke me by their deeds and their ways, and have not removed themselves from these, so as to walk in the right (way) and correct their ways. Do you therefore, Lord, my ruler, Jesus Christ, be judge between me and them, and give me your grace, that it may be present to me and to others. Moreover give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may direct your people in justice. Pour out upon me from above the Holy Spirit, and strengthen me with a mighty spirit, that I may teach sinners your ways and evildoers your commandments, and so convert them to you." Psalm 50, 14 – 15. When he had said these things he rose from the ground and stood on his feet. And when he had raised his eyes upward, behold, the heaven seemed to him to split as it were into two parts, and there appeared to him an angel of God surrounded by an immense light, he is refreshed by a divine portent. which cannot be explained in words; and a voice arose, saying: "John, my friend and intimate, do not fear nor dread anything: for henceforth my grace will be with you and the same favour will befall you as Joseph, son of Jacob Israel. Nor is there (left) for you anything but a moderate trial, which will befall you from scarcity of provisions, which the brethren will suffer. For in no other way Joseph was at first brought into peril by his brothers and tried in the house of his master; who afterwards obtained royal power and rule and won for himself an eternal name. (f. 78v) To you also, just as to him, after a brief trial, a most ample grace will befall, which was given to no one else, and you will obtain many and glorious charisms and excellent gifts. And as for those men, the monks, who have afflicted you with trouble, see what is going to happen to them, for I am with you and will not desert you, my servant John." Then again a sudden voice was given forth from heaven, saying: "Cut down the trees of this mountain Or monastery.." And when John the head of the monastery had raised his eyes upward, there seemed to him to be cast down lofty cedar trees and strong wild olives. Terrified, John the head of the monastery groaned, saying: "Lord, my ruler, do not act so. Remember the labour of Philip your servant, who bore the sorrows of your cross. Behold, this house is now on the point of being overthrown." At once the Lord Jesus answered and said to him: "Do not fear nor be distressed in mind, John my chosen one, even though those cedars and wild olives are cut down. In their place I myself will order to be planted vines, figs, mandrakes, apples, pomegranates, almonds, and every kind of fruit-bearing tree. I proclaim with my own voice (so): when I have rooted out from your threshing-floor the thorns and briars, I will plant those sweet-smelling trees."

[13] f. 79. The obstinate monks When John, the precious gem, had heard this said by his Creator, rejoicing in his mind he returned home, and did not speak to any man of what he had seen and heard until the time had come. f. 79 by a pestilent plague But after a few days, the feast of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ having passed, a pestilent plague broke out among those monks who had despised John the friend of God, and every day four, five or six were dying. Death carried off many monks indeed; and the number of those who died of this pestilent plague was sixty-one [Compare Preliminary Commentary, no. 12, above, p. 252. Admirable in the Ethiopian narrator is the moderation with which he restrained himself from increasing the slaughter. Yet from the whole sequence of the discourse it seems that a much greater number of dead was indicated.]. But the holy and just men whom the plague infected because they had afflicted John, the precious gem … The text seems corrupt at this place.. And some monks withdrew from his house. Then, God so willing, the monks who had survived began to be multiplied, as wheat is multiplied after the useless tares have been taken from it: in this way too some were removed from their house. they are driven to penance. And when the brethren, the monks who remained, saw the plague and the dispersion that had befallen them, they placed a stone upon their necks and prostrated themselves beneath the feet of John the head of the monastery Compare below, §26.. He said to them: "What is the matter with you, my brethren?" They answered him, saying: "All these things have befallen us because we resisted you, afflicted you with sadness and did not observe your commands." John the friend of the Lord said to them: "May my Lord and your Lord pardon you whatever you have offended against me." f. 19v. From then on, therefore, they changed their ways, and were like gentle sheep.

[14] By want and famine After these things had been done, God accomplished in him what he had told him before, when he showed him (that) vision. A severe famine, then, oppressed the brethren, and very many died, of the younger as well as the elder. But he strengthened and exhorted them, and set before them the oracles of Scripture in these words: "Remember, my brethren, the things which Judith, daughter of Merari, said to the people of Israel, when the people of Assur was besieging Text: read: them. Wherefore let us follow with praises God our Lord, because he has tried us, as he did our fathers. Remember all the things he did with Abraham; in how many (ways) he tried Isaac; how many things befell Jacob as he pastured the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, in Mesopotamia of Syria. And truly, did not (God), as he tried his angels Text: read: , (so also) search their hearts? So too God deals with us, not to afflict us, but as he is wont to try those who approach him, so as to instruct them. Ecclus. 2, 1. Further, remember what the holy book of Kings relates, that in the time of David there was a famine for three years; and so on. 2 Kings 21, 1. Do you, therefore, my brethren, be patient and strengthen your hearts." And so the brethren, as he had enjoined them, showed themselves strong in patience. For the greater part of the brethren were of the ancient fathers who had lived with Philip the hermit. f. 80. They had subdued themselves to endurance, and they exhorted the brethren not to lose heart when they were pressed by hunger; as the Apocalypse said: "They overcame them because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the voice of the justice of the saints, for they did not love their souls even unto death." Rev. 12, 11.

[15] Through John's merit But John, the precious gem, prophet and saint, was wearing himself out with fasting, prayer, frequent tears, and many vigils; and as long as the brethren laboured in want, he sought help neither from kings, nor from princes, nor from the common people, nor from other houses of monks, but looking up to God alone he prayed to him, who knows hidden things, who searches the hearts, and brought forth the world from nothing for his glory. When, then, our Lord Jesus Christ had seen his patience and the constancy of his faith, having been divinely calmed, he suddenly showed himself to him in his cell, saying: "Why are you distressed in mind, John my chosen one? Or what do you desire that I should grant you?" John, the precious gem, said to him: "Do not let me lack the means by which the brethren may be fed." God said to him: "That indeed I will give you, and I will add to you besides other good things which you have not asked of me. 3 Kings 3, 13. From now on my most full blessing, which shall not be diminished, will be in your house and in your lot. f. 80v. The ways of men, and their thoughts and actions, whether they have been good or evil, I will make all manifest to you, that you may know them, O John my chosen one."

[16] abundance follows. From then on, therefore, their want came to an end and prosperity followed. And in him there was proved in fact the oracle of God which says in Deuteronomy: "If you hear the voice of God your Lord, you shall be blessed in the field, you shall be blessed in the city; blessed shall be the fruit of your land, blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, and the estates 〈… Some things are missing.〉 of your herds, and the flocks of your sheep; blessed shall be your barns and your storehouses; you shall be blessed in your coming in, you shall be blessed in your going out." Deut. 28, 1, 3 – 4. In no other way did he bless this man too in all things, nor did he let him lack what he desired. He blessed all the works of his hands, his barns and storehouses, and all things that were needed for the use of the church. He enriched his storeroom; so much so that the oldest of the old stores were eaten until the second and third year, (until), the old having been thrown out, the new were brought in. Lev. 26, 10. And the oracle which was spoken in the law (of Moses) was proved in deed. Nor in his days were the springs of water diminished. Isa. 58, 11. His gardens and fields were blessed in his days. The brethren too were greatly increased in number and in virtue; and they flitted about like young doves or like a swarm of bees [The same comparison has been drawn more fully, from some common storehouse, in the Life of Philip (Conti Rossini, p. 92): and they flitted about like young doves or like a swarm of bees, which feeds on the flowers to make honeycombs.]. Again he renewed all the laws which had fallen into disuse; he appointed procurators in all the places [That is, monasteries. In that age there were eight lesser monasteries subject to Mount Bizan. Dillmann, Ueber die Regierung des Königs Zar'a-Jacob, place cited, p. 46.]; he likewise appointed vicars too to govern those subject to him; likewise he appointed elders and (their) colleagues; he assigned to each of the brethren his own order of ministering. f. 81. And God blessed all his houses…

[17] And the fame of the discourses of John the head of the monastery was spread into all the lands of the Ethiopians. f. 84v, f. 85. Praise of John, And so people began to come together to him from remote or nearby regions, to hear his voice and look upon his face. And as soon as they had entered (to him) and stood before him, he understood their thoughts; he saw through what they had in their hearts, and sometimes, anticipating them, he told each of them what they bore in their hearts. his majesty, And they marvelled exceedingly. He himself was formidable in appearance, like a wild lion. In stature he surpassed most men. His comely beard reached to the hem of his garment, and when he sat, if ever he bowed his head, it filled his lap. From his exceeding majesty the voice was taken away (from those who looked at him); their inner mind was darkened, and from the vehemence of their fear they became like beasts. But he admonished each of them and addressed them most kindly. Moreover the highest princes came together to him from (various) regions seeking counsel (from him) by which he might establish their throne. his authority. Likewise they asked him about wars and the plundering of their revenues. He taught them the things revealed to him from heaven, exhorted them to better things, and their hearts were flooded with joy. Again there came together to him from many places the teachers of the monasteries, to consult him about their thoughts, so as to provoke with war the enemy who was making war on them. He consoled them, and they drew knowledge from his sayings. f. 85v. Likewise there came to him those who sought from him the divine oracles and the interpretation of the Scriptures: to whom he spoke forth the wisdom and knowledge divinely given to him; since in his age no one was his equal, nor was there anyone who surpassed him in prudence and wisdom, nor anyone like him or equal to him among all men. And all sought from him the oracles of wisdom. But those who approached him with boastfulness could not withstand him. Young men, catching sight of him, hid themselves from his sight; the elders trembled when he answered them, and the strong failed, could not speak, pressed their faces with their hands, marvelled at him, and their tongue grew stiff in their throats. They listened to the voice of his wisdom and proclaimed him blessed; they gazed at his majesty, and they feared him…

[18] Falling from a mountain Again, some time after this day, he sent brethren into the land of Salamt [A province between the kingdom of Tigray and Samēn, a province of Amḥara. Compare Em. de Almeida, Hist. Aethiop., I, 3, Beccari, work cited, vol. V, p. 13; Perruchon, Chroniques de Zar'a Yâ'eqôb, p. 96, note 3, and Conti Rossini, Atti della Accademia dei Lincei, volume cited, p. 169. From the following chapter of the narrative it is established that his monks were sent by John across the river Takazze.] on account of the business of the monastery. f. 94. And having set out they came to the ridges of Abēr Embā Compare Conti Rossini, same place.. Now one of their number saw a dry tree overhanging a precipitous place, which he wished (to use) for carrying their baggage. He went up to it, therefore, struck it with an axe, and stretched his hand upward to grasp it; it, by some chance, broke and fell, and he was thrown headlong together with it. And that drop was of immense height and formidable to look upon. Thereupon the monk burst out in these words: "O my father John, do not abandon me: for great are your wonders." And at once he was present, most promptly at hand; he catches the monk Christodulus. he lifted him in his hands and did not let him reach the ground, with his axe and with the tree which he had cut down in his hand; and he set him down below at the foot of the precipitous mountain in a great open square, where a market was held. And the name of this monk was Gabra Crestos [Christodulus; compare above, §1, p. 255, note 4.]. Now his companions, believing his limbs scattered, fled apart in various directions to gather his members, if they could find any of them. On the road they met him himself coming back to them. f. 94v. When his companions had seen him, stirred with immense joy, they questioned him in these words: "In what way, pray, were you saved from this formidable drop, whose height and depth cannot be estimated?" He said to them: "By whom I was saved my Lord knows." They besought him in the name of their Lord. And so he related all that had happened to him. He said to them: "My father and your father, the worker of wonders, embraced me and saved me, with a manifest presence; nor did I recognize him //// Some letters are missing. at the entrance of the precipices." And with one voice his companions said: "Glory to God, the worker of this wonder."

[19] From a river And when the same brethren had turned their journey back to return home, they came to the river Tacazi [Tacazi, that is, a stream or river. A river of high Ethiopia which flows into the Atbara and through this into the Nile; compare P. Paez, Hist. Aethiop., I, 27, 7, Beccari, work cited, vol. II, p. 271.] flowing with a full channel. The brethren had no means of crossing it. One of them, as he was headlong (in temper), wished to enter it. And when the brethren adjured him in the name of their Lord, he said: "Let me go, I beseech you." And when he spurned their (words), they let him go. He goes in, not at all terrified, and the waves of the river submerged him and carried him off for the space of about two stades. At once he gave forth a lamentable cry and said: "Lord God, Lord of my father John, help me; save me and rescue me from the waves of this river; and do not give me over to derision and mockery because I would not obey the words of my brethren." He rescues Jacob. At once St. John came, flashing with splendour and borne in a shining chariot: who lifted him out of the waves of the river and set him down on the other bank together with the pack he was carrying. f. 95. Now the brethren, scattering this way and that along the bank of the river, were looking out to see if in any way they could rescue him. And when they saw this monk come out of the river, the brethren were thrown into admiration and amazement. And after they too had crossed the river, the same brethren asked him to tell them what had happened. He related to them all that God had done with him, and how St. John had brought him out (of the river). And the name of this monk was Jacob…

[20] Six brethren Then in the ninth month after, in the month Choiak Compare Dillmann, in the lexicon, p. 841., which is the month Taḫśaś, St. John sent messengers and invited his disciples and summoned them (to himself). f. 95v. And these six stood before him: Bisoes, Taualda Madchen See Preliminary Commentary, no. 7, above, p. 250, note 8., Poemen, Moses, Symeon and Isaiah. To them he said: "Go, take with you the fruits of the orchard: sandarac, mustard, walnuts, mandrakes, honey, sugar, with which you may buy at all the markets the things necessary for the monastery, and goatskins for (making) garments and sacks for yourselves." They went off and, as they had been ordered, bought up all things that were necessary for them. And when they had turned back on their journey, there fell upon them the Ishmaelites who are called the sons of Samra [ Sāmrā, called Samhar by the Arabs, is a plain on the maritime coast of Abyssinia. See Yaqut, Mo'gam al-buldān, ed. F. Wüstenfeld, vol. III (Leipzig, 1868), p. 146 – 47. Most of its inhabitants had long since passed over to the Muslim religion. Compare the Life of Philip, p. 106; at which place Conti Rossini, p. 158.], in whom dwells the spirit of Satan, who seek no earthly riches except human trophies [ or "signs of victory, trophies"; among the Galla these were the shameful pieces of flesh which they cut from the bodies of slain enemies. Compare Ludolf, Historia Aethiopica (Frankfurt am Main, 1681), book I, chap. 16, 21 – 22.]. killed by the Ishmaelites. These, mounting their horses, pierced them through with the points of their spears, cut off their necks with the edge of their swords, plundered all their things and threw away their corpses. But one of them, having escaped by flight, warned the brethren who were near the monastery. And so by night several monks went out to them, and found their corpses lying in the road. Nor had the beasts of the wilderness or the birds of the sky devoured their bodies. f. 96. Their bodies had not putrefied, nor was there a foul odour breathing from them. The brethren therefore carried out their holy bodies, and lamented them with bitter weeping, saying: "Who will make us equal to them, that we may be baptized in the blood of martyrdom?" And they buried them Text: him. in the house of Gabriel [That is, in the church of Gabriel the archangel, certainly the one which John himself is read to have built, below, §33.], amid very many lamentations, and only after many days did they lay aside their mourning. Then they reported the thing to St. John, when he was in his cell, in these words: "Father, those disciples of yours whom you sent (out), since the unbelievers have killed them with spear-point and sword and plundered their things, we have buried their bodies in the ground."

[21] John mourns, When St. John had heard these things, he was moved with grief and indignation. And he began to pray in these words: "O Lord, and Lord of Michael, Lord of my fathers Eustathius and Philip, have you cast me off? Or how have you so forgotten me that you did not reveal to me beforehand all these things which you have done on account of my sins? Or did it come about on account of the sins of my disciples that the Ishmaelites raised sedition, of hard neck and blinded heart, who always provoke you to indignation, nor carry out your commandments, (men) in whom there are many kinds of folly compare the Syriac fortuitous chance, rashness, etc.? Why, then, did (they) kill my disciples and pour out on the earth the blood of those who had eaten your holy body, who had drunk your venerable blood, who had been brought up in the new and the old teaching?" As he said these things, he fell (prone) on his face to the ground; he put on ashes for a garment, and did not rise up for four days and four nights. (f. 96v). And a voice was heard by him from heaven, saying: "John, John, John, my friend and chosen one, do not grieve, since this has happened neither on account of your sins nor on account of the sins of your disciples. Rise, lift yourself up: I will console and gladden you in their (case)." John said: "I will not rise until I have seen the salvation brought by you, and of divine vengeance (or) unless you show me a wonder upon these unbelievers, that I may celebrate your holy name and the magnificence of your glory may be extolled. For you are wonderful in your saints; you work wonders, and there is nothing that cannot be done by you." Psalm 67, 36. And again he heard a voice from the Lord, saying: "Whatever you have sought and desired shall be granted you by me myself

and not by anyone else. Let not all the things which have happened from my providence and that of my Father, and from the goodwill of the Holy Spirit, seem to you to have befallen through the fraud of the enemy; but I have disposed this so that your name might be magnified on earth and in heaven, and that your disciples, who shed their blood for me, might be held in the number of the martyrs, and that their name might be inscribed in the heavenly tablets."

[22] made arbiter, After (John) had heard these things, Michael the angel came to him, who raised him up, consoled him, and lit him up with his seraphic brightness. And addressing him a third time, the Lord said to him: "Shall I do for you, O my beloved John, the same as against those who resisted Moses, Dathan and Abiram, whom the earth devoured; and against the disciples of Korah, whom fire consumed with their masters (carrying) censers? Or at the voice of your mouth shall I rain down fire for you as upon Sodom and Gomorrah, or as Elijah (did) by his word, so that fire consumed two hundred men who were with their two captains? f. 97. Whatever you desire I will grant you, and I will fulfil all your wishes." St. John answered and said: "This I beseech you, against the Mohammedans Lord, my ruler, Jesus Christ: since the foulnesses have increased of this unbelieving race of the impious [ which absurdly sounds like (otherwise ) the island of Crete. Compare the Arabic unbeliever.] and uncircumcised, in whom is the foreskin of iniquity Note that the discourse here is about Mohammedans., stirred up by the heat of the spirit of Satan; who worship as god wood, stone and every kind of idol; who are nourished on the milk of she-camels, who devour the flesh of elephants and pigs (or) the flesh of the hare dāsipodā; compare Deut. 14, 17., who never cease feeding on wild beasts and birds and on every kind of filth; who carry the names of the impure Mohammed tied about their necks and hands; who drench themselves wholly in the blood of dogs; who take as wives their own sisters, (born) of the same father, nay even of the same mother; whose manner of acting is like the ways of cattle; whose delight is slaughter; whose pleasures are all (kinds) of luxury; who soothsay and take omens from the stars and birds; whose every kind of action is foulness and impiety — show your power against those impious nations; work for me a new power, and grant me the means of imitating Elijah, when he shut up the clouds and the rain, that I may avenge my disciples, and that through them your holy name may be celebrated and your wonders may be seen marvellous in your works." f. 97v. His Lord said to him: "Be it as you have said."

[23] he proclaims a drought, Then St. John raised his eyes upward and, looking up to heaven, said to it: "I adjure and conjure you, by the name of my Lord the Living One, not to give rain to the clouds, but to become as it were brass above them." Again he commanded the clouds in these words: "And you I adjure and conjure, by the name of my Lord the Living One, that your canopy be not seen over the head of these impious men, nor that you let down rain." Then he said also to the angel of the clouds: "I adjure and conjure you, O angel of fire, O angel of light, not to let down rain. Restrain the clouds with a bridle: the angel of the clouds protesting in vain. for they obey your words." And the angel of the clouds answered St. John and said to him indignantly: "Who has permitted you this, or who has given you power to dare these things, earth-born one? Leave off from these things. Have the heavenly angels ever transgressed the bounds of their province? Why have you adjured and conjured me by the name of my Lord the Living One? Weakling, leave me, and do not be importunate to me." Again that new Elijah said to him: "Why do you despise me? What iniquity have you seen in me? Are you not yourself a creature as I am, you who do not revere the name of your Lord the Living One? Who is there that does not dread or fear his holy name, since heaven and earth were established by his voice?" Again the angel of the clouds answered St. John and said to him: "You have no power over me; and there is no cause at all why you should not let me pour rain from the clouds upon the earth, since the administration of the clouds has been entrusted to me by my Lord." Psalm 32, 6, f. 98. Again the new Elijah said to the angel of the clouds: "Know that it will come to pass that rain shall not fall on the earth upon the impious, to avenge the blood of my disciples. Nay, let this be certain to you: rain shall not fall, until its time has come, at the voice of my mouth. I have been made a presbyter [It must be believed that this was narrated above in one of the passages which were omitted by the editor.] after the example and likeness of my Lord, who consecrated me with the seal of his grace. Nor should you set before me, to frighten me, that you are an angel: I do not fear you, nor am I terrified by your voice." The angel answered and said to St. John: "Do you speak thus to me, in imitation of that former Elijah, who shut up the clouds on account of the sins of the house of Ahab, because they had made false divinities and all kinds of idols gods for themselves, had worshipped wood and stone, and had committed very many crimes?" St. John answered the angel and said to him: "More and greater than the deeds of the house of Ahab, 〈king Supplied from the context.〉 of Israel, are the outrages and crimes of these Ishmaelites, who have no rights and laws except the law of the impure Mohammed. What, pray, have you seen well done by them? Do they know their creator, or in what do they rule themselves by his precepts? By what means do those unbelievers move you to mercy, who do not love my Lord and your Lord, nor love his Mother? But why do you despise me? In what am I worse than Elijah the prophet? Was he more excellent in the love of the Lord, when I am a presbyter Text: I have grown up or grown old; read: as above. for (offering) the body and blood of Jesus Christ, my Lord and ruler, who through his angel has guarded me from my tender years? I trust and glory in 〈his Supplied from the context.〉 holy name. f. 98v. Do not press me with arguments: I for my part will not loose the rains, and I will imitate Elijah the prophet. Have you not heard what Scripture says: 'How much more shall we judge even in secular matters?'" 1 Cor. 6, 3. The angel of the clouds said to the new Elijah: "This word which you say was spoken by the Apostles, was it spoken to you yourself?" St. John said to him: "I 〈have Supplied from the context.〉 the teaching of the Apostles as my shield. Have you not read what the book of life says: 'Not for them only do I say (this), but for those who are to believe in me through their word.' John 17, 2. And I have carried out their precepts, so as to cleave to my Lord: your words and your precepts I will not obey."

[24] God the dispute And so the angel went up to his Lord (and) cried out in these words: "Have you commanded this earth-born one to command the clouds and not to let down rain on the earth: he who has taken my power for himself, though I am a fiery (spirit)? When you created them, you gave the earth to the earth-born and the heaven to the heavenly ones." His Lord answered the angel of the clouds in these words: "Let him be, and do not resist him; for I have granted him the faculty of avenging his disciples. Such things as Elijah did (for) his zeal toward me, such things this man too shall accomplish, who has willed to bind and loose the clouds, John my servant and intimate, who from a tender age has kept my law and precepts. For he has pleased me (in) all his ways and in all the just works which he has done; who quite without intermission, awards to John. and not only on account of his disciples [Word for word: without his disciples, that is, if I understand rightly: "even before his disciples were killed"; unless instead of without, one should read: on account of the vengeance (of his disciples).], has practised fasts and labours out of his zeal for me. f. 99. Do not inveigh against him with words."

[25] By the plague of drought When, then, the angel of the clouds heard the voice of his creator, he ceased to dispute with St. John, and fell silent. Accordingly the heaven was shut and the clouds were bound fast by the edict of this new Elijah and evangelist. And for three years and seven months See below, note 5. no rain fell on the unbelieving land, while meanwhile it rained to their right and to their left, in front of them and behind them, and on the estates of the holy monastery of Bizan See below, §26, note 8.. And so, the rain failing, the land of these Ishmaelites was afflicted; their sheep perished, and all their goats, oxen, camels, horses, mules, their asses, and all their resources were exhausted, nor was anything left to them. The carcasses of the animals filled their land with stench. The men themselves, the water failing, were dying, nor had they anything to drink. And after they had drunk up the water of the whole region, they were dying burned by the heat Text read: . And the very few remnants which were left of their wealth were plundered by the nations, both those which were near them and those which were far off. And those killers of the monks and all their men were slain by the edge of the sword. They could no longer wage war, because the Lord of hosts had turned the scourge of his anger upon them, and had brought upon them fear, distress, and every kind of loss and calamity. Accordingly they understood the sin which they had committed, and said: "We have been struck by all these things because we killed the disciples of John of the monastery of Bizan, the unbelievers subdued, and because we poured out their blood on our land. f. 99v. Woe to us! alas! where shall we end, and who will make good for us all that we have done?" A certain prophet of theirs said to them: "We who are left, just like those who are already dead, our nations and our men, shall die like them; and our enemies will be the heirs of our lands. Come, then, let us go to him." And so, having gone out from the borders of their lands, they had come up to the foot of the mountain Note that the name of the mountain and of the monastery is the same., by a portentous journey, when the light was taken from their eyes, the day became dark to them; and as they walked they felt their way with their spears, like Text: because, because, read: one who could not tell years from months. Then, when they had turned their faces toward their own land, they were freed from their blindness. And amid many lamentations and many groans they remained thus, reviling one another and some quarrelling with others. At last, after forty-two months had elapsed [Read: forty-three; compare above, note 3; and below, §32, p. 265.], the unbelievers to Elijah

and the new evangelist came, and went up onto Mount Bizan.

[26] They come as suppliants to John, At once the door-keeper warned John, lest they should set foot in his monastery and reach his cell. (John) therefore remained outside the walls. And they, while they were still far off, took up stones and placed them on their necks See above, §13, p. 259.. Catching sight of St. John, they fell to the ground with dread and said: "We have sinned, we have done wickedly, pouring out the blood of your disciples. 3 Kings 8, 47. We are afflicted; our men and our beasts have perished; nor do any of ours survive except us who stand before you; for your imprecation has overtaken us. Before all things, hear our prayer. Are you not the Master Here and below, rabi (= rabbi), in the Hebrew rite and style. or the son of the Master?" At once the new Elijah answered them in these words: "For my part I am neither the Master nor the son of the Master; by whom severely rebuked, but the servant of the Master, obedient to all his commands, while you are defiled and wicked, not knowing him who created you, you who have no law except homicide. f. 100. Those who begot you, your fathers, are in the pit of damnation, and you like them will go down into it." And he rebuked them and terrified them. Again they said to him: "We know, and from your words we plainly see, the crime which we have committed. Come, then, pardon us and have mercy on us for the sake of your Lord, the Master. And we henceforth will be your slaves and will serve you and your disciples. O father, father, heal us after the example of the Master." Then the new Elijah said to them: "Beware lest you sin again; nor think that you have paid the penalty to me; but it is my Lord who has exacted the penalty from you; (may he) now heal you." Then they said to him: "Father, they ratify a covenant with him. let us strike a covenant with you: whatever you and your children command us, we will carry out." He said to them: "Declare this in your own words." The unbelievers said: "Let there be a covenant for us (with) the Master, that we will not harm your disciples and your monastery." And St. John said to them: "As our Scriptures have commanded us, let it be, let this covenant be for us monks." Matt. 5, 37. When (they) had said these things, they went away and sought their own lands again, nor, by breaking faith, did they offend in anything (further). And the new Elijah prayed to God in these words: "Forgive them, since their fury has subsided, that they may know the power of your glory. f. 100v. Come, then, command the clouds to pour rain upon the earth. For you once said with your voice, which cannot be convicted of falsehood: 'And I send down rain upon the good and the bad, upon the just and the unjust.'" Matt. 5, 45. Meanwhile the unbelievers, having gone off from him, had advanced the space of two thousand paces [If these words are to be understood strictly, the possessions of the monastery of Bizan at that period had not yet reached the distant borders to which they afterwards extended. On these, see Conti Rossini, Atti della Accademia dei Lincei, volume cited, p. 164 – 65.], when rain fell on their land, and all the rivers were filled with water; their land began to grow green with ears of grain, and the dry trees put forth leaves."

[27] Then again St. John sent brethren into the land of Baracā Or: into the solitude, the forest; compare Conti Rossini, volume cited, p. 156. to bring the things necessary for the monasteries. Monks making a journey, They, committing themselves to the journey, came to where they had been sent. But the men of this region did not know the Lord who had created them. By night they caught sight of a fire shining in the place where those monks, the newcomers, were. The wicked men said: "Come, let us go to them; let us kill them and plunder all their baggage." Now the number of these came to about forty men, and they all had rustic implements with them. And even before they reached them, he defends from robbers while absent. St. John did not fail them; who, showing himself to one of them, said to him: "Set out from this solitude: for wicked (men) are coming who will kill you. Rouse your brethren." He thought he had been dreaming. And he fell asleep again. (The saint) roused him; 〈but he … Some things are missing.〉 fell asleep a third time. (The saint), striking him with his little staff, roused him. Then he, having roused his brethren, said: "St. John was present with us and said to us: 'Get up, for wicked men are coming who will kill you.'" They said: "Father, father, defend us by your holy prayer and do not desert us." As they were saying these things, suddenly those wicked men came upon them; who hurled their rustic implements to pierce them. f. 101. But their weapons sprang back upon their own heads, and those wicked men died, nor did any of them survive. Their tribesmen, however, did not learn of the matter until the next day. The monks, having turned back on their journey, reached their home bringing the things they had been ordered, and kissed St. John one by one. He said to them: "Have you seen, my little sons, what God has done for your sakes? Do not cease to give him thanks and praises; and do not disclose this deed to men." The monks said: "Certainly we have seen, father, the power of your holy and lofty prayer, which snatched us from the hands of the wicked. And our Lord himself is wonderful in the things he has done with us through you."

[28] He heals the monk Elias of a disease. Again one of his disciples, whose name was Elias, was seized by a grievous and cruel disease, and could not raise his head. He, bursting out in groans and cries, said to someone: "Go, tell our father that I am near to death, that he may come and save me by his prayer." And so they informed St. John, who went to him secretly, and, the monks not seeing him, laying his hand on his head he stroked him. And pus burst out from his nostrils; worms and gore flowed down from his Text: their mouth and at once he revived. St. John said to him: "Do not fear; for God has saved you. Get up, and do not drowse as one who is sick." f. 101v.

[29] The insolence of the tyrant Mehmed Again at that time there was a certain prince named Mehmed That is, Moḥammad. Therefore he too was a Muslim.. He was an unbeliever, impious and proud, who neither feared God nor regarded men. Luke 18, 4. He said in the pride of his heart: "Bring me from the nuns, the disciples of father John [In the reign of Zarea Iacob three houses of women ascetics were subject to the monastery of Bizan, in which 1146 nuns were numbered. Dillmann, Ueber die Regierung des Königs Zar'a-Jacob, place cited, p. 46.], comely and beautiful girls, to be my concubines, and from the young men all the most handsome; for them I will procure horses for riding." But his military commanders said to this unbeliever: "Do you not know John? Do nothing of the kind, for whatever he says, the Master accomplishes for him. Lest he pursue you with (his) indignation, beware of conceiving a plan of this kind in your mind. But he would not obey their words. And when St. John heard of this outrage, moved with anger and indignation, he summoned Saraqa Berhān, his boy See Preliminary Commentary, no. 9, above, p. 250, note 19., and said to him: "Go and say these things to that unbeliever: 'Those men of old who, before this age, exalted themselves proudly just as you do, Nebuchadnezzar, Nimrod, Sennacherib, Tyrosidonius [ Ṣiruṣaïdān, that is, the Tyrian and Sidonian, the name of a certain fabulous king who is brought into the Ethiopian book of the Maccabees. See Dillmann in the lexicon, col. 1424.], Pharaoh with his army, God extinguished and destroyed. You likewise, just as them, God will destroy and extinguish from the face of the earth, because you have devised a foul plan, which will not be accomplished.' And after you have said these things to him, he will strike the earth with his little staff and will rise up before you, rolling himself (on the ground)." Saraqa Berhān went off, and carried to this unbeliever the message of St. John. He said: "Am I Tyrosidonius?" Then he set out back and continued his journey. At once Satan came to that unbeliever, and began to shake him like a gust of storm; he covered over all his limbs and filled his bowels. f. 102. He is punished by a prodigious death. He, falling down, began to bray like an ass, from first light until the ninth hour. Then he rose up naked, and, throwing off his clothes, began to leap about like the foxes which are in that vast solitude, and fled into his house; his mouth became tongueless, and the faculty of speech was taken from him. His kinsmen and all the (commanders) of his army, when they saw these things, burst into tears, saying: "Truly Text: when, read: we had said this to him, addressing him thus: 'Do not act wickedly, and do not enter the land of John; lest you die and destroy yourself.' What, then, shall we say to him? Or what shall we apply to him, since he can no longer live?" Then, while he was in the house, he fell into the fire, his limbs were wrapped (in flames), and the bowels of his body were thrown out. They carried him out of that house and buried him in the solitude.

[30] By John's touch a serpent is killed. Again, one day, when St. John was in his holy cell, there came a certain land serpent, which touched the hem of his garment, and at once became like a wick brought to a burning fire. And the height of this serpent was thirty-seven cubits and its breadth two cubits. When the brethren had seen this, seized with trembling and dread they thought St. John dead. He said to them: "Remove this unclean thing from me." They, full of wonder, carried (the serpent) out and threw it down a precipitous place.

[31] The secrets of minds It happened also once that St. John, having come out of his cell to instruct the brethren, sat down among them. f. 102v. And, speaking to them, he was interpreting to them the Life of father Macarius. And he came to the place where it is said: "All things that were in the hearts of men Macarius saw through, as in a mirror or as (is seen) water which is in crystal [We have not found this sentence, expressed in these words, in the Lives of Macarius.]." When the monk Gabra Amlāc That is, servant of the Lord. had heard this, he said: "Can it be that such a one is found among men?" Now St. John, admonished by the Spirit of what he was thinking, John perceives. said nothing indeed among the brethren; but after each had returned to his own house, he sent a messenger and summoned him. He came and stood before him. He said to him: "O Gabra Amlāc, what came into your mind after you heard about the Life of father Macarius?" Thereupon the monk

began to be distressed in mind, and, seized with immense fear, could not speak. He said to him: "Speak, and do not be afraid." He said: "Thinking thus, I said to myself: 'Can it be that such a man is found upon the earth?'" St. John said to him: "I will tell you the truth and not hide it from you, as one who is your teacher. Before these days there was among you (a man) to whom much grace was given in heaven and on earth, as to Macarius." This St. John said of himself. That monk marvelled at the saying. I myself, indeed, heard him saying See Preliminary Commentary, no. 18, above, p. 254.: "Even if a thousand men stand before me in one day, not even the character of one of them escapes me."

[32] By a fugitive monk Again, in his time, there came forward a certain monk who had quarrelled with another. He went off to King Isaac [Who was also Gabra Masqal (servant of the Cross). He reigned from the month of June of the year 1414 to August of the year 1429; compare Gutschmid, in W. Wright, Catalogue of the Ethiopic Manuscripts, p. VII; compare Basset, Études sur l'histoire d'Éthiopie, in Journal Asiatique, ser. 7, vol. XVII, p. 325 – 26; vol. XVIII, p. 133 – 35.], (before whom) he accused St. John and all the monks who were in the monastery, accused of sacrilege in these words: "They are accustomed to perform the sacred rites on the sabbath and the Lord's day, which ought to be done Word for word: is done. on the sixth day, and they anoint their ark That is, altar. with ox-fat. f. 103." The king said to this accuser: "See, and find out carefully what is customarily done in Ethiopia." He said: "I have carefully found (it) out and have it thoroughly ascertained." Accordingly the king, stirred with indignation, commanded his princes to kill St. John, to kill his disciples likewise, and to destroy his monastery. But the princes to whom he had given (this) command said to the king: "We will not go, nor can it be done by us that we go up to his monastery. For we have heard, and it is certain to us, 〈that he is the one who Supplied from the context.〉, like Elijah the prophet, restrained the heaven for three years and seven months; that very many prodigies are done by him, and that those whom he has cursed perish (overwhelmed) by demons." King Isaac said to his soldiers: "Is this word that you have said true?" They said to him Text: to them.: "Certainly it is true and free of falsehood." (The king) said to his soldiers: "Bring that accuser." And when the attendants had brought this monk, they said to him: by the terrible death of the accuser "The word which you said before the king, is it not a lie? Speak the truth." He said to them: "Whatever I have spoken are lies. For since I accused St. John, the wrath of God has struck me." And at once he vomited blood from his mouth, his tongue burst out, all his bowels were poured out, as (happened) to the accursed Arius, and he died. Acts 1, 18, f. 103v. And the king heard from the attendants all that had been done with him. He shuddered, and in wonder said: "I commend myself to the prayers of St. John and to the prayers of all his disciples." And the love of St. John settled in the king's heart, and he sent messengers (asking) him to make prayer for him. he is defended. And the king's nobles gave letters written to him about all that had happened. But St. John, as one who saw into secrets, had known what had happened before it was told him; and speaking to his disciples he said: "If God is with us, there will be none who can overcome us." Rom. 8, 31.

[33] Three churches built by John. There was divinely given to him a spirit of industry and strength. And he founded three churches, of which he built one in seventy-one days, which he called the house of Marmechnām [ Marmeḫnām; in the Ethiopian synaxarion on the 14th day of Taḫśaś: Marmehnām (Zotenberg, Catalogue des manuscrits éthiopiens de la bibliothèque Nationale, p. 167), or Marmehnā (Ludolf, Commentarius ad historiam Aethiopicam, p. 401). Mār Behnām was a Persian martyr, whose Acts survive in Syriac. BHO. 177. Of the name there will be discussion below, on the 10th day of November, in connection with the Acts of SS. Narses and companions (Vahunam).]; another he built in forty-six days, which he called the house of Gabriel See above, §20, p. 261.; the third he built in forty days, which he called the house of Michael. In this he afterwards, making a prayer, said: "Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice; and let your ears be attentive to the voice of my petition. Psalm 129, 1 – 2. Show me your face and let me hear your voice. Cant. 2, 14. For your voice is sweet and your face is comely. Show me your goodwill in this sanctuary which I have founded under the title of Michael, the angel of your counsel, whom you appointed guardian of all the saints who obey your commands, and my guardian from my infancy. But you, Lord, my Lord, gladden me and console me; since I have cultivated your love intensely, I have endured very many labours, and all (kinds) of hardships have afflicted me. f. 104. Do not cast me off, but look upon me, as you looked upon your martyrs, St. George, St. Victor, St. Aba Nob [He is the Egyptian martyr concerning whom BHO. 72; compare Anal. Boll., vol. XL, pp. 101, 107, 109, 111, 128, 138 – 39, 141, 145, 148. His namesake Anub the confessor we mentioned in the Preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Timothy, bishop of Antinoë, no. 3, above, p. 115.] and Aba Carazun [, in some codices of the synaxarion on the 25th day of the month Ḥamlē: Abacerazun, or Abacerzun (ed. I. Guidi, Patrologia Orientalis, vol. VII, p. 414 – 18). He is the same as the Egyptian martyr named Abcaraǧūn (otherwise Abcarāǧūn, or Bacrāǧūn), whose elogium, abridged from a certain fabulous Passion, is read in the Alexandrian synaxarion on the 25th day of the month Abīb. Ed. J. Forget, in Corpus script. Christ. Orient., ser. 3, text, vol. XIX, p. 244 – 46.], martyrs, and those like them, who were condemned for your sake and came out victors Text: they conquered them, should we read: you made them victors?, since you imparted to them the riches of your uncreated grace. And to me, as also to them, impart the riches of your grace; and I will be glad and exult in you."… Psalm 9, 3.

[34] He persevered in training the brethren for forty-five years. f. 106. Warned of his approaching death Then, on the twelfth day (of the month) Yakātit, Michael the archangel was present to St. John as he prayed, and said to him: "(The time) of your departure from this fragile world has come; set your house in order and arrange it. Isa. 18, 1. (Now) you are to pass over to your Lord, to the 〈crown Supplied from 1 Pet. 1, 4 and 2 Tim 4, 8.〉 free of age and corruption, which is laid up for you." St. John said to him: "May the will of my Lord be done, who has fulfilled all my wishes which I asked of him, accustomed to deny me (nothing)." Thereafter he began to grow old, and his life was completed, when he was seventy-nine years old. Then he was seized by a slight illness, yet he did not leave off exhorting the brethren. But when day by day the force of the disease pressed him more heavily, he said to them: he exhorts the brethren, "Hear me, brethren; I was not one to hide anything from you or to keep silent to you about any of the precepts of God. I have guarded you like a golden palm and hidden you like a precious gem, nor have I scattered you in the sea of the world, nor led you down among the nations, nor mingled you with the inhabitants of the world. But you, my brethren, if you observe the laws of justice which I and my father Philip have laid down for you, know that God will not withdraw his mercy from us, and that you will come to the rest to which we have come in the kingdom of heaven. f. 106v. Hear this too: I have not been guilty of failing to provide sufficiently for either your souls or your bodies. I commend you to God in the Holy Spirit, who will be able to build you up. Acts 20, 32. And remember the saying of Peter the Apostle, who says thus: 'I know that it will soon come to pass that I depart from you, as our Lord Jesus Christ has signified to me.' 2 Pet. 1, 14. And with perpetual diligence I will take care that after me you be like me and remember all things whatsoever I have said to you."

[35] And they, when they had heard the sweet voice of St. John, said to him: "Father, why do you desert us, or why do you abandon your flock?" And they wept for him with bitter weeping. St. John said to them: "Mourn your mourning, but it seems to me that your mourning will come to rest." And he prophesied to them all things whatsoever were to befall them after his (death). Nor did he pass over a single word in speaking, whether small or great. Then he said to them: "After my death let my commemoration be frequent in the mouth of all of you, when there have befallen you all the things that I have foretold to you; and let no hour pass for you in which you do not remember my name. he designates his successor," When he had said these things, he called Saraqa Berhān [See above, §25, p. 263, and Preliminary Commentary, nos. 9, 16, 17, pp. 250 – 51, 254.], and appointed him father of the monastery. And he blessed him according to the rule of justice and said to him: "Guard your brethren in the precepts of God, and in the rule which my father Philip established; and the rule of justice which I established, observe it likewise. f. 107. For you have learned this well, as one who has lived with both of us See Preliminary Commentary, no. 9, p. 250, note 21.. And if you observe it, things will turn out prosperously for you in all your ways."

[36] and peacefully falls asleep. After he had spoken all these things, he blessed all the monasteries with a spiritual blessing. And he said to (those brethren): "What day is today?" They said to him: "The feast of Michael the archangel, the twelfth day of the month Ḫedār." He said to them: "On this day I was born; and since I desired to end my life on this day too, it pleased God also to call me on it. But I asked him to grant me this on the day after this day; and he heard my prayer, that this might be a joy and rest for the brethren who will make my commemoration, with very much zeal and diligence." Thereupon St. John said: "Open to me the gates of justice; entering into them I will praise God; for this is the gate of God, the just shall enter into it." Psalm 117, 19 – 20. And the brethren who were with him said

to him: "Father, what is this that you are saying?" St. John said to them: "The gates of the seven heavens have been opened to me; and to receive my soul there have gone forth all the watchers of heaven, the assembly of the prophets, apostles, martyrs, father Eustathius and father Philip, my parents, and the assembly of all the just, the monks, the hermits, with Jesus their Lord and Mary his mother." And after he had addressed them in these words, the house was filled with a fragrant odour, which surpassed the sweetness of spices. And when the sixth hour of the night came, on the Lord's day See Preliminary Commentary, no. 15, above, p. 253., he signed his face with the sign of the cross. f. 107v. And at once his venerable and innocent soul went forth. And with sweet proclamation they carried him out, saying: "The memory of the just shall be everlasting." Psalm 111, 7. Those who heard (these things), monks (and) ascetics, were thrown into admiration." And the day of his death was the thirteenth of the month Ḫedār [November 9, which fell on a Sunday in the year 1449, as was said in the Preliminary Commentary, place cited.].

[37] For your sake I have written out what I heard with my own ears from his faithful disciples. f. 110. The writer's peroration. And it befell me myself to see with my own eyes the miracles which he worked, when I was growing up at his feet Word for word: under his feet. See Preliminary Commentary, no. 18, above, p. 254.. But if all his excellent virtues and his famous sayings were committed to writing one by one, the writer would certainly be wearied, and the reader would grow faint and the hearer fall asleep. Nor should you think that each one of his miracles and prodigies has been committed to writing; but I have related to you only a very few, on my faith, nor could I reach half. Wherefore, what I have related to you of his deeds, teachings and counsels is just as if some man, having killed a bull, should strip off its hide but throw away the flesh and not touch its fat. In no other way we too have not reached the inmost parts of his deeds, but have expressed their surface in words. May the prayer and blessing of St. John be with us all for ages of ages. Amen.