Hesychius

ON ST. HESYCHIUS, CONFESSOR, DISCIPLE OF ST. HILARION, AT MAIUMA IN PALESTINE,

AFTER THE YEAR CCCLXXIII.

COLLECTION.

Hesychius, confessor, disciple of St. Hilarion, at Maiuma in Palestine. (S.)

BY J. B.

§ I. The sacred memory of St. Hesychius, his praise among the Greeks, his distinction from namesakes, and some other things.

No one of the ancient martyrologists inscribed St. Hesychius in the Fasti of the Saints: but Baronius, St. Hesychius, praised by Sozomen just as he inserted into the Roman Martyrology St. Maximianus, bishop of Bagai, likewise venerated on this day, chiefly on account of the praises of him celebrated by St. Augustine, so also he wove in St. Hesychius, whom St. Jerome praised more than once in the Life of St. Hilarion the abbot, for a like reason, and expressed his commendation in this way: "On the fifth Nones of October, in Palestine, of St. Hesychius, confessor, disciple of St. Hilarion and companion in his pilgrimage." The name of Hesychius was especially celebrated among the Greeks: Nicephorus Callistus, Ecclesiastical History book 9, chapter 15, and Sozomen, book 3, chapter 14, call him the most celebrated among the disciples of St. Hilarion. And again, in book 6, chapter 32, Sozomen narrates this of St. Hesychius and other monks of Palestine: "But Palestine also flourished with dwellings of monks. For most of those whom I enumerated above among the deeds of Constantius, still surviving, cultivated this discipline with the highest praise. And others, instructed by their company and discourse, arrived at the highest summit of virtue, and, to the heaping up of greater glory, were joined to the monasteries situated there. Of whose number was Hesychas" (so he names Hesychius), "the companion of Hilarion; and Epiphanius, who was afterwards bishop of Salamis in Cyprus. And Hesychas indeed philosophized," or led the monastic life, "in the same place as his master."

[2] Nicephorus also, book XI, chapter 39, has thus: "In Palestine also at that time very many solitary philosophers flourished. and by Nicephorus, For those were still surviving whom, when we were treating of the empire of Constantine" (read Constantius, as it is in the Greek), "we said were shining in knowledge and in the monastic life. But others also, instructed with them by their institutes, shone forth, who by their progress in virtue increased the monasteries with praise and glory not to be regretted. Of these the chief was Hesychas, the dearest companion of that Hilarion who was far the most excellent in the life which is according to God. Likewise Epiphanius, illustrious in virtue, who a long time afterwards presided as bishop over the church of Salamis. And Hesychas indeed established a workshop of quiet near Gaza, in the same place as his companion or master Hilarion, who agreed with him in all things." And Hilarion the Great made so much of his disciple Hesychius that he both delighted in him most vehemently and, when dying, wrote him, though absent, heir of his possessions, on the testimony of St. Jerome in the Life of Hilarion, chapters 22 and 38, composed before the year 392, or when not more than 20 or 21 years had yet elapsed since the death of Hilarion. See below, number 28, and tome VIII of September, page 503. And these indeed are the testimonies of the Greeks concerning St. Hesychius: perhaps he also at some time had a cult in Palestine; for Sozomen writes, book 3, chapter 14, that the inhabitants of Palestine, after the relics of Hilarion had been carried off by Hesychius from Cyprus into his monastery, publicly kept every year a very celebrated and splendid feast-day, and that they were thus accustomed to honour the holy men who had lived among them: and he explicitly affirms that this honour was shown to Aurelius of Anthedon, Alexion and Alaphion, who, since they lived at the same time under the principate of Constantius, cultivated the monastic philosophy piously and manfully, and by the example of their virtues greatly advanced the Christian religion in cities and villages much given to the superstition of the gentiles. Which Hesychius, if anyone, certainly also accomplished excellently: yet because from vague sayings of this kind one may not descend to each particular, I would have this taken of Hesychius in such a way that the matter itself remains in doubt.

[3] in what year he came to St. Hilarion, Whether Hesychius came to St. Hilarion under the empire of Constantius is uncertain: the latter took up the reins of the empire in the year 337 and laid them down in 361. St. Hilarion, however, was counting the 65th year of his age when Antony departed from among the living in the year 356. Accordingly Hilarion's 63rd year fell in the year 354. From Jerome, chapters 22 and 23, it can indeed be gathered that Hesychius had already then been with Hilarion for some time and was most dear to him, but at what definite time he gave himself to St. Hilarion to be imbued with the precepts of the monastic life is nowhere expressed. This alone is established from Jerome, chapters 2, 8 and 9, that St. Hilarion was about 37 years old when many began to profess the institute of the monastic life under his auspices. Further, just as the beginning of Hesychius's monastic life cannot be exactly described, so neither is it readily possible to define its end. It is known indeed that, his master having died about the year 372, he spent about ten months in Cyprus, and thence, having eluded the vigilance of the guards, brought back his remains into Palestine, and promoted to the best of his power the institute of the monastic life in the ancient ascetery of St. Hilarion; but whether over a course of many or few years is hidden. I know indeed the assertion of some Spanish authors, according to which, some years after the relics of St. Hilarion had been brought back from Cyprus into Palestine, Hesychius, having crossed the sea, either to avoid glory, or from a desire of propagating the monastic institute, or for whatever other cause, the Powers above so disposing, is said to have landed in Spain, and to have flourished among the Spaniards with such virtues that he was first raised by St. Asturius, bishop of Toledo, to the archdeaconry of the same church, and afterwards, when Fetadius had been taken from among the living, put on the insignia of the same see with a wonderful acclamation of the faithful: but of this matter there will be its own place for speaking below.

[4] That St. Hesychius died on the III day of October as the 4th century was drawing to its end in what year he died, Fr. Simon Martin affirms in the Sacred Relics of the desert, written in the French idiom. Why so? Because, namely, Hesychius is marked on that day in the Roman Martyrology: for I do not see that any other reason for this assertion can be given. But granted that Hesychius is marked there on this day: it does not follow from this that Hesychius truly died on that day; for it is well known that Baronius and others who the Roman

Martyrology augmented fixed at will to certain days the memory of not a few Saints whose true day of death they did not know. And among these St. Hesychius seems to have been: for nothing occurs in Jerome, nothing in Sozomen and Nicephorus, nothing in the very Annals of Baronius, from which the day of his death can be determined with certainty. Hence Chastelain in the Universal Martyrology attached this note to St. Hesychius: "Without cult and day": whereas Tamayo, too confidently, concluded the Acts of St. Hesychius with these words: "At length, full of years and abounding in good works, he exchanged this toilsome period of life for the eternal close of unfailing days on the V Nones of October in the year of the Lord CCCCXXX or thereabouts. Whose sacred body rests, laid in the patriarchal basilica" (namely of Toledo, as he believes). Nay, Bivar and other Spanish authors relate that St. Hesychius prolonged his life to the year 435, but on no more solid foundation.

[5] Where in the world Hesychius was born is likewise unknown: and where he was born is uncertain: the fame of St. Hilarion, spread in every direction, called many disciples to him from Syria, from Egypt, and beyond doubt also from Palestine, where he was living: but from where St. Hesychius came to Hilarion, Jerome is silent, nor have I learned that it is recorded in writing elsewhere. Better known is the solitude in which, under Hilarion's leadership, he first began to serve as a soldier of God, and which, after his master had been taken from among the living, he instructed with illustrious precepts of the ascetic life and made illustrious by the perennial exercise of virtue. Jerome describes it in chapter 2 in these words: "Thus naked and armed in Christ, he (Hilarion) entered the solitude which, at the seventh milestone from Maiuma, the trading-port of Gaza, turns off to the left for those going along the shore to Egypt." Further, Gaza is a very well known city of Palestine, situated between the torrent of Sorek and the Besor, in the tribe of Simeon, not far from the shores of the Mediterranean sea. To it was once subject Maiuma, or the port of Gaza, 20 stadia distant from it; made independent by Constantine and called Constantia from the name of his son, Julian the apostate subjected it again to the people of Gaza and ordered it to be called the port of Gaza. From here, at the seventh milestone on the left, there is met a solitude bordering on Egypt, in which St. Hilarion founded first a little cell and afterwards a monastery, not far from the road by which one goes from Gaza into Egypt. See Adrichomius in the Theatre of the Holy Land. And that St. Hesychius returned here after Hilarion's death is evident both from Jerome and from Sozomen and Nicephorus, cited above.

[6] Several namesakes of our Saint are read inscribed in the sacred Fasti, he is not the same as the Hesychius confessor mentioned in the Menaea, most of whom were taken away by martyrdom; and so by this single mark alone they are sufficiently distinguished from our Hesychius: but the Menaea mention a Hesychius confessor both at the VI day of March and at the X day of May: at the VI day of March briefly in this way: "On the same day, of St. Hesychius the Wonderworker." And at the X day of May: "On the same day, of our holy father Hesychius the Confessor." The eulogy subjoined to the latter announcement indicates that he was by birth of Andrapa (a small district of Galatian Pontus), and inhabited mount Maion (situated not far from Adrania, a city of Bithynia), and was famous for many prodigies. Papebroch judged both to be the same, in tome 1 of March, at the VI day of that month, page 456, where he certainly published the Life of the latter from the manuscript Greek Synaxarion of Fr. Pierre-François Chifflet. But whether they are the same or different matters little to us here: for since each is reported to have worked many prodigies, whereas our Hesychius worked not even one, let alone so many and such that he should have received the name of Wonderworker from them, each seems to have been other than ours; which indeed is more openly clear of the one whose Life the just-praised Papebroch presents: for he made Galatia or Bithynia illustrious by his virtues and his sojourn, and departed this life when Constantine was administering the empire together with his mother Irene; and so between DCCLXXX and DCCXCVII, says Papebroch in the Notes on his Life, when, her son having been reduced to order, Irene began to reign alone absolutely; neither of which suits our Hesychius.

[7] or Isicius of Toledo; There is also a certain Isicius inserted in the catalogues of the Prelates of Toledo, and he indeed is our very Hesychius, if Bivar and Tamayo are to be believed. Hear Tamayo in the Acts of St. Hesychius: "After some years" (from the body of his master being brought back into Palestine by Hesychius and laid at Maiuma in the old monastery) "he came from Palestine into Spain, having obtained a double spirit, seeking a narrow hiding-place at the end of the world; or hastening to propagate the monastic institute; or doing whatever else, yet driven by the Holy Spirit, who was preparing for him the see of Toledo. There, known by St. Asturius, bishop of the same church, who experienced his holiness, he was created archdeacon. At length, when Fetadius, pontiff of the same see, had been taken from among the living, Hesichius put on its mitre with a wonderful acclamation of the faithful. Raised to so great a height, he immediately detains at Toledo for the sake of preaching Sedulius, pontiff of Oretum, his friend. Then he wrote by letters to Blessed Augustine, prelate of Hippo, on the question whether the last day is to be inquired into. At length, full of years and abounding in good works, he exchanged this toilsome period of life for the eternal close of unfailing days on the V Nones of October in the year of the Lord CCCCXXX or thereabouts. Whose sacred body rests, laid in the patriarchal basilica." Truly I see here enough things heaped together, but perhaps not so truly as confidently asserted. Meanwhile, however, let us hear what witnesses of his statements he employs.

[8] which, from Julian and Dexter Julian and Flavius Dexter lead the column, whom a dense throng of more recent writers follows. And Julian indeed in the Chronicle at the year 414 has thus: "Isichius" (so the Spaniards write for Hesychius), "archdeacon of Toledo, rules the church of Toledo, the bodies of the holy martyrs Justus and Pastor having been found. For Asturius, after the reintegration of the bishopric, already interrupted, of Complutum 1, never deserted the bodies divinely found by him." "It is evident, therefore," says Tamayo, "that St. Hesychius was archdeacon in the city of Toledo." Nor is there greater reason for doubting about his episcopal office: for thus Julian continues a little below: "Asturius Serranus having died, in the see of Toledo Isichius succeeds, who had previously been archdeacon of the same church." Do you doubt whether he was a Palestinian monk? Flavius Dexter will remove the scruple: for thus he writes in the Chronicle at the year 428: "To Fetadius, pontiff of Toledo, succeeds Isichius, a Palestinian monk." But if you ask Tamayo for what reason there is no mention of the episcopate in Jerome, you will carry away this answer: "Because he ceased to live before Hesychius's coming into Spain, or more certainly before his election, therefore he did not know the future Acts. For St. Jerome died most probably in the year 419, but Hesychius was raised to the mitre of Toledo only in the year 428." Baronius is equally deeply silent about the episcopate of St. Hesychius; "but this ought to seem strange to no one," says Tamayo, "since Baronius took the name of St. Hesychius from the writings of Jerome and places it in the roll of the Saints." As if, forsooth, Baronius ought to have kept silent about what Jerome could not know on that account.

[9] Tamayo could also have objected Sozomen to himself, Tamayo whose words we have given at number 1. Certainly his silence has more cause for wonder than that of Jerome or Baronius, if the things which Tamayo writes about Hesychius's coming into Spain and his elevation to the see of Toledo are true. For Sozomen does not keep silent that St. Epiphanius, the other pupil of St. Hilarion, went from Palestine to Cyprus and there was made prelate of the people of Salamis; but he does not report by even a word anything similar about St. Hesychius, which nevertheless he could have known very well; inasmuch as he signifies not obscurely, in book 5, chapter 15, that he was not only born not far from Gaza of Palestine, but also as a youth had associated with certain disciples of St. Hilarion already advanced in age, from whom he could easily have learned what had become of St. Hesychius; unless perhaps someone should say that he fled so secretly from his own people that nothing about him became known to the monks of Palestine, which, as it can be asserted, but without a suitable witness, so it can also easily be rejected. There is added also the time at which Sozomen wrote his History, which he dedicated to Theodosius the Younger about the year 433 according to Papebroch on St. Epiphanius at the XII day of May, or certainly not later than about the middle of the V century; on which matter Tillemont, tome 6 of the Lives of the Emperors, page 123, can also be consulted. And at that time Hesychius could easily have become known to Sozomen at Constantinople, where he was living, since they would have it that his fame had already many years before penetrated into Africa, by letters written to Augustine.

[10] Bivar, in the Commentary on the Chronicle of Marcus Maximus, page 127, objects to himself another argument drawn from the age of St. Hesychius, and Bivar which I report in his words: "There is one thing which will perhaps seem to stand in the way for someone: namely, if the matter were as we say, Hisychius must have ascended to the 100th year of his age; since St. Hilarion died an octogenarian in the year of Christ CCCLXXII, as Baronius learnedly proves in the Notes at the XXI day of October: and that Hesychius spent twenty years, more or less, with him is certain from Jerome: and from the year of Christ CCCLXXII, in which Hilarion died, to the year of Christ CCCCXXVIII, in which he was elected bishop of Toledo, LVI elapsed, to which if you add XL, which he had at the death of his master" (whence he got this age, I know not), "it comes about that he was elected at Toledo at XCVI years, and Maximus and Julian are the authorities that he spent another eight in the episcopate, who acknowledge him as pontiff from the year of Christ CCCCXXVIII to the year of Christ CCCCXXXVI." You have the argument; here is the solution: "But the centenary age of a very aged old man ought not to be a marvel; especially in that age in which we know many ascended to it, nay even surpassed it, as that Arsenius the Great proves, keeping watch almost daily at whose most sacred remains we write these things: for a good part of the most holy body, by the kindness of God, rests in our Cistercian house of St. Anne at Valladolid." The centenary age of St. Hesychius, I confess, ought to be a marvel to no one, but I should wish it were proved by some solid reason. But it will more wonderfully, and perhaps not undeservedly, seem strange to someone that St. Hesychius, already nearly a hundred, was elected to that office, and that he, after the example of his master Hilarion most fleeing from honour, was willing, weighed down by the burden of so great an age, to take up so great an honour and burden.

[11] to prove By which indeed I should not be so much moved if the passage of Hesychius from Palestine into Spain rested from elsewhere on irrefragable, or at least probable, authority. Maximus and Julian first asserted it, of whose credibility and authority (such as they are now circulated) among the learned today, how slight it is, there is no need to say. Whence I am compelled to confess that this whole business of

falsity is vehemently suspect to me. And my suspicion is not moderately increased by the circumstances sought out too studiously for gaining credence, nay, partly plainly false. Such is what Julian writes at the year 428: "St. Augustine writes to Isichius, bishop of Toledo; he answers." The fabricator of this Julian had seen the letters 198 and 199 of a certain Hesychius to St. Augustine and of the latter to him: he made him of Toledo, the order of time being against it, and Augustine himself as well. For first, letter 199 of St. Augustine to Hesychius, his fellow-bishop, was composed about the year 419, and so about seven years before the episcopate was taken up by Hesychius. This is gathered from number 20 of the same letter, where these things are read: "But from the nativity of the Lord there are reckoned today nearly four hundred and twenty years." A second indication of this matter you have in letter 198, where Hesychius says: "For it is manifest that at one time both signs in heaven and distress of nations on earth are seen and endured by men." By which words, "He perhaps refers" (say the Benedictine editors) "to that remarkable eclipse of the sun which the historians report took place in the year CCCCXVIII on the IX day of July, and which was followed by so great a drought, as Philostorgius writes, that it brought an unwonted death everywhere upon many men and other animals."

[12] they contend in vain. Secondly, St. Augustine, On the City of God, book 2, chapter 5, "By what sentences of the Lord the Saviour the divine judgment to come at the end of the world is declared," after he had said that he was passing over many things pertaining to the coming of the Lord, but which cannot easily be discerned whether they were said of the coming of the Lord already past or of that to come at the end of the world, unless all the things said on that matter in the Evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke are compared with one another, subjoins at the end of number 4: "Which I have taken care to do in some fashion in a certain letter which I wrote back to Hesychius of blessed memory, bishop of the city of Salona," the title of which letter is "On the end of the world," all and each of which things agree exactly with letter 199: but he calls Hesychius bishop not of the church of Toledo but of that of Salona: Augustine himself, therefore, overthrows the fable of a mutual correspondence of letters between Augustine and our St. Hesychius. Salona, moreover, on the testimony of Charles of St. Paul, is the metropolis of Dalmatia, and its bishop was the Hesychius to whom the Supreme Pontiff Zosimus wrote in the year of Christ 418 about not promoting monks or laymen to the priesthood unless they had been imbued in order with the ecclesiastical disciplines, and who is believed to be the very same to whom St. Augustine sent letters in the places cited. Baudrand writes that it was once large and well cultivated, but afterwards destroyed by the Slavs. For the rest, a certain Isicius is indeed inserted in the catalogues of the prelates of Toledo: but since nothing is known either of him or of his 7 successors down to Montanus, on the testimony of Flórez, Sacred Spain, tome 5, treatise 5, chapter 3, number 36, beyond their number, their order of succession and the century in which they flourished, the authors of the pseudo-Chronicles thought this opportune occasion for feigning what they pleased was by no means to be neglected by them.

§ II. The deeds of St. Hesychius are set forth from St. Jerome.

to St. Hilarion How little probable are the things which some more recent writers have feigned about St. Hesychius's passage into Spain the foregoing, I think, sufficiently shows: it remains that I set forth his deeds drawn from a purer source, and distribute them, as far as can be done, to their times. And since the Life of St. Hilarion which St. Jerome wrote is to be published at the XXI day of October, I shall pick out from it only those things which will pertain to our Hesychius. And this in the first place greatly commends Hesychius, that, although Hilarion had imitators of his manners neither few nor slothful, whom he both loved like a father and made much of according to their merits, yet he held no one dearer than Hesychius, and he had special authority and favour with him. What Jerome relates in chapter 22 creates belief: "But he (St. Hilarion) especially detested monks who, from a kind of unbelief, reserved their things for the future and had concern either for expenses or for clothing or for anything passing away with the world. Finally, one of the brethren dwelling about five miles from him, because he had found him to be too careful and timid a keeper of his little garden and to have a very little money, he had driven from his sight. He, wishing the old man to be reconciled to him, used frequently to come to the brethren, and especially to Hesychius, in whom he (Hilarion) most vehemently delighted. One day, therefore, he brought a bundle of green chick-peas, just as they were in the plant. When Hesychius had put it on the table towards evening, the old man cried out that he could not bear its stench, and at the same time asked whence it was. And when Hesychius answered that a certain brother had brought to the brethren the first-fruits of his little field: 'Do you not perceive,' he said, 'a most foul stench, and avarice stinking in the chick-peas? Send them to the oxen, send them to the brute animals, and see whether they will eat.' And when he, according to the command, had put them in the manger, the oxen, terrified and lowing more than usual, broke their tethers and fled in different directions."

[14] The Disciple, not ungrateful, repaid the holy old man in turn: Hesychius most grateful; Hesychius venerated Hilarion as a master, loved him as a father, and honoured him with whatever services he could: and length of time fostered and increased the mutual union of their souls. For St. Hilarion, when already more than sixty years old, since he saw both his monastery remarkably increased and himself surrounded by a frequent multitude of pupils, and could not bear the concourse of every kind of men, "wept daily," says Jerome, "and remembered with incredible longing his former way of life." And these daily tears of the master stirred up the pious solicitude of the disciples: accordingly, asked by the brethren what was the matter with him, why he was wearing himself out, he said: "I have returned again to the world, and have received my reward in my life. Behold, all Palestine and the neighbouring provinces esteem me to be of some moment, and I, under the pretext of the monastery, for the maintenance of the brethren, have a farm, possessions and furniture." That the old man was meditating flight, therefore, was not obscure: but the disciples were unwilling to have so dear a pledge snatched from them, and Hesychius most of all was unwilling. "He was therefore watched intently by the brethren, and most of all by Hesychius, who was devoted with wonderful love to the veneration of the old man." And that care held Hesychius for two years, when at length, all barriers having been removed, Hilarion began his pilgrimages with Hesychius as his Achates, as is read in chapter 24.

[15] whom, departing from Palestine The first journey of both Jerome describes in chapter 24 in these words: "But he meditated nothing else than solitude, so much so that one day he determined to set out: and, a little ass having been brought (for, too much wasted by fasts, he could scarcely walk), he tried to take to the road. When this had spread abroad, and as it were a devastation and destruction of Palestine was being announced, more than ten thousand people of different age and sex gathered to hold him back. He (St. Hilarion), immovable to their prayers and striking the sand with his staff, said: 'I do not make my God a deceiver: nor can I see the churches overthrown, the altars of Christ trampled, the blood of my sons.' And all who were present understood that something secret had been revealed to him which he did not wish to confess: and nonetheless they guarded him lest he should set out. He therefore declared, protesting to all with public voice, that he would take nothing of food or drink unless he were let go. And after seven days, at length released on account of the fasting, and bidding farewell to very many, he came with an infinite column of those escorting him to Bethelia: where, having persuaded the crowds to return, he chose forty monks who had provisions for the way and could walk fasting, that is, take food after sunset. On the fifth day, therefore, he came to Pelusium, and having visited the brethren who were in the neighbouring desert and were staying in the place called Lychnos, he went on in three days to the fort of Thebatum, to see Dracontius, bishop and confessor, who was in exile there. Having consoled him incredibly by the presence of so great a man, after another three days, with much labour, he reached Babylon, to visit Philo, bishop and himself also a confessor. For the emperor Constantius, favouring the heresy of the Arians, had deported both to those places."

[16] and travelling through Egypt "Going out from there, after two days he came to the town of Aphroditon: where, having met with the deacon Baisanes, who, hiring dromedary camels, was accustomed on account of the scarcity of water in the desert to lead those going to Antony, he confessed to the brethren that the day of the falling asleep of blessed Antony was at hand, and that a night-long vigil ought to be celebrated by him for him in the very place in which he had died. In three days, therefore, through a vast and horrible solitude, they at length arrived at a very high mountain, finding there two monks, Isaac and Pelusianus, of whom Isaac had been Antony's interpreter." After this Jerome describes St. Antony's dwelling-place in a short discourse: meanwhile I too stop here a little, and turn my eyes back on the things which have been recited above. He first came to Bethelia accompanied by a great number of people: and Bethelia Sozomen, treating of his ancestors, book 5, chapter 15, sketches thus: "For although he (Sozomen's grandfather) was born of a gentile father, yet he himself with his whole household, and all together who were of the family of Alaphion, were the first to receive the faith of Christ at Bethelia: which is a village of the people of Gaza, abounding in a multitude of inhabitants; and it has temples venerable to the natives both on account of their antiquity and on account of their structure: but especially the Pantheon, placed on a certain artificial hill as on a citadel, and towering on every side over the whole village." In Sozomen ἐν βηθελίᾳ is read in Greek: but the ancient edition of the Life of St. Hilarion by St. Jerome has Bethirium, on the testimony of Rosweyde.

[17] From there Hilarion betook himself with 40 monks, among whom most probably St. Hesychius also was, and journeying through Egypt to Pelusium: it is a city of Egypt situated at the mouth of the Nile, from whose ruins, on the testimony of Baudrand, Damietta grew up on the opposite bank of the Pelusiac Nile, and he says that it is therefore not rarely wrongly confused with Pelusium by more recent writers. That the place called Lychnos was situated not far from Pelusium, the context itself declares without my saying so. From there he went to Dracontius, bishop and confessor, exiled in the fort of Thebatum. Ortelius, Table 37, calls it Thaubasium, and places it about midway between Pelusium and Babylon, once the chief city of Egypt, from whose rubble present-day Cairo is not far distant. Dracontius is believed to have been from a monk made bishop of the lesser Hermopolis in the first Egypt, and not other than him whom St. Athanasius writes, at number 7 of the Apology for his flight, was driven into exile by Constantius, the patron of the Arians, together with many other prelates of Egypt and Libya. But Athanasius also mentions there Philo and many others whom the Arian impiety made exiles. Hilarion, having gone out from Babylon with his Companions, came two days later to Aphroditon. The map in Ortelius shows four cities of Egypt of this name: the first is that which is met on the bank of the Nile by one going from Babylon towards the South: the second, situated beyond the bank of the Nile opposite Babylon, on the Athribitic river

is: the third not far from Ptolemais, the greatest city of the Thebaid: the fourth, finally, is situated not far from Latopolis in the same Thebaid. Jerome seems here to be understood of the first of these. For from here, turning off through the Nome or prefecture of Aphroditopolis towards the East, one arrives at the Troic mountain, or that of St. Antony, namely the goal of St. Hilarion's journey: whereas the journey from Babylon to the Aphroditon which is near Athribis stretches for the most part towards the North: and the distance of the rest from Babylon is too great for it to be traversed in two days. See more about the situation of St. Antony's mountain in tome 2 of February, page 108 and following.

[18] "Having returned, therefore, to Aphroditon" (so Jerome continues to describe the pilgrimages of St. Hilarion), "keeping only two brethren with him, as far as the Oasis he stayed in the neighbouring desert: with such abstinence and silence that he said he had then for the first time begun to serve Christ." Having worked some prodigies there, Hilarion, to avoid honour, went on to Alexandria, intending to pass from there to the further desert of the Oasis. "And because he had never, since he began to be a monk, stayed in cities, he turned aside to certain brethren known to him in the Bruchium, not far from Alexandria: who, when they had received the old man with wonderful joy, and night was already near, suddenly heard his disciples saddling the ass and him preparing to set out. Accordingly, rolling themselves at his feet, they begged him not to do this: and, prostrate before the threshold, they protested that they would sooner die than lack so great a guest. To whom he answered: 'I hasten to go away for this reason, lest I cause you trouble. Certainly you will learn from what follows that I have not suddenly withdrawn in vain.' On the next day, therefore, the men of Gaza with the lictors of the prefect (for they had learned that he had come the day before), entering the monastery, when they had by no means found him, said to one another: 'Are not the things true which we have heard? He is a magician and knows the future.' For the city of Gaza, after Julian had succeeded to the empire, Hilarion having set out from Palestine, having destroyed his monastery, had obtained by prayers addressed to the emperor the death of both Hilarion and Hesychius: and it had been written throughout the whole world that both should be sought. Going out, therefore, from the Bruchium, he entered the Oasis through a pathless solitude, and having spent there a year, more or less, since his fame had forestalled him there also, as though he could no longer lie hidden in the East, where many knew him both by repute and by face, he was thinking of sailing to lonely islands: so that the seas at least might hide him whom the land had made known."

[19] accompanies; and from there returns to Maiuma. Those two brethren whom Hilarion wished to have with him in the desert near Aphroditopolis I judge to have been St. Hesychius and Zananus: St. Hesychius indeed, because he, so far as appears from what follows, was Hilarion's companion in the Bruchium, when both were being sought for death by the men of Gaza. And Zananus, because he too, and indeed, so far as appears, alone, is said in chapter 30 to have sailed with Hilarion from the Oasis to Sicily somewhat later: "The old man, therefore, having Zananus with him, boarded a fleet which was sailing to Sicily." About the same time probably, when Jovian, a better prince, had already succeeded Julian in the empire, St. Hesychius returned into Palestine to visit and gather the remains of the old monastery near Maiuma, intending to return, by right of return, to his master wherever on earth he should be. Strabo describes at length Alexandria, the celebrated trading-port of Egypt, in book 17 of the Geography: of the Bruchium, in Rosweyde, in the Onomasticon to the Lives of the Fathers, Eusebius writes thus in the Chronicle in the year I of Claudius before Aurelian: "At Alexandria the Bruchium, which had been besieged for many years, is at length destroyed." Ammianus, book 20: "Alexandria … lost the greatest part of its districts, which is called the Bruchion, the long-standing dwelling-place of eminent men." He adds from Epiphanius, in the book On Weights and Measures, that this place was distinguished by the Library built by Philadelphus. And the Oasis, in which he stayed for some time with St. Hesychius, is, on the testimony of Baronius in the Notes on the Roman Martyrology at the XII day of June, not the last among the solitudes of Egypt, celebrated for the exile of holy and criminal men alike. It is twofold, the Greater and the Lesser; to which some add a third also, but separated from the former. This description of the Greater Baronius brings from Zosimus, book 5: "It was a remarkably barren place, from which no one who was deported could escape: for the land in the middle, sandy and wholly vast and uninhabited, takes away all knowledge from those making for it: partly because the winds fill up and obliterate the tracks with sand, partly because there is neither any tree nor dwelling which could leave some indication for conjecture to those making the journey." "The same solitude," says Baronius, "was made more famous by the presence of St. Hilarion, who spent a year there in the time of Julian the apostate: but afterwards it was made infamous by the exile of the impious Nestorius, who was banished there."

[20] I said that St. Hilarion stayed with St. Hesychius in the Oasis for some time, that is, less than a year. then, having returned to his master, already staying in Sicily, For Hilarion's departure into Sicily seems to have been hidden from him when he had returned into Palestine: as is gathered from chapter 32. "While these things were being done in Sicily, Hesychius his disciple was seeking the old man throughout the whole world, surveying the shores, penetrating the deserts: and having this confidence only, that wherever he was he could not lie hidden long. When three years had therefore already passed, he heard at Methone from a certain Jew, who was selling cheap trash to the people, that a prophet of the Christians had appeared in Sicily, doing such miracles and signs that he was thought to be one of the ancient Saints. Asking, therefore, about his habit, gait and speech, and above all his age, he could learn nothing. For he who was reporting it testified that only the fame of the man had come to him. Entering, therefore, the Adriatic, he came with a prosperous course to Pachynum, and, having inquired in a certain little farm on the curving shore about the fame of the old man, he learned with the agreeing voice of all where he was, what he was doing: nothing in him being so much a marvel to all as that after such great signs he had not accepted even a fragment of bread from anyone in those places." See with what love Hesychius pursued his master, for the sake of seeing whom again he traversed such great spaces of the earth. After surveying a good many shores of the Mediterranean sea, he at length reached Methone, a maritime city of the Peloponnese, where it looks towards Sicily opposite. From here, having crossed the Adriatic sea, a very large gulf of the Mediterranean sea extended between Greece, Illyricum and Italy, which today is called the Venetian gulf, he made for Pachynum, the promontory at the extremity of Sicily where it faces towards Greece; from which, setting out again, he was at length refreshed at the twentieth milestone from the sea by the sight of the most longed-for old man.

[21] But it was not permitted to be quiet for long; with him he makes for Cyprus. for soon they had to migrate elsewhere. "And not to make it long," says Jerome in chapter 33, "the holy man Hesychius, having thrown himself at his master's knees and watering his feet with tears, at length raised up by him, after two or three days' talk hears from Zananus that the old man could no longer dwell in those regions, but wished to go to certain barbarous nations where both his name and his speech would be unknown. He therefore led him to Epidaurus, a town of Dalmatia," having crossed the Adriatic sea a second time. St. Hilarion could change the air, but not his mind beneficent to mortals: the fame of his prodigies soon filled Dalmatia. "Which the old man understanding," says Jerome in chapter 34, "fled secretly by night in a small boat, and, having found a merchant ship after two days, went on to Cyprus," a very well known island of Asia in the Mediterranean sea. Sozomen narrates, book 5, chapter 10, that St. Hilarion, invited by the bishop of Cyprus, fixed his dwelling in the place which is called Χαρβυρις, at the second milestone, according to Jerome, chapter 35, from the city of Paphos: the old or the new? These words of St. Jerome hint at the old: "Having entered, therefore, Paphos, a city of Cyprus, famous in the songs of the Poets, which, having fallen through frequent earthquakes, now shows only by the traces of its ruins what it once was." Of this Seneca, Letter 91: "How often has this disaster laid waste Cyprus? How often has Paphos collapsed upon itself?" Likewise Dio Cassius at the year of the City DCCXXXIX: "To the Paphians, afflicted by an earthquake, he (Augustus) granted money, and by edict ordered the city to be called Augusta." Cyril, bishop of this city, subscribed to the council of Nicaea in the year 325, and Julius to that of Constantinople in the year 381. He who invited St. Hilarion also seems to have been bishop of this city. For thus Isidore writes, Origins, book 14, chapter 6: "The island of Cyprus received its name from the city of Cyprus which is in it. It is also Paphos, consecrated to Venus."

[22] From Hilarion to Maiuma, from Maiuma to Hilarion The remaining deeds of St. Hesychius up to the death of St. Hilarion and his remains carried back into Palestine by Hesychius St. Jerome completes in these words: "Remaining, therefore" (in Cyprus, Hilarion), "for two years, and always thinking of flight, he sent Hesychius, who was to return to him in the springtime, to Palestine to greet the brethren and to see the ashes of his monastery. When he had returned, and Hilarion desired to sail again to Egypt, that is, to the places which are called Bucolia" (this place was near Alexandria by the sea under the rocks, says Rosweyde in the Onomasticon, called in Latin Pastoralia, in the Life of St. Antony), "because there was no Christian there, but only a barbarous and fierce nation, he persuaded him rather to withdraw to a more secret place in the island itself. And when, surveying everything for a long time, he had found it, he led him twelve miles away from the sea among secret and rugged mountains, where one could scarcely ascend by crawling on hands and knees. He, having entered, contemplated a place very terrible and remote, surrounded by trees on this side and that, having also waters flowing from the brow of the hill, and a most pleasant little garden, and very many fruit-trees, whose fruit however he never took as food: near which was the ruin of a most ancient temple, from which (as he himself used to relate, and his disciples testify) the voices of such innumerable demons resounded through nights and days that you would believe it an army. With which he was greatly delighted, namely because he had antagonists close by, and he dwelt there for five years: and, Hesychius often visiting him, he was refreshed in this last time of his life, because on account of the roughness and difficulty of the place, and the multitude of shades (as was commonly reported), either no one or few could or dared to ascend to him.

[23] comes and goes to and fro, and carries the dead man's remains into Palestine: "And one day, having gone out of the little garden, he saw a man paralysed in his whole body, lying before the doors. And he asked Hesychius who he was and how he had been brought. He answering said that he had been the steward of the little farm to which the little garden also, in which they were, belonged. And he, weeping, and stretching out his hand to the man lying there: 'To you I say,' he said, 'In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, arise and walk.' Wonderful swiftness! The words were still rolling in the speaker's mouth, and already the limbs, made firm, were raising the man to stand… In the eightieth year of his age, therefore, when, absent

Hesychius was absent, he wrote with his own hand, in place of a testament, a short letter, leaving him all his riches, namely the Gospel, and a sackcloth tunic, a cowl and a little cloak. For his minister had died a few days before… And now a little heat was lukewarm in his body, nor did anything of a living man remain besides sensation, and yet with open eyes he was saying: 'Go forth, what do you fear? Go forth, my soul, why do you hesitate? For nearly seventy years you have served Christ, and do you fear death?' With these words he breathed out his spirit. And immediately he was covered with earth, buried before they announced to the city that he was dead. When the holy man Hesychius heard this in Palestine, he went on to Cyprus, and pretending that he wished to dwell in the same little garden, in order to remove from the neighbours the suspicion of a diligent guard, with enormous danger to his life, after about ten months, he stole his body. Carrying it to Maiuma, whole crowds of monks and of the towns escorting it, he laid it in the old monastery, the tunic, cowl and cloak being unharmed: and the whole body entire, as though he were still alive: and fragrant with such odours that it was thought to have been anointed with unguents."

[24] In the two last numbers there scarcely occurs anything which needs explanation: yet someone could ask how St. Hilarion bequeathed the sackcloth tunic by whom he had been presented with the tunic by way of testament. and the cowl to St. Hesychius, and nevertheless ordered that the disciples should deliver him to burial clothed just as he was. But the matter is plain: for he provided in writing that there should be handed over to St. Hesychius not his own garments but those of Zananus, his minister, who had died a little before; as the words which follow hint clearly enough: "For his minister had died a few days before." The tunic, the cowl and the other garments of the Eastern monks you have luminously described in tome 2 of January, at the XVII day of that month, in the Preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Antony, number 66 and following. What manner and method of life St. Hesychius used, and with what exercises both of mind and of body, must be gathered from the Life of St. Antony and of the other monks flourishing in holiness at that time, especially from that of St. Hilarion his master, with whom Sozomen writes that St. Hesychius agreed in all things. Or, if you please, consult our Acts in the place I have just cited, where you will find these things described in general. Bivar also may be read, On Ancient Monasticism and the monastic rules, book 4, chapter 1: Of the institutes, government and progress of the monasticism of St. Hilarion introduced into Palestine. Whether St. Hesychius presided over the monastery of Maiuma after the death of St. Hilarion I know to be nowhere recorded in writing. Bivar denies it at number 14, because he, after the body of his master had been translated to Maiuma, withdrew into Spain and administered the see of Toledo: but I do not dwell on these and other things, because they are either false or at any rate wholly uncertain.

[25] Yet I do not think the things should be omitted He is said also to have prepared an edition of the 70 interpreters; which Marco Antonio Alegre de Casanate relates of St. Hesychius at the year of Christ 360. He has thus: "He was a man most elegant in Greek diction, and an untiring investigator of the divine page: he published a new Greek translation of both Testaments, partly corrected by himself from the seventy interpreters in the Old Testament, partly brought back by his own effort to the ancient fidelity in the new." That a certain Hesychius tried to restore to its integrity the edition of the 70 interpreters, already corrupted, St. Jerome makes plain in book 2 of the Apology against Rufinus in these words: "Alexandria and Egypt in their seventy praise Hesychius as author." He subjoins also another who contributed his effort to the same thing: "Constantinople as far as Antioch approves the copies of Lucian the martyr." Nor did he keep silent about Origen, older than these: "The provinces in the middle between these read the Palestinian codices, which, prepared by Origen, Eusebius and Pamphilus published." From where the praised Alegre concludes that the Hesychius praised by Jerome was the disciple of Hilarion I do not know. "We know," he says, "that there are some who attribute that translation to Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem, who Nicephorus testifies flourished under Theodosius the Younger; but the opinion does not please us: since St. Jerome writes that this Hesychian edition was in use in all the churches throughout Alexandria and Egypt in his time, namely in the reign of Theodosius the Elder." But granted; let the edition of the 70 interpreters by Hesychius have been worn by the hands of the Alexandrians and Egyptians already from the age of Theodosius the Elder, when, namely, Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem, was not yet flourishing: how is it thence made out that this Hesychius was the disciple of St. Hilarion?

[26] but this is by no means certain. For do not Eusebius, book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 13, and even the very Nicephorus whom he cites, book 7, chapter 16, mention another Hesychius, an Egyptian prelate, whose martyrdom took place under Galerius Maximian, as the Roman Martyrology notes at the XXVI day of November? And what stands in the way of the version of the 70 interpreters used among the Alexandrians and Egyptians being attributed to him? Certainly Baronius is of that opinion at the year of Christ 306, and it is not improbable. For "besides this one," says Baronius, "no one of that name is found celebrated in Egypt," that is, older than Jerome. Next, Lucian the martyr, the other editor of the 70 interpreters, was taken from among the living about the beginning of the 4th century: and it is credible that about the same time at which he prepared a new edition of the 70 for the people of Constantinople, Hesychius also prepared his for the Alexandrians. Thirdly, when Jerome writes that the Hesychian edition was in use, he seems to be understood of a use that had already acquired at least some antiquity, not of one recently begun. Now our St. Hesychius, so far indeed as may be gathered from Jerome, was an almost inseparable companion of Hilarion, whether visiting monasteries or travelling repeatedly now here now there; and so he seems not to have undertaken his work before the death of St. Hilarion, that is, not before the year 371; if indeed he actually accomplished it. Add that his edition, if any existed, was probably received by the Egyptians not immediately as it saw the light, but gradually. From which it comes about that on this hypothesis the use of the Hesychian edition seems to have prevailed widely only as the 4th century was growing old. Yet St. Jerome mentions Hesychius in the Preface to the books of Paralipomena, which he composed in the year 396.

[27] (Jerome) not certain. The author of the Beauty of the Carmelite Paradise mentioned above indeed adduces no witness of his statements except the ancient Chronicle of his Order: as regards the edition of holy Scripture prepared by Hesychius, disciple of St. Hilarion, he copied the whole of it almost word for word from the Holy Library of Sixtus of Siena: for thus the latter: "A man most skilled in the Greek language and an assiduous reader of the divine Scriptures, he published a new Greek translation of the whole of Scripture, partly emended by himself from the LXX interpreters in the Old Testament, partly restored by his own industry to the ancient fidelity in the New Testament. There are some who attribute this same translation to Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem, a most learned man, who Nicephorus writes flourished in the times of Theodosius the Younger. Which does not seem to me likely, since Jerome writes that this Hesychian edition was in use in all the churches throughout Alexandria and Egypt in his time, that is, in the reign of Theodosius the Elder." Emmanuel Romanus also wrote the same of our St. Hesychius, on the testimony of Lezana in the Annals of the Carmelites from the year of Christ 319 to 323. Lezana does not express his own judgment on the matter there, nor do I know whether elsewhere. For the rest, Baronius too has his followers; whose opinion, although I do not reckon it certain, yet causes me not to dare to assert that the edition of which St. Jerome speaks is our Hesychius's.

§ III. The deeds of St. Hesychius are connected with their years.

The deeds of St. Hesychius Since the year of St. Hesychius's birth and death is hidden, and it is known only from Jerome and Sozomen that he returned into Palestine after the death of St. Hilarion and led the monastic life at Maiuma, the order of the things done by him must be sought from the Life of St. Hilarion. And the chronology of the latter must be gathered chiefly from this head, that he was counting the sixty-fifth year of his age, as may be gathered from Jerome in the Life of Hilarion, chapters 23 and 24, in Rosweyde, when St. Antony departed from among the living, which is shown among us in tome 2 of January, page 110, to have happened in the year of the Lord 356. Hence some deduce that St. Hilarion, who reached not the 90th year, as the Basilian Menology in Ughelli wrongly has it, but only the 80th year of his age, died in the year 372, others in 371; and so the former tie his birth to the year of the Lord 291, the latter to 292, which can be discussed at the XXI day of October, when St. Hilarion will be treated. Papebroch wrote, at the XII of May, page 38, that he prolonged his life to the year of the Lord 372. Lezana, in tome 2 of the Annals of the Carmelites at the year of Christ 356, carps at Baronius because he wrote in his Annals at this year that Hilarion was sixty-three years old when St. Antony died, and grieves that so excellent an author failed in a manifest matter: but it escaped Lezana's diligence that Baronius corrected this error of his. In tome 4 of the Annals, at the year of Christ 372, number 107, he has thus: "From whose (Jerome's) testimony also it is gathered that the same (Hilarion) departed from this life in this very year, since he relates that at the time of the death of Antony the Great, which happened in the twenty-first year" (or rather the nineteenth according to Rosweyde in the Preludes to the Life of St. Antony) "of the emperor Constantius" (this is the year of the Lord three hundred and fifty-eight, or rather fifty-six), "he was in the sixty-fifth year of his age." These things being thus established, then, let us begin the Hesychian chronology.

[29] "There were not yet at that time," says St. Jerome, "monasteries in Palestine, from Jerome in the Life of St. Hilarion, nor had anyone known a monk in Syria before St. Hilarion. He was the first founder and instructor of this way of life and pursuit in this province." Him St. Hesychius perhaps followed among the first. The epoch of his coming to him cannot indeed be accurately defined; yet it seems it must be fixed between the year 328 and 354. For it is clear from chapter 22 and the beginning of the following that St. Hesychius was beloved of his master before the latter had completed the sixty-third year of his age, and this year coincided with the year of the Lord 354. Further, Hilarion was 15 years old when he entered the solitude, and he had 22 years in it, that is, 37 in all, when he began to be famous for prodigies and to be increased with disciples; which, added to his birth-year 291 or 292, will make at least 328. From that time St. Hesychius, namely from the year 354, took diligent care lest Hilarion, wearied of the multitude and of honour, should flee secretly elsewhere, which he had well perceived the old man was meditating, until he accompanied him when he went away into Egypt. The year in which this happened authors do not reckon in the same way. Baronius indeed, at the year 356, number 48, ties Hilarion's flight into Egypt to the year which follows the death of Antony.

[30] from Jerome in the Life of St. Hilarion And according to Baronius St. Antony died

in the year 358: wherefore, according to his mind, Hilarion went away into Egypt in the year 359. Rosweyde, in the Notes on the Life of Hilarion, contends that this happened in the year 358; namely three years after the death of St. Antony, which he ascribes to the year 355. Henschenius, in tome 2 of January, in the Commentary preceding the Life of St. Antony, number 57, as also Papebroch, in tome 3 of May, on St. Epiphanius, number XI of the Preliminary Commentary, agree with Rosweyde as regards the three years which intervened between Antony's death and Hilarion's departure from Palestine: but since each refers the death of St. Antony to the year 356, he assigns to Hilarion's pilgrimage into Egypt the year of Christ 359; and the narrative of Jerome indeed favours these rather than Baronius: for, having described in chapters 25 and 26 Hilarion's coming to the mountain of St. Antony and the situation of the mountain itself, Jerome presently continues thus in chapter 27: "Having returned, therefore, to Aphroditon, keeping only two brethren with him, he stayed in the neighbouring desert: with such abstinence and silence that he said he had then for the first time begun to serve Christ. Further, it was now three years that the heaven, being shut, had dried up those lands; so that the common people said that even the elements were mourning the death of Antony." He then subjoins that Hilarion, moved by the calamity of the inhabitants of Aphroditon, unlocked the heaven by his prayers and obtained rain for the parched lands. Hilarion had gone on to the mountain of St. Antony, on the testimony of Jerome, to celebrate his birthday there; and since this falls on the XVII day of January, Hilarion was with Hesychius on the mountain of St. Antony at the beginning of the year 359, and, deducting about 17 days which he spent on the journey before arriving there, he must be said to have set out on the road about the end of the year 358 or the beginning of the following. But let us follow Hesychius going elsewhere with St. Hilarion.

[31] thus far described, That St. Hilarion went away from Aphroditon into the Bruchium, not far from Alexandria, intending soon to migrate from there into the Oasis, and there escaped the utmost peril of his life, and that on the day after his departure he was sought, together with Hesychius, by the men of Gaza to be punished with death, I related from Jerome at number 18. This happened either about the end of the year 361 or certainly in the year next following. For as the year 361 was drawing to its end, the emperor Constantius ceased to live, and in the same year Julian the apostate succeeded him, from whom the men of Gaza had obtained the death of Hilarion and Hesychius if they should chance to be caught anywhere. Having escaped that danger, Hesychius went away into Palestine. For when Hilarion sailed to Sicily, Julian having already been killed in the year 363 on the 26th day of July, he had no companion of his journey besides Zananus: and Hesychius, when about three years later he wished to return to Hilarion, did not know where on earth he was. Three years later, or in the year 365, Hesychius, not without joy, found in Sicily Hilarion, long and much sought, and, a short space of time having been spent in that island, led him to Epidaurus, a town of Dalmatia. For they had already arrived in Dalmatia when that enormous earthquake arose which Jerome described in a few words thus in chapter 33: "At that time, by an earthquake of the whole world which happened after the death of Julian, the seas went out of their bounds: and as though God were again threatening a flood, or all things were returning to the ancient chaos, ships, carried onto the steep places of mountains, hung there."

[32] Sozomen, book 6, chapter 2, relates the same earthquake thus: in what years "And as I conjecture from what I have received by hearing, either when he was reigning or certainly while he still held the dignity of Caesar, that disaster befell the Alexandrians in Egypt: when the sea, which had receded, returning again with a sudden rush, went beyond its own bounds and flooded the mainland far and wide: so that after the sea's recession boats were found on the roofs of houses. The Alexandrians certainly keep every year, down to our memory, the day on which these things happened, which they also call the birthday of the earthquake, as a feast." But he wrongly added: "And these things happened in the times of Julian." Ammianus, book 26, chapter 10, defines its year more truly. "While this innovator (Procopius) was still surviving," he says, "whose manifold acts and death we have set out, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of August, Valentinian being consul for the first time with his brother, horrible terrors suddenly ranged through the whole circuit of the world, such as neither fables nor truthful antiquities set out to us"; and he then depicts its calamities graphically. And the year in which Valentinian and Valens were first consuls was the year of Christ 365, and the second of Valentinian, who, towards the end of February in the year 364, on the testimony of the same Ammianus, was saluted emperor by the army. Jerome also assigned the same year in the Chronicle: Eusebius differs indeed in the year of Christ, but he ascribed the whole year fatal to Jovian to him, and counted the following as the first of Valentinian. Idatius and Marcellinus agree with Ammianus.

[33] The presence of St. Hilarion was very useful to the people of Epidaurus: these things probably happened, for by the threefold sign of the cross which he inscribed on the sand he brought it about that their town should not be overthrown from its foundations by the roaring waves of the sea. And the fame of this prodigy had already spread far and wide through Dalmatia, when, fleeing again secretly by night from there, he went away into Cyprus and fixed his dwelling near Paphos. He remained in that place two years, and meanwhile, in the year 366, sent Hesychius, who was to return to him in the springtime of the year next following, into Palestine to greet the brethren and to see the ashes of his monastery: on Hesychius's return in the year 367, at his persuasion, he withdrew to a more secret place of the island, and there, in the fifth year after, of Christ 371 or 372, probably on the XXI of October (for this day has been consecrated to his memory already from the VIII century, as is evident from Bede), exchanged the mortal life for the immortal. Hesychius was frequently with him in this last time of his life; yet when he departed from life, Hesychius had again taken the road into Palestine: to him, therefore, Hilarion left, as by testament, the tunic, cowl and little cloak of Zananus, who had died a little before. And when Hesychius heard of Hilarion's death, he returned to Cyprus, and after about ten months carried the secretly removed body of Hilarion into Palestine and laid it at Maiuma in the year 372 or 373. What has been said in this last § is presented, gathered into one, by the synopsis which I subjoin.

[34] is explained. St. Hesychius is born in an uncertain year about the beginning of the IV century or the end of the III.

He embraces the monastic life under St. Hilarion, probably neither earlier than the year 328 nor later than 354, at Maiuma in Palestine.

He applies every care from the year 354, at least until the year 356, lest Hilarion flee secretly.

He accompanies Hilarion into Egypt in the year 359, or certainly thereabouts.

He migrates into the Oasis and undergoes peril of his life with Hilarion in the year 361 or 362: and from there goes away into Palestine to visit the brethren living at Maiuma.

After much both of travel and of labour he finds St. Hilarion in Sicily, and leads him first into Dalmatia, then into Cyprus, in the year 365.

Sent from here a second time by Hilarion into Palestine to visit the remains of the old monastery, he returns to Hilarion staying near Paphos in the year 367, and persuades his master not to abandon Cyprus, but rather to choose a more secret place in the same island.

He is written heir by Hilarion in the year 371 or 372, and carries the remains of the dead man from Cyprus into Palestine in the year 372 or 373, and honourably commits them to the earth at Maiuma, and continues to profess the monastic life. Since, further, it is hidden how long afterwards Hesychius was among the living, I have ascribed at the beginning of the Commentary the year 373, as that in which he is more certainly known to have last flourished.