Pelagia the Penitent

ON ST. PELAGIA THE PENITENT, AT JERUSALEM,

ABOUT THE YEAR CDLVII.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Pelagia, penitent, at Jerusalem. (S.)

BY C. B.

§ I. The Saint distinguished from others; her memory in the sacred Calendars; Acts of approved credit to be edited.

At this very day we have already referred among the Passed Over two holy Pelagias, of whom one was given in our Work at the 4th day of May, the other at the 9th of June, [The Saint, who is distinguished from two Pelagias already given and a third still to be given,] and yet here there still remains another St. Pelagia to be commemorated, inscribed today in the sacred Calendars not of the Greeks only, like those, but of the Latins also and of other nations, and first of all announced in the Roman Martyrology today in these few words: At Jerusalem, of saint Pelagia, surnamed the Penitent. How certainly she is distinguished from those two already recounted today, as I said, among the Passed Over, is most clearly proved by what our Janning brings forward in the Historical Commentary on the latter of them at the said 9th day of June; so that it is not necessary to discourse further here in order to give it as proved. Nor is there need of very many words either to prove that the same St. Pelagia, to be given here, is different both from the St. Pelagia mentioned in the Hieronymian codices and in very many other sacred Calendars at the 19th day of October; and also from Margaret, brought today into the sacred Gynaeceum by Arthur du Monstier from Pietro de' Natali in the Catalogue, book 9, chapter 37, and from Jacobus de Voragine in the Legends of the Saints, chapter 146, who, having left the world and assumed the habit of a man, called herself Pelagius, which our Saint too did, from what will be said. For Pelagia, inserted in very many sacred Calendars at the 19th of October, ended this mortal life crowned with martyrdom, which cannot be said of our Pelagia, inasmuch as what is to be said will show that she rested in peace.

[2] and from Margaret, who, like her, feigning to be a man, named herself Pelagius, And as regards now Margaret, who, having left the world and assumed the habit of a man, called herself Pelagius: although the Acts to be edited, of which below, make it undoubted that our Saint too was at one time called by the name of Margaret by the people of Antioch, before she shook off the mire of a wicked and impure life and turned to the Lord, yet that she is most certainly different from the Margaret recorded by Pietro de' Natali and Jacobus de Voragine anyone will find without difficulty who compares what these two writers hand down to memory concerning their Margaret with the Acts of our Saint to be edited, which, as I shall presently show, are of credit approved on every side. The Margaret indeed who is related by Equilinus and Jacobus de Voragine, and from them by Arthur, is perhaps not distinguished from St. Marina, already given by us at the 17th day of July, who is also called St. Margaret and lay hidden under the habit of a man, no otherwise than the Margaret of Equilinus, as our Du Sollier teaches in that place in Appendix 1 subjoined to the Acts of this Saint; but that that Saint, named Marina, although she is also called Margaret, and although moreover Pelagia in Greek signifies, as far as the thing goes, the same as Marina in Latin, is the same as our Pelagia, who herself also, from what has been said, was at one time called Margaret, proves nothing at all; nay rather, that the one is beyond all doubt different from the other, contrary to what some have thought, becomes plain from the Acts of both, as anyone who has turned over these even cursorily will detect with no trouble. Nor does anything further occur from elsewhere by which you might in any way assert that our Saint, also called Margaret at one time, is the same either with the Margaret of Equilinus or with Marina, who is also Margaret.

[3] But in the copies of the Martyrology which is circulated under the name of St. Jerome, [from the Hieronymian ones, although also from a certain Pelagia inscribed in them today,] published by Fiorentini, d'Achery and our Du Sollier, a certain St. Pelagia is also announced today, as to whom it is called into doubt whether she is not the same as our saint Pelagia. Our Du Sollier, on today's list of Saints which Usuard supplies, observes thus among other things: That some Pelagia is commemorated in the Hieronymian ones (namely today) is certain; whether it is that penitent who is assigned to Jerusalem by Baronius, Fiorentini doubts. To us, in an obscure matter, nothing so far

is it permitted to decide. It is probable enough that Usuard took the name of Pelagia from the Hieronymian ones, to whom he added at his own discretion the surname of the sinner, because she was the best known among those of the same name. Since our Pelagia did not fall by martyrdom, but ended her life in peace, as I have already advised above, it could be pronounced with certainty that she is different from the Pelagia inscribed today in the Hieronymian ones, if it were established that a martyr is presented in these. But that does not appear certain on every side. For she, as Fiorentini observes today in the Hieronymian copies edited by him, seems to be recorded in the Lucca copies of these books alone, that is, separated from the martyrs Dionysius, Januarius, Faustinus, Martial, Privatus, Eraclus and Julian. Moreover, in the most ancient Echternach copy in the said Fiorentini, with which the Reichenau copy, published by our Du Sollier in volume VII of June together with some other more contracted Hieronymian copies, agrees entirely and exactly as regards what is relevant to the matter here, Pelagia is today commemorated at Antioch alone, that is, separated from the said martyrs, thus: At Antioch, of Pelagia, and elsewhere of Julian, Martial, Privatus, Faustinus. Now, since these things stand so, it seems that it can at any rate be doubted whether the Pelagia who is celebrated today in the Hieronymian ones is a martyr, and accordingly whether she is distinguished from our Pelagia.

[4] Nevertheless, since more copies of the Hieronymian ones are found which announce the Hieronymian Pelagia at Antioch it is more probable that she is different, joined with the martyrs mentioned above, than which commemorate her there alone, that is, separated from them, and since none of these adds to its Pelagia the surname either of penitent or of sinner, usually given to our Saint, it appears more probable, to me at least, as it also seemed to Fiorentini, though he spoke doubtfully, that a martyr is designated by it, and accordingly a Saint distinct from our Pelagia; especially since in the same Echternach copy praised above, at the preceding day of this month, Pelagia is also read joined to the aforesaid martyrs at Antioch in this manner: At Antioch, of Dionysius, bishop, Januarius, Faustinus, Martial, Privatus, Eraclus, Julian, Pelagia; and although this announcement is faulty as regards the day on which it is made, as Fiorentini rightly observes, yet at the same time it makes it more and more probable that in the same Echternach copy Pelagia is announced erroneously today without the martyrs joined to her. Moreover, it is also an argument that the Pelagia inserted today in the Hieronymian ones is distinguished from ours, that in almost all the copies of these, which are wont to note the places in which the Saints died, not also those in which they obtained cult, she is announced at Antioch; whereas our Pelagia died not at Antioch but at Jerusalem, although meanwhile she lived for some time in the former of these cities, and was perhaps also born there, as the Acts to be edited show.

[5] copies, yet not also, contrary to what Giorgi thinks, But, to proceed now to another point: however much it may appear from all that has been said that the Pelagia inscribed today in the Hieronymian ones — of whom, together with the martyrs, namely Dionysius, Januarius, Faustinus, Martial, Privatus, Eraclus and Julian, whom most Hieronymian copies join to her, as I have already shown, there will be a set treatment below — is different from our Pelagia, it nevertheless appears probable enough to me, with our Du Sollier praised above, that Usuard took the name of the Pelagia whom he announces from the Hieronymian ones, and added to it at his own discretion the surname of Sinner, because she was the best known among those of the same name, and seemed to him the same as the Pelagia inscribed today in the Hieronymian ones. This opinion is settled because of the ancient or classical Martyrologists of the Latins absolutely none who flourished before Usuard commemorates any Pelagia at the 8th day of October. Giorgi indeed, in his observations of today on the Martyrology of Ado illustrated by him, says that Usuard could also have had the Adonian copies before his eyes. But what or what kind of Adonian copies does he understand? Pure ones? Or ones augmented with additions not made by Ado himself? Since the Adonian Martyrology is not much older than Usuard's (see our Du Sollier in his Preface to the latter, number 160), he most probably understands, unless I am mistaken, pure copies, that is, such as comprised no other Saints than those whom Ado himself had brought into the Martyrology composed by him, and accordingly he judges that our Saint is Adonian, that is, was brought by Ado himself into the Martyrology which he here composed.

[6] to have been brought from the pure Ado into the Usuardine Martyrology; But this opinion of his appears to me hardly probable: for besides the fact that from all three earlier editions of Ado, of which Lippomano prepared the first, Mosander the second, and finally Rosweyde the third, any Pelagia whatever is absent today, neither does the name of Pelagia appear in any of the Adonian manuscript codices, which exist with us in great number, if you except the one from Lobbes. Giorgi indeed says that Pelagia, who was also called the sinner, is commemorated in his codices; but since these, as he himself admits in the Preface prefixed to his Ado, number 5, are only three, and the oldest of them was written only in the eleventh century, and therefore about two hundred years after Ado, who flourished in the ninth century, who would assert for certain that either this one or the other two, augmented in more than one place with additions made by another hand, are free here from this blemish? However that may be, Giorgi's codices, only three in number, together with our Lobbes manuscript of Ado, cannot bring it about that I should think today's list of Saints, as it was composed by Ado himself, to have been wrongly mutilated of Pelagia in the far more numerous Adonian exemplars which I have just praised, partly printed, partly manuscript. That I am so disposed in mind is also brought about in part by Notker and the author of the Little or Old Roman Martyrology: for the former, although he composed his Martyrology for the greater part from Ado, and commonly recounts all the Saints whom he found in it, nevertheless does not commemorate Pelagia today; which is an argument, of whatever kind (see Du Sollier in his Preface to Usuard, number 154 and following), that she was not found by him in Ado; and the latter, since he served as a light to Ado and yet does not celebrate Pelagia today, makes it at any rate more probable that she was also passed over by Ado.

[7] Let it stand, therefore, that St. Pelagia was probably taken by Usuard from the Hieronymian copies alone, besides very many other sacred Calendars, both Latin, recounted here, and not also from Ado; nay rather, I should without difficulty believe that she was drawn by that martyrologist not from the Hieronymian ones but either from the sacred Calendars of the Greeks or from the Life to be edited, if either in this, which he most probably had as his guide here, the 8th day of October were found noted anywhere as having been the day of Pelagia's death, or if he had had at hand Greek sacred Calendars in which it was marked that the Saint departed to the Lord on the 8th day of October. But on what day St. Pelagia departed from among the living is nowhere indicated even by a shadow in her Life to be edited: and as regards the sacred Calendars of the Greeks, in the third indeed of the three verses of the Menaea soon to be recited it is declared clearly enough that St. Pelagia died on the 8th day of October; but whether these, or even the Menaea themselves, possess sufficient antiquity to have been able to serve as a light to Usuard, is very doubtful to me. Moreover, I nowhere find that Usuard borrowed any Saints, either as to name or as to day, from the sacred Calendars of the Greeks. But from whatever source at length Usuard received our Pelagia, he deservedly granted her a place in the Martyrology composed by him, announcing her today thus: On the same day, of saint Pelagia, who is called the sinner. This is plain both from the very life of this Saint, which, a most severe penance for her past sins having been performed, she ended by a most happy death, as the Acts to be edited give credence; and also from the fact that all the Martyrologists later than Usuard — if, however, together with Notker, of whom we have already spoken, you except Rabanus and Wandelbert — and the very framers of the present Roman Martyrology likewise brought Pelagia into the sacred Calendars prepared by them.

[8] I do not think it worth the effort to transcribe here the announcements of each, since they supply almost nothing and also Greek, namely in the Menaea, which is not contained in the announcements of Usuard or of the present Roman Martyrology, already given above; it deserves however to be observed that Pelagia, who is announced by Usuard without the place being expressed in which she either died or obtained cult, is in some of the said more recent calendars, after the example of the present Roman Martyrology, consigned to Jerusalem — and most rightly indeed, since the Saint departed to the Lord there and was honoured there with ecclesiastical cult, from what will be said — and is given the surname not of sinner, by which Usuard notes she was called, but of the Penitent; which latter is indeed more apt for commending the holiness of Pelagia in the very brief announcements in which they commemorate her. Nor do the Latins only, but the Greeks too in their sacred Calendars, namely in the Menologies, Menaea and other ecclesiastical books, celebrate on the present day St. Pelagia, who, having left an impure life, turned herself to the Lord, making also their principal Office concerning her. And first indeed in the Menaea, in which this is contained, as what will be said below concerning the cult of the Saint will show, our Saint is honoured with three verses and with a eulogy subjoined to them, which is not very long. I am pleased to transcribe here both the latter and the former, with a Latin interpretation also added at the foot. The verses run thus:

Αἴσχους λυθεῖσα, καὶ λιποῦσα τὸν σάλον Πρὸς ὅρμον ἤκεις οὐρανοῦ, Πελαγία. Ὀγδοάτη ὑπάληξε * βίου πέλαγος, Πελαγία.

Freed from foulness and the tossing sea left behind, To the harbour of heaven you come, Pelagia. On the eighth Pelagia escaped the sea of life.

[9] of which the eulogy with which they adorn the Saint is given here, Of these three verses, the last indeed is expressed in Latin in metre prepared by our Papebroch in the Graeco-Muscovite Ephemerides; the two former in prose composed by me, as you see here; behold now also the eulogy which is subjoined to the verses, conceived in these following words:

Αὕτη ἡ Ἁγία ὑπῆρχεν ἐπὶ Νουμεριανοῦ βασιλέως ἐκ πόλεως Ἀντιοχείας ταῖς ὀρχήστραις καὶ ταῖς θεατροσκοπίαις σχολάζουσα καὶ παλακευομένη * τῇ πόλει, καὶ συνάγουσα ἐκ τῆς πονηρᾶς ταύτης ἐργασίας πλοῦτον ἄπειρον, αὔτη κατηχηθεῖσα παρά τινος Νόννου ἐπισκόπου, ἁγίου ἀνδρὸς, καὶ θερμῶς μετανοήσασα καὶ βαπτισθεῖα ἁποβάλλεται πάντα ὡς σκύβαλα, καὶ περιβαλλομένη τρίχινα καὶ εἰς ἄνδρα μετασχηματισθεῖσα καὶ λαθοῦσα κατέλαβε τὸ ὄρος τῶν ἐλαιῶν, καὶ ἐγκλείσασα ἑαυτὴν ἐν κελλίῳ τὸ λειπόμενον τῆς ζωῆς θεαρέστως ζήσασα ἐν εἰρήνῃ ἀνεπαύσατο.

This Saint, under the emperor Numerian, was from the city of Antioch, and when she gave herself up to the orchestra and the games of the theatre, and had even become a public prostitute of the city, and had collected infinite riches from this depraved gain, being instructed in the faith by a certain bishop Nonnus, a holy man, and grieving vehemently for her sins, and having been baptized, she cast away all things as dung, and having put on haircloth and assumed the habit of a man, she withdrew secretly to the mount of Olivet, and when there in a little cell herself

had shut herself up, and had spent the rest of her life as was acceptable to God, she rested in peace.

[10] is found inserted in the Sirletian and Basilian Menologies, With this eulogy of the Menaea another eulogy, which is supplied in the Sirletian Menology, which also celebrates Pelagia today, agrees closely as to substance, and both the one and the other expressly declare that our Saint flourished under the emperor Numerian; but wrongly, as will become most clearly evident from what I shall bring forward in the following §: so that the Basilian Menology certainly, which, no otherwise than the Sirletian and the Menaea, adorns Pelagia today with a somewhat longer eulogy, does better to wrap in silence the name of the emperor under whom this Saint flourished, although meanwhile it does not agree accurately everywhere in other matters with the Life to be edited, of which it presents a kind of summary, as I shall observe in the Annotations to be subjoined to that little work. Meanwhile I have already recounted the three principal sacred Calendars of the Greeks, namely the great printed Menaea, and the Sirletian and Basilian Menologies, in which our Saint is today not only commemorated, but also honoured with a somewhat longer eulogy; and since I do not find other sacred Calendars used by the Greeks which are suited in any way to add weight to these (for neither the ancient Calendar of the Greeks, which Génébrard published in the year 1592, nor other shorter sacred Calendars of theirs supply almost anything besides the bare name of the Saint), I now come to the Russians and the Syrians, among whom moreover I find the memory of the Saint held in veneration.

[11] And the Russians, that is, the Slavs or Muscovite Russians, [and celebrated besides in the Russian Calendars and likewise in the Syriac Calendar] in their Slavo-Russian menology, which, rendered into Latin by the most noble Baron de Sparwenfeld for us, we keep in manuscript; in the Ruthenian Synaxarion which George David, priest of our Society, acting as missionary there, sent to us from Moscow in the year 1688; and likewise in the Graeco-Muscovite Ephemerides, both metrical and illustrated, published in print before volume 1 of May of our Work, commemorate our Saint today, with a title or epithet everywhere added, from which it is understood that it is not a question of another of the same name, although meanwhile they do this everywhere in only very few words: and as regards now the Syrians, among whom the Saint had her birth, in the Syriac or Chaldaic Calendar, which was printed at Rome in the year 1624, and which exists with us in manuscript rendered into the Italian language by Simone Mosè, a student of the Maronite college there, it is noted thus at this day: Of Saint Pelagia of Antioch. The same is done also in the same said Syriac or Chaldaic Calendar as Gratiasimonius the Maronite, not rarely mentioned by our Henschen, made it Latin for us, the name of Pelagia however being a little corrupted. In that sacred monument indeed, whether as it was translated into Italian by Simone Mosè or as into Latin by Gratiasimonius, nothing at all is added which betrays that the discourse is about our Saint rather than about the other saint of Antioch of the same name; but since the sacred calendars of the Latins as well as of the Greeks and Russians, already recounted above in great number, with unanimous consent (excepting, however, the Hieronymian copies, as to which it is doubtful from what was said above which Pelagia they commemorate today) commemorate today no other Pelagia than ours, it appears to me most probable, not to say undoubted, that she too is treated of in the aforesaid Syriac or Chaldaic Calendar; and this most of all from the fact that the Saint of Antioch of the same name as our Saint is known as no other than one who is a martyr, and the same Calendar, when it consigns a female or male Saint who ended life by martyrdom, is wont to add to it the title of Martyr, and yet does not add this to the Pelagia whom it records today.

[12] Moreover, throughout the whole of Syria far and wide, nay and the whole of Asia, our Saint, she has also obtained an author who with the best faith wrote her Life in Greek. as appears, shone forth above all the other holy women of Antioch of the same name for the celebrity of her name, acquired by the works of most severe penance by which she washed away the guilt of her past life; so that, since in the said Calendar, in which Pelagia is marked at this 8th day of October, this name recurs at absolutely no other day of the whole year, it must be judged that our Saint rather than any other of the same name is designated by it today. Further, to turn my discourse elsewhere now, no one will wonder that St. Pelagia, surnamed by some the sinner, by others the penitent, acquired such great celebrity of name as I have said, who has turned over her Life or Acts setting forth her plainly wonderful conversion and the most severe penance which followed it. They were consigned to writing by one who, having first had a part in the astonishing conversion of Pelagia, was afterwards also an eye-witness, as he himself indicates in more than one place, both of the penance performed by her and of her happy departure from among the living: a certain James, deacon of St. Nonnus, bishop of Edessa, as I shall show below. Those Acts, therefore, inasmuch as they are by a contemporary author, who also saw with his own eyes most of the things he writes, merit entire credit (would that it were lawful to pronounce this also of the Acts of some other Saints!). Further, the simplicity as well as the gravity of the style in which they are written greatly commends the sincerity of the author, nor have I been able to find any more recent writer, however much given to severer criticism, who carps at them.

[13] Various Latin copies of this exist with us, and also two Greek Lives: They were, as appears, originally written in Greek, and afterwards a certain Eustochius rendered them into Latin, who he was or in what age he flourished I have not ascertained, as these four verses prefixed to his version in Rosweyde give credence:

The words of so great a priest, hidden from the Latins, I, Eustochius, have translated with the help of Christ. But do you, readers, weigh the labour with me, And, mindful of us, pour out words to God.

That version, or the work of Eustochius, by which the learned judge that the original Greek Life is expressed accurately enough, exists published in Surius in the fourth Trimester, and in Rosweyde in the Lives of the Fathers, page 376 and some following. In our three manuscripts, different parchment codices of the best mark, of which the first is marked P Ms. 17, the second P Ms. 18, and finally the third O Ms. 19, there exists also in Latin the Life of our Saint written by James the deacon, but lacking at the beginning the verses of Eustochius which I have just recited; and no wonder: for although it agrees closely in substance with the work of Eustochius, yet in the words and phrases by which it expresses it, it differs so much from it that it cannot but have an interpreter distinct from Eustochius. He, as to whom likewise I cannot declare who he was or when he flourished, differs indeed from the latter also in some circumstances: but this difference which subsists between the two is not so great that either of them should on that account deserve the mark of an untrustworthy interpreter, or even the name of interpolator. Meanwhile the version of that anonymous interpreter pleases me no less than that of Eustochius. Would that only even one copy of the original Greek Life, of which, as I have already indicated, I have so many Latin copies, were at hand! For thus it would be permitted to judge more safely which version excels, as also whether everywhere it has aptly expressed the sense of the author and whether either Eustochius or the anonymous interpreter has sinned in anything against the laws of accurate interpretation; and I would place that Greek work itself before the reader's eyes at the foot of this Commentary, so that the reader himself could also do this, with a new interpretation too set opposite, if perhaps neither the version of Eustochius nor that of the anonymous interpreter pleased, according to the custom received among us when we edit Greek Acts.

[14] but these are only paraphrases of the original Greek Life There exist indeed with us two different Lives of Pelagia, surnamed the penitent or also the sinner, written in the Greek idiom; but both are not the original Life of the Saint itself, but only paraphrases of it, of which one has an anonymous author, the other Metaphrastes, as it seems to Allatius in On the Writings of the Simeons, and to others. And the former indeed, which, begun with these words, τὸ γεγονὸς πρᾶγμα ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἡμῶν, exists in our codex marked ✠ Ms. 193, seems to be only a paraphrase of the original Greek Life, both because it presents the discourses, which are related in the Life published in print by Surius and again by Rosweyde to have been held back and forth by the Saint and by others, much more augmented and more prolix than they are in the latter; and also because in it the author relates toward the end that it came about that, while he was still staying at Jerusalem, whither he had betaken himself for the sake of visiting the holy places, St. Pelagia, whom he had then at the same time visited by order of Nonnus his bishop, closed her last day, and that the fame of this event was soon widely spread: but Eustochius, in the Life rendered by him into Latin, relates that this was done by the same author himself, when, visiting Pelagia a second time, he had found her dead: which indeed, if in the original Greek Life it had only been noted that our Saint closed her last day while its author was staying at Jerusalem and that the fame of this event was soon widely spread, Eustochius could not have done without an addition wholly foreign to the sincerity of a faithful interpreter; who, although perhaps he does not everywhere express the original Greek Life of the Saint entirely accurately even in matters of slighter moment, is yet nowhere detected departing from the office of a sincere interpreter.

[15] And as regards now the Life prepared by Metaphrastes and begun with these following words, γυναικείαν ἀρετὴν τῆς τῶν ἀνδρῶν οὐδὲν ἀπολειφθεῖσαν, it appears all but undoubted that this is a paraphrase of an older Life, both are; and hence, not those, even from the fact that it was composed by this writer, who rendered the more ancient Acts of the Saints which he undertook to polish, although sometimes, the style being changed, more contracted, yet from time to time also more prolix. Moreover, it bears plainly the same marks from which I have now already shown that the Greek Life of our Saint existing in our codex ✠ Ms. 193 is only a paraphrase of the original Greek Life, as anyone will find without difficulty who consults it either in Surius or in Lippomano, both of whom published it in Latin, and at the same time compares it with the Life of the Saint edited by Rosweyde in the Lives of the Fathers. This difference, however, subsists between the Life which exists in our codex ✠ Ms. 193 and the other which was composed by Metaphrastes, that the former is written in a very humble and simple style; the latter on the contrary in a style as lofty and polished as possible. Hence further, and from the other things which I have already said above concerning both these works, it appears to follow that Metaphrastes polished with his style and rendered paraphrastically not the original Greek Life of our Saint, rendered into Latin by Eustochius, but that other one which, from what has been said, is only a paraphrase of it and exists in our codex ✠ Ms. 193; or rather, that he expressed more ornately the paraphrase of an earlier paraphrast. But, however this may be, both the one

and the other work seem to depart too far from the original Greek Life to be held in great esteem or to deserve to be reprinted at the foot of this Commentary.

[16] In the Catalogue of the manuscript codices of the Library of the king of France, but we shall reprint only the Latin Life from Rosweyde's edition. volume 2, printed at Paris in the year 1740, various manuscript codices are assigned in which the Life of St. Pelagia, begun with these words, τὸ γενόμενον θαύμα, is contained; but I very much doubt whether it differs much from the Life of Pelagia existing in our codex ✠ Ms. 193, of which we have already treated. Moreover, that beginning in no way, as appears, agrees with the beginning which the version of the original Greek Life presents, whether prepared by Eustochius or by the other, anonymous interpreter. I did not therefore think it worth the effort to see that it should be copied and sent to us; and since the Greek Lives which, as I have already advised, exist with us do not seem worthy of the press, it remains that I reprint at the foot of this Commentary only the Life rendered into Latin from the original Greek Life; and this indeed I would furnish from one of our three manuscript codices mentioned above, which differ from one another only in some readings of no great moment, if I had ascertained for certain that the Latin version which these present, made by an anonymous interpreter, excels the version made by Eustochius; but since the matter stands otherwise, and the Eustochian version has already won approval among all the learned, I have thought it better to subjoin to this Commentary the Latin Life of the Saint which this version, already edited by Rosweyde, sets forth. This I shall in very truth also do, and in such a way indeed that I shall assign, in the Annotations to be subjoined to the Life according to custom, the principal readings in which the Eustochian version differs from the version presented in our codices, and especially those in which, the two having been collated, the latter shall seem to excel the former or the contrary, bringing in for support also, where I shall judge it opportune, the two Greek Lives, which I mentioned above, existing with us.

* ὑπάλυξε

* παλλακευομένη

§ II. When the Saint was converted to the Lord, and afterwards closed her last day.

That the Saint, who certainly did not flourish under Numerian, That St. Pelagia did not flourish under the emperor Numerian, as is noted in the eulogy recited above from the great Menaea of the Greeks, and, as I advised in the same place, in the Sirletian menology, is plain even from this, that the things which are narrated by James the deacon in the Life to be edited, worthy, as I have already shown, of the fullest credit on every side, most openly declare that the Church at that time when she flourished was in the fullest peace and tranquillity, which it certainly did not enjoy before the fourth century, that is, the age of Constantine the Great; whereas Numerian held the reins of empire from the year 284, and in the same year also laid them down, snatched from among the living by a violent death. Moreover, since Numerian reigned only about eight months (see Pagi in the Critica at the year 284, numbers 2 and 3), who would think that the things related of Pelagia by James the deacon, which occupied a space of about four years, as appears to follow from what he writes here at number 20 and following, could be placed fittingly enough under this emperor, even if for a moment we should grant that Pelagia flourished in the third century? What of the fact that absolutely no writing or monument sufficiently ancient and in any way worthy of credit (for I do not here delay over the Catalogue of Pietro de' Natali, who says the Saint died about the year 280, as being a writer far too recent) can be brought forward which would even in appearance support the Menaea and the Sirletian Menology, which join our Saint with the reign of Numerian? But in what century or what age shall we set the things that are handed down to memory concerning Pelagia by James the deacon, and in particular about what year shall we determine that her Conversion to the Lord and her happy departure from among the living took place?

[18] Nicephorus, in book 14 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 30, writes thus: was converted by Nonnus, substituted in the see of Edessa for Ibas And over the church of Edessa presided that divine Nonnus, who, having brought by the persuasion of his words the foremost Maenad in the city of Antioch, and, beyond all expectation, consecrated her to God, presented her to Him as a most pure bride and spouse, surnaming her Pelagia instead of Margaret, in whom certainly and deservedly one might admire the sea of the divine judgement. So he; who, since he is speaking of the illustrious men who flourished under Theodosius the Younger, teaches that Nonnus, who converted Pelagia, flourished at that time. Baronius further, in his Annotations of today on the Roman Martyrology, having cited the same text of Nicephorus which I have already recited, subjoins thus: They err who refer her (namely St. Pelagia) to the times of Numerian, and say that she was converted to Christ by Nonnus, who is also held to have been called Hippolytus, bishop of Porto; for we refuted these things above (namely at the 22nd day of August). For the Nonnus who converted her was bishop of Edessa, substituted in the place of Ibas, as Liberatus the deacon writes in the Breviarium, chapter XII; and when the latter had recovered his see at the Council of Chalcedon, Nonnus remained at Antioch, commended by the synod to Maximus, bishop of Antioch, as is established from the same council, Act X. Further, the latter set him over the church of Heliopolis situated by Lebanon, which Sozomen mentions, History, book XV, chapter IX. Different from it is the other Heliopolis, which is in Egypt, which is subject to the bishop of Alexandria and not of Antioch. Further, the same Nonnus was afterwards restored to the church of Edessa, as appears from the letter of the bishops of that province written in approval of the council of Chalcedon to the emperor Leo. It exists in volume 2 of the Councils, new edition, page CCXLII.

[19] Nonnus, bishop of Edessa, mentioned here by Baronius, in the year 449, Baronius at first rightly judged; is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology at the 2nd day of December; and in the Ephesine pseudo-synod first celebrated in the year 449, in which the impious Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, trod underfoot all human and Divine laws, he was substituted in the place of Ibas, bishop of Edessa, as Liberatus the deacon gives credence in the Historical Breviarium, in volume 5 of the councils of Labbe's edition, column 759; and when afterwards he had been removed from that see, Ibas being restored to it, by the ecumenical council of Chalcedon of the year 451 (see its Action 10 in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column 676 and following), he afterwards likewise recovered the same see, when it had been made vacant by the death of Ibas about the year 457. This becomes plain from the fact that to the letter which the bishops of the province of Osrhoene wrote to the emperor Leo, when he had sent an encyclical letter to all the bishops questioning them about the council of Chalcedon in the same year 457 (see Tillemont, volume 15 of the Ecclesiastical Memoirs), Nonnus, bishop of the metropolis of Edessa, is found subscribed in the first place, as may be seen in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column 917: and since these things are so, and it does not appear on any ground that Nonnus was bishop before the year 449, it follows that, on the opinion which Baronius proposes in the words just recited, Pelagia certainly, inasmuch as, as he determines, she was converted by that Nonnus, holy bishop of Edessa, was brought to the faith, and at the same time from the filth of an impure life to the Lord, not earlier than that same year 449. And this opinion indeed of that most famous writer is closely consonant with the truth, if however you except what it comprises concerning the Heliopolitan episcopate of Nonnus, as I shall show below; but he seems afterwards to have abandoned it in the Annals at the year 451.

[20] but afterwards, as is plain from his words recited here, For there he writes thus: There exists an excellent history of the event (the conversion of St. Pelagia), committed to writing by James, deacon of Heliopolis: where, since the same Nonnus (namely he who is related by Nicephorus, in the words transcribed above, to have been bishop of Edessa and to have converted Pelagia) is said to have been bishop of the same Heliopolis, a city of Phoenicia subject to the bishop of Antioch, the things which were written by Nicephorus (see his words, given at number 18) can be brought into doubt; namely whether this same is that Nonnus with him who was substituted by Dioscorus for Ibas as bishop of Edessa, and afterwards, Ibas being restored, rejected thence, and handed over to Maximus of Antioch, by whom he could have been created bishop of Heliopolis. For the Nonnus who converted Pelagia seems to have been the first bishop of Heliopolis before these times: for these things are read of him in those Acts, proclaimed by the wicked demon: Are not thirty thousand Saracens enough for you, whom you have snatched from me and baptized? Was it not enough for you that you had cast me out from your Heliopolitans: since, whereas the city itself was mine and all who dwelt in it adored me, you snatched them from me and offered them to your God. Thus far there. But it is established that before these times of Nonnus there was a bishop of the same city named Joseph, who was present at this council of Chalcedon: and even before him another, Marinus, bishop of Heliopolis, is held to have subscribed the ecumenical council of Ephesus under Cyril. It is plain moreover from the letters of St. John Chrysostom that Phoenicia had churches already long before, and that monks who had set out thither for the conversion of the heathen dwelling there nevertheless suffered persecution from them, as was said at greater length in the preceding volume; so that it plainly appears that before this Nonnus another of the same name preached the Gospel about the times of the same John Chrysostom.

[21] [the opinion, because he judged that long before the year 449 there was a bishop at Heliopolis, and that first there] Baronius therefore afterwards changed the opinion by which, from what has been said, he had at first judged that St. Nonnus, first bishop of Edessa, afterwards of Heliopolis, and then again of Edessa, converted St. Pelagia to the Lord, as appears from his words already recited, chiefly for this reason: that the Nonnus who converted Pelagia seemed to him, from what he had read in the Life to be edited, to have been not only bishop of Heliopolis, but also the first of all the bishops who had occupied this see, and that a bishop is found to have sat at Heliopolis long before the year 449, in which Nonnus, removed from the see of Edessa, was afterwards promoted to that of Heliopolis — namely Marinus, who was present at the ecumenical council celebrated at Ephesus in the year 431. But it does not appear from her Life to be edited either that the Nonnus who converted Pelagia was bishop of Heliopolis, or, even if this were granted, that he was the first of all the bishops who occupied this see. For nothing else from which this latter could be contended occurs in that work, such as it served as light to Baronius, than that the wicked demon is recorded to have proclaimed to the bishop Nonnus who converted Pelagia: Was it not enough for you that you had cast me out from your Heliopolitans; since, whereas the city itself was mine and all who dwelt in it adored me, you snatched them from me and offered them to your God; and that thus it seems to be indicated that Heliopolis was wholly heathen before Nonnus, who converted Pelagia, governed it in the office of bishop, and that accordingly no bishop sat there before Nonnus. But already from the age of Constantine the Great,

as Eusebius teaches in book 3 of the Life of Constantine, chapter 58, and in the Oration in praise of Constantine, chapter 18, Heliopolis had obtained a bishop. Since this is so, it could be concluded by a similar mode of reasoning that the bishop Nonnus who converted Pelagia sat at Heliopolis already from that same age, and that this Saint was converted to the Lord accordingly; which nevertheless not even Baronius himself admits, inasmuch as he indicates, in the words just recited, that the Nonnus who converted St. Pelagia sat at Heliopolis only about the times of John Chrysostom, that is, about the end of the fourth century, when the latter preached the Gospel to the Phoenicians through the monks whom he sent there.

[22] What then? There was no reason why, from the fact that the things which the evil demon is narrated in the Life of St. Pelagia to be edited to have proclaimed against the bishop Nonnus Nonnus, who converted Pelagia, sat, he wrongly changed: seem to indicate that the whole of Heliopolis was heathen, that is, estranged from the worship of the true God, a little before the conversion of Pelagia, Baronius should judge that he was the first bishop of the Heliopolitans and accordingly sat before Marinus, who occupied that see in the year 431. For why could it not have happened that in the age of the bishop Nonnus who converted Pelagia, Heliopolis, although it had previously been brought to the true faith of Christ, had returned again to the worship of idols? Peter, bishop of Alexandria, in Theodoret, book 4 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 22, in a letter recited there, relates how the count of the largesses, named Magnus, by order of Valens Augustus, who held the reins of the Roman empire from the year 364 up to the year 378, cruelly tortured with various exquisite torments not a few true worshippers of Christ at Alexandria, because they detested the impiety of the Arians and could in no way be drawn away from their belief; and then he subjoins: Wearied therefore (namely the count of the largesses) in inflicting the torments which he devised from time to time, while the whole people frequently groaned and mourned, that cruel man, estranged from all feeling of humanity, having again called together disorderly crowds accustomed to rioting, summons them (the haters of the Arian impiety) to judgement, or rather to a condemnation prepared beforehand, near the harbour of the city, the heathen and Jews, hired at great price, hurling many acclamations against them after their custom; and since they refused to yield to the manifest impiety of the Arians, while the whole people lamented before the praetorium, he pronounces sentence against them, that, departing from Alexandria, they should remove to Heliopolis, a city of Phoenicia; in which not one of the inhabitants endures even to hear the name of Christ. For they are all worshippers of images.

[23] While Valens reigned, then, that is, in that space of time which intervened between the year 363 and 379, [For the Heliopolitans, after they had already had a bishop, returned to the worship of idols,] the Heliopolitans were all still heathen and given over to the worship of idols. Nor is there any reason why this should appear wonderful to anyone; for although, as Eusebius teaches in the places cited above, Constantine the Great erected a church at Heliopolis, priests too and deacons being appointed there with a bishop, who should perform sacred rites to the supreme and only true Godhead, and moreover, by a law passed, most severely forbade that the citizens of that city, who were most devoted to the worship of idols, and in particular of the Sun, from which the name had been given to their city, and of Venus, should prostitute their wives and daughters to strangers in honour of this latter false deity, as they were wont to do; yet very few of them seem then to have been brought to better fruit and to the Christian faith, or, if the matter stands otherwise, very many not long afterwards returned to their vomit and to their former impiety. For at the time when Julian the Apostate held the empire, that is, in the year 362 and the following, those who worshipped idols far outnumbered the Christians, and they advanced to such a pitch of audacity that, in order in some way to take vengeance for the law passed against their ancient and impious custom of prostituting their women to strangers, they did not fear, having assembled together, to expose virgins consecrated to Christ naked in the forum openly, as Sozomen relates, book 5, chapter 10. Further, thereafter, there were worshippers of idols not only under Valens, but also under Theodosius. For when the latter, who reigned from the year 379 up to the year 395, had ordered the shrines of the idols to be utterly destroyed, they fought vigorously to defend their own, as the same Sozomen teaches, book 7, chapter 15.

[24] And that Nonnus was ever bishop of Heliopolis, not even Moreover, St. John Chrysostom, in Homily 68 on Matthew, which he delivered either about the year 395, as Tillemont would have it, or rather, as the chronology of the Homilies spoken by that holy Father, established by our Stilting in the historical Commentary by which he illustrated his deeds at the 14th day of September, requires, about the year 390 or the following, calls Heliopolis a most wicked city. And so from all that has been said it is plain that the Heliopolitans, even if they had already had bishops and priests from the age of Constantine the Great, that is, from the beginning of the fourth century, nevertheless certainly remained most obstinately given over to the worship of idols almost up to the end of the same century. Since this is so, it can also have come about that, even if in the year 431, in which the council of Ephesus was celebrated, a bishop named Marinus, and in the year 451, in which the council of Chalcedon was celebrated, another bishop surnamed Joseph, presided over the Heliopolitans, yet they still adhered to the worship of idols, if not all, yet in very great number; whence it certainly comes about that, even if it is indicated in the Life to be edited that the whole of Heliopolis was heathen a little before the conversion of Pelagia made by the bishop Nonnus, it does not follow from this that he was the first bishop of the Heliopolitans. And indeed, to come now to what I granted for a moment above, not even that St. Nonnus who converted Pelagia was ever bishop of the Heliopolitans can be concluded from the same Life of our Saint. In it indeed, as it exists published at Cologne in Surius, rendered paraphrastically with the style changed, James, who wrote it, and more than once in the course of that work calls himself the deacon of the bishop Nonnus, is also called in the title which it bears deacon of Heliopolis, from ancient manuscript codices, as is added; and hence chiefly, and besides from the fact that in the edition of the same Life which served as his light the evil demon is narrated to have proclaimed against the bishop Nonnus who converted Pelagia, Was it not enough for you that you had cast me out from your Heliopolitans, Baronius judged that he was bishop of Heliopolis.

[25] from the Life of our Saint But these words which are read in Surius before the Prologue of the Life, The author is James, deacon of Heliopolis, and it is found in ancient manuscript codices, seem to be so taken that the discourse in them is not about the title of deacon of Heliopolis, but about the Life of the Saint itself, written by James the deacon, which is found in ancient manuscript codices. However that may be, the Author more than once in that work calls himself deacon of the bishop Nonnus, nowhere also deacon of Heliopolis. Moreover, Rosweyde prefixes to the edition of the same Life, which he presents in the Lives of the Fathers, page 376 and some following, this inscription: By the Author James the deacon, the interpreter Eustochius, etc., and makes no mention of the edition prepared at Cologne by Surius and of the title just related, in which James, author of the Life, is called Deacon of Heliopolis: all of which things bring me to the mind that I think the title of deacon of Heliopolis, which the Surian edition bears, proceeded either from Surius himself or from another who judged Nonnus to be bishop of Heliopolis and James deacon of the same city, from the fact that he understood, from the sayings of the wicked spirit occurring in the Life of our same Saint to be edited at number 16, that Heliopolis, when it was wholly given over to the demon on account of the worship of idols, had been brought to the Lord by the bishop Nonnus who converted Pelagia; and that the Heliopolitans are indicated by them to have belonged to Nonnus, inasmuch as, in the edition such as served as light to Baronius (see his words at number 20), they comprise the following words: Was it not enough for you that you had cast me out from your Heliopolitans.

[26] But he did this altogether wrongly: for not only the Rosweydian and Surian editions, can be concluded. Pelagia further, but also three different parchment manuscript codices of the best mark which exist with us, have for those words of the demon last recited only: Was not the whole of Heliopolis enough for you, etc., or, Was not the city of Heliopolis enough for you, etc.; and this reading is supported besides by the Greek Life of our Saint which exists in our codex ✠ Ms. 193, inasmuch as in it the following words occur, which correspond to this text: οὐκ ἠρέστη σοι ἡ Ἡλιούπολις ὅλη, etc.: was not the whole of Heliopolis enough for you? And as regards now the conversion of the Heliopolitans made by the bishop Nonnus who converted Pelagia, neither can it be concluded from that, though it really took place, that he was bishop of the Heliopolitans, as will become evident from what is to be said below. Let us now determine when at length the bishop Nonnus both brought Heliopolis to the faith and converted Pelagia from the filth of an impure life to the Lord. Did this perhaps happen, as Baronius, having changed his former opinion which he had at first held in his Annotations on the Roman Martyrology, seems to have judged in the Annals (see his words transcribed here at number 20), at the very time when St. John Chrysostom gave his effort to converting the Phoenicians, that is, when the fourth century had almost already elapsed? This indeed appears to me probable on no ground. For no bishop of this name who sat anywhere at that time occurs either in the Acts of the Councils or in the ecclesiastical writers.

[27] Nor is there reason for you to reply that John Chrysostom, in Homily 68 on Matthew, recited at Antioch about the end of the fourth century, as I have already shown above, made mention of a sinful woman who was converted to the Lord in his age, [who is distinguished from the woman, a sinner and afterwards a penitent, mentioned by Chrysostom,] and that she, whose name that holy Father nowhere discloses, could seem to be the same as our Saint. For although Chrysostom speaks of that woman in this following manner: Have you not heard how that harlot, who surpassed all in wantonness, afterwards conquered all in piety? I do not speak of her who is mentioned in the Gospels, but of her who in our age was from a city of Phoenicia, the most wicked of all. For this harlot was among us, and held the first place on the stage; whose name was celebrated everywhere, not only in our city, but as far as the Cilicians and Cappadocians; and although from these words he might seem in some way to make discourse about a woman first a sinner and afterwards a penitent who was the same as our Saint, yet the same holy Father presently adds many things from which no one would doubt that the latter is to be distinguished from the former. And first indeed the woman of whom he speaks was esteemed by very many, as he says, to use magic arts, and spread her nets, to draw the unwary into them, not only by the beauty of her body but also by sorceries. Moreover, the woman mentioned by Chrysostom betook herself into a monastery of virgins, in

which she persevered, since not even the soldiers sent by the prefect of the city had been able to drag her out from there, up to the last end of her life, which at length, when she had washed away her sins by a long penance of many years, she ended by a most happy death; all of which things, or at least most of them, do not sufficiently fit St. Pelagia, whom the bishop Nonnus converted, as anyone who turns over her Life to be edited will sufficiently perceive.

[28] was in very fact converted by Nonnus of Edessa, substituted for Ibas, Now, since from all these things it does not appear that there should be any doubt that the woman mentioned by St. John Chrysostom, first a sinner and then a penitent, is different from our Saint, and since he nevertheless makes no mention of the latter, who was no less suited to his argument than the other, in the Homily already praised more than once, in which he exhorts his hearers to conceive good hope of the remission of their sins if they would do penance for them, there is certainly reason why we should judge that the story of our Saint had not yet happened when St. Chrysostom spoke that Homily, that is, from what has been said, about the year 391. But since it did not happen even a little later, as has already been said, about what year at length shall we determine that St. Pelagia was converted to the Lord? It is held ascertained, from Liberatus the deacon, who relates it in the Breviarium prepared by him in Labbe, volume 5 of the Councils, that in the Ephesine pseudo-synod celebrated in the year 449 a certain Nonnus, at the instance of Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, was substituted in the place of Ibas, bishop of Edessa. Moreover, that Ibas, the deposed bishop of Edessa, was restored to his see in the year 451 at the council of Chalcedon is also certain from its tenth Action in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column 676 and following, as is also that then Nonnus, who is nowhere asserted to have had a part in his illegitimate promotion to the see of Edessa, was commended by the Fathers of the council to Maximus, patriarch of Antioch, that he might have care of him. Further, Ibas having been taken from among the living in the year 457 (see Pagi in the Critica at the year 451, number 53), the same Nonnus recovered the see of Edessa either in the said year 457 or the following, as the letter of the bishops of the province of Osrhoene, which exists in Labbe, volume 4 of the councils, column 917, then given to the emperor Leo and marked with the name of Nonnus as bishop of the metropolis of Edessa, makes undoubted; and that this Nonnus is that very bishop Nonnus who, as James the deacon hands down to memory in the Life of St. Pelagia to be edited, having been drawn out of the monastery of the Tabennesiotes on account of the holiness of his life, was promoted to the episcopate and converted our Saint, appears most probable.

[29] This opinion is settled with me, both because Theophanes in the Chronography of the Paris edition of the year 1655, page 79, and after him Nicephorus Callistus in the Ecclesiastical History composed by him, in the place cited above, expressly hand it down, and because a bishop Nonnus distinct from Nonnus of Edessa already mentioned, appears most probable, nor, because Nonnus, who converted Pelagia, to whom the conversion of St. Pelagia and the other things narrated of him by James the deacon could more aptly be attributed, does not occur in the monuments of History. Further, to this opinion, consigned also in the Roman Martyrology at the 2nd day of December, besides Pagi in the Critica at the year 451, number 52, other learned men now also go over with hands and feet, all with unanimous consent; and Baronius too at first embraced the same, from which nevertheless, as appears, he afterwards wrongly departed, from what has already been said. Nor do I see what solid thing can be added to what has already been objected above, by which it might be shown that it is to be abandoned. Is it perhaps because the things handed down of him in the Life of the Saint require that the Nonnus who converted Pelagia was at some time bishop of Heliopolis, and yet the Nonnus who occupied the see of Edessa after Ibas was never bishop of Heliopolis? Certainly, that Nonnus of Edessa never presided as bishop over the church of Heliopolis before he was promoted to that see, Ibas having departed this life, appears sufficiently certain even from the canons of the Church alone, which forbade a bishop to be transferred from one church to another; and it becomes altogether undoubted from the fact that to the letter of the bishops of Second Phoenicia, sent in the year 458 to the emperor Leo and existing in Labbe, volume 4 of the councils, column 921 and following, there is found subscribed among the first who signed that letter Peter, bishop of Heliopolis, who assuredly, if Nonnus had been made metropolitan of Edessa from bishop of Heliopolis either in the year 457 or the following, would not have noted his name among the first Fathers subscribed to that letter, inasmuch as he would have been raised to the episcopal dignity only one year before, and accordingly most probably inferior to many of them in the prerogative of age, or certainly of promotion to the episcopate.

[30] That Nonnus, bishop of Edessa, therefore, never presided as bishop over the church of Heliopolis before he was promoted to that see, [drew Heliopolis away from the worship of idols, does it appear that we must depart from this opinion,] seems indeed placed beyond controversy. But what then? The Life of our Saint to be edited by no means requires that the bishop Nonnus who converted St. Pelagia governed the church of Heliopolis at some time in the office of bishop. From the things indeed which the evil demon is narrated in it to have declaimed against Nonnus, it is understood that Heliopolis was converted by this prelate to the true faith of Christ; but why could not Nonnus have brought Heliopolis to Christ even if he was not governing this city as bishop? Are not many cities, nay and whole regions, read to have been brought to the faith even by those who were not their bishops? Nonnus, when he was removed from the see of Edessa by the council of Chalcedon in the year 451, Ibas being restored to it, was at the same time, as I have already shown, commended by the Fathers of the same council to Maximus, patriarch of Antioch, that he might provide for his necessities; and the latter held Nonnus in honour, and preserved the episcopal dignity for him, as may be seen in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column 677. Hence it came about, I think, that the patriarch of Antioch, although indeed he set the bishop Nonnus over absolutely no see of his patriarchate, nevertheless held him in some manner in the place of a regionary bishop, and employed him, because he knew him to be an apostolic man and full of the Spirit of God, for drawing away from the worship of idols and joining to Christ the heathen who still existed in his patriarchate, dispersed in various places. And thus indeed this Nonnus, from the year 451, in which, from what has been said, he was removed from the see of Edessa, up to the year 457 or the following, in one of which he recovered the same, would have remained a bishop attached to no fixed see; and since James the deacon nowhere expresses in the Life to be edited the episcopal see which Nonnus, by whom he relates Pelagia was converted, occupied, and yet would seem likely to have done so in at least one place if he had then occupied any, the bishop Nonnus who converted Pelagia was most probably, when he did this, attached to no fixed and determined see either; which again is an argument that he is not different from Nonnus of Edessa mentioned above, and ought accordingly to be added to those things which were adduced at number 29. Content to have noted this here besides, I proceed to set forth how and when it came about that Nonnus of Edessa converted Pelagia.

[31] [And so the conversion of the Saint seems to be fixed about the year 453, and her death about the year 457.] Maximus, patriarch of Antioch, as James the Deacon gives credence in the Life of Pelagia to be edited, celebrated a council, and called to it the bishops of his patriarchate not far removed from Antioch; and that among these was Nonnus, removed from the see of Edessa and commended to the care of the patriarch of Antioch, who was then perhaps staying not far from Antioch, can easily have come about, and that it did come about in very fact seems to be determined from what has been said above; as also that there he converted Pelagia to the Lord, and did besides the other things which James the Deacon ascribes in the Life to be edited to the bishop Nonnus mentioned by him. But to about what year of Christ shall we bind all these things, and in particular the conversion of our Saint? From the things which the evil demon is narrated by James the Deacon in the Life to have proclaimed against the bishop Nonnus, when St. Pelagia had first been converted to the Lord, it is altogether certain that thirty thousand Saracens were converted by Nonnus to the faith, cleansed by the sacred laver and consecrated to Christ, before Pelagia was converted by him; and since this is so, and Nonnus, who seems to have devoted himself to the conversion of the Saracens not before he had been removed from the see of Edessa, in the year 451 from what has been said, must have spent at least one or two years, as appears, in converting so many thousands of them, it appears probable enough that our Saint was converted to the Lord by Nonnus about the year 453 or 454. Hence further it now follows that, since she departed to the Lord only three years or a little later after her conversion, as the Life to be edited gives credence, she probably exchanged this mortal life for the immortal not later than about the year 457. Further, this epoch of the death of our Saint is still confirmed by the fact that James the Deacon, after her death, betook himself to Antioch from Jerusalem, in which city Pelagia had died while he was staying there, as is indicated in our three parchment manuscript codices of the best mark; and that hence it appears that Nonnus, when the Saint died, had not yet been restored to the see of Edessa, which from what has been said happened in the year 457 or the following; for otherwise James, who was the deacon of Nonnus, would seem likely to have betaken himself not to Antioch but straight to Edessa.

§ III. The cult of the Saint among various nations; the translation of her sacred relics.

The Saint, who is today venerated by the Greeks with an ecclesiastical Office, With how notable a cult our Saint is honoured among the Greeks even today, and was also honoured formerly, is plain both from the Typicon of St. Sabas, in which an ecclesiastical Office concerning St. Pelagia is prescribed to be recited today, and also from the great printed Menaea of the Greeks, in which with the eulogy given above there is also joined today likewise an ecclesiastical Office which is wholly concerning St. Pelagia — the harlot, namely, as she is called there — if you except only a few commemorations of other Saints mixed in with it, which are added with brief eulogies of the same, and some prayers addressed according to the daily custom of the Greeks to the most holy Virgin Mary. By way of a specimen, I am pleased to place before the reader's eyes the Ode or prayer with which the Office begins, the rest being passed over, with a Latin interpretation also added at the foot. It runs thus: Ἐγκρατεία τὸ σῶμα σου, Πελαγία, νεκρώσασα, τὴν ψυχὴν ἐζώωσας καὶ ἐκόσμησας, καὶ οἰκητήριον Πνεύματος σαυτὴν ἀπετέλεσας, καὶ συνήφθης μυστικῶ τῶ νυμφίῳ καὶ κτίστη σου, ὅν ἰκέτευε, ἐκ φθορᾶς καὶ κινδύνων λυτρωθῆναι τοὺς ἐν πιστεῖ ἐκτελοῦντας τὴν ἀεισέβαστον μνήμην σου. While by abstinence you mortified your body, Pelagia, you gave life to your soul and adorned it, and made yourself a dwelling-place of the Spirit, and joined yourself to your mystic Spouse and Creator; whom entreat, that those who celebrate in faith your commemoration, to be venerated for ever, may come away free from corruption and dangers.

Nor would our Saint have been honoured only with an ecclesiastical Office, but also with a church built in her honour at Constantinople, if only the opinion to which Du Cange at length yielded were consonant with the truth.

[33] For this writer, after he had attributed to Pelagia of Tarsus, martyr, in his Christian Constantinople, book 4, number 26, the church which is asserted by Cedrenus to have existed at Constantinople sacred to some Pelagia, [nor yet did she have a church sacred to her at Constantinople; by the Russians also] and is called of Pelagius by Zonaras, afterwards in his Annotations on Zonaras judged that it was to be ascribed to Pelagia the Penitent, that is, to our Saint: but wrongly, as our Janning rightly showed at number 25 and the four following, in the Historical Commentary on St. Pelagia, virgin martyr of Antioch, at the 9th day of June, on which this Saint stands inscribed in the Roman Martyrology and has already been given among us; collecting there also most skilfully all the things which can serve to adjudge that church either to our Pelagia or to another of the same name, and passing his judgement too on each; so that there is no need to bring forward more on that matter here, and, the reader being referred to Janning, it may be lawful to proceed now to another point which concerns the cult of the Saint. That among the Russians, that is, the Slavo-Russians, or also, if you prefer, the Muscovite Russians, who for a very long time obeyed the patriarchs of Constantinople, and were chiefly brought by them from the worship of idols to the Christian faith, our Saint also enjoys ecclesiastical cult, or at least formerly enjoyed it, hardly appears doubtful, both because she is inscribed in the sacred calendars of that nation recounted above, and because these are wont to honour with the same cult all the Saints generally who are honoured with ecclesiastical cult by the Greek church, by which we have already seen our Saint to be venerated.

[34] and by the Syrians, as also at Jerusalem, where her sacred body Nor are only the Russians, that is, the Slavs or Muscovite Russians, to be joined to these in the ecclesiastical cult with which the Greeks also venerate St. Pelagia, but also the professors of the Christian faith dwelling in Syria, in which region the Saint had her birth, who perhaps even before the Greeks themselves honoured her with that honour. And that ecclesiastical cult is paid to Pelagia by the Christians in Syria in general is shown even by the Syriac Calendar praised above alone, in which, from what has been said, her name stands inserted at the present day of October; and in order that I may be able to bring forward some things besides which regard more specifically the cult wont to be paid to the Saint there, or at least formerly paid, the Symmicta of Leo Allatius, published in print at Cologne in the year 1653 under the care of Berthold Nihus, opportunely come to my aid here. For that the body of the Saint is honourably preserved, or rather was formerly preserved, at Jerusalem, the chief city of the Holy Land or Palestine, which is a region of Syria taken broadly, and that lamps kept perpetually burning near it used to be maintained in honour of Pelagia, is understood from two works which the aforesaid Symmicta comprise, composed by two different writers, treating of the holy places of the Holy Land or Palestine. Of these one is John Phocas, the other anonymous. I transcribe the words of both which bear on this, and which occur at page 25 and page 87. Those of the former are these: At the top of the mountain (namely Olivet) is the place in which after the resurrection the Saviour frequently spoke to the Disciples, and lastly accomplished the wonderful mystery of the ascension. Near it a cave is seen below, in which saint Pelagia finished the contests in which she exercised herself, and her holy body rests in a stone urn.

[35] was honourably preserved, And those of the latter these: Above Gethsemane is the mount of Olives, from which Christ was taken up into heaven, conspicuous by a very great church. In the middle of the church is a most beautiful stone chamber with fifteen marble columns, and in the middle of the chamber is the print of the sole of Christ's foot, fixed in the stone on which He had trodden when He was taken up into heaven, and four unextinguished lamps hang there. Thirty steps below is seen the sepulchre of saint Pelagia, separated from the wall by half the sole of a human foot. If anyone enters into that space between the wall and the sepulchre, he is immediately caught and held fast, and, unless he has first confessed all his sins to a confessor, he will never come out. There is the little cell in which she stayed for seven years; three lamps hang there. So far, opportunely for our purpose, the two writers praised; on them I now observe a few things. The Anonymous, about what age he flourished I have not found, makes mention in the words recited of a plainly astonishing miracle which is wont to take place, or at least was formerly wont, at the tomb or sepulchre of the Saint at Jerusalem; but this, as Tillemont rightly observes, volume 12 of the Ecclesiastical Memoirs, page 381, is very difficult to believe. Moreover, he affirms that St. Pelagia did penance for seven years in the cell which he hands down to memory as still seen in his age on the mount of Olivet; but this conflicts most openly with the Life of the Saint to be edited, inasmuch as in it James the deacon teaches not obscurely that St. Pelagia washed away the sins of her past life by penance in the cell in which she had shut herself up on the mount of Olivet for only three years, or a little longer. But although this is so, I judge consonant with the truth what that anonymous writer writes of the sepulchre of the Saint being honoured at Jerusalem with three lamps hung at it. Certainly John Phocas too indicates clearly enough in the words recited that the sepulchre of Pelagia was in honour at Jerusalem in his age, although meanwhile he does not mention lamps hanging at it.

[36] This author further, that I may now dispatch what likewise is to be observed concerning him, [it is certain, is honoured. Thence it was in the twelfth century to the monastery of Jouarre in Gaul] adds also that the sacred body of our Saint rests in a stone urn at Jerusalem; and since he, who flourished in the twelfth century and is held among the learned to be of entirely approved credit, speaks of the place in which the body of the Saint existed in his age, there seems to be no reason why anyone should doubt whether the body of Pelagia was then in very truth still honourably preserved at Jerusalem, or, as he writes, rested in a stone urn. But it most probably happened that either the whole or at least part of it was translated into Gaul in the same twelfth century or the next following from the city of Jerusalem, where Pelagia nonetheless, as I think, still obtains the honours of the Saints today. For Du Saussay, in the Gallican Martyrology composed by him, at the end of the somewhat longer eulogy with which he celebrates Pelagia today, records thus: Her (namely Pelagia's) sacred remains were afterwards conveyed into Gaul by the Franks, who were vindicating the name of Christ in the East, and placed at Jouarre, a notable monastery of virgins; where today, brought out from the sacristy, they are shown to the veneration of her pious clients. For there too that happy sinner is solemnly venerated on this day, which is that of her departure, and on the twelfth of June, which is that of the translation or reception: by which words it is not obscurely indicated that the sacred relics of our Saint were translated from Jerusalem into Gaul to the monastery of Jouarre during the expeditions of the Western Christians for the recovery of the Holy Land; and since this is so, and these, undertaken with great spirit already from about the end of the eleventh century, flourished most of all in the twelfth century, it appears most probable that it was in this very century or the next following that the relics of Pelagia were brought from the East into Gaul.

[37] And although Du Saussay, who hands down to memory that translation in the words recited, [translated. Hence the 12th of June, on which this was done, is kept there as a solemn day every year.] is not rarely found straying from the truth in his Martyrology, yet that he did not stray from it here appears even from the fact that in the monastery of Benedictine virgins of Jouarre which he mentions, and which, as the brothers Sainte-Marthe teach in volume 4 of Gallia Christiana, page 541, is situated in the diocese of Meaux, the twelfth day of June, on which the translation of the said relics, or their reception into that monastery, is believed to have been made, is kept as solemn every year in memory of this event, as the said Du Saussay also teaches in the words just transcribed here: who, since he speaks of a matter which was wont to be done in his own time and was therefore best known to him, is not to be judged to stray from the truth here. Chastelain indeed affirms, in a certain manuscript of his sent to our Predecessors, as may be seen among us in volume VI of June, page 118, that the translation of the Saint is commemorated not on the 12th but on the 2nd day of June; but that learned author of the Universal Martyrology, written in French, makes discourse about a translation of Pelagia which is then celebrated not in the monastery of Jouarre in the diocese of Meaux, but in the church of St. Pelagia at Paris, which is situated in the place named Puilermite. For the ecclesiastical Office of St. Pelagia, which, as may be seen in the place of our Work just cited, he submitted to our Predecessors together with the said manuscript, is at hand to me printed; and it bears at the head, written on it by the hand of Chastelain, the following title, rendered thus by me into Latin from the French language: For the church of St. Pelagia at Paris, situated within the parish of St. Médard in the place called Puilermite; then near the beginning it has written on it by the same hand: 8th of October; and then added at the foot: Translation on the 2nd of June, conversion on the 12th of June.

[38] [Another is the translation which is also celebrated every year in the Paris church of the Saint.] Moreover, of St. Pelagia the Penitent, whose birthday, as in very many other places, so also in the said Paris church sacred to her is celebrated on the 8th day of October, in very fact the translation is also commemorated there on the second day of June, and the conversion on the twelfth of the same month, as is attested by the various spiritual Diaries of the church of Paris of various years, which are wont to note which sacred buildings at Paris daily celebrate the birthdays or other feast-days of which Saints, with the cult also added with which it is done. Now, since the matter stands so, it appears undoubted that Chastelain's discourse in the manuscript mentioned above was about the translation of St. Pelagia which is commemorated not in the monastery of Jouarre but at Paris on the second day of June. Nor is there reason for anyone to wonder that the translation of the Saint is celebrated on one day at Paris and on another in the monastery of Jouarre. For in the said Paris church, which is dedicated to our Saint, sacred relics of the same are also preserved, as the Paris Diaries just praised attest; and since this is so, it is not to be doubted that in that sacred building the translation of St. Pelagia is celebrated every year on the second day of June, because her relics were formerly carried to it on that day; whereas Du Saussay makes discourse about the translation by which the sacred remains of Pelagia were formerly brought to the monastery of Jouarre, as is plain from his words recited above. But, you will say, on the same day on which by Chastelain and in the spiritual Diaries praised the conversion of St. Pelagia

is marked, the translation of her relics is marked by Du Saussay. I confess it is so: but who would conclude from this that the latter Martyrologist errs in assigning the true day on which the translation of St. Pelagia is celebrated in the monastery of Jouarre? What if the Paris church of the Saint received from the monastery of Jouarre the sacred relics of her which it possesses, and hence added to the translation of St. Pelagia, which it celebrates every year on the second day of June, because her sacred remains were then carried to it, the conversion also, to be commemorated every year on the same 12th day of June on which the translation is celebrated in the monastery of Jouarre, in memory of the benefit received from those relics brought to Paris and to itself?

[39] In this the birthday of the Saint is with an ecclesiastical Office, This certainly does not seem to me to be altogether remote from all probability, especially since I understand from the aforesaid spiritual Diaries that the conversion of the Saint is then to be celebrated in other Paris churches too. But however it may be, that Du Saussay is not to be convicted of error because he does not consign the translation of St. Pelagia to the same day as Chastelain and the Diaries already praised more than once, is plain enough and more than enough from what I have already brought forward. Nor do we have only this from these things; but also that the Saint enjoys a plainly notable ecclesiastical cult both in the monastery of Jouarre and in the city of Paris, and in particular that in the church named after her she has obtained three different days dedicated to her veneration, namely the second day of June, on which the translation, the 12th of the same month, on which the conversion, and finally the 8th of October, on which her birthday is celebrated. Further, in order that I may teach the reader how this last feast of the Saint, which is at the same time the titular feast of that sacred building, is kept every year in it, the ecclesiastical Office of St. Pelagia the Penitent mentioned above opportunely comes to my aid here, which exists with me, and which seemed to our Janning to have been composed by Chastelain himself (see our Work, volume VI of June, page 118). In it the Saint has, besides the Responsories, Antiphons and Verses, in which allusion is mostly made to the life led by her, two hymns, one at first Vespers, the other at Lauds subjoined to Matins, proper to or befitting her alone. I am pleased to show both here to the reader.

[40] The former runs thus:

Jesus, salvation of those who stray, whose hymn at first Vespers, When Thou lookest upon Pelagia, Thou woundest her heart with love, Burning it with pure fires.

She, bearing these dread wounds, Shudders at her former guilt, And with the heart's blood poured out Runs to wash away her crimes.

Refreshed with the body of Christ And washed in the sacred stream, And rich in the gifts of the Spirit, She offers herself a victim to God.

Swift, she takes the wings of a dove And presently flies away, Seeking the secret places of the mountains And the safety of solitude.

At last, having followed the royal Standards of penance, The bonds of the flesh being loosed, Happy, she flies across to the heights.

Thee, threefold simple Unity, Thee, Christ, of penitents King and head, through the ages Let the citizens on high sing. Amen.

Happy tears! lovable weeping! By which, the stain of crimes wiped away, Pelagia, Thou now drinkest the eternal joys of the heaven-dwellers: Ah, too happy groaning! While thou liest hidden in a cave, with how much better Gems dost thou adorn thyself, pale in body; And, thy suitors neglected, how much better art thou free For the loves of the King of kings. Along the narrow way make us follow thee with swift step, O holy one, us whom * crimes weigh down; That with thee in the peaceful bosom of the Godhead We may rejoice above the skies. To the Father the greatest praise, the greatest to the Son, And to Thee, the Spirit of both, the greatest, Driving sacrilegious desire from the heart, And burning as Thou hurlest Thy torches. Amen.

To this Hymn the Prayer, which is also proper to Pelagia the Penitent alone, is immediately subjoined. Behold it too. O God, who didst consecrate the mount of Olives by Thy glorious Ascension, and didst deign to call blessed Pelagia to the heavens from the same place, grant that by her intercession, filled with the fruits and fatness of the Holy Spirit, we may deserve happily to ascend to Thee, who livest and reignest with God the Father, etc. Nor does the ecclesiastical Office of our Saint, from which I transcribed these, comprise only this Prayer and the two Hymns proper to St. Pelagia, already given; but also the Prose, or prayer which is called by others the Sequence, to be sung, by the prescription of the ritual books (see Du Cange in the Glossary at the word Prosa), immediately before the Gospel in the Mass which is to be celebrated concerning the Saint at the 8th day of October.

[42] are transcribed here together with the Prose or Sequence of the Mass, I am pleased to transfer that too here. It runs thus:

To the palaces of heaven, Pelagia, Ascend now, Wipe away thy heavy tears.

Woe to the too surpassing Elegance of countenance, Which deforms souls.

Woe to paints, to tresses, To gold, to gems, to garments, Which entice to crime.

Alas the grief! Thou hadst been pleasing, And hadst served the pomps Which Tartarus punishes;

But thee, changed by the Godhead, Nonnus in the sacred stream Washed clean as a dove.

Her eyes expiate their crimes With mournful weeping; Squalor washes away the paint.

Soon thou hastenest to a hut, Wearing rough garments, Stripped of all riches.

How thou atonest for rich banquets With long hunger, How for jests with sobs!

Thou liest on the ground, in place of soft Couches, cruel Foe of thine own body.

Lamentations and silences Punish soft words, Labour the losses of time.

O thou who shinest in glory, Make the mind conscious of guilt So go into groanings.

Make the kindly Spirit anoint With consolations those who weep, Immersed in joys. Amen.

[43] is also commemorated every year, as perhaps also in the monastery of Jouarre. And these are the things concerning the cult wont to be paid every year at Paris to St. Pelagia in the church of her name, when her birthday is celebrated, which I had to propose particularly to the reader; and as regards now that with which, from what has been said, she is honoured in the monastery of Virgins of Jouarre, we learn from the words of Du Saussay transcribed above that the Saint is venerated with the honours of the Saints in it both on the 12th day of the month of June, because that sacred place was then first enriched with her relics brought from the East, and on the present day of October, because she is believed to have been then first born in heaven by her happy departure from among the living; and also that on this latter day her sacred remains are exposed to the veneration of the people; but is an ecclesiastical Office proper to St. Pelagia the Penitent also wont to be recited then in the same monastery? Perhaps indeed it is so. But since Du Saussay and at the same time all the other writers whom at least I have been permitted to see keep deep silence on the matter, I should not dare to assert this, into which also, because it is not of very great moment, I did not think fit to inquire by letter. Nor is it only hidden from me whether the Saint is venerated with an ecclesiastical Office in the monastery of Jouarre at the 8th day of October; but also whether the whole body of Pelagia was ever carried to it from the East, or only a part of it.

[44] But, however this matter may stand, There now not the whole body of the Saint, but part of it is preserved here too, it is at any rate altogether certain and undoubted that now not the whole body of the Saint, but only a part of it, is preserved in that monastery, even from the fact that the church sacred to our Saint at Paris also possesses a part of her sacred relics, as is plain from what has been said above. Moreover, the sacred remains of St. Pelagia, who is surnamed the Penitent, are found not only at Paris, where besides (the spiritual Diaries which I have very often praised above again testifying) a part of the same relics is preserved in the monastery of girls of the Val-de-Grâce, and the birthday of the Saint, that is, the 8th day of October, is kept as solemn every year (for that reason, unless I am mistaken); but also in this very city of ours of Antwerp: in what way they came to it, and in what sacred building of it they are preserved, I set forth. Antonio, natural son of Luís, prince of Portugal, who, after Sebastian, king of Portugal, had been slain among the Africans in the year 1578, had aspired to this kingdom, and, frustrated in the hope of obtaining it when he had been conquered by the forces of Philip II, king of the Spains, withdrew into France and died there an exile, made over to his son Manuel in the year 1594 the relics of thirty-five Saints which he had brought with him there, letters of donation being also added, which may be seen in our Work, volume 1 of April, pages 72 and 73; and those sacred remains, among which three parts of the bones of St. Pelagia the sinner are recounted in those letters, Manuel, when after the death of his unhappy father he had removed to Belgium, granted in the year 1633, as a token of a grateful mind, to Christophe Butkens, ruler of the abbey of St. Salvator in this city, because he had received into his monastery Dionysius, own brother of that prince, a religious priest in the Cistercian abbey of Valbonne, as the letters of donation, likewise adduced in the volume and place of our Work just cited, attest.

[45] Further, at the end of the same volume, page 898 and following, are brought forward the letters of João Álvares de Luzana, bishop of Portugal, that is, of the city of Porto, from Portugal, which, how it had received it, is set forth, by which is explained the occasion by which the several relics of the Saints made over by prince Antonio to his son Manuel and deposited here by him came into Portugal. And the words which set forth the occasion by which the sacred remains of our Saint came into Portugal are these following: At length, above all the notable relics of male and female Saints mentioned, other relics too, often sought with many prayers from the republic of the Venetians by the princes of Portugal, came to the same Court, especially those which antiquity and the authority of the fathers have singularly commended. These were of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, of St. Thecla, virgin, disciple of St. Paul the Apostle, of St. Josaphat, prince of India, converted to the faith by blessed Barlaam the hermit and nurtured in it: and moreover of St. Mary of Egypt and of St. Pelagia, who are called sinners converted to God: which at length Sebastian, first of that name, king of Portugal, obtained, who afterwards fell by a glorious death in the African expedition; and they were transmitted through a man distinguished in gown and cloak, Don Pedro Fernández de Velasco, a Spaniard by nation and Duke of Frías, ambassador for the Catholic king to the said republic of the Venetians, together with the ambassador of Portugal himself. For in the month of November, in the year of our salvation MDLXXI, while the Catholic world was congratulating Luigi Mocenigo, the most valiant doge of the Venetians, on the astonishing victory won over the huge Turkish fleet under the standard of Pope Pius V, the aforesaid doge of the Venetians consigned the same relics related above into the hands of the said ambassadors, that they might be given to the said king Sebastian and his kingdom.

[46] carried; there the Saint was honoured for some time, as also here, The sacred remains of St. Pelagia, therefore, were consigned in the year 1571 by the Venetians, from whence they had received them I have not ascertained, to the ambassadors of the kings of the Spains and of Portugal, that they might be carried to Sebastian, king of the latter kingdom;

and not long after, as is declared in the said letters of João Álvares de Luzana a little after the words just recited from them, they were carried into Portugal, having been first recognized and approved by three most eminent Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, namely Alessandro Farnese, Otto Truchsess and Girolamo da Chiaravalle. And in this kingdom, as long as those sacred relics of St. Pelagia and of the other thirty-four Saints existed there, they were honourably preserved, and our Saint too (for there is no need to speak here of the others) was honoured every year with an ecclesiastical Office of three Lessons, as may be seen in the first volume of April of our Work, praised above, page 74; but what was done when those sacred pledges had been carried to our Belgium in the manner I have set forth above must now be explained. While prince Manuel, mentioned above, was still religiously preserving them, they were recognized and approved in the year 1610 by Jean Le Mire, bishop of Antwerp, who then also permitted that they might be exposed to public veneration in any church whatever of his diocese; and after they had come to the Antwerp monastery of St. Salvator, to whose abbot Christophe Butkens, from what has been said, they were first given by the same prince in the year 1633, they were kept there privately indeed for many years. But when at length the most reverend lord François Diericx, renowned for two treatises published in print in the year 1674, one on the Veneration of sacred relics, the other on the relics of thirty-six Saints preserved in the said monastery (for the relics of St. Hatebrand, abbot, had been added to the thirty-five obtained from prince Manuel), had undertaken the governance of the same monastery, he took care both that a pious confraternity of both sexes in it, under the invocation of the same thirty-six Saints, should be instituted by Apostolic authority by Pope Clement X in the year 1671, or at least, since it had already been instituted, approved; and that their sacred remains, when in the same year they had been again recognized and approved by the most illustrious and most reverend lord Ambroise Capello, bishop of Antwerp, and had been enclosed individually in reliquaries, should be elevated in the year 1672 with a translation as solemn as possible, as may again be seen in the place and volume of our Work just cited.

[47] where she is venerated even today, Further, to those sacred relics thus elevated a singular honour was thereafter paid every year. What it was, I set forth. The Pontiff, when he either instituted or approved the above-mentioned confraternity in the year 1671, had at the same time also determined that five feasts should be chosen for it to be celebrated every year, of which one should be primary, the rest secondary, and that they should be approved by the ordinary; hence the bishop of Antwerp just praised decreed that in each of the following years the first Sunday of August should be held as the primary feast, and the first Sundays of the months of March, May, July and September as the secondary; and thereafter those feasts were consecrated every year to honouring the sacred relics of the thirty-six Saints, when, as I showed above, they had been solemnly elevated in the year 1672. For on every first Sunday of August they were carried about every year through several streets of the city in a solemn procession; and on the first Sundays of the months of March, May, July and September they were exposed to the public veneration of the people in the said monastery of St. Salvator. Moreover, a constant custom obtained that the relics of each of the said thirty-six Saints, whether female or male Saint, should likewise be exposed every year to public veneration on that day on which his or her birthday recurs. Hence the sacred remains of St. Pelagia are wont every year, even today, as I have learned on examining the matter, to be honoured there with that honour. For the rest, how little up to now the pious veneration toward the Saints whose relics are preserved in the said monastery has slackened was clearly evident in the year 1771, which immediately preceded this one in which I write these things. For then, as the hundredth year from the institution of the confraternity spoken of above was passing, the centenary year was kept with notable solemnity. And then indeed not only were the sacred remains of the thirty-six Saints carried about in the solemn procession wont to be held every year; but also the institution of the said confraternity, or rather its commemoration, was celebrated through an Octave in the church of the monastery of St. Salvator, during which the divine Offices were performed every day with the most solemn rite; and this church then offered a pleasing spectacle to the people flocking to it to venerate the Saints, inasmuch as it was most elegantly decorated and made conspicuous with various ornaments. To pass over the rest, the very walls were clothed with tapestries, on which were fixed the images of each of the thirty-six Saints, together with chronogram inscriptions added, which should mark the year of the solemnity and at the same time express the condition of each Saint. And among these indeed was seen also the following one, which related to our Saint: DIVæ peLagIæ MIra pœnItentIa eXCeLLentI To the divine Pelagia, excelling in wonderful penitence. I add nothing more on this matter, but now proceed to what still remains to be said here.

[48] A certain Pelagia, as Luigi Tatti teaches in the sacred Annals of the city of Como composed by him, at the year 818, and perhaps in the church of St. Abundius at Como. enjoyed so notable a cult in the church of St. Abundius at Como that this sacred building, which had formerly been distinguished by the name of St. Abundius alone, was afterwards, in the lapse of time, named both after St. Pelagia and after St. Abundius. But whether this was our Saint, or another of the same name, appears doubtful. The old Breviary of the church of Como indeed, at the 8th day of October, as the Tatti just praised teaches in the place cited, proposes an ecclesiastical Office of St. Pelagia to be recited, and adds to her the surname of the Penitent; but the Pelagia after whom, together with St. Abundius, the church of this Saint at Como was in the lapse of time called is honoured with the title of Martyr in the diploma or Privilege of the emperor Louis the Pious, which the same Tatti presents in the said Annals, page 946 and following; and this does not suit our Saint, inasmuch as she did not fall by a violent death, but rested in peace. Hence Tatti inclines to judge that he who composed the old Breviary of the church of Como which I have already praised confused Pelagia the martyr with Pelagia the Penitent. And indeed, since that Breviary rather than the diploma of Louis the Pious seems to be held suspect of error, it appears that Tatti is to be assented to in this matter. Yet since the matter is not altogether certain, and it could happen that St. Pelagia the martyr, who was in honour among the people of Como in the age of Louis the Pious, had already ceased to be venerated among them in the fifteenth century, in which the said Breviary was composed, as the same Tatti teaches, and that St. Pelagia the Penitent had been substituted for her, perhaps the latter too in very fact obtained cult at some time in the church of St. Abundius at Como.

* read quos whom

LIFE,

By the Author James the Deacon

From the edition of Rosweyde, collated with our three parchment codices P Ms. 17, P Ms. 18 and O Ms. 19.

Pelagia, penitent, at Jerusalem. (S.)

BHL Number: 6605

By James the Deacon.

PROLOGUE.

The author sets forth the aim of his writing. We ought always to render great thanks to our Lord, who wills not that sinners should perish unto death, but desires all to be converted to life through penance. Hear, then, a miracle which was done in our days. It has seemed good to me, James, a sinner, to write to you, holy brethren, that by hearing or reading you may know it, and may acquire for your souls the greatest help of consolation. For the merciful God, who wills no man to perish, has determined in this world that offences should be forgiven through satisfaction: because in the world to come there will be a just judgement, in which each one will receive according to his works. Now, therefore, grant me silence, and look with me with all diligence of heart, because our relation is full of most abundant compunction ^d.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

A synod is celebrated at Antioch; St. Nonnus is present at it, makes an address to the people at the request of the other bishops, and converts Pelagia, who had come there by divine providence.

[While the bishops, and among them St. Nonnus, called to Antioch for a Synod, before the church of St. Julian] The most sacred bishop of the city of Antioch ^a called to himself all the bishops who were near him, for a certain cause: whence the bishops came together, eight in number, among whom was also the most holy man of God Nonnus, my bishop ^b, a wonderful man and a most effective monk from the monastery which is called that of the Tabennesiotes ^c. For on account of his incomparable life and most adorned conversation he was snatched from the monastery and ordained bishop ^d. When we were gathered, then, in the aforesaid city, the bishop of that city ordered us to stay in the basilica of the most blessed martyr Julian ^e. And having entered we went in, where the other bishops too who had come together sat down before the door of that basilica.

[3] While they were sitting, some bishops asked my lord ^f Nonnus that they might be taught something by him: [having gathered, are sitting, they see Pelagia, adorned with most precious garments,] and immediately the holy bishop began to speak from his mouth for the edification and salvation of all who were listening. And while all of us were admiring his holy teaching, behold, suddenly there passed by us the first of the actresses of Antioch, and she is the first of the pantomime dancing-women ^g, sitting on a little ass: and she went forward with the greatest display, adorned in such a way that nothing was seen upon her but gold and pearls and precious stones; and the bareness of her feet was covered with gold and pearls: with her was a very great train of boys and girls clothed in precious garments: and a golden torque was upon her neck.

[4] Some went before her, and others followed her: passing shamelessly; from whom, the rest turning away their faces, and of the beauty of her comeliness

there was no satiety for all the men of the world. And as she passed by us, she filled the whole air with the scent of musk ^h, or with the fragrance of other most sweet perfumes. When the bishops saw her passing thus shamelessly, with her head so bare and all the frame of her limbs, with so great a retinue, so that there was no veil placed over her head nor over her shoulders, they groaned in silence, and turned away their faces as from a most grievous sin.

[5] But the most blessed Nonnus looked at her most intently and for a long time, Nonnus gazes at her with fixed eyes, and the care with which she so that, after she had passed, he gazed and looked after her. And afterwards he turned away his face, saying to the bishops sitting around: Were you not delighted by such great beauty of hers? And when they answered nothing, he laid his face upon his knees and upon the holy manual ⁱ which he held in his holy hands: and so he filled all his bosom with tears, and sighing heavily, he said again to the bishops: Were you not delighted by such great beauty of hers? And when they answered nothing: Truly, he says, I was greatly delighted, and her beauty pleased me: since God will set her forth and place her in the sight of His tremendous and admirable throne when He is about to judge both us and our episcopate.

[6] [busied herself to adorn herself to please men, with the care which, to please God,] And again he said to the bishops: What do you think, most beloved: how many hours has this woman spent in her chamber, washing and arranging herself, adorning herself for the show with all solicitude of mind and attention, so that nothing might be lacking to bodily beauty and adornment, so that she might please all, lest she should seem ugly to her lovers, who are today, and tomorrow are not? And we, then, having a Father almighty in the heavens, an immortal spouse, who gives to those who keep them well promises which hold heavenly riches and eternal rewards which cannot be valued, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they ascended into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love Him (for why do I say more?), having the promise of seeing that great and splendid face, and the inestimable countenance of the spouse, on which the Cherubim do not dare to look, do we not adorn nor wipe away the filth from our wretched souls, but let them lie neglected?

[7] he himself applied, comparing, he accuses his own negligence. All these things having been said, he took me, the sinner, his deacon, and we came to the lodging where a little cell had been given to us. And having entered his chamber, he threw himself on the pavement, with his face to the ground, and beating his breast, he wept, saying: Lord Jesus Christ, forgive me, a sinner and unworthy, because the adornment of one day of a harlot has surpassed the adornment of my soul ^k. With what countenance shall I look upon Thee? Or with what words shall I be justified in Thy sight? For I will not hide my heart before Thee, since Thou seest my secrets. And woe to me, a sinner and unworthy, since I stand before Thy altar and do not offer the beautiful soul such as Thou seekest of me. For she promised to please men, and did so: and I promised to please Thee, and lied on account of my sloth. I am naked both in heaven and on earth, not fulfilling the precepts of Thy commandments. Therefore I have no hope from good works, but my hope is in Thy mercy, by which I trust to be saved ^l.

[8] [and when afterwards, as he relates to his deacon, about a dove, defiled with much filth,] And while he said these things, and wailed greatly on their account, we celebrated the feast that same day vehemently. And when the next day came, which is the Lord's day, after we had completed the night prayers, the holy bishop Nonnus says to me: I tell you, brother deacon, I have seen a dream and I am strongly troubled, because I cannot discern it. And presently he tells me that he had seen in his sleep how at the horn of the altar there stood a black dove, wrapped in much filth: which flew around me, and I was not able to bear the stench and squalor of its filth. And it stood about me until the prayer of the catechumens was dismissed. But after the deacon had proclaimed to the catechumens, Go forth, it immediately appeared nowhere ^m. And after the Mass of the faithful ⁿ and the completion of the oblation, when the church had been dismissed, as I was going out of the threshold of the house of God, the same dove came again, wrapped in much filth, and again flew around me.

[9] and at length washed by him in water, having had the dream, And I, stretching out my hand, caught it, and threw it into the basin which was in the court of the holy church: and it put off in the water all its filth with which it was covered, and came up out of the water white as snow: and flying, it was borne on high, and was wholly taken from my eyes. When, then, the holy bishop of God Nonnus had narrated the dream, he took me, and we came to the greater church with the other bishops, and greeted the bishop of the city. And entering, he exhorted all the people of the church, who having entered sat down on their thrones: and after all the canonical celebration, or the reading of the holy Gospel, the same bishop of the city, holding out the holy Gospel to the most blessed Nonnus, exhorted him to make an address to the people ^o.

[10] And he, opening his mouth, spoke the wisdom of God [he makes an address to the people in the church; Pelagia, who had come to it by divine will, is pricked to the heart by it,] which dwelt in him: since he spoke nothing of composition, or of philosophy, or anything indiscreet, having in himself nothing superfluous of human nature: but filled with the Holy Spirit he reproved and admonished the people, speaking most sincerely of the future judgement and of the everlasting goods which are laid up. The whole people therefore was pricked to the heart by the words which the Holy Spirit spoke through him, so that the pavement of the holy Church was flooded with the tears of the people. And by the governance of the divine mercy it came about that this harlot also, of whom our discourse has been made, came to the same church: and, what is wonderful, a catechumen, to whom concern for her sins had never come, nor had she ever come to the church of God, she was suddenly pricked to the heart with the fear of the Lord as St. Nonnus reproved the people, so that she despaired of herself; the woman herself, lamenting, poured forth rivers of tears, and could in no way restrain herself from weeping [p]. And immediately she commanded two of her servants, saying: Wait in this place, and when the holy bishop Nonnus has gone out, follow him, and inquire where he is staying, and come and report to me.

[11] And the servants did as their mistress had commanded them: a little after, she asks Nonnus by letter that she may be joined to Christ, and following us, they came to the basilica of the most blessed martyr Julian, where we had our lodging or little cell. And returning, they came to their mistress, saying: that he is staying in the basilica of the most blessed martyr Julian. Hearing this, she immediately sent a diptych of tablets [q] by the same servants, containing thus: To the holy disciple of Christ, a sinner and disciple of the devil. I have heard of your God, that He bowed the heavens and came down upon the earth, not on account of the just, but to save sinners; humbled so far that He drew near to publicans, and He on whom the Cherubim do not dare to look conversed with sinners. And you, my Lord, who have much holiness, although you have not beheld with fleshly eyes the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who manifested Himself to that harlot woman of Samaria at the well, yet you are His true worshipper, as I have heard from Christians relating it. If, then, you are a true disciple of that Christ, do not reject me, who desire through you to see the Saviour, that through you I may deserve to see His holy face.

[12] Then the holy bishop Nonnus wrote back to her: Whoever you are, [and, having received an answer, she approaches him as a suppliant and asks to be baptized.] you are manifest to God, both you and your purpose and your will. Nevertheless I tell you, do not wish to tempt my humility: for I am a sinful man, a servant of God. If you have for certain a desire for the Godhead, for obtaining virtue and faith, and wish to see me: there are other bishops with me; come, and you will see me before them: for alone you will not be able to see me. When the Harlot had read these things, filled with joy, she came running to the basilica of the blessed martyr Julian, and announced to us her presence. Hearing this, the holy bishop Nonnus called to himself all the bishops who were there; and [r] ordered her to come to him. And she, approaching where the bishops were gathered, threw herself on the pavement and seized the feet of the blessed bishop Nonnus, saying: I beg you, my lord, imitate your Master the Lord Jesus Christ, and pour out upon me your goodness, and make me a Christian. For I am, my lord, a sea of sins and an abyss of iniquity. I ask to be baptized [s].

ANNOTATIONS.

Nonnus was substituted in the year 449 (see the Preliminary Commentary, §2); and this, which is well to be noted here, was done chiefly at the instance of the impious Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria in Egypt, who, since he found not a few Syrians opposed to his counsels and perverse dogmas, and accordingly did not trust them, summoned from his Egypt the monk Nonnus, whom he perhaps thought less orthodox than he was, and saw to it that he, even unwilling and resisting, as James here sufficiently indicates, should be ordained bishop and substituted in the see of Edessa for Ibas, who had been removed from it unjustly.

p. Two of our codices, of which one is marked P Ms. 17, the other P Ms. 18, read: It came about, therefore, by divine providence that that harlot, of whom our discourse is, was then present; for she was a catechumen, and never came to the church, weighed down by the multitude of her sins, but then by the will of God she was present, and was so pricked to the heart with the fear of the Lord that in a wonderful manner rivers of tears flowed from her eyes; and from this reading the codex O Ms. 19 does not differ much either.

q. The diptychs of tablets, wont formerly to be used chiefly, were two folding quadrangular tablets of equal size which, connected with each other by two joints and a hinge passing through both, almost in the manner in which the lid and bottom of the square boxes of today for the use of tobacco are, served for figures and letters to be written within them, or even contained them when written.

r. In all three of our codices there is added here: And in their presence.

s. Our codices attribute somewhat more words to Pelagia in this place; but whether here the anonymous interpreter augmented the original Greek text, or Eustochius contracted it, is doubtful.

CHAPTER II.

Pelagia most earnestly demands baptism, is baptized, confirmed, refreshed with the sacred Eucharist, secretly withdraws to the mount of Olivet, and there, after a penance of three years, dies most happily.

[While the Saint, having conceived the greatest contrition for her sins, most earnestly asks for baptism,] When the holy bishop Nonnus had with difficulty persuaded her to rise from his feet, and she had risen, he says to her: The priestly canons contain that a harlot is not to be baptized unless she has furnished sureties that she will not roll herself again in the same evils ^a. Hearing such a sentence of the bishop, she threw herself again on the pavement, and seized the feet of the holy Nonnus, and washed them with her tears, and wiped them with her hair, saying: May you render account to God for my soul, and I will ascribe to you the iniquities of my deeds, if you put off baptizing me, iniquitous and most foul. May you find no portion with the Saints before God, unless you now make me a stranger to my evil works. May you deny God and adore idols, unless you make me today to be reborn as a bride of Christ and offer me to God. Then all the bishops and clerics who had come together, seeing such a sinner speaking such things out of desire for the Godhead, wondering said that they had never seen such faith and desire of salvation as this harlot's ^b.

[14] And immediately they sent me, the sinner, the deacon, to the bishop of the city ^c, that all these things

I might make known to him, [someone is sent to announce these things to the bishop of Antioch and to summon a deaconess: she arriving,] and that his beatitude might order one of the deaconesses to be sent with me ^d. And he, hearing it, rejoiced with great joy, saying: Well, honourable father, these works were awaiting you; I know that you will be my mouth ^e. And immediately he sent with me the lady Romana, the first of the deaconesses ^f. And she, coming, found her still at the feet of the holy bishop Nonnus, and with difficulty persuaded her to rise from his feet, saying: Rise, daughter, that you may be exorcized. And she said to her: Confess all your sins. And she answered: If I search the knowledge of my heart, I do not find in myself any works of good deeds. For I know that my sins are heavier than the sand of the sea; for the water is very little compared with the mass of my sins. But I trust in your God that He will forgive the weight of my iniquities and look upon me ^g.

[15] Pelagia is baptized by Nonnus, confirmed, and refreshed with the body of Christ. Then the holy bishop Nonnus said to her: Tell me, what is your name? And she answered: By my natural name I was called Pelagia by my parents; but the citizens of Antioch call me Margaret, on account of the weight of the ornaments with which my sins have adorned me. For I was the ornament and the decked-out workshop of the devil ^h. Again the holy bishop Nonnus says to her: You are called by the natural name Pelagia? And she answered: Yes, lord. Hearing this, the holy bishop Nonnus exorcized her, and baptized her, and placed on her the sign of the Lord, and gave her the Body of Christ ⁱ. And her spiritual mother was the holy lady Romana ^k, the first of the deaconesses; who, taking her, went up into the catechumeneum ^l, because we too were staying there. Then the holy bishop Nonnus says to me: I tell you, brother deacon, let us rejoice today with the angels of God, and let us take oil in our food beyond our custom, and receive wine with spiritual gladness, on account of the salvation of this Girl.

[16] [Hence the devil assails Nonnus with curses, and Pelagia too once with blandishments] And as we were taking food, voices are suddenly heard, as of a man suffering violence: for the devil cried out, saying: Woe, woe, what do I suffer from this decrepit old man? Are not thirty thousand Saracens ^m enough for you, whom you have snatched from me and baptized, and offered to your God? Was not Heliopolis enough for you, since, whereas it too was mine and all who dwelt in it adored me, you snatched it from me and offered it to your God ⁿ? But now too you have taken from me my greatest hope: now I cannot bear your machinations. O, what do I now suffer from this damnable man! Cursed be that day on which you were born: rivers of tears flood the weak lodging ^o: now my hope is taken away. All these things the devil cried out, and lamented before the doors, and he was heard by all men. And again, repeating, he said to the newly baptized girl: Do you do these things to me, my lady Pelagia, and do you imitate my Judas? For he, crowned with glory and honour, and made an apostle, betrayed his Lord: so too have you done to me.

[17] and attacking her again, is put to flight by the sign of the cross; Then the holy bishop Nonnus says to her: Sign yourself with the Cross of Christ, and renounce him [p]. And she signed herself in the name of Christ and breathed upon the demon; and immediately he appeared nowhere. After two days, then, as she was sleeping with the holy Romana, her godmother, in her chamber, the devil appeared by night and roused the handmaid of God Pelagia, and said: I beg you, my lady Margaret, were you not enriched with gold and silver? did I not adorn you with gold and precious gems? I beg you, in what have I grieved you? Answer me, that I may make satisfaction to you; only do not make me the reproach of the Christians. Then the handmaid of God Pelagia signed herself and breathed out upon the demon, saying: My God, who snatched me from the midst of your teeth and brought me into His heavenly bridal chamber, He Himself will resist you for me [q]. And immediately the devil appeared nowhere.

[18] And on the third day after St. Pelagia was baptized, [and she, having handed over her goods into the hands of the bishop Nonnus, that he might dispose of them at his discretion,] she asked for her servant [r] who was in charge of all her affairs, and says to him: Go into my wardrobe and write down all that is there, whether in gold or in silver, or in ornaments or precious garments, and bring it to me. The servant did as his Mistress commanded him, and brought all her substance. And she immediately called the holy bishop Nonnus through the holy Romana, her godmother, and placed all her substance in his hands, saying: These, lord, are the riches with which Satan enriched me; I hand them over to the discretion of your holiness, and do with them what you know to be expedient; for the riches of my Lord Jesus Christ are to be desired by me. And he immediately called the senior custodian of the church, and, she being present, handed over all her substance into his hands, saying: I adjure you by the inseparable Trinity that nothing of this enter into the bishop's house or into the church: but rather let it be paid out to widows and orphans and the poor, so that what was ill gathered may be well distributed, and the riches of the sinner may become treasures of justice.

[19] But if, the oath being despised, either through yourself [and, having given liberty to her men-servants and maid-servants, she withdraws from Antioch,] or through any other whatever, you take away anything from these, may anathema enter into his house, and may he have part with those who said, Let Him be crucified, let Him be crucified. And she called together all her boy-servants and girl-servants and freed them all, and gave them golden torques [s] with her own hand, saying: Make haste and free yourselves from this wicked world, full of sins, that, as we have been together in this world, so we may remain together without grief in that life which is most blessed [t]. And on the eighth day, when she was to make the putting-off of the white garments, rising by night, without our knowing it, she put off the garment of her Baptism, and put on the tunic [u] and the birrus [x] of the holy bishop Nonnus: and from that day she appeared nowhere in the city of Antioch. And the holy Romana wept for her most bitterly, and the holy Nonnus consoled her, saying: Do not weep, daughter, but rejoice with great joy, since Pelagia has chosen the best portion, like Mary, whom the Lord prefers to Martha in the Gospel [y].

[20] And she went away to Jerusalem, and built herself a little cell on the mount of Olivet, [and she makes for Jerusalem, where, when by James the deacon visiting the holy places,] where the Lord prayed. And after some time the bishop of the city called together all the bishops, that each might return to his own. After a space of three or four years [z], I, James the deacon, desired to set out for Jerusalem, that I might there adore the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I asked my bishop to permit me to go. When he had permitted me to go, he says to me: I tell you, brother deacon, when you have arrived at Jerusalem, seek there a certain brother Pelagius, a monk and eunuch, who for many years * had been dwelling shut up in solitude, as though to visit him; for truly you will be able to be helped by him. And all these things he said to me about the handmaid of God Pelagia not openly. I arrived, then, at Jerusalem, and adored the holy resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ [aa]; and on another day I sought out the Servant of God. And I approached, and found him on the mount of Olivet, where the Lord prayed, in a small cell closed in on every side, and he had a little window in the wall.

[21] [after about three years is visited, she departs to the Lord by a happy departure from among the living,] And I knocked at the door of the little window, and immediately she opened to me, and recognized me; but I did not recognize her. For how could I recognize her whom I had formerly seen of inestimable beauty, now become withered in face from excessive abstinence? And her eyes seemed like pits. And she says to me: Whence do you come, brother? I answered and said: I have been sent to you at the command of the bishop Nonnus. And she said to me: Let him pray for me, since he is truly a saint of God. And immediately she closed the little door of the window and began to chant the Third Hour [bb]. And I prayed beside the wall of her cell, and withdrew, greatly helped by her angelic vision. And having returned to Jerusalem, I began, walking through the monasteries, to visit the brethren. And great fame was spread through the monasteries about the lord Pelagius. Therefore I resolved to return to him again also, and to be refreshed by his salutary teachings. And when I had arrived at his cell, and presumed to knock, nay to call upon him by name, nothing, persevering, [cc]. I waited the second day and the third, persevering, and calling upon Pelagius by his own name, I heard no one. Wherefore I said within myself: Either there is no one here, or the monk who was here has withdrawn.

[22] and she is most honourably buried by the monks and nuns. But, admonished by the will of God, I said again: Let me consider whether perhaps he is dead: and I opened the little door of the little window, and looked in, and saw him dead; and I closed the little door, and filling it carefully with mud, I came running to Jerusalem, and announced to those dwelling together that the holy monk Pelagius, who worked wonders [dd], had gone to rest. Then the holy fathers came with the various monasteries of monks, and so the little door of the cell was opened: and her holy little body was carried out, which they laid worthily in gold and precious stones. And while the holy fathers were anointing the body with myrrh, then they knew that it had been a woman: and wishing to hide the miracle, but it could not lie hidden from the people itself, they cried out with a loud voice, saying: Glory to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, who hast many hidden riches upon the earth, not only of men but also of women. And it was divulged to all the people, and all the monasteries of virgins came, both from Jericho and from the Jordan, where the Lord was baptized, with candles, lamps and hymns: and so her holy relics were laid to rest, carried by the holy fathers [ee]. This is the life of the Harlot, this the conversation of the despaired-of woman; with whom may the Lord grant us too to find His mercy on the day of judgement: since to Him is honour and glory, power and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Gather hence that the custom of forming the sign of the Cross had certainly become prevalent among the Christians not later than the fifth century.

q. The anonymous interpreter, in all three of our manuscript codices, which I have already cited often above, adds that Pelagia also, when she had roused her spiritual mother or godmother Romana, anxiously asked her to invoke the Lord against the demon who had again appeared to her, and that Romana answered her: Do not fear him, daughter; for henceforth he dreads and flees even your shadow; and I judge that these things were rather omitted by Eustochius than added by the anonymous interpreter, especially since the Greek Life of our Saint existing in our codex ✠ Ms. 193 also supports the reading of the latter, from which at the same time you will rightly emend the text of the anonymous interpreter just recited in this way: Do not fear him, daughter; for henceforth he will dread and flee even your shadow.

r. All our codices read Her servant (Servum suum) from the version of the anonymous, and rightly indeed, since Eustochius undoubtedly wrote Her boy (Puerum suum) for no other reason than that he found παιδὰ in the original Greek text, and the word παὶς, as often elsewhere, so also here is determined from the context of the sense to signify the same as servus or famulus in Latin.

s. That is, golden torques, as Rosweyde notes, and rightly indeed, unless I am mistaken.

t. The anonymous interpreter differs here from Eustochius in the order in which he relates the events: for he puts the things which Pelagia is here narrated to have done for her men-servants and maid-servants before those which are asserted a little before to have been said by the bishop Nonnus.

u. This word is derived from the Greek word τριχινὸς, which, since it comes from the substantive θρὶξ, in Latin capillus or crinis, hair, here tricina signifies the same as cilicina, of haircloth.

x. Birra, as Rosweyde teaches in the Onomasticon, signifies now a precious garment, now a cheap one; but here, as appears from the subject matter, it has this latter signification.

y. Although indeed secretly from Romana and all others, yet not also secretly from the bishop Nonnus did Pelagia depart from Antioch for Jerusalem. So it altogether appears, both because she departed clothed in the cheaper garment of Nonnus, and because he said here to Romana the deaconess that her departure was to be rejoiced at.

z. The anonymous interpreter in our codices has only: After three years; and with this reading the Greek reading which corresponds to it in the Greek Life of Pelagia of our codex ✠ Ms. 193 also agrees.

aa. By the anonymous interpreter in our codices is added: And the glorious wood of the Cross. But if this reading is conformable to the original Greek text of James the Deacon, it will become altogether undoubted even from this that Pelagia was not converted to the Lord before the year 326:

for the glorious wood of the Cross was neither discovered before that year, as may be seen in our Work, volume III of August, page 562, nor, as follows from this, exposed to the veneration of the people. Add these things to those which were said in the Preliminary Commentary, number 17.

bb. In our codices the conversation of James with Pelagia is related somewhat otherwise, in this manner: And when I had asked a blessing, she blessed me, and questioned me, saying: Have you a bishop? To whom I answered: Yes, lord father. She said: Let him pray the Lord for me; for he is an apostle of Christ. And do you, son deacon, pray for me. And I, hearing, wondered vehemently both about the bishop and about myself, that she had called me deacon. And when the third hour had come, she began solemnly to chant to God. And this reading is also supported by the Greek Life of our Saint which exists in our codex ✠ Ms. 193.

cc. That Pelagia was visited a second time by James the Deacon, and that it then came about that he, as is presently subjoined here, both found her dead and immediately announced it at Jerusalem, the Greek Life of the Saint, again cited just now, does not disclose, as neither does the one which Metaphrastes polished with his style; which is an argument that both the latter and the former are interpolated, as I showed in the Preliminary Commentary, number 14 and following.

dd. That is, doing wonderful works of penance and of virtues, but not miracles; for our Saint did not, as is noted in the Basilian Menology from this place of the Life wrongly understood, become renowned for miracles while still surviving among the living.

ee. In our codices, which comprise the version of the anonymous interpreter, after the solemnity with which our Saint was buried has been narrated, there is added: And I announced all these things at Antioch to her most holy mother Romana, and also to my lord bishop Nonnus. For then I remembered that she was the one about whom the said bishop had told me, that when I had arrived at the holy places I should seek out Pelagius: and from this, if only these are the words of James the Deacon, it seems to follow that the bishop Nonnus, when Pelagia died, had not yet recovered the see of Edessa. See the Preliminary Commentary, number 31.

* Our codices better: plurimo tempore for a very long time