Hilarion

ON ST. HILARION, CONFESSOR, FATHER OF MONKS IN PALESTINE,

IN THE YEAR 371.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Hilarion, monk and confessor, on the island of Cyprus. (S.)

BY V. D. B.

§ I. The biographers of St. Hilarion.

While St. Hilarion lived, his name was celebrated through many regions; St. Jerome wrote the Life of St. Hilarion most diligently yet I should not dare to say that it was more celebrated than that of many others who exercised themselves in the same monastic arena and of whom scarcely any memory now survives. But that his fame has persisted through the whole East and West, while the renown of his fellow soldiers has gradually ceased, must certainly be credited to St. Jerome, who less than twenty years after his death followed out his deeds as diligently as possible. Of which diligence the work itself everywhere supplies testimonies: of which I shall propose only two for the reader to weigh. The first is the manner of blessed Hilarion's food and clothing, described as varying at various times; the second, the length of time the most holy monk lived now in these, now in those places, carefully investigated: things which the pious biographer certainly could not have known without having accurately inquired into everything from his disciples, above all from St. Hesychius, the almost constant companion of the blessed man, and perhaps also from St. Epiphanius, who had written a brief elogium of him. Moreover, it was never less permitted to anyone to commit anything to writing rashly and imprudently than to blessed Jerome, surrounded on every side by adversaries; who watched with lynx eyes for what they might pick at, by fair means or foul, in his writings.

[2] in the year 390, and Sophronius at once translated it into Greek. Jerome himself writes of himself in the last chapter of his book On Illustrious Men In Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXIII, col. 717.: "Up to the present year, that is, the fourteenth of the emperor Theodosius," or of Christ 392, "I have written these things… Thirty-nine homilies on Luke; seven treatises on the Psalms, from the tenth to the sixteenth; the Life of Malchus the captive monk, and of blessed Hilarion; I have restored the New Testament to the fidelity of the Greek." And in the same place, in the penultimate chapter Ibid., col. 715., he had written: "Sophronius, a man exceedingly learned, composed while still a boy the praises of Bethlehem, and recently a notable book on the overthrow of Serapis: he has also translated into Greek in elegant language my little works On Virginity to Eustochium and the Life of Hilarion the monk: also the Psalter and the Prophets, which we have rendered from Hebrew into Latin." These things Jerome says of this Life of St. Hilarion that is his own. Certainly, then, this work was published before the year 392, and indeed even translated into Greek; and since in the review of his writings blessed Jerome commonly follows the order of time, it must be placed after the composition of the Life of Malchus; whose date is betrayed by the title of pope given to Evagrius of Antioch Ibid., col. 53., who was made bishop only in the year 388 or 389 Tillemont, Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. X, page 234, Paris, 1705.. Tillemont Ibid., vol. XII, page 129. and Stilting did not proceed further in defining it; nor shall we proceed further, although it is manifest that Vallarsi Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXIII, col. 18 and 29. could not have strayed from the truth when he said that the Life of St. Hilarion was written about the year 390, after the translation of the Homilies of Origen on Luke, "which," he says, "we assign to the preceding year, 389": it was, namely, by the order in which the most holy author reviews his writings that Vallarsi was led to determine more closely the date of the Homilies on Luke and consequently of the Life of St. Hilarion Ibid., vol. XXVI, col. 13 and 14..

[3] That little work of St. Jerome, throughout the West It is commonly enough known how eagerly the books of St. Jerome were sought by all as soon as they were published. He generally chose subjects that held the most delight; that were singular and exquisite; that moved minds vehemently; contentious ones; or such as admitted doctrine and the most recondite erudition; he used, moreover, a style that was polished, easy, sinewy, ample and lofty; his fame wandered through the East as well as through the West; he had most devoted friends and admirers, and at the same time most hostile enemies and the sharpest detractors: than which I do not know whether anything avails more for the good and happy fortune of books. The Life of St. Hilarion therefore had the same lot as most other works of St. Jerome. Whence it cannot seem wonderful that, when in the fifth century there began to be made the collection which thereafter continued to be called by one word, as it were, Vitaspatrum [Compare Rosweyde, Vitae Patrum, prolegomena part II and following, and Du Cange, Glossary of Latinity, under Vitas patrum.], the Life of St. Hilarion was inserted in the first book: which, with the rest of St. Jerome's biographies of blessed monks, became as it were the foundation of that most celebrated volume. Certainly in the Gelasian Decree

concerning authentic or ecclesiastical books we read Zaccaria, Storia delle proibizioni de' libri, page 36.: "Likewise the Vitaspatrum, of Paul, Antony, Hilarion and all the hermits, which the most blessed man Jerome wrote, we receive with all honour"; which part of the decree nothing persuades us is not Gelasian. It is found also separately, or with the Lives of Paul and Malchus, in manuscript codices; so that of few books are the old copies more frequent.

[4] [and Sophronius's version was very widely spread through the East; this same version] As the Latin Life was spread through the West, so there seems no reason to doubt that the version of Sophronius was received throughout the whole East: of which matter I shall give no other proof than that the Easterners were already splendidly keeping the feast of blessed Hilarion while no commemoration of him was made by the Westerners in the sacred liturgy: of which matter we shall speak more fully elsewhere. Of that Sophronius, however, whose name some would have it was sometimes turned into Sempronius Vossius, On the Greek Historians, page 257., no other memory survives than that which is made of him by St. Jerome in his book On Illustrious Men, or which is taken from there. That he is said to have written on behalf of St. Basil against Eunomius Fabricius, Bibliotheca graeca, vol. IX, page 289, edition of 1804. is mere conjecture; a good one perhaps, but resting only on the likeness of the name and the agreement of the period. That the Life written by Sophronius is the one which begins with these words: Ἐν Παλαιστινῃ πολις ἐστιν οὐκ ἐλαττον ἠ πεντε καὶ τεσσαρακοντα σταδιους ἀπεχουσα Γαζης, and which Lippomano published in Latin from the version of Gentian Hervet Lives of the Saints, vol. VI, page 360 and following., was the opinion of Rosweyde Vitae Patrum, page 86.: "For it proceeds," he says, "in the same order, although in some things it varies from time to time and also adds certain things." Agapius the monk, who in the year 1515 published his Paradise at Venice in vulgar Greek, seems to attribute that version to Simeon Metaphrastes in the title of the whole work: Βιβλιον καλουμενον Παραδεισος ἐκ των λογων του ὁσιου καὶ θεοφορου πατρος ἡμων Συμεωνος τοῦ Μεταφραστου μεταφρασθεν παρα Ἀγαπιου μοναχου του Κρητος μετα πασης ἐπιμελειας και ποθου πολλου ἐκ της τῶν Ἑλληνων εἰς την κοινην διαλεκτον. They would have it Fabricius, Bibliotheca graeca, vol. IX, page 294. that Leo Allatius also thought that that Greek version was to be attributed to Simeon. Tillemont remains in doubt Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. VII, page 572., and with him some others.

[5] it seems to have been wrongly ascribed at times to Simeon Metaphrastes. For my part I should not dare to dissent from Rosweyde. For Leo Allatius, than whom no one better distinguished the genuine offspring of Metaphrastes from the supposititious, places τον του μακαριωτατου και φιλουθεου Ἱλαριωνος βιον in the second table (as he calls it) On the writings of the Simeons, a diatribe, page 124.; which table is of those Ibid., page 119. which a dissimilar diction and style will not acknowledge as having Metaphrastes for parent: and that this diversity of writing is easily detected, Allatius is an ample witness Ibid., loc. cit.. The words of Agapius are of no weight: for who does not know that the great collection of the Lives of the Saints distributed through the months is commonly called by the Greeks Metaphrastean, as the Lives of the fathers are called Hieronymian by the Latins? not because those men composed them entire, but because, of all the writers whose works have been collected, none has a more celebrated name. Which is so true that Agapius himself rightly ascribed to St. John Damascene the first Life which he published, which is that of St. Josaphat. That some things were inserted into that version which had better been absent does not seem to have grave weight. For in that age the same laws had not been laid down for versions as are now commonly observed. Read the versions of the books of Origen which Rufinus prepared, and indeed St. Jerome himself. Moreover the Greek version of St. Jerome's book On Illustrious Writers, which it is far the most probable is owed to Sophronius, has a whole chapter on the lives of the apostles inserted; I should not dare to say that it was interpolated by others, since no codices free of it have been shown. But, you will say, the additions of both works are unworthy of Sophronius. But come, tell me, do you hold everything that is read in the Latin Life of St. Hilarion worthy of St. Jerome? That manner of arguing is too deceptive unless it is helped by other indications. Wherefore, since that Greek version of the Life of St. Hilarion does not seem to be by Metaphrastes; since we know from Jerome himself that one was made by Sophronius; and since no one else is read to have prepared another; the common laws of prudence seem to persuade that it is to be attributed to Sophronius. For the rest, Fabricius will tell in which Paris and Vienna book-presses it may be found Bibliotheca graeca, vol. IX, page 294, and vol. X, page 235..

[6] St. Epiphanius, Sozomen and others followed out the deeds of St. Hilarion. Earlier, St. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, had written a Life of blessed Hilarion, who, as blessed Jerome testifies in the prologue, had been very much with Hilarion; namely, when the latter was living on the island of Cyprus until his death. It was brief and composed from commonplaces for praising the departed. Wherefore, although it was commonly read before, it could not long be sought out or desired after blessed Jerome, from whom we know these things (for no other trace of this letter survives), had narrated the proper virtues of the departed. Similarly, little care was taken of what Sozomen, who came after blessed Jerome and Sophronius, had written about St. Hilarion; although he too, not content to tread in the footsteps of St. Jerome, inquired into the deeds of blessed Hilarion the more diligently, the greater the thanks he owed him, because through him the light of faith had come to his family. Sozomen, therefore, together with St. Jerome, will be our chief guides in this commentary. We shall also sometimes cite the Menaea of the Greeks and other books of that kind; nor shall we omit similar Latin books. On the other hand we shall altogether disregard the Life of St. Epiphanius, although mention of St. Hilarion is quite often made in it; since, even if it contains true things and the first part is perhaps better than some critics have judged, it is nevertheless so sprinkled with blemishes, chiefly chronological, that it seems either to have been written by a teller of tales or certainly to have been interpolated in an astonishing manner, and there seems to be no means by which what is true may be separated from what is false Compare Acta SS., vol. III of May, page 46 and following.. Among the more recent, the deeds of blessed Hilarion were best illustrated by Rosweyde, a man never praised enough; Tillemont, Martianay and Vallarsi accomplished scarcely anything else than to follow him closely. That too is our lot; we shall nevertheless try, if any ears have been left, to glean them.

§ II. Chronology of the Life of St. Hilarion. His stay at Alexandria and with St. Antony.

The course of the life of St. Hilarion distributed through definite years. Before all else, if you desire a brief synopsis of the years of Hilarion's life, Rosweyde Vitae Patrum, page 92. will give it, extracted from the very Life written by St. Jerome. At the beginning of the sixteenth year of his age Hilarion enters the desert, and remains there to the twentieth year inclusive; so number 5. From the beginning of the twenty-first to the twenty-sixth year of his age inclusive he lives sparingly, for three years on a sextarius of lentils a day, for three others on dry bread with salt; so number 6. From the beginning of the twenty-seventh to the thirtieth year of his age inclusive he lives on herbs; so the same number. From the beginning of the thirty-first to the thirty-fifth inclusive he takes six ounces of barley bread a day; the same number. From the beginning of the thirty-sixth to the sixty-third inclusive he adds oil to his food; the same number. From the beginning of the sixty-fourth to the eightieth inclusive he abstained from bread, and so completed the course of his life; the same number and 38: for St. Jerome plainly declares in number 38 that he lived eighty years. The series of the blessed man's years can also be woven otherwise, and indeed connected with the years of Christ and the rest of the succession of public events, provided that one or another link of the whole chain is joined to certain points of time: which indeed we shall accomplish in such a way that we illustrate his whole life at the same time, above all his journeys; which, as they are almost singular and unexpected in a hermit, so were recounted with particular care by blessed Jerome. But a beginning must be made from those things whose time of occurrence we know more accurately, in order thence to arrange the rest in turn.

[8] The dates on which the whole chronology of the life of St. Hilarion depends. Further, in numbers 23 and 24 of the Life of blessed Hilarion we read the following: "In the sixty-third year of his life, seeing the great monastery, and the multitude of brethren living with him, and the crowds of those who brought to him persons seized by various sicknesses and unclean spirits, so that the wilderness round about was filled with every kind of men, he wept daily and recalled his former way of life with incredible longing… And when he had lived thus mourning for TWO YEARS, Aristaenete … came to him, wishing also to go on to Antony. To whom he said, weeping: 'I too should wish to go, were I not held by the prison of this monastery, and were there any fruit in going. For today it is two days since the whole world was bereaved of such a father.' She believed and stayed. And after a few days, when a messenger came, she heard of the falling asleep of Antony." But the fact has been brilliantly demonstrated by Rosweyde Vitae Patrum, page 29 and following. and Henschen Acta SS., vol. II of January, pages 110 and 111. that St. Antony departed this life on the 17th of January of the year 356, or the nineteenth of Constantius the younger Chronicle of St. Jerome, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXVII, col. 687.: from which it follows that in the month of January of the year 356 blessed Hilarion was living the sixty-fifth year of his age. Elsewhere too one may set foot firmly. As we shall show below, the earthquake, shortly after which blessed Hilarion went on from Dalmatia to Cyprus, happened on the 21st of July of the year 365. Thereafter the blessed man lived two years not far from Paphos and five years at the twelfth milestone from the sea, dying in the eightieth year of his age, on the 21st of October: in order that these things may be consistent with one another, he must be said to have spent on the island of Cyprus not a full seven years but six years and one or two months, and to have been born between the end of the month of October of the year 291 and the beginning of January of the following year: but these things will be explained more fully in their place.

[9] [St. Hilarion, born near Gaza at the end of the year 291, goes as a boy to Alexandria;] Blessed Hilarion, then, was born at the end of the year 291, and indeed of pagan parents, near Gaza in Palestine and the former land of Canaan Compare Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. XV, page 101.. As a boy he was sent to the schools of Alexandria in Egypt. By what road one went at that time from Gaza to Alexandria and back, from

the Itinerary of Antoninus Itinerarium Antonini, Wesseling's edition, pages 151 and 152., from Strabo Book XVI, pages 1080 and 1081, Oxford edition of 1807. and from the Jew Flavius Josephus [On the Jewish War, book IV, chapter 11, Works, vol. II, page 313, Havercamp's edition.], where he describes the journey of Titus making for Jerusalem from Alexandria, we easily understand. From Gaza one went to Raphia, which is now called Rafa; which still has a spring, some ruins and two columns of syenite, the ancient boundaries of Egypt and Palestine, or of Africa and Asia Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. XIV, page 140; vol. XVI, pages 39 and 40.. According to the Itinerary of Antoninus it is distant from Gaza 22 Roman miles, according to Leake a journey of six hours. From here as far as the lands watered by the Nile the journey had to be undertaken through desert places infested with a multitude of serpents, especially, however, after Rhinocorura; wherefore Strabo advises that it be made by camels. Further, from Raphia by a journey of 22 Roman miles St. Hilarion came to Rhinocucura or Rhinocolura, called in the Middle Ages Laris, now Arish or El Arish Ibid., page 141 and following, and vol. XVI, page 38., by the wadi, or valley cut by a torrent Numbers XXXIV. 5; Isaiah XXVII, 12., of the same name: places known to the Hebrews by the names of Sihor, the torrent of Egypt, the torrent of the desert, and simply the torrent [Ibid., places cited; I Paralipomenon XIII, 5; Joshua XIX, 26; Ezekiel XL, 19; Amos VI, 15.]; the first town of Egypt outside the land of Canaan I Paralipomenon XIII, 5. and formerly a mart of the Nabataeans Strabo, book XVI, page 1109.. It still has some ruins, and at the beginning of this century it was occupied and fortified by the French Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. XVI, pages 36 and 37.. By a journey of 26 Roman miles blessed Hilarion went on from Rhinocorura to Ostracina. Ostracina is now called Straki Ibid., vol. XIV, page 144.; but with its site somewhat changed, since it is now situated at the mouth of the lake, while in the age of Flavius Josephus it lacked water, needing water brought in. By a journey of 26 Roman miles blessed Hilarion went from Ostracina to Casium, where on Mount Casius the temple of Jupiter Casius met him Flavius Josephus, Jewish War, book IV, chapter 11, page 413.; now this place has the name Ras Kasaroun or El Kas, and not Katieh or Cattia Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. XIV, pages 144 and 145.. From Casium he then came 20 Roman miles to Pentaschoenum; which station, distant five schoeni (as the word sounds) or 20 miles, Josephus and the Peutinger geographer omitted In Welser, Historical Works, page 759.; and the latter put in its place Gerrha, distant 23 Roman miles from Casium and 8 from Pelusium, whereas in the Antonine Itinerary Pentaschoenum is said to be 20 Roman miles distant from Pelusium. I should believe the Peutinger tables nearer the truth, since it does not seem credible that 40 Roman miles were covered by the army of Titus in one stage; for 31 is the greatest day's march in those parts. From Pelusium, in whose former outskirts the fort of Tineh has been built, blessed Hilarion had to go to Little Heracleopolis by a journey of 22 Roman miles; thence by the same distance to Tanis, called San by the Arabs, Zoan by the Hebrews, notable for its many ruins, remains of ancient glory Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. I, pages 829 and 830. From Tanis to Thmuis, a noble city and named from the he-goat which it worshipped, the same journey of 22 Roman miles. From here the way lay open by water, and Titus followed it, or by land through the great delta of the Nile: namely, from Thmuis to Cynopolis, now Mehallet el Kebir Ibid., page 819., 25 Roman miles; to Taua 30 Roman miles; to Andron 12 Roman miles; to Nithine 12 Roman miles; to Little Hermopolis, now Damanhour Ibid., page 864., 34 Roman miles; to Cercu 23 Roman miles; and finally to Alexandria 20 Roman miles. And this was the first journey of blessed Hilarion, still a boy, about the year 300.

[10] [where in about the year 302, catechized by St. Achillas, he is baptized by St. Peter and is a witness of many martyrdoms.] While that new vessel of election was living at Alexandria, the humane studies had not yet perished there, whose splendour Strabo Book XVII, page 1123 and following, Oxford edition. had still adorned with praises, although the city had already suffered much. Sacred doctrine flourished no less; and indeed St. Achillas or Archelaus, to whom St. Athanasius Oration I, page 306. gave the surname of the Great, was then in charge as master of the catechetical school Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book VII, chapter 32, page 289, Mainz edition.. The petalon of the pontifical summit (that it was in use at Alexandria the writer of the martyrdom of St. Mark is witness [Compare the Notes of Valesius on chapter 24, book V of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius.]) was then borne by St. Peter, who suffered martyrdom in the year 311, the sixteenth bishop of Alexandria after St. Mark [Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book VII, chapter 32, pages 289 and 290. Compare the Chronicle of Eusebius and Jerome, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXVII, col. 661 and 662.]. Who would doubt that blessed Hilarion was instructed by the former and baptized by the latter? This happened in the year 302 or 303, in the eleventh or twelfth of his age, since, dying in the year of Christ 371, in the eightieth of his age, he had served Christ (as he himself testified) for nearly seventy years. While the most holy youth was in that arena, a most foul persecution pressed upon the Alexandrian church, and especially in the years 304 and 305 carried off countless martyrs by monstrous torments [Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book VIII, chapters 7 and 9, pages 300, 302 and following. Acta SS., vol. III of April, page 572.]: whose constancy was a great example by which blessed Hilarion thenceforth glowed wholly for the service of God. While these things were going on, the fame of blessed Antony became known to him; and although he was scarcely fifteen years old, and that wonderful fervour by which afterwards so many and such excellent youths and men were carried off into deserts and solitudes was not yet glowing at the beginning of the fourth century, he visited the father of hermits and submitted himself to his discipline.

[11] [At fifteen years of age he goes to St. Antony, whose homeland and first monastery are inquired into.] But in what place did blessed Hilarion find the most holy master? To satisfy this question, the matter must be taken up a little more deeply; since only in this century have the secrets of Egypt been laid open. On the authority of Sozomen, blessed Antony was born in Arcadia or the Heptanomis, and indeed in the Heracleote nome: whose chief cities are Nilopolis near Tarchoub; Great Heracleopolis, now Ahnas; Coene, now Beni Suef; Isiu, now Zawy, etc. Compare Description de l'Égypte, vol. IV, page 400 and following.. That nome has quite often been called an island, because it is enclosed on the east by the Nile, on the west by the canal of Joseph, or rather by the former bed of the Nile, on the south by the canal which from Harabschent (or not rather from Menaqueyn Compare Description de l'Égypte, Égypte moderne, vol. I, plate 6., a little more to the north?) leads the waters of the Nile into the canal of Joseph or former bed of the Nile, and on the north by the canal whose beginnings are at Isiu or Zawy Ibid., page 401.. On the left, therefore, or west of the Nile, St. Antony was born. Having received baptism, he practised the ascetic life for some time in his homeland, until in the thirty-fifth year of his age, of Christ 285 Compare Acta SS., vol. II of January, page 110., he went on as far as the mountain, and there, "HAVING FORDED THE RIVER, he found a deserted fort Ibid., page 114, number 22., in which he persevered, passing twenty years in solitude and separated from the sight of men Ibid., page 114, number 23.": and so it is most manifest that that fort was situated on the other side of the Nile, or to the east; and indeed I scarcely doubt that it was situated at the parallel of the former Ptolemais, now El-Lahun, a little more to the south than Beroubel, namely at the gorge of the mountain of the Cistern or Gebel, at about the place which is now called Old St. Antony, or the monastery of St. Antony on the Nile. This is marked on the second map of Father Sicard Lettres édifiantes, vol. V, page 151, edition of 1810.; and Jomard judges that Angyronpolis was formerly situated in its vicinity Description de l'Égypte, vol. IV, page 420..

[12] Yet not here, but in the Fayum, did St. Antony first gather disciples After St. Athanasius has narrated that blessed Antony led a solitary life there for twenty years, he then adds that he was visited by many, making no mention of a change of abode. But account must be taken of the letters of St. Antony to the monks of Arsinoe (which St. Jerome mentions, and a version of which is read in volume IV of the Lyon Bibliotheca Patrum), and above all of the Egyptian monuments which Abraham Ecchellensis the Maronite The rule, sermons and life of St. Antony, page 121. first brought forward, and from which it seems to be established that disciples were first admitted by blessed Antony in the Fayum, situated no longer to the east of the Nile but to the west. And indeed to this is added the narration of St. Athanasius himself, pertaining to the beginnings of St. Antony's mastership Acta SS., vol. II of January, page 124, number 26.: "What was done also in the town of the Arsinoites I shall not pass over in silence. For when he wished to visit the brethren and it was necessary to ford a stream of the river Nile, which was full of crocodiles and many savage beasts of the river, he both crossed with his companions unharmed and returned from there safe." Those disciples, therefore, dwelt in the place in which the blessed master had first gathered them, namely beyond the canal near Arsinoe, which was also called Crocodilopolis on account of the worship and abundance of that kind of animal, but is now Medinet el-Fayum, or the city of the Fayum, at 28° 41' 9" east longitude of Paris and 29° 28' 48" latitude. Several have described this region, whose statements Ritter has reduced to a summary Erdkunde, vol. I, page 793 and following.; but the condition of this province will be much better understood if the eyes are cast upon the map which we owe to the cares of the hydrographer Martin and which is printed in the Description of Egypt Égypte moderne, vol. I, plate 6., or upon another more recent map composed according to Martin's.

[13] and he admitted St. Hilarion. We shall note only a few things: that Egypt is the valley of the Nile, placed between two continuous ridges of mountains, of which the eastern are called Arabian, the western Libyan, is commonly known. Now the Nile flows at the foot of the Arabian ones, but formerly at the foot of the Libyan, through the bed called the canal of Joseph (Bahr Yusuf). Further, since on the western side of the Libyan mountains a part of the Libyan desert was lower, the ancient Egyptians with incredible labour dug through the rocky Libyan mountains

a canal through which water might be led from the canal of Joseph into that depressed part of the desert and divided by many streams over this whole land. This new province, separated from the rest of Egypt and to be approached by one entrance only, was called the Fayum, or the Arsinoite nome. Hither, therefore, blessed Hilarion must be thought to have come when he went to blessed Antony and submitted himself to his discipline.

[14] that second journey of St. Hilarion is described. Blessed Hilarion made this second journey of his either along the western or along the eastern bank of the Nile; for the land route was twofold; indeed one could also be carried by boat. But at that time the shortest and most convenient way was along the western bank; and so, according to the Itinerary of Antoninus Simler's edition, page 118., he will have gone from Alexandria 24 Roman miles to Chercu; from here 20 Roman miles to Hieropolis, or perhaps Little Hermopolis Cellarius, Geographia antiqua, vol. II, page 797., now Damanhour Description de l'Égypte, vol. XV, page 367.; from here 21 Roman miles to Andropolis, which d'Anville Géographie ancienne, vol. III, page 12. holds to be the same as the present Shabur; from here 31 Roman miles to Niciu, the same according to d'Anville Ibid., page 13. as the present-day Nikios; from here 29 Roman miles to Letopolis; and from here finally 20 Roman miles to Memphis, whose site opposite Babylon or Cairo no one is ignorant of. Further, from Memphis he came 20 Roman miles to Peme, now Bembe and Gezyret-Bembe near the pyramids of El-Metanyeh Description de l'Égypte, vol. IV, pages 428 and 429.; from here 20 Roman miles to Isiu, now Zawy Ibid., pages 412 and 413.; thence 20 Roman miles to Caene, now Beni Suef. From Beni Suef the route into the Fayum is now very well known. One turns to the west and in one day comes to Hawara el-Kebir, situated on the eastern bank of the canal of Joseph; one crosses by a bridge to the village of el-Lahun, opposite on the other bank; where is the entrance to the most celebrated valley of the Fayum Ibid., vol. XVI, page 20 and following.. Now if it be asked what place in this valley blessed Hilarion inhabited with St. Antony, I for my part am not able to say; but since monasteries, or rather the remains of monasteries, still survive there, there is scarcely any doubt that some memory of these things is still preserved.

[15] [The year before, namely 305, Pior of Nitria had already come there. The conversation of St. Hilarion with St. Antony.] Blessed Hilarion came there in the year of Christ 306; so that with good right he is reckoned among the first disciples of blessed Antony. He is later, however, than Pior of Nitria, afterwards a most celebrated monk, whose coming to blessed Antony is to be assigned to the year 605 Tillemont, Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. VIII, page 804.. To this time seem to belong the things narrated of SS. Antony and Hilarion in the little books which the deacon Pelagius made Latin from the Greek, book XVII, number 4 Vitae Patrum, page 632.: "Abbot Hilarion once came," says the anonymous author, "from Palestine to abbot Antony on the mountain, and abbot Antony says to him: 'Welcome, Lucifer, who risest in the morning.' And abbot Hilarion said: 'Peace to thee, pillar of light, who upholdest the world.'" These things were related among the hermits to commend charity. The reason why I have referred these things to this time is that blessed Hilarion does not seem ever afterwards to have gone to St. Antony while he was alive, and that the words "Lucifer, who risest in the morning" are rightly said of a novice. In very truth, St. Hilarion was not then yet an abbot, but a youth; he was not coming from Palestine but from Alexandria; he did not meet St. Antony on the mountain but in the Fayum: but who does not see that in this kind of thing narrators do not care for the circumstances but for the things themselves? An Arabic writer declares that this conversation took place between St. Antony and abbot Hellenus In Abraham Ecchellensis, The rule of St. Antony, etc., page 84.; but it is most probable that Hellenus was put in place of Hilarion Compare Tillemont, Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. VII, page 780..

[16] The holy youth is eager to learn the manners of his master. Blessed Hilarion spent two months with the father of hermits; and since at that time there were no monastic rules, but the whole zeal of ascetics and monks consisted in this, that whatever things they saw done best by others, those same things they themselves tried to perform (nor had blessed Antony entered upon any other way), St. Hilarion was wholly occupied within that space of two months in observing the manners of blessed Antony, keeping his sayings in his heart, and thereafter ordering his life according to them: and this deserves to be well noted. For hence it has come about that the smallest things and so many sayings of conspicuous anchorites have come down to us, and (since St. Hilarion's manner of life was also an example to many) that we have such copious knowledge of this most blessed man also.

§ III. Returned to his homeland, he dwells in the desert, admits disciples, goes to Maiuma, Jerusalem, Elusa and into the desert of Kadesh. Miracles. Conversions.

[Returned to his homeland with some monks in the year 306, he sees the most wretched state of the church of Gaza.] Further, after the most pious youth had laid the foundations of the ascetic life in that brief space, he returned to his homeland with certain monks. There is scarcely any doubt that he made this third journey through Memphis and Babylon, and from here, along the bed of the Nile, making for Pelusium again by boat; the other routes were longer and more difficult [Compare the Itinerary of Antoninus of Piacenza, in Acta SS., vol. II of May, pages XIV and XV.]. Returned to his homeland, he saw the Christian cause no better established in it than he had seen it a few months before at Alexandria. For almost the whole of Gaza, and much more the villages round about, adhered vehemently to the false religions of the idols; of which matter most certain testimonies will occur below. In very truth, in the midst of a perverse nation Christ numbered some elect; but this less numerous church the most savage Urbanus, governor of Palestine, had for some time been bloodying with many martyrdoms, Galerius, who the year before had received the eastern empire, and Maximin the Caesar stirring up the fires of persecution with new edicts: Eusebius explains these things in a whole book. Who was then bishop of Gaza is unknown: but there is no doubt that St. Silvanus the presbyter was at that time the chief pillar of the Christians of Gaza. Again we have Eusebius as witness: "St. Silvanus," he says On the Martyrs of Palestine, chapter 13, page 343., "when from the first day, so to speak, of the persecution" (or from the beginning of the year 304) "and through the whole of that time thereafter he had become illustrious by various contests of confession, had been preserved up to that time" (namely up to the 5th day of November of the year 307, on which, still a presbyter, he was sent to the mines near Caesarea, or rather up to the year 309, in which, having now been made bishop of Gaza, he was beheaded with thirty-eight companions) "that he might close all that contest in Palestine as the last, as it were with a seal" [Compare Acta SS., vol. I of May, page 468; Tillemont, Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. V, page 432 and following; Lequien, Oriens Christianus, vol. III, col. 604 and 605.].

[18] [Having distributed his patrimony, he goes on into the solitude to the south of Gaza.] The martyrdoms that St. Hilarion had seen in Egypt he saw accordingly in his homeland also; where too he learned that his parents were dead. He divided his inheritance, therefore, among his brothers and the poor, keeping nothing for himself. "He was then," says Jerome, "fifteen years old. Thus naked … he entered the solitude which, at the seventh milestone from Maiuma, the port of Gaza, turns off to the left for those going along the shore to Egypt." Now Maiuma of Gaza, or the Port or Emporium of Gaza, was distant from Gaza twenty stadia Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, book V, chapter 3., or a little more than two miles; while the solitude itself which the blessed youth entered was a deserted place by the sea, about twenty stadia or two miles distant from his native village of Thabatha Ibid., book III, chapter 14, page 519.. By which also the site of Thabatha is easily understood, lying five miles, as Jerome reports, to the south of Gaza, and indeed by the torrent of the same name, which pours its waters into the sea, as Sozomen reports Ibid., loc. cit..

[19] [In the year 328 he begins to work miracles and receive disciples. The conversion of Maiuma, or the port of Gaza, before the year 337.] "He had already spent twenty-two years in the solitude, known to all only by report and spread abroad through all the cities of Palestine, when … the beginning of his signs was made, and the people began to flock to him, and monasteries to be built in Palestine"; numbers 8 and 9; which are to be fixed to the year 328. Not long after, the inhabitants of Maiuma, or the Port of Gaza, were converted to the faith of Christ; there is scarcely any doubt that the fame or even the labour of St. Hilarion contributed something to this. Certainly Sozomen, after he has narrated the happy change of the dwellers of Lebanon, which he affirms was due partly to the recognition of the vanity of the idols, partly to the favour of the emperor Constantine, partly to a more attentive examination of Christian doctrine, or also to certain signs, dreams, or conversations of bishops or monks, at once adds Ibid., book II, chapter 5, page 448.: "At which time indeed the naval station of the city of the Gazaeans, which is called Maiuma and was greatly given to superstition and had always before held the old ceremonies in esteem, suddenly went over entire to the faith of Christ. And the emperor, repaying their piety, endowed them with the greatest honour; and he ordered that place, which before was not a city, to be a city, and surnamed it Constantia": which separation of Maiuma from Gaza must be placed before the year 337, in which year no one is ignorant that Constantine died. And since the benefit which blessed Hilarion conferred on Italicus, a burgess of the same town, could only have had place at the time when Maiuma and Gaza were still one city, this too is to be marked before the year 337. Not long before, however: for since on the occasion of that benefit, by which the people of Maiuma had been victors in the games of the circus and the people of Gaza vanquished, blessed Hilarion had been demanded for punishment (number 11), in the age of the emperor Constantius this injury was still very recent, so that the people of Gaza were afraid for themselves when there came among them a certain demoniac, by birth a Frank and a candidate of the emperor Constantius (number 13). Which coming of the demoniac, for the same reason, can manifestly be marked not long after the year 337.

[20] He goes once to Jerusalem. To about the same time Tillemont Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. VII, page 566. seems to fix the journey to Jerusalem which, on the testimony of blessed Jerome in the letter to Paulinus Letter XIII, Benedictine XLIX, Vallarsi LVIII, in Migne, vol. XXII, col. 581. written about the year 395, blessed Hilarion made only once in his life. The most holy doctor there pursues the argument

that nothing is wanting to the faith of Christians and monks if they have never seen Jerusalem: to prove which, he alleges the examples of the monks of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Pontus, Cappadocia and Armenia, who never saw Jerusalem and to whom the gate of paradise lies open without having seen this city. Then he adds: "Blessed Hilarion, though he was a Palestinian and lived in Palestine, saw Jerusalem on one day only, that he might seem neither to despise the holy places on account of their nearness, nor, on the other hand, to shut the Lord up in a place."

[21] He goes to Elusa, whose situation, The fourth journey indicated by blessed Jerome in the Life of blessed Hilarion the blessed man made to Elusa, sometimes called Elysa, Eulasia or Eulatia, but now El-Khulasah or El-Kalasa, whose ruins, and above all a stone well, have quite often been visited in this age. Elusa, once a conspicuous city, lay not in the desert itself but on the northern edge of the desert, as Antoninus Martyr of Piacenza (whose Itinerary was once almost despised, but is now made very much of) plainly indicates Acta SS., vol. II of May, page XIV.. It was distant from Jerusalem, according to the Peutinger tables, 72 Roman miles, on the road by which one went from the holy city to Haila or Aila, now Akaba, at the eastern horn or gulf of the Arabian sea, and from here to the Egyptian Babylon, from which we have said above that the present Cairo is not far distant. Antoninus of Piacenza, or Martyr, when he made for Elusa, had first visited the monastery of St. Hilarion, and from here had come "into the city of Duaal at the head of the desert which goes to Mount Sinai: in which, from the account of the bishop of that city, he heard a miracle concerning a certain Mary, a solitary" Ibid., loc. cit.. But, unless I am mistaken, Duaal has been put by a fault of the scribes in place of Elusa; for after narrating the miracle the traveller goes on: "Setting out from Eulatia we entered the desert"; without any other mention being made of the arrival at Elusa; then no memory survives of an episcopal city of Duaal, nor have any traces of it been found up to now: for it cannot be confused with the ancient city now called Khirbet el-Gerar, situated by the valley and torrent of Gerar, distant from Gaza a journey of three hours to the south-east * Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. XIV, pages 1084 and 1085., and lying accordingly more to the north than the monastery of St. Hilarion. For which reason I judge that there was no intermediate city between the monastery of St. Hilarion and Elusa.

[22] its inhabitants and their religion are described. St. Jerome asserts that Elusa was inhabited by Saracens; whose name they would have to be a Persian word, Sara-nischyn, that is, dwellers in the desert, and by which all nomads were understood Ibid., vol. XII, page 230.. Further, although the inhabitants of the desert were sometimes distinguished by the ancient authors into various tribes, and the people of the Saracens was held to be different from the nation of the Nabataeans, here nevertheless the name seems to be a common one; since Elusa, as far as can be gathered from the indications of the ancient writers, was rather a city of the Nabataeans. For the rest, the manners of all, and their religion, were almost the same. Swift on horses and most skilled in managing camels; gaping after plunder, in the manner of kites, not otherwise than those whom we now call Bedouins. They worshipped Venus on account of Lucifer, as Jerome reports. Concerning this cult many have written many things: I shall set out in a few words what seems to me more probable. The matter and object of the cult was twofold, the one the planet Venus, the other a stone carved into the form of an inelegant female head and kept in a temple: both called Chubar, Chabar, Chabir, that is, the Great; sometimes Moloch, or king; which names were common, and were given to other gods also by other peoples. That divinity, which in a twofold appearance revolved in the sky and lay motionless on the earth, was hermaphrodite and delighted (like the other Cabiri) in an impure religion. In several cities such a monster was religiously kept; and the black stone which the Mahometans now venerate so stupidly in the Kaaba of Mecca seems to be an idol of this kind which still survives.

[23] Blessed Hilarion converts some of these; their bishops. When St. Hilarion turned aside to the people of Elusa, St. Jerome explains how happily he commended the gospel doctrine to them by the mere showing of friendship and gained them, at least in part, for the Church. Who was the first bishop is not known. In the year 431 Θεοδουλος ἐπισκοπος Ἐλουσης Παλαιστινης subscribed to the synod of Ephesus, who elsewhere is called Abdellas in the Syriac and Arabic tongue, that is, in Latin, Servant of God; in the year 451 Aretas was present at the synod of Chalcedon; Peter in the year 518 approved the synodical letter of John of Jerusalem against Severus, and in the year 536 Zenobius took part in the synod of Jerusalem of the three Palestines (Elusa was reckoned to Palestina Tertia and the province of Petra), and condemned Anthimus and other heretics. But long before, namely at the end of the fourth century or at least the beginning of the fifth, St. Nilus the monk brilliantly narrates, in the history of the ascetics of Mount Sinai slain by the Saracens, that Elusa had its own bishop. On these matters read Lequien Oriens christianus, vol. III, col. 735 and following..

[24] [From here he went to a disciple in the desert of Kadesh; this journey is described.] From Elusa blessed Hilarion set out into the desert of Kadesh to one of his disciples; on which journey he cannot have deviated much from the route which John Rowland followed in the year 1842. He went on from Elusa to the south-west and after two and a half hours came upon the ruins of the town of Zephath, known from the book of Judges, now called Sepata by the Arabs. A quarter of an hour further, at a place called Roheheh or Ruhaiheh and by the spring Bir Roheheh, he saw other ruins of buildings, which are said to have been built formerly by Christians; from here, after an interval of twenty-six English miles, which is covered by camels within ten hours, there appears towards the south Moyle, which is also Moylahi or Moilahhi, springs and a station often visited by bands of pilgrims. Three quarters of an hour from there is seen a cave, hollowed out by human labour, whose name is Beit Hagar, that is, the House of Hagar. Then a great desert opens out; and adjoining this, towards the Etesian quarter , is the desert of Kadesh, near Mount Seir, now called Serr. There Rowland found, at the last hills of Mount Halal, twelve English miles from Moilahhi, between south-east and east *, a solitary rock which they still call Kudes or Ain Kudes, and from which Moses drew water, and up to now an abundant stream continues to flow. And concerning these things read either Rowland's letters In Williams, The holy City, appendix, pages 488 to 492. or their analysis in Ritter Erdkunde, vol. XIV, page 1077 and following.; in which may be found other circumstances also by which those places are more accurately and distinctly designated.

* sud-est. south-east.

* Sud-Ouest. South-west.

* Nord-Est. North-east.

* Est-Sud-Est de Moilâhhi East-south-east of Moilahhi

§ IV. The journey to the cell of St. Antony. He visits bishops and monks.

In the year 357 or 358 he visits the cell of the deceased St. Antony. Blessed Hilarion made many other journeys to his monks throughout Palestine; which blessed Jerome did not touch on one by one and about which more need not be declared in this place. Meanwhile St. Antony died on the 17th of January of the year 356, when blessed Hilarion was in the sixty-fifth year of his age, as was shown above at number 9. He resolved at some time to visit the cell of his most holy master on the day of his death; which he reached in the middle of January of the year 357 or 358: which of the two is not established. Tillemont Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. VII, page 569. judges that the most blessed man set out from Palestine at the end of the year 356; in such a way, however, that he did not hurry the journey, but stayed for some time here and there at the stations; on the other hand Henschen Acta SS., vol. II of January, page 117, number 57. at the end of the year 357, so that he spent not many more than sixteen days on this journey. Certainly blessed Hilarion did not set out on the road after the end of the year 357; since, as is established from Jerome, St. Antony had not yet been dead three years when his most pious disciple came to his monastery: for the rest, the opinion of Henschen and that of Tillemont, as they are equally probable, so also are they equally uncertain. Yet I should not wish to insert many other days among the sixteen which St. Jerome accurately indicates, on account of the great retinue of forty monks which the blessed father was leading with him, and so on account of the difficulty of food and lodging which this poor multitude could not but experience or create for others.

[26] By which route he came first to Bethelia, where he had disciples What road the blessed man held St. Jerome explains in numbers 20 and following. "From his monastery, with an infinite band of those escorting him, he came to Betilium." So Surius and the editors of the works of St. Jerome down to Martianay; the old edition of the Lives of the Fathers Bethirium; Rosweyde, from Sozomen, Bethelia; Martianay Betulia; but Vallarsi received the ancient reading Betilium. The manuscript codices vary, some Betilium, others Vetilium, others Vetulia, others perhaps Betulia or Bethelium, etc. For my part I do not doubt that the true reading is Bethelia, and that it is the same village as the one which Sozomen mentions twice; once, where he speaks of the illustrious monks of Palestine, the brothers Salamanes, Phuscon, Malchion and Crispion, living near Bethelea, which is a village in the territory of the Gazaeans: Ἐφιλοσοφουν ἀμφι Βηθελεαν κωμην του νομου Γαζης Ecclesiastical History, book VI, chapter 32, page 689.; once, where he speaks of the conversion of his grandfather Ibid., book V, chapter XV, page 617.. In the former place it is the more evident that our village of Betilium is in question, because Sozomen adds that those four monks had Hilarion as master of this discipline. In the other place he reports again that this village was near Gaza, Βηθελια κωμη Γαζαια, and that there some families were brought over to the faith by St. Hilarion. Its ruins have not yet been found up to now, but they are certainly to be searched for to the south-west * of Gaza, perhaps at Khan-Hetteh.

[27] and had formerly converted many, And since the occasion of that journey has led us to Betilium or Bethelia, it will be helpful now to narrate what this village owed to blessed Hilarion. Sozomen is a witness above all exception, chiefly because in this place he narrates matters of his own family. For where he explains how in the age of Julian the apostate the Christians fled from many cities, towns and villages, because the idolatrous rabble was permitted to attack them with impunity and to ill-treat them: "Of which flight," he says Ibid., loc. cit., "both others of my forebears were sharers, and my grandfather. For though he had been born of a pagan father, yet he himself, with his whole house, and at the same time all who were of the family of Alaphion, were the first to receive the faith of Christ at Bethelia: which is a village of the Gazaeans, abounding in a multitude of inhabitants; and it has temples venerable to the natives both for their antiquity and for their structure: but chiefly the Pantheon, set upon a certain hill made by hand, as upon a citadel, and towering on every side over the whole village. Whence also

I conjecture that this place received its name, and, turned from the language of the Syrians into Greek, was called the dwelling of the gods (Beth-elohim?) on account of that shrine, the Pantheon. Further, they declare that the families of those whom I mentioned above were converted to the Christian religion by Hilarion the monk. For when that Alaphion was tormented by a demon, certain pagans and Jews, having long used incantations and certain magical sorceries, accomplished nothing. But when Hilarion, by invoking the name of God alone, had cast out the demon, they went over to the Christian religion.

[28] [and so the grandfather of Sozomen, and the family of Alaphion, whose praises are recited.] "And my grandfather indeed excelled in expounding the sacred volumes, being of an elegant mind and strong in understanding for learning the things that one ought to know. He was moreover moderately instructed in the disciplines, so that he was not ignorant of arithmetic. Thus he was very dear to the Christians living in Ascalon and Gaza and the neighbouring places, as useful and necessary to religion, and one who most easily untied the knots of the sacred volumes. But of those who were of the other family" (that of Alaphion) "scarcely anyone could set forth the virtue. For they first founded churches and monasteries there, and adorned them with holiness of life and kindness toward strangers and the poor. Moreover, certain good men of that family lived on, surviving even to our age; with whom, when they were already advanced in age, I myself as a very young man associated." Among these Tillemont Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. VII, pages 567 and 568. seems not without reason to reckon Salamanes, Phuscon, Malchion and Crispion, whom I mentioned a little above; and also to judge that this Alaphion is the same as Alaphion τὸν ἀπο Ἀσαλεας Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, book III, chapter 14, page 521., so called perhaps from the name of his monastery: but of these things the discussion will recur elsewhere.

[29] The bishops of Bethelia. From those beginnings there arose gradually the church of Bethelia, which also had its own bishops. For in the supplement of the Notitia of the eastern empire of Hierocles the Grammarian, within Palaestina Prima are recounted Joppa, Gaza, Ramphia, Ascalon, Ariza, Bityle [Schelstrate, Appendix to the geographical work, vol. II of Antiquitas ecclesiastica, page 714.]; and among those who in the synod of Jerusalem of the year 536, under the presidency of Peter, prelate of Jerusalem, subscribed to the sentence against Anthimus, there come Manuel of Bitylium, του Βιτυλιου, Anastasius of Iotape, Zenobius of Elusa, Martianus of Gaza, Theodore bishop of Petra, etc. Labbe, Councils, vol. V, col. 285 and 286.: and so, although the names of the bishops of Palaestina I and II are here mixed together, there seems no doubt that the same Bitylium is in question in both places, and that it was situated not far from Gaza and is Bethelia. Manuel was not the first to sit there; but long before, namely in the time of Theodosius the Great, a certain Ajax is already found in the see of Bethelia: for since he was by nation of Maiuma and is said to have administered the church of Botolia, την του Βοτωλιου ἐκκλησιαν ἐπετροπευσε, there is scarcely, or not even scarcely, any doubt that Bethelia is again in question. Indeed, since the people of Maiuma owed their faith to blessed Hilarion, it could easily have come about that that Ajax, whose labours, constancy in the faith, and cruel beatings inflicted by pagans Sozomen Ecclesiastical History, book VII, chapter 28, page 751. records, and who, having left his wife, took up the monastic life and afterwards the bishopric of Botolia, or rather of Bethelia, it could easily, I say, have come about that that Ajax was taught by blessed Hilarion first the rudiments of the faith and afterwards the precepts of monastic discipline.

[30] He visits the monks near Pelusium and at Lychnos; Further, after blessed Hilarion at Bethelia had persuaded the infinite band of those escorting him to return and let him go away into Egypt, he set out from there for Pelusium; which he reached on the fifth day, following the same road by which in boyhood he had made for Alexandria. There were at that time in the desert near Pelusium brethren or monks, whom Rosweyde not without reason places to the south of the Pelusiac island or to the south-east of the last branch of the Nile Compare the Chorography of the hermit dwellings in the Vitae Patrum.. And indeed to the south and east of Pelusium there still lies a desert which is scarcely a quarter of an hour distant from that city, and which is divided from it only by a very short stretch of marsh, to which they would have it that Pelusium (Πηλον, mud) owes its name. Blessed Hilarion therefore did not have to make an excursion far from Pelusium to see those monks, since they lived in the neighbourhood. But he had to set out further to come to those who dwelt in the place called Lychnos. This was a narrow strip of land near Onuphis, as is established from the subscription of Adelphius of Onuphis, who in the year 362 set his name to the council of Alexandria, Ἀδελφιος ἐπισκοπος Ὀνουφεως της Λυχνων Labbe, Councils, vol. II, col. 819.. Onuphis was the head of the nome of the same name, which Herodotus Euterpe, chapter 166., Ptolemy Book IV, chapter 5. and Pliny Book V, chapter 9. have mentioned. In the age of Herodotus this nome was of the Calasirians, which was the second class of the Egyptian warriors, and it is recounted between the Thmuite and Anysian nomes; but Ptolemy places it between the Phthemphuthite and the Athribite; and Pliny between the Busirite and the Saite. Lequien Oriens Christianus, vol. II, col. 525. places it on the right side of the branch of the Nile which flowed into the false mouth Diolcos, and asserts that Onuphis is now called Nuph. Father Sicard holds it the same as Banoub; which village, looking to the north, is distant a few leagues from Mehallet el Kebir (Cynopolis? Choi?) and Samannoud (Sebennytus), and lies on the left of the canal of Tabanyeh or the Sebennytic, at about the same latitude as Mansourah. Sicard's opinion pleased the most celebrated geographers d'Anville Géographie ancienne abrégée, vol. III, page 15. and Mentelle Géographie ancienne, vol. II, page 471.; whether it displeased others I have not found. In order, then, for blessed Hilarion to betake himself to Lychnos near Onuphis, he had to go to Little Heracleopolis or Sethrum, now Tell el-Shrerig, which according to the Itinerary of Antoninus was distant 22 Roman miles from Pelusium; from here to Thanis, now San, 22 Roman miles; from here to Thmuis, now Tmay el-Emdid; and from here, a distance of about 23 Roman miles, to Onuphis, provided it be established that it is the same as Banoub: and certainly it cannot be far from it. Since, therefore, on the authority of St. Jerome himself, the desert of Lychnos lay in Lower Egypt, it is scarcely understood how it slipped from the most excellent Italian editors of his works that they confused this place with Lycus, a town of the farthest Thebaid: for several provinces lie between the Thebaid and Pelusium. Nay, Lychnos cannot be confused with Lycus or Lycopolis; which indeed lay not in the Onuphite but in the Sebennytic nome Stephanus, On Cities, page 430., and which the celebrated Jomard Description de l'Égypte, vol. IX, page 353 and following. holds to be the same as the present Tell-Mokhdem, while Du Bois-Aimé Ibid., vol. VIII, map at page 75. holds it to be Mehallet el-Kebir.

[31] Dracontius, bishop of Little Hermopolis, in exile at Thaubastum; Setting out from here, blessed Hilarion came in three days to the fort of Thaubastum, in some codices Theubaton, Thonbaston and Thabaston; which seems to the Italian editors to be the same as Thauba in Arabia Deserta: do they say this seriously? From blessed Jerome it is manifest that it was situated a three days' journey from Lychnos and at the same distance from the Egyptian Babylon, which was in the neighbourhood of present-day Cairo. Moreover, since it is not to be doubted that that Dracontius, bishop and confessor, whom blessed Hilarion visited at Thaubastum, was the same who, first a monk, had then by the persuasion of St. Athanasius been made bishop of Little Hermopolis, and was one of the sixteen bishops whom in the year 356, when George the Arian had invaded the patriarchal see of St. Mark, Constantius had driven into exile, and whose other praises Tillemont will give Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. VIII, page 145 and following; 171 and 697.; from the letter of St. Athanasius to the monks it is certain that the fort of Thaubastum was situated not far from the western horn of the Red Sea: for on his authority Dracontius was driven into the solitude which is around Clysma, εἰς τα ἐρημα περι το Κλυσμα; and Clysma, now Kolzum, still notable for some ruins, lies in the neighbourhood of Suez Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. XII, page 170 and following.. Thaubastum, however, whose ruins still appear near Lake Timsah at the thirtieth degree of Paris longitude, lies not near Clysma or Suez, but almost in the middle of the desert above the salt lakes. In order to betake himself there blessed Hilarion probably returned to Tanis; from here he came to Silas, now Salhieh, then to Thaubastum.

[32] Philo, bishop of Cyrene, in exile at Babylon. From Thaubastum the blessed man could have gone on to Clysma and from here along the Red Sea have come to the monastery of St. Antony; but since perhaps he had learned from Dracontius that Philo the bishop was living in exile at Babylon, he betook himself there within another three days. And indeed that Philo the bishop had been banished to Babylon, Φιλωνα δε εἰς Βαβυλωνα, St. Athanasius also records in his letter to the monks. Further, where Tillemont Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. VIII, pages 172, 234 and 697. examines who that Philo was, he inclines to judge that he is the same as the bishop of Cyrene in Libya; a hard man, a keen adversary of the Arian heresy; but too fond of his own counsels, so that he even fell into the schism of Lucifer of Cagliari and against the canons by himself alone ordained Siderius bishop of Palebisca; and certainly all these seem to have been the deeds of one man: the names agree, the times, places, manners. From Thaubastum blessed Hilarion went to Babylon along the traces of the old canal by which the Nile was joined with the Red Sea, namely about 15 Roman miles to Hero or Pithom, now Abu Kashab, then 24 Roman miles by Thou, now Abbaseh; after that 12 Roman miles to the Village of the Jews, now Belbeis; from here 12 Roman miles to the Camps of the Veterans, now Menair; and finally 23 Roman miles to Heliopolis or On, which it is almost certain was hallowed by the infancy of Christ the Lord, and which was distant 12 Roman miles from Babylon [Compare the Itinerary of Antoninus after the Cosmography of Aethicus, page 121, Simler's edition.].

[33] From here he comes to Aphroditon; "Going out thence," says blessed Jerome, "after three days he came to Aphroditon, where, having met the deacon Baisanes, who, hiring dromedary camels on account of the scarcity of water in the desert, was accustomed to conduct those going to Antony, etc." The site of Aphroditon, which was the head of the Aphroditopolite nome, is known quite closely from the ancient geographers. Cellarius has collected the passages Geographia antiqua, book IV, chapter 1, vol. II, page 811. and from them it is established that the town and nome of Aphroditon or Aphroditopolis was situated to the east of the nome and island of Great Heracleopolis (now Annas).

D'Anville Géographie ancienne, vol. III, page 30., using the writings of Father Sicard, shed a great deal of light, and judged that Aphroditon is the present-day Atfih Description de l'Égypte, vol. IV, page 421; Panckoucke's edition., still the head of the province of the same name; which opinion Jomard made certain, one of that most celebrated mission of learned men to which a more thorough knowledge of Egyptian matters must be credited. That the name Aphroditon was given by the Greeks because they believed that Venus was worshipped there is manifest; but from ancient monuments and from the testimony of Strabo, who reports that a white cow sacred to Isis was kept there, it is now perfectly established that Isis was confused by them with Venus, an example by no means rare Ibid., page 422.. Χρυσαοριος ἐπισκοπος Ἀφροδιτων, Chrysaorius of Aphroditon, subscribed to the council of Ephesus; nor is there doubt that that bishop belongs to this Aphroditopolis of ours (there were, namely, three cities of the same name in Egypt), since his name is read there either after Eusebius of Nilopolis Labbe, Councils, vol. III, col. 541. or after Heraclius of Heraclea Ibid., vol. IV, col. 285.; which were neighbouring cities. His successors are unknown: except that in the eleventh and some following centuries Jacobites sat there, called bishops of Atfih [Compare Renaudot, History of the Jacobite patriarchs of Alexandria, pages 458, 492, 568 and 569; and Lequien, Oriens Christianus, vol. II, col. 585 and 586.].

[34] [which journey is described again; from here he goes on to the cell of St. Antony.] From Babylon blessed Hilarion came to Aphroditopolis by Scenae Mandrae (now perhaps Gemmasez el-Kebir), which according to the Itinerary of Antoninus Cosmography of Aethicus, Itinerary of Antoninus, page 120; Simler's edition. was distant 12 Roman miles (nay, 22) from Babylon and 20 Roman miles from Aphroditopolis: which distance between the places Jomard has measured again Description de l'Égypte, vol. IV, page 421.. From Aphroditopolis blessed Hilarion went to the place which on the maps of Father Sicard now has the name Beroubel, formerly perhaps Thimonepsi, which was distant 24 Roman miles from Aphroditopolis Itinerary of Antoninus, page 120.: and from Beroubel to the north of Mount Hajar-Moussoum a road still runs into the desert called Baquara, or of the Cow, and sometimes Sannour, or of the Cat. This desert is bounded to the east by the Kelei mountains; whose gorges also must be crossed for you to come into the uncultivated plain of the Araba, bounded on the east by the Colzim mountains, which the shore of the Red Sea follows. In the northern part of the Colzim mountains was at that time the dwelling of St. Antony; which is now also called his monastery and of which the maps of Father Sicard will give a picture Lettres édifiantes, vol. V, page 151.. Further, we shall note this one thing, that the same journey was accomplished altogether by blessed Hilarion within three days, in making which Father Sicard took four days.

* Sud-Ouest, South-west,

§ V. He stays at Aphroditon, goes on to Alexandria and into the inner Oasis.

Returned to Aphroditon, he leads the monastic life in the neighbourhood. What blessed Hilarion further did on the 17th of January and the following days of the year 357 or 358 on the mountain, or in the monastery, of St. Antony, St. Jerome explains at length. Returned to Aphroditon, keeping only two brethren with him, he stayed in the neighbouring desert. On both banks of the Nile, not far from Aphroditopolis, there formerly stood monasteries, and even now one survives on the western bank, at the place whose name is Bouche, the guest-house and head of the ascetic houses of St. Paul and St. Antony by the Red Sea. But that does not seem to be the one to which St. Hilarion withdrew; nor any other whatever to the west of the Nile; but rather in the desert which is enclosed by the eastern bank of the Nile and the Arabian mountains, in the Aphroditopolite nome, and perhaps at the very place which on the maps is called the monastery of St. Antony, not far from the old Ancyronpolis, at the gorge of Mount Gibei, through which one went also to the other monastery of St. Antony, between Atfih (Aphroditopolis) and Bayad (Thimonepsi? Description de l'Égypte, vol. IV, page 420 and passim.).

[36] There in the year 359 he ends a drought. For about two years St. Hilarion enjoyed quiet there; but in the summer or autumn of the year 359 he began to be disturbed. For it was now three years that the closed heaven had dried up those lands, "so that they commonly said that even the elements mourned the death of Antony"; number 22; wherefore the inhabitants asked blessed Hilarion to provide for them by his prayers. Further, since the Nile begins to rise from the 22nd day of June and to fall on the 22nd of September, so that at the end of December its annual increases have altogether ceased [Sicard, Discourse on Egypt, chapter IV, Lettres édifiantes, vol. V, page 369 and passim.]; that three-year drought must have been observed in the summer or autumn of the year 359. After the watering, serpents and venomous animals arose everywhere (number 22); and when very many farmers and herdsmen had been wounded by them, and healed by oil blessed by blessed Hilarion, they heaped such honours upon him that, in order the more surely to withdraw himself from them, he made for the territory of Alexandria. This was done partly at the end of the year 359, partly at the beginning of 360: namely, those Egyptian farmers did not incur that danger of serpents' wounds before the beginning of the month of October, when sowing is done Description de l'Égypte, vol. XVII, page 49., nor the herdsmen before the end of the month of March, when the harvest is made Ibid., page 50. and the sheep and goats are led out by the herdsmen to graze on the remains of the grass Ibid., page 129..

[37] Although the miracles that blessed Hilarion then worked in the Aphroditopolite nome and the neighbouring places won him an incredible esteem, [In the autumn of the year 362 he goes on to Alexandria, where Julian the Apostate and the Arians were greatly disturbing ecclesiastical affairs.] so that he was held a second Antony, yet he did not set out at once, as will be clear from what follows, but waited at least until the autumn of the year 362. Then by a new journey blessed Hilarion went on to Alexandria, intending to pass from there to the further or inner desert of the Oasis. I shall ask in another place whether "further" or "inner" Oasis is to be read, and so whether the Great or the Little is indicated; whichever of the two it was, at first sight the blessed man's journey seems most strange. For the Great Oasis belongs to Upper Egypt, the Little to Middle Egypt, and this does not rise northwards above the twenty-ninth degree. Why, then, did blessed Hilarion first go to Alexandria, situated in the uttermost northern region? For in order to betake himself from the Aphroditopolite nome to the Little Oasis, he had no need to go on to Alexandria, but to be carried across the Nile, and from here, going straight towards the west, to cross the Crocodilopolite nome [Compare Belzoni, Narrative of the operations and recent discoveries within the Pyramids, pages 364 and 365, Brussels edition, 1835.]; while to make for the Great Oasis he had to go to the south rather than to the north Compare Description de l'Égypte, Atlas géographique, map 12.. But when the matter is explained, it seems that one must decide otherwise. For at this time ecclesiastical affairs were in the worst condition throughout the whole empire, especially in Egypt. In the year 356, as has already been said, George the Arian had been intruded into the see of Alexandria; the Catholics were cruelly treated by Sebastian the duke and by his successor St. Artemius, who then followed the party of Arius; bishops were banished into exile in every direction; and in particular the bishops of the Great Oasis were sent into the Little, and those of the Little driven into the Great. Julian the apostate had indeed recalled all the exiles to their sees; but by a fraudulent design, namely that he might everywhere set the Catholics against the Arians and help the cause of the idolaters by the dissensions of the Christians. At Alexandria affairs were in the greatest disorder; and yet from here, since this city was both the head of Egypt and the seat of the patriarch, the chief strength and support was now to be hoped for. Who, then, would doubt that St. Hilarion, whom we have already found elsewhere occupied with ecclesiastical affairs, betook himself to Alexandria, following the example of his master Antony, and intending, according to that example, to fight for the Church of God against the Arians?

[38] In the neighbouring Bruchium, at that time deserted, As St. Antony stayed very few days at Alexandria, so also St. Hilarion had scarcely arrived there when he hurried away from it and turned aside to certain brethren known to him in the neighbouring Bruchium. Now Bruchium was formerly a suburb, nay, a part of the city of Alexandria itself, and perhaps the richest and most beautiful of all, being almost occupied with temples and palaces. It lay on the left of those entering the greatest harbour. This harbour, namely, was bounded on the east by the promontory of Lochias, now Pharillon; and Bruchium began to the south of that promontory and stretched along the sea-shore towards the east; so that, since the city was cut by two streets into the form of a Latin cross, Bruchium lay at the lower part of the upright, towards the north. Bonamy [Mémoires de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres, vol. IX, page 416 and following.] accurately collected all those things which the ancients have handed down about Alexandria and Bruchium, and attempted according to them to restore the former form of Alexandria; but others afterwards, since they knew better the present-day layout of Alexandria and its neighbourhood, undertook the same work more happily; among whom the greatest praise was earned by Saint-Genis [Description of the antiquities of Alexandria and its environs, in the work Description de l'Égypte, vol. V, page 181 and following.] and Gratien Le Père [Memoir on the city of Alexandria, in the work Description de l'Égypte, vol. XVIII, page 383 and following.], both of the Egyptian mission of learned men; who also inserted in volume V of the Atlas of Ancient Egypt plate XXXI, by which the former state of Alexandria is set before the eyes, and in volume II of the Atlas of Modern Egypt plate LXXXIV, by which the present condition of Alexandria and its neighbourhood is exhibited as accurately as possible. For us, however, it will be enough to have indicated the site of Bruchium in some manner or other.

[58] formerly most flourishing, he spends one day with the monks. When Alexandria flourished, there rose in Bruchium the museum or greater library, the theatre, the palaestra, the meanders, the stadium, the forum, the gymnasium, the amphitheatre, the Soma or tomb of Alexander and the other kings of Egypt, the temple of Isis, many other shrines and palaces [Strabo, book XVII, page 1126 and following, Oxford, 1807; compare Mémoires de l'Académie, etc., vol. IX, page 422 and following, and Description de l'Égypte, vol. XVIII, page 453 and following.]. This region of the city suffered much while the war between Gaius Julius Caesar and Pompey was raging; no less in the year 270, in the reign of Claudius II; and five years after under Aurelian Compare the works cited.; so that in the middle of the fourth century Ammianus Marcellinus wrote Book XXII, chapter 16.: "Alexandria … lost the greatest part of its quarters, which is called Bruchion"; nor should it be wondered that monks

had that solitude in the same age in which St. Hilarion came to it, fleeing the tumults of the city. He spent only one day there.

[59] [Sought for death, with Julian's permission, by the people of Gaza, raging against the Christians] For there he was divinely taught that he was being sought by the people of Gaza, to whom it had been permitted through Julian the apostate to put him to death with impunity. This was revenge, as they thought, for old injuries. And indeed we indicated above at number 19 that the conversion to the faith of Maiuma, the port of Gaza; the miracles worked by blessed Hilarion in favour of the people of Maiuma, so that they defeated the people of Gaza; the division of Maiuma from Gaza and the name of Constantia bestowed on it, were the chief causes of the hatred of the people of Gaza against the people of Maiuma and above all against blessed Hilarion. In the same place and in the following number we established that blessed Hilarion had already been demanded for death by the people of Gaza before the death of Constantine. Since they had dared this while a Christian emperor reigned, it is surely no wonder if they were mindful of their former hatred when Julian openly professed himself a pagan and a favourer of the pagans. And indeed nowhere in the whole empire did the pagans rage more against the Christians than at Gaza. First of all, when Julian came to the empire, "the Gazaeans brought a suit against the Constantians" (the people of Maiuma); "and he himself, sitting as judge in that cause, adjudged Constantia, distant about twenty stadia from it" (or 1,500 paces), "to the Gazaeans. And thenceforth, stripped of its former name, it is called the maritime part of the city of Gaza: and the civil magistrates, both the duumvirs and the commonwealth, are common to both; but as regards the church, in that respect alone do they still seem two cities" Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, book V, chapter 3, page 597.. The people of Gaza did not stop at this victory: who indeed not so long after defiled themselves with incredible cruelty with the blood of Eusebius, Nestabus and Zeno, three Christian brothers Ibid., chapter 11, page 605 and following.; they drove other Christians to flight Ibid., chapter 15, page 617.; they destroyed their church by fire Letter XL of St. Ambrose, number 15, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XVI, col. 1107.; nor did they keep themselves within their own walls, but made havoc round about.

[40] and who at the end of the year 562 had destroyed his monastery, They destroyed, namely, the monastery of blessed Hilarion, as St. Jerome is witness, number 25; by which above all was fulfilled the prophecy which the most holy man had uttered on setting out from Palestine. This disaster happened after the month of August of the year 562, in which George, the pseudo-patriarch of Alexandria, was slain Compare Pagi, Critique of the Annals of Baronius, at the year 362, number 12.. For Sozomen Ecclesiastical History, book V, chapter 9, page 607. brilliantly reports that the crimes of Gaza were perpetrated after the slaughter of George; indeed he blames Julian's changeable mind, because, although he had reproved the people of Alexandria for the slaughter of George, he did not rebuke the Gazaeans by letter; nay, because he deposed the consular who was then governing that province, accusing him of having seized and cast into chains certain of the Gazaeans who were said to have been the authors of the sedition and slaughter. Sozomen omits the petitions given by the people of Gaza to the emperor, by which they had demanded the death of Hilarion and of his most beloved companion Hesychius, and that it was written throughout the world that both should be sought (things which are in Jerome); but he adds Ibid., chapter 10, page 607. that at the same time at which the Christian cause suffered so much at Gaza, Hilarion the monk was also sought by the Gazaeans.

[41] carried on an ass, The most blessed man, then, having gone out of Bruchium, when he was almost on the point of falling into the hands of those seeking him, entered the Oasis through a pathless solitude; and indeed carried not by boat but on an ass, on which he had also come to Alexandria; whence we understand that these things were done after the waves of the Nile had returned into their bed and the roads were now dried, and accordingly in that interval of time in which St. Athanasius lived publicly at Alexandria from the month of August to December of the year 362 Compare Tillemont, Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. VIII, pages 204 and 215.; with whom, however, whether blessed Hilarion had any conversation is not established. And since here and at number 20 of the Life mention occurs of the beast of burden which the blessed man used, it is pleasing to note a few things on that matter. The use of this beast in those parts is neither mean nor proud; but common to the poor and the rich and by far the easiest. Certainly St. Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria, used an ass when in the year (as it seems) 365 he was visiting the dioceses of Egypt; as is established from the Life of St. Theodore, abbot of Tabennisi, which is mixed with the Life of St. Pachomius. For he, when he had come to meet the blessed prelate with his monks, is said to have led the pontiff's ass by the hand Acta SS., vol. I of May, page 762, and vol. III, page 331.. Moreover, to use the words of Brother Felix Fabri, O.P., who in the year 1480 and again afterwards traversed the East with admirable shrewdness, "asses are, according to their conditions, animals more fit for crossing the desert than horses. For the ass is a burden-bearing animal and patient of labour, content with cheap and scanty food. For it plucks its food among caltrops, thistles and thorns, and enters dense and thorny thickets… Its drink is water, which it drinks more willingly muddy, thick and tepid than fresh, and it drinks very little… It can last and labour three continuous days and nights without drink… In mud it goes badly, but on dry ground, even the roughest, dangerous for horses, it goes excellently and safely. In rainy weather it is a sad and unwilling animal. Therefore in the East and in Egypt there are very good asses, since there is neither cold there, nor rain, nor mud… The pace of asses is swifter than that of camels." Thus far Brother Felix [Evagatorium in Terrae sanctae, Arabiae et Egypti peregrinationem, vol. II, pages 380 and 384.]; with whom it is scarcely worth my noting that countless more recent travellers agree. Yet blessed Hilarion did not always use the service of an ass, but sometimes of a camel; as blessed Jerome reports at number 24.

[42] he came into the inner Oasis, or El-Wahat el-Dakhelat. "Having gone out, then, from Bruchium, through a pathless solitude he entered the Oasis," number 25. We have already said that the codices and the printed books do not agree among themselves about the surname of the Oasis: namely, above, where the printed books have: "He went on to Alexandria, intending to pass from there to the further desert of the Oasis," the codex of St. Florian, as Rosweyde notes, and also the ancient codex of Ingolstadt, afterwards the Bollandian, now Royal Brussels numbers 8625 and following, have "the inner monastery"; and a third, formerly of the college of the Society of Jesus at Brussels, now of the royal library numbers 3493 and following, exhibits "to the inner Nicosa" and further down, in place of Oasis, again "Nicosa"; moreover the old edition gave: "To the inner monastery Oasa"; and the Italian editors note that not "further" but "inner" Oasis is read in the manuscripts. Further, that "Oasis" is to be read, not "Oasa" or "monastery," is beyond doubt; but whether "further" or "inner" is not likewise. Nevertheless, although "further Oasis" has pleased most editors more, "inner Oasis" seems rather to be approved; both because one should not rashly depart from so many manuscript codices, and because a "further Oasis" does not seem to have been known to the ancients, while some trace of an "inner" seems to survive. In very truth, I do not know that this appellation is found in Latin writings; but Olympiodorus, a Greek writer of the beginning of the fifth century and a contemporary of blessed Jerome, plainly has this expression. Hear Photius Bibliotheca, page 191, Rouen edition.: "He reports that there are three Oases: two great, one outer, the other inner, την μεν ἐξωτερω, την δε ἐσωτερω, placed opposite each other, with a space of a hundred miles between, with a third, small one, separated by a long interval from the other two." To the Arab geographers also, who commonly translate Egyptian, Greek, Latin and other names word for word into their own idiom, the inner Oasis (El-Wahat el-Dakhelat) is most celebrated. Ritter Erdkunde, vol. I, page 1004. reports that Makrizi, Soyouthy, Ebn Ayas and others are cited by Langlès in his Commentary on the Oases as witnesses of this matter; to whom add the most excellent Arab geographer of the twelfth century, Edrisi, whose complete works were published only twenty years ago [Jaubert, Géographie d'Edrisi, traduite de l'arabe en français, vol. I, page 121 and following.].

[43] whose situation And all these understand by the inner Oasis that which lies on the western side of the Nile, with the Libyan desert intervening, in the latitude of Upper and Middle Egypt, forming two series or chains of islands in the midst of a sandy sea or desert, and extending in the latitude of Thebes, or between the 25th and 26th degrees of latitude, and in longitude at the 26th degree from the meridian of Paris; while the outer Oasis, or El-Wahat el-Khargeh, which Olympiodorus said was placed opposite the inner Oasis and which extends between the 24th and 26th degrees of latitude, lies nearer to Egypt, namely between the 28th and 29th degrees of longitude; and this too forms, as it were, an island in a dried sandy sea. And since they were separated only by a space of some hours, they were quite often held as one Oasis, which was called absolutely the Oasis, as St. Jerome himself calls it a little below. By that name, however, there used to be understood the Theban or Great Oasis [Compare Cellarius, Geographia antiqua, book IV, chapter 1, number 10, vol. II, page 815.]; which latter designation they used to distinguish it from the Little Oasis, placed between the 28th and 29th degrees of latitude.

[44] and the twofold road, are indicated. Now if anyone today were to betake himself from Alexandria to the inner Oasis, he would first go on to Cairo; from here he would go along the Nile as far as Monfalout, whose latitude is 27° 30' and longitude 28° 40'; from here, turning off towards the south-west, through a space of about two degrees across desert places he would reach that Oasis, finding his first stopping-place at Ballat. But if he were to go on a few leagues beyond Monfalout, he would come into Siout, the former Lycopolis, whose latitude is 27°, 10° and longitude 28°, 53; from Lycopolis one would then have to turn off to the west, shortly after enter the desert at latitude 27°, 8°, longitude 28°, 44', and then follow the road which the Furians, or the merchants of Dar-Four, still hold every year: namely, from Ainé Dizé, situated at the entrance of the desert, by a journey of eight hours one comes into El-Charje or El-Khargeh, the chief place of the outer Oasis, or El-Wahat el-Khargeh; and from here, turning off to the south through a valley and desert place, the road is to the inner Oasis, or El-Wahat el-Dakhelat, which blessed Hilarion inhabited [Description de l'Égypte, Atlas, Map 12; Girard, Mémoire sur l'agriculture, l'industrie, le commerce, etc., work cited, vol. XVII, page 178 and following; Jollois and

Devilliers, Description of Syout, work cited, vol. IV, page 125 and following; Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. I, page 964 and following, 991 and following. Compare the Map of Egypt of Th. Duvotenay.].

§ VI. He comes to Paraetonium, from here into Sicily, then into Dalmatia and finally to the island of Cyprus.

[From here in the autumn of the year 363 he comes by the Little Oasis and Ammonium to Paraetonium] Blessed Hilarion spent about a year in the inner Oasis; but since there too, most probably through the bishops of Libya, or rather the citizens and virgins of Alexandria who had lived there in exile a little before, his fame had spread abroad and was winning him importunate honours, he thought of sailing to the islands of the Mediterranean sea. And when he was preparing his departure, Hadrian, a disciple, came from Palestine, telling that the emperor Julian had been slain and harshly intimating that the most blessed man must now return to the remains of his monastery. Julian died on the 26th of June of the year 363, and his death became known at once by divine means to some most holy men in the East and in Egypt. I should think, however, that Hadrian did not come to blessed Hilarion before the beginning of the month of August of the year 363. Further, the most blessed man, hearing what Hadrian was suggesting, heartily detested it, and having hired a camel he reached through the vast solitude (probably because the Nile was in flood) the maritime city of Libya, Paraetonium. Beware, however, of believing that Hilarion made the journey through the western part of the Libyan desert; that is altogether not possible. But undoubtedly he passed from the Great Oasis to the Little, the furthest borders of the two being distant eight geographical leagues Compare Ritter, vol. I, page 965.. Through the Little Oasis, or El-Wahat el-Behryeh, going first to the north, then turning to the south, he came to Ammonium, now Siwah or Syouah, formerly most celebrated for the temple of Jupiter, whose latitude is 29° 12', longitude from the meridian circle of Greenwich 26° 18' Ibid., vol. I, page 980.. From Ammonium blessed Hilarion went on to Paraetonium, now called Al Baraton, a difficult harbour and the last of Egypt to the west. The ancients measured the distance between Ammonium and Paraetonium; on the testimony of Strabo Book VII, page 1133, Oxford edition. those towns were distant about one thousand three hundred stadia, or one hundred and seventy-two thousand (172,000) paces; which space travellers cover within five days. Between Ammonium and Paraetonium there are some intermediate stations, and more than one road.

[46] intending to seek quiet: but finding an opportunity I scarcely, or not even scarcely, doubt that blessed Hilarion arrived at Paraetonium before the middle of the month of October; for if later, he could no longer have sailed to Sicily, since, on the testimony of Vegetius Book IV, chapter 39., from the third day before the Ides of November until the sixth day before the Ides of March the seas were closed. Nevertheless it is not credible that the blessed man came to Paraetonium with the intention of departing from here into Sicily; for since that rocky harbour does not seem to have been the customary station of any fleet, he could not foresee that this facility of departing would be at hand for him, but rather wished to hide himself in that place. For he was seeking nothing else than a hiding-place; and so it must be judged, since he was then wholly given to fleeing human honours, that it is not even to be thought that he conversed at Paraetonium with Gaius, the bishop of the city, a thoroughly Catholic prelate, who in the year 362 had taken part in the council of Alexandria and had subscribed the synodal letter with blessed Athanasius and others Compare Labbe, Councils, vol. II, col. 809 and 817.. The injuries which blessed Hilarion suffered there from his disciple Hadrian I pass over; St. Jerome narrates them in a few words, number 24.

[47] of a military fleet, To withdraw himself from these and to take refuge in a place ignorant of his fame, with Gazanus or Zazanus as companion (there is no agreement about the name), he went aboard a fleet which was sailing to Sicily. What this fleet was one may learn again from Vegetius: "At Misenum," he says Book IV, chapter 31., "and at Ravenna single legions (cohorts?) were stationed with fleets, so that they might not depart too far from the protection of the city: so that, when reason required, they might reach all parts of the world by ship without delay, without a roundabout course. For the fleet of Misenum had Gaul, the Spains, Mauretania, Africa, Egypt, Sardinia and Sicily close at hand." Tacitus reports similar things Annals, book IV, chapter 5.. To the fleet of Misenum, therefore, were committed Mauretania, Africa and Egypt; in which Paraetonium was certainly included, whether you assign it to Egypt or to Libya; and so also Sicily. This military fleet, then, blessed Hilarion boarded; by no means the corn fleet of Alexandria or Carthage; which nothing commanded to turn aside into Sicily, much less to Paraetonium.

[48] [he comes into Sicily, to the promontory of Pachynus; about the beginning of the year 365 found by St. Hesychius, he sails from here to Epidaurus;] The fleet held its course through the Sicilian sea: for what St. Jerome calls the Adriatic is the Sicilian sea. Hear Orosius: "Sicily," he says Book I, chapter 2, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXXI, col. 696., "is girded on the east by the Adriatic sea, on the south by the African sea; on the west and north it has the Tyrrhenian sea." See these things explained more fully in Cluverius [Sicilia antiqua, book I, chapter 5, in Graevius and Burmann, Thesaurus of antiquities, vol. X, part I, col. 72.]. He was carried to the promontory of Pachynus, which is the south-eastern * horn of Sicily, and is now commonly called Capo Passalo or Passaro; where, when he had landed, he fled as soon as possible with his companion to inland places, namely to the twentieth milestone from the sea. But in vain he fled the knowledge of men, as may be learned from St. Jerome. Meanwhile his most beloved disciple, St. Hesychius, was seeking him through the whole world; who, when he had already spent three years in tracking his master, at length found him at the end of the year 364 or the beginning of 365, as will be clear from what is to be said. But after two or three days it was already settled to abandon this abode and to make for barbarian lands. Wherefore St. Hesychius led the blessed old man to Epidaurus, a town of Dalmatia, whose ruins lie about the tenth milestone from Ragusa to the east and are commonly called Old Ragusa.

[49] where he wonderfully slays a dragon, the memory of which miracle still exists. But there too the miracle of the dragon slain shortly after betrayed his holiness, which may be read in St. Jerome, number 28. The memory of this matter has been preserved up to now. "The natives," says Coleti in a work published in the year 1800 Illyricum sacrum, vol. VI, pages 3 and 4., "show a cave, which they call the scipus, deep, dark, and monstrous with a vast gaping mouth, which supplies perennial and copious waters for the uses of the inhabitants. They say that from here that deadly and savage beast was led out by the command and order of St. Hilarion and brought as far as the village which they call Moletrinae, and which is distant from Epidaurus three thousand five hundred paces by the land route, two thousand by sea, and there burned on a pyre built up, and there, in memory of the dragon slain and of so great a pestilence and calamity divinely repelled, a church was built in honour and worship of St. Hilarion, which still exists. Hither the people of Epidaurus were accustomed every year on a fixed day to go in pious supplication, and with those villagers to follow up and recall with hymns and canticles and most grateful hearts the remembrance of the benefit received; nor did they return home before sunset; and since they crossed that very short stretch of sea carried in small boats, some separately from others, as night came on and a storm sometimes arose, shipwrecks often happened, or certainly there was danger that the little boats would be driven by the force and onset of the winds upon the rocks and shoals: for which reason a few years ago that pious custom was discontinued; nor do the people of Epidaurus alone go there; but both these and those who dwell at Moletrinae, united indeed in heart but separated in body, celebrate the same votive day with anniversary supplications and solemn thanksgiving."

[50] When the earthquake Further, within the few days that blessed Hilarion spent at Epidaurus there was an earthquake of the whole world. This earthquake most manuscript codices of the Chronicle of St. Jerome tie to the second year of Valentinian and Valens, namely the St. Victor, the Oiselius, the Petau, the Dupuy, the Fabricius and the Contractus, which all the printed ones follow; but the Lodon and Foix codices attach this calamity to the first year of Valentinian [Compare Arnaud de Pontac, notes on the Chronicle of Eusebius and Jerome, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXVII, col. 1166.]. Whence it may be established that, since the purple was conferred on Valentinian on the 25th or following day of February of the year 364, and a month later Valens his brother was made a sharer of the empire, that tremor shook the earth in this very year or the following. Nor is there doubt to which of the two years that event is to be referred, since Ammianus Marcellinus, explaining the things done in the consulship of Valentinian and Valens, or the year 365, follows the attempts of Procopius to seize the empire right to the end, that is, to the slaying of that usurper, which must most certainly be placed before the end of the month of June of the year 366 [Compare Tillemont, Empereurs, Valens, article IV, vol. V, page 36, folio edition, Brussels.], and then proceeds in this way, describing the time and the commotion itself Res gestae, book XXVI, chapter 10.: "While this innovator (Procopius) was still alive, whose many deeds and whose death we have related, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of August, when Valentinian was consul for the first time with his brother, horrible terrors suddenly ranged through the whole circuit of the world, such as neither fables nor truthful antiquities set forth to us. For a little after the rising of the light, a density of lightnings having first been brandished more sharply, the whole stability of the earthly mass was shaken and made to tremble, and the sea, driven back, withdrew, its waves rolled away; so that, the abyss of the depths being laid bare, many-formed kinds of swimming creatures were seen sticking in the slime; and the vast stretches of valleys and mountains then, as one was given to suppose, looked up at the rays of the sun, which the primeval nature of things had banished beneath immense floods. Many ships, therefore, being as it were fastened to the dry ground, and very many people roaming freely through the scanty remains of the waves to gather fish and the like with their hands, the roarings of the sea, as if indignant at their repulse, rose up in turn, and, dashed violently through the seething shallows upon islands and the extended spaces of the mainland, levelled countless buildings in the cities and wherever they were found… Huge … ships, thrust out by the raging blasts, came to rest on the roofs of houses, as happened at Alexandria: and some were hurled almost to the second milestone from the shore, as we ourselves, in passing, saw a Laconian one near the town of Mothone" (or Methone, of Messenia in the Peloponnese), "gaping apart with long decay."

[51] was raging everywhere on the 2nd of July of the year 365. On the authority of Ammianus, then, that horrible tempest raged on the 21st of July, ten or eleven months before the slaying of Procopius, Valentinian and Valens being consuls for the first time, or in the year 565. Nor otherwise the Athanasian and contemporary Chronicle, which not so,

long ago the most learned Cardinal Mai brought to light in Latin and Syriac. There at the year 365 is read Patrum nova Bibliotheca, vol. VII, page 15.: "In the first consulship of Valentinian and Valens the Augusti… We occupied the Caesareum… Then an earthquake occurred on the 27th day of Epiphi" (or Abib, the first day of which month coincides with the 25th of June), "the sea in the eastern region drew back, many perished, and many things were ruined." The Paschal or Alexandrian Chronicle causes difficulty [Corpus of the Byzantine writers, Paschal Chronicle, vol. I, page 556, Bonn edition.]: Ινδ. η᾽. α᾽.ὑπ. Οὐαλεντιανου καὶ Οὐαλεντος. Τουτῳ τῳ ἐτει ἡ θαλασσα ἐκ τῶν ἰδιων ὁρων ἐξηλθεν μηνι πανεμῳ προ ιβ᾽ καλανδων σεπτεμβριων; that is: "In the eighth indiction, Valentinian and Valens being consuls for the first time. In this year the sea went out beyond its bounds in the month of Panemus, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of September." The month Panemus, namely, does not seem here to be able to agree with the twelfth day before the Kalends of September, or the 21st of August. In very truth, nothing is more inconstant than the month Panemus. In almost all the cities in which it had been received into use it designated the ninth month of the year: but since the year did not have the same beginning everywhere, it hence coincided with various months [Hermann, die griechische Monatskunde, page 33 and following, 71 and following, and passim.]. But one may dismiss these things, since the author of the Paschal Chronicle followed the list of the Macedonian months, according to which the month Panemus corresponds roughly to our July [Compare Petavius, De doctrina temporum, vol. I, pages 38 and 39, Amsterdam edition, and the Paschal Chronicle, vol. II, page 230.]. And if you should doubt whether perhaps in this place the Syro-Macedonian system crept into the Paschal Chronicle, you will gain nothing. For Oecumenius Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, page 241., employing that system, narrates that blessed Paul suffered martyrdom in the 36th year of the Lord's passion, πεμπτῃ ἡμερᾳ του Πανεμου, τῃ προ τριων καλανδων ἰουλιων, or on the 29th of June: whence Petavius rightly gathered that Panemus in the year of Christ 69 began on the 25th of June [De doctrina temporum, vol. I, page 38, note †. Compare Ussher, On the Macedonian and Asian solar year, chapter 4, page 77, after the Amsterdam edition of Petavius's Rationarium temporum.]. Of other systems there seems no need to think. It must be granted, therefore, that a slip has crept into the Paschal Chronicle, and that in place of σεπτεμβριων one should read αὐγουστων. And if we go to the Fasti of Idatius In Labbe, Bibliotheca of manuscripts, vol. I, page 13., we are taught again that the world, and above all the sea, was so vehemently shaken on the 21st of July of the year 365: "Valentinian and Valens Augusti. In their consulship the sea went out beyond its bounds on the twelfth day before the Kalends of August."

[52] [he restrains the waves of the sea by three crosses imprinted on the shore; when this miracle became known, in the month of September of the same year he flees to Cyprus.] By three crosses imprinted on the shore and his hands stretched out against the waves of the sea, blessed Hilarion then saved Epidaurus. "The whole city," says Jerome, number 29, "marvelled at the prodigy, and the greatness of the sign had spread abroad even at Salona" (for Salona seems to have been the metropolis of Epidaurus Compare Coleti, Illyricum sacrum, vol. VI, pages 7 and 8.). "Understanding this, the old man fled secretly by night in a small skiff; and, having found after two days a merchant ship," he went on to Cyprus. Sailing on this journey with a prosperous course between Malea, the south-eastern * horn of the Peloponnese, and the island of Cythera lying off it to the south, and among the Cyclades, he at length landed at Paphos, about the month of September of the same year 365. He chose a dwelling for himself at the second milestone from the city; from where in the following year, before winter, he sent his beloved disciple Hesychius into Palestine to greet the brethren and visit the ashes of his monastery. When he had returned the next spring, he intimated to him that he wished to sail into that part of Egypt which was called Bucolia and still despised the Christian law, since he could not lie hidden even in Cyprus.

* Sud-Est. South-east.

* Nord-Est North-east

§ VII. He thinks of going into the Upper Thebaid; yet he remains in Cyprus; he converses with St. Epiphanius; he dies.

He thinks of setting out shortly from here beyond the Upper Some have thought that it was in the mind of blessed Hilarion to set out for another mouth of the Nile, dug out by the hand of men and called by Herodotus the Bucolic Schwartz in Cluverius's Notitia Orbis antiqui, vol. II, page 776, note **.; but wrongly. Much less is Bucolia, a place near Alexandria situated under the rocks and celebrated for the burial of St. Mark Acta SS., vol. III of April, page 348. and the martyrdom of St. Peter the patriarch [Combefis, Illustrium Christi martyrum lecti triumphi, page 208; compare Renaudot, History of the Jacobite patriarchs of Alexandria, page 59.], to be thought of here. For at that time neither in the neighbourhood of Alexandria nor at any other mouth of the Nile did any fierce and barbarous people, altogether without part in the Christian religion, dwell. But blessed Hilarion must be judged to have wished to make for those Bucolia which adjoined the Upper Thebaid and which are known not only from chapter 28 of the Life of St. Epiphanius Acta SS., vol. I of January, page 131. but also from the Life of St. Antony the abbot [Surius, Lives of the Saints, May, page 157; compare Acta SS., vol. III of May, page 47.]. For he also, fleeing human praises, thought of going on to the Upper Thebaid, where no one would recognize him. Asked, therefore, by a heavenly voice whither he was directing his steps, Antony had answered: "Since the peoples do not let me rest, for that reason I have thought it best to go to the Upper Thebaid… And the voice said to him: If you go to the Thebaid and proceed to the Pastoral lands" (in Greek Βουκολια) "as you are thinking, you will sustain a greater and double labour." Nor do I doubt that the Bucolia, in which, like St. Antony, so also blessed Hilarion had resolved to hide himself, were situated not within the very borders of Egypt, but in the neighbouring region of the Blemmyes or Blemyes, which before the age of Diocletian was part of the Upper Thebaid [Compare Procopius, On the Persian War, book I, chapter 19, page 102 and following, Bonn edition.]. For at that time there were already Christians in the whole Thebaid, even the Upper; for Syene, now Assouan or Souan, situated at 30°, 35 longitude of Paris and 24°, 5' latitude, and the island of Philae, now Geziret el-Birbe, that is, the Island of the temple, or Geziret el-Heif Description de l'Égypte, vol. I, page 31., lying at 30°, 34' longitude and 24, 1', 34'' latitude, already had bishops in that age. And indeed Ammonius had suffered martyrdom at Syene, and Mark, bishop of Philae, had taken part in the Council of Alexandria in the year 362 Compare Le Quien, Oriens christianus, vol. II, col. 613 and 614.. To the furthest borders of the Upper Thebaid, therefore, the Christian religion had been propagated in the age of blessed Hilarion.

[54] Thebaid, probably among the Blemmyes, a fierce and unbelieving people. It was outside its borders, then, that the blessed man wished to go when he thought of the Bucolia: for Jerome plainly reports at number 31 that the blessed man wished to make for there with this intention, because there was none of the Christians there, but only a barbarous and fierce nation. And indeed by these words the people of the Blemmyes itself seems to be designated: for the situation, the character, the religion agree. For as regards first of all their manners, if any nation ever was, this was fierce and barbarous, as is perfectly established from Procopius On the Persian War, book I, chapter 19, page 102 and following.. That whole people at first dwelt between the Red Sea and the upper Nile; Diocletian then settled a part on the bank of the Nile and in the adjoining inner or western region, assigning to them the tract which extended from Syene as far as Prima (Ibrim), and in which were contained, besides Prima, four cities, Phoenicon (Derry?), Chiris (Cherab?), Thapis (Wady-Tafa) and Talmis (Kalabsheh) Compare Olympiodorus in Photius, Bibliotheca, page 194.; there being added also an annual payment; and a temple, rites and priests, which should be common to the Romans or Egyptians and to them, having been established on the island of Philae: the emperor hoped, namely, that by this means they would cease from harassing the Romans and their allies. But in vain. The barbarians accepted the benefits, but by no means abstained from raids; which the monks of the Upper Thebaid themselves experienced more than once. It is no less established that at the end of the fourth century they had not yet bowed their necks to Christ; indeed, that they were most tenacious of their old rites, by which they venerated the sun and perhaps also the moon, and which they had augmented with the worship of Isis, Osiris and Priapus Procopius, On the Persian War, book I, chapter 19, page 102 and following.. Which tenacity was so great that for fear of them the Theodosian decree on abolishing profane religions, put forth in the year 391, was void on the island of Philae; that, when Maximinus had conquered them in the year 451, in the reign of Marcian, he was compelled to insert in the new treaties that the Blemmyes should be free thenceforth, no otherwise than before, to lead their solemn procession to Philae at fixed times Excerpts from the history of Priscus, page 154, Bonn edition.; that their shrines were not overthrown by order of Justinian before the middle of the sixth century and the images carried to Constantinople; and that they themselves finally did not embrace the Christian faith before the declining sixth century. And all these things the celebrated Letronne [New examination of the Greek inscription deposited in the temple of Talmis in Nubia by Silco, etc. Observations on the period at which paganism was definitively abolished at Philae in Upper Egypt, etc. Nouveaux mémoires de l'Académie des inscriptions, vol. IX, page 128, and vol. X, page 168.] has explained with such accuracy and abundance of documents that they can now claim a certain place for themselves in ecclesiastical history.

[55] [St. Hesychius dissuades him: wherefore St. Hilarion remains in Cyprus, but in a more secluded place.] Among these Blemmyes, then, St. Hilarion had resolved to withdraw; but his disciple blessed Hesychius persuaded him not to depart from Cyprus, but rather to go up within the compass of the island itself to a more secluded place. The blessed man assented, and thereafter lived for five years in a most pleasant little garden, but of most difficult ascent; which St. Jerome describes at length at number 31. Tillemont Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. VII, page 570. judges that St. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, had not the least part in suggesting this counsel to blessed Hilarion, and that that little garden was situated near the place which was called Charburis. For that excellent historian transferred to this place these words of Sozomen Ecclesiastical History, book V, chapter 10, page 608.: "For it was not pleasing to him to stay among those who praised him: but by changing places to be obscure, and the fame which was spread abroad about him

he strove to abolish by frequent migrations. At last, when he was sailing past Cyprus, he landed at Paphos. And being invited by him who was at that time bishop of the Cypriots, he resolved to live there, and led the philosophic life near the place which is called Charbyris *." Tillemont's opinion is probable in the highest degree; although it labours under some difficulties, from which it will help to make a beginning.

[56] He has dealings quite often with St. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, Namely, the former place, in which blessed Hilarion lived about two years, was distant from the city of Paphos by the second milestone, the other by the twelfth from the sea, or from the harbour of Paphos. But at first sight neither place seems to have been subject to St. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, since they were situated far from his episcopal city, and indeed several dioceses lay between [Compare d'Anville's Map in the book Recherches géographiques sur l'isle de Cypre, Mémoires de l'Académie des inscriptions, vol. XXXII, page 529, and Le Quien, Oriens christianus, vol. II, col. 1037 and following.]. Moreover Sozomen spoke in such a way that he seems to have had the bishop of Paphos in mind. But truly, other things persuade us that blessed Epiphanius is designated by Sozomen: for first, from St. Jerome's prologue it is certain that St. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, was very much with Hilarion; which association, whether you place it before or after his promotion to the episcopate, serves our purpose. For if after, what is more probable than that St. Epiphanius took care that his most blessed friend should not depart from the island; if before, you must confess that it was so great that even after the death of the most holy man he venerated his memory, and indeed wrote his praise in a brief letter, as St. Jerome is witness. Further, who would believe that St. Epiphanius's esteem of blessed Hilarion was so great, and yet that he did not take care to visit him at some time and to urge him to remain on the island of Cyprus? Papebroch judged Acta SS., vol. II of May, page 38., and Tillemont did not deny Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. X, page 496., that blessed Hilarion himself persuaded the synod of the bishops of Cyprus to confer the mitre of Salamis upon St. Epiphanius; which indeed is probable, since otherwise it is not sufficiently understood in what way it came about that the Cypriots raised a foreigner to the metropolitan see; but I should not wish to rely on it so as to conclude from it that St. Epiphanius in turn exerted himself so that blessed Hilarion should not leave Cyprus: for conjectures propped on conjectures are commonly little approved.

[57] [who is quite often called the Cyprian bishop: a contest in virtue between the two.] A plainly firmer argument is drawn from these very words of Sozomen: Προτραπεις παρα του τοτε Κυπριων ἐπισκοπου, by which he must be judged to have designated not the neighbouring bishop of Paphos, nor any other bishop of the island whatever, but some definite and single one, and so the bishop of Salamis himself and metropolitan of the island. The metropolitan alone, namely, could determinately be called the bishop of the Cypriots, ὁ Κυπριων ἐπισκοπος. And indeed blessed Jerome calls St. Epiphanius himself bishop of Cyprus [Letter to Pammachius XXXVIII, Works, vol. IV, part II, col. 308, Benedictine edition.]; and the author of the Greek writing which, translated into Latin by Pelagius the deacon, constitutes the fifth book of Rosweyde's Lives of the Fathers twice calls the same Epiphanius the Cyprian bishop [Little book IV, number 15, and book XII, number 6, in Rosweyde, Vitae Patrum, pages 568 and 613.]. Add that Epiphanius most certainly had familiar dealings with Hilarion, when the latter was living the solitary life, the former the episcopal life, on the island of Cyprus. For the most ancient Greek writer whom I mentioned a little before, in the fourth little book, in which he commends continence, sets forth this for posterity to admire and imitate: "Epiphanius, the Cyprian bishop," he says Ibid., book IV, number 15, page 568 cited., "once sent to abbot Hilarion, asking him and saying: Come, that we may see each other before we go out of the body. And when they had come to each other, while they were eating, something of fowl was brought, which the bishop took and gave to abbot Hilarion. And the old man says to him: Forgive me, father, for since I received this habit I have not eaten anything slain. And Epiphanius said to him: But I, since I received this habit, have not let anyone sleep who had anything against me; nor have I slept having anything against anyone. And the old man says to him: Forgive me, for your way of life is greater than mine."

[58] How extensive the diocese of Salamis was, Whether from his former or from his latter dwelling among the Cypriots blessed Hilarion had had to go to Salamis, the journey would indeed have been great and arduous: for the region is mountainous and the distance easily a hundred miles. But it is credible (by which observation the former difficulty, which I proposed above, is also removed) that the diocese of Salamis extended as far as the blessed man's little dwelling and that St. Epiphanius, while visiting the flock entrusted to him, came into the neighbourhood, without, however, going to the dwelling difficult of ascent. Certainly that his diocese was large and stretched almost to the walls of other cities he himself teaches in the letter to John of Jerusalem, in which he clears himself for having laid hands on Paulinian. He answers, namely, that this was not done by him in the diocese of Jerusalem; then, that even if it had been done in that diocese, it was not so much to be taken amiss: "For many bishops of our communion," he says [Among the letters of Jerome, letter XLI, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXII, col. 518 and 519.], "have ordained presbyters also in our province… And I myself exhorted Philo the bishop of blessed memory" (of Carpasia) "and the holy Theoprepus that in the churches of Cyprus which were near them, but seemed to belong to the church of my parish, because the province was great and widely extended, they should ordain presbyters and provide for the church of Christ." Whence also perhaps it came about that the bishop of Salamis, from the time when he obtained the rights of metropolitan, was called bishop of Cyprus, Cyprian or of the Cypriots; namely, because almost the whole island acknowledged him as its bishop.

[59] St. Hilarion dies on the 21st of October of the year 371, While, then, blessed Hilarion was living there, there dawned at last the happy day on which the body, the tent of the soul, should be loosed and the soul itself go away to its homeland. There is scarcely any doubt that the blessed man departed from the living on the 21st of October, on which he is venerated by the Latins and the Greeks. For although contrary examples are not wanting, yet the custom flourished and supplied the place of a law of celebrating the heavenly birthdays of the saints on the very day on which they had passed to a better life: which argument Muratori pursued in a special dissertation [Appendix to the Works of St. Paulinus, dissertation XIX, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. LXI, col. 819 and following.]. The most blessed old man was then in the eightieth year of his age, on the testimony of blessed Jerome, number 52, and not the ninetieth, as the Menologium of Basil reports, the very Menaea of the Greeks contradicting it and above all the whole course of the blessed man's life. Recall what we gathered at number 7 about his manner of living according to the years of his age; likewise what blessed Hilarion himself said when dying, namely that he had served Christ for nearly seventy years, having been baptized perhaps in the eleventh year of his age, certainly not in the twentieth; and what was said at number 50 and following about the time of the earthquake, which the most pious hermit survived by only seven years.

[60] after he had lived six years and one or two months in Cyprus. And indeed he spent not seven full years in Cyprus, but only six and one or two months. For since, as was shown at number 9, he was born in the year 291, so that in the month of January of the year 356 he was in the sixty-fifth year of his age; and since he arrived at Paphos in the month of August, or rather of September, of the year 365, as was said at number 52, and accordingly four months later, or in the month of January of the following year, he had already begun the seventy-fifth year of his age; and since he departed this life in the eightieth year of his age, and indeed at the end of the month of October; hence it comes about that he could not have lived in Cyprus longer, as we were just now establishing, than six years and one or two months. And from this it also follows that he was born between the end of the month of October of the year 291 and the beginning of January of the following year.

* Others Charybdis and Charybris.

§ VIII. The clothing of blessed Hilarion.

The clothing of blessed Hilarion is described. Since blessed Hilarion did not live for himself alone, but gathered and instructed disciples, and so is held the father of the monks of Palestine, it will be worth the trouble to inquire into the smallest things that pertained to his dress and food: this has been done by several concerning St. Paul, St. Antony and others. And indeed, since in that age rules had not been written, but the doctrine and counsels of Christ, understood according to the precepts and manners of the elders, held the place of rules, as we have already noted and cannot note enough, hence it comes about that from the masters' manner of living one may easily gather what institutions the disciples followed. St. Jerome describes the clothing of blessed Hilarion in several places; from which it is clear that at the beginning it was similar to that of St. Antony. For see how he came forth from the school of this abbot: "His limbs covered only with sackcloth," says Jerome, number 3, "and having a leather ependytes, which blessed Antony had given him on his setting out, and a rustic cloak, he enjoyed a vast and terrible solitude between the sea and the marsh," namely near Gaza. And further down, number 5: "He cut his hair once a year, on the day of Easter: he lay until his death upon the bare ground and a mat of rushes: never washing the sackcloth which he had once put on, and saying that it was superfluous to seek cleanliness in a haircloth. Nor did he change to another tunic until the former was entirely torn." In both places nothing about a cowl, which nevertheless at the end of his life, no otherwise than his attendant, he certainly had on the island of Paphos. For to his disciple St. Hesychius, as may be seen at number 32, "he left all his riches: namely, the Gospel, and a tunic of sackcloth, a cowl and a little cloak": these, except the Gospel, the spoils of his attendant Gazanus, who had died a little before: he himself had the same garments; for "he adjured all to cover him with earth just as he was clothed, in his haircloth tunic, and cowl, and rustic cloak." Which was done; for afterwards St. Hesychius found his body, the tunic, cowl and little cloak unharmed. Nothing here any more about the leather ependytes: so that the cowl at some time took its place.

[62] The material of the haircloth If we compare those passages with one another, we shall easily discern that sack, tunic of sackcloth, haircloth tunic, and simply tunic and haircloth are one and the same thing to Jerome, and that from this also the material, colour and form can be understood. That those tunics were often woven of threads of goats' wool we have from St. Jerome himself, where he translates the letter of St. Pachomius to the brethren who used to shear goats in the desert, from whose

threads haircloths are woven Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXII, col. 97.. They were woven also of camel's wool, as St. John Chrysostom says of the monks Homily 68 on Matthew, vol. VII of the Works, page 674.: "Garments are prepared for them, for some of goats' hair, for others of camels' hair." That rough and thick cloth is still woven by peasant women in Egypt and in other parts of the East; but its use is almost solely in making tents Description de l'Égypte, vol. XVII, page 216. That its colour is dark and blackish (brun et gris brown and grey) is plain. Beware, however, of thinking that the haircloths are of the same material as the garments of the Egyptian farmers, commonly called Fellahs. The colour of these indeed is also dark and blackish; but they are made of coarser sheep's wool Ibid., page 210 and following and are rather of the same kind as those dark garments by which monks were formerly distinguished from citizens and which are so celebrated in monastic history [Examen historicum et canonicum de clericorum regularium et saecularium juribus et officiis, page 16 and following.].

[63] and its form; Since that tunic also had the name of sack, its form is thence discovered: it was narrow, namely, and covered the whole body at least down to the knees, the head being passed through the bottom, the arms through the sides of the sack. This garment is still used on the three principal feasts by the Greek pontiffs, and formerly by the emperors, "and it has the form of a sack, nor are there sleeves in it" [Simeon of Thessalonica, On the temple and the mass, in Morin, On holy ordinations, vol. I, page 200. Compare Du Cange, Latin Glossary, under saccus; Bonanni, La Gerarchia ecclesiastica, page 315 and following, and others.] And from this it is clear that the sackcloth tunic of blessed Hilarion is not to be confused with the colobium: for the colobium had sleeves, coming down to the elbow or the middle of the arm Cassian, book I, chapter 5, page 11, edition of 1628.: but with the levitonarium, which was sometimes of linen Life of St. Pachomius, chapter 14, in Rosweyde, Vitae Patrum, page 117., sometimes ἐκ τριχων συντεθειμενον Suidas, under Λεβυτωναριον., and which, on the testimony of St. Pachomius's biographer Place cited above., St. Jerome Preface to the rule of St. Pachomius, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXIII, col. 63. and St. Isidore of Seville Etymologies, book XIX, chapter 22, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. LXXXII, col. 687., was for the Egyptian monks a kind of garment without sleeves. Du Cange would have it Latin Glossary, under Saccus. that the sackcloth tunic did not cling to the bare flesh of blessed Hilarion and other monks, but was put on over the other garments. In very truth, so do the Greek pontiffs now wear the sack, and formerly the emperors; but the monks altogether otherwise, as is manifest even from the very passages which Du Cange alleges. For what do these words of Basil the Great mean, which he drew from Hoeschel on the Life of St. Antony: Σακκῳ δε τραχει το σωμα σου διανυττων, καὶ ζωνῃ σκλήρᾳ την ὀσφυν σου παρασφιγγων, καρτερικως τα ὀστα σου διεθλιβες? What do these verses mean which he drew from book II of Paulinus on the Life of St. Martin Ibid., under Cilicium.:

Nay, covered with a garment woven of bristles, He pricked his wasted limbs with constant point, That the too-rough garment might wear his thin skin And the flesh, touched by the outstretched goads, might shudder.

St. Jerome and many others approved and advised this bristly or rough garment. St. Pachomius gave his monks a linen levitonarium, and indeed a double one, so that one or the other could be washed each week [In St. Jerome, Translation of the rule of St. Pachomius, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXIII, col. 72.]; Cassian On the habit of the monk, chapter 3, page 8., going further, sharply disapproved of haircloth, because it hindered work and fostered pride, and asserts that it was used by few in his age: St. Epiphanius Compendiaria doctrina, in Bivar, vol. II, page 11. also, although he was an admirer and perhaps a disciple of blessed Hilarion, condemned the use of haircloth unless it were covered by another garment; for my part I shall approve or disapprove nothing, since haircloth is a good thing if the use is good; but if not, as in many other things, bad.

[64] likewise of the cloak; St. Jerome twice mentions the rustic cloak of blessed Hilarion, calling it also a little pallium or pallium. Cassian calls this covering a mafors On the habit of the monk, chapter 7, page 13., explaining the garments of the Egyptian monks. "After these," he says, "with a narrow little cloak, pursuing both the humility of dress and the cheapness of price and economy, they cover the neck and shoulders alike: which are called mafortes both in our speech and in theirs, and so they decline both the prices and the ostentation of planetae and birri." Nothing is simpler than this garment: it was a woollen cloth, shaggy and square, three or four cubits long and broad, and fastened before the breast with a brooch or thorn. One may see in Ottavio Ferrari [On clothing, part II, book III, chapter 11, in Graevius, Thesaurus of Roman antiquities, vol. VI, col. 853.] the image of a barbarian wearing a mafors or cloak on his shoulders, and in Helyot Histoire des Ordres religieux, vol. I, page 160, edition of 1792. the picture of an early Palestinian monk similarly clothed in a mafors.

[65] and of the cowl. That monk has in the same place a cowl; but (unless I am mistaken) longer than right. For Cassian, discoursing of the Egyptian monks, whom St. Hilarion closely followed, says On the habit of the monk, book I, chapter 4, page 10.: "For they use unceasingly by day and night very small cowls, let down to the borders of the neck and shoulders, with which they cover only their heads." Those cowls therefore had the same form as the head-covering which the Eastern patriarchs still use (perhaps because they are taken from among the monks); and were not like the hooded shoulder-pieces in which country boys and horsemen are clothed on two reliefs published by Spon [Miscellanea eruditae antiquitatis, section IX, in Poleni, Roman and Greek antiquities, vol. IV, col. 1273 and 1274.]. Further, a cowl separate from the other garments, as we have already hinted, blessed Hilarion does not seem to have used as long as he could wear the ependytes which he had received from St. Antony.

[66] [The form and material of the ependytes or chlamys; the staff; shoes and breeches omitted.] What the form and material of this ependytes was is disclosed at number 46 of the Apophthegms of St. Antony Acta SS., vol. II of January, page 146., where Cronius is said to have seen the blessed abbot clothed in a leather chlamys, and indeed a shining or white one, as is certain from number 61 of the same Life Ibid., page 130.. And since the chlamys was a long pallium, and, where the chlamys was shorter, came down at least to the hams Compare Mongez, Recueil d'antiquités, page 177 and following., I cannot agree with Helyot Histoire des ordres religieux, vol. I, pages 74 and 79. and others, who confuse the ependytes of blessed Antony and Hilarion with the melote or wallet; which according to Cassian On the habit of the monk, chapter 8, page 15. was nothing else than a goatskin, or according to others and the root of the word (μηλον, sheep) a sheepskin, put now on the head, now on the shoulders, and flowing down only to the loins Compare Du Cange's Latin Glossary, under Melote.. Nor is it to be confused with the paenula either. This indeed was often hooded, hung below the knees, and was not (as some think) like a chasuble entirely closed in front (for it was always somewhat open below); but it was never entirely free, so as to approach the form of the chlamys and need to be fastened with a brooch before the breast [Bartholomew Bartholin, Dissertation on the paenula, in Graevius, Thesaurus, vol. VI, col. 1171.]. But the ependytes must have been closest to the lacerna or hooded cloak which Columella mentions On agriculture, book II, chapter 1.; or rather to the ankle-length caracalla, which, on the testimony of Jerome To Fabiola, number 13, letter LXIV, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXII, col. 615., was also furnished with a hood. And as the common paenula was of skins, so also the ependytes of SS. Antony and Hilarion; for it is called leathern; and indeed shining or white; and such as could be washed Life of St. Antony, number 61, Acta SS., vol. II of January, page 130.: so that there is scarcely any doubt that it was made of the skins of sheep of the Fayum (for in the Fayum they have white wool Description de l'Égypte, vol. XVII, pages 130 and 216.). Moreover, the staff, which St. Jerome At the end of the Works of Cassian, page 1122. in the Prologue to the Rule of St. Pachomius calls the companion of the journey, and of which mention is made in the Lives of very many holy ancient anchorites and monks, St. Hilarion carried with him, even when he set out on the road not on foot but on an ass, as is established from number 20 of the Life: Cassian reports that this was a sign and a perpetual reminder that the barking dogs of the vices are to be driven off by the cross of the Lord On the habit of the monk, chapter 9, page 16.. On the other hand, there was then almost no use of shoes among the monks Ibid., chapter 10, page 16.; much less of breeches or drawers [Rule of St. Pachomius, translated by St. Jerome, after the works of Cassian, page 1132.], which St. Benedict himself did not give his monks except when they had to ride Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 55..

[67] the clothing of St. Hilarion poorer than that of St. Antony. And if we now gather these things together, we plainly discern that St. Hilarion's clothing was much poorer than St. Antony's. At the beginning he was clothed with a sack or haircloth next to the skin, a cloak or mafors at the neck and shoulders, and, when it was cold or he went in public, an ependytes or long hooded leather pallium; and after this was worn out, only with a short cowl. Nor did he give his disciples other garments besides the sackcloth tunic, the mafors and the short cowl. St. Antony, however, always kept the ependytes or pallium and sometimes had two. Henschen shows from St. Dorotheus Acta SS., vol. II of January, pages 119 and 120. that he also used a leather girdle about the loins. Blessed Hilarion never used this, since the sackcloth tunic did not flow loose, nor did those who wore it gird themselves, as is clear from the most ancient images of St. John the Baptist [Compare Banduri, Antiquities of Constantinople, book VIII, Byzantine, Venetian edition, vol. XXXI, page 689; De Marca, Opuscula, page 402.]; I pass over the images of patriarchs and emperors. Finally blessed Antony for some time,

especially toward the end of his life, took his sleep on an old and worn pallium; blessed Hilarion never admitted these delights, content with the bare ground or a mat of rushes: which things I do not set in contrast in order to persuade that St. Hilarion is to be preferred to his master, but to demonstrate that his discipline was more severe.

§ IX. The severity of the rest of blessed Hilarion's discipline.

In furniture, labour and food St. Hilarion keeps the same severity. This severity of discipline appeared everywhere. When the blessed man was living in Palestine and novices and guests were continually flocking to him, he could not be without all furniture. This indeed was mean, but nevertheless too much for his excellent love of poverty: so that this, on the testimony of St. Jerome, number 19, was one of the causes why he thought of flight: "And I," he used to say in a complaining voice, "under pretext of the monastery, for the provision of the brethren, have mean furniture!" He lived by the labour of his hands, weaving little baskets of rushes, number 5; which he had learned with St. Antony, and which art is still much in use in Egypt: for they supply the place of our beds, seats and cloths. Rushes are still chiefly sought from the Fayum Description de l'Égypte, vol. XVII, page 226.. In the first year blessed Hilarion dug the ground with a hoe, solely (as it seems) for the sake of conquering the temptations of the flesh, number 3. But in the following year, the sixteenth of his age, when he had begun to have a fixed abode, I for my part do not doubt that he cultivated a little garden, like blessed Antony, and perhaps a vineyard, like his disciples (numbers 18 and 19), and pressed wine. But as at the end of his life, dwelling in a little garden and orchards on the island of Paphos, he never took fruit as food, number 31; so also in Palestine he seems never to have eaten of grapes or drunk wine; although he permitted his disciples the eating of grapes, number 17. They also kept male oxen, certainly for the sake of cultivating the fields, number 18.

[69] [The manner of his poverty in gathering and accepting things; yet he does not go beyond the first degree.] As St. Jerome reports at the same number 18, he especially detested monks who by a certain faithlessness stored up their goods for the future, and had care either of expenses, or of clothing, or of any of those things that pass away with the world. Finally, he had driven from his sight one of the brethren who lived about five miles from him, because he found him too cautious and timid a guardian of his little garden and having a little money. Beware, however, of judging that the blessed man forbade his disciples to procure any money for themselves from their mats, and perhaps also from wine, vegetables and produce: for such severity had not yet been heard of in that age: but that they should not gather useless coins, or such as would only be useful some time in the future. Certainly the forty monks who accompanied him into Egypt had provision for the journey, and he himself received from the deacon Baisanes dromedary camels HIRED, number 20. He seems to have accepted small gifts from his disciples, at least vegetables, number 18; and other things that could be packed up were sent to him by the same when they summoned him from Egypt into Palestine, number 24. But from others he admitted scarcely, or not even scarcely, any alms. How poor he was is clear even from the fact that he had already sold the Gospel written by himself as a young man in order to pay the fare when sailing from Africa into Sicily; but afterwards it was received back, when the shipmaster's son had been healed, number 25. Otherwise he never wished to accept anything on the occasion of miracles. A Roman guardsman, when he had been freed from a demon by him in Sicily, afterwards offering him countless gifts, heard the saying of the Saviour to the disciples: "Freely you have received, freely give," number 26; and indeed nothing in blessed Hilarion did the Sicilians so wonder at as that after such great signs and miracles he had not accepted even a fragment of bread from anyone in those places, number 27. If you ask how in Sicily, a foreign region, he procured his food, there, in a certain deserted little field, binding a faggot of wood daily, he laid it on the back of his disciple Gazanus; which being sold in the nearest farmstead, they bought sustenance for themselves and a little bread for those who happened to come to them, number 25. Without doubt elsewhere by similar industry he obtained the coins or other things necessary to him. But truly, although he cultivated poverty with such love, he seems never to have exceeded what they call the first degree of poverty, which consists in this, that one, having left superfluous things, retains for himself the ownership and use only of a moderate amount Compare Carrattini, Vita Claustralis, page 186, and the theologians passim.. And indeed at the end of his life he disposed of his things by testament, number 32; which his master blessed Antony and very many others are also read to have done.

[70] His dwellings and neglect of clothing. In the first year of his solitude in Palestine, because the region was infamous for robberies, he was accustomed never to live in the same place, number 5. Then for four years he avoided the heat and rains in a little hut which he had woven of rush and sedge (this too is a kind of rush, sharp and hard and like esparto), number 4. He then built a firm little cell, lower than his own stature and scarcely longer, not unlike that of St. Antony, except that the latter was hollowed in the rock, number 21. Of his food there is nothing for me to say; St. Jerome himself has gathered everything into one and arranged it by years, numbers 3 and 5. He did not shun dirt in his clothing, saying that it was superfluous to seek cleanliness in a haircloth, number 4. In which matter he much disagreed with St. Pachomius, who, although he gave linen garments to his monks, nevertheless wished them to be washed each week Rule of St. Pachomius., and St. Antony himself, Hilarion's master, is read to have washed his own Life of St. Antony, number 61, Acta SS., vol. II of January, page 130.. But these things again belong to that severe discipline of blessed Hilarion of which we were speaking before: for it was continually before his eyes (which he also warned others of, number 15) that the fashion of this world passes away and that that is the true life which is purchased by the discomfort of the present life.

§ X. The chief laws of St. Hilarion's monasteries. Whether he was a presbyter.

The organization of his monasteries. Nevertheless, although this discipline was wonderfully severe and hard, it was no hindrance to countless disciples flocking to him, and to monasteries springing up everywhere beyond measure; so that one who has read the Life of St. Antony and that of St. Hilarion would not easily say which of the two was father of more monasteries. Blessed Hilarion did not begin to admit disciples until he had already spent twenty-two years in solitude, number 7, and had healed at Gaza the three children of Helpidius, who in the year 361 was praetorian prefect and afterwards suffered much from Julian the apostate, number 8. When this, namely, was heard and spread far and wide, they flocked to him eagerly from Syria and Egypt, so that many believed in Christ and professed themselves monks. And these things we showed above, at number 19, are to be tied to the year 528. "By his example, therefore, countless monasteries began to exist throughout all Palestine, and all the monks eagerly ran to him," number 15. But we must beware of taking these things more magnificently than they really are. For what St. Isidore said [On ecclesiastical offices, book II, chapter 15, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. LXXXII, col. 790.]: "Cassian On the three kinds of monks, Conference XVIII, chapters 9 and 10, page 737. distinguishes between a coenobium and a monastery thus, that a monastery can be called even the dwelling of one monk, but a coenobium only of very many," holds good not only of Cassian, but seems able to be asserted also (to pass over others) of St. Jerome, above all on account of numbers 15, 16 and 17 of the Life of blessed Hilarion compared with one another. Things in Palestine, namely, appear to have been organized by blessed Hilarion in almost the same order as in Egypt by blessed Antony. Each monk had his own cell and a garden or vineyard to cultivate; we should now call it a hermitage; St. Jerome called it a monastery, number 17. These huts were sometimes placed separately, as at number 16; more often several near their own church, as in the Life of St. Paula In Rosweyde, Vitae Patrum, pages 409 and 410., sometimes near a farmstead, as at number 15. These cells, scattered over a mountain or built on the slope of a valley, since they were connected among themselves by some bond, were also held as one monastery. This is easy to learn from Du Cange and others. On Montserrat traces of this still survive. Count Alexandre de la Borde gave a picture of it in his Spanish Journey, and from him Albert Lenoir Architecture monastique, page 5.. In Egypt and elsewhere in the East many cells of that kind survive, cut into stones and rocks; but they are scarcely inhabited now. But now we must investigate what cares St. Hilarion applied to his monks.

[72] [What charges or offices were instituted there and what the instruction of novices was.] Further, monks or anachorites such as he introduced into Palestine and Syria were distinguished from coenobites chiefly in this, that they did not use common food and clothing, but each provided the necessaries for himself; except that charity persuaded them to be a help to one another. Where, however, several cells were placed in the neighbourhood, there was a common fund or at least store, from which common expenses were made. For novices had to be clothed, as blessed Hilarion himself was clothed by blessed Antony; guests had to be received, and other things of that kind. And he in whose hands this administration lay was called the dispenser of the monastery: and with this office above all blessed Hilarion himself was burdened, number 19. The same man was (if the word pleases) master of novices, since, when they flocked eagerly to him from Syria and Egypt and professed themselves monks, he himself exhorted each one to the progress of the soul, number 8. Moreover anachorites, on the testimony of Cassian On the three kinds of monks, Conference XVIII, chapter 4, page 725., "first trained in coenobia and now perfected in active conversation, chose the secrets of solitude"; and, on the authority of Jerome himself [To Eustochium, letter XXII, chapter 36, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXII, col. 421.], "these went out of the coenobium, and carry nothing more to the deserts except bread and salt. The author of this life was Paul, its illustrator Antony, and (to go up to higher things) its prince John the Baptist." From which it follows that the disciples of blessed Hilarion were not left to themselves at once; but were first trained for some time in a common ascetic house. Nevertheless this was a brief discipline, which in those times in the coenobium, or rather in the neighbourhood

of the little cell of the master or abbot, the anachorites received; and indeed St. Hilarion himself lived with St. Antony only for a space of two months. Nor did they occupy one dwelling with the master; the coenobites themselves remained separate, in separated little cells Ibid., chapter 35, col. 419.; nor had blessed Hilarion lived under one roof with St. Antony; and indeed into his most narrow hut near Gaza he could have admitted no one.

[75] What the discipline of the prayers and psalms, both privately and publicly The nearer monks, however, seem to have come together for some common prayers, namely for psalms and prayers. St. Antony certainly, who is read before evening and supper to have sung with his disciple blessed Paul the Simple a psalm "which he knew: and when he had sung it twelve times, to have prayed twelve times, … but at midnight to have roused him to prayer … and to psalmody, and on the first night to have prolonged the prayers until the ninth hour, on the second until day" Apophthegms, number 53, Acta SS., vol. II of January, page 148., St. Antony, I say, St. Hilarion had seen singing psalms and praying with his disciples; and that this was also practised by him seems certain; not only because he emulated in other things the discipline of the Egyptian monks, number 3, but because he is said by St. Jerome, number 4, "holding the holy scriptures also by memory, after the prayers and psalms, to have recited them as if God were present": so that he must be judged to have recited the scriptures in one way, and the prayers (that is, the interspersed meditations or contemplations) and psalms in another; the former to God alone, no man being present; but the latter in the presence of the disciples who lived in the neighbourhood. St. Paula afterwards introduced almost the same discipline among her nuns of Bethlehem, whom she herself divided into three bands and monasteries: in such a way only "that, separated in work and food, they were joined in psalmody and prayers" St. Jerome, in Rosweyde, Vitae Patrum, page 419.. That these were evening and night gatherings we shall note below at number 17 of the Life. In the number of the psalms there was great diversity everywhere; but St. Antony Apophthegms, place cited above. and the other monks throughout Egypt and the Thebaid frequented the number twelve, and indeed both in the evening gatherings which began after the ninth hour [St. Jerome to Eustochium, letter XXII, chapter 35, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXII, col. 420.] and in the night gatherings Cassian, On the night prayers, chapter 4, page 21.. While the rest sat, and sometimes laboured with the hand while in mind they were intent on the words of the psalmist, one rose and recited a psalm slowly and not without pauses Ibid., chapter 5, page 23.; at the end of which, before they bent the knee, all prayed a little while and spent the greater part of the time standing in supplication; "and so after this, falling to the ground for a very brief moment, as if only adoring the divine clemency, they rose with the greatest speed, and, standing upright again with hands outstretched, in the same manner as they had prayed standing before, they lingered more intently in their prayers" Ibid., chapter 7, page 27.. Cassian traces this institution back to the age of the apostles; but he likewise makes of a later time the addition of two readings, which on ordinary weekdays were taken, one from the Old, the other from the New Testament, but on Saturday or Sunday both from the Old Testament or from the New Ibid., chapter 6, page 25.. Blessed Hilarion likewise recited something from sacred scripture after the psalms and prayers; but privately, not in the common assembly; from piety and for the sake of memory, not by an established law: although it is a certain thing that the early monks, and even the nuns, put much labour into learning thoroughly by memory and searching the sacred scriptures [Compare Andreas Schmidt, Bibliotheca eremitarum, §12.]; to which matter we owe the best commentaries on the divine letters.

[74] recited. Besides Vespers and the Vigils of the night, the early Eastern monks celebrated Terce, Sext and None; for only in the fifth century was Prime instituted in Cassian's monastery at Bethlehem Compare Cassian, book III, On the daily prayers, chapter 4, page 51.. But concerning those hours Cassian must above all be heard. "For among them (the Egyptians)," says the same Collator Ibid., chapter 2, page 41., "these Offices (Terce, Sext and None), which we are driven to render to the Lord by distinctions of hours and intervals of time with the admonition of a summoner, are celebrated continually and spontaneously through the whole space of the day with the addition of work. For manual labour is so incessantly exercised by them privately in their cells that the meditation of the psalms or of the other scriptures is never entirely omitted. Mixing with it prayers and supplications at every moment, they spend the whole time of the day in these Offices which we celebrate at a fixed time. Wherefore, except for the evening and night gatherings, no public solemnity is celebrated among them during the day, apart from Saturday or Sunday, on which they assemble at the third hour for the sake of holy communion… And so in the monasteries of Palestine or Mesopotamia and of the whole East the solemnities of the aforesaid hours are completed daily with three psalms each; so that both the assiduity of prayers may be offered to God at fixed times and the necessary offices of work, the spiritual services having been completed with just moderation, may in no way be impeded." And since in the fourth century, at the end of which Cassian lived in Syria, these things were in use everywhere there, there is scarcely, or not even scarcely, any doubt that blessed Hilarion instituted that custom. But truly, at the end of the preface of the Institutes, at the beginning of book III and elsewhere, Cassian declares that this Palestinian discipline was much easier than the Egyptian. But from the beginning it was not so. St. Epiphanius, who has seemed to almost all to have been a disciple of blessed Hilarion, had instituted the same norm in his monastery; but not with the intention that the monks might be free from prayer in the rest of the daytime, but that they might spend it in this, after the custom of the Egyptians: so that that threefold daily assembly of the Palestinians for common prayer had been held by its institutors a new burden, and if afterwards the monks and Cassian himself believed that they were free, when those three Hours were finished, to cease from prayer, it was a relaxation and corruption of discipline: all of which is perfectly established from little book XII, number 6, which Pelagius the deacon made Latin with the rest of the little books, and in which St. Epiphanius's rebuke on that matter is read Acta SS., vol. III of May, page 39.. And thus far of the daily association of blessed Hilarion with his disciples.

[75] He visits and corrects his former disciples; the manner of this. And when they had learned the rudiments of the monastic life from so great a master and had then betaken themselves to other tracts of the desert, he by no means forgot or neglected them. He had noted in writing where each had his dwelling, so that he might visit them at a fixed time. This burden (for by what other name shall I designate a journey through deserts?) he undertook on certain days before the vintage; which, since the vintage at Gaza takes place two or three months after it has already been completed in places more remote from the sea [Compare Pierre Belon du Mans, Observations, book II, chapter 74, in Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. XVI, page 51.], is to be understood thus, that the blessed man set out from home two or three months before the vintage took place in the neighbourhood of Gaza, and met his more distant disciples not long before they gathered their vintage, intending himself to return when his own vintage was to be made: and so he undertook this journey at the end of summer. And before he set out on the road, he set down on a sheet with whom he should stay, whom he should visit in passing; in a word, he arranged the order of his stopping-places, number 17. When this became known to the brethren, all flocked to him, and, accompanying such a leader, they went round the monasteries. They were sometimes two or three thousand, each having his own provision for the journey with him; but afterwards they came into such veneration among the people that each farmstead offered food to the neighbouring monks, numbers 15 and 17. What authority blessed Hilarion exercised over those brethren whom he visited is to be defined by conjecture rather than by any certain documents. Nevertheless at number 17 he is read to have excluded from the order of the dwellings to be visited the little cell of a monk whom he wished to be punished for his avarice, and at number 18 to have driven from his sight a brother, likewise avaricious: both of which penalties had a certain appearance of excommunication. And thus far of the condition and government of his monks.

[76] [Although he was learned and most versed in sacred things, he does not seem to have been a presbyter.] It can be asked, and is in fact asked, whether blessed Hilarion was ever a presbyter. Certainly nothing could be found wanting in him to prevent his being promoted to holy orders. I forbear to speak of holiness of life; but some things are to be recalled about his learning. That the blessed man far excelled blessed Antony in the study of letters is a certain thing. The latter was indeed not altogether unlettered, as some would have it whom Henschen chastises Acta SS., vol. II of January, page 118.; he knew, namely, the Egyptian tongue and wrote in it several letters to monks, most full of spiritual doctrine; but he seems to have known nothing besides of the human sciences. Blessed Hilarion, on the contrary, spoke the Syriac tongue, which seems to have been his mother tongue; he had learned Egyptian at Alexandria and certainly used it with St. Antony, to whom he also sent letters written in Coptic. He had been sent to the same place by his parents to be taught Greek; but he seems to have been ignorant of Latin, since, as is narrated at number 28 of the Life, he was taken into Dalmatia because his speech would be unknown there. His study of Sacred Scripture, which St. Jerome at number 10 says he sometimes interpreted to his disciples; his intercourse with the champions of the faith, and his labours in converting unbelievers, we have indicated where the matter required; so that it cannot be doubted that he was most copiously furnished with that learning which is necessary for a presbyter. Nor did his monastic profession prevent his becoming a presbyter. For several have shown that in that age some monks had already been initiated into holy orders and had gone on devoting themselves to ascetic practice in the desert; and even that some abbots were of that number. Finally, in the Life of St. Epiphanius, number XI Surius, Lives of the Saints, May, page 153, edition of 1618., it is read that the great Hilarion, by which expression ours is without doubt designated, received the degree of the presbyterate, and similar things. But although these things are so, I should not dare to assert that blessed Hilarion was ever advanced to any orders, since Sozomen and St. Jerome, who had his deeds well examined, would certainly have signified it in some way: which argument, although it is negative, is nevertheless worth more than the Life of St. Epiphanius, which, as we said at the beginning, teems with so many blemishes that no prudent man can gather anything from it.

§ XI. Whether he was the first to cultivate the monastic life in Syria.

St. Jerome asserts that before St. Hilarion no monk was known in Syria. Now, however, we must come to a most vexed question, which the following words of blessed Jerome, number 8, raised long ago: "For not yet at that time" (namely about the year 528, when blessed Hilarion began to admit disciples) "were there monasteries in Palestine, nor had anyone known a monk in Syria before. He was the founder and teacher of this way of life and pursuit in this province. The Lord Jesus had in Egypt the old man Antony, he had in Palestine the younger Hilarion." On which words it must first be noted that to blessed Jerome, no otherwise than to Flavius Josephus Antiquities, book X, chapter 7; On the War, book V, chapter 14., Ammianus Marcellinus History, book XIV, chapter 26. and others, Palestine is held part of Syria, because it had long obeyed the kings of Syria; next, that since in other books the most holy doctor distinguishes Syria from Assyria, it is not to be thought that in this place he agrees with Pliny Natural History, book V, chapter 13. and some others who almost confuse the two; nor yet that he takes Syria so properly as to separate from it Judaea, Phoenicia and Palestine (as some have done): for he plainly counts Palestine as part of it (as we were just now noting): but that he comes over to Strabo and Ptolemy, who bound Syria on the north by Cilicia and the Amanus, on the east by the Euphrates and the Scenite Arabs, and on the south by the other Arabia and Egypt [Compare Cellarius, Geographia antiqua, book III, chapter 12, number 4, vol. II, page 337.]. And in this space, on the authority of blessed Jerome, no monk had been known before blessed Hilarion.

[78] By monk St. Jerome understands a dweller in the desert. But truly, as we have quite often said already, the acceptation of the word monk is manifold, not only today but also in the age of blessed Jerome. He himself, writing to Eustochium, says Letter XXII, chapter 34, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXII, col. 419.: "There are in Egypt three kinds of monks. One, the coenobites, whom they call Sauses in the native tongue, we can call those living in common. The second, the anachorites, who dwell alone through the deserts; and they are so named from the fact that they have withdrawn far from men. The third kind is that which they call Remoboth, the worst and neglected, and which in our province is either the only or the first. These live together in twos or threes, not many more, living at their own will and in their own power: and of what they have laboured they bring portions into the common stock, so that they may have common food. And they dwell for the most part in cities and forts." Thus blessed Jerome in the year 384 Compare Acta SS., vol. VIII of September, page 469., about six years before he wrote the life of blessed Hilarion. Further, the holy doctor reckons blessed Hilarion in the second class, since he compares him with St. Antony, of whom in the Life of St. Paul he had written in the year 375 Ibid., pages 445, 446 and 672. In Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXIII, col. 17 and 18.: "It has often been doubted among many by which of the monks especially the desert began to be inhabited. For some, going back further, have taken the beginning from Elijah and John; of whom Elijah seems to us to have been more than a monk, and John to have begun to prophesy before he was born. But others, in which opinion the whole common people agrees, assert that Antony was the head of this way of life, which is partly true: for he was not so much himself before all, as that by him the zeal of all was stirred up. But Amathas and Macarius, disciples of Antony, of whom the former buried the body of his master, even now affirm that a certain Paul of Thebes was the originator of this thing, though not of the name: which opinion we also approve."

[79] As, then, blessed Jerome did not ask concerning Antony whether he was the first in Egypt to embrace the religious state, [There were, on the testimony of St. Athanasius, monasteries in Egypt before St. Antony,] so also he did not raise the question whether blessed Hilarion was the first in Syria to take up this condition of life; but in both cases he was concerned whether anyone before them had gone to the desert, whether in Egypt or in Syria, and had led there the eremitical or anachoretic life. Nor could there be doubt about anything else at all. For from the very Life of St. Antony, which the blessed man cites in the Prologue to the Life of St. Paul, it was manifest that already before Antony there had been religious, to whom the name of monk also attached: but that these had not hidden themselves in the desert. For in it St. Athanasius, himself a disciple of St. Antony, narrates that the blessed youth, about the twentieth year of his age, that is, in the year of Christ 270, moved by the example of the apostles and of the first faithful of the church of Jerusalem, and by the words of the Gospel which perhaps he had heard in church, stripped himself of his ancestral possessions, and, when he had commended his sister to known and faithful virgins and had handed her over to a house of virgins to be brought up, began to give himself to ascetic practice not far from his home. "For not yet," he says Works of St. Athanasius, vol. I, pages 795 and 796., "were monasteries so frequent in Egypt, nor did any monk at all know the vast desert; but whoever wished to be free for himself exercised himself in solitude not far from his own village."

[80] but not in the desert: St. Antony is held their author, Then he relates with what zeal the holy youth went round the ascetic dwellings of the elders, with what effort he tried to learn all the virtues from them and to emulate them in good, how all loved him tenderly, some as a son, others as a brother Ibid., pages 796, 797 and 798.. He then narrates that Antony, having already many times vanquished the evil demon, withdrew into a tomb more remote from his village; by which withdrawal fear was struck into the infernal enemy lest he should shortly fill the desert with ascetic practice; thereafter, about the year 285, that he went on into the mountain and there found a deserted fort; in which, when he had practised asceticism for nearly twenty years and many desired to imitate his ascetic practice, he persuaded many to choose the solitary life; "and so at length monasteries were made even in the mountains, and the desert was inhabited by monks who, having left their goods, gave their names to the heavenly institution." Before Antony, then, there were already many who followed the same norm of life as he himself embraced. This one difference separated them, that Antony had made for the desert, while they exercised themselves in solitude not far from their village.

[81] [although he seems able to be held its author only on this ground, that he left after him heirs of his institute.] Nor are these things established only from St. Athanasius, but from countless other documents; and so, if it is not certain, it is at least most probable that already from the very age of the apostles there existed religious in the true sense of the name, who were designated sometimes ascetics, sometimes monks, sometimes philosophers or by other names: which argument my colleague of good memory, Father Antoine Tinnebroek, illustrated with manifold erudition in the Historical and canonical examination of the book of Marian Verhoeven on the rights and offices of regular and secular clerics; in which he at the same time showed that through the three successive centuries before St. Antony that kind of men and women always existed. Another colleague of mine then retraced his footsteps in the commentary on St. Barsabias and Companions Acta SS., vol. VIII of October, page 842 and following.; in which he thought he should proceed further also, especially where, resting not on vain conjectures but on most certain arguments, he observed that to St. Antony the beginning of leading the ascetic life in the desert, and to St. Pachomius that of leading the same life in coenobia, had perhaps been ascribed for no other reason than that they left after them heirs and propagators of their institute; while the memory of others, who are known to have practised asceticism long before them, whether in deserts or in coenobia, has perished Acta SS., vol. VIII of October, page 844, numbers 25 and following.. And I certainly should not dare any longer to go over to the opinion of Papebroch Ibid., vol. III of May, page 296., who, when he read at the end of the contemporary Life of blessed Fronto, who withdrew with seventy companions into the desert of Nitria and there led the anachoretic life until death, these very words Ibid., vol. II of April, page 203.: "These things were done under the emperor Antoninus, in the thirteenth year of his reign," that is, the year 150 or 175 or even 192, wished this clause to be removed; and, to confess openly what I think, the statements of blessed Athanasius (who, moreover, is established from St. Jerome himself to have erred in this matter) and of St. Jerome himself seem to me to have no other force than that of a merely negative argument: namely, that to blessed Athanasius no other anachorite in Egypt more ancient than St. Antony was known, nor to St. Jerome any other in Palestine than St. Hilarion. But an argument whose whole power is placed in ignorance of things is very weak and feeble, when it is a question of men who loved to be hidden and unknown and lived in the most remote places, and certainly, where positive monuments are brought forward, all its force and authority vanishes.

[82] [Sozomen by no means judges that St. Hilarion was the initiator of the anachoretic life among the Syrians.] And indeed Sozomen, who had the deeds of blessed Hilarion well known, although at the beginning of the same deeds he wrote Ecclesiastical History, book III, chapter 14, page 519.: "Of the monks of Egypt let it suffice to have said these things for the present; but Palestine too had at that time similarly begun to philosophize, instructed by the Egyptians. There flourished in it at that time the divine Hilarion"; although, I say, he committed these things to writing, elsewhere nevertheless he does not hesitate to deny him the beginnings of the eremitical life in Syria and to place them among the praises of Aones or Eugenius: "Now this Aones," he says Ibid., book VI, chapter 33, page 691., "they say was the first among the Syrians, just as Antony among the Egyptians, to be the author of the solitary and stricter philosophy"; by which words, however, he does not seem to wish that Aones was the first to go to the deserts of Syria (which he extends as far as Nisibis, the abode of Aones), but rather (as he discourses elsewhere of St. Antony) that "by his manners and most useful exercises he brought this kind of life to the highest diligence and perfection, whether the Egyptians or whoever others were the originators and authors of this philosophy" Ibid., book I, chapter 14, page 420.; for immediately before he wrote these things of Antony he had reported that the beginnings were to be traced back to the Therapeutae of Alexandria: "Whence I conjecture," he had said Ibid., book I, chapter 12, page 419., "that this philosophy among

the Egyptians flourished from that time; but others affirm that the persecutions which befell the Church at various times from time to time furnished the occasion for this philosophy. For since the fleeing Christians stayed in mountains, solitudes and forests, they gradually became accustomed to this manner of living."

[83] [Cassian not absurdly believed that this institute is to be referred to the apostolic age.] Far be it, then, that we should make light of the words of blessed Cassian in the preface to the books on the institutes of the coenobia, in which, as he refers the origin of the monasteries of Egypt, so also that of Palestine, to the age of the apostolic preaching: "We have seen," he says Works of Cassian, page 3., "the rule of the monasteries anciently founded throughout Egypt or Palestine, … the institutes in which monasteries founded from the beginning of the apostolic preaching by holy and spiritual fathers have lasted down to us." Wherefore, as Stilting allowed Acta SS., vol. VII of September, page 611., so also I allow that St. Chariton, about whom there was much disputation in the Carmelite controversy, be made an anachorite in Syria more ancient than St. Hilarion; for this one praise we think must be kept for St. Hilarion, that his holiness and discipline were so celebrated that before the fame of his asceticism the institutes of all others were held almost of no account and his religious school seemed to some a new thing and hitherto unseen in Palestine. To explain which by some comparison, if you ask even a learned man who was the author of the Mendicants, he will without doubt designate Francis of Assisi: whereas it is established that that kind of life was taken up much earlier by blessed Hermeland and his followers in the territory of Milan, and afterwards by many clerics and laymen among the Poor Men of Lyon; part of whom, in the pontificate of Innocent III, returned to ecclesiastical unity. Not otherwise was it formerly judged of blessed Hilarion: he was held the author of the anachoretic life in Palestine because he had wonderfully cultivated it there and had trained most holy disciples.

§ XII. The later fortunes of the monasteries of St. Hilarion.

The fortunes of the monasteries of St. Hilarion after his death. How long his institutes persevered, however, I for my part am not able to say. At the end of book V on the Buildings Procopius Works, vol. III, pages 327 and 328; Byzantine edition, Bonn. mentions some monasteries which the emperor Justinian had restored; but whether among them there is one which has anything in common with our blessed patriarch I am altogether ignorant; it is probable, however. I have already said that in the Itinerary of Antoninus Martyr or of Piacenza, which Papebroch treated so badly Acta SS., vol. II of May, page XIV., the state of Palestine is represented as it was before the irruption of the followers of Mahomet; and that one or another monastery is recounted there which owes its origins to St. Hilarion I scarcely, or not even scarcely, doubt. Certainly in every age the Saracens and men of like kind were most hostile to the anachorites dwelling in the deserts of Syria, Palestine, Arabia and Egypt; especially after the Roman empire began more and more to decline at the beginning of the fifth century; but in order that the hermits might have a refuge against their savage incursions, Justinian added fortresses to monasteries in some places; whose ruins still survive. Further, among these is most probably to be reckoned the fort of St. George, which Procopius indeed does not mention, but of which Antoninus Martyr, or whoever wrote his Itinerary, made mention: "Setting out from Eulatia," he says Ibid., page XIV, number 35., "we entered the desert at the twentieth milestone, in which there is a fort, where there is a hostel of St. George, in which those passing through or hermits have a refuge or provisions." And since the disciples of blessed Hilarion seem to have spread themselves chiefly in that part, there is scarcely any doubt that those hermits continued his ascetic school.

[85] [It is falsely reported that St. Jerome said that discipline collapsed among them immediately after his death.] How long, however, regular discipline was held in honour among them must be inquired, chiefly on this ground, that it might seem to have collapsed immediately after the death of blessed Hilarion. Blessed Jerome, namely, writing to Eustochium of the three kinds of monks which are in Egypt, the coenobites, the anachorites and the remoboth, censures this third order in these words, which I remember having cited elsewhere: "The third kind," he says Letter XXII, number 34, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXII, col. 419., "is that which they call Remoboth, the worst and neglected, and which in OUR province is either the first or the only one"; and he then goes on to describe their affected and little religious manners. Further, since elsewhere blessed Jerome makes St. Hilarion the initiator of the monastic life in Syria and Palestine, everyone sees that these reproaches fall upon his disciples if by the words "our province" Syria is designated. And indeed so learned men have commonly understood it, as Vallarsi attested, himself thinking on the contrary that Pannonia or Italy is rather signified Letter XXII, number 34, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXII, col. 419, note a.. And indeed not altogether wrongly. For when the most holy doctor wrote this letter, he was not living in Syria and so could not call it "our province" by title of residence; but he was placed at Rome, as he himself is witness writing to Nepotian Letter LII, number 17, ibid., col. 539., and Rufinus agrees in book II of the Invectives, number 5 Compare Acta SS., vol. VIII of September, page 470.; and so he wrote these things in the year 384, when Eustochium too was living at Rome, intending to set out for Bethlehem with her mother only in the following year Ibid., vol. VII of September, page 632 and following.. And there is no doubt that Jerome means Italy, and not Dalmatia; for although he had Catholic parents, he had nevertheless not yet been initiated into the Christian mysteries when, "still a boy and a young lad," as he himself says, he was sent to Rome for the sake of liberal studies Ibid., page 433., and could accordingly have known nothing certain about Christian affairs in Pannonia, nor did he ever discourse of them elsewhere. On the other hand, how ecclesiastical affairs were ordered in Italy he had well ascertained, and he touched on them very often. But what is chief, Jerome himself indicates that he wrote of the Italians. For in the letter which I was just now praising, to Nepotian, where at the end he mentions the angers which the little book on Virginity, or the letter to Eustochium, had stirred up: "Whom I beseech," he says, "to be quiet and cease to speak evil: for we have not written as to adversaries, but as to friends; nor have we inveighed against those who sin, but warned them not to sin." But nothing is more probable than that this commendation of quiet and exhortation to cease from evil-speaking was made to the Italians; since there, at Rome above all, as the course of Rufinus's speech [Invectives or Apology, book II, number 5, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXI, col. 587.] seems to indicate, scandals arose from that little book.

[86] It is established from St. Basil For the rest, from other contemporary writers, not less than Jerome in authority, it is abundantly established that at that time the monks of Palestine excelled with wonderful praises. Hear St. Basil in the letter which he gave in the year 375 to Eustathius of Sebaste: "I found many," he says Letter CCXXIII, otherwise LXXIX, number 2, Works, vol. III, page 337., "at Alexandria, many also in the rest of Egypt: and others in Palestine and Coelesyria and Mesopotamia: whose abstinence in food I admired, I admired their endurance in labours, I was amazed at their constancy in prayers, how they overcame sleep, broken by no natural necessity: how, keeping always a lofty and unsubdued spirit, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, never turned toward the body, nor willing to spend any care upon it, but living as in another's flesh, they showed in very deed what it is to be a pilgrim in this life and what it is to have citizenship in heaven. When I wondered at these things and thought the life of these men blessed, because they showed by deeds that they carried about the mortification of Jesus in their body, I too wished, as far as I could attain, to be an imitator of those men."

[87] and from Sozomen, that it flourished long after it. These things indeed St. Basil saw and admired in the year 357 [Compare chapter III, number 4, of the Life of St. Basil prefixed to vol. III of the Works, page XLV.]; but in the year 375 he intimated to the clergy of Neocaesarea Letter CCVII, otherwise LXIII, number 2, Works, vol. III, page 310. that he judged that the same virtue had not yet ceased in Palestine. Nor without reason; since Sozomen writes of that age Ecclesiastical History, book VI, chapter 52, page 689.: "But Palestine too was flourishing with dwellings of monks. For most of those whom I enumerated above in the deeds of Constantius, still surviving, cultivated this discipline with the highest praise. And others, instructed by intercourse and conversation with them, came to the highest summit of virtue and, to the heaping up of greater glory, were joined to the monasteries placed there. Of whose number was Hesychas, the companion of Hilarion; and Epiphanius, who was afterwards bishop at Salamis in Cyprus; who … before he came to Cyprus, still remained in Palestine in the reign of Valens Augustus. At which time indeed the brothers Salamanes, Phuscon, Malchion and Crispion became illustrious in those monasteries. They lived near Bethelea, which is a village in the territory of the Gazaeans. For they were sprung of a noble family among them. They had had Hilarion as master of this discipline. When they were once returning home together from him, they relate that Malchion was snatched away and vanished from sight, and suddenly appeared again taking the same road with the rest, and not long after departed from life; still indeed a young man, yet inferior in integrity of life and love of the divine power to none of those who had grown old in the monastic philosophy." He then pursues the praises of Ammonius, who made illustrious his native village of Chapharcobra near Gaza; of Silvanus, sprung from Palestine, who after the death of Valens established by the torrent of Gerar a very great and most noble monastery of very many good men living together; over which monastery the admirable Zacharias presided after him. Afterwards Sozomen turns aside to the monks of other parts of Syria; but what we have brought forward seems sufficient for it to appear that monastic discipline did not collapse immediately after the death of St. Hilarion, and that the reproving words of blessed Jerome are not directed at his disciples. For the rest, if anyone wishes more about the monastic discipline in Palestine under the mastership of SS. Hilarion, Epiphanius, Silvanus, Jerome, Paula, Euthymius, Sabas, John the Silentiary and Theodosius the coenobiarch, let him go to Bivar On the ancient monachate, book IV, vol. II, page 1 and following., who has gathered very many things about their affairs and institutes.

§ XIII. On the sacred Relics of St. Hilarion.

[St. Hesychius translates the body of blessed Hilarion from Cyprus into Palestine.] Since blessed Hilarion flourished with such a fame of holiness, as soon as he had passed to a better life, that news was spread in every direction. And when it reached his Palestinian disciples, whom living

they had longed for, they longed for no less when dead. St. Hesychius therefore came to Cyprus, pretending that he wished to live in his master's garden, but in reality seizing the opportunity of stealing the corpse. After ten months of waiting he did it at last at the peril of his life, and carried the sacred limbs by ship to Maiuma. From here, with whole crowds of monks and townspeople following, he carried them to the left of the shore, by which one goes from Maiuma to Egypt, at the seventh milestone into the solitude, and laid them in the old monastery, the tunic, cowl and little cloak unharmed and the whole body entire as if he were still alive, and fragrant with such odours that you would think it anointed with unguents. To which Jerome, from whom we have taken the foregoing, adds: "You may see to this very day a wonderful contention between the Palestinians and the Cypriots, the former contending that they have the body of Hilarion, the latter the spirit. And yet in both places great signs are done daily, but more in the little garden of Cyprus, perhaps because he loved that place more."

[89] Thence, in the reign of Charlemagne, When Antoninus of Piacenza, or whoever else made the Itinerary which, as we have said more than once, Papebroch so badly carped at, the body of St. Hilarion was still resting in that solitude. "From Mazona" (Maiuma), he says Acta SS., vol. II of May, page XIV., "we came to Gaza, a mile… From there at the second mile St. Hilarion rests." He calls leagues miles, so that where he writes a mile, nearly three miles are to be understood. How long, however, the body of the blessed man remained there afterwards is difficult to say, unless you give credence to the traditions of Duravel, by which it is established that the bodies of blessed Hilarion, Agatho and Piamon, or rather Poemen, were carried in the reign of Charlemagne into the territory of Cahors and indeed into the town of Duravel. Master Jean de Vidal, Doctor of both Laws and advocate in the Parlement, pursued that argument in a special little book, now very rare [Traicté des reliques et vies des saincts Hilarion, Agaton et Piamon abbés et anachorètes d'Orient, contenant l'histoire de leurs hauts-faits et les œuvres de la translation de leurs reliques en France dans la ville de Duravel en Quercy: ensemble un recueil des merveilles arrivées à leur tombeau et des graces et indulgences accordées par les papes à ceux qui les visitent avec plusieurs autres choses très mémorables. Le tout tiré des chartres, titres, histoires anciennes, mémoires, manuscrits, traditions, enquestes et autres preuves très authentiques. Par Maistre Jean de Vidal, docteur ès droicts et avocat en Parlement. A Caors, par Pierre Dalvy, imprimeur du roi, 1664.]: we shall set a synopsis before the reader's eyes, altogether omitting the first four little chapters, which are about the life of blessed Hilarion.

[90] [at which time other relics are said to have been carried from the East into the Gauls,] In the fifth chapter, then, he tries to make it probable that the relics of those blessed men were carried over from the East into the Gauls. To which end he observes that the old Franks were most eager to obtain relics; that St. Germanus of Paris went to Palestine and Constantinople to seek out relics [Aimoin, On the Deeds of the Franks, book III, chapter 9, in Dom Bouquet, Recueil des historiens de la France, vol. III, page 69, note a.]; that for the same reason an embassy was sent by St. Radegund to Jerusalem and through the whole East [Gregory of Tours, On the Glory of the Martyrs, book I, chapter 5, in Dom Bouquet, vol. I, page 465.]; that the church of Figeac is reported in Guillaume de La Croix Series et acta episcoporum Cadurcensium, pages 60 and 61. to have been enriched by King Pippin with relics from overseas; that Charlemagne also took care that relics should be brought to him from the East [Annals of Einhard on Charlemagne at the years 799 and 800, in Dom Bouquet, vol. V, pages 214 and 215; and others passim.], especially after a certain monk had come to him from Jerusalem bringing many relics on the part of the patriarch of Jerusalem Annals of the Franks of Metz at the year 799, in Dom Bouquet, vol. V, page 349.; further, that these relics were distributed by Charlemagne to very many churches of Gaul, and that thus the shift of the Blessed Virgin Mary is said to have been granted to the church of Chartres, the arm of St. Simeon the old man to that of Paris, several bodies of apostles to that of Toulouse, and others to others; that nothing prevents the bodies of SS. Hilarion, Agatho and Poemen from having been carried over in that age from the East into Gaul and given by Charlemagne to the church of Duravel, especially since he had a villa at Cassinogilum (Chasseneuil); which, being situated in the diocese of Ecolisma (Angoulême), was not very far distant from the district of Cahors (yet the very broad district of Périgord lay between), and in which he celebrated Easter in the year 778 Compare Dom Bouquet, Recueil, vol. V, chronological index, page LIV.. And all these things indeed are true, and not to be altogether neglected, since from them at least it follows that the tradition of Duravel is not absurd. But that the three bodies of the blessed monks were in fact carried over to Duravel does not at all follow from this, and it would remain to be confirmed by altogether other proofs.

[91] [they are said to have been carried to Moissac in the territory of Cahors and to the neighbouring Duravel] Now contemporary monuments are entirely lacking, nor do other nearly contemporary ones seem to lie hidden anywhere. Wherefore those who are persuaded that in the Middle Ages the piety of the faithful was often deluded by wandering impostors, and that accordingly it was not in vain commended to bishops not to allow new relics to be exposed to public veneration without accurate examination, will certainly hesitate somewhat whether they should admit that the bodies of the three saints were really translated from the East into the territory of Cahors. Meanwhile it will be helpful to have narrated in what way these sacred pledges are said to have come to Duravel. From Marc-Antoine Dominici, whose book on the Sudarium of the head of Christ was printed at Cahors in the year 1640, Vidal brings forward this: "As blessed Namphasius chose the district of Cahors and, having put off mortality, distinguished us with his remains; so it is probable that Charlemagne, mindful of the monasteries founded by him, honoured them with various relics, and granted to the principal church of the Cadurci, to which without doubt he had granted something, since the wars of his father Pippin had laid it waste, the Sudarium of the head of Christ, as the head of the rest. And that in his own times the district of Cahors was endowed with sacred pledges an old charter of the abbey of Moissac testifies. For it contains that two monks of that abbey went to Palestine, on the recommendation of Charlemagne, for the sake of acquiring relics, and found three entire bodies of saints, namely of Poemen, Agatho and Hilarion, which, brought into the Cadurci, they deposited at the place of Durivelleris: because, since the abbey of Moissac was of a thousand monks and not capable of so great a multitude, they wished to build a house there which the overflowing monks might inhabit, and to make it more noble with relics. There still remain traces of the old building, and the bodies, almost entire, laid in a stone sarcophagus, are set forth to be seen, the lid being removed, at every return of the fifth year. We call this place Duravel; Froissart, corruptly, Durmel, when he mentions it besieged by the English. Nor do I wonder that those monks, on the recommendation of Charlemagne, sought out Sacred Relics in Palestine: for we read that John, patriarch of Jerusalem, sent to him by Zacharias the presbyter, attended by two monks (one from the Mount of Olives, the other from the monastery of Saba), for the sake of blessing, the keys of the Lord's sepulchre and of the place of Calvary, the keys also of the city and of the Mount of Olives, with a banner. The Chronicle of Hermann the Lame adds (relics from the sepulchre of the Lord) at the year 800, as though he were asking so great a prince to be his defender. Hence also it becomes plain that he could have received many from the East."

[92] as they would have it established from the monuments of Moissac, But truly, would that the charter of Moissac which is praised were extant! But when Dominici, by order of the bishop of Cahors, as Vidal reports, and at the request of the people of Duravel, had searched the archive of Moissac, he did not find this charter at all. Yet his inquiry was not altogether useless. For he found two catalogues of relics, both of which are indeed said to be ancient, although the former is certainly more recent than the twelfth century, since it is written in a mixed idiom, namely partly Latin, partly of Cahors: and this one has, among the relics which King Charles gave to the monastery of Moissac, pledges of the saints Hilarion, Agatho and Poemen; the other barely recounts the relics, omitting their origin, and reports this of our saints: "Item, of St. Hilarion, Gato and Piamarchus or Piamanhus." He found also in the same archive two ancient monastic breviaries, in which there are twelve lessons on St. Hilarion: certainly a manifest sign of a more solemn cult. But since breviaries are much later than the age of Charlemagne, and those which were written in the twelfth century now survive very rarely, it is by no means credible that great antiquity belongs to those of Moissac. Which must also be judged of other breviaries of Moissac, in which blessed Hilarion is ordered to be venerated with a double rite; and also of that in which the letter B is prefixed to the name of the blessed hermit, which was prefixed only to those saints who had followed the Benedictine rule or whose relics the monks of Moissac had; and also of the ancient calendar of Moissac, in which the deposition "of our blessed father Hilarion" is noted; by which indeed it becomes manifest that the notion had long since settled in the minds of the monks of Moissac that the body of blessed Hilarion had at some time been carried to them, and translated from here to Duravel; which persuasion also remained when in the year 1626, the monastery having been secularized by Urban VIII, the monks were changed into canons, since they continued to celebrate the feast of St. Hilarion with a double rite. But that contemporary or nearly contemporary testimonies exist, which alone we are now seeking, can by no means be gathered from this.

[93] those of Duravel At Duravel one may not stand on any firmer footing. In very truth, in the seventeenth century there were still seen there parts of windows in which were the images of the three saints, with the name of each written beside in letters which the common people wrongly call Gothic. Moreover on the first bell these words were engraved, or rather cast: L'an MCCLXXII Fouguet facho la present campane en lou monstre de Duravel de S. Hilarion a l'honeur de Dieu et de S. Hilarion [In the year 1272 Fouguet made the present bell in the minster of Duravel of St. Hilarion, to the honour of God and of St. Hilarion]; and on the second this other: Jesus. Maria. Saint Hilarion de Duravel MCCLII Jesus. Mary. St. Hilarion of Duravel, 1252; and on the third finally: Jesus. Maria. Saint Hilarion de Duravel MCCLI et lou X de may Jesus. Mary. St. Hilarion of Duravel, 1251, and the 10th of May: with an image of the Crucified and of Mary holding her little son set beside. Moreover Duravel had a confraternity of St. Hilarion, as is established from a record of which this is the beginning: L'an 1518 souret fach que lous oubriés (that is, the presidents) de la confrario de S. Hilarion de Duravel fognerou leurs elections et rederou lour compte etc. [In the year 1518 it was done that the workers of the confraternity of St. Hilarion of Duravel made their elections and rendered their account, etc.] And by these things it is again established that the cult of blessed Hilarion at Duravel was ancient, and splendid; but who does not see that other testimonies are rightly demanded concerning the bodies of the three saints translated from the East?

[94] and those of Cahors Nor can more certain arguments be drawn from the liturgical books of Cahors. There is indeed praised an ancient

Calendar and Proper of the saints of Cahors, in which the feast of blessed Hilarion and his companions is appointed. The Calendar has: "21st of October. Of Hilarion, abbot, semidouble, and commemoration of his companions the saints Agato and Poemon, confessors": where it is to be noted that the word "semidouble," inscribed in calendars, is a sign of a more recent age; which could also have been observed above about the double rite. But in the Proper there is read: "On the 21st day of October, of St. Hilarion, abbot. Prayer: May the intercession, we beseech, etc., and all the rest as in the Breviary; and for the commemoration of his companions the saints Agatho and Poemen, confessors, prayer: Be present, O Lord, to our supplications which we bring on the solemnity of thy blessed confessors Agato and Poemon, that we who of our own righteousness, etc., as on the feast of St. Augustine." Moreover in the seventeenth century, as Vidal observes, a feast was kept of Saints Hilarion, Agatho and Poemen; which was used only of those saints who had lived in the diocese of Cahors, were titular patrons of churches, or whose relics were preserved there, as the very title of the Calendar indicates, namely: "Calendar of Cahors, that is, of the saints who are held as patrons or also give their title to certain churches, chapels and oratories of the same diocese." And from this, and from the word "companions" of blessed Hilarion, with which Saints Agatho and Poemen are endowed, although they lived separated in place and time, and could have had nothing in common besides the translation, Vidal at length concludes that this translation was in fact made.

[95] [From these the ancient cult is certainly established, but the translation less certainly.] What do we say to these things? Shall we affirm that there is no force in these arguments? By no means: it is altogether certain to us that the tradition of the three holy bodies preserved at Duravel has now lasted several centuries; that it may altogether be that its origin is genuine; that the narration of their having been translated to Duravel in the age of Charlemagne by some monks of Moissac is probable, since in the charter by which, in the year of the Lord's incarnation 783, the second of the lord Louis's reign over the Franks (the Aquitanians), Angarius or Awarnus, bishop of Cahors, conferred a notable gift on the abbey of Moissac, it is read that there the venerable man Hermenninus the abbot served God WITH A VERY GREAT CONGREGATION OF MONKS [Gallia Christiana, vol. I, instrumenta, page 36; compare the text, ibid., col. 123.]; so that it could easily have sent out a colony furnished with relics of saints: to which is added that traces of the old monastery survived in the seventeenth century, as has already been understood from Dominici and Vidal; and indeed that it is manifest from the architectural style that the parish church is very ancient [L'Univers Pittoresque, France, Dictionnaire encyclopédique, by Ph. Le Bas, vol. VI, page 829.]. We confess, therefore, that the opinion of the people of Duravel and Moissac is venerable, that the inhabitants of the territory of Cahors may with good right continue to hold Saints Hilarion, Agatho and Poemen in the place of patrons, and that they are by no means compelled to omit the cult of their relics, since they are in lawful possession; but nevertheless that it by no means follows from this that the translation of which we are treating is historically certain. From a manuscript little book of Armand Gerard, canon of Sarlat, given in the year 1664 to our Godfrey Henschen, we know that at that time there was a question of approving the three bodies; but that the bishop of Cahors was not sufficiently satisfied that they were genuine. I may add that treatment was given in our work to St. Poemen at the 27th of August; but that St. Agatho was passed over at the 13th of September, because he seemed to our predecessors not to have had a legitimate cult: but wrongly.

[96] Relics in other places. We know moreover that formerly the three bodies of the Saints were publicly exposed every three years, and that a very great multitude flocked to this celebration. That the same bodies are still exposed every three years the celebrated Philippe Le Bas teaches Ibid., loc. cit., provided he was not content to bring some old description of Duravel into his book. In many other places too one may find here and there that some particles of the body of blessed Hilarion have been preserved; but it does not seem worth the trouble to indicate all these more explicitly. Let us be content with a few. From the mouth of the most blessed father Ignatius Samhiri, patriarch of Antioch of the Syriac rite, while he was living for some time in the year 1855 in our college at Brussels, I heard that some years ago at Alexandria, in the schismatic church of the Copts, while he himself still professed the Eutychian heresy, he had venerated some relics of St. Hilarion. Venice above all seems rich in relics of St. Hilarion. In the Benedictine monastery of St. George the Greater there was still preserved in the last century a bone of the arm of St. Hilarion, which Nicolò Michiel, while he held the dignity of counsellor on the island of Cyprus, had received from the rector of the monastery of St. Hilarion himself and had then given to the nuns of St. Catherine at Venice [Corner, Ecclesiae Venetae antiquis monumentis illustratae, decade XI, part II, page 196.]. These things are established from the following Diploma of Stefano da Navarra, abbot, which Flaminio Corner made Latin from the vulgar tongue Ibid., pages 197 and 198, and decades II and III, page 170.: "Jesus, on the 22nd day of June in the year 1548. I, Dom Stefano, abbot of the monastery of St. George the Greater of Venice, certify that I have received a relic from the arm of St. Hilarion, abbot, from the reverend mother Sister Agostina Contarini, a most worthy prioress, and from the nuns of the Lady St. Catherine of Venice, who had the aforesaid relic in deposit from the late magnificent lord Nicolò Michiel, Doctor, in the year 1518, on the 17th day of February. This relic the same magnificent Nicolò carried away from Cyprus, where he obtained it from the superior of the place of the same St. Hilarion, while he was counsellor of the kingdom of Cyprus. The aforesaid reverend nuns handed it over to me in the presence of the magnificent lord Francesco Michiel, son of the magnificent Nicolò, who was present in his own name and in that of his brothers Angelo and Alessandro. I had also the charter of receipt which the aforesaid nuns had given at that time to the above-mentioned magnificent Nicolò. And this for the greater authenticity of the relic, which, God favouring, I promise to place in the monastery of St. George the Greater with that due reverence which is fitting. In faith of which I, Dom Stefano, as above, wrote these things for their security with my own hand on the day and year stated above." To the parish church of the Holy Apostles at Venice likewise, by a similar gift, Giacomo Chiriarco, a Cypriot by birth, offered an arm of St. Hilarion the abbot, brought from the same kingdom of Cyprus, in which the most holy man completed the course of his pilgrimage. The grateful mind of the clergy toward the donor of the venerable gift was formerly attested by the sepulchral epitaph of the above-praised Giacomo, which, having been thoughtlessly removed with the old brick pavement, the piety of the chapter ordered to be carved in the new one laid with marble, so that the memory of the pious man might endure perpetually: "TO GIACOMO CHIRIARCO OF CYPRUS AND HIS DESCENDANTS, ON ACCOUNT OF THE GIFT OF THE RELIC OF ST. HILARION, THIS TOMB WAS GIVEN IN PERPETUITY FOR GRATITUDE'S SAKE, IN THE YEAR 1607." But now we must inquire into the antiquity and propagation of the blessed man's cult.

§ XIV. The antiquity of the cult of St. Hilarion. Its propagation through the Eastern patriarchates.

Shortly after his death blessed Hilarion began to be venerated; The cult of blessed Hilarion in the Church of God is most ancient, and indeed that most holy abbot is one of those confessors who, when commonly only the martyrs obtained ecclesiastical veneration, deserved to be made a sharer of the same honours. We have as witness Sozomen, who is accustomed to investigate what was peculiar to individual churches. For after he had mentioned that many sick persons and demoniacs, both in Cyprus, where blessed Hilarion was first buried, and in Palestine, whither he had been translated, had been cured at his tomb and were still being cured while he was writing, he adds Ecclesiastical History, book III, chapter 14, page 520.: "For when it befell him to die on the island of Cyprus, where he was then living, he was buried by the inhabitants and was treated by them with great honour and worship. But afterwards Hesychius, who was most celebrated among his disciples, having stolen his remains, carried them into Palestine and buried them in his own monastery. And from that time the inhabitants of this region publicly keep a feast day every year, very celebrated and splendid. For in this way the Palestinians are accustomed to honour the holy men who lived among them: for example, Aurelius of Anthedon, Alexion born at Bethagathon and Alaphion of Asalea: who, living at the same time under the reign of Constantius, cultivated the monastic philosophy piously and manfully, and by the example of their virtues greatly advanced the Christian religion in cities and villages much given to the superstition of the pagans."

[98] [yet without his seeming to be said to have been the first of the confessors to be venerated.] For my part I should not dare to assert that blessed Hilarion is altogether the first confessor (as they call them) to whom the solemn honours of the heavenly ones were publicly paid; for unless already before the middle of the fourth century honours of this kind had been paid to some most pious men who had not made their death illustrious by martyrdom, what reason would have moved St. Antony to order, as St. Jerome narrates in the Life of blessed Hilarion, number 51, that burial should be prepared for him in an unknown place? especially since the witnesses of this matter reported to St. Hilarion that the cause of the concealment according to the command of Antony had been lest Pergamius, who was very wealthy in those places, having carried off the saint's body to his villa, should build a martyrium. It will help, then, to affirm only that no one is known by name who is more ancient than St. Hilarion and to whom, although he had not been crowned with the glory of martyrdom, public cult was paid, or in whose honour a feast day, very celebrated and splendid, was publicly kept every year by the inhabitants of this region, or the people of Maiuma. Whoever wishes more about the beginnings of the cult of holy Confessors, let him go to Benedict XIV [On the Canonization of the Saints, book I, chapter 5, vol. I, page 14, Venetian edition, 1788.]; which argument Binterim also treated somewhere in his Memorabilia of the Catholic Church.

[99] His cult in the patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem, Gradually the cult of blessed Hilarion was propagated through almost the whole world. Of Syria there is no doubt. For Nicon, a Greek-Melkite monk, who after the middle of the eleventh century flourished first in the monastery of the Mother of God, then in the laura of St. Simeon on the Wonderful Mountain near Antioch Compare Mai, Scriptores veteres, vol. IV, part II, page 159., added at the end of his Typicon a Calendar, in which at the 21st of October is read Ibid., page 169. the heavenly birthday of Hilarius or Hilarion; where we note in passing that we shall quite often meet hereafter both forms of the same name. In an Arabic codex, no otherwise than in the preceding Vatican one, which was written in the year 1469 Ibid., page 59. also for the use of the Syrian Melkites, there is read at the 21st of this month Ibid., page 48.: "Commemoration of our holy father Hilarius." Jerusalem is a part of Syria; and so in its Menologium or Synaxarium, which was written in the tenth century no otherwise than the very codex of the Gospels to which it is added, and which is preserved in the National Library of Paris among the Greek codices as number 55, there is read at the 21st day of October: Του

ὁσιου πατρος ἡμων Ἱλαριωνος Scholz, On the Menologia of two Greek codices, etc., page 8.; on the other hand the Latins living at Jerusalem do not venerate blessed Hilarion with a particular cult, as is established from the Calendar of the proper feasts of the church of Jerusalem, published at Antwerp in the year 1623 with the proper offices [See Wadding, Annales Minorum, at the year 1342, number 48; vol. VII, page 278, edition of 1733.].

[100] of Alexandria, The Egyptians quite often follow the customs of the Syrians; and since blessed Hilarion had made their whole region illustrious by his virtues, there was the stronger reason for them to venerate him. Nevertheless his name is omitted in the Calendar added to an Arabic codex of the Gospels written in the year 1338 for the use of the Eutychian Copts Mai, Scriptores veteres, vol. IV, part II, pages 18 and 34.; likewise in that which Ludolf published Commentary on the Ethiopian history, page 595.. But on the other hand in the Martyrology or Synaxarium of the church of Alexandria of the Copts, divided into two volumes and composed by Michael, bishop of Atriba and Meliga in Lower Egypt, about the year 1425 Commentary on the Ethiopian history, page 93., at the 24th day of the month Babeh or Paophi, that is at the 21st of October, there is read Ibid., page 99.: "The memory of our holy father Hilarion, monk and anachorite, who foretold to St. Epiphanius the episcopate of Cyprus and whom John Chrysostom and Basil the Great praise in their exhortations." These things are drawn partly from the fabulous Life of St. Epiphanius, partly from I know not what versions of the works of SS. John and Basil which the Egyptians perhaps have among them. But although, as we have seen, the feast of St. Hilarion is absent from some Coptic Calendars, the Ethiopians nevertheless have it at the 24th day of their second month, which coincides with the 21st of October; and indeed it is put in the first place in their Calendar edited by Ludolf Ibid., page 595., which has four names at this day.

[101] of Constantinople, In the patriarchate of Constantinople the cult of St. Hilarion is ancient and celebrated. In the Calendar of Constantinople which Morcelli brought out of the library of the Albani and showed to have been written between the year 740 and the end of the eighth century Morcelli, Kalendarium Constantinopolitanum, part II, pages 230 and 244., there is read at the 21st of October Ibid., part I, page 198.: Ἐις την μνημην του ὁσιου Ἱλαριωνος. On which Morcelli observes: "Concerning his honours among the people of Constantinople I find no monument more ancient than our Calendar. Yet no one could rightly doubt that in that city, which was full of monks, the first anachorite of his time was not without a church or without an altar, he who, as Jerome says in the Life, number 14, had been the founder and teacher of this way of life and pursuit in Syria, and who had not only emulated the virtue of Antony the Egyptian, but also by the greatness and number of his prodigies had turned the whole world to admiration of him." It is surely no wonder, then, if a brief elogium of him, though in the second place, has been inserted in the Basilian Menologium Menologium Graecorum, part I, page 132., which was compiled in the declining tenth century and came to light through the cares of Cardinal Albani, an image being added according to custom; and in this indeed he is shown very old, clothed in monastic dress, with one knee bent, "rendering up his spirit to God," says Joseph Simonius Assemani Kalendaria ecclesiae universae, vol. V, page 511., or rather praying to God in the countryside and placed among three mountains not altogether bare; but in the title he is less correctly called presbyter. Nor was the cult of blessed Hilarion afterwards discontinued by the people of Constantinople. His name is marked in the Synaxarium or Calendar of Callipolis * of the tenth century, published by the cares of Scholz On the menologia of two Greek codices, page 8.; likewise in the more recent one which Génébrard prefixed to his Commentary on the Psalms; and not otherwise in the most ancient Medicean one [Bandini, Catalogue of the manuscript codices of the Medicean Laurentian Library, vol. I, page 150.]; likewise in another Medicean one Ibid., page 153., in which he is called ὁ ὁσιος πατηρ ἡμων Ἱλαριων ὁ μεγας; and these by way of specimen, since there is no doubt that from at least the eighth century the cult of St. Hilarion flourished at Constantinople; which still continues, as is established for us from the Greek Anthologion Ανθολογιον, page 74., which is a kind of Breviary, printed at Venice in the year 1719, and from the greater Menaea of the Greeks reprinted there in the year 1845. In these he is treated of chiefly at the 21st of October; and the customary distich is this: Ἐν δακρυσι πριν καὶ πονοις σπειρας κατω Ἱλαριων θεριζε νυν χαιρων ἀνω; that is: "Hilarion, who formerly made thy sowing here below amid tears and labours, now gather the harvest with joy above"; by which it is plain that allusion is made to the words of scripture: "Going they went and wept, casting their seeds; but coming they shall come with exultation, carrying their sheaves."

[102] of Moscow, Since the Muscovite church formerly belonged to the patriarchate of Constantinople, it is no wonder that the festivity of St. Hilarion was kept and is still kept in it also. This is established from both Vatican Ruthenian codices which Assemani saw Μηναιον του ὀκτωβριου, page 123 and following.; from Possevino Kalendaria Ecclesiae universae, vol. V, page 311. reciting the Ruthenian Calendar; from the Graeco-Muscovite Capponi tables, painted on Mount Athos about the year 1300 Apparatus sacer, vol. II, page 365., in which he is called Hilarion the Great Kalendaria Ecclesiae Universae, vol. I, page 311.. Similarly he appears in the Papebroch tables painted in the year 1628 and published before volume I of May of our work in the year 1680. And here Ibid., vol. V, page 214., as Assemani has already observed Acta SS., vol. I of May, page XLVIII., he is shown covered with priestly vesture, since under the monastic habit he has a stole hanging from the neck almost to the feet. Yet this is not a certain indication of the presbyterate in those tables. For the rest, it has already occurred quite often that the blessed man was held a presbyter by some Easterners. In the same tables he is represented bearing a closed volume in his left hand, and in the Capponi ones an open volume: by which perhaps it is indicated that the monastic institute was propagated by him in Palestine, Syria and the island of Cyprus Kalendaria Ecclesiae Universae, vol. V, page 311.. Nor is there doubt that from the origin of the Slavonic liturgy the cult of St. Hilarion prevailed among the Slavs. The witness, namely, is the Synaxarium or Calendar joined to the Ostromir codex of the Gospels and written in the year 1037; by which the Slavophiles have shown that St. Methodius corrected the Constantinopolitan calendars brought into Roman Pannonia according to the Romans. Further, in it at the 21st of October the memory of the holy or venerable Hilarion is indicated Ibid., loc. cit..

[103] among the Greeks living at Naples. Although the marble Calendar of Naples of the eleventh century, which Cardinal Mai published Kopitar, Glagolita Clozianus, page LXIII. and whose first nine months Lodovico Sabbatini d'Anfora illustrated with the help of our Acts Scriptores veteres, vol. V, part I, page 58 and following., the first six Mazzocchi Il vetusto calendario napoletano, in nine volumes., is carved in Latin, it was nevertheless for the use of the Greeks who lived at Naples, as the Latin Silvestrine tables of the eighth century were used at Rome by Greek monks in the monastery of St. Silvester of Monte Mario [Commentaries on the old marble calendar of the holy Neapolitan church, in three volumes.]. In these at the 11th day of May is marked the heavenly birthday of St. Ilarion the monk Compare Acta SS., vol. VIII of October, page 323., and at the 21st of October the heavenly birthday of St. Hilariu In Mai, Scriptores veteres, vol. V, part I, page 61., for the Greek Ἱλαριου. Sabbatini Ibid., page 64. judged that by the former feast the memory of a translation was celebrated Il vetusto calendario napoletano, vol. V, page 64.; and Morcelli Kalendarium Constantinopolitanum, part I, page 199., although he does not seem to have had Sabbatini's work before his eyes, disclosed the same opinion. But truly, it is here supposed that the Hilarion venerated on the 11th of May and the Hilarius of the 21st of October are the same, whereas it is much more probable that that Hilarion is to be confused with Hilarius or Hilarion the wonder-worker and monk of Pelecete, commonly celebrated Acta SS., vol. III of March, page 731 and following. on the 28th of March, but in the Basilian Menologium on the 4th of May Basilian Menologium, part III, page 84. and elsewhere on the 5th of May Acta SS., vol. II of May, page 104., and at Naples transferred to the 11th of May, because the 4th of the same month was already occupied by the cult of St. Aphrodisius. He is known also to the Armenians; and indeed a brief Life of him is inserted in volume XII of the Lives of the Saints which the learned Mechitarist Aucher published in Armenian. What cult he had in Dalmatia we have said elsewhere See above, page 49.. And so much of the cult of blessed Hilarion among those who follow the Eastern rites or in some way approach them.

* Gallipoli.

§ XV. The cult of St. Hilarion in the Roman patriarchate.

[He is likewise venerated in the Roman patriarchate, as is established from the ancient Martyrologies] In the West too the memory of blessed Hilarion has long since been celebrated and his veneration widely propagated. In the pure Hieronymian lists, however, and in almost all others, the holy man's name is omitted; likewise in the metrical Martyrology of Bede, which d'Achery published Spicilegium, vol. II, page 24.; but in the other, prose one of the same, or rather of Florus (as Sollerius would have it On Usuard, preface, page XV.), which Papebroch brought to light Acta SS., vol. II of March, page XXXV., there is read at the 21st of October: "Of our holy father Hilarion, whose Life, full of virtues, Jerome wrote." The Old Little Roman In Giorgi, Martyrology of Ado, page XXXVI. has the bare memory of St. Hilarion the monk; Ado Ibid., loc. cit. reports the words of Florus; but, not content with these, he adds a fairly long synopsis of the blessed hermit's Life from St. Jerome. Rabanus Canisius, Lectiones antiquae, vol. II, part II, page 344. and Usuard Sollerius, Martyrology of Usuard, page 615., no otherwise than Ado, have in place of "wrote" "writes" or "composed," but for the rest report the text of Florus. Notker Migne, Patrologia, vol. CXXXI, col. 1161. wrongly abridged at the preceding day the praises which he found in Ado. Wandelbert d'Achery, Spicilegium, vol. II, page 54., after praising St. Asterius, subjoins:

Him Hilarion too, good dweller of the desert, accompanies,

that is, "comitatur," or goes with him. I should not wish now to review the auctaria of the Latin martyrologies, in which the memory of St. Hilarion is indicated in various ways; likewise I pass over the fuller encomia which, excerpted from blessed Jerome, are read in Peter de Natalibus and in the Violets of the Saints

and other books of that kind at this day, so that I may come at last to the more recent martyrologies which are called Roman.

[105] and the more recent ones, In the year 1576 Francesco Maurolico, abbot of Messina, published at Venice a Martyrology according to the custom of the most holy and universal Church, in which for the first time, and not very happily, the chief place of veneration is indicated, namely in these words: "On the same day (the 21st of October), in Egypt in the Thebaid, of blessed Hilarion the abbot, who died at Paphos in Cyprus, whose Life St. Jerome wrote, and Sophronius in Greek." Two years later, namely in the year 1578, Pietro Galesini, likewise at Venice, brought to light a Martyrology of the holy Roman Church adapted for use on each day of the year, in which is read: "In Egypt, of St. Hilarion the abbot," with a brief encomium from St. Jerome. Baronius returned almost to the simplicity of Usuard, except that he added the place of death: "In Cyprus, the heavenly birthday of St. Hilarion the abbot, whose admirable life, full of virtues and miracles, St. Jerome wrote"; and this reading, which I take from the very rare edition of the year 1583, has been kept to this day in the Roman Martyrology.

[106] from the Litanies, But although the memory of St. Hilarion was so celebrated in the Latin Church, yet in few places was his festivity kept and the ecclesiastical office celebrated. For my part I could not find whether anywhere before the tenth century those honours were paid him in the West. But in this century he was already being celebrated in the monastery of St. Maximin at Trier, as is indeed established from the liturgical Calendar which is prefixed to the Psalter written under abbot Ogo about the year 954, and in which, the Cologne virgins and St. Wendelin, added by a later hand, being omitted, these words are read at the 21st of October: "Of St. Hilarian, monk"; whom, however, those monks of St. Maximin afterwards omitted, as is established for me from their Breviary which they themselves printed in the year 1600. The name of St. Hilarion is read among the names of the monks in the Gertrudian Litanies of the tenth century Althan, On the Calendars, page 215. and in the Litanies established by the holy Fathers, which Bandini found in Psalters of the eleventh century Bandini, Catalogue of the Laurentian Library, vol. I, col. 330.. I have inspected a good many other ancient litanies, collected by Mabillon, Althan and Migne; but nowhere have I seen blessed Hilarion, although other Eastern monks were quite often not lacking. But let us return to the liturgical calendars.

[107] from the liturgical Calendars, In the Calendar which was written in the twelfth century in a German Benedictine monastery, perhaps that of St. Vitus in Carinthia, and afterwards came to that of Moggio in the diocese of Aquileia, there is read at the 21st of October Althan, On the Calendars, page 148.: "At Cologne, 11,000 virgins, as of St. Agnes. Of Hylarion, martyr": where it is somewhat strange that he is called martyr. In the other Moggio one, likewise Benedictine and German in origin and written indeed at the beginning of the thirteenth century, there is found Ibid., page 170.: "Of Hilarion, martyr. 11,000 virgins, and 11." In the third, which St. Elizabeth, duchess of Thuringia, gave as a gift to the chapter of Cividale at the beginning of the thirteenth century, St. Hilarion the confessor alone is celebrated Ibid., page 186.. In that of Bologna of the beginning of the fourteenth century St. Ylarion the abbot is recounted in the first place, the 11,000 Virgins in the second Ibid., page 231., and likewise in that of Aquileia of the same age Ibid., page 250. and in the Parma-Aquileia Missal of the fifteenth century Ibid., page 374.. In the Calendar of Stavelot In Migne, Patrologia, vol. CXXXVIII, col. 1201. the deposition of St. Hilarion is likewise marked in the first place, then St. Wendelin; and in that of Verdun Ibid., col. 1207. also the festivity of St. Hilarion the monk first, then of the 11,000 Virgins; and not otherwise in that of Vallombrosa Ibid., col. 1285., even the most ancient Ibid., col. 1290.; but in a certain one on which the name of Bede is inscribed Ibid., col. 1300., at the thirteenth day before the Kalends of October St. Hylarion the hermit is written, one day in advance after the example of Notker; and finally in the liturgical Calendar which from the eleventh century was used in the lower monastery of Regensburg and afterwards became that of Muri, there is read at the 21st of October Gerbert, Monumenta veteris liturgiae alemannicae, part I, page 499.: "Of Justus (of whom treatment was given in the preceding volume). Of Hilarion the monk." It is strange that blessed Hilarion, before the introduction of the Roman Breviary, was celebrated so sparingly among the Sicilians, although he made their island illustrious by his virtues. Certainly Giovanni di Giovanni, reviewing the feasts which were formerly kept on each day in the various dioceses of Sicily, has at the 21st of October nothing else besides the following On the Sicilian offices, page 387.: "In the Orationale and Calendar of the church of Palermo there occur St. Hilarion and St. Ursula with eleven thousand virgins"; so that in the other dioceses there seems to have been no cult.

[108] from the Roman Breviaries and Missals; Now it is well enough known that the feast of blessed Hilarion is prescribed with simple rite in the Roman Missal and Breviary: but in what age was it introduced there? Certainly it is absent from all the ancient Books of the Comes, which contain the lessons and gospels to be said daily, which have become known to me. It is absent also from the Calendars which Azevedo prefixed to the Monastic Lateran Missal. It is absent likewise from the Missal according to the custom of the Roman curia, printed at Venice by the art and at the expense of Nicolaus of Frankfurt in the year of the Lord 1487. But it appears to me first in the Breviary for the use of the holy Roman Church, with many new offices added and most diligently emended, and printed at Venice in the year of salvation 1503, on the 21st day of the month of August; and indeed in the calendar is read: "Of the Eleven thousand Virgins. Not transferred. Of Hylarion the abbot"; but in the body the Cologne maidens are omitted and six lessons are indicated for the holy abbot. And in the Roman Breviary which they commonly call that of the Camera, the eleven thousand Virgins are ordered in the prefixed Calendar to be celebrated with semidouble rite and six lessons, and at the same time blessed Hilarion with nine lessons; and this in the edition of the year 1555. But in the Roman Breviary which is commonly called that of Cardinal Francisco Quiñones, and first appeared in the year 1556, to be suppressed by St. Pius V, and of which the edition of the year 1546 is at hand to me, the office of St. Hilarion is transferred to the 22nd of October and completed with a single lesson. St. Pius V kept the same feast, to be performed on the 21st of October with simple rite and with commemoration of SS. Ursula and her Companions, in the reformed Roman Breviary and Missal, as is established for me from the edition of the same Missal, by far the most splendid of all in typographical art, which Jacques Kerver brought to light at Paris in the year 1574. And from this it came about that gradually the cult of St. Hilarion was brought back again into other dioceses by right of postliminy. For since it began to arise among the Latins in the tenth century and was gradually propagated to some churches, afterwards, as the fame of SS. Ursula and her Companions grew strong, it was first put in the second place, then almost suppressed; so that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was in use in very few places (as far as may be gathered from the Breviaries and Missals of that age, which we have in sufficiently great number).

[109] The blessed man is reckoned to the Carmelite order, That blessed Hilarion is reckoned to the Carmelite order by its professed members almost anyone could easily divine; but no one who had read the work of blessed Jerome, describing so accurately the abodes and journeys of the most holy hermit, would have thought that he was an inhabitant of Mount Carmel. Yet so the matter stands [Compare Lezana, Annals of the Carmelite order, at the year 292; Daniel a Virgine Maria, Speculum Carmelitanum, vol. II, page 739.]. But although I am altogether persuaded that already in the fourth century Mount Carmel was occupied by anachorites (as seems sufficiently manifest from the antiquity of the letters or characters by which the faithful commended themselves to the prayers of the inhabitants [Compare Scholz, Reise in die Gegend zwischen Alexandrien und Parätonium, die libysche Wüste, Siwa, Egypten, Palästina und Syrien in den Jahren 1820 und 1821, page 151 and following.]), the question is by no means solved by this whether the present Carmelites are their spiritual offspring, much less is it concluded from this that St. Hilarion ever inhabited Mount Carmel and had anything in common with the Carmelites. However that may be, we have to deal here only with the cult of the most holy abbot. Further, in the thirteenth century those religious seem already to have celebrated his office. For Gilbert the Great, or the Englishman, is said about the year 1280 to have found in the Library of Cluny a copy of the Angelic Oracle (as they call it), or the letter of Cyril, third prior general of Carmel, to Joachim, abbot of Fiore in Calabria; in which Cyril narrates that in the year 1191, "when for the venerable celebration of blessed Hilarion, once our fellow-hermit," as he puts it, he had begun the solemnities of the holy masses, he received by angelic ministry two tablets foretelling the future state of the Church Daniel a Virgine Maria, Speculum Carmelitanum, vol. II, page 292..

[110] in which he has been splendidly venerated from at least the thirteenth century. For my part I have no wish at all to ask what credence that Angelic Oracle deserves, which, although several Carmelite writers have vindicated it [Compare Cosme de Villiers a S. Stephano, Bibliotheca Carmelitana, vol. I, col. 358 and following.], Papebroch nevertheless said was suspect to him [Acta SS., vol. III of May, Chronological history of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, chapter 10, number 213, page L.]; but this only is to be noted, that that Oracle existed before the end of the thirteenth century, and accordingly that at least at this time the festivity of St. Hilarion was kept by the Carmelites. And from this time (as far as may be gathered from the Carmelite Missals of the years 1509 and 1574, from the Breviaries of the years 1564 and 1573, and also from the calendar of Mechelen written in the fourteenth or fifteenth century Daniel a Virgine Maria, vol. II, page 737, and after the preface, pages IV and X) the Carmelites continued to celebrate his pious memory with an office of double rite or of nine lessons, now on the 22nd, now on the 23rd day of October, because the 21st day was occupied from the year 1339 by the feast of double rite of SS. Ursula and her companions, and the 22nd by the feast of St. Mark, the first, as they say Ibid., page X., bishop of Jerusalem from the Gentiles and martyr, under whose diocese the order of Carmelites took its beginning. But since the time when the Missal and Breviary were approved by the Roman see, they keep the feast of St. Hilarion on the 21st day, and at Prime they recite this elogium in their Martyrology, which was published after the Roman: "In Cyprus, the heavenly birthday of St. Hilarion, abbot, of the order of Carmelites, whose, etc.," as in the Roman Martyrology.

These things were already lying under the press when I learned that now at Cahors on the 21st day of October the feast of St. Ursula is kept

and her companions, with a bare commemoration of St. Hilarion.

LIFE OF ST. HILARION THE ABBOT.

By St. Jerome.

According to the editions of Surius, Rosweyde, Martianay and Vallarsi and some manuscript codices of Brussels.

Hilarion, monk and confessor, on the island of Cyprus. (S.)

BHL Number: 3879

BY ST. JEROME.

CHAPTER ONE.

Prologue. Boyhood and solitary life for twenty-two years.

Prologue. St. Epiphanius wrote a eulogy earlier. Being about to write ^a the life of blessed Hilarion, I invoke the Holy Spirit who dwelt in him, that he who bestowed virtues upon him may grant me speech to narrate them, so that the deeds may be equalled by the words. For the virtue of those who did them ^b (as Crispus says) is held to be as great as distinguished minds have been able to extol it in words. Alexander the Great, the Macedonian, whom Daniel calls either the brass ^c, or the leopard, or the he-goat of the goats, when he had come to the tomb of Achilles, said: "Happy art thou, O youth, who enjoyest a great herald of thy merits ^d," meaning Homer. Now I have to tell the conversation and life of so great and such a man that Homer too, if he were present, would either envy the material or succumb under it. For although St. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, who was very much with Hilarion, wrote his praise in a brief letter, which is commonly read ^e, yet it is one thing to praise the departed with commonplaces, another to narrate the proper virtues of the departed. Whence we too, undertaking the work begun by him in his favour rather than to his injury, despise the voices of the evil-speakers: who, having formerly disparaged my Paul, will now perhaps disparage Hilarion also, having slandered the former for his solitude, objecting to the latter his much company: so that he who was always hidden should be thought not to have existed, he who was seen by many should be esteemed cheap. Their forefathers the Pharisees once did this too, whom neither John's desert and fasting nor the crowds, food and drink of the Lord the Saviour pleased. But I will set my hand to the work determined on, and pass by the dogs of Scylla with stopped * ear.

[2] [The homeland of St. Hilarion. He is put to the school of Alexandria; he stays two months with St. Antony; he divides his substance among his brothers and the poor. He lives in solitude.] Hilarion, born in the village of Tabatha, which is situated about five miles to the south of Gaza, a city of Palestine, though he had parents given to idols, blossomed, as the saying is, a rose ^f from thorns ^g. Sent by them to Alexandria, he was handed over to a grammarian ^h, and there, as far as that age allowed, he gave great proofs of talent and character, in a short time dear to all, and skilled in the art of speaking. And what is greater than all these, believing in the Lord Jesus ⁱ, he took no delight in the frenzies of the circus, the blood of the arena, or the luxury of the theatre: but his whole will was in the congregation of the church. Hearing then the celebrated name of Antony, which was spread through all the peoples of Egypt, inflamed with eagerness to see him, he went on to the desert ^k. And as soon as he saw him, having changed his former dress, he stayed beside him about two months, contemplating the order of his life and the gravity of his manners: how frequent he was in prayer, how humble in receiving the brethren, severe in reproving, eager in exhorting, and how no infirmity ever broke his continence and the harshness of his food ^l. Further, no longer bearing the crowds of those who flocked to him for various sufferings ^m or assaults of demons, and not thinking it fitting to endure the peoples of cities in the desert, and that he must rather begin as Antony had begun: that the latter, as a brave man, was receiving the rewards of victory, while he himself had not yet begun to serve as a soldier, he returned with certain monks to his homeland: and his parents being now dead, he bestowed part of his substance on his brothers, part on the poor ⁿ, keeping absolutely nothing for himself, and fearing either the example or the punishment of Ananias and Sapphira in the Acts of the Apostles: and most mindful of the Lord saying: "He that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple." He was then fifteen years old ^o. Thus naked and armed in Christ, he entered the solitude which, at the seventh milestone from Maioma, the port of Gaza [p], turns off to the left for those going along the shore to Egypt [q]. And since the places were bloody with robberies, and his relatives and friends warned him of the imminent danger, he despised death in order to escape death. All marvelled at his spirit, marvelled at his age, except that a certain flame of the breast [r] and sparks of faith shone in his eyes. Smooth were his cheeks, his body delicate and thin, and unable to bear any hardship, since it could be afflicted by slight cold or heat.

[3] [His clothing; he is tempted by Satan; by what means the holy boy tames lust. He signs himself with the cross of Christ. The mockeries of the demons. Seeing this, the devil was tormented as to what to do.] Therefore, his limbs covered only with sackcloth, and having a leather ependytes [s], which blessed Antony had given him on his setting out, and a rustic cloak, he enjoyed a vast and terrible solitude between the sea and the marsh [t], eating only fifteen dried figs [u] after sunset: and because the region was infamous for robberies [x], he was accustomed never to live in the same place . What was the devil to do? where to turn? He who had formerly boasted, saying: "I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, and I will be like the most High," saw himself conquered by a boy, and trampled by him before he could sin by reason of age. He tickled, therefore, his senses [y], and suggested to his body, now reaching puberty, the usual fires of pleasures. The little recruit of Christ was compelled to think of what he did not know: and to turn over in his mind the pomp of a thing of which he had no experience. Angry, therefore, with himself, and beating his breast with his fists, as if he could shut out thoughts by the blows of his hand: "I," he said, "little ass [z], will make you not kick, and I will feed you not with barley but with chaff: I will wear you out with hunger and thirst, I will burden you with a heavy load, I will drive you through heats and colds, so that you may think of food rather than of wantonness." With the juice of herbs, therefore, and a few dried figs after three or four days, he sustained his failing soul, praying frequently and singing psalms and digging the ground with a hoe [aa], that the labour of work might double the labour of fasts. And at the same time, weaving little baskets [bb] of rush, he emulated the discipline of the Egyptian monks and the saying of the Apostle: "But he that worketh not, neither let him eat." So wasted, and with his body so eaten away that it scarcely clung to his bones, one night he began to hear the wailing of infants, the bleating of flocks, the lowing of oxen, the lamentation as of little women , the roaring of lions, the murmur of an army, and again portents of various voices, so that he might give way terrified by sound before sight [cc]. He understood that these were mockeries of demons: and, falling on his knees, he signed the cross of Christ on his forehead: and, armed with such a helmet and girt with the breastplate of faith, lying down he fought the more bravely, in some measure desiring to see those whom he shuddered to hear, and looking round hither and thither with anxious eyes: when meanwhile unexpectedly, the moon shining, he sees a chariot with fiery horses rushing upon him: and when he had called upon Jesus, before his eyes the whole pomp was swallowed up by a sudden gaping of the earth. Then he said: "The horse and the rider he hath thrown into the sea." And: "Some in chariots, and some in horses: but we will be magnified in the name of our God." Many are his temptations, and the various snares of demons by day and night: which, if I should wish to narrate them all, I should exceed the measure of the volume. How often did naked women appear to him as he lay down, how often most abundant feasts when he was hungry? Sometimes as he prayed a howling wolf and a yelping little fox leapt across, and as he sang psalms a fight of gladiators offered him a spectacle, and one, as if slain and falling before his feet, asked for burial. He prayed once with his head fixed to the ground, and, as the nature of men is, his mind drawn away from prayer was thinking of I know not what else: a driver [dd] leapt upon his back and, beating his sides with his heels and his neck with a whip, said: "Come on, why are you nodding?" and, cackling from above, asked whether *, if he were tired, he would like to take some barley.

[4] His little hut; his little cell; his bed; his clothes and haircloth. So from the sixteenth to the twentieth year of his age he avoided the heat and rains in a little hut which he had woven of rush and sedge [ee]. A little cell being built afterwards, which remains to this day, four feet in width, five feet in height [ff], that is, lower than his own stature, but in length a little more than his small body required, so that you would believe it a tomb rather than a house. He cut his hair once a year, on the day of Easter [gg]: he lay until his death on the bare ground and a mat of rushes: never washing the sackcloth with which he had once been clothed, and saying that it was superfluous to seek cleanliness in a haircloth. Nor did he change to another tunic until the former was entirely torn [hh]. Holding the holy Scriptures also by memory, after the prayers and psalms he recited them as if God were present [ii]. And because it is long to set out his ascent * piecemeal through different times, I shall summarize it briefly, setting forth his life before the reader's eyes all together, and afterwards I shall return to the order of the narration.

[5] Epitome of his life; his wonderful abstinence. From the twenty-first year to the twenty-seventh, for three years he ate half a sextarius of lentils soaked in cold water, and for another three dry bread with salt and water. Further, from the twenty-seventh to the thirtieth he was sustained by wild herbs and the raw roots of certain shrubs. From the thirty-first to the thirty-fifth he had for food six ounces of barley bread and vegetables lightly cooked without oil. But, feeling his eyes grow dim and his whole body break out in an eruption and contract with a certain pumice-like scurf, he added oil to his former diet, and up to the sixty-third year of his life he ran in this degree of continence, tasting absolutely nothing besides, either of fruits, or of pulse, or of anything else. Then, when he saw himself wearied in body and thought that death was near and imminent, from the sixty-fourth year again to the eightieth he abstained from bread with incredible fervour of mind, so that at that time he came as it were new to the service of the Lord, at which others are accustomed to live more laxly. There was made for him a little broth of meal and crushed vegetables: the food and drink weighing scarcely five ounces. And so, completing the order of his life, never before sunset, neither on feast days nor in the gravest illness *, did he break his fast. But now it is time that we return to the order.

[6] Sought by robbers the whole night, he despises death while still a boy. When he was still living in his little hut, being eighteen years old, robbers came to him by night, either thinking that he had something they might take away, or reckoning that it was done in contempt of them if a solitary boy did not dread their assaults. And so, running about between the sea and the marsh from evening till sunrise, they could never find the place of his bed [kk]. Further, the boy being found in broad daylight,

they said as if in jest: "What would you do if robbers came to you?" To whom he answered: "A naked man does not fear robbers." And they: "Certainly," they say, "you can be killed." "I can," he said, "I can: and therefore I do not fear robbers, because I am ready to die." Then, admiring his constancy and faith, they confessed the wandering of the night and their blinded eyes, promising a more corrected life thereafter.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Maiuma was the port or naval station of Gaza; and although they were twenty stadia apart, they were one city. Compare the Preliminary Commentary, numbers 18 and 19.

q. There was another road through the isthmus now called Suez: where the port of Aila was. Aila and Gaza were distant 1260 stadia, 157 miles. St. Jerome wishes to indicate that this solitude was situated in the angle of which one side was the road from Gaza leading to Pelusium, the other side the road leading from Gaza to Aila. The author of the Παραδεισος would have it that St. Hilarion lived in a cave in that solitude; and that it was distant from Maiuma fifty-two stadia, that is, six thousand five hundred paces.

r. Vallarsi notes that "of the breast" is generally lacking in the codices.

s. Of the leather ependytes and the other garments there was discussion in the Preliminary Commentary, number 60 and following. "Joannes Andreae," says Rosweyde on this passage, and repeats almost the same in the Onomasticon, "Joannes Andreae, the old editor of the letters of Jerome, after ependytes in the Life of Hilarion adds: and eraciestes; in place of which Ado in the Martyrology at the 21st of October has: and tenattes. Our Peter Lansselius read and eriacestes, as if wool sewn with a needle. Something else will perhaps occur to someone else." In the Παραδεισος, which in vulgar Greek closely reproduces the version of Sophronius, it is related that St. Hilarion then wore no other garments than those which he had received from St. Antony, namely χιτωνα τριχυνον καὶ ἀπανωφορι δερματινον.

t. Below, at number 7, the robbers who thought to rob him and were seeking his little hut are said to have run about between the sea and the marsh from evening till sunrise. Traces of this marsh no longer survive, at least as far as may be gathered from topographical Map 43 of the geographical Atlas added to the Description of Egypt. This marsh seems to be owed to no stream, but to a neglected well of the kind which they now call artesian. For that this kind of well was well known to the Easterners is established from what Photius related from Olympiodorus describing the Egyptian Oases. Ritter himself too in his Geography quite often refers the wells of the desert of Syria and Arabia among the artesian ones. These were formerly very frequent in the solitudes and supplied water to great cities; but the negligence of the barbarians who afterwards occupied these places allowed most of them to be filled up with sand. Since the robbers could run over this whole tract in one night, it is clear that blessed Hilarion's dwelling was situated not far from the sea.

u. Caricae are, according to Pliny, book XIII, chapter 5, of the fig kind, which he says are peculiar to Syria. Cassian, Conference VIII, chapter 1, reckons caricae among the foods of hermits. In the Life of St. Paul the hermit, chapter 5: "He was sustained by five dried figs a day."

x. In the Preliminary Commentary, number 21, we have given a description of similar robbers (for the manners of all were almost the same). The words in Rosweyde are different, the sense the same.

y. The Avignon and Toulouse manuscripts: "He tickled, therefore, his senses with the natural heat of the flesh, and, etc." So Martianay.

z. Most elegantly St. Paulinus, Poem XXI: "Let the strong soul be mortifying its ass," namely the body, prone to lusts. Vallarsi.

aa. The rastrum was a common implement of the Egyptian monks also. See its image in plate 51 of Ancient Egypt, which Champollion-Figeac drew up for the work L'Univers pittoresque. It has the form of an acute angle, whose longer side is furnished with an iron point. The rastrum therefore comes nearer to the implement called pioche pick than to the rateau rake, with which it has nothing in common.

bb. Certain manuscripts and old editions add "that is, little baskets": let it stand in place of an interpretation. For a fiscella is a wicker basket for various uses. Rosweyde.

cc. Of the things which, without any mockery of demons, are sometimes heard in the Eastern deserts, Brother Felix Fabri in his Evagatorium, vol. II, page 407, narrates this: "Further," he says, "when it was now midnight (for they were halting in a place very near the solitude of St. Hilarion), the soldier who had kept watch before roused me to complete my watch, and I rose and went round the army of the Lord with psalmody, holding a staff in my hand. But suddenly there arose near us a huge and horrible howling of many crying out together and mourning together, nor could I understand anything else than that they were the voices of men lamenting. I stood, and, fearing and wondering, I listened; and I thought that perhaps the Saracens were celebrating some feast of tragedies or comedies, or certainly that some horrid evil or plague had suddenly befallen them, or that satyrs and other portents of the desert wished by such howling to forbid us entrance into the solitude. But what it was I do not know to this day; a certain man, however, told me that it was a multitude of wolves howling, etc. But I can scarcely believe this, because that clamour began suddenly and after a little ceased suddenly, and, a silence intervening, began again and had the interjections of those in pain." The most sagacious traveller Fabri would have believed more easily had he known what we now know of the deserts of Algeria, in which wolves, lions, leopards and other wild beasts are heard howling so that you would say they were the voices of men lamenting.

dd. The old editions: "A swift gladiator"; Rosweyde and the Victorine codex: "A swift driver"; Martianay and Vallarsi simply: "A driver." Rosweyde advises that "driver" should be written, not "gladiator," relying on manuscript codices. He judges that "gladiator" crept in because this word had gone before. A driver of horses is meant; a class of men belonging to the circus. — But soon after, two Vatican codices: "Run: are you nodding?" for "why are you nodding?" Vallarsi.

ee. Certain editions add: "that is, a wild and thorny herb," which has without doubt crept into the text from a marginal interpretation. For it is a kind of sharp and very hard rush, like esparto. Thus far Rosweyde. Add that it is a marsh plant, drawn namely from the neighbouring marsh.

ff. St. Romuald wished, as is read in his Life, to have a cell after the form of St. Hilarion's little hut. In place of "required," two codices which Vallarsi saw have "had room to move." I should not dare to agree with Vallarsi, who holds this reading perhaps more elegant.

gg. Gather from this that the tonsure of the head was not yet prescribed for monks.

hh. Concerning the discipline of blessed Hilarion, much more severe than that of blessed Antony, see the Preliminary Commentary, §7.

ii. See concerning this part of monastic discipline the Preliminary Commentary, number 72.

kk. Some old editions and two codices cited by Vallarsi have "of his bedchamber."

* otherwise "mayest enjoy"

* otherwise "conversion."

* otherwise "hardened"

* otherwise "pleasure"

* in the manuscript "three"

* Rosweyde: "of the Lord's saying."

* otherwise "soft"

* otherwise "staying"

* Rosweyde: "unaccustomed."

* Rosweyde: "exhausted."

* otherwise "of women"

* Rosweyde: "utterly barbarous."

* In the manuscript "was praying"

* otherwise "when"

* otherwise "ascents"; Rosweyde: "great deeds."

* otherwise "sickness"

CHAPTER II.

He works miracles in Palestine and founds monasteries.

He obtains offspring for a barren woman. He had already spent twenty-two years in solitude, known to all only by report and spread abroad through all the cities of Palestine, when meanwhile a certain woman of Eleutheropolis ^a, seeing herself held in contempt by her husband on account of her barrenness (for for fifteen years now she had borne no fruit of marriage), was the first who dared to break in upon blessed Hilarion, and, suddenly throwing herself at his knees while he suspected nothing of the kind, said: "Pardon my boldness, pardon my necessity. Why do you turn away your eyes? Why do you flee one who entreats? Do not look on me as a woman, but as wretched. This sex bore the Saviour. They that are well have no need of a physician, but they that are sick." At length he stopped, and, having seen a woman after so long a time, asked the cause of her coming and of her tears. And after he had learned it, raising his eyes to heaven, he bade her have confidence: and, following her with tears as she went, when a year had passed he saw her with a son.

[8] [He heals the three sons of Helpidius, despaired of by the physicians. Blessed Hilarion the first founder of monasteries in Syria.] This beginning of his signs another greater sign made famous. Aristaenete ^b, the wife of Helpidius, who was afterwards praetorian prefect, very noble among her own people, and more noble among the Christians, returning with her husband and three children from blessed Antony, stayed at Gaza on account of their sickness. For there, whether on account of the corrupted air, or, as afterwards became clear, for the glory of Hilarion the servant of God, seized alike by a semi-tertian fever ^c, they were all despaired of by the physicians. The mother lay wailing, and, running as it were among the three corpses of her sons, did not know which first to bewail. But having learned that there was a certain monk in the neighbouring solitude, forgetting matronly pomp, she knew herself only as a mother: she goes accompanied by little maidservants and eunuchs *, and was scarcely persuaded by her husband to go sitting on an ass. When she had come to him, she said: "By Jesus ^d, our most merciful God, I adjure you, by his cross and blood, that you restore to me my three sons, and that the name of the Lord the Saviour be glorified in the city of the pagans, and that his servant enter Gaza, and Marnas ^e fall." When he refused, and said that he would never go out of his cell, and that he was not in the habit of entering not merely a city but not even a little farmstead, she prostrated herself on the ground, crying out repeatedly: "Hilarion, servant of Christ, give me back my children. Let those whom Antony held in Egypt be saved by you in Syria." All who were present wept: and he himself also, refusing, wept. Why say more? The woman did not go away until he had promised that he would enter Gaza after sunset. And after he came there, signing the little beds of each and their burning limbs ^f, he invoked Jesus. And, O wonderful power, at once, as if from three fountains, sweat broke out alike: in the same hour they took food, and, recognizing their mourning mother and blessing God, they kissed the hands of the saint ^g. When this had been heard and spread far and wide, the peoples flocked eagerly to him from Syria and Egypt, so that many believed in Christ and professed themselves monks. For not yet at that time were there monasteries in Palestine, nor had anyone known a monk in Syria before St. Hilarion. He was the first founder and teacher of this way of life and pursuit in this province. The Lord Jesus had in Egypt the old man Antony, he had in Palestine the younger Hilarion ^h.

[9] He obtains sight for a blind woman, and movement for a stiffened charioteer: Facidia is a little village of Rhinocorura, a city of Egypt ⁱ. From this village, then, a woman blind now for ten years ^k was brought to blessed Hilarion: and, being presented to him by the brethren (for there were already many monks with him), she said that she had spent all her substance on physicians. To whom he answered: "If what you have lost on physicians you had given to the poor, Jesus the true physician would have cured you." And when she cried out and begged for mercy, he spat into her eyes: and at once the same power of healing followed the example of the Saviour. A charioteer of Gaza also, struck by a demon in his chariot, became entirely stiff: so that he could neither move his hand nor * turn his neck. Carried therefore on a bed, when he moved only his tongue to prayers, he hears that he could not be healed until he believed in Jesus and promised that he would renounce his former art ^l. He believed, he promised, he was healed: and he exulted more over the salvation of his soul than over that of his body.

[10] he heals demoniacs; Moreover a very strong youth named Marsitas ^m, from the territory of Jerusalem, so applauded himself in his strength that he would carry fifteen measures of wheat long and far: and he held this the palm of his strength, if he outdid asses. This man, seized by a most evil demon, endured neither chains, nor fetters, nor the bars of doors unbroken: he had bitten off the nose and ears of many: of these he had broken the feet, of those the legs ⁿ: and he had struck such terror of himself into all that, loaded with chains and ropes, with men straining in different directions, he was dragged to the monastery like a most ferocious bull. When the brethren saw him, terrified (for he was of wonderful size) they announced it to the father. He, as he sat, ordered him to be dragged to him and let go. And when he was loosed: "Bow your head," he said, "and come." He trembled, and bent his neck, and dared not look him in the face: and, laying aside all ferocity, began to lick the feet of the seated man. The demon, therefore, who had possessed the youth, being adjured and tormented, went out on the seventh day. But neither must it be passed over in silence that Orion , a leading and very wealthy man of the city of Aila, which overhangs the Red Sea ^o, possessed by a legion of demons, was brought to him. His hands, neck, sides and feet were loaded with iron, and his grim eyes threatened the savagery of madness. And when the saint was walking with the brethren and interpreting I know not what from the scriptures, he broke out of the hands of those holding him and, embracing him from behind, lifted him on high. A great clamour arose from all: for they feared lest he should crush the limbs worn out with fasts. The saint, smiling, said: "Be silent , and leave me my wrestler." And so, turning his hand back over his shoulders, he touched his head, and, seizing him by the hair, brought him before his feet, binding both his hands opposite, and treading on the soles of his feet with both his feet, and at the same time repeating: "Be tormented , crowd of demons, be tormented." And when he wailed, and with his neck bent back touched the ground with the crown of his head, he said: "Lord Jesus, loose this wretch, loose the captive. As to conquer one, so also to conquer many is thine." I speak a thing unheard of. From the one mouth of the man different voices were heard, and as it were the confused clamour of a people. This man too, then, being cured, not long after came to the monastery with his wife and children, bringing very many gifts, as if to return thanks. To whom the saint said: "Have you not read what Gehazi, what Simon suffered: of whom the one accepted a price, the other offered it: that the former might sell the grace of the Holy Spirit, the latter purchase it?" And when Orion, weeping, said: "Take it, and give it to the poor," he answered: "You can better distribute your own things, who walk through the cities and know the poor. I who have left my own, why should I seek what belongs to others? To many the name of the poor is an occasion of avarice: but mercy has no art. No one gives out better than he who keeps nothing for himself." And to him, sad and lying in the sand [p], he said: "Do not be saddened, son. What I do, I do for myself and for you. For if I accept these things, I shall both offend God, and the legion will return to you."

[11] [he cures a paralytic and makes the people of Maiuma victors against the people of Gaza:] Who indeed could pass over in silence that Zananus of Maiuma [q], not far from his monastery, cutting stones for building from the edge of the sea, entirely dissolved with paralysis and carried by his companions in the work to the saint, at once returned sound [r] to his work? For the shore which stretches along Palestine and Egypt, soft by nature, is roughened by the sands hardening into rocks: and the gravel, gradually cohering, loses its feel though it does not lose its appearance. But Italicus also, a burgess of the same town [s], a Christian, was keeping Circus horses against a duumvir of Gaza [t], devoted to the idol Marnas. For this has been observed in the Roman cities from Romulus onwards, that on account of the happy rape of the Sabine women quadrigas run seven times round [u] in honour of Consus, as the god of counsels, and that to have broken the horses of the opposite side is victory. This man, then, since his rival had a sorcerer who by certain demoniacal incantations would both hinder his horses and urge on those of the other to the race, came to blessed Hilarion and besought, not so much that his adversary be harmed, as that he himself be defended. It seemed foolish to the venerable old man to waste prayer on trifles of this kind. And when he smiled and said: "Why do you not rather spend the price of the horses on the poor for the salvation of your soul?" he answered that it was a public function: and that he did not so much wish it as was compelled to it: and that a Christian man could not use magical arts, but should rather seek help from the servant of Christ, especially against the people of Gaza, the adversaries of God [x], and insulting not so much him as the Church of Christ. Being asked, therefore, by the brethren who were present, he ordered the earthenware cup from which he was accustomed to drink to be filled with water and given to him. And when Italicus had received it, he sprinkled the stable, and the horses, and his charioteers, the chariot [y], and the bars of the starting-gates. Wonderful was the expectation of the crowd: for the adversary too, mocking this very thing, had spread it abroad: and the supporters of Italicus exulted, promising themselves certain victory. So, the signal being given, these fly forward, those are hampered. Under the chariot of these the wheels glow, those scarcely see the backs of the ones flying past.

An excessive * clamour of the crowd arises, so that even the pagans themselves shouted together: "Marnas has been conquered by Christ." Further, the raging adversaries demanded Hilarion, the sorcerer of the Christians [z], for punishment. The victory, therefore, being undoubted, was an occasion of faith both for those and for very many in many circus games afterwards.

[12] He frees a virgin from an incantation; From the same town of the port of Gaza, a neighbouring youth was dying of love for a virgin of God [aa]. When by frequent touching, jests, nods, whistles and other things of this kind, which are wont to be the beginnings of virginity about to perish, he had accomplished nothing, he went on to Memphis [bb], that, having confessed his wound, he might return armed with magical arts to the virgin. So after a year, taught by the prophets of Aesculapius, not of him who heals souls but of him who destroys them [cc], he came, eager for the debauchery he had presumed in his mind: and under the threshold of the girl's house he buried certain tortures [dd] of words and portentous figures engraved on a plate of Cyprian brass. At once the virgin began to go mad, and, throwing away the covering of her head, to whirl her hair, to grind her teeth, to call out the name of the youth. The greatness of love, namely, had turned into frenzy. Brought, therefore, by her parents to the monastery, she is handed over to the old man, the demon at once howling and confessing: "I have suffered violence, I was carried off against my will. How well I used to delude men with dreams at Memphis! O crosses, O torments that I suffer! You compel me to go out, and I am held bound under the threshold. I do not go out unless the youth who holds me lets me go." Then the old man said: "Great is your strength, who are held bound fast by a thread and a plate [ee]. Tell me, why did you dare to enter a girl of God?" "That I might keep her a virgin [ff]," he said. "You keep her, betrayer of chastity? Why did you not rather enter into him who was sending you?" "To what end," he answered, "should I enter into him who had my colleague, the demon of love [gg]?" The saint would not, however, before he had purged the virgin, or [hh] the youth, order the signs to be searched for, lest either the demon should seem to have withdrawn when loosed by incantations, or he himself to have given credence to his speech, asserting that demons are deceitful and cunning at pretending: and rather, health being restored, he rebuked the virgin for having done such things through which the demon could have entered.

[13] and a Frank from a demon; Not only in Palestine, however, and in the neighbouring cities of Egypt or Syria, but even in distant provinces his fame had spread. For a candidate [ii] of the emperor Constantius [kk], with ruddy hair and indicating his province by the whiteness of his body (for between the Saxons and the Alemanni his nation, not so much extensive as powerful, is called among the historians Germania, now Francia [ll]), possessed of old, that is, from infancy, by a demon, which compelled him at night to howl, to groan, to gnash his teeth, secretly asked the emperor for a post-warrant [mm], simply indicating the cause to him: and having received letters also to the consular of Palestine [nn], he was conducted to Gaza with great honour and retinue. When he had asked the decurions [oo] of that place where Hilarion the monk lived, the people of Gaza, vehemently terrified, and thinking him sent by the emperor, brought him to the monastery, so that they might both show honour to one commended, and, if there were any offence from past injuries against Hilarion, it might be wiped out by a new service. The old man was then walking on the soft sands, murmuring to himself I know not what from the psalms. And seeing so great a crowd coming *, he stopped. And having returned the greetings of all and blessing them with his hand [pp], after an hour he ordered the rest to go away, but him to remain with his servants and attendants. For from his eyes and face he recognized why he had come. At once, therefore, at the questioning of the servant of God, the man, suspended, began scarcely to touch the ground with his feet, and, roaring monstrously, answered in the Syriac speech in which he had been questioned. You might see from a barbarian mouth, and one which knew only the Frankish and Latin tongues, Syriac words sounding out purely: so that neither the hissing, nor the aspiration [qq], nor any idiom of the Palestinian speech was lacking. He confessed, therefore, in what order he had entered into him. And that his interpreters, who knew only the Greek and Latin tongues, might understand, he questioned him in Greek also [rr]. When he likewise answered in the same words, and pleaded many occasions of incantations and necessities of magical arts, he said: "I do not care how you entered: but I command you to go out in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." And when he had been cured, offering with rustic simplicity ten pounds of gold [ss], he received from him a barley loaf, hearing that those who are fed on such food count gold as mud.

[14] He calms a ferocious camel by the sign of the cross. It is little to speak of men: brute animals also were daily dragged to him raging: among which thirty men and more brought with shouting a Bactrian camel [tt] of enormous size, which had already crushed many [uu], held stretched with very strong ropes. Its eyes were bloody, its mouth foamed, its rolling tongue swelled, and above all terror a monstrous roaring resounded [xx]. The old man ordered it to be let go. At once both those who had brought it and those who were with the old man fled, every one. But he alone went on to meet it, and in the Syriac speech said: "You do not terrify me, devil, with so great a bulk of body: in the little fox and in the camel you are one and the same." And meanwhile he stood with his hand stretched out. And when the beast, raging and as if about to devour him, had reached him, at once it fell down, and laid its lowered head level with the ground, all who were present wondering at so great a gentleness suddenly after so great a ferocity. The old man taught, moreover, that on account of men the devil seizes even beasts of burden: and burns with such hatred of them that he desires not only them but also the things that are theirs to perish. And of this matter he proposed the example that before he was permitted to tempt blessed Job he slew all his substance; nor ought it to move anyone that by the Lord's command two thousand swine were killed by the demons; since those who had seen could not otherwise believe that so great a multitude of demons had gone out of the man, unless a great number of swine, and as if driven by many, had fallen down together.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Rosweyde and the manuscripts which Vallarsi saw: "and in the sands."

q. Surius, Martianay and Vallarsi: Gazanus. Zananus in Rosweyde, who notes: "So here and in chapters 30 and 33 in the manuscripts; so also Sophronius in Greek in Metaphrastes, although Hervet translated and published Gazanus, following, I think, the common reading of Jerome. But the manuscripts have Zananus, as I have said." Thus Rosweyde. In the Παραδεισος is read Ζαναννους. Vallarsi, although he preferred Gazanus, is nevertheless forced to confess this: "One manuscript," he says, "has Zazanus, others Zananus or Zenainus." Soon also, he adds, "cudens" (hammering) for "caedens" (cutting). "Cudens" is read also in Surius.

r. Vallarsi added "sound" from the manuscripts.

s. "Municeps" seems to indicate here no charge or office, but a citizen or free inhabitant of Maiuma, which then formed one town with Gaza. The things narrated here were done between the years 328 and 337, as in the Preliminary Commentary, number 19.

t. "For there was," says Giuseppe Bimard in the second Dissertation, chapter 4, which Muratori prefixed to his Thesaurus of ancient inscriptions, "there was in the colonies and municipalities a certain lesser senate chosen after the likeness of the Roman, which they called the order and the curia. And no one is ignorant that the senators of whom the Order consisted were called decurions. Over the Order presided two magistrates, not unlike consuls, who especially used the toga and had two lictors going before them with fasces or little rods. They were called Duumvirs." He then goes on to relate that sometimes there were quattuorvirs in their place. But these are nothing to us.

u. We touched on these things above, at letter l. Rosweyde and Vallarsi indicate more. Rosweyde and Vallarsi, who praises the manuscript codices, have "was observed." On the other hand Surius and Martianay "is observed": which I think should altogether be retained, since in the year 390, about which St. Jerome was writing this Life, the spectacles and circus games had not yet been abolished: on which matter see Tillemont in the Emperors at the year 386; Baronius in the Annals at the year 410, number 44; Pitiscus in the Lexicon of Antiquities under Ludi circenses. Wherefore there is no doubt that the copyists changed "is observed" into "was observed," accommodating the manner of the narration to their own time.

x. Of the perseverance of the people of Gaza in superstition there was discussion in the Preliminary Commentary, numbers 19, 20, 40, 41, etc.

y. All the editions have "chariot," even Vallarsi himself, who notes: "The word 'chariot' is lacking in all the manuscripts we use: then one more ancient Vatican one reads 'carrucarumque regulas' for 'carcerumque repagula,' perhaps more truly." I should not believe it. For the carruca was a heavy and weighty four-wheeled vehicle, of which there was no use in the circus. The carceres, however, are les barrières the barriers, by which the horses were held back until the signal was given. Rightly, therefore, are the bars of the starting-gates spoken of. — On this passage Casaubon accused St. Hilarion of κατοπτομαντειας, which was performed with water and a cup: why do the Protestants tear to pieces men whom in the fourth century Palestine, Egypt, Sicily, Dalmatia and Cyprus looked up to and believed they could not praise enough? Let them confess that they have another religion and other sentiments than those which were common to all in the fourth century, or let them cease to speak otherwise of things and men than was done in that age! For the rest, what μαντεια comes in here? St. Hilarion hands his cup to Italicus, blessed with the sign of the cross (for nothing was done in the first centuries without this sign, as we know from Tertullian, and at number 3 St. Jerome said that the blessed hermit was accustomed to use the sign of the cross against the demon); and God gave this honour to his servant and to his name, that he granted victory to Italicus: what superstition is there in these things? Let Casaubon carp at the shadow of Peter, the handkerchiefs of Paul, the hem of the garment of Christ the Lord; and then at last let him seek μαντειαν in St. Hilarion's earthenware cup! But on these things see Rosweyde on this passage.

z. The manuscripts: "sorcerer of the Christians." Further, the ancient authors often note sorcerous drivers of horses, who by demoniacal imprecations hindered the horses of their adversaries in order to drive their own to swifter courses. Cassiodorus, book III of the Variae, letter 1, of a certain noble charioteer: "The frequency of his palms," he says, "caused him to be called a sorcerer. For it must needs be referred to magical perversity when victory cannot be ascribed to the merits of the horses." Arnobius, book 1 against the Gentiles, on the arts of the magi: "For who does not know this … to weaken, urge on, slow down horses in the races, etc." See the Theodosian Code on law 9 on Sorcerers, Ammianus Marcellinus in several places. Vallarsi.

aa. In three or four manuscript copies: "a youth neighbouring to a virgin of God was dying of love." Martianay.

bb. Jerome has similar things on Isaiah 19: "That Memphis was given to magical arts, traces of its former error show down to the present time." And on chapter 65, of the shrine of Aesculapius, in which they (the pagans) were accustomed to lie on the spread skins of victims, so as to learn the future in dreams. Vallarsi.

cc. In his codices Martianay reads: "By the prophets of Aesculapius, not healing but destroying souls."

dd. Surius and Rosweyde have "tortures"; Martianay and Vallarsi "portents"; but the former reading is preferable, both because "portentous figures" follow, and because "tortures of words" are nothing else than twisted words: just as an iron tormentum and a tow tormentum are twisted iron and twisted tow. To these I add from Rosweyde that sorcerers and magi used sometimes brass, sometimes lead, for engraving words and figures. Tacitus, Annals II: "There were found, dug out of the floor and walls, remains of human bodies, spells and curses, and the name of Germanicus engraved on leaden tablets, half-burnt ashes smeared with gore, and other sorceries." Egyptian amulets are by no means rare; and indeed of every material. Cyprian brass was used here because the island of Cyprus was sacred to Venus, whose help was necessary to the youth. Egyptian amulets, like others also, have images of gods and animals, which blessed Jerome indicates by "portentous figures," and words written beside them, often in demotic characters, which he likewise calls "tortures of words." De Caylus exhibits an amulet with the form of the Egyptian Aesculapius, or Tosorthrus, in volume VI of the Antiquities, plate XVII.

On these things Rosweyde notes: Ovid, book 1 of the Amores, Elegy VIII:

She knows well what herb, what threads set whirling by the twisted rhombus Avail, what the venom of the amorous mare.

Those licia, or magic threads, were three-coloured and three times nine in number, as is gathered from this verse (Ciris, line 371):

And thrice nine threads of triple diverse colour she binds.

But see the archaeologists on these things.

ff. Rosweyde writes on this passage: "See our Serarius on chapter 6 of Tobit, little question 1 on verse 14, where he treats of Asmodeus, how in the Greek text he is said to have loved Sara."

gg. "Certain demons," says Rosweyde, "rule over certain vices; below, number 18: For the old man had this grace, that from the odour of bodies and garments and of the things which anyone had touched he knew to what demon or to what vice he was subject. Life of Antony, chapter 4: Hence I am also called the spirit of fornication." But since similar things are not absent from the divine Scriptures, let us know how to speak of these things reverently, and indeed, unless one wishes to set aside the whole supernatural order, whence, I ask, should we have received more certain things concerning it than from the experience of the Saints? For they, as if withdrawn from these earthly things and wholly given to spiritual things, by this very grace by which their mind was carried as it were into another world, could surely more easily arrive at the knowledge of all those things that pertain to the powers of the air. Yet I should not counsel excessive credulity in these matters, but only that the sayings and deeds of the saints, confirmed by good testimonies, be not held of no account.

hh. Since Surius, Rosweyde and Martianay all have the particle "or" here, I for my part do not understand what Vallarsi means by the following: "The editions up to now sin against the truth of history and the mind of Jerome by the omission of this one particle 'or,' so as to signify that the youth himself was also cured by St. Hilarion, whereas on the contrary he did not even allow him to be searched for, lest he should seem to have given credence to his incantations. We have supplied it from all our manuscripts, with the authority of Graevius also concurring. Besides, we have corrected another fault of the editions up to now, reading from the same manuscripts 'solutus,' that is, the demon, for 'solitis,' namely incantations. Below we emend other lighter things."

ii. "Candidate soldiers," says Pitiscus in the Lexicon of antiquities under this word, "were ostentatious ones (garde d'honneur guard of honour) from among those whom tallness of stature and form commended, soldiers notably brave and distinguished, who in battle surrounded and defended the emperor, clothed and adorned in white garments, so that, fighting splendidly and vigorously under the eyes of the Augustus, they might profess that they aspired to greater things and deservedly sought military offices": which he then confirms by authorities.

kk. In Migne's Patrologia, which follows Vallarsi's edition closely, there is noted on this passage: "All the manuscripts, and those also which Martianay consulted, have Constantine." But in the text both in Vallarsi himself and in Martianay there is Constantius; which form is also read in Surius and Rosweyde. Only the Παραδεισος speaks of Constantine; but it is of too little authority (especially since the names of Constantius and Constantine are quite often confused) for one to depart from the customary form.

ll. "This region," says Adrien de Valois in the Notitia Galliarum, under Francia, "had on the east Thuringia and Saxony, on the west the Rhine and the Ocean, on the north likewise the German or northern Ocean, on the south Alamannia and Swabia, or the river Lahn"; and, explaining then the words of Jerome, he rightly affirms that Francia was placed by him between the Saxons and the Alamanni, because it was bounded on the east by Saxony, on the south by Alamannia. But since this designation is altogether incomplete, I should believe that Jerome used it to signify that that candidate was from that part of Francia which was afterwards called eastern Francia, or Austria.

mm. "Evectiones," says Pitiscus in the Lexicon of antiquities under Evectiones, "are codicils by which the faculty of using the public horses was granted. Those very persons who used the public post had to have these before they began their journey. At the several stations of cities, changes and lodgings they gave them to be inspected, otherwise to be detained at the first station. In them was contained a certain number of post-horses which it was permitted to use; and a certain day within which it was permitted to use them, after which the codicils given and obtained were void. He who had obtained an evectio was bound to show it to the governor of the province through which he was to pass, and the latter annotated or subscribed it. Those who could grant them to others did not at first need them themselves: but by Constantine both powers were taken away from almost all; to the emperor, the praetorian prefects and the masters

of the offices alone was it thenceforth reserved."

nn. For Palestine, being a middle province, had a consular to preside over it. See the Notitia of the East in Panciroli. Who was adorned with this dignity about the year 337 is hidden. The ordinary seat of the consular of Palestine was Caesarea.

oo. Of the decurions there was discussion above at letter t.

pp. Below, at number 16, the people of Elusa cried out to Hilarion "Barech," that is, "Bless." This blessing seems to have been given with the whole hand, or with the thumb and all the fingers extended; which form, as the Latins sometimes, so also the Greeks (for St. Hilarion had been instructed by Greeks, nor had a difference between the Syriac and Greek rite grown up in that age) sometimes use. That the hand of one blessing was moved in the sign of the cross the Lutheran Augusti himself observes. Add to these things from Rosweyde that the saints blessed not only men but also inanimate things. Below here, number 17: "Standing on high he blessed the vineyard"; number 20: "That they might receive bread or oil blessed by him"; number 22: "And so all the farmers and herdsmen, touching their wounds with the blessed oil, regained certain health."

qq. These recall the hissing and panting words of the Hebrew tongue, of which St. Jerome, in letter 125 (otherwise 4), mentions his labour in thoroughly learning the sacred tongue.

rr. From these we gathered in the Preliminary Commentary, number 75, that blessed Hilarion, besides his native Syriac tongue and the Coptic which he had learned in Egypt, had there also been taught Greek. For the rest, the master of grammar whom he had had at Alexandria certainly taught the precepts of the Greek tongue.

ss. The pound of gold was divided by Constantine the Great into seventy-two solidi; and each solidus was worth about ninety present-day francs; so that that candidate laid down at the feet of St. Hilarion a sum equal to sixty-four thousand eight hundred (64,800) of our francs; and the purchasing power of money was then almost the same as now, as has already been observed by several from the celebrated decree of Diocletian on the price of things for sale.

tt. Pliny, Natural History, book VIII, section 25: "The East pastures camels among its herds, of which there are two kinds, Bactrian and Arabian: they differ in that the former have two humps on the back, the latter one each: another under the breast, on which they lean." Camels which have two humps are still called chameaux bactriens, chameaux de la Bactriane Bactrian camels, camels of Bactria; they are more robust than the Arabian and are most in use in Turkestan, Persia and Syria.

uu. Pliny, book X, chapter 83: "Camels (eager for coupling) seek even solitudes or at least secret places; nor may one come between them without destruction." For in this place of the Life of St. Hilarion it is a question of a camel burning with the heat of rut, not of one possessed by a demon. All the zoographers have mentioned the ferocity of camels when they are driven by the goad of rut.

xx. That the reader himself may perceive that these things pertain to a camel stimulated by rut, take what the more recent zoographers report of the condition of this animal when it suffers the heats of rut. From the conglomerated glands of the occiput, they say, a certain fetid oil gushes, which flows down over the skin of the neck. From the mouth, at one or the other corner, there hangs an inflated red bladder, which shortly becomes empty and is then drawn back into the mouth by inhalation, so as to be inflated and brought out again and again. That bladder seems to be the velum of the palate, which at the time of rut, no otherwise than other membranes in other animals, grows very much. Of the roaring also all have made mention.

* otherwise "home-born"

* otherwise "could"

* otherwise "Orionus"

* otherwise "embracing" (feminine) and "having embraced." Rosweyde adds: "And when he had come to St. Hilarion."

* otherwise "let be"

* otherwise "he said" is added

* perhaps "is stretched forth"

* otherwise "the curule horses of the circus"

* In the codices "excessive, is raised"

* otherwise "of those coming"

CHAPTER III.

He cares for his monks, converts the Saracens, receives men of every kind, makes for the cell of the deceased St. Antony.

He founds countless monasteries; Time will fail me if I wish to tell all the signs that were performed by him. For he had been raised by the Lord to such glory that blessed Antony also, hearing of his way of life, wrote to him ^a and gladly received his letters ^b: and if ever sick people had gone to him from the parts of Syria, he would say to them: "Why did you wish to harass yourselves so far, when you have there my son Hilarion?" By his example, therefore, countless monasteries began to exist throughout all Palestine, and all the monks eagerly ran to him. Seeing which , he praised the grace of the Lord, and exhorted each to the progress of the soul, saying that the fashion of this world passes away, and that that is the true life which is purchased by the discomfort of the present life. Wishing, moreover, to give them an example both of humility and of duty, on fixed days before the vintage ^c he went round the little cells of the monks. When this became known to the brethren, all flocked to him: and, accompanying such a leader, they went round the monasteries, having their own provision for the journey: because sometimes as many as two thousand men were gathered. But also, as time went on, each farmstead, rejoicing at receiving the saints, offered food to the neighbouring monks.

[16] He converts the Saracens of Elusa; And how great was his zeal to pass over no brother, however humble, however poor, this too is an indication, that going into the desert of Kadesh ^d to visit one of his disciples, he came with an infinite band of monks to Elusa *, by chance on the day on which the anniversary solemnity had gathered the whole people of the town into the temple of Venus. They worship her on account of Lucifer, to whose cult the nation of the Saracens is given. And the town itself too is in great part half-barbarous on account of the situation of the place. So, hearing that St. Hilarion was passing by (for he had frequently cured many of the Saracens seized by a demon), they came out in crowds to meet him with their wives and children, bowing their necks and crying out in the Syriac voice "Barech," that is, "bless." Receiving them kindly and humbly, he besought them to worship God rather than stones: and at the same time he wept abundantly, looking to heaven, and promising, if they believed in Christ, that he would come to them often. Wonderful grace of the Lord: they did not allow him to go away until he had laid out the line of a future church ^e: and their priest, crowned as he was ^f, was marked with the sign of Christ.

[17] he piously visits his monks; In another year also, when he was about to go out to visit the monasteries, and was setting down on a little sheet ^g with whom he should stay, whom he should visit in passing, the monks, knowing a certain one of the brethren to be rather stingy, and at the same time desiring to remedy his fault, asked him to stay with him. And he said: "Why do you wish to do both yourselves an injury and the brother an annoyance?" When that stingy brother heard this, he blushed, and, with all striving for it, he scarcely obtained from him against his will that he should put his monastery too in the order of the stopping-places. So on the tenth day they came to him, guards having already been posted in the vineyard by which they would come ^h: who, as they approached, frightened them off with stones and the throwing of clods and the whirling of slings. Without eating a grape they all set out in the morning, the old man laughing and pretending not to know what had happened. Further, received by another monk, whose name is Sabas (for we ought to keep silent the name of the stingy, and tell that of the generous): because it was the Lord's day ⁱ, all were invited by him into the vineyard, that before the hour of food they might relieve the labour of the journey by eating grapes. And the saint said: "Cursed be he who seeks the refreshment of the body before that of the soul. Let us pray, let us sing psalms, let us render the Lord his office, and so we shall hasten * to the vineyard." The service being completed, then, standing on high, he blessed the vineyard and sent his sheep to feed. And those who were eating were not less than three thousand. And whereas the vineyard, while still whole, had been estimated at a hundred flagons ^k, after twenty days it produced three hundred. Further, that stingy brother, gathering much less than usual, lamented too late that even what he had had had turned to vinegar. This the old man ^l had foretold to many brethren as about to happen.

[18] he punishes the avaricious; He detested especially monks who by a certain faithlessness stored up their goods for the future, and had care either of expenses, or of clothing, or of any of those things that pass away with the world ^m. Finally, he had driven from his sight one of the brethren living about five miles from him, because he found him too cautious and timid a guardian of his little garden, and having a little money. He, wishing to reconcile the old man to himself, often came to the brethren, and especially to Hesychius ⁿ, in whom the old man most vehemently delighted. One day, then, he brought a bundle of green chick-peas, just as they were in the plant. When Hesychius had placed it on the table at evening, the old man cried out that he could not bear its stench, and at the same time asked where it was from. And when Hesychius answered that a certain brother had brought the first-fruits of his little field to the brethren, he said: "Do you not perceive the most foul stench, and avarice stinking in the chick-peas? Send them to the brute animals, and see whether they eat them." When he, according to the command, had put them in the manger, the oxen, terrified and lowing more than usual, broke their bonds and fled in different directions. For the old man had this grace, that from the odour of bodies and garments and of the things which anyone had touched he knew to what demon or to what vice he was subject.

[19] So in the sixty-third year of his life, seeing the great monastery, he weeps for his lost solitude and for the dead St. Antony: and the multitude of brethren living with him, and the crowds of those who brought to him persons seized by various sicknesses and unclean spirits, so that the wilderness round about was filled with every kind of men, he wept daily, and recalled his former way of life with incredible longing. Asked by the brethren what was the matter with him, why he was wearing himself out, he said: "I have returned again to the world, and have received my reward in my life. Behold, the men of Palestine and the neighbouring province think me of some importance: and I, under pretext of the monastery, for the provision of the brethren, have mean furniture." He was watched over, however, by the brethren, especially by Hesychius, who with wonderful love was devoted to the veneration of the old man. And when he had lived thus mourning for two years, that Aristaenete of whom we made mention above, then the wife of the prefect, but having nothing of the prefect's ostentation ^o, came to him, wishing also to go on to Antony. To whom he said, weeping: "I too should wish to go, were I not held shut in the prison of this monastery, and were there any fruit in going: for today it is two days since the whole world was bereaved of such a father [p]." She believed and stayed. And after a few days, when a messenger came, she heard of the falling asleep of Antony.

[20] [a great concourse to him of those asking for bread and oil blessed by him; he departs into Egypt;] Let others marvel at the signs [q] which he did, let them marvel at his incredible abstinence, knowledge, humility:

I am amazed at nothing so much as that he was able to trample on glory and honour. There flocked together bishops, presbyters, flocks of clerics and monks, of Christian matrons also [r] (a great temptation), and from this side and that, from the cities and the fields, the common crowd: but also powerful men and judges, that they might receive bread or oil blessed by him [s]. But he meditated nothing else but solitude, so much so that one day he resolved to set out: and, an ass [t] being brought (for, too much wasted by fasts, he could scarcely walk), he tried to take the road. When this had spread abroad, and as it were a desolation and suspension of public business [u] was being proclaimed for Palestine, more than ten thousand people of different age and sex gathered to hold him back. He, unmoved by prayers, and striking the sands with his staff [x], said: "I will not make my Lord a deceiver: I cannot see churches overthrown, the altars of Christ trampled, the blood of my sons [y]." And all who were present understood that something secret had been revealed to him which he would not confess: and nevertheless they guarded him lest he should set out. He resolved, therefore, calling all to witness with public voice, that he would take nothing of food or drink unless he were let go. And after seven days of fasting, released at last, and bidding farewell to very many, he came with an infinite band of those escorting him to Bethelia [z]. Where, having persuaded them to return, he chose forty monks who had provision for the journey and could go on fasting, that is, take food after sunset. So on the fifth day he came to Pelusium, and having visited the brethren who were in the neighbouring desert and were staying in the place which is called Lychnos [aa], he went on in three days to the fort of Thaubastum [bb], to see Dracontius, bishop and confessor, who was in exile there. Having consoled him incredibly by the presence of so great a man, after another three days he reached Babylon [cc] with much labour, to visit Philo the bishop, himself also a confessor. For the king Constantius, favouring the heresy of the Arians, had deported both to those places. Going out thence, after three days he came to the town of Aphroditon [dd], where, having met the deacon Baisanes, who, hiring dromedary camels on account of the scarcity of water in the desert, was accustomed to conduct those going to Antony, he confessed to the brethren that the day of the falling asleep of blessed Antony was at hand, and that a night-long vigil ought to be celebrated by him for him in the very place in which he had died. For three days, then, through a vast and horrible solitude, they at last came to a very high mountain, finding there two monks, Isaac and Pelusianus, of whom Isaac had been Antony's interpreter.

[21] he visits the cell of St. Antony, And since the occasion offers itself and we have come to this place, it seems worth while to describe in a brief discourse the dwelling of so great a man. A rocky and lofty mountain, for about a thousand paces, presses out waters at its foot: of which the sands drink up some, others, slipping down to lower places, gradually make a stream, over which on either bank countless palms give the place much both of pleasantness and of convenience. You might see the old man running hither and thither with the disciples of blessed Antony. "Here," they said, "he used to sing psalms, here to pray, here to work, here to sit when tired. These vines, these little trees he himself planted: that little plot he himself laid out with his own hands. This pool for watering the little garden he built with much sweat. This hoe he had for many years for digging the ground." He lay on his bed, and kissed the couch as if it were still warm. And the little cell held no more measure square than a man sleeping could be stretched out in. Moreover, on the lofty summit of the mountain, for those ascending as by a spiral and with very arduous effort , two little cells of the same measure were seen: in which, fleeing the crowds of those who came and the company of his disciples, he stayed. But these, hewn out of the living rock, had only doors added. And after they had come to the little garden, Isaac said: "Do you see this orchard * planted with little trees and green with vegetables? About three years ago, when a herd of wild asses was laying it waste, he ordered one of their leaders to stand, and, beating its sides with his staff, said: Why do you eat what you did not sow? And from that time, except the waters which they kept coming to drink, they never touched either little tree or vegetables." Moreover the old man asked them to show him the place of his tomb. And when they had led him aside, whether they showed it or not is unknown: reporting that the cause of the concealment, according to the command of Antony, had been lest Pergamius, who was very wealthy in those places, having carried off the saint's body to his villa, should build a martyrium.

ANNOTATIONS.

361, nor Hilarion born after the year 291, nor must the year LXIII at the beginning of this number be changed into LXXIII, since what follows does not allow it and the Παραδεισος has ξγ᾽. These things, therefore, were done five years before the prefecture of Helpidius.

p. In the Preliminary Commentary, number 8, we said that St. Antony went to God on the 17th day of January of the year 356.

q. All the manuscripts which Vallarsi and Rosweyde saw add: "and portents"; then one has "humanity" for "humility," and a little after "conceal" for "trample."

r. Surius, Vettori, Rosweyde, and the codices which Vallarsi saw have "matrons of the Christians also"; some of those which Martianay used: "Of matrons also and of Christians."

s. Of blessed inanimate things we noted something above in annotation pp. Vallarsi brings forward other examples here concerning St. Martin and St. Antony: the sacred archaeologists will give more, and indeed the Lutheran Augusti himself.

t. Of this kind of conveyance some things were said in the Preliminary Commentary, number 41. That St. Hilarion had formerly been accustomed to go on foot is clear from the excuse added: "For, too much wasted by fasts, he could scarcely walk."

u. Rosweyde has "destruction" and faults "suspension of business"; some codices in Martianay: "desolation and mourning in a suspension of business." A justitium was proclaimed in public mourning for the loss of leading men: Tacitus of the death of Germanicus, Annals II, 82, 4: "The news of his death so inflamed these sayings of the crowd that, before an edict of the magistrates, before a decree of the senate, a justitium being taken up, the forums were deserted, the houses closed, everywhere silences and groans: nothing composed for show."

x. Of the staffs used by monks there was discussion in the Preliminary Commentary, number 66.

y. All these things were fulfilled in the time of Julian the apostate; as we showed in the Commentary, number 40. On the same see Rosweyde on this passage.

z. Jerome more probably wrote Bethelia, as was shown in the Preliminary Commentary, number 26 and following; where we described this whole journey.

aa. Vallarsi placed Lychnos in the furthest part of the Thebaid; Rosweyde near Alexandria. We showed in the Preliminary Commentary, number 30, that this place was situated near Onuphis, now more probably called Banoub, in Lower Egypt.

bb. Vallarsi strays even further when he confuses Thaubastum with Thauba and places it in Arabia Deserta. In the Preliminary Commentary, number 30, we showed that Thaubastum was situated not far from Suez and that some of its ruins still appear. In the same place we mentioned some things about Dracontius the bishop.

cc. Of the Babylonian journey and Philo the bishop there was discussion in the Preliminary Commentary, number 32.

dd. On Aphroditon, Baisanes and the journey through the desert to the cell of St. Antony consult the Preliminary Commentary, number 32 and following. Three Vatican manuscripts seen by Vallarsi, and Rosweyde, have "after two days." A little after, Martianay: "who, horses being hired, dromedary camels, on account of the water, etc."; most wrongly he thrust in horses. Vettori and Surius: "who, hiring camels and dromedaries." Rosweyde long ago restored "dromedary camels"; which Vallarsi also received from the consensus of the manuscripts, noting that dromedary camels are one kind of animal, as Vopiscus writes in the Aurelian: "Zenobia, when she was fleeing on camels which they call dromedaries." Nevertheless I should not dare to condemn the reading of Vettori and Surius. First, because they have "dromedis," not "dromadibus," certainly "dromedis" is worth as much as "dromadibus," as may be seen in Gesner's Lexicon at this word. That they distinguish camels and dromedaries is not to be blamed, since by camels not only the genus but the ordinary species is designated, and by dromedaries another species, no otherwise than if we were to say asses and wild asses. And indeed the reading "camels and dromedaries" displeases the less because the other, "dromedary camels," sounds no less strange in Latin ears than des dromadaires chameaux dromedary camels in French; for where the Latins join these words, they speak thus: "Camels which they call dromedaries, which they call dromedarii, etc." And the dromedaries are the same as the camels of Arabia, of which we spoke above in annotation tt to chapter 2.

* otherwise "Whom"

* otherwise "was purchased"

* otherwise "Elusium" and "Eolesa"

* otherwise "you will hasten"

* perhaps "useful"; Rosweyde: "possessions of the farm and"

* otherwise "had led"

* in the manuscripts "little pool"

* otherwise "effort"

* otherwise "outskirts"

CHAPTER IV.

Deeds in Egypt and Sicily.

He dwells in Egypt, works miracles; So, having returned to Aphroditon, keeping only two brethren with him, he stayed in the neighbouring desert with such abstinence and silence that he said he had then for the first time begun to serve Christ. Further, it was now three years that the closed heaven had dried up those lands, so that they commonly said that even the elements mourned the death of Antony. The fame of Hilarion did not escape the inhabitants of that place either, and eagerly those of the male and female sex, sallow of face and wasted with hunger, begged rains from the servant of Christ, that is, from the successor of blessed Antony. Seeing them, he grieved wonderfully: and, raising his eyes to heaven and lifting up both palms on high, he at once obtained what he had asked. But behold, the thirsty and sandy region, after it had been watered by the rains, unexpectedly boiled up such a multitude of serpents and venomous animals that countless people struck would have perished at once had they not run together to Hilarion. And so all the farmers and herdsmen, touching their wounds with the blessed oil, regained certain health ^a.

[25] sought for death by the people of Gaza, he goes on into the Oasis; Seeing that there too he was treated with wonderful honours, he went on to Alexandria, intending to pass from there to the desert of the inner Oasis ^b. And because, from the time he had begun to be a monk, he had never stayed in cities, he turned aside to certain brethren known to him in Bruchium, not far from Alexandria ^c: who, when they had received the old man with wonderful joy and night was now near, suddenly hear his disciples saddling the ass and him preparing to set out. And so, throwing themselves at his feet, they asked him not to do this: and, prostrate before the threshold, they protested that they would sooner die than lose so great a guest. To whom he answered: "I hasten to go away for this reason, lest I cause you trouble. Certainly from what follows you will know that not without cause have I suddenly walked away." So on the next day the people of Gaza with the lictors of the prefect ^d (for they had learned that he had come the day before), entering the monastery, when they had not found him at all, said to one another: "Are not the things true that we heard? He is a magician, and knows the future." For the city of Gaza, after Hilarion had set out from Palestine and Julian had succeeded to the empire, having destroyed his monastery and given petitions to the emperor, had obtained the death of both Hilarion and Hesychius: and it had been written through the whole world that both should be sought ^e. Having gone out, then, from Bruchium, through a pathless solitude he entered the Oasis: and there, when about a year had passed, because his fame had reached there too ^f, as if he could no longer lie hidden in the East, where many knew him both by repute and by face, he thought of sailing to the islands alone: that the seas at least might conceal him whom the land had made known.

[24] at Paraetonium ill-treated by a certain disciple, At about the same time his disciple Hadrian arrived from Palestine, saying that Julian had been slain: that a Christian emperor had begun to reign: and that he ought to return to the remains of his monastery. Hearing this he detested it: and, having hired a camel, he reached through the vast solitude the maritime city of Libya, Paraetonium ^g: where the unhappy Hadrian, wishing to return to Palestine and seeking his former glory under the name of his master, did him many injuries. At last, having packed up ^h the things which he had brought, sent to him by the brethren, he set out without his knowledge. Concerning him indeed, since there is no other place for relating it, I would say only this, for the terror of those who despise their masters, that after a little while he rotted away with the royal disease.

[25] he goes on into Sicily; So the old man, having Zananus ⁱ with him, went aboard a fleet ^l which was sailing to Sicily. And when, having sold the codex of the Gospels which he had written with his own hand as a young man, he was arranging to pay the fare, in about the middle of the Adriatic the shipmaster's son, seized by a demon, began to cry out and say: "Hilarion, servant of God, why is it not permitted us because of you to be safe even on the sea? Give me space until I come to land, lest, cast out here, I be cast headlong into the abyss." To whom he said: "If my God grants you to remain, remain. But if he casts you out, why do you make me odious, a sinful man and a beggar?" And he said this lest the sailors and merchants who were on the ship should betray him when they had come to land. Not long after the boy was purged, the father giving his word, and the others who were present, that they would speak to no one about his name. And having entered Pachynus ^m, a promontory of Sicily, he offered the shipmaster the Gospel ⁿ for his own conveyance and that of Zananus. He, unwilling to accept, especially since he saw that they had nothing more besides that codex and the things in which they were clothed, at last swears that he will not accept it. And the old man too assented, in the confidence of a poor conscience, and rejoiced the more in this, both that he had nothing of the world, and that he was thought a beggar by the inhabitants of that place. Further, reflecting lest merchants coming from the East should make him known, he fled to inland places, that is, to the twentieth milestone from the sea, and there in a certain deserted little field, binding a faggot of wood daily, he laid it on the back of his disciple. This being sold in the nearest farmstead, they bought both sustenance for themselves and a very little bread ^o for those who happened to come to them.

[26] he is betrayed at Rome by a demoniac. But truly, according to what is written, a city placed on a mountain cannot be hidden: a certain guardsman [p], when he was being tormented in the basilica of blessed Peter at Rome, the unclean spirit cried out in him: "A few days ago Hilarion the servant of Christ entered Sicily, and no one knows him, and he thinks himself hidden: I will go and betray him." And at once, having gone aboard a ship in the port with his little servants, he was carried to Pachynus, and, the demon leading him, where he prostrated himself before the old man's hut, he was immediately cured. This beginning of his signs in Sicily brought to him thereafter a countless multitude of the sick, and also of religious men, insomuch that a certain one of the leading men, swollen with the disease of dropsy, was cured on the same day on which he had come to him. Who afterwards, offering him countless gifts, heard the saying of the Saviour to the disciples: "Freely you have received, freely give."

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Vallarsi rightly blames Graevius for having suspected that the man who betrayed the holiness of Hilarion was not a scutarius, or that one should not read so, but scrutarius, one namely who sold old stuff. For Sozomen calls him a noble or illustrious man, ἀνδρα των ἐπισημων; and how could a seller of old stuff have offered countless gifts to St. Hilarion? But a scutarius was a soldier who accompanied the prince and covered his whole body with a shield and other arms. How those imperial soldiers abounded in riches and accordingly obtained some nobility may be seen from the candidate of Constantius who offered ten pounds of gold to St. Hilarion. They seem to have been instituted by Constantine: for what is read of more ancient scutarii seems to be understood of the makers of shields. In the Greek version which Rosweyde had and in the Παραδεισος he is called Ἀνθρωπος γαρ τις, Σκουταριος το ὀνομα. Compare Pitiscus in the Lexicon of antiquities, under Scutarius. — A little below, in place of "and, the demon leading him, etc.," one manuscript in Vallarsi: "the demon leading him, prostrated before the sight of the old man, immediately." After "intercutis" Vallarsi supplied "aquae" from the manuscripts.

CHAPTER V.

Deeds in Dalmatia and Cyprus; death and translation.

He is discovered by his disciple St. Hesychius; While these things were being done thus in Sicily, his disciple Hesychius was seeking the old man through the whole world, going round the shores, penetrating deserts, and having only this confidence, that wherever he was he could not lie hidden long. So, three years having now passed, he heard at Methone [a] from a certain Jew, who sold cheap old stuff to the people, that a prophet of the Christians had appeared in Sicily, doing such great miracles and signs that he was thought to be one of the ancient saints. Asking therefore about his dress, gait and speech, and above all his age, he could learn ^b nothing. For he who reported it testified that only the report of the man had come to him. Entering the Adriatic, then, he came with a prosperous * course to Pachynus, and in a certain little farmstead of the curved shore, inquiring after the fame of the old man, he learned with the harmonious voice of all where he was, what he was doing: all wondering at nothing in him so much as that after such great signs and miracles he had not accepted even a fragment of bread from anyone in those places.

[28] he makes for Dalmatia, where he kills a dragon; And, not to be long, the holy man Hesychius, throwing himself at his master's knees and watering his feet with tears, at length lifted up by him, after two or three days' conversation hears from Zananus that the old man could no longer live in those regions, but wished to go on to certain barbarous nations where both his name and his speech ^c would be unknown. He led him, therefore, to Epidaurus ^d, a town of Dalmatia, where, staying a few days in a neighbouring little field, he could not be hidden. For a dragon of wonderful size, of the kind they call in the native speech boas ^e, from the fact that they are so great that they are wont to swallow oxen, was laying waste the whole province far and wide, and swallowed not only herds and flocks but also farmers and herdsmen, drawn to itself by the force of its breath ^e. When he had ordered a pyre to be prepared for it, and ^f, having sent forth a prayer to Christ and having called it forth, had commanded it to climb the pile of wood, he set fire beneath it. Then, therefore, while all the people looked on ^g, he burned up the monstrous beast. Whence, agitated as to what to do, whither to turn, he was preparing another flight, and, surveying solitary lands in his mind, he grieved that, while his tongue was silent about himself, his miracles spoke.

[29] [he stops an earthquake by the sign of the cross; on the voyage to Cyprus he frees the ship from pirates;] At that time, through the earthquake of the whole world ^h which happened after the death of Julian, the seas went out beyond their bounds: and as if God were again threatening a flood, or all things were returning into the ancient chaos, ships were carried to the steep cliffs of mountains ⁱ and hung there. When the people of Epidaurus saw this, namely the roaring waves, and the masses of the waters, and mountains of the deep borne upon the shores, fearing what they saw had already happened, lest the town should be utterly overthrown, they went in to the old man, and, as if setting out for battle ^k, they placed him on the shore. And when he had painted three signs of the cross in the sand and stretched out his hands against it, it is incredible to tell to what a height the sea, swelling up, stood before him, and, roaring long and as if indignant at the barrier, gradually sank back upon itself. This Epidaurus and all that region proclaim to this day, and mothers teach their children, to hand down the memory to posterity ^l. Truly that which was said to the Apostles: "If you believe, you shall say to this mountain, Pass into the sea, and it shall be done," can be fulfilled even according to the letter, if only one have the faith of the Apostles, and such as the Lord commanded them to have. For what difference is there whether a mountain descend into the sea, or immense mountains of waters suddenly grow stiff? and, rock-like before the old man's feet only, flow softly on the other side? The whole city marvelled, and the greatness of the sign had spread abroad even at Salona. Understanding this, the old man fled secretly by night in a small skiff, and, having found after two days a merchant ship, he went on to Cyprus. And when, between Malea and Cythera ^m, pirates, leaving on the shore their fleet, which is steered not by a yard but by a pole ⁿ, had come against them in two not small light galleys ^o, the rowers sweeping the waves on this side and that, all [p] who were in the ship began to tremble, to weep, to run about, to prepare poles, and, as if one messenger were not enough, they vied in telling the old man that the pirates were at hand. He, looking at them from afar, smiled, and, turning to his disciples,

said: "O you of little faith," he said, "why do you tremble? Are these more than the army of Pharaoh? yet all of them, God willing, were drowned." He was speaking thus [q], nevertheless the hostile keels with foaming beaks were close at hand, at only a stone's throw between. He stood, therefore, at the prow of the ship, and, stretching out his hand against those coming, said: "Let it suffice to have come thus far." O wonderful faith of things: at once the little ships leapt back, and, with the oars pushing against it, their onset returned toward the stern. The pirates marvelled that they were going backward against their will, and, labouring with the whole effort of their bodies to reach the vessel, they were borne to the shore much more swiftly than they had come.

[30] he stays in Cyprus and heals demoniacs: I pass over the rest, lest I seem to extend the volume in narrating signs. This only will I say, that, sailing with a prosperous course among the Cyclades, he heard on this side and that the voices of unclean spirits crying out from the cities and villages and running together to the shores [r]. Having entered, then, Paphos, a city of Cyprus, famous in the songs of the poets, which, frequently thrown down by earthquake, now shows only by the traces of its ruins what it once was: he lived unknown at the second milestone from the city, rejoicing that he was living a few days in quiet [s]. But not fully twenty days had passed when throughout that whole island whoever had unclean spirits began to cry out that Hilarion the servant of Christ had come, and that they must hasten to him. This Salamis, this Curium, this Lapethus [t], and the other cities cried out together: most of them asserting that they knew Hilarion indeed, and that he was truly the servant of God, but did not know where he was. Within thirty days, then, and not many more, about two hundred, men as well as women, were gathered to him. When he had seen them, grieving that they would not let him rest, and in some measure raging in vengeance for himself, he scourged them with such insistence of prayers that some were cured at once, others after two or three days, but all within one week.

[31] [he wishes to go on beyond Egypt; yet he remains in Cyprus in an inaccessible place; he heals a paralytic;] Remaining there, then, for two years, and always thinking of flight, he sent Hesychius, who was to return to him in spring-time, into Palestine to greet the brethren and visit the ashes of his monastery. When he had returned, he persuaded him, who desired to sail again to Egypt, that is, to those places which are called Bucolia [u], because there was none of the Christians there, but only a barbarous and fierce nation, rather to go up in the island itself to a more secluded place. When, after surveying everything for a long time, he had found it, he led him twelve miles away from the sea, among secluded and rough mountains, and to where one could scarcely ascend by crawling on hands and knees. Having entered in, he contemplated indeed a place very terrible and remote, and surrounded on this side and that with trees, having also waters irrigating it from the brow of the hill, and a most pleasant little garden, and very many orchards; whose fruit he never took as food; but also near the ruin of a most ancient temple, from which (as he himself related, and his disciples testify ) the voices of such countless demons resounded through the nights and days that you would believe it an army. With which he was greatly delighted, namely because * he had antagonists close at hand: he lived there for five years, and, Hesychius often visiting him, in this now last time of his life he was refreshed, because on account of the roughness and difficulty of the place, and the multitude of shades (as was commonly said), either no one or rarely anyone could or dared ascend to him. But one day, going out of the little garden, he saw a man paralysed in his whole body lying before the doors. And he asked Hesychius who he was and how he had been brought. He, answering, said that he had been the steward of the little farmstead to whose right [x] the little garden also in which they were belonged. And he, weeping, and stretching out his hand to the one lying there, said: "To thee I say: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, arise and walk." Wonderful speed. The words were still rolling in the mouth of the speaker, and already the limbs, made firm for standing, were raising the man up. When this had been heard, the necessity of very many overcame even the difficulty of the place and the pathless way: all the farmsteads round about watching for nothing so much as lest he should in some way slip away. For rumour had spread this about him, that he could not stay long in the same place. Which he did not do from a certain levity or overcome by a childish feeling, but fleeing honour and importunity. For he always desired silence and an unknown life.

[32] he dies piously, is buried and translated into Palestine; So in the eightieth year of his age, when Hesychius was absent, he wrote with his own hand a short letter in place of a testament, leaving him all his riches: namely, the Gospel, and a tunic of sackcloth, a cowl and a little cloak [y]. For his attendant had died a few days before. There came, therefore, to him in his sickness many religious men from Paphos: and especially because they had heard that he had said that he was now about to depart to the Lord and to be freed from the bonds of the body: and also a certain Constantia, a holy woman, whose son-in-law and daughter he had freed from death by anointing with oil. All of whom he adjured that he should not be kept even for a moment of an hour after death: but that they should at once cover him with earth in the same little garden, just as he was clothed, in his haircloth tunic, and cowl, and rustic cloak. And now a slight heat was warm in his breast, nor did anything of a living man remain besides sensation, and yet with open eyes he said: "Go forth, what do you fear? Go forth, my soul, why do you hesitate? For nearly seventy years [z] you have served Christ, and do you fear death?" With these words he breathed out his spirit. And at once, covered with earth, they announced to the city that he was buried before they announced that he was dead. When the holy man Hesychius heard this in Palestine [aa], he went on to Cyprus, and, pretending that he wished to live in the same little garden, in order to remove from the inhabitants the suspicion of a diligent watch, with great peril to his life, after about ten months, he stole his body. Carrying it to Maiuma, whole crowds of monks and of the towns following, he laid it in the old monastery, the tunic, cowl and little cloak unharmed, and the whole body entire [bb] as if he were still alive, and fragrant with such odours that you would think it anointed with unguents.

[33] his cult in Cyprus and in Palestine. It does not seem to me that at the end of the book there should be passed over in silence the devotion of that most holy woman Constantia, who, when the news was brought to her that the little body of Hilarion was in Palestine, at once expired, proving even by death her true love for the servant of God. For she had been accustomed to pass watchful nights at his tomb, and to converse with him as if present, to help her prayers [cc]. You may see to this very day a wonderful contention between the Palestinians and the Cypriots, the former contending that they have the body of Hilarion, the latter the spirit. And yet in both places great signs are done daily, but more in the little garden of Cyprus, perhaps because he loved that * place more.

ANNOTATIONS.

Methone is a maritime city of Messenia in the Peloponnese. Jerome is Horatian in this place. In book I, epistle 7, the latter sings:

Selling cheap old stuff to the tunicked little people.

perhaps it was born in Jerome's mind.

p. Surius, Martianay, Vallarsi and others have: "had come against them in two not small light galleys, and again on this side and that the waves came against them (came against it), all the rowers, etc." Rosweyde, whose reading we approve and which Vallarsi also said was perhaps truer: "had come against them in two not small light galleys, the rower again sweeping the waves on this side and that, all, etc." And indeed Vallarsi met with this reading in one Vatican codex, though with "vertente" in place of "verrente" (which he found in another). Rosweyde, however, found in certain manuscripts: "had come against them in light galleys desedromonem, again on this side and that the waves violent, the rowers, etc." And in the old edition of the Lives of the Fathers: "had come against them in light galleys de se dromone, again on this side and that the rower sweeping the waves." On which he here noted that perhaps "dromon" is an interpretation of myoparo. For a dromon is a ship ready for speed, such as pirate ships generally are.

q. Surius and Martianay have "thus"; Rosweyde omitted it; Vallarsi "with these."

r. Surius, Rosweyde, Vallarsi: "he heard"; Martianay, against the faith of the manuscripts, "were heard."

s. On these see the Preliminary Commentary, number 55.

t. Salamis is to the east, Curium to the south, Lapethus to the north, Paphos to the west. Jerome signifies, therefore, that the fame of St. Hilarion spread over the whole island.

u. "The old editions," says Rosweyde, "Bocholia; others cite Bacholia; but in Greek here it is Βουκολια, as also in the Life of St. Antony, chapter 24, where Evagrius renders Pastoralia." Add from Vallarsi: "In some manuscripts Batholia. Heliodorus: Βουκολι συμπας κεκληται προς Ἀιγυπτιων ὁ τοπος. Hence also the Bucolic soldiers throughout Egypt are noted by Capitolinus and others, from the common appellation of this place which they occupied." So they; we in the Preliminary Commentary, number 54, have tried to show that the Bucolia of which there is talk here were situated beyond Egypt, probably in the region of the Blemmyes.

x. Surius and Vettori: "to whose borders"; Rosweyde: "to which"; Martianay and Vallarsi: "to whose right."

y. "This was Hilarion's legacy," says Rosweyde, "and his whole treasure. He himself soon wishes to be buried in a haircloth tunic, cowl and rustic cloak. Lest you be deceived into thinking that Hilarion, because he bequeaths some things and reserves some for burial, had double garments, either for feasts or for cleanliness. He did not. It is established above, at number 4, that he never changed his garment, except when the former was entirely torn. Wherefore what he now bequeaths had recently come to him from the death of his attendant, who had died a few days before, as you have here." Of his garments and poverty see moreover what we have said in the Preliminary Commentary, numbers 61 and following.

z. Count these years from the reception of baptism, not from the embracing of the monastic life: in which matter there is commonly error.

aa. Vallarsi suppressed "in Palestine" without noting anything; but Surius, Rosweyde and Martianay have it; and indeed it seems it should be retained. "Palaestinae" in the genitive case for "in Palaestina": it is scarcely worth noting.

bb. Rosweyde has gathered many things about the incorruption of the bodies of saints in the Onomasticon; Benedict XIV likewise many in the work on the Canonization of the Saints; in each of our volumes there are more examples. Incorruption alone cannot be held in place of a miracle unless softness is added, and that prolonged through many years. Both are here joined: "the whole body entire" pertains to incorruption, "as if he were still alive" to softness; fragrant odours are also added.

cc. An excellent testimony to the invocation of the saints; which argument Rosweyde pursues at length on this passage. Of the relics of blessed Hilarion there was discussion in the Preliminary Commentary, §12.

* otherwise "I hasten"

* Rosweyde: "solitary, land"

* otherwise "he wondered"

* otherwise "crowds" and "troops"

* otherwise "shore"

* or "frequent"

* some "not more," others "not fully"

* otherwise "he should yield."

* otherwise "they testified"

* Others add "so many."

* otherwise "very small."