ON BL. ARETHAS OF KIEV, MONK OF THE CAVES, IN RUSSIA,
ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THE XIII CENTURY.
COMMENTARY OF THE REV. FATHER JOHN MARTYNOV.
Next follows his disquisition on the author of the Patericon and the Life of Bl. Simon, bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal.
Arethas, monk of the Caves. (Bl.)
Simon, bishop of Vladimir. (Bl.)
BY J. MARTYNOV.
PREFATORY NOTE.
He would doubtless stray from the truth who should suppose that our predecessors so closed all approach to the Acts of the Saints to others as to admit nothing into them which was not owed to their own zeal and diligence. The matter is surely otherwise. For at the 11th day of July they published the commentary of the Rev. Mr. Humbert Belhomme, abbot of Moyenmoutier, on St. Hidulf, without changing anything in the writing itself; which in every other occasion of that kind they there promised would be most scrupulously observed by them, provided that nothing was mixed in which smelled of fable or foreign opinions. Indeed, that they might the more entice outsiders to communicate similar labours to them, Du Sollier added these very words Acts of the Saints, vol. III of July, pp. 207 and 208: Lovers of the saints will here have a most powerful example of the sincere desire with which we burn, that the several religious orders, abbeys, monasteries, chapters, pastors, communities and any associations whatever should zealously bring their contribution, by which the immense bulk of our work may be more easily advanced and they themselves may be able so much the sooner to contemplate their saints in it. When the Rev. Father John Martynov, of Russian home, and a presbyter of our society not moderately skilled in Slavic letters, had understood this invitation and had offered us his effort in illustrating saints of Slavic race, and when we had admitted it with a most grateful spirit, he gave us by way of first-fruits a commentary on Bl. Arethas, monk of the Kiev Caves, in which there was much discourse of the Slavic Patericon, as also of Bl. Simon, first bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal, who wrote that part of the primitive Patericon which contains the praises of Bl. Arethas. Moreover at the following days there come also other Russian saints, praised in the same Patericon; where for that cause the same book will have to be employed again. Wherefore that vast treatise on this volume did not seem to be set aside; but as it was longer than was right to be retained in the commentary on Bl. Arethas, of whom few deeds have become known, we have thought it good to publish it at the end, by way of a side-work, together with the Life of Bl. Simon; on whose age moreover depends the definition of the time at which Bl. Arethas lived. In very truth one ought rather to have spoken of him, as will be clear below, at the 10th day of May; but all mention of him was omitted at this day; so that at the same time a lacuna will be filled. And here I might lay down the stylus, unless certain words seemed to need explaining. Since several more recent writers have often to be brought forward and it was sometimes to be pointed out (the condition of the argument so requiring) that they do not venerate the authority of the Roman pontiff with due obedience, it has seemed that one should abstain from the appellation of schismatics, and that they should rather be called non-Catholics, non-united, orthodox or by other names of that kind; since there seemed to be no reason why an unwelcome word should be imposed in this place on those men or their countrymen. And lest anyone should contend that they are wrongly called orthodox, it will help to recall to memory that very weighty men, who have diligently turned over the symbolic and liturgical books of the Russians, have long held it as their firm persuasion that their ecclesiastical doctrine (the opinions of certain Russian theologians are not here to be regarded) differs from the Catholic rather in words than in things, and that it may by good right be called orthodox. For the rest, no evil can arise from this indulgence, since everyone knows that the mark of the true church, which the ecumenical councils have named one, holy, catholic and apostolic, is not placed in doctrine alone; and since the name of Catholic, of which the orthodox think little, and which adheres to the clients of the Roman church, just as a shadow to a body, is a sufficient note and indication, St. Augustine saying Book On True Religion, chap. VII, no. 12, Works, vol. I, col. 752: The Christian religion is to be held by us, and the communion of that church which is catholic, and is named catholic, not only by its own, but also by all its enemies. For willing or unwilling, the heretics themselves too and the nurslings of schisms, when they speak not with their own, but with outsiders, call the catholic nothing other than catholic. For they cannot be understood unless they distinguish it by this name by which it is named by the whole world.
§ I. The memory of St. Arethas in the Russian calendars. His deeds known from the Patericon.
The holy martyr Arethas is followed in the sacred calendars of the Ruthenians by another Arethas, a monk of the Kiev Caves; [St. Arethas, monk of the Kiev Caves, on account of the custom of associating saints of the same name, chiefly used among the Orientals, is announced today] whom, although he is little known, the church of Kiev yet venerates on this day, not joined with the other Cave saints, but separately. That this did not happen by a chance accident, but was done on purpose, is plainly clear. For it is the custom of the Ruthenian church to associate its own saints with more ancient ones, separated indeed by an interval of times, but joined in name. Examples could be brought in the greatest number; we shall give only some, and those nearer ones, as taken from the month of October. So at the 20th day of October I find joined in the Russian menologies with St. Artemius the martyr Artemius the wonder-worker of Verkola in the region of Novgorod, who died in the year of restored salvation 1532, and the twelfth of his life. St. Hilarion the abbot or the Great, at the 21st day of October, is accompanied by a bishop of the same name of Meglin. On the 23rd day with St. James, the apostle adelphotheos, is joined the wonder-worker of Borovichi, known almost by name only. To Nestor the martyr you have placed alongside Nestor, the most celebrated chronologist of Kiev and at the same time easily first of the Ruthenian hagiographers; of whom at the 27th day of October a more prolix treatment will be instituted, God granting. On the next following day there occur two saints Parasceva, one a martyr of Iconium, the other a duchess of Polotsk and abbess, who flourished in the XII century. And these seem to be enough for our purpose. Let it also be permitted to subjoin the reason of the matter; which, at least in my judgment, seems to be no other than this, that, since the death-day of these saints was altogether unknown, it seemed opportune to inscribe their names on those days which were already distinguished by similar names in the common calendars. Then by this conjunction of more recent saints with more ancient ones it was intimated to the faithful not altogether unfittingly, that those saints had not only received the names of their patrons, but had also imitated their virtues, and for that reason had been made worthy, that, as they had once been companions of the contest on earth, so they should become sharers of honour and reward in heaven. For the rest, the same manner of associating saints of the same name is in use among the Latins, although somewhat less frequent.
[2] in the Russian calendars; yet in some he is omitted. However that may be, the calendars of the Ruthenians show the name of St. Arethas of the Caves at this day: and indeed the Menaea, the Ustav, the Prologue, the Calendar of the eastern church, by the author Versinski, to be often cited by us, the Hagiological Dictionary, by an uncertain author, published at Petersburg in the year 1836 Article Arethas, and other authors Eugenius, Description of the Kiev Caves Lavra, p. 105, Kiev, 1831, following in this matter the Patericon, of which presently. But silent are the Graeco-Muscovite Ephemerides of Papebroch, the Capponian Tables, both Vatican manuscript codices cited by Assemani Calendars of the Universal Church, vol. I, c. 8, p. 101, and the Calendar of Possevino. What you may wonder at more, Kulczynski himself is also silent about him, who yet in his Specimen of the Ruthenian Church has frequent recourse to the Lives of the fathers of the Caves, and is accustomed to copy many things from them. Since therefore almost all the Slavonic copies of the Patericon make mention of St. Arethas, whether they are printed or manuscript, I do not grasp the cause of the silence, especially since Kulczynski used the Polish Patericon of Kossov, which, although it has been condensed from the more prolix Slavonic and in fact has omitted certain fathers, as we shall see below, yet I have sought in vain for the name of St. Arethas among those passed over, whom the metropolitan Eugenius cites Description of the Lavra, p. 125. Likewise in his Basilian Menology the same Kulczynski omitted to speak of St. Arethas.
[3] [Several other saints of the Kiev Caves are venerated in the month of October, known from the Patericon, among whom St. Arethas.] Nor is it to be passed over that in this month saints of the Kiev Caves occur to us in greater number, joined in an opportune fellowship, although separated from one another by intervals of days. So besides our St. Arethas and Nestor the chronographer, praised above, three others are mentioned at the 5th day of October: Damian, a physician ἀνάργυρος, with Matthew and Jeremiah the Far-sighted (Prozorlivii); and at the fourteenth day Nicholas the Devout, duke of Chernigov; and at the last of the month Spiridion and Nicodemus, bakers of prosphoras. I pass over Theophanes the Faster at the 11th day of October, Mark with Theophilus at the 29th day and Anatolius at the 31st, as less known See Description of the Kiev Caves Lavra, pp. 103, 107 and 108. Now when the editors of this work had come to the 5th day of October, of those three first monks joined together they decided that Jeremiah indeed was not to be inserted here among the saints, since they had found him nowhere else except in the Slavo-Russian Menology of Sparwenfeldt, and he was therefore altogether unknown to them Acts of the Saints, vol. III of October, at the 5th day, p. 5, E; but Matthew and Damian, although they by no means doubted of their end, since they flourished in the XI century, they yet did not dare to refer among the saints, because the Horologion (or Ustav) of Kulczynski, into which Damian and Matthew are inserted with an elogium, was not printed at the Lvov press until the year 1679, nor was it established to them from elsewhere whether these two monks had, a hundred years before the decree of Urban VIII, issued in the year 1634, by Catholic Russians with ecclesiastical cult been
honoured Ibid., p. 6, A. For the same reason Nicholas the Devout, who died in the year 1113, was placed among those passed over, although he has been adorned by the same Kulczynski with prolix praises drawn from the Lives of the Fathers of the Caves. The same lot ought to have awaited Nicodemus and Spiridion, Nestor, and also Arethas, of whom we are now discoursing: for all came forth from the Kiev Caves monastery; they are spiritual sons of the same parent, St. Theodosius, and imbued with the same spirit and doctrine. It may be added that most of the monks of the Caves have become known to us chiefly from the book called the Patericon; which book was first brought to light by non-Catholic men, and that indeed in the age in which the greatest and never sufficiently deplored dissensions seethed in the church of Kiev and hatreds raged against the apostolic see.
[4] [Certain general points concerning the editions of the Patericon are observed, others being referred to another place.] For the first editor of the Patericon was Sylvester Kossov, bishop of Mogilev and Mstislav and afterwards (1647 – 1657) orthodox non-Catholic metropolitan of Kiev. Although Kulczynski used his work in the Specimen of the Ruthenian Church, ever united with the Roman see (and he used it as often as occasion was given him of speaking of the Fathers of the Caves), he never observed anything about the character or sincerity of the work, content with the easy business of copying. And the Lives of the Fathers of the Caves which Kossov had published rendered in the Polish idiom, and had illustrated with notes, these, written in a more diffuse style, Innocent Gizel, archimandrite of the Caves, had committed to the Kiev press in the year 1661, a man not only hostile to the Roman church just like that Sylvester, but also inclining to the doctrines of the Protestants, as from the preface, which is commonly prefixed to the common edition of his Patericon, and also from elsewhere, is more than sufficiently evident. That this fruit of Gizel's zeal has been notably corrupted we most willingly confess, and even the orthodox authors themselves do not deny [Philaret, archbishop of Chernigov, in the small work: Obzor duhovnoj russkoj literatury, inserted in the periodical work of the Academy, Ucenyja Zapiski, vol. 3, p. 198, n. 180, Petersburg, 1856]; yet we do not therefore judge that all the monks sprung from the Caves monastery are to be expunged from the roll of the saints, or by no means to be inserted in this work; especially since on the one hand it is most certain that that Patericon of the Kiev Caves existed more than two centuries before the age of Kossov, and therefore before the council of Florence, and it can even be referred to the XII and the beginning of the XIII century (at least as far as concerns the chief parts); and on the other hand almost all the Fathers of whom it treats lived either in the XI century; during which whole time the Russians were Catholics; or in the XII, in which certainly nothing stood in the way of their being Catholics. Since therefore there lay upon us, about to treat of St. Arethas of the Caves, the necessity of recurring to the Patericon, and since moreover the same book will have to be employed in other commentaries too on Ruthenian saints, we have thought that it would not be beside the point to look more accurately and more deeply into that work, commonly cited, to investigate its origins and growths, to point out its author, to run through its fortunes, to place under the eyes of the reader what it contains, to weigh its authority, and finally to give a more exact knowledge of the whole matter: which we shall try to perform in few words, and as far as is necessary for a greater understanding of the matter. But lest what we have to say of St. Arethas should be altogether overwhelmed by this treatise, we have ordered it to be printed by way of appendix at the end of this commentary, and we have added the Life of St. Simon, bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal, who in the year 1225 wrote a letter to Polycarp, a monk of the Kiev Caves, in which St. Arethas is praised. Now this letter is part of the primitive Patericon and also of the common Patericons; but in these something was changed by copyists and editors; on which see what we have taught more fully in that appendix.
§ II. The age of Bl. Arethas. His fatherland Polotsk. The ecclesiastical glories of this city in the XII century.
[Bl. Arethas seems to have lived in the XII century, as not only from the Patericon,] Now we shall treat of Bl. Arethas more distinctly. And first it is asked when Bl. Arethas lived. The author of the Historical Dictionary of the Saints confesses that he does not know P. 40, article Arethas; on the other hand the Menology of Versinski refers the blessed man to the XIII century At 24 October, p. 169; but it is more likely that he lived in the XII century. For the narrative of Simon concerning Bl. Arethas has this as its own and peculiar, that while he reports the deeds and sayings of other monks of the Caves from another's testimony or even from tradition, of St. Arethas he sets out his discourse as an eye-witness. Which the Patericon itself openly makes manifest in the Life of St. Simon, added at the end of the volume Patericon, fol. 234 verso, Moscow edition of the year 1759, and repeated by us below; and much more significantly the Life of St. Arethas itself, also to be given from the same Patericon. Namely the editors begin it in the following manner: It is truly worthy always to give thanks to God… For this not only increases grace to the just … but even changes great sinners into saints and perfect men, as is manifest in the blessed man, of whom Bishop Simon, an eye-witness, relates these things, etc.… Ibid., fol. 213. But if in the course of the narrative Simon never speaks in the first person, no one will wonder who has before his eyes the manner which we shall say in the appendix Gizel observed in editing the Patericon. On the other hand in the older manuscript transcripts we detect quite undoubted indications of an eye-witness: for more than once there occurs there the pronoun of the first person in the plural number: for example And we all besought; .. and in another place: And we, having heard these things, glorified God, etc. [Kubarev, Disquisition on the Patericon, pp. 12 and following; Macarius, History of the Russian Church, vol. III, note 76]. But since we have not had the opportunity of inspecting those codices, we have therefore preferred to elicit our conclusions from other monuments of history.
[6] but chiefly from the age of Bl. Simon, his biographer, Further, those arguments are supplied to us by the contemporary biographer of St. Arethas, Bishop Simon, a man renowned in his time, conspicuous in ecclesiastical dignity, famous in letters. Now, as we shall demonstrate at length below, the chief chapters of his life are very well known; namely that from a monk of the Caves he was first created hegumen of the monastery of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Vladimir; then was taken up as bishop of the same city, the first of all after the division of the diocese of Rostov, and finally departed to those above in the year 1226. Whence it can now be determined for certain that Bl. Arethas lived before this year. But let us go further, and define more exact limits, as far as can be done. Indications of these are shown to us by the year in which Simon gave his famous letter to Polycarp. And he gave it in the year 1225, as we have proved more fully in the appendix. And since Simon testifies there that he lived with Bl. Arethas in the monastery, it remains to be inquired when he himself left the Kiev monastery, or ascended the see of Vladimir and Suzdal. For those two things are not to be mixed.
[7] who seems to have lived with him in the Caves monastery about the year 1185. Let us suppose then that Simon was made hegumen in the twenty-fifth year of his life at the least; accordingly if from the year 1197 we take away twenty-five years, his natal year will be 1172. Suppose moreover that he professed the monastic life when he was a youth of at least fifteen years; we shall have the year 1187, in which he could first have enjoyed the company of St. Arethas. We must conclude then that St. Arethas flourished about the end of the XII century, and that with Simon, later bishop of Vladimir, but then a simple monk, he lived in the Kiev Caves monastery between the years 1185 and 1197. But if we may sufficiently trust the common Patericon, namely that St. Arethas “after many labours,” or, what signifies the same, at an advanced age, met his last day, which is also intimated by the name of old man, placed on the Cave tomb of St. Arethas Herbinius, work cited, p. 36, in the table showing the caves, it will be right to conjecture that St. Arethas saw the light about the middle of the XII century, or rather was born not to earth only, but also to heaven.
[8] [Bl. Arethas was born at Polotsk, and by no means in the region of the Polovtsians, who were then hostile to the Russians.] The blessed man was born at Polotsk, as the native authors commonly relate, following in this matter the Patericon. Certainly in the Moscow edition of the year 1759 the city of Polotsk is most openly named. Nor is the editor to be heeded, where in a marginal note he calls St. Arethas not Polocensis, but Polvcensis, deceived by the likeness of the words, since those words Polocensis and Polvcensis are distinguished from each other by only one letter. For neither is Polotsk rashly to be confused with the region of the Polovtsians, nor are the people of Polotsk easily to be transformed into Polovtsians. For that last nation was most hostile to the people of Kiev and to other Russians, and as it were a forerunner of the monstrous Tartars. Hence wars against them, chiefly in the XII century, almost continual and atrocious. Most celebrated certainly and very beautifully sung by a poet of his time is that expedition, which Igor son of Sviatoslav undertook in the year 1185, and brought to a close with such great success and such great glory. Yet he could keep the Polovtsians from the borders of the fatherland only for a time: for at the very beginning of the XIII century, namely in the year 1202, in the month of January, they invaded Kiev once more, and inflicted so great a disaster as the Russians had not seen even from the introduction of the Christian faith, their chronographers testify See Arcybysev, Narrative of Russia, vol. I, p. 267, at this year.
[9] [SS. Euphrosyna and Parasceva flourished then at Polotsk, which had its own bishops.] On the other hand, Polotsk, which is the most ancient city of all Lithuania, was at that time most flourishing, whether in the authority and power of its princes, or also in the cult of the Christian religion. Certainly it is mentioned in the chronicles already at the year 864, in which Rurik, duke of the Normans, handed it over to one of his companions to rule. And as for the Christian religion, Papebroch held that it was still doubtful at Polotsk in the XII century, and the city altogether destitute of a cathedral church. But that the faith was Catholic and firmly established is proved by documents of no contemptible authority. It is helpful to name those two lights most illustrious in the church of Polotsk, St. Euphrosyna, I mean, and St. Parasceva, both famous for ducal blood, more famous for sanctity. Of whom the former, happy offspring of St. Vladimir and foundress and first hegumeness of the most celebrated monastery sacred to the Transfigured Holy Saviour, ended her angelic life at Jerusalem, in the year 1173, having discharged the office of abbess at Polotsk for 40 years. Moreover, a bishop of that century, by name Elias, about to hand over for possession his villa called Seltse and situated near Polotsk, is related to have added the following words: There is there moreover the church of the Holy Saviour, in which lie the brothers
our, PREDECESSORS IN THE EPISCOPATE Macarius, History of the Russian Church, vol. II, p. 270, note 45. From which it may be concluded that the praised prelate Elias flourished about the year 1128, in which Boris, grandfather of St. Euphrosyna, died, and that besides Menna (1105 – 1116) he had other predecessors too; and accordingly that the beginnings of the church of Polotsk are to be referred to the XI century. And of the successors of Elias there are named Cosmas (1143 – 1156), Dionysius, who died in the year 1183, and Nicholas, bishop from the year 1185 Macarius, in the place cited, vol. III, p. 255, note 43. The other, St. Parasceva, daughter of Duke Rogvolod or Reichwald, after she had presided over the sisters for seven years in the same monastery in which Euphrosyna once did, went on to Rome in the year 1225, and there died most holily in the year 1239, to be afterwards inscribed by Gregory XIII in the roll of the Saints Stebelski, Dwa swiatla, etc., pp. 141 – 221; Kulczynski, p. 55, edition of 1859.
§ III. The life of Bl. Arethas in the Caves monastery, his death and burial in the cave of Anthony. His immemorial cult.
[Bl. Arethas, having become a monk in the Caves asceterium, is praised because he imitated the old fathers, who of their own accord gave up their property.] We have ascertained altogether few things concerning the monastic life of Bl. Arethas; which were set down by Simon in his letter to Polycarp, and then amplified by the uncertain collector of the Patericon. It is helpful therefore to bring forward here the very words of Simon, from the letter just praised, that everyone may be able to compare this brief notice with the more diffuse one to be given below. In the second part of the letter, then, after Simon had brought forward Nicholas the Devout, a prince turned monk, and Erasmus, who had spent his riches in adorning the church of the Caves, he adds a third example, Arethas, not unlike those two, in these words: It is better, brother, (he addresses Polycarp, enticed by earthly things) that what a man possesses should be spent on adorning the house of God, than the cave of thieves and robbers; and it is more desirable to offer of one's own accord to the God of love and peace, than to be despoiled even unwilling by fires with avenging flame or by the tumult of war. You have vowed religious poverty; hear therefore the Scripture saying: “Vow and pay to your Lord Ps. LXXV, 12; for it is much better not to vow, than after a vow not to pay what is promised.” Eccles. V, 4. But if those things which I have just mentioned should happen to you, namely if your goods, before you yourself freely hand them over to God, should be snatched from you either by enemies in time of war or by thieves, as if useless (God providing better things), do not therefore lose heart, or be excessively disturbed or dare to reproach God, but rather praise him, saying with just Job: “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away.” Job I, 21. Whereby it will come about that your reward shall not be taken from you, but because you have given thanks for the goods plundered, it will be reckoned to you as alms, as happened to Blessed Arethas, a monk of the Caves, whose goods were taken away by thieves. And in very truth, if it were a small thing to bear the plunder of goods with a grateful spirit, surely that blessed old man of whom the Patericon speaks (of Scete [In Rosweyde, Lives of the Fathers, Sayings of the Elders, book V, translated by Pelagius, little book XVI, no. 13, p. 631]), when he had been despoiled by robbers, and had remembered that a garment remained to him, would by no means have run and freely offered it to them as they went away; which they took indeed, but left all the rest. When another elder, of whom mention is made in the Limonarium [Spiritual Meadow of John Moschus, chap. 212, in Rosweyde, Lives of the Fathers, p. 926], had read this, he at once besought God that robbers should take away all his goods; and being heard, he freely handed over all his goods into the hands of those who came upon him. Such men surely the Apostle extols with praises, saying: “You took the plundering of your goods with praise, knowing that you have in the heavens a better and enduring substance.” Hebr. X, 34. Thus far Simon Patericon, fol. 227 verso and 228, Moscow edition. Whence we gather that Bl. Arethas was a monk in the Kiev Caves monastery, had certain goods, and bore the plundering of them with no sorrowful, but rather with a grateful and glad spirit. Surely you will detect here no traces of sordid avarice; rather, since Arethas teaches by his example the contempt of earthly things, for that reason certainly he is set forth by his master Simon for imitation to Polycarp, who brooded over them more than was fair.
[11] [Although at that time in the Caves monastery some holier monks were stylites, others recluses, yet Bl. Arethas himself was a cenobite and seems to have discharged some office.] That Bl. Arethas led the cenobitic life will be evident to anyone reading the Life to be given below: since there more than once the discourse turns on the brothers living together, and it is otherwise ascertained that by St. Theodosius a common manner of living was instituted according to the example of the Studite monastery. Nor is the name of Caves-dweller an obstacle, which is to be taken in a wide sense. Indeed that in the time of Bl. Arethas the household of religious of the Caves was numerous may be gathered even from this, that already in the age of Nestor, who died in the year 1106, nearly a hundred brothers, as he himself is witness, lived together. It must be added however that not all the monks of the Caves lived after the manner of cenobites, but that a threefold kind of life flourished even in the XII century, namely of cenobites, recluses and stylites. The most perfect exemplar of the first was shown by St. Theodosius, for that reason called the parent of the monastic life in Russia. Of Nicetas the Stylite, who died in the year 1108, something may be read in Kulczynski. A stylite too was Cyril of Turov, who after the year 1150 was ordered to descend from the column and occupy the episcopal seat, as his old biographer testifies, recently edited by Mr. Suhomlinov, professor at the university of Petersburg [Manuscript Codices of Count A. Uvarov, vol. II, containing all the surviving works of Cyril of Turov, pp. 1 and 2, Petersburg, 1858]. The number of the recluses was accustomed to be greater; among whom, besides Athanasius and John, the best known of all, there is also to be listed Clement, who, authors worthy of credit affirm, was raised from this most strict enclosure to the metropolitan see Philaret, History of the Russian Church, vol. I, p. 144, note 404. Those recluse monks led their life in a Cave cell, receiving food through a hole; and after death they were laid up dead in the same in which they had lived Herbinius, work cited, p. 85. From the same Life to be edited by us it is right to conjecture that Bl. Arethas was not a simple monk, but discharged some more distinguished function, whether of steward, or of some other official, as one who is there related to have treated the brothers rather harshly, they humbly beseeching him to cease from anger and unjust vengeance.
[12] He was buried in the cave of Anthony. That the blessed man was buried in the cave the Patericon testifies; but in which of the two it does not clearly relate. For it is established among all that anciently there existed two caves, namely that of Anthony or the nearer and that of Theodosius or the more remote, to say nothing of the other caves of lesser fame, omitting also the cave of the Varangians, which they relate was the first dwelling of Anthony, and which in Herbinius P. 74 is rather barbarously called Barasensis (commonly pieczara Barareska). That double cave, dug out under the mountain on the bank of the Borysthenes, besides the cells in which monks very few in number had once lived more or less conveniently, contained a little chapel, where they could securely devote themselves to reciting prayers and psalms and to carrying out other offices of religion. There were also those who, to chastise their bodies with fasts and vigils, of their own accord enclosed themselves in those caves, living on a little bread and vegetables Herbinius, ibid., p. 65. And with this mind too those religious Ruthenians dug out for themselves their own caves in the crypts, that they might be cells for them while alive, and sepulchres when dead. In very truth from the time when the monastery raised on the slope of the mountain began to be inhabited, namely in the time of Theodosius, that first monastery, situated underground and truly of the caves, began either to serve for burying the brothers, or for certain monks, who constantly led the life of recluses there. Further, Bl. Arethas was buried in the cave of Anthony, where he rests to the present day together with a good many other bodies Metropolitan Eugenius, Description of the Kiev Lavra, p. 109; of which some are seen open by those who visit. And in the table which the so often alleged Herbinius took care to add to his little work at p. 36, Arethas may be seen in the midst between Jeremiah the Far-sighted and Moses the Hungarian.
[13] [The name of St. Arethas is not inscribed in the old calendars of Kiev and Moscow, which scarcely contain the memory of some Russian saints;] Now if it is asked when the cult of this blessed man began and on whose authority, we slip down into a difficult question. This alone Col. [ ] is established, that in our age Bl. Arethas is venerated by the non-Catholic Russians as a saint, and even has an office, not proper indeed, but common to several other blessed of Kiev Description of the Kiev Lavra, p. 109. That office was by no means written by a Catholic hand, nor does it precede the age of the bull of Urban VIII, since it had as its author Meletius Syrigus the Greek, who in the year 1643 had come from Moldavia to Kiev, and there composed that canon, as it is called, soon presented with the Slavonic idiom and, some things having been changed and emended, printed at the Kiev press. Moreover since in that most mournful time the church of Kiev had been split into two parts, of which the one was most devoted to the Catholic faith, the other on the contrary most hostile, the credit of the small labour of Meletius deservedly comes into suspicion, and of its own accord the question rises, whether before the year 1643 the cult of the Cave saints prevailed among the Catholics, and when it began. It is ascertained that the church of Kiev formerly acted very cautiously, where it was a matter of decreeing the honours which are accustomed to be offered to saints, and that only very few servants of God were at first honoured with public cult. Among whom the most ancient of all is to be reckoned St. Theodosius, inscribed in the roll of the saints thirty-five years after his death, that is, in the year 1108, and so found in the very oldest Calendars, together with St. Vladimir and SS. Boris and Gleb, martyrs, and next after him followed St. Anthony of the Caves and St. Olga. All these can be found not only in the Calendars or Menologies of Kiev, but also of Moscow: which cannot be said of the other blessed of the Caves. For the church of Kiev for a long time in no way depended on that of Moscow, having nothing at all in common with it Ibid., pp. 117 and following.
[14] [but from this it does not follow that he was not venerated by Catholics a hundred years before the decrees of Urban VIII.] Hence it is that before the times of Demetrius of Rostov, that is, before the year 1547, you seek in vain the names of the saints of the Caves in the Calendars of Moscow; and although he, to his Greater Menaea, as they are called, the Lives of certain saints of the Caves
took care to have inserted, yet they did not for that reason obtain public cult everywhere; with which they were presented only in the year 1762. But neither in the church of Kiev did all those who are now read inscribed in the Patericon or in the canon of Meletius enjoy the honours of the saints; since besides St. Theodosius and St. Anthony only five others were venerated as saints. As time slipped by, however, and when peace had at length been restored to the church of Kiev after that most wretched invasion of the Tartars, some other blessed ones were inscribed in the calendars of Kiev, but very few in number, very many still lying hidden in the darkness. From what has been said so far it is right to gather that Bl. Arethas was already before the XVI century honoured with public cult in the church of Kiev, for otherwise he would not have been brought into the Office of the year 1643. Whether his cult exceeds the year 1537, prescribed by Urban VIII, or is even of a much more ancient origin, this seems probable even from that sharp dispute which arose between the Catholics or united and the non-united at the beginning of the XVII century. For the Catholics raised no doubts concerning the orthodoxy of the saints of the Caves, but asserted and proved that they were truly Catholics. The matter is made manifest by the preface which Kossov took care to prefix to his Polish Patericon, and Herbinius to render in Latin Herbinius, work cited, p. 107; and more clearly and much more fully Theophanes Prokopovich, archbishop of Novgorod, in the Apology for the sacred relics of our fathers who have rested in our caves of Kiev Miscellanea Sacra, pp. 107 and following, Breslau edition, 1744.
[15] [but when at the end of the XVI century controversies raged between the united and non-united, it was admitted on both sides that St. Arethas and other Cave saints were really saints.] For the Catholics objected that those saints, whose bodies sleep incorrupt in the Kiev caves, lived in that serenity of Christians when the eastern churches of the Greeks and the western ones of the Latins still persevered as full sisters in a mutual embrace, that is, in unity of faith; for the sake of recovering which unity we thus supplicate in the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass: Grant us with one mouth and one heart to confess and praise your most glorious name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit etc. Therefore, they concluded, the bodies of the fathers living in that so blessed time of the Christian church have been presented by God, on account of the most holy fellowship of that unity, with the gift of incorruption Herbinius, in the place cited. To these things the adversaries replied that those saints lived altogether after that sad divorce and withdrawal of the Greeks from the western church; and that this divorce was consummated in the time of St. Vladimir, in whose reign almost the entire nation of the Russians embraced the faith of Christ The same, in the place cited. Which reply by no means resolves the objection, since it is abundantly established that in the X and XI centuries the church of Kiev was united to the Roman; as has been solidly proved both by our Stilting [Acts of the Saints, September, preface on the conversion and faith of the Russians] and by other Catholic authors [Verdière, Origines catholiques de l'Eglise russe, in the periodical work: Etudes de théologie, de philosophie et d'histoire, publiées par les PP. Gagarin et Daniel, vol. II]. But this argument must be looked into more deeply.
§ IV. Whether in the XII century the metropolitans of Kiev and the hegumens of the Caves were Catholics.
That Bl. Arethas was a Catholic is shown There occurs of its own accord, that is, a question, necessarily to be discussed whenever Ruthenian saints are treated, whether that St. Arethas is to be held a Catholic, or not. In very truth it does not suit us, from whom the deeds of this blessed man are almost hidden, to establish the affirmative opinion by arguments sought from his Life alone (yet these are not to be altogether omitted); but rather that matter seems to be illustrated from synchronous facts, as far as can be done. Some light shines on this most intricate question from the series both of the metropolitans of Kiev and of the hegumens of the Caves, accurately inspected. Wherefore let us run through them singly, beginning from the middle of the XII century; but we shall note beforehand, with our Stilting Acts of the Saints, vol. II of September, preface, p. XIX, n. 74, that the church of Kiev throughout that century was partly Catholic, partly non-Catholic.
[17] [from the series of the metropolitans who from the year 1150 governed the church of Kiev, but especially from the history of Clement, by the imposition of the hand of St. Clement the pope,] First then there occurs to us Clement, taken up as metropolitan in the year 1147, without seeking the consent of the patriarch of Constantinople, and consecrated at Kiev in an altogether unheard-of manner, namely with the hand of St. Clement, pope and martyr, placed upon him, to signify, as Kulczynski well observes Specimen of the Ruthenian Church, p. 115, most recent edition, the obedience which he ever professed toward the Roman see. There were present at the council, besides the grand duke Iziaslav, most friendly to Clement, six bishops, Onuphrius of Chernigov, Damian of Yuriev, Theodore of Vladimir (in Volhynia), Manuel of Smolensk, Euthymius of Pereyaslav and Niphon of Novgorod; to whom some add Common Patericon, fol. 219, in the Life of Niphon, Moscow edition, 1759 Joachim of Turov and Cosmas of Polotsk; but wrongly. All agree that Onuphrius proposed and defended the manner of election, the others voting for it, except Niphon and Manuel.
[18] two bishops opposing, defending the rights of the patriarch of Constantinople, These two opposed, not because they objected anything against the morals of Clement (for he was a man most excellent in piety and learning), but because they asserted that the rights of the patriarchs of Constantinople were being hurt, carried away by love of their fatherland, both being Greek men Macarius, History of the Russian Church, vol. III, p. 10, note 14. On the other hand, Clement, being a Russian by nation, and indeed sprung from Smolensk, seemed in some way to promote the rights of the natives. The party of Clement was chiefly defended by the grand duke Iziaslav, and the rest of the prelates, most of them bearing ill the domination of foreigners. Nor did the synod take up to defend only the rights of its own nation, but it also strove to attest its sincere reverence toward the Roman pontiff and the see of Blessed Peter, as subsequent facts make plain. For Clement, having been proclaimed metropolitan, expunged the patriarch's name from the prayers of the Holy liturgy, and ordered Niphon, bishop of Novgorod, most hostile to him, to be enclosed in the Caves monastery and detained, Iziaslav so willing.
[19] [and also by the duke of Suzdal, ordained, and then suffering exile and various fortunes.] And as Clement was cherished by Iziaslav, so Niphon was cherished and animated by George, duke of Suzdal, blind hatreds having arisen between the two princes. Whence it came about that as soon as George the Long-handed (Dolgoruki) gained power, in the year 1148, Niphon was restored to his church and liberty; and Clement, driven from his see, had to live in exile at Vladimir in Volhynia together with the conquered Iziaslav. But when Iziaslav claimed his rights, the exiled metropolitan again returned to Kiev, and presided over the church not only up to the death of Iziaslav, which came in the year 1154, but also under Rostislav, his successor, namely until George once more invaded the region of Kiev, in the year 1155. Then Clement again took up the way of exile, together with the sons of Iziaslav, to teach them to bear all adversities with a strong spirit.
[20] [Meanwhile Constantine the Greek, administering everything according to the opinion of the Greeks, occupied the see of Kiev and raged against Clement and his followers. Afterwards Theodore the Greek succeeded;] Meanwhile in the next following year, that is 1156, and not 1160, as Kulczynski supposes Specimen of the Ruthenian Church, Paris edition, p. 115, there came to Kiev Constantine, a Greek. He, as soon as he occupied the metropolitan see, at once raged against Clement and his supporters. For Nestor, prelate of Rostov, and other priests and deacons, promoted to sacred orders by Clement, he subjected to interdict; and Iziaslav, although dead, he struck with the thunderbolt of anathema. But George too was himself punished with death in the year 1158; and the sons of Iziaslav, gaining power, of their own accord bestowed the supreme power on Rostislav, their grandfather. He, although formerly (as we have seen) most devoted to the party of Clement, now however refused to restore the exiled pastor to his see; but since he could not retain Constantine, whose authority the sons of Iziaslav rejected, he summoned and obtained, for the sake of peace, a new metropolitan from the patriarch. While this third metropolitan, Theodore by name, was preparing himself to enter on the journey to Kiev, Constantine met his last day at Chernigov in the year 1159. Of Theodore, who held the archiepiscopal crozier only two years, that is from the year 1161 to 1163, Kulczynski writes this, or rather transcribes it from Kossov: Theodore, by descent a Greek, created metropolitan in the year 1170, ruled the Ruthenian church for almost six whole years Ibid., in the place cited. Where, to say it in passing, you have a specimen of that singular chronology customary with certain Russian authors, according to which the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ is to be parted from the creation of the world by an interval not of 5508, but of 5500 years.
[21] [and after him John the Greek, the Russians vainly desiring a countryman; Clement dies.] When Theodore had died, in order that he might at length restore Clement to his see and flock, Rostislav dispatched legates to Constantinople, to obtain the consent of the patriarch; but forestalled by an embassy of the emperor, which already accompanied a new metropolitan, John by name, loaded with gifts, he softened somewhat the former rigour of his mind; nevertheless he threatened that, if the patriarch should presume again to send any metropolitan without consulting the grand duke, he would bring it about that henceforth by their own authority the Russian bishops should elect and consecrate a head from their midst. The last days of Clement and the year of his death are unknown; for those things which Kulczynski affirmatively determines, as if the renowned pontiff departed this life in the year 1160, after he “had held his see peacefully up to the last day of his life for fourteen years Ibid., in the place cited,” everyone sees cohere ill both with the chronology now commonly admitted by authors, and with the testimonies of history, by which it is established that the pontificate of Clement was most stormy.
[22] [That John, who by some is called the third, by others the fourth, is held to have been a Catholic; nor is the letter his,] But let us come to John, the fourth of this name, but to others, although less rightly, the third. Our Kojalowicz exempts this John from the schism, in the Miscellanea, by the witness of Stilting Acts of the Saints, vol. II of September, preface, p. XIX, writing thus: How devoted he was to union with the Roman church, he says, his letters testify, written on that matter to Pope Alexander, which are held in the Slavonic idiom among the monuments of the Russians. Thus Kojalowicz. Kulczynski adds that John wrote them at the demand of Rostislav, the orthodox prince Work cited, p. 116, Paris edition. On the other hand, Le Quien suspects Orbis Christianus, vol. I, p. 1264, edition of 1740 that to this John belong both the schismatic letter and the equally schismatic canons, which Herberstein published in the Commentaries on Muscovite Affairs Pp. 22 and 24, Berlin and Petersburg edition, 1841, taken from a certain Slavic codex. The opinion of Le Quien has been embraced by the more distinguished native authors, the metropolitan Eugenius [Description of the Church of Kiev, p. 80, and Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Writers, vol. I, article John III], Philaret, now archbishop
of Chernigov History of the Russian Church, vol. I, p. 53, Karamzin History of the Russian Empire, vol. II, note 158, Kalaidovich Literary Monuments of the XII Century, pp. 207 and 208 and several others. But that the letter in question is to be taken away from John IV, metropolitan from the year 1161 to the year 1164, and attributed to John II, who ruled the church from the year 1080 to 1098, and received the fame of a most learned man and even the surname of prophet, is the opinion of more recent writers, resting chiefly on this reason, that in some Greek transcripts the letter is inscribed to Clement, pope of old Rome.
[23] [inscribed to Clement the pope, that is to Guibert the antipope, but of John II, who lived at the end of the XI century.] And indeed in the time of John II there was living under the name of Clement III Wibert, formerly archbishop of Ravenna, a most notorious antipope, who from the year 1080 to the year 1110 disturbed and tore the Roman church by a most lamentable schism. This opinion Father Tinnebroeck, of pious memory, hagiographer of Brussels, had long ago made his own, and his colleague, the Rev. Father de Buck Etudes de théologie, de philosophie etc., vol. II, p. 343, and among the Russians it was afterwards championed first of all by Nevolin Ucenyja Zapiski, vol. I, p. 261, and Izvestia, vol. I, p. 32, once the ornament of the Petersburg academy, whom almost all have followed, among them the archbishop of Chernigov Philaret [Ucenyja Zapiski, Scientific Writings of the Petersburg Academy, vol. III, literary prodromus, p. 14], the former opinion being repudiated. Now it is evident that in this opinion there is no reason why John IV should be held an enemy of communion with the Roman see; rather that Kojalowicz and other Catholic authors favour, openly testifying to this; especially since it is established from elsewhere that between Alexander III and the emperor Manuel there were several negotiations on solemnly restoring the communion of the churches [Cozza, Polemical History of the Greek Schism, vol. II, part IV, chap. XIV and following].
[24] [Even if this letter were by John IV, it is yet no obstacle, since it is commonly held to be Catholic.] Indeed even if it be supposed that the letters of John, which Kojalowicz asserts are found among the monuments of the Russians, are the same as those published in Latin by Herberstein and are to be attributed to our John IV, the assertion of Kojalowicz does not for that reason lose force. For, what is to be noted first of all, that letter, read through more attentively, testifies to a sincere desire in its author for obtaining communion, and a reverence toward the Roman pontiff, and breathes moreover a gentleness almost unaccustomed in similar writings, and it treats of the errors of the Latins hesitantly, and speaks honourably of the Roman pontiffs, naming them indeed presidents and successors in the chair of the supreme Peter (πρόεδροὶ καὶ διάδοχοι τῆς τοῦ κορυφαὶου Πέτρου καθέδρας Ucenyja Zapiski, vol. I, p. 5, among the literary monuments. Further, if a man adorned with sacred and profane letters, such as that John IV is commonly proclaimed by authors [Kulczynski, Specimen of the Ruthenian Church, p. 116; Eugenius, Description of the Church of Kiev, p. 79; Theiner, Die neuesten Zustände der Katholischen Kirche in Polen und Russland, p. 32, Augsburg, 1841], treated of the errors of the Latins only with doubt, what is to be thought of the rest it is natural to conclude.
[25] So the common people could easily be drawn along by such leaders into the prejudices of the Greeks, [It is also easily to be admitted that the Russians, although at that time they would have to be called schismatics, were implicated in the schism only materially.] and thus in good faith swear by the words of their masters, and err only materially, as they say. Those then who lived holily and conformed their morals to the precepts of the church, nothing stood in the way of their both meriting eternal salvation and becoming worthy to be made illustrious by God by the integrity of their bodies after death. So the Catholic writers formerly argued, championing the sanctity of the Fathers of the Caves [Compare Miscellanea sacra of Theophanes Prokopovich, pp. 112 and 113, edition of 1744, Breslau], and indeed rightly; since it is very likely that there was not sufficient agreement among the bishops concerning the faith, some being more devoted than others to the Roman church Acts of the Saints, vol. II of September, preface, p. XX, letter A. Further, that the monks of the Caves adhered to the Catholic party may also be conjectured from what happened to their hegumen, Polycarp by name, who was also a contemporary of St. Arethas, being set over the monastery in the year 1164 by John IV himself.
[26] [That the monks of the Caves at that time were Catholics is suggested by the history of the hegumens of that age: first of all of Polycarp, who suffered much from Constantine II;] Namely him whom this metropolitan had judged worthy of the office of archimandrite, Constantine II, the successor of John, a Greek by nation, in the council of Kiev of the year 1168, before a hundred and fifty bishops, hegumens and monks, condemned for error and sent into prison, until the patriarch of Constantinople should bring a sentence on that matter. Now Polycarp was blamed for this, that he permitted his monks the use of cheese and milk foods on Wednesday and Friday, whenever feasts occurred on those days, whether Sunday or the more solemn ones of the saints. This custom in other dioceses too, for example of Smolensk and Rostov, already flourished at that time, and rested on the authority and example of the monastery of Studium, whose rule the monks of the Caves professed Compare Mai, New Library, vol. V, later part, p. 104, n. 5. These things being so, not undeservedly does the cause for which Polycarp was publicly condemned appear suspect, especially since he enjoyed the fame of piety and virtue among his own, and was very familiar and pleasing to Rostislav, prince of Kiev, just like Clement the metropolitan. However that may be, only when Constantine had died did the guiltless archimandrite recover his liberty, received with the great applause of the people, who complained with open mouth that the metropolitan had acted unjustly and said that this was the cause why in the next following year, that is 1169, Andrew, duke of Suzdal, afflicted Kiev with a most cruel disaster [Rudnev, Dissertation on the Heresies and Sects of the Russian Church, p. 48, Moscow, 1836].
[27] [of Basil, taken up from the secular clergy; of Theodore, Acindynus II and Polycarp II, in whose time the people of Constantinople made peace with the Roman church.] Polycarp was succeeded by Basil, taken up as hegumen in the year 1182 by the metropolitan Nicephorus II from the secular priests, by a custom still unaccustomed, but with consent so unanimous that the native authors will have it that this happened not without a certain intervention of God. Basil was a man distinguished for piety, and devoted from the heart to good works; and he took thought skilfully not only for the exterior but also for the interior house, since he caused the monastery to be surrounded with a wall, and fortified his own soul with a spiritual bulwark, having received the great habit or schema, by which he might testify to his desire for greater perfection. All these things we are taught by a letter of the most celebrated Cyril, bishop of Turov, given to Basil [Manuscript Codices of Count Uvarov, edited by Suchomlinov, vol. II, edition of 1838]. Finally, after Basil, St. Arethas had as hegumen Theodore, whom death overtook at the beginning of the XIII century, about the year 1203, two others succeeding, Acindynus II and Polycarp II, while Matthew ruled the church of Kiev from the year 1200 to the year 1223. Of this last metropolitan we shall say nothing for the present; we shall note however that in his age there returned to ecclesiastical communion the emperor Alexius and the patriarch John, who sat at Constantinople from the year 1199 to the year 1204, Innocent III, Roman pontiff from the year 1198 to 1216, seeing to this.
[28] Pope Innocent III wrote a memorable letter on that matter. Of whom there exists a memorable letter to the archbishops, bishops and all both clerics and laymen established throughout Ruthenia, given at Viterbo, on the nones of October, in the year 1207 according to Turgenev Historical Monuments of Russia, part I, n. III, but according to Theiner in the year 1209 Vicissitudes de l'Eglise catholique en Russie, vol. I, p. 22, edition of 1843. The pontiff begins this letter with the following words: Although you have until now been far removed from the breasts of your mother like strange sons, yet we who have been established by God in the pastoral office, though unworthy, to give knowledge to his people, cannot put off paternal affections, without striving by sound exhortations and doctrines to conform you as members to your head, that Ephraim may be converted to Judah, and Samaria may return to Jerusalem. Would that you were willing to understand, to be wise, and to provide for the last things, that, all darkness having been driven from your minds, you might return from the pathless place to the way, you who long since, wandering after the flocks of your companions (that is, of the Greeks), have obstinately withdrawn yourselves from the teaching of him whom our Saviour established as head and master of the universal church, saying: “You shall be called Cephas,” and: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” Then, having alleged some passages for establishing the primacy of Peter and of his successors, he proceeds thus: But to be silent at present concerning the rest, since the empire of the Greeks and almost the whole church has returned to the devotion of the Apostolic See, and humbly receives its mandates, and obeys its order, does it not seem absurd that a part should not agree with its whole, and should be singularly at variance with its universe? Finally he warns them to receive the legate of the Roman pontiff kindly, and to comply with him with ready minds. From all these things no little weight is added to the opinion which determines that Arethas was truly a Catholic. But of these things enough.
LIFE OF ST. ARETHAS, MONK OF THE KIEV CAVES,
By Bl. Simon, bishop of Vladimir, according to the Moscow Patericon of the year 1759.
Arethas, monk of the Caves. (Bl.)
Simon, bishop of Vladimir. (Bl.)
FROM THE PATERICON.
Thanks are to be given to God in adversity as in prosperity. It is truly worthy and just always to give thanks to God for all things, whether they be prosperous or adverse. For this not only increases grace to the just, as happened to Job, but also changes great sinners into saints and perfect men, as the blessed man makes manifest, of whom Bishop Simon a, an eye-witness, relates these things.
[2] [St. Arethas, excessively given to his money in the Caves monastery, is despoiled of it.] There was in the Caves monastery b a certain monk Arethas by name, sprung from the city of Polotsk c. He, secretly keeping much money in his cell d, went so far in avarice e that he neither paid out a penny to the needy f, nor turned anything of his goods to his own uses. Further, it came about on a certain night that all that he possessed was utterly plundered by robbers coming upon him. Wherefore the unhappy monk was consumed with such great grief and such great sadness that he came near to taking his own life, accusing the innocent brothers of the crime committed, and even cruelly beating them with scourges. They however besought him assiduously to cease from so unjust a course of conduct, and consoled him with the words of the psalmist, saying: “Cast your care upon the Lord and he will nourish you” (Ps. LIV, 23); but he, at the admonition of the brothers
spurned, even pricked and lacerated all with more bitter speeches.
[3] [When he bore this more heavily, he is admonished by an angelic voice in sleep, and sees a controversy of angels and demons and is converted;] But behold after some days Arethas fell into a grave sickness, and was near death; but not even then did he cease from murmuring or reproaching. So the most kindly Lord, who wills all to be saved, was pleased to manifest toward him a truly wonderful mercy. For on a certain night Arethas, lying half-alive in his bed, and for a long time now unable to utter even a word, suddenly, all wondering, broke out with a loud voice into the following words: Have mercy, Lord! Spare, Lord! All things are yours! I grieve no longer for the loss of my goods. When he had cried this out, he was at once healed; and asked about the cause of his clamour and groans, he subjoined this: that he had seen angels and troops of demons coming to him, and disputing among themselves concerning the money taken away: This man is surely ours, the demons cried, and is to be handed over to us, because he used his riches to the reproach of God, not to his praise; and that the angels said this to him: Would that, O wretched man, you had rendered thanks to God for the goods plundered, whereby they could have been reckoned to you for alms, as once to Job! For as he who pays out alms of his own accord and freely merits much before God, so likewise he is to be judged to merit who bears the plundering of his goods with a grateful spirit, since free giving and temptation overcome perform the same on both sides; namely because he not only resists the devil, who drags him by despoiling into sin, but rather hands over everything to God with thanks, therefore this is reckoned to him in the place of alms; when these things had been uttered by the angels, he had broken out into the aforesaid words: Have mercy, Lord, etc.; and immediately the demons had fled saddened, and the angels had exulted for joy and had withdrawn rejoicing, because the stolen money had been converted into alms.
[4] he does penance, exercising the virtues contrary to his vices, Hearing these things the brothers glorified God, who teaches sinners the way of penitence, and deigns to put so great a force and efficacy into a grateful spirit. And Arethas, as one instructed by God himself, turned out a man so perfect, whether you look to his mind or his morals, that he was an admiration to all, who chanted that saying of the apostle: “Where sin abounded, grace has superabounded (Rom. V, 20).” For as before he could not be hindered from reproaches, so thereafter he could not be distracted from the praises of God and thanksgiving, but he had daily on his lips that saying of Job: “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it been done: may the name of the Lord be blessed! (Job 1, 21.)” Likewise for his other sins Arethas did intense penance, and from then on he clung from the heart to true and by no means counterfeit poverty; he cultivated obedience not to the eye only, but from the soul; he preserved chastity both of body and of mind, much in prayer, excessive in fasts, and rich no longer in corruptible gold or silver, but rather in virtues both exterior and interior (for that grateful spirit had brought all with it), and so too in God himself, who is the fount of them.
[5] and at length he dies. At length, after many labours g endured, Arethas passed over to God, to enjoy eternal rest. He was laid up in the caves h; attesting by the wonderful integrity of his body that he had attained the beatitude promised to the merciful, and had therefore found mercy with God. By whose prayers i may we too be able to live always giving thanks, whereby we may merit likewise both to obtain the divine mercy, and to praise God, one in Trinity, for the ages of ages.
ANNOTATIONS.
SIDE-WORK.
Arethas, monk of the Caves. (Bl.)
Simon, bishop of Vladimir. (Bl.)
BY J. MARTYNOV.
THE FORMER PART
OF THE MOSCOW PATERICON.
§ I. Of the author of the Patericon.
[Herbinius, who once had singular authority in Slavic matters, first persuaded the westerners] That the Patericon of the Kiev Caves is a book in which the Lives of the Fathers of the Caves are contained, all know. But an accurate knowledge of it is less common; and who its author was, or how it arose, is unknown to most. How few are there, I ask, whom that volume, celebrated everywhere with a fame greater than is right, and commonly cited by all confidently, has been permitted to approach and weigh? Strangers in this matter are not only foreigners, but also most of the Russians, following too religiously what has been handed down to them by their elders and is now obsolete. And first indeed there was a common error, even in Russia, concerning the author of the Patericon, whom they commonly asserted to be Nestor the annalist [Compare Timkovski, Brief Disquisition on the Patericon of Nestor the Chronographer, p. 61]. That fiction was brought into the West by J. Herbinius of Königsberg, in a little work to which he gave the title: The Religious Caves of Kiev, or Underground Kiev, in which the labyrinth under the earth and in it the bodies of Greco-Ruthenian saints and heroes, dead for six hundred years and not yet corrupted, are revealed by name and to the eye from the Slavonic Πατερίκῳ. (Jena, in the year 1675.) No wonder; for to this specious title there was added the far more specious authority of the writer; and in truth since he, discharging the parts of the evangelical ministry in the Saxon church at Vilna, had frequent private intercourse with the Ruthenian abbot of the Vilna monastery of the Holy Spirit, Martinian Woloskowicz, and with Innocent Gizel, archimandrite of the Kiev Caves, there also came between them literary commerce, and moreover he had by this occasion obtained no middling learning in the Slavonic tongue, as he himself boasted; and since what he was going to relate he affirmed either that he had learned from those two men, or that he had had the opportunity of beholding with his own eyes; surely Herbinius was to be listened to as a kind of oracle by his countrymen and other men, altogether strangers in the commonwealth of Slavic letters.
[2] [that Bl. Nestor was the author of the Patericon, himself deceived by the archimandrite Gizel, as also Schlözer.] Now it is customary with Herbinius to present Nestor as the author of the Patericon. He writes at the beginning of his little work: “In the caves of Kiev sacred things at times, by the witness of Nestor, historian and chronologist of the Ruthenians, IN HIS BOOK WHICH HAS THE TITLE Πατερικὸν, that is, the book of the lives of the Holy Fathers now sleeping in the caves of Kiev,
are performed at a defined time Chap. I, p. 4.” And elsewhere treating of the Patericon: In which, he says, Nestor, chronographer of the Ruthenians, narrates the Lives of the Fathers of the Kiev Caves prolixly and in few words, which book was printed at Kiev in the year 1661 in Slavonic type Chap. III, p. 13. Nor does Herbinius confidently attribute to the venerable Nestor only the Lives inserted in the Patericon, but also the preface, prefixed to it in the common edition, filled and stained with the non-Catholic inventions of more recent writers; and he took care to render its sum in Latin, with the opinions even of the Augsburg confession mixed in here and there Chap. III, pp. 4, 17 and chap. XI, no. 5, pp. 98 and 113. The learned man struck on a rock, however, deceived certainly by the authority of Gizel, a man, to use the words of Herbinius, incomparable among the Ruthenians in that age, most learned in every way in the learning and experience of the tongues and sciences which he acquired for himself in many academies and journeys of Europe P. 31. If then what he put forth as true and undoubted concerning the author of the Patericon, relying on so great an authority, found credit, as is wont to happen, among the common people, I should prefer to blame Innocent, by no means innocent in this matter; and that the more willingly because the same error with many others from his common edition, as from a kind of fount, not only was spread widely into the Western regions, but also flowed forth among the natives, as the distinguished Mr. Kubarev has most rightly noted Disquisition on the Patericon of the Caves, pp. 12 and 22, Moscow edition, 1847, to be often praised by us here. Certainly this error was sanctioned by Schlözer himself, so greatly proclaimed as the parent of critical history in Russia. For he, although strong in the hypercritical art, could yet by no means be hindered from striking vehemently on the same rock as Herbinius, whether led away by the error of the common people, or yielding to the testimony of Müller, most friendly to him Timkovski, Brief Disquisition on the Patericon of Nestor, p. 62, or rather trusting too much in his own judgment. Hear him decisively defining the matter after his fashion: “There are two things, he says, which Nestor has left us: namely the Lives of certain hegumens and other men of the Caves monastery, as is had in the first part of the Patericon, which is inscribed: Lives of our holy and God-bearing Fathers of the Caves, written by the venerable Father Nestor, chronographer of the Russians. The other work of greater weight is the Chronicle, etc. [Nestor, Moscow edition 1809, preface §3, p. 14. German edition, p. 19] … And he just adds that those Lives, by the witness of the (common) Patericon in the preface, reached us through the injury of warlike tumults, yet not entire, but safe only in the chief parts, St. Simeon (read Simon), bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal, who flourished in the XII century, seeing to this.” Whence it is plain that Schlözer was of the opinion of those who would have it that Nestor was the author of a peculiar book, called the Patericon, altogether distinct from his Chronicle.
[3] [Into the same opinion then went learned Russians, for example Eugenius the metropolitan and Kachenovski;] What of this, that men otherwise most learned and most deserving in Slavic matters have affirmed that the Patericon of the Caves was written by Nestor and then lost? It is helpful to bring forward one or two of these. Let the first be the metropolitan Eugenius, who in the work with the title: Historical Dictionary of the Ecclesiastical Writers of Russia, p. 93, vol. II, Petersburg edition, 1827, reports the assertions of Schlözer word for word, relying on altogether the same testimony, that is the preface of the Common Patericon. But in the aforesaid preface whoever reads the matter more attentively will find such things nowhere. Here are the very words of the editors: The venerable Nestor wrote, besides the Chronicle, a peculiar book in which the life of our Holy Father Anthony is more richly narrated. Which book indeed is mentioned in the old manuscripts of the Patericon, but was snatched from us by the injury of wars. Yet the very well known witness Simon had read it, who also declared to us from it the year, month and day on which this venerable Father died [Patericon, Moscow edition 1759, fol. 7 verso, and Kubarev, in the place cited, p. 18]. There is treated here only the Life of St. Anthony, which alone is said to have perished in the storm of wars, and from which Bishop Simon, if the words are well understood, is said to have drawn not excerpts, but a single fact. For the rest, it escapes no one that the Life of Anthony of which there is discourse here, now indeed lost, is falsely attributed to Nestor by the editors of the Patericon and by Eugenius, who follows them Description of the Kiev Caves Lavra, § XVI, p. 121, Kiev edition, 1831. To Eugenius is to be added Kachenovski, formerly professor in the university of Moscow and standard-bearer of the sceptics, as they said, in the historical sphere. He, while he asserted that the annals of Nestor were a fetus conceived in a later age, did not hesitate to salute in him the true and legitimate parent of the Patericon: For what, he says, could be thought out more likely, than that a monk of the XI century (Nestor is meant), about to venerate the memory of Theodosius, who had founded the Caves monastery, determined to write his Life also, with the Lives of other Fathers of Kiev added? So Kachenovski, cited in the Disquisitions on the history of Russia, by the author Pogodin Vol. I, p. 366, Moscow, 1846.
[4] [but Timkovski held the opposite, asserting that Bl. Nestor was not the author of the Patericon, but that part of his chronicles was brought into this book. The opinion of Karamzin.] On the other hand, Timkovski, just praised, affirms that Nestor did not even think of writing a Patericon, and that the Lives which are now read in the first part of the common Patericon and are commonly attributed to Nestor, were originally part of the Chronicle composed by the same man, and only with an interval of time were excerpted from there by uncertain collectors and brought into the Patericon. I indeed affirm, are his words, that there existed no peculiar book which had Nestor as author and contained Lives of the saints, called the Patericon In the place cited, p. 71. Indeed he proves from many reasons, which we forbear from weighing here, that he could not even have written it, and he wonders not undeservedly how it could be that men otherwise learned and most skilled in their own tongue erred so foully, or allowed themselves to be led away by the false interpretations of foreigners Ibid., p. 66. Finally, after he had rejected the Life of Theodosius, which is more certain than certain to be Nestor's, as spurious or at least interpolated, and asserted that all the rest was either amplified or even entirely composed by Simon, he concludes the whole matter with these words: Therefore that truth of the greatest weight remains proved, namely that no other monument has been left to us by Nestor except his precious annals Vol. I, p. 73, Moscow, 1846. It remained therefore that he should consider Simon and Polycarp the sole authors of the Patericon, especially since it has never been attributed to anyone else, and concerning them there has existed no doubt. Something similar was pronounced by Karamzin, the most illustrious of all investigators of the history of the fatherland; but for altogether different reasons. For he held that these two writers alone were the authors of the Patericon History of the Russian Empire, vol. I, p. XXXIII, edition of 1818, not because he took away from Nestor, as Timkovski rashly did, the Life of Theodosius, contained in the first part of the common Patericon and to be certainly attributed to him, but, as Kubarev has rightly observed Small work cited, p. 2, because he noticed that in manuscript Patericons of better note it occurs placed indeed at the beginning, but destitute of the title of the Patericon of the Caves; while on the contrary the letter of Simon is adorned with it. Since therefore different people judge differently concerning the author of the Patericon, that question arises of its own accord, whence at length that book came, and how or when it arose.
§ II. The rise of the Patericon, its growths, its division.
The primitive Patericon contained three parts: First of all then it is to be known that the Patericon is a work not of one author, but of several, and that it has not preserved its primitive or unaltered form, but has put on new ones as often as it was copied out, until at length in the year 1661 it received the last from the often-mentioned Gizel (would that it were soon to be laid down!) and grew into a great volume, which was once turned over with the greatest assiduity by the Russians. And it arose in this way. It consisted at the beginning of three labours; of which the first was the letter of Bl. Simon, bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal, of whom we shall have much discourse further on, given in the year 1225 to Polycarp, monk of the Kiev Caves; the second the Letter of the same Polycarp to the hegumen of the Caves, Acindynus, later in time; the third finally was a narrative concerning the first monks of the Kiev Caves, drawn chiefly from the Annals of the so often praised Nestor [Archbishop Macarius, On the Older Recensions of the Patericon of the Caves, in the periodical work: Izvestija Academii etc., that is, Notices of the Petersburg Academy, literary section, vol. V, p. 131]. That the primitive Patericon consisted of these little works alone is proved even from this, that codices are found in which only these three writings are read, distinguished with the name of Patericon. Now let us briefly indicate what each of them contains in itself, as far as it contributes to our matter.
[6] [of which the first, or the letter of Bl. Simon, bishop of Vladimir, treats of twelve monks of the Caves, of the origin of the monastery and of St. Anthony the founder;] Further, in the letter of Simon, which comes in the first place, three parts can easily be distinguished, the paraenetic, the hagiographic and the mixed or historical. About to write to Polycarp, a monk still rather young, desirous of honour, and not knowing how to obey, the pious prelate begins with an exhortation; with paternal charity he goes to the sick man; he heaps religious humility with praises; he recalls his vows to memory; he sets his vocation under his eyes; he points out the vanity of worldly glory; and sweetly he calms and restrains youthful ardours. These things in the first part, which is commonly designated by the name of the Letter, as being full of salutary admonitions. In the second, which chiefly concerns our matter, Simon brings forward domestic examples, that he might the more efficaciously spur the one growing lukewarm, and might the more easily raise the despairing spirit. So there come forth into the wrestling-ground certain soldiers distinguished in virtue, among whom our Arethas. They are twelve in number, namely Onesiphorus with a certain unworthy monk; Eustratius the faster, famous for martyrdom; Nicon, surnamed the Dry, who also suffered a hard captivity among the Polovtsians; Kuksa, the hieromartyr; Pimen the faster; Athanasius the recluse; Nicholas, surnamed the Devout (Sviatosa), a duke turned monk; Erasmus, distinguished for contempt of earthly things; Arethas, whose Life we shall give above; finally Titus the presbyter with Evagrius the deacon, snatched off by a dreadful death. In the last part there is shown the excellence of the Kiev Caves monastery, the merits of the holy founders Anthony and Theodosius are declared, and there is narrated the origin of that most holy place, made illustrious by miracles. It is demonstrated moreover that this house is a tree fruitful with most abundant fruits, and that it will be a most fertile seminary for the prelates of the Russian church. And indeed, by the witness of the same Simon, who wrote in the year 1225, in his age almost fifty bishops had already gone forth from there.
[7] the second, of Polycarp, a monk of the Caves, concerning fifteen other monks; The admonitions of Simon, like a good tree, gave good fruit, I mean the letter of Polycarp, given at the request of the venerable hegumen Acindynus about the year 1230, and clearly testifying to the piety and sanctity of its author, changed into another man.
These may be considered as a continuation of the former letter; for Polycarp confesses that he will treat only of those monks of the Caves of whom the letter of the bishop of Vladimir is silent, and that he will say nothing but what he had received from the mouth of his most loving master. Wherefore this second letter is in a way owed to Simon, narrating the Lives of the fathers of the Caves with a far more diffuse pen. There are mentioned there the following monks, fifteen in number: Nicetas, a recluse turned bishop of Novgorod; Gregory the wonder-worker; Agapetus the physician ἀνάργυρος; John the Patient; Moses the Hungarian, a great lover of chastity; Prochorus the wonder-worker; Mark and Theophilus, diggers of the caves; Theodore the Tempted; Basil, familiar of Theodore; Spiridion and Nicodemus, bakers of prosphoras; Olympius the painter; and finally Pimen the Patient.
[8] and the third, taken from the Chronicles of Bl. Nestor, concerning four others. To both letters there is added, as we have noted, the narrative concerning the first monks of the Caves, taken from the Chronicle of Nestor; where besides the narrative of the chief matters pertaining to the domestic life, there are also set forth the Lives of Damian the presbyter, Matthew the Far-sighted, Jeremiah, an old man of very many years, and finally Isaac, tempted by the demon: and indeed those of the first three are brief, but that of the last more diffuse. And these are the three parts of the Patericon, which are as it were the foundation of this book, or rather three works, distinct from one another in author, time and purpose, although not unlike in the matters which they contain. From these further joined together, an uncertain compiler in the XV century fused that tripartite volume, not unfittingly adorned with the name of Patericon, as containing the Lives of the Fathers of the Caves; and they are thirty in number and are found in almost all collectors, whether more recent or of remoter age.
[9] [Afterwards several other things were added, partly by good right, as being monastic,] All the other things which are read in the Patericon were added to it in later times, and so are not found in all the codices. And these are: 1. The narrative concerning the erection of the Caves monastery and concerning St. Anthony, taken from the Chronicle of Nestor; 2. The Life of St. Theodosius, written with a more diffuse pen by the same Nestor, where some things are narrated of other monks, of St. Anthony, Barlaam, Ephraem, afterwards metropolitan of Kiev; to whom are to be added Nicon, Isaiah, raised to the see of Rostov, Damian the presbyter, Hilarion and Stephen, afterwards elected to the bishopric of Vladimir. And all these fragments, if you except the Life of Theodosius, in the common Patericon have grown into as many entire little works, just as also those on the first monks, on Damian, Jeremiah, Isaac, excerpted from the Annals. Whence the most distinguished Timkovski could not undeservedly affirm that Nestor never thought of writing a book which should contain such Lives as are had in the common Patericon. 3. The narrative of the finding of the relics of St. Theodosius, as it is read in the Annals of Nestor; 4. An encomium of St. Theodosius, by an uncertain author; 5. A letter of someone concerning the religion of the Varangians or Latins, given to the Grand Duke Yaroslav and wrongly [See the small work edited by me, Manuscrits slaves de la bibl. impér. de Paris, p. 96, Paris, 1858] attributed by some to St. Theodosius, as even the orthodox authors themselves confess [Philaret, archbishop of Chernigov, in his Patrology, vol. III, p. 412, Petersburg, 1859; Kubarev, Disquisition on the Patericon of the Caves, p. 3]; 6. Certain excerpts of the Chronicles concerning Niphon, bishop of Novgorod, and a treatment concerning Basil the presbyter. That Basil succeeded in the ruling the archimandrite Polycarp, who died in the year 1182 and who is to be well distinguished from the other Polycarp the hagiographer, praised above. All which things, although they are adventitious and secondary, yet cohere not badly with the preceding, if you look to the matter itself of which they treat.
[10] [partly undeservedly, whether because they concern other parts of hagiography, or are infected with a less Catholic spirit.] But a different determination must be made concerning the following additions or rather interpolations, which, if they are not merely historical, most certainly in no way pertain to the Patericon of the Kiev Caves: namely they treat of the apostolate of St. Andrew in Russia; of the origins of the church of Kiev; of SS. Cyril and Methodius and of the conversion of the Slavs to the faith; of SS. Olga and Vladimir; of certain Varangians who suffered martyrdom in the time of Vladimir; of the holy brothers Boris and Gleb, martyrs; and also of the coming of the Normans into Russia; of its first dukes Rurik, Oleg, Igor and those following. I pass over the letter of Photius, non-united metropolitan from the year 1410 to the year 1431, given to the monks of the Caves. And above all I should wish it noted that these things are not found except in codices of more recent age, and therefore have less authority and are of more suspect credit. These things having thus been explained concerning the rise and growths of the Patericon, its authors and division, we should now discourse of the manner in which the matters contained there have been ordered or mixed, condensed or extended, interpolated or altered by various collectors; but because the reader would be affected with no slight disgust, if a stranger should be led into the very twisted passages of these literary caves, therefore, leaving this unwelcome labour, we shall touch only some things concerning the chief recensions of the Patericon, whether manuscript or printed, whereby both the value of the genuine Patericon may be better weighed, and the defects of the common edition may be better known.
§ III. Various manuscript recensions of the Patericon.
[Formerly innumerable copies of the Patericon were made by the Russians, most busy in transcribing books,] That the Patericon was once among the delights of the Russians, and that it was accustomed to be turned over or transcribed much more than the Chronicles of Nestor, is declared by Mr. Kubarev, certainly an excellent judge in this matter [See in the Historical Collectanea (Istoriceskij sbornik) which Pogodin published, vol. I, p. 429]. Let there be recalled here to memory what Schlözer Nestor, Moscow edition, preface §19 and others relate of the diligence or rather pleasure in transcribing, peculiarly implanted in this nation. Certainly Kohl wrote words worthy of note: I believe no people is so laborious and assiduous in copying out books as the Ruthenians are: hence you may see among them very many men who through the whole day do nothing else but copy out Russian books, seeking their livelihood by nothing else: and they give to these to copy not only manuscript and not yet published books, of which kind are books comprising the history of the fatherland, called annals (he could have signified chiefly sacred history), but also rarer and more precious printed ones: and often, entering the shops of merchants at Petersburg, I have come upon certain sermons of Chrysostom or of Ephraem the Syrian or copied books of Sacred Scripture [Introduction to the History and Literature of the Slavs, chiefly the sacred, etc… p. 5, Altona, 1729]. It must be added that pious men, visiting the Kiev caves, in order that they might more easily obtain the graces necessary to them, or show a pledge of a grateful spirit for those obtained, were accustomed to promise to copy out with their own hand the Life or office of some saint of the Caves, binding themselves also by the oath of a vow Kubarev, in the place cited. By which it came about that copies of the Patericon were once very much multiplied.
[12] [which can be brought back to four families, the Arsenian, the Theodosian, the Acacian and the Cassianic.] Those which are known today, however, can easily be reduced to three or four chief families or classes; of which however none is older than the XV century. The most ancient of all is of the year 1406 Macarius, On the Older Recensions of the Patericon, p. 134, and not of the year 1409, as a certain one held Philaret, History of the Russian Church, vol. I, p. 49, and it is called Arsenian from the name of Arsenius, bishop of Tver, by whose will it was made. This prelate I conjecture to have been the first of all to conceive the plan of composing a Patericon of the Caves properly so called from those three authors Nestor, Simon and Polycarp. Arsenius, a saint among the natives, held the episcopal crozier from the year 1390 to the year 1409 Historical Dictionary of the Saints of the Russian Church, vol. I, p. 41. That the Arsenian transcript excels the others not only in age, but also in merit, the most learned Kubarev declares, and therefore most worthy to be made public. There exist three codices of this recension; of which the distinguished Mr. Kubarev fully described one of parchment in the little work so often praised here Disquisition on the Patericon of the Caves, Moscow edition, 1847, where he has excellently illustrated this whole question of the Patericon. Yet the archetype of those codices is still lacking, we shall observe with the same man. The transcripts of the second family, named Theodosian from Theodosius the transcriber, are said to approach indeed the age of the former, but are of almost no authority. On the other hand, the third class, which they call Acacian, arisen in the year 1460, comes next to the Arsenian in authority and merit, and indeed, by the witness of Macarius, who has fully delineated it, seems to snatch the palm from it, at least in some part [On the Older Recensions of the Patericon of the Caves, chap. IV, pp. 143 and following]. The last finally, or that of Cassian, is referred to the year 1462, and is greatly interpolated [Kubarev, On Nestor, in the Historical Collectanea of Mr. Pogodin, vol. IV, p. 400, Moscow, 1842], whatever the defenders of this recension may say to the contrary Macarius, in the place cited, chap. V, p. 153. It is helpful to have brought one or two examples. Very often in the Legend of the beginning of the Caves monastery, and in other fragments brought from the Chronicle of Nestor into the Patericon, where the chronographer makes discourse of himself, his name being unspoken, the codex of Cassian shows the name “of Nestor;” which is found in no other. And because the writings of Nestor were commonly placed at the beginning, hence indeed it came about that the readers of the Patericon (and they were countless) attributed the whole volume also to him Kubarev, in the place cited, p. 428 (read 378), at the end, chap. III. The codex of Cassian contains moreover the letter on the faith of the Varangians or Latins, wrongly, as we have seen, ascribed to St. Theodosius, and other similar things, of which Mr. Kubarev has much. Yet this transcript above the others was used by the editors of the common Patericon. Of less weight are the codices written in the XVI and XVII centuries, and so to be passed over in silence. The last however is to be excepted, which Joseph Trizna, archimandrite of the Kiev Caves from the year 1647 to the year 1656, took care to have made. It is a very large volume, consisting of a hundred and three chapters, but a rude and undigested mass. Note the title: Patericon of the Kiev Caves or Lives and deeds of our Holy Fathers who were famous in the Caves. Bl. Nestor, chronographer of Russia, wrote it; afterwards Simon, God-loving bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal, increased it; finally Bl. Polycarp, archimandrite (sic) of the Caves, adorned it more fully and composed it into one. But now Joseph Trizna, archimandrite of the Caves lavra, has ordered it to be yet more fully … explained and brought into one.
§ IV. Various editions or printings of the Patericon.
[First of all Kossov edited the Lives of the Fathers in the Polish tongue, in the year 1635; the greater discrepancies of this edition and of the common one.] To proceed now to the editions of the Patericon, the first of all came out at Kiev in the year 1635, in Polish, by the care of Sylvester Kossov, then bishop of Mstislav, Orsha and Mogilev, with the assent of Peter
Mohila, metropolitan of Kiev. Sylvester placed the following title on his book: Patericon, or Lives of the Holy Fathers of the Caves, once fully written by St. Nestor, monk and chronographer, in the Slavonic idiom, now condensed from the same and illustrated from various Greek, Latin, Slavonic and Polish authors, comes forth, by the labour of the Rev. Father Sylvester Kossov, bishop of Mstislav etc… at the press of the Caves monastery. Where it is to be noted that the Lives of the Fathers are attributed by Kossov to Nestor alone, the two others, Simon and Polycarp, being omitted; which error we have shown above then put down deep roots. Kossov's Patericon was used by Kulczynski, more fortunate in this matter than we. Nor does anything occur to be added here on that account, except that it has been illustrated with notes, which are exceedingly necessary in a work of this sort, and which I strongly suspect to have been drawn from the Latin edition of the Lives of the Fathers of our Rosweyde. For this had already seen the light in the year 1615, illustrated with very abundant notes. In many things moreover the volume of Kossov departs from the common one. For it contains some things which are lacking in this last, for example what is narrated of the Venerable Onesiphorus, and of a certain monk who had secretly eaten foods. Now Onesiphorus flourished in the time of Pimen, hegumen between the years 1131 and 1141. On the other hand, it has nothing of Ephraem and Isaiah, afterwards bishops, of Mark and Theophilus. It also follows an order different from the common one, and to speak in general with the metropolitan Eugenius, my guide in this matter Description of the Kiev Caves Lavra, § XVI, p. 125, Kossov rendered the idea and form of his Slavonic copy far more exactly than Gizel, unless they are said to have used different archetypes. At the end finally you have added a chronology of the metropolitans of Kiev, which the author, himself soon a metropolitan, testifies that he faithfully extracted from the authentic diptychs of the church of Kiev; and Kulczynski followed the same in the third part of his Specimen; where the series of the metropolitans of Kiev is related, extended up to the author's times. But let us make our step to the common edition.
[14] [The common first edition of Kiev came out in the year 1661 and was then often renewed.] The first edition of the Slavonic or common Patericon came out at Kiev, in the year 1661, in folio, by the care of the archimandrite Innocent Gizel, conformed, as we have observed, to the norm of the codex of Cassian, and it is adorned with images of the Saints. Hear the title: Patericon of the Caves, the Lives of our Holy and God-bearing Fathers of the Caves, by the authors the fathers of the Caves, and they holy, Nestor the Russian annalist, Simon bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal and Polycarp archimandrite of the Caves. Namely the first part is attributed to Nestor, the second to Simon, the third to Polycarp; whom the editor, to note this in passing, confuses with the other Polycarp, who had died almost fifty years before, namely in the year 1182. This common edition was renewed rather often both at Kiev and also at Moscow. We shall note the chief ones which then came to light. The second saw the day at Kiev in the year 1678, and is somewhat altered; the third in the year 1680, Gizel being still alive; the fifth in the year 1702, under the archimandrite Joasaph Krokovski, again corrected and increased by a dedicatory letter to Peter the Great. This all the following editions imitated, except the last of Kiev, prepared in the year 1830; which is the fifteenth in order and to which is read added a narrative concerning the relics of the Duchess Juliana of Olshanski, found in the XVII century. Of the two Moscow editions, the former is to be noted, brought to light in the year 1759; which I have in my hands, and for that cause I shall hereafter cite it alone. It is, moreover, by the witness of Sopikov, a man most versed in bibliographic matters Essay on Russian Bibliography, vol. I, n. 817, p. 171, distinguished for rarity and excellence, and in no way, if you perhaps remove the images, inferior to the Kiev editions. Strahl indeed called it a Kiev one Beiträge zur russischen Kirchengeschichte, vol. I, p. 91, Halle edition, 1827, led into error, because he had badly understood the words of Sopikov, whom he doubtless cites.
[15] blemishes common to all editions; From what has been said so far it is natural to conclude: first that Bishop Simon, biographer of St. Arethas of the Caves, laid the first foundations of the Patericon, although neither Simon, nor Polycarp and much less Nestor is to be called the author of the Patericon in the proper sense; then that the text of the common edition is shown to us neither genuine nor undefiled, but is rashly interpolated and is to be examined according to the rules of the critical art; and so that it merits no greater credit, but rather less, than the Cassian copy, to whose norm that text was conformed by Gizel. Now the manner which those collectors in the XV century and the two following followed in making copies of the Patericon escapes no one. For they added to the genuine writings what they wished; they removed some things, added others of their own, either altering or adorning with the flowers of a practised eloquence [Vostokov, Description of the Manuscript Codices of the Rumiantsev Museum, p. 433, col. 6, n. CCCV, Petersburg edition, 1842]; they prefixed titles forged by their own effort; they overturned the order each according to his own talent; not to say much, they acted with impunity and with so great a security and at once rashness that the indications of the genuine text can be recognised only with the greatest difficulty; which manner of writing, certainly to be approved by no one, whether it is to be attributed to malevolence or to ignorance and simplicity, as in those times, I should not wish to decide. Perhaps those obscure amplifiers expected a reader either so secure and ignorant of all things that he would pass by historical, chronological and other rocks with unstumbling foot; or if they should stumble anyone of sharper sense, they persuaded themselves that he would easily, even without being admonished, recognise that the additions were foreign.
[16] the necessity of a new critical edition. Nor did the Kiev editors of the year 1661 enter on another way, as authors otherwise most devoted to the Greco-Russian church confess [Macarius, On the Transcripts of the Patericon of the Caves, especially the older ones, in the periodical work of the Petersburg Academy, Izvestija II Otdelenija Academii, vol. V, pp. 163 and following]; indeed they went further, seeing that they increased with new interpolations what had been listed by their predecessors, and vitiated the genuine text of the Patericon more with their own additions Philaret, archbishop, History of the Russian Church, vol. I, p. 49. And more certain than certain they spurned that art by which gold is purged of slag, or by which the inventions of commentators are separated from the words of authors; although it is above all to be employed in this kind of labours. And would that someone, whether Russian or foreigner, skilled in the Slavic idioms, might undertake to accomplish this work, and bring out for us the older text of the Patericon from transcripts of better note, weighed most exactly to the laws of the critical art and furnished more richly with historical and other notes! How much this is to be longed for both by the cultivators of Slavic matters in general, and chiefly by investigators of sacred ones, anyone, unless he goes blind in the midday sun, or is held entangled by preconceived opinions, will easily grant.