Anna or Euphemianus

ON ST. ANNA OR EUPHEMIANUS, NUN AT CONSTANTINOPLE,

AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINTH CENTURY.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Anna Euphemianus, nun at Constantinople. (S.)

BY H. M.

§ Single. The parentage of St. Anna, her marriage, her religious life in male dress in various monasteries, and her pious death.

In the printed Menæa of the Greeks, both those of old and those of a more recent edition, there is commemorated at the 29th of October St. Anna, called Euphemianus, [The cult of St. Anna little diffused, her life humble, and receiving scarcely any light from history.] a nun of Constantinople. Surely, although that kind of book, when it lacks the support of old codices or ancient witnesses, does not suffice to establish entire credit for any history, yet where it does not show signs of manifest error, it renders what is narrated at least probable. For there existed at Byzantium innumerable monasteries and sacred buildings, each of which had its own proper feasts, either in honor of the relics laid up there, or in memory of the saints who had inhabited those places Cf. above, page 207, no. 4, page 759, no. 7, and 761, no. 16. Hence those singular announcements met with here and there in the codices, which, although documents are lacking, it would be wrong to reject outright, when the memory concerned is that of saints who lived before the times of the schism. For the rest, in the life of St. Anna, as it is shown with a truly rude pen in the books of the Greeks, nothing occurs that is not pious, nothing that seems to conflict with the character of the eighth century, in which she is said to have lived. But what in the course of time may have been corrupted, changed, or added in this Life we cannot conjecture: for it is wholly occupied with common and rather humble matters, on which, therefore, light cannot be shed from the political condition of the time.

[2] [Married early, and soon bereft of husband and children, she resolves to take the dress of monks.] Anna was born at Constantinople of pious parents, about the year 760. For she married early, and in the year 780, when Constantine and Irene began to reign, she was already with child for the second time. Bereft of her parents, she was left to the care of her grandmother and paternal uncles, one of whom was a monk of Olympus, and likewise a renowned confessor of the faith before the iconoclast emperors See below, note o. When her grandmother saw that she was grown up, and feared, as is right to suppose, for the integrity of a girl bereft of parents, she hastened to settle her granddaughter in matrimony. When her uncle learned of this, a most religious man, who knew that Anna was inclined rather to divine things, he disapproved of what had been done so hastily. Afterwards, when, the persecution of the iconoclasts having ceased, he had appeared before the orthodox emperors to receive the merited praise and veneration of faith and virtue,

he visited his niece and by divine revelation announced to her the approaching death of her husband. At length Anna was bereft of the two children whom she had borne, according to a new prophecy of the same uncle, and thereupon she at last resolved to embrace the religious life, which she had formerly sought in her prayers. But, by a wondrous design, in order that she might more probably lie deeper hidden from the knowledge of all men, she determined to conceal her sex and to live in a monastery of men. How this resolve was carried out is shown by the synaxarion to be published below from the printed Menæa of the Greeks.

[3] [The deeds of those holy women who lived in this manner do not merit the greatest credit.] Since nearly everything is plain in that summary of the Life, we shall now touch briefly on a few things in our Commentary, the rest being transferred to the annotations after the translation of the synaxarion. But first of all, that we may know with what reliability the deeds of St. Anna are recounted by the Greeks, it must be confessed that the histories of those holy women who spent their lives under a feigned name, in male dress, in monasteries of men are more uncertain than others, as lacking fit witnesses. Next that some things seem to be drawn from a certain commonplace, which is wholly proper to them. For who, on reading of the crime of debauchery imputed to most of those holy women, would not at once suspect that this is in truth a commonplace, which writers easily devised in so unusual a manner of life, or perhaps simply borrowed from the life of St. Marina, which is more credible than the others? It was surely an easy thing to invent that which offered a singular contest between religious humility and the care for good repute that must never be rashly cast away. Let there be compared, if you please, the Acts of St. Apollinaris Syncletica [Acta SS. January volume I, page 260; in Migne, Patrol. Græca, volume CXIV, column 327], of St. Marina Acta SS. July volume IV, page 286, of St. Eugenia [Menæum of December, day 25; Migne, Patrol. Græca, volume CXVI, column 627 and following], of St. Susanna Menæum of December, day 15, and surely, besides not a few other causes of doubt, this thought also will occur, that all the others have been conformed, with some changes, to one or another history. To the same kind also seem to me to belong the deeds of that most wicked monk which the synaxarion of St. Anna shows us See below, nos. 6 and 7. I pass over, lest I stray too far beyond bounds, many other things which could be brought against the sincerity of nearly each of these lives. For apart from what I mentioned a little above, there is nothing that weakens the credibility of the history of St. Anna except the want of more ancient authority.

[4] [Although St. Anna inhabited a number of monasteries, it is demonstrated that she did not sin against right reason,] Anyone would indeed wonder at St. Anna's frequent passing from one house to another who did not know the rules of the Greek monks, especially the more ancient ones. For although those who abandoned a monastery without just cause were accused of levity, yet since monks were held neither by any unchangeable rule nor by any positive law, they migrated with easy dispatch from one place to another. This is witnessed by all who have written on the institutes of the ancient monks [Cf. Examen historicum libri D. Verhoeven, pages 23 and 93; Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 61], and generally by the very lives of ascetics and cenobites, whom we read so frequently to have gone abroad outside their first monastery that it is by no means necessary to heap up examples here [Cf. Acts of St. Simeon Stylites, January volume I, page 275; Menæum of November, day IV, Synaxarion of St. Joannicius]. But wherever a holy man is treated, it generally appears by what causes he was led to a change of place, which in the Life of St. Anna Euphemianus will not with difficulty be shown presently. For they are either impelled by zeal for a more perfect and severer life, or wish to avoid the company of brothers living less rightly. And these reasons are such that even now, after the liberty of religious has been restricted by a tighter bond, they would permit a monk a change of monastery.

[5] nor against laws received by usage or publicly sanctioned, The last cause indeed is alone admitted by St. Basil in the longer rule [Regula fusius tractata, question XXXVI, Works, volume III, page 381, Benedictine edition], but, I think, because the liberty of the old monks in choosing penances and spiritual exercises was so great that everywhere, provided the malice of the brothers did not stand in the way, it was possible to strive toward more perfect things by any ways and means whatever. The author of the Monastic Constitutions attributed to St. Basil also warns superiors of religious not simply and inconsiderately to admit one another's fugitive brothers Constitutiones monasticæ, chapter XXXIII, ibid. pages 579 and 580. Among the Greeks moreover were received the African canons, the eightieth of which, according to the division of the Dionysian Code, decrees that bishops should not ordain monks received from other monasteries or set them over any monastery [Dionysii Exigui Codex Canonum, column 206, ed. Migne, Patrol. Lat. volume LXVII; Cf. Balsamon and Zonaras in Beveridge, volume I, pages 616 and 617]. This doctrine was wholly confirmed by the Seventh Ecumenical Council, by whose canon XXI it is declared that a monk or nun ought not to leave a monastery and betake himself to another; and if this should happen, that he could be received in hospitality, but not admitted without the decision of his own superior Cf. Balsamon and Zonaras in the place cited, pages 327 and 328. But St. Anna Euphemianus, if credit is given to the Synaxarist, never allowed herself to act against the law long since received and approved in the Second Council of Nicæa, a few years after she herself embraced the monastic life.

[6] for having made trial in a monastery, she went off to a Laura, For at first she learned the rudiments of that life in a certain monastery of Mount Olympus, conspicuous in Mysia opposite the city of Constantinople. And after she had become accustomed to the spiritual contest, she migrated to a Laura of the same region. This way of acting is altogether in accord with the precepts and example of the fathers. For the life of those who lived in a Laura was by no means free of dangers, since they enjoyed greater liberty in their cells, and, because of the company of others, combined the difficulties of both lives, anchoretic and cenobitic. For this reason they generally first spent some time in a monastery properly so called, which we might not undeservedly call the novitiate of the lauras.

[7] which way of acting is proved by the example of St. Sabas. A splendid specimen of this discipline is shown by the life of St. Sabas, by Cyril of Scythopolis, than which those who wish to learn something of the manners of the Greek monks will surely find no richer spring of documents. For St. Sabas established a certain monastery not far from his Laura, toward the north, and placing there each of the best monks he entrusted to them this charge, that they should imbue men renouncing the world with the precepts of the religious life. And he ordered these novices to be vigorously exercised until they had learned the Psalter and the rule of psalmody, and had received exact training in monastic discipline, because he said that a cell-dwelling monk should be endowed with the power of discernment, be studious, a fighter, sober, watchful, temperate, moderate, apt to teach, not in need of teaching, capable of bridling all the members of the body and of keeping the mind safe… But after he had proved that those renouncing the world had accurately learned the canon of psalmody, and could guard their mind and make their spirit pure of the memory of worldly things, and contend against alien thoughts, then he provided them with cells in the Laura [Cotelier, Monumenta græca, volume III, page 258 and following; Cf. Acta SS. February volume I, pages 539 and 542, no. 10].

[8] From here she migrates for just causes to another monastery Further, in order that St. Anna's passing to a Laura may be well understood, it must be noted that she more probably shrank from a monastery properly so called and resolved rather to live in a Laura. For in the latter she could more easily lie hidden. I would suppose, then, that the whole matter had been arranged beforehand with that monk who had tonsured her, that after some fixed time he should lead her to his Laura. What is narrated in the synaxarion seems to hang together less well, and is not conveniently explained. But even if one should wish to follow it, the pious woman's plan will not be to be disapproved, in choosing a Laura rather than a monastery. For this kind of life certainly befitted her better. She was compelled to abandon the Laura because of the huge number of men whom the fame of her miracles attracted to this place. Then there was given to her by Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople, a place strewn with ruins, which was afterwards called the monastery of the Abramites, that a new house might be raised there from the foundations. We have discussed above at greater length the monastery of the Abramites and that which has its name from St. Abramius See above, pages 758 and 759, and we wrote that St. Anna lived in the former. Yet we afterwards noticed, the inquiry on Abramius being already at press, that this is certainly true, provided that the words of the synaxarion which is now called the monastery of the Abramites are not reckoned to be said in the sense in which they were understood in the tenth century. For our opinion is that, the monastery of the Abramites having been destroyed, the designation passed in the tenth century to the buildings of St. Abramius. But if these words were not written before that time, St. Anna lived in the monastery of St. Abramius. But since it cannot be defined at what time that clause was written, we ought to have spoken only with doubt, and we therefore desire our assertions to be emended.

[9] [which she leaves in turn, her sex being divulged, to live apart outside the city. Returning at length to Constantinople she dies piously.] But afterwards, the sex of the pious woman being divulged, it was necessary to withdraw from that monastery. St. Anna went off, then, to the parts of Stenum, that is, to the places adjoining the Bosporus Below, annotation x, and finding a church next to which lay a little garden and a spring, there, having resumed as we suppose woman's dress, with two monks, more probably eunuchs Below, annotation y, she remained quietly for some years, until at length, called back to Byzantium by certain monks, in another monastery in the parts of τοῦ σίγματος, or near the Julian harbor, today Kum-Kapou Below, annotation z, she there most holily completed the course of her life. The year of her death we cannot define. We conjecture however that she fled from the place situated outside the city, and hence exposed to the devastations of enemies, to the security of the city, when the leader of the Bulgarians, Krum, encircled Constantinople with a siege and plundered the churches and monasteries situated outside the city Symeon the Master, among the Scriptores post Theophanem, page 408, Paris edition. These things were done in the year 813, in the reign of Leo the Armenian; St. Anna would then have reached the fiftieth year of her age, and a few years later, before the year 820, she would have departed from this life. These things, though without proofs, are nevertheless probable, since they do not conflict with what is known from her life.

THE LIFE OF ST. ANNA EUPHEMIANUS

from the Menæa of the Greeks.

Anna Euphemianus, nun at Constantinople. (S.)

FROM THE MENÆA.

St. Anna, her husband having died according to her uncle's prophecy, Our holy mother Anna was born at Byzantium of a pious deacon of the church of our Most Holy Lady the Mother of God at Blachernæ ^b. When she was bereft of her parents, her grandmother sought to join her to a most pious man, and accomplished this. But there came from Olympus ^c her uncle, a man most devoted to divine things, and of great discernment besides, who, although his tongue had been cut out under Leo the Iconoclast, nevertheless spoke readily and clearly ^d. When he saw, then, that she had been joined to a husband, he said: Why have you joined to a husband this girl intent on divine battles and divine labors? and, having imparted his blessing to Anna, he went away. Some years having passed, and that impious emperor having been sent down into the hiding places of hell, Irene and Constantine, the orthodox and most faithful emperors ^e, sent for that holy man, and when they had heard how much he had suffered from Leo, they received his blessing and obtained his prayers. He, having set forth to them the things that serve to carry out the will of God, took to the road again. Then, when he again saw that blessed woman, he said: Be of great heart and take courage, daughter: for many are the tribulations of the just. Know that the child whom you bear in the womb will not be born before you have laid your husband in the tomb. And this in fact happened. For in the sixth month from conception her husband died.

[2] [is also warned of the imminent death of her two children: she begins to give up her goods.] She, wasting away with much weeping, entrusted the elder boy, now weaned, to her other uncle, and then girded herself for spiritual contests ^f. How many and how great these were those know who are initiated and who have excellently run the ascetic course. While she was engaged in these, then, that most wise man came from Olympus. The woman, casting herself at his feet and begging his blessing, was first addressed in these words: Be strengthened in the Lord, daughter; and then: Where is the child? And Anna said: The one I have entrusted to your brother, who is after God my protection, and the other is with me ^g. And when these and other things had been uttered with troubled and bitterly mourning spirit, she set the two boys before the venerable old man: Pray, she said weeping, O venerable father, for these boys. But he said: They have no need of prayer. And when Anna took this hard, she cried out, groaning from the bottom of her heart: Woe is me, a sinner! What then awaits us again? And the old man said: Did I not tell you, daughter, that the tribulations of the just are many? unless we suffer, we shall never be justified: for so it is fitting, so it is pleasing to God. Then Anna said: My father, has it seemed good to the Lord to take this tender offspring from this life? And that wondrous man answered: You have said rightly, daughter, for the Lord will shortly take them from you. And when, as was right, she had given thanks to God, casting herself at the feet of the venerable old man, she received his blessing, and began to distribute her goods with both hands.

[3] [Soon, the prophecy being proved by the event, feigning her sex by male dress and name, she is admitted to a monastery of men,] And not long afterwards, the boys having died, she delivered what remained into the hands of the poor, and went around the churches carrying lights ^h, and praying, and saying a last farewell ⁱ. Finally, finding a certain monk from Olympus, and being tonsured by him ^l, she secretly put on male dress beneath, and female dress on the outside: and soon, casting off the woman's mantle, she stealthily appeared around Olympus ^m. Then she betook herself to a certain monastery ⁿ, and addressed the doorkeeper, indicating that she desired above all to be able to come into the sight of the superior. The doorkeeper, informing the superior as was the custom and bringing him to her, went out. Then that venerable woman, casting herself at the feet of the superior, and having obtained his blessing, was raised up by him and thus questioned: What is the cause of your coming to us? and what are you called? And she said: The cause why I have come to this holy monastery is the weight of sins, holy father, which presses on me: I desire to live quietly for the time remaining to me, and, unworthy though I be, to find divine mercy on the day of judgment. And my name is Euphemianus. The old man said to her: If you think such things in your spirit, son, and desire salvation, flee excessive liberty: for the nature of eunuchs is easily caught by base talk ^o. After this, the customary prayer being poured out [p], he numbered her with the other brothers. And Euphemianus advanced so far beyond those who were already there in all virtue and humility that he became a pattern and model for all the other inhabitants of the monastery.

[4] from which she passes to another, But the steward of her house, whom she herself had appointed for this, having dispensed everything as was his office, set out to seek his lady, and when he came upon the monk who had tonsured her, he inquired whether he knew where she might be who had left earthly things and seeks heavenly ones. The monk replied: I will not deny that I have learned some things about her, my son, but where she now is I do not know. But come, let us go on together thither to that nearest monastery. When they arrived there, they learned from the doorkeeper that what they sought was within the cloister: they asked therefore that she be brought out [q]. When she came out, pointing with his hand to the steward, the monk thus addressed her: Behold your most faithful steward, who has already suffered much in seeking you. If it seems good to you, let us go to our Laura [r]. Hearing this, the holy woman went to the superior of the monastery, and having received a blessing from him and from the other brothers, she went out from there and with her steward, the monk also accompanying them, set out for the other monastery.

[5] into which by her holiness a huge In it she dwelt a good while, and was seen to perform very many signs. But the fame of her miracles being spread abroad, a great number of men, leaving the world, number of men she draws, wherefore a larger house is erected for her. flocked to the monastery. But the narrowness of the place hindered the admission of those coming. Whence the superior of the monastery, divinely inspired, informed St. Tarasius, at that time patriarch of Constantinople [s], of the wondrous works of the monk Euphemianus, and showed that, her miracles being spread abroad, no small number of men, abandoning the world, were flocking to the monastery, for receiving whom it was wholly unequal because of the narrowness and smallness of the place. These things being announced, he saw that the patriarch had come over to his opinion. For he received from him as a gift a place strewn with ruins, which today is called the monastery of the Abramites [t], and shortly from the foundations he raised a pious house for the salvation of many souls, and in it he wished that holy woman to spend the rest of her life. The matter being thus arranged, and the fame of this angelic life being spread to the ears of all, it is not possible to describe how great a number of men surrounded her every day.

[6] But harassed by an impious monk, Then Anna suffered a trial from a certain man, a monk indeed in dress, but in fact and works a standard-bearer of the supporters of the malevolent demon [u]. He then, undertaking a most iniquitous thing, began to pour out and proclaim bitter and base insults against the holy woman, as being a eunuch. And while she made nothing of these, but rather held the curses heaped on her as a benefit, a certain pious woman, when she heard the base and abominable words of the impure man, afterwards indeed guilty of manifest murder, said: Beware, brother, lest perhaps he is not, as you assert, a eunuch, or polluted, as you conjecture, but a woman and unpolluted: whence you for your part may receive as your wage the gehenna of fire, because you harass the innocent, and pollute the ears of the hearers. For a few years ago a certain woman, having distributed all her goods, vanished from here: is not perhaps the one you call a eunuch that very woman, and are you not casting your soul into eternal ruin?

[7] [denounced and all but killed, she flees from there; she dwells at Stenum, and, returning at length to Byzantium, dies piously.] But the wicked and cunning man from this found a new malice, so that, laying aside the insults, he spread the matter among a number of people. He resolved also to send the holy woman headlong down a sloping place, so that, the clothes she wore being lifted up, he might see her naked and have the matter ascertained. And when a little later he did this, he saw nothing indeed, but by divine power he withered in half of his body: wherefore, rising up, he returned home. There then he was held as one condemned for homicide, and on a beam, his head being caught as if in a noose, a punishment they call the fork [v], he poured out his deadly and wicked soul. The holy woman, as one who became the more famous from this, and wishing to escape scandals, taking only two monks with her, hastened off to the parts of Stenum [x], and finding a church which possessed water and a little garden, dwelt in it with two monks, Eustathius and Neophytus [y]. Whence again, some years having passed, setting out, and being called by certain monks to Byzantium not far from the Sigma [z], there she piously completed the course of her life, and, conferring not a few healings or miracles on those who came, she passed to the Lord.

ANNOTATIONS.

was vindicated from the insults of heretics, was convened by their care.

p. See in the Euchologion of the Greeks published by James Goar what those customary prayers were.

q. I would not wish to assert too much the reliability of this part of the synaxarion, for it is not consistent with itself, nor is the steward's arrival sufficiently explained.

r. These things happen abruptly and with no apparent cause at all. Compare what we said in the Preliminary Commentary, no. 3, and above, annotation l.

s. St. Tarasius is venerated by the Greeks on the 25th of February, at which day our predecessors illustrated his life [Acta SS. February volume III, page 572 and following; cf. September volume V, page 463 and following]. He ruled the church of Constantinople from the 25th of December of the year 784 to the 25th of February 806 History of the patriarchs of Constantinople, August volume I, page 102.

t. Cf. the Preliminary Commentary, no. 8, and above, pages 758 and 759.

u. See the Preliminary Commentary, no. 3.

v. Furca. Hanging on the fork was a kind of punishment in use among the Romans, and was carried over with the Latin name to the Eastern Empire. The neck of the criminal was gripped by the fork, who was either killed by the hanging itself, or beaten to death with rods. Cf. Pitiscus in the Lexicon and Lipsius in book III on the Cross Works, volume III, page 665 and following.

x. Stenum is the Bosporus. See Du Cange Constantinopolis christ. book IV, page 167, Paris edition.

y. More probably these monks were eunuchs. Otherwise their company with a nun would not have been tolerated by the most severe discipline of that time.

z. The Σῖγμα was a portico in the form of the letter C, which the sigma of the Greeks, especially the more recent ones, resembled, built not far from the Julian harbor. See Du Cange Ibid. book I, page 58 and following; book II, page 112 and von Hammer Constantinopel und der Bosporos, volume I, page 116 and following. The more recent text of the Menæum first set me a puzzle in this place: for it has τοῦ ῥεύματος, and Margunius τοῦ τάγματος, but in the edition of the Menæum made in the year 1592 there is rightly read τοῦ σίγματος. More probably Margunius and the monk Bartholomew, the recent editor of the Menæa, thought to emend a word obscure to them.