Chronicle of the Life of Saint Nilus

to the holy Fathers, and at last, with the mercy and gift of Christ the Lord, to whom alone, as God with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory forever.

There follow three books of Annotations on the Works of the holy abbot Nilus.

CHRONOLOGICAL BOOK ON THE LIFE OF THE HOLY ABBOT NILUS OR HOMELAND, DEEDS, DEATH

^A 641 From the ruins of Byzantium, which was named and founded by the king Byzas of the Spartans, or built by Pausanias, and destroyed by Severus Augustus because it had adhered to Niger, but restored and decorated by Constantine Augustus with the name Constantinople, under better auspices by the grace of God than old Rome—as Justinian is author, l. 1 C. de vet. jur. enucleand., § Novimus, authent. de Nupt., consecrated of course to Christ and to the most blessed Virgin his Mother (from Zonaras, tom. 2 Chron.)—that royal city rose in Thrace, the mistress of the world, and new Rome; c. Constantinopolitanæ 22, dist. 3, a most sacred and most august city; 1. cum Navarchum, Cod. de Navicular., lib. 11, it was adorned with most ample buildings and monuments; with an amphitheater, port, walls, basilicas, libraries, granaries, and churches, aqueducts, porticoes, thermae, baths, and other public and private works, it was both by its founder Constantine and by other of his successors ^B presented and endowed with very many privileges. For Constantine transferred the seat of the empire to it, and citizens from ancient Rome, and he illuminated it with a senate, and houses constructed for him by attendant senators, while for himself he built a palace, from Libanius, Sozomen, and the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, and Zosimus, lib. 2; and he compelled and enticed senators from neighboring dioceses to frequent the senate, as later Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius did, e Macedonica, l. 1, C. Theodos. De senatorib. That the bishop of Constantinople was augmented with prerogatives, no one is ignorant, l. 45, C. eod. De episcop., just as to the city’s being frequented, to citizens who had houses there, immunities and rations were granted. Finally, as prefect of the city in the year of Christ 359 (for the city of Constantinople began to be built on the 26th of November in the year 328, and Cedrenus asserts this, and Julian himself Augustus on the 11th of May, or the 5th of the Ides of May, it was dedicated in the year 330, and that day is considered its birthday, and a holiday. l. 11 C. illomet De feriis. Constantius Augustus, son of Constantine, instituted [it], and the emperors who resided there vied in striving to equal it to ancient Rome).

Nilus was born there (as Nicephorus, lib. 14, cap. 14 of *Ecclesiastical History* reveals) of a noble family; for because of the outstanding nobility of his family he was raised to the prefecture of the city of Constantinople, his native land; he also abounded in power and riches, and perhaps his parents were originally from Egypt, and had migrated thence to Constantinople, ^C gaining senatorial dignity, and there had given birth to this offspring who was therefore distinguished by the name Nilus. Our Nilus, certainly, as the holy Athanasius [writes] in the *Apology to the Greeks*, may be compared to the Nile: for the Nile was indeed the greatest of all the rivers of the world, if we believe A. Gellius, l. x *Noct. Attic.* c. 7, and the most celebrated, which the Greeks think is called from *néas lýos*, that is, from new mud; for it spreads broadly and overflows every year, irrigating Egypt, and brings new mud over the sown fields; and as Virgil sings, 4 *Georgic.*: And waters the green Egypt with black sand.

Certainly NEILOS consists of six letters; N signifies the number fifty; E, five; I, ten; L, thirty; O, seventy; Σ, two hundred; and those elements make up the number 365, which is, of course, the number of days a full year has, c. 11 Genesis v. 13, and Ecclesiasticus c. 24, v. 35 and 37.

They believe the Nile is called Gion, or Gehon, by the holy Epiphanius, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Theodoret, Eucherius, Isidorus, John Damascene, Rabanus, Rupert, and others, whom the Coimbrans cite and follow, tract. 9 *in Meteora*, c. 10; Ribera *in Amos*, c. 6, num. 44; Cardinal ^D Bellarmine *De gratia primi hominis*, cap. 12, etc.

^A For the Septuagint, in chapter 11, verse 18, of Jeremiah, translate *Geon* as the Nile, where the Vulgate version says "river." Moreover, the second of the four rivers flowing from the terrestrial paradise is written in Hebrew as Gihon (*גיחון*), which, from the force of the Hebrew characters, Pagninus expresses in Latin as *Ghichon*, in the cited passage of Genesis: it is derived, however, from the Hebrew root *gavach*, which means to burst forth and flow with impetuous force. Others derive it from *Gachan*, which signifies the action of reptiles moving upon their breast and belly, and dragging themselves in the manner of a river. ^B Wherefore, some interpret *Gehon* as breast or belly; Greek writers call it *Γεών*, not because they allude to *γῆν* or *γαῖαν*, that is, earth, which the Greeks might conjecture because of the silt, but to express the Hebrew word, just as the Latin translator also does, who does not read it with a long *i* vowel—namely, *chiric gadol* in the first letter—but with *tsere*, or a long *e*, in which both Greeks and Latins distinguish this great river from another small river near Jerusalem, which is written thus by modern Rabbis: *Ghichon*. Mention of that one is made in 3 Kings, chapter 1, verse 33, where the Latin interpreter calls it *Gihon*, and the Greeks similarly *Γεών*, which river is called by another name, Siloam; whence the Chaldean interpreter has *Sciloha*, mention of which exists in John, chapter 9, ^C verse 7, where it is also interpreted as "sent." For rivers often have several names, just as the Red Sea, which is called in Hebrew *Jam Suph* (*ים סוף*), that is, the sea of reeds, from the multitude of reeds, and in Greek *ἐρυθραῖον*, Erythraean, either from king Erythras or from red sands. And this very *Gehon* of which we speak, the river of paradise, is also called Nile by many, most serious authors—either from king Nilus, or because it constantly draws with it *νέαν ἰλύν*, that is, new silt, as I have previously mentioned. But about this, the Reverend Father Ludovicus Maraccius of Lucca, of the congregation of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God, from whom I drew these points—a man very skilled in many languages, and truly pious and religious—does not argue. And concerning the Nile, Leo Allatius has said enough and more than enough in his *Diatriba*, namely concerning the king from whom he claims the river Nile took its name, whom he reports from Plutarch in his book *On Rivers* to be called Oceanus, Aquila, Melas, Aegyptus, Triton, and finally Nilus; and from Eustathius' commentaries on Dionysius the African's *Periegesis*. But they say that the Garamantes maintained that he was the husband or son of the queen of Egypt, asserting that he was the husband of Thermuthis, the daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; for thus Josephus in *Jewish Antiquities* and St. Epiphanius in *Heresy 78* (cited by Salianus in his *Annales from the Creation of the World to the year of the world 2464*, no. 14) call the king's daughter; whom others, namely Eusebius in *Evangelical Preparation*, book 9, chapter 4, and the author of the Alexandrian chronicle, call Merrin; she was, however, barren, as is read in the same place. (I support this assertion ^D of mine and the synonymy of Thermuthis). As far as the fact that some write *Gehon*, some *Gihon*, others *Ghichon*, and some otherwise, it comes about because not everyone expresses Hebrew characters with the same Latin characters, and also because not everyone reads them with the same points, which we see happen in most other Hebrew names that are expressed in Latin characters. Nor can it be said in any way that *Gehon* should be rendered in Greek as Nile, when these two names are of entirely different meaning, even if they are applied to the same river, as has already been said; and this happens in the case of the Albula and the Tiber, in the Eridanus and the Po, and the rest. So also, men are often called by two names, as Israel and Jacob, Simon and Peter, and the others, and yet we would only ineptly say that one name is the interpretation of the other, just as Joseph is "Crescens," Judas is "Confessio," Jacob is "Supplantator"; of which one name is the interpretation of the other. The Abyssinians indeed call the Nile today *Gujion*, as testified by Francisco Alvarez in the *Ethiopian History*, chapter 122; which is cited in Cornelius a Lapide in chapter 2 of Genesis, where he answers that several rivers are called *Geon* in 3 Kings, chapter 1, verse 33, and Chronicles, chapter 32, verse 50: and he concludes that the Tigris and Euphrates unite, and are divided again, and in the two thus separated change their names, being called Phasis or Phasitigris, one circling the land of Havilah, and this being Phison; the other, named Geon, flowing around the Arabian desert, around which also Ethiopia is, and both flowing into the Persian Gulf; and that the terrestrial paradise was at that confluence or the island of Teredon, according to Pererius, Oleaster, Eugubinus, Vatablus, and Jansenius in chapter 143 of the *Evangelical Concordance*, Gerard Mercator, and Abraham Ortelius in *On the Sources of the Nile and the Causes of its Inundation*; Seneca, book 4, *Natural Questions*, 1 and 2; Pliny, book 5, chapter 9, *Natural History*; and the most learned archiatrist D. de la Chambre has written a book in French. The name of Nilus was perhaps imposed upon the abbot Nilus, or for the sake of an omen, because by his eloquence he was about to inundate the imperial palace, and after he departed from it and crossed over to the camps of the heavenly King of kings, he was about to fertilize and fatten His servants, and monks, and all the faithful, and the beautiful places of the desert. Everything in this sublunary world is revolving and mutable, just as the moon also varies and is changed, especially the names of regions and rivers, just as the sites themselves and their courses take on new faces: for some rivers, names were bestowed by men who were overwhelmed or by another chance, as has been indicated: men themselves also borrowed them from rivers, such as Potamius, Euphrates, Tygrius, Rhodanius, and Nilus. I, however, am easily brought to the opinion that I believe he was born of Christian parents, who gave their son the name Nilus when he was washed in the sacred waters, just as the martyr Pansophius of Alexandria, who suffered under the Augustal prefect and was crowned with the laurel of martyrdom (when the emperor Decius in...

^A moving a persecution against the Christians, and was cruelly hounding those against whom the Roman empire lay open), might imitate Nilus the proconsul, his father, in piety and virtue, and, indeed, might equal his son Pansophius in his contempt for riches, his retreat into solitude, and his invincible constancy. The Greek Menaea celebrates the glorious contest and victory of this martyr on the 15th of January, and that voice still resounds in the ears of the faithful, worthy of eternal remembrance: "Stop whipping Pansophius (you impostors), for in doing so you are only weaving more garlands for him." Or rather, they imitate the Egyptian bishop Nilus, of whom Eusebius speaks in Book VII, chapter 21, and who was consumed by fire in Palestine during the rage of Diocletian against the Christian name, at the time when the prefect of the province had informed Diocletian of the very successful progress of the Christians. By his mandate, the man who was in charge of the extraction of metals sent Nilus and three others—namely, Peleus, likewise an Egyptian bishop, and Elias the presbyter, and the most studious Patermuthius, or Father Mutius—to the man who presided over the armies; others were deported to Cyprus, others to Lebanon. But this commander of the troops consigned Nilus and his companions to the flames, whom the athletes of Christ, however—since the power and ardor of their love for the true God was greater within them—generously extinguished by their own blood, as it is gathered from Nicephorus and the Greek Menologium of Canisius under the 27th of September, and from the Florentine Martyrology, and the Lucchese one on the 19th of September. An inscription provided by Martinellus (p. 306 of his *Roma sacra*) teaches that the body of this martyr and bishop Nilus rests in Rome at Saint Sixtus on the Appian Way, at the lowest Piscina in the valley opposite the Baths of Antoninus, along with many others.

Initiated, therefore, into Christ, and honorably educated by his parents, and no less imbued with manners than with letters, he began the cultivation of his intellect; for at Constantinople the best arts were flourishing, studies were vibrant, and the most renowned professors were teaching not only grammar and rhetoric, but all the liberal disciplines, medicine, jurisprudence, and philosophy in the Capitol. [See Law 3, "De medicis et professoribus," Code of Theodosius 645; and the titles "De professoribus, qui in urbe Constantinop."; and "De studiis liberalibus urbis Romæ, et Constantinop."] And especially where Theodosius I and Valentinian, Caesars, decree that there be three orators in the auditorium of the Capitol, whom the doctrine of Roman eloquence commends, and ten grammarians. Among these, five are known to be sophists who excel in the eloquence of the Greek language, and ten are likewise grammarians; and because they wish for the youth to be instructed not only in these arts, they associate authors of deeper science and doctrine with the aforementioned teachers. They wish, therefore, for one to be added to the rest who might delve into the secrets of philosophy, and two who might unfold the formulas of law and statutes. For there was a Capitol in Constantinople, just as in Rome, and in it porticoes; in the porticoes, halls, small rooms, and auditoriums in which the professors instructed the youth, as is clear from these laws, and from the last law, "De operibus publicis," in the same Code. There were also public libraries and librarians; of these, the most noble library burned down under the empire of Basiliscus, a fact of which Themistius (orat. 13), Zonaras, and Cedrenus make mention. Under this junior Emperor Theodosius, are enumerated in Book 14, "De professoribus," the Greek grammarians Helladius and Syrianus, the Latin Theophilus, the sophists Martinus and Maximus, and the jurist Leontius. There were antiquarians and guards of the library for the arranging of codices, or for their repair due to age, under Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian (Law 11, "De stud. liberal." in the same Code), four Greeks and three Latins.

There was no lack, therefore, of opportunity for Nilus to be educated, and he progressed so far in eloquence and in the skill of jurisprudence that he merited the city prefecture—that of Constantinople, clearly. He had provided so many proofs already in the scholastic dust, the shaded exercises, and the declamations, whether in his perspicacity, his eloquence, or indeed his equity and uprightness; and in his youthful age he had expressed such maturity of morals that everyone marveled that the fruit had preceded the flowers: probity, religion, and so many other excellent gifts of the soul adorned him such that they demanded prizes of their own accord. Nor did the Emperor Arcadius allow so great a man to remain hidden for long; he brought him into the light and advanced him to the prefecture of the city of queens, which is the summit of dignities, and is called ^B *basileia aporphyros*, that is, the empire without the purple, with the people justly applauding and the senate rejoicing, and in this prefecture ^C he placed a sign, highly polished with art and absolute in all the numbers of sculpture, a most worthy work, so that it might be more conspicuous there; for *archē andra deiknysin* ("the office shows the man"), as the vulgar adage is said, that is, the magistracy indicates the man. The first honored prefect of the city of Constantinople was in the year 359 A.D. I provided for myself a list, or *Notitia*, of those who succeeded to that office up to the year 435, in the commentaries of the Theodosian Code, but I did not find Nilus among them, perhaps because there exists no constitution of the emperors directed to him, or because he lies hidden under some other name: for at that time the Romans and Constantinopolitans used many names.

^D Names indeed were imposed for the distinguishing of men and for recognizing each individual, and were established by common consent (Law 10, C. Justinian, "De ingen. manum."); and the word for name (*nomen*) is even derived from *noscere* (to know). For *nomen* is said as if *novimen*, following Sextus Pompeius, although others derive it from the Greek *onoma* by apheresis. Just as, however, individuals or persons are known one by one from their faces—and in that discrimination of countenances is the marvelous Creator of all things, God, most especially—so the face and the name are equated in this variety; for it is read in the *Lives of the Fathers*, and the poet sings, that after the head of Priam had been torn from his shoulders, his body lay without a name. For a more singular distinction, the Hebrew and Greek Fathers added names to their own: Simon was called Bar-Jona, that is, son of Jona, or of the Dove; Socrates [son] of Sophroniscus;

^A Pelides Achilles, Atrides Menelaus and Agamemnon, ^B Tydides Diomedes, and other names of this kind, [called] patronymics. The Romans added to their praenomina the names of their gentes, or families, and then also cognomina [taken] from various circumstances and causes, as Plutarch relates, vol. I, in his *Lives of Illustrious Men* (in the Life of Coriolanus), and then agnomina: but later on, these names turned into cognomina, and vice-versa, the praenomina. While the Republic stood, the praenomen—which was the personal and individual name by which a person was distinguished and discerned from others of the same family or gens, or the proper name, [which might be] common to others who were not of that gens or family—was placed first and preferred; then the gentilic or family name was attached, which was shared with fellow tribesmen and gentiles but not with others who were not of that family; then cognomina and agnomina were added, because in one gens divided into branches, many people were found with the same praenomen and nomen, and indeed with the same cognomen as well. One should consult Victorinus on Cicero’s *Books of Rhetoric*. After the Republic was overturned and under the emperors, the proper name—or the true, appellative praenomen of the individual, called simply the "nomen" (since other names borrowed indiscriminately by parents or at one's own whim were called indiscriminately nomina, cognomina, or agnomina)—was placed below those names, cognomina, and agnomina, even when doubled, as Sirmondus observes (in his *Notes to the Epistles of Sidonius*, arguing against Angelo Poliziano from Suetonius, and Plutarch in his *Life of C. Marius* [arguing about] Posidonius, in the *Fasti*, in stone inscriptions, and in books, from Isidore, book XVII of his *Origines*, and from the *Preface* of Avienus), where he prefers Callias Sollius Sidonius Apollinaris to be called Apollinaris, Macrobius Aurelius Theodosius to be called Theodosius, Sextus Ruffus Avienus to be called Avienus, Magnus Aurelius Augustinus to be called Augustinus, Anicius Manilius Severinus Boethius to be called Boethius, [and] Petrus Felix Marcellinus Liberius to be called Liberius—who, as the Vir Clarissimus, Prefect of the Praetorians of the Gauls, and a patrician, is wrongly divided by his librarian into four persons ^C in the subscriptions of the second Council of Orange in the year 529, as is clear from the *Life of Saint Caesarius, Archbishop of Arles*, p. 21 of the *Chronologia Lirinensis*, where his wife Agrœcia is also mentioned, [along with] Flavius Valila, or Vallia, [and] Quintus Theodosius in the Donatist Tiburtine Charter, which I have brought forth, drawn up back in the year 471: for the terms of gens and family were not stable and certain then as they once were, such that they might be common even to brothers and pass on to descendants, so much so that in the end there was no fixed family or gentilic name. In some Roman pontiffs, I find two names: Cælius known as Symmachus, Cælius Hormisdas, and his son Cælius Silverius, and indeed Cælius Laurentius, the antipope, Calpurnius Pontianus, Domitius Callistus, Concordius Soter, Joannes II by the surname Mercurius, Joannes III Catellinus, Bonosus Benedictus I, Rusticus Agapitus I, Julius Stephanus I, Fabius Fabianus, Abundius Zephy[rinus], Abundius Eleutherius. He was even a man of two names, or three: Tascius Cyprianus, Bishop of Carthage and martyr, or Titus Ascius Cyprianus, just as Zoticus Getulius was a Tiburtine martyr; yet certain names, being more standard as family names, were repeated more often, as is clear from the *Variae* of Cassiodorus for the year 600 [of the Christian era]; when the swarms of barbarian peoples flooded the Roman Empire and threw everything upside down, mixing and confounding them all, no traces of such naming practices were left. Nilus could, therefore, have been hidden under some other name in this list of the Prefects of the City of Constantinople. He indeed performed the duty of Prefect so excellently that he satisfied the Emperor’s expectation, nor can anyone who writes about him persuade me otherwise: the outcome certainly proved his deeds; for when he had taken a wife, without a doubt his equal in virtue and piety, and most respectable, as the *Greek Menologium* for the 12th of November states, he took two children from her, a male and a female, and Nilus himself relates this tearfully in his ^D *Διηγήμασι εἰς τὴν ἀναίρεσιν τῶν ἐν τῷ ὄρει Σινᾷ μοναχῶν καὶ εἰς τὴν αἰχμαλωσίαν Θεοδούλου τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ*, that is, *Narrationes*, in which he describes the slaughter of the monks of Mount Sinai and the captivity of his son. I cannot sufficiently praise his constancy in the *Relation*, which Nilus gave (for he appears to have been Prefect of the City at that time, namely around the year 403 of the Christian era, after Clearchus, who had held that magistracy for three years, namely the years 399, 401, 402, even though the urban prefecture was only for six months due to the magnitude of the power and the prominence of the dignity, which approached the pinnacle of the empire and seemed to hang over [the Emperor], and to be suspect if it lasted longer), Nilus, I say, who had Studium as his successor in the year 404, when, according to his duty, he had consulted the senate, and because he was pious, the Emperor Arcadius had commended himself to God by his prayers. He writes back in Epistle 233 of Possinus, book II, Epistle 265 of Allatius, how the Emperor desired to see Constantinople freed from [the] very frequent earthquakes and the frequent emission of 648 ethereal fires, since innumerable wicked deeds had been committed therein, and iniquity, reigning with horrible license, exercised much wantonness; [and] the pillar of the Church, the light of truth extinguished, and the most blessed Bishop [John] having been driven into exile; [asking] "Why do you exhort me to deign to pour forth prayers, while the city totters from divine wrath, and daily awaits the storms, [when] I am already thunderstruck by fear, and my mind is wavering and shaken by the excess of crimes that have been unjustly perpetrated in these times at Byzantium?" I was at one time in doubt whether this letter had been written after Nilus had left the prefecture and embraced the monastic life, because of those words, "Why do you exhort me to deign to pour forth prayers; but when it had come to my mind that it was the duty of the Prefect of the City to consult the senate, and [that] if [one were] to approach God, [it was not] a custom at all, but rather, in the manner of the orthodox [he]…

^A performed a great many matters holily and in accordance with dignity, and I believed it had been written by Nilus while he was still Prefect of the City. I was persuaded of this by Rutilius Claudius Numatianus Gallus, in Book 1 of his *Itinerary*, who served as Prefect of the City of Rome—the ancient one, clearly—in the year 1169 from the founding of the City, in these verses:

If I have not displeased, while I governed with the laws of Quirinus, If I have cherished the holy ones and consulted the Elders, For since no crimes have bound my sword, Let the glory not be the Prefect's, but the people's.

However, the care of the other movements that followed in the case of Saint John Chrysostom in the year 404, with the charge given to Studius, Prefect of the city of Constantinople, in law 37 of the *Code*, "Concerning bishops and clergy," and laws 4, 5, and 6, "Concerning those who contend over religion," confirmed it entirely. This Studius, certainly, to whom the Epistle of Saint John Chrysostom is extant—among the Savilian letters, 57, tome VII, p. 197; among the Frontonian letters, 127, p. 921—inscribed ^B *To Studius, Prefect of the City*, in which he consoles him regarding the death of his brother, is he whom Theodore the Roman [speaks of] in Palladius’ *Dialogue*. Suidas, in the entry *Studius*, has these things in Greek, which I exhibit in Latin: “Studius was a powerful man, and constructed the famous monastery of the Studites, which in the beginning belonged to the catholic Church, but later it passed into a monastery of *vounē*, that is, of plunder. He himself built the temple of the Leader of the angels at Nacolia, in which these heroic verses are reported, which I have translated thus:

How quickly Studius constructed the shining ^C [temple], He received the rod of the Consul as his reward once found.

Thus far Suidas. I find Studius as Consul with Aetius in the year of our Lord 456, even if others read Asterius: long after, Theodore the Studite came forth from this monastery in the year 820, who stood out as a distinguished confessor and an unconquered pugilist of the catholic faith, and his day of birth is celebrated on the same day as that of the abbot Nilus, namely the twelfth of November in the Roman Martyrology; yet in the Menologium, the 11th is designated for Theodore the Studite, and the 12th for Nilus. Theophilus, ^D archbishop of Alexandria, hostile to Saint John Chrysostom, had come by summons into the city after the demise of Nectarius, archbishop of Constantinople, in the year of our Lord 397, or under the consulate of Caesarius and Atticus, on the fifth day before the Kalends of October, for the assembly and for electing a successor; and an assembly having been held, it seemed fit to summon John the Antiochene, so that he might be substituted for Nectarius. This John, most pious and most eloquent, and beloved by the Antiochene people, in the year 398, having gone forth from the Roman gate of that vast city, as if he were going to the martyr-shrines with the Count of the East, Asterius—who resided in Antioch (the scholiast of the Theodosian Code narrates this at law 35, "Concerning public works," from Sozomen, book VIII, c. 2, *Ecclesiastical History*, [and from] Palladius and George in the *Life of Saint John Chrysostom*)—was suddenly, by the command of the emperor Arcadius, directed by him to Constantinople, and there on the 26th of February, although Theophilus of Alexandria was unwilling, he was duly ordained archbishop of Constantinople.

Having fallen into the hatred of the Augusta Eudoxia, while he had protected the widow of Theognostus and had prohibited the Augusta from entering the church, and soon after, undertaking the guardianship of the Alexandrian widow against the same Augusta, and advising Theodorus the patrician, whose wealth she coveted, that he should bestow all his property upon the poor—which [matters] emperor Leo pursues more fully in the *Life of Saint John* in the works of Cardinal Baronius—and since he stood in disagreement with Severianus of Gabala as well, and with the holy Epiphanius of Cyprus himself, who were bishops, [and] with many magnates conspiring, whom certain lascivious widows had stirred up, whose license the Apostle seems to have delineated in the Epistle to Timothy, c. 11, and who were, that is, luxuriating, John himself, incensed with zeal, had rebuked; namely, Martia [the wife] of Promotus (the sister-in-law, or sister, of the Augusta Eudoxia, who was the daughter of Promotus the Elder, as I believe), Castritia [the wife] of Saturninus (whether of him who was consul with Merobaudes in the year 383, and to whom the epistles of Saint Gregory Nazianzen are extant, in which he attributes to him *archēs* [dignity], the eminence of a magistrate, or prefecture; [and to him] of Saint Basil, 315, who calls him Count of the East, and of Libanius, which are in Latin and Greek in the Vatican and Royal codices), and Eugraphia, in whose house Theophilus was staying, while the Asian bishops, whom he had coerced in the Asian synod, were breathing vengeance. Theophilus therefore returned, and by him the *conciliabulum* is convened at the Oak (the suburb, that is, of Chalcedon across the sea, and it gets its surname from Rufinus), and he is cited to appear before Saint John, who did not wish to attend, rejecting the bishops as suspect to him and his enemies, and he is most unjustly condemned while absent, and unheard. A report having been given to the emperor Arcadius, when the Augusta Eudoxia was impelling him, by the order of Arcadius the most innocent prelate is driven from his seat and expelled from Constantinople in the year 403, but because of an earthquake, by which that city was immediately shaken and trembled, the court and the populace were moved by terror, and he is recalled from Praenetus (this is indeed an *emporium* situated also across the sea in the region of Nicomedia; I would read, however, *Praenetus*, which is an episcopal town of Bithynia, and very famous for its thermal baths, of which I have dealt in book 1 *Praenetus*, c. 3; and book 11, c. 9).

Not long after, in the year 404, when in an assembly the holy prelate had inveighed publicly against Eudoxia on account of a silver statue set up to her, and erected upon a porphyry column near the church itself with games and spectacles of mimes, and a display exceeding the dignity of men, from the year 403, [as] Marcellinus testifies in [his] *Chronicle*, and Socrates, book VI, c. 16, and Sozomen, book VI, c. 20, and the single law [of] the *Code* of Theodosius, "Concerning the images of emperors," and "Concerning public works," where the scholiast [is], and in the *Chronology* p. 147. Arcadius was, moreover, of most earnest devotion toward Eudoxia, whom he had also commanded to be proclaimed Augusta in the year 400 from the *Alexandrian Chronicle*, and by whom he had permitted Selymbria to be called Eudoxiopolis.

^A Furthermore, the holy archbishop, who so railed against the Circensian games and the spectacles of the actors—which nurtured the filth of lust and preserved the remnants of idolatry—strove to root them out entirely. They certainly persisted for a long time thereafter to the detriment and ruin of the Republic, to the loss and peril of the reigning princes, and to the loss of decency and the corruption of morals; the factions of the Greens and the Blues were the seeds of sedition, as is evident from the Annals, and pretexts for treason were drawn from those colors. Hence one convicts the lie of the man who boasted that it was convenient for the Augustus that the people should be distracted by these things. Against this (I say) the most vigilant shepherd and divine preacher thundered; and so it was known what a raging and reigning woman could do: in another conventicle, gathered by Acacius, bishop of Beroea in Macedonia, Antiochus of Ptolemais, Severianus of Gabala, and Cyrinus of Chalcedon, and a multitude of other bishops, in which, although absent, Theophilus nevertheless dominated, John was condemned again. Among the heads of the accusation, he was incriminated for having fostered the errors of Origen, which calumny the holy authors sufficiently refute; for he did not receive the monks who were Origenists for any other reason than to draw them to the Catholic Church by that clemency, and to restore them softened and tamed. Thus, Saint Cyril is falsely called a follower of Origen. Thus, Saint Jerome is called an Origenist by Palladius, because he translated Origen’s books *Περὶ ἀρχῶν*, although he had purged them, as Rosweydus observes (p. 446, *Vitae Patrum*); yet he was far removed from Origen’s depraved opinions, and for that reason was hostile to Rufinus of Aquileia, as I have demonstrated above. Indeed, most of these holy men were considered Origenists—which Rosweydus himself thinks happened (prolegom. 15) out of hatred for the Anthropomorphites—and he confesses that some were swept up by the heat of the moment and lapsed, but later repented and, by the holiness of their lives and the purity of their religion, deserved to be entered into the holy calendars, or Diptychs. Again, Saint John is forced by Arcadius Augustus—who was always becoming more beholden to his Eudoxia and was too uxorious—to go into exile, and is led to the town of Cucusus in Armenia, as the scholiast on the Theodosian Code (ad l. xxvii, *De episcop.*, and II, iv, v, and vi, *De his qui super relig. contend.*) abundantly makes known. ^B Soon, an intruder is substituted for him in the archbishopric, Arsacius, whom Saint John Chrysostom himself calls an adulterer (p. 870, Epistol.), and whom he writes was placed upon the throne by Basiliosa, even though Saint John had appealed again to Innocent, the Roman pontiff, by whom he was restored and later placed in the Diptychs, while those who had made him an exile and stripped him of his see were smitten with anathema. The brave athlete departed into exile, and when meanwhile the church of Constantinople had burned down, and he was variously tortured along with his friends—most of whom, known as Johannites, expired in prisons—when he had reached the town of Comana in Pontus, he died in the year 407, on the 14th of November, according to Socrates, to receive the reward of his glorious confession, and on the 27th of January he was added to the Calendar. The feast of his translation to Constantinople is celebrated on the day when his sacred body was returned to his cathedral; from whence, having been transported to Rome, it rests in the Basilica of Saint Peter from the year 860, from the *Chronological Code of Theodosius*, p. 151.

I therefore judge the first letter of Nilus to have been written during that first relegation of Saint John Chrysostom, and sent to Arcadius Augustus, and that he, touched and persuaded by it, more easily recalled the most innocent man. For when Eudoxia, inflamed by his adversaries, raged ever more bitterly against Saint John day by day—and there is no magpie more effective than a bolster, as John of Salisbury teaches in his book *De nugis curial.*, and so many crimes were being perpetrated everywhere—Nilus, who had left his magistracy, or, to speak more truly, had voluntarily resigned his prefecture, seeing that it was in no way possible to stand against this torrent of wickedness, fearing that like another Lot he might be enveloped in the dire fire and the deluge of celestial wrath, and already inferior in the rank in which he shone at court, he moved himself clearly out of it and, bidding farewell to the pomps of the world, embraced the monastic life and took his son Theodulus with him.

From the time Saint John Chrysostom arrived in Constantinople, where, like a flooding river of eloquence and doctrine, pouring forth from that golden mouth of his, he sought to irrigate that famous Church to whose helm he had been brought, and to provide a copious yield for his fecundated bride with a numerous offspring of virtues and a most ample harvest of piety, he applied himself tirelessly to all works of charity—not only laboring to imbue with the Christian faith the Scythian Nomads who, having come from the Volga river, had soon spread over parts of Thrace, Macedonia, and Illyricum and had imposed the usurped name of the Bulgars on those regions under Saint Pope Gregory—but he also spent his labor on recalling the Goths to the bosom of the Catholic Church; ^C but above all, declaring war on vices, he strove to drive them and put them to flight from his sheepfold; and therefore he became, in the first instance, grateful and acceptable to honest citizens and orthodox nobles: but, to omit Theodorus the patrician, whom I mentioned above, Nilus also, and Isidore of Pelusium, and Eulogius, of whom I have also spoken, Cassianus his deacon, and Palladius, and others whose names, if I were to list them, would make me too long-winded, followed his admonitions and adhered firmly to him; ^D not to mention the deaconesses and most illustrious matrons, namely Olympias, Pentadia, Sabiniana, Amprocla, or the Lady Procla, Proba, Juliana, Theodora, Silvina, as well as Italica, Euthalia, Asyncrita, Severa, Chalcidia, Carteria, Bassiana, Severina, Acolia, and the rest, women born of the highest station and most choice, to most of whom his Epistles survive.

Nilus, I say, stirred by a divine instinct, betook himself to Saint John and visited him most frequently, and I can certainly conjecture that his conversion came from the meetings and discourses of this admirable prelate, and from his homilies, or λóγοις, which were recorded by Nilus—just as is evident from the Epistle to the Dean Zenodorus 293, lib. 1—and that the mind of Nilus had been confirmed in the resolve to abandon the world. For the most religious prelate loved monks no less than he supported them, and against their detractors he brought forth three books; and when he had long been engaged in public life, he himself afterwards practiced the monastic life with great praise, and being called from the desert to the clergy, he was ordained a presbyter of Antioch. The change in Nilus was the work of the right hand of the Most High, with Joanna acting as midwife; the man of prefectural rank, spontaneously placing all his hopes in God, stripped himself of all the goods of fortune, sent word to dismiss all the affections of earthly things, and giving himself wholly to the contemplation of divine matters, began to savor and foretaste on earth the heavenly blessedness: so chastened and amended had his character become, while he still lived in the world, that, as I believe, [he so moved] his wife also—for according to Jesus Sirach, Ecclus. xxvi, 3, a good wife is a good portion; she shall be given to a man who fears God for his good deeds.

^A She followed the most salutary counsel and example of her husband, however much she may have resisted, moved by conjugal love, as Nilus himself narrates, p. 15. Having embraced her daughter, she easily led her along with her, and the husband and wife divided their pair of children and departed from Constantinople; and the noble matron, with her tender little daughter, migrating from their home, hid herself in the monasteries of Egypt, having said farewell to Nilus and Theodulus as they went off to the Sinaitic region, as I finally found in the Menologion of the Greeks, November 12. Nor was it difficult for the mother to take her daughter with her, and to shut her up in a nunnery, or college of virgins consecrated to God, for the discipline of chastity had been ingenerated in her even from the cradle, and there was an innate desire that she should offer her virginity undefiled to Christ. At that time, there were groups of virgins among the balsam-groves of Egypt, that they might crush the vipers of idolatry and of the demons, and God breathed in their sweet fragrance; in the cradle of the nascent Church, that weaker sex professed a special fortitude. Yet the Vestals, who kept the fire of modesty perpetual and unextinguished, consecrated to divine worship by the Christian rite, as Ammianus writes, p. 160, were called, as it were, sacred Amazons, Ascetriæ and Monastriæ; and we have already mentioned them above. O how pleasant, how agreeable, how acceptable to God and to the heavenly hosts was that spectacle, so illustrious, so wonderful, and so memorable, for the pious and upright worshippers of Christ who then lived in the orthodoxy of the land, to behold Nilus coming forth from his kin by the Abrahamic faith, not merely offering up his son Theodulus—whom he yielded up with joy, both of them by a wonderful consensus consecrating that one and only victim to the almighty Divinity—but also, if I may so say, the half of his own soul, namely his beloved wife, and the daughter born of her, not as Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia, but, as Nilus himself says, p. 121, in ἄσκημα, like another Jephthah sacrificing to Christ!

Which monastery these women sought, I have nowhere discovered. There were in Egypt very many monasteries of women also devoted to God, and I have often wondered at the deep silence of Nilus regarding his wife, who was made a sister to him, even as Sara was called sister by that same Abraham, and the daughter [who was] common to them, in that gap between the regions. Perhaps the prudent servant of God was afraid, as he hints [in] fol. 17, Ἀπθῆς 6; according to that of the unhappy poet, "All love is great, but greater in an open spouse; Venus herself fans the torch that she may live." And recently, he who was also more unhappy, "Ah, how much does that Venus, whom Hymen or the Creator of the world fashioned, reign in a placid and gentle breast, and the author of the covenant by which men were to be born in holiness! ^B This, by which He disposed the world rolling the stars, and by which He binds the elements, inspires love in the heart, or [it is] the force inserted in things, escaping deeper knowledge; such as the power innate in the magnet, which draws to the steel the gem contemplating the fires of the northern cap." And I have collected more above regarding Pachon. Is it because, perhaps, both being mature by heaven, they were speeded thither by a laurelled death…

having to perceive the hundred and thirtieth fruit—did she fly thither all too quickly for the sake of virginity, for widowhood, or for celibacy? In the Thebaid there was a monastery of great opinion and celebrated fame, consisting of one hundred and four holy women, into which Saint Euphrasia had withdrawn; in Panopolis there was another of four hundred, who, observing the rule of Saint Pachomius, lived apart, surrounded by the streams of the river Nile, as the authors of the Life of Saint Euphrasia and Palladius in the Lausiac History report. In the city of Antinoopolis, the same Palladius, in chapters 157 and 138, records a monastery famous by the name of Talide, the halls of which had not even a key, as in the other eleven monasteries, but were themselves held back by his love, so much did they love him. There were also the Alexandrian "Sandaliariae" nuns, to whom Isidore of Pelusium writes regarding the victories of women, Book I, epistle, p. 87. In Alexandria, which was called the abyss of the world, as Eustathius reports in his *On the Description of the World*, for it was the most celebrated emporium of Africa; there were various neighborhoods, which were called "lips," over which presbyters presided, all subject to one archbishop, of which kind was the neighborhood of the Baucali, in which was the church that Arius presided over, as Saint Epiphanius relates in *Heresies*, 69, p. 311, and others. I do not doubt that in some one of them the monastery of these *Sandalariarum* existed, or *Sandaliariarum*, which were so-called from *sandalia*, or soles, because their feet were covered in this kind of footwear; Saint Augustine in the *Rule for Nuns*, epistle 108, had ordered: "Let not clothing and footwear, when they are necessary for the needy, be delayed by those in whose custody they are, when they are requested." And Saint Athanasius, in his *Rules for Guarding Virginity*, prescribes to a virgin among other things: "When you stand in prayer, have your feet covered with footwear (p. 401, or in the *Rules*). Bivarius, writing on the monastic life, asserts and explains that those Rules were established by Saint Athanasius for the Nitriote nuns, so that in the stations while they communicate, they might be with covered feet on account of reverence. Or these *Sandaliariae* were named from some neighborhood of Alexandria, where sandals were offered for sale, of which kind was the *Vicus Sandaliarius* in Rome, as Nardino relates in *Ancient Rome, pp. 140 and 141*, from an inscription and from Gellius. Or they may have been those to whom the letter of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus was directed, inscribed: "To the most devout and by all things adorned sisterhood in Christ, in the Sannabadia [neighborhood] of the blessed Leucadius, sanctified in monks and virgins." (The Latin interpreter Billius, distinguished in piety and learning, renders it *Sannabadaar*). Be that as it may, I would wish that, for the sake of setting forth and expressing a pathetic representation, and laying before the eyes of the affections those manifold effects in that departure, I possessed the eloquence and facility of Nilus or John Chrysostom, when husband and wife were indeed torn asunder by flesh and body, yet were being joined more tightly in soul and charity. It is better, when I am destitute of those gifts, to imitate ^A Timanthes' art and to cover with a veil of silence, just as that painter, in whose paintings more was understood than was painted, when he had exhibited Iphigenia, celebrated by the praises of orators, standing at the altars about to perish, and had painted everyone mourning, especially the uncle, and had exhausted every image of sadness, veiled the face of the father himself, whom he could not worthily show: which are the words of Pliny, bk. xxxv, c. 10. ^B Nilus himself, indeed, moving those stirrings of the heart and such great contests, when he was seen to be torn from himself, separating himself from his wife, into whom he had grown together by the bond of marriage, and by a holy covenant, and connected by an inseparable habit of life, does not merely sketch, but in the second narrative expresses to the life from page 13 to 17. The suspicion of death, which I conjecture both the wife and daughter underwent, is increased because in those prolix narratives concerning the various fortunes of his son Theodulus, and his captivity, and at last his redemption, he makes no mention whatsoever of the mother and daughter, nor did he send any letter to them thereafter, although to Theodosia the nun (of whom I spoke above, p. 601, reporting her to have been reproved by the holy man, because against the commandment of the holy apostle Paul she was teaching men in the Church, c. xiv, vers. 34, epistle I to the Corinthians) he wrote: "Even if you say a thousand times (says Nilus) that you are far removed from the feminine nature, and that you exist possessing a firmer [disposition] than men according to the stability of a virginal heart,"—"Quamvis millies dixeris te longe abesse a femineo habitu, et teipsam hominibus stabiliorem, juxta virginei sensus firmitatem," bk. II, Epis. Allatiana 116. Whence it is certain that she was a virgin. Innocent III ^C indeed, in book I, ep. 187, writes back to the bishops of Burgos and Palencia and to the abbot of Morimund of the Cistercian order, that abbesses should *not* bless nuns, nor hear confessions, nor preach the Gospel; for although the most blessed Virgin was more worthy and excellent than all the apostles, yet the Lord did not commit the keys of the kingdom of heaven to her, but to them: see at length Saint Epiphanius, bk. III, ^D Heresies 6, *Against the Collyridians*, heresy 59, or 79. Robert of Arbrissel, indeed, a Parisian theologian, was the author of the notable monastery of Fontevraud, over which he placed an abbess, who would hold supreme right over all, both men and women, by the example of the most blessed Virgin Mother of God, according to the words of Christ, "Behold thy Son, behold thy Mother," to the year of the Lord 1117, as Cardinal Baronius reports, and from him Spondanus, in the diocese of Poitou. Of this place, Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, bk. II, ep. 27, and Peter of Celle, bk. II, ep. 10, to Mathilda the venerable abbess, and concerning it, ep. 1, 12, and bk. II, ep. 11. Saint Teresa also, in the age of our Fathers, proposed the stricter Rule of the ancient Carmelites, by God's inspiration, and with the approval of Pius IV, first for women, then for men to observe. There exist also the epistles of Nilus to Anastasia the virgin, 333 Possini, bk. II, ep. 118 Allatii, in which he...

^A bk. 1, ep. 163 and 164, praising her for her fasting; furthermore, to Photina, and to Dor.—or, as I opine, to Dorothea—bk. II, ep. 31, where he says: “For truly, you have appeared as tabernacles, and altars, and a temple, and precious gifts of God through virginity.” To the illustrious Helena, ep. 170, bk. II of Allatius, there is an inscription in which he consoles her and forbids her to mourn, in the manner of the Gentiles, for her only and excellent son, Nicaretus, who had fallen asleep—or was it the son of Nicaretus the secretary, to whom he wrote ep. 431, bk. III? Nor do I believe it refers to the Nicaretus whom he admonishes in ep. 284, bk. II. Furthermore, Nilus corresponded with the Countess Julia in ep. 213, bk. II, rebuking her because she studied too much to care for the elegance of her body; is this the one from Gaza, whom Cardinal Baronius mentions in the year of Christ 403, fol. 179? To the Countess Stephanis, bk. II, ep. 218, by whose faith he affirms her husband is to be saved; and finally, to the widow Dioscoria, to whom he prophesies that God will give aid, bk. 1, ep. 266. But the names of both Nilus’s wife and his daughter, hidden in oblivion on earth, I would trust have been written in the records of heaven. So great was Nilus’s modesty, and so great his humility, that he was utterly foreign to the pursuit of fame; he sought for empyrean immortality, and he, along with his wife, his children, and his religious household, well knew that those who despise empty glory, and embrace the true, are aware that all monuments of mortals raised in the sublunary region are so quickly consumed and perish, that death comes to stones and names alike: perhaps he also sent epistles to them, but they have perished, as the various accidents of things happen. ^B Having therefore now laid aside his dignity and having accepted a successor, and having generously distributed the goods of fortune, with which he abounded, for the sustenance and use of the poor, according to the evangelical counsel, Nilus accomplished a pious and happy divorce from his consort of the bed, and four—the candidates for his blessedness—departed from his house and kin, conspiring unanimously. Around the year 405, when the pastor John Chrysostom was driven into exile, these sheep underwent a voluntary exile. Nilus set out on the journey to Mount Sinai with Theodulus, both pursuing the sublime and angelic monastic state, most apt for purging sins and increasing virtues, and for appeasing the anger of God and meriting pardon, while on the other side his wife and daughter, having made their profession as nuns, set out for the streams of the Nile and the monasteries of Egypt; nor could the crowd, illustrious for the piety of their friends and the faithful people amazed at the spectacle of so glorious a conversion, restrain themselves from pouring out, with full mouth, voices as witnesses of their joy and grief, with which they followed after things so worthy, so that all the crossroads of Constantinople, and even the royal way, resounded with praises and complaints. Above all, Nilus, always hateful of the vice of immoderate boasting, 657 fled it then most especially, neither was he of those who, under the appearance ^A of self-abasement, swell with pride and seek after empty adoration with a new kind of courting—arising from misery, from filth, and from feigned contempt of mind, boasting in the ash of the monastic garb and in a vile habit—the fire of that vainglory which burns within them, nor was his holiness endangered by the applause of men, nor was there fear that the praises ascribed to him would corrupt and melt away the flowers and fruits of the virtues with which he was adorned, bursting forth like a bud, or that they would exalt a mind bathed in pleasure more than was fitting, so that it might fall with a heavier crash; with a more hurried step he withdrew himself from their eyes, and Nilus stopped his ears, nor was he moved by the tears of his kinsmen, or of his dear ones, or of his servants; dry-eyed himself, he fled to the banner of the cross, burning so with the love of solitude, weary of the slipperiness of the court; that well-worn apophthegm had sounded in his ear: *Let him who wishes to be pious depart from court;* and as another sang: *Whoever tends to the stars and yearns to follow the golden honor of virtue, let him leave the court and its seething purples.*

Mount Sinai and Oreb

- ^A chenus, he wrote the *Guide* (Odegos) against the Acephali, and in the year 551 he lived. John Climacus [wrote] the 30 steps, in which he teaches the ascent to perfection, and he composed it in the year 540, according to Raderus, or Baronius, and the cardinal Bellarmine; at that time very many monks dwelt upon this mountain, both above and below. I find Theonas, by the mercy of God, a priest and ambassador of the holy mountain of Sinai, and of the desert of Raitha, or Raithu, and of the holy church of Pharan, who, being a speaker—and on behalf of all the monks existing in the aforementioned solitary places—supplicated and subscribed to the petition of the monks of the Second Syria, which, having been offered to the Emperor Justinian, we read inserted into the first act of the fifth synod, p. 14; and [subscribed] to another petition addressed to Mennas, patriarch of Constantinople, presented in the same place, page [blank]. To the bishop, now [the] archbishop, and the brothers of Mount Sinai under the protection of blessed Peter and of the holy apostolic see, he received in the eighth year of the pontificate, in the fourth quaternion concerning Indults. The charity of Saint Gregory the Great toward the poor, and his inexhaustible liberality, shone forth even from this fact, that the munificent pontiff sent for the *Gerontocomium*, that is, the home for the aged on Mount Sinai, to John the abbot: 16 *lenas*, 3 *racanas*, 15 beds, and he also gave the price for the purchasing of mattresses or for the shipping, epist. 16, lib. X of the *Register*; and to the priest Palladius, for Mount Sinai, a cowl and a tunic from the blessing of Saint Peter, lib. VI, epist. 45, Indiction 13. John the Deacon narrates in his *Life* of the same [Gregory], lib. II, c. 52, that he arranged for a supply of daily food and clothing to be sent annually to the servants of God, both in Jerusalem and on Mount Sinai; but concerning the *lenes* and *racanae* I have already spoken more fully in my *Dissertation on the Golden Rose*.

^C Having therefore discarded the impediments of a life full of pleats, as Tertullian speaks in book V *Against Marcion*, that is, wavy, winding, and steep—of which sort was that life which was then being conducted in the Greek court—Nilus and Theodulus journeyed to Mount Sinai, which is connected to that which is now Jerusalem (so the Apostle Paul writes, c. IV to the Galatians), in Greek, *systoichei* (συστοιχεῖ), that is, it borders on, it touches, it is near and annexed: so Saint John Chrysostom explains it, or coterminous, bordering upon the desert, indeed, in which that mountain is; Jerusalem is near ^D [to it], for Idumaea lies between, which is wholly mountainous, and by an almost continuous series of mountains Sinai is joined to Jerusalem, according to Borchardus, Adrichomius, and Zieglerus, also through the mountains of Judea up to the mountains that are in the circuit of Jerusalem, according to the royal prophet, Ps. CXXIV; or by a direct continuation of the journey of the Israelites through Sinai, which they had previously traveled through various windings of roads and stations; which opinion is that of Saint Thomas Aquinas; or by resemblance, or kinship, as Cornelius a Lapide explains from Theophylact and Vatablus. And when they had arrived there, established on that lofty summit, following in the footsteps of Saint Paul, and having imitated him who went into Arabia, c. 1 to the Galatians, so that he might teach what had been revealed to him by God, according to Saint Jerome, and so that he might instruct the barbarian Arabs 659 toward the accepting of the Christian religion, according to Saint John Chrysostom, who notes there the modesty and fervor of Saint Paul; this father and son, by the example of their own conversion, might excite those monks, whose institution they had embraced, more and more toward piety, and toward the true and Christian philosophy, as Nilus himself proves in his first *Opusculum*, and in the *Narratio*, p. 2, that they might exercise themselves with his son in the law of the Lord which God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. In that place also the body of Saint Catherine, carried by angels, rests in a miraculous way; she, endowed with heavenly wisdom, conquered and refuted the Egyptian philosophers, and triumphed even over the most savage torments. The virgin had prayed to God, when the soldier, the executioner of the beheading, was about to cut off her *panagnon kephalen* (most pure head), that her body might not be looked upon after death, or be stripped, and be exposed to the mockery of the Gentiles; and as soon as the soldier had executed what had been commanded, not only for blood did milk flow from her most pure veins, but her body *ex autēs tēs hōras heōs nyn diemeinen atheaton hapasin* (from that hour until now has remained invisible to all). *Aggeloi gar apotmethēsēs autēs neusei katapanta Theou hōs pros to oros to Sinai touto metakomizontes ōphthēsan* (For angels were seen carrying it, by the command of God altogether, to this Mount Sinai), as it is read in a manuscript codex of the Vallicelliana library, page 76, number 34, that is: "Thence it has remained invisible to all unto this present time, for the angels, where she was deprived of her head, by the nod of God alone were seen transporting it to Mount Sinai." Nor do I doubt that there were worthy anchorites as its guards, who had fixed their dwelling there; for from the time when the Christian religion began, some pious believers were *en erēmiaīs planōmenoi, kai oresi, kai spēlaiois, kai tais opais tēs gēs* (wandering in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth), as Saint Paul writes to the Hebrews, c. XI, 38, that is: "Wandering in solitudes, and mountains, and caves, and caverns of the earth," as I noted above. Certainly, in the reign of Diocletian, and while Peter was ruling the Alexandrian Church, *anērethēsan hēsyxazontes en tō orei Sina* (they were killed while living quietly on Mount Sinai; *E Menzo Graecorum* 14 January) the solitaries who were living a life of tranquility on Mount Sinai were slaughtered by the Barbarians. And when Nilus and Theodulus ascended that venerable mountain, I judge that the monks met them with kindness and gladly admitted both into their sacred fellowship. O what embraces, 10 what joys there were! In the *Index* of the *Opuscula*, I observed various orders or grades of monks: the first, *Enkrateōn* (Ἐγκρατέων), that is, those keeping continence, or *Enkrateuomenōn* (Ἐγκρατευομένων), that is, those who were temperate. They were called by various names, however, according to various exercises. Some [were] coenobites, or synodites, others anchorites, hermits, stylites, that is, those on columns, *kionitai* (κιονῖται), *enkleistoi* (ἔγκλειστοι), recluses, *koudouxalēsioi* (κουδουχλήσιοι), solitaries, *vacantivi*, *theophileis* (θεοφιλεῖς)—by which name Christians were first generally called, then monks specifically—*hiketai* (ἱκέται), praying ones, *therapeutai* (θεραπευταί), that is, servants and slaves of God, *lauriotai* (λαυρῖται), that is, those dwelling in cells, *nonni*, religious, philosophizing, besides the *gyrovagi* and *circelliones*.

^A Flourishing praises indeed excite genius, and virtue grows when praised; glory possesses an immense stimulus, as he sang, nor is there any humility so great that it is not touched by the sweetness of glory, according to Valerius Maximus, book V, chapter 14. To the ears of Themistocles no entertainment was more willingly received than that by which his own egregious deeds were celebrated. Pope John XXII himself confessed that he was nevertheless soothed and sometimes captivated by flatteries which he detested; more often those refusals are at length wont to be admitted, following Seneca. However, crops are said to be *exanemousthai*, that is, winnowed and blown upon by the wind, being inflated by a demon: for by the excessive blast of the winds they are emptied and hollowed out, especially while they are ripening, as Theophrastus notes; thus excessive praise strips and despoils more noble minds of the fruits of their virtues. The fuller ears of corn lean and incline toward the ground; thus those who are distinguished by virtue become more humble; for verily, vainglory is a leech to John Climacus, and is reckoned among the capital vices by the Greeks, as I have already mentioned, and Saint Nilus himself, on page 36, narrative 3, relates that good deeds are corrupted by it, and he treats of true glory at length. Praise is especially base in one's own mouth; whence Saint Cyprian writes to Donatus that boasting of one's own praises is odious; and Pliny the Younger, book III, epistle 9, says that what would be magnificent if related by another, vanishes if related by the very person who performed it; and rightly does Solomon, in chapter XXVII, verse 2 of Proverbs, admonish: «Ἐγκωμιαζέτω σε ὁ πέλας, καὶ μὴ τὸ σὸν στόμα, ἀλλότριος καὶ μὴ τὰ σὰ χείλη,» that is, "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips." ^C But Saint Clement of Rome, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, pages 39, 49, and 50, says: «Ταπεινόφρων μὴ ἑαυτῷ μαρτυρείτω, ἀλλ᾽ ἑαυτῷ ὑφ᾽ ἑτέρου μαρτυρείσθω,» that is, "Let him who is possessed of a humble mind not bear witness to himself, but let him desire that witness be borne to him by another." ^D Therefore Nilus, desiring that those things which he had piously performed by macerating his flesh, and by exercising himself together with Theodulus in the monasteries of Mount Sinai and in the synaxes of the Fathers (for the monks and *monazontes* used to gather in one assembly on the Lord's days, and being gathered together, they would communicate in the holy mysteries, as Nilus relates in his third narrative, page 38; nor does that deranged Apostate Spalatin deny this, in volume I, page 378, *De repub. ecclesiast.*), should be known to God alone, suppresses them with silence. But since a husband and wife are two in one flesh, and a father and sons are one, and one and the same person is considered by artifice, and even by the fiction of civil law, and indeed by the invention of nature grasping for immortality, similar in procreation—*Institut., de inutil. stipulat.*, § *Sed sui*—and in the same place, *de hæred. qualit.*, the voice of the father is the voice of the son, who is a portion of the father's bowels, according to Aristotle, book V of the *Ethics*, and in whom parents live again, and just as they are more delighted, so they are more tormented in him; the dignity, praise, and glory of sons is certainly common to the father. As Justinian relates in the *Authentics*, Constitution *quæ dignitatib.*, § *Generaliter*, where the gloss is found.

^A Gifts of the Holy Spirit, when vanities are worn away and, as it were, erased, are cleansed of filth. But if everyone who competes in the contest abstains from all things, so that he may receive a corruptible crown, and runs in the stadium, as the Apostle writes in 1 Cor. ix, 25, how much more ought monks to give effort to abstinence and to afflict, subdue, and macerate the body with fasting, that they may be gifted with an incorruptible and unfading diadem. Among the eight spirits of malice, or capital sins, gluttony leads the front—being the adversary of fasting—as Nilus himself positions it in his treatise on them; and just as it is the doorway to other crimes, ^B so fasting is the gate to other virtues. Elias, Moses, and Christ the Lord fortified themselves with fasting. The first, when he fled to God on the mountain of God, or Horeb—of which John Climacus makes mention in Step 7, p. 158: *Siddin*, a place of anchorites, arduous and inaccessible, which was distant seventy miles from the encampment, to which place Stephen had withdrawn, moving from his cell to the root of the mountain, at which the prophet Elias had seen God, then returned to his cell; of Elias and the cave in which he hid, fleeing Jezebel, III Reg. xvi, 9. Petrus a Valle, tom. I, fol. 80. The second, his progress to the peak of Sinai, Exod. xxxiv, 2, he received from God the stony volume, the rocky pages of the Decalogue, as Salvian speaks in his book *De gubernatione Dei*, p. 22. But Christ, the avenger and champion of the human race, fasting in the desert solitude, having joined battle with Satan, defeated him, and unarming him, overcame him; and he declared to his disciples that the mute genus of demons is cast out only by fasting and prayer, Marc. ix, 28. ^C John, Patriarch of Constantinople, courting popular favor in the year 583, and assuming for himself the cognomen of *Nesteutes* (the Faster), judged it most honorable to bear it up to the year 597, and by it he sold himself to his peoples more than was just. But concerning the one who cultivated fasting so remarkably, and was so devoted to it that as often as food was to be taken, so often he seemed to undergo torment, Saint Bernard acts more elaborately, for he is most experienced in it. For men are most eloquent in that which they know, in Sermon 30 *On the Song of Songs*.

Therefore, Nilus and Theodulus of Macedonia practiced fasting. From this I argue that Nilus has not consigned to literary monuments anything concerning the things done by him and his son Theodulus there in a holy manner, nor concerning the noble and religious acts of his wife and daughter, so modestly did he think of himself and his own, and so exactly did he cultivate humility; I cannot marvel enough that he himself describes all that time in which he remained on Mount Sinai, before the incursion of the Barbarians, which, to my calculation, ^D happened in the year of Christ 410, and thus the five-year period which he spent in his second Narration, 662, p. 17, in these words:

"This [silence] made me a lover of this quiet and led me to the desired wilderness, and prepared me for a long time to live pleasantly, enjoying great tranquility, and directed by a favorable wind toward the goal, until,"

Meanwhile, however, Saint John Chrysostom had died in exile at Comana in the year of Christ 407, as I have warned. He had died at Constantinople on the Kalends of May, although those who follow Theophanes ascribe it to the 1st of the Kalends of September, in the following year, 408, Arcadius Augustus widowed, as from the Theodosian Code, and Theodosius had succeeded in the eastern administration of the empire. Eudoxia Augusta, however, was thought to have died in the year 404, but as Spondanus proves at that year 404, no. 16, and at the year 407, no. 7, she had migrated from life to 409, two years after the death of Saint John. But I opine that fasting was observed excellently both by Nilus and by Theodulus. Certainly, he delineates it, p. 53, c. 14, and p. 16 of his treatise *De monast. exercitat.*, after he has attacked the delicate eaters of exquisite foods and followers of condiments, addicted thoroughly to gluttony and belly-madness, so graphically—what the monks kept in their cells there—that he sets it before the eyes. By fasting, truly, man is recalled to paradise, from which he was ejected because of intemperance. Fasting is the atrium of the celestial life. By it (as Saint Basil is the witness) the temptations of the devil are driven off, the soldiers of Christ are armed for piety; it is the craftsman of temperance and continence. Indeed, this holy doctor excelled so much in abstinence that, living by spirit alone, besides bone and skin, he seemed to consist of no other part of the body. I omit what that most eloquent prelate gathers in his commendation, *ɛ̇ν λóγoις περὶ τῆς νηστείας*, that is, in his sermons on fasting, which is to be compared with Tertullian, p. 190, *Ad martyres*; with Saint Jerome in his *Epistles*, and especially with Saint Ambrose, who imitates him in his book *De Elia et jejunio*. Among the exercises of the monks, it holds the first place, and illuminates the mind with spiritual lights and prepares it to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to the age and manner of each; they emulated even Saint Peter, to whom it was not enough to love and to weep and to mix his drink with tears, but he even wished to feed himself on bitter lupines, as Gregory Nazianzen chants in his *Iambic Poem 18*. As to what Peter, whose food was lupines at a single *as*, that is, bought for ten minas or ounces, from Billius's version, p. 1380, who thinks he drew this from a certain apocryphal book, p. 1387. But Gregory also reports it in his oration *De amore paupertatis*, tom. I, p. 457. Saint Matthew also ate seeds and the tops of herbs, as Saint John the Baptist ate the flowering tips of trees, or locusts and wild honey, on the authority of Clement of Alexandria, lib. II, *Paedagog.*, p. 64.

^A Likewise, or the huts of the Numidian Africans, concerning which Sallust writes in *Bell. Jugurth.*, p. 95, which served as dwellings for them, like the hulls of ships, and for the most part were made from their overturned troughs. Servius on Virgil, Isidore, [and] Vossius in the *Etymologicon* [note this]. Hence the lemma of that most learned jurisconsult of the Holy Roman Church, Cardinal Seraphinus Olivarius, who took up the idea of the overturned boat by which one might cover oneself, and the hemistich: "It had carried [them] before." From these huts the Calybitae derived their name, among whom the most famous at Rome is John, who built himself a *calybe* (from *kalyptein*, that is, from hiding), or a small hovel, on the island in the Tiber, where that son of Eutropius and Theodora, wealthy citizens of Constantinople, hid for so long, having been stirred and converted to piety by an Acoemete abbot setting out for Jerusalem, until at last he was recognized by his mother through the evidence of a copy of the Gospel, and migrated to heaven on the 15th of January, on which day his memory is honored according to the same Roman Martyrology. There Cardinal Baronius ^B, from Lippomanus, Surius, and Nicephorus Callistus [mentions him]; he flourished around the year of the Christian Era 457, or 461, according to Cedrenus under Emperor Marcian, and even under Leo, and was called "the poor man for God’s sake." Cardinal Sirletus translated his Life from Greek into Latin from a manuscript of the monastery of Grottaferrata, whose author is considered by Galesinius to be Simeon Logothetes, or Metaphrastes; he is considered older by Bollandus, because he claims to have lived in the times of John, from whom Metaphrastes would have transcribed it. The Life of the Just Man begins [thus]. Rosweydus published another Life, translated into Latin from a Vatican exemplar, which he thinks is purer; its opening is, "The thing is indeed tyrannical." You will find both in Bollandus. Chiffletius in *Bisunt. antiq.*, for the year of the Christian Era 1321, on the 17th of April, reports that a dean of the Besancon Church was sent to two Greek bishops at Avignon, to interpret the Greek inscription on a casket in which the head of Saint John the Calybite, which had been brought to Besancon, was enclosed: a compendium of the same Life is in the manuscript Menaion of the BB. Library, p. 138, after Nilus’ ^C *Account of the Massacre*, p. 99. Other monks lived as best they could under the native roofs of caves; few knew of grain, and the coin of Caesar was unknown (Synesius reports that the name of the emperors was unknown, nor was it in use at all); vegetables and the berries of the tops of plants were traded among them; among them bread was rare, there was no envy there, no ambition. There is also the Thecua desert not far from the village or castle of Herodium, nor far from Jerusalem, so named from the village or mountainous city of Thecua, whose soil is productive of olives near Arabia: it is a wilderness which is separated from Bethlehem of Judah by 6 or 7 miles, and from Jerusalem by [nine]; from Josephus, *Jewish War*, lib. VII, c. 25, and *Jewish Antiquities*, lib. IX, c. 1. The prophet Amos, in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and Jeroboam son of Joas king of Israel, two years before the earthquake, c. I, and c. VII, v. 14, says that he was among the shepherds of Thecua, a herdsman, ^D plucking sycamores, and chosen by the Lord while he was following the flock; Thecua was also the homeland of the prophet Habakkuk, and of the wise woman of Thecua, thence named...

^A, who appeased David in his wrath against his son Absalom, who had slain his brother Ammon, II Reg. xiv; where Cornelius a Lapide, Ruffinus *Tapha*, and Josephus, lib. v *Antiq.*, [mention] *Thecoe* in his Life, *Oseua*, formerly *Thecua* [according to] Pererius.

In that desert dwelt monks who were slaughtered by the Saracens; as Cassian narrates, lib. IV *De vita Patrum*, related from the sixth conference concerning the slaughter of the Fathers or saints, [transmitted] from Theodore the abbot, and he treats there of the pious dispute concerning the relics of the saints. And I suspect that this book is [the work] of Theodore, bishop of Marseilles, concerning the contests of the martyrs, which Galesinius testifies in his annotations to the *Martyrologium* for the IV of the Nones of January to exist among the most ancient monuments of the church of Bergamo. Indeed, I find Theodore, bishop of Marseilles, from the fifth to the sixth century [mentioned] by Rufus, the most erudite historiographer, in *Historia Massilien.*, p. 321; but Gregory of Tours also ^B mentions Theodore, bishop of Marseilles, often at the same time, lib. vi, c. 2 *Hist. Franc.*, and passim, whence I deem this Theodore to be an older bishop of Marseilles, and I would judge that he was promoted from abbot to the episcopate, or rather seized, as was then the custom, even against his will, and therefore [he was] more worthy, since he had perhaps arrived at that emporium of the Gauls, inhabited by Greeks and governed by [their] laws, from Egypt with Cassian, the deacon of Saint John Chrysostom, who had consulted this Theodore, and names him a man singular in his actual conduct, affirming that he dwelt in the *Cellae*, which place is situated between Nitria and Scythia, five miles distant from the monastery of Nitria, and [separated] by a solitude of eighty miles from the desert of Scythia, in which Cassian labored; and he is commemorated in Henry Canisius, lib. v *Antiq. lection.* in *Hist. Peregrinus*, of which it was treated above, p. 615, where [there is mention] of Nitria and of the Oasis, of which Theodore the Lector, in his *Collectanea*, also has this: Σηπεδόνι τὸν σῶμα διέφθειρε Νεστόριος, καὶ ἀνακληθεὶς ἀπὸ Ὀάσεως (erroneously read as *Easews*), ἐφ᾽ ᾧ μεταστῆναι εἰς ἕτερον τόπον, τῷ θανάτῳ προέλαβε τὴν ἀνάκλησιν; that is: "Nestorius, infected by putrefaction, perished in his body, and being recalled from the Oasis, when he was being transferred to another place, he anticipated the recall ^C by his death," or his revocation. These are the words of Cassian by which he delineates the desert of Thecua: "The desert of Thecua in the regions of Palestine, near the village of Thecua (an embattled city, which King Roboam built, II Paral. xi, 6, the fatherland of the prophet Amos), is an immense solitude as far as Arabia and the Dead Sea, into which the flowing waters of the Jordan enter and find their end, and [there] the ashes of the Sodomites, stretched out over a very ample extent." Mention of this solitude is made in II Paral. xx, 20, and II Machab. ii, 33. In this, men of the highest life and sanctity, monks, dwelling for a very long time, were suddenly slaughtered by the roaming bands of the Saracens, etc. But I will treat of their burial at greater length.

Nilus, indeed, in the year of Christ 410, when the incursion of the Saracens happened under Theodosius the Younger, while he was sojourning in Sinai, was already an old man, as he himself narrates. 6, pag. 92, in Possinus, he admits, according to the opinion of others, where he writes: *Ἦν δὲ κἀγὼ βάδην ἑπόμενος τοῖς προστείχουσιν, ὡς μὲν ἴσως φήσειεν ἄλλος ἀδυναμίᾳ, τοὺς μᾶλλον ἰσχύοντας οὐ φθάνων ἀσθενείᾳ τοῦ γήρως*, that is: "I, however, followed step by step those who were going before, as perhaps another might say, through lack of power, not overtaking those who were [endowed] with greater strength, because of the infirmity of old age": just as I shall soon prove by a calculation that he was at that time affected by age. For when he was raised to the office of prefect, as stated above, under the year of the Christian Era 403, even if the yearly, or annual laws, by which the age at which honors were to be sought was prescribed—as that one sings, as well the Julia as the Pompeia, and others, concerning which in *l. Cum lege D. de arbitr.* and *l. Quidam consulebat*, 57 *D. de re judicat.*, where Duarenus [speaks]—were not observed precisely, and the emperors relaxed them, as they were sometimes lax, for candidates, or even for the upright and just, since virtue did not wait for the 667 years, but anticipated them (I have treated those laws sufficiently at length in my *Diatriba de S.R.E. cardinalium ætate*); nevertheless, I suppose with Rosinus, lib. vII, cap. 9 *Antiquit. Roman.*, p. 697, that he had spent at least the 42nd year in the prefecture of the city, just as in senatorial rank; but it is clear from the epitaph of Pantagathus, who subscribed to the second council of Orange, in the year of the Christian Era 529; that exists inscribed on marble at Vaison; and those last two verses are read: The envious death snatched him away in the tenth lustrum, And placed the senator’s life after the girdles.

Indeed, since the senate has a mild name from the elders, old age seems to begin between the fortieth and fiftieth year. Plato proposed nine ages of man; infantile [is] in the fourth year, weaned after the third: The mother feeds the three-year-old child and the one younger by three, But to feed the greater [aged child] will be the father's duty.

I. II *Machab. gloss. in c. ex litteris* 2. of Gregory IX, *extra De convers. infid.* ascribes childhood to the tenth year, the age of an adolescent to the one born in the eighteenth year, to the sixty-year-old [the age of] fifty-five, to the sixty-five ^D year old [the age of] sixty; to the decrepit what remains of life, and Elias Cretensis reports these in the nineteenth oration of Gregory of Nazianzus, p. 159, who adds: "Since, therefore, in the forty-fourth year we are brought to perfection, and afterwards begin to fail, he therefore rightly defined this time as the life of human nature." Saint Augustine, *epist. 110*, reports that he spoke these things, enumerating the six ages of man. "But in infancy childhood is hoped for, and in childhood adolescence is hoped for, and in adolescence youth is hoped for, and in youth gravity is hoped for, and in gravity old age is hoped for, etc. But old age has no other age for which it may hope," etc. Where by the name of gravity he understands old age and...

the word *senium*; for one who is grave, in the Latin, is called in Greek *presbytēs*; but he who is an old man, or half-dead, is *gēraios*, as the same saint teaches in his ^A *Explanation of the Seventieth Psalm*, p. 276, or as if *gē* (earth) *orōn* (looking), or flowing towards the earth, looking to the ground, and bent down, or flowing into the earth.

Therefore, I judge that Nilus had fulfilled the office of prefect for more than forty years, or had reached forty-two years, since he had devoted himself to the liberal arts and the science of law up to the twenty-fifth year; for adolescents were, of course, excused from honors until that year of age (l. 1, C. *Qui aetate se excusant*, lib. x. C.). The Justinian *egkyklia* were called circular disciplines: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, and then mathematics. Nilus himself, in epist. 43, l. ix. to Domninus the younger, where, incorrectly, *meta [ten] tōn egkykliōn paideusin, kai tēn tōn philosophoumenōn ekmathēsin*, that is, *Post emensa studia circularium disciplinarum, et rerum philosophicarum doctrinam*, he shifts to the term *encycliorum*. In the *Life of Saint John Climacus*, the encyclical discipline is mentioned, and one is said to perfect the circle of disciplines (*kyklopaideian*); afterwards they were called the trivium and quadrivium. I believe that Nilus later took a wife in his 30th year of age, calculating, of course, that Nilus himself was born more or less in the year of Christ's birth 360. He [received] a very grave and most honest matron [as wife], and then a daughter. The honor of the prefecture required a mature age, nor was it in the interest of the republic that youth be enervated by premature venery. However, they had already matured when that storm of the Arabian incursion fell upon them under Theodosius the younger Augustus, in the year 410 from the birth of Christ; for when Nilus, longing for quiet, went to Mount Sinai together with his son Theodulus, the year 405 from the birth of Christ was passing; indeed, a five-year period had passed up to the year 410; but Nilus was then counting fifty years of his age, more or less. Theodulus, the firstborn, was not only not easily less than fifteen years old, as the Rev. Fr. Possinus thinks in his *Notes to the Narrations*, p. 167, at the time he was captured by the Barbarians, but he was leading an adult life, having completed 48 years of adolescence, and whatever might go beyond that—namely, he was hastening toward the end of it, just as Nilus had begun his fiftieth. ^B Horace, truly the sweetest poet, was singing that he praised a womanly form in its entirety, saying "beware of suspecting whose age has trembled to close the eighth lustrum"; for indeed at the age of forty he signifies that the constant age, or the grave one, is passing, and that the strength of youth is waning. When the Barbarians had reached the town of Suca, where they were putting the captured Theodulus up for sale, and he had been redeemed by a certain man who felt pity for him being slaughtered, and weeping, and [having been] sold off again, he had passed back into the hands of the purchaser, the bishop of Elusa. This prelate, having tested his fine character and piety, employed him as a minister of the Church,

^C "The boy is said to complete in the priestly order the first [services] of the *neōkorōn* (I read *neōkorōn* as temple-wardens)," that is, indeed, your son Theodulus is said to serve in a sacred order, when the first duties of the custody of the temple have been entrusted to him. *Neōkoroi* among the heathens were sextons, or caretakers, who managed the care of the sacred buildings, by sweeping them, cleaning, and purging and adorning them; for *korein* does not only signify to sweep and to clean with a broom, as in Suidas, Matthew xii, Luke xv, but also *kallynein*, that is, to adorn; by this name were called by the profane those to whom the sacred houses were committed, to be kept and guarded; the scholiast of Aristophanes is the authority. Theocritus names the office of the sexton itself *neōkorian*, concerning which Servius in Virgil, p. 748, [says] they are *pylōroi* and *neōphylakes*, that is, door-keepers, guardians of the temples; so A. Gellius attests (lib. xv. Noct. Atticar. c. 14); and *thyrōroi*, that is, janitors for opening and shutting the gates, are called porters (IV Reg. vii, and I Paral. xvi 42); they have also been called *pronaoi*, cult-servants of the gods, who guarded the sacred houses (Turnebo c. 21, lib. i, Adversar., Sophocles, and Aristophanes in *Clouds*, and in *Wealth*, and Herodotus—slaves, servants guarding temples, indeed maids who precede their mistresses); a coin of Gordian A. 3 exists, where one reads *Sardianōn neōkorōn* in Seguin, p. 23, *Select. numis.*, that is, of the assistants, as he wishes, and in Occo. The most illustrious ^D Falconerius in his *Notes on the Athletic Inscriptions*, p. 47, argues against Aegius, because he translated *neōn prostasian* as the prefecture or presidency of the temples, instead of *neōn*, that is, the principate of the youths, which correctly appears from a coin of Severus A., which he presently brings forward, where one reads *Pergamenōn neōkorōn epistatēs* (p. 48 and p. 57, p. 105 and p. 111, where he praises Albert Rubenius' *Diatribe on Urban Neocores*, Julius Firmicus *On the Error of Profane Religion*, and Act. Apost. c. XIX, and Theophylact there, who interprets *neōkoron* as *hierodoulon*. Consult also Spanheim who mentions them in passing, p. 307, *De numism.*).

There is in the Church an order of *ostiariatus* among the Latins, whose duty is designated in the formula p. 16 of the *Pontificale Romanum*: the opening of the church with material keys, and the keys are handed to the doorkeeper, which he inserts into the locks of the gates, and soon locks and unlocks them; Saint Lawrence the Levite, or deacon, gave thanks to God because he had merited [being able] to enter His doors; among the Greeks also the deacon exclaims *Ouras, ouras*, that is, "the doors, the doors," locking them, lest any infidel enter; the Rev. Fr. Goar, of the order of Saint Dominic, notes in *Euchologion* various readings, p. 248, and judges that the Greek Church had as offices the *ostiariatum*, *exorcisatum*, and *acolythatum*, and that it is indicated by Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, c. 3 *Hierarch. eccles.*, by Saint Ignatius in his *Epistle to the Antiochians*; and by Saint Epiphanius in *En syntomō alēthei logō* p. 465, where he calls them *thyrōrous*, and the Fathers of the Council of Laodicea, c. 14, sess. 15, call them singers, or canonical singers, as Eusebius also [mentions] lib. vi

Hist. eccles. cap. 3, p. 237. Simeon of Thessalonica calls their offices merely ^A *cheirothēsia* (laying on of hands), and not *cheirotonia* (ordination), where the prayer spoken at the entrance before the customary opening of the church, in which there is the positioning of hands—and not the extension [of them]—is prescribed to be said at the entrance before the customary [time], when the door of the temple is opened, as soon as one has entered. Goar thinks they are included in the order of the lector, and that these orders are conferred with a single benediction, although he also inserts a different formula for the appointment of the *deputatus* and the candle-bearer, and thereafter a formula distinct from that of the *anagnōstēs* or lector or cantor; and Arcudius explains this opinion more fully (lib. x), adding that the *diaconulus* is called a lector. Billius in the tenth oration of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus lists the rank of lector (p. 373). *Thy rōros* (doorkeeper) is called *ostiarius* in the *Catalogus Ecclesiæ*, and *diabarys* or *diabatēs*, that is, one who passes through, or a patrolman, and a minor lector. There is added by Goar, p. 140, a formula for blessing the *oikonomos*, that is, the custodian of the church, or the second deacon. The order or office of the exorcist among the Greeks is committed to presbyters. ^B The offices of the *oikonomos*, and of the custodian of the sacred vessels and of the church, of the *diaconulus* or second deacon, and of the lesser [deacon], and of the *ostiariatus* (to which pertains that inscription in Gruter, p. 106, no. 6: *Here rests Ursatius ostiarius*—pro *ostiario*, unless one ought to read *bustuarius* [undertaker]. Cyril in his Lexicon. That inscription is to be seen at Trier at St. Paul's), are contained eminently and implicitly in the order of the lector, or *anagnōstēs*. Goar in his *Euchologion* also deals with the *kandēlaptēs*, or lighter of candles, and the *ekklēsiarchēs*, who with the *sēmantērion*—that is, a signal—calls the people to church, as [can be gathered] from Justin in his *Dialogue with Trypho*, Tertullian in *De corona militis*, and [his letters] to Scapula.

They write of those turning away the laboring, or the *sandopilarioi*. Saint Epiphanius writes in his *Compendium* of the *kopiatai* who drape the bodies of the deceased, who carry out the bodies of the dead, caring for the cadavers and committing them to the earth, from Justinian, Novella 43 and 59; Cujas, ad. c. 1 and 2, *De vit. et honest. clericorum*, and to c. *Qui cler. vel vovent*. Spondanus in his *Epitome* to the year of Christ 44, and *De cœmet. sacr.*, lib. v, cap. 9; Saint Jerome concerning the woman struck seven times, epistle 49 to Innocent, in Acts of the Apostles c. 18, in imitation of Tobias; in the *Roma Subterranea* [of] Maius and Calligonus, they are declared to be *fossores* (grave-diggers), from an epitaph, pp. 457 and 529. Trophimus the *fossor* is depicted with a bipalium, or mattock, and he is ascribed as *fossor* via trajected letters, where Severanus wrongly mixes him in the *Notae Purgationis Caeciliani* with Trophimus the disciple of Christ from the Acts of the Apostles. The *Gesta* after Optatus (p. 266) mention *fossores*; and (p. 271) Saturninus the *fossor*. In the *Roma Subterranea* (p. 408) also, Celerinus *foss.* and (409) Anastasius and Antiochus *foss.*, and (pp. 495 and 439) *psaltae*, *psalmicines*, [referred to] in Sidonius, from whence came the office of the *psalmistatus*; for those who interred Christians sang psalms by tradition; Saint Jerome in the *Life of Saint Anthony* [mentions] *kopiōntas*; Saint Epiphanius, Bellarmine, tom. V, lib. 1, c. 1, controvers. 85.

^C To return to the *ostiarii*, to whom keys are handed, who ring the cymbal and bell, and open the book for the one who preaches. From the *Pontifical*, it was an ecclesiastical custom for keys to be hung at a circle for Saint Peter, from his images which Alemannus displays in his *Dissertatio de pariet. Lateranen.*, or from the belt of the Supreme Pontiff, as in the *Life of Paschal II* (Vatican codex 3622). ^D At Rome a celebrated author of the *Life of some Pontiffs*, Pandulphus the *ostiarius*, who lived in the 12th century. There were once *ostiarii* around the chest and temple; I Paral. xvi, called janitors from the doors, *portarii* from the gates, *ostiarii* from the entrances (I Paral. ix, 22; I Esdr. iii, 24). *To the thresholds the faithful Custodes* (Virgil). *L. xxvi § 1 D. de ann. legatis* and *§ Est autem institut. de actionib. c. Clericos*, 21 dist.; from Isidore of Seville c. *Ostiarius* 23 dist. c. *Perlectis*, 25 dist., where he speaks of *basilicarii*, of the door-keepers of the basilicas, and of *matricularii*, commonly [called] *marguilliers* from the *matricula* or register, in which they were described—although others derive it from *marculus* [hammer], because they used to strike the doors—and watched. Lucius, in *Placit. Curiæ*, lib. 1, tit. 5 and 6; Colvius in the Notes on Sidonius.

A lector in the pulpit reads those things which he proclaims, or the sacred lessons, and the word of God, and those same lessons he sings, and he blesses the bread and all new fruits, from the *Roman Pontifical*; he once read the Gospel in Africa from the epistles 33 and 34 of Saint Cyprian, as Magri notes, who in his *Notitia ecclesiastica* falsely cites the first Council of Toledo; for in it I found the contrary, can. 1 and 2, which he affirms is called *diton pappān* by Balsamon; Isidore of Seville sets forth the office of *ostiarii* in his epistle to Lanfredus. Cardinal Baronius [speaks] at length concerning *ostiarii* and lectors at the year of Christ 44, p. 77, n. 13 and 34, where [he speaks] of the duties of singers and those who labor from the epistle of Saint Ignatius to Polycarp, and Saint Epiphanius, who [mentions] *kopiatas* and *fossores*, and concerning notaries and defenders, and psalmists, as Hallier [notes], p. 369 and 374. Saint Jerome, or whoever else is the author among his works of the *Epistle to Rusticus of Narbonne*, concerning the seven grades, establishes the first order of the church clerks as *fossores*, the second as *ostiarii*; yet the *fossores* are not distinguished by any order, [the] *kopiatai* in the epistle of Saint Ignatius to the Antiochians, which Vossius rejects, but Mestræus approves. There were pagan *ostiarii* and *ostiariae* (II Reg. iv), and in the Gospel of Saint John c. x and xviii; among the Gauls *Huissiers*; concerning them see Rocheflavyn, lib. ii *Institut. Parlament.*, cap. 16, num. 22. But concerning the *aeditui*, [see] Varro lib. vi *De ling. Lat.* and lib. vii, with the *Conjectanea* of Joseph Scaliger, Festus in V. *Aedituus* and *Aeditimus*. The *anagnōstai*, or lectors, held offices among the Greeks, [and] of all these offices, or rather minor orders, [there were] the *ostiariatus* and *exorcistatus*, by which the power was given of casting out demons and unclean spirits from obsessed bodies.

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potestas his qui eo initiabantur. Exorcists are so called by the Latins ^A because they called upon the name of the Lord Jesus over the catechumens who had been baptized, or over the possessed who were tormented by demons, that they might depart from them. Isidore, chap. 12, Book VIII, Etymologies; chap. 21, dist., De Clericis. The solemn formula by which exorcists were ordained exists in the chapter *Exorcista*, in the same place; Solomon discovered a certain method of exorcizing, and used it to conjure demons; Zonaras, Vol. I, fol. 21, *Chronicon*, where he speaks of the ring of Eleazar from Josephus, *Jewish Antiquities*, Book VIII, chap. 2, who himself exorcized before Vespasian and his sons. But in chapter XIX of the Acts, mention is made of the itinerant Jewish exorcists, who were the seven sons of Sceva, a chief priest, and they called over those who had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, attempting to adjure them, but with futile effort, verse 23 and following. In baptism, moreover, the exorcism was performed with a great oath; the catechumens swore in the name of Christ, the demon was blown away, and the hand was imposed by the presbyter, as in the gloss on 4 dist., in chap. *Pervenit*, 30, q. 1. Polydore Virgil, chap. 4 and 5, Book IV, *De inventoribus rerum*; Cujacius on chap. 5, *De cognatione spirituali*. Today, however, these catechisms and solemn exorcisms are joined to baptism; either as soon as we are brought into the light, or at least after three days, both are employed while we are bathed in the sacred waters; Franc. Connan, Book VIII, *Commentaria Juris*, chap. 5, n. 2. But the formula for the exorcism of the possessed exists at the end of the *Roman Ritual*. The most eminent Cardinal Bona also discourses most wisely and prudently regarding the signs and indications of the possessed, in his book on the discernment of spirits, Book Aureus, chap. 11, num. 14; Ulpian in 1, 1, D. *de variis et extraord. cognit.*: "If he has practiced incantations, if he has prayed, if, to use the common word of the impostors (for so he called Christians), he has exorcized." Ulpian was hostile to Christians, hence he collected in his seventh book, *De officio proconsulis*, the imperial rescripts regarding the punishments of Christians; ^B see Lactantius, Cujacius, chap. 54, Book X, *Observationes* regarding exorcisms and the possessed; Alciatus, Book VIII, *Parerga*, chap. 23. Add Hippocrates, Book *Περὶ παρδένων*. In the Roman Council under Pope Sylvester, there were present 44 acolytes, 22 exorcists, 90 lectors of the City, and 14 notaries; under Pope Cornelius in the Roman Church, there were 22 acolytes, 52 exorcists and lectors along with doorkeepers; described at length in chap. 10, Book II, *Prænesta antiqua*; at the Council of Arles under that same Sylvester, with Dammatus, or Daphnus, bishop from the province of Vienne, city of Vaison, Victor the exorcist subscribed, and others in the year of Christ 526. The acolytate, or the office of candle-bearer, to whom is extended and handed by the bishop a candlestick with an unlit candle, and an empty cruet for the presentation of wine and water into the Eucharistic blood of Christ, regarding which I have treated sufficiently in chapter 5 of the second Corollarium *De Agnis Dei*, and Cardinal Baronius at the year 58; the Greeks confuse this with the deputy, and *kandilaptes*, and *laosynaktes*, and *ecclesiarch*. Through Onesimus the acolyte, Paul sent his epistles ^C to the Colossians and the two to the Thessalonians, naming him in the Epistle to Philemon; this Onesimus was bishop of Ephesus and a martyr of Rome, per the *Roman Martyrology* of February 15; through Epiphanius the lector to the Philippians, and mention of them is made in the arguments. This duty of carrying the letters of bishops to the Churches was enjoined upon lectors, acolytes, and subdeacons, as Saint Cyprian shows in Epistle 16, in which Celerinus the acolyte is later promoted to the diaconate: concerning whom see Eusebius and *Martyrology of Rome* for February 3, where Cardinal Baronius, who also writes under the year 49 in his *Annales* (whether he is the one mentioned above, Celerinus), 24 and 25: although Saint Ignatius wrote to Polycarp (21) about selecting a courier for that task; I find that the bishops' couriers, or legates and letter-bearers, were acolytes, as in Saint Augustine, Epistle 104 to Sixtus, to whom he sent his reply via Albinus the acolyte. Pope Clement III in his ancient Collection 2, in Ant. August. Book V of the *Decretals*, tit. 7 *De concess. Præbend. ad Remensem archiepiscopum*, chap. 4: "Our beloved son C., our nephew and acolyte, has made it known to us (he writes)."

The minor orders are mentioned by Saint Mark in the *Liturgy*, Clement of Rome in the *Constitutions*: "Let the doorkeepers stand at the entrances of the men." The doorkeepers assist at the entrances of the men, and the Apostolic Canons already cited; the most learned Hallier, bishop of Cabillon, speaks at length of these, p. 364, in the second part of *De sacris electionibus, et ordinationibus*, sect. 1, chap. 1, art. 1. Saint Gregory Nazianzen, orat. 18, recounts that Saint Cyprian the Great, before he became a pastor, had been selected as a *neokoros*, that is, a sexton, as Billius explains in his Notes. A minister, assuredly, to whom fell the task of cleaning and sweeping the temple, in a word, a doorkeeper: ^D to this Adhelmus, chap. 15 *De laudibus virginitatis*, and Hallier p. 366 assent, but the Acts describe him as a herald and proclaimer of sacred things, that is, a lector. But then a deacon, and by no means a pastor or pontiff, *Martyrolog. Rom.*, day of September 26, where Cardinal Baronius notes that the Greek Fathers were accustomed to confuse Cyprian the Magician of Antioch, the suitor of Justina, with the prelate of Carthage, just as the same Billius, who tried to excuse Saint Gregory Nazianzen as best he could. Regarding the rank of sexton, Saint Paulinus of Nola, Epist. 6 to Severus. Modern Greeks recognize only lectors, but the ancients recognized a doorkeeper besides, and an exorcist, and an acolyte, as testified by Hallier, page 585 *De gradibus presbyterorum, diaconorum, subdiaconorum et lectorum*. Elias Cretensis in the tenth oration of Saint Gregory Nazianzen, page 373. Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, chap. 3, *Eccles. hierarch.* part II, calls them *ekkritous leitourgous*, that is, select ministers, that is, presbyters or deacons, and he adds others, the minor ones namely, who stand at the doors of the sanctuary, and minister to the others.

^A Præpositus, in c. 15, dist. 13, teaches that there were eight degrees by which one ascended to the gate of the temple, according to Ezekiel, ch. XL, and that there are as many dignities through which one proceeds to the papacy, or supreme pontificate—namely, parish, deanery, archdeaconry, or provostship, abbey, episcopacy, archbishopric, primacy, and patriarchate. Leo Allatius contends, and proves in his book *De aetate et interstitiis Græcorum*, that a reader, or *ἀναγνώστης*, should not be ordained if he has not completed his 18th or 20th year, according to the Nomocanon of Photius, the Notes of Balsamon, the Basilics, and especially Novel 257 of Justinian among the Greeks, pp. 36 and 59. Hence, as I have already asserted, Theodulus, the son of Nilus, having been advanced to the post of *νεωκόρων*, in holy order, with the hands imposed upon him by the priest of the divine mysteries of Christ, since he carried out that office diligently, and practiced with zeal the *ὑπηρεσίας πρώτας*, the first ministries, or those of the ostiarius, the sacristan, and the reader, which mutually complemented each other, and since he excited great hope of progress, having in a short time provided many proofs of virtue, and being pleasing to all on account of his good and upright morals; it follows more certainly that he had completed eighteen years, or even twenty.

Thus far I have read through the first page of the Life of Saint Nilus the Abbot; now I proceed to the second. If I may first observe that the more recent Greeks, who prefer to adhere to the Roman Church, the mother of the rest, and do not rejoice at being torn and separated from it, confer the lectorate with the first tonsure, as in the Euchologion, where the *τάξις χειροτονίας τοῦ ἀναγνώστου* begins ^B by saying: *χείρεται ὁ δοῦλος τοῦ Θεοῦ* [Name], *εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς, καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ, καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος*; that is: "The servant of God [Name] is tonsured in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." The formula for the reader and the cantor is the same; to the former is given the book of Psalms, or the Psalter; to the other, the Epistles, or the Epistolary, with the prayer: *Κύριε, δὸς αὐτῷ μετὰ πάσης σοφίας καὶ συνέσεως τῶν θείων σου λόγων τὴν μελέτην καὶ τὴν ἀνάγνωσιν ποιεῖσθαι*; that is: "Lord, grant him with all wisdom ^C and prudence to put into practice the meditation and reading of Thy divine mysteries." Included in the subdiaconate, and comprehended within it, are the other two minor orders, the ostiariate and the acolytate, and the ordaining bishop uses these words: *Κύριε, δὸς αὐτῷ ἀγάπην καὶ εὐπρέπειαν οἴκου σου, παριστάναι ταῖς θύραις τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ ἁγίου σου, ἀνάπτειν λύχνον σκηνώματος δόξης σου*; that is: "Lord, grant him charity and the beauty of Thy house, that he may stand at the doors of Thy holy temple, and light the lamp of the tabernacle of Thy glory." They join the exorcists, moreover, to the presbyterate, both over the catechumens and over the energumens. And in this way, they gradually approach ^D and draw nearer to the Roman Church, the most kindly mother, as I have learned from the most illustrious lord Onuphrius Constantinus, Archbishop of Deberita; and they recall and renovate, as far as they can, that old hierarchy similar to the Roman, which flourished and blossomed in those primitive beginnings of the nascent Greek Church, and which, in the books of the holy Dionysius,

^A Ignatius, and Clement, and other Greek Fathers, have vestiges and arguments extant, when the Western and Eastern Churches were unanimous and pledged to one another, and allied by the bond of charity and the glue of true concord, like the two olive trees of which Zechariah speaks, and Nilus himself in his epistle above ^B oracularly proclaimed, or two lamps shining even on earth before the Lord the Ruler, Apocalyps. xi, 4, which, that it may be mended by divine mercy at long last, just as I pray with all my affection and from my inmost soul, so also I gladly divine.

Of the temptation of the holy Abbot Nilus, and his remaining life, and death, and sepulchre.

The life of Nilus could not be traversed and surpassed in one spirit: the slope is higher and loftier; indeed, that excellent man lifted his eyes to the mountains, and directed his steps towards the cliffs and lofty crags, and, with his son Theodulus, towards the heights, as a true servant of God. For a while, therefore, it was necessary to rest together with them on the Sinaitic ridges, in the mountains of God, in which they were tasting in advance the most sweet sweetness of the solitary life. And so, the fruit of the monastic apprenticeship is to be gathered concerning Nilus’s fatherland, his name, his studies, dignity, wife, offspring, virtues, conversion, and deeds—as far as I have been able to attain—and through what has been transacted up to this point, and in grasping and reaping this, and recounting whatever remained of his life, it is satisfying to exert strenuous effort, until I arrive at the goal, and draw the final line, and arrange his sepulchre.

God is not the tempter of evils, as the holy apostle James writes in his epistle v, 13. Yet God did tempt Abraham (Gen. xxii, 1 ff.) concerning his only son Isaac, whom he loved uniquely, so that his pious obedience might be proven and brought to the notice of the centuries; and the holy Augustine observes this, lib. xvi De civitate Dei, c. 32, and the holy John Chrysostom, hom. 4 in Genes., though not to God Himself, to whom his singular faith was known. God also permitted his servant Job to be tempted (throughout the book of Job), but the faithful Most High neither suffers anyone to be tempted above what he is able, but also makes with the temptation a way out; for in this way He proves [them], as if testing the faith of the just, from holy Paul, II Cor. x, 13; and from holy Augustine, serm. 11 De verbis Domini in Matthæum x, so that He may crown them. With Saint Ambrose as witness, lib. v De Abrah., c. 8, He neither sustains [evil], nor allows them to be led into temptation, or *eiseneŋkē* (εἰσενέγκῃ), as the holy Augustine explains c. 9, lib. ii De serm. Domini in monte, nor does He altogether send or leave the rod of sinners upon the lot of the just, from Ps. cxxiv, 3, as the holy Gregory Nazianzen explains most eloquently, orat. 1, p. 588.

God also tempted Nilus concerning his son Theodulus, so that both might be found more precious than gold, which is tested by fire, from holy Peter (I Pet. i, 7). The profane and exiled poet had sung: For as yellow gold is tested in the fires, So must faith be inspected in hard time.

And this stormy tempest was followed by a wonderful tranquility, and both were unharmed in strong waters, II Esdr. ix, 11. There are, for the most part, two regions in the entire orb of the world which, in various centuries, have flooded parts [of the world]—Europe, Asia, and Africa—with the pouring forth of swarms of peoples who departed thence; namely, the Cimbric Chersonese from the north; but from the south, Arabia, which, at least [the part called] Felix, appears as a peninsula, washed and hemmed in on one side by the Arabian Gulf, or Erythræan Sea, on the other by the Persian Gulf, and then by the Indian Ocean; along with the Petræa and the Desert; for Arabia in its entirety is divided into these three, and through these two it clings to Palestine and Syria, from which it is separated by the intervening Euphrates river; the Cimbric Chersonese, named from the Cimbri peoples (by which name the Germans call *toùs lēstás* (τοὺς λῃστὰς), that is, robbers, if there is any credit to Plutarch in Mario), I judge to be the boiling pot which Jeremiah had foreseen from the face of the north, c. i, v. 13. Certainly Scandia, or Scandinavia (for thus is this peninsula named, extending between the Baltic Sea, or the Codanus Gulf, and the northern ocean, according to Pliny and Solinus) is termed the vagina of nations and the workshop of races, because, as Jornandes hints (is he the Gordianus the deacon, who wrote on the Getic affairs?), an innumerable multitude of men truly leaped forth from it at different times, and migrated from there throughout the whole space of the habitable earth, as far as it lies open; and, not to recount the Cimbri, Ambrones, and Teutones who poured forth from there, thrashed in various battles by Catulus, and destroyed even to extermination by C. Marius in the province of Narbonne, while they were roaming through Gaul and Germany, and invading Italy about the year 650 from the founding of the City, and before the birth of Christ 102, as testified by Plutarch in Mario, p. 140; Velleius, lib. ii, pag. 119; Justin, lib. xlviii, pag. 221; Annæus Florus, lib. iii, c. 3; Pliny, lib. iv, c. 14; Paul Orosius, lib. v, c. 16; Eutropius in Epitome Liviana; Berthaud in Flor. Gall. lib. iii, c. 4. When Decius Trajanus was ruling, the Goths, born from the same peninsula and led into Scythia, then mingled with the Getae and called Goths—as if *goētes* (γόητες), that is, magicians or enchanters—defeated him. Soon subdued by Claudius and Probus, and believed to be Gog and Magog, whom Ezekiel had predicted, c. xxxviii and xxxix, and of whom holy John speaks, Apocalyp. xx, 7; holy Augustine, lib. xx De civit. Dei, c. 11; Orosius, lib. vii, c. 39; and whose fortune, now prosperous with the Romans who ruled the world, and now adverse, they defeated Valens in battle, then besieged Constantinople, then took Rome, and held it under kings, until they were subdued by Narses and exterminated in Italy. But that portion of them which had settled in the province of Narbonne, which from them was allotted the name of Langothia, afterwards in

634, and Persia in 639, under the leadership of the Caliphs and soon after the Sultans, subjected to themselves. They obtained the whole of Africa, and having driven out the Romans, ^A they passed into the Mauritanias and Numidia; and having mingled with the surviving Vandals there, sharing both names and superstitions, and denying the divinity of Christ the Lord, they crossed into the Spains and into the Gauls, until Charles Martel crushed and extinguished them in that famous battle. Nay, they even plundered and devastated Sicily and Rome itself, and held a great part of Greece. For this reason, P. Guesnai, in *Maria Magdalena Massiliense advena*, p. 562, affirms that Africa was called the "sheath" of the Vandals, that is, of the Saracens or Moors, under Charlemagne, which I prove at length in my *Dissertation on the Patrimony of the Roman Pontiff in the Province of Narbonne*. Previously they had played a prelude with various excursions, harrying Syria and Palestine, dwelling in tents, as in Isaiah 13:20. The ^B robbers of the Arabs, who had invaded the camps, killed all the firstborn sons of Joram, king of Judah—of the Arabs, that is, who are neighbors to the Ethiopians; for there is a double Ethiopia: one after Egypt, the other in the borders of Palestine or the Holy Land and Sinai; the other, or Midian, from which Zipporah the wife of Moses was called an Ethiopian (Exodus 2; Numbers 12). Concerning this, it is said in Psalm 67: "Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God," where see Genebrardus and Allatius in his *Hexaemeron of Eustathius*, p. 328; La Valle, Part II, epist. 11, p. 482, describes four kinds of Arabs, who ravage even today. But let us return to the contemporaries of Nilus, among whom Vopiscus in his *Aurelian* mentions the Blemmyes, barbarian nations; and Pliny, lib. V, c. 8, calls them peoples of Ethiopia towards the south, ^C who took their name from Blemys, one of the leaders of Dionysius; according to Strabo, lib. XVII, and Stephanus, *De urbibus*, they are headless. Claudian calls them fierce and places them between Meroë and Syene, in his *Poem on the Nile*. Probus subdued the Blemmyes and sent their captives to Rome, who offered a wondrous sight to the astonished Roman people; concerning these, Mamertinius said in the *Genethliacon of Maximian*: "Not only these, but other nations, terrible in strength and arms, 679 furnished with confidence, use them for the destruction of humanity; but even the Blemmyes (as I hear), accustomed only to light arrows against the Ethiopians, seek what they do not have—arms—and engage in internecine battles with almost naked hatred." Concerning these, Sulpitius Severus, *Dial.* I, c. 15. I warned long ago, p. 659, of the monks of supreme virtue and sanctity in the solitude of Thecue, ^D who were killed under the reign of Diocletian and while Peter was ruling the Alexandrian Church as bishop and martyr, who died in the year of our era 310, by roving bands of Saracen robbers, from the 6th Conference of Cassian, c. 1 and 2. Cardinal Baronius, in his notes to the *Martyrology* for the 14th of January, the 19th of February, and the 16th and 28th of May, records various incursions of the Saracens, of which this is the first, under Diocletian, in the year of our era 303, of which Cassian speaks, in Thecue; and of this the Greeks made mention in the Menologion, on the 14th of January, in these words: "But before many years, in the reign of Diocle-

Diocletian the emperor, and when Peter was Archbishop of Alexandria, others were slaughtered who were Hesychasts, and they too lived on Mount Sinai. For the Saracens who dwelt on Mount Sinai, upon the death of their own phylarch, slaughtered many of the ascetics; and when the rest had fled to the fortress, a flame of fire appeared to the Saracens by night, burning the whole mountain; and the flame reached up even to the heavens; and when the Saracens saw this, they were terrified, and casting away their arms, they fled. Those who were first slaughtered were thirty-eight, having various wounds on their bodies; and from among them two were found alive, Sabbas and Esaias; and of those who were slain, some had their heads completely severed, others were held together only by skin on one side, and some were cut in the middle; and these the two monks buried, after they had told what had happened to them."

That is: ^A Many years before (namely, before the monks were killed by the Barbarians called Blemmyes, in the time of Theodosius, with whom Nilus was), under the reign of Diocletian Augustus, and when Peter was Archbishop of Alexandria, they were slain, while others were living a tranquil life, and these too on Mount Sinai. For the Saracens who lived near Mount Sinai, after the death of their tribal prefect, slaughtered a great number of those dedicated to monastic exercise; but as the rest fled to the fortress, a flame appeared to the Saracens, burning the whole mountain, and it rose up even to the sky. Seeing this, the Saracens were terrified, and casting away their own arms, they fled. But those who were first killed were thirty-eight, their bodies gashed with various wounds. From among these, two remained alive, Sabbas and Esaias; and some of the slain had their heads completely cut off, while others had skin clinging to one side, and others had been severed in half. These, the two monks buried, and they recounted everything that had befallen them. Ammonius, a presbyter and an Egyptian monk, who was a martyr along with the holy bishop and martyr Peter of Alexandria, as mentioned in Eusebius, *Ecclesiastical History*, book VIII, ch. 9, whose martyrdom the most praised Fr. François Combefis rendered into Latin, and the most accurate Fr. Nicolas Le Sueur into French, both of the same order: Ammonius, I say, perhaps the same whose soul Saint Anthony saw being carried up to heaven, as found in Saint Athanasius in his *Life*, and Suidas, as well as in the *Lives of the Fathers*, p. 150, and in the *Roman Martyrology* by Cardinal Baronius on the kalends of September, described the slaughter of these monks, told to him by Sabbas and Esaias in the Egyptian tongue; and he sent this description, found at Naucratis (this is the city which is also Naucratis, in Egypt, of Julius Pollux the grammarian, whose *Onomasticon* was dedicated to the emperor Commodus, under whom he flourished, and the inland district within the Delta is named from it, as is the mouth of the Nile, which is also the Canopic [mouth], on the authority of Pliny, Strabo, and Stephanus), to a certain anchorite, and John the presbyter translated it into Greek. That Ammonius had a cell in Canopus; this is a town of Egypt not far from Alexandria, and fleeing the atro- ^D city of the persecution of Diocletian against the Christians, he went into Palestine to adore the sacred monuments of Christ the Lord; from there he proceeded to Mount Sinai, in whose wilderness and summit monks dwelt, whose angelic life he depicts; then he narrates that the Saracens, when their chief had departed from life, in the wildernesses of Getrab, Chobar, and Cedar, and other places near the holy mountain, slaughtered all whom they encountered, and when they were proceeding to the holy mountain, over which presided Dulas, called Moses in the Tower on account of his gentleness, a flame that suddenly arose with smoke terrified the Barbarians, who desisted from their intended journey; after their retreat, Dulas, emerging from the Tower with the monks, found thirty-eight monks killed, of whom twelve were lying in the monastery of Getrab, and others scattered here and there, besides two breathing, namely Sabbas and Esaias, of whom Esaias died immediately, but Sabbas, when he had recounted the slaughter, likewise passed away forty days later, so that they fulfilled the number of forty slain monks, and he affirms that all these things happened on the second day of the month of Tybi, which is reckoned by the Egyptians as the 14th of January. Here Ammonius joins another slaughter reported to him by another monk, who had seen it, and had fled, committed by the Barbarians against the monks in the wilderness of Raithu in Arabia Petraea, to Ptolemaeus of Ratheni, or as is read in the Menologion of Basil, and in the Roman [Martyrology], in Egypt, because it is situated in the Red Sea, or on the shore of the Red Sea, as Father Augustinus Lubinus maintains, and as is proved by the reference of Lord Michael Antonius Bandrand, a most expert geographer, in his Lexicon. That wilderness is called Elim in chapter XV of Exodus, and was the second station, or lodging, of the Hebrews, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, which had grown into a forest, where the monk Moses, and his disciple Psoes, and Joseph of Ephesus performed wonderful works. Into this [place], the Blemmyes, three hundred in number, having crossed the sea to Clisma, which is a fortress of the Arabs, from the Ethiopians and the city of Ela of Arabia Petraea, where once a Roman legion used to reside, as Stephanus testifies in *On Cities* (De urbibus), launched an attack and routed the Pharanitae, who were defending themselves after having fled within the wall under the leadership and exhortation of Paul of Petra, and killed those who were besieged there, including Jeremias, and then Paul himself. That monk, having bewailed these things, hid himself under the branches of palm trees, and watching from his hiding place, he saw Salathiel killed; 681 and when the Barbarians, sounding the retreat after the slaughter of the monks, had not found a ship, they were killed to the last man by six hundred Pharanitae: then this Ammonius, rushing out, found 39 monks slain, and a fortieth, Domnus, who shortly after breathed out his soul; the wounds of Andreas, indeed, because they were not fatal, were healed, and Orion, having been found unhurt, survived, and together with Obedien and the leading men of the Pharanitae, they buried the bodies of the forty monks in the Christian rite, while carrying palm branches and chanting hymns: however, the religious Obedien and Orion, and Andreas remained there. But when he had learned these things from him

as a fugitive monk, and as an eyewitness—that is, one who had seen it with his own eyes—Ammonius returned to his place in Egypt, and he wrote it down in the Egyptian language. His ^A *logos* concerning this slaughter was published in Greek and Latin at Paris in 1660, in octavo, by Father Combefis; and in French by Father Le Sueur in the same place and in the same year, from the Royal, Mazarin, and Séguier manuscripts, inserted after the *Acts* of the saints Eustachius, or Placidus, and Theopista (his wife), or the *Encomium* of Nicetas of Paphlagonia. The *logos* of Ammonius begins, "It happened to me," and ends, "to the sinner." The *Roman Martyrology* has this for the 14th of January: "On Mount Sinai, of thirty-eight monks killed by the Saracens for the faith of Christ. In Egypt, in the region of Raithu, of forty-three monks who were killed for the Christian religion by the Blemmyes." The number of forty monks is to be established there, both on Mount Sinai and in Raithu, as is clear from the aforementioned narrative, and thus they number eighty in total. Peter della Valle mentions a monastery with a church under the title "Of the Forty Martyrs at Sinai" (Vol. I, Epist. 11, p. 287), referring, as far as my conjecture can reach, to the first ones. ^B This incursion under Diocletian is confirmed by these words of Nilus, who describes the one that occurred under Theodosius—that is, in his own time: *anērēthēsan de alloi pro pleionōn etōn*, that is, "but others (namely, monks) were killed many years ago, whose memorial is celebrated on the same day (namely, the seventh after Epiphany, or the fourteenth of January), lest the multitude of the faithful flowing together to frequent assemblies be wearied by such a long interval." But concerning Cassian, and Thecusa, and Raithu, it has been treated above again and again—appropriately to that first incursion; yet, under the year of the Christian Era 303, the second incursion of the Saracens is placed at the 28th of May, conceived thus: "At Thecusa in Palestine, of the holy martyr monks who were killed by the Saracens in the time of Theodosius the Younger, whose sacred relics the inhabitants gathered and held in highest veneration." Since these things are reported in the Greek Menologium on the fourteenth day of January: *Outoi ton askētikōn bion pothountes, pasi tois tou kosmou chairein eipontes, katōkoun tēn erēmon. Meth' hōn ēn ho makarios Neilos eparchos gegonōs Kōnstantinoupoleōs, ho kai dynamei logou, kai tou hagiou Pneumatos chariti, kallista syngrammata ektheis pros 682 askēsin epaleiphonta kai tēn diagōgēn, kai aichmalōsian, kai anairesin tōn hosiōn Paterōn toutōn diagrapsas. Outoi gar anērēthēsan hypo tōn barbarōn ontōn legomenōn Blemmyōn, apo Arabias heōs Aigyptou kai thalassēs Erythras kata tēn erēmon paratetamenōn*. "These men, desiring the life of monastic discipline, and bidding farewell to all the things of the world, dwelt in the desert, with whom was the blessed Nilus, who, being endowed with both eloquence and the grace of the Holy Spirit, composed most beautiful Commentaries which prepare one for asceticism and the way of life; and he described the captivity and slaughter of the holy Fathers. These monks, indeed, were killed by the Barbarians, called Blemmyes, who, from Arabia, extended as far as Egypt and the Red Sea, along the desert." And since Nilus himself, because he was present on Mount Sinai at the time, saw these things and, lamenting, observed all the circumstances of the slaughters that took place, and enumerating the monks killed by name, he also adds the time—the fourteenth day of January, as I have reported—and adds: *pantōs gar tois eulabesin hē mathēsis kai tou chronou kai tōn onomatōn spoudazetai, koinōnein tais mnēmais tōn hagiōn ethelousi*—that is, "for the knowledge of both the time and the names is studiously sought by the devout, wishing (namely) to become partakers of the memories of the saints." He names only three who were killed: Theodulus the presbyter, Paul, and John; later, on page 87, he names seven, to whom Father Le Sueur adds an eighth, Isaac. I believe this occurred because those who compiled the *Roman Martyrology* diligently observed the day of burial that was noted, and this was confused with the day when other monks were killed by the Barbarians under Diocletian, as we shall soon mention; and the gathering took place at one and the same celebration at the places stained with the blood of these martyrs or ennobled by their tombs, lest pious travelers be wearied too often by the great distances of their journeys, as I have reported from Nilus and as is clear from the Menaia, and as Cardinal Baronius notes. The day of burial for all was not immediately after the slaughter; for they were dispersed alone in various huts, and only three were killed at Sinai, while others were killed far away in their huts. It does not seem unlikely that the funerals of those further away were delayed from the 14th of January until the 28th of May, for in searching for the bodies and bringing them together, a long time was spent; nor was it safe to proceed with the dead in that duty, or to gather a multitude of the faithful to honor the funerals, until peace had been obtained from the Barbarians, and their leader had to be approached and implored, as will be plain from the Epitome, which I shall presently add, of the narrative composed by Nilus himself. The compilers of the *Roman Martyrology*, when they had learned these days, preserved them anxiously and religiously, both when they deal with this incursion under Theodosius (concerning which see Saint Augustine, Epist. 122 to Victorianus; Nicephorus Callisti, Book XIV, chap. 54; and Cardinal Baronius in *Annals* ad an. 410; and Saint Jerome in *Lives of the Fathers*), and when they treat of other incursions of the Saracens and the subsequent slaughters of the monks; for on the nineteenth of February, it is read in the same 683 Martyrology, there is a commemoration of the holy monks and other martyrs who were most savagely killed by the Saracens under the leader Alemundarus for the faith of Christ. Nicephorus Callisti mentions him (Book XVI, c. 35), as does the author of the *Historia Miscella* (Book XV, p. 921), from Theophanes, and they settle on the nineteenth year of Anastasius, 508 C. N.; Cedrenus on the nineteenth year

of Anastasius, 501 C.N., and the second indiction; others on the eleventh year of Anastasius, 502 C.N. However that may be, Cardinal Baronius and Sethus Calvisius, although a heretic, yet an exact calculator of times, confirm the year 508 C.N., in which Alemundarus, or that Alamundarus of the Zetic tribe, a petty king of the Scenite Arabs, or phylarch, with Zareta, king of the Persians, made an excursion into Phoenicia and Syria, and made an assault upon the borders of Palestine, and that third slaughter of the monks was then committed; which crime it is said that Vadicarius, brother of the deceased Agarus, renewed. Alemundarus, however, embraced the Christian faith about the year 513 C.N., as Cardinal Baronius ^A proves from Nicephorus, Book XVII, c. 35, and the author of the *Historia Miscella*, in the aforementioned Book XV, concerning the conversion of the Saracen, who was the grandson of Amerumnes, in the fortress of Ampela in Syria, when he had seen the appearance of an infant in the Eucharist. The account of Gregory the Decapolite was published in print at Rome by Father Isidorus a Sancto-Josepbo, a Discalced Carmelite, published in Greek and Latin. Father Theophilus Raynaldus also caused another conversion of the Persian prince, made by Petrus de Monte, then Bishop of Brescia, translated into Latin from the Greek of Epiphanius, and printed at Rome in the year 1523 C.N. (as is argued from the Epigram to Matthæus Gibertus Datarius, shortly thereafter a most worthy Bishop of Verona, though not a Cardinal, as the same Father Theophilus calls him), to be reprinted in France. Concerning the Jew converted to the Christian faith by a miracle of the holy Eucharist, see Innocentius III, Book IV, epist. 84. In the first year of Emperor Justinian, 527 C.N., the same Nicephorus and the author of the *Miscella* relate that Saracens, under Alemundarus, king of the Zetic tribe (or perhaps a Scenite ruler?), made an incursion into Palestine, or Syria Prima, and plundered them as far as the borders of Antioch, yet they say nothing of the monks. ^B There was also the slaughter of forty-four monks in the Laura of Saint Saba in Palestine who were killed by the Saracens, noted by Cardinal Baronius under the date of May 16 in his *Notes to the Roman Martyrology* and in his *Annals* for the year 619 or 630 C.N., under the Emperor Heraclius, concerning which Moschus writes in the *Pratum Spirituale*, c. 4, nn. 21 and 99, where Rosweydus praises Cardinal Baronius himself; but with a mnemonic error at February 19, concerning which also Antiochus writes in an Epistle or fragment to Eustachius, which is prefixed to the *Pandectæ* inserted into Vol. IX of the *Bibliotheca Patrum*. There sat then at Jerusalem as Locum Tenens for the Patriarch, who had been abducted by Chosroes into Persia, Modestus; Heraclius ruled, who defeated Chosroes. Concerning the miracles which occurred when the Saracens invaded that monastery, besides Moschus, see Cyril the monk in the *Acts of Saint Saba*, December 5; Euthymius the abbot, on January 20, recounts the Saracen incursion 684 under Anastasius, concerning which also in the life of Saint John the Silent in Metaphrastes, May 13. Indeed, in the Roman Martyrology these things are held on May 16: "The slaughter of the monks in the Laura of Saint Saba killed by the Saracens, of which mention is made in the Greek Menologion." So often have the barbarians assaulted those holy places, and the envious demon, the enemy of the angelic life of the monks, has attempted by the work of the barbarians to disturb the peace of the servants of God, and to winnow that threshing floor with the whirlwinds of persecution; whence Emperor Justinian was compelled to build a fortress at Sinai, that he might protect them more potently. For previously there was only a tower, but he constructed a new fortification, as Procopius testifies, *De ædificiis Justiniani*, Book V, p. 127; nay, even at Theopolis, or Antioch, he renovated the wall of Saint Maro near Daphne, p. 129. Now the monastery of Saint Maro is the principal one of the monasteries of Syria Secunda, whose ambassador, Deacon Paul, at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople, in the first action, subscribed to the petition of the monks. There was also Alexander, archimandrite, also from Epistle 22 of Hormisdas concerning the Maronites at the year 1099 C.N.; Ptolemy of Lucca in the *Annals* from Richard; but also Cardinal Baronius in his *Notes to the Roman Martyrology* for October 21, and in his *Ecclesiastical Annals* for the year 1182. That purple-clad defender of the Church will surely satisfy you, nor will you misrepresent this most exalted man if you read what he writes under January 14 and February 19 (as on p. 167, in the *Notes to the* Διήγημα *of Nilus*, by P. Possinus) and weigh these words: "There occurred a most grave persecution of this kind," etc., and if you wish to understand it as for a similar one, and even these things in a friendly way. "One and the same (he says) persecution of the Saracens," or one stirred up and inflicted by the Saracens, "harassed the aforementioned holy monks placed in diverse locations, and killed them on diverse days (or at diverse times), so that you should not marvel if the Roman Martyrology treats often below of monks killed by the Saracens. Thus the persecution of Diocletian, or of other tyrants raging against Christians, is called one, although it was excited and consummated on diverse days and times." From these words of Cardinal Baronius, how attentive he was in his Works will shine more clearly to an most equitable evaluator of things. While Nilus, according to his custom, [was journeying] to the holy ones who were in the Bush, and in Greek *Batos*, which Moses saw burning, yet unconsumed, Exodus 3:2, where a chapel had been built by the holy Empress Helena, and under the altar a great stone was set, and near which Emperor Justinian built a great church ^C like a fortress, as Procopius describes in the cited places, and Pietro della Valle witnesses in Vol. I of his *Peregrinations*, p. 286: to the holy [monks] (I say), that is, the more perfect monks, having just descended from Mount Sinai, that he might have synaxes and conferences with them, and other spiritual exercises, the monks were also distinguished into *archarioi* or *archaioi*, that is, beginners, *microschemoi*, and *megaloschemoi*, that is, those clothed in a small habit, and those clothed in the great [habit], who were called *teleioi kalogeroi*, just as among the Jerusalemites there are novices and *Grand-Croix*, Goar, pp. 472, 488, and 517 in the *Euchologion*; but I fear that this of the monks 685

^A have already departed, and the pioneers had preceded the priest to heavenly glory like forerunners. And so the surviving monks, with Nilus, buried the deceased on the seventh day after Epiphany, or the fourteenth of January, as I have already mentioned so many times.

All the care of the dear parent rested upon Theodulus. Therefore, having bid farewell to his holy fellow-soldiers and asked for temporary leave, Nilus prepared himself for the journey in order to search for him, commending himself to the prayers of the holy assembly, and fixing all his hope in God, so that, like a shepherd, he might recover his lost and kidnapped little lamb. Animated by this trust, yet wandering and mourning, he arrived at Pharan (this is a city of Arabia Petraea, and a mountain by the Arabian Gulf on the border of Egypt. Ptolemy makes mention of the Pharanite peoples. There dwelt Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, Gen. ch. xxi, v. 22, and it was the 13th station of the people of Israel according to the author of the history of the desert). And there he recounts the conversations he held back and forth with certain ones approaching him, who were praising the solitary or eremitic life, and who were sitting around and asking for the cause of his groaning and weeping; for he was melting into tears while sighing, and sitting there he lamented miserably, responding that he was prepared to set forth his troubles, and he deplored his own calamity, and the captivity of his son, or the slaughter that he presumed.

^A It happened, as I have already noted, that that memorable raid of the Saracens occurred around the year of the Christian Era 410, who, like dogs excited by a rabid frenzy, uttered a wild clamor and pounced upon the men of God. Nilus has already graphically depicted their beastly and feral manners in his *Complotatio* (sic), just as Ammonius did. Not more violently do wolves insult lambs, howling, than they first rushed together and plundered whatever those holy ants had gathered, preparing for their winter's food the tops of trees and wild berries, which, having been diligently collected for this use, could be kept, dried, or stored; they soon compelled the monks to transport them to themselves; but others they dragged from within the church, and stripped them of their own rags, and, advanced in age, they arranged them in order for slaughter. Then the savage executioners standing around drew their swords, and, being angry, fiercely and grimly rolling their burning, reddening gaze toward that line of men, ready to undergo death bravely and generously for Christ, to whom they served. I read, indeed, *pyropont* and *pyrrhōpont* (as in the text and notes, p. 160, by the most learned Possinus). They ordered the priest of the holy place to stretch forth his neck, and they dealt the blow—not both at once (for two were indeed standing around him), but one after the other, striking in on either side so that he might die after more cruelly tasting death, with wounds to the shoulder blade and the breast, from which that priest fell as a victim holy to God, just as his cell-mate did, a man aged and broken ^B not only by years but also by monastic labors, and finally the boy serving them, who had been ordered to gather berries, as I have already narrated.

Satiated with the slaughter of these three, the Barbarians indicated to the remaining monks that they should take flight and depart—*ouk oida ti pathentes*—persuading them by the gesture of their hands, since they still held swords stained with blood. I do not know how they were placated (Nilus says, p. 50). Proceeding through the precipitous deserts, the monks strove to escape to the mountain, for indeed there was no beaten path. Here Nilus depicts his hesitation and slowness, both because of his age, as I have already intimated, and because he saw Theodulus, his only son and companion in the profession, being led away by the Barbarians, and he in turn would look back at his father, while his monstrous torturers dragged him incessantly, until the son signaled that his father should look to himself and seek safety in flight. Nilus stood fast, however, until the excessive distance frustrated his eyes; nevertheless, as his eyesight failed, his will followed and his love accompanied his son; Nilus finally departed, consumed by grief.

As soon as the Saracens had retreated far away, many others having been slaughtered throughout the desert, and the cloud having dispersed, some serenity shone forth. Nilus descended again from the mountain with the other monks so that the due rites might be rendered to those three, and their blessed bodies might be buried. They found the old man still breathing, who finally let out the spirit he had collected in order to exhort them to serve 686 God constantly: this priest was called Theodulus, and in departing he obtained the crown ^C in heaven; while meanwhile he was timidly and briefly weaving the course of his whole life; and being asked about the slaughter of the saints, he brought forth from the Sacred Books many proofs and evidences of divine providence, as well as their food, robberies, and cruelty—the meat of camels, which they call especially *dromadas*, or dromedaries from [their] running; the worship of the star or of the planet Lucifer, and the sacrifice of boys in the flower of their age and of excellent form, or of a white and spotless camel at daybreak; conversely, he sets before their eyes the angelic life, piety, and austere conversation of the monks, so that they might gather to communicate in the sacred mysteries; concerning the vainglory which they flee, and how they truly play the philosopher (the Persians indeed still sacrifice a female camel, witness La Valle, part 1, p. 453 and 48, and Niceta in the *Life of St. Elias the New Martyr*, p. 202, which Combefis produced. This Elias flourished in the year of the Christian Era 768, of the world 6268); concerning the nomadic Arabs, who [worship] the star of Venus in the morning or the Lucifer star (which the tragic Seneca called the herald of time; for it is also the evening star, which glows twice, as if leading forth and gathering the flock of other stars), p. 217. There Combefis praises Nilus for this Saracen error in the book *On the Slaughter of the Holy Fathers on Mount Sinai*, and treats it more extensively.

He stood by Nilus when he had reported the incursion of the Saracens and the slaughter of the monks, the description of which I have already set down; a fugitive from the captives whom the Barbarians had seized and who had escaped from their camp, indeed a slave of the senator Magadon, and he announces 687 still panting that he had fled from them ^D other men, and John had already breathed his last, and the pioneers had preceded the priest to heavenly glory like forerunners. And so the surviving monks, with Nilus, buried the deceased on the seventh day after Epiphany, or the fourteenth of January, as I have already mentioned so many times.

Omnis in Theodulo stabat... [Note: The text continues in Latin, describing Nilus’ search for Theodulus at Pharan, the conversation with monks, and the retelling of the holy men's lives and their martyrdom.]

^A marked for immolation along with Nilus’ son, Theodulus, at the approach of Lucifer: he recounts the preparation for the sacrifice, and the constancy of Theodulus, who had resolved to remain steadfast, trusting in divine mercy. He affirms that the ferocity of the Arab nomads was such that they stripped away all humanity and raged impiously and savagely against the monks. And when, mocking them, they had mangled their bodies, they left them unburied, not deigning to cover them with earth or inter them; but the souls of those devoted to God, being received into heaven, demanded vengeance from God, and their blood cried out to Him. This messenger was a servant of the senator Magadon, who added that those Arabs had intercepted the tribune, who was resisting in a military fashion, and had cut him limb from limb (I have translated the leader of the republic), and indeed had killed his master Magadon, who was performing a public duty, along with his son and two servants, contrary to their pledged word. Then they had thrown the venerable monk headlong onto the rock or crag below; soon they had beheaded the young monk, then killed another courageous adolescent with their wounds, and three more who were found in two huts—one to the south, and another to the north—making eight monks in total, to whom if we add the three named and buried above, eleven will be counted. That servant asserts that he fled, terrified by so many murders; but he professes to be ignorant of what happened to Theodulus, whom the Barbarians themselves were whispering about as destined for sacrifice. Nilus, oppressed by a heavier anxiety, brings up his dream—when, as I suppose, he had fallen asleep from grief—in which it seemed to him that a letter from his son was returned by an unknown person, in the inscription of which he attested himself as *makarios* Theodulus, that is to say, blessed. He adds the fortitude of a certain mother dwelling at Pharan, a woman who truly proved herself strong. For when she received word that her adolescent son had been killed by the plundering Barbarians, as is reported, she did not wail for him in a womanly fashion, but giving thanks to God, and being secure in his salvation, she endured his death nobly, and rather congratulated herself. Nilus confesses that he was moved by her example, lifted up his spirit which had been confused by shame, and perceived from it the greatest relief and consolation. Certainly, if the wife and daughter of the same Nilus had survived at that same time, he could have directed his address or some epiphonema to them: whether he kept silent because they were dead to the world, or for the reasons now adduced, will be for the fair-minded reader to judge.

Moreover, Nilus records that upon hearing these reports of the slaughter, the Pharanites had met, and it was deemed that such an atrocity should not be concealed or covered in silence; indeed, that the crime attempted against the treaty should be signified to the king of the Barbarians and a complaint lodged, so that at least such foul robberies might be inhibited thereafter. Therefore, those citizens sent two hemerodromoi, that is, daily runners older than the youth, who carry weapons and spears to strike wild beasts, and flint, or a tinderbox of flint and iron, which, when struck, produce sparks, 688 and ^B emitted in the cold of dry and arid thickets, provided they might kindle a flame to cook meat on the journey.

Meanwhile, Nilus and others, having turned to funeral duties around the bodies of the slain—it now being the fifth day—found them dead, and the corpses lying here and there were not infected by any foul odor, nor spoiled by putrefaction, nor violated by the bite of fierce, carnivorous beasts, but were incorrupt and entire, and not dissolved or flowing, as is usual. Their names, which they learned from that servant of Magadon, are as follows: Proculus at Bethambre, Hypatius at Geth, Isaac in the monastery, Salael in a hermit’s dwelling; Macarius and Marcus in the desert outside the dwellings; Benjamin in the outer wilderness of Elim; Eusebius at Tola (this is a place by this name at the extreme foot of the mountain, at the fifth milestone from the sacred shrine where John Climacus spent forty years with Moses); and Elias at Aze. In Father Le Sueur’s French version, this Isaac is joined to Eusebius and Elias. When another, pierced with wounds, was still dragging out his life, they carried him into his cell, and having performed the remaining office, they found him, upon returning, dead near the water jar, prone on his knees, and they realized he had passed on from thirst due to the inflammation of his wounds, and they performed the funeral rites for him as well. And if indeed these eight are distinct from those eight whose slaughter the servant of Magadon had narrated, and who, along with the three whom we shall rightly call the first-fruits of those martyrs, will be counted as nineteen, we shall venerate the names of the remaining nineteen inscribed in the heavenly calendar as those who increased their number and were crowned.

^C Behold, as Nilus was returning to Pharan, the runners sent by the Pharanites to the king of the Barbarians returned with letters, and the king offered them readiness to confirm the peace, to restore what had been captured, and to avenge the murders, so that trade might not be dissolved. The Pharanites sent back the envoys with gifts to the same king of the Barbarians, who gladly listen to silver-tongued complaints, and before the face of whose prince they make space for gifts, Proverbs xviii, 16, as every race of Barbarians is *philodoron* and *philochrematon*, from Herodian in *Severus*, that is, loving gifts and money. Nilus travels with those envoys as far as the eighth day; for twelve days were needed to complete this journey. There was labor in that same place due to a shortage of water, but a spring was hoped for and indicated by those who were thirsty. Then Nilus, both from the weakness and infirmity of old age and the heavy modesty that held him back, as I have already noted, could not keep up with his companions as they hastened there, although he feigned that he still had enough strength and presumed that he himself would find his son Theodulus, and this because the Barbarians were scattered around the spring, and indeed these men immediately seized Nilus, but soon released him as they saw the soldiers, and took to flight. Therefore, he continued with the soldiers, just as...

^A Nilus arrived in three days at the camp of the chieftain of the Ammanites, who received them kindly and humanely. Nilus diligently inquired there about his son, catching at every rumor, and at length, having it confirmed by many—even by those who had sworn an oath—that he was alive and had been sold to someone near the city of Elusa, and since they encouraged him to betake himself thither, for he would undoubtedly be found there, he set out for Elusa with two men who knew the way. On the road, Nilus met a man whom he had seen returning from Elusa, a groom, as it happened, following loaded pack animals. This man, recognizing Nilus, called him by name familiarly, drew letters from his scrip and delivered them, and bid him be of good heart, for, he said, «the man who purchased your son is a priest of the divine mysteries according to Christ,» since he who bought your son is a priest of the divine mysteries according to Christ; and the son is said to be fulfilling duties in the sacred order, having been confidently promoted even to the first ministries of the doorkeepers, and is displaying, with great zeal, such hope—one could not find a greater—and in a short time is showing great mastery of virtue, and is receiving favorable votes from all, for they are persuaded by the probity of his character that he is fit to be raised to this rank. (Elusa is a city formerly of Arabia, but later, under the emperor Justinian, it was ascribed to Palestina Tertia, and it is mentioned by the holy Jerome in the *Life of Saint Hilarion*.)

Nilus, therefore, at last entered Elusa, exhilarated and overflowing with joy, and went to the church, the temple of God, ^B giving thanks to God the Almighty, not without tears which joy evoked. He was led to the house where his son was by many who were rejoicing with him. But the son came out to meet his father; he scarcely recognized his father on account of the hair, which he had happened to let grow, and his dirty clothes; both wept, after the father, his eyes fixed upon his son and having immediately recognized him, unable in his mind to contain such joy, collapsed with limbs loosened, and being thought lifeless, was revived and raised up by his son, who was embracing him. For a long time he could not find his voice, and instead of words he spoke with tears; at last, pressing his son in a very tight embrace, he asked for the story of his deliverance and requested him to recount it.

Theodulus obeyed Nilus and began the series of events from those things where the servant, having fled, had left off, and which he presumed to relate, not wishing to recount so many trials that would cause distress, nor to renew his pain and bring weariness upon him again. "Everything," he said, "was prepared so that at daybreak the sacrifice might be performed to the morning star, and your Theodulus was about to be sacrificed, calling upon God in his readiness to restore him to his aged father" (hence Nilus's old age is verified more and more, p. 113), "and confident, he was lying face down on the ground, with his face cast down but his mind raised on high. A funeral pyre had been built by them, and there was a naked sword, a libation, a bowl, and incense; the instruments required for so baleful a ceremony were not wanting ^C when that servant communicated his plan of flight to me, and he alone caught it at the right time, so that the barbarians could not pursue him because of the amount of time that had passed since he had left, and the uncertainty of the way he had chosen. But I," he said, "while the image of death was constantly before my mind, was groaning prayers to the Most High and imploring His aid, full of hope, so that my blood might not be shed, innocent and harmless, for impure demons and the star, or the evil spirit, the minister of lewdness and lust, and the stench of my virginal flesh might not be a delight; I was vehemently beseeching Him. Behold, Lucifer comes forth above the horizon with auspicious light, and taking me away from such a hateful execution, as though by God's command, that star was hastening—lest I should know the sunset—and the barbarians rose up, and with the sun already risen, they were thrown into confusion by its splendor and brightness, because the legitimate and prescribed time of the sacrifice had passed; and they interrogated me as I sat with fingers clasped, etc., ^D and filling my bosom with tears that flowed abundantly, about that servant whom they had searched for in vain. But when I had replied that I had stuck to them, and they in no way knew where he had gone, sparing my body and indulging this fleeting and perishable life, they attempted to kill my soul and snatch away eternal immortality. They therefore commanded me *paraphagein*, that is, to feed on contaminated foods and to engage in lewdness with women; but, supported by God's help, I contradicted them and did not obey. At last, having arrived in a cultivated region, away from that barren wilderness, and having reached the village of Suca, they placed me naked near the gate and offered me for sale to the inhabitants; when only two gold pieces were offered as the price, they were indignant, and repeatedly applied the drawn sword to my throat, ready to cut my head off unless someone purchased me for more. I myself, weeping, begged the merchants, one of whom, having pity, bought me by barely paying the price, and by him I was soon sold there, in Elusa in fact, in another part of the world."

Hearing this, his father was cut to the heart; therefore, lest he spoil his joy and again disturb his fatherly mind, Theodulus finished speaking and reminded his father to offer glory and thanks to God for such a notable benefit. Nilus replied that he had vowed to the Almighty at that very time when Theodulus was in danger and struggling with such great hardships, if he ever found him alive, a *douleian enkrateias, kai tes alles kakopatheias skleran*, that is, a servitude of temperance, or of fasts and abstinence, and a more austere kind of affliction; however, while sleeping, he had heard a voice by which it was promised that that vow had been accepted and that he would be satisfied in his desire; he wished to fulfill it and was ready. Theodulus showed himself [ready] to fulfill the part of the vow, so that he might alleviate his father; the father concluded that both should stand by their promises and fulfill what they had vowed. Nilus, having prayed to God and adored the providence of the Divinity, added that the bishop of Elusa, when he had long cherished and kept them with him (for he was *theophiles*,

^A that is, a lover of God and neighbor, and hospitable), had avoided having them remain with him as a matter of duty, by promising every tranquility, and through a gentle tyranny had prevailed upon them to allow him to impose the priestly yoke upon those unwilling to receive it, even though they were reluctant; finally, that he had dismissed both of them, having first sent back the price paid for Theodulus and having generously bestowed gifts, and supplied them with every suitable provision for their journey. These things the Reverend Father Possinus published in Greek and Latin at Paris, from the manuscript of the most illustrious Monchallius, Archbishop of Toulouse; however, the Reverend Father Franciscus Combefis had also rendered them into Latin from the Royal and Mazzarin manuscripts, but the Reverend Father Le Sueur also translated them into the French tongue, although Monsieur Erouval had shown him another version committed to print in the year 1649, the author of which followed the Reverend Father Possinus. Lipomanus had published a Latin version, which I believe was inserted by Surius into his *Histories of the Martyrs*; nevertheless, it pleased me to reduce this *Narration* of Nilus here into an Epitome, and to consider three ^B words more attentively, namely: *tais komais tes kephales*, *miarophagein*, and finally: *kai gunaixi prospaizein*, that is, hair and locks of the head; to eat those things which are illicit and execrable; to sport with women. From the first, I argue that monks were accustomed to be shorn, as I have already intimated. Salvianus, in book VIII *On the Government of God*, describes a monk, cloaked and pale, and with the tresses of his flowing hair cut away and shorn down to the skin, page 190; Sirmondus, in his 25th epistle, book III of Sidonius; Yepez, in the *Chronicon* of Saint Benedict, chapter 4. But Nilus had nurtured his hair in mourning and had promised it for that reason, so that his hair might cover his face, and he would not be immediately recognized by his son. For those who were mourning and in sorrow were formerly accustomed to let their beard and hair grow long; Justinus testifies to this regarding Eumenes, book XXXVI, and Suetonius regarding Augustus, chapter 23; Cujacius, book VI *Observat. Jur.* chapter 1, on book XV of the *Digest* *De injuriis*, § *Generaliter* in the word *vel capillos submittat*. Ovid, indeed, banished to the Euxine Sea, departed from the City, "unkempt, with his hair streaming over a shaggy face"—Cardinal Baronius is to be consulted in his *Annales Ecclesiastici* at the year 58, number 55, in Spondanus. ^C Regarding *miarophagein* [eating what is unclean], I do not think Theodulus understands only the idol-offerings of the pagans, or the unleavened bread of the Jews, which are also prohibited by the 70th Canon of the Apostles, the 11th of the Synod of Gangra, the 38th of Laodicea, and the 2nd of the First-Second [Trullan] Council; but also forbidden foods, from which the orthodox abstain on every Friday, and on individual Saturdays, and during Lent—yet most monks abstain on appointed days according to the rule of their monasteries; that proverb is well-known: "Cheese and bread and wine, the monk’s daily life." That no bishop may grant monks permission to eat fowl is decreed in chapter 9 of the *Additions to the Capitularies of Charlemagne* in the Cluny Library, where Quercetanus notes many things, page 27. Concerning *xerophagy*, that is, the eating of dry and parched foods, etc. Tertullian, book V, chapter 4, *Against Marcion*; Philo, book I, *On the Contemplative Life*; Festus in the word *Panem*; Cardinal Baronius at the year 34.

I have already dealt enough with fasting; but here I briefly touch upon those things concerning the abstinence of meat, by which is repressed the *xoli-daimon* [bile-demon], which is similar to the *engastrimuthos*, that is, the demon of the belly, who is akin to the ventriloquist; and concerning the disciples of the Carthusians of Saint Bruno, who renovated the anchoritic life in the West, and who perpetually abstain from the eating of meat—the Cardinal of Ostia, Henricus de Segusio, incidentally in the chapter *Consilium* extra *de observatione jejuniorum*, and Joannes Andreae, who stands with the Carthusians from the book of Arnaldus de Villanova ^D written for them, as Antonius Butrius in the margin of Panormitanus, and Joannes Charlerius of Gerson, a town in the diocese of Reims, and Fogerolius in the book of Porphyry, *On Abstinence*. As for sporting with women, that chaste guardian of purity veiled with this word [the mention of] indecency, to which the impure and impious plunderers, the obscene precursors of Mahomet, were forcing him; for if they had filled him with foul foods and defiled him, they would undoubtedly have dragged him into incontinence. "The people sat down to eat, and drink, and rose up to play" (Exodus, c. xxxii, v. 6); which words the Apostle inserts 1 Corinthians, c. x, v. 7. "And to sport with women," says Theodulus, that is, to toy with women. Monks were indeed celibate, and vowed and kept chastity, whence they were called *Azyges*: Synod VIII, act 5, page 266. "The body until this day is pure," Theodulus professed to this day, page 117 in the *Narration*, that his body was hitherto virginal; and of the monk Malchus, Saint Jerome writes at length in his *Life*, and the *Roman Martyrology* on the 21st of October, whom the barbarians, when he was a captive, forced to keep a female captive with him, although he lived with her chaster than she herself; and of another adolescent monk who was bound, and, tempted by a harlot through the art of pagans plotting against his chastity, cut out his own tongue with his teeth and spat it at her. See *Vitas Patrum*. Furthermore, from this Epitome it is evident how agitated and shaken was the spirit of Nilus, now that he was of an advanced and burdening age, and having been consumed by so many vexations and miseries, troubled and afflicted (for the clouds of human passions sometimes occupy even clearer minds), as if by a mass of calamities he was not only curved and bent, but even overwhelmed and crushed beneath such a weight, waning more and more, and grew old. For if (as I was calculating) Nilus was born in the year of our Lord 560, at Constantinople (which *déka etesi*, that is, ten years later, had been founded and dedicated in the year of our Lord 350, by Julian the Apostate Augustus, orat. 1, p. 256); in the year of our Lord 403, he was chosen as Prefect of the City at the age of 42 or 43; he had indeed studied the liberal arts in the city of Constantinople until the year of our Lord 385, at the age of 25; he had taken a wife in the year 390, at the age of 30; he had left his country and the court, departing for Mount Sinai in the year 405. Furthermore, an incursion having been made, the Arabs had abducted his son Theodulus, whom he sought for a long time in the year 410, or 411, while he was of his age

of fifty or fifty-one, and finally he found him, if he lived until the reign of Emperor Marcian (for so I read in the Menaion, ^A *Marcianon*, until Marcian, not under Mauricius), and Marcian began to reign in the year of our Lord 451, Nilus migrated from this life in the 91st year of his age. He had been promoted in that same year, 410 or 411, to the presbyterate, being then fifty years old, by the bishop of Elusa, as his son Theodulus—brought into the light in the year 391—was also assumed by the same as a reader, or doorkeeper (for so the word *neokoron* sounds), nor are the minor orders among the Greeks distinguished as exactly as 693 among the Latins, as I have already shown—whether into acolyte and exorcist, or finally subdeacon—he being ordained ^B counting twenty or twenty-one years of his age.

And just as father Nilus could perform the Masses among the monks, so he was able to perform the sacred duties pertaining to the minor orders or the subdeaconate for 40 years, and promoted to the major ones, in which it is not to be doubted that he was frequent and assiduous both in synaxes and in monastic exercises. Nilus had written diverse epistles especially to those who, like an oracle, consulted him from everywhere; which, having been collected together by the most illustrious Allatius, were again edited, augmented, and dedicated to the most serene prince Raynaldus of the House of Este, in the year of salvation 1668, at Rome in folio. Previously, the Reverend Father Possinus of the Society of Jesus had caused fewer ^C of them to be printed at Paris in 1657, and had dedicated them to the most eminent cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Barberini, and had translated both into the Latin tongue. They could be divided into two classes, namely, into those which were written before the incursion of the Saracens—of such a kind is that one which he sent second to Arcadius, when he had already bid farewell to the court and betaken himself to Mount Sinai, and when Saint John Chrysostom had been dragged into exile and was being punished so unworthily. It exists in Allatius, lib. III, n. 279, with these words: *Joannem maximum orbis universi luminare Byzantinæ præsulem*, etc., and in Possinus, n. 232, p. 227. Behold it: "You have incorrectly banished John, the greatest luminary of the universe, the prelate of the city of Byzantium, into exile, persuaded by a great levity by bishops sick in mind: therefore, depriving the Catholic Church of an ^D irreproachable and sincere doctrine, you will hardly pass your life without grief, or not without punishment." However, he placed before it the one which I judge was given to the same person by Nilus as soon as possible, when he was still a prefect. Possinus joins both, but Allatius disjoined the first, lib. II, n. 265, rightly preferring it to the latter, as I noted above, p. 653, 647, and 651, and as it is clear from the context. With this also, Nilus, the sentence of John’s exile now having been consummated, exhorted the Emperor Arcadius to repentance, which he himself, having progressed into the desert, embraced with his wife and children, deploring and lamenting the second exile of Saint John, and threatened divine vengeance, which would inflict sharper pains upon Arcadius: for he lost his too-beloved Augusta, and soon after, he who followed her by dying; and into those—those which he sent after the incursion—the epistles. But if anyone wished to arrange all of them, either by subject matter, or by the names of those to whom they are directed, according to the series of the alphabet, or by times, it could hardly, and not even hardly, be done, since they are without day, and consul, and without indiction and other notes—if he did that, he would indeed deserve well of Nilus; yet in those centuries epistles were not described, nor were they given accurately or anxiously, as is now the custom, nor were the places, days, months, the years of the consuls, or of the emperors, or of the pontiffs used, nor was the name of the writer subscribed, but it was argued either from the style or from some phrase accustomed to be used, and that was called the sign.

Religion is highly powerful (on the authority of Pliny), especially in 1422 adverse ^A cases, whence Silius sings: *So great, when the situation is fearful, is the reverence for the gods* *That is born, and rarely do the altars smoke for the fortunate.* And another cries out: *Fear first made gods in the world.* Whence the Greeks derive *Deum* [God] from *deosthai*, that is, from fearing, although they call God *Theon* from *theasthai*, or from seeing, whom, because he alone sees all things, you could truly call the sun; therefore ancient poetry invented *litai*, that is, lame prayers, because they cling to the footsteps of calamities and misfortunes, and pursue their tracks more slowly, and as if limping. ^B If the Roman Republic ever suffered grave miseries, it certainly bore those during which Emperor Arcadius was taken from the midst, in the times when Theodosius the Younger, and truly *micros* [little/small], took up the reins of empire while barbarians were rushing into the Roman provinces—those who had been moved to the helm of the republic, and were fighting each other in turn, and as if gambling with someone else's hide. Therefore, a concourse was made to these men who professed an angelic life; among them, the eminent and ex-prefect Nilus, having finished with so many dangers, was approached as a second Solomon and an asylum of virtue and a curtain of wisdom; the piety of Nilus, the constant meditation ^C of divine things, and his assiduous prayers to God and the more severe monastic exercises drew everyone to him. His help against the encroaching vices, and the serpents and creeping abuses, were wont to be implored not only by religious men, but by brother monks and hegumens, even deaconesses themselves, and men of every sex, of every art, and of every age, as if he were a kind of *Averruncus* and *Alexicacos* [averter of evil], nor were they failing to experience that saving power of his.

He therefore wrote several pamphlets, of which index I have interwoven before, and if it were permitted, I would somehow add their chronology; for I suppose the fuller and larger treatises were composed first; ^D then the sentences, and *gnomai*, and chapters, just as once the *Epe* of Pythagoras, or of Phocylides, derived from the Sibylline verses. *Suidas*. Formerly among the Latins there was the so-called *Capitulare* of Theodulf, from the epistle of the bishop of Orléans and abbot of Fleury, which having been conceived chapter by chapter, and distinguished into 46 chapters…

^A in that year of Christ 835. Thus the *Capitulare* of Charlemagne, collected by Ansegisus, abbot of the monastery of Lobbes, within the diocese of Cambrai, in which the statutes of various synods and assemblies, and the constitutions of Charlemagne as well as Louis the Pious and Lothair, are expressed concisely and in few words, was brought together into four books; this Ansegisus is placed at the year 775. Among the Greeks, the ^B hortatory works of Carpathius were called *Kephalaia* [chapters]. This is not the one who had the forename Philo, on the island of the Carpathian Sea toward Egypt, ordained bishop between Crete and Rhodes by Saint Basil in the year of Christ 374; but John of Carpathius, whose precepts for the monks of India Nilus had read, and with Photius, from Sixtus Senensis; S. Maximus the Confessor to the year 650; Marcus the Hermit in the year 966, and a monk whose manuscript book is inscribed *To my much-longed-for son Nico*, and these are twenty chapters on the same subject from 695 Photius; Diadochus, bishop of Photice in old Epirus within Illyricum, [wrote] one hundred *Kephalaia*, which exist in the *Bibliotheca Patrum*, and he flourished to the year 390; the *Ascetica* of Basil the Great, which, however, are attributed to Eustathius of Sebaste, [as] Questions, namely, explained in summary: for there are some things in these to be expurgated, which Cardinal Bellarmine notes in his book *De Script. ecclesiast.* at the year 370; the *Paraenetica* of Dorotheus the Archimandrite, who lived around the year 560; of Theodore, bishop of the Sabaites, to the year 532; the *Practica* of Theodore, bishop of Edessa; [of] Isaiah the Abbot, [of] Agapetus to the Emperor Justinian, [of] Father Ammonas, Chapter 17; [of] Macarius, or the elder the Great, to the year 340; furthermore, the *Kephalaia praktika* of Hesychius the presbyter, and afterwards bishop of Jerusalem, to the year 601; [of] Philotheus, monk of the monastery of the ^C all-holy Theotokos on Sinai of the Bush, 58 *Kephalaia*; [of] Isaac the Syrian. Likewise, from the Chapters of John the Ascetic, the fruits, which authors are found in the codices BB. BB. and 250, or in the *Bibliotheca Patrum* in Greek and Latin, as they were inscribed with a pen or published in print, and those Chapters perhaps were excerpted by others from larger treatises, homilies, and maxims, and responses to the *Eroteseis* [questions] of those Fathers, just as the diverse Chapters of different Fathers [are] bundled together and heaped up, the beginning of which is: *Blessed Epiphanius said*; and similar [things] are found in the *Lives of the Fathers*, and [a synopsis of] most of them was translated from Greek into Latin in the *Life of Saint Basil* the monk and prefect of the Laura of Malcinus, and the ascetic *Description* by James Pontanus of the Society of Jesus. See Sirmond in his Notes to Theodulph, page 274. Nilus had turned the pages, day and night, by hand, and through long study had worn away the sacred books, so that he seemed to have imbibed them. He applied their passages skillfully and aptly, and expounded them elegantly, and showed himself in these a most experienced and genuine disciple of Saint John Chrysostom; but although Nilus adopts different aspects of eloquence according to the time or subject, nevertheless his style is more restrained than that of Saint John. For that holy doctor, born at Antioch, swelling with Asian brilliance and accustomed to forensic abundance in ^D accusations and charges, burst forth exulting. But Nilus used an aulic style, and therefore the diction of Nilus is more refined. Nevertheless, he imitates holy John in his *Peristeria* and in his pursuit of vices, [being] educated in his *logoi*, that is, in his sermons, which he kept prescribed to himself, as is clear from ep. 43, lib. III, to the presbyter Hierius; in the first [sermon] he treats of the baptism of Christ the Lord, and of the Holy Spirit; in the second, about Job, bringing forth thoughts from them. Saint John and Nilus were bound by the closest intimacy and most fervent charity; whence Nilus brilliantly defends him, and calls John, the bishop of Constantinople, a *theophoros andra* [God-bearing man], whom Sosthenes the Commentariensis was accusing [as] *orgilon*, etc., as irascible, [in] ep. 309, lib. I, to the same Sosthenes, comparing him to John the Baptist and to Christ; as in lib. II, ep. 183, he praises him, and recites that he is the carbuncle of the Church because of the splendor of his piety to Valerius the Cubicularius, 696 etc.; and in lib. III, ep. 199, he calls the same *Entheon* [inspired by God], and he narrates to Severus the ex-consul that those who pressured the *eulabestaton kai haploutaton*, the most benign and simplest, August-[like man], to make him an exile, were punished by God from their own confession, [as they were] envious bishops. Certainly that holy John also communicated his own visions and revelations to Nilus, [as] is clear from the subsequent ep. 294, lib. II, in which he names him the illuminator of the great Byzantine Church, yes, [the illuminator] of the whole world, writing to Anastasius the bishop, namely, [that] at the time of the holy sacrifice, angels were seen by the same holy John circling the altar with veneration in the house of the Lord, when he began the oblation, until the consummation of the mystery, concerning which letter I spoke above, page 635, and where by a mistake of the workers 394 is numbered; there *dioptikos hyparchon* [being a person with foresight], it was not to be expounded [as] when he was strong in the sharpness of his eyes; but rather when he was in a vision, or in a *horamate* [sight], concerning which [in] Acts, ch. xiv, v. 4, and ch. xvi, v. 9, the most learned Holstenius in his Notes to the *Passion of the SS. Perpetua and Felicitas* from Alcuin and Adelhem, p. 132, [cites] *horama, theama, optasis, horasis, eidos phantasias, thea*. Hesychius, *dioptikos*, perspicacious. In the Damascene, and Alexander of Aphrodisias, Roman inscriptions, from *viso* and *visu*. Nilus indeed restrained his eloquence that was overflowing with precepts, and contracted it into Chapters, whence it derived the name *Kephalaioton*, using a brief and imperative style, also employing Epictetus, whom he even adapted to Christian philosophy, and he softened the harsher gravity of the Stoics. But in his *Diegemati* [Narrative] he loosened the reins on his elocution, serving his own affection, and caught by it, and as we read in the *Menaion* on the day before the Ides of November: *He bewailed his son the captive more than was fitting, just as it is contained in the letter composed by him*; that is, He lamented his captive son, more than was becoming, just as it is carried forward from the book that he composed about him, and he purpled his phrases with rhetorical flowers. Thus in the words of Job the just, many do not understand them, and some receive them there thus,

^A but they are mixed, and taste only of paraphrase; as for what he may have meditated on the Psalter, I do not know if he completed it, or if any part of it survives in the manuscripts already lauded, the BB. BB., especially the 72nd codex, where the word *deth* is noted; in Job as well. Indeed, the vein of genius does not always respond to one's wish, nor do some proclaim in vain that it shines in a clear day; in rain, and in drizzle, it flags. The condition of the body contributes to night studies, just as that of the mind: a sickly body and a sickly mind produce nothing sound; for more beautiful fruits of the mind are brought forth and produced from that serene state—indeed, leisure and seclusion are sought in order to give birth to them. Horace:

You would swear that he was born in the thick atmosphere of the Boeotians.

^C the Nilus, p. 43, regarding his still being alive in the year of Christ 500, from Epistle 70, book 1, *To Zosarius the Tribune*, in which he writes, 'Ιδοὺ λοιπὸν πεντακοσιοστὸν ἔτος, etc. "Behold, the five-hundredth year follows," that is, from the death of Christ the Lord, who for us was so cruelly affixed to the cross and killed; not that the five-hundredth year had passed, but that the four-hundredth had elapsed and the age was running toward the five-hundredth, and this is sufficiently designated by the particle λοιπὸν, which means "following" or "next." And so, "following" (he says) "we verge toward the year five hundred." Certainly, if under the reign of Justin the Younger in the year 567 of the Christian Era, the relics of the saints, namely this Nilus, Theodulus, and other anchorites, were translated to Constantinople, before Mauritius Augustus began his reign, Nilus had died, and Theodulus, still his son, as is proven from the Menaion; whence the Reverend Father Possinus in his Notes to the *Narratio*, or *Account of the Slaughter of the Monks*, rightly substituted Marcian for Mauritius in that text. But I have also corrected ἐπὶ Μαρκιανοῦ, and I deem that it should be read ἕως Μαρκιανοῦ, "until Marcian," with the agreement of the same Reverend Father Possinus. For it is my custom, regarding what I am about to commit to the hands of men, first to examine it by the judgment of friends, to use the words of Pliny the Younger in his *Epistle to Maximus*, book VII, and especially of a man so erudite and so well-versed in the reading and translation of the Greek historians. Wherefore I am surprised that Leo Allatius, from this epistle which he again inserts 699 in its entirety, concludes that Nilus survived the year 500 of the Christian Era. It is clearly evident that therein Nilus, when he was inveighing against the Jews and asserted that they had often been abducted as captives because of various crimes, but by God’s permission, μετ' ὀλίγα ἔτη—that is, after a few years—had been called back to the land of promise; yet because of the sacrilegious hands laid upon the Son of God and the most bitter death brought upon Him, they were condemned to παντελεῖ πορθήσει, altogether to ultimate devastation, or (as the prophet Jeremiah laments in *Lamentations*, or *Threnoi* 1, v. 14) given into a hand from which they cannot rise. Nilus exclaims: Ἰδοὺ λοιπὸν πεντακοσιοστὸν ἔτος, that is, "Behold, the five-hundredth year follows," or remains, or is pending; not because it was completed, but because it was hastening from the four-hundredth to the five-hundredth, or the fourth century having been completely run through to the fifth, which was impending. For he lived, as I have often said, and as is evident from the epochs of the prefecture and the incursion, ἕως Μαρκιανοῦ, "until Marcian," who inaugurated his reign in the year of Christ 451. Truly, Allatius himself, p. 14, acknowledges in the same place that Nilus used the round and complete number for the incomplete and truncated one, so that by a similar adjunction he might reconcile the growth against the Jews to his own demonstration, examples of which are frequent also in Sacred Scripture. Nor is there time to dwell longer on these things, or to refute what Allatius thinks: that he discarded habits conducive to softness during thirty years under his master Chrysostom, etc., since Saint Chrysostom presided at Constantinople for nine years more or less, and Nilus had departed to him at Antioch—but it is nowhere discovered that he stayed. I advise the reader, however, that I am not trimming away to the quick nor applying the touchstone of truth—that is, examining him to the scale and the balance, and computing the moments and years scrupulously—but rather παχυμερέστερον, as the jurists say; it suffices to link the epochs of the prefecture, the incursion of the Arabs, which Possinus placed between 450 and 500 A.D. under Theodosius the Younger (pp. 127 and 167, *Notes to the Narrative*), and the beginning of the reign of Marcian. For Nilus, having been seasoned and tested in that incursion for forty years, and having been promoted to the priesthood by the bishop of Elusa, or even the presbyterate—however much the most illustrious Archbishop of Iconium, Caryophilus, denies that he was a priest or presbyter (p. 11, *Diatribe of Allatius*), who often writes drowsily, as Allatius rebukes him—he did not abandon the food of the mind, that is, meditation, but fed his soul with that solid food, and tasted the appetizers of eternal beatitude, and was suffused with ethereal delight, very frequently addicted to heavenly contemplation in which he burned as if on fire; and although he lived on earth, he flew off more frequently to heaven. Thence, words followed him not unwillingly, as he had foreseen things in his epistles as well as in his treatises. He visited frequently the places trodden by the footprints of Christ the Lord, and sprinkled with sacred blood: for the proximity of the ancient city enticed him. Indeed, the custom of visiting Jerusalem had become settled, from Saint Gregory of Nyssa and the Great, which continues to this day. See Grets. *De peregrinat.* And having been initiated into the presbyterate, 700 he did not cease for 40 years to offer the sacred rites, to compose divine proclamations, and to stir up monks, all peoples, and the magnates to the love of Christ, and to chant His praises. This number forty is in honor, which Christ decorated with a forty-day fast. Moses observed this after the divine law had entered into the world of men; Elijah, seeking God by this number of days, obtained a vision of Him, just as the forty holy martyrs in the frozen pond prayed on the 9th of March under the emperor Licinius. Thus, after the space of forty years, Saint Nilus received the crown of his confession and of so many noble deeds and virtues which I have already recounted, especially of patience; nor do I doubt that he accomplished the fasts he had vowed, and the δουλείαν ἐγκρατείας καὶ τῆς ἄλλης κακοπαθείας σκληράν, that is, the servitude of temperance and the austerity of other affliction. I have noted many kinds of these above, page 660, and I would have believed that these were of beatings or scourgings, which had prevailed also among the Egyptians, a harsh striking. Palladius, the Bishop of Helenopolis, mentions it in his book VIII of the *Vit. Patr.*, page 745, where Rosweid, Grets., and Rader. Joannes Climacus, ch. 5 *On Penitence*, regarding those who were ἀποροῦντες (he writes) δακρύων ἑαυτοὺς κατέκοπτον, "who were lacking in tears, they cut themselves," those who could not weep scourged themselves with whips, as Elias Cretensis explains: ἑαυτοὺς πληκτικῶς βάλλοντες, καὶ πλήττοντες, "striking themselves with blows, and lashing," which for Nilus, due to his age, would have been harder and more severe—

^A part of which, in part, his junior and stronger son Theodulus wished to undergo and execute; for Nilus did not write only *Concerning the Compunction of the Soul*, as I have already indicated on page 637 of the preceding Index of books, but Nilus also treats the maceration of the body copiously in the letter which he sent to Thaumasius the monk, which is numbered 33 in the book, then in another, which is inscribed to Charicles the presbyter in the same book III, no. 243, where he concludes; and finally in book IV in the letters on *Compunction* directed to his disciple 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

From these letters it is pellucidly gathered that Nilus answered clearly and piously those consulted by the bishops and by professors of every art, and there is no doubt that he was assiduous in divine praises, and at length ceased to live as an old man on Mount Sinai: for he lived long who lived well; just as Job received double the good things after his trial, so Nilus, having attained a double grace and having passed a holy life with others—namely his son, and the monks exercising themselves together—was to live in eternal glory, until the year of Christ 450 or 451, and when he had completed three centuries or three ages (for every *genea*, or age, contains thirty years), Nilus passed to celestial joys, having left behind Theodulus, who, having imitated his parent and already being a *teleios kalogeros*, a perfect old man, and a monk full of days and merits, observing his father's rules and admonitions, intent on fasts, prayers, and divine colloquies and exercises, finally rested also in peace.

Ambo perished on Mount Sinai. Their bodies, and those of other holy monastic ascetics, were deposited and buried, ^C and thereafter, in the year 567 of the Christian era, under the younger or later Emperor Justin, they were transported to Constantinople, as the Greek writers of the Menologium and Nicephorus, *Eccl. Hist.* lib. XIV, c. 14, testify. It is pleasing now to append what is read in the Roman Martyrology on the day before the Ides of November, or the twelfth day: "At Constantinople, of Saint Nilus the abbot, who, having been made a monk from being prefect of the city under Theodosius the Younger, shone in doctrine and sanctity"; where Cardinal Baronius; Michael Neander of Sorau, although a suspect author, in the Basilian Menologium ^B mentions Nilus as having once been the eparch, that is, the prefect, in the city of Constantinople. Sirletus in the *Menologium*, Possevinus in the *Apparatus Sacer*, Sixtus of Siena in the *Bibliotheca Sancta*, Cardinal Bellarmine in *De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis*, page 123, Simler in the *Epitome Bibliothecæ Gesneri*, also suspect; P. Combefis concerning the immunity of the Cyriacians, p. 127; Gretser, *De cruce*, lib. I, cap. 35; Vossius, lib. II, *De histor. Græc.*: Bail in the *Bibliotheca concionatoria*, p. 196. Habediesu, metropolitan of Nisibis, rendered into Latin by Abraham Ecchellensis, my former friend, in the *Catalogue of Chaldean books*, which is sold at Rome, printed in the year 1653 in duodecimo, p. 44, indicates that Evagrius the monk composed two tomes, but Nilus the monk two admirable ones, and that their desert was Lucina. Were all the works of Nilus in these? Or were they only two books, which are designated by the title of tomes? R. P. Labbe of the Society of Jesus, Tome III, p. 123, writes in his *Dissertatio theologica* to this effect: "No one has yet gathered all of Nilus’s little works into one body; which would have been desirable." The Cologne and Paris editions of the *Bibliotheca VV. PP.* [Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum]. Many are extant, others will be found in the Bavarian, Vatican, etc., libraries. The *Alphabet of Abbot Nilus*, by which he trained his monks in symbolic expressions in the Coptic language, was pointed out to me by the most friendly R. P. Kircher, a man most skilled in languages, and from that idiom it was translated into Greek.

In the Greek *Horologion* edited at Venice in 1565, on the sixteenth [day] of November:

The passing of our holy Father Nilus on the twelfth day of November.

702 On the eleventh day of November, the memory of our holy Father Theodore the Studite; and on p. 236: On the twelfth day of November, the memory of our holy Father Nilus the Ascetic.

Nilus overflows, irrigating Egypt, But this great Nilus, dead, irrigates the world with his discourses.

This man, great in speeches and in deeds, known until the kingdom of the Emperor Marcian as the prefect of Constantinople, and having been joined to a noble woman, and having begotten two children, a male and a female, caused his own wife to leave Constantinople, and to dwell in the monasteries of Egypt, and to divide the children; and of the offspring, he took the son, Theodulus, and she took their daughter; and having done so, they separated from one another. Since, therefore, the blessed Nilus had come down from the mountain of Sinai and was living with the Fathers,

Some barbarians, having arrived suddenly like wild beasts, seized his son Theodulus along with many other captives, whom he mourned as a captive more than was fitting, as is contained in the letter composed by him. Being considered worthy of the divine priesthood, and having set forth ascetic discourses of all wisdom, understanding, and benefit, which by the power of the Word and the grace of the Holy Spirit strengthen one towards asceticism, and having composed very many letters and chapters, and having by these means reconciled many to Christ through divine love, he was perfected in peace. He lies, as they say, he himself and his son Theodulus, having been placed with other ascetics in the venerable church of the Holy Apostles in the Orphanotropheion, beneath the altar, by the Emperor Justin ^A.

14 January. Memory of Saint Theodulus

^A And those things which I inserted above on pages 679 and 668, regarding the *sus deque* [up and down]—that is, in its entirety—for to assemble the passages of Photius, Nicephorus, and other writers teeming with praises for the holy Nilus would be overly long and tedious; moreover, the Reverend Father Possinus, as well as Allatius, have already set them out at length. One thing I will observe: in the past, before a public veneration was decreed for martyrs, and before they were recorded in the Canon of the Mass or the Diptychs of the sacred Liturgy, they were accustomed to being vindicated by bishops, who would diligently inquire with the people—following Optatus of Milevis, Book 1, *Against Parmenian*, and Saint Augustine in *Breviculus collationis*—into the cause of the punishment and death that makes a martyr. Indeed, God was not prayed to *for* the martyr, lest any injury be done to him; but rather, he was entreated to intercede with God *for us*. ^B Then, by constructing an altar to God over his monument, they would enroll him in the album and number of the saints, as Nicolaus Alemannus also affirms in his *Dissertatio de Lateranensibus Parietibus*, p. 54; from Saint Augustine, Sermon 113 *De diversis*, and chapter VI of the Apocalypse. Truly, this rite was also applied to confessors, according to Peter Damian in *Life of St. Romuald*, ch. 72, and in Letter 29 to Henry, Archbishop of Ravenna, as well as by Cardinal Baronius, ch. 5, in the *Roman Martyrology*. Hence, it is clear that these men, namely Nilus and Theodulus, had been canonized, since their relics were deposited under the altar; for by this rite it was declared that they had lived, and by their deeds had merited heavenly blessedness, and the faculty to intercede with God for us who invoke them. ^C For there are golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints (Apoc. v, 8); and the constant prayer of a righteous man avails much, from the Epistle of Saint James, ch. v, v. 16. For the saints are drunk with the river of delight in paradise, and in the beatific light they see the inaccessible light, and the unfailing light, and they enjoy without end the delights and secret joys of God, which it is not permitted for man to speak—that is, those things which are ineffable. This glory is to all his saints, sings David, Ps. CXLIX, v. 9; to which may the benign grace of the merciful Most High raise us up, redeemed by the sacred blood of the Son of his, our Lord Jesus Christ. I beseech Nilus and Theodulus, and all the blessed spirits, with continuous and intense pleas, that through them, and especially Nilus, whose life on earth I have here delineated, I may live eternally in heaven, and that for me, emerging from my sins, a place may be found on high among them. ^D There follows in Suaresius a series of errata which spans 17 pages, in folio, as they say; prefixed are verses by which the Editor seeks the indulgence of the Reader:

To err is human, and the slippery hand falls short; Fragile are the reeds and difficult the types. The vein of genius is not always the same; the taut Bow relaxes; the two-edged swords grow dull. Correct thus, therefore, the errors throughout the works of Nilus, You who read so many of his holy teachings.