A anoint the dead body. O perverted doctrine! O eyes that see nothing at all! For the first holy and ecumenical synod decreed that this be done for those who are infirm in soul and body, taking its cue from the Apostle’s commandment. He says: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.” Do you see the commandment? Learn the method and do not act irrationally. Similarly, our Father, I mean Arsenius, the patriarch of the noble city of Constantine, ordained that this service be performed by seven priests, even if they be bishops or metropolitans; therefore, he himself sometimes performed the prayers. Look at the intent of the prayers used, and learn what you did not know. And again, in addition to these, I say: for our Lord says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” And again, the same Lord our God in the holy Gospel according to Luke says concerning him who fell among robbers and was wounded, that his wounds were treated with oil and wine. These things, therefore, pertain to the living, not to the dead. But you, who presume to do this, labor under some insatiable desire of mind, I know not what. I say, therefore: let no one dare to do this; if he does, he shall be considered a transgressor of these ordinances. But if you should say to me that this is done as a pious work for the dead, away with such a thought! For the souls of the dead receive spiritual fruit before God from alms and from the commemorations of the dead that are always performed by us B; but you, anointing a dead body and saying, “May Your Spirit dwell in Your servant, that he may continue the remainder of his time in Your commandments,” and again, “Raise him up from the bed of pain and from the mattress of affliction”—when you utter these things, you do not understand the meaning of what you are doing. Therefore, let us put an end to this discourse, and make mention of Solomon’s testimony: “For a man of understanding, a simple and brief word suffices for a quick and attentive ear.”
CONSTANTINUS ACROPOLITA
ANNO DOMINI MCCLXX. CONSTANTINUS ACROPOLITA. NOTITIA (Cave ad an. 1270; Fabric. Harl. t. VII,)
Constantinus Acropolita, magnus logotheta, sive Metaphrastes junior dictus, in aula Constantinop. vir summus, claruit, imperante Michaele Paleologo, circa an. 1270. Causam Græ-
Græcorum adversus Latinos fovebat maxime, contra quos plures de processione Spiritus sancti tractatus reliquit. Duos in scriptis Græcorum laudatos se vidisse refert L. Allatius A *De Consens. Orient. et Occident.*, lib. 11, cap. 15, num. XIV, col. 780. Unum, cujus illud principium, *Avdoes 'Papaior*, alterum cujus illud, *'Eµvño xai ahlov loyou Tŵy àṬidsyövτwy µiv*. Quorum, inquit, frusta, eaque satis polita, in codicibus mss. reperiuntur. Qua occasione, quo animo logothetæ nostri commentarium una cum propriis comburendum igni obtulit Theodorus Muzalo, in eadem dignitate successor et protovestiarius, plene te docebit Pachymeres, lib. VII, cap. 8.
Scripsit etiam Constantinus
Oration on the holy martyr Theodosia,
patria Constantinopolitanam, quæ sub Leone Isauro pro cultu sacrarum imaginum Constantinopoli passa est. Cujus hoc initium, *Γυναῖκα μὲν ἀνδρείαν που τις ἂν καὶ όπως εύροι ὁ σοφὸς ἀπόρησε Σολομών, και μάλα γε εἰκότως ηπόρησε. Πρὸ γὰρ τῆς χάριτος*, etc. Hanc orationem etiam in suum indicem retulit L. Allatius *De script. Simeon.*, pag. 84, qui et alibi quædam ex ea profert, *advers. Hotting.*, p. 200. Exstat ms. in biblioth. Vindob. cod. theol. Lambec. CXI, Nessel CCLXXIX, num. XVII, f. 217, iterumque cod. histor. CXV, num. II, fol. 73, pag. 2. Confer. Lambec. *Comment.*, lib. IV, pag. 63.Exstant et aliæ ejus historici argumenti orationes; nempe in S. martyrem Neophytum. Principium: *Παραδόξων πραγμάτων δυσπαράδεκτος ἡ διήγησις, ἀλλ' οὐ τοῖς τοῦ ἡμετέρου καὶ θείου πληρώματος*, apud L. Allat. *De script. Simeon.*, pag. 105. In S. Theodorum Tyronem. Principium: *Σὺ μὲν, ὦ ἀγαθὲ τοῦ ὑπεραγάθου δοῦλε, ἐγκώμια*, ibidem pag. 112. Hunc sermonem a se descriptum, Lutetiam ad J. Aubertum, in futurum novæ editionis Damasceni ornamentum, se ms. misisse testis est ibidem Allatius in *catal. Oper. S. Damasc.* ad calc. Symmict. num. 28, p. 450. Ex eo quædam profert in *Consens. de purgat.*, p. 761. B CAVE.
Ex orationibus Constantini Acropolitæ in sanctos, quas mss. memorant Allatius *De Simeonum scriptis*, p. 84, et Caveus *parte altera Hist. litterariæ scriptorum eccles.* ad a. Chr. 1270, illa in martyrem Theodosiam, Græce ex ms. Vaticano cum Dan. Cardoni S. J. versione exstat in *Actis Sanctorum* tom. VII Maii, p. 69–86: et altera in S. Joannem Damascenum, itidem e ms. Vaticano Græce cum versione J. Francisci de Rubeis, ICti Romani, tom. II Maii, pag. 731–760. FABR. Vindobonæ in cod. CXI, n. 17, et cod. XXXV, n. 2, est *Τοῦ σοφωτάτου μεγάλου λογοθέτου κυροῦ Κωνσταντίνου τοῦ Ἀκροπολίτου* oratio in S. martyrem Theodosiam, quæ sub imp. Leone Isauro pro cultu sacrarum imaginum passa est. De priore cod. Lambec. *comm.* IV, p. 140, ubi Kollarius verba Lambecii ex indice pag. 526 repetit. Lambec. vero, Meminit, ait, hujus Constantini Acropolitæ Joannes Cantacuzenus, *Historiæ Byzantine* lib. 1, cap. 14, ubi refert, eum fuisse unum ex imp. Andronici senioris assessoribus in judicio contra nepotem ipsius, Andronicum secundum s. juniorem. Ipsa Cantacuzeni verba sunt hæc: *Πρὸς τούτοις δὲ καὶ ὁ Ἀκροπολίτης ἦν Κωνσταντίνος, μέγας λογοθέτης ὢν καὶ αὐτός.* De posteriore cod. vide Lambec. VIII, pag. 789, ibique Kollar.
Paris, in bibl. publ. est in cod. MCCXII Const. Acrop. homilia in Theodosiam martyrem. In cod. CMLXXVI, n. 14, in laudem Constantini M. et Helenæ ejus matris. In cod. eod. in n. 13, in laudem Georgii martyris. Mediolani in bibl. Ambros. Const. Acropol., sermones et epistolæ, teste Montfauc. in *B. biblioth. mss.* I, p. 493, A. Inter epistolas Georgii Cyprii sunt quædam ad Constantinum et Georgium Acropolitas, in cod. Vindob. Cæsareo LXXVII. V. Lambec. *Comm.* VIII, p. 1068 sq., 1077 sqq. C ILARI.
OF THE MOST WISE LORD CONSTANTINE LOGOTHETE ACROPOLITA: SERMON ON SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE
Benedic, Domine.
A 1. To John, a discourse! To him from Damascus, the panegyric! And how, indeed, should I not immediately hesitate, and why should I not flee before stripping for the contest? I have taken it upon myself to launch the little skiff of my discourse into the fathomless deep of wisdom and the vast ocean of words; and how should I not begin the voyage with horror? And if I have entered, how should I not immediately be filled with terror, and, neglecting the rudders and abandoning the attempt to proceed further, turn back at once? I confess, indeed, that I did not sufficiently consider the magnitude of the subject, nor, as I might say, did I stand still to observe where my intention would lead me. The surge of waves clashing among themselves has surrounded me, and, as in a storm, a darkness has been poured over my troubled mind; therefore, from the very starting-line, as the saying goes, repentance has come over me, or rather, at the very moment of setting sail and weighing anchor, I have fainted and failed completely, becoming B stuck in doubt as to how I should steer or where I should direct the intention of my soul. It is truly a great thing that I have undertaken to do. But, as in the greatest storms a torch sometimes appears opportunely, and a certain auspicious brightness passes by, which, having illuminated the eye of the mind, both filled the spirit with confidence and indicated the whole method of steering, and pointed out, as it were, a good hope of a happy arrival in port. What is this brightness? Or what is this torch? It is the encounter and manifestation of this blessed one, this divine and world-illuminating luminary. For as it flashed forth from my memory upon my reasoning faculties, how great…
A standing before God with boldness, and manifested his power; and [he showed] how he is capable of providing a way in hopeless situations, since he is near to God, and having become divine, showing the power of the One who is in impossibilities, and who alone works wonders.
B Consequently, I betake myself now to auspicious things, as they say, and I am brought up to lofty commands. For I trust that this great man, about whom I have initiated this discourse, and whom I have now set before myself as a noble subject for an argument, standing by the Word that subsists in Himself and the uncreated Wisdom of God, and conversing with the blessed and in Itself good Trinity, to whom, while he lived, he served sincerely—being his imitator as far as was possible—will not only tolerate what I offer according to my own meager ability, but will also assist and extend a helping hand, and will provide a happy course for the discourse, and, if I may say so, will take up with me the attempt to bind it to its effect. Come, then, great beacon of truth and luminary of the knowledge of God, appear, and govern my speech, and direct it as is fitting. Hence my labor is now to begin: having first invoked God, that He might, for the sake of your glory, teach me wisdom beyond all expectation, and to the other frequent honors bestowed upon you, might add this one, which you will show by helping me: a miracle. Indeed, although others before me have spoken thus of those who have cultivated a divine manner of life like yours, and have forsaken earthly things while still living in the world, raised above the norm of human life, like angels compacted with clay; although, I say, others may not have presumed to ascribe to such men another fatherland and name another city, and to profess them to be born from elsewhere, I would be the first to dare this regarding you, and to assert that heaven is your fatherland, and your fellow-citizens are the divine minds there, those natures superior and higher than matter and the passions arising therefrom; and in doing this, I might perhaps hit the mark, and certainly I should preach nothing but what is congruent with the truth. Since, however, others have preceded me and have spoken in such a way regarding others who are similar to you in the honor of virtue, I will proceed by a different path—that is, by the one that is well-trodden and readily accessible, which leads to the genealogy of him who is being commended, and starting from the ancestors who preceded him, descends to the praises of him whom it has set before itself.
D 3. From the East, therefore, the God-enlightened luminary arose, from whence also the Savior, having become man, the intelligible Sun—and the Sun that appeared—and from thence shone upon the ends of the earth with His God-inspired words as if with certain rays, and drove away the darkness of error, and clarified the luminous orb of divine knowledge, and manifested to us the way that leads to heaven. For it was necessary, and it was entirely fitting, that when the divine Word had appeared from Eastern regions, offering Himself as a guide to the way of salvation (since the race of men, subject to mutability, had to be turned back again, so that through it great things might advance, and that the straight course and)
A rectitude might be preserved, it was fitting, I say, that this theologian, free from error, should arise like a divine light from that source, and should lead us by the hand, piece by piece, along the path illuminated by the splendors of infallible truth; that is, through the straight confession of true dogmas, by which we might arrive at that portion which awaits us above the heavens, and at those more sublime and divine mansions which the Creator of all things prepared before time for those living under time, intending that the slippery and fickle nature of humanity should attain them. However, how it quickly wandered from the right path and hastened toward destruction through intemperance, my narrative will explain in its proper place; or rather, when it reaches that point, it will lament it; and, mourning as is right our infirmity, it will grieve over the heavy and persistent assault of Satan against us. But now, it is necessary to return to the subject, and the things that concern the origin of the blessed man, and those which precede it, must now be recounted.
4. From Thaiman, therefore, as I said before, this great and truly heavenly man appeared; and in the regions near Paradise and closer to the divine garden of Eden, this divine plant sprouted. This noble soul arose from the chambers of the dawn, surpassing the inhabitants of the East—I will add, even of the West, the North, and the South—and of the entire Mediterranean; for he surpassed no one else in true and innate nobility. But how and from where he came, I shall signify. He was born in Damascus, a city famous beyond measure, which I do not know who has not heard numbered among the first cities; and which, once seen, no one would wish to treat in a story worth hearing before any other subject, or to weave a description that would make it marvelous even to those who have never seen it before. For what will you find in this city that you would not admire? Its location? And what kind of location has it obtained? One which rivers adorn, meadows beautify, mountains protect, and plains decorate; which, filled with flocks and feeding them abundantly, and having from this an abundance of goods, has become an excellent nurse of youth—the very peace which the one of whom we speak clearly called it. But although it was such, and abounded in so many good things—and although for these reasons it was also praised by him—he permitted it to boast of nothing else thereafter, save for the fact that, having been born in it, he surpassed those born in other places and became so famous that he caused it to be celebrated by himself alone, as if it were one of the other small and obscure cities. For John, having received his surname from it, was immediately seen to be something extraordinary; and having been shown to be incomparable to both kin and strangers, and from this place becoming widely celebrated, he ensured that he himself could never be praised B C D without it...
nor be named from it. For as soon as one hears that he was born there, to hear of Damascus and of John—famous for both divine and human accomplishments—is to hear the name of the man himself, and upon representing to oneself something great and admirable from both sides, and reflecting upon it in thought, one is filled with an altogether ineffable stupor.
5. But our subject draws us to his progenitors; and they compel us not to pass over their affairs in silence: for these things are not so trivial that they could be deemed worthy of only a passing mention or omission, but being very conspicuous and admirable, they deserve accurate recording and orderly remembrance. For although they were excellently endowed with the goods of fortune and those advantages for which men pant, they were nonetheless distinguished by the gifts of the soul. For they had long held the faith in Christ, like a certain heritage handed down by hand from their ancestors, and they far surpassed their predecessors, having been carried further by a certain impulse of zeal. B Indeed, up to their own time, the faith, lurking in men like a small spark, was enkindled in them and from them like a brilliant torch. For when, by the hidden judgments of God, almost all the regions of the East under the Roman Empire were laid waste and depopulated by the excursions of the descendants of the handmaid Agar, and they subjugated most of the cities, the rod of sinners having been sent against the portion of the just, it plundered everything of those who knew God aright and served Him alone, or rather, shook it off like dust; and beautiful Damascus—alas, the calamity!—came under the power of those impious ones. Yet of all its inhabitants, while some resisted to a degree, and some abjured the worship of God from the start, some few (who were indeed very few) kept their religion undefiled unto the end; and the ancestors of this great teacher and herald of the faith stood firmly and steadfastly for the faith and kept it all their life, handing it on pure and simple to their descendants; which their descendants also did in C succession. They were as a stream of purest flow, and passing through the mud of impiety and the profanations of the barbarians, they moved through like a conduit, with the density of their virtues, so to speak, transmitting them unmixed.
6. In this way, then, the parents of this blessed man shone forth with an entirely religious life and preeminent virtue. For we do not think we ought to accept those who have told different things about them, because they heard their affairs indiscriminately, as I suppose, and were not concerned to investigate the truth more accurately. For they ought to be believed to have been saints, born of saints, who, being set in the midst of the impious, were able to keep the faith undefiled. They cast calumny, therefore, upon a most holy and most divine man, and as if out of hatred for him, they D seek to brand those from whom he proceeded...
and these, too, while holding public offices A and possessing great power among the Persians, inasmuch as they exercised authority alongside the Persian governor and shared in the cares regarding the common good, so that the father, Mansur, had almost the entire city of Damascus under his jurisdiction. For having been born under the barbarians, as I have already said, and having spent time among them, even if they had not turned aside to their religion, they had nevertheless, in the summoning of names and in the style of their garments, become—if I may so say—barbarianized and Persianized.
B 7. His father, Mansur, was therefore called by a more Persian name, and was held in the greatest honor among the Persians; he overflowed with wealth, was clothed in glory, and was surrounded by a frequent retinue. In the meantime, he supplied money to the needy, brought aid to those suffering injustice, and redeemed captives at once from the execrable superstition of the Persians and from hell, protecting those who would otherwise have been abandoned for the future. He did not do this perfunctorily, or perform their business as chance might have it, satisfied merely to have redeemed them and thereafter dismiss them neglected; but he exercised the greatest foresight regarding them, helping them again and again, and caring for all of them together and each one individually. For he would first cover their nakedness, and foster the weakness of their bodies with a diligent regimen of suitable food; then, for a suitable number of days, attending upon them as if they were his own masters, and studiously fulfilling whatever pertained to their benefit: after he saw those exempted from the tribulations of their captivity and sufficiently restored returning to their former health, he would benevolently bid them say which they preferred: to remain with him or to return to their own lands. Whosoever, therefore, inclined toward a return to his homeland would take sufficient travel money for himself and would be sent off with prayers for a happy journey; but to those for whom there was nothing better than to stay with him in the suburban estates, which he possessed in great number, he provided there sufficient and abundantly overflowing sustenance, offering them luxuries not sought by any labor of their own. Such was the life of the parents of John, such was their virtue: thus, free for God and His pure service, they spent their years with all honesty, always having Him before their eyes and consecrating all their own things to Him, to whom they brought everything as received, and for whose sake they most readily shared all their fortunes with those who asked.
8. What, then, of God, the good rewarder? C Reserving great things for later times, He bestowed a great thing upon them even here. For He made those who had been laboring for a long time under sterility and had long since despaired of offspring, parents—and indeed parents of a male child, and of such a son as one might say was born together with the Graces, in that not only did he [free them] from their previous infertility D
grief of barrenness, but he also filled them with the greatest joy, by the beauty and shapeliness of his issue from the womb, giving to his character from the very beginning a respectable and graceful outward appearance. From such [parents] was this great man born; from such a root did this divine fruit blossom; from such [parents] did he who has surpassed all in virtue proceed. And since he had indeed proceeded, he was immediately purified by baptism. O faith of the parents! O sincere zeal! O love burning toward the Lord! They did not fear the impious governor, nor were they terrified of the magistrates or their ministers; they did not dread the irrational madness of the mob, nor did they recoil from the folly of the nation. They had no regard for glory, nor for money, nor for the manifold appearance of happiness; in short, they had no respect for any of those things which are held in great value by the majority. But the deprivation of all honors was despised as a loss of nothing, and the desire to please God alone was preferred above all things. Therefore, interposing no delay or postponement in their plans, they sanctified the child as soon as B he was born—not doing this secretly as some others do before them, but openly, and moved (it seems to me) by a divine instinct. For He whom God had foreknown and had long ago destined from a distant interval of time for the restoration of His Church, He would not have tolerated that he should not be sanctified immediately as he appeared, and at the same time as he began to breathe, that he should not be reborn and recreated by a better and more divine regeneration.
9. But since he had passed the age of infancy and, being handsome, began to appear mature for education, his honest and admirable parents C did not look toward masters of bodily exercises, whose care would be that their son might skillfully handle the bow and be fitted for gathering martial glory, learning to contend among pugilists, or to run the stadium with a light foot, to play with the discus, to dance nimbly, to join hands, to trip up an adversary and cast him down; but a suitable tutor was sought, who knew how to cultivate the soul, to adorn the body, and to move both toward God, and from an earthly human to form something angelic and heavenly. A master was sought who would be truly profitable; but there appeared no hope of finding such a one, for it was entirely difficult to find among the barbarians someone skilled in the Greek language, and, in the midst of the impious, to chance upon a man who, living according to God, might suffice for leading a human to better things. The father, therefore (whom this D anxiety tormented more sharply), remained in doubt, and traversing all parts of the Persian empire—in which he possessed the greatest influence—was investigating whether he might hunt down such a man anywhere. Meanwhile God, who often produces contrary things from contraries and by hidden reasons directs human affairs from on high, was also arranging this matter wisely, and had long ago been summoning a man from the distant parts of the world, according to the intention of his mind; for by a certain art, using a withdrawal to a pretext of the opposite, He had provided how He might grant to him
A that which he so strongly desired: and as to what this method was, listen.
10. The descendants of the slave Agar, and those who—I know not by what right—have usurped for themselves the name of the free Sarah, being slaves as originating from a slave, and accustomed to think as slaves, and having always appeared ill-disposed toward their own lords and wicked toward their masters, did not deem it sufficient to have occupied most of the places of the East in the Roman Empire and to have grievously diminished their masters’ scepters. Instead, coveting the remaining parts as well, they took counsel to invade the island and maritime cities and regions. Therefore, having been transported by fleet, they were coursing along the coastal cities, and were seizing many of the inhabitants and neighbors alive. Some they slew by the sword, while others they sold off B by dragging them away for a price in the most cruel manner. But when (alas, the calamity!) they had carried out these terrible deeds to the satisfaction of their minds, and, remembering their return, having brought back a vast multitude, they could not sell them all (for since they were very numerous, they were nonetheless valued at a high price), they decided to have them all slaughtered together. Perhaps they were taking this counsel because they preferred to sacrifice them to their most execrable master, Mahomet—acting against the divine law of nature, indeed, yet still following a certain rationale in this: for that disciple and imitator of the devil, the murderer from the beginning, while he lived, delighted in slaughters and permitted killing, or rather, commanded it among his descendants as an inviolable precept; just as he taught them to perpetrate every other C infamy without hesitation.
11. Thus, they were leading away tens of thousands in their entirety, in order to slaughter them and offer them as a sacrifice to Satan. But among them, and counted as one of the crowd and condemned to suffer the same things as the others, there was one who could be called a precious treasure of the world and a truly worthy ornament of the earth: that person who had adorned himself according to God, Cosmas, a man distinguished in external wisdom, and incomparable in that which is our own domestic wisdom. Having retreated from the world, and being enrolled among men living according to God’s counsel, not only did he quickly enter into the society of their life and conduct, and perfectly equaled their virtues; but he even surpassed them by a long interval, being set before all as an ideal of a more perfect conversation and an irreprehensible D rule. But he was not content with this, nor did he consider it enough only to direct himself and to compose his own life according to the will of God; but he even desired to go about visiting men in life, so that, if possible, he might lead them away from a more indulgent, affection-bound, and brutish conversation, and bring them to a manner of living that is honest and adorned, such as truly befits a man. Finally, departing from his monastery, and moving away from Italy (whence he had originated), and passing through the further regions in order, and instructing all along the way toward a sounder form of life, when he had arrived at the place where the pirates were about to
A execute their sentence, he fell into their hands by the incomprehensible judgment of God, and was captured. Being carried off together with them, he stood now among those who were to be slaughtered; yet the impending death did not trouble him, nor did he find the necessity of undergoing it—which is usually considered most formidable—a burden; but he was greatly saddened and moved for one reason alone, and bore it with more distress than was perhaps fitting (afflicting himself, however, out of a desire for virtue rather than ambition, and keeping this hidden in the secret of his heart, for he had no one to whom he might reveal it).
12. B When those who were caught together with him were being led away to death, one could see them crowding together to throw themselves at his feet, moistening them with tears, and each one begging him to pray for their own deliverance. Considering the respect that all of them had for him and the intensity of their supplication, which showed that the hope they had placed in him was firm, the barbarians, and perceiving that he was generally grave in appearance and venerable in his manners, began to question him as to who he was, whence he was born, what was his pursuit, what his name was; and for what reason (since he himself also had a similar origin from men) he appeared to act so contrary to nature, having chosen the monastic life forever (for they recognized his profession from his attire), as to be turned away from worldly things, desiring only the rest that is found in the cloisters of the religious, and valuing being there most highly. Nor indeed was the rule of the monks hidden from those nefarious men, nor the goal that they held proposed in their considerations and meditations; for they had often made many of them prisoners, and even then held many of them; out of curiosity, or perhaps even C for the sake of our ridicule, they were accustomed to examine their affairs. He, however, having heaved a deep and inward sigh, said, "Me indeed it behooves to be inconsolably sad, looking upon these kin of mine and those of one mind with me, being dragged like cattle to the slaughter, while you rejoice in their destruction, though you are men and are equally with us the creatures of God, even if you differ from us in religion, the work of the author of evils, the devil, who long ago, deceiving the human race, separated it from God and cast it out from the delights of paradise, and translated it into this region of mourning; yet even now his most evil nature, rejoicing in evils, does not desist from separating us from one another by his manifold deceptions and most terrible sophistries, and causing us to grow ever more distant from God. But,” he continued, “there is another thing, truly worthy of great mourning, that afflicts me inconsolably, namely that having traveled the course of all disciplines and reached the summit of wisdom, and having left no part of it unexamined, I have not to this very day communicated this store of knowledge to anyone; and I fear that I shall be condemned to the final punishment for sloth by Him who entrusted these things to me."
13. D The father of John heard this speech; for he was keeping company with him, and was attempting quite skillfully to release the captives, and was indeed rescuing many from destruction. Coming closer to him, therefore, he asked him quietly and with reverence, saying:
A Verily, as you have said, is such a great good hidden within you, and a treasure of such value to everyone remains stored up? And he, having shed tears and moved by the same feeling of soul, affirmed the same things again, and going through all that he knew by a more distinct enumeration, explained each point more distinctly and at greater length. He spoke, therefore, of how he understood well the principles of numbers and the properties of connections; and that he was learned in the perimeters, diameters, and figures of plane and solid bodies, and that he even held the highly praised science of astrological composition. And as if he had been stationed in heaven, having measured the motions of the ethereal bodies, and initiated into the sacred mysteries of a higher wisdom, having acquired—to say it in a word—the most precious of all things among men, a good indeed such as has never come here nor will come, as one of the sages of old asserted, yet, he said, I have met no one with whom I could share these things. To which he replied: Know that I shall fulfill the desire of your soul, nor shall I allow you to depart suffering from such want and overcome with grief, partly because, fearing the examination of what is entrusted to you, you fear punishment; and partly because there is a danger that you might depart from here unknown and be hidden in the deep abyss of oblivion, for the reason that you leave no children behind you, B acquired through your teaching, who seem far more excellent for future memory than natural ones, and, as I hear, live longer than those born according to the flesh. For there are for me sons, sons excelling in form, mature ones, sons capable of the disciplines you have enumerated, like as it were the purest and most capacious vessels, but as yet empty, for lack of one to bestow such things and as it were to pour them in by a stream. These I shall hand over to you to be adopted; it will be your task, by handing down to them the disciplines you mentioned, to regenerate them in a way.
14. C When he had said these things, he hastened to the prince of the Persians, declaring what had passed between him and Cosmas, and requested that he be given to him, and made manifest for what reason he sought this. When he had obtained his assent (for he possessed great favor and authority with him), he, filled with no less joy than Cosmas, brought him home. How he received him among the various duties of kindness, and how joyfully he embraced him, I think it superfluous to explain with a longer circuit of words. But when he had set him above all his household and commanded that he be honored by all as a second self, handing over his sons to him, he made him as it were their father. These were John, the splendid subject of our discourse, and he who before him, for lack of natural offspring, had been adopted by Mansur, the admirable, I say, in name as in character, Cosmas; of whom what should I say as if in passing? Since if anyone were to undertake to recount his affairs on purpose, he would scarcely be able to do so as is worthy. D Therefore, that divine trainer of boys, or instructor—and I would most gladly say, that holy tamer of noble colts—received the divine pair of boys committed to him, to exercise them towards the salvation of the world, and to train them in the dissemination of divine doctrines. But for the present, I put off speaking further about the divine Cosmas and
relegate him to another time. For since I am unable to speak worthily of one, what sort of person would I be to dwell at will upon the deeds of another? Especially since I have heard the proverb, "Do not contend against two," I pass over his affairs; I am distressed that I cannot attend to both at once, and grasp with both hands, as it were, the deeds performed by them, and describe in a single discourse the prerogatives of each, or rather their divine works and noble exploits. Since, therefore, I am powerless to do this, I return to John, laboring in my mind even to the point of exhaustion, drawing breath with difficulty, and all drenched in sweat, like one of those who have traveled a long way and see a longer one ahead.
B 15. John, therefore, having obtained a worthy teacher, through the providence of God, showed himself, to use a saying, like water flowing down a slope, with irresistible impulse and swift apprehension of the disciplines; or like fire in stubble, or whatever else there may be of things that move rapidly and arrive most quickly at their goal, nearly outstripping the keenness of the eyes. He even surpassed the things that are used in common speech as examples of velocity, and went beyond even those things that are described hyperbolically, having traversed all the swiftest things at once, and having outrun their very speed, leaving those things which might seem earthbound and sluggish to appear so when measured against him; but I shall say what occurs to me regarding these matters. I shall say that with as much speed as the mind boasts, or rather with as much ceaseless motion as it possesses, so that it can travel from opposite extremes to the other in a sudden impulse, and return into the heaven itself from these inferior parts, and at times be stationed above it, such also, in very truth, was John the mind. As if not obstructed by a body nor hindered by flesh, he possessed such swiftness and intensity regarding the recovery of his studies, moving without stumbling, without hindrance, passing through all things at once in a continuous impulse, and penetrating to the depth of the notions in each one. It seems to me, not unreasonably, that if Plato had seen this man, he might indeed have dogmatized that learning is recollection, and perhaps he would have been accepted and seemed more plausible; he would have dismissed, however, in this connection, his paltry and small examples—the silent and smooth flow of oil, that is to say—and other things similar to these, which represent the faint intelligence of young children in a very faint way.
D 16. For he mastered all the cycle of liberal education in almost no time; for in a moment, and in a very brief space of time, he disciplined his tongue to the usage of the Greek language, and having gathered much knowledge from it, he braced his mind. And having read myths and the tales of fictions, he condemned Greek trifles, yet he appeared, even from that source, wonderfully trained in allegorical discourse, and thereby was made ready for the reception of greater things—of higher disciplines and contemplations, I say. Therefore, also
B having exercised himself in the division of those parts which the fire-breathing faculty A includes, and having scrutinized the forms and methods of speeches, and from this having gathered by the way a rich and plentiful store of inventions, just as a diligent merchant who, while tending toward another place where he hopes to make great profit, if he should happen upon anything worthy of note along the way, by no means neglects it, but does not refuse to tarry there a little for its sake—so then also John, having in whatever way acquired rhetoric and the methods of rhetoric, straightway hastened to philosophy. And first, indeed, he thoroughly learns the foundations of this, namely the rational faculty; he examines the shapes and resolutions of syllogisms, and collects a supply of propositions; and having once and for all practiced the apophantic discourse, he takes up demonstration, as the rule of reasoning and the perpendicular plumb-line of truth, or rather as a ladder introducing him to the investigation of natural things—and that which lifts the mind to contemplation, to another more sublime and excellent investigation, namely that of supernatural things. But as for loquacity, which is learned with it and after it (for thus did some of the ancients name dialectic, which C wonderfully cultivates the first part of philosophy and is the handmaid of all arts, handing down and declaring their principles and axioms—for indeed it opens up timely paths for everything that is inquired into or happens), dialectic, I say—who has learned this faculty more diligently than he, or like him? Who has been versed in it with such perspicacity of mind? No one, indeed, has disputed with him without immediately repenting of his impetuosity and condemning himself for his rashness. For one would more easily have escaped the Cretan Labyrinth, or the Caadas of the Lacedaemonians, than have eluded the nets of his arguments, if once he had been ensnared by them.
17. But when he proceeded to investigate the mysteries of nature, he appeared superior to the disciples of the Stagirite: for he did not merely seem a skillful arbiter of nature, but also an excellent explorer of the reasons according to which the things of nature were ordered. Wherefore he was held to be a diligent examiner—or, indeed, most sure explainer—of Aristotle himself, and of all those who, before and after him, discoursed upon nature and natural things. D Concerning the immortality of the soul, he did not believe it ambiguously from the ambiguous arguments of that man; nor did he embrace, from the high-sounding, not to say fabulous, commentaries of Plato, any erroneous sophisms concerning it, through certain incorporations and transformations [imagining] the whole of...
the soul as a recipient of doctrine; but, truly and indubitably acknowledging it to be immortal, he both knew and taught that it would be either glorified or punished by God A the Creator, for all eternity, according to the life lived in the body; and he was persuaded that, as soon as it was created, it was at once bound to one material body, which it would subsequently assume again, albeit in a more subtle and divine form. Proceeding thence along the path, he ascended to higher disciplines, so as to contemplate the laws and proportions of the stars, to investigate their harmonies, and to explore the shapes and movements of the stars and to accurately determine the conjunctions of the planets and their various configurations (in which respects he indeed shone forth as a truly terrestrial and, in the strictest sense, heavenly man), surpassing Euclid, exceeding Ptolemy, and demonstrating that the Chaldeans who came before them were, as it were, children B or only half-perfect in their knowledge.
18. But he let little pass by. For, having encountered the moral philosophical treatises of the ancients—as many as the Stagirite composed, as many as he from Chaeronea, and indeed Plato, who is celebrated among the Greeks for his gravity, put together—he did not surrender himself indiscriminately to what was presented. Rather, discerning perfectly among them all, he inscribed upon the tablets of his heart those things which he judged to be good, while those which he deemed to relate to the licentiousness of pagan life and the allurements of the passions, he utterly rejected. Thus, he considered the communal marriage invented by Plato, and the society of common life instituted C by Crates, to be dog-like, and, loathing them from his soul, he sent their followers to a bad end; as for Aristotle, he did not indeed censure his opinion on marriage, but, thinking of something more lofty, and contemplating more sublime and divine matters, he chose an uncontaminated and far better life than the married state. For since he had reached a more advanced age and was being pressed into marriage by his very parents, and was being dragged toward it by many others who held positions of authority, he—as a sort of impassive nature, entirely turned away from earthly things—remained unyielding and stubborn, since he had his goal elsewhere and intended to transfer his fervor to that place where the great Paul directed his intent, and where also John, both he who leapt for joy before his birth and worshipped the Lord without having seen Him, and he who reclined upon the Lord’s breast and drew thence the springs of theology, directed theirs. D
19. And having thereafter thus regulated himself, and having adorned the faculties of his soul and subordinated them well to his mind, so that in him there appeared in very truth a divine harmony and an angelic decorum of character and gravity, he became for this reason beloved and valued not only by his parents, but by all others as well, and even...
B by the heterodox he was held in very great honor. But when his father departed from this life and passed to the other, the son was immediately appointed in his place and assumed his father’s dignity, and was enrolled among the nobles. Yet he did so unwillingly. For from childhood and from the very beginning he had intended to consecrate himself to God and to live for Him alone, not only following the example of Samuel, but perhaps even surpassing him in this, in that he chose this for himself, and was not, like him, promised and presented to God by his parents. Nevertheless, he placed his shoulders beneath the burden of civil affairs, he who in his heart clung to spiritual things. But oh! how deftly, how prudently, and how sagely he administered the office entrusted to him! The admiration for him was thus spread abroad through the mouths of all, but he was honored especially by the city’s prefect himself, after whom he was immediately the first, and as it were a colleague in dignity. And from this point we begin to speak of greater things, namely, the toils endured in the cause of God and the contests he sustained for the truth, which are worthy of the greatest admiration.
20. But since I have reached this point in my discourse, come, let us lament our calamities and, grieving for human frailty, let us make visible the inveterate hatred of the author of evil against us, and let us complain, as is right, of the things which we have suffered and are suffering at his hands. Our affairs were going well enough, and the Christian state was flourishing, with the orthodox faith prevailing everywhere, and everything in general was in an excellent state, to such a degree that the earthly world seemed to be a certain heavenly region, so to speak, because God was present in our affairs and showed Himself our guardian against contrary things. But that Satan, who has long envied us, looked upon us with his malicious and bewitching eyes, and (as the pagans say) gazed upon us with a heavy and baleful look. That keen spirit, industrious in doing evil, therefore devised a method by which we might not only be repelled from divine governance and visitation, but might even make God Himself our enemy, and incite Him to the highest wrath against us. And since he is usually accustomed not to make his assault upon men except through a medium, just as once upon the first-created in the form of a serpent, he again found for himself C a man corrupt in morals, deceitful in mind, filled with wickedness, a serpent coiled and wound in circular frauds, and in his impetus of wrath and the vehemence of an intolerable fury a war, and in the fitting name of his own title a lion—Leo, I say, the apostate from the Isaurians, who, having first been acceptable to his lord and emperor, supplanted his power and empire, not using any noble strenuousness (lest anyone should think this), but by wiles and frauds: for cunning D not infrequently accomplishes great things, and the [alt-version omitted]
A hands, which laborious, long-continued effort could not tame, are often most easily overcome by craft. It is not surprising, therefore, if he himself, having meditated impious designs against the pious emperor and attacked him by rebelling—perhaps emboldened by that very goodness of his, for which sake he had been raised to the empire—was not frustrated in the purpose of his will. But there are some who say that he had long since been invited to this by more occult sorceries, superstitious divinations, and nefarious tricks. And he, indeed—the illustrious Theodosius, to be sure—having abdicated the sceptre and laid down the empire (would that it had not happened!), dedicated himself to ecclesiastical ministries; but Leo, after he received the kingdom, began, alas, to rage against the sacred images, or, which amounts to the same thing, against God, lest it be said that he had not fulfilled what he had promised his prophets, but had faithfully paid the debt which he had contracted under the condition of a future outcome. B
21. He stirs up, therefore, a great war against God, rendering useless the temples and overturning sacred places, and at the same time he rises up with all his might to abolish and burn the divine images, and renders completely deformed—or rather, I would say, he undermines—the Church of God, which He Himself, having assumed humanity, founded, which His divinely inspired heralds fortified, which martyrs adorned, having dyed it purple with their own blood, which the holy Fathers fenced about as if with towers prepared for safety, and which, finally, God Himself and the Father carries in the palm of His hand, having redeemed it with the blood of His Son and Word, and the divine Spirit proceeding ineffably from the Father, just as the Word is begotten of the same Father in a way that is altogether incomprehensible by any reasoning process. Against this Church, O great audacity! O rash presumption! that pernicious man set his foot; and having devised such a crime, O the judgments of God! he brought it to the end he wished, fulfilling whatever he had turned over in his mind. Our affairs were therefore like a field, as they say, of the winds, or a reed turned and overturned by the breeze, or a thin shoot leaning on light and shallow roots, and ductile and easy to bend to whatever anyone might please. I do not accuse everyone, but rather I offer myself as an opportune advocate for the majority, as one of the ancients said. For I have seen, I have seen (would that I had not!) that I myself also C encountered such things and fell into similar times, O the sorrow! and falling into a night wrapped in such darkness, I was gravely injured, and nearly wounded with incurable wounds.
D [alt-version omitted]
But I pray that God, the healer of souls and bodies, may heal me, and that the benevolent physician and merciful restorer of our infirmity may blot out the welts of those blows. But come, let our discourse return to its own subject and again take up the matters from above.
B 22. Things divine and our own were turned upside down by the one who wickedly reigned; but since there was no one, as I said, to restore or set them upright, all things had settled into helplessness, and matters had reached an impasse, and the ways of restoration in general were despaired of. For the lamp of impiety, the great John, was living in Damascus and Persia, and he, who was truly ours and even from there the most circumspect provider for our affairs, was residing in a foreign land. What then? By caring for his own affairs there, did he neglect the public concerns that were here? Certainly not. For just as someone who is a native and patriot of a place, when he is in foreign soil and intent upon managing his own business there, if he hears that the affairs of his homeland are not proceeding as he would wish (even if it grieves his heart and causes distress in his mind), even from a foreign land and from afar will deliberate about matters at home; so also this divine man was immediately struck at heart by what had occurred, his soul was affected, he cared for the Lord’s portion, he took thought for the Christian people, and by writing very frequent letters he made the error known to all everywhere, manifested the corruption, and brought the bait hidden to the ruin of souls into the sight of all, making it plain. C Perhaps he would even have desired to be present, so as to rebuke the lawless emperor, according to the great boldness of speech and fiery zeal for God like that of Elijah, and having set before him, according to the Psalmist, his lawlessness to his face, to admonish the foolish populace, and as a teacher to instruct and correct them. But being away (where and how we have shown above), he could not easily carry out his intention. Therefore, desiring to pay the debt of service due to God in other ways, he busied himself in all directions with his letters, by which he admonished them to take up the former rites and to hold fast to the ancestral laws and religions. Sending many—indeed almost innumerable—of these letters to those who were living here (although those who were receiving them tried to keep them hidden), he could not prevent them from coming to the emperor's attention, and stirring up his fury against the wise writer, and inflaming him against the noble athlete, and persuading him to attack him with fraudulent deceits: as to how this was done, although we have begun to explain it briefly, we shall now speak of it again more distinctly.
23. For he was indeed beastly and unrestrained in his wrath, yet not in other respects Leonine, not daring to wage the battle openly, D this Isaurian—who happened to be—
A hiding vulpine ways, and truly beneath the royal and terrifying lion's skin, he was cloaking his vile and dishonorable vulpine nature. He rages B against the saint, as if it were possible to do away with him, or rather to tear him apart, and to gore his jaws most cruelly with blood, and like a beast to devour the gentle and meek man in a wild, inhuman fashion: but, not finding any way to accomplish this, he turns to the cunning familiar to him. Having gathered together from everywhere the under-secretaries, all the scribes, who were rising up Pharisaically against the truth, whom one might not ineptly call the most experienced scribes of iniquity; with those corrupt counselors he deliberates against the grace of the Son of God and the Christ of the Lord, like another Herod, himself also insane; and, looking down upon many as if they were little children and unwarlike, he is agitated in his soul, in order to kill that one man, a truly perfect man. Indeed, he knew that he was the instructor of all the others for the struggle, and he knew that he had to engage in battle with this one who was most prepared for the fight. For he understood from the concordant report of all the power and strength of his words against everyone, who all openly confessed that they did not dare to encounter the man in disputation, and they despaired that their [the tyrant's] writings could abolish his, as they were already scattered everywhere and contained much persuasion (for they did not wish to call it truth).
24. Then the tyrant, having C dismissed all others and turned to himself, entrusts the deliberation to his own thoughts, and discovers a truly diabolical device of his most cunning genius for evil. He commands that one of his [John's] letters be sought, with whatever effort might be required, but a letter in his own hand: his ministers, however, who strove to please not God but man, whose bones God has scattered and whose memory has perished with a sound, made a search, found it, and ran to bring it to him, as if he were rejoicing over some great and unexpected prize: he, having summoned a certain industrious man to himself, said: "If you can imitate the character of John who dwells at Damascus—I mean John, son of Mansur, whom we suffer even from there as a grave and hostile enemy of our affairs, as you know—and fashion a copy most similar to his, you will enter into great favor with me and be rewarded with a great prize." The scribe, dexterous at wickedness, hears these things, and promises to forge the hand of John; then he completes what he had promised so expertly according to the emperor's wish that the deception could not only remain hidden from others, but even to John himself, though he was most keen in his grasp of any matter, such a hidden fraud and malevolent craft was able to escape, so that, as far as the form of the character itself was concerned, he would have to acknowledge the letters as his own, yet repudiate what was contained in them as not his. For the letter was indeed forged, as if written by him to the Emperor, just as that clever D writer had received in his instructions,
A with a diabolical precision in both the letters themselves and the script, to match the handwriting; and it was sent to the Persian prefect, and another letter was sent along with it regarding him. Now, as to the contents of the letter which was supposedly from John to the Emperor, they were as follows—though I cannot recount the exact words, partly because I have forgotten them, not believing they deserved a place in my memory, and partly because I disdained and abhorred such an execrable imposture altogether. The general sense of them, however, was in some measure as follows:
25. B I bow my servile neck to you from afar, O Emperor, and I embrace the soles of your glorious feet, I who derive my name from Christ, towards you, the ruler of those who bear the name of Christ, wherever they may be found living, and I disclose the state of the most impious Saracens, how they fare at present, what kind of things have happened to them, and to what extent those furious ones have been driven by evils. Let your Majesty know that they are completely bereft of military forces (for they are divided among themselves and are being consumed by one another in mutual conflict), and thus they are easy to overcome for anyone who wishes. Moreover, my fatherland, that ancient and famous city, which lies overthrown from its foundations for a long time now and has been cast into the fullness of misery, appears likewise to be easy to subjugate with no trouble. Do not delay, therefore, C thrice-great Emperor, but stand present, show yourself to be seen, and come unexpectedly to these parts; for in a short time and without a struggle you will bring Damascus, most celebrated in fame, under your power, and you will return having acquired great glory. For you will find me no small ally in many things, as one who is powerful throughout all Persia and who leads and directs the sum of affairs wherever I wish. Such, or things of this nature, were contained in that forgery. But the letter which was added by the Emperor to the Persian prefect was written in approximately this manner:
29. Great-famed, high-born, ruler of the Persians, may you be in good health. May your authority be well directed, may you enjoy all manner of cheer in my empire as an envoy well-disposed, and learn of the state of my Majesty. You know what kind of person I am in agreements and established pacts, and that I am not subject to change; for time, as someone said, is the great teacher of all things, and there is nothing which it does not have the power to uncover and lay bare to the truth. However, someone among your subjects, who rejoices in malice, is an enemy of peace, and is hostile to what is good, D is trying to confuse the agreements that have long been established between us, and to break the oaths...
[GREEK COLUMN] θίζει ούσπερ ἀλλήλοις ἐκ μακρού συνεθέμεθα, καὶ κατεπιχειρῆσαί σου τῆς χώρας παραβιάζεται, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ καὶ οὐ μικρά συνάρασθαί μοι κατεπαγγέλλεται. ᾿Αλλ' έγωγε, φιλίας οὐδὲν ἀκραιφνούς λογιζόμενος ισοστάσιον, περιφρονῶ τοὺς λόγους, και τὰς τούτου ξυμβουλὰς ἀπαναίνομαι. Πόσον γὰρ ἂν και εἴη μοι τὸ ἐντεῦθεν κέρδος, ὑπὲρ τοῦ τῶν συνθηκῶν ἀλογήσαιμι, και τον φίλιον παροργίσαιμι; Ὅστις και ών και τυγχάνει ὁ ταῦτά γε μεταχειριζόμενος, φασιν, αὐτὸς δείξει· τὸ γὰρ δὴ πρός με γράμμα σαφῶς γνωριεῖ, ἰδίαιν αὐτῷ χεροῖν συντεθέν. Ταῦτα τὰ τοῦ βασιλέως ἀρχικὰ και κοινωφελή βουλεύματα και διανοήματα· ταῦτα ἡ ἁλουργὶς αὐτὸν ἐξεπαίδευσεν· οὕτω τὰ τῆς περιόπτου και τιμιωτάτης ἀξίας διάσημα σύμβολα και περίβλεπτα μήτε πανούργως ἀνίει μηδοτιοῦν ἀνέχεσθαι φθέγγεσθαι, B μήτε δολερῶς τὸ παράπαν μεταχειρίζεσθαι.
A ᾿Αλλ' ἐπειδή και ἀνελάβετο τὰς γραφὰς ὁ βάρβαρος ἐκεινοσὶ τύραννος, και τὰ ἐν αὐταῖς ἀνελέξατο, οὐδὲν ἄλλ' ἢ βάρβαρος εὐθὺς ὤν, ἀπερίσκεπτος τὴν ὁρμὴν καὶ τὸ ὅλον φάναι παράβολος, αὐτίκα τὸ ἐπελθεῖν ἀληθῆ τὰ δεδηλωμένα παραδεξάμενος. Ὡς γὰρ δὴ και μετακαλέσαιτο τὸν Ἰωάννην, και εἰ τὰς ἐπιστολὰς ἐγχειρίσεις τίνα τε ταῦτ᾽ ἔστιν, ἔροιτο, ὁ δ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ εὐθέως μὲν οὐκ εἶχεν ἀνανεῦσαι, μηδὲ τὰ τοῦ γράμματος ἀπομόσασθαι (τοιοῦτος καὶ γὰρ ἐτύγχανεν ὧν ἀκριβὴς ἄγαν, οὐ προπετὴς καὶ τὴν συναρπαγὴν διαφυγγάνων ἐφ' ἅπαντι), συνειδέναι δὲ αὐτῷ τοιόνδε τι μετακεχειρισμένῳ θαῤῥαλέως ἀπέφασκε· μὴ δοὺς ἀναβολὴν τὰ τῆς σκέψεως, μὴ καιρὸν ἐφείς ἐξετάσεως, ὡς ἂν ἐπὶ C τῶν ὁμολογουμένως κατακρίτων και πάσαις καταδεδικασμένων, τὴν τιμωρίαν ἀνηλεῶς ἀποφαίνεται. Καί γοῦν τὴν τῆς δεξιᾶς ἀφαίρεσιν ὁ τέως δεξιὸς τὰ πάνθ᾽ ὑπηρέτης καταδεδίκασται, οὐχ ἧττον εὐλόγως ἢ φιλανθρώπως, ὡς ὁ ἀπηνὴς και τὰ πάντα παράλογος ᾤετο· τὴν γὰρ τοι καθυπηρετήσασαν ἐστερηκώς και τὴν τοῦ ἔργου κατατολμήσασαν ἀποκεκοφώς, οὔτ᾽ αὐτὸν ἐκεῖνον τοιαῦτ᾽ ἀφῆκεν εἰσέτι διαπράττεσθαι δύνασθαι, οὔθ᾽ ἕτερόν ποτε κατεπιχειρῆσαι τῶν ὁμοίων ὕστερον.
κή'. Οὐ μέντοι γε μέχρι τούτου σταίη τὰ τῆς ὀργῆς, οὐδ᾽ εἰς τόδε τὸ δεινὸν λήξειεν· ἀλλὰ τοῦτο μὲν εἰς χλευασμὸν τοῦ ἑαλωκότος δῆθεν ἐπὶ τοιούτου, τοῦτο δὴ και τῶν ἑτέρων σωφρονισμόν, τοῖς ὁμοίοις ὡς ἄν γε μὴ περιπέσοιεν, ἅμα δὲ και ἐξ ἄκρας D ὀργῆς τε και μίσους ἐπιγενομένου ἀνθ᾽ ἧς τέως στοργῆς τε και εὐμενίας ἐκέκτητο πρὸς αὐτόν (οὕτω και γὰρ εἰώθαμεν ἄνθρωποι, οὓς πρὸ μικροῦ ποθοῦντες ἦμεν, εἴ γέ τι μικρὸν ἀμηγέπῃ προσκρού-
σιαν, τὰ μέγιστ' αἴφνης ἀπεχθανόμεθα· καὶ οἱ τῇ A χθὲς ἐρωτικῶς περὶ τάδε τι διακείμενοι, τήμερον ὀστράκου, τὸ τοῦ λόγου, μεταπεσόντος, μισοῦμέν τε καὶ κακίζομεν). Τούτων μὲν οὖν χάριν καὶ διὰ ταῦτα ἐπ' ἀγορᾶς μέσης τὴν ἐκκοπεῖσαν αἰωρηθῆναι διακελεύεται. Τοιγάρτοι καὶ πρὸς θέαν πάντων ἡ δεξιὰ κρέμαται, δεξιὰ ὡς ἀληθῶς Κυρίου, δεξιὰ δεδοξασμένη ἐν ἰσχύϊ, τῇ θειοτέρᾳ δηλονότι καὶ κρείττονι, δεξιὰ ἡ θραύσασα ἐχθρούς, τοὺς προστάτας δηλαδὴ καὶ εὑρετὰς τῆς εὑρέσεως, καὶ τῷ πλήθει τῆς δόξης τοὺς ὑπεναντίους συντρίψασα (τίς ἡ δόξα, ἡ παρὰ Θεοῦ σύναρσις;). Ὑπεναντίοι δὲ ἄρα οἱ κενοτόμοι ἐκεῖνοι τῶν θείων καὶ πατρικῶν παραδόσεων, οἱ γενναῖοι τῆς κακίας ὑπασπισταί, καὶ οἱ ἀλεῖπται τουτωνὶ δαίμονες, οἱ ἀρχῆθεν ἡμῖν δυσμενεῖς καὶ πολέμιοι. Τεθριάμβευται δεξιά, ἡ ποιήσασα κἀκ τῶν ἀπωτάτω καὶ πόρρωθεν δύναμιν, καὶ τὸν πρόσφατον ὁμοῦ καὶ πρεσβύτατον Ἰσραήλ, τὸ μὲν τῷ χρόνῳ, τὸ δ' ἀποκαλύψει τελεωτέρᾳ καὶ ἐπιγνώσει θειοτέρᾳ καὶ κρείττονι, τὰ μεγάλα κατ' ἐχθρῶν ἐνισχύσασα. Ἀλλ' ἐπεὶ γοῦν εἰς θέαν ἧκε πᾶσι, καὶ πάντες τὴν καταδίκην καὶ τὴν τιμωρίαν ἐπέγνωσαν, συνήθεις, ἀγνῶτες, οἰκεῖοι, ἀλλότριοι, ἐπιτήδειοι, δυσμενεῖς, εἴ γε καὶ ὑπολειπτέον εἶναι τινὰ τὸν ἐχθραίνοντα τῷ τὰ πάντα καλῷ, τῷ πρὸς πάντας χρηστῷ. Πεφυκὸς δὲ ἄρα ξυμβαίνει· καὶ γὰρ τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ τοῦτο φύσει, μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ εἴωθεν ὡς τὰ πολλὰ ἐπιγίνεσθαι. Ἔνιοι καὶ γὰρ, μᾶλλον δ' ἵν' οὕτω φαίην οἱ πλείους, καὶ τοῖς μὴ ἠδικηκόσιν οὐδέν, εἴ γε μόνον ἐκεῖνοι σφῶν ὑπερφέροιεν, τούτου δὲ μόνου καὶ οὐκ ἄλλου μισοῦσι, καὶ ἐκθύμως αὐτοὺς ἀποστρέφονται, πρὸς τὸν πλάστην ὄντως ἀπαναισχυντοῦντες Θεόν, καὶ τὴν φιλοτιμίαν τούτου μὴ στέγοντες.
B κθ'. Πλὴν ἀλλὰ πᾶσι καὶ τὰ τῆς καταδίκης, καὶ τὰ τῆς χλεύης ἐπέγνωσται, προνοίᾳ πάντως Θεοῦ, παρ' οὗ δὴ τὰ μεγάλα καὶ κατὰ τὰ πρὶν ἐκεῖνα θαυματοποιηθῆναι καὶ αὖθις αὖ ἔμελλεν· εἰ δὲ μὴ δι' ἀξίου τοῦ μέσου Μωσέως, ἢ Ἰησοῦ, ἢ μὴν Ἠλιοῦ, ἢ τῶν τινος ἑτέρου προφητῶν καὶ θείων ἀνδρῶν, ἀμέσως δὲ ἐπ' ἀξίῳ ἑτέρῳ τις ᾧ γε ἂν καὶ εἴη βουλομένῳ. Καὶ λεγέτω καὶ συναγέτω τὸ ὑπερβάλλον, καὶ ὑπερτιθέτω καὶ τῶν νῦν ὁμοῦ καὶ τῶν πώποτε. Ὡς γὰρ δὴ τῷ βαρβάρῳ λήξειαν οἱ θυμοί, πέμψας ὁ Ἰωάννης, αἰτεῖται τὴν χεῖρα, τὸ περιαλγὲς δῆθεν σχηματισάμενος, καὶ τὸ τῆς ὀδύνης εἰς δυσώπησιν ἀφόρητον προβαλλόμενος, λόγους τε εὐλόγους προφασισάμενος, ὡς ἐς τ' ἂν ἡ χεὶρ ἀποκληρωμένη τε εἴη, τὰ τοῦ ἄλγους οὐχὶ λωφήσειεν. Ἐπὶ τούτοις καὶ ἱλαρύνει τὸν ἄγριον, καὶ τὸν ἀμείλικτον μειλίσσει. Τοιοῦτόν τι καὶ γὰρ ἄνθρωπος· ὀργίζεται συμπεσών, οὕτω καὶ θηρίον ἐξ ἀνθρώπου καθίσταται· ἡμεροῦται τὸ κατ' ὄρεξιν ἐκπλήσας, καὶ εἰς ἄνθρωπον ἐκ θηρίου πάλιν μεταπεποίηται. Τοίνυν δή C καὶ ἐνδέδοται τούτῳ τῆς δεξιᾶς ἡ ἀνάληψις· παραυτὰ γοῦν καὶ ἀνείληπται, καὶ ὅθεν ἐκκέκοπται καὶ ἐπιτέθειται, καὶ περιήρμοσται. Ἀλλὰ τί γε τις ἐντεῦθεν ἂν καὶ θαυμάσειε; μᾶλλον δὲ, πῶς ὁ λόγος πρὸς ἀξίαν διηγήσαιτο τὰ τοῦ πράγματος; Πότερα γὰρ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς τὴν πίστιν ἀγάσεται, ἢ τὴν τῆς Πανάγνου δύναμιν
δύναμιν τῆς ἀειπαρθένου καὶ Θεομήτορος; Ποῖόν τε τούτων τοῦ ἑτέρου προθεὶς, ἐνθεώτερον θιασεύσειεν; ἢ δηλονότι καὶ ἄμφω συλλήψοιτο, καὶ δι' ἄμφω περικροτήσεις, καὶ ὡς εἰκὸς ἄμφω ἐνθείσεις;
A λ'. Τὸ γάρ τοι εὐκτήριον εἰσιών, καὶ τῆς σεπτῆς ἔμπροσθεν εἰκόνος τῆς Δεσποίνης καὶ Θεομήτορος καταβαλὼν ἑαυτὸν, καὶ ἐφ' ἱκανὸν τῷ ἐδάφει προσφὺς, μετὰ δὲ καὶ συχνὰ ταῖς κατὰ γῆς ὁλοψύχοις καταφοραῖς προσαρράξας τὴν κεφαλὴν, τὴν ἐκκοπεῖσαν ἀνανεύσας ὑπέδειξε· καὶ ὡς ἐκείνῃ αὐτῇ παρούσῃ τῇ Παναγίᾳ ἐπεφώνησέ τε καὶ τὴν θεραπείαν ἐζήτησε, δάκρυα θερμὰ καταχέων, καὶ ὅτου χάριν ὑποσταίη τὴν τιμωρίαν ὑπομιμνήσκων, Ὑπὲρ τῆς σῆς, λέγων, εἰκόνος, καὶ τοῦ μονογενούς σου Υἱοῦ, τῶν εὐηρεστηκότων τε διαφόρως αὐτῷ, πρὸς B τοῦ τῆς ἀληθείας ἐχθροῦ τὰ τοῦ δράματος ἐσκαιώρηται, καὶ τὰ τῆς σκηνῆς καθυποκέκριταί μου καὶ πεπλαστούργηται· ὅθεν δὴ καί μετά θάρρους ἀντιβολῶ, ἐπάκουσόν μου, καὶ τὴν χεῖρα σώαν αὖθις κατάστησον· ἵνα σοι τὰ τῆς θαυματουργίας καλλιγραφήσω παράδοξα, καὶ μελῳδήσω καὶ ἀναμέλψωμαι τὴν πολλὴν πρὸς Θεὸν παρρησίαν σου, καὶ τὴν διηνεκῆ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡμῶν ἔντευξιν. Μαρτυροῦμαι διαπρυσίως ἅπασι πανταχῆ τὴν ἀλήθειαν, ὑπὲρ ἧς πέπονθα, καὶ δι' ἣν τὴν δεξιὰν κεκολοβωμαι· Ναί, τοῦ εὐσπλάγχνου καὶ τοῦ συμπαθοῦς Μῆτερ, συμπαθῶς καὶ φιλεύσπλαγχνε, ναί, τοῦ παντοδυνάμου Θεοῦ γεννήτρια, ὃς μόνη βουλήσει τὸ πᾶν τόδε παρήγαγε, καὶ τὸν κόσμον διεθύνει τῷ νεύματι· ἔπιδε ἵλεων πρὸς σοῦ τὸ ἱκετήριον, πρόσδεξαι τὴν δέησιν, καὶ εἰς πέρας ἀγαγέ μοι τὴν αἴτησιν.
C λα'. Ταῦτα δὲ καὶ πλέω τούτων εἰπὼν, μικρόν τι τῶν ὀδυνῶν ἀνεθείς, ὕπνωσε· καὶ ὦ θαυμασίων Θεοῦ! ὦ μητρὸς παρρησίας! ὢ πόσην ταύτην ἡ Πάναγνος πρὸς τὸν Υἱὸν πλουτεῖ καὶ Θεὸν, οἵαν τε ἐκεῖθεν ἔχει τὴν δύναμιν! ἐπιφαίνεται τούτῳ καθεύδοντι, καὶ ὡς ἐγρηγορότι ζῶσα ὥσπερ ἡ εἰκὼν διαλέγεται. Σὴν γοῦν ποιεῖσθαι τὴν δεξιὰν ὑπισχνεῖται· Πλὴν τὰ τῆς ἐγγύης, φησί, μέμνησο· καὶ τοὐντεῦθεν τῇ χειρὶ χρῆσαι πρὸς ἃ δὴ καὶ εἴρηκας. Κόσμησον ὡς ἐνὸν τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν Χριστοῦ, δι' ἣν κενώσας ἑαυτὸν τέλειος Θεὸς ὢν καὶ τέλειος ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἐμοῦ τε καὶ δι' ἐμοῦ… αὐτὸ σὺ καλῶς ἂν ἐκφήνειας, ὡς καὶ τἆλλα, δὴ τῶν ἀπορρήτων ὑποθυμοσύνῃ τοῦ σοφίσαντος Πνεύματος· σέμνυνον τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν, ὑπὲρ ἧς τὸ ἑαυτοῦ αἷμα ἐξέχεεν ὁ ἐπὶ τῶν Χερουβὶμ ἐπιβεβηκώς, καὶ ὧν τὰ Σεραφὲμ πέφρικε, καὶ πᾶσα σὺν δέει ἀγγέλων καὶ ἀρχαγγέλων παρέστηκε δύναμις. Καὶ ὃς, Ἐγὼ μὲν οὐδέν τι προθυμίας ἐλλείποιμι· σὺ δ' ἀλλ' ἀντιλαμβάνου μου, Δέσποινα· ὑπὲρ τὴν ἐμὴν γὰρ ὁμολογῶ τὸ πέταγμα δύναμιν, ὑπὲρ τὴν ἐμὴν ἰσχὺν τὸ ἐγχείρημα. D Ἐπὶ τούτοις διύπνισται, ἐπὶ τούτοις σώαν τὴν δεξιὰν εὕρηκεν. Οὐ γοῦν εἶχεν ὅ τι καὶ γένοιτο, τοῦτο μὲν εὐφραινόμενος, καὶ ἄλλος ἐξ ἄλλου τῇ τερατουργίᾳ γενόμενος. Ἐκεῖ τις ἂν καλῶς ἐπήνεγκε τὸ τοῦ Ψαλμῳδοῦ, τὸ «Ἑσπέρας ηὐλίσθη κλαυθμός, καὶ εἰς τὸ πρωὶ ἀγαλλίασις·» Ἀνθ' ὧν γὰρ ἑσπέρας ὠλόλυξον,
ὠλόλυξεν, A ἡλικία καὶ τύχη διάφορος, πρωίας εὐθὺς ἀντεπάει γεγηθέναι τε καί σκιρτᾷν, καὶ λαμπρῶς ὁμοῦ πάντας ἀγάλλεσθαι, ὑγιᾶ παρά προσδοκίαν άπασαν κατιδόντας καὶ ἐμπεφυκυίαν αὖθις τὴν χεῖρα, καὶ ἐνεργὸν πρὸς ὅ γε αὐτῷ βουλητόν.
B λβ΄. Οὐ μέχρι δε τῶν κατ᾽ οἶκον κρότος, οὐδ' εἰς τοὺς οἰκείους ὁ λόγος διέμεινεν· ἀλλὰ διέδραμεν ἡ φήμη κἀν τοῖς κύκλοις κἀν τοῖς πόῤῥωθι· τοίνυν καὶ φθάνουσί τινες τῷ σφετέρῳ προσαγγείλαντες ἄρχοντι (τῶν ᾿Αγαρηνῶν ἦσαν οὗτοί, τῶν δυσμενῶν ἡμῖν καὶ πολεμίων ἐκ τοῦ ἐναγεστάτου θρησκεύματος) ὅτι τε σῶς ὁ Ἰωάννης μένει, καὶ τὰ μέλη ἀδιαλώβητος, καὶ ὅτι χαίρει, καὶ ὅτι περικρατεῖ, καὶ ὡς τις στεφανίτης καθαπερεί παιανίζει, καὶ λαμπρῶς γέγηθε. Καὶ ὃς C παραυτὰ τὸν ἅγιον μεταστέλλεται· καὶ τὰ κατ᾽ αὐτὸν ἐξειπεῖν διακελεύεται πρὸς ἀλήθειαν, τὰ ἔσχατα ἐπαπειλησάμενος, εἰ μὴ ἄν ὡς ἐσχήκεσαν παραστήσειε. Καὶ γοῦν ὁ θεῖος Ἰωάννης, κρείττων ωσπερ αὐτοῦ γεγονώς, ὅτι πως ἤδη πρὸς κρείττονα μετεκαλεῖτο πρὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ πρὸς μείζονα τοὐντεῦθεν ἀνελαμπάνετο, μηδὲν ὑποτρέσας, μὴ τὴν πρὸ βραχέος ὀργὴν, μὴ τὸν ἄστεκτον ἐκεῖνον θυμόν, μὴ τὴν φρικαλέαν ἀπόφασιν, πεπαρρησιασμένῃ γλώττῃ καὶ ἀπτοήτῳ τῆς ψυχῆς παραστήματι. Μὴ οἴου με, φησί, δώροις τισὶν ἢ δόλοις τήν τιμωρίαν ὑπαλύξαι, ἢ ἄλλῳ του τῶν ἁπάντων τρόπῳ διεκφυγεῖν, μήτε μὴν ἀνθρώπου τέχνη καὶ φαρμάκων ἐπιθέσει τὴν ἄρτιαν ἀπολαβεῖν· ἀλλ᾽ ἴσθι σαφῶς καὶ πεπονθότα ὅ γε δὴ καὶ προστέταχας καὶ πρὸς Θεοῦ μόνου τὴν ἴασιν ἐσχηκότα, καὶ ὥσπερ δὲ καὶ ὁρᾶν ἔχεις, ἀνελλιπῆ γεγονότα τὴν ὁλομέλειαν. Ἐκτείνας ἐπὶ τοῖσδε τὼ χεῖρε, καὶ τὴν ἐπὶ θάτερα περικυκλοῦσαν δείξας γραμμήν, ἡ τήν τε διακοπὴν καὶ τὴν μετὰ τοῦτο ἐφαρμογὴν, πάνυ καθαρῶς ὑπεδείκνυεν.
λγ΄. Ἐφ᾽ οἷς καὶ καταπλαγέντα τὸν βάρβαρον, Ὄντως ἀνεύθυνος ἦσθα, φάναι· καὶ δόλος μὲν ἡμᾶς ἐξηπάτησε, παρὰ δὲ πάντα δίκαιον λόγον αὐτός, Ἰωάννη, καὶ κατεδικάσθης καὶ πεπόνθας. D Ἀλλ' ἴσθι μειζόνων ἀξιωθησόμενος πρὸς ἐμοῦ τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο τιμῶν, ὑπὲρ τοὺς ἄλλους τε ταξόμενος, καὶ τῶν ὑπ' ἐμοὶ τοῦ λοιποῦ καταστησόμενος ἁπάντων περιφανέστατος. Ὁ δὲ πρηνὴς αὐτίκα πεσών, δάκρυά τε θερμὰ καταχέων, Μή μοι γένοιτο καὶ εἰσέτι τῷ κόσμῳ περιπολεῖν, ὑπὸ Θεοῦ μόνου ῥυσθέντι ὧν ἐπιφέρειν εἴωθεν ὁ περίγειος οὑτωσὶ τόπος δεινῶν, ὁ τῆς ἄτης λειμών (ὡς τῶν τις θυραίων σοφῶν ἐγνωμάτευσεν) ἢ καθ' ἡμᾶς ἐρεῖν, ἡ κοιλὰς τοῦ κλαυθμῶνος. Ὁ δ᾽ ὑπολαβών, Ἀλλ' οὐκ ἐνδώσω σοι, Ἰωάννη, τοῦτο ποτε. Καὶ ὃς, Ἀφελέ μοι καὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς, εἰ βούλει· καὶ γὰρ, εἰ οἷόν τε μυρίους ἑτοιμός εἰμι θανάτους ἀποθανεῖν, ἢ τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦδε τοῦ κατὰ βούλησιν ἐκπεσεῖν. Κἀκεῖνος αὖθις ἀκλινὴς διέμενε καὶ ἀνένδοτος· ὡς δὲ καὶ οὗτος τὴν αἴτησιν ἰσχυρός, καὶ τὴν πρόθεσιν ἀμετάθετος. Καρτερός γοῦν ὥσπερ
ὥσπερ A ἐγένετο σφίσιν ἀγών, καὶ ἰσχυρά τις ἐκείνοιν διαμάχη συμπέπτωκεν· ἑκάτερος γὰρ θατέρῳ μηδ’ ἄν πώς ποτε ὑπεῖξαι ἐπισχυρίζετο, καὶ ὅλη ἀντέπιπτεν ἰσχύι, καὶ ἐκθύμως ἐπὶ τῷδε διηγωνίζετο. Ἀλλὰ νενίκηκεν Ἰωάννης τῇ συνάρσει τοῦ κρείττονος· ἥττηται δ’ ὁ παλαμναῖος ἐκεῖνος καὶ βάρβαρος τύραννος, καὶ συνήττηνται οἱ ἀόρατοι ἀλεῖπται καὶ συνασπισταί, οἱ τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς ἡμῶν ἀεὶ βασκαίνοντες ἔργοις τε καὶ βουλεύμασι δαίμονες.
λδ'. Τί γοῦν καὶ ποιεῖ, ἐπείπερ, «Ὅ τι ἄν σοι καὶ εἴη βουλομένῳ, ἄγε δὴ ἐκπέρανον», ἤκουσε; πῶς δὲ τὰ κατ’ αὐτὸν διατίθεται; Ὁ πιστὸς μὲν οἰκονόμος καὶ φρόνιμος, ἐξότε καὶ οἰκονομεῖν ἀνεδέξατο, τότε δὲ συνεφαπτομένου Θεοῦ καὶ συνετώτερα βουλευσάμενος, ἅπαντα μὲν τὸν πλοῦτον τοῖς δεομένοις διένειμεν, ἀγροὺς δὲ καὶ τὴν κτῆσιν ἄλλην τοῖς προσήκουσιν ἀπεκλήρωσεν· ἐπεὶ δὲ σοφῶς τὰ κατ’ αὐτὸν διέθετο, εἰλωτικὴν ἀναβολὴν περιθέμενος, πρὸς τὴν ἀγαθὴν ἀπαίρει πορείαν, τὸ μὲν φαινόμενον πενιχρὸς, πρὸς δὲ τὴν τοῦ ἐριτίμου μαργαρίτου ἐζώνησιν πλοῦτον βαρὺν τὴν ἀρετὴν ἐπαγόμενος. Καὶ γοῦν τὴν Ἱερουσαλὴμ καταλαμβάνει, ἵνα τε τὸ σωτήριον ἐξετελέσθη μυστήριον, κἀκεῖσε σεπτῶς τῷ Θεῷ καὶ Δεσπότῃ τὴν προσκύνησιν ἀφοσιωσάμενος, παρὰ τὴν τοῦ μεγάλου Σάβα μονὴν ἄπεισι, Σάβα τοῦ τὴν ἀρετὴν περιβοήτου καὶ τὴν κατὰ Θεὸν πολιτείαν περιθρυλλήτου, Σάβα τοῦ λαμπρότητι βίου τὴν ὑφ’ ἥλιον καταυγάσαντος, ὃν εἴπερ τις ἂν φαίη τύπον τοῦ μοναδικοῦ βίου ἄνωθεν τοῖς ἐν γῇ καταπεμφθῆναι, εὖ οἶδα, τῆς ἀληθείας οὐχ ἁμαρτήσεται. Παρὰ γοῦν τὴν ἐκείνου φοιτᾷ λαύρας τὰς τοιαύτας μονὰς καλεῖν εἰώθασιν οἱ πολλοί. Ὡς οὖν παρ’ αὐτῇ γένοιτο, καὶ τῷ τῶν ἐν αὐτῇ προεστῶτι εἰς ὄψιν ἔλθοι, πεσὼν πρὸ τῶν ἐκείνου ποδῶν, τῷ παρὰ τῷ Εὐαγγελίῳ ἑαυτὸν ἀπολωλότι προβάτῳ προσεΐκαζεν, ἀφαρπάσαι τε τοῦ νοητοῦ κατεδυσώπει θηρὸς, καὶ τῇ ἰδίᾳ ἐνσηκάσαι μάνδρα πάνυ λιπαρῶς καθικέτευε, μηδὲ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἆραι τολμῶν, ὡς ὁ τῷ Σωτῆρι παραβολικῶς ἐπεισκυκληθεὶς τελώνης, καὶ πρὸς μετανοίας σχεδιασθεὶς ὄντως ὑπογραμμὸν, καὶ ἀτρεποῦς τύπον ἐξαγορεύσεως· καὶ ταὐτὰ γέ τις, ὁ ἐξ ὀνύχων ἀπαλῶν καθαρὸς καὶ ἀπὸ γενέσεως. Ὦ καρδίας συντετριμμένης! ὦ πνεύματος τεταπεινωμένου! ὦ ψυχῆς Θεὸν ὁρώσης, Θεὸν φανταζομένης ἀεί! ὢ ψυχῆς τὴν ἀνείκαστον Θεοῦ δόξαν ἀναπολούσης διὰ παντός, καὶ μόνα τὰ ἐκείνου διανοουμένης διηνεκῶς, καὶ ἀμέσως ἀμέσῳ νοῒ συναπτομένης τῷ πρώτῳ τῷ καὶ νῦν ἐνσωμάτων καὶ ἀσωμάτων δημιουργῷ! Ὦ ψυχῆς ἐς τηλικοῦτον διαρθείσης ἐξ ἀρετῆς, καὶ εἰς τοσοῦτον ὑποπιπτούσης ἐκ ταπεινώσεως, καὶ ὡς τὸ μηδὲν ἑαυτὴν ἀχρειούσης, θριαμβευούσης τε καὶ στηλιτευούσης ὥσπερ ἐξαμαρτοῦσαν ἀνήκεστα!
λε'. Πλὴν ἀλλὰ τῇ τοῦ μεγάλου Σάβα μονῇ ὁ μέγας Ἰωάννης προσείληπται, ὁ ὅσον οὐδέπω συχνοὺς ὑπερβαλέσθαι μέλλων καὶ τῶν μεγάλων εἰς ἀρετήν. Καὶ γοῦν ὁ τῷ τότε τῆς μονῆς προστατῶν τοὺς προὔχοντας τῶν μοναχῶν μεταπέμπεται· καὶ πρῶτα μὲν τῷ πρὸ τῶν ἄλλων καὶ εἰσιόντι καὶ στάντι τὴν τοῦ νε-
νε-Aωτερεῖν ὀφείλοντος ἐπιτίθησι λειτουργίαν. Ὁ δὲ ὥσπερ ἔκπληκτος, ὡς δεδήλωκεν ἐκ τοῦ σχήματος, τὴν λειτουργίαν ἀπαγορεύει, τοῦτο μόνον εἰπών, ὅτι «Πότε ἀνειληφώς ἐμαυτὸν μόλις· σοί, Πάτερ, νῦν ἀνήκοος ἀναφαίνομαι, ἐξότου του καὶ ἐνεχείρισα ἐμαυτόν, μήπω γε, ὡς οἶσθα, τοῦτο πεπονθώς, ἀλλὰ μηδ᾽ εἰς αὖθις εἴθε ποτέ· τὸ δ᾽ αἴτιον τοῦτό γε, οὐκ ἄλλο, καὶ σύγγνωθι. Ἐκ μακροῦ τὸν ἄνδρα περιβόητον ἔγνωκα· ἡ γάρ μοι φήμη τὰ κατ᾽ αὐτὸν ἀκριβέστατα διατράνωσε, καὶ λόγῳ τε καὶ βίῳ τῶν περιφανεστάτων παρέστησεν, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ καὶ δέδοικα τὴν ἐπιστασίαν, ὑπὲρ ἐμὲ κρίνων, Πάτερ θεσπέσιε». Ἐπὶ τὸν μετ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τρέπει τὸν λόγον· κἀκεῖνος τῷ πρὸ αὐτοῦ συνᾴδει τὴν ἀπαγόρευσιν. Ἐπὶ τὸν ἕτερον, καὶ οὐδ᾽ οὗτος συντίθεται· ἐπὶ τὸν μετ᾽ αὐτόν, καὶ ὅλῳ κἀκεῖνος ὑποχωρεῖ τῷ ποδί· ἐπ᾽ ἄλλον οὖν μετ᾽ ἄλλον ἐστρέφετο, καὶ ὁμοίως τὴν ἐκ τῆς δειλίας ἀπείθειαν περιετύγχανε· συνελόντι γὰρ φάναι, ὁμογνωμονήσαντες ὁμοῦ πάντες οἱ γηραλέοι ἐκεῖνοι καὶ ὁμοῦ σεβάσμιοι ἄνθρωποι, καὶ τὸν μονάδα βίον ἀνῃρημένοι ἐξ ἄγαν μακρῶν τῶν ἐνιαυτῶν, τὴν τε πολιτείαν ὑπερῃρημένοι, καὶ ἀκριβεῖς τῆς μοναχικῆς ἐπιστήμονες, τὴν τῆς προστασίας παραίτησιν ὠμοφώνησαν.
36. B Μεταστέλλεται μετ᾽ αὐτοὺς ὁ θεῖος ἐκεῖνος ἀνήρ, πάντας ὥσπερ ἐκείνους περιιδών, ἕτερον τὴν ἡλικίαν προήκοντα, τάχα δὲ καὶ τὴν ἀρετὴν ὑπερβαίνοντα, τῇ δὲ τοῦ ἤθους ἁπλότητι Ἀβραμιαῖον ἄντικρυς γέροντα, πολὺ κατὰ τὸν Ἰακὼβ αὐχοῦντα τὸ ἄπλαστον, καὶ ἀρχαῖον ὡς ἀληθῶς ἄνθρωπον. Τούτῳ τὴν ἡγεμονίαν ἐπιτρέπει, τούτῳ τὴν ὁδηγίαν τῆς Ναζωραϊκῆς καὶ κατὰ Θεὸν πολιτείας ἀνατίθεται. C Καὶ ὃς εὐθύμως ἄγαν τῆς χειρὸς τὸν Ἰωάννην λαβόμενος, ἄπεισι περί τον οἰκίσκον τὸν ἴδιον· ὁ μὲν καθά τινός ἑρμαίου τυχών, ἐπαναστρέψας περιχαρής, ὁ δ᾽ ὥσπερ ἑαυτὸν τὸν παράδεισον εἰσιών, ἡδονῆς ἀῤῥήτου πλησθείς. Καὶ δὴ τῷ μακαρίῳ δίδοται ἐντολή, καὶ ἡ ἐντολὴ οὐχ ὡς πρὸς ἀτελῆ τῶν ἐλαφροτέρων τις ἦν. Ἐπισκήπτει γὰρ ὁ γέρων τῷ ἰδίῳ μηδόλως στέργειν βουλήματι, μηδ᾽ ἐκτελεῖν τι τὸ παράπαν αὐθέκαστον· ἀλλ᾽ ὅσπερ ἂν προσταγείς μόνον, καὶ τοῦτο ἰσχὺς ὅση πέρατι διδόναι καὶ καλῶς ἐκπληροῦν, ἀεί τε τὸν Θεὸν ἔχειν πρὸ ὀφθαλμῶν, καὶ Θεῷ διηνεκῶς ἐντυγχάνειν, καὶ ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀμπλακημάτων ἐκλιπαρεῖν, συχνὰ γονυπετοῦντα καὶ δάκρυα θερμὰ καταχέοντα. «Οὐδὲν γάρ», ἔφασκε, «τέκνον, οὕτω προσίεται, καὶ περὶ πλείονος τίθεται, ὡς πνεῦμα τεταπεινωμένον καὶ καρδίαν συντετριμμένην ὁ Κύριος». Καὶ ταῦτα μὲν ἐξ αὐτῆς ὑπετίθει, καὶ οἷόν τι βάθρον ὑπέβαλεν, ἤ καί τινα προτέλεια παρεδείκνυεν· ὁ δὲ μεταποιεῖν κρειττόνως οἶδε ψυχήν, καὶ πρὸς τελεωτέραν συμβάλλεται μεταρρύθμισιν, τῶν αὐτῆς τε δυνάμεων κάθαρσιν καὶ ἀνάβασιν, τίς ἂν παραστῆσαι λόγος ἐξίκοιτο; Ἀπὸ μὲν γὰρ τῶν γνωστικῶν ἄρχεται, ὡς ἂν δὴ καὶ τὰς ὀρεκτικάς τε καὶ ζωτικάς, καὶ σὺν ταύταις τὰς ὑπ᾽ αὐτὰς τὰς τῆς τρίτης λόγω μοίρας καὶ χείρονος (16), μεταθείη
D partim in corpore: cui denique superstet ratio sive intellectus, totus spiritualis, eoque pars prima et dignissima hominis.
A And one should perhaps not wonder how he presumed to instruct a man already perfect, and to further perfect the supreme; for John was by himself great, as one full of wisdom, adorned with virtue, and in every respect as venerable as possible. Nevertheless, something may always be added to the good, and what is more perfect may be found beyond the perfect, and what is more distinguished beyond the distinguished. It is therefore not inappropriate that this simple old man, unacquainted with the past (as one who perhaps had neither scrutinized it nor cared to know it), should instruct him as if he were someone from among the less perfect, gradually leading him toward the perfection of virtue. He chastises his senses, therefore, so that he may become accustomed to seeing nothing superfluous, to hearing nothing delightful, except for the sake of God or divine matters, and to indulge his palate in nothing for the sake of the pleasure of taste: but only to eat what is sufficient to sustain life, being mindful of the ancient transgression, and of how we once fell from the greatest goods through the gullet; while also contemplating the sincere delights and ineffable pleasures of the other life. He also forbade him even to extend his hand inconsiderately or to touch anything soft, having before his eyes the ruin of the protoplasts born from the audacity of touch. He ordered him subsequently to cast away the scents of flowers and ointments, desiring that he should always smell with his mind alone the fragrance of paradise, and enjoy this alone.
C And these things indeed regarding the senses and their organs that venerable old man, most expert in practical philosophy, taught his most obedient disciple; and while he feigned the deepest ignorance, he most wisely taught him who had followed after perfection of action and contemplation through diligent meditation. But what did he instruct regarding the phantasy and the passions of the soul subject to the phantasy? They were truly admirable, the kind that, to be explained, would require the very tongue of that great man, as one who was supreme in practice and theory, and in the philosophy which arises from these two, manifestly excelling all who existed at that time or at any other. He commanded, namely, that he should pay no attention at all to earthly and material things; if any remnant of such a thing remained in him, he was at once to kill and cast it out (for the passion of phantasy consists in this, that it dwells upon more earthly things, and this dissolves the virtue opposing it), but to roll over in his thoughts only those things which are above us and which truly exist, as things which cannot fail; he urged him to lift his mind to these alone, to strive toward these: so that, as he seemed to have become spirit by virtue, he might also reveal the spiritual operation itself, and that his mind, raised to perfection, might immediately apprehend, being much more effective and more divine, as it were intellectual, and subject to none of the interior powers, but elevating them all and drawing them to itself, and through itself and with itself, transferring them to God.
D And these are the things which the good old man enjoined [39.]
and firmly pressed upon his son in grace, even though he was already hoary with wisdom and an old man in prudence, one who had possessed virtue as a foster-sister and constant companion from childhood. Furthermore, lest he should imagine himself to be something at all and exalt himself on account of the cultivation of eloquence, he forbade him to pay any heed to it, whether great or small, but commanded him to cast out at once everything he had learned of secular matters and, as far as he could, to expunge even the memory of it from his mind; nor did he merely forbid him B to compose anything rhythmic, or to devote himself to writing encomia or histories, but not even to send a letter to any of his acquaintances. I know indeed that these spiritual matters are lightly regarded by the unskilled, as though I, who speak of the mysteries of the secret discipline before those not yet initiated, were one who does not know how much delight and how much enlargement of heart the perfect expression of one’s own thoughts and concepts and the accurate manifestation of the mind produces. But what would they say, those men, when they heard that silence is also prescribed, and an utter compression of the tongue is ordered, insomuch that the disciple dares not utter so much as a grunt, unless, when commanded by the master, he reads something from the divine books to propitiate and confess to God?
40. What, then, of the gentle one? What, then, of the guileless one, C who is attached to God with his whole mind, whose heart has always loved rectitude—how does he comport himself in these matters? Does he falter, disdaining such a burden of precepts? Or does he ask to be relieved, lest, being weighed down at the start, he should succumb? Far be that from John! He willingly takes it all upon his shoulders, and enters upon this way which leads to God with a noble spirit, or rather he strips for the arena of the monastic life, and is anointed for a struggle not merely fivefold, but, to speak truly, ten-thousandfold. But perhaps he undertook it nobly, but did not bear it bravely; or, having entered fearlessly, did he not contend constantly? Far be this entirely, far be it. Yet he did not appear as some victor in the Olympic, Nemean, or Isthmian games, D cheaply crowned, or like one of those who have prevailed in the Panathenaea, magnificently binding his hair with an olive crown, or brandishing a pine branch and swelling vehemently with pride on that account, or glorious with certain sacred fruits (or rather, I would say, profane ones), while the wiser folk laughed at him, though children applauded and sang his praises in the theaters; or like one anointed according to what chance has brought, praised for a very brief time, and that only by the rabble of common condition and the base plebeians. Rather, he goes forth crowned from heaven, with angels and angelic men standing around him in admiration, having truly become a spectacle, as Paul says, both to angels and to men, striking with wonder both the visible and the invisible nature.
A But since that grave master had perceived him in all things to be this perfect—lofty in humility, compliant in obedience, invincible in the exercise of virtue, and altogether acceptable in every respect—he considered testing him in another way. For he decided that he should still be proved, to see if and how he could maintain the same moderation and lack of vanity among his own acquaintances and family. Therefore, gathering many baskets, and placing them partly on his shoulders and partly putting them into his hands, he ordered him to take them all to Damascus. And he said, "You will offer them for such a price,"—and this was an immoderately high price for such cheap items, so that he might thereby test his disciple and exercise him in perfect obedience. What, then, of John, who was supreme in virtue and incomparable in obedience? Did he hesitate or feel any annoyance, or show any sign of displeasure, as perhaps one less than he would have done—someone great in divine or human matters, or even one illustrious in at least one of these? And how could he? As if he were called to receive a benefit, he went out most promptly and set out on the road with great zeal, as if he were being sent for his own glorious display and were being invited to a most beautiful triumph. B But when he was entering Damascus, poor, shabby, and as far as his appearance could be recognized, utterly contemptible—he who had been honored and admired by all before—as soon as he entered the market, surrounded by baskets as if [they were] a noble ornament, he called together the crowd and declared the price at which he was selling each one. Now it was, as any of the inhabitants judged, an exorbitantly excessive price, the demand for which gave cause for laughter and mockery to all who came by. Therefore, "Why are you raving, O man?" one would say; another said, "You are out of your mind, you have lost your senses"; another taunted him with something else; nor were there wanting those who dealt him blows or struck him in the face; just as is wont to happen among the promiscuous plebs of the market, so that the stupid may be laughed at and those who are mentally impaired are treated as a mockery. C Thus, against those who are already fools or delirious, one rises up in every place; and weakness of judgment, if it is to be attributed to a natural dissolution of nerves and muscles, is often dealt with by them with laughter so effusive that tears are squeezed from their eyes: indeed, it even happens that hands are laid upon such people, and they are dragged about unmercifully, and the wretchedness of their natural organization, or the dimness of failing sight, if this too should happen to them, provides a mockery of them.
42. Therefore, he who was most grave was mocked for a sufficiently long time; and he who was decorous in everything was shoved this way and that and thrust back, and was struck without reason—or rather, he himself was striking the invisible enemy. D For the latter, by lifting up his neck against the Lord, fell miserably; but he himself, by bearing himself so modestly and humbly, was exalted even unto the heavens, having become admirable even to the angels. But at long last, one of his former servants, having looked at him with more curiosity and having fixed his eyes more persistently upon him, [recognizing] this one as that one
whose service he had been signed, the riches and the former glory of the man crossed his mind. He observed in his spirit the man’s past kindness and mildness toward his servants and, suspecting that he was actually in need, he began to wish well to him who, as they say, had been plunged into adverse fortune. That good servant, therefore—thinking good things (for servants, it is said, are wont to be like their masters)—counted out indiscriminately as much as was demanded for the baskets, and, as if congratulating himself on the transaction, he relieved him of the importunate business, having renounced all worldly affairs in order to live far from cares. Thus, he who before was accompanied by a great many horsemen now departed Damascus all alone and returned to whence he came; for he would not have returned unless the command had been fulfilled, even if it had meant he had to linger longer. He would have preferred to spend his whole life amid the taunts of those reproaching him for selling cheap trinkets so dearly, rather than not have carried out the precept of his spiritual Father. He returned, however, heavy with the trophies which he had snatched away by B bravely struggling against his proud enemy.
43. But another matter awaits us, not, I would say, a triumph over a fall, but a very great feat of prowess arising from a small circumstance. Two brothers lived near the blessed man, joined together by fraternal love; for their spirits were no less bound to one another by similarity of purpose than their bodies were by nature. The death of one of these left the other almost dead; for, being utterly overcome by that calamity, he did not admit comforters, did not accept advisors, but had completely closed his ears to every argument. After many others, therefore, there approached him that soul most full of compassion, John—joyful in countenance, sweet in speech, and venerable in both—and he strove to remove his grief. But what did he not devise in order to recall his soul to itself? What did he not bring forward from the Holy Scriptures to mollify his passion by consolation? He moved every stone, as they say; but he profited no more than one speaking to a statue or rubbing an adamant. At long last, however (for a drop falling C continuously hollows a rock), the monk returned in some measure to himself, and, restored to his senses, he said: "If you wish to console me, come, compose some melody, that by singing it to myself I may soften the pains of my misfortune, which, rushing into my soul, disturb my intellect and in a manner devour my heart."
44. To this John said, "And how could it be, that I should transgress the Father's mandate, which absolutely orders me to abstain from every such thought and deed?" The other replied, "Light is this sin of disobedience, in comparison with the benefit resulting from the contrary; for you will console a grieving soul, or rather, you will hold back one that is failing and D almost already departed
A and will even restore it to his body. Yet John still refused and once more put forward the precept given to him. The other, however, did not desist but pressed him again, even more burdensomely, entreating, compelling, coaxing, leaving nothing undone, by which he thought he could persuade the man, expressing in himself an image of the very Litanies or prayers themselves—just as he who first composed them fashioned them and made them like those he represented, so that he could be called, as it were, the best imitator of his own poem. But John, hardened even against these things, remained unmoved, always mindful of the precept and holding it forth as an excuse, that he could by no means infringe upon it, because he hoped to be saved through it. B But the other, even before he was out of his mind with grief, and then, devoting his whole intellect to the one thing he sought, said prudently and wisely: "A reckoning will be required of you in the day of judgment for this grief of mine: for you know how those who afflict the grieving with injury are condemned by the Fathers. Whatever could until now be employed by men has availed me nothing for my consolation—no entreaty, no promise, no commanding father, no familiar consoler, no visiting friend, no relative present; to say it in a word, nothing at all: for I equally turn away from all things that I have already long ago dismissed and now clearly abhor. Come then, Reverend Father, with your most elegant style, apply to me a drug of speech, like some salutary plaster, by which I may receive health and my soul may be retained in my body now failing, having it, so to speak, in my nostrils, and all but expiring. C Know, however, and know for certain, that the whole matter will remain hidden and will never be brought to the notice of the elder: for this shall be my primary concern, always taking care that what has been composed remains hidden and secret."
45. He persuades the merciful man, softens the one who naturally yields, and draws him to what he desires, as he is easily led. John therefore composes a troparion—for so those of that sort are accustomed, and indeed ought, to be called: a troparion of few verses, but full of much energy, which he also sang most sweetly, according to the standard of the truly first harmony: and it is (if it pleases you to hear) of this kind: "All human things are vanity, which do not exist after death. Wealth does not remain, nor does glory accompany, for death following makes all these things vanish." Wherefore to the immortal D ...
A Christ let us cry aloud: Give rest to those who have departed from us, there where the salvation of all exists. Oh, how full of philosophy is this short syllable! A short syllable, I say, compared to the broad insight it conveys. Oh, how much greatness of mind—that which is so easily defined and easily remembered—does this wisdom possess! It declares in a general way, it demonstrates B universally, and it concludes absolutely that this life is to be accounted as nothing, and that present things are to be deemed as nothing. Solomon, who was testified to be the wisest of all, might have once spoken similar things in his own discourses; and he indeed spoke things worthy of the wisdom he had obtained from above, and he judged them to be wonderful. But they were not always consonant with his words and the life he exhibited; for out of reverence for the gift that proceeded from there, as he himself testifies, I omit mentioning the suppression of all human passions, or rather C of the more irrational ones. But this blessed man, who was a truly perfect human being because he continued consistent with himself in all things, was he who, while not having openly asked for the wisdom that stands beside God, had nonetheless truly received it—even if he did not declare how he had received it, inasmuch as he everywhere avoided the boasting of the mouth. Yet he declared, both by word and by deed, how true this was. For, entirely turned away from the world and superior to every irrational affect, and—to sum it up in a word—taught to philosophize equally by doing and by contemplating, he at once contemned and made nothing of all things; for he believed that all temporal and earthly D things were rather non-existent than existent. And he burned with desire only for that supreme good, which is above us and ineffable, and from which all things that are possess or receive their being.
46. But, O sudden turn of events! Or rather, O behold the brilliant test of our blessed one from this, by which it was destined to be more clearly shown how submissive and how prompt he was towards the command of his spiritual Father, and what great obedience he deferred to him. The elder appears unexpectedly to him as he is singing, hears the words, understands the matter, and is indignant at being treated with contempt. He enters therefore swelling with anger and full of rage, as if breathing out pure bile; and he did not wish even to look at him, but, turning away completely and repelling him A in earnest, he at last deigned only with a word, and that full of bitterness, to address the mourner: "Thus, O wretch, have you forgotten the commandment? Is this what you promised? Is this what you chose when you renounced the world and, with no one compelling you, came to us? Do you not remember how many were rejecting you—perhaps because they peered into the depravity and intractability of your character—when I alone (and would that I had not done so!) received you as my disciple and deigned to instruct you? Not, surely, with hopes for such a result; not destined for such an end! B By the very rule of the monastic life itself, I did not; not by that most beautiful order which they from the beginning observed, who truly chose solitude; not by the most fair and most clear blackness of the habit, shown to the venerable Pachomius from heaven; but so that I might correct you as is proper, and [remove] all that with which you are puffed up
I might guide you to walk without stumbling along the path of salvation. But now I see that I have been deceived, like one washing an Ethiopian, or teaching a crab how to walk straight, or trying to straighten a crooked piece of wood, or attempting anything else that is difficult to change A and contrary to nature. Therefore I have become a laughingstock, and that proverb applies to me which many use against those who have attacked some task imprudently and foolishly: for I began to do what could not be completed, and I wished to write upon the waters. Now therefore, depart at once, go away from me, and follow after your perverse thought.
47. B John went forth weeping inconsolably, explaining the cause and beseeching much for forgiveness. The old man, on the contrary, stood rigid, dragging out his rebuking words for a long time, or rather collecting long-winded invectives; finally, taking him by the hand, he said, "Nothing, from now on, shall be common between you and me, O man; go wherever you wish." He departed, therefore; but who could explain his tears, his lamentation, his groans, the affliction of his soul, the emaciation of his body, the bitterness of his intolerable and inconsolable grief? Not even Adam, when he was cast out of paradise C of old, mourned in this way—and yet he was not deceived by a vain hope, as this man was, but was tripped up by a feeling of brotherly commiseration, and was expelled from his paternal home for the sake of charity. But when he came to himself a little (for necessity is a source of ingenuity, and whoever suffers violence strives much against it), he thought within himself: "What if I should become a suppliant to the leading monks, and use them as ambassadors and intercessors with the old man, so that he might deem me worthy of the former discipline and not repel me from the salvation which I expect from it?"
48. No sooner said than done. Those venerable D and holy old men departed to reconcile the disciple to the master, and to lead the son back to the father. But they found him harder than adamant; for he would accept nothing, nor did he allow himself to be softened. Yet when they insisted more vehemently, and showed that he would pay heavier penalties for his lack of mercy than the other did for his disobedience—for it was permitted, they said, to correct with a repeated command a lapse of a disciple, however grave the transgression; nor is it fitting not to admit one who is repentant, and not even to let him explain the satisfaction he wishes to make for his fault—he replied: "If he wishes me to overlook the transgression of the first command, let him fulfill the second: let him go around the entire laura and clean out the filth of the latrines." Upon hearing this, they turned away their faces and departed, weighed down with shame, since on the one hand they considered the venerable man's...
A nobility, and on the other, thought of the obscenity of the filth.
49. What, then, of John? He saw them returning (for ever since they had entered, he had been awaiting to hear something virtuous, and had been fervently beseeching God on their behalf); he therefore went up and immediately asked what the Father wished, and what he ordered to be done for the transgression. At first, they did not dare to say it; for they revered the man because of the nobility of his lineage, and no less because of the excellence of his virtue. When he saw that he was gaining nothing by asking, he threw himself at their feet and shouted, "Tell me, Fathers, tell me what my Father wishes; for I am ready to fulfill his will, and to bring to completion his desire." Only then did they reluctantly relate the nature of the penance as it was, turning away their faces and blushing as was proper. But, O heart that was contrite! O spirit that was humbled! For these things, God did not merely refrain from despising him or deeming him worthy of simple salvation; rather, He received him most splendidly and magnificently, and rewarded him with wondrous gifts. Scarcely had he heard the word when he immediately took the broom into his hands and, hoisting the basket onto his shoulder, departed, as one who—in his mind—saw God present everywhere and immediately seized upon the command, not unlike how David confessed of the ancient people of Israel, so that these words of the Psalm B might opportunely harmonize: "He removed his back from burdens," that is, from heavier and more shameful loads; "and his hands served in the basket." Carrying, therefore, the necessary implements for the removal of the filth, he gathered them into the basket not only with the broom, but also with his own hands.
50. The elder heard this, and immediately softened; he ran swiftly to meet him, and, falling upon his neck, kissed him frequently and spoke to him sweetly. Recalling his words, he called him a son of obedience and named him a divine man; he declared himself blessed, partly because he had been the warden of such a man of virtue, so great, so perfect, and so incomparable; and partly because, with others removed, he himself had obtained such an office. Finally, after he had satisfied himself with his embraces, he entered C the cell, taking his right hand with his own left, and encircling his back with his right arm; and from that time on, he treated him not as a master does a disciple, nor as a father does a son, but approached him with modesty, as one of a higher nature, honoring him intensely, and revering him as was fitting.
51. Since it was not right that the lamp should be hidden further under a bushel (for this was no small calamity for the faithful people, wandering in deep darkness and falling very gravely), nor was it right that the fountain should be completely obstructed (while the Christian D people...
thirsting for divine words and in the final extremity of danger A, are gasping for breath). Let us see, then, how the lamp was brought forth, and how the inheritance of the Christians was irrigated by the opening of the flood of this copious fountain, and how divine plenitude was restored, God wisely provident and busy regarding our affairs. For once again, God acted freely: yet not as He once appeared to Abraham as if passing by within the tent, nor as He manifested Himself to his grandson Jacob through struggle and fight; I speak of that struggle which was a great prefiguration of the mystery of our common salvation, namely, the emptying and the assumption, and the deification of the one assumed through the assumption itself. In this, I think, our nature seems to have surpassed Israel in these last B times: for while to that extent it was immutably and firmly attached to sin, it nonetheless contended with God and was assumed by Him, and through that very thing by which it ought to have fallen and fallen again, it was not only sanctified (tremendous mystery! O prodigy, causing the soul to be stunned, and transcending reason!), but also deified and worshipped by all creatures. However, as I have said, He did not act freely in the same way (for those were figures of another and higher providence); now, however, through His most pure mother—that divine and un-hand-made tabernacle, proceeding from which He overcame the enemy—He has made known His own will. For because He became man from her and through her, and deigned to converse with human beings, through that same one, whom He honored above angels and archangels and all powers C, He has spoken and manifested what He willed.
52. Therefore, on one of the nights, the all-pure Theotokos herself appeared to the elder, and, "Why," she says, "do you do this? Why do you obstruct the fountain that bubbles over copiously with divine discourses, and hide the luminary, and by overshadowing the light, make night at noonday? Allow John to adorn the Church of God with words; allow him to stabilize it with right dogmas; allow him to dissolve the perplexed and intricate objections of the worst sophists; allow him to refute their sophisms and frauds." Upon these things, the monk awakens, filled with fear and trembling, and calls for John, and, "Come," he says, "man of God, use freely from now on the grace given to you for better things; lift up your voice in strength, speak divine words, and compose discourses full of wisdom descended from on high; for the savior of our D race, the all-pure Virgin Mary, has appeared to me, angry with me because I hindered you, and severely enjoining that I allow you to act according to your own will. Forgive me, therefore, for having restrained you; forgive this senile simplicity." Conversely, John, not elated in mind, nor showing any change in himself at all, but remaining in the same state and retaining his familiar modesty, himself rather asked to be forgiven, and begged him to pray for him as he set about the task.
53. But what he composed from then on, and what kind of...
work it would be to relate it in a discourse of great length and duration, it would be impossible to expound; therefore, I shall relate neither everything nor in its proper order, but only a very few things that come to mind: partly so that I may refresh the memory of those who already know these things, and partly so that I may make them known to those who have not yet attained knowledge of them. A First, he adorned the glorious resurrection of the Savior with his own harmonious melodies, and he did this not simply, but in many different ways, through the invention of various chants, and the alternating succession of these, wonderfully connected among themselves. But also for the remaining feasts, by which the religious populace is gathered, setting before himself one of those mysteries which our Lord and Redeemer, having become man, fulfilled, he composed many very beautiful pieces. Then he likewise honored the memorials of the saints, in such a way that he all but raises everyone to a similar zeal and disposes them to that very imitation; for he makes those who approach to sing the hymns of the martyrs noble B examples of the martyrs, and he so affects them regarding everything that is earthly or carnal, just as those who lived holily and above these things, whenever he composes laudatory odes about those who lived their lives in this way: and glorifying them with his songs, he transports others from other things—I mean singers and listeners—all together to better and more divine things. Furthermore, who could number one by one those things which he expounded otherwise at great length?
54. But I shall omit the other things. For how shall I pass over the encomiastic sermons C which resound around the venerable feasts, and which invite [us] to a dance that is truly more divine and better? How, then, shall I pass by the fountain of knowledge flowing thence, so that I might not at least draw from it in passing, so that I might emerge more robust for the subsequent course of the feast, when I feel myself failing in the stadium and despairing of the crown? For when I remember *her*, I immediately call back my mind wandering abroad; when I remember *her*, I truly seem more rational, able to use reason more prudently; when I remember *her*, I am suddenly found to be solid compared to all other theologians and much more intelligent than them. Oh, how much knowledge of mysteries I feel being infused into me in a short space of time! To what great magnanimity am I raised! I trample upon human things, I cleave this more humid air D surrounding the earth, nay, I even traverse another, purer [air], and I fly almost beyond the ether, and I reach the third heaven, and I am taught to utter things which it is not permitted to speak, full of enthusiasm and much better than myself: for little is missing [but that] for her sake I might ascend into heaven and become entirely divine and plainly spiritual, and I seem to have become equal to an angel in the faculty of understanding. I learn what pertains to the immaterial substances, and I recognize and admire how the ninefold chorus is reduced to the threefold, just as it is ordered; their ineffable doxologies ring in my ears, and I am almost compelled to sing and praise together with them in a manifold way. Understanding
A the simple and truly unique Trinity. I understand B the hypostatic properties of the supreme essence and supersubstantial nature, nay rather, I in some way comprehend the very one essence of the three persons; thus I recognize one power and authority: whence it comes to pass that I understand and adore her as one and the true God, and alone among all things that exist as triply indefinable and altogether incomprehensible. Since, therefore, I divide into three and join into one, three in properties, one in power, authority, consubstantiality, and that dependence which is of all things caused upon the first cause, and in the indissoluble identity of the same; thus am I lifted up, so light do I become, so wondrously am I carried aloft, that I am entirely suspended from the things that are here, and thence restored to myself more divine and more splendid.
35. It is a fable, or poetic monstrosity, or rather an old wives' tale, that equally delights the infantine on one side, and on the other the childish, who rejoice in hearing novelties; a fable, I say, by which it is said that the sun is plunged into the ocean, and being washed there, rises more bright. Yet although this be a fable, formerly celebrated, but now to be exploded: whoever has immersed himself in this living fountain, or rather in the unnavigable sea of discourses and the impenetrable deep of wisdom, it cannot be but that, however little he himself may sparkle, like a small and inconspicuous starlet, he must—like this great sun, flooding all things at once with its own splendor—diffuse his rays and shed light upon the furthest extremities, as though running from the highest to the highest; and as for those who have shone forth both before and after him, like the most beautiful luminaries, illuminating the whole terrestrial globe, I mean Basil and Gregory, the unshaken bulwarks of piety, the firm foundations of the Church, C the most integral bases of the faith; so indeed we shall call them not incongrue, nay, they might even be called by more eminent cognomens; but with them, and after them, John, that golden mouth, of the same name and habits as our own, D and to be compared to him; for I would not dare to say equal or coequal; but I recognize and demonstrate him to be a truly accurate exemplar, as though expressed to the form of an elegant archetype. Yet, nevertheless, could anyone say without foundation that one of our own time, shining but dimly, and as it were flashing with the vibration of a single ray, cannot become all most clear, all most splendid, all most deiform?
56. Now what is there to say as to why the Stagirite is to be despised with his enigmatical art of discourse and his manifold exposition of nature and of natural principles; why he is to be held of little account with his grandiloquence (for I would not dare to call it theology) and with that poorly founded, or, to speak more truly, monstrous opinion concerning souls, that Plato, most renowned among the Athenians and the rest of the Greeks; why the whole crowd of philosophers should be despicable, being the same with them or...
A rather holding opposite views? But these things must be passed over by me, however magnificent and worthy of consideration they may be; and I must speak again of the freedom of the blessed one, with which he contended for piety, and of the zeal he possessed like Phinees against those who fornicated in their own inventions or rash undertakings, and who acted imprudently against the immaculate and venerable images. Images (alas, for the audacity!) which, in memory of the incarnate Savior and of those saints who contended for him or otherwise lived religiously according to the law of Christ, the university of Christians has learned to form from the very beginning of the proclaimed faith. For although he was not present in body, he nevertheless shot arrows from afar against the wicked, who by their opinion and foul reasoning defiled or even completely abolished the holy things: and by his epistle, like a well-aimed lance, he pierced the son of Leo, the one who was the first to fall away from the truth, of whom I have already spoken before, selecting a few things from the many related in history regarding him: but now I must name for you (for I believe you wish it) him who, born of him, reigned according to his example. This was Constantine, who went mad nonetheless, or indeed much more than he, with an most impudent mind, and a man of dung; of whom I cannot—nay, I even abhor—telling what, I know not by what reason, happened to him in baptism, against the right doctrine or rather against baptism itself, as a presage, or as I would rather say, as a manifest premonition of a future event. B 57. He, when he arrived at manhood—would that he had not!—what wickedness did he not commit? What baseness did he not perpetrate? He defiled the people of God more foully than his father. But O the most ingenious counsel of the holy man! O the blow inflicted at the most opportune time! Phinees indeed observed the Israelite in his iniquity, and turned his lance, and exposed the sin, and corrected the rest by that example; but he suppressed the crime in one place only, and turned away from the sin only those who were present. But John, vehemently zealous for God, and understanding more than we, and busying himself about us, indeed shot his arrows, and pierced the sinner together with the sin; but he immediately made it known everywhere, and in a moment of time nearly removed all the wicked, by the very letters revealing the crime in every place in the sight of all, and triumphing over the impiety. Well done to you for that zeal in the cause of God, O bloodless martyr! Well done for your fervent love toward him! Well done for the confidence of your soul in defense of piety! Well done for your illustrious and intrepid constancy in preaching the truth! D 58. But what then? Was he thus affected toward God and the things of God, and did God not promote him, and take him up to the greatest things? Therefore, learn how God acted with him; and hear how He received him. He suggests to the prelate of Jerusalem, who then held the throne of the brother of the Lord, namely James, that fervent teacher and herald of the truth (but how he suggested it I pass over in silence, for it happened invisibly through the internal motion of the Spirit),
A suggests, I say, that he should inscribe John among the presbyters, and ordain one deemed worthy of the supernal and heavenly mysteries to those things that are performed on earth. He therefore immediately summons him and ranks him among the priests, that he might duly consecrate the great Host, Christ himself, who though sacrificed once is sacrificed daily for us, once indeed for those who have fallen, but daily for those accustomed to be impelled toward falling. But as for him whom God so anointed and so raised up, and showed of what value he held him even for those placed far off; did he thereafter act more negligently, or remit his industry, or languish in the exercise of virtue? By no means. Rather, from that point on he seemed to apply much greater alacrity of spirit; he was more fervent in subduing the body, more sublime in humbling himself, and more robust toward every other virtue. B For just as one of those who dwell in the palace, if he ascends to a greater dignity, exhibits himself as more prompt for service, that he might be judged by him who honored him as worthy of it, calculating with himself by what means he might justly pay his debt: so also John, having been gifted by the King of kings, our only Good and only true Lord, with the honor of the priesthood, the greatest and most venerable of all honors, and one to be received and exercised only by those truly like unto Him, grasped the sacred ministry more promptly and rose up more vigilant toward the cultivation of virtue. But C since he had prepared himself so generously, not for a pentathlon (as was said above), but for a myriathlon, he performed most admirable deeds and captivated the whole theater in his own admiration; for the theater was being filled by angelic spirits, accustomed to be delighted by such contests more than can be told: but the devils gathered around, resisting and fighting against him in manifold ways, applying various engines from the opposite side, whom he nonetheless defeated by fighting industriously and generously.
ϑ'. Since these things were thus completed, it was perhaps not right for them to be left unrewarded by God, whom he had proposed to himself as the arbiter of his contests, and toward whom he had already from the beginning been intent, becoming daily greater than himself and proceeding stronger toward the battles, finally bringing his greatest works to an end. What, then? God wished to take up his long labors and associate him with his saints, to rest him hereafter from his generous contests, just as indeed He did. He commands, therefore, the angels, the spectators and praisers of his deeds, to receive his blessed soul, splendid with virtues, and to carry it off to heaven. D Here, indeed, there arose perhaps no mediocre contention among the choirs of the saints, as to where this divine man should be placed, and over which of the orders of those who stand before God he should be set. For the multitude of martyrs invited him to themselves, because he had gloriously confessed the truth and had all but suffered the ultimate things; although, the tyrant’s anger having been softened to a middle state, he had been deprived only of his right hand: which perhaps was delayed for this reason, by a certain supernal providence, that so distinguished a man might not be taken away quickly before the time, and his age
A should be deprived of the sermons, by composing which he would strengthen the Church of Christ anew and adorn it most wonderfully. For it is a small thing in comparison to these to mention the abandoning of wealth, and to speak of the discarding of fame, because from childhood he had turned away from earthly things in an apostolic manner, and deemed nothing worthy of account. And those who in other ways had fortified the Church would translate him to themselves, and glorified him very highly, as one who had written and taught the most on matters of piety. And why would not those, too, who had rejected this fluctuating and slack life of ours, and had chosen for themselves the solitary and harsher path, have greeted him B as one who had been enrolled together with them? And most rightly so; for who more than he has turned away from the life of this world and from all that is in the world, and despised greater and more things, and regarded as of no value at all what most men hold in greatest account, and lived only in the cross, nakedly following Christ in all things?
[60.] I think that even the Son of Thunder himself, being so surnamed because of his lofty speech and his wholly awesome theology, not only judged that he should be placed with himself and his fellow apostles—but he had also brought this to pass in reality, adducing most just reasons for it, and declared him to be almost his equal. For did he not show this most zealous man to be a theologian C just like himself? A virgin? A herald of the mysteries hidden from the ages, and a fervent preacher of those things which were to be enacted concerning us in the latest times? And if he did not happen to recline upon the breast of the Lord, he nevertheless rested in the words of the Lord, and from there he himself, too, drew wisdom most copiously, as from an inexhaustible fountain. If the most pure Mother of God was not entrusted to him (for this was ordained by the great and inscrutable providence of God to be performed at other times, and did not belong to the age of our saint), he nevertheless held her cause as entrusted to him, and numbering her among his own, he honored her; and not only did he himself treat her with much reverence, but he also instilled D this same affection in everyone else. If it did not befall him to stand under the cross, yet he loved the cross, and as long as he lived he kept it before his eyes, contemplating the Savior condemned to death and hanging naked upon it; and he understood the passion, and pondered the common salvation wrought through Him, whence he was further moved to subdue the body more and subject it to the spirit. But, as it is known only to God and to those standing around God whether he, desiring to claim him for himself, won for himself this prerogative from God, the judge of the whole cause, or whether some other member of the divine choir did so, it is nevertheless manifest and most certain from those things which we have said, and from those many others which we pass over, that he has been placed by God among those who stand nearest to Him.
[61.] Come then, O choir of the pious, I shall entreat
A you to pray fervently that he may deign to remember us before God, B and to intercede perpetually for the entire multitude of the Church, whom Satan, the author of evils, harasses no less than he did in the time when he himself lived, and that he may, by his patronage, obtain for each what is most appropriate; that we may all be established together in true harmony of soul according to God, and that we may each, individually, be set free from the darkness that now envelops the whole; that the storm may be dissipated and the heavy tossing of the Church may find rest; and that thus, all and each, we may be directed to the quiet harbor of salvation, calming the waves of disturbed thoughts and the cares of the world, by which, as if by fierce storms of the soul, the ruling mind is driven about, and, even against its will, is moved from the helm of the power that presides over spiritual matters, laboring as if from sea-sickness, dizziness, and fainting, and is, together with the powers that are subject to it, about to be submerged and engulfed in the abyss of perdition; those powers, I say, which the mind had received as companions of its voyage and sharers in a tranquil pursuit, but then, suffering shipwreck in whatever way it may, it is overturned, and loses them, and is destroyed together with them.
B 92. But I pray you, O blessed one, take up my petition: and now, indeed, assume care for me and lead my affairs to salvation and to the habitation of the celestial paradise; and after the soul has been loosed from the body, urgently insist, lest, deprived of eternal rest, I fall away from sincere pleasure. Forgive also me, an unhappy man, and be propitious to this attempt of mine. For I did not undertake to write this discourse out of arrogance for the sake of ostentation, but, as you know, out of much devotion and sincere love, which I have had from childhood towards you and your compositions and studies, omitting nothing that I could. Come then, pardon me, and receive this discourse which is at once laudatory and deprecatory; C and in this life reform me in all my words, deeds, thoughts, and counsels, being my helper and advocate; and after I have been translated from hence and from among the living, show yourself to be my protector and an opportune intercessor before God, so that I may not fall into a better lot, condemned on account of my deeds, but may be placed with those who shall stand at the right hand of the incarnate Word, and may hear that happy voice which makes a man worthy of the blessing long since decreed by the eternal Father, and transfers him to everlasting beatitude, by the grace and bounty of the unbegotten Father D himself, and of the co-eternal Son, and of the all-holy and good and life-giving Spirit, of one essence, of one power, of one authority, of one nature and deity, to whom is due all glory, honor, and adoration, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
ON SAINT THEODOSIA, MARTYR OF CONSTANTINOPLE
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY
By Godefroy Henschen, in the *Acta Sanctorum* of the Bollandists, May, Vol. VI, Day 29.Cause and sequence of the martyrdom from manuscript Synaxaria: an encomium written by Constantine the Logothete; his age and dignity.
1. The tenth year of Leo the Isaurian was made fatal by the abolition of the holy images, which he had long meditated on in his mind and finally brought to effect, having removed the most holy Patriarch Germanus and substituted the impious Anastasius in his place. For as soon as he had placed that idol of his own above the throne of the Church, he made the beginning of removing those [images] from the vestibule of the palace, which had taken its name from the bronze image of Christ placed there, as it was called *Chalke*. That vestibule, according to Codinus in his book *On the Origins of Constantinople*, was founded by Constantine the Great, who had set up the aforementioned statue there, “which stood there for four hundred and fifteen years; by the power of which a woman suffering from an issue of blood had been healed, and many other miracles had been performed.” And so it was placed there in the year 315. But Codinus was deceived by his own calculation, or the copyists erred in transcribing the numbers; for it is certain that Constantine did not apply his mind to building Constantinople before the year 328.
2. As for the matter itself, we have a witness who lived at that time, Stephen, the deacon of the Great Church of Constantinople, in his *Life of St. Stephen the Younger*, where he details the memorable martyrdom suffered on that occasion, which we are to give on November 28, from which take these words: “While the tyrant was acting with the power of his heresy in these matters, he attempted to demolish and cast into the fire the Lord’s image of Christ our God, placed above the royal doors, at the place called the Holy Chalke: and this he did. In the course of this very demolition, some venerable women, strengthened by zeal, rose up generously; and having snatched ladders, they overturned the destroyer of the sacred image, the spatharios, to the ground, and seizing him, they handed him over to death. Then, without any delay, they ran on and invaded the patriarchal house, attacking the impious Anastasius with stones, and shouting: ‘O most impure head! O enemy of the truth! Did you seize the prelacy for this purpose, that you might overturn sacred statues?’ The profane man, unable to bear this insult, withdrew from the sight of the religious women; and betaking himself to the tyrant, he caused them all to be handed over to death.”
3. A This is what one can read in almost the same words in the work written by the Metaphrast, the *Life* of the same St. Stephen the Younger, which can also be found in the collections of Lipomanus and Surius, as well as among the *Works of St. John Damascene*, on account of the near identity of the subject—the cult of images—which the same St. John defended in illustrious orations. From what has been said, however, it is easy to correct Theophanes, who places the attempted—or rather, the completed—destruction of the Lord’s image one year earlier than the deposition of St. Germanus and the intrusion of Anastasius. Meanwhile, we can believe him that the zeal of the orthodox was not so suppressed by the execution of the aforementioned women that many men, spurred on by the women’s example, did not attempt to ward off the injury from that same image, or take revenge for it once done; and he truly adds that “the Constantinopolitan people, moved by great grief on account of this new doctrine, determined to attack Leo himself, and put to death many of the emperor’s entourage who were tearing down the image from the bronze gate of the Lord: wherefore it happened that many, on account of their piety, were punished with the mutilation of limbs, beatings, exile, and the infliction of losses.”
4. B However much they acted with spirit, the beginning of these noble efforts must be ascribed to the women: above all to their leader, the saint whom we have undertaken to treat, Theodosia. The religious piety of the citizens of Constantinople ensured that we would not remain ignorant of her name, her life, and her death; they rescued her body from the cruel slaughter and buried it piously at that time, and later, when peace was restored to the Church, they moved it more religiously, perhaps to the very monastery where the monastic woman had lived. And since the length of time and the silence of the writers had brought into oblivion the day on which she had been cruelly slaughtered, it was decided to adopt this day, May 29, which the entire Eastern Church commemorates with most celebrated honor, the feast of St. Theodosia, martyr at Caesarea in Palestine, whom we treated on April 2.
5. C Thus, his inscription is found in the printed books, which follows the work of Maximus Cytheraeus *on the Saints*, where after the encomium of the aforementioned ancient Theodosia, the memory is added of the holy martyr Theodosia of Constantinople, with al-
- A lusion to the ram's horn, by which her neck was broken, through a distich of this kind: A horn of a ram has slain thee, Theodosia, Seen as a new horn of Amalthea for thee.
6. This same memory is found with a similar distich in the Chillian Synaxarion; and in addition to this, an encomium of her life, martyrdom, and worship is added, which, when compared with the text of the Claromontanus Synaxarion for the 18th of July, reads as follows: «She was the daughter of pious parents in the times of Theodosius of Adramyttium, from Constantinople, and when she was seven years old, her father died; but the mother took the child and tonsured her in one of the monasteries of Byzantium. Afterward, the mother also died, B leaving to the blessed [Theodosia] all her property. And having made three holy images of gold and silver [of Christ, of the Theotokos, and of the holy Anastasia], she distributed the rest to the poor and to orphans. After some time, when Leo had seized the reins of the ungodly government, and the most pious Theodosius, choosing to withdraw because he would not yield to his ungodly dogmas, had departed, he [Leo] also drove out the patriarch Germanus [and with clubs... from the patriarchy]; but he also attempted to take down the holy and Lordly icon of Christ our God, which was set up above the gate which [from the image itself] is called the Holy Chalke, and to commit it to fire. And while these things were being done, and the spatharius [with an axe] was already on the ladder, wishing to remove the sacred image, immediately St. Theodosia and other pious women seized the ladders, and having thrown down the spatharius to the ground, they put him to death; and rushing into the patriarchy, they began to stone the ungodly pseudo-patriarch Anastasius. Immediately therefore, the other women were beheaded, but a certain cruel and inhuman executioner, dragging the holy one to the place called the Ox, and taking a ram's horn, and ravingly striking her neck, brought upon her the crown of martyrdom. Regarding the infinite miracles which are worked daily through her, it is easy for anyone who wishes to learn. Her feast is celebrated in the monastery of Diocratis, where her holy C relics repose.»
8. Likewise, on the 18th of July, when perhaps some memory of the translation of her body is kept, they are held in the manuscript Claromontanus Synaxarion, and in other manuscripts found in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and the Ducal Savoyard Library at Turin: but in the Ambrosian codex, instead of the time of Theodosius of Adramyttium, who ceded the empire to Leo, the time of Constantine Copronymus is noted, by a manifest error; and the monastery, which elsewhere is called Diocratis, is there called Dexiocratis. But that it should truly be so called is taught by Codinus, from whom Du Cange in his *Constantinopolis Christiana* asserts that this Dexiocrates was a patrician, and flourished under Theodosius the Younger, and that he called the church, together with the gerocomeion added to it, by his own name. In the Claromontanus, however, with the mention of miracles or relics omitted, this clause is set down: «Taking a horn, he slaughtered her. Thus, therefore, struggling beautifully, they delivered their souls into the hands of God: her festival, however, is celebrated in the holy monastery of Christ the Savior, D called the Benefici.» Du Cange writes at length about this monastery in his *Constantinopolis Christiana*, and teaches that it was not far from the Blachernae, near the shore: with which that which follows the Encomium seems to agree, when in number 34 it says that a certain hunchback was sitting near the shore, and was thence carried on shoulders to the tomb of the Saint, where he was cured. Perhaps the bodies of her companion women had been buried in the monastery of Dexiocrates; and on account of their common passion with Theodosia, her festival also is thought to be held there, and her body to repose in the same place.
9. The aforementioned miracle, and others narrated subsequently in the Encomium, at the end of the first thirteenth century or
A even before, were those which it behooved to have happened long ago, instances of which are found in the Synaxaria, and some more ancient acts of the Saint herself exist from which the praises of the manuscripts of the Synaxaria were taken: which acts are not found at present. The loss of both will be in some measure supplied by the
Oration of the most wise Great Logothete lord Constantine Acropolita to the holy martyr Theodosia:
transcribed from a Vatican codex. This Constantine, dwelling in houses near the tomb, and moved by great benefits conferred upon them both toward his own person and that of his family, composed this eulogy of her to be recited publicly, such as we find it in the Vatican manuscript. We understand that it also exists in the Imperial library at Vienna, and here for the first time we exhibit the Greek-Latin version: but first we inquire, who this Constantine was, and at what time he lived. B To investigate this, he himself suggests to us that his son-in-law was the son of the prince of the Colchians, and that he was the grandson of the deceased emperor through his daughter, the sister of the reigning one; which, those experienced in Constantinopolitan history easily understand, can be fitted to the times of Michael Palaeologus and his son Andronicus the elder, in such a way that they cannot be accommodated to any others. Michael began to reign in the year 1260; and he took his son Andronicus, joined in marriage to Anna, daughter of the king of Pannonia, as a partner in his empire in the year 1272, and he himself died toward the end of the year 1281. George Pachymeres, not long ago rendered into Latin by our own Peter Possinus and edited in Greek and Latin at Rome with most magnificent and truly royal Barberini types, has pursued the deeds of him and his son in accurate commentaries. From this we learn that Michael had three daughters, also named by Christodulus in the epistle preceding the history of John Cantacuzenus, namely Irene, Eudocia, and Anna. Irene married Asan the Younger, king of Bulgaria; Eudocia was given to the prince of the Lazi, and upon her husband’s death, she withdrew into a monastery; Anna, having been betrothed to the son of the Kral or king of Serbia, though never united to him, married her kinsman Michael in the year 1278 and brought him the title of Despot: and to him a principality of the Colchians could have been given, so that a son born of that marriage could, circa the year 1295, take to wife the daughter of Constantine the logothete, who is the subject of our present enquiry.10. Leo Allatius, in his *Diatriba* published after the history of George Acropolita, finding him mentioned in Pachymeres lib. V, cap. 17 as one of the legates sent by Michael to Gregory X in the year 1273, «of the senatorial order, the first great logothete Acropolita,» doubts whether this passage should be understood as referring to the aforementioned George (who, it is certain, also filled the office of great logothete), or to Constantine, to whom very many orations C on the festivals of the saints are attributed: but he seems to solve his own doubt when he alleges a passage from the aforementioned Pachymeres where it is said that Andronicus Palaeologus, after the death of his father, «used before others Theodore Muzalon, whom his father had substituted in place of the deceased great logothete Acropolita:» certainly George: for our Constantine lived with Andronicus, as has been said above.
11. Indeed, that Constantine was the son of that George is clearly gathered from lib. VI, cap. 26, where it is narrated how Michael «had taken Constantine Acropolita from his father, the great logothete, and had educated him with himself, and had seen to his being instructed in the best arts,» but on account of his stubbornness in the schism, «divested him of the place of favor he had previously held and removed him from his intimacy:» which happened in the antepenultimate year of the empire. But Constantine soon recovered with the son Andronicus what he had lost under Michael: as did Theodore, who was removed from his rank of logothete for the same cause; he, having received him back under Andronicus, persevered with him, being endowed in addition with the title of protovestiarius, until the year 1294, in which he died; and he had the aforementioned son of George, Constantine, as his successor in the very office of logothete, shortly honored by imperial kinship, as we said above. How long he lived after this I do not find: one thing I seem to be able to say with probability, that the Encomium of S. Theodosia was written by him before the year 1306, otherwise he would not have omitted that most celebrated miracle which Pachymeres narrates in book V of *Andronicus*, ch. 32, which also occurred in that same year. Moreover, it is the «proper office of the great logothete, as Codinus says in his book D *De Officiis*, to dispatch royal mandates and gold-sealed letters to kings, sultans, and satraps:» and he is numbered by the same Codinus in the twelfth order of Palatine officials. And nothing else occurs to be noted regarding these matters, except that the appellation Acropolita was not one of country, but a family surname: since it seems certain enough that both George and his son Constantine were Constantinopolitans: for other examples of gentile surnames of this kind used in those centuries, which could by no means be believed to be the homeland, as they might otherwise appear, see Leo Allatius, in the aforementioned *Diatriba* on the Georges, where he treats of Acropolita.
12. Thus far regarding the author and the time of the writing. One word remains to be premised here concerning the place of the martyrdom endured by S. Theodosia. Constantine, at number 29, says that the saint was dragged in the macellum, the Synaxaria say *at the Ox* (ad Bovem). Whether this place had a macellum adjoining it in ancient times, or at least in the age of Constantine, and for that reason had to do with the slaughter of animals,
or whether Constantine, by way of conjectural license, wrote it thus—I do not assert. Concerning the "Bous," I know from John Tzetzes that it was named among the public squares as *ton topon*, the Forum of the Ox, or the place which is called the Ox: from Codinus, however, in his *De originibus*, [I know] it was not far removed from the palace; for among the four porticoes with which Eubulus adorned the city, he counts two, "that led from the Chalce through the Milion and the Forum as far as the Taurus and the Bous and the Hexakyonion." Afterwards, however, speaking of the statues, he says: "In the place called the Bous, there was a very large furnace, having the head of an ox, in which criminals were punished: wherefore Julian also burned many Christians in it. Truly that furnace, fashioned in the shape of an ox, was a most immense spectacle... and it remained until Phocas, but Heraclius melted it down, for the sake of minting *phollis* (a kind of bronze coin)." This passage of Codinus troubled its translator, A John Leunclavius, because *ephoneuthe* [slaughtered] is written in the manuscript, instead of *echoneuthe* [melted down]: if that is not a metaphor applied to the bronze ox, it is a scribal error; but he, not noticing this, translated it thus: "but that furnace remained intact until the time of the tyrant Phocas, who was the last of all to be burned in it by Heraclius." Regarding the death of Phocas, no one has hitherto dreamed of this, nor can it be squeezed out of these words even by a shadow: whereby you see how little we can trust translators who are too hurried in their work. It is, however, true that in the *Constantinopolitan Chronicle*—erroneously called the Alexandrian—page 576, it is read that the bodies of a certain Phocas and of the treasurer Leo, having been mutilated and dragged for a long time, were finally brought to the Bous and burned. You may see more concerning the Bous in Du Cange, in *Constantinopolis Christiana*, lib. 1, cap. 24, where you will find many things most worthy to be read and known concerning the public squares.
SERMON OF THE MOST WISE GREAT LOGOTHETE, LORD CONSTANTINE ACROPOLITA, ON THE HOLY MARTYR THEODOSIA
(From Vatican Codex 800, fol. 91; translated by the Rev. Fr. Daniele Cardoni, S.J.)
PROLOGUE.
1. "A brave woman who can find?" the most wise Solomon C questioned. And indeed, with good reason he questioned it. For before the fullness of divine grace was granted to us from heaven, and at a time when human nature was so weak—both because of the notable deceits of the Satan who is never not hostile to us, and because of the transgression of the divine commandments—it was so much more fragile, and faded from lack of [divine] instruction. But since God has become...
1595 Blachos conquers, 852. INDEX II TO NICETAS CHONIATES The principle of erudition considered in creating an emperor, 15. Esau, son of Isaac, 59. Euboea occupied by the Venetians, 224. Euboean ships, 208. Controversies concerning the Eucharist and the various opinions of theologians, 682. Euergetae monastery, 722. Eumathius Philocales, prefect of the city, sent as an envoy to Amerigus, King of the Alemanni, 630; he enters into a most disgraceful peace with him, 631. Euphrates River, 36. Euphrosyne, mother of Isaac Angelus, 365. Euphrosyne, wife of Alexius III, wins over the Constantinopolitans to herself, 600; proud and unchaste, she affects the same authority as the emperor, 606; she reconciles him with Constantine Mesopotamites, 639; brought under suspicion of adultery by the emperor, 641; she implores the patronage of the courtiers, 644; she is shut away in a monastery, 646; she recovers her former authority, 647; she deliberates regarding the successor to the empire, 659; she restrains Contostephanus, 687; given to divination, ibid.; she is arrested by the Constantinopolitans, 727; she flees with Murzuphlus, 755; she is sent to the King of Germany, 819. Euripus, 224. Eurus (East Wind), 825. Eurystheus, 688. Eustathius of Dyrrhachium, 275. Eustathius, the most learned Bishop of Thessalonica, 399. Eustratius the Macedonian routs Constantine the Armenian in single combat, 31. Euthydemius, Bishop of Neopatras, 430. Eutychius the theologian's opinion on the Eucharist, 683. The nobles swear upon the Gospels, 62. Ezyismenus the Vlach holds Thessalonica, 818. F Fate cannot be avoided, 342. Wednesday and Friday as days of fasting, 189. Iron as a token, 163. The Flamini now the Franks, 731. Baldwin, Count of Flanders, 714. Forum of Constantine, 196. The Franks join forces with Dandolo against the Byzantines, 714; formerly the Flaminii, 730; they burn Constantinople, ibid.; they take the empire of Constantinople by lot, see Alemanni. Francis, King, sets out for Palestine with Frederick of Germany, 546. Francochorium, a region situated between the Sau and Ister rivers, is occupied by Emperor John, 25; devastated by Emperor Manuel, 122. Constantine Francopulus loots merchant ships, 699. The Jerusalem Friars redeem Isaac Comnenus, 376. Frederick, son of Conrad, King of the Alemanni, avenges the murder of a certain kinsman, 84; created King of the Alemanni, he attempts to subjugate the Italians to himself, 260; undertakes an expedition to Palestine, 525; negotiates with Emperor Isaac regarding the passage through the kingdom and provisions, ibid.; suspicious of the emperor, 526; procures provisions for himself by raids, ibid.; enters Philippopolis, 527; routs the Romans, 534; mocks the insolence of the Greeks, 537; crosses into Asia without opposition from Isaac, 538; defeats the Turks, 540; perishes in a certain river in Armenia, 545; his noble panegyric, ibid.; his son, having taken possession of several towns in Syria, dies, 546. Dark sails of ships as signs of grief, 216. Constantine Gabras, tyrant of Trebizond, 45. Constantine Gabras, envoy of Manuel to the Sultan, 159. 1596 Michael Gabras, husband of Eudocia Comnena, 173; false praises of him, ibid. G Gabras the Turk, sent to the Romans by Clizasthlan for the purpose of making peace, 145. Gates of Gadium, 412. Galiza, a toparchy of the Russians, 168. Gangra, a city of Pontus, captured by Emperor John, 28; recovered by the Persians, 29. Genoa reconciled to Manuel, 260. Genoese pirates take possession of Crete, 843. George, sebastos, 348. Saint George the Martyr, 663. George Enaeotes, 667. Gerhard, Prince of Antioch, 142. German praetorians arrest Alexius Comnenus, the protosebastos, 323. Custody of Corcyra entrusted to German auxiliaries, 118. Greeks frequently go off to the Barbarians to form colonies, 657. Greece, 78; occupied by the Latins, 794, 805; divided into several tyrannies, 840. Greek Fire, see Fire, Greek. Graosgala, 255. Alexius Guido defeated by the Vlachs, 587. Alexius Guidus, Domestic of the West, ordered to follow Frederick of the Alemanni with the army, 526. Andronicus Guidus defeats 300 Italians, 845. William, King of the Sicilians, 221; leads an army against Emperor Andronicus, 385; captures Dyrrhachium, ibid.; Thessalonica, 386; reproaches Emperor Isaac for his inhumanity, 475. Gymni, inhabitants of Corcyra, surrender the island to Roger the Sicilian, 97. Cyrolymna, 720. H Haemus Mountain, 182. Stephen Hagiochristophorites, see Stephen. John Hagiotheodorites, one of Emperor Manuel’s commanders, 74; expelled from the highest rank of dignity by Theodorus Styppiotes, 77. Halcyon days, 363. Hanno the Carthaginian’s false boast of victory and his birds, 561. Harmala, 552. Harpies, 566. Helen of Sparta, 215; her statue, 863. Hyades, 50. Hellespont, 316. Heraclea Pontica subjected to David Comnenus, 842. Herculanean goblet, 149. Hercules, 417; his statue, a work of Lysimachus, 687, 859. Hippicum, 404. Hippocrates of Cos, 650, 767. Praises of history, 4; style, 5. Vain grandiloquence of historians, 95. Hodegetria, image of the Mother of God, 497. Hodegium monastery, 497, 698. Hungarians destroy Branizoba, 24; defeated in a grave battle by Emperor John, ibid.; bound by treaty with the Serbs, they are overcome by Emperor Manuel, 121; they harass the Romans, 133; having won a victory, they enter into peace, 134; reclaim their liberty from Emperor Manuel, 165; refuse his affinity, 166; put Gabras and Branas of the Romans to flight, 173; lose Zeugmium, 174; are defeated by Andronicus Contostephanus, 199; accept Alexius, son-in-law of Manuel, as their king, 221. Hungarian statue torn down by the Romans, 196. Hungarian triumph, 204. Hydralis River, 428.
ON SAINT THEODOSIA
A It is Theodosia, that city of the great Constantine, so highly extolled as the royal seat of the Ausonian emperors, which once embraced in its empire the entire world, and whose reputation and noble name reached to the four farthest points of the earth; no thing, indeed, has so adorned it, nor shall ever adorn it for all time—abundant as it is in countless goods—as he who founded it and upheld it with his presence and protection, the great Constantine, to be remembered for his beautiful labors in the cause of God, the first by far of all Christian kings, the firm support of religion and piety, a truly sturdy bulwark of our faith, and one who might well be called an apostle following those chief apostles. Thus, from such a native soil did this blessed virgin spring; by such a patron and protector was her city and fatherland distinguished. I shall say truly, and I shall say what is the case: she had the same man as her progenitor, whom I have just described, as her very instructor in the conduct of life, and as her guide to the true glory which is in God and from God.
B 3. Perhaps someone desires to know what kind of parents and how great, in their happy lot, Theodosia obtained? Assuredly, they were those who pursued the supreme majesty of God with a special devotion and love, and, moreover, always fulfilled all the commands of that same God with the utmost care. Why say more? What riches, what glory surrounded them, I pass over in silence. I declare briefly: Theodosia had both parents who were most worthy of so holy and illustrious an offspring. Yet when she was still a tender young girl, not having yet passed the seventh year of her age, and when—in order that she might run the course of this mortal life without reproach, and by becoming superior to the snares of the evil spirit, she might grasp that way of living which seemed most pleasing to God—she would seem still to need the counsel and providence of her father, she was bereaved of him. But she was not left destitute of the aids necessary for the right conduct of life. For the Same who knows all our affairs long before we enter this light; who disposes in his wisdom, even while we are still enclosed in our mother’s womb, what is to happen to us subsequently; and who chooses certain ones, whether male or female, to be nurtured with a special care—He, I say, did not allow the paternal providence toward the still tender virgin to be wanting. For as soon as the parent of Theodosia exchanged this life for death—or rather, for a life that is better—at the same time her mother also, bidding farewell to fleeting things and to the world itself, enclosed herself and her daughter within the walls of a secret and religious house, where she took care that she should be imbued with the finest precepts for leading a splendid life.
D 4. After three whole years had been passed in that place and training, Theodosia’s mother, omitting nothing that she recognized as worthy of praise or pleasing to God, reached the end of her life, and having left her earthly dwelling, transferred herself to a heavenly habitation. Truly, she left to her daughter as much of the riches seen here as remained to her after her pious distributions to the needy—judging those to be the better and truer riches, which are never absent to those living here, and which do not desert their possessors when they emigrate from here; which are able and wont to open the eyes of those who possess them, not to blind them according to what they have by name, but to see most acutely; which, finally,
A they lead by a straight path to God; and, since they demonstrate the very path into the heavens without error, they also ensure that it is reached without any impediment. What, then, of the blessed Theodosia? How, do you think, did she use the riches left to her upon the death of her parents? Did she use them imperfectly? Or without fruit? By no means. For she distributed everything, which is subject to corruption and loss, to the poor, reserving for herself only so much as she deemed necessary for the purchase of holy images; of these she acquired three in particular: the first, of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; another, of the most pure Mother of God; and one, moreover, of the holy martyr Anastasia, who endured so many labors for God’s sake, whom, because of the singular grace she received from God, the Christian people are wont to call the "Dissolver of Sorcery." B
5. And these are the things which, regarding those riches I have spoken of, Theodosia intended to do and carried out in deed. But as to the rest of the riches—the true riches, which are not called good by a false name—does anyone inquire how she applied her mind? Wisely, indeed, and just as was fitting. For she did not judge that she should delay any longer in stripping herself of all those worldly goods, according to the dictates of the most high and perfect wisdom, so that she might then attain more and better things. Yet, casting aside all unnecessary care and anxiety, as if she had already reached a perfect age and had been called to the highest summit of all prudence, she did not retreat from this constant endeavor toward virtue; rather, taking her start from the most beautiful beginnings of it, she finally reached the supreme peak of perfection. Finding no impediment in the course of the virtues, and allowing no stain to be brought upon what she had done earlier in the final periods of her life—for, though many already thought she had arrived at the highest point in her course, she persuaded herself of nothing great—she instead acted according to what she knew well had been inculcated by the Lord: she considered herself an "unprofitable servant." C And just as if she had done nothing at all that contributed to her progress, she reckoned herself wretched and lacking in good works; nor, again, did she stop—but, according to the divine and salutary admonition of Paul, forgetting what lay behind, she stretched herself toward what lay ahead; and, by emaciating her body through abstinence, and never failing to exercise herself in vigils, and offering assiduous prayers to God, she went on continually from better to best.
6. Now, regarding how she behaved toward God, she was already diligent and assiduous. But how did she conduct herself toward the virgins who were occupied with the same holy exercises in the same monastery? How did she associate with them? How did she make all the rest participants in her own abundance of spiritual gifts? Furthermore, she considered herself inferior to the majority of them; and, not only that, but as though she were neglectful of good things and useless for all things, and failed in not one of the divine commandments, she would approach everyone with a certain ingenuous modesty, because in her zeal for holy conversation with God, she held herself to be... D
A a novice, as if uninitiated and inexperienced in the methods of approaching God, and would ask for instruction from each one, so that if it happened she were straying, she might be led back to the straight path of virtue. Thus, she possessed a humbled spirit and a contrite heart, which God is not wont to despise, as the holy David testifies.
7. Assuredly, having so vehemently put aside every pride of soul, she left nothing that could provoke the holy virgin to anger; she had retained only that much zeal and pugnacity as she could pour out against the demon not without glory B. Therefore, she would drive him far from her, pursue him far as he fled, and permit him no opportunity to approach or, as they say, to engage with her on equal terms. For she neither wished to test her strength against the thrusts of the most cunning enemy from afar, nor would she deign to descend into the arena and grapple with him at close quarters; but, with a far better plan, ordering him to depart from her, she fully performed the role of an excellent soldier and antagonist, while she warily attacked her enemy from a distance while seemingly retreating. Intent on none of the things we admire here, nor ensnared by any of the pleasures of this world, she was accustomed to fix all her vows and desires on the one God; she was captured by the love of Him alone, applying her whole soul day and night to God and divine things. Thus, from her earliest years, as they say, this most blessed virgin fulfilled all the laws of living prescribed by God to men, taking such careful note that not even one point or one apex of the divine law should slip away unobserved, just as the Lord Himself established that it should be done. But now I set out to say something greater, indeed, the greatest.
CHAPTER II. Leo the Isaurian, about to abolish the images, destroys the public Gymnasium along with the teachers who opposed him.
8. The blessed Theodosia was thus living in the pursuit of virtue, enclosing herself in the monastery, C and attending upon God alone at all times. But as long as our affairs were prospering, and we all held correct opinions about God and divine subjects, we were a distinguished and chosen people, who, like the new Israel, properly fell to Him as the portion of His inheritance. But after the spirit of pride, cast down from heaven, began to bring his envy of men into the open, he attempted to attack our souls with many and varied machines D frequently. When, however, he availed little against these, and having abandoned all hope and all his machines as useless in this regard, he began to turn everything upside down, as we say, by another method, and set out to attack the Church of God itself. And when again he had been unable to achieve anything of those things which he had devised one by one, but had even earned being received with mocking laughter, he applied himself entirely to his own arts, and began to devise a plan that was clearly novel. For he does not
A only bring one of the divine dogmas into suspicion of falsehood, but rising up against them all at once, he sought to pour out all his rabid fury upon it. What evil, then, did he devise? What machinations did the worst of geniuses employ? He decided that the venerable images of God and the saints, those sacred effigies worthy of all honor—inasmuch as he judged they contributed not a little to the upright conduct of many—ought to be removed from their midst. And the path he took toward this was straight in appearance: but it was a straight path such as the wise Solomon warned against turning to, inasmuch as it seems to be such but is not, but rather leads to inferior things. He suggests that they should be considered idols, and that all devotion concerning them is a vanishing vestige of ancient error and old superstition, left behind among Christians. Alas for the audacity of the worst of demons, and his impious folly! Alas for his insane efforts! Now he begins this way, now that way, to ruin men: he attacks the miserable from the right and from the left, ambidextrous in bringing about harm.
9. But who were those whom he judged fit, and to whom did he entrust administrative tasks for these things, when he was about to lay claim to the kingdom by God’s permission? There was that Leo called the Isaurian, B truly a most savage beast and likewise untamable, who, having immediately begun to roar against the flock of the Lord, leapt upon it in the middle like some flesh-eating wild animal; and likewise he who was called Anastasius by antiphrasis, who, after the blessed Germanus, was introduced into the Church of God to its great detriment, and became the cause of death and destruction to many. But by what means could I ever describe in words, as the gravity of the matter demands, all the wretched and bitter things that happened at that time? The exiles of bishops, the imprisonments of priests, the calamities and indignities of leading men, the violent expulsions of holy men and sacred virgins from their monasteries, and the publicly decreed proscriptions against them, the unbearable vexations, chains, tortures, deaths violently inflicted, and torments worse than death? But that I may the more clearly bring into the light the truly illustrious and intrepid greatness of soul of this holy virgin, I shall recount one such example of royal cruelty, leaving the rest to be examined more deeply by those who desire C to do so.
10. In the times of previous kings, who also lived up to their name, insofar as they held and supported their subjects throughout their lives, and who adorned their reign with a love of beauty, thus rendering it all the more glorious, they took pains to foster it; schools for those men who achieved great things were built in this great city, separate in some way, yet occurring as joined together; separate in their buildings, but in their orderly succession and common portico, they were brought together into one, as it were, such that, although they were distinguished by the variety and number of their exterior forms, they could nonetheless be called one house and no more. Furthermore, in these buildings, which were counted as twelve in total, teachers were always situated, and among them was one who surpassed all others in the knowledge of all disciplines. This man, D as one who surpassed in all knowledge and was more distinguished in the sciences, was called the Ecumenical Teacher, for he received this honor from the Emperor, and was entrusted with the oversight of both the mystagogues and the initiates. Thus it was managed from above, and the Word had from there the means to increase, and that which is for man by nature was implanted by the Autologos, by Wisdom herself, from the very beginning.
A And it would be moved toward suitability and action; and even if it did not advance in all, by the philosophy that knows how to transfer things to the better and higher, both a kingdom was educated and a state was ordered, and that which for the most part is inconstant was, as far as possible, harmonized and settled.
B Now, such matters having long been established thus, at that time men eminent and famous held the offices of honor for the adornment of their own lives; and above all, the one who took precedence over others, and who from the king himself had received the honor, was able to exert his authority both over those about to be initiated into the mysteries and those who were already initiated. The affairs, moreover, had been so arranged from the beginning that the faculty of reasoning was increased for you; and that which is commonly implanted in man by nature from the moment he is born into the world, so that he may run through and understand by his own intellect, was stimulated to motion in a manner that was fitting and as the need required; and to many, if not all, was granted the convenience of philosophizing correctly, so that the empire was educated thereby and the civil state was ordered, and the very populace, however thoughtless and wandering, was, so far as possible, ordered and composed.
C In those same times, there were men indeed eminent and illustrious who received as the greatest ornament to themselves those seats which are obtained through study for the sake of honor; but especially the one who was and was held to be more excellent than all the rest, and who shone with consular dignity. For they treated not only of external and secular philosophy, but of the inner philosophy of our religion as well; they exercised themselves at leisure in the divine dogmas, and with great diligence searched out ecclesiastical traditions. To these they applied themselves, being wholly occupied in their study, and they ensured through their own cares and vigilance that none of them should be neglected; from which it followed that they led their lives according to all the laws of honesty and religion. Such being the case, the emperor held nothing more important than to draw them over to his own opinion, persuading himself, of course, that if he had those men consenting to his impiety, he would easily overcome the minds of others as well. But he did not succeed in leading any of them—not the first, not the last, nor the middle one—away from sound doctrine and a straight path of living; and although he sought every way and means, he achieved absolutely nothing. At first, indeed, with all mildness and modesty, he made known his mind to them, because he desired very much to have them as associates and advocates of his opinion. But when he saw their sharp perception of his madness, and that they could by no means, whatever fortune or danger was proposed, be induced to say that the cult and veneration of the holy icons should be rejected, he turned to threats and insults.
D 12. When he profited nothing even by this method among these steadfast men, and noticed that nothing else remained to compel them, he surrendered himself entirely to his own ferocity; and having granted them a period for deliberation, he sent men to cast flames into their dwellings. Observing a most opportune time, when these most wise men, who were accustomed to fight bravely against sleep, the tamer of all, for a great part of the night, were finally forced to succumb to it and had retired for a while to rest, some went around other parts of the house scattering fire, and began to wrap in flames from every side that true home of wisdom itself, precluding every exit for those remaining within. Therefore, in a short space of time, all were consumed and destroyed by the flames that devoured everything, together with their books and the very buildings themselves. O calamity, o affliction!
A One of the deeds of the Emperor against us, one of the terrors of those times, and a prelude, so to speak, of the wickedness that was to follow. If anyone wishes to learn the rest, let him consult the history written about them; it has been lost with this. But as I said, I have reached this point, wishing to speak of one deed of our Emperor, and as it were a prelude of the calamity that was to follow; if anyone desires to know the rest, let him consult the history which was written about them.
CAUSE III. A Spatharios, about to cast down the image of Christ, is precipitated by Theodosia, who declares the reason for her faith to the tyrant.
13. When, therefore, such heavy and B intolerable punishments were being inflicted upon those who venerated the sacred images, and they were being abolished and—if I may say so—rooted out entirely, a certain one of the *spatharioi* (sword-bearers) began to exercise his fury even against the divine effigy of our Savior Christ, which was standing at the gate known as the Chalke, and to cast it down to the ground. When this was announced to the blessed Theodosia, the zeal of Phinehas and Elijah immediately took hold of her. She then gathered to herself many religious women who had removed from themselves the world and all the ornaments of the world, and with their whole soul were clinging to God alone, and with a certain holy frenzy, the virgin rushed toward the man. He was from that order of those who guard the king, equipped with a sword, not an axe, which is an order subordinate to the order of the bodyguards, as its name indicates; it guards the king, follows from behind, never departs from the Emperor, guards the royal chamber by night, and surrounds the king when he goes out in public. Against a man of this sort, the virgin proceeded with a spirit that was truly noble and fearless.
14. What was she not considering to excite the minds of those who were with her to conceive zeal for God? What was she not saying to God, to appease His just anger against men, in order to make intercession for her peers? With what a spirit did she imbue the sisters accompanying her, and how strongly did she encourage them to undertake the noble struggle for the truth? For she was indeed thinking and reflecting within herself in this C way: "It was necessary for me indeed to preserve the way of life that I chose of my own accord, whole and intact. For I proposed to do this before God and men, and to this I bound myself by an oath, that I might dwell with God alone and with myself, and I strove with every effort to flee the company of other men. But since the bitterest hater of the human race, who D turns his attention in every way, especially against those who were renowned for holiness and doctrine, has stirred up such a wave against the Church of God, throwing it into confusion and raising up a terrible storm against it—come, therefore, we must go forward, we must disregard our own tranquility, sparing neither soul nor body, for the sake of Him who brought us forth..."
as the one who provides for our affairs and who stores up for us, in the end, rewards for our actions. A For the Savior God, having taken and refashioned certain of the Psalms, she confessed and held discourse, saying: "Judge, O Lord, those who wrong me, fight against those who fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler, and arise to the help of your inheritance. For behold, those who transgress against you have lifted up their head, and they have profaned your altars with impious dances, and your holy things do impure and wicked men defile. B But look upon us in your salvation, that we may see the goodness of your elect, and rejoice in the gladness of your nation." For your gladness consists in this: that your sacred images, and those of your saints, which are worthy of all worship and veneration, be venerated, and that the temples be adorned with them once again, according to that beauty which they had of old. Now, therefore, to me and to all my companions, who hold the same mind as I do, and who do not shrink in the least from entering into the contest with me for the honor of your divine images, for that of your most pure Mother, for those who in various times have poured out their life and blood for your sake, and for others who in any way have been pleasing to you; to us, through all your help, stretch out your right hand from your holy dwelling; confirm our weakness, O you who alone are able; grant [us] strength and fortitude.
C [16.] Exhorting those with her and about her, she addressed them with these words: "Now is the acceptable time, now truly are the days of salvation. Let us put on the armor of light, and let us advance against the enemies of truth. Death is set before us; let us not, therefore, prefer the love of life. Tortures and torments precede death, but let us not be afraid, nor let us fear those who can indeed bring death to the body, but who cannot in any way harm our soul; just as it is commanded to us. For were not those sublime souls, who now dwell among those on high, and who battled for God and the divine laws from the very coming of God to the earth, partakers of our own nature? We know the struggles and the contest of the first martyr, Thecla; we are not ignorant of the combats of the most blessed Barbara, of the noble Irene, of that magnanimous Marina, who stood against tyrants and devils alike, and set up a glorious trophy over both."
D [17.] Small, perhaps, does this machination of impious men seem to some, but you, being better instructed, know very well that it is no small evil that the impious are now everywhere launching against the ancient sanctions of the Church. For to efface divine images, to take them from the sight [of men], and to render the holy temples shapeless and useless—
what is this but to overturn piety and religion from their foundations, and to render the whole mystery of the divine Incarnation vain and null? But let us make light of what they are attempting. Yet, how much [importance] must be attached to the fact that even some mediocre part of the divine law and commandments is being infringed? Our Saviour and Lord has taught us in the sacrosanct Gospels, circumscribing the path of perfection with the strictness of a single iota and one tittle. A Now, how glorious it will be if we endure not to infringe even the smallest part of the divine laws! The illustrious Maccabees of old, and their most blessed mother, stand before us: what a pattern for the observance of the law did they leave behind for those destined to struggle in a similar way! Compelled by a tyrant merely to taste swine’s flesh, not only did they not obey him, but they also endured countless tortures for that reason; surrendered to fire and iron, and enduring torments however heavy, they remained unshaken. Now therefore, we too, keeping this illustrious example in mind and soul, let us confidently gird ourselves to undertake the beautiful struggle for religion, and let us hasten to restrain this spatharios who prepares to lay his impure hands upon the divine image of our Saviour.
18. B Such [were her words], and immediately [she] approached the Chalce: and (oh, remarkable boldness of spirit!) as soon as she was at the place, she suffered herself to be hindered by no mortal, but rather, looking upon all present with a confident countenance, she herself was the first to seize the ladder, and she bravely commanded her companions to do the same. Therefore, the wretch who was already standing almost at the top of the ladder, before he could snatch the sacred image, was shaken off by them and fell into the abyss of hell; for he was cast down: and he who just a little before had been boasting insolently, and had dared to open his mouth against heaven and to attack with blasphemous tongue the One who is higher than all the heavens, lay as a pitiable corpse before the eyes of all, deprived even of the honor of burial. For the sudden punishment of the wicked man left all who were present at the spectacle stunned, and made them scatter, one here and another there; thus it was permitted to [the] B. Theodosia and all the virgins who were with her to return safely home.
19. C But the beast-named king perceived what had happened, and immediately he roared with great and savage fury against them. For having gathered, if I may so say, his brow, he said: "By my head" (this, of course, is the custom of swearing long used by kings), "I shall not deem any of you to be devoted to me, if even one of these wicked women escapes my hands, or if they are not all immediately dragged from the secret recesses of their dwellings into the public light, and pay the penalties for such audacity." Scarcely had the emperor said this, when many of his ministers, having scattered to different parts of the city, set out to search the houses of the religious virgins and the monasteries of the whole city; they were indeed searching for all the others who had dared to lay hands on the spatharios, but desiring above all to seize the blessed Theodosia. D For the king did not seem to be meditating any mediocre or common [punishment] against her, since he had learned that she had been the first of all to embark on the crime, and had been the cause of the whole affair.
A 20. The tyrant, meanwhile, gazing fiercely at all the others, said: "Why, you wretched women, have you proceeded to such a pitch of audacity, that you have not only dared to despise my commands and hinder my guardsman from the execution of those same commands, but have even dared to destroy him with a baleful death?" Then, turning to the blessed Theodosia, he said: "You, however, could not remain hidden from me, you profligate woman and worst of all women; your unbridled boastfulness and marked audacity were not unknown to me. I know indeed whatever was done against my guard, with you as the instigator and leader, and you cannot be ignorant that you, by your own hand, forced [those others] to oppose me. Therefore, rising against you with a fury that is by no means unjust, I will exact penalties commensurate with the magnitude of your crime; and I will with no less justice exact both punishment and vengeance, so that no one may henceforth dare to oppose the royal decrees or lift up their hand against the prince. You can, however (if you wish to change your mind, and be persuaded, or B rather, as befits a subject, to obey the one who commands), be saved here and live most splendidly, and enjoy blessed rest in the other world."
21. But how shall I be able worthily to set forth in speech the most wise reply of the martyr to the tyrant? With what abundance of words and sentiments, or rather with what inspiration from heaven was I guided? By which, indeed, she both answered prudently and silenced him, him who was arrogant in his brow and swollen in his mouth; him who, like the demon dwelling within him, gnashed his teeth in opposition and presumed that he could devour her, and destroy both earth and sea; how shall I believe such things are comprehensible to me, or be able to express them suitably? "I," replied Theodosia, "have been inflamed from my earliest age with the desire for a quieter life, removed C from all the noise of men, O emperor, and I have been no less eager for the attainment of my salvation; nor has anything of those things which the world has in its goods and joys been able, with God being propitious, to recall me from the purpose I have undertaken. Now also, you should know this, that among all things there is none found which can in any way lead me away from the love of God. Therefore, if it seems so to you, come, without any delay, after: I offer my body for punishments: command it to be torn by stripes, the structure of all my limbs to be dissolved, my bones to be broken; order the severing of my head, and, to speak briefly, order me to be deprived of the use of this life, so that I may be the sooner transferred through you to an immortal and better life."
22. The tyrant, brought to total loss for words by this reply, D and turning his speech to the other virgins, says: "You, certainly, do not persist in clinging to this insane woman, and proceed to such a pitch of madness that you are deprived of the goods that are here, and are also to be deprived of those which are found in the other life—with equal, certainly, if not greater, pleasures—and further, are to be condemned to eternal death." But they, as good and truly worthy students of a good teacher, [replied]: "May it never..."
be that we should fail to hold the same mind as our divinely inspired guide and teacher, or that we should be cowed by your blandishments, or frightened by your threats. We are her followers; we desire to be ordered by her prayers. Therefore, whatever you have heard from her, know that these same things are spoken by us as well." Filled with rage at these words, the tyrant shouted: "Remove these mad women from my sight at once, or rather, as they deserve, destroy them with a cruel death, B so that if there are any others who share this woman’s madness, they may shudder at committing similar acts."
CAPUT IV.
The cruel martyrdom of St. Theodosia after the slaughter of her companions, and her glory in heaven.
23. When the tyrant had said these things, his ministers, like fire seizing wood, at once take the holy woman from his sight; and they carry off those with her likewise, dragging them by the hair, striking them upon the cheeks, and hauling them insolently through the streets. And they indeed, without delay, cruelly slaughter them. Thus those impious men offered up these truly C venerable victims, sacrificed for the sake of religion, to the Supreme Deity, destined at the end of the world for the final condemnation—to their own marked disgrace. But as to blessed Theodosia, about whom the king had much to say, finding that she was to be reserved for a second examination, they began to speak with her again, and wanted to inquire why she so stubbornly contradicted what was commanded.
24. And she, very wisely and very bravely, said to them: "But I, good sirs, ask you: for what reason do you condemn me to death? D Is it because I choose to venerate the image of Him who, being God, was born a man for my sake, like unto me? Or [the image] of her who brought Him forth, God and man, without any stain upon her virginity? Or of those who announced the Savior's advent to the whole world? Or, finally, of those who poured out their blood for the doctrine of Christ, and [(916)] who sought by other means to reconcile divine friendship to themselves? How could they not rightly call me foolish and insane, if I were to allow myself to be persuaded to share in your own delusions? Or if I allowed myself to be swayed by those who attempt to drag me into such absurdities? Yet, how in the world could I bear that your holy and venerable images should be an object of hatred and mockery to you, and be held for idols? We certainly know that idols are likenesses of things that have no subsistence, and are figments represented by skillful industry—whose prototypes, since they are not true, and have no estimation or value in themselves, it follows that the images themselves are worthy of no greater veneration."
25. When, therefore, they knew that they could not persuade her with words, having heard her answer with such firmness of mind and so wisely confute their errors, they began to strike her inhumanly; and that which they could not persuade her [to do] by speech, they attempted to extort by the atrocity of lashes. But they not only failed to achieve what they intended,
for they were utterly bereft of the hope which, deceiving them for a little while, proved them to be, as that man says, the most foolish of men. A For while they were busy directing their blows, she, regarding them as of no account, as she saw they were ready to turn back from blows to speech, said: "What you wish to do, do without delay. You know that I shall never depart from the conviction I now hold. Nor will anyone of those who can slay this body, yet can offer no molestation whatsoever to my soul, ever terrify me, just as He who is able to destroy both soul and body, being the maker and master of both, ordained." B
26. How do you think they felt after hearing this? How did those who prided themselves on the power of the emperor tolerate such contempt for themselves? They were pierced in their hearts as if by a spear; and so they were confounded with rage, and became frantic, and this was what they showed by their actions. For they did not at all take into account that she was a woman, nor that she had lived her life piously and blamelessly, but, as if she were some bandit, some criminal, or one of the most abandoned women, they threw her to the ground and lashed her mercilessly. They struck, and struck with all their might, but she, lifting her mind to heaven, and having become entirely of the Higher One, held firmly to her courage—oh, the confidence in God! Oh, supreme nobility of spirit!—and as she lay there, she sang softly: "The Lord is my firmament, and my refuge, and my deliverer; my God is my helper, the horn of my salvation, and my protector, whom invoking I shall be saved." And "In my God I shall scale the wall," that partition of perversity C which walls one off from God and from that ineffable and unending beatitude in heaven.
27. It was possible, then, to see streams of blood flowing from different parts of the virginal body, the ground reddening, fragments of flesh scattered here and there, a body altogether flayed, a body broken, and, before death, as it were already dying, while the soul meanwhile, free from perturbation, seemed in a certain way to be dwelling in heaven. For, having raised her head a little, she said, "Strike, as much as you have the strength; strike! For you know well that you will not turn me at all from my purpose, nor will you be able to force me to bow to your desires." D Was her reflection not most philosophically thought out, like that of Anaxarchus? Is it not better than that man, who was heralded for his nobility, and who was most famous for his wisdom, to have held her own body in contempt? For if, being a woman, she felt nothing soft, said nothing effeminate, and feared no one, she surely philosophized more sublimely than he, and acted more nobly. For he, indeed, was beaten for but a short time, and wanted to appear so to those present as if in a theatre, and endured while pursuing the glory that comes from men; for those who were watching saw him being struck, and were amazed that he was not bent by the blows, [index: entries preserved] "Strike, strike the bellows of Anaxarchus, for you are not striking Anaxarchus."
A And those who were striking her, and those who were watching her being struck, were not only not moved to pity, but also hated her from the heart, and reviled her for her madness, and considered her wretched. And the very men who were scourging her were suddenly changed and filled with wonder. B 28. For truly, after the incarnation of the transcendent God, it has been granted to those who are under the laws of nature to act and to suffer beyond nature; and this is reasonable. For God, who is above nature, and the creator of nature, having become man beyond nature, and having performed acts beyond nature, granted to human nature to bear things beyond itself, as has been accomplished in this blessed woman. For how else could a woman, tender by nature, exhausted by asceticism, and with her flesh so flayed—and, if I may say so, torn asunder—have the strength to think and speak such things amidst the very trials? I truly believe that divine Theodosia, after the example of the Maccabees, established her reason as the mistress of all bodily affections, truly unconquered, truly insuperable. But when those who were inflicting the most bitter torments saw her bearing them so bravely and so constantly, they were in part ashamed that they were defeated by a woman, and in part, acting against their own wickedness and being driven in a way to madness, they did the only thing that remained: they sent her away to the prison, and handed her over to the miseries of the cell, wishing thus to exhaust her and finally to subject her to the royal will. C 29. When a few days had passed and they had tested her again and found her persisting in the same state as before, and recognized that she remained of the same mind, they decreed her death. Soon, some taking hold of her by the hands, others by the veil on her head, and others dragging her by other parts of her body, they led her like some beast to the slaughter, this innocent heifer of God, the companion of the same stall and pasture, who would not allow herself to be torn away by them at all. There were, however, some who struck her in the meantime, and struck her mercilessly; for I pass over the others who were heaping abuse upon her and loading her with insults, as they say, from a full cart. But when they arrived at the place where they had decided to bring an end to their designs (for they had decided to do it in the shambles, D so that she might be slaughtered like a sheep or butchered like a beast, both for the mockery of the blessed woman and for the derision of those who thought as she did), after, as I said, they had reached the place they wanted, one of the executioners devised something new and unusual: for he considered that death which is brought about by the beheading of the head or by the blow of a sword to be painful and otherwise grievous, yet somewhat tolerable. Having therefore snatched up a horn that happened to be lying on the public way, he cast the holy virgin to the ground, and having pulled her hair back toward himself, he thrust it through her throat, and
A breaking the vertebrae that occurred there, with the most bitter pain he took away the martyr’s breath and life.
30. And they indeed satisfied their fury in this way; but Theodosia attained completely to her vows and desires. For, encompassed by the company of heavenly spirits preceding and following her, she was led from earth to heaven, not without a notable proclamation of praises. While she was ascending, she could speak thus confidently to the principalities and powers: "My horn is exalted in my God," for with Him propitious, "I have tossed my enemies with the horn"; and behold, now I go to Him, to the One who for my sake became man, about to adore Him with veil removed, and to enjoy the sight of His most holy Mother, and to salute the others who either suffered for Christ or lived according to His precepts, and to derive no small joy from their conversation. "I depart," she said, "to see the prototypes themselves, which I have always venerated with religious worship. Depart from me, therefore, all you who work iniquity." B Thus, therefore, were the affairs of Theodosia; in this manner she escaped into the heavens. But now, what do we think the angels who preceded her, who accompanied her, and who followed her did, or how did they proceed? For if, as the Lord Himself has testified, there is such joy among them over one sinner who repents, what joy and what gladness shall we say they had over her who, from the first years of her life, pleased Him through the observance of His commandments?
31. As for me, I think that she was received with no less applause and gladness, and I judge that no fewer hymns of praise and thanksgiving were sung to God for the man who was made man, than when the angels led away the soul of the protomartyr Thecla. C She indeed adhered as a disciple to Paul, who was caught up to the third heaven and taught the arcana not to be revealed, and having learned from him not a few things about heavenly matters, she was, in truth, excellently instructed to run the stadium of martyrdom with alacrity. But what of Theodosia? She did not obtain Paul, or one similar to Paul, or even one of those who lived for a long time after the times of Paul, as a tutor; but—and this is to be considered of greater value—while very many of the Christians were openly drawing her toward the opposing side, she nevertheless held the right way, and chose to die for the truth. Theodosia held to the constancy regarding this matter, which was doubted equally by the imperfect and the perfect, D and because the matter was called into controversy by many—by the imperfect, that is, who had found many and great arguments to the contrary, as they said—she remained unshaken; in other respects, however, she acted with no less courage and with perseverance equal to that of the protomartyr. Moreover, how much is to be made of the fact that she made many others companions of the same contest, whom she excited to a similar zeal for God, and by her example sent them into the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom? Therefore, this
A one, for whose sake and by whose strength she contended, having preserved both, causes both to enjoy the eternal goods thereafter.
CHAPTER V.
Miracles performed at the invocation of Saint Theodosia, where the author speaks of himself and his own.
32. Such things, to be sure, happened to the blessed woman in heaven, as far as it is possible to conjecture from likelihood; but as for us who are placed on earth and happily possess her sacred relics, what indeed ought we to do, and in what manner ought we to be disposed? Let us consider this, especially since we experience so many of her wonderful works every single day, and we see men—hitherto deprived of the use and strength of their bodies—attain the proper conformation of their limbs; and those who were deaf and dumb, having recovered the use of their ears and tongue, exult with joy because of such notable miracles, and offer thanks to God who works such things for men, and duly pursue with fitting titles of honor and praise her through whose merits we receive such great benefits, and who possesses such great glory in heaven and wields such power on earth. Many, indeed, are the wonderful things which the Saint does daily, but those which I have deserved to see with these very eyes, I cannot but narrate.
33. A certain boy, already approaching the age of puberty, was from one of those villages which are in Phrygia by the river Rhyndacus, but he was a stranger to his native soil. This boy, a thing abominable to speak of, was following the impiety of the wandering Hagarenes, and having arrived at Constantinople, was roaming here and there through the city. But behold the B frenzy of the demon, the author of all evils against us! One day he was filled with darkness and vertigo. It was midday, the time when the divine David also says that to those who do not dwell in the help of the Most High, and do not remain in the tabernacle of God, demonic hallucinations fall upon them. When, therefore, he was thus agitated, and his reason was not a little disturbed, he was suddenly found with his knees so twisted that his shins adhered to his thighs, and he appeared not unlike those abortive children whom we frequently see exposed in the streets to incite the pity of passersby; indeed, he was altogether apoplectic, and not at all able to understand what he was suffering. C But when nature compelled him toward those things to which he was accustomed, then, knowing full well what evil had befallen him (for he who had been accustomed to walk had become a crawler), using his hands as well as his feet—not walking, but dragging himself along by his knees—he nonetheless retained enough of his reason to seek his sustenance by begging. Thus crawling and rolling here and there (for he could not do otherwise), it happened that he came to my own house as well, and came into my sight, not weak in his gait, nor limping, but D clearly crawling and advancing upon his chest and belly, according to that ancient curse of the serpent.
A 34. Not many days later, the same young man betook himself again to our house, walking without any obstacle or discomfort, standing firmly upon both feet and with his body held high, just as is natural for those who enjoy a perfect structure of all their limbs in every way. This prodigy seemed no small thing to all who saw it; and, as happens, others immediately calling to others, they inquired much among themselves about that young man. "Is this not," they said, "he who not long ago was carried hither to us? Is he not the same one who yesterday and the day before had his knees contracted?" We were, therefore, greatly in doubt, for the things we saw with our eyes were true; until I myself, approaching him more closely, began to inquire by what means and at what time he had obtained the health of his feet. But he said: "Not long ago I went out from here to the seashore, that I might obtain some alms by asking from those passing by; when, lo, one of the passersby (for I did not know who he might be, since I had never seen the man before, nor did I see him again afterwards) bestowed upon me an unusual alms; for, catching me up and lifting me onto his shoulders, he deposited me beside the Saint." For the multitude of miracles has caused the blessed Theodosia to be called by this name in this great city; and I think she is likewise called so in cities everywhere, for she unfolds everywhere the grace divinely bestowed upon her; wherefore those who are ill also flock together from all sides and depart having obtained the restoration of their health.
B 35. Therefore, the boy also called her by this name, even though he knew it not. "And truly," he said, "placing me upon her tomb, he anointed me with oil from the lamp hanging above, prayed, and went away. But I, being left behind, knew not what I should do; for I was able neither to advance nor to turn aside from there, but remained like a useless weight, a wretch deprived of all things necessary for life. Three days had passed when a certain shaking of my mind occurred to me, not such as that which, coming upon me a short time before, caused my knees to contract, and which even at the mere remembrance of it inspires me with horror; but one filling my soul with tranquility and composing it excellently; from which, just as if the impediment of my feet had only been offered to me in a dream, so I found myself sound, leaping up, and I stood upright upon my feet and walked a little. C Then, truly, having returned to myself, and understanding from where the help had come to me, I ran to the tomb of the Saint; and having poured myself out before her sacred image, and having embraced it with frequent clasping, I went out, as you see, celebrating the miracle performed in me. And this is now the fourth day since I have walked about this whole city healthy, and I go whithersoever it has been my pleasure, without any impediment."
D 36. But neither must I pass over my own affairs, lest, if I cover them in a deep silence, I be subjected to the mark of ingratitude, because I did not deign to honor with even a simple word the things by which I was anticipated with a beneficent work when I was infirm. But as to what happened later, I shall speak first of that. My son-in-law, through the daughter of the noble and illustrious, this brother-in-
-law A of the one who now piously rules over us, is the son of he who inherited the principate of Colchis from his fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers; for to him the daughter of the former emperor, joined by the law of marriage, has been the mother of this youth. This man, as he was returning home from the imperial palace toward evening with his attendants, was seized by a desire to exercise his horse and to find some amusement in it, as young men of that age are frequently wont to do, especially in the first bloom of youth, such as he himself was. But those who were about him, and were trying with great and strenuous effort to dissuade him, suggesting that it was ill-timed, he disregarded and remained entirely in his decision, commanding them only this: that they should drive away the swine that were grazing by the public road. They did as they were ordered; but he himself was riding, testing the horse in many ways, until the swine, having been driven away and returning three or four times, began to wallow under the very feet of the horse and to obstruct him. For the horse, as often as the swine moved about under his feet—as if doing this on purpose—falling and rising at the same time, finally collapsed in such a way that he could not rise again. The rider, being thrown off as if from a sling, immediately lay prone on the ground near the horse, distanced very little from the dead, were it not that a slight pulse in his artery, detected by doctors, suggested he should still be counted among the living B.
37. Nor did this happen far from the palace; the place is that which is called the Round Pond. But as is the way with things that are reported by rumor, it was suddenly spread everywhere that the young man had died from the ill-fated riding. Then indeed others cried out, "O unhappy event! O misfortune!" others said, "How suddenly it happened! How unexpectedly he fell!" And one ran to me immediately, full of tears, and wishing to announce that which had happened, but his voice was impeded no less by sobs than by heavy gasping; from the mere sadness of his downcast face and the affect of compassion that he displayed, he seemed to signify something sad to me. And I, not a little moved in my soul, said to him: "To which of my own has the terrible thing happened, and what has he suffered?" He answered, "Your son-in-law was riding the horse, with which he fell to the ground; and even now the unhappy man lies speechless and without sense." At these things being told, I go out of the house; nor did it befall me to hear anything along the way except, "O how will he understand this? How will his father-in-law see this?" Here and there groans and wringing of hands were heard; when I arrived at the place where he lay, and taking his hand and putting my arms around him, I said, "What are you suffering? What pains you, my dearest son? Come, tell me." But he perceived nothing more of what I was saying than if he had been entirely inanimate C.
38. That night passed, with the physicians of the Asclepiads omitting nothing at all of what the medical art prescribes to be done on such occasions—namely, the veins of both hands were opened, and other remedies were attempted, all D of them, all
A moving things upside down, as they say, and leaving nothing undone to bring him back to his senses. But he was not one whit the better; rather, he remained equally deprived of his senses. The day that followed the aforementioned night also passed, and he seemed to remain in the same state. But towards evening, he began to utter certain sounds that were, so to speak, forced and not well articulated, or rather, not intelligible. For the rest, he was distracted in his speech, responding to one thing when asked another, and for the greater part of the day, he was delirious; he would say one thing now, and another then, not at all during the night, signifying nothing, nor indicating anything, but, having fallen into cries in the meantime, he would suddenly scream loudly as if he were suffering something unbearable, and he lamented most vehemently.
B 39. We, meanwhile, who were caring for him, were heavily distressed, as was to be expected: for fear was being struck into us that he might remain perpetually delirious or be mentally unhinged for his whole life. Indeed, we did not harbor any good thoughts regarding the swine; for we were reflecting upon those demons of old who begged the Lord to be sent into the swine, and who have not ceased to plot against us from the beginning; especially when we heard how, having been driven off the road, they had returned to it, and that not simply by exiting and entering, but as if they were attacking and retreating, and finally rushing in more boldly, they had knocked the young man down. That our conjecture was not far from the truth, he who suffered these things himself clearly revealed to us after he was later freed from his evil. For he asserted that he had seen a man of black color, a severe countenance, and of unusual bodily stature, who was driving swine bound with ropes under the very feet of the horse. But the swine, having first fled, until he fell, hindered in this way, he suffered those things of which he has no further memory.
C 40. We were, therefore, for a sufficient time in such a state of perplexity, as to how we might deliver the young man from so unbearable an affliction, and free ourselves from the grief and anxiety over this. But we scarcely brought to mind the wonders that Saint Theodosia performs daily, and how, as if carried from a storm into a harbor, we immediately gained more courage and were, as it were, suddenly restored to ourselves—we who, a little before, were destitute of counsel and beside ourselves, and were in a way being tormented by the same pains as the young man. Putting aside, therefore, all other things, we go at once to the sepulcher of the Saint, and place him on the pavement of the temple. Then the warden D brings forth the sacred treasure from the reliquary, and to him—a man indeed breathing, but whom, on account of the natural deficiency of his faculties, you would have pronounced effectively dead—he proceeds to mark his whole body, beginning from the head, and having taken oil from the lamp, he anoints the face, the breast, and the back of the prostrate youth in the form of a cross. But behold (O the wonderful works of God! O the greatness of the shining glory, which souls enjoy in heaven, which for the sake of God in bodies cer->
- A tainly lived!), he departed as if he had never suffered any evil, nor had he spoken anything contrary to reason; he departed with his bodily and mental faculties intact, speaking fluently and understanding the things that he said. I omit mentioning how much he progressed from that time, no less in spirit and bodily prerogatives than in age; which I, for my part, consider attributable to some singular providence of God toward him, and I think that even this can be held in the place of a minor miracle.
41. But neither will I pass over in silence the miracle that the same holy one performed for me. A considerable time ago, my leg was greatly affected by a wound that a stubborn horse had inflicted upon me with a kick, and it did not seem to be of much consequence at the beginning. But after four days had passed entirely, I was oppressed by unbearable pains, not only in the part of the body where I had been injured, but also in the sole of my foot, the toes, and the heel. Therefore, for a long time I was in a very bad way; and although that pain was lessened somewhat, I nevertheless hobbled severely, nor could I lean upon the affected leg without great distress. I had spent B two years in this torment, with no relief for the evil from which I suffered, and in the years that followed, one by one, just as certain diseases are accustomed to recur at certain times, the pain in my feet also increased. And again, not long after, within the space of a single year, the same evil seized me two or three times. There was a fear that with advancing age the pains would likewise increase. (For it happens out of a certain immoderate love of life that all men everywhere, and I especially, promise ourselves many years here, and this is so especially if one is, like me, addicted to the vain things of this world, which draw our senses too much toward themselves.) I was therefore afraid that, having been dissolved by paralysis in my hands and feet and in my whole body as well, I would remain stuck entirely to my bed. Moreover, the most excellent of physicians, who were closer to me in habits and age and acquaintance, were held by no small fear, since no efforts of medical art could prevail against my ills.
43. What, therefore, was I suffering, and from where was I to expect better things, whence was there any hope for me of aiding help? I had already cast away my spirit, and what follows is that I languished sluggishly; when, according to the Davidic teaching, I became mindful of God, and C was suddenly delighted; for in Him, I said, even if the disease from which I suffer is very strong and superior to all the art of healers, nevertheless it will be tamed by His mighty power. For as soon as we determine to believe and hope firmly in Him, things which could not seem possible immediately become possible to God, nor is there anything that surpasses His divine power. I also began to call to mind how the most pure Mother of God, daily taking no small concern for our affairs, never ceases to implore divine mercy for all. I also thought of those holy men and women to whom so much grace was granted here by the Most High God in heaven, that they were able to cure incurable diseases and heal medicable evils: I speak of Demetrius, that most celebrated among martyrs, that D great hierarch Nicholas, Euplus the most enduring and truly a deacon of the Gospel; and besides these also that holy woman and martyr, whose [relics are] in the neighboring tomb, whose daily and hourly miracles I learned of concerning such cases as these.
IN S. THEODOSIAM.
to Bishop Nicolaus and Euplus, A who once suffered so many and such bitter things for the sake of God, even the truest deacon of the holy Gospel. Besides these, I also called upon that holy martyr, a short distance from whose tomb I dwelt, and who, by perpetual and daily works, not only on a daily basis, but even by the hour, is able to drive away not only diseases similar to mine, but even more grievous ones. Therefore, having bid farewell to the aid of physicians and drugs, I proposed these as the sole healers of my malady.
43. But how shall I show, how shall I briefly express the mercy which God showed to me, His useless servant, through His saints? I, who a little while ago seemed as though my every limb were being dissolved by paralysis, have now passed many years, and I walk with the firm structure of my whole body just as I walked when I was only twenty years old; my hands also move and are carried freely, wherever my mind wishes, or the vital spirit impels them. Such are the things we see being accomplished by the Saint, and daily B being miraculously brought to pass. But what does it avail to commemorate ancient matters, or to commit to writing those things which now happen among us, since they grant themselves no cessation, but as wave follows wave, so one thing follows another? For whoever might wish to record all those things in writing, he does not seem to me to be unlike those who, with folly, set out to number the waves of the sea, or the stars, or some other such impossible things, and left themselves as a laughingstock for all.
EPILOGUE.
44. But, as I was saying before, what is it that we ought to do, who see such things and receive such great benefits through the Saint? We ought truly to exult with greatest joy, to employ her as a mediatrix before the Lord, to receive C every benefit with thanksgiving, and without hesitation to claim her as our patroness in all things; and this with good reason. For, to say nothing of the best and most excellent things which we have received from her and through her, she wearies God with constant supplications on our behalf, and she is moved by great pity for us, who by so many sins provoke the Divine Majesty to anger. If, therefore, we implore her hand alone as a physician in the most grievous diseases, and experience it, how great a reward do you think ought to be rendered to her? But since she does not cease to heal not only the infirmities of bodies, but also the diseases of souls, come, let each one pay the debt due with gratitude according to his strength, and invoke her against all evils and diseases.
45. And since I am accustomed always to do this, I will also not omit doing the same thing now; but while establishing D supplications for myself and my own, I will also prescribe a form for others to entreat similar things for themselves, and to ask the same of the Saint; you, who from the earliest years of your life willed your little body to be sacred to God, and indeed wasted it away with daily exercise; and your soul, even before it departed from this life, you had already [withdrawn] from all created things.
(13) Saint Demetrius is honored in October, Saint Nicolaus in November, and Saint Euplus in August.