Religious History 1 part 7/13

But that an old man standing at so great a height of the philosophic life should possess so great a moderation of mind — for he happened to have completed forty years in ascetic discipline — who could adequately admire this? What praise proportionate to its greatness could anyone offer? And though he had acquired such a wealth of virtue, he lived together with extreme poverty; on the Lord's Day he went with the multitude to the divine church, heard the divine oracles, submitted his ears to the teachers, and partook of the mystical table;

then he would return to that remarkable dwelling, having no little key, no bolt, and leaving behind no guard — for it was inaccessible to evildoers and utterly beyond need of protection — possessing only that litter of straw.

Taking one book at a time from his acquaintances, he would read it through entirely, and only after returning it would he take another.

Yet, although he had no bolts nor made use of bars, he was guarded by the grace from above.

And this we learned clearly through actual experience.

For when a band of Isaurians seized the heights by night, and then after dawn ran down as far as the very foothills, they cruelly speared to death many men and many women who were pursuing the ascetic life.

Then this divine man, watching the slaughter of the others, darkened their eyes by prayer, so that as they passed by the door they could not perceive the entrance.

And as he himself declared, calling truth to witness, he clearly beheld three youths driving off that whole band of them, God plainly displaying his own grace.

As for the kind of life this divine man lived, and the sort of grace he enjoyed from God, these things suffice to instruct us.

But it is necessary to add this also to what has been said.

It grieved and stung him greatly that his property still remained and had not been sold off and distributed according to the evangelical law.

The cause of this was the immaturity of his brothers' age.

For since the money and the estates were held in common, he himself was unwilling to return to his native land for the sake of the division; and he feared that, if he sold his share of the property to someone else, the buyers, dealing greedily with his nephews, might involve him in slanderous accusations. Turning these thoughts over within himself, he put off the distribution for a long time; but later, having sold everything to a certain acquaintance for a great sum, he distributed the greater part of it;

but meanwhile an illness befell him and compelled him to make a decision concerning what remained.

Accordingly, he summoned the bishop of the city — it was the great Alexander, the glory of piety, the very archetype of virtue, the exact image of the philosophic life —

"As for the rest, I myself have acted with my own hands and distributed it as I thought best;

and I wished to manage what remains in a similar manner;

but since I am now bidden to depart from this life, I appoint you steward of these things, since you are a bishop and conduct your life worthily of the high-priestly office."

So he handed over the money to him as to a divine steward;

and he himself, having lived not much longer, departed from the arena like some Olympic victor, receiving acclaim not only from men but also from angels.

And I, having entreated this man also to intercede with the Master on my behalf, shall now turn to another narrative.

And those who border and neighbor upon these regions know it as well, some having become eyewitnesses of the man's wonders, others having heard of it from report, which sings and repeats it far and wide;

yet not all know everything; rather, some have learned this thing, others that, and each naturally marvels only at what he knows.

But I, knowing the matters concerning this man so dear and venerable to me more accurately than the rest — for he often urged me to come to him and to visit frequently — shall relate each thing as best I am able.

I have kept this order for him and have placed his account after many others, not because he was second to the rest in virtue — for he rivalled those of the highest and foremost rank — but because, having lived a very great length of time, he reached the end of his life after those whom I have already mentioned.

This man, then, had as his wrestling-ground and racecourse the summits of the mountains, not settled in a single place, but now dwelling in this one, now moving to that one.

He did this not out of displeasure with the places, but because he was fleeing the crowds of those who gathered to him and came running from every direction.

For forty-five years he continued living in this manner, using neither a tent nor a hut, but taking his station in a deep pit — on account of which some also called him "Gubba," a name which, translated from the Syriac into the Greek tongue, signifies "pit."

After this period, having become an old man, he yielded to those who entreated him and set up a hut.

Later, at the entreaty of his acquaintances, he made use even of small dwellings — not his own, but belonging to others.

For twenty-five years he continued dwelling in the hut and in these small houses, so that the total time of his contests now amounted to seventy years.

As food he used neither bread nor pulses, but hulled barley moistened with water alone;

and this food my mother, having become acquainted with him, supplied to him for a very long time.

And once, having come to her while she was ill and learning that she could not be persuaded to take food suited to her illness — for by then she too had embraced the ascetic life — he counseled her to yield to the physicians and to regard such food as medicine;

for it is offered not for the sake of luxury, but out of necessity.

"For I myself," he said, "having subsisted for forty years on barley alone, as you know, when a certain weakness came upon me the day before, ordered the one who lived with me to ask for and bring me a small piece of bread.

For a certain thought had come to me, that if I should die, I would be held to account for my death before the righteous Judge, as one who had fled the contests and deserted the labors of servitude;

for since it was possible, by a small amount of food, to prevent death and to remain in this life, toiling and enduring hardship and thereby amassing wealth, I concluded that a death from starvation would be more a matter of my own choosing than the ascetic life.

And I charge you: no longer bring me barley, but bread." From that truthful tongue, then, we have heard that for forty years he made barley his food.

These things, then, suffice to demonstrate the man's ascetic rigor and diligence.

But we shall show the integrity and simplicity of his character through other examples.

...him down from the summit of the mountain, as though some document had been drawn up against him.

And while the mystical rite of the liturgy was being celebrated, he brought him to the altar and enrolled him among the priests.

When the liturgy came to an end and someone announced this to him — for he had been entirely ignorant of what had taken place — at first he railed against them and pelted everyone with words;

and afterward, taking up his staff — for on account of his old age he was accustomed to walk leaning upon it — he pursued the bishop himself and all the others who were present;

for he supposed that the ordination would deprive him of the mountain summit and of the mode of life he longed for.

But on that occasion, some of his acquaintances with difficulty managed to calm him as he raged;

but when the cycle of the week had run its course and the day of the Lord's feast came round again, the great Flavian sent for him once more, entreating him to share with them in the festal assembly.

But he said to those who had come:

"Is what has already happened not enough for you," he said, "but do you wish to put me forward as presbyter yet again?" And when they told him that it was not possible for the same ordination to be conferred twice upon one man, he did not yield nor did he come, until time itself, together with his acquaintances, had repeatedly taught him this many times over.

I know, then, that to many this account will not seem admirable;

yet I have set it down, judging it worthy of remembrance, as sufficient to demonstrate both simplicity of mind and purity of soul.

For to such as these the Master promised the kingdom of heaven;

"Truly, I say to you," he said, "unless you turn and become like these children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven."

Since, then, we have shown in summary the character of his soul, come, let us also show the boldness of speech that arose from his virtue.

A certain general, who delighted in hunting, went up into the mountain in order to hunt;

and dogs and soldiers followed him, along with whatever was suited for the hunt.

When he saw the man from afar and learned from those with him who he was, he at once leapt down from his horse, approached him, greeted him, and asked what he was doing there.

"But you — for what purpose have you come up here?" And when the general said it was to hunt —

"I too," he said, "am hunting my God; I long to capture him, I yearn to behold him, and I will not desist from this noble hunt."

Having heard these things, the general, marveling, as was natural, departed.

On another occasion, when the city had been thrown into Bacchic frenzy by some evil demon and had vented its madness against the imperial statues, the finest of the generals arrived, bringing a sentence of utter destruction against the city;

but he, coming down from the mountain, detained both generals as they were passing through the marketplace.

And they, having learned who he was, leapt down from their horses, took hold of his hands and knees, and pledged the city's deliverance.

But he charged them to tell the emperor that he was a man, and had the same nature as those who had committed the outrage;

and though it was fitting to measure his anger by his nature, he has indulged in unmeasured wrath, and for the sake of his own images has handed over the divine images to slaughter, sending bodies to death in place of bronze statues;

'For us,' he said, 'to refashion and remold the bronze ones is both easy and simple;'

'but for you, even though you are the emperor, it is impossible to bring back to life the bodies that have been slaughtered.'

'And why do I speak of bodies? For it is not even possible for you to fashion a single hair.'

These things he said, using the Syriac tongue;

and as the interpreter translated them into the Greek tongue, they listened and shuddered, and promised to convey them to the emperor.

And I think that everyone would agree that these words belong to the grace of the divine Spirit —

for he was uninstructed, reared in rustic simplicity, dwelling on the summits of the mountains, bearing about in his soul complete simplicity, and had not even had leisure for the divine oracles. Having thus shown both his spiritual wisdom and the boldness of speech befitting a righteous man — for 'the righteous is bold as a lion' — I shall now pass on to his wonders.

A certain woman of the nobility fell into an affliction of voracious appetite, and some called the affliction the working of a demon, while others reckoned it a sickness of the body;

but whether it was the one or the other, it was of this kind:

they said that though she ate thirty birds in a day, she did not quench her craving through satiety, but still desired yet more.

Thus, then, as her estate was being consumed by this, her relatives, taking pity on her, implored that divine man.

He came, and prayed, and laying his right hand upon water and impressing on it the saving sign, and bidding her drink it, he healed the affliction.

And he so thoroughly blunted the excess of her craving that from then on a small portion of a bird each day sufficed to fill her need of food.

This affliction, then, received such a cure.

And when a certain girl, still kept in her chamber, suddenly received the working of an evil demon, her father ran to the divine man, imploring and beseeching, and begging that his little daughter obtain healing.

He, having prayed, commanded the demon to depart from the girl at once.

But it declared that it had not entered of its own will, but had been compelled by sorcerous magic;

and it also gave the name of the one who had compelled it, and said that passion was the cause of the sorcery.

But hearing these things, the father could not bear the onset of his wrath, nor did he wait for his daughter's healing, but going to the governor of the greater magistrates, who presided over the greater number of provinces, he brought a written accusation against the man and related the affair.

But he, having been brought in, denied it and called the written charge a false accusation.

But the father called as witness none other than the demon that had served the sorcery, and begged the judge to go to that divine man and receive the demon's testimony.

But when he said that it was neither lawful nor indeed holy for the interrogation to take place in an ascetic's dwelling, the girl's father promised to bring the divine Macedonius to the courtroom;

and running there, he persuaded him and brought him.

And the judge, sitting outside the tribunal, became not a judge but a spectator;

for the great Macedonius performed the judge's task, employing the power dwelling within him, and commanding the demon to set aside its habitual lying, and to relate with truth the entire tragic course of the affair.

And it, driven by the greatest compulsion, pointed out both the man who had compelled it with sorcerous incantations, and the servant-girl through whom that potion had been administered to the maiden.

And when it was pressing on to tell other things it had done, compelled by certain other persons — for one man burning down his house, for another destroying his property, and for yet another inflicting some other harm — the man of God commanded it to be silent, and to depart at once far away, both from the girl and from the city.

And it, obeying as though a master's law, did what was commanded, and immediately fled.

Thus the divine man, having freed her from that madness, also snatched that wretched man from the written charge, and prevented the judge's death-bringing sentence, saying that it was not holy that slaughter should be inflicted following the exposures made through him, but rather that salvation through repentance should be granted to him.

These things, then, suffice to show the abundance of the divine power granted to him;

yet I shall nonetheless relate other things as well.

A certain woman of the nobility, and of the very wealthiest — they called her Astrium — had gone out of her mind;

she recognized none of her household, and could not bear to partake of food or drink.

And she continued raving for a very long time;

and some called this the working of a demon, while the physicians termed it a disease of the brain.

So when the whole art of medicine had been exhausted and no help had come from it, her husband — he was Obodianus, a man among those in office and most honorable — ran to that divine head, related his wife's affliction, and begged to obtain a cure.

And the divinely-inspired man yielded, and went to the house, and offered an earnest supplication to God;

and having completed the prayer, and having ordered water to be brought, and having impressed on it the saving sign, he charged her to drink it;

but when the physicians forbade it, on the ground that the affliction would be increased by drinking cold water, the husband, rejecting their whole company, gave the drink to his wife;

and she, as soon as she drank it, came back to herself and became sound of mind;

and being altogether freed from the affliction, she recognized the divine man, and begged to take his right hand, and pressed it to her eyes and applied it to her mouth;

and for the time thereafter she continued to enjoy a sound mind.

And when he had embraced the mountain way of life, a certain shepherd, searching for stray sheep, arrived at that place where the man of God was.

It was deep night, and much snow was falling, and he saw, as he related, a fire kindled around him, and two men clad in white supplying fuel to the fire.

For by contributing his own zeal, he enjoyed divine assistance.

And he had also partaken of the gift of prophecy.

And once a general renowned for his piety came to him — for who is unaware of the virtue of Lupicinus? — and said he was anxious about certain men who were bringing him supplies by sea from the imperial city.

For he said that fifty days had passed since they had put out from the harbor, and he had received no report about them at all.

'One ship, my friend,' he said, 'has been lost;'

'but the other will reach the harbor of Seleucia on the following day.' And this Lupicinus heard uttered by that divine tongue, and learned by experience the truth of the words.

But that I may leave aside other things, I shall relate what concerns ourselves.

Having lived together with my father for thirteen years, my mother had not become the mother of any children;

for she was barren, being prevented by nature from bearing fruit;

and this did not greatly grieve her — for having been instructed in divine things, she believed this to be for her good — but childlessness grieved my father exceedingly, and going about everywhere he besought the divine servants of God to ask on his behalf that he might have children from God.

Now the others both promised to pray, and exhorted him to be content with the divine will;

but this divine man explicitly promised that he would ask for one son from the Creator of all things, and pledged that the request would be granted.

So when three years had passed, and the promise had not received its fulfillment, my father again ran to demand the pledge;

and he instructed that his wife be sent to him;

and when my mother arrived, that divine man said that he would both ask for and receive the child, and that it was fitting that this child be given back in return to the One who had given it.

But when my mother entreated to obtain only the salvation of her soul and deliverance from Gehenna —

'In addition to this,' he said, 'the greatly-generous One will also give the son;'

'for to those who ask sincerely, He grants their requests doubled.'

My mother returned from there bearing the blessing of the promise;

and in the fourth year after the pledge, she conceived and became burdened with child in her womb;

she comes forth, displaying the sheaves of the seed of blessing.

But in the fifth month of her pregnancy, the danger of miscarriage arose.

She again sent to her young Elisha — for her affliction prevented her from running to him herself — and reminded him that she had not wished to become a mother of children, and brought his own promises into the open.

But he, seeing from afar the one who had come, recognized him and knew the reason for his coming.

For the Lord had revealed to him by night both the affliction and its remedy.

So taking up his staff, he came, leaning upon it, and entering the house, and, as was his custom, having given the greeting of peace,

"Take courage," he said, "and do not be afraid;

for he who gave the gift will not take it away, unless you transgress the agreements that have been made."

"But you promised to give back in return what would be given, and to consecrate it to the divine service."

"Yes," said the mother, "this is how I too wish and pray to give birth;

for I consider an unfinished birth preferable to rearing the child in any other way." — "Drink, then," said the divine man, "this water, and you will perceive the divine assistance." So she drank as he directed, and the danger of miscarriage fled away.

Such were the wonders of our Elisha.

Of his blessing and teaching I myself often partook;

for often, exhorting me, he would say:

"With many labors, O child, you were born;

for many nights I spent beseeching God for this alone: that your parents should truly become what, after your birth, they were named."

"Live, then, a way of life worthy of these labors.

Before the birth-pangs, you were dedicated by promises;

and the things dedicated to God are venerable to all, and untouchable by the many.

It is fitting, then, that you too should not admit the base impulses of the soul, but should do and say and consider only those things which serve God, the lawgiver of virtue."

Such were the things that divine man continually exhorted me with;

and I both remember his words and have been instructed concerning the divine gift.

Yet not demonstrating this exhortation in deeds, I beseech to obtain, through his prayer, the divine favor, and to live the remainder of my life according to his precepts.

What sort of man he was, then, and by what labors he drew to himself the divine grace — these things too are sufficient to teach.

Yet nevertheless, even in this life, the end of his labors received a worthy honor;

for all — citizens and strangers alike, and those entrusted with administering the great offices — carried that sacred bier upon their shoulders and bore it away to the shrine of the victorious martyrs, and, together with those divine men Aphraates and Theodosius, laid down that holy and God-beloved body.

His fame remained unquenched, and no time will be able to efface it.

And we, having set an end to this narrative, have reaped the fragrance arising from the telling.

MAESYMAS. I know that many others too shone forth as luminaries of piety near the city of Antioch: Severus the Great, and Peter the Egyptian, and Eutychius and Cyril, Moses too and Malchus, and very many others who traveled the same road;

but if we should attempt to write down the way of life of all of them, the whole of time would not suffice us;

and besides, the reading of too many accounts becomes wearisome to most people.

From what has been written, then, let all conjecture also the life of those who have been passed over, and let them praise it and emulate it and reap its benefit;

while I shall pass over to the meadows of Cyrrhus, and shall, as far as possible, disclose the beauty of the fragrant and comely flowers within them.

There lived, in the times before us, a certain Maesymas, Syrian in speech, reared in the countryside, yet displaying every kind of virtue.

Performing priestly ministry and shepherding the divine flock, he both said and did those things which the divine law prescribed.

They say that for a very long time he changed neither his tunic nor his goat-hair cloak, but by sewing other patches onto the tears that occurred in them, he tended his old age in this very manner.

He so eagerly attended to the care of strangers and the poor that he threw open his doors to all who passed by.

From these he continually supplied all who were in need, and he always kept full the jars into which the blessing given to the widow of Sarepta had come.

For the same Lord of all is rich toward all who call upon him;

and just as he commanded her jar and her flask to overflow, furnishing the sheaves of the seed of hospitality, so too he gave to this wondrous man a supply equal in measure to his eagerness.

He also received great grace from the God of all for the working of wonders;

and I shall recall one or two of his wonders, but I shall pass over the rest, being eager to proceed to the others.

A certain woman, adorned both by birth and by faith, brought her son, who had fallen into illness — he was quite young — before many physicians.

But when their art proved powerless, and the physicians had given up and declared outright that the child would die, the woman did not cast aside her more hopeful expectations, but, emulating that Shunammite woman, placed the covered litter upon the mules;

and placing herself and the child in it, she came to that divine man, and, lamenting and displaying the suffering of nature, she besought him to come to their aid.

He took the child in his two hands, and, drawing near to the base of the altar, lay prostrate, imploring the physician of souls and bodies;

and having obtained his request, he restored the son, healthy and strong, to his mother.

I myself heard this from the very woman who had witnessed the wonder and had received back her son's deliverance.

They say also that the lord of that village, having once arrived — this was Letoius, who held the first rank in the council of the Antiochenes, but was held fast in the darkness of impiety — was exacting the crops from the farmers more severely than was fitting; and that divine man urged and exhorted him concerning humanity, and expounded arguments concerning mercy and pity; but he remained unrelenting, yet by experience came to know the harm of his disobedience;

for when he had to depart, and the team was ready, and, having sat down, he ordered the driver to spur on the mules, they pulled with all their strength, straining and eager to draw the pole, but the wheels were as if bound fast with iron and lead.

And when even a great number of the countryfolk, trying to move the wheels with levers, accomplished nothing further, one of those more well-disposed men who was in attendance upon Letoius pointed out the cause, saying that the elderly priest was cursing him, and that it was fitting to render him favorable;

therefore, leaping down from the carriage, he besought the very man he had scorned, and, grovelling at his feet and embracing his squalid rags, he implored him to relax his wrath.

He, receiving the supplication and offering it up to the Lord, loosed the invisible bonds of the wheels, and made the carriage move as usual.

Many other such things too are recounted concerning that divine man.

From these things too it is possible to learn that dwelling in towns and villages does the least harm to those who choose to pursue the philosophic life;

— of the summit of the virtues, of whose very foothills I might, at least, rise a little way, assisted by their prayers.

AKEPSIMAS. Akepsimas lived in the same period, whose fame was widespread throughout all the East.

He, having shut himself up in a small cell, spent sixty years neither being seen nor speaking, but, turning inward upon himself and picturing God in his mind, he received from that source delight for his soul, according to the prophecy which says:

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the petitions of your heart."

The opening was not dug straight through in a direct line, so that it might not lie exposed to those wishing to look in, but it ran crosswise, constructed in a spiral fashion.

The food brought to him was lentils soaked in water.

Once a week, going out by night, he drew up sufficient water from the nearby spring.

And once a certain shepherd, tending his flock at a distance while it was dark, seeing something moving and suspecting it to be a wolf — for he walked bent over, weighed down by much iron — set his sling in motion as if to hurl a stone;

but his hand remained motionless for a very long time and unable to release the stone, until that divine man, having drawn the water, returned; then he perceived his mistake, and after dawn came to the school of virtue, and related what had happened, and asked forgiveness, and received remission of his fault — not by hearing a voice speak, but by learning his favor through the movements of his hand.

And another man, giving way to malicious curiosity and desiring to know what he was doing all the time, dared to climb up the plane tree that was planted beside the enclosure wall.

But immediately he reaped the fruits of his audacity;

for half of his body, withering from the very crown of his head down to his feet, he became a suppliant, accusing himself of his sin.

He foretold that health would come by the cutting down of the plane tree;

for, so that no one else, doing the same thing, might undergo the same fate, he immediately ordered the tree to be cut down;

and the release from the punishment followed upon the cutting down of the tree.

Such was the endurance this divinely inspired man displayed, and such was the grace he received from the Judge of the contest.

When he was setting out on his departure from this world, he foretold that after fifty days he would meet the end of his life;

and he received all who wished to see him.