勞蘇之史 第 1 章 第 7/7 段

being the daughter of Seleucus of the comites (counts), the granddaughter of Ablabius the ex-prefect, and for a few days the bride of Nebridius the ex-prefect of the city, but the wife of no one;

for she is said to have fallen asleep a virgin, yet a consort of the word of truth.

She, having scattered abroad all her possessions, distributed them to the poor;

having striven no small contests for the truth, and having catechized many women, and having spoken reverently with presbyters, and having honoured bishops, she was deemed worthy also of the confession for the truth's sake;

whose life those who dwell in Constantinople reckon among the confessors, she having so died and departed to the Lord in contests according to God.

Her I knew to be toiling through every night and grinding [at the mill] with her hands for the subduing of the body, relating: "Since fasting did not suffice, I give as an ally also laborious sleeplessness, that I may break down the arrogance of Esau."

She abstained utterly from things containing blood and animate things, but taking fish and vegetables with oil at a feast, she thus continued, making do with a sour mixture (posca) and dry bread.

In zealous imitation of her, the most venerable Gelasia walked devoutly, taking up the yoke of virginity; she was the daughter of a tribune.

Of her this virtue is recorded: that the sun never set upon her wrath—not against a servant, not against a maidservant, not against anyone else.

Concerning those at Antinoë. Having spent four years at Antinoë in the Thebaid, during all that time I also gained acquaintance with the monasteries there.

For around the city there dwell some twelve hundred men, living by the work of their hands, disciplined to the utmost degree of asceticism.

Among these there are also anchorites who have shut themselves up in the caves of the rocks.

Among them is a certain Solomon, a man most gentle, temperate, and possessing the charism of endurance.

He said that he had spent his fiftieth year in the cave, supporting himself by the work of his hands and having learned by heart all the Holy Scripture.

To him once Melania the Younger, granddaughter of the great Melania—of whom I shall speak later—sent five hundred coins, asking him to minister to the brethren there.

He used to tell us that 'A mind that has fallen away from the thought of God becomes either a demon or a beast.'

When we inquired closely about the manner in which he meant this, he spoke thus: 'A mind that has fallen away from the thought of God of necessity falls into desire or into anger.'

And he called desire bestial, and anger demonic.

When I objected, saying, 'How is it possible for a human mind to be unceasingly with God?' the same man answered, 'In whatever pious and godly thought or deed the soul may be, it is with God.'

Near him there dwelt a certain Capiton, a former brigand.

He, having completed fifty years in the caves four miles from the city of Antinoë, never came down from the cave, not even as far as the river Nile, saying that he could not yet meet the crowds, since the Adversary still warred against him.

Along with these we also saw another anchorite, likewise dwelling in a cave.

He, mocked by dreams through the sting of vainglory, mocked in turn those whom he deceived, shepherding the winds.

He maintained bodily chastity, both because of old age and because of length of years, and perhaps also because of vainglory.

But his understanding had been corrupted by the licentiousness of vainglory.

Concerning Amma Talis and Taor. In this city of Antinoë there are twelve women's monasteries, in which I also met Amma Talis, an old woman of eighty years in the ascetic life, as she herself and her neighbors related.

With her lived sixty young women who loved her so dearly that there was not even a lock on the gate of the monastery, as in other places, but they were held fast by this love.

The old woman had advanced to such a degree of dispassion that, when I had entered and sat down, she came and sat beside me and laid her hands upon my shoulders with the utmost frankness.

One of these, Taor by name, having spent thirty years in the monastery, never consented to take a new garment, or a hood, or a sandal, saying, 'I have no need of it, lest I be compelled even to go out.'

For all the others go out on the Lord's day to the church for the sake of Communion.

But she remained in the convent clothed in rags, sitting unceasingly at her work.

She had so very comely a face that even the most steadfast man would have come near to being deceived by her beauty, had she not had the surpassing safeguard of chastity, which by her modesty drove the licentious eye into shame and fear.

Concerning a certain virgin and Colluthus the martyr.

Another woman, a neighbor of mine, whose face I never saw—for she never went out, so they say, from the time she renounced the world—

having completed sixty years in the ascetic life together with her own mother, was at last about to depart this life.

And the martyr of that place, Colluthus by name, stood beside her and said to her:

'Today you are to journey to the Master and to see all the saints.

So come and dine with us in the martyrium.'

So rising at dawn, and dressing, and taking in her basket bread and olives and a few vegetables, after so many years she went out and departed to the martyrium and prayed.

And watching for a time in the whole day when no one was inside, she sat down and called upon the martyr, saying:

'Bless my food, holy Colluthus, and accompany me with your prayers.'

So having eaten and prayed again, she came home about sunset.

And giving to her own mother a treatise of Clement the author of the Stromateis on the prophet Amos, she said:

And she died that very night, without fever, without headache, but having laid herself out for burial.

Concerning Melania the Younger. Since I promised above to tell about the girl Melania, I of necessity pay the debt.

For it is not right, overlooking her youthfulness in the flesh, to cast down unrecorded so great a virtue, far surpassing even diligent old women.

Her parents forced her and led her into marriage from among the foremost families of Rome.

Continually pricked by the stories of her own grandmother, she was so spurred on that she could not bring herself to fulfill the marriage.

For when two male children had been born to her and both had died, she came to such hatred of the marriage that she said to her husband Pinianus, son of Severus the former prefect: 'If indeed you choose to practice asceticism together with me according to the principle of chastity, I acknowledge you as master and lord of my life;

but if this seems burdensome to you as a young man, then take all my property and set my body free, that I may fulfill my godly desire, becoming heir to my grandmother's zeal—she whose name I also bear.

For if God had willed for us to have children, He would not have taken away those born to me untimely.'

After they had long contended with one another, God at last took pity on the young man and put into him too a zeal for renunciation, so that there was fulfilled in them what is written:

'For how do you know, O wife, whether you shall save your husband?' So, having been married at thirteen and having lived with her husband seven years, in her twentieth year she renounced the world.

And first she donated her silk half-mantles to the altars.

This the holy Olympias also did.

And the rest of her silks she cut up and made into various ecclesiastical furnishings.

She freed eight thousand of her slaves who so wished; for the rest did not wish it, but chose rather to serve her brother,

to whom she yielded them all, on condition of receiving three coins each.

And selling her estates in the Spains and in Aquitania and Tarraconensis and the Gauls, but leaving for herself only those in Sicily and Campania and Africa, she devoted them to the support of monasteries.

This was her wisdom concerning the burden of riches.

And her asceticism was this:

she ate once every other day—and in the early days even less often than every fifth day—having appointed herself to weekly service among her own former slave-women, whom she made her fellow ascetics.

She has with her also her mother Albina, practicing asceticism likewise and herself again distributing her own wealth privately.

They live, then, in the country, sometimes in Sicily, sometimes in Campania, with fifteen eunuchs and sixty virgins, both free women and slave-women;

and likewise her husband Pinianus with thirty monks, reading and busying himself about a garden and about devout conversations.

And they honored not a little us also, who were many, when we went to Rome on account of the blessed John the bishop, refreshing us both with hospitality and with most lavish provisions, with much joy reaping eternal life through the God-given works of their excellent way of life.

A kinsman of theirs, Pammachius by name, a former proconsul, having likewise renounced the world, lived the most excellent life, scattering all his own wealth—part while living, and the rest he left to the poor at his death.

Likewise also a certain Macarius, a former vicarius, and Constantius, who had been assessor to the prefects of Italy—men of distinction and most learned, who had advanced to the summit of love for God;

whom I still suppose to be alive in the flesh, having practiced the most excellent life.

Concerning the virgin who sheltered the blessed Athanasius. At Alexandria I came to know a virgin whom I found to be about seventy years old.

And the whole clergy bore witness to her that when she was young, about twenty years old and exceedingly beautiful, she was shunned because of her beauty, lest she give occasion of reproach to anyone through suspicion.

Now when it came about that the Arians contrived a plot against the blessed Athanasius the bishop of Alexandria, through Eusebius the praepositus, in the reign of the emperor Constantius, and falsely accused him with unlawful charges, he—fleeing from being judged by a corrupt tribunal—did not entrust himself to anyone, neither to kinsman nor friend nor cleric nor any other;

but when the prefect's officers had suddenly entered the bishop's residence and were searching for him, he took his tunic and his cloak and in the very middle of the night fled for refuge to this virgin.

She, alarmed at the matter, was terrified.

[He said:] 'Since I am sought by the Arians and unlawfully slandered, in order that I too may not incur an unreasonable reputation and cast into sin those who wish to punish me, I have resolved to flee.

And God revealed to me this very night that you are the only one with whom I can be saved.' So she, out of great joy, casting away all hesitation, became wholly the Lord's;

and she hid that most holy man for six years until the death of Constantius, herself both washing his feet, and disposing of his refuse, and managing all his needs, and borrowing books and supplying them to him;

and no man in all Alexandria knew, in those six years, where the blessed Athanasius was staying.

So when the death of Constantius was announced and came to his ears, having dressed himself well, he was found again by night in the church, all being amazed and seeing him as one living from the dead.

He then made his defense to his true friends, saying: 'For this reason I did not flee to you, that an oath might be kept clear for you, and besides, also on account of the searches.

But I fled to one against whom no one could harbor suspicion, since she was beautiful and young; thus I gained two things: her salvation—for I benefited her—and my own good name.'

She was said to be most learned and most faithful;

she it was who received Origen the author, when he was fleeing the uprising of the Greeks (pagans), for two years at her own expense, and ministering to him gave the man rest.

These things I found written in a very ancient stichometric book, in which it was written in Origen's own hand:

'This book I, while in hiding with her, found in the keeping of Juliana the virgin at Caesarea;

she said that she had received it from Symmachus himself, the translator of the Jews.'

Not idly have I set down the virtues of these women, that we may learn that it is possible to gain profit in manifold ways, if only we are willing.

Her at that time they denounced to the magistrate then judging—a Greek (pagan), in the time of the persecutors—as one who blasphemed both the times and the emperors and reviled the idols.

And those hucksters who deal in such matters extolled her beauty to him.

So the judge, being mad for women, gladly received the accusation with greedy ears (lit. with horse-ears).

But [seeing] he could not entice her, he gave her over to those who wished [to abuse her].

Now when those women-hawks who busy themselves with such things learned of it, they laid siege to that workshop of perdition, and giving the coin sought to seduce her with words.

But she, earnestly entreating them, besought them, saying: 'I have a sore in a hidden place which stinks terribly, and I fear lest you come to loathe me;

so grant me a few days, and you shall have authority even to have me for free.'

Whereupon God too, beholding her chastity, put a fiery zeal even unto death into a certain young magistrianus, fair in disposition and in form.

And going off in the guise of licentiousness, he comes late in the evening to the man who kept these women, and gives him five coins and says to him:

'Permit me to remain this night with her.'

So entering into the secret chamber he says to her: [...]

And stripping her and dressing her in his own clothes—the shirts and the cloak and all the men's garments—he says to her:

'Wrap yourself in the end of the cloak and go out.'

And so, having signed herself with the cross and gone out, she was saved uncorrupted and undefiled.

So on the next day the deed became known.

The magistrianus was handed over and thrown to the beasts, so that in this too the demon might be put to shame, since he became a double martyr—both for himself and for that blessed woman.

Concerning Verus, a former count. At Ancyra of Galatia, in that very city, I met a certain most illustrious Verus, of whom I also had long experience, who had been a count, together with his freeborn wife Bosporia;

they had advanced to such a degree of good hope that they even disinherited their own children, seeing the things to come as if already present in deed.

For they spend the revenues of their lands on the needy, having two daughters and four sons, to whom they give not even a vine-cutting, except to those daughters who are married, saying: 'After our departure all is yours;

but the produce of the estates they bring and distribute in the churches of cities and villages.

This very thing too is virtuous in them:

when a famine came and was advancing into people's very vitals, they brought the heresies over into orthodoxy, in many districts handing over their granaries for the nourishment of the poor.

[lest] they should be drawn into some of the political tumults, falling away from their purpose.

Concerning Magna. In this same city of Ancyra many other virgins also—some two thousand or more—both practicing continence and being women of distinction are conspicuous.

Among whom Magna, a most venerable woman, holds preeminence in piety—whom I do not know what to call, virgin or widow.

For having been forcibly joined to a man by her own mother, she beguiled him and put him off, and—as many say—remained untouched.

When he died a little later, she gave herself wholly to God, managing her own household reverently, living a most ascetic and chaste life, and having such intercourse [with others] that even bishops revered her for her surpassing piety.

She, supplying her remaining and surplus means to hospices and to the poor and to traveling bishops, does not cease working secretly, through herself and through most faithful servants, nor does she absent herself from the church in the night-watches.

Concerning the merciful monk. Likewise in this city we found a monk who refused to accept ordination to the presbyterate, having been brought out of military service a short time before;

he is in his twentieth year in the ascetic life, having this way of life:

he remains attached to the bishop of the city, and is so loving toward mankind and merciful that even at night he goes about and shows mercy to the needy.

This man neglects neither prison nor hospital nor poor man nor rich man, but succors all—to some giving words of compassion as to the unfeeling, championing others, reconciling some, and to others supplying bodily needs and clothing.

And what is wont to happen in all great cities exists also in this one:

for in the portico of the church a multitude of sick people lie, gathering their daily nourishment—some unmarried, some married.

Now it happened one day in the middle of the night that the wife of one of them gave birth in the portico in the winter cold.

So when she cried out in her pain, he heard, and leaving his customary prayers he went out and looked; and finding no one, he himself took the place of a midwife, not abhorring the attendant defilement that comes with women in childbirth, for mercy had wrought in him an insensibility to it.

The fashion of this man's clothing is not worth an obol, and his food is a match for his clothing;

he cannot bear to bend over a writing-tablet, since love for mankind drives him away from his readings.

If any of the brethren makes him a gift of a book, he immediately sells it, saying this to those who mock him: 'How can I persuade my Teacher that I have learned His craft, unless I sell that very thing for the perfecting of the craft?' Concerning a virgin who fell and repented. A certain ascetic virgin, dwelling with two others, practiced asceticism for nine or ten years.

She, enticed by a certain cantor, fell, and having conceived in her womb gave birth.

But coming to the utmost hatred of the one who had enticed her, she was pierced to the depths of her soul, and advanced to such repentance that she resolved outright to starve herself and to kill herself by hunger.

But praying, she entreated God, saying: 'O great God, who bearest the evils of all creation and willest not the death and destruction of those who err;

if Thou willest me to be saved, show me Thy wonders in this, and take to Thyself the fruit of my sin which I have borne, that I may not either use a rope or hurl myself down.'

In these supplications she was heard;

for the child died not long after.

So from that day she no longer associated with the one who had taken her captive, but giving herself over to the most extreme fasting, she ministered to the sick and the maimed for thirty years, so importuning God that it was revealed to one of the holy presbyters that 'So-and-so pleased Me more in her repentance than in her virginity.'

These things I write that we may not despise those who genuinely repent.

[A certain woman] falsely accused a certain reader of the city.

And when she was already pregnant, being examined by her father, she falsely named the reader.

And the presbyter, taking courage, reported it to the bishop.

And the bishop convened the body of clergy and had the reader summoned.

When questioned by the bishop, the reader would not confess;

for how could that which had not happened be spoken of? The bishop, indignant, said to him gravely:

'Will you not confess, you wretched and miserable man, full of uncleanness?' The reader answered:

'I have told the truth, that I have no involvement in the matter;

for I am innocent even of the thought concerning her.

But if you wish to hear what is not so, then—I have done it.'

When he had said this, [the bishop] deposed the reader.

Then [the reader] came forward and entreated the bishop and said to him:

'Well then, since I have transgressed, command that she be given to me as a wife;

for I am no longer a cleric, nor is she a virgin.'

So [the bishop] gave her over to the reader, supposing that the young man was disposed toward her and otherwise could not be cut off from his association with her.

So the young man, having received her both from the bishop and from her father, entrusts her to a women's monastery and asks the deaconess of the sisterhood there to bear with her until her delivery.

So within a short time the days for her to give birth were fulfilled;

the critical hour came—groanings, birth-pangs, agonies, visions of the powers below;

and the infant would not come forth.

The first day passed, the second, the third, the seventh;

the woman, from her pain holding converse with Hades, did not eat, did not drink, did not sleep, but cried out, saying:

'Woe to me, wretched one! I am in danger, for I have falsely accused this reader.'

Going off, [the women] told her father.

Her father, fearing to be condemned as a false accuser, kept quiet another two days.

The girl neither died nor gave birth.

So when the ascetic women could not endure her cries, they ran and reported to the bishop that 'So-and-so has been confessing aloud for days that she falsely accused the reader.'

Then [the bishop] sends deacons to him and makes known to him:

'Pray that she who falsely accused you may give birth.'

But he gave them no answer, nor did he open his own door, from the day he had gone in to entreat God.

The father goes again to the bishop;

a prayer is made in the church;

then the bishop rose and went off to the reader, and knocking at the door he entered to him and said to him:

'Eustathius, arise, loose what you have bound.'

And immediately, when the reader had bent his knee together with the bishop, the woman gave birth.

And the entreaty of this man and his perseverance in prayer availed both to bring to light the false accusation and to chasten the false accuser;

that we may learn to persevere in prayers and to know their power.

Concerning the brother who was with him. Having said a little, then, about the brother who has been with me from my youth until this day, I will bring my discourse to a close.

This man I have known, over a long time, never to have eaten out of passion, never to have fasted out of passion;

having conquered, as I believe, the passion for money, and for the most part that of vainglory;

content with what is at hand, not adorning himself with garments, giving thanks though despised, risking himself for true friends, having had experience of demons a thousand times and more;

so that one day a demon agreed with him and said:

'Consent with me to sin just once, and whatever [woman] you name to me in life, I will bring her to you.'

And again, at another time, when [the demon] had fought with him for fourteen nights—as he related to me—and dragging him by the foot in the night, it conversed with him aloud, saying:

'Do not worship Christ, and I will not come near you.'

But he answered and said:

Having trodden a hundred and six cities, and having tarried in most of them, by the mercy of God he had no experience of a woman, not even in a dream, except in the [spiritual] warfare.

Three times I have known him to receive needed food from an angel:

warm loaves in his sheepskin cloak;

and at another time, wine and loaves.

And again, at another time, I learned, as he was saying, 'You are running short;

go off then and receive from such-and-such a man grain and oil.'

So that man, going to him to whom he had been sent, says to him:

'Someone has bidden you to receive thirty measures of grain and twelve sextarii of oil.'

Concerning such a man as this I will boast, of what sort he was;

whom I have known to weep often over men in distress, stricken by poverty, and he gave them all that he had, except his own flesh.

And I have known him also to weep over one who had fallen into sin;

who by his tears led the fallen one to repentance.

This man once swore to me with an oath that:

'I have besought God that I might wound no one—especially of the rich and the base—by [asking that] something be given to me in my needs.'

And for me it is enough that I have been counted worthy to remember all these whom I have committed to writing.

For it was not without God that your mind was moved to enjoin the composition of this book and to commit to writing the lives of these saints.

But you, O most faithful servant of Christ, gladly meeting with them and taking their lives and labors and such great endurance as a sufficient proof of the resurrection, follow eagerly, nourished by good hope, seeing the days before you as fewer than those behind.

Pray for me, keeping yourself such as I have known you to be from the consulship of Tatian until this day, and such as I again found you when you were appointed praepositus of the most pious bedchamber.

For he whom such rank, with riches, and such great authority did not make worse in the fear of God—this man is dedicated to Christ, to Him who heard from the devil:

'All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.'