ON ST. MARY OF EGYPT, AND ST. ZOSIMAS PRIEST AND MONK, IN THE YEAR 321 PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY
Mary the Egyptian penitent, in Palestine (St.) Zosimas the Monk, in Palestine (St.)
AUTHOR D. P.
§ I The age of these Saints, far more ancient than is commonly believed. Mary, niece of Abraham, we set forth as an example for women truly penitent on March 16; and we showed that by a most grave anachronism from the sixth, in which she lived, Mary the elder Egyptian, niece of Abraham, century she had been drawn back to the fourth, on no other foundation, than because her life was thought to have been written by St. Ephrem the Syrian, Deacon of Edessa, who died about the year of Christ 378. Now we must treat of that Mary, in respect of whom this one is called Junior by Moschus, & must demonstrate conversely that she is far more ancient than is commonly believed by authors, who followed in error in the Ecclesiastical History Nicephorus Callistus; who, after he had in book 17 chapter 6 treated of Zosimas the Phoenician, contemporary of Justin the Elder, begins chapter 6 with these words: Another Zosimas also shone forth then, who performing the office of priest is said to have communicated the hidden mysteries to that Egyptian woman. For this man, persuaded that Sophronius, the one who once adorned the See of Jerusalem, described the life of that holy woman & of Zosimas; could not conceive the matter, done, as he prefaces, in his own time as writer, to be as ancient as it truly was; since St. Sophronius, as we showed on his feast day March 11, entered upon the Patriarchate about the beginning of the year 635.
[2] But how far from the truth the opinion of Nicephorus strays, Dynamius the Patrician will evidently teach us, through the written Life it was known to the West before the year 596, Rector of the Patrimony of the Roman Church in Gaul, who wrote the life of St. Marius Abbot of Bodon, illustrated on January 27; & who died from office or even life, before the year 596, in which St. Gregory wrote to Candidus the Presbyter, going to govern the Patrimony which is in Gaul. He therefore in the aforecited Life, num. 9, speaks of the Life of St. Mary of Egypt, as though long most well-known & everywhere published, in this manner: If anyone does not believe that sometimes wild beasts, laying aside their ferocity, have known how to serve the needs of the just, let him hear that lions made a grave for Paul the first hermit, and for St. Mary of Egypt. Therefore, the fact that in the Life of St. Eleutherius, Bishop of Tournai, given on February 20, num. 18, the same Saint, having gone to Rome about the year 518, is said to have received from Pope Hormisdas some Relics of St. Mary of Egypt & to have brought them to Tournai; not only ought this be free of all suspicion of falsehood, but also ought to make us more certain that, since the Life of St. Mary of Egypt makes no mention of a disinterred body, it at least was written before the year 500, and indeed Mary's death could not have happened after the year 450.
[3] & she was venerated among the most ancient Saints at Constantinople. To these two testimonies is added the antiquity & celebrity of her cult, which this holy penitent had in the Eastern Churches. For we have with us a Menologium transcribed from the Library of Fredericus Lindebrogius, designating the feasts of the whole year and the Lessons proper to each from the Apostle & Gospels: that this belonged to some Constantinopolitan church is proved by certain feasts, proper to that city alone, inscribed therein, even of more recent date: but as to its other parts, that it is most ancient is made probable to us by the antiquity of all the Saints commemorated there, inasmuch as they are either ancient Martyrs, or the first cultivators of the eremitic and monastic life; namely St. Chariton, St. Sabas, St. Theodosius, St. Antony, St. Euthymius, and no one else of this kind except St. Mary of Egypt, as though numbered among those ancient ones, from that time when few such feasts of each month were commonly common to all the churches of the East: for in the whole of April there are no more noted here than those of Mary, as I said, of the Great Martyr George, of Mark the Evangelist, & of James the Apostle.
[3] converted after the institution of the feast of the Finding of the Cross, These things being premised, let us come closer to examining the characters of the times, found in the present history. Mary was converted to God at Jerusalem, brought there out of Egypt on the occasion of the most frequented solemnity of all nearby peoples, which on account of the exaltation of the holy Cross was instituted, in the 21st year of Constantine the Great, of Christ
325. From this time to Mary's conversion it is not fitting to count either so few years, that Constantine was still among the living; since Mary, inquiring about the state of the Church & of the Empire, inquires of Emperors in the plural, as though he had left many co-reigning; or so many years, that after a 47-year Anachoresis we fall into the most turbulent times of the Church and the Empire, with which by no means agrees that response of Zosimas, in which to her prayers he attributed the fact that to all God had given stable peace.
Care must also be taken that between the death of Zosimas, now a centenarian, & the Pontificate of Hormisdas there be a sufficient interval of time, in which the Life might have been written, from the account handed down through the elders, as is said num. 41.
[4] To find this time, so precisely cut off on all sides, the death suffered on the night of the salvation-bearing Passion ought to lead us: & she died on the night after the Lord's Supper, but to this reasoning a more impeded way is made by the diversity of Greek and Latin manuscripts, when these assert that the 9th day of April was the last for the holy Penitent, those the first. But it is worth observing that the context of the words, which the dying Saint inscribed on the ground, by which ought to be known in what month & day she herself died, is altogether interpolated. But the context from the beginning seems to have been such: Θάψον, ἀββᾶ Σωσιμᾶ, ἐν τούτῳ τῷ τόπῳ τῆς ταπεινῆς Μαρίας τὸ λείψανον, ἀποδὸς τὸν χοῦν τῷ χοΐ, ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ τὸν Κύριον προσευχόμενος, τελειωθείσης ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ νυκτὶ τοῦ πάθους τοῦ σωτηρίου, μετὰ τὴν τοῦ θείου καὶ μυστικοῦ δείπνου μετάληψιν. Bury, Abba Zosimas, in this place the corpse of humble Mary, committing earth to earth, & praying to the Lord for me, who died on this very night of the salvation-bearing Passion, after the communion of the divine and mystical supper. More was not needed, that he who had brought the Blessed One the holy Mysteries, & was at the turn of the year to return, might distinctly know the month & the day of the month.
[5] in the month of April, Whether then the author of the Life added at the asterisk * these words, μηνὶ Φαρμουθὶ κατὰ Αἰγυπτίους ὅ or ὅς ἐστι κατὰ Ῥωμαίους Ἀπρίλλιος, In the month of Pharmuthi according to the Egyptians, which, or, who is according to the Romans April; whether, I say, for the sake of explanation the writer of the Life added these, or another after him, I do not wish to divine: this I know, that so it is read, both in the Bavarian Electoral MS. and in six MSS. Vatican; which our Petrus Possinus diligently examined, and reported, that without any numerical mark of the day, by the very words which are now marked, is indicated the month in Codex 566, of parchment, of nearly seven hundred years; and another likewise of parchment & of like age, num. 793; & a third on paper, num. 800, scarcely reaching the age of four hundred years; a fourth, which has the same thing, marked num. 824 & being parchment, and older than all the afore-named and by far the best: a fifth & sixth marked num. 862 & 679, being of about five hundred years.
Not content with this, others, on the first day according to the Greeks, added the day of the month, on which because they saw the Saint venerated, on the same they believed her dead for certain: & thus in the Medicean Codex of the King of France, and one most ancient Vatican 679 is read, ὅ ἐστι κατὰ Ῥωμαίους Ἀπριλλίου πρώτη. That is, according to the Romans the first of April: an unfitting addition indeed, nor well cohering with the others. For if the day had been specified according to the Egyptians, say Pharmuthi the sixth, then could aptly be subjoined the first of April: now it is clear to the interpolator nothing else was before his eyes, than to express for us that day of the month known to us, on which the Greeks were venerating Mary as having then died.
[6] according to the Latins the ninth: With similar license the author of the Latin version, even before Paul of Naples, if there was anyone before him, augmenting by his own addition the first interpolation of the Greek text, expressed the day as the ninth of April, that namely on which among most of the Latins Mary was then venerated, in this manner: Pray the Lord for me, at the passing of the month of Pharmuthi according to the Egyptians, which is according to the Romans the ninth day of April, that is V Ides of April, in the night, of the salvation-bearing Passion, etc. From these things it appears that nothing else remains for us, than to consider, whether we should adjudge to the Greeks or Latins the prerogative of having preserved in their church the true Birthday. Nor does the judgment seem difficult: but rather the Greeks should be followed for as when a question arises about the true Birthday of some Western Saint, we rather judge it to be taken from Latin
Calendars; but we believe the Greeks, either on account of the translation of Relics or from some other cause, to have observed a day different from the Latin usage: so conversely it will prudently be stood by the Greek Calendars, when treating of some Eastern Saint, & the diversity of Latin cultus will be referred to whatever other cause. So did Hildebert Bishop of Le Mans in the metric Paraphrase of the life, concerning which below; where the time of death he notes in this verse, as written in the sand, Victricem mundi dissolvit prima secundi. That is, the first day of the month of April, which is the second to those beginning the year from March.
[7] St. Mary of Egypt therefore died on the night of Parasceve, the first of April, as is credible that the monks, taught by Zosimas, undertook to celebrate her feast annually. and therefore it can be believed she died This being placed, it will not be very difficult to define, through the circumstances prescribed above, in what year that death ought to be noted. For within the year 348 & the year 511 (both of which indeed had Easter on the third day of the month, or III Nones of April; but such they are that of neither of them can there be suspicion, that it suits the death of her of whom we speak) within the years, I say, already named only two years are found marked with such an Easter, namely the year 432, & before this 421 at least by the calculation of the Alexandrians, which all Palestine followed and observed: for others kept Easter on the IV Ides, as Bucherius observes on the Paschal Canon of Victorius. Of these two, the first is more pleasing: because leading us to the conversion of the Blessed a whole decade earlier, it also makes her come nearer to the origin of the instituted festivity. in the year 421 after an anachoresis of 48 years, For thus she would have been converted in the year of the common Era 383, the last of Gratian, the ninth of Valentinian the Younger, the fifth of Theodosius, & from the raising of the Cross under Constantine the 58th. Then in this manner Mary being dead, for a whole thirty years Zosimas could have survived; and since the truth of the history narrated by him, even when he was dead, persevered in the mouth of monks, after another twenty or thirty years, it could thus have been committed to writing about the year 480, so that whoever wrote it would truly promise himself to narrate a matter done in his own age. But when this writing was spread straightway through all the churches, since a new ardor had been instilled in all to honor the Holy Penitent, I should believe that the body was sought and found by the monks, and particles received from it were sent by the Bishop of Jerusalem to Rome: whence some portion, by the gift of Pope Hormisdas, St. Eleutherius obtained & brought to Tournai, as will be narrated below. Moreover the year 420, which was of Honorius the 26th, of Theodosius the Younger the 13th, the last year preceding Mary's (when Zosimas would have said the Church & the Empire lived in peace) was truly peaceful for each: since a little after, by the dissensions of the Dukes & the slaughters of certain persons, and also by the invasions of various barbarians, no little was the tranquillity of the Empire beginning to be shaken, afterwards worn down by continual losses; to say nothing of the Church, in which the most pernicious heresy of Nestorius was then most sprouting, & the zeal of Cyril strenuously opposing himself to the same was stirring no slight motions throughout the whole East.
[8] But what of those years, in which from the opinion of Nicephorus most have hitherto attributed the conversion & death of Mary? not about the year 520 In the year 472, when she would have come to Jerusalem, the Vandals held Africa and Libya, and the whole Mediterranean they held infested with piratical raids, for some years before & after; so that it is not probable that there was then so great a frequency of pilgrims, from everywhere and in bands sailing to Jerusalem on account of the feast, as this narration supposes. But in the year 520 and neighboring ones, alone in the East was Justin reigning; but the whole Western Empire barbarian nations held, most of them infected with the Arian heresy. In the same East the adverse factions of the Greens and Blues were troubling then almost all cities: & war between the Persians and Romans broke out about that year: nor did the Church hold firm peace, although after the Council of Chalcedon was received after the death of the Emperor Anastasius. But at Jerusalem (concerning which it more directly pertained to Mary to inquire & to Zosimas to answer) was presiding John, orthodox indeed, but from the heretics intruded into the place of Elias, and suffering many indignities from the same, because contrary to their hope he opposed their machinations. So that, although we were not compelled by the arguments alleged before to draw back the history of Mary to the fourth and fifth century; nevertheless by no reasoning could we fit her to those years assigned. Zosimas had lived 53 years in his first monastery, before he went to the Jordan; & died a centenarian: how long did each live? but since he is said to have been very aged, & complains of old age at the time when he met Mary, it seems consequent, that at about seventeen years old he took the monastic habit, & found Mary when seventy; or even older than that, if we say that not when he entered the eremus for the first time, but when he had already several times experienced the annual anachoresis, that happiness befell him. But Mary, who at twelve came to Alexandria, & there lived in prostitution for seventeen years, & finally converted, spent forty-eight years in the eremus, at the minimum was counting the seventy-eighth year of her age when she died.
§ II. How wrongly & for what cause St. Sophronius was believed to have written the Acts of Mary. Her & Zosimas's cult among the Latins & Greeks.
[9] The same man who wrote the Ecclesiastical History in the 14th century, Nicephorus Callistus, son of Xanthopulus, Nicephorus, composing the Synaxaria of the Triodion, also composed Synaxaria to be recited with the Triodion, giving the reason of each Office, when & how the several were instituted: which Synaxaria Leo Allatius, finding to need no slight correction, & stuffed with many heterodox opinions, rightly wondered that those who presided over the Venetian edition for the use of the Orthodox Greeks gave no attention to expurgating them. But if he, being a stubborn schismatic, in many things offended against the faith; no fewer are the things in which he sinned against history, both in other places, and in the Synaxarium on the 5th ferial of the 5th week of Lent, where on the great penitential Canon, & on the Life of St. Mary of Egypt to be read together, he so speaks: This truly greatest of all Canons, well and skillfully composed and wrote our holy father Andrew, & treating of St. Andrew of Crete, author of the Great Canon. Archbishop of Crete, surnamed Hierosolymitanus … Now he made this Canon at that time when the great Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, committed to writing the Life of Mary of Egypt: which itself also is most full of compunction, and brings much consolation to the fallen & sinners, if only they be willing to desist from depraved works. … This most illustrious and greatest Canon, and also the treatise on the life of St. Mary of Egypt, he first brought to Constantinople, when by the Patriarch of Jerusalem Theodore to the sixth Synod he was sent as assistance. For then still professing the monastic life, when against the Monothelites he had bravely contended, he was enrolled in the Clergy of the Church of Constantinople: thereafter in it a Deacon & Curator of orphans was he constituted, & not long after was ordained Archbishop of Crete, and passed to the Lord … when he had held his See for a sufficiently long time.
[10] he feigns him contemporary with St. Sophronius Who would not believe that he who so confidently runs through the whole life of St. Andrew, as if he had received it from an eye-witness, was writing most certain and firm things from every side: meanwhile more errors do I detect here than periods, which it will be worth the effort to expound. The third Council of Constantinople, the same being general or ecumenical VI, under Pope Agatho in the year 680 in the month of November begun, until the September of the following year labored in condemning the heresy of the Monothelites. Thence until about the year 720 Andrew is held to have been among the living, by Labbe in the Chronological Bibliotheca of Ecclesiastical writers; & he says there are others, who extend his life until the 23rd year of that century: which may be examined on July 4, when he is venerated. It is enough here to have observed, that he must have died not much before, who after two laborious ministries in the Clergy of Constantinople discharged with praise, held his See for a sufficiently long time, having been made Archbishop of Crete. Let us now imagine Andrew was a centenarian when he died; scarcely even so had he reached the eighteenth year, when St. Sophronius died, whose last year of life was 638 of the Christian Era, as we showed on March 11.
[11] Meanwhile it is more probable that Andrew was still an infant or altogether a boy, when Sophronius died; & by his successor Theodore, when he was in his 14th year, & sent by his successor Theodore to Constantinople. he was tonsured as a Cleric, in the last years of that Patriarch: but these can scarcely be extended beyond the year 645, since that Theodore was father of Pope Theodore of Rome, elected in the year 641, & who died in 649. Therefore this man who, when Theodore was dying, was so young, could not by him have been sent to the sixth Synod. His eulogy, described far more fully and perfectly than elsewhere in the Clermont Synaxarium, after it has set forth his ordination, so speaks, Τῆς δὲ ὀικουμενικῆς συνόδου συναθροισθείσης ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει, μέρος καὶ αὐτὸς διέπων τὸν θρόνον τοῦ Πατριάρχου, ἀντ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἀπεστάλη. And when the ecumenical Synod had been called together at Constantinople, since he came there long after the death of both, & he was governing the Patriarch's throne in part, namely as Vicar during the vacancy of the See, or rather with the Patriarch living as Syncellus (certainly by then a man perfect, not only in profane and sacred disciplines, but also in exercises monastic, for some time exercised) he in his stead, either for the Throne or for the Patriarch, was sent thither. But whether in the year 680 the Jerusalemite See had a Patriarch, & by what name called, I have not whence to judge. Ten years before, the testimony of Zonaras, she was mourning widowed of a Pastor: if afterwards someone was instituted, the name lies in obscurity: for to say that another was again created by the same name of Theodore, the so doubtful and uncertain faith of Nicephorus does not obtain from us: at least by no means will Nicephorus obtain from him who will have read these things, that with Theodore's predecessor Sophronius describing the Life of the Saint, he believe Andrew composed the great Canon.
[12] bearing a Canon composed by himself. Furthermore this great Canon, which no one will deny was composed by Andrew, advances to two hundred & fifty troparia, as Nicephorus notes, whereas other Canons contain only thirty or a little more troparia: & by the custom of the Greeks is so divided into nine odes, that between the concluding Troparia of each ode, namely the Triadic & Theotokion and the very context of the great Canon, two Troparia about St. Mary of Egypt are interposed, & a third about St. Andrew himself; so that in total, until those Canons also have been gone through by parts, which were to be sung about each, three hundred and twenty troparia are counted. Indeed an immense labor & by far the longest, so that therefore the Rubric rightly notes that the signal must be given at the fourth hour of the night, indeed earlier than usual: then it says Gathered together in the church, Benedictus is said by the Priest according to custom, & we say the Hexapsalm; the Alleluia & Triadica, in the usual tone; we recite alternately & the prescribed Cathisma of the Psalter (for the whole Psalter of David is divided into twenty Cathismata or Sessions, concerning which see Meursius in his Glossary). Then we say the Cathismata of the Octoechos, to be recited together with the Canon of Sophronius about Mary, & we read the life of St. Mary of Egypt, in two sections. Follows the fiftieth Psalm: and presently we begin slowly the great Canon, & that with contrite heart & voice, making at each Tropar three bodily inclinations; about a thousand in all, to omit reciting the other parts of the divine Office to be performed on that day.
[13] But whence the speech, astonished at the admiration of so laborious and prolix an Office, has digressed, let it return thither; namely to those parts of other Canons, by which that great Canon is interpolated. I mean the Troparia about the Saint & about Andrew. The later Troparia a grateful posterity began to use, wishing to render the return of honor to the author, already numbered among the Divine, for the composition of so useful a Canon. The former about the Saint, we believe to have been composed by St. Sophronius: for this man with John Damascene restored, amplified, & arranged the sacred books of the divine Offices, arranged by St. Sabbas, but through the depredations of the Saracens almost lost in Palestine. Since therefore St. Sophronius had instituted, that on the said day of the said week of Lent, together with the Life written before Sophronius's age. the Life of St. Mary of Egypt, distinguished in two sections, the monks gathered in church should recite; & to it he had added a new Canon composed by himself suited to that Life; Andrew, after forty or fifty years made Syncellus or Vicar of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, intermixed with the same Canon his own great Canon: & so mixed, as his own & Sophronius's work, he delivered to the Constantinopolitan monasteries, together with the recitation of the Life, not written by Sophronius, but commended to be read in full on such a day. So indeed it came to pass, that the tradition of inexperienced men confused the matters & the times; which Nicephorus, embracing in his Synaxarium, gave to himself and others the occasion of erring.
[14] This Canon has an Acrostic; The great Canon which we mentioned, & the Canon about Mary interpolated through its parts, whoever wishes to read in Greek or Latin, let him inspect the works of St. Andrew of Crete collected & published by Combefis; & let him pardon him, that through so many pages scattered, the Troparia of the one canon, & the first letters of each Tropar, he neglected to gather, & in them to read this verse prefixed at the beginning. Σὺ ἡ ὁσία Μαρία βοήθει
Blessed Mary, bring thou aid.
For this verse is made up in continuous order by the initial letters of each of the Troparia to be sung about the Blessed: which if Combefis had observed, he would not have erred in the title of the Canon, & where must be read οὗ ἀκροστιχὶς, whose Acrostichis is the verse that is prefixed; he would not have read οὐ ἀκροστιχὶς, rendering in Latin, there is no Acrostichis: when in fact the Acrostichis prefixed follows. Not content with this more ancient Canon, Simeon Logotheta, another composed by the Metaphrast is recited on April 1. also called the Metaphrast, composed another in the 10th century; to be recited when the Precentor wishes: which likewise is held in the Menaea on the first day, & begins in this manner: Τῷ μακαρίῳ καὶ πρώτῳ καὶ νοερῷ φωτὶ πλησιάζουσα, ὡς ἡμέρας καὶ φωτὸς γεγονυῖα τέκνον, καθαρᾷ διανοίᾳ μετὰ σὰ μέλπειν ἀξίωσον. Approaching the blessed & first & intelligible light, as a daughter of day & light, deign that I may praise thee with pure mind. In place of the longer life, which we suppose was wont to be read on the very day of old, now as with the other Saints, an epitome is read, with this distich prefixed. Ἀπῆρε πνεῦμα, σὰρξ ἀπερρύη πάλαι. Ζωσιμᾶ, ἐν γῇ κρύπτε νεκρὸν Μαρίας
The soul departed: the flesh flowed away long ago. Zosimas, hide in earth the corpse of Mary.
[15] Memory of St. Zosimas on April 4; These things the Greeks on the first day of April: who presently, on the fourth day of the same month, again make mention of Zosimas in these few words: The same day, namely the fourth, the memory of our Holy Father Zosimas, who took care to bury the Blessed Mary of Egypt, & a distich is added.
Ζῶσαν προπέμψας Ζωσιμᾶς τὴν Μαρίαν, Θανοῦσαν εὗρεν, ἀλλὰ νῦν ζῶσιν ἅμα.
While Zosimas was seeking Mary alive, He found she had died: yet now they live together.
Peter de Natalibus, book 4, chap. 106, briefly relating the life of Zosimas, concludes saying that he ended his life in peace on the day before the Kalends of May: whence he received this we do not know. & April 30. Those following Peter — Maurolycus, Felicius, Whitford — in their Martyrologies inscribed him on the last day of this month.
[16] But Baronius, the corrector of the Roman Martyrology, among many Saints whom from the Menologium of Sirletus he newly took up, of Mary now among the Latins on the 2nd, also adopting this holy monk, but writing Zosimus, on the very day IV on which he found him, reported him: but for Mary he left the place, which Usuard first gave her, namely the second of the said month, which also various Churches have followed, venerating her with a more celebrated Office. But whether this was done from some error of Usuard or the Greek Calendar wrongly transcribed, rather than from some other just & reasonable cause, we strongly fear. formerly on the 9th day. The more ancient usage of the Roman Church (which together with the Relics St. Eleutherius transferred to Tournai) seems founded probably on that very day, on which at Rome first the Relics were brought from Palestine, or in some of the city's churches more solemnly placed; for scarcely any other occasion could have made the ninth day of the month sacred to the Blessed Penitent. Hence on the ninth day in many & more ancient Breviaries of various churches a noted Office is found: which to review and discuss we shall not delay, since sufficiently known & attested is the cult of this Divine One throughout the whole Christian world, on account of the utility of her example.
§ III. Translation of the relics of St. Mary to various cities of Europe.
[17] John Phocas, a Cretan Priest, in his brief description of the sacred places, holding the first place among the Συμμικτὰ Allatiana, chap. 25, when he had described two caves placed beyond the Jordan, one consecrated by the retreat of the Baptist, the other by the rapture of Elias, says, beyond the said caves, to the very course of the Jordan, it is reported that the eremus extends, in which the venerable Zosimas was made worthy to behold the Egyptian woman equal to the Angels. So he, The Saint's tomb eight days' journey distant from Jerusalem, writing after the year 1185, in which he visited the holy places, made no mention of the tomb, either because he had not gone to it, or because of it at that time, empty & also destroyed, no further mention was made. But an Anonymous author more ancient by several centuries on the places of Jerusalem, likewise published by Nihusius, says, beyond the Jordan, chap. 13, in the inner solitude the sepulcher of B. Mary of Egypt is seen, whom Abbas Zosimas visited & buried: it is distant from the city of Jerusalem a journey of eight days. Since therefore twenty days Zosimas is said in the acts to have spent, before he came to Mary; it ought not to be so taken, as if between his monastery at the Jordan, & the place where Mary was first found & then buried, there was so great a distance; but that he, an old man, & in that solitude being occupied with his accustomed exercises of prayer, & advancing daily by a few miles, & perhaps also wandering much about, at last reached the place which an unencumbered traveler may easily reach within eight days, if he takes a straight course.
[18] known immediately before the Life was written. But it is probable that first Zosimas, while strength allowed him to make the annual anachoresis, from time to time approached the place; & where he himself had gone, he set up certain signs for others, wishing to go to the same, whom his narration was stirring up to such labor; perhaps also by the special permission of their Hegumen some were allowed either outside of Lent to go thither for piety's sake, or within Lent to accompany Zosimas. The place certainly was known when the Life was written: & the author himself sufficiently indicates that he had seen it, num. 11, thus speaking of it: the place was hollowed out in the manner of a torrent-bed: but, as it seems to me, no torrent ever flowed there; & that position the place rather had from nature. Probable also it is, that with many passing back and forth, little by little the straight road, if Zosimas had not held it, was observed & noted: especially after it seemed well to disinter the holy body; & to erect a conspicuous tomb for the same, & afterwards more celebrated. in which so great a treasure the pilgrims might venerate. Of these things because the Life touches nothing, & yet the finding of the body was made about or within the Pontificate of Hormisdas (which was of nine years and begun in the year 514), it is consequent, that not long after the writing of the Life the elevation was celebrated. Rather, this writing, quickly spread through all the Palestinian monasteries, must have increased that very frequency of those approaching, & could have given occasion to miracles, which though none are had in writing, it is yet credible to have been great, & to have put forward the thought of seeking the body.
[19] Some Relics sent to Rome. Whence therefore or how were the Relics translated to Rome? If anything can be said by conjecture, I would willingly suppose, just as of the finding of the Proto-Martyr Stephen we read was done, so likewise in the finding of this Holy Penitent the Bishop of Jerusalem was involved, who took care that some part be brought into the holy city; of which then no small portion was sent to Rome. I would willingly also suspect, John, constituted by the heretics at Jerusalem as Bishop about the year 513, to have been the one under whom the finding was made, & who, wishing to prove his orthodox faith, which contrary to the hope & opinion of his electors he most constantly held, to the Roman See, sent a legation to it, & tried to add grace to it by a gift of Relics of the Saint sent, together with her Life written in Greek, which both by the novelty of the finding & the singularity of the history and its utility could give estimation. [From these a particle given to St. Eleutherius Bishop of Tournai, with a particle of St. Stephen,] But these are conjectures: this is certain, that both the Life was most well known to the whole West in the 6th century, & Relics were communicated by the said Pope Hormisdas to St. Eleutherius, Bishop of Tournai, in whose Life, edited from an ancient Tournai MS., num. 18 these things are read.
[20] When B. Eleutherius had petitioned from Pope Hormisdas of Rome something, he obtained relics of B. Mary of Egypt, & the shoulder of B. Stephen the Proto-martyr, & carried them with him to Tournai. Therefore the man of God returning from Rome is received with great exultation of the whole people. The Clergy exult, & clad in Dalmatics advance to meet their blessed Pastor. But suddenly the joy of all is doubled. For the Pontiff himself was bringing Relics of B. Mary, who endured so many & so great things for the Lord: but when he was entering by the Nervian gate, in the same place a great miracle was manifested by God. Brought to Tournai & by a heavenly light, For with the peoples running to meet him rejoicing, similarly with troops of Clergy in palliums, the blessed Pontiff ascending the mount, which was called the mount of the Hidden Treasure, but now is called the mount of St. Andrew, showed to all the people the Relics of B. Mary of Egypt & the shoulder of St. Stephen the Proto-martyr. Suddenly however around the Relics of the head of St. Mary, a certain brightness coming from heaven appeared, which also by all was seen, until he entered the church of the Mother of Christ: but above the shoulder of B. Stephen a more brilliant brightness, in the manner of an almost silver circle, was seen.
[21] & by the healing of the Sacred Fire it is honored: But when, surrounded by a crowd of the whole people, he was entering the church, four men, two women were endangered by a great infirmity, which is called the fire of gehenna. Then the man of God, moved by piety, placed the head before the women, & the shoulder before the men, saying, Let us all pray. But they falling down & praying, he said: St. Stephen Protomartyr, succor these men: St. Mary, succor & pity this female sex: for indeed we shall not rise from prayer, until they are made whole. At this voice all were set free: & the flesh, which in that very infirmity they had lost, was restored in that very hour. A mute man also standing by, spoke saying: Behold the Relics of B. Stephen & St. Mary. Then all astonished marveled … These things were done on the Nones of October. Note moreover, that what here are called head & shoulder, were such small particles of the same, that the author of the Belgian Hierogazophylacium, Raissius, treating of the Cathedral of Tournai & individually designating the quality and names of the notable bones, of these says only, that there with the others the Relics of St. Stephen the Proto-martyr & of Mary of Egypt are venerated, which St. Eleutherius, Pontiff of Tournai, in the twentieth year of his Pontificate, from Rome with him brought. Various particles in Roman churches. But we judge these to have been taken from the shoulderblade of St. Stephen, & from a certain part of St. Mary, which we are told are now preserved in the Vatican church of St. Peter by M. Attilius Serranus in his little book on the seven churches of the city. Adds Octavius Panciroli in his Hidden Treasures of the city of Rome, that other particles of the same Saint are held in the sacred houses of the Virgin of Loreto at Trajan's column, of St. Paul at the column of Antoninus, of St. Peter in Chains, of St. Gregory on the Coelian hill, of St. Cecilia beyond the Tiber, & of St. Sabina.
[22] After this on other occasions & times other relics of the same blessed Penitent were carried to various places, of which below. Yet there remained in Palestine, in the very (as we believe) sepulchral eremus, the chief part of the body, through five & more centuries: until, with the dominion of the Saracens growing strong through the holy places, it seemed good to one of the monks to transfer from the desert to the monastery, The greater part of the body in the year 1059 is translated to Calabria, & perhaps even to the holy city itself, the treasure of sacred bones, to be better preserved. And when in the year 1059 Lucas, Abbot of the Carbonian monastery in Calabria, had gone to Jerusalem, & had traveled the lands of the barbarians with his companions, having adored the cradle of Christ the Savior & Calvary, he carried off with him returning to Italy the sacred pledges, namely the body of St. Mary of Egypt, & the head of the great John the Almsgiver: & the church to the most blessed Father Lucas (he was the noble founder of that monastery, & dying in the year 993 is venerated on October 13) the church, I say, of B. Lucas he erected, working with hands & counsel; & there he placed the relics of St. Mary. the head to Naples, But the head of the Saint a certain Priest stole, carried to Naples, & having received payment, gave to the consecrated women of the monastery of St. Mary of Egypt. We the relics of St. Mary, lying without honor, more honorably adorned, with celebrity & pomp added: but the head of the great Almsgiver Julius Antonius Sanctorius, S. R. E. Cardinal Bishop of Palestrina, my uncle, magnificently adorned with gold and silver, a glass platter previously having been placed over it abjectly and without honor. Thus Paulus Aemilius Sanctorius of Caserta, Abbot Commendatary of the Venerable monastery of the Most Holy Mother of God, St. Anastasius & St. Elias the Prophet of Carbono, of the Order of St. Basil the Great, in the history of the same monastery, published in the first year of this century, & afterwards about the year seventeen of the century raised to the Archbishopric of Cosenza, & thence translated to the See of Urbino, & in it dying in the year 1635; a man, as Ferdinand Ughelli extols him, far most illustrious in the erudition of all sciences & the knowledge of languages.
[23] What concerning the Head translated to Naples he here indicated, before him more expressly described Francis Gonzaga, in his work on the Origin of the Seraphic Franciscan Religion, published about the year 1587 at Rome, p. 148, enumerating the Relics preserved in the aforesaid monastery: that, he says, seventy years ago to the Sisters was given as a gift by a certain unknown secular Priest: which however, concerning whose truth doubtful although no testimonial letters exist, frequent miracles, which through it God, most good and great, deigns to work, make it most commendable; & insinuate, that not fictitious, but true it is the head of the glorious aforesaid Sinner: of which only one for the testimony of this truth shall I adduce. It is of most ancient custom that this venerable head every year, from the first Vespers of the feast day of St. Mary of Egypt until the setting of the sun of the eighth day, covered with a silver case, on the high altar be committed to be gazed upon and venerated by the faithful; & that when the aforesaid days have passed, by the Guardian of the place to the nuns, to be restored to the sacristy, it be given back. And when in the year from the Virgin birth 1542 Father Fr. James of Matalona, Conventual Franciscan, Guardian then of this place, clad in sacred vestments, having burnt incense to this sacred head, according to most religious custom, on that very day of the Octave when he was offering it, within himself to hesitate and to say began: Who knows whether this be the head of any saint or rather of another, suddenly chastised & penitent he is healed. to whom so great honor is by no means owed? & behold at once with speech lost, so gravely and miserably he began to be shaken and afflicted, that him to be about to die very quickly one would have thought. Therefore the people moved, who had come together for the solemnity, & stupefied at the newness of so great a thing, Fr. Caesar of Gaiazzo came up, Confessor of the nuns, & with prophetic spirit began to cry out: Most firmly I believe this to be the true head of St. Mary of Egypt: & taking from it water, which on purpose he had poured over it, he offered to the sufferer, which when he had drunk, on the spot he grew well, & his incredulity publicly confessed: from which time also so great a pledge to be held in greater veneration by the faithful began.
[24] The rest of the miracles wrought there, would that either they existed in writing, or if they exist had come to our hands; now only this occurs to be added: that the monastery, which now receives only honest virgins, was built and endowed for prostitutes reduced to penitence and modesty by the most devout Queen Sancia of Aragon, wife of King Robert, in the year 1335; when ten years before another like it, under the invocation of St. Mary Magdalene, had been built by the same in the same royal city, did not suffice to receive all those wanting such asylum. To this I believe was granted by the founder herself the finger of B. Mary of Egypt, received from I know not where: & that priest who afterwards brought the head from the Carbonensian monastery, did not do it for shameful gain, as Sanctorius accuses; but with a mind altogether pious and religious; while he considered, how unworthily there so great a treasure was held, & how great reverence to it at Naples ought to be given, if it should be transferred to the monastery of its own name. Caesar Eugenio Caracciolo in his Sacred Naples of the year 1623, p. 426 asserts that not only the head, but also two large thigh bones & the very already mentioned finger the aforesaid priest brought: & two great bones: but since Gonzaga distinctly names the individual particles of Relics preserved there in his own time, namely Another of the fingers of St. Mary of Egypt, part of the skull of St. Margaret Virgin & Martyr, another of St. Aldegundis, also another of St. Juliana, & to Isidore another of St. Balbina, Virgins & Martyrs, and also the venerable head of the same St. Mary of Egypt; it is not credible that he would have passed over the thighs, if they had then been had there: but as Caesar was ignorant of these having been brought later, so also in the finger he could have erred.
[25] Further concerning possession of the body or the greater part with the Carbonensians the Cremonese contend; other parts at Cremona & though they are ignorant whence or how it was brought, they nevertheless say they have had it of old, in the ancient church of St. Agatha, granted in the year 1440 to the Canons Regular of the Lateran: to whom after 28 years migrating to a larger house near St. Peter, it nevertheless remained at St. Agatha's, until the year 1581; when, first by the testimony of Peregrino Merula in his Sanctuarium Cremonense, it was translated to the aforementioned house of St. Peter, & placed under the privileged altar for the deceased. Therefore I do not assent to the same Merula, who suspects that body was brought to Cremona by the said Regulars: for I do not think, that in the small house of St. Agatha they would leave what they themselves had brought in. What? that Antonio Campi, book 1 of the Affairs of Cremona, with Theophilus Raynaud says, that the sacred house of this Saint had existed at Cremona some centuries before the Regulars fixed their domicile there; & that when she in the year 1113 was burning, the Relics were carried off to the old church of St. Peter (perhaps to that place which now is named St. Agatha) & this also collapsing, they were carried into the new basilica. Therefore more probably it will be said, that some Cremonese, after the recovery of the Holy Land returning from the East, brought what of the body of the holy Penitent was left (for it is not credible that Lucas of Carbono had more than the skull & certain bones) to his homeland, namely the jawbone & certain other bones. with the jawbone of the Saint And these indeed were in his time in the church of D. Peter, & with the highest honor preserved in suitable tabernacles, as a whole body, writes the more ancient author Ludovicus Cavitelli in the Annals of Cremona brought down to the year 1585: but that the jawbone is in the church of St. Erasmus, & a certain unnamed particle in the parish house of St. Matthias the same teaches.
[26] Because the primary house of the Lateran Congregation & the head of the others is at Rome, at the house of St. Mary of Peace so named; I should easily believe, & with the head of St. Zosimas, the Cremonese to the Romans have given the favor of the arm which they now expose as venerable, with the occiput of St. Zosimas: for that his head also is held at Cremona in the church of St. Peter, writes the afore-praised Cavitellinus, likewise as we believe brought from the East. For that the tomb was in honor, Epiphanius Hagiopolita persuades, using these words: Two miles from Jericho is the monastery of the great & venerable Zosimas, where he himself was buried, & near him St. Anthimus, the same perhaps, who with the title of Priest is found inscribed in the Greek calendars June 7, & is said to have rested in peace. But if, on more accurate inspection of the Cremonese and Carbonensian relics, bones are found, either more or different than so that they could have made up one body of St. Mary; then indeed someone might not absurdly suspect, that some relics of St. Zosimas himself, less commonly known among the Westerners, had been held for relics of Mary.
§ IV. Relics of St. Mary among the Antwerpians.
[27] At Antwerp the palm-sized portion in the church of S. J. We also in this Professed house of the Society at Antwerp, in the red Hierotheca, elaborated with notable work, containing Relics of Saints neither Virgins nor Martyrs, believe we possess a palm-sized portion under this testimony. I, the undersigned Abbot of the monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Munster in Luxembourg, of the Order of St. Benedict, testify to all who shall inspect this writing, that from our sacristy I have given portions of relics to P. Heribert Rosweyde, Priest of the Society of Jesus: of which sacred Relics these are the names: of St. Lucy V. & M., of St. Prisca V. & M., of St. Balbina V. & M., of St. Mary of Egypt, of St. Amaleda Queen & Martyr, & of the heads of the holy Innocents slain for Christ the Lord: in witness whereof I here have subscribed. Given at our aforementioned monastery, October 13, 1614. Peter Roberti, Abbot of Munster. Of most celebrated fame the Martyrs are whose names here are expressed, so that nothing needs to be added about them: only Queen Amaleda is the one concerning whom we wish to know something more certain: for not even to Crombach is any such name known, among those which are ascribed to the Ursulines.
[28] another brought from Portugal Another particle from the body of St. Mary, with pledges of 34 other illustrious Saints, in the year 1633 fell to our Antwerp city, on the occasion I shall expound. With Sebastian King of Portugal slain among the Africans, & his great-uncle, who as an old man succeeded the young man to the kingdom, Cardinal Henry being deceased; with many competitors for the same succession, by both right & arms superior, Philip III King of the Spains, Antonio, bastard son of Prince Louis of Portugal, proclaimed King by popular favor, defeated in battle, & the province pacified obtained the crown: to the vanquished only the bare title remained, which as an exile in France he continued to bear. This one among other (so to speak) planks of his shipwreck, carried to Paris, by whom in the year 1594 formerly king, not with gold or gems, but with sacred Relics a rich casket, which on the year 1594 on the third day of April delivering to his son Emanuel, he dispatched letters of this kind, witnesses of his donation: Antony the first, by the grace of God, King of Portugal, Algarve, India, Brazil, etc. Since it greatly contributes to the glory of the supreme Godhead, that God thrice most good most great (as he is wonderful in his saints) in the same and in the members of his Church left behind may more amply be honored, praised, and glorified. On account of which, since from our royal Chapel at Lisbon of certain Saints we have had reserved true and genuine Relics, which our kinsman the Most Illustrious D. Eduardus of the Holy Roman Church Cardinal, son of Alexander Farnese & Mary Princess of Portugal, with the consent & ratification of the supreme Pontiff fortified with testimonial letters, from the Roman citadel and elsewhere gathered and carried: among which were the following Relics. Num. I One bone of St. Gertrude of Austria, who is venerated Jan. 6. Num. II One bone from the spine of the back with other bones of St. Maurus Abbot, with Relics of 34 other Saints. venerated Jan. 15. Num. III Bone from the spine of the back with part of a rib of St. Agnes Virgin & Martyr, venerated Jan. 21. Num. IV Two parts from the ribs with a particle of St. Ignatius Bishop Martyr, venerated Feb. 1. Num. V Two bones of St. Blasius Bishop & Martyr, venerated Feb. 3. Num. VI Part of the spine of the back & of the skull of St. Agatha Virgin & Martyr, venerated Feb. 5. Num. VII Bone & part of the rib of St. Dorothea Virgin & Martyr, venerated Feb. 6. Num. VIII Part of the spine of the back with two bones of St. Scholastica Virgin, venerated Feb. 10. Num. IX Part from the spine of the back & rib of St. Margaret of Cortona, venerated Feb. 25. Num. X Bone & part of the rib of St. Adrian Martyr, venerated March 4. Num. XI Two parts from the bones of St. Benedict Abbot, venerated March 21. Num. XII Bone of St. Mary of Egypt, venerated April 1. Num. XIII Three parts from the spine of the back of St. Juliana Virgin, venerated April 5. Num. XIV Part from the spine of the back & part of the rib of St. Anselm Bishop & Confessor, venerated April 21. Num. XV Three parts of bones of St. Yvo Priest, May 19. Num. XVI Two parts of bones of St. Cunera Virgin & Martyr, June 21. Num. XVII Part from the spine of the back & of the skull of St. Lutgard Virgin of Brabant, June 16. Num. XVIII Two parts of bones of St. Paulinus Bishop of Nola, June 22. Num. XIX Part from the skull & another part of the bone of St. Elizabeth the Queen, venerated July 1. Num. XX Three parts of the bones of St. Felicity, mother of the seven sons Martyrs, July 10 with her sons. Num. XXI Part of the spine of the back & smaller part of the rib of St. Alexius Confessor, July 17. Num. XXII Part of the spine of the back of St. Christina the marvelous, July 24. Num. XXIII Part of the skull & bone of St. Hyacinth Confessor, August 16. Num. XXIV Part of the spine of the back & chin of St. Roch Confessor, August 16. Num. XXV Two bones of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, August 24. Num. XXVI Part of a bone & one of the ribs of Moses the Eremite & Martyr, August 28. Num. XXVII Three parts of the skull of St. Giles Abbot, September 1. Num. XXVIII Part of the skull of St. Thecla Virgin & Martyr, September 23. Num. XXIX Part of a bone & two of the ribs of St. Placid Martyr, October 5. Num. XXX Three parts of the bones of St. Pelagia the sinner, October 8. Num. XXXI Part of bones & two parts of the chin of St. Cecilia Virgin & Martyr, November 25. Num. XXXII Part of the bone & rib of St. Barbara Virgin & Martyr December 4. Num. XXXIII Bone & part of the spine of the back of St. Josaphat Prince & Confessor, November 27. Num. XXXIV. Part of the bone & two of the ribs of St. Catherine Virgin & Martyr, November 25. Num. XXXV The whole chin with three teeth & a bone of St. Augustine Bishop & Apostle of England. And since the Relics already enumerated, from previous authentic and wholly faith-worthy testimonies by two successive Archbishops of Braga and Lisbon, & by the modern Bishop of Coimbra, and also by the modern Bishop of Coimbra were visited, approved, for true & genuine held, and by Apostolic authority or vicarial of Christ for the veneration of the faithful exposed, as also until now it is agreed they have been approved & exposed: the prescribed Relics of the named Saints men & women, by the order of charity to none with greater right among the living we have judged to be left, than to our dearest son Prince Don Emanuel of Portugal; to whom we graciously confer the same. And in strength of this donation and perpetual firmness, all and each of them we have willed to be fortified with our smaller seal on parchment (on which also the names are inscribed), and with a white and black twisted thread to the aforesaid parchment inviolably applied, & in the wax of the seal impressed and enclosed, so that to all who will see these it may be certain that they are genuine and true, and subject to no fraud or suspicion, but rather most worthy of the veneration of the faithful of Christ.
[29] With his unfortunate father dead, a more clement fortune received the sons in Belgium, under the dominion of their natural King; of whom the elder-born and possessor of the said Relics placed them at Antwerp, under this attestation: Don Emanuel Prince of Portugal etc. by the tenor of these present we make known & certify, that special benevolence we have experienced from D. Christopher Butkens, Prelate of St. Salvator at Antwerp; chiefly from this, that from the commendation of her most Serene Highness Isabella Duchess of Brabant etc., in his monastery has received, from whom in the year 1633 it is given to the Prelate of St. Salvator. our beloved brother Dionysius of Portugal, Religious Priest of the Cistercian Order of Vallis-bona, still in St. Salvator's dwelling and religiously conversing. By which act of reception to his said most serene Highness, to us, and to our family he rendered a benefit never to be consigned to oblivion. We lest we be deemed ungrateful, but wishing to correspond to the aforesaid benevolence, graciously confer & in perpetuity give to the aforesaid R. D. Prelate & his church of St. Salvator, a small chest containing all & each of the Relics, left to us by our most pious father of glorious memory Antony … which we attest on our sworn faith to be genuine & true … on the day May 18 1633, on the day after we renewed the Magistracy of Antwerp, by the commission of his Highness. So done in the said monastery of St. Salvator, in the hall to the garden; in the presence of D. Ferdinand of Boischot Chancellor of Brabant, Count d'Erps, Baron of Saventhem, Toparch of Quarebbe & Rosseghem, & of the Habit of the Order of St. James. Likewise in the presence of D. Mag. John de Witte, secretary in the Court of Brabant; & of the new Consuls John de Bejar & Charles of the Holy Cross Knights; four witnesses most worthy of all faith.
[30] with the approbation of the Bishop of Antwerp. Delivered with these was also the Bull of John Mirei Bishop of Antwerp approving the same Relics, permitting them to be exposed in his diocese, & bestowing 40 days of Indulgences on whomever on any of the annual festivities would visit them; after he had seen above three approvals both of Archbishops & of Bishops of Portugal: which Bull was signed at Antwerp in the year 1610, May 5. Also delivered was another attestation, by which John Alvarez de Luzana, Bishop of Portugal or of the city of Porto, & formerly in the royal chapel of the kingdom of Portugal and in the city of Lisbon itself General Provost, in the year 1628, on January 17, at Brussels in the hall of the said Prince Emanuel, something concerning the Relics of Blessed Elizabeth declares, namely that they are not of the Queen of Portugal, but of the Princess of Hungary: & that from the instruments of Cardinal Eduardus often seen & read donating them, & of the Bishop of Portugal's declarations, & of Cardinal Henry of the same place approving them. Which being declared, we add, says the same John Alvarez de Luzana, that we, while we were in the Provostship of the royal chapel, the said true Relics often to the King, Queen, and their sons, concerning the cult of each, & to other nobles of the court, and also to thousands of the faithful of Christ for veneration to be kissed offered. Moreover we affirm, that we with the Chaplains of the kingdom and their Vicars, from special Papal indults, even after Trent by the Congregation of Sacred Rites obtained & by the Apostolic See approved, the annual feast of each of the Saints men & women ever celebrated, and with solemn divine office chorally celebrated, and the high Mass chanted of the said XXXV Saints in their proper or in the common, & of the same cultus with accustomed rite. so long as the said treasure of sacred Relics was in the royal chapel.
[31] He then proceeds to declare what feasts had the Office in the rite of Double, which of Semidouble or even of Simple with only three Lessons to be performed. And indeed he designates six feasts of the first order; nine of the second, among which are the feasts of St. Lutgard Virgin & Margaret of Cortona, whose body in Etruria is venerated & whose Life was published by us on February 22 with the title of Blessed: of the third order lastly the remaining, both of the other XIV Saints men & women, & of St. Cunera Virgin & Martyr, St. Gertrude of Oosten (for it is she whose life we have given, & who above was wrongly surnamed of Austria), St. Juliana, St. Christina called the Marvelous, Virgins; St. Mary of Egypt & St. Pelagia, who are called sinners. Concerning which it occurs to be noted, that the Relics of Saints, chiefly Belgian, which we have named, seem to have been brought from Belgium into Italy, by Margaret of Austria, Some of these Relics were first received from Belgium. daughter of Charles V, & mother of Alexander Farnese, afterwards Prince of Parma & among the Belgians most famous Duke, married to Octavius Farnese in the year 1554. Then Alexander the same with his son Eduardus, who to Rome under the tutelage of Alexander Cardinal Farnese was being directed to be educated, to the same transmitted about the year 1570. Whence with an augmentation of other Relics sought at Rome, they were further transported into Portugal, by regard to Queen Joanna, daughter of Charles V & married to John IV; by occasion of the grandson, at Rome with Cardinal Henry aforesaid sojourning, used; to enrich his domestic oratory with a notable access. It is also to be noted that Eduardus himself (who when Antony had to yield his ill-used kingdom, was perhaps in his 11th year of age, nor was he made Cardinal except after eleven years) was called by that title, by which he was then distinguished when the diplomas were given, not by which the Relics were sent from Rome. & perhaps not by Eduardus but by Alexander Cardinal sent to Portugal. Indeed we strongly fear, considered the age of Eduardus, that Antony's Secretary as he bore himself for King, Peter de Cuña, just as convicted of having written by some haste of the pen the name of Elizabeth the Queen, for the name of Elizabeth of Hungary; so also slipped in the name of the Cardinal Farnese; & to him for Alexander (who until the year 1589 survived, a Prelate of the greatest name & authority, then nearly seventy) there crept in his great-grandson Eduardus, a boy indeed when the Relics were being sent to Portugal, but then when the diplomas were being written alone of the Farnese family a Purple-clad.
[32] Furthermore to the monastery of St. Salvator of Antwerp the Relics so brought of the Saints we said thirty-five (to which a thirty-sixth is added the body of St. Hatebrand Abbot, at last in the year 1671 a Confraternity was instituted. which is proposed to be venerated on July 30) were held privately for many years, until the most worthy Abbot of the same monastery first with this title, Most Reverend Lord Francis Dieriex, took care that a solemn Translation of them be made, & a pious Confraternity of both sexes under the invocation of the Saints Benedict Abbot, Maurus & Placid his disciples, & Lutgard Virgin Cistercian, & of other Saints whose Relics (as piously believed) in the said church are preserved, & in the year 1672 with a solemn translation they are honored. to be erected by Apostolic authority: this indeed in the year 1671 with the approbation of the Most Illustrious & Most Reverend Lord Ambrose Capello Bishop of Antwerp, who those Relics one by one enclosed in new cases on October 24 by himself anew visited, recognized, & approved: but that in the following year 1672 on August 7, most ornately & most splendidly, led or accompanied by the whole secular & Religious Clergy & the Magistracy of the city itself. There has not been for many years at Antwerp, which city in adorning sacred processions is wont to excel in singular magnificence, any pomp more august or more conspicuous than this, in which the sacred Relics, in their own individual biers under nine banners, & with as many triumphal chariots, were being carried around by the leading men of as many Religious Orders, with an inscription chronica added to each, marking the year of Translation & the condition of each Saint. Among which under the second standard of the Saints men & women Penitents, associated by the Capuchin Fathers, were borne the bones of this Divine One, for whose sake these things have been related, & who was denoted by this motto, MarIa LVXVrIæ Castra Deserens. (Mary Deserting the Camp of Luxury)
[33] To explaining the motto can serve the synopsis of the Life, in the Menologium of the Emperor Basil so expressed: Our holy Mother Mary, was at first a prostitute, eulogy from the Menologium. losing many young men's souls through lustful intercourse, and continuing that life for seventeen years in Egypt. But when certain persons were going to Jerusalem to venerate the holy Cross, she too departed: but being prevented by an Angel from entering the temple, & from adoring the sacred wood, she was saddened; & promising to serve God, she obtained entrance. Then by the command of the Mother of God she crossed the Jordan, & contended in the solitude for forty-seven years, seeing no man. But God willing to manifest her, ordained that St. Zosimas should enter the eremus, who heard her narration about herself, & her (when she crossed the Jordan also, walking on the waters) on her return received, & afterwards found, together with the name inscribed on a potsherd; & finally with the help of a lion, buried her.
§ V. Writers on the praises of St. Mary: churches, monasteries, altars erected to her.
[34] The Acts of St. Mary are extant in several Greek MSS. codices. The Roman codices we enumerated above: Greek Acts, others from the Laurentian Library at Florence, & the Ambrosian at Milan we might have noted, if it had been our custom to write down separately an index of Lives commonly occurring, & how often in any one we had come upon them in traversing the libraries. Those already of old we had from the Medicean MS. of the King of France, & the Munich one of the Duke of Bavaria: from which we now give the Latin. Certain Greek ones, by common error, bear the name of Sophronius Bishop of Jerusalem. We once doubted whether to the error Sophronius had given his name, familiar to Jerome, by him in his book on Ecclesiastical Writers praised chap. 134, both for other lucubrations, and for certain little works of Jerome himself, namely the little book on Virginity to Eustochium & the Life of Hilarion the monk, most elegantly translated into the Greek tongue. whether written by some older Sophronius? But this man, though he lived at the same time as Mary, could not yet have lived so long, that he should have survived Zosimas himself her discoverer; & indeed for twenty or thirty years, which we have shown to be required; for these would lead us to about the year of the common Era 480. But Jerome composed that book of his on Writers, as he himself confesses, in the 14th year of the Emperor Theodosius, of Christ 392. Therefore either another Sophronius must be found a century later, or despair of attaining the author's name even by conjecture. More ready is the conjecture about him who impelled him to write, who is indicated num. 41, namely to have been either the Patriarch of Jerusalem, or the Hegumen of the very monastery in which Zosimas died.
[35] Who first made the Latin from the Greek & in which tongue it was read in the time of Dynamius is not clear: we think however that it was made Latin as soon as the Relics were brought to Rome. For among the codices of St. Maximinus near Trier, one small one survives, of such antiquity, that it seems to exceed the age of eight hundred years: in this & in others copied from the same source the style is not a little simpler than in several more recent ones. Some of the more recent codices bear the Epistle of Paul the Deacon offering again to the most glorious & most excellent King Charles the little book of the conversion of Mary of Egypt, Rendered into Latin by Paul the Deacon. with the little tome on the penitence of a certain Vice-dominus: this was Theophilus, reported on February 4. Others, among which is the MS. of St. Omer, with the epistle omitted, are so prenoted: Paul, Venerable and worthy of God Deacon of the holy and glorious Neapolitan Church, translated from Greek into Latin, how by doing penance for her sins in the desert, Mary of Egypt completed the course of her life. Franciscus Hubertus of our Society priest of Lorraine, brought to Belgium with the militia of that people, as he was most skilled in the Greek language, had translated for us some lives of saints into Latin, and among them this of St. Mary: but the devouring flame consumed his labor: so we have prepared a new version ourselves, because in the old ones, which commonly exist, some things displease.
[36] A century and a half after Paul the Deacon flourished Hildebert, in 1097 Bishop of Le Mans, metrically by Hildebert Bishop of Le Mans. & 1125 constituted Archbishop of Tours, died 1232, an excellent Versifier, as Ordericus calls him, book 4 Eccles. Hist., from whose elegant pen we have given on the 29th of this very month the Life of St. Hugh of Cluny; & that the reader might have a specimen of each style, here we bring forward the metric Life of Mary of Egypt, whose exemplar in the MS. Codex of the monastery of Dunes with these verses concludes:
Thus in meter of Pharia did he renew the Acts of Mary The man Hildebert, filled with splendor of letters, Light of his Le Mans native land, praise of the city of Tours. With Pharia gladly may he enjoy peace at rest. This well-compunct life, is well-joined read with Christ, Whom accompanied by a wild beast Zosimas buried in the sand Of the hot desert, and wasted under the sign of the Crab.
But Hildebert used either a more ancient and more faithful version, if any was extant, this paraphrase is given from a MS. or the Greek original text itself, as we gather from day 1 April noted at the end, where the exemplars of Paul's version all have day 9. There is indeed no intention by metric Paraphrases of this kind, which are often offered, to augment this work of ours, when from them nothing can be had to illuminate history: yet this time it seemed right to indulge in something, because Theophilus Raynaud, writing of this Saint, has in some way obligated our faith, & has ordered readers to await this little work from us. And so although the Bruges MS. transcript, which we had prepared for the press, perished in the Amsterdam fire; another we have taken from another of our MS. Codex of parchment really notable, which from the desolation of the Anglican churches made under Henry VIII we have brought into Belgium, first by Abraham Ortelius, & this dying by our Andrew Schott redeemed, containing some ἀνέκδοτα (unpublished pieces), among which are the Homilies of Odo the monk of Canterbury, & B. Anselm of Canterbury's little book on the fourteen Beatitudes & three of his letters, to be communicated promptly to those wishing to edit them.
[37] Theophilus Raynaud's work on the Saint. Moreover Theophilus Raynaud, whom I named above, wrote above all most copiously on Mary sinning and repenting, for the convenience and utility of preachers, applying to her this place from Isaiah, The Lord will hiss for the fly which is in the extremity of the rivers of Egypt; & he will come and rest in the torrents of the valleys, & in the caverns of the rocks, & in all bushes, & in all holes: to which treatise, extending through twenty-one dissertations, he added another no less useful & equally prolix, with this title, Penitence wiping away the filth of turpitudes, where in dissertation 1 & 2, for showing the curability of the fallen, examples are gathered of women, rescued from the mire of prostitution or of carnal turpitudes by the hissing Lord. They can be found and read in volume 9 of his works, here from dissertation 20 of the earlier treatise I shall add what he further suggests about writers praising St. Mary, & what he delivers in the preceding dissertation about her peculiar cult in most Christian regions. Of the first he thus speaks.
[38] Another full and sufficiently polished metric description of the things of B. Mary of Egypt, other writers on the same. distinguished in three books, published in the preceding years John Baptist Laurus, both a pious & cultivated Poet. Brief writings on the same Saint are in abundance. Gabriel Flamma published a historical narration of her life, stuffed with praises; as also Peter Ribadeneira, in his Addition to the Flowers of the Saints: and also Francis Haraeus, & Lipelous Carthusian, & as many as have given compendious Lives of Saints. Francis also Bonald, not Bonadus, of Saintes, book 3 of Poems, Monody 29, composed for this holy Penitent a short Poem, for that time not unskillful. Francis also Remond in his Poems, & Ursus in his Inscriptions, & in his Hieromenia Gualfreduccius, briefly praised this holy Penitent. What the man of God Bernard Colnagus, thaumaturgus of his age, most religious toward St. Mary of Egypt, of this Saint in sermons often said, whether he committed to writing, lies hid from me … On purpose I wished to pass over the sectarian Ecbanus Hessus, although in his Heroides epistles he treats of Mary of Egypt (if you except the author's person) not without praise. Bran likewise of an inept writer, and even by his own Carmelites little approved Alegraeus, with which he sprinkled this Saint, that he might make the domestic Heavenly Ones more augmented through her, I commit to another sieve.
[39] Of churches moreover the same Raynaud has these things: Churches erected to this holy Penitent various are seen. various churches A small sacred building at Jerusalem or chapel of B. Mary of Egypt, built in the place in which she came to her senses, is mentioned by Adrichomius in his Jerusalem. But this was only a chapel, for a perpetual monument of so great a matter. But elsewhere there are many truly and properly churches. The Roman one is not very ancient under this title: for at first it was a temple of Jupiter and the Sun, which in the year 872 was consecrated to B. Mary the Virgin: and that appellation stood, until by Pius V it was attributed to the Armenians; & then the title of St. Mary Mother of God was changed into that of St. Mary of Egypt. Of that which was at Cremona, we have already spoken. & receptacles of penitents under the same appellation. At Chambery of the Allobroges is a most elegant basilica & monastery of the Fathers of St. Francis of the observance, under the title of St. Mary of Egypt: of which the first beginnings are owed to Stephen Roset, Provost of the Court of Accounts. For he in the year 1462 at Chambery, out of affection toward this holy Penitent, built for her a church with adjoining building, & in the seventh year after delivered it to the Fathers of St. Francis of the Regular Observance, living at Miani. At Cologne, as Erhardus Vinheim writes, in his Sacrarium Coloniense, sacred house 62 is adorned with the name of D. Mary of Egypt: as also at Viterbo, by the liberality of Cardinal Mutus, a church of St. Mary of Egypt has been built, & assigned to women emerged from the mire. At Avignon in Cavaillon, a Papal city, there is a church with a monastery built in honor of B. Mary of Egypt, chiefly by the work of a most distinguished man Paulus de Joannis, whose indefatigable piety in this kind no speech sufficiently reaches. Churches of this kind in honor of this Divine One, by the care of the same Paulus de Joannis, with adjoined receptacles for those emerging from the mire, have been raised in most of the principal cities of France, with great purgation both of the cities & good of the poor little women; & of the Divine One, through the naming of so many sacred houses more illustrious among mortals, with greater glory.
[40] Of particular altars, that various have been erected in various places, we do not doubt; but we find no one who has entered into an account of them. altar at Utrecht: Of one I in the year 1672 saw an ancient panel, with great pleasure, at Utrecht, preserved from the despoilment of the sacred houses and abolition of images, & transferred to the Chapter hall of the Canons of St. Peter at the house of their Catholic Secretary; under which the names of various Saints were written, to whose invocation the altar had once been sacred: but above the rest could be seen expressed on either side in the wings of the said panel, added, on this side the history of St. Mary Magdalene, on that of St. Mary of Egypt. Few months afterwards passed when the city came under the power of the French, & the cathedral house was restored to Catholic rites. The next thing is that the other churches also most frequented throughout the whole city may return to the ancient worship, when we hope that it will come to pass, that to its own church and altar the aforesaid panel will be restored, a perpetual monument of the ancient piety of our ancestors toward the two aforementioned examples of penitence.
[41] I saw in the same year at Amsterdam D. Laurentius Vander Hem, a man of sacred & profane literature, & of geography especially so studious, cult chiefly among the Muscovites, that the Blavian Atlas, with very many tables, also expressed by pen & color, & with descriptions added by his own hand & mind enlarged, beyond thirty volumes by himself he produced, sparing neither expense nor labor. Among the others, which he further had designated, volumes, one will be on Muscovy alone; for which already now various material is prepared, especially of a certain figured Calendar, which is in use among the Muscovites, twelve tables, adorned with gold & colors. These I more curiously examining, & from the names of Saints subjoined to each figure detecting, in greater part to agree with the Greek calendars of the Constantinopolitan Church (for from this, while it still adhered to the Catholic & Roman union, the Muscovites received the faith) not unwillingly I undertook their explanation, to be woven for the use of a most erudite and most humane man; & I noted the feast of Mary of Egypt, approved from their figured Calendar. to that nation, & therefore also to the other Ruthenians, to be most solemn. For at the beginning of April not simply was seen a little statue of the Blessed, enclosed in a thimble-sized tessera, as of most other Saints: but her whole history with Zosimas's, divided into four parts & expressed, so that the first meeting of the Saints, then the second with sacred communion, then the glory of the soul carried up to heaven, & finally the burial of the body were distinctly seen. Such a picture indeed occupied the palm-sized space of the panel, not very large: which rarely occurs in those panels, & not except in noting some highest festivities, such as there was no other in all this month.
ACTS
From the Greek MS. of the Most Christian King & another of the Duke of Bavaria collated.
Mary the Egyptian penitent, in Palestine (St.) Zosimas the Monk, in Palestine (St.)
FROM MSS. G. R.
PROLOGUE.
[1] To conceal the secret of a King is good, but to preach the works of God is glorious: so the Angel said to Tobias after that wonderful illumination of blinded eyes, and those troubles, which he endured, & from which he was rescued on account of his piety. Tob. 12, For not to keep the secret of a King is a harmful & dangerous thing: but to keep silent the works of God brings the soul into peril. Therefore I dreading to be silent about divine things, & looking to the sentence pronounced on the servant, Faithfully narrated who the talent received from his lord hid in the ground, & unfruitful left what had been given for profit; the sacred narration, which has come to my ears, I will not wrap in silence. Let no one delay to give faith, and think me making up what he hears or altogether inventing, stupefied by the greatness of the matter. Far be it from me to interpolate the sacred discourse, in which God is to be named, by lying. But if to some, thinking small & things unworthy of the magnitude of the incarnate Word, it should befall to refuse faith to what is said; the author proposes to describe with equal faith. those I would deem to act against reason: but if some should fall upon this writing, & struck by the novelty of the deed should not wish easily to receive it, to these also let the merciful Lord be favorable; since also these, considering the weakness of human nature, deem incredible whatever is said beyond human capacity. Nevertheless, I will approach the narration, about to tell a thing done in this our age, as a certain man set it forth, who from a boy was taught to speak & to do divine things. But again let no one bring this as an argument of distrust, thinking that it cannot happen that in this our age anything of the kind is done: for the grace of the Father, through generations transferring itself into holy souls, makes friends of God & Prophets, as Solomon teaches. Wisdom 7, 27 But now it is time to begin that sacred narration.
CHAPTER I.
The monastic life of St. Zosimas, his coming to the Jordan, Mary found by him.
[2] There was among the monasteries which are through Palestine, a certain man cultivated in tongue and life, & from infancy nourished in monastic customs and actions, Zosimas by name, in age an old man. But let no one clinging to the name alone think that my discourse is about that Zosimas, who erring in doctrine, After excellent advances in virtue, knew less rightly: for this is another, & that other; & much they differ among themselves, though both obtaining the same name. This Zosimas was orthodox, who in one of the ancient monasteries from the beginning having conversed, through every kind of exercise proved, & instituted fittingly for every virtue, the whole order indeed wont to be kept in such arena he observed, but many things he added of his own will, wishing to subject the flesh to the spirit. Which so succeeded with him, that, on account of his much experience of spiritual things, often from neighboring or even more remote monasteries many flowed together to him, by his teaching to be informed to perfection. But when the old man had obtained so great a skill in treating souls, he never acted remissly in meditation on the divine sayings; but was insistent on the same, & his laudable rigor of life, whether he lay on his bed, or rose up, or was working something with his hands, or even took food, when it was fitting to take it. But if you wish to know what food was pleasing to him, that certainly which was never consumed & was never lacking to him, to sing psalms unceasingly & to ruminate the holy Scriptures in mind. Indeed they say some that he was often worthy of divine visions, with his mind heavenly illumined: for just as the Lord says, to the ever-watchful spiritual eye the species of divine illustration will behold, whoever have purged their flesh; & living soberly, of the good which awaits them they will thence receive the pledges.
[3] Zosimas himself said of himself, that from his father's arms, so to speak, given into that monastery, for fifty-three years in the monastic course he persevered: but afterwards, as he said, he began to be vexed by certain thoughts, Zosimas tempted about vainglory as if he were now perfect in all things, nor needing any foreign instruction at all. For thus, as he said, he disputed with himself: Can you think there is on earth a monk, who can profit me, & teach me some new kind of exercise, which I do not yet know & have not experienced in the very work? or will there be in the eremus of those philosophizing anyone, who will surpass me either in knowledge or action? When the old man was thinking these things, someone came upon him, & said to him: O Zosimas, you have contended well & as far as is possible for a man, he is ordered to go to the Jordan: well you have run the monastic stadium: but among men there is no one who can call himself perfect: but more than he has attained remains to him to attain, although we be ignorant of it. That you yourself therefore may know, how many other ways there are which lead to salvation; go out from your land & from your kindred, & from the house of your father, as the venerable Patriarch Abraham did; & come to the monastery which is situated near the river Jordan.
[4] Hearing these things, the old man rising at once & obeying the command, went out from the monastery, in which from adolescence he had remained; & coming to the Jordan among rivers most holy, by him who had called him he is led to a monastery; in which the Lord wished him to be. Then striking the door with his hand, first fell upon him a monk to whom the care of the door was committed: & there received, this man then to the Hegumen led him; & the Hegumen receiving him, & seeing him in habit & countenance bowing modestly, as monks are wont, & requesting that he pray for him; asked & said, Whence are you with us, Brother? or for what reason have you come to our humility? To whom Zosimas, whence, said he, I am, there is no need to say; but I have come for the sake of spiritual progress: for I have heard about you glorious things & worthy of praise, which can lead the soul to the inmost familiarity of Christ our God. The Hegumen replied, God, who alone knows human weakness, himself, Brother, & us will teach his divine will, & to the doing of what is fitting will direct us. For man cannot help man, unless each one attends to himself continually, & with chaste mind works what is just, having God as judge & receiver of his actions. But since the love of God, as you say, has impelled you to come, to visit us humble old men; remain with us, since therefore you have come; & us all by the grace of the spirit will nourish that good Shepherd, who gave his soul for our redemption, & calls his own sheep by name. Such things the Hegumen speaking, again Zosimas bowed himself & asked to be blessed; & answering, Amen, in that monastery he remained.
[5] Here the old man saw, both in action & contemplation outstanding men, serving God: for theirs was an unwearied psalmody & night-long standing: he found the monks living most perfectly, in whose hands was always something of work, but in the mouth was a Psalm. Among them no idle talk: no solicitude for temporal things; but yearly returns to be counted, & cares joined to secular business, among them were not even named. But one & the same was the zeal of all, that each of them might be dead to the body, as though to the world & all things which are in the world at one & the same time deceased. Their unfailing food were the divine sayings: but to the body only necessaries were indulged, bread & water; because each burned with the greatest love toward God. These things beholding, as he reported, Zosimas was edified very much, ever stretching himself to what was before & hastening his course, having obtained companions, who were in the vineyard of the Lord the best workers.
[6] After several days had elapsed, the time came in which the holy fasting is wont to be performed by Christians, preparing themselves for the venerable solemnities of the divine Passion and Resurrection. But the door of the monastery, accustomed at the beginning of Lent never unbarred but always closed; offered to the monks the convenience of exercise free from interrupters: for it was not wont to be opened except some one of the monks on necessary cause had to be let out; & the place was altogether desert, even to most neighboring monks not only inaccessible but even unknown: but there was kept in the monastery a rule certain, for the sake of which, as I at least think, God had led Zosimas thither. What that was & how it was kept? Now I will say. On the Lord's day, which is of the first week after the fasts bears the name, after common prayers the divine mysteries were celebrated publicly according to custom, & each one communicated in the unbloody & life-giving sacrifice: then he was refreshed with a little food. After this gathered in the oratory, with a prolonged prayer made & many genuflections, they kissed one another, the old men, & individually prostrating themselves at the Hegumen's feet, they sought pardon & blessing, which might strengthen them for the contest, & lead them on their way.
[7] These being done, the door of the monastery was opened, & with harmonious voice was sung the Psalm, "The Lord is my illumination & my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, at whom shall I tremble?" & the rest. And they all went out, leaving usually one or another to the custody of the monastery, to go out of the monastery not that he should guard things stored within (for among them there was nothing that thieves could carry off) but lest the oratory should be left without sacred ministry. But each one took thought for his provisions himself, as he would & could: & this one for the necessity of the body a little bread, that one figs, another dates, another legumes soaked in water took out; but some nothing, intending to sustain themselves, except their own body & the cloak thrown over it, when nature demanded food, with herbs growing in the desert. Further the rule among them & inviolable law was: Let not one know of another what rigor or mode of exercise he keeps. For having crossed the Jordan they were separated far from one another, pursuing full solitude; so that no one met another: & to live in solitude across the Jordan but if anyone had seen another coming opposite him at a distance, at once he turned aside from the straight way, & into another part turned himself, living to himself and to God, with continuous Psalmody & with such food as was to hand.
[8] After in this way they had all passed the days of the fasts, they returned to the monastery on the Lord's day preceding the life-giving Resurrection of our Savior from the dead, whose vigil with Palm branches the church established to celebrate: but each one returned, bringing as the fruit of his purpose his own conscience, bearing witness to himself how he had worked, & what kinds of labors' seeds he had reaped: for no one presumed at all to ask another, Until Palm Sunday. how he had discharged the contest set before him. Such therefore was the rule of the monastery, & so perfectly was it fulfilled: because each one of them being in the desert, under God as arbiter against himself was fighting, as not seeking to please men, nor fasting for display: for things done for the sake of men, from the will to please them, those little indeed help the doer, & are to him a cause of great calamity sometimes.
[9] So, according to the accustomed usage of the monastery, Zosimas too at that same time crosses the Jordan, bearing a little provision for necessary uses, & the very garment with which he was clothed. There, according to the prescribed rule, wandering through the eremus, with whom Zosimas also having gone out, according to the exigency of nature he defined the hour of taking food, at night he lay down on the ground to take a little sleep, wherever evening caught him. When morning came, again he girded himself for the journey, ever walking stoutly, but having a desire, as afterwards he reported, of penetrating the inner eremus, & finding in it some Father dwelling there, on the 20th day of his retreat, who could lead him to that to which he aspired: & he walked hastily, as if hurrying to reach quickly a famous & public inn. But when twenty days of journeying had been consumed, when the sixth hour had come, for a short space he stayed his step, & turned toward the east performed his accustomed prayer: for he was wont at fixed times of day to break off his exertion in walking, & to rest a little from labor; & now standing, now kneeling to pray & sing psalms.
[10] while he is reciting Sext, While he was praying, & fixing his eyes on the sky with unaverted gaze; behold on the right side of the place in which he was performing Sext, as it were an image of a human body appeared. And he at first troubled suspected a diabolic phantasm was offered to him; shaken with trembling, with the sign of the holy Cross he signed himself: for now the prayer had come to its end. Then turning his eyes, he saw indeed someone walking toward the south: & naked indeed was what was seen, & black in skin as from the heat of the sun; having hair on the head in the manner of wool, & those small, nor flowing much beyond the neck. he sees at a distance the form of a man, Refreshed by such a spectacle, Zosimas, & scarcely master of himself for joy, began to run toward where that which had appeared was also hastening. For with ineffable joy was he filled, as one who in the whole space of so many days had detected no traces either of man or of any other animal. He desired therefore to know, who & whence was what was seen, hoping to behold some great things & to hear.
[11] But that person, when it knew at a distance that Zosimas was coming to it, & follows her fleeing from him. began to flee, & toward the interior eremus to run. But Zosimas, as if forgetful of his old age, & making light of the labor of the journey, strove to overtake the one fleeing. And he indeed pursued, & she indeed fled: but Zosimas's course was swifter, & gradually brought him nearer to the fleeing one. Soon but when the voice of one speaking could be heard, he began to cry out, & words of this kind to utter with tears: Why do you flee me, old man & sinner, servant of God? Wait for me, whoever you are, by him himself for whose love you inhabit this eremus: wait for me weak & unworthy old man, by the hope you have of retribution to be attained from so great a labor. Stop, & give me old man your prayer & blessing, by God, who repels none from himself. These things with tears shouting Zosimas, they both came running to a certain place, which was hollowed out in the manner of a river-bed; but, as seems to me, no torrent ever flowed there, & that position the place rather had from nature.
CHAPTER II.
Mary with Zosimas, divinely known to her, speaking to him, sets forth the filth of her prostitute life.
[12] After to the already said place each of them came; she fleeing went down, & again to another part went up; but Zosimas wearied, & no longer able to run, stood on the nearest side of the torrent-shaped place; adding tears to tears, & sighs to sighs, that she approaching him at last might hear his laments. Then that fleeing body sent forth this voice: Abba Zosimas, forgive me, by the Lord; I cannot turn, Mary addressing Zosimas by name, nor thus in the sight of your countenance stand to be seen: for a woman I am, bearing the shameful parts of my body uncovered. But if you at all wish to indulge the sinful woman one petition, throw to me the cloak with which you are clothed, that my womanly weakness I may cover, & turning may receive your blessing. Then horror & a certain alienation of mind seized Zosimas, as he said, hearing that she was calling him by name as Zosimas. For being a man of sharp wit & most learned in divine things, he knew that she would not have called him by name, whom she had never seen & of whom she had not even heard, unless she had been endowed with a prophetic spirit.
[13] with his cloak she covers her nakedness: When therefore he understood what she bade, at once wrapping together the old & worn cloak which he wore, he threw it toward her, & turned himself away. But she receiving it covered the parts of her body, which above the rest it was fitting to cover, & turning to Zosimas thus spoke: What has come into your mind, Zosimas, that you so greatly desire to see a sinful woman; What wishing to know or learn from me, have you taken up so great a labor without weariness? But he bending his knee, asked that she bless him according to custom: but she also asked the same, bending herself: & they both lay, each wishing to be blessed by the other, nor was anything heard from either side, than, Bless. At last when a longer delay was made, the woman said to Zosimas: Abba Zosimas, & asking to be blessed by him as a Presbyter, it is fitting for you to bless, & to pray over me: for you the dignity of the Presbytery adorns, you for a long time have stood at the holy altar, & often sacrificing have offered divine gifts. At these things Zosimas was all the more astounded; & the old man trembling, as in agony was bathed with sweat; & sighing & breaking his words with sobs, with interrupted breath & throbbing breast, he said to her: It is manifest, O spiritual mother, from your very habits, that you have ascended to God, & are in greater part dead to the world: it is also clear that the gift divinely has fallen to you, because thus by name you address me, & declare me to be a Presbyter, whom you have never seen. Since therefore grace, not from dignity, but from spiritual ornaments is recognized, Bless, I beseech you by the Lord, & pray for me, needing your intercession.
[14] Then the woman yielding to the old man's insistence; Blessed be, she said, God, who cares for the salvation of men & of souls. Zosimas answering, Amen; asking about the state of the Church they both rose from their knees, & to the old man first the woman thus began. Why, I beseech, to me a sinner did you come, O man? why did you wish to see a little woman naked of every virtue? But since the grace of the holy spirit has led you here, that to me some ministry you may render fit for the time; say, how now goes it with the Christian nation? what do the Kings do? how is the Church governed? Zosimas to these things briefly replied: By your, O mother, holy prayers, stable peace to all has Christ indulged: but I beseech you that of this unworthy old man receiving the prayer, & bidden to pray for him. you pray for the whole world & for me a sinner, that of this solitude so great I may not have traversed the space in vain. But she replied: Today, Abba Zosimas, it was fitting for you, who excel in the Priesthood, as I said, to pray for me & for all, for to this you have been ordained: but since we are bidden to obey, gladly will I do what you have commanded.
[15] Saying these things she turned herself to the East, & raising her eyes on high & extending her hands, she began to pray moving her lips, so however that no voice was distinctly heard; whence Zosimas could not understand anything of her prayer: she is caught up on high: but he stood, as I have said, trembling, & looking at the ground, & speaking nothing at all. But he swore, calling God as witness of his speech, that noticing that the prayer was prolonged further, he lifted his eyes somewhat from the ground, & saw her praying lifted up on high, & suspended in the air as it were to one cubit: which when he saw, seized with greater fear, & much anxious, & daring to speak nothing at all, only within himself he kept saying over and over, Lord, have mercy. Thus however lying on the ground, the old man began to be scandalized thinking, lest perhaps she were a spirit & were feigning prayer. But turning the woman aroused the Abbot, saying: Why do your thoughts, She reproves Zosimas's thought; Abba, disturb you, scandalized in me, as if I were a spirit & feigned to pray? Sure be, O man, because a sinful woman indeed am I, but worthy of holy baptism: but a spirit I am not, but earth & ashes & finally flesh thinking nothing spiritual. And saying these things she signed herself with the sign of the Cross, on forehead & eyes, & lips & breast, thus, saying, God, O Abba Zosimas, rescues us from evil & from his snares, because great is with us his virtue.
[16] Hearing & seeing such things, the old man cast himself on the ground, & embracing her feet said: I adjure you by Christ our God, asked to explain her life, who was born of a Virgin, for whom you have embraced such nakedness, & for whom you have so extenuated this flesh, do not hide from me your servant: who, whence, when, & how you have inhabited this eremus? Nothing, I say, of what pertains to you conceal from me, but all narrate, that you may make manifest God's great deeds: for hidden wisdom & concealed treasure, what utility is there of either? as it is written. Ecclus. 41, 17 Tell me, by God I beseech, God willing it, all things; neither for boasting or display will you have said it, but to satisfy me an unworthy sinner: for I believe God, to whom you live & serve, that on this account I have been led into this eremus, that what has been done around you the Lord may make manifest. For it is not in our power to resist God's judgments: for unless it had been pleasing to Christ to make known how you have contended, he would certainly not have offered you to be seen by anyone, nor given me the strength to traverse so great a journey, whose purpose was by no means to go out from my cell.
[17] She consents, having declared she was most vile. These & many other things Zosimas saying, raising him the woman, said to him: I blush, my Abba, to unfold to you the confusion of my works: pardon me I beseech, by the Lord. However, since you have seen my body naked, I will also lay bare to you my life, that you may know how full of turpitude & shame is my soul. For not, as you suspect, to avoid boasting did I refuse to narrate to you about myself, who was to the devil a vessel of election: but because I know, that if I begin to expound them to you, you will flee from me, just as one would flee from a serpent, not enduring to receive by ears what I, most vile, have done. I will nevertheless speak, hiding nothing, but before all things beseeching, that you cease not praying for me, that I may find mercy in the day of judgment. The old man unceasingly weeping, she began to narrate about herself, speaking thus.
[18] At twelve she deserts her parents I, Brother, had as my fatherland Egypt: with my parents living, when I was only twelve years old, neglecting their love, I came to Alexandria. How in the first place there I defiled my virginity, & with what insatiable & unbridled desire of intercourse I burned, I am ashamed even to think; & to speak of it now shame forbids. One thing I will briefly confess, that you may understand the ardor of my lust; that about seventeen years I lived as an incentive to public luxury (be it said with pardon); & not for the sake of any gift (so truth be my witness) for I often refused to accept what those willing to give offered. But this I did, for 17 years a public prostitute: that I might make as many as possible come running to me, freely offering them my dishonor. Not because I was rich myself (that you may not think I refused to take on that account) for I lived by begging or most often by drawing tow into threads; but because with insatiable lust I desired to wallow in filth, & this was my life & was so reckoned, to afflict nature with every manner of outrage.
[19] seeing a crowd sailing to Jerusalem, While I was living thus, I see at a certain summer time a great crowd of Egyptian men & Libyans rushing to the sea; & I asked the first one I met, whither these men were hastening thus running. He replied to me: To Jerusalem all are hastening, because of the exaltation of the holy Cross, which within a few days according to custom will be celebrated. But I to him: Will they perhaps also take me with them, if I wish to follow? If the fare, he said, you have & provision, there is no one to hinder. Then I: Indeed, brother, I have neither fare nor provision: yet I also go, & I embark on one of the hired little ships; they will maintain me, even if they be unwilling: for I have a body, this to them will be for fare, for provision to me. And on this account, my Abba, I wished to go, that I might have more lovers (pardon the confessor) ready for my lust. I told you, Abba Zosimas, not to force me to speak my confusion: for I shudder, by God I swear, to infect both you and the air with my words.
[20] she joins herself to some young men, Then Zosimas, bedewing the ground only with tears, to her replied: Narrate, by the Lord, my mother, narrate on, nor cut off the thread of so salutary an argument. But she continuing her former speech, added these things. That young man therefore, having heard the obscenity of my words, laughed & went away. But I throwing away the distaff I was carrying (for this I was wont for a time to carry around), I ran to the sea, whither I saw the others running; & seeing standing on the shore some young men, ten in number or even more, vigorous of body & agile of motion, & for what I sought sufficient (they were awaiting, as it seemed to me, other companions for the voyage; those who had come earlier had already boarded the ships), I impudently thrusting myself into their midst, Take, I said, me also wherever you go: nor will I be useless to you. Then adding more shameful things, I moved them all to laughter. But they seeing my readiness for whatever impudently they might wish, receiving me led me into the ship, which they had ready: & since they also had what they were awaiting, at once we began to sail.
[21] and shamefully on the voyage But what followed next, how could I narrate to you, O man? What tongue to explain, what hearing could endure, which on the ship & on the journey were done, & to which to do the wretches I compelled even unwilling? No kind of lewdness is so unusual or unheard of, of which I was not teacher to the unfortunate ones. So I am astonished, Abba, how the sea endured my luxury; & how the earth did not open its mouth, that it might send me living to the lower regions, made a snare to so many souls. & in the holy city she lives But God, as I judge, was seeking my penitence: for he does not will the death of the sinner, but patiently endures, awaiting conversion. Such things therefore intent upon; with such pursuits we came to Jerusalem: but all the days, which preceded the festivity, I was occupied with similar or even worse things: for not content with those young men, whom by the sea & on the journey I had as my servants; I abused many others also, seeking citizens & strangers for that very thing.
CHAPTER III.
Mary's conversion & life in the eremus.
[22] But when the holy festivity of the exalted Cross shone forth, At the hour of the exaltation of the Cross about to enter the temple Mary, I indeed as before went about, hunting the souls of young men: but I saw at the very dawn all running to the church: I also went myself, running with the runners. So I came with them to the courts of the Basilica, & at that very Exaltation's adorable hour, I was pushing, & was violently pushed, striving with the crowd to obtain entrance. So even to the door of the temple, in which the salvation-bearing wood was being shown, I was approaching, wretched, with much labor & difficulty: but as soon as the threshold of the gate I had touched, others indeed without hindrance entered, but me a certain divine power forbade, barring me from entrance. Therefore again I am pushed back, & find myself in the court alone. But thinking that this had happened from womanly weakness, again mingling myself with others, often repulsed, I struggled as I could, & with elbows leaning pushing myself. But I labored in vain: for again as soon as I trod the threshold of the temple unfortunate, others indeed the church received with none hindering, but me most miserable it refused to receive: & as though some ordered military troop were standing there for this purpose, to bar entrance; so some sudden force repelled me, & again set me in the court.
[23] she recognizes her unworthiness: These things a third & fourth time doing & suffering, & at last exhausted, & no longer strong enough to push & be pushed back (for the strength of the body had failed from the violence) at last withdrawing I departed, & I stood in a corner of the court; & there at last I came into the knowledge of the cause, forbidding me to gaze on the life-giving wood. For the salutary word struck the eyes of my heart, showing me that the turpitude of my actions was barring my entrance. I began therefore to weep, & to grieve, & to beat my breast: but drawing sighs from my inmost heart & weeping, I see above the place in which I had stood, set the image of the most holy Mother of God; & upon it fixing my eyes unceasingly, thus I address: Lady Virgin, who according to the flesh bore the Word of God, & before the image of the B. Virgin I know that neither to reason nor to decency it agrees, that I, so filthy, should look upon your always inviolate virgin image; yours, I say, who kept your body always chaste & your soul unstained & most pure: rather it is right that your purity abominate me impure & hate me. But since God, whom you bore, for this cause, as I have heard, became man, that he might call sinners to penitence; help me desolate & destitute of aid: command that entrance into the church be indulged to me, nor deprive me of the sight of that wood, in which the God born of you fixed as to the flesh gave his own blood for my redemption: command also, having promised amendment, O Lady, the door be opened to me, that I may adore the divine Cross, & to the God begotten of you may offer you as a sure surety, that my flesh I will never henceforth lend to obscene intercourse, as before; but as soon as I see the Cross of your Son, bidding farewell to the world & all things which are in the world, I will go thither, whither you yourself, as mediator of my salvation, shall have bidden & led me.
[24] she obtains entrance. Such things speaking, & by the ardor of faith as by a certain pledge made more certain of grace to be obtained, & trusting in the mercy of the Mother of God, I move myself from that place in which standing I had made prayer: & again approaching I mingled myself with those entering, nor any longer felt one to push me & in turn be pushed, or at all hinder me from approaching the gate, by which entrance was into the temple. But here horror & stupor seized me, & I trembled all over: then touching the gate which hitherto had been closed to me, as if that whole force which before had hindered, now had loosened access, without labor I enter; & admitted into the holy place, I enjoyed the saving sight of the Cross; & I saw the secrets of God, & how ready he is to receive penitents. So I unfortunate onto the earth prostrating myself, after I had adored that holy pavement, I went out in haste, hastening to her who had been my mediator: & placing myself in the place in which the handwriting of my promise was signed, & bending the knee before the Mother of God always Virgin, I used words of this kind.
[25] You, O most clement Lady, have shown your humanity toward me, then with thanks having been given to the Mother of God you have not rejected the prayer of an unworthy sinner. I have seen the glory, from the sight of which we impure are deservedly deprived: let there be therefore glory to God, who through you receives the penitence of sinners. For what more shall I think or say, I a sinner? It is time, Lady, that the promises of the surety, which you interposed for me, be fulfilled. Now therefore, whither you bid, lead me: now most of all be to me the mistress of salvation, leading me by the hand through the way of penitence. These things said, I hear a voice crying at a distance: If you shall cross the Jordan, you shall find excellent rest. admonished to cross the Jordan, But I hearing such a voice, & persuading myself that it was made for me, I cried out weeping, & said to the Mother of God; Lady, Lady, do not abandon me. So crying I go out of the court of the temple, & in haste I proceeded.
[26] But some one seeing me going out, handed me three coins saying, Take these, Mother. But I the given coins spending, three loaves for myself with them I bought, & received them as a provision of blessing. Then I asked him who had sold the loaves, she takes three loaves as provision: what or where was the road leading to the Jordan: & having been taught the gate of the city, which led into those parts; I went out running, & began to set out weeping: joining question to question, & walking all day (for it was, as I judge, the third hour when I saw the Cross) at last with the sun declining to the setting, I approached the temple of John the Baptist, which is situated near the Jordan. Here when I had first prayed, I descended at once into the Jordan, & I bathed face & hands with that holy water: then in the very temple of the Precursor I received the inviolate & life-giving mysteries, & fortified with the Sacraments she enters the eremus, & ate the middle part of one loaf, & drank from the Jordan, & so I placed myself on the ground that night. But morning having come, finding there a small skiff, I crossed to the other bank; & again I asked my guide, to lead me whither it pleased her. So I was in this eremus, & from that time until this present day I have gone far away fleeing; & here I dwell, awaiting my God, who saves those turned to him from pusillanimity of spirit & tempest.
[27] & there she lives 47 years Zosimas said to her: How many years then are there, O my Lady, since you have dwelt in this eremus? Replied the woman: Forty-seven years, as I judge, have passed since I went out from the holy city. And again Zosimas, But what have you had for food or found, O my Lady? Two, she said, & a half loaves bearing I crossed the Jordan, which shortly dried & hardened, & little by little being eaten were used up. Then Zosimas: And thus without difficulty have you passed so great a space of so many years? nor did so sudden a change disturb you at all? The matter, she adds, you now ask, Abba Zosimas, which even to refer I shudder: for if now into memory I should recall so many dangers which I endured, & of the temptations grievously assaulting me wish to give account, I fear lest again I should be dashed upon the same rocks. Nonetheless, replies Zosimas, omit nothing, Lady, of what you do not announce to me: for this suppliantly altogether have I asked you, that without covering all things you may teach me.
[28] in whose first 17 years variously tempted To him she; Believe me, she said, Abba Zosimas, I spent seventeen years in this eremus, struggling with my unbridled desires, as with wild beasts untamed. If I began to take food, I desired cups of wine, much loved by me: for in abundance I used wine, when I lived in the world; but here I could not taste even water, grievously burning, & no longer able to endure thirst. There crept in also the desire of prostitute songs contrary to reason, much disturbing me, & persuading me to sing diabolical songs I had learned. the help of the B. V. implored. But I at once weeping, & beating my breast with my hand, recalled to myself the memory of the promises, which I ratified when going out to the eremus; & in thought I referred myself to the image of the Mother of God my support, & as though before her existing I wept, & asked that she free me from the temptations so greatly infesting my wretched soul. But after I had long wept & beaten my breast with all my strength, I saw a light surrounding me from all sides, & thenceforth from then on a calm & tranquility befell me.
[29] But as for the thoughts which again to fornication impelled me, how shall I explain to you, Abba? For a fire was kindled in my wretched heart, & burned the whole & drew me to the desire of coitus. But I as soon as such a temptation was offered, she obtains victory & full quiet prostrated myself on the ground, & bathed the soil with tears; believing that my very surety stood by as to a transgressor, to exact the penalties of the violated promise: nor did I rise from the ground before, on which sometimes it happened that a whole day & night I so lay, until that sweet light shone around me, & dispelled the troublesome thoughts. At length I fixed the eyes of my mind unceasingly upon her who had promised for me, seeking help for my soul perishing in the sea of this eremus. And indeed I had her as helper & receiver of my penitence: & so I spent the space of seventeen years, entangled in a thousand dangers. But from that time until this present day, in all things my protectress has been with me, & has always led me as if by the hand.
[30] Zosimas said to her: Did you lack food & clothing? likewise endurance of heat & cold She replied: When the loaves I mentioned were consumed, for seventeen years I sustained myself with herbs & whatever food was to be found through the deserts: but the garment, which I had when crossing the Jordan, was consumed & worn out. Much therefore from cold, much also from the heat of summer I endured, scorched by heat, & trembling with cold & constrained, so that often falling to the ground almost without breath I remained immobile; whence by many snares of demons & perpetual temptations I was also assaulted. But thenceforth & until now the manifold power of God has preserved my sinning soul & this vile little body. For when I only recall from how many evils he has rescued me; food I have not to be consumed, hope, I say, of obtaining salvation. For I am nourished & covered with the word of God ruling over all things, because man lives not in bread alone: & instead of having a garment, they are clothed with the rock who have put off the garment of sin.
[31] & knowledge of the scriptures. But Zosimas hearing that she mentioned biblical sentences from Moses & Job & from the book of Psalms, said to her: Have you also learned Psalms & other Scriptures, Lady? But she smiled at such a question, & said to the old man: O man, believe, that from the day in which I crossed the Jordan, I have looked upon no man's face but yours today: but neither a beast nor any other animal have I seen, since I knew this solitude. Letters therefore I never learned: indeed I heard no one singing psalms or reading: but the word of God, living & efficacious, itself teaches man knowledge. And behold here you have the end of my narration: but what I did beginning, now also I adjure you by the incarnation of the divine Word, that for me a sinner you beseech the Lord. These things when she had said, & so far had drawn out her discourse, she bowed asking a blessing. But the old man again with tears exclaimed, Blessed is God who does great & wondrous things, glorious & to be preached, of which there is no number. Blessed God, who has shown me how great things he gives to those fearing him. Truly you do not abandon those seeking you, Lord.
[32] she asks Zosimas to keep secret what he has heard, But she lifting the old man did not permit him to continue to bow for a blessing, but said to him: I adjure you by Christ our Savior God, that you reveal nothing of all these things which you have heard to any of mortals, until from this earth the Lord take me. Now therefore go in peace, for again in the following year you will see me, & I you, preserved by God's grace. But do, for God's sake, what I now command you. When next year the Lenten time arrives, do not cross the Jordan, as is wont to be done in the monastery. Zosimas was astonished hearing that she spoke of the rule of the monastery; & next year bring to her the holy Communion: nor did he say anything else than, Glory be to God, who grants great gifts to those loving him. But she added: Wait, Abba, as I have said, in the monastery: neither if you wished to go out would it succeed for you: but in the evening on the Lord's Supper take for me the sacred vessel of the life-giving Body & Blood of Christ, worthy of such great mysteries, & bring it; staying altogether on that bank of the Jordan, which is nearer to the inhabited land, until I coming may receive the vital gifts: for since I received those in the temple of the Precursor, before I crossed the Jordan, until now I have lacked participation in this sanctification, & now with insatiable love I desire it; therefore I pray do not despise my petition: but by all means bring to me the saving & divine mysteries, at that hour in which the Lord made his disciples partakers of that divine feast. But to Abbot John, of the monastery in which you dwell the Hegumen, say these things: Attend to yourself & to your flock: for certain things there are done which need correction: however I do not wish you to say these things to him now, & so she departs from him. but when the Lord brings you back. These things having spoken, & saying to the old man, Pray for me, again she ran toward the inner eremus. But Zosimas bending his knees, & adoring the ground in which the traces of her feet had stood, & giving to God glory & thanks, with joy of spirit & exultation of body returned, & glorified & blessed Christ our God: & again traversing that solitude, came to the monastery, on that day in which the other monks were wont to return.
CHAPTER IV.
The sacred Communion offered to Mary, burial cared for.
[33] That whole year Zosimas was silent, not daring to announce to anyone anything of what he had seen; meanwhile privately he prayed God, that again he would show him the longed-for face: but he was tormented & afflicted, thinking how long was the period of the year, & desired the whole of it to be one single day, if it could be done. But when the beginning of the Fasts coming the Lord's day arrived, the following year Zosimas hindered from going out the others indeed at once after the accustomed prayer, singing psalms went out, but him feverish sickness detained & to remain compelled. Zosimas therefore remembered that to himself the Saint had said, that neither if you should wish to go out of the monastery will it succeed for you: & after a few days had passed rising from illness, the rest of the time in the monastery he passed.
[34] Further with the monks again returning, when the vespers of the mystical Supper had come, he did what had been commanded him; & taking a small cup of the inviolate Body & venerable Blood of Christ our God, on the Lord's Supper he goes out to the Jordan, took in a basket figs & dates, & some beans soaked in water: going out deep in the evening, he sat on the shore of the Jordan, awaiting the Saint's arrival. But the woman delaying, Zosimas did not doze, but unceasingly looked out over the eremus, waiting in case he might see what he so greatly desired. He said within himself while thus he sat: Is it perhaps my unworthiness that has prevented her from coming? or perhaps she has already come, & not finding me has gone away again? Saying these things he wept, & weeping sighed, & raising his eyes to heaven prayed God; Do not deprive me, he said, Lord, of seeing her again, whom once you permitted to be seen by me; nor let me return from here empty, bearing with me the reproach of my sins. To one praying such things with tears, a far different thought came, & he said within himself: But what will happen if she comes? for there is no boat at hand: how then will she cross the Jordan, & come to me unworthy? Alas me wretched! alas unfortunate! who has deprived me of so great a good because of my fault?
[35] over whose waters Mary coming to him So the old man reasoned with himself; when behold came the holy woman, & across the Jordan stood where she had come. Zosimas rose up rejoicing & exulting & glorifying God. But again the thought afflicted him, that she could not cross the Jordan. Then he saw her with the venerable sign of the Cross signing the Jordan (for the night was bright as at full moon, as he reported) & presently when she had signed the waters, to enter, & walk upon them, & come to him. But him wishing to bow down she prevented, crying out & going on the river; What are you doing, Abba? you who are both a Priest & bear the divine mysteries. But as he was considering her words, walking over the waters, she said to the old man: Bless, Father, Bless. He trembling (for stupor had seized him over the wonderful vision) answered her: Truly faithful is God, he ministers the holy Communion, who has promised that those be made like to God as much as is permitted who have perfectly purged themselves. Glory be to you, Christ our God, who have not removed my prayer nor your mercy from your servant. Glory be to you, Christ our God, who have shown me through this your handmaid, how great a distance I am from perfection. Her speaking these things the woman asked the old man the holy Symbol of faith, & "Our Father who art in heaven," to begin: which done, & an end placed to the prayer, according to custom she gave the kiss to the old man's mouth: & so receiving the divine mysteries, & raising her hands to heaven she exclaimed, "Now dismiss your handmaid, Lord, according to your word in peace: for my eyes have seen your salvation."
[36] Then she said to the old man: Forgive, Father, & another petition of mine fulfill. Go now into the monastery, with God's grace preserving you; but in the following year come; & offers food to her: & again to that torrent, where to you first I met, come I beseech, by the Lord: there again you will see me, as the Lord shall have willed. But he answered her, Would that I could from now on follow you & enjoy your sight always! but you also one petition of mine perform, & of these things which I have brought take a little refreshment: & saying these things he showed her the basket he carried. But she with the tips of her fingers touching the beans, & taking three grains from it, to her own mouth she applied, saying, that the grace of the Spirit suffices that the substance of the soul may be preserved incorrupt: & again she said to the old man: Pray, by God, pray for me, & remember my humility. But he embracing the feet of the Saint, bidden to come the next year into the eremus, & praying that for the Church & the Empire & himself she would pray, dismissed her, & went away weeping & sighing; for he presumed not to retain further that incomprehensible one. But she again signing the Jordan, ascended the waters: & as before walking, from him she departed. The old man returned, full of joy & much fear, & reproving himself that the name of the Saint he had not cared to learn: but this also he hoped he could obtain next year.
[37] With the circle of the year passed, he again went into the eremus, doing all things according to custom, & hastening to that wonderful spectacle. Traversing the space of the solitude, & finding certain signs, he finds her dead, making indication of the place sought; he looked round to right & left, turning his eyes in every direction, like a most ardent hunter, in case he might catch sight of that sweetest animal. But when he saw nothing moving anywhere, he began again to drown himself in tears, & upward lifting his eyes & praying to say: Show me, Lord, your most holy treasure, which in this eremus you have hidden: show me I beseech, the incarnate Angel, of whom the world is unworthy. And saying these things he came to the place, which had the appearance of a river-bed; & from the side which looks toward the rising sun, he saw lying dead the Saint, with hands as was fitting composed, & face turned to the East. He at once running, bathed the Blessed one's feet with tears; for he did not dare to touch any other limb.
[38] Having therefore poured out tears for some time, & psalms suitable to the matter & time having been recited, he made a sepulchral supplication, & said within himself: & her name written in the sand. Should the corpse of the Saint be buried? or if it be done, will it displease the Blessed? Saying these things, he saw at her head writing expressed on the ground, so bidding: Bury, Abba Zosimas, in this place the corpse of humble Mary, committing dust to dust, & unceasingly supplicating the Lord for me, who died on this very night of the Lord's Passion, after the reception of the divine & mystical feast. Reading therefore these letters the old man rejoiced that the name of the Saint he had learned: & he knew that as soon as she received the divine mysteries beside the Jordan, at once to this place she had been led back, in which also she died; so that the way which Zosimas not without labor had traversed in the space of twenty days, within one hour Mary had crossed, & at once to the Lord had migrated.
[39] laboring in vain in digging the sepulcher Therefore glorifying God, & bathing the venerable body with his tears, It is time, he said, humble Zosimas, that you fulfill what has been commanded you. But how can you make a pit, having nothing at hand suitable for it? & presently looking out he saw at a distance a small stick, & taking it began to dig the earth. But since it was dry, by no means did it obey the laboring old man: but he was wearied, sweat pouring around. From his inmost heart sighing, & lifting his eyes, he saw a great lion standing by the holy body & licking its feet. At which sight he trembled from fear, especially because he remembered the Saint had said, that she had never seen any beast: yet making the sign of the Cross, he believed that the power of her who lay there would preserve him unharmed. But the lion began to approach the old man himself, not only greeting him by motion, but by the very offering of itself. Zosimas therefore said to the lion: Since, O animal, the Saint wished that her body be buried, but I old man cannot make a pit (for I have neither a mattock suitable for the business, he uses the service of the lion offering itself, nor at so great a distance can I return, to bring a suitable instrument) you do what is needed with your claws, that the tabernacle of the Saint we may commit to the earth. Scarcely had he said these things, when the lion with its forefeet made a pit, sufficient for burying the body.
[40] Then again bathing the Blessed one's feet with tears, the old man, & buries the Saint & greatly beseeching her to pray for all; hid the body in the ground, with the lion standing by; naked indeed as before, except that there was placed around her that little cloak which, thrown to her by Zosimas, Mary turning away had covered the more modest parts of her body. But the old man departing, the lion also returned into the eremus like a lamb: & Zosimas went away, blessing & praising Christ our God. Returning to the monastery, he narrated all things to the monks, nothing of what he had heard & seen being silent: from the beginning indeed all things to them minutely he set forth, that all hearing might be astonished at the great deeds of God, & returning narrates all to the monks: & the Saint's memory with fear & joy celebrate. But John the Hegumen found in the monastery some in need of correction, so that not even in this, the Blessed one's word appeared vain & useless. Zosimas also in the same monastery died, reaching nearly the hundredth year of life.
[41] The monks persevered learning these very things by tradition, & as an argument of common utility proposing them to those wishing to hear: but I have heard no one to have marked the narration in writing: but I, what I have learned without writing, by letters have taken care to make known. as here they are written, Perhaps however others also have written the Life of the Saint, much more magnificently & more sublimely than I, although that has not come to my knowledge: wherefore as I could I have written the history, wishing to add nothing to the truth. But God who bestows great things on those fleeing to him, let him render the utility of the readers as reward to him who has commanded this narration to be written, & let him make him partaker of the degree & order to which this, of whom the discourse is, Blessed one has attained, nor also of all those who have pleased him from the beginning. Let us therefore also give glory to God, the King of ages, that he too may make us obtain mercy in the tremendous day of judgment, in Christ Jesus our Lord, whom ever befits glory, honor & adoration, with the Father without beginning, & the most holy & life-giving Spirit, now & forever and ever. Amen.
METRIC PARAPHRASE
By the Author Hildebert Bishop of Le Mans. From our old English MS.
Mary the Egyptian penitent, in Palestine (St.) Zosimas the Monk, in Palestine (St.)
BHL Number: 5419
BY AUTHOR HILDEBERT FROM MS.
CHAPTER I.
Praise of Zosimas the monk, retreat into the eremus where Mary was found.
[1] Zosimas from adolescence As winter does not burn the laurel, nor fire gold, So the boy Zosimas neither riches nor the glory of things; Which quickly slipping & teaching all harmful things He spurned, vowed, & with mind & hand removed; And made a monk, he was vigilant in the acts of a monk; And proposing to follow the teachers of law & right, He set about restraining the law of his years. The customs of his teachers he transcended, piously living in the monastery, their teacher, As his weak age passed the goals of boyhood. The gifts grew: grew at the same time the crown itself. Nothing more a burden to him than for limbs to be cherished in quiet, Nothing more unpleasant than not to punish guilt. Of him witness was the scanty sleep, the rough garment, And food & bed, now a glory, then a torment. Witness was the monk's color, & flesh ignorant of Bacchus: Not flesh, but skin, lean, flabby, worn by scourges, Taught to resist itself, to serve the spirit. In these torments the modulation of the sacred mind Sang psalms to Christ, whenever the tongue was silent. From the corruption of the flesh the sacred breast full of the just He never moved away: God this, man the rest knows. having attained great holiness,
[2] In such ways while he insists on psalms & odes, He saw the secrets of heaven, about to belong to them: He saw, & learned by what hope he had won so many battles. Seized by hope, Zosimas thus grew into sacred acts, As a pool by a stream or a sluggish fire by oil: And mindful, to profit for good morals, to beware favors; While he fought well, he took care that fame should not fly; The more he took care, the more it flew, And against his vow bore away the whole praiseworthy thing. Thither innumerable peoples came to be taught: Whom, as the place, age, order demanded, he taught, Conquering the greater, as the moon lesser stars. he is tempted about vain glory;
[3] Since Zosimas was accustomed to these things, pride grew, And he said these things with himself: Whatever the order or the right commands I choose, follow, love, things to be learned and held I proclaim. The limbs are wasted by great labor & scant food, These things as a boy I chose, as a boy I performed these & more; Now the order of the flock, now the oar & anchor of the law; Now worthy of heaven; sacred in act, mind, speech. Alone I have fought with the world with second end. The admiring crowd of common folk, Clergy, flock of monks Seeks me, burns, loves, accomplishes what my voice proclaims. Such things while Zosimas boasts & meditates his merit; A certain one interpolates, to whom the Spirit has revealed these things: for which rebuked
[4] Now you have contended well; have you well overcome what was allowed? Nothing struggles, flesh serves, mind rules: Yet the end of this contest is doubtful; And while you can be subjugated, you must not say, I have conquered. For who is conquered or conquers, is proved at the end: The rewards of the victors hang at the end of labors; As Scripture sounds: the end, not the fight, crowns. When you will have fought well, when you will think all things subdued; Pride, which afterwards attacks, remains to be overcome: Unless this be overcome, the promised crown is denied. Alas! by these weapons the faithful one is often overcome: By this plague sometimes the rose is turned into a withered thing. Remember, I plead, to oppose this portent: he is sent to the Jordan: Nor presume to believe yourself so great a Saint, Or yourself before the Saints to have merited the promises of the Thunderer. Many there are who surpass you in the contest of life; Whom that you may know, the shores of Jordan you should seek. There the King of heaven is worshipped by a flock of monks: With the monks dwell: what they do, do; the rest avoid. Go out, hasten: delay is a great ruin.
[5] He goes out, departs quickly, & knocks: the doors stood open. Thence greeted by the Abbot, he speaks a few words; Why you come, disclose. Zosimas says, I desire to be taught, And to be relieved of the mass of my sins. The roughness of his garb, suppliant voice, grace of face, Signs of a sacred mind, helped the vow of the one seeking: & there received, And the Father replied: No one, dearest Brother,
No one lifts sickness from the soul but the Creator of the world: You should ask evils to be restrained, to be taught good things from thence. If however this company pleases you or the quiet place itself, If great with small you wish to be joined, the palm with tamarisks, Stand, see, if the humble use of the sheepfold will profit, And with us by the law feed on the mallow of this place: The highest of Shepherds will nourish us, the food of his own, Food fostering a mind before this hungering for nothing: Nothing better for the soul than to be fed by the sight of this. Zosimas assented to these things indeed, & remained there: He remained & in a cell: new rules, most sacred wars He saw, praised, learned, observed, loved; Growing as much by the exhortation of the flock, as a dart by hurling.
[6] The care of this flock, the love of the highest King; To hear the teachers of the law, he admires the rigor of discipline, to teach the lesser; Not to wish to favor the skin, to weigh justice, to use the laws; To speak nothing rashly; like dire poisons to beware Wrath, envy, strifes, curses, pride. Salt, fish, wine, dainty, threads, linen They did not touch, which to use they had as a crime. No taste of these herbs, no things, no mention of things, Neither hair combed, nor was there thought of expense. No one either for expense of garment, or for unequal table Envied the Father, not Brother at last Brother. Equal food & culture, far away from thence was tumult. Their drink was the river; more festive food, legumes; Haircloth, garment; scarcely soft girdles, a rope; Joys, the returns of the fallen; sorrow, their error; Reading, the life of the Fathers; admonition, concord of the Brothers: In their words God or the sacred deeds of the ancients. Delays in vigil: leisure afar; Psalm in mouth: Flesh wasted with much cross, rarely with kindling, And with frequent weepings he published his deeds in hiding. Rumors of the crowd, markets, outside causes, The momentum of morals no one of them knew. The cause of this was a hidden place, closed doors, An austere doorkeeper; flock, pastor, each severe.
[7] the observance of the common life, These cloistered ones neither fixed officials, Nor (unless you except the Pastor) knew a prior. If anything the matter demanded or the Father himself commanded, It was the care of each to obey both the matter & the Father. The Pastor indeed showed what must be done, & did the same, More than a prelate prepared to serve all, Nor more accustomed to exhort than to serve. He, the ornament & mirror of the blessed monks, Was light in darkness; there enclosed, everywhere famous; The primate of morals, school of law, rod of guilt; Cross to himself, form to the flock, way of life, glory to the law; Knowing to rejoice with one rejoicing, to grieve with one grieving; To these grave, to these broken, becoming all things to all.
[8] The matter prompts, that certain things, which the flock was accustomed to, I tell. & through the Lenten time At the time when the people purified by the sacred laver In pardon of sins to tithe the highest of days Begins, from the cell they went forth to new battles. But first each one having professed his excess to the Abbot, Pre-strengthened his mind & aided the body, By taste of Sacraments & a little of foods. Then the sacred blessing was sought: it was given: They joined kisses: then at last the cloisters stood open. And now with farewell said, & company & place left, The flock at once went out, divided went into the eremus; A part, as the custom itself demanded, remained at home: Not to guard goods, suitable for a thief; But lest the cell should be without the holy Offices, prepared for sacred studies, & lavers of the soul; Poor in festive adornment, but rich in honest.
[9] Having gone forth from the houses, having professed hiding places & the eremus, Each went, where choice gave, separately: Each with equal vow contended, with witness removed, To sing psalms prostrate, to abolish guilt with tears, the annual anachoresis. By tortures of torn flesh to please you, Christ, To rejoice in you as companion, guide, end, rest: You he put forth, gave, awaited, had, The defense of war, witness, diadem, help. On these they insisted studies, & equally they nourished Hearts with sacred words, flesh with root or herbs; A certain part carried bread, a part was refreshed with The fruit of palms before tables of delicacies, Before festive food the acorn or wild olive. These in the desert they took at a certain time, And at fixed hours rest, & a little of sleep. Thus having completed thirty-nine days, The cell was sought: they returned when is celebrated With palm branches, for the canon of Christians.
[10] according to which rite having gone out also himself, These things both admired by Zosimas & ready to bear, He judged nothing better than the rite of this canon. When the revolution of time brought this, he goes out: He goes out, & from the cell proceeds to new battles. He crosses the Jordan, carrying bread for the time: And thus having entered the hiding-places & recesses of the eremus, He pays his vows to God, turns new songs in his breast, Alone lives life: sacred deeds prove the hermit. From when it grows light, he presses the journey; at night, he rests Spread on the ground; he weeps, seeks a companion for himself & prays, Who might solace his cares, equally suffer, In deeds might instruct, surpassing might teach to surpass. What he sought he obtains, & a companion of the way is found. & seeing at a distance For while with a greater delay than usual he was singing at the hour, As if a certain one running, but lacking a garment He saw, & was terrified, because he thought it a phantasm. Disturbed by the sight, he was recalled by the sign of the Cross. Strength thence being taken, he traces the path of the one going; He runs, & labor, age, the lairs of beasts little hinder.
[11] St. Mary, Holy old man, hasten, about to see better things with hope: Which footsteps you read & follow, are of a woman. A woman precedes, because no woman yields to you: As in foot, so in life this hermit surpasses you: She has merited by hiding-places that now she be everywhere famous: In hiding-places she learned well to conquer the world, she conquered: Stained by rains, black by Phoebus, bent by old age, Rough through defects, uncovered in parts to be covered. That snowy & scanty hair bristles on her, Scarcely reaching her shoulders, scarcely covering her neck, Uncombed, thin, accustomed to wander without law. A woman wholly before, now she rejects wholly what is hers: Dear flesh before, now wholly rebellious to it: A woman, well disdaining mortal companions, Flees Zosimas offered by chance with winged pace.
[12] Zosimas follows her: he asks her to stop, nor is there any less going. he follows her He cries more than usual, Go more moderately: Whoever you are, wait: I am forbidden to go by labor, old age: Wait for the tired one: I am not a wild beast, check your step: I am indeed a small thing, but a man & a sinner, & the same. Having professed Christ & monk, I frequent the retreats, Here I sigh for pardon of my sins. Flee not: stop a little: fear the lairs of wild beasts. By the name of Christ, by the rewards you have merited, Servant of God, stop: bless me: grant what I ask. & overtakes her. Do you live in this desert for Christ? You who have not heard, at least for the name of Christ?
CHAPTER II.
Colloquy of Zosimas with Mary, explaining the filth of her prostitute life.
[13] She fixed her step, & with hands lightly overshadowed, she said: I am a woman Zosimas, Mary confessing herself a woman, first in the effort of sins; Being without clothing I am confounded in the faces of men, Nor does shame of the uncovered groin let my face turn. But because I know you a servant of Christ, what you have asked Shall be done, if you give me wherewith to cover the disgrace of the woman. Do you wish me to speak or stop? Turn back, give me a garment. Then a cowl is given: & covered with the cloak lent to her. with which the woman covered, speaks: Why Father, do you pursue the hiding places of a wretched woman? Why or whither this running? Here the lion roars, the bear grumbles; What good can you hope in the region of lions? These things as she relates, the monk prostrates himself, prays That he be blessed: but she also, lying, prays. The woman, Holy Father: the monk, Most Holy Mother. Each cries out: Bless, each urges: This is the reason of the strife, this the only strife of the hermits: The rest of life was concordant & without strife.
[14] she asks to be blessed by Zosimas. While thus they contend, the holy woman speaks such things: My Father, you offend, unless you weigh things in order: You truly offend, when as a man you seek from a woman This to be given to you, which man owes to woman. May it be given to speak true things: he is held a transgressor of law, Who asks those things to be given which could by right be denied. You are a man, you of old a monk, you a Presbyter too: By these three you are urged to obey the woman's prayer. To bless the sinner, not to be blessed, He prescribes, by custom, the hand anointed with sacred liquor, Whose is the grace of the office of this gift. Offered these things the Father: It is clear enough, O sacred Mother, It is clear of how great, holy Mother, your merits are. For although I was unknown & far removed, Nor was it told to you, Here on the contrary he asks that she bless him, what my life, what my order; You have known all things; the name also you have not kept silent. These things teach how great you are, & how pleasing to the Thunderer: To whom therefore thus you please, bend him, plead him for me. If you ask, he himself will give: ask, life will help your vow: The life of the blessed succors their prayers. This God heeds & weighs worthy rewards: No deflection comes to him from distinction of sex, Nor for person is the crown given or taken away; Grace or merit gives to each the gift asked.
[15] & to him asking she answers about the state of the Church: To these things the woman yields & obeys the tears of the one asking: They rise, & with a few things premised she inquires, What is the peace of the holy ones, what the state of the churches, With what zeal of Kings is treated the sanction of laws, With what care the people preserve mortal rights. He refers, that by her merits & blessed prayers, The Christians are joyful & quiet in festive peace, And that the faith flourishes: after these things he persuades her, That what now flourishes, lest it ever wither, she pray, And with the antidote of prayers strengthen & arouse what is just In the Rectors of the reverend Churches. He mentions more things: she obeys: she prostrates, prays: She ascends the stars in mind, for whom while she prays, gives thanks with silent mouth: The mind in secret strikes with quiet clamor, And the motions, not the sound, of her mouth give signs of the clamor. While thus prayer is made, Zosimas is amazed, & venerates Her lips, hair, countenance, having the adornment of piety, And pale cheeks, now full of the omen of death; Whatever is seen testifies to virtue, All things are arguments of blessed labors.
[16] she is raised into the air, But things more wonderful than those related came upon him. For while the manifold odes of her divine breast She extends further, as if suspended she hung In the air, already wholly removed far from the earth: And as though the contagions of earth unwilling to bear Her purified body, upward it stood thence raised So before the monk was a guest of the Heavenly for an hour, For eternity to be associated with the heavenly, the flesh of the woman. Such things terrified Zosimas, & he thought it a monster, Or something truly that is discordant from a woman. But she teaches that he is deceived, & gains the Brother: Who ill troubled returns to himself, thus recalled: Alas me! whither are you snatched? what do you do, Father? & rebukes Zosimas scandalized at seeing it: What stupor of mind is this? I well perceive that you perceive ill. Against me you have sinned, while you have thought me a phantasm. I am a woman of wretched lot, guilty more than woman: I am mortal flesh, palpable, material, And which, if you do not know, by soul is vigorous, needs food, Is changed with time, threatens corruption & ashes. This, which I now am, I can send forth about myself: But what you saw, at which you nearly too much wondered, Let it not be ascribed to me: for God works this. From heavenly aid it comes, if you have merited anything well, And comes from the Heavenly ones whether you act well or meditate. We are a light shadow, we are smoke driven by a whirlwind, We are the hay of the field, first flesh, afterwards mire. The form of things perishes: another is given on every day. While we are thus changed, silent we also testify, What the thing permits, whither nature sends us back; What we are or will be, whither we tend, whence we came. All things of man are certain heralds of the end.
[17] asked by him to narrate her former life, Afterwards Zosimas thinking nothing rashly from the woman, Knows his fault, asks pardon with suppliant prayer; Urges her with tears & deepest sighs, That she hide nothing from him: but who she is & whence, may reveal; By what food she is sustained; who accompanies her. The Father also adds these things: Relate, O dearest Mother: It will profit to be heard, & God wishes these things to be opened. This journey that man suggested to the old man, with him as guide I came: He gave me a little to fear in the region of wild beasts, Directed my step, strengthened me tired with strength: Soothed the cold, taught to bear the heats, Who, unless God had helped, would have borne these so hard things? To a special good I came through lairs of lions, Thence let it be brought back by which Christ may be glorified: Let this torch come out of darkness, this famous gem: God wills not to hide the renowned lights of the world, To whose rays the winter of souls is loosened. Therefore what you have done refer to the heralds of Christ. How well is it narrated by which the neighbor is edified? It is truly of crime to hide documents of morals. These things he says, & with copious tears returns to his vows.
[18] scarcely at last with much shame she begins. Whom the woman lying down lifts up, & addresses thus lifted: Alas me! how many tears I am asked to remember! What a series of crimes, or what contagions of things, My Father, do you explore! you labor to know more than the crime. Whom shall I not offend, if foul, if to be kept silent, If a life revering no crime I shall set forth? What ears can you lend to the reproaches of a woman? Or who mindful of morals will bear these monuments of shame? What shall I follow, or what shall I do? I am ashamed to show this wound. But if it be hidden, the medicine of the wound is paid; The buried praise of Christ is paid with sad peril, When evils are hidden: unless thanks be returned from it, To the ungrateful head it is agreed that guilt returns. Lest I offend thus, I will recite my shameful life, And with what ointments God washed the ulcers of the mind. It is expedient that before a monk I be confounded for an hour, Lest before the Saints I be confounded in the mouth of the Thunderer. These things she says, & weeps: she blushes, & is afraid to relate: She looks up & nods, confusion changes her face: Shame binds her lips, copious sweat flows from all sides: If a part is begun, scarcely does she come to the last. At last briefly touching the crimes of the life sought, she declares, that by birth an Egyptian, Thus she said, with face covered with poor garb.
[19] Of no vile seed the land of the Nile begot me: But after I grew, I abolished the titles of my race. Often to me tender, precepts of severe life Brought thence my father, hence also my censorious mother. My mother, as is the custom, rereading the decrees of modesty, Untaught the gain which honest does not commend, And with threats added said: Be like the Sabines: Hold out hope of a chaste woman, grave in word, modest in mouth, And let a severe matron reign in your tender face. despising her parents' admonitions, No one too quickly learned to beware of harmful things: Whatever age it behooves to strive toward probity. These things I remember my parents standing by warned: But I gave to the winds the admonitions of both parents, And shame began to be ill despised from age twelve. From then the bones drew unbecoming heat, From then the marriages of a certain bedroom were turned away; And thinking stupor not to have yet destroyed shame, I endured freely the losses of virginity.
[20] She flees to Alexandria, where she prostitutes herself, And lest my parents resisting should delay vows, I leave my fatherland, set out for Alexandria. Having found a place for crime, I decided to be held common. Nor was that sufficient: because when a man was lacking to me, I wandered through houses, & asked by none I asked, Infamous in garb, wandering in eye, slippery in face, With uses imposed, a crime & enemy of nature. A more broken gait, & speech confessing a bawd Cried out openly, Shame is ashamed to remember this: Gesture cried out, That frenzy is too troublesome. Thus forgetful of myself, leader & way of destruction, With histories of crimes I consumed each day; Having confessed the sad day on which I might perchance be admonished of honor, Which as often as I broke, the more celebrated feast I kept. Songs, into every lust which would draw crime & teach incest, I loved, learned, surpassed mimes with modulation. And when exhausted dancers or older men In no love now loathed I moved, I flattered new ones: these I bought with any gift, And among companions of crimes I divided the individual things, Which needle or spindle had given for uses of life: With these instruments came the hand of the needy, With these house, with these food, with these was clothing sought, With these to vows was given partner & heir of guilt.
[21] & cast into intemperance. How badly, I now remember, pleased me the abundance of wine! How was sought the food by which lust is helped! And since two are great enemies, sex & years, Drunkenness was added to these as a third enemy. With these diseases with me the world was lost through me. Could any be weighed down with equal ruin and could they? Who multiplied evils erred less than I, And I was defended to the palm of always acting badly. When now I knew not whom in crime I could overcome, With multiple crime after all I also overcame myself. For having first dared error, then frenzy, Whatever I sinned, evil, I justified the worst: Nor did even a later age set bounds to crime. In such & so many things, hateful to the eyes of the Thunderer, I spent three times three years & twice four.
[22] Behold on a certain day (but how can I tell you this How miserably I fell? at last with those going to Jerusalem ) I saw youths on the shore: I saw, caught at them, asked where they wished to go. Smiling the first said, We go to Jerusalem. I inquired, whether they would suffer a companion? The same added: If you give the fare, behold the ship is open; you will be carried. Then I: For the ship I have prepared the price for you, sailor. If you seek the price, you will obtain me in return for the price. I have nothing but myself: if it please, use me: I have nothing better, take the fruit of this gift: From this fortune alone I will satisfy all, If from the common food comes for me alone. impudently joining herself, These things said, the youth pressed his steps in the sands; And as if the levity of my words despised, He exhorts the sailors, calls his companions, urges they go. I bind my hair, paint my face for crimes: I throw away the distaff, I gird myself for use of going: I follow, enter the ship. The sea promises prosperity: The wind flatters, youth helps the wind with art, And in a few hours with shores caught we use them.
[23] Alas me! whither do I slip? with what tongue shall I speak the rest? with whom she lives most shamefully: Give pardon to the wretched: shame demands these things to lie hidden, And it draws horror to remember such frenzy. These things she said, & wept: shame filled her venerable lips. Weeping, Zosimas consoles her, & entreats her to relate. She obeyed, & at last thus followed up the one entreating: My Father, on the ship I multiplied my crimes: Nothing there I did except what are contrary to the law, And far from cares was all mention of right; Which ill cast away, the sailors into crimes I bend: I excite the numb, the sluggish I call fearing reproaches: To whom this crime is pleasing, I judge brave, swear blessed, Taught to serve with my whole body the will of a man. Care was to the guilty, through a thousand dangers of the sea, To flatter crime, to fear nothing beyond things honest, To roll in lust, by wine often to be loosened, With food to be stretched, to vary the measures of singing, To use all these things which are hostile to salvation.
[24] Believe me, I greatly wonder that crime unavenged, That neither sea nor wind snatched the guilty deed: & God patiently enduring her I wonder that the wicked ship served these depraved, That the wrath of the Thunderer did not oppose so many & so great, That the shore & South wind & tide bore the incest: Among nearly a thousand deaths, the evils were safe. But the Lord Jesus, who knows to spare when injured, Jesus was sparing, by sparing he admonished me to return: And now the fountain of piety was showing me freely, That, although wroth, he delays to punish guilt; And unwilling he strikes because he seeks to spare fault. And lest you be burdened by a long discourse of my love, I am borne to the port, the harlot enters the sacred walls, she comes to the holy city. Joined to a light crowd: I linger as guest & enemy in the city: I go round the streets, hunt unlawful embraces: Citizen and stranger alike is compelled into crime.
CHAPTER III.
Mary's conversion & penitence in the eremus.
[25] At the exaltation of the Cross coming While I catch at these, while I foolishly join myself To iniquity so great; the exaltation of the holy Cross, Which then was imminent, was calling the citizens to the temple. The crowd of fathers goes ahead, the devotion of mothers follows; The city almost emptied compelled me to go, to see, To seek what drew the people, what in the house pleased. I went, to seek a deadly comrade for me, (And I am ashamed, & will say) who would subjugate the wicked one. But it turned out otherwise, & supernal piety checked The loves & heats of my incentives. For wishing to enter the doors & see the holy things; I am not allowed to enter these, nor to see these. The open gate was receiving the coming people, But me a sinner a heavenly force was casting back. she is repelled from entering the church: Which while I suspect to happen by womanly weakness,
I struggle with as much impudence as I may. But not even then could I enter the open doors, Although those preceding & those following entered. I wonder & am indignant that from the sacred house I am called back: I insert myself in the crowds, that by these pushed I might be helped; I strive, & oppose hands to the pressing people. But nothing of these things profits the one wishing to enter: These efforts too does guilt hold & enervate, Nor does crime allow the holy threshold to be touched.
[26] whence recognizing her guilt As I perceived, with myself thus I say: It was not right That those temples be open to me a wretched woman, Temples reverend with the titles of blessed labors. Here was broken the wretched pact of death; Here the Author paid our deeds, made a victim; Here he was condemned, here died, here entombed; Here he rose again, & brought back life by death. Daring to come to places of such wondrous sweetness, I bring no dew of oil, nor the odor of frankincense, Nor a pure mind more pleasing than all these. The stench which attests to my reproaches, is prepared for incense, And instead of titles of morals I bear a crowd of shameful deeds, she is touched by penitence, And whatever wretched falls into this kind of women. Alas! what have I attempted? whither, of what kind, & whence have I migrated? To the table of Christ as a harlot from a sad brothel; Adorned with these evils, such I approached such places. This bars the entrance from me, sought often in vain: God hates the reproaches of the brothel, & keeps them away from the altars, And the filth of the mind from the life-giving foods.
[27] Hence I checked my voice, nor did I withdraw further thence; But standing before the gates, I am drowned in arising tears: Three times repulsed, I lament: grief weighs down my wet face: Affection disagrees, conversion tries my breast, And it begins to shame me to remember former habits; And although late, buried I seek to rise again. What I seek well, & before the image of the B. Virgin is given: & Lazarus is raised from the tomb. There happened to be near a graceful image of a woman, Painted under the name of that excellent Mary, Who bore the Savior as a star bears brightness. While I gaze on this, I am renewed within, & become another. I draw nearer: weeping I supplicate before her countenance, And with bended knee address the mother of the father with this prayer.
[28] To you, pious virgin, holy virgin, Virgin Mary, Virgin of a new lot, I come; but as a woman of death, But wretchedly common, confessing her sins, but filthy, but a brothel-keeper, But I have bewailed only when I wrought deeds to be bewailed; When I committed shameful deeds, as though famous for shameful deeds, I laughed; And my sad countenance a many-lovered one made cheerful. The night was sleepless, while every man came upon all: And I considered it a crime unless I wedded with much crime, Rejoicing in forbidden couplings & in the populace as husband. Thus I completed the course of a wretched age; Thus I have transgressed. Now I condemn what I did ill. I repent of error: the dregs of frenzy are filthy: Nor will I suffer or love rightly condemned guilt, If the bar by which the sinner is held be loosened, she promises better things: If it be allowed the wretched to see the life-giving wood. This through you I hope: through you I seek to succeed. For although angry, your son will yield, you supplicating: He will yield indeed: since he is both father & the same son, A double affection will draw his exorable breast; To whatever gift each will be bent but one. Therefore under this pact grant to me what I well try for; Be witness of the pact, be avenger also of the broken one. I do not wish to be spared, if the crime be repeated.
[29] after the Cross adored I am raised by these words, with vices now in mind relinquished; Thence I turn my foot, good hope accompanies me to the church: And impatient of delay I am borne within, but without labor. I rejoice to be admitted, ask that my faults be remitted: For pardon I weep, I adore the standards of salvation. From the Sacraments the crimes of the mind deter: These being offered I seek again the mother of piety, And to her well deserving I give thanks, I supplicate rightly: What she bids to be done, whither to tend, I seek to be taught: I seek the way of morals, I beseech that the mother of them rule. While thus solicitously at the gates of life is knocked, Thus it is answered, nor did I know who spoke; she is admonished to cross the Jordan: This only I know, that a certain one thus spoke: If you shall cross the Jordan, you will obtain rest. Hence stupor oppressed me: which after a time ceased, I go out with swift foot, thus seeming to me to be admonished: The way is sought & hurried, by which the Jordan is reached.
[30] While I hasten, a certain one suitably for the time Offers me three denarii & gives them in secret. Hence I buy three loaves: & going out of the walls of the city, I strive, & am carried, & withdraw, fleeing from the crowds. It was evening: I come to the temples of John the Baptist, to whose bank fortified with Sacraments Which with placid course the said river flows past. There with tears and groaning having professed my guilt, I approach the mysteries, bearing a contrite heart. Then with bread taken, I am carried across the aforesaid river: I seek a mode of life, by which I may condemn my former crimes. Then I did away with delights, then with luxury of the flesh: Then I redeemed the time of crimes with better study. But you are perhaps tired of my words, And the sun with swift wheel flies untaught to be held back. she enters the eremus: Therefore depart, Father. Then he: Most pious mother, Say come what follows, nothing more suitable than this is found: Say, handmaid of God, a great part of the day remains: Nothing more to my wish than to learn all. Set forth, if you remember, what labors you have suffered there, Whence you have had food, what & whence is prepared your clothing; If any temptation rebelled, nor overcame; If the heat of the flesh formerly infesting cooled down.
[31] Thus moved by the old man's prayers, she sat on the sand, And weeping, to her first tears adds such things: Four times nine & three times eleven years, My Father, I have completed after the lamentable fall of my life; Nor yet without grave contest have I washed my crimes. For I am tempted again: there comes after the sacred vows a recursion To the cups of ointments & luxuries of foods. grave things against temperance The fishes of Egypt, & the desire of wine left behind Touch wretched me; & the more vehemently torment, The more eagerly my zeal of using foods & of drinking, When moderation was filthy to me, & drunkenness pleased. In cities & abroad the vice is unlearned with difficulty: In the purpose of morals the enemy creeps in everywhere. Hearts firm a little, the evil mention of delights Urges & infests: Eve rages, & troubles the man: Eve desires the food of death in the vital gardens. Alas me! for I am ashamed to speak certain things: but yet I will speak. Learn that nothing is safe, unless first released from the flesh: Ever will be at hand what both presses & opposes the honest.
[32] & she suffers temptations against chastity: With the heat of marrying, & desire of singing The measures of execrable & song of loves, I burn; & to my mind badly looking back Forbidden embraces return & a thousand husbands. Kisses are caught at; vows wander to weddings: Virtue is a burden: I am ashamed to be held further by law. The constant water wearies: I postpone serious things to trifles, The solitary-wandering eremus to the gatherings of the city. These phantasms strike the right course to defect, And the image of frenzy stifles the seed of morals: Until turned by prayers to the excellent Mary, I would recall from temptations the lights of the mind. Here in spirit I come, groan, weep, become a victim: & having recourse to the B. Virgin, I seek to be reformed, pray that the old things be renewed. After the burnt-offerings of prayers a good mind returns & stays with itself: After the weeping of the heart all mention of filth flees: With these medicines the swellings of the mind subsided; And the frying-pan of revived shameful deeds, Which was badly hot, used to cool thoroughly. Besides a splendor used to shine around me weeping And lying miserably, & cover the whole,
Sent to recall the wanderer, to raise the slipping; To confer good hope, give strength, show the crown.
[33] at last after 17 years Three times three years, twice two years twice, passed by: Harsh things were mingled with gentle, wild with mild. But the new wounds, Virgin Mother, when I had wept well, She wiped & washed: thence was salvation, thence I rested. Through so many years, in hunger, thirst, nearly two loaves were my food, Which I had borne with me at the same time here from the city in departing: They had dried & hardened, & their proper color Had lost, & ceased to confer vigor: Thence yet most sparingly I used to relieve hunger. What I might drink, when I was failing, I scarcely found. But after the loaves had been consumed by long time; My mind clinging to the Lord drew away vain cares. From then until now the old temptation has subsided, From then until now sense obeys reason: Until now the exterior food is grass with leaves, Until now the interior food is heavenly words.
[34] & nakedness passed through, The garments which I had, old age tore & wore away: Naked thenceforth I held the regions scorched by the sun, In which too great cold & too great heats In nocturnal hours, in diurnal hours having endured, I supply the sin & losses of past life, I change jests into hymns, purge laughter with mourning, Pain redeems pleasure, thirst drunkenness, Poverty luxury, labor leisure, gravel mead, The cross the soft bed, holy devotion guilt. So many tortures I nearly bear, as shameful things passed away, Whatever the flesh sinned the victim of flesh washed. What of phantoms to me, what struggles of them, How many crosses equally are renewed night & day, God knows, the witness & reward of those labors. Often under burning Cancer or stiff winter By nocturnal cold I stiffen, I am burned by diurnal fire, And nowhere do I lie safe, as though loosed by death. Added to this penalty is the force of dust, the heat of sand, Nor is the heaviness of these lightened by the lot of the places: For the place, as you see, lacks tree, mountain, caves, And those things by which the dog's heat is kept off & winter is guarded against.
[35] she is divinely refreshed, You know that man lives not surely by bread alone, Nor with garments or house can resist the winds: To all God is food, to all every garment. The King of heaven regulates the heaven, & is present to the faithful: When the breeze rages without, the fervor of love presses the breeze; Neither by snow nor winds does the devotion of mind grow cold. Nothing is hard to the good by hope of the starry region. When I promised myself the world, ill conscious of the world, No Scripture was in my heart, & is instructed. no reading of care, Nor even the mention alone of sacred doctrines: One was only the devotion of lovers fallen, And in the brothel badly to indulge the people. If anything of honesty, if of morals, if of piety, If monuments of divine books I review, Behold from heaven it is given: God teaches these things, these things he works: The Spirit without delay fills my mind, instructs my lips: No labor to one learning, no labor to one instructing. Thus to me the times of past life have flowed: The times that remain offer me hope of reward; A solemn reward, because the reward is everlasting life.
[36] She asks Zosimas In order I have set forth whatever ill or well I have done, Nor was I ashamed to uncover what I more shamefully did: Nothing more of the work remains why you should stay longer here. The shadows grow large, evening comes, the stars shine, Night with usual course bids return. Therefore return. Whatever I have committed to you alone, do not disclose; Whatever hereafter I shall commit to you alone, do not spurn: So may he not spurn you, who alone governs all things. When the cloistered ones shall go out of the monastery, And likewise shall cross the river Jordan; that next year he bring Communion to her. You yourself staying at home, will remain, sickness working; Which however you will escape, the Lord helping you. Made whole go out, with all delay removed, And remember to bring with you the food of the altar: Which I hope from heaven, I seek to receive on earth: I hope a pure thing, I ask both the thing & the figure of the thing. Enlivened by this food, where I tend I shall go more surely: This is to me a hiring, vehicle, way, homeland, fruit: With this as guide take the road: to you, my Father, I shall become visible. To these eyes again one of the days will restore you: Will restore, & certain things which may profit the Brothers I will impart. Then I, then at last, shall see you for the last time.
CHAPTER IV.
The sacred communion offered to Mary, burial cared for.
[37] Then with farewell said, she flees leaving Zosimas. He her withdrawing, nor even at prayer looking back, Returning to the monastery Zosimas, Follows with sight. After with continual effort He sees her so carried away, & in vain recalled; He turns his steps: returns, & goes out of the recess. The cell is open to him returning: the woman clings to his mind: The woman dwells in his breast, & scarcely is thought A woman; so to the Heavenly ones equal is the habit of the woman; So is not the state of a man, her face, the abjectness of her hair. These things & alone nearly he reflects on; & seeks to see: These things Zosimas equally sighs night & day. The limit is desired, when the sacred flock should go out.
[38] in the following Lent he is confined to bed, The limit, behold, returns. The assembly withdraws from the house: But Zosimas touched by sickness, & compelled to stay, Joyful gives thanks, because what the woman prophetess Had told him is fulfilled. He lies: but sometime he will follow. Whoever hopes sublime things willingly bears hard things. Hope comes to the monk sick & lying in bed, Plays, repels groans & tears, Restrains the anxious, lightens cares, serenes the face. Nor is he cheated of hope: because former health is restored, And the defect of weak age does not long hold Him whole. He goes out: the longed-for labor is begun: from which relieved, on the evening of the Lord's Supper he goes out And as though the woman would rejoice in dainties or manifold Foods, who fears only names, He bears a vessel full of cooked lentils: And carefully adding covered dishes of life on top, He takes the way, fully on the eve of the sacred Supper: And with hope & faith quickly hastens to touch the shore.
[39] And as he fixed his step, sighing he said such things: Alas me! how in vain do I follow these & compass the wastes! Either forgetful of the old man she lies hidden, or delays in the sands: Or she came first, but in hope frustrated withdrew; And while I weave delays, she went to the shores she inhabits. To await Mary on the bank of the Jordan: Perhaps she will come: but what opportunity will be to me Either of delivering the sacred things, or of speaking with the woman? The Jordan opposes: to strive with foot is vain effort: For there is nowhere a ford: but neither bridge nor raft anywhere. The old man complaining more things, sad turns his eyes around. He looks attentively, the mind is not silent though the mouth is silent.
[40] Behold with swift step, with naked foot, in the late evening, As she had promised she comes, & sees the old man again: And stopping a little, as if tired by the labor of the ways, who the same with dry feet crossed She raises to the Heavenly ones her mind & serene face: Then weeping she imprints the sign of the fruitful Cross from there, And thus like a portent, with dusty foot Crosses the barrier of the intervening waters. To no one who trusts himself to the world, does the world obey: The elements know to favor a sincere mind: And whoever rejoices in good things, dares to ask whatever good things; He catches at nothing in vain, who offers himself without wound. The moon shone, & did not allow the deeds to lie hidden: By whose rays the crossing of this one being disclosed From the old man extracts & elicits manifold odes.
[41] Behold for pious vows, with delays from that removed, The woman & the man have leisure; with holy prayer they appease the divinities: They bathe their faces with weepings, tire their words with sobs: she receives the sacred viaticum, For the reprobate they pray, color their words with examples: They rejoice sincerely, the woman in the old man, the man in the woman:
And the highest of their words is God, or the reading of morals. These things accomplished she comes to the Cup of piety; And having confessed before she touched any of this, She sacrifices herself wholly with tears & adapts herself to the Cup. Then, with knee placed, the pledges of life are given, And to the head Christ by this libation is joined, With such affection giving commands to her companion:
[42] My Father, scrutinize the excesses of the returning Brothers: Part of them despises the doctrine of morals: And as if she knew not, she indicates the excesses of the Brothers. with what fraud he labors to deceive, Who seeks the post of the mind, he neglects the enemy. With subtle cunning the wolf lies in wait for the sheepfold: If any sheep wanders, it perishes overwhelmed with any wound; And it is open to the bite, if she looks back. Let the breath of Abbot John oppose these harms, And let him exhort the flock not to despise the law of the monk: To the brother who sins, the law equates the Father who is silent: Whom equal fault binds, equal penalty also wearies: Thus saddening the King of heaven Eli fell. Lest to him be such a judicial transgression, With sleepless care let the Father extirpate harmful things: to be corrected by the Abbot: Let him keep watch before the doors, bear labors with even mind: Let him rouse the attempted, press those who profess immoderate things: Let him argue, exhort, what he preaches, let him do: Let him soothe the stern, denounce hard things gently: Let him prick these in presence, now join blows to words: Let the ulcers of faults be washed, or let the doer of them pay for them. Though he be safe here, though he be happy having followed perverse things, God inflicts a graver judgment on such daring, And grave clemency continues prosperity to the perverse. Who now is tortured, knows not how great things he gains: When God rages & strikes, he seeks to spare later. About to relate these things, & once more to return here, Go, revisit the flock, command the law to be reverenced: And standing by the altar pray for the sinner.
[43] & returns to the eremus. Thus these things having said, she returns: to her returning the wave obeys; And with dry feet attesting the handmaid of the Thunderer, She walks upon it, & with Zosimas astonished withdraws. He quickly returns home, & far from the woman, With sincere vows is companion & mindful of the woman. She occupies his mind, one holds the whole, complaining That the year be so great, that it passes so slowly. The year departs at last: Zosimas after a year going out again, the Father goes out, seeks the same; And having gone out the doors, bears labors without labor; And as much as he can with effort, with foot passable, the rest by sight He compasses: explores, weeping these things & more entreats: Christ, figure of the Father, father & unique branch of the Mother, Hear one weeping, I beg I beseech one following through wastes: Show this one to the old man, for whom with you as guide I came, Whom I wish, whom I seek, by whose heavenly prayer I hope, Who though in the camps she now serves, sits among the stars, And now companion of the Heavenly ones disdains the slippery things of the world, Now joined to God seeks fruit from this marriage, he prays her to be shown to him; Long-lasting fruit, fruit which may endure into an age. Woe to me! woe to me wretched! In vain through byways I seek, Whose house in hiding-places is famous with its only cultivator, Whose cottage is the desert, bed-chamber an uncovered cave, Whose shame is her veil, an Angel her companion, heaven her courts, Whither am I borne, or what shall I do? Shall I follow the region burned by the star? Multiplied pains, old age, thirst, heat of the sand Oppose these beginnings & delay my vows.
[44] Thus Zosimas complaining turns his eyes around sad: He knows not whither he hastens: & doubtful what he should choose, he hesitates. He shouts: he listens: no voice, no echo resounds, No sound is heard, & admonished by a heavenly ray, no trace of feet is found. And while he wanders, while he notes all things by sight, Upon his cold limbs & those lacking breath A ray shone, as it were guide & going before By the omen of which rejoiced, & the Lord God venerated, He runs thither: finds whom with vows, whom with foot he sought: But now deceased, now also joined to Christ, Now in the camps of the Heavenly ones shining more brightly than the stars. The flesh to be glorified, purer than boiled gold, As became a woman, lay covered. What sad complaints of the monk, what heats of breast, What groans of torn mind, what words were there? Now he sighs, now rolls his whole eye: he finds the corpse: Now he lifts his eyes to heaven, now applies his lips to laments: Prostrate he mourns, reverently clings to her feet: He weeps over her, & to the holy feet imparts pious kisses, And that she return not with vows & voice he prays, Thinking it a great gift to accompany a funeral with a funeral, And with equal fall to live together, to be buried together.
[45] While he grieves, & doubtful fluctuates about her name, The name found in the sand rouses the lips of the old man, and the name & the day inscribed in the sand. And the clouds of his mind slip away at these documents: Holy Father, bury I beg the bones of Mary of Pharia: Let her be covered with earth, let ashes be added to ashes. As soon as you gave her the Body of Christ & the Cup, The first of the second dissolved the conqueror of the world, With evening past full of the mysteries of the supper, Grave night crept up, because the sun withdrew with the sun. By these Zosimas at last learns both the name & the last day, Doubtful who was the writer of this: For he knew that the woman had read nothing or learned, Nor was mindful of those studies. He learns hence also, that after the sacred things delivered Mary, Thither was led back in a moment, & presently loosed, Where scarcely with twice five days accomplished He had come here tired, & professed himself conquered by labor.
[46] Testifying with laments the new wounds of his mind He sits by the lifeless one, is wet with the shower of copious grief: Angry with the fates, he studies the office of piety: With praises applauds, covers her limbs, closes her eyes: Now embraces her tracks, now venerates
Her lips, hair, countenance; in these was neglect, culture: greatly wearied about the burial, Their majesty, contempt, squalor, poverty. The woman clean enough, with tears called by piety, Is washed gratis, because near equal to the glorified. He himself studies the burial, has leisure for this, this is his care. But what he should do, he knows not. The earth exceedingly hard stiffens: Many things break the old man: heat & labor & thirst oppress: Strength yields to years, arms to winding rags; To his hands no mattock nor any hoe.
[47] While he grieves & groans, a new thing removes sighs: His eyes are dried, because greater things are prepared by hope. For a lion, like one mourning & honoring the funeral, a lion is at hand, Promising service, & putting away anger & wildness, With submissive head comes, & with pride removed Humble adds to lick the holy feet. He admires such & so devoted a companion: He attributes to the merits of the woman, that the beast is mild, That the lion is gentle, that the name clung to the sand, That she shone upon him, that a leading light led him; That her undefended by a guardian, that her unburied No wild beast infested, no bird tore, No great heat dissolved, no whole year. Now he was picturing, what glory awaited the members, Under hot winds the incorruption of her lying. With so many & so great gifts of the Thunderer experienced, He recalls all things; rereads what he would say everywhere: & by her commands, With such an address giving commands to his companion. My companion, we are urged, & are bidden to bury her. Whom the world does not know, to whom the greater second on earth scarcely equals. But if you have come sent in the name of Christ, If about to serve; dig the tomb, afterwards to return. Lay aside accustomed terror, unlearn fury: To the praise of Christ what you do for this one will yield.
[48] These things not yet said, with ferocity & threats left, He goes more gently, & to him the lion ready obeys: prepares a pit. And ignorant of delay, in the moment of a slipping hour He fulfills the command, accomplishing the accelerated work. Meanwhile the monk spreads out the holy limbs, To her no garment, unless the worn & old cowl,
Which scarcely clung to him, now crushed, was covering, With these garments he wraps the limbs of the one lying: Namely an immense treasure, & now bearing Something of splendor, something of solemn fragrance, Something famous of the nectar of the Heaven-dwellers. he himself entombed the Saint. The woman blessed with the reward of her holy labors Is borne to the tomb, with the beast serving is buried. Thence the old man goes back: he bids that the lion servant withdraw. At home he recites things seen: forgetting to spare faults: a centenarian he dies. He rebukes, exhorts, promises good things, threatens hard things. Thus when he had completed twenty lustres, he rested. It ends.