CONCERNING SS. BENJAMIN AND BEJOCUS ANCHORITES IN EGYPT.
From the metrical Abyssinian Hagiology.
CommentaryBenjamin, Anchorite in Egypt (S.)
Bejocus, Anchorite in Egypt (S.)
D. P.
On the custom of the Anchorites of keeping the Eucharist Cardinal Bona, of Liturgical matters book 2 chapter 18, about to demonstrate, how usual always was to the faithful Christians Communion under a single species; when he had referred the Reader to the examples of the preceding chapter, of the Eucharist kept at home, sent to the absent, and on long journeys and voyages by the faithful carried; namely to be taken in the sole species of bread; thus further reasons: Nor otherwise did the Anchorites communicate in the vast solitudes, than with the Particles, which they carried with themselves, when on more solemn feasts they came to church, or to them the Priests sent or carried them.
[2] So altogether seem to have done SS. Benjamin and Bejocus, whom the Ethiopian Hagiologist on this day thus invokes; they seem to have had it too, I say salutation to Benjamin and Bejocus, who persisted in assiduous prayers, until to them was sent an Angel, ordering them to eat the serpent, which had eaten of the blessed body of Christ. For from this so succinct brevity I can gather no other sense, than that both those, in a little cupboard or some hole of their cell or cave, but to have found it gnawed by a serpent; having laid up the Body of the Lord, and it on the set day religiously about to take, found a serpent, which had gnawed part. Hence perplexed they hesitated, what they should do; and the serpent indeed more cautiously kept alive or dead, then in praying persisted, that they might be divinely taught what was needful to be done: but an Angel sent by God commanded, that they themselves should eat it; and thereby learn, that it was as easy for Christ to keep his Body from the serpent, as he preserved them from its poison, if it had pleased him: and so both their faith of the truth of the Eucharistic mystery he confirmed, and at the same time made them more cautious in keeping it.
[3] therefore they seem to have been Egyptians, How holily they lived both before, and afterward, must be learned from the Synaxaria of the nation, when they shall be found. Meanwhile to the Anchorites of Egypt rather than of Ethiopia, I prefer to reckon them: because of the Ethiopians Job Ludolf the renowned man asserts, in book 3 of the History of Ethiopia chapter 6 number 80, that their sacrificial bread, which they call Corban, daily fresh they bake, and wonder that the Latins keep it for the morrow: and number 83, that outside the sacred building, into private houses to carry the Mysteries, the greatest wickedness they think; and that this neither the King, not Ethiopians. nor the Metropolitan would arrogate to himself. But this superstitiously rather than religiously, while with all the other Churches of the East, even (unless I am mistaken) with the Egyptians it was once the custom, to carry it to one's home; and even now it is usual, to keep the same in the churches for the use of the sick, as often as necessity requires it. And perhaps, as to the first point, nothing else is intended, than that in Abyssinia bread is not used for the Sacrifice except baked on that very day; but consecrated, as also among us, is kept: for (to say nothing of the sick) to infants they are wont with Baptism to confer it: but who would believe that none are baptized, except at the time of Mass? I define nothing, but to a further disquisition I willingly leave matters so far distant.