Pausicacus

ON SAINT PAUSICACUS BISHOP OF SYNNADA IN PHRYGIA.

VII CENTURY

Pausicacus, Bishop of Synnada in Phrygia (St.)

G. H.

The Greeks celebrate this holy Bishop on day XIII May, and indeed in the Menology of Basil Porphyrogenitus the Emperor offer this his eulogy: Our holy Father Pausicacus, originating from the city of Apamea, Eulogy from the Menology of Emperor Basil. son of pious parents, instructed in medical art, traversed cities and regions, curing all the sick without any reward. Then when he had hated the world, and with the love of Christ was burning; into a certain monastery withdrawing, was made a monk: and so far in virtue advanced, fasts, vigils, and assiduous prayers attending to, that he was endowed by God with the greatest graces, with bread alone and similarly modest water accustomed to feed. On account of his virtue, by Cyriacus the Constantinople Patriarch, although he did not desire, of Synnada Bishop was inaugurated under the Empire of Maurice; whom also he himself from very grievous disease had cured. Afterwards entrusted to him the flock rightly governing, he lived until the Empire of impious Leo the Iconomach, and extreme old age reaching, migrated to Christ. Thus there: with which similar things are read in the MS. Synaxarium of the Constantinople Church at Paris in the College of the Society of Jesus preserved, in MS. Synaxarium and Sirletus's Menology. likewise in the Menology of Cardinal Sirletus, and everywhere is annotated his highest and extreme old age, in Greek βαθὺ γήρας. And indeed according to the aforesaid he would have lived in his Episcopate XV or XVI beyond a hundred years. For Maurice the Emperor, with whom alive he was ordained Bishop, with monstrous age. by his successor Phocas killed in year DCII, on day XXVII November, and Leo the Isaurian received the Empire on XXV March of year DCCXVII, until whose time to have lived St. Pausicacus is said in the just-related three eulogies. Meanwhile in the great Greek Menaea, and in Maximus Bishop of Cythera ἐν βίοις ἁγίων no mention of Leo is made, in a sufficiently long encomium, which we subjoin and is of this kind.

[2] Pausicacus was born at Apamea, of illustrious and noble parents and worshipers of the Christian faith. Another eulogy from the Menaea. As an adolescent with hunger, assiduous prayers and the discipline of austere life he emaciated and subdued himself: whence having entered the religious and ascetic way, with modest bread and water sustained life, and gave attention to medicine, and at once cured bodies and souls: and with sharp war undertaken against demons, them he turned to flight, abortions he raised, bent old men he straightened, and other admirable prodigies he did. But fame, which all things opens and publishes, about him to the Constantinople Archbishop (Cyriacus he was) brought, of Synnada Church he is set in charge: where immediately with the sling of the divine word men like wolves raging following, from the sheepfolds he warded off, and with the sword of the word putrid limbs he cut off, lest the sincere part of the Church by them be corrupted. Thus his sheepfolds healthy and whole preserving, he triumphed. He came then to Constantinople, and with Maurice the Emperor having met, the disease by which he was held he cured: and obtained, that to his citizens an annual tax, namely a pound of gold, with a golden seal, in which an addition to the annual pension was inscribed, he should remit. Returning however to Synnada, in which no mention of so great age. when he was at Solinus, with prayers alone he produced a spring of water, and the thirst of his companions thence relieved. At length after a life conducted illustriously and piously, and to many salvation procured, from the human he departed, and to the desired joys passed. Thus in the said Menaea, without mention of extreme old age, and of impious Leo the Iconomach. What if in his place were substituted the impious Emperor Monothelite Constans, who in year DCXLII reigned? Even great enough old age he would have attained, and for some time under the Empire of Maurice would have been Bishop. If a Life of him written by contemporaries should be found (for that some was written is persuaded by the miracles, so specifically related in the latter eulogy) something more certain could perhaps be drawn out. But Synnada, or Synnadae is the metropolis of Phrygia Salutaris, from which about LXXXV thousand paces distant is Apamea, the homeland of St. Pausicacus. But Cyriacus the Patriarch, who him as Bishop constituted, in the said Menaea is reported XXVII October. Among the Latins recently St. Pausicacus in the general Catalogue his Ferrarius reported, elsewhere about him hitherto nothing we have found.