The Lausiac History 37–45

There was another Sarapion, who was surnamed the Sindonite, because he never wore anything but a linen cloth. He practised great poverty, and being well educated he knew all the Scriptures by heart. Because of his great poverty and his study of the Scriptures he could not stay quiet in a cell; not being distracted by possessions, he went about the inhabited world and achieved this virtue. For he was of that nature too; for there are differences of natures, not of substances.

The fathers said that he took a fellow ascetic as a companion and sold himself to some Greek actors in a certain city for twenty pieces of gold, and sealing up the coins he kept them by him. He stayed and served the actors who had bought him until he had made them Christians and drawn them away from the theatre, taking nothing but bread and water and never keeping his mouth quiet from the study of the Scriptures. In the course of time first the man was pricked to the heart, then the actress, then their whole household. It was said that as long as they did not know who he was, he used to wash the feet of both of them. When both had been baptized, they gave up acting, and having taken up the holy and godly life, they revered the man greatly and said to him, “Come, brother, let us set you free, since you yourself have freed us from a shameful slavery.” He said to them, “Since God has worked and your soul has been saved, let me tell you the secret of the play. Taking pity on your soul, I, a free man, an ascetic, an Egyptian by birth, sold myself for this reason, to save you. Since God has done this and your soul has been saved through my humiliation, take your gold, so that I may go away and help others.” They pleaded with him much and assured him, “We will hold you as father and master; only stay with us”; but they could not persuade him. Then they said to him, “Give the gold to the poor, for it has been a pledge of salvation to us; but at least visit us once a year.”

In the course of his continual journeys he came to Greece, and spending three days in Athens he was not given bread by anyone; for he carried neither money nor bag nor sheepskin nor anything of the kind. When the fourth day came, he was very hungry; for involuntary hunger is terrible when it has unbelief for its advocate. Standing on a hill of the city, where the city's magistrates were gathered, he began to lament loudly, clapping his hands and crying, “Men of Athens, help!” All ran up at once, those wearing the philosopher's cloak and those wearing the hooded cloak, and said to him, “What is the matter with you, man? Where are you from? What is wrong?” He said to them, “By birth I am an Egyptian. Since I left my true homeland I have fallen among three creditors. Two of them have let me go, having been paid the debt and having nothing to charge me with; but one will not let me go.” They, inquiring after the creditors in order to satisfy them, asked him, “Where are they, and who are they? Who is the one troubling you? Show him to us so that we may help you.” Then he said to them, “From my youth love of money, gluttony, and sexual immorality troubled me. I have been freed from two, love of money and sexual immorality; they trouble me no longer. But from gluttony I cannot be freed. This is the fourth day I have not eaten, and my stomach goes on troubling me, demanding its usual due, without which I cannot live.” Then some of the philosophers, suspecting that it was an act, gave him a gold coin. He took it, put it down at a baker's, took one loaf, and immediately left the city, never returning to it. Then the philosophers knew that he was truly virtuous, and paying the baker the price of the loaf they took back the coin.

Coming to the region of Lacedaemon, he heard that one of the leading men of the city was a Manichaean with all his household, though virtuous in other respects. To him again he sold himself, as in the first play, and within two years he drew him away from the heresy and brought his wife to the church. Then they loved him and held him no longer as a servant but as a true brother or father, and glorified God.

Once he put himself on board a ship as if he were bound to sail to Rome. The sailors, supposing that he had either brought provisions on board or had his expenses in gold, took him on without inquiry, each thinking that someone else had taken his baggage. When they had set sail and were five hundred stades from Alexandria, the passengers began to eat about sunset, after the sailors had eaten first. They saw that he did not eat on the first day and supposed it was because of the voyage; likewise the second, the third, and the fourth. On the fifth day they saw him sitting quietly while everyone ate and said to him, “Why do you not eat, man?” He said to them, “Because I have nothing.” They inquired among themselves, “Who took his baggage or his provisions?” And when they found that no one had, they began to quarrel with him and say, “How did you come aboard without provisions? Where will you get the fare to give us? Or where will you get food?” He said to them, “I have nothing. Take me back and throw me off where you found me.” They would not have turned back even for a hundred gold pieces, but held to their course. So he stayed on the ship, and they ended up feeding him as far as Rome.

Arriving in Rome, he inquired who was a great ascetic, man or woman, in the city. Among others he met Domninus, a disciple of Origen, whose bed after his death healed the sick. Meeting him and being helped by him (for he was a man finished in character and knowledge), he learned from him who else there was, ascetic man or woman, and heard of a virgin living in seclusion who met no one. Learning where she lived, he went and said to the old woman who served her, “Tell the virgin that I must meet her, for God has sent me.” After waiting two or three days he met her and said to her, “Why are you sitting?” She said to him, “I am not sitting; I am travelling.” He said to her, “Where are you travelling?” She said to him, “To God.” He said to her, “Are you alive or dead?” She said to him, “I believe in God that I am dead; for one who lives in the flesh will not travel.” He said to her, “Then, to convince me that you are dead, do what I do.” She said to him, “Command me what is possible and I will do it.” He answered her, “To the dead all things are possible except impiety.” Then he said to her, “Come out and go forth.” She answered him, “I have been twenty-five years without going out; why should I go out?” He said to her, “If you have died to the world and the world to you, it is the same to you whether you go out or not; so go out.” She went out. And after she had gone out and they had come to a certain church, he said to her in the church, “Now, if you wish to convince me that you are dead and no longer live pleasing men, do what I do, and I will know that you are dead: take off all your clothes as I do, put them on your shoulders, and walk through the middle of the city with me going in front, in this state.” She said to him, “I would scandalize many by the indecency of the thing, and they would say, ‘She is out of her mind and possessed.’” He answered her, “And what does it matter to you if they say, ‘She is out of her mind and possessed’? For you are dead to them.” Then she said to him, “I will do anything else you wish; to this degree I do not even pray to come.” Then he said to her, “… then, no longer think great things of yourself as more devout than everyone and dead to the world; for I am more dead than you, and I show by deed that I have died to the world, for I do this without passion and without shame.” Then, leaving her in humility and having broken her pride, he went away.

There are many other wonderful things he did that tended toward freedom from passion. He died at the age of sixty and was buried in Rome itself.

It is not right to keep silent about the celebrated deacon Evagrius, a man who lived after the manner of the apostles; rather, these things should be committed to writing for the edification of readers and the glory of the goodness of our Saviour. I have thought it worth while to set out from the beginning how he came to his purpose, and how, having practised it worthily, he died in the desert at the age of fifty-four, as it is written: “In a short time he fulfilled many years.”

By birth he was from Pontus, of the city of Ibora, the son of a chorepiscopus. He was ordained reader by the holy Basil, bishop of the church of Caesarea. After the death of the holy Basil, the most wise and passionless Gregory of Nazianzus, the bishop, brilliant in learning, noticing his aptitude, made him deacon. From there, at the great synod in Constantinople, he left him with the blessed Nectarius the bishop, being a most skilful debater against all the heresies. He flourished in the great city, displaying youthful vigour in discourses against every heresy. It happened that, while he was highly honoured by the whole city, he became entangled in an image of desire for a woman, as he himself told us. Later, when he had freed his mind, the woman fell in love with him in turn; she was one of the great ladies. Evagrius, fearing God and respecting his own conscience, and setting before his eyes the greatness of the disgrace and the malicious joy of the heretics, prayed, entreating God that he might be hindered by him. But as the woman pressed him and raged, though he wished to leave he could not, held fast by the bonds of this courtship.

Not long after, his prayer having gone ahead of the actual deed, an angelic vision appeared to him in the form of soldiers of the prefect. They seized him, brought him as if to a court, and threw him into the so-called custody, binding his neck and hands with iron collars and chains, those who had come for him not stating the charge. But he knew in his conscience that he suffered this because of her, supposing that her husband had made a complaint. While he was in great anguish, another case was being tried and others were being tortured on a charge, and he remained in great anguish. Then the angel who had given the vision transformed himself into the likeness of a true friend and said to him, as he stood bound among a chain of forty condemned men, “Why are you held here, lord deacon?” He said to him, “In truth I do not know; but I suspect that so-and-so, the ex-prefect, has complained against me, struck with irrational jealousy; and I fear that the magistrate, corrupted by money, may subject me to punishment.” He said to him, “If you listen to your friend, it is not good for you to stay in this city.” Evagrius said to him, “If God frees me from this misfortune and you see me in Constantinople, know that I deservedly suffer this punishment.” The other said to him, “I will bring the Gospel book, and swear …” … [he confessed to her] the whole matter. She said to him, “Give me your word before the Lord that you will hold to the aim of the solitary life; and though I am a sinner, I pray that a furlough of life may be granted you.” He agreed. Within a few days he recovered; and rising up, he was clothed by her in different clothes, and he went out and journeyed to the mountain of Nitria in Egypt.

Having lived there for two years, in the third he went into the desert. He lived fourteen years in the place called the Cells, eating a pound of bread and a pint of oil every three months, though he had come from a most delicate, luxurious, and soft life. He said a hundred prayers, and wrote only enough in the year to pay for what he ate; for he wrote the sharp-pointed hand beautifully. Within fifteen years, having purified his mind to the utmost, he was granted the gift of knowledge, wisdom, and the discernment of spirits. He composed three holy books for monks, called Refutations, setting out arts against the demons. The demon of sexual immorality troubled him heavily, as he himself told us, and all night he stood naked in the well, in winter, so that his flesh froze. Another time a spirit of blasphemy troubled him, and for forty days he did not go under a roof, as he himself told us, so that his body broke out in ticks like that of irrational animals. Three demons once came to him by day in the form of clerics, disputing about the faith; one called himself an Arian, another a Eunomian, another an Apollinarian; and he overcame them with his wisdom in a few words. Again, one day when the key of the church was lost, he made the sign of the cross on the face of the lock, pushed it with his hand, and opened it, calling on Christ. He was so scourged by demons and had such experience of demons that it cannot be counted. He told one of his disciples what would happen to him eighteen years later, prophesying everything in detail. He said, “Since I came to the desert I have not touched lettuce, or any other green vegetable, or fruit, or grapes, or meat, or a bath.” Later, in the sixteenth year of his life without cooked food, since his flesh needed to take food prepared by fire because of the weakness of his stomach, he no longer touched bread, but taking vegetables or barley gruel or pulse for two years, he died on that diet, having received Communion in the church at Epiphany. Near his death he told us, “This is the third year that I have not been troubled by carnal desire,” after such a life, such labour and toil and unceasing prayer. When the death of his father was announced to him, he said to the one who brought the news, “Stop blaspheming; for my father is immortal.”

A certain Pior, a young Egyptian, renounced the world and left his father's house, and out of excessive zeal gave his word to God never again to see any of his own people. Fifty years later his sister, grown old and hearing that he was alive, was beside herself with longing to see him. Since she could not go into the great desert, she begged the bishop of the place to write to the fathers in the desert to send him so that she might see him. Under strong pressure he decided to take one other with him and go. He sent word to his sister's house: “Your brother Pior has come.” Standing outside, and hearing from the noise of the door that the old woman had come out to meet him, he shut his eyes and cried out to her, “So-and-so, so-and-so, I am Pior your brother; it is I. Look at me as much as you like.” She was satisfied and glorified God, and not having persuaded him to come into her house, she went back into her own house; and he, having prayed at the doorway, went off again to the desert.

This wonder too is told of him: in the place where he lived he dug and found very bitter water, and until he died he stayed there, putting up with the bitterness of the water to show his endurance. After his death many of the monks vied to stay in his cell, but could not complete a year; for the place is frightful and comfortless.

Moses the Libyan, a very gentle and loving man, was granted the gift of healing. He told me, “When I was young in the monastery, we dug a very large well, twenty feet across. Eighty men dug in it for three days, and we went about a cubit beyond the usual and expected level of the water-vein, but we found no water. Greatly grieved, we were thinking of giving up the work. Then Pior came from the great desert at the very height of the noonday heat, an old man wrapped in his sheepskin. He greeted us and after the greeting said, ‘Why have you lost heart, you of little faith? For I have seen you losing heart since yesterday.’ He went down the ladder into the shaft of the well and prayed with them; then taking the pick, as he struck the third blow he said, ‘God of the holy patriarchs, do not make vain the labour of your servants, but send them the water they need.’ And at once water spurted out, so that they were all drenched. He prayed again and went away. They pressed him to eat, but he would not, saying, ‘What I was sent for has been done; I was not sent for that.’”

You have surely heard about Ephrem, the deacon of the church of Edessa; for he is one of those worthy to be remembered by the holy. Having worthily completed the way of the Spirit and not turned aside from the straight road, he was granted the gift of natural knowledge, which is followed by theology and final blessedness. He always practised the quiet life and edified those who came to him for many years; but later he came out of his cell for the following reason. A great famine seized the city of Edessa, and pitying the whole countryside as it perished, he went to the wealthy and said to them, “Why do you not have pity on human nature as it perishes, but let your wealth rot, to the condemnation of your souls?” They considered and said to him, “We have no one to trust to minister to the starving; for they all make a trade of things.” He said to them, “What do you think of me?” For he had a great reputation with everyone, not falsely but truly. They said to him, “We know you to be a man of God.” “Then,” he said, “entrust it to me. Look, for your sakes I appoint myself guest-master.” And taking money, he partitioned off the porticoes, set up about three hundred beds, and nursed the starving, burying those who died, nursing those who had hope of life, and in short daily providing lodging and service to all who came in because of the famine, from what was supplied to him. When the year was over and plenty followed, and everyone went home, having nothing more to do, he went into his own cell and died a month later, God having given him this occasion as a kind of crown at the end of his life. He also left writings, most of them worth serious study.

It is necessary also to mention courageous women in this book, to whom God granted contests equal to those of men, so that they might not make the excuse that they are too weak for the achievement of virtue. I have seen many, and have met many refined women, virgins and widows. [Among them was Paula the Roman, the mother of Toxotius, a woman most refined in the spiritual life. A certain Jerome from Dalmatia became a hindrance to her; for though she was able to surpass all women, being most gifted, he hindered her by his envy, drawing her to his own purpose. Her daughter, named Eustochium, still practises asceticism now in Bethlehem. I have not met her, but she is said to be very chaste … having practised virtue scrupulously, and still holding fast to the contests vigorously. And Photeine, a virgin of the greatest holiness, the daughter of Theoctistus, the presbyter of Laodicea. In Antioch too I met a most holy woman who conversed with God, the deaconess Sabiniana, the aunt of John, bishop of Constantinople. In Rome I saw also the good Asella, the virgin grown old in the monastery, a very gentle woman who sustained a community. Among them I saw both men and women newly instructed in the faith. I saw also Avita, worthy of God, with her husband Apronianus and their daughter Eunomia, pleasing God so well that they openly changed over to the virtuous and continent life, … among these, and to falling asleep in Christ, freed from all sin and having attained knowledge, leaving their lives in good remembrance.]

I have heard of a certain Julian in the region of Edessa, a most ascetic man, who wasted his flesh so excessively that he carried about only bones and skin. At the very end he was granted the honour of the gift of healing.

I knew another man in Jerusalem named Adolius, a Tarsian by birth, who, coming to Jerusalem, travelled a very untrodden road, not the one most of us have walked, but cutting out for himself a strange way of life. He practised asceticism beyond human measure, so that even the demons, shuddering at his austerity, did not dare to come near him. Because of his excessive self-control and vigils he was even suspected of being a phantom. In Lent he ate every five days, and the rest of the time every other day. His great feat was this: from evening until the brotherhood gathered again in the houses of prayer, he stood on the Mount of Olives, on the hill of the Ascension, from which Jesus was taken up, singing psalms and praying continually; and whether it snowed or rained or froze, he stayed unmoved. When he had completed his usual time, he would knock on everyone's cells with the waking-hammer, gathering them to the houses of prayer; and in each house he sang one or two antiphons with them and prayed with them, and so went off to his own cell before daybreak. Indeed, the brothers often undressed him and wrung out his clothes as if from a wash-tub, and put others on him. So, after resting again until the hour of psalmody, he applied himself to it until evening. This, then, was the virtue of Adolius of Tarsus, who was perfected in Jerusalem and fell asleep there.

You have heard from many about the blessed Innocent, the presbyter of the Mount of Olives; but you will hear no less from us, who lived with him for three years. He was exceedingly simple. He had been one of the distinguished men at the palace at the beginning of the reign of the emperor Constantius, and he renounced the world after being married; he had a son named Paul, who served as a domesticus in the army. When this son sinned with the daughter of a presbyter, Innocent cursed his own son, entreating God and saying, “Lord, give him such a spirit that his flesh may no longer find occasion to sin,” thinking it better for him to wrestle with a demon than with licentiousness. And so it happened. He is still now on the Mount of Olives, wearing iron and being chastened by the spirit.

As for how merciful this Innocent was, I shall seem to be talking nonsense in telling the truth: he often stole from the brothers and gave to the needy. He was exceedingly guileless and simple, and was granted a gift against demons. Once, while we watched, a young man was brought to him, seized by a spirit and by paralysis, so that I, seeing him, wanted at once to send the mother of the one brought away, despairing of a cure. Meanwhile it happened that the old man came and saw her standing there, weeping and lamenting the indescribable misfortune of her son. The good old man wept, was moved with compassion, took the young man, and went into his martyr's shrine, which he himself had built, in which lie relics of John the Baptist. Having prayed over him from the third hour to the ninth, he gave the young man back healthy to his mother that same day, having driven out both the paralysis and the demon. Such was his paralysis that when the boy spat, he spat onto his back, so twisted round was he.

An old woman who had lost a sheep came to him weeping. He followed her and said, “Show me the place where you lost it.” She led him to the region of Lazarus. He stood and prayed. Some young men who had stolen it had already slaughtered it. As he prayed, no one confessing, and the meat hidden in the vineyard, a raven came from somewhere and settled, took a piece, and flew off again. The blessed man noticed and found the slaughtered animal; and so the young men who had slaughtered it fell down before him and confessed, and were made to pay its proper price.

[We met in Galatia, and spent a long time with, the presbyter Philoromus, a most ascetic and enduring man. He was born of a slave mother and a free father, but he showed such nobility in the life according to Christ that even those of unconquered nobility by birth revered his life and virtue. He renounced the world in the days of Julian, the emperor of evil name, and spoke boldly to him. Julian ordered him to be shaved and slapped by boys; he endured the thing and even thanked him, as he himself told us. At the beginning the war of sexual immorality and of gluttony attacked him. He drove out the passion by enclosure, by wearing iron, and by abstaining from wheaten bread and from everything cooked by fire. Persevering in these things for eighteen years, he sang the hymn of victory to Christ. Attacked in various ways by the spirits of wickedness, he persevered in one monastery for forty years. He told us, “For thirty-two years I have not touched fruit.” Once, when cowardice attacked him, to overcome it he shut himself up in a tomb for six years. The blessed Basil the bishop cared greatly for him, delighting in his austerity and severity. Even now he has not given up the pen and the quire for writing, though he is about eighty years old. He said, “From the time I was initiated and born again until this day I have not eaten another's bread as a gift, but from my own labours.” He assured us, as before God, that he had given two hundred and fifty gold pieces from the work of his hands to cripples, never having wronged anyone. He went on foot even as far as Rome itself to pray at the martyr's shrine of the blessed Peter, and he reached Alexandria too, to pray at the martyr's shrine of Mark. He went a second time to Jerusalem, travelling on his own feet and providing for himself from his own means. He said, “I do not remember ever departing in mind from my God.”]