Chapter XXV.--Of what other monks were distinguished at this period.
There were also other men at this period who emitted the bright rays of the philosophy of solitary life. In the Chalcidian [774] desert Avitus, Marcianus [775] and Abraames, [776] and more besides whom I cannot easily enumerate, strove in their bodies of sense to live a life superior to sense. In the district of Apamea, [777] Agapetus, [778] Simeon, [779] Paulus and others reaped the fruits of the highest wisdom.
In the district of the Zeugmatenses [780] were Publius [781] and Paulus. In the Cyrestian [782] the famous Acepsemas had been shut up in a cell for sixty years without being either seen or spoken to. The admirable Zeumatius, though bereft of sight, used to go about confirming the sheep, and fighting with the wolves; so they burnt his cell, but the right faithful general Trajanus got another built for him, and paid him besides other attentions. In the neighbourhood of Antioch, Marianus, [783] Eusebius, [784] Ammianus, [785] Palladius, [786] Simeon, [787] Abraames, [788] and others, preserved the divine image unimpaired; but of all these the lives have been recorded by us. But the mountain which is in the neighbourhood of the great city was decked like a meadow, for in it shone Petrus, the Galatian, his namesake the Egyptian, Romanus Severus, [789] Zeno, [790] Moses, and Malchus, [791] and many others of whom the world is ignorant, but who are known to God.
[774] i.e. the district round Chalcis in Syria, to be distinguished from the Macedonian Chalcidice.
[775] Native of Theodoret's see of Cyrus. He built himself a cell like the "Little Ease" of the Tower of London, and promoted orthodoxy by the influence of his austerities. c. 385. cf. Tillemont, viii. 483.
[776] A. went on missionary journeys disguised as a pedlar, and eventually unwillingly became bishop of Carræ. Theod. Relig. Hist. 3.
[777] Presumably Apamea ad Orontem. (Famiah.)
[778] Bishop of Apamea, a comrade and disciple of Marcianus. (Relig. Hist. iii.)
[779] Also a disciple of Marcian. For fifty years he maintained a school of ascetic philosophy. cf. Chrysost. Ep. 55. and Tillemont. ix. 304. Apparently not the same as Simeones Priscus of Relig. Hist. vi.
[780] i.e. near Zeugma, on the Euphrates, opposite Apamea.
[781] vide Relig. Hist. v.
[782] i.e. round Theodoret's see of Cyrus.
[783] Uncle of Eusebius, a "faithful servant of God." Relig. Hist. iv.
[784] Relig. Hist. iv. Abbot of Mt. Coryphe, nephew of Marianus. He chained his neck to his girdle that he might be compelled to violate the prerogative of his manhood (cf. Ovid. Met i. 85) and keep his eyes on the ground.
[785] Vide Relig. Hist. iv. He had a monastery near Antioch.
[786] Relig. Hist. vii.
[787] cf. the Symeones Priscus of Relig. Hist. vi.
[788] The disciple of Ephrem Syrus. Vide Soz. iii. 16, and Eph. Syr. Act. S. Abraam.
[789] Born at Rhosus. His life is given in Relig. Hist. xi.
[790] Relig. Hist. xii. He lived "without bed, lamp, fire, pitcher, pot, box, or book, or anything."
[791] Met in his old age by Jerome, to whom he told the story of his life. Born at Edessa, he ended his days at Maronia, near Antioch. Vide Jer. vita Malchi.
Chapter XXVI.--Of Didymus of Alexandria and Ephraim the Syrian.
At that period at Edessa flourished the admirable Ephraim, and at Alexandria Didymus, [792] both writers against the doctrines that are at variance with the truth. Ephraim, employing the Syrian language, shed beams of spiritual grace. Totally untainted as he was by heathen education [793] he was able to expose the niceties of heathen error, and lay bare the weakness of all heretical artifices. Harmonius [794] the son of Bardesanes [795] had once composed certain songs and by mixing sweetness of melody with his impiety beguiled the hearers, and led them to their destruction. Ephraim adopted the music of the songs, but set them to piety, and so gave the hearers at once great delight and a healing medicine. These songs are still used to enliven the festivals of our victorious martyrs.
Didymus, however, who from a child had been deprived of the sense of sight, had been educated in poetry, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, the logic of Aristotle, and the eloquence of Plato. Instruction in all these subjects he received by the sense of hearing alone,--not indeed as conveying the truth, but as likely to be weapons for the truth against falsehood. Of holy scriptures he learnt not only the sound but the sense. So among livers of ascetic lives and students of virtue, these men at that time were conspicuous.
[792] Flourished c. 309-399. Blind from the age of four, he educated himself with marvellous patience, and was placed by Athanasius at the head of the catechetical school of Alexandria. Jerome called him his teacher and seer and translated his Treatise on the Holy Spirit. Jer. de Vir. Illust. 109.
[793] "paideias Ellenikes." His ignorance of languages weakens the force of his dialectic and illustrations. Vid. Dict. Christ. Biog. s.v.
[794] Harmonius wrote about the end of the 2nd century, both in Greek and in Syriac. cf. Theod. Hæret. Fabul. Compend. i. 22, where he is said to have learned Greek at Athens.
[795] Bardesanes, or Bar Daisan, the great Syrian gnostic, was born in 155. cf. the prologue to the "Dialogues."