The Life of Hilarion

Hilarion, born in the village of Tabatha, which is situated about five miles south of Gaza, a city of Palestine, though he had parents devoted to idols, blossomed, as it is said, like a rose from thorns. Sent by them to Alexandria, he was placed under a grammarian; and there, as far as that age allowed, he gave great proofs of talent and character; in a short time dear to all, and skilled in the art of speaking. And what is greater than all these things, believing in the Lord Jesus, he took no delight in the frenzies of the circus, nor the blood of the arena, nor the luxury of the theater; but his whole will was set upon the congregation of the Church.

Hearing then of the famous name of Antony, which was borne through all the peoples of Egypt, he was fired with eagerness to see him, and set out for the desert. And as soon as he saw him, having changed his former manner of dress, he remained near him for about two months, contemplating the order of his life and the gravity of his conduct: how frequent he was in prayer, how humble in receiving brothers, stern in rebuking, eager in exhorting; and how no weakness ever broke his continence and the harshness of his food.

Then, no longer able to bear the crowds of those who ran to him because of various sufferings or attacks of demons, and thinking it not fitting to suffer the peoples of the cities in the desert, and that he himself ought rather to begin as Antony had begun—Antony, as a strong man, receiving the prizes of victory, while he himself had not yet begun to fight—he returned with certain monks to his own country; and his parents being now dead, he gave part of his substance to his brothers, part to the poor, reserving nothing at all for himself, and fearing that example or that punishment of Ananias and Sapphira told in the Acts of the Apostles; and mindful above all of the Lord's saying: "Whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple". He was then fifteen years old.

Thus naked, and armed in Christ, he entered the wilderness which, seven miles from Maiuma, the port of Gaza, bends to the left for those going along the shore toward Egypt. And although the places were bloodied by robberies, and his relatives and friends warned him of the threatening danger, he despised death, that he might escape death.

All marveled at his spirit; all marveled at his age; save that a certain flame of the breast, and sparks of faith, shone in his eyes. His cheeks were smooth, his body delicate and slight, impatient of any injury, such that it might be afflicted by slight cold or heat. Therefore, his limbs covered only with a sack, and having a leathern coat which blessed Antony had given him at his departure, and a rustic cloak, he dwelt between the sea and the marsh, in a vast and terrible wilderness, eating only fifteen dried figs after sunset. And because the region was infamous for robberies, he never was accustomed to dwell in the same place. What should the devil do? Whither should he turn? He who once boasted, saying: "I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, and I will be like the Most High", perceived himself conquered by a boy, and trodden underfoot by him before he could have sinned through age.

Therefore it tickled his senses, and to his growing body suggested the usual fires of pleasure. The young recruit of Christ was compelled to think of what he did not know, and to turn over in his mind the pageantry of a thing whose experience he had not known. Angry then with himself, and beating his breast with his fists (as though he could drive out thoughts by the slaughter of his hands): "I," he said, "little ass, will see to it that thou dost not kick; nor will I feed thee with barley, but with straw. I will wear thee down with hunger and thirst; I will burden thee with heavy weight; I will hunt thee through heats and colds, that thou mayest think of food rather than of wantonness." With the juice of herbs, then, and a few dried figs, he sustained his fainting soul after three or four days' fasting, praying often and singing psalms, and digging the ground with a mattock, that the labor of toil might double the labor of fasting.

At the same time weaving little baskets of rush, he emulated the discipline of the Egyptian monks, and the sentence of the Apostle, saying: "But he that worketh not, let him not eat": thus wasted away, and so consumed in body that he scarcely clung to his bones.

On a certain night, he began to hear the wailing of infants, the bleating of flocks, the lowing of oxen, the wailing as of women, the roaring of lions, the murmur of an army, and again the portents of varied voices, so that he might give way, terrified by the sound before the sight. He understood the mockeries of demons; and, falling upon his knees, he signed the cross of Christ upon his forehead; and armed thus, lying down he fought the more strongly, desiring somehow to see what he shuddered to hear, and looking about anxiously hither and thither with his eyes. When meanwhile, unexpectedly, with the moon shining, he beheld a chariot with raging horses rushing upon him; and when he had called on Jesus, before his eyes, by a sudden gaping of the earth, the whole pageant was swallowed up. Then he said: "The horse and his rider hath he cast into the sea". And: "These in chariots, and these on horses: but we will be magnified in the name of our God".

Many were his temptations, and by day and night the varied snares of demons: which if I should wish to relate all, I should exceed the measure of the volume. How often did naked women appear to him lying down, how often the richest feasts to him hungering? At times, as he prayed, a howling wolf and a yelping fox leapt past him, and, as he sang psalms, a gladiators' combat offered him a spectacle; and one, as though slain, falling before his feet, begged burial.

Once he prayed with his head fixed to the ground, and, as is the nature of men, his mind, drawn away from prayer, was thinking of I know not what else: a driver leapt upon his back, and, striking his sides with his heels and his neck with a whip, said, "Ho there, why art thou drowsing?" and, laughing from above, asked whether, if he grew faint, he wished to receive barley.

Therefore from his sixteenth to his twentieth year, he warded off heat and rains in a small hut, which he had woven of rush and sedge. Afterward a small cell was built, which remains to this day, five feet in height, that is, lower than his own stature, and somewhat longer than his little body required, so that you would believe it a tomb rather than a house.

He cut his hair once a year, on Easter Day: he lay upon the bare ground with a rush mat until death. The sack in which he had once been clothed he never washed, saying that it was SUPERFLUOUS to seek cleanliness in a hair-shirt. Nor did he change to another tunic, except when the former was utterly torn. He also held the holy Scriptures in memory, and after prayers and psalms would recite them as though God were present. And since it would be long to tell piecemeal, through the various times, his ascent, I shall briefly gather it together before the reader's eyes, setting forth his Life all at once; and thereafter I shall return to the order of the narrative.

From his twenty-first to his twenty-seventh year, for three years he ate half a sextarius of lentils soaked in cold water, and for three others, dry bread with salt and water. Then from his twenty-seventh to his thirtieth year, he was sustained by wild herbs and the raw roots of certain shrubs. From his thirty-first, however, to his thirty-fifth, he had for food six ounces of barley bread, and vegetables lightly cooked without oil. But perceiving that his eyes were growing dim, and that his whole body was being drawn together by a kind of scab and pumice-like roughness, he added oil to the above diet; and up to the sixty-third year of his life he ran this course of continence, tasting nothing from outside, neither fruit nor pulse nor anything of the kind.

Then, when he saw himself wearied in body, and thought that death was near at hand, from his sixty-fourth to his eightieth year he abstained from bread, with incredible fervor of mind, so that at that time he approached, as it were anew, the service of the Lord, at an age when others are wont to live more remissly. There was made for him a little gruel of flour and crushed vegetable, food and drink together weighing scarcely five ounces: and thus completing the order of his life, he never broke his fast before sunset, neither on feast days nor in the gravest illness. But now it is time that we return to the order of events.

When he was still dwelling in the little hut, at eighteen years of age, robbers came to him by night, either thinking he had something to take, or reckoning it a disgrace to themselves if a solitary boy did not fear their assault. So, running about between the sea and the marsh from evening until sunrise, they were never able to find the place of his lodging. Then, at bright daylight, the boy being found, they said, as if in jest: "What would you do, if robbers came to you?" To whom he replied: "A naked man does not fear robbers." And they said: "Surely you can be killed." "I can," he said, "I can; and therefore I do not fear robbers, because I am ready to die." Then, admiring his constancy and faith, they confessed the error of the night, and their blinded eyes, promising thenceforth a life of correction.

He was now in his twenty-second year in the wilderness, known to all only by report, and spoken of throughout all the cities of Palestine, when meanwhile a certain woman of Eleutheropolis, perceiving herself held in contempt by her husband on account of her barrenness (for now for fifteen years she had given no fruit of marriage), was the first who dared to break in upon blessed Hilarion; and, he suspecting nothing of the sort, suddenly threw herself at his knees: "Forgive," she said, "my boldness; forgive my need. Why dost thou turn away thine eyes? Why fleest thou from one who begs? Do not look upon a woman, but upon a wretched creature. This sex bore the Savior. 'They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick'." At length he stopped, and, after seeing a woman for so long a time, asked the cause of her coming and of her weeping.

And when he had learned it, lifting his eyes to heaven, he bade her have faith; and following her departure with tears, after a year had passed, he saw her with a son.

This was the beginning of his signs; another and greater sign ennobled it further. The wife of Aristaenetus Elpidius, who was afterward praetorian prefect, a woman very noble among her own people, and yet more noble among Christians, returning with her husband and three children from the blessed Antony, was delayed at Gaza on account of their illness. For there, whether from the corrupted air, or (as afterward became clear) on account of the glory of Hilarion the servant of God, all three, seized alike by a semi-tertian fever, were given up as hopeless by the physicians. The mother lay wailing, and running as it were among three corpses of her children, did not know which one to mourn first. But learning that there was a certain monk in the neighboring solitude, forgetting the pomp of her rank (she knew herself only as a mother), she goes accompanied by her maidservants and eunuchs; and it was scarcely by her husband’s persuasion that she agreed to proceed seated on an ass.

When she had come to him, she said: I beseech thee by Jesus our most merciful God; I entreat thee by his cross and blood, that thou restore to me my three sons; and let the name of the Lord and Saviour be glorified in this city of the Gentiles, and let his servant enter Gaza, and let the idol Marnas fall. He refusing, and saying that he had never gone out of his cell, nor had it been his custom to enter not merely a city but even a hamlet, she threw herself upon the ground, crying out repeatedly: Hilarion, servant of Christ, restore to me my children. Those whom Antony kept safe in Egypt, let them be preserved by thee in Syria. All who were present wept, but he too, though refusing, wept. Why say more? The woman did not withdraw until he promised that after sunset he would enter Gaza. And when he had come there, marking the little beds of each and their burning limbs, he called upon Jesus. And, O wondrous power!

Sweat broke out at once from all three as if from three fountains; that same hour they received food, and recognizing their weeping mother, and blessing God, they kissed the hands of the saint. When this had been heard, and had spread far and wide, men flocked to him in rivalry from Syria and Egypt, so that many believed in Christ and professed themselves monks. For as yet there were no monasteries in Palestine, nor had anyone known a monk in Syria before the holy Hilarion. He was the founder and teacher of this way of life and discipline in this province. The Lord Jesus had in Egypt the elder Antony; he had in Palestine the younger Hilarion.

Facidia is a small village of the city of Rhinocorura in Egypt. From this village, then, a woman blind now for ten years was brought to the blessed Hilarion; and when she was presented to him by the brothers (for by now many monks were with him), she said that she had spent her whole substance on physicians. He answered her: If what thou hast lost on physicians thou hadst given to the poor, the true physician Jesus would have healed thee. But as she cried out and begged for mercy, he spat upon her eyes; and immediately the same power that followed the example of the Saviour was manifest.

A charioteer of Gaza too, struck by a demon in his chariot, was so entirely stiffened that he could neither move his hand nor bend his neck. Being carried then upon a bed, since only his tongue could move in prayer, he heard that he could not be healed unless he believed in Jesus, and pledged himself to renounce his former profession. He believed, he pledged himself, he was healed; and he rejoiced more over the salvation of his soul than of his body.

Moreover a very strong young man named Marsitas, from the territory of Jerusalem, so prided himself on his strength that he would carry fifteen measures of wheat far and long; and he would consider this the crown of his strength, if he could outdo asses. This man, seized by a most evil demon, would endure neither chains, nor fetters, nor doors kept whole; he had bitten off the nose and ears of many; he had broken the feet of some, the legs of others. And he had struck such terror into all, that, loaded with chains and ropes, straining in different directions, he was dragged to the monastery like a most savage bull; and when the brothers saw him (for he was of astonishing size), they were terrified, and reported it to the father. He, sitting as he was, ordered him to be dragged to him, and released. And when he was loosed: Bow thy head, said he, and come.

The man began to tremble and bend his neck, not daring to look up, and, all his ferocity laid aside, began to lick the feet of the one sitting. The demon, then, who had possessed the young man, being adjured and tortured, went out on the seventh day.

Nor should this be passed over in silence, that Orion, a leading man and the richest of the city of Aila, which overlooks the Red Sea, possessed by a legion of demons, was brought to him.

His hands, neck, sides, feet were weighed down with iron, and his grim eyes threatened the fierceness of his madness. And as the saint was walking about with the brothers, and expounding some passage of Scripture, the man broke free from the hands of those holding him, and, seizing him from behind, lifted him aloft. A cry went up from all; for they feared lest his limbs, worn away by fasting, might be crushed. The saint, smiling, said: Be silent, and yield me my own wrestling-partner. And so, bending his arm back over his shoulders, he touched his head; and seizing him by the hair, he brought him before his feet; and pinning both his hands from opposite sides, and treading upon his soles with either foot, he kept repeating, twist him, crowd of demons, twist him. And as the man howled, and, his neck bent back, touched the ground with the crown of his head, he cried: Lord Jesus, release the wretch, release the captive. To conquer one is thine, as it is to conquer many.

I tell an unheard-of thing: from one man's mouth diverse voices were heard, and as it were the confused shout of a crowd. This man too being healed, not long after came with his wife and children to the monastery, bringing very many gifts as if to render thanks. To whom the saint said: Hast thou not read what Gehazi and what Simon suffered: of whom the one received a price, the other offered one, so that the former sold the grace of the Holy Spirit and the latter sought to buy it? And when Orion, weeping, said: Take it, and give it to the poor; he answered: Thou canst better distribute thine own, who goest about through the cities, and knowest the poor. I, who have left my own things, why should I seek those of others? For many the name of the poor is an occasion of avarice; but mercy has no craft. No one gives better than he who reserves nothing for himself.

But to him, sad and lying upon the ground, he said: Be not sad, my son; what I do, I do for myself, and I do for thee. For if I should receive these things, I too would offend God, and the legion would return to thee.

Who indeed could pass over in silence that a man of Gaza, Majomites, not far from his monastery, cutting stones for building from the seashore, entirely dissolved with paralysis, and carried by his fellow-workers to the saint, immediately returned healthy to his work? For indeed the shore that stretches along Palestine and Egypt, naturally soft with sand, hardens into rocks; and the gravel, gradually cohering together, loses its softness to the touch, though it does not lose its appearance.

But also Italicus, a Christian citizen of the same town, against the Duumvir of Gaza, who was devoted to the idol Marnas, was raising horses for the Circus. For this custom had been kept in Roman cities ever since Romulus, that on account of the happy rape of the Sabines, chariots should race in seven circuits in honor of Consus, as it were the god of counsels; and it is victory to have broken the horses of the opposing side. There, then, since his rival had a sorcerer who by certain demonic incantations both prepared this man's horses and spurred on that man's to the race, he came to the blessed Hilarion, and begged not so much that his adversary be harmed, as that he himself be defended. It seemed unfitting to the venerable old man to waste his prayer on trifles of this sort. And as he smiled and said, Why dost thou not rather give the price of thy horses to the poor for the salvation of thy soul?

He answered, that it was a public duty; and that he did not so much wish this as was compelled to it; nor could a Christian man use magical arts; but rather he sought help from a servant of Christ, especially against the men of Gaza, adversaries of God, who insult not so much him as the Church of Christ. Being asked, then, by the brothers who were present, he ordered an earthenware cup, from which he was accustomed to drink, to be filled with water and given to him. When Italicus had received it, he sprinkled the stable, the horses, his charioteers, the chariot, and the bars of the starting-gates. Wondrous was the expectation of the crowd: for his adversary too, mocking this very thing, had spread it about; and the partisans of Italicus, promising themselves certain victory, exulted. So, the signal given, these fly forward, those are hindered. Under the wheels of these the axles grow hot; those can scarcely make out the backs of the ones flying past.

An immense shout of the crowd arose, so that even the pagans themselves shouted together, Marnas is conquered by Christ. Then the raging adversaries demanded that Hilarion, the Christian sorcerer, be given up for punishment. This undoubted victory was an occasion of faith both for them and for many others, long devotees of the Circus.

From the same trading-town of Gaza, a neighboring young man was dying with desire for a virgin of God. And when he had accomplished nothing by frequent touching, jesting, nods, whistles, and other such things which are usually the beginnings of a virginity about to perish, he went off to Memphis, so that, having confessed his wound, he might return armed with magic arts against the virgin. So after a year, having been taught by the priests of Aesculapius, who does not heal souls but destroys them, he came, presuming in his mind to gloat over the seduction, and buried under the threshold of the girl's house certain monstrous words and monstrous figures carved upon a plate of Cyprian bronze. Immediately the virgin began to rave, and, casting off the covering of her head, to whirl her hair, to gnash her teeth, to cry out the young man's name. For the greatness of his love had turned itself into madness in her.

Brought then by her parents to the monastery, she is handed over to the old man; and the demon at once howled and confessed: I have suffered violence, I was led away against my will; how well I used to delude men with dreams at Memphis! O crosses! O torments that I suffer! Thou dost force me out, and I am held bound beneath the threshold. I do not go out, unless the young man who holds me shall release me. Then the old man said: Great indeed is thy strength, thou who art held bound by a thread and a plate. Tell me, why didst thou dare to enter the girl of God? That I might keep her a virgin, he said. Thou, a betrayer of chastity, keep her? Why didst thou not rather enter the man who was sending thee? Why, he answered, should I enter him, who already had for a colleague the demon of love that possessed me?

But the saint would not, before purging the virgin, order the young man or the tokens to be sought out, lest the demon should seem to have departed, released by the incantations, or lest he himself should seem to have given credence to his speech, asserting that demons are deceitful and cunning at feigning; and rather, once health had been restored, he rebuked the virgin, asking why she had done such things by which a demon could have entered.

Not only in Palestine, and in the neighboring cities of Egypt or Syria, but even in distant provinces his fame had spread widely. For a Candidate of the emperor Constantius, ruddy of hair, and by the fairness of his body indicating his province (for his people, among the Saxons and the Alemanni, is not so much wide as strong; called by historians Germany, now called Francia), possessed of old, that is, from infancy, by a demon which compelled him at nights to howl, to groan, to gnash his teeth, secretly asked leave of absence from the emperor, telling him the reason simply. And having received also letters to the Consular of Palestine, he was brought to Gaza with great honor and retinue.

When he had asked the decurions of that place where the monk Hilarion dwelt, the men of Gaza, greatly terrified, and thinking he had been sent by the emperor, brought him to the monastery; both to show honor to the one commended, and so that, if there were any offense on Hilarion's account from past injuries, it might be blotted out by this new service. The old man was then walking about upon the soft sands, murmuring to himself something from the psalms; and seeing so great a crowd coming, he stopped. And having greeted all in return, and blessing them with his hand, after an hour he bade the others depart, but bade this man remain with his servants and attendants; for from his eyes and countenance he had recognized why he had come. Immediately then, at the questioning of the servant of God, the man, suspended, scarcely began to touch the ground with his feet, and, roaring monstrously, answered in the Syriac tongue in which he had been questioned.

You would have seen, from that barbarian mouth, which knew only the Frankish and Latin tongues, Syriac words resounding in pure form: so that no harshness, no aspiration, no idiom whatever of Palestinian speech was lacking. He confessed, then, by what means he had entered into the man. And so that his interpreters, who knew only Greek and Latin, might understand, he questioned him also in Greek. And when he answered likewise, and in the very same words, alleging many occasions for incantations and necessities of magic arts, he said: I care not how thou didst enter; but I command that thou go out, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when he was healed, offering, in rustic simplicity, ten pounds of gold, he received from him barley bread, hearing that those who were nourished by such food accounted gold as mud.

It is little to speak of men; even brute animals were daily dragged to him raging, among which a Bactrian camel of enormous size, which had already trampled many, was brought with shouting, held taut by more than thirty men with the strongest ropes. Its eyes were bloodshot, its mouth foamed, its darting tongue was swollen, and beyond every terror it roared a monstrous bellow. The old man therefore ordered it to be released. At once both those who had brought it and those who were with the old man all fled to a man. But he alone went forward to meet it, and said in the Syriac tongue: You do not terrify me, devil, with such bulk of body: whether in a little fox or in a camel you are one and the same. And meanwhile he stood with hand outstretched.

When the raging beast, as though about to devour him, had come up to him, it immediately collapsed, and laying its head low made it level with the ground, while all who were present marveled that after such ferocity there should suddenly be such gentleness. Now the old man used to teach that for the sake of men the devil seizes even beasts of burden, and burns with such hatred of them that he desires to destroy not only the men themselves but also what belongs to them. And he set forth as an example of this fact, that before blessed Job was permitted to be tempted, the devil destroyed all his substance. Nor should anyone be troubled that, at the Lord's command, two thousand swine were killed by demons; since those who saw it could not otherwise have believed that so great a multitude of demons had gone out of the man, unless a great number of swine, driven as it were by many, had likewise fallen down together.

Time would fail me if I wished to tell all the signs that were wrought by him. For he had been raised by the Lord to such glory that even blessed Antony, hearing of his manner of life, wrote to him, and gladly received his letters. And whenever any sick persons came to him from the regions of Syria, he would say to them: Why did you wish to trouble yourselves so far, when you have there my son Hilarion? By his example, therefore, innumerable monasteries began to arise throughout all Palestine, and all the monks ran to him in eager rivalry. Seeing this, he praised the grace of the Lord, and exhorted each one to progress of soul, saying: The fashion of this world passes away; and that alone is true life which is purchased by the hardship of the present life.

But wishing to give them an example both of humility and of duty, on set days before the vintage he used to go about visiting the cells of the monks. When this became known to the brothers, all flocked to him; and accompanied by such a leader, they went about the monasteries, carrying their own provisions; for at times as many as two thousand men were gathered together. And as time went on, each village, rejoicing to receive the saints, offered food to the neighboring monks. How great was his eagerness that he should pass by no brother, however lowly, however poor, is shown by this instance: going into the desert of Cades to visit one of his disciples, he arrived with an immense throng of monks at Elusa, on that day, as it happened, on which the annual festival had gathered the whole population of the town into the temple of Venus. Now they worship her under the name of Lucifer, to whose cult the nation of the Saracens is devoted.

Moreover the town itself is for the most part semi-barbarous because of the situation of the place. So when it was heard that Saint Hilarion was passing by (for he had often healed many of the Saracens seized by a demon), they came out to meet him in crowds with their wives and children, bowing their necks, and crying out in the Syriac tongue, BARECH, that is, bless. He received them kindly and humbly, and besought them to worship God rather than stones; and at the same time he wept abundantly, gazing at heaven, and promising that if they believed in Christ, he would come to them often. By the wondrous grace of the Lord, they did not allow him to depart before he had sketched out the outline of a future Church; and their priest, since he was called Coronatus, was marked with the sign of Christ.

In another year also, when he was about to go out to visit the monasteries, and was setting down on a tablet with whom he should stay and whom he should visit only in passing, the monks, knowing a certain brother among them to be rather stingy, and at the same time wishing to cure him of his fault, asked that he should stay with him. And he said: Why do you wish to do both an injury to yourselves and a vexation to the brother? When that stingy brother heard this, he blushed; and by the insistence of all, he barely obtained, from one unwilling, that his own monastery too should be placed in the order of lodgings.

After the tenth day, then, they came to him, guards having already been posted in the vineyard, through which they were to come, who by throwing stones and clods of earth and the whirl of a sling drove them off as they approached; so that without tasting any grapes they all departed in the morning, the old man laughing, and pretending not to know what had happened.

Then, having been received by another monk, whose name was Sabas (for we ought to keep silent the name of the stingy one, and speak the name of the generous one); since it was the Lord's day, all were invited by him into the vineyard, so that before the hour of food they might relieve the labor of the journey by feeding on grapes. And the saint said: Cursed is he who seeks the refreshment of the body before that of the soul. Let us pray, let us sing psalms, let us render to the Lord His due office, and so we will hasten to the vineyard. When the service was finished, therefore, standing on a height he blessed the vineyard, and let loose his sheep to feed. Now those who ate were no fewer than three thousand. And whereas the whole vineyard had been reckoned at a hundred flagons before, after twenty days it yielded three hundred. But that stingy brother, gathering much less than usual, later grieved that even what he had gathered had turned to vinegar.

This the old man had foretold to many of the brothers before it happened. He especially detested monks who, out of a certain lack of faith, kept things in reserve for the future, and were diligent about expenses, or clothing, or any of those things which pass away with the world.

Then again, one of the brothers, living about five miles from him, because he had learned that he was an all too cautious and timid guardian of his little garden, and had a small sum of money, he banished from his sight. Wishing to be reconciled to the old man, this brother frequently came to the brethren, and especially to Hesychius, in whom the old man took the greatest delight. So on a certain day he brought a bundle of green chickpeas, just as they were among the plants. When Hesychius had placed them on the table toward evening, the old man cried out that he could not bear their stench, and at the same time asked where they were from. When Hesychius answered that a certain brother had brought the firstfruits of his little field to the brethren, he said: Do you not perceive the foulest stench, and that avarice stinks in the chickpeas? Send them to the oxen, send them to the dumb animals, and see whether they eat them.

When he had placed them in the manger according to the command, the oxen, terrified and bellowing more than usual, broke their bonds and fled in different directions. For the old man had this grace, that from the odor of bodies and clothes, and of the things that anyone had touched, he knew to what demon, or to what vice, a person was subject.

So in the sixty-third year of his life, seeing the great monastery, and the multitude of brothers dwelling with him; and the crowds of those who, afflicted by various sicknesses and unclean spirits, were brought to him, so that the wilderness all round was filled with every kind of person, he wept daily, and remembered with incredible longing his former manner of life. When the brothers asked him what he had, that he should so waste himself, he said: Again have I returned to the world, and have received my reward in this life. Behold, the men of Palestine and of the neighboring province think me to be of some importance; and I, under pretext of the monastery, for the sake of managing the brethren, have vile possessions. He was watched by the brothers, especially by Hesychius, who was devoted to the veneration of the old man with a wondrous love.

And when he had thus lived mourning for two years, that Aristaenete, whom we mentioned above, then wife of the prefect, but having nothing of the prefect's ambition, came to him, wishing also to go on to Antony. To her he said, weeping: I too would wish to go, if I were not held enclosed in the prison of this monastery, and if there were profit in the going. For today is the second day since the whole world has been bereaved of such a father. She believed him and stayed. And after a few days, when a messenger came, she heard of the falling asleep of Antony.

Let others marvel at the signs which he wrought: let them marvel at his incredible abstinence, his knowledge, his humility. For my part, nothing amazes me so much as that he was able to trample glory and honor underfoot. Bishops, priests, throngs of clergy and monks flocked to him, and of Christian matrons too (a great temptation), and from here and there out of the cities and fields a common crowd of no rank: but also powerful men and judges, that they might receive bread or oil blessed by him. But he thought of nothing but solitude, to such a degree that on a certain day he determined to depart: and having brought an ass (for, worn out by fasting, he could scarcely walk), he attempted to set out on the journey. When this had become widely known, and as if a devastation and public mourning were proclaimed throughout Palestine, more than ten thousand persons of every age and sex gathered to detain him.

Unmoved by their prayers, and striking the sand with his staff, he said: I will not make my Lord a liar; I cannot see churches overthrown, the altars of Christ trampled upon, the blood of my children. All who were present understood that something had been revealed to him in secret, which he was unwilling to confess; and nonetheless they kept guard over him, that he might not depart. He therefore resolved, protesting publicly before all, that he would take neither food nor drink at all unless he were let go.

And after seven days, at last relenting through fasting, and bidding farewell to many, he set out with an endless company of those accompanying him, and came to Betylium, where, having persuaded the crowds to return, he chose forty monks who had provisions and were able to travel while fasting, that is, after sunset; and having visited the brothers who were in the neighboring desert, and dwelt in the place called Lychnos, he went after three days to the fort of Theubatum, to see Dracontius, bishop and confessor, who was in exile there. When he had been wonderfully consoled by the presence of so great a man, after another three days, with much labor, he reached Babylon, in order to visit Philo, bishop and himself also a confessor. For King Constantius, favoring the Arian heresy, had deported both of them to those places.

Setting out from there, after three days he came to the town of Aphroditon: where, having met the deacon Baisanes (who, having hired dromedary camels, on account of the scarcity of water in the desert, was accustomed to lead those going to Antony), he confessed to the brothers that the day of blessed Antony's falling asleep was at hand; and that a vigil should be kept by him that night in the very place where he had died. So after three days through a vast and dreadful wilderness, they finally arrived at a very high mountain, where they found two monks, Isaac and Pelusian, of whom Isaac had been Antony's interpreter.

And since the occasion offers itself, and we have come to the place, it seems fitting to describe in a brief account the dwelling of so great a man. A rocky and lofty mountain for about a thousand paces presses out waters at its foot, some of which the sands drink up, others, flowing down to lower ground, gradually form a stream; over which, on either bank, countless palm trees lend much charm and convenience to the place. You might have seen the old man running here and there with the disciples of blessed Antony. Here, they said, he used to sing psalms, here to pray, here to work, here, weary, to sit down. These vines, these little shrubs he planted himself: that little plot he arranged with his own hands. This pool for watering his little garden he built with much sweat. This mattock for digging the earth he had for many years. He lay upon his bed, and kissed the couch as though still warm.

Now the cell was of no greater measure square than a man lying down could stretch himself. Besides, on the lofty summit of the mountain, reached as it were by a spiral path, and with very steep effort, two cells of the same measure were to be seen: in which, fleeing the frequency of visitors and the company of his own disciples, he had stayed. But these were cut out of the living rock, having only doors added. Now when they had come to the little garden: Do you see, said Isaac, this orchard planted with little trees, and green with vegetables? About three years before this, when a herd of wild asses was ravaging it, he ordered one of their leaders to stand, and striking his sides with his staff, said: Why do you eat what you have not sown? And from then on, except for the waters, to which they came to drink, they never touched any tree or vegetable. Moreover the old man asked them to show him the place of his tomb.

When they had led him aside, whether they showed it to him or not is unknown. They reported that the reason for concealing it, in accordance with Antony's command, was that Pergamius, who was very rich in those parts, might not remove the saint's body to his own estate and build a martyr's shrine there.

Having therefore returned to Aphroditon, keeping with him only two brothers, he stayed in a solitude nearby: with such abstinence and silence that he used to say that then for the first time he had begun to serve Christ. Now for three years already the closed heaven had parched those lands, so that people commonly said that even the elements were mourning the death of Antony. The fame of Hilarion did not escape the notice of the inhabitants of that place also: and both men and women, in rival haste, with faces pale and wasted with hunger, begged for rain from the servant of Christ, that is, from the successor of blessed Antony. Seeing them, he grieved wondrously. And lifting up his eyes to heaven, and raising both palms on high, he immediately obtained what they had asked.

But behold, the thirsty and sandy region, after it was watered by the rains, suddenly poured forth so great a multitude of serpents and venomous animals, that countless persons who were struck would have died at once, had they not run to Hilarion. So all the farmers and shepherds, touching their wounds with blessed oil, recovered certain health.

Seeing also that he was there being treated with wondrous honors, he set out for Alexandria, intending thence to cross over to the desert of the further Oasis. And because, from the time he had begun to be a monk, he had never remained in cities, he turned aside to certain brothers known to him at Bruchium, not far from Alexandria; who, when they had received the old man with wondrous joy, and night was now near, suddenly heard his disciples saddling the ass and preparing him to set out. And so, falling at his feet, they begged him not to do this; and prostrate before the threshold, they declared they would rather die than be deprived of so great a guest. To whom he replied: I hasten to leave for this very reason, lest I bring trouble upon you. Certainly from what follows you will know that it was not without cause that I departed so suddenly.

So on the next day the men of Gaza, together with the governor's lictors (for they had learned the day before that he had come), entering the monastery, when they had by no means found him, said to one another: Are not the things we have heard true? He is a magician, and knows the future. For the city of Gaza, after Hilarion had departed from Palestine, and Julian had succeeded to the empire, having destroyed his monastery, had by petitions presented to the emperor obtained the death sentence of both Hilarion and Hesychius: and it had been written throughout the whole world that both should be sought.

Having gone out therefore from Bruchium, through pathless solitude he entered the Oasis: and there, when about a year had passed, since his fame had reached even that place, as though he could no longer lie hidden in the East, where many knew him both by reputation and by face, he was thinking of sailing to solitary islands only; so that the sea at least might conceal him whom the land had made known. At almost the same time Hadrian his disciple arrived from Palestine, saying that Julian had been killed, and that a Christian emperor (Jovinian) had begun to reign; and that he ought to return to the remains of his monastery. Hearing this, he abhorred it: and hiring a camel, through the vast solitude he came to the coastal city of Libya, Paraetonium: where the unfortunate Hadrian, wishing to return to Palestine, and seeking his former glory under the name of his master, did him many injuries.

At last, having packed up the things which the brothers had sent to him and had been delivered to him, without his knowledge, he departed. On this matter, since there is no other place for relating it, I shall say only this, as a terror to those who despise their masters; that after some little time he rotted away with the disease of the king's-evil (dropsy of the skin).

Having therefore the man of Gaza with him, the old man boarded a ship which was sailing to Sicily. And when, having sold the codex of the Gospels which he had written with his own hand as a young man, he was arranging to pay the fare, in about the middle of the Adriatic, the shipmaster's son, seized by a demon, began to cry out, and to say: Hilarion, servant of God, why is it that even at sea, because of you, we are not permitted to be safe? Grant me time until I reach land, lest, cast out here, I be hurled headlong into the deep. To whom he said: If my God grants that you remain, remain; but if he casts you out, why do you make me an object of envy, a sinful and beggarly man? He said this, however, lest the sailors and merchants who were on the ship, when they reached land, should betray him.

And not long after, the boy was cleansed, the father giving his pledge of faith, and the rest who were present, that none of them would speak of him under his name.

Having entered the promontory of Pachynus in Sicily, he offered the shipmaster the Gospel-book as payment for his passage and that of the man of Gaza. The shipmaster, unwilling to accept it, especially since he saw that they had nothing else at all besides that codex and the clothes they wore, at last swore that he would not accept it. But the old man, kindled with confidence in his poverty's clean conscience, rejoiced all the more both that he had nothing of the world, and that he was thought by the inhabitants of that place to be a beggar.

Then, reconsidering lest merchants coming from the East should make him known, he fled to inland places, that is, twenty miles from the sea; and there, in a certain deserted little field, binding up a bundle of wood each day, he would load it on the back of his disciple. This, when sold in the nearest village, provided a little bread both for their own sustenance and for those who by chance came to them. But truly, according to what is written: A city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden. A certain shield-bearer, when he was being tormented in the basilica of blessed Peter at Rome, had an unclean spirit cry out in him: A few days ago Hilarion, servant of Christ, entered Sicily, and no one knows him, and he thinks himself hidden; I will go and betray him. And immediately, boarding a ship in the harbor with his servants, he landed at Pachynus, and, led by the demon, prostrated himself before the old man's hut, and was instantly healed.

This was the beginning of his signs in Sicily, and thereafter brought to him a countless multitude of the sick, and also of religious men: to such a degree that one of the leading men, swollen with the disease of dropsy under the skin, was healed on the very day he came to him. He afterward, offering him boundless gifts, heard the saying of the Savior to his disciples: Freely you have received, freely give.

While these things were thus taking place in Sicily, Hesychius his disciple was seeking the old man over the whole world, scouring the shores, penetrating deserts; and having only this confidence, that wherever he was, he could not remain hidden for long. When therefore three years had already passed, he heard at Methone from a certain Jew, who was selling cheap trinkets to the people, that the Prophet of the Christians had appeared in Sicily, working such miracles and signs that he was thought to be one of the ancient saints. And so, asking about his appearance, his gait, and his speech, and especially his age, he could learn nothing. For the one who reported it testified only that the fame of such a man had come to him.

Entering therefore the Adriatic, with a favorable voyage he came to Pachynus; and in a certain village of the curving shore, inquiring about the old man's fame, he learned with one voice from all where he was, what he was doing: nothing about him being so wondered at by all, as that after such great signs and miracles, he had not accepted even a crumb of bread from anyone in those places. And not to make this too long, the holy man Hesychius fell at his master's knees and watered his feet with tears. At last, when Hilarion had raised him up, after two or three days' conversation he heard from Gazanus that the old man could no longer remain in those regions but wished to travel to certain barbarous nations, where both his name and reputation would be unknown.

So he led him to Epidaurum, a town of Dalmatia, where, staying a few days in a nearby little field, he could not be hidden. For indeed a dragon of wondrous size, which in the common tongue they call "boas," from the fact that they are so huge that they are wont to swallow oxen, was widely laying waste the whole province, and not only devoured herds and cattle, but also dragged farmers and shepherds to itself by the force of its breath and swallowed them. When he had ordered a pyre to be prepared for it, and, after a prayer offered to Christ, had commanded it, once summoned, to climb the pile of wood, he set fire beneath it. Then, with all the people watching, he burned up the monstrous beast. Whereupon, burning with anxiety as to what to do, whither to turn, he was preparing another flight; and, surveying solitary lands in his mind, he grieved that, though his tongue was silent about himself, miracles spoke of him.

At that time, by an earthquake of the whole world, which occurred after the death of Julian, the seas went out beyond their bounds, and, as though God were once again threatening a flood, or all things were returning to the ancient chaos, ships carried onto the sheer cliffs of mountains hung suspended there. When the people of Epidaurum saw this—the roaring waves, that is, and masses of water, and mountains of the surging deep being brought upon the shores—fearing lest, as they saw was already happening, the town should be utterly overturned, they went in to the old man: and, as though setting out to battle, they placed him on the shore. When he had drawn three signs of the cross in the sand, and stretched out his hands against it, it is incredible to tell to what a height the swelling sea stood before him: and after long roaring, and as though indignant at the barrier, it gradually sank back upon itself.

This Epidaurum and all that region proclaims to this day, and mothers teach their children, to be handed down in memory to posterity. Truly that which was said to the Apostles: If you have faith, you shall say to this mountain, Move hence into the sea, and it shall be done, can even be fulfilled according to the letter, if only one has the faith of the apostles, and such as the Lord commanded them to have. For what difference does it make whether a mountain descends into the sea, or immense mountains of waves suddenly stiffen, and, becoming stony only before the feet of the old man, on the other side flow gently?

The whole city marveled, and the greatness of the sign had spread abroad even to Salona. Perceiving this, the old man, in a small boat, fled secretly by night, and, having found after two days a cargo ship, went on to Cyprus. And when, between Malea and Cythera, pirates, having left their fleet on the shore, met them in that craft which is steered not by sail-yard but by pole, with two rather large light pirate-vessels, and again waves rose up on this side and that, all the oarsmen who were on the ship began to tremble, to weep, to run about, to prepare their poles, and, as though one messenger were not enough, they vied with one another in telling the old man that pirates were at hand. He, looking at them from afar, smiled. And turning to his disciples he said: O men of little faith, why do you tremble? Are these more numerous than Pharaoh's army? Yet all of them, by God's will, were drowned.

He was saying this, and nevertheless the enemy keels, with foaming prows, were bearing down, only a stone's throw away. So he stood on the prow of the ship, and, stretching out his hand against those approaching, said: Let it suffice that you have come this far. O wondrous faithfulness of the event! At once the little boats leapt back, and, though the oars pressed forward against them, the momentum returned toward the stern. The pirates marveled that they were being carried backward against their will: and, straining with the whole effort of their bodies to reach their ship, they were borne to shore far more swiftly than they had come.

I pass over the rest, lest I seem to extend the volume in narrating signs. This alone I will say, that as he sailed with favorable course among the Cyclades, he heard on this side and that, from cities and villages and from those running together to the shores, the voices of unclean spirits crying out. Entering therefore Paphos, a city of Cyprus renowned in the songs of poets, which, frequently collapsed by earthquake, now shows by the mere traces of its ruins what it once was, he dwelt two miles from the city, in obscurity, rejoicing that for a few days he might live in quiet. But not fully twenty days had passed, when throughout that whole island, whoever had unclean spirits began to cry out that Hilarion the servant of Christ had come, and that they must hasten to him.

This Salamis, this Curium, this Lapethus and the other cities cried out together, most of them asserting that they indeed knew Hilarion, and that he truly was the servant of God, but that they did not know where he was. Within thirty days, then, and not much more, about two hundred persons, both men and women, gathered to him. When he saw them, grieving that they would not let him rest, and, in a manner raging in revenge upon himself, he scourged them with such persistence of prayers, that some were healed at once, others after two or three days, but all indeed within one week.

So remaining there two years, and always thinking of flight, he sent Hesychius, who was to return in the spring, to Palestine to greet the brothers and to visit the ashes of his own monastery. But when he had returned, and Hilarion wished again to sail to Egypt, that is, to those places which are called Bucolia, because there were no Christians there, but only a barbarous and savage nation, Hesychius persuaded him rather to go up to a more secluded spot on that very island. And after long searching through every part, he found one, and led him twelve miles from the sea, far among lonely and rugged mountains, to a place which could scarcely be climbed by crawling with hands and knees.

When he had entered, he beheld indeed a place very fearsome and remote, encircled here and there with trees, and having also water flowing down from the brow of a hill, and a most pleasant little garden, and very many fruit trees, of whose fruit he never once partook as food; and also the ruin of a most ancient temple, from which (as he himself used to relate, and his disciples testify) such innumerable voices of demons resounded by night and by day that you would believe it an army. With this he was greatly delighted, namely that he might have adversaries close at hand, and he dwelt there for five years, and often, with Hesychius visiting him, he was refreshed in this, the last period now of his life, because on account of the ruggedness and difficulty of the place, and the multitude of shades (as was commonly reported), either no one, or scarcely anyone, either could or dared to go up to him.

But on a certain day, going out into the little garden, he saw a man lying before the door, paralyzed in his whole body. And he asked Hesychius who he was, or how he had been brought there. Who, answering, said that he had been the steward of a small estate, to whose jurisdiction the garden also, in which they themselves were, belonged. And he, weeping, and stretching out his hand toward the one lying there, said: "To thee I say, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, arise and walk." Marvelous swiftness! While the words were still turning upon his lips as he spoke, already the limbs, made solid, were raising the man up to stand. After this was heard of, the necessity of very many overcame even the difficulty of the place and the pathless journey. Nothing was so carefully watched for, by all the villages round about, as that he should not by any means slip away. For a rumor had spread abroad concerning him, that he could not long remain in the same place.

This he did, not overcome by any levity or childish feeling, but fleeing honor and importunity; for he always longed for silence and an obscure life.

Therefore in the eightieth year of his age, when Hesychius was absent, he wrote with his own hand, as it were by way of testament, a brief letter, leaving him all his riches (namely, the Gospel, and a sackcloth tunic, a cowl, and a little cloak), for his attendant had died a few days before. Then many devout men came from Paphos to him as he lay sick; and especially because they had heard him say that he was now about to depart to the Lord, and to be freed from the bonds of the body; but also a certain Constantia, a holy woman, whose son-in-law and daughter he had freed from death by an anointing of oil: he adjured them all that he should not be kept even one moment of an hour after death, but that they should immediately cover him with earth in that same little garden, just as he was clothed, in his tunic of haircloth, and his cowl, and his rustic cloak.

And now only a slight warmth glowed in his breast, and nothing of a living man remained beyond sensation, and yet with open eyes he spoke: "Go forth, why do you fear? Go forth, my soul, why do you hesitate? For nearly seventy years you have served Christ, and do you fear death?" With these words he breathed forth his spirit. And immediately, buried in the earth, he was reported to the city as buried before he was reported as dead.

When the holy man Hesychius heard of this, he went on to Cyprus, and pretending that he wished to live in that same little garden, so as to remove from the neighbors any suspicion of a careful watch, after almost ten months, with great peril to his own life, he stole his body. Bringing it to Majuma, with whole crowds of monks and townsfolk accompanying it, he laid it in the ancient monastery; the tunic, cowl, and little cloak unimpaired, and the whole body, as if it still lived, intact, and fragrant with such abundant odors that you would think it anointed with perfumes.

It does not seem to me that at the end of this book the devotion of that most holy woman Constantia should be passed over in silence, who, when the news was brought to her that the little body of Hilarion belonged to Palestine, immediately fainted away, proving true her love toward the servant of God even in death. For she was accustomed to spend sleepless nights at his tomb, and, as it were with him present, they used to sit together to aid their prayers.