Books: The Hermits

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So, covering his limbs only with a sackcloth, and having a cloak of
skin, which the blessed Antony had given him at starting, and a
rustic cloak, between the sea and the swamp, he enjoyed the vast and
terrible solitude, feeding on only fifteen figs after the setting of
the sun; and because the region was, as has been said above, of ill-
repute from robberies, no man had ever stayed before in that place.
The devil, seeing what he was doing and whither he had gone, was
tormented. And though he, who of old boasted, saying, "I shall
ascend into heaven, I shall sit above the stars of heaven, and shall
be like unto the Most High," now saw that he had been conquered by a
boy, and trampled under foot by him, ere, on account of his youth,
he could commit sin. He therefore began to tempt his senses; but
he, enraged with himself, and beating his breast with his fist, as
if he could drive out thoughts by blows, "I will force thee, mine
ass," said he, "not to kick; and feed thee with straw, not barley.
I will wear thee out with hunger and thirst; I will burden thee with
heavy loads; I will hunt thee through heat and cold, till thou
thinkest more of food than of play." He therefore sustained his
fainting spirit with the juice of herbs and a few figs, after each
three or four days, praying frequently, and singing psalms, and
digging the ground with a mattock, to double the labour of fasting
by that of work. At the same time, by weaving baskets of rushes, he
imitated the discipline of the Egyptian monks, and the Apostle's
saying--"He that will not work, neither let him eat"--till he was so
attenuated, and his body so exhausted, that it scarce clung to his
bones.

One night he began to hear the crying {108} of infants, the bleating
of sheep, the wailing of women, the roaring of lions, the murmur of
an army, and utterly portentous and barbarous voices; so that he
shrank frightened by the sound ere he saw aught. He understood
these to be the insults of devils; and, falling on his knees, he
signed the cross of Christ on his forehead, and armed with that
helmet, and girt with the breastplate of faith, he fought more
valiantly as he lay, longing somehow to see what he shuddered to
hear, and looking round him with anxious eyes: when, without
warning, by the bright moonshine he saw a chariot with fiery horses
rushing upon him. But when he had called on Jesus, the earth opened
suddenly, and the whole pomp was swallowed up before his eyes. Then
said he, "The horse and his rider he hath drowned in the sea;" and
"Some glory themselves in chariots, and some in horses: but we in
the name of the Lord our God." Many were his temptations, and
various, by day and night, the snares of the devils. If we were to
tell them all, they would make the volume too long. How often did
women appear to him; how often plenteous banquets when he was
hungry. Sometimes as he prayed, a howling wolf ran past him, or a
barking fox; or as he sang, a fight of gladiators made a show for
him: and one of them, as if slain, falling at his feet, prayed for
sepulture. He prayed once with his head bowed to the ground, and--
as is the nature of man--his mind wandered from his prayer, and
thought of I know not what, when a mocking rider leaped on his back,
and spurring his sides, and whipping his neck, "Come," he cries,
"come, run! why do you sleep?" and, laughing loudly over him, asked
him if he were tired, or would have a feed of barley.

So from his sixteenth to his twentieth year, he was sheltered from
the heat and rain in a tiny cabin, which he had woven of rush and
sedge. Afterwards he built a little cell, which remains to this
day, four feet wide and five feet high--that is, lower than his own
stature--and somewhat longer than his small body needed, so that you
would believe it to be a tomb rather than a dwelling. He cut his
hair only once a year, on Easter-day, and lay till his death on the
bare ground and a layer of rushes, never washing the sack in which
he was clothed, and saying that it was superfluous to seek for
cleanliness in haircloth. Nor did he change his tunic, till the
first was utterly in rags. He knew the Scriptures by heart, and
recited them after his prayers and psalms as if God were present.
And, because it would take up too much time to tell his great deeds
one by one, I will give a short account of them.

[Then follows a series of miracles, similar to those attributed to
St. Antony, and, indeed, to all these great Hermit Fathers. But it
is unnecessary to relate more wonders which the reader cannot be
expected to believe. These miracles, however, according to St.
Jerome, were the foundations of Hilarion's fame and public career.
For he says, "When they were noised abroad, people flowed to him
eagerly from Syria to Egypt, so that many believed in Christ, and
professed themselves to be monks--for no one had known of a monk in
Syria before the holy Hilarion. He was the first founder and
teacher of this conversation and study in the province. The Lord
Jesus had in Egypt the old man Antony; he had in Palestine the young
Hilarion . . . He was raised, indeed, by the Lord to such a glory,
that the blessed Antony, hearing of his conversation, wrote to him,
and willingly received his letters; and if rich people came to him
from the parts of Syria, he said to them, 'Why have you chosen to
trouble yourselves by coming so far, when you have at home my son
Hilarion?' So by his example innumerable monasteries arose
throughout all Palestine, and all monks came eagerly to him . . .
But what a care he had, not to pass by any brother, however humble
or however poor, may be shown by this; that once going into the
Desert of Kadesh, to visit one of his disciples, he came, with an
infinite crowd of monks, to Elusa, on the very day, as it chanced,
on which a yearly solemnity had gathered all the people of the town
to the Temple of Venus; for they honour her on account of the
morning star, to the worship of which the nation of the Saracens is
devoted. The town itself too is said to be in great part semi-
barbarous, on account of its remote situation. Hearing, then, that
the holy Hilarion was passing by--for he had often cured Saracens
possessed with daemons--they came out to meet him in crowds, with
their wives and children, bowing their necks, and crying in the
Syrian tongue, 'Barech!' that is, 'Bless!' He received them
courteously and humbly, entreating them to worship God rather than
stones, and wept abundantly, looking up to heaven, and promising
them that, if they would believe in Christ, he would come oftener to
them. Wonderful was the grace of the Lord. They would not let him
depart till he had laid the foundations of a future church, and
their priest, crowned as he was, had been consecrated with the sign
of Christ.

*******

He was now sixty-three years old. He saw about him a great
monastery, a multitude of brethren, and crowds who came to be healed
of diseases and unclean spirits, filling the solitude around; but he
wept daily, and remembered with incredible regret his ancient life.
"I have returned to the world," he said, "and received my reward in
this life. All Palestine and the neighbouring provinces think me to
be worth somewhat; while I possess a farm and household goods, under
the pretext of the brethren's advantage." On which the brethren,
and especially Hesychius, who bore him a wondrous love, watched him
narrowly.

When he had lived thus sadly for two years, Aristaeneta, the
Prefect's wife, came to him, wishing him to go with her to Antony,
"I would go," he said, weeping, "if I were not held in the prison of
this monastery, and if it were of any use. For two days since, the
whole world was robbed of such a father." She believed him, and
stopped. And Antony's death was confirmed a few days after. Others
may wonder at the signs and portents which he did, at his incredible
abstinence, his silence, his miracles: I am astonished at nothing
so much as that he was able to trample under foot that glory and
honour.

Bishops and clergy, monks and Christian matrons (a great
temptation), people of the common sort, great men, too, and judges
crowded to him, to receive from him blessed bread or oil. But he
was thinking of nothing but the desert, till one day he determined
to set out, and taking an ass (for he was so shrunk with fasting
that he could hardly walk), he tried to go his way. The news got
wind; the desolation and destruction of Palestine would ensue; ten
thousand souls, men and women, tried to stop his way; but he would
not hear them. Smiting on the ground with his staff, he said, "I
will not make my God a liar. I cannot bear to see churches ruined,
the altars of Christ trampled down, the blood of my sons spilt."
All who heard thought that some secret revelation had been made to
him: but yet they would not let him go. Whereon he would neither
eat nor drink, and for seven days he persevered fasting, till he had
his wish, and set out for Bethulia, with forty monks, who could
march without food till sundown. On the fifth day he came to
Pelusium, then to the camp Thebatrum, to see Dracontius; and then to
Babylon to see Philo. These two were bishops and confessors exiled
by Constantius, who favoured the Arian heresy. Then he came to
Aphroditon, where he met Barsanes the deacon, who used to carry
water to Antony on dromedaries, and heard from him that the
anniversary Antony's death was near, and would be celebrated by a
vigil at his tomb. Then through a vast and horrible wilderness, he
went for three days to a very high mountain, and found there two
monks, Isaac and Pelusianus, of whom Isaac had been Antony's
interpreter.

A high and rocky hill it was, with fountains gushing out at its
foot. Some of them the sand sucked up; some formed a little rill,
with palms without number on its banks. There you might have seen
the old man wandering to and fro with Antony's disciples. "Here,"
they said, "he used to sing, here to pray, here to work, here to sit
when tired. These vines, these shrubs, he planted himself; that
plot he laid out with his own hands. This pond to water the garden
he made with heavy toil; that hoe he kept for many years." Hilarion
lay on his bed, and kissed the couch, as if it were still warm.
Antony's cell was only large enough to let a man lie down in it; and
on the mountain top, reached by a difficult and winding stair, were
two other cells of the same size, cut in the stony rock, to which he
used to retire from the visitors and disciples, when they came to
the garden. "You see," said Isaac, "this orchard, with shrubs and
vegetables. Three years since a troop of wild asses laid it waste.
He bade one of their leaders stop; and beat it with his staff. 'Why
do you eat,' he asked it, 'what you did not sow?' And after that
the asses, though they came to drink the waters, never touched his
plants."

Then Hilarion asked them to show him Antony's grave. They led him
apart; but whether they showed it to him, no man knows. They hid
it, they said, by Antony's command, lest one Pergamius, who was the
richest man of those parts, should take the corpse to his villa, and
build a chapel over it.

Then he went back to Aphroditon, and with only two brothers, dwelt
in the desert, in such abstinence and silence that (so he said) he
then first began to serve Christ. Now it was then three years since
the heaven had been shut, and the earth dried up: so that they said
commonly, the very elements mourned the death of Antony. But
Hilarion's fame spread to them; and a great multitude, brown and
shrunken with famine, cried to him for rain, as to the blessed
Antony's successor. He saw them, and grieved over them; and lifting
up his hand to heaven, obtained rain at once. But the thirsty and
sandy land, as soon as it was watered by showers, sent forth such a
crowd of serpents and venomous animals that people without number
were stung, and would have died, had they not run together to
Hilarion. With oil blessed by him, the husbandmen and shepherds
touched their wounds, and all were surely healed.

But when he saw that he was marvellously honoured, he went to
Alexandria, meaning to cross the desert to the further oasis. And
because since he was a monk he had never stayed in a city, he turned
aside to some brethren known to him in the Brucheion {115} not far
from Alexandria. They received him with joy: but, when night came
on, they suddenly heard him bid his disciples saddle the ass. In
vain they entreated, threw themselves across the threshold. His
only answer was, that he was hastening away, lest he should bring
them into trouble; they would soon know that he had not departed
without good reason. The next day, men of Gaza came with the
Prefect's lictors, burst into the monastery, and when they found him
not--"Is it not true," they said, "what we heard? He is a sorcerer,
and knows the future." For the citizens of Gaza, after Hilarion was
gone, and Julian had succeeded to the empire, had destroyed his
monastery, and begged from the Emperor the death of Hilarion and
Hesychius. So letters had been sent forth, to seek them throughout
the world.

So Hilarion went by the pathless wilderness into the Oasis; {116}
and after a year, more or less--because his fame had gone before him
even there, and he could not lie hid in the East--he was minded to
sail away to lonely islands, that the sea at least might hide what
the land would not.

But just then Hadrian, his disciple, came from Palestine, telling
him that Julian was slain, and that a Christian emperor was
reigning; so that he ought to return to the relics of his monastery.
But he abhorred the thought; and, hiring a camel, went over the vast
desert to Paraetonia, a sea town of Libya. Then the wretched
Hadrian, wishing to go back to Palestine and get himself glory under
his master's name, packed up all that the brethren had sent by him
to his master, and went secretly away. But--as a terror to those
who despise their masters--he shortly after died of jaundice.

Then, with Zananas alone, Hilarion went on board ship to sail for
Sicily. And when, almost in the middle of Adria, {117a} he was
going to sell the Gospels which he had written out with his own hand
when young, to pay his fare withal, then the captain's son was
possessed with a devil, and cried out, "Hilarion, servant of God,
why can we not be safe from thee even at sea? Give me a little
respite till I come to the shore, lest, if I be cast out here, I
fall headlong into the abyss." Then said he, "If my God lets thee
stay, stay. But if he cast thee out, why dost thou lay the blame on
me, a sinner and a beggar?" Then he made the captain and the crew
promise not to betray him: and the devil was cast out. But the
captain would take no fare when he saw that they had nought but
those Gospels, and the clothes on their backs. And so Hilarion came
to Pachynum, a cape of Sicily, {117b} and fled twenty miles inland
into a deserted farm; and there every day gathered a bundle of
firewood, and put it on Zananas's back, who took it to the town, and
bought a little bread thereby.

But it happened, according to that which is written, "A city set on
an hill cannot be hid," one Scutarius was tormented by a devil in
the Basilica of St. Peter at Rome; and the unclean spirit cried out
in him, "A few days since Hilarion, the servant of Christ, landed in
Sicily, and no man knows him, and he thinks himself hid. I will go
and betray him." And forthwith he took ship with his slaves, and
came to Pachynum, and, by the leading of the devil, threw himself
down before the old man's hut, and was cured.

The frequency of his signs in Sicily drew to him sick people and
religious men in multitudes; and one of the chief men was cured of
dropsy the same day that he came, and offered Hilarion boundless
gifts: but he obeyed the Saviour's saying, "Freely ye have
received; freely give."

While this was happening in Sicily, Hesychius, his disciple, was
seeking the old man through the world, searching the shores,
penetrating the desert, and only certain that, wherever he was, he
could not long be hid. So, after three years were past, he heard at
Methone {118} from a Jew, who was selling old clothes, that a
prophet of the Christians had appeared in Sicily, working such
wonders that he was thought to be one of the old saints. But he
could give no description of him, having only heard common report.
He sailed for Pachynum, and there, in a cottage on the shore, heard
of Hilarion's fame--that which most surprised all being that, after
so many signs and miracles, he had not accepted even a bit of bread
from any man.

So, "not to make the story too long," as says St. Jerome, Hesychius
fell at his master's knees, and watered his feet with tears, till at
last he raised him up. But two or three days after he heard from
Zananas, how the old man could dwell no longer in these regions, but
was minded to go to some barbarous nation, where both his name and
his speech should be unknown. So he took him to Epidaurus, {119a} a
city of Dalmatia, where he lay a few days in a little farm, and yet
could not be hid; for a dragon of wondrous size--one of those which,
in the country speech, they call boas, because they are so huge that
they can swallow an ox--laid waste the province, and devoured not
only herds and flocks, but husbandmen and shepherds, which he drew
to him by the force of his breath. {119b} Hilarion commanded a pile
of wood to be prepared, and having prayed to Christ, and called the
beast forth, commanded him to ascend the pile, and having put fire
under, burnt him before all the people. Then fretting over what he
should do, or whither he should turn, he went alone over the world
in imagination, and mourned that, when his tongue was silent, his
miracles still spoke.

In those days, at the earthquake over the whole world, which befell
after Julian's death, the sea broke its bounds; and, as if God was
threatening another flood, or all was returning to the primaeval
chaos, ships were carried up steep rocks, and hung there. But when
the Epidauritans saw roaring waves and mountains of water borne
towards the shore, fearing lest the town should be utterly
overthrown, they went out to the old man, and, as if they were
leading him out to battle, stationed him on the shore. And when he
had marked three signs of the Cross upon the sand, and stretched out
his hands against the waves, it is past belief to what a height the
sea swelled, and stood up before him, and then, raging long as if
indignant at the barrier, fell back little by little into itself.

All Epidaurus, and all that region, talk of this to this day; and
mothers teach it their children, that they may hand it down to
posterity. Truly, that which was said to the Apostles, "If ye
believe, ye shall say to this mountain, Be removed, and cast into
the sea; and it shall be done," can be fulfilled even to the letter,
if we have the faith of the Apostles, and such as the Lord commanded
them to have. For which is more strange, that a mountain should
descend into the sea; or that mountains of water should stiffen of a
sudden, and, firm as a rock only at an old man's feet, should flow
softly everywhere else? All the city wondered; and the greatness of
the sign was bruited abroad even at Salo.

When the old man discovered that, he fled secretly by night in a
little boat, and finding a merchantman after two days, sailed for
Cyprus. Between Maleae and Cythera {121} they were met by pirates,
who had left their vessels under the shore, and came up in two large
galleys, worked not with sails, but oars. As the rowers swept the
billows, all on board began to tremble, weep, run about, get
handspikes ready, and, as if one messenger was not enough, vie with
each other in telling the old man that pirates were at hand. He
looked out at them and smiled. Then turning to his disciples, "O ye
of little faith," he said; "wherefore do ye doubt? Are these more
in number than Pharaoh's army? Yet they were all drowned when God
so willed." While he spoke, the hostile keels, with foaming beaks,
were but a short stone's throw off. He then stood on the ship's
bow, and stretching out his hand against them, "Let it be enough,"
he said, "to have come thus far."

O wondrous faith! The boats instantly sprang back, and made stern-
way, although the oars impelled them in the opposite direction. The
pirates were astonished, having no wish to return back-foremost, and
struggled with all their might to reach the ship; but were carried
to the shore again, much faster than they had come.

I pass over the rest, lest by telling every story I make the volume
too long. This only I will say, that, while he sailed prosperously
through the Cyclades, he heard the voices of foul spirits, calling
here and there out of the towns and villages, and running together
on the beaches. So he came to Paphos, the city of Cyprus, famous
once in poets' songs, which now, shaken down by frequent
earthquakes, only shows what it has been of yore by the foundations
of its ruins. There he dwelt meanly near the second milestone out
of the city, rejoicing much that he was living quietly for a few
days. But not three weeks were past, ere throughout the whole
island whosoever had unclean spirits began to cry that Hilarion the
servant of Christ was come, and that they must hasten to him.
Salonica, Curium, Lapetha, and the other towns, all cried this
together, most saying that they knew Hilarion, and that he was truly
a servant of God; but where he was they knew not. Within a month,
nearly 200 men and women were gathered together to him. Whom when
he saw, grieving that they would not suffer him to rest, raging, as
it were to revenge himself, he scourged them with such an instancy
of prayer, that some were cured at once, some after two or three
days, and all within a week.

So staying there two years, and always meditating flight, he sent
Hesychius to Palestine, to salute the brethren, visit the ashes of
the monastery, and return in the spring. When he returned, and
Hilarion was longing to sail again to Egypt,--that is, to the cattle
pastures, {123a} because there is no Christian there, but only a
fierce and barbarous folk,--he persuaded the old man rather to
withdraw into some more secret spot in the island itself. And
looking round it long till he had examined it all over, he led him
away twelve miles from the sea, among lonely and rough mountains,
where they could hardly climb up, creeping on hands and knees. When
they were within, they beheld a spot terrible and very lonely,
surrounded with trees, which had, too, waters falling from the brow
of a cliff, and a most pleasant little garden, and many fruit-trees-
-the fruit of which, however, Hilarion never ate--and near it the
ruin of a very ancient temple, {123b} out of which (so he and his
disciples averred) the voices of so many daemons resounded day and
night, that you would have fancied an army there. With which he was
exceedingly delighted, because he had his foes close to him; and
dwelt therein five years; and (while Hesychius often visited him) he
was much cheered up in this last period of his life, because owing
to the roughness and difficulty of the ground, and the multitude of
ghosts (as was commonly reported), few, or none, ever dare climb up
to him.

But one day, going out of the little garden, he saw a man paralytic
in all his limbs, lying before the gate; and having asked Hesychius
who he was, and how he had come, he was told that the man was the
steward of a small estate, and that to him the garden, in which they
were, belonged. Hilarion, weeping over him, and stretching a hand
to him as he lay, said, "I say to thee, in the name of Jesus Christ
our Lord, arise and walk." Wonderful was the rapidity of the
effect. The words were yet in his mouth, when the limbs,
strengthened, raised the man upon his feet. As soon as it was
known, the needs of many conquered the difficulty of the ground, and
the want of a path, while all in the neighbourhood watched nothing
so carefully, as that he should not by some plan slip away from
them. For the report had been spread about him, that he could not
remain long in the same place; which nevertheless he did not do from
any caprice, or childishness, but to escape honour and importunity;
for he always longed after silence, and an ignoble life.

So, in the eightieth year of his age, while Hesychius was absent, he
wrote a short letter, by way of testament, with his own hand,
leaving to Hesychius all his riches; namely, his Gospel-book, and a
sackcloth-shirt, hood, and mantle. For his servant had died a few
days before. Many religious men came to him from Paphos while he
was sick, especially because they had heard that he had said that
now he was going to migrate to the Lord, and be freed from the
chains of the body. There came also Constantia, a high-born lady,
whose son-in-law and daughter he had delivered from death by
anointing them with oil. And he made them all swear, that he should
not be kept an hour after his death, but covered up with earth in
that same garden, clothed, as he was, in his haircloth shirt, hood,
and rustic cloak. And now little heat was left in his body, and
nothing of a living man was left, except his reason: and yet, with
open eyes, he went on saying, "Go forth, what fearest thou? Go
forth, my soul, what doubtest thou? Nigh seventy years hast thou
served Christ, and dost thou fear death?" With these words, he
breathed out his soul. They covered him forthwith in earth, and
told them in the city that he was buried, before it was known that
he was dead.

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