The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

316
EVAGRIUS
to God. 88 And with regard to the wife of one of my secretaries, when her
milk was obstructed after she had given birth and the infant was in
extreme danger, he placed his hand on the husband’s right hand and
enjoined him to place this on his wife’s breasts. When he had done this,
at once the milk sprang forth as if from a spring, so that the wife’s dress
was soaked.
And when a child had been forgotten late at night by a group of
travellers, a lion put it on its back [240] and brought it to the Enclosure, 89
and on Symeon’s instructions the attendants went out and brought in the
child, which had been protected by the lion. 90 He has done many other
things as well which surpass recollection, which require an elegant
tongue and time and a separate treatise, since they are celebrated on the
tongues of men. 91 For people from nearly every land, not only Romans
but also barbarians, visited him and obtained what they requested. For
him the branches of a bush which grew upon the mountain took the
place of all food and drink. 92
24 Shortly after Gregory too passed away: he was a¥icted by the
ailment of gout, by which he was particularly troubled, and had drunk a
medicine composed of what is called Hermodactylus that had been
supplied by one of the Asclepiades. 93 He perished when Gregory, who
succeeded Pelagius, was bishop of elder Rome, John of New Rome,
88 This miracle is also recorded at Life ch. 233, where Evagrius is said to have had a speci¢c
inhabitant of Epiphania in mind.There are several instances in Barsanuphius’Questions
and Answers, where the old man divines the problem a¥icting his interlocutor (31, 44).
89 The name of Symeon’s sacred space copies that of Symeon the Elder: cf. i.14 with n.
138 above.
90 At Life ch. 68 there is a di¡erent lion miracle: by speaking Symeon’s name a man was
saved from an attacking lion; subsequently Symeon ordered the animal to leave the Miraculous
Mountain, although it occasionally returned to visit his monastery, without ever
harming anyone; for another lion miracle, cf. iv.7 with n. 24 above.
91 Evagrius is clearly writing before the composition of Symeon’s Life.
92 As a young boy, Symeon had prayed to be spared the need to depend on mortal food
(Life ch. 47), and in old age he told his disciples that he existed on a weekly delivery of divine
sustenance which appeared after the celebration of communion (Life ch. 256).
93 I.e. physicians. The exact date in 592 of Gregory’s death is not known.
Elizabeth Fowden has suggested (Plain 136) that the ¢nal chapters of Evagrius’ work
focus on ‘important participants in the political life of the frontier zone’. I am not convinced:
the unifying themes seem to be the achievements of Patriarch Gregory and the demonstration,
through the traditional fare of ecclesiastical historiography, that God still
fully supported the Roman empire.