Holy Joe Doaks! And Leaping Lazarus!
19 DhulHijja 1421
(( ... wherein we learn with great pleasure to ourselves and some
small credit to H*rv*rd University that the Dumbarton Oaks website
<< http://www.doaks.org/Laz1.pdf >>
isn't ENTIRELY about selling trinkets to tourists.
(( One may instance page 91 of _op. cit._, the beginning of Mr.
Greenfield's actual translation, corresponding to pages 508 and
509 of the learned Bollandists' _Acta Sanctorum Novembris 3_,
BHG 979 of 1910: ))
THE LIFE, CONDUCT AND ASCETIC PRACTICE OF
OUR BLESSED FATHER LAZARUS THE MIRACLE WORKER
WHO [LIVED] ON [MOUNT] GALESION
(( A causal _Googleblick_ cast at
>> http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/l/lazaros.shtml <<
reveals that [Mount] Galesion is located in the suburbs of
Ephesus, Turkey -- a municipality by no means to be confused with
Ephesus TX -- and that the Lazarus immediately in question
dates to about 968-1054 ABCE. But hush, no more interruptions! ))
1. He Who fashioned our hearts alone, Who understands all our
works, as the holy Scripture says,[1] and Who foresees the
instability of our minds and how our thoughts tend toward evil
things from our youth,[2] has consented in His goodness that
contemporary authors should set down in writing the lives, the
deeds of contest and asceticism, and the extraordinary and most
marvelous achievements of the saints who lived before the law,[3]
under the law and in the time of grace, I mean those of the
prophets, apostles, martyrs, and blessed ones. [Such authors have]
left [their accounts] like living icons[4] or clean and very clear
mirrors for subsequent [generations] in order that when, as the
Apostle says, we _consider_ their life and _their behavior_
through these [stories], [509] we may _follow their faith_,[5] and
in order that whatever path someone desires to travel he may do
this easily and without stumbling, finding his guide therein. For
nothing leads so naturally toward the way of virtue or, on the
other hand, is so good at making [people] despise all transitory
things, whether these bring joy or sorrow, as when [an account of]
a life which is virtuous and pleasing to God falls on the ears[6]
of those who love Him. For if, as the same blessed Paul says, _bad
company ruins good morals_,[7] it is clear that
===
[1] Cf. Ps. 32 (33):15. This quotation, with the same alterations
of _'autôn_ to _heemôn_ ,is also used by Theodoret of Cyrrhus as
the opening of the introduction to his _commentarius in Amos_, PG
81:1664B.
(( How to do Greek right with circumambient HTML and only the
predestined fonts is an interesting question. ))
[2] Cf. Jer. 3:25; 39 (32):30.
[3] That is, the Mosaic law. The meaning is clarified below.
[4] This seems to be a definite allusion to Basil of Caesarea,
_epistola II_ (PG 32:220); indeed much of the opening segment of
this chapter can be read as an expansion of the theme raised by
Basil; cf. also Eusebius of Caesarea, _contra Marcellum_, PG
24:764.
[5] This is a rough quotation from Heb. 13:7. The first section
follows the interpretation of the RSV rather than that of the RV,
which translates _'anastropheé_ (here taken as "behavior") as
"conversation."
[6] Cf. Nah. 1:12.
[7] 1 Cor. 15:33, following the RSV translation. The original
passage quotes a fragment of Menander's _Thais_. As well as "bad
company," the sense of "bad topics of conversation" is also
implicit in the Greek; cf. the AV translation, "evil
communications."
Of course there's always another side to everything, or at least usually there is something more to be said. Even with so recondite a question as this of _Lazarus Galesiensis_. At
http://www.rongolini.com/synnovember.htm
one may read under 7 November EXACTLY as follows (would I make it up?):
"A native of Asia, Saint Lazarus was born in 968 in a village on the border of Magnesia. At the age of six he was put into the monastery of the Orobes to learn the Holy Scriptures. Five years later his heart was inflamed with an ardent desire to withdraw to the places sanctified by the Passion of Christ. He visited the Church of the Resurrection, guided by the Archdeacon, and thanks to him, was admitted among the number of ascetics in the monastery of Saint Sabbas, and was ordained a priest by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. When the Arabs, in their revolt against the Caliph of Egypt, had ravaged all of Palestine and destroyed to Mount Galesius opposite the city, an abrupt and inaccessible mountain to the crowd. Nevertheless his reputation spread everywhere, and a great crowd of monks, desirious to practice asceticism in his company, asked to join him. He lived successively on three columns, in various places, and founded the monasteries of the Savior, vegetables and drank water, and that only once or twice weekly, joyously suffering the cold and heat. He died in old age, in 1054."