Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Two unpublished psychophelitic tales Wortley, John Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Fall 1996; 37, 3; ProQuest pg. 281 Two Unpublished Psychophelitic Tales John Wortley T HE THIRD EDITION of the Bollandists' repertoire of Greek hagiographyl contains some sections that do not strictly speaking list saints' lives. One of these (BHG3 III 175-82) Halkin named Narrationes animae utiles, accurately reflecting the terms in which many of its contents are described in the manuscripts that preserve them: iill1YllO'nc; '!'UXOlq>EA£lC;, "spiritu­ ally beneficial tales." There is another section that is like unto it (BHG3 III 191-214) but longer. Although it is entitled Patrum Vitae, Oa:tEpn:u, fEPOV'tU:u, its contents are very similar to those of the former section; so much so that, towards the end of his life, Pere Halkin was known to say that he regretted having made the distinction. In fact the only perceptible dis­ tinction seems to be that, by and large, the stories under Patrum Vitae tend to occur in recognized collections (Ila'tEpu(u, fEPOV­ 'tlKU) rather than floating freely in the manuscripts, but there are exceptions in both sections. In fact the contents of both are almost identical. They almost all consist of a brief story-which mayor may not be about named persons-often in a monastic context and usually with a spiritual point to make. And although many of them do carry a heading that describes them as ~ioc;/vita, these are by no means saints' lives, but rather single scenes from the lives of persons, many of whom never ac­ quired the epithet "saint" and some of whom did not even aspire to it. Many of the tales were eventually used as building I F. Halkin, ed., Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca3 I-III (=Subsidia Hagio­ graphica 8a [Brussels 1957]). The following collections of tales will be cited by name or initial and number: J=Codex Sinal 448; Mioni=E. Mioni, "II Pratum Spirituale di Giovanni Moscho: gli episodi inediti del Cod. Mariano greco 11.21," Orientalia Christiana Periodica (1951) 61-94; NAU=F. Nau, "Histoire des solitaires egyptiens, " ROrChr 12-18 (1907-13); Nissen=T. Nissen, ·Un­ bekannte Erzahlungen aus dem Pratum Spirituale," B Z 38 (1938) 351-76; W=J. Wortley, A Repertoire of Byzantine "Beneficial Tales" (OtTJYl]OEt<; IjfUX!Ov (, VaUKATlPOe; Kat a1tEA8rov £i>p£ Ka8roe; £t1t£V aut0 (, yEprov· Kat fPWtT]O£V 5 autov:6 "1tOU a1tEPXll M£AOtOV, l>1tEOtPE\jfEV 14 a:I.ltOv de; tl]V nOAlV anEAEkiv. 15 unoo'tpE\jfUe; oe Ete; 16 'tOY 'A~~uv AoyytVOV Ollrr10U'tO u\mp 'to npuYllu' KUt AEYEt U\.ltq, 0 YEProV: "nlotEUoOV aOEA 'tOtHOl>. "17 Codices: A=Paris. gr. 1596 pp.438£, 8=]709=5y. gr. XVII 11; E=Paris. gr. 914£.121, Ambr. C 30 inf f.133 18 'twv 1tt..o'icov u\nou, E 'twv 1tpOO 28 ut..t..a U1tUYE 1tOlT}OOV uyc:l.1tT}V Kat aVEt..eE J8 ciJrilOEt<; 4('tl EO'ttV 6 EXEtC;) 8>'tt EXEt 58 T]pill-cT}OEV 68 + AEyCOV 78 + EV 'til> 'Evvc:I.'tqJ 88 E1tCflIjfEV 9(uKouO"ac; 'ta 1tEpt 'tou 'A~~ii AO)'yivou) om. 8. 108 + au'toU Translation Abba Longinus and a Shipmaster Prevent a Suicide They said of Abba Longinus that once upon a time a certain shipmaster brought him some gold, which he had gained from plying his vessel. The abba was unwilling to receive the gold and said to him: "There is no need of this here, but do me the favor of mounting your beast and going in all haste to Saint Peter's Stairs. You will find a young man there wearing such and such. Give him all the gold and ask him what is the matter." The shipmaster took off without delay and found [the young man] just as the elder had told him [he would]. He asked him: "Where do you come from, brother? Because I was with Abba Longinus and he himself sent me to you to give you this gold." Then, when the young man heard about Abba Longinus, he told [the shipmaster] of his trouble. "I am up to my eyes in debt and, since I am not a man of substance, I have come out here to hang myself, outside the city. If you do not believe me, look-I am carrying the rope"-and he took it out of his breast and showed it to him. The ship­ master gave him the gold and prevailed on him to go back to the city. [Himself] he returned to Abba Longinus and told him the affair. The elder said to him: "Believe me, brother, if you had not moved quickly and got to him [in time,] both you and I would have had to stand trial for the soul of that man." Comment The prevention of suicide IS a theme in two other beneficial Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. JOHN WORTLEY 285 tales, one of which is John Moschus' Pratum Sprituale 5 207, a collection of tales assembled before and after the year 600 (W003, BHG 1448n, de muliere quae virum salvum fecit). Ambroggio Traversari calls this tale "The life of an Alexandrine girl who was received from the sacred font by angels.» It tells of a wealthy young orphan girl of Alexandria who saved a man from hanging himself by giving him all her wealth to payoff his debts. Thus impoverished, she was reduced to prostitution, but then repented and sought baptism, not without difficulty-for she had to find guarantors. In the absence of any others willing to do so, angels in disguise stood surety for her at the font. The Pope of Alexandria recognized that this was a case of divine intervention. Questioned by him, the girl reluctantly confessed her one good deed (the one mentioned above) and then died. Here the prevention of suicide appears to be a means to an end rather than an end in itself; it belongs to a well-developed story­ type, in which one outstanding disinterested deed excuses all. 6 In the other known mention of suicide prevention, the pre­ vention is very much the main point of the story, as it is here. The story of "The suicide of a debtor averted" appears only to have survived in an Arabic version, which mayor may not be the original. 7 In this story a man of Ascalon received a large amount of money from a pious woman, to be given to the poor. He was then sent by an anonymous saint to Scythopolis (Bei"san) to bring relief to a man who was about to kill himself on account of his debts. It is thus structurally very similar to the story now under review; a man receiving unexpected wealth sent by a holy man to prevent a debtor from killing himself. The use of a shipmaster (vaU1(Allpo~) as a principal character of this story might give a clue to its age. There is scarcely a mention of such a person in the psychophelitic tales apart from one collection, in which a well-known story is attributed to a 5 Migne, PG LXXXVII 2851-3112, with the Latin translation of the Floren­ tine humanist "Fra Ambrogio," Ambrose Traversari (1346-1439); French tr.: M.-J. Rouet de Journel, Le Pre Spirituel (=SC 12 [Paris 1946]); Italian tr.: R. Maisano, Giovanni Masco, !l Prato (Naples 1982); English tr.: J. Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow (Kalamazoo 1993); a new edition of the Greek text with French translation by Philip Pattenden is in preparation. 6 See J. Wortley, The Spiritually Beneficial Tales of Paul, Bishop of Monem­ basia and of Other Authors (Kalamazoo 1996) 119-26, 190-97 on BHG 1449i, "The Tale of Sergius, the demotes of Alexandria." 7 W234; not in BIlG; Arabic text: G. Levi della Vida, ed.ltr., "Le stratageme de la vierge," AnnPhilHist 7 (1943) 83-126 no. 9. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 286 1WO UNPUBLISHED PSYCHOPHELITIC TALES shipmaster named Asiano who was also a deacon, which is curious.8 All other references to a shipmaster occur in Pratum Spirituale 76, 83, 91, 174, 190; each of them is credited with some good deed, usually for the benefit of monks. 9 Thus, both in its content and in its atmosphere, the present story resembles John Moschus' tales rather than those of another writer. It might not be far removed from them in time. Abba Longinus may be a monk-the title abba could confirm it. A monk of that name (and only one) appears in the Constan­ tinople Synaxarion, or rather one manuscript of it. Speaking of Theodosius the Coenobiarch (ob. 529, aet. 100), it says that after meeting with Symeon Stylites the Elder (ob. 459 near Antioch) he went to "lead the monastic life with a certain Longinus, a memorable man" (i)auxa~Et napa Aoyytvq> 'ttv\. aOt&tllq> av&pl).10 This is not by any means the only Abba Longinus of whom we know,11 but he is certainly the best known of that name; he is mentioned no less than seven times in a recent book by Dom Lucien Regnault,12 and as many as seventeen apophthegmata are attributable to Abba Longinus, five of them in the Alphabetikon. 13 In his introduction to these, Regnault states that, according to the Arabic Synaxary, Longinus was a Cilician who passed some time in Syria and later resided at the Henaton, a well-known monastery at the ninth milestone to the west of Alexandria, where he was a distinguished anti-Chalce­ donian. This fixes the date to the second part of the fifth cen­ tury. But (Reganult warns) we also know of a Longinus the 8 W946bis, ed. in G. Garitte, "'Histoires edifiantes' georgiennes," Byzantion 36 (1966) 396-423 no.20. The tale is W005=BHC 1322ea, de diacono quem presbyter ligaverat. 9 Pratum Spirituale 186, "The Life of Moschus, the Merchant of Tyre," is sometimes thought to refer to a relation of the author, and it is clear that he was a shipowner. He also had one single selfless deed to his credit. 10 H. Delehaye, ed., Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Brussels 1902) 384.56. 11 D. ]. Chitty, The Desert a City (London 1966), lists also Longinus higoumen of St Theoctistus' (368-375; p.95), Longinus higoumen of Sinal (365; pp.169f), and Longinus, a Cappadocian ascetic in the Tower of David in Jerusalem (p.93). 12 La vie quotidienne des Peres du Desert en Egypte au IV' siecle (Paris 1990). 13 PC LXV 71-440, supplemented by J.-c. Guy, Recherches sur La tradition grecque des apophthegmata patrum (Brussels 1962), and tr., Les Apophtheg­ mes des Peres du Desert (Bellefontaine 1966); English tr.: B. Ward, Th e Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Oxford 1975). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. JOHN WORTLEY 287 wonder-worker, a contemporary of the sixth-century Daniel of Scete;14 collectors of the apophthegmata may have been unsure of which was which. 15 The story of the wonder-working Longinus is fixed in the pontificate of Timothy III (519-537), which could hardly refer to one who had received Theodosius the Coenobiarch fresh from his encounter with Symeon Stylites the Elder, for he died in 459, by which time the famous Longinus must already have been well on in life. Had he lived another forty years (ascetics were extraordinary longevous), he could still have been around at the end of the century, to direct a shipmaster to prevent a suicide. Unfortunately we are not told where this Longinus resided, but from the rest of the material it was clearly somewhere in Syria-Palestine. There is fairly convincing evidence that the venue of our story is Egypt and not (as one might suspect) Syria. Thus Pratum Spirituale 73: "There was a soldier at Alexandria whose name was John. This was the kind of life he led: all day long, from dawn to the ninth hour, he would stay in his monastery near the steps (or ladder, ~ ~hu~&8pu) of St Peter['s church?] wearing nothing but a coarse cloak, and weaving baskets." From our story we know that the location was not in, but outside the city ("E~tpxoIWl anovTl XPrlOU08Ul £~w 'tll<;; 1tOAEW<;;," the debtor says to the shipmaster). It requires but a little imagination to suppose that it was located on the road to the Pempton, the Henaton (Longinus'), the Oktokaidekaton monasteries, and on via St Menas to Scete. The coincidence is striking; but just when it all seems to fit into place, another possibility emerges. When we look for yet another Longinus who might fit the bill, we do not look in vain. Theophanes states (source unknown): In A.M. 5984 (ca 491), when Anastasius ~opaxt'ttav6~16 the odd-eyed (o{1(Opo~) was reigning, Longinus, the brother of Zeno (Anastasius' predecessor and now his own brother-in­ law) rebelled against him. [The Emperor] arrested him and sent him into exile in Egypt, to Alexandria, and ordered that 14 This Longinus is mentioned in Regnault, SPD nOU7J. 1490/92 (K296)=Reg­ nault, SPD anon. 171. 151. REGNAULT, SPD, collection alphabitique (Solcsmes 1981: hereafter 'Regnault, SPD alpha. ') 170. 16 ~\)ppaXl1v6<; ("from Dyrrachium") in Malalas p.392.2. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 288 TWO UNPUBLISHED PSYCHOPHELITIC TALES he be ordained priest. Having survived seven years In Alexandria, he died.17 Now "priest" is not "monk" to be sure, but, as Lampe points out (s.v. [3J), a~~ii came very quickly to be used as a term of respect for senior clergy in general, like the French abbe, as well as for monks. It is therefore not impossible (the most that can be said) that the deuteragonist of this little drama set at Alexandria, is an imperial personnage demoted. The suspected time frame remains the same, however, in both cases: towards the year 500. II Of the story of the two lions no text appears to be known other than Cod. Paris. gr. 1596, pp,427f, which reads thus: W965 (not in BHG) [monachus discipulusque eius a leonculis sepultl1 W956 j.10vaxo<; j.1Eya<; dXEV OtKE'tTlV Kat EnatOEt)OEV a\)'tov Ent E'tTl OUO 'ta 'tE 'EAATlV1Ka ypaj.1j.1a'ta Kat 'to \jIaA.'t"pLOV· Kat ano- 9p{~a<; 'tTtV Kmj.1T1V 't1l<; KE npEnEl Tt S6~a Et<; 'tOD<; ai&va<;· aj.1Ttv." Kal. aOnaOaj.1EVO<; aAA"AOU<; aVExmpTlOEV an' au'tOu Kat anllA9Ev Et<; 'tTtV lpTlj.1ov Kat ~v 0 KUpLO<; j.1E't' au'tou. Kat n01"oa<; EV 'tU EP"j.1q> f'tTl EtKOOlTl:EV'tE E09trov OKlAAa<; ... [?] dXE oe SUo AEOvtapw. j.1E't' au'tou Kat au'ta 1l09LOV j.1E't' au'tou 'ta<; oKlAAa<;. E'tUXE oe au'tov approo­ 'tfloat approo'tlav Ol' ~<; Kat anE9avE' Kat EKo\jlav'to au'tov oi AEOV'tE<; 'tPE1<; Ttj.1Epa<;. j.1E'ta oe 'tPEl<; Ttj.1Epa<; opu~av'ta 'ta 9T1pta OOEI. opyutav j.1tav, 19a\jlav au't()V £KE1. 0 o~v 'IroavvTI<; napa­ Aa~mv 'tOY Kavova napa 'tou aytou YEPOV'tO<; aoKVro<; 'tou'tOV 01E'tfAEl. xpovou oe OlEA9ov'to<;, 'A~~q. 'IroavvTlv AEYrov au't: "avao'ta<; Ot(j)~ov ontoro j.10U 17 Theophanes ehron. 137.1-7 De Boor. Another tradition says that the Em­ peror banished Longinus (his brother-in-law) "to the Thebaid to die of starvation": T. E. Gregory, "Anastasios I," ODB I86. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. JOHN WORTLEY 01t0>S (JE Otaq>uMi~n 0 XPt(JtO~. tOo\> 'Yap ta OUo aOEAq>ta (JOU EKOEXOvtai (JE' 0 of: KUplO~ 'ITJ(Jou~ Xpt(JtO~ OOTJrTl(JEt (JE." ava­ (Jta~ of: 0 'IcOOvvTJ~ OtEtEAE(JE tOY (JUV~e"V Kavova. 1tprota~ of: 'YEVOIlEVTJ~ E~ilA9E tOU KEAAiou EV C1> ~v 1tapOtK~(Ja~ 0 'YEProv EtTJ OEm Kat1tEVtE, 0 of: 'IcOOvvTJ~ EtTJ tTJ'· Kat1tOt~(Ja~ EuxTiv, tTjv 1topdav E1tOtEltO E1tt t~V EPTJllov. anEAO~ of: Kupiou ~v IlEt' autou oomrov autov i)IlEpa~ tp' . Kat1tE~EucraVto~ autou ~A9EV Ei~ tOY 1tpoOTJAro9Evta aut0 t01tov. Enicravto~ of: autou 1tATJcriov tOU cr1tTJAaiou 1tapaXPlllla E~ilA90v ta 9TJpia Kat EOpallOV (micrO) autou 9EAOVta EUAO"/TJ9ilvat· ooTJrTlcravta of: autov btl tOY t01tOV, cruvilA90v aut0 EV to cr1tTJAaicp. Kat ~v EKEt Oo~a~O)v tOY 8EOV Kat 1tot~(Javto~ autou EKEt EtTJ KW IlEtilA9E tOU ~iou' Kat EeTJKav autou ta 9TJpia 1tATJcriov tOU KUpiou aUtou. Translation [A Monk and his Disciple Buried by Lions] A great monk had a servant whom he trained for two years, teaching him Greek letters and the Psalter. Then he sheared the hair of his head and clothed him with the monastic habit. When the monk was about to set out into the wilderness, he summoned his servant and said to him: Brother John, pay attention to how you comport yourself. Strive to please Christ, so that you will be found worthy of glory. Behold, I am leaving everything to you. Perform the Psalter and all [the rites] with alacrity; persevere in all-night vigils and sleeping on the ground; endure all things for the Lord's sake. And may the God of peace be with you, child, and keep you from all evil and put you in a good frame of mind. For to him is due glory forever; Amen. They embraced each other; then, leaving [his servant,] he went off into the wilderness and the Lord was with him. When he had been in the wilderness twenty-five years, eating squills [sea onions, urginea maritima]18 [ .... ?] Now he had two small 289 18 Cf Nau 182; Systematikon V 36, in J.-c. Guy, ed., Les Apophthegmes de Peres: Collection systematique I (SC 387 [Paris 1993J) 274: ·When a mother wishes to wean her child, she puts metAAu [Pelagius & John: amarum quid] on her breast and when the infant comes to nurse as usual it is put off by the bitterness [altO rii~ ltl!(p(a~ J." "La scille est un oignon marin au gout spcciale­ ment amer": Guy ad lac. Erasmus (Adagia 2.3.42) cites the saying, "To pluck squills from a grave" [squillas a sepulchri vellas, mdAA.a~ altO m'1I1m:o~ tiUnvJ, saying: "People were told to do this who did not seem quite right in the head, for squills, seaplants, were used in Antiquity as a remedy for this complaint. Theocritus in the Bucolics: 'Off with you! Gather squills from some old hag's grave'" (tr. Mynors); cf Theophr. Char. 16.14, with instructions from a priest- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 290 TWO UNPUBLISHED PSYCHOPHELITIC TALES lions with him and they ate the squills together with him. It happened that he fell sick with an illness from which he died. Three days the animals mourned for him; after three days, they dug a hole about a fathom deep and buried him there. [Meanwhile, Brother] John, having received his rule of life from the holy elder, was fulfilling it with alacrity. Time went by, and then the elder appeared to Abba John in a dream and said to him: "Behold, your two small brothers are expecting you; the Lord Jesus Christ will be your guide." John arose and discharged his usual rule of life.19 When dawn broke, he came out of the cell in which the elder had lived for fifteen years and John for eighteen years. He offered a prayer and then set out into the wilderness. An angel of the Lord was with him, guiding him, for twelve days. On he walked and thus he came to the place which had been revealed to him beforehand. As he approached and drew near to the cave, the animals came out and ran behind him, wanting to receive a blessing. He pressed on towards the place-and then they went into a cave with him. There he stayed, praising God; and when he had lived there for twenty-eight years, he departed this life; and the animals buried him close by his master. Comment In many ways this little story of the anonymous elder and his disciple, John, buried by lions is within the tradition of the spiritually beneficial story. It would come as no great surprise, for instance, to find it included among the paraleipomena of Pratum Spirituale or even of Historia Monachorum in A egyp to. The monk who trains a disciple, who goes out into the lone­ liness of the wilderness and dies shortly after being discovered by another: these are common themes of the eremitic tradition, with antecedents going back to Antony and Pachomius. The "little lions" would not be out of place in a story of the very earliest stratum of tales. There is in fact a very similar story in a text that could be more or less of that era: The Life of Saint Paul ess to carry around a squill or a puppy dog for purification (Ol(iA.AU i1 01(UA.al(l ... 1tEplK JlE)'io'tcp WPUOJlEVOl, roc; EV­ vOElv 'tOY JlaKo.pLOV 'AV'tWVLOV unoaupE08at 'toue; 8r,pae; En\. TfI uvaAuon 'tou JlaKapiou naUAOU. EnEl'ta T1p~aV1o 't~v yr,v 'tOle; noo\' Onapo.nElV, 'tTJV 'tE ljIo.JlJlOV unC080UJlEVOl, EVOe; uv8pwnou 'tonov Ka'twpu~ov. Ka\' Eu8fCOe; 'tou Konou au'to)V 'tOY Jll080v unoAa~Elv ~OUAOJlEVOl, KLVTJOEl 'trov mcov 't~v KE oWJlan 'tou JlaKapiou naUAoU. Ka\' Eonov 'ta'ie; 20 In his recent book, however, Regnault (supra n.12) appears at several points less than confident with this attribution. 21 Aeov'tupw as the diminutive of lion is very rare. There is a story in Pratum Spirituale (18=PG LXXXVI 2865A) of two lion cubs (cuo crK'UJ.l.viu 'tOU Arov'tO<;). An elder brought them into church wrapped in his pallium, saying: "If we kept the commandments of Christ, these would fear us. But it is not so; so we fear them.» 22 BHG 1466a, ed. K. T. Corey, "The Greek Versions of Jerome's Vita Sancti Pauli," in W. A. Oldfather, ed., Studies in the Text-Tradition of St Jerome's Vitae Patrum (Urbana 1943) 143-250 at 170 (c. 16). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 292 TWO UNPUBLISHED PSYCHOPHELITIC TALES oupuiS uu'twv KOAuKEunKWS 'to 'AV'tCOVLCP, KUt 1tPOOf1tEOUV 'tOtS 1tOOtV uu'tOu EV ~IlEpo't1'ln, 'tPl~OV'tES 'touS OOoV'tuS uu'twv tv ~puYll0 llE)'aAcp roO'tE 'tOY 'Av'trovwv YVWVUt on EUAOYT1eflvUt ~ll'touOtV KUt EKAUWV E1tt 'tft aVUAUOEt 'tou IlUKUPLOU nUUAOU. IlE'ta O£ 'tulnu i1P~uV'to oPU't'tEtV Ot AfOV'tES KUt Oluppi1t'tEtV 'tTtV yTlV 'tOtS 1tOOtV uu'twv KU1. ~UeUVEtV ooov OlaO'tllllu av­ epro1tOu. KUt EOEtOV 'ta c1tu KU1. 'tTtV KEq>UATtV uu'twv EKAlVOV 'to 'Av'tcovicp KUt EAEtXOV 'touS 1toOUS uu'tou KUt .as XEtpUS uu'tOu 'tUtS YAroOOUtS uu'twv, roO'tE voflout uu'tov on EUAOY'1eflvut ~ll'tOUOtV. 23 What Jerome probably wrote was: Talia eo animo volvente, ecce duo leones ex interioris eremi parte currentes, volantibus per colla iubis, ferebantur. Quibus aspectis, primo exhorruit: rursusque ad Deum referens men­ tem, quasi columbas videret, mansit intrepidus. Et illi quidem directo cursu ad cadaver beati senis substiterunt; adulantibus­ que caudis circa eius pedes accubuere, fremitu ingenti rugientes, prorsus ut intelligeres eos plangere, quomodo poterant. Deinde haud procul coeperunt humum pedibus scalpere, arenamque certatim egerentes, unius hominis capacem locum foderunt, ac statim quasi mercedem pro opere postulantes, cum motu aurium cervice deiecta, ad Antionium perrexerunt, manus eius pedesque lingentes. at ille animadver­ tit, benedictionem eos se precari. 24 At the end of The Life of Saint Mary the Egyptian (attributed to John Moschus' companion, the patriarch Sophronius, ob. 638), there is yet another instance of burial by lion. Abba Zosimus, who has attended the saint's demise, finds himself unable to fulfill her dying wish that he should give her decent burial, for he lacks both the strength and the tool with which to dig a grave. He looks up, however, and sees a great lion (op~ AEOV'W ~£ya) standing by. Once he has overcome his fear of it, the creature uses its claws to excavate a sufficient grave for the saint's relics. 25 23 BHG 1467, c. 16; Corey (supra n.22) 195. 24 H. Hurter, ed., in Oldfather (supra n.23) 41; there is as yet no critical edition. In his notes on the vita in Vitae Patrum (Antwerp 1615), Heribert Rosweyde says of the two lions: "simile leonum obsequium habes in vita sancti Onuphrii, infra cap. ult." (PL LXXIII 114B). For once, however, this most learned man appears to have been mistaken, for nothing of the sort is to be found: see P L LXXIII 211-22. The feature the two vitae do have in common is a cloak torn in two to make a winding sheet for the corpse. 25 BHG 1042, c. 39=PG LXXXVII.3 3724c-25A. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. JOHN WORTLEY 293 Inevitably, the late sixth-century stories of John Moschus come to mind when we read of lions. John retails at least six (Prat. Sririt. 2, 18, 125, 163, 167, 181) in addition to the famous story 0 Gerasimus and his lion named Jordanes (107), for it is Gerasimus "to whom originally belongs the story of the lion, the donkey, and the camels, which Jerome-Hieronymus­ was to filch from him through the ignorance of Latin pilgrims many centuries after they both were dead." 26 In comparison with Pratum Spirituale, there are very few tales about (or con­ taining) lions elsewhere in the psychophelitic literature, but that does not mean they are not mentioned. Lions often occur in certain frequently quoted and obviously familiar scriptural passages. 27 Rather surprisingly, however, these do not include the famous passage in Isaiah: "Let the wilderness and the dry lands exult; let the wasteland rejoice and bloom." The text goes on to say that this will be where the chosen will walk, and it promises: "No lion will be there nor any fierce beast roam round about it. "28 The message seems to be particularly relevant to eremitic monachism, for there were lions in the wilderness. Indeed, fear of beasts in general and lions in particular was ever-present for the monks. 29 The danger of being literally eaten alive-particularly by a lion-was, although rarely expressed, always there (e.g. Nau 17,597). This might, however, be missing the point, for clearly, no matter how real lions might have been, they were also of sym­ bolic importance, as in the famous words attributed to St Peter: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith." 30 That is, in a sense, the monk's 'call to arms'. Thus elsewhere the monk (surrounded 26 Chitty (supra n.ll) 90 with n.61. 27 E.g. I Pet. 5:8 (Isidore the Priest); 1 Sam. 17:35 (Poemen lIS, 178). 28 Isaiah 35:1-10 at 9 (Jerusalem Bible): Ko:t OUK £(j'tat EKEl AEWV, oME 'tWV 911ptWV 'twv 1tOVl1PWV ou Il~ UVO:~11 £1t' o:u't~v ouOE Il~ Eup£911 EK£t, aXA.a 1tOP£'I)ooV'tat EV o:u't11 AEAU'tPWIlEVOt (LXX). 29 Note, however, BHG 1448p/14=1442ta (Anastasios the Sina'ite no. 14, CPG AI4): At MO:AWXUV, John the Saba'ite and Demetrius the Basilikos and leading doctor (uPXttO:'tpo~) spotted the traces (OOPIlO:) of a dragon in a wadi. Demetrius wanted to go away, but John urged prayer. And when the beast was two stades from them, they saw it taken up into the air like a cloud, then dashed into a thousand pieces. 30 1 Pet. 5:8, A V. Cf the idea of the lurking lion at Ps. 10:9: EVEOpnlEt EV U1tOKPUCP 00<; MWV EV 't11 !l