The Lausiac History

kV COLLYTHUS

[i] Another virgin was a neighbour of mine, but I did not see her face, for she never came out, so they say, from the day she renounced the world. But having completed sixty years of asceticism in company with her own mother (-superior), at last she was about to depart from this life. And the martyr of the place stood over her — Collythus was his name — and said to her : " Today you are going to travel to the Master and see all the saints. Come then and breakfast with us in the chapel." ^ So she got up at twilight and dressed and took in her basket bread and olives and shredded herbs, after all those years going out, and she went to the chapel and prayed. [2] And having marked that moment of the whole day when no one was inside, she took her seat and called on the martyr, saying : " Bless my food, holy Collythus, and accompany me with thy prayers on the journey." Then having eaten and prayed again she went home about sunset. And having given her mother (-superior) a writing of Clement, author of the Stromateis, on the prophet Amos,^ she said : " Give it to the exiled bishop ^ and say to him. Pray for me, for I am going on a journey." And she died that very night, with no fever nor pain in the head, but having decked herself for the funeral,

^ fiafiripiov. 2 Not mentioned elsewhere.

^ Palladius, the author.

MELANIA THE YOUNGER 167

... f CHAPTER LXI

MELANIA THE YOUNGER ^

[i] Since I promised above to tell about the (grand-) daughter of Melania, I am constrained to pay the debt, for it is not just that men should disdain her youthfulness in respect of the flesh and leave on one side with no pillar to commemorate it such great virtue, virtue which, frankly, far surpasses that of old and zealous women. Her parents by using compulsion made her marry a man of the highest rank in Rome. Her conscience was always being pricked by the tales she heard about her grandmother, and (at last) she was so goaded that she felt unable to perform her marriage duty. [2] For, two male children having been born to her and both having died, she came to have such great hatred of marriage as to say to her husband Pinianus, son of Severus the exprefect : " If you choose to practise asceticism with me according to the fashion of chastity, then I recognise you as master and lord of my life. But if this appears grievous to you, being still a young man, take all my belongings and set my body free, that I may fulfil my desire toward God and become heir of the zeal of my grandmother, whose name I also bear. [3] For if God had wished us to have children, He would not have taken away my children untimely." After they had struggled under the yoke a long while, at last God had pity on the young man and planted in him a zeal for renunciation, so that the word of Scripture was fulfilled in their case : " How knowest thou, O woman, that thou shalt save thy husband? "2 So having been married at thirteen and having lived with her husband seven years, in the

^ See Butkr's notes, II. 231-3, on Melania, and his illustrations from the Vita Melania Jun. * I Cor. vii. 16.

i68 THE LAUSIAC HISTORY

twentieth year she renounced the world. And first she gave her silk dresses to the altars : this the holy Olympias has also done. [4] Then she cut up her other silks and made them into different church ornaments. And having entrusted her silver and gold to a certain Paul, a priest, a monk of Dalmatia, she sent them across the sea to the East, 10,000 pieces of money to Egypt and the Thebaid, 10,000 pieces to Antioch and its neighbourhood, 15,000 to Palestine, 10,000 to the churches in the islands and the places of exile, while she herself distributed to the churches in the West in the same way. [5] Ail this and four times as much she snatched, if God will allow the expression, " out of the mouth of the lion " ^ Alaric by her faith. And she freed 8000 slaves who wished freedom, for the rest did not wish it, but preferred to be slaves to her brother ; and she allowed him to take them all for three pieces of money. But having sold her possessions in the Spains, Aquitania, Tarragonia and the Gauls, she reserved for herself only those in Sicily and Campania and Africa and appropriated their income for the support of monasteries. [6j Such was her wise conduct with regard to the burden of riches. And her asceticism was as follows. She ate every other day — to begin with after a five days' interval — and assigned to herself a part in the daily work of her own slavewomen, whom also she made her fellowascetics.

She had with her also her mother Albina, who lived a similar ascetic life and distributed her riches for her part privately. Now these ladies are dwelling on their properties, now in Sicily and now in Campania, with fifteen eunuchs ^ and sixty virgins, both free and slave. ^

^ 2 Tim. iv. 17,

* Apparently to be interpreted literally ; but perhaps metaphorically in allusion to Mt. xix. 12.

* They were really at Bethlehem when Palladius wrote.

PAMMACHIUS 169

[7] Similarly also Pinianus her husband lives with thirty monks, reading and busying himself with the garden and solemn conferences. But in no small way did they honour us when we, a numerous party, went to Rome because of the blessed bishop John ; ^ they refreshed us both with hospitality and lavish equipment for the journey, thus winning for themselves with great joy the fruit of eternal life by their God-given works springing from a noble mode of life.