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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza

Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913

Chapter 10

Now these things being so, Praÿlius, who held the bishopric¹ of the holy places, heard of the name and the life of the saintly Porphyry, and sending for him very instantly ordained him to the office of Elder, and moreover committed unto him the safe-keeping of the precious wood of the Cross.² Then did we know that those things had been fulfilled for him which he heard in his trance, when he beheld the Lord on the Cross and the robber with him, and the Master saying, ‘Take this wood and keep it for me.’ But the blessed Porphyry, when he received this ordination, was about forty and five years old. But though he was deemed worthy of this honour, he changed not his former manner of life, but continued in mortification³ and affliction of the body, in fasting and watching.⁴ His food was foul bread and herbs, and these after the going down of the sun⁵; but on the other holy days⁶ he ate at the sixth hour, partaking also of oil and cheese and steeped pulse⁷; and he would take withal one cup of wine mixed with water, and this by reason of sickness in his bowels.⁸ This course and rule did he keep continually for all the days of his life.

Notes

Praÿlius, who held the bishopric. ἱερωσύνην, as in c. 4, of Porphyry as Bishop of Gaza. This appears to be a mistake. From 386 to about 417 the Bishop of Jerusalem was John; he was succeeded by Praÿlius. In c. 12 Mark still more definitely speaks of Praÿlius as ‘bishop of Jerusalem’. It is possible that the words describing Praÿlius in c. 12 are a later addition by some one who knew that he became bishop of Jerusalem. Then by ‘priest of the holy places’ Mark may mean chorepiscopus, suffragan. It seems unlikely that, writing about 420, Mark should have forgotten that Praÿlius only became bishop of Jerusalem about 417.
Porphyry was ordained presbyter in 392.
wood of the Cross. This was preserved in a special oratory in the court behind the great basilica.
in mortification, &c. ἐν τῇ ἀσκητικῇ κακοπαθείᾳ.
Cp. 2 Cor. vi. 5.
after the going down of the sun. It was quite a usual practice—as for instance in the monasteries under the rule of Pachomius—to eat but once a day; but apparently the more ascetic form of the practice was to take the meal after sunset. So did Saint Antony of the Desert. And so did one Theodore (Vitae patrum, x. 154, Migne, lxxiii. 198) who boasted: ‘Habeo viginti duo annos, ex quo praeterquam Sabbato et Dominico die nunquam me sol comedentem vidit.’
the other holy days. ‘other’, deleted by Eberhard and Draeseke, is otiose but textually correct.
steeped pulse. βρεκτῶν ὀσπρίων: see H. Gelzer, Leontios’ von Neapolis Leben des h. Johannes (1893), index under ὄσπρεον; cp. Palladius, Hist. Laus. 1051 A (p. 48, ed. Butler): Macarius of Alexander is described as eating only raw vegetables and ὀσπρίων βρεκτῶν, where the variant reading ὀσπριδίων is not recorded by Butler.
Cp. 1 Tim. v. 23.