Ἅγιος ὁ Θεός, Ἅγιος ἰσχυρός, Ἅγιος ἀθάνατος, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶςKatholikon

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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza

Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913

Chapter 27

And I ceased not daily to remind him, and he would send and importune Eutropius. And after seven days there is uttered a divine decree that the temples of the idols in the city of the Gazaeans should be shut and no longer give oracles. And a certain Hilarius, an adjutant of the Master of the Offices,1 is entrusted with this ordinance. And I after three days set sail from Byzantium, and come in ten days unto the city of the Gazaeans, seven days before the coming of Hilarius. And I found the most holy Porphyry sick. But when I gave him the answer of the most blessed John, the bishop of Constantinople, and read it unto him, he was filled with joy, and the fever left him and he was cured. But he said that the sickness had taken him by reason of the much affliction wherewith the idolaters afflicted him. Now after seven days cometh the said Hilarius, having two officers of the consular court2 and many guards out of Azotus and Ascalon, and all the pomp of office. And straightway he seized the three councillors of the city3 and took sureties from them and declared unto them the divine decree, which commanded that the temples of the idols in the city of Gaza should be shut up on pain of the death of the chief men of the same city; and he overturned all the idols in them and shut them up. But the temple of Marnas he suffered secretly to give oracles; for he received therefor a great sum of money. And they of the idol-madness began again to do unlawful things, as they were wont.

Notes

  1. adjutant of the Master of the Offices. σουβαδιουβᾶ, subadiuva. The Magister Officiorum had as his assistants an adiutor and a subadiuva adiutoris. On the Master of the Offices and his functions see Cassiodorus Var. vi. 6 (Hodgkin, Letters of Cassiodorus, p. 302).
    One Hilarius, possibly the same man, was governor of Palestine about 387.
  2. officers of the consular court. κομενταρησίους τῆς ὑπατικῆς. These commentarienses were officers of the governor’s court, who received the formal charge against an accused person, and were responsible for securing him, bringing him before the judge, keeping the records of the trial, and finally seeing that sentence was executed.
    For the ‘consulars’, see note on c. 50.
  3. councillors of the city. See note on c. 25.

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