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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza
Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913
Chapter 35
But when he beheld the most holy bishops, he fell upon his face and worshipped them; then rising up he kissed me also and the God-fearing Eusebius the deacon, whom the holy John the archbishop brought with him. And leading us into the place of prayer he went behind us, giving the foremost place to the most blessed bishops, saying: ‘It is fitting that ye, being priests, should have the foremost place, and I, being lowly and not even thought worthy of ordination, the hindmost.’ Then knew we that the most holy Procopius possessed the gift of vision; for albeit he had never beheld us nor heard concerning us, he knew by the spirit that the most blessed John and Porphyry1 were bishops; therefore gave he to them the honour of the first place at prayer. Then after the prayer we sate down, and when he had spoken with us of many things profitable to our souls, he inquired of the reason of our travelling.2 And the blessed Porphyry related to him all things concerning the Gazaeans, how madly they are given unto idols, and how many terrible things the Christians suffer from them, and that for this reason they are going up to pray the Emperors that the temples of the idols may be overturned.
Notes
- the most blessed John and Porphyry. Mark uses the circumlocution οἱ περὶ τοὺς μ. ’I. κ. Π., ‘the company of the most blessed,’ &c.; but obviously it cannot include the whole company, unless ‘καὶ διάκονοι ‘has fallen out.
- travelling. τοῦ σκυλμοῦ, a word, like our own ‘travel’, expressing the hardship of voyaging; cp. cc. 37, 40.