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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza

Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913

Chapter 88

And on the morrow the woman presenteth herself, having with her two men and as many women; they were young and fair to look upon, and the faces of them all were pale; but Julia was old in years. And they all did build their reasoning upon the teaching of this world, and much more Julia than the others. And their guise was lowly and their manner gentle, but, as it is said, they were outwardly sheep,¹ and inwardly ravening wolves and venomous beasts; for hypocrisy is in all their words and deeds. Then being bidden to sit down they inquired into the matter. And the saint, holding the holy gospels and having made the sign of the Cross on his mouth, began to ask her to declare her belief, and she began to speak. And brother Cornelius the deacon, of whom mention was made a little time before, being skilled in the shorthand of Ennomus,² did at the bidding of the most blessed bishop note all that was said and disputed, I and brother Barochas reminding him. But I have not written the dispute in this book, seeing that it was long, and desiring to make the present writing brief; but in another book³ I have set it forth for them that desire to know both the wisdom that was given of God unto the most holy Porphyry, and the old wives’ fables which the marvel-monger and magician Julia spake in her foolishness.

Notes

Matt. vii. 15.
Ennomus. This person is unknown; but there is no reason to suspect a corruption in the text. Haupt suggested τὰ ἐν νόμῳ σημεῖα, for ‘legal shorthand’, but it is doubtful whether the words could bear that meaning.
in another book, which has not survived. The ‘Acta Archelai’ profess to report a similar dispute (on which see Encycl. Brit.¹¹ xvii, p. 577), and were probably Mark’s chief literary source for Manichaeism, if he had anything but hearsay to go upon.