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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza
Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913
Chapter 11
Now after three years that he had been ordained, it falleth out that the bishop of the afore-mentioned city of Gaza passed away from this life; he was Aeneias,1 who was bishop for a very short time. And before Aeneias was Irenion,2 who also himself hath become a fellow-citizen of the angelic powers,3 whose praises it is not possible to go aside from this matter and write, but a special treatise were necessary to describe in order the life of the said glorious Irenion, and we leave it for other writers who have full knowledge of his life. When therefore the afore-mentioned holy man had been laid to sleep, they who were then Christians, being few and easily to be numbered, were gathered together with the clergy, and took counsel for certain days into whose hands they should commit the bishopric, but achieved nothing; for contention prevailed among them, some desiring some of the clergy, and others some of the lay-folk; for in sooth among the lay-folk also there were some of honourable and holy life.4 When therefore there arose a great confusion and the matter went nothing forward, at last they agreed that five of the clergy and as many of the notable lay-folk should go out to the metropolitan high-priest5 and ask of him a bishop, whomsoever the Holy Ghost might reveal unto him.
Notes
- Aeneias died at the end of 394 or beginning of 395.
- Irenion died about 393. He is given in the Martyrologium Romanum on Dec. 16: Gazae in Palaestina sancti Irenionis Episcopi (ed. 1873, p. 187).
- angelic powers. On the claim of the monk to the angelic πολιτεία see Usener, Der heilige Theodosios, p. 121 f.
- of honourable and holy life. βίῳ καὶ σεμνότητι κεκοσμημένοι.
- the metropolitan high-priest. That is, the Archbishop of Caesarea, the metropolitan church of Gaza.