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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza

Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913

Chapter 4

Gaza is a city of Palestine that is on the borders of Egypt; and it is of no small account, being a populous city and notable. But there flourished in it about that time the madness of men after idols. The bishopric of this city did Porphyry, of whom we tell the praise, receive. For his country indeed he had in heaven Jerusalem (for therein was his name written) and on earth Thessalonica; and his family was noble. Now there came upon him a divine desire to leave his country¹ and the splendour of his family and countless riches, and to cleave unto the solitary life; and taking ship from the city of the Thessalonians he cometh unto Egypt. And straightway he went to Scetis,² and after a few days is deemed worthy of the honourable habit.³ And when he had sojourned there with the holy fathers for the space of five years, again there entered into him another divine desire to worship the holy and venerable places of God; and when he had gone thither⁴ and worshipped, he departed into the parts about Jordan and dwelt in a cave, sojourning there also likewise five years in much affliction. And by reason of the great dryness and changeableness⁵ in those parts, he fell into a great sickness. But seeing himself to be sick unto death, by the dispensation (of God)⁶ he beseecheth one of his acquaintance to take him up to Jerusalem.⁷ Now his disease was a hardening of the liver with a continuous fever, very slight.⁸ And though such a disease prevailed over him and pierced his entrails without ceasing, and his body was consumed away, yet he ceased not daily to go around the holy places, being bowed down and without strength to hold his body upright, but leaning upon a staff.

Now at that time it chanced that I also came⁹ by ship from Asia to worship the venerable places, and having come there I sojourned a long time, living by the work of my hands; for I was skilled in the art of handwriting. And beholding the holy man going continually to the Resurrection of Christ¹⁰ and to the other places of prayer, I marvelled that in so great weakness of body he forbore not so to vex himself.

Notes

to leave his country. About 372, when he was about twenty-five years old.
Scetis. The most desert of the monastic settlements in the district of the Wady Natron or Valley of Nitria, about sixty miles south of Alexandria. See Dom C. Butler’s edition of Palladius, Hist. Lausiaca, ii, p. 187; Duchesne, Hist. of Early Christian Church, vol. ii (Eng. ed. 1912), p. 391 f.
honourable habit, τιμίου προσχήματος, the monastic habit. The epithet is also used by Mark of the Cross and of baptism, and may there be translated ‘precious’. In all connexions it is doubtless merely ornamental.
when he had gone thither. About 377.
changeableness. Of temperature (between night and day, rather than between the seasons).
by the dispensation (of God). οἰκονομία is used (without θεοῦ), like πρόνοια, for God’s providence (Nuth, p. 54 f.). The reason for the use of the phrase here is not obvious; it does not appear why the decision to return to Jerusalem was more providential than any other of Porphyry’s actions.
to take him up to Jerusalem. About 382.
a hardening of the liver with a continuous fever, very slight. σκίρωμα (or σκίρρωμα) is, Sir Clifford Allbutt informs me, a general word for ‘induration’ (cp. Dioscor. de Mat. Med. i. 1. 3, and Pollux Onom. iv. 198 καρκίνωμα, σκίρρωμα μετὰ φλεγμονῆς ἐπαλγές). λεπτότατον seems to be merely ‘very slight’, rather than ‘subtle ‘in the sense of ‘insidious’.
I also came. Before 392.
the Resurrection of Christ. The Anastasis, a circular building containing the Holy Sepulchre, a portion of the buildings connected with Constantine’s basilica erected on the site of the former temple of Astarte. See the plans in ‘The Churches of Constantine at Jerusalem’ (Library of the Palest. Pilgrims Text Soc., vol. i).