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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza
Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913
Chapter 47
Now the days ran past, and the day came on which it was purposed that the young Emperor Theodosius should be enlightened.1 And all the city was hung with garlands and adorned with silks and gold vessels and all manner of other adornments, so that no man could describe the splendour of the city; nay, one might behold the multitudes of the inhabitants like the waves of the sea, various with all sorts of garments. But it is not in my power to express the glory of that splendour, but belongeth to those who are practised in speech; but I will be about the present true history. When the young Theodosius had been baptized and came forth from the church to the Palace, then again might one behold the goodliness of the multitude of them that went before,2 and their shining raiment; for they were all clad in white, so that it seemed as though the multitude were covered with snow. There went first Patricians, and Illustres,3 and every dignity, together with the troops of soldiers, all bearing candles, so that it seemed as though stars were shining on the earth. And nigh unto the babe that was carried was the Emperor Arcadius himself, whose countenance was glad and bright, even brighter than the purple that he wore; and one of the nobles carried the babe in bright raiment. And we marvelled, seeing so great glory. And Saint Porphyry saith unto us: ‘If things that are of the earth and after a little time vanish away have such glory, how much more the heavenly things, which are prepared for the worthy, which neither eye hath seen 4 nor ear heard, neither have they entered into the heart of man.’
Notes
- enlightened. φωτίζεσθαι, i.e. ‘baptized’. See note on c. 31. On the various synonyms for baptism see F. E. Warren, Liturgy and Ritual of Ante-Nicene Church, 2nd ed. (1912), p. 54.
- them that went before. τῶν προηγουμένων. Bury (Later Rom. Emp. i, pp. 200 f.) translates ‘magnates’, which would be attractive if the order were τῶν πρ. τοῦ πλήθους, instead of τοῦ πλήθ. τῶν πρ. In the next sentence προηγοῦντο can only mean ‘led the procession’, so probably Mark is not using the participle in a technical sense.
- Patricians and Illustres. Patricius is the title of a dignity instituted by Constantine. Unattached to any office, it was the culmination of the cursus honorum, and ranked next to the lowest imperial dignity (nobilissimus). See E. A. Stückelberg, Der Constantinische Patriciat (1891). Illustris was another of the titles borne by palatine dignitaries and the highest military officers; below the illustres came the spectabiles, and below these the clarissimi. In later times, as in the seventh century, these titles seem to have lost a good deal of their dignity.
- 1 Cor. ii. 9.