- St Hilarion the Great of Palestine (371)
- He was born in Palestine to pagan parents who sent him to Alexandria
to be educated. There he learned of the Christian faith and was
baptized. Hearing of the fame of St Anthony the Great, he met the great
"Father of monks," and determined to devote himself to the ascetical
life. For the rest of his life he traveled from place to place, engaging
in the most austere life of solitude, prayer and fasting. But wherever
he went, his holiness shone like a beacon, and he became known to the
people, who flocked to him for counsel, nurture and healing. He would
then flee to another place and begin again. His travels took him to
Egypt, Libya, Sicily, and finally Cyprus, where he reposed at a great
age. As he lay on his deathbed, he cried out 'Go forth, O my soul. What
do you fear? Go forth! Why are you disquieted within me? You have served
Jesus Christ for almost seventy years and do you fear death?' Speaking
these words, he died.
-
The Synaxarion gives an excruciatingly thorough description of his ascetical labors, which may be instructive:
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"From his sixteenth to his twentieth year, Hilarion's shelter was a
simple cabin made of bulrushes and marsh grasses. Afterwards, he built a
little, low cell that looked more like a tomb than a house. He lay on
the hard ground, and washed and cut his hair only once a year, on Easter
day. He never washed the coat of skin that Saint Anthony gave him, and
wore the same tunic until it fell to pieces. He knew all of Holy
Scripture by heart and recited it aloud, standing with fear, as though
God were visibly present. From his twenty-first to his twenty-seventh
year, a few lentils soaked in cold water was, for three years, his daily
food, and for the next three he took nothing but bread, sprinkled with
salt. From his twenty-seventh to his thirtieth year, he lived on wild
plants; from the age of thirty to thirty-five, on six ounces of barley
bread and a few vegetables, cooked without oil. Then, falling ill and
with failing eyesight, he added a little oil to his food but did not
increase his allowance of bread, even though he saw his body grow
weaker, and believed his death was near. At an age when others tend to
decrease their austerities, he kept to this diet with redoubled fervor,
like a young novice, until his death. He never ate until after sunset
and relinquished his fast neither for the greatest feasts nor the
gravest illnesses."
source: http://www.abbamoses.com |
