STORIES FROM THE
CHRISTIAN EAST

Divinity Library
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STEPHEN GASELEE

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

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Stories from the
Christian East

Stories from the
Christian East, by
Stephen Gaselee .

London : Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd.
3, Adam Street, Adelphi, W.C. 2. 191 8

MP24 #2 1. Is

TO
M. E. G.

Preface
THE note beneath the title of each story merely
indicates the version from which it was translated
for the present volume, and not the original
language in which each was first written, which is often a
matter of doubt.
The pictures were drawn by my friend Mr. John Mavro-
gordato, to whom I here tender my best thanks. S. G.

Contents

The Story of EusTATHiust Placidus and his Wife Theopiste
Abbot Gerasimus and the Lion
The Story of the Faithful Lawyer
The Story of Saint Menas and the Egg
The Reward of Charity
The Story of Dorotheos and Theopiste
The Little Priests
Takla Haymanot and the Tree Devil
Saint John Damascene

PAGE 3
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THE STORY OF EUSTATHIUS PLACIDUS
AND HIS WIFE THEOPISTE
From the Coptic

The Story of Eustathius Placidus and
his Wife Theopiste

IN the days when the Emperor Trajan ruled Rome and
the world, there lived a certain general named Placidus.
He was a heathen, for he had never heard of the good
tidings of Christ, but he lived a good life according to his
lights : not only was he so strong and successful in war that
the barbarian enemies of Rome trembled at the mention of
his name, not only did he exceed all the other nobles of the
Emperor's Court in wealth — gold, and silver, and troops of
slaves — but he shewed himself a very father of the poor and
protector of the weak. He clothed the naked, he helped the
oppressed, he relieved those who were in distress, he fed the
hungry, he redeemed those who had been condemned to be
sold into slavery ; and he had a wife, as good as she was
beautiful, though a heathen like himself, who was not behind
him in good works ; she had borne him two sons, and these
were being brought up in the same paths of virtue as those in
which their parents walked.
Now , Placidus, like all good gentlemen, was a good sports
man ; and «he knew no greater pleasure than to hunt wild
beasts in the mountainous country near his home. One day
he was out a-hunting with many of his friends, his soldiers,
and his slaves, and came upon a herd of deer feeding ; he
ordered chase to be given them, and rode forward himself
upfront of all his company. Soon he picked out a stag that

4 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
seemed to stand out as the biggest and finest of the herd, and
began to ride it down: the stag broke. away, and presently
took refuge in a large thicket on the side of the mountain.
By this time Placidus was far ahead of his companions, and
without further thought of them he put spurs to his horse
and rode into the wood : and he rode on and on alone until
he came through to the far side of it, his horse tired and weary ;
and when he was through he saw the stag standing on the top
of the hill above him.
Long he watched the animal from below, wondering what
stratagem to adopt in order to reach him ; and as he watched
with fixed eyes, lo, a very marvellous thing happened : for
between the stag's antlers there began to glow a cross, and
on the cross that very figure in which the Son of God took
human shape to dwell among us. And the figure cried out to
Placidus in a human voice, saying : " Why dost thou hunt
Me, Placidus ? I am Jesus, whom thou didst serve without
knowing it, and thy kind and charitable deeds have come
before Me : therefore now. have I become the hunter, and
I have snared thee by means of this unreasoning animal, I
have netted thee with the nets of My God-head."
At these words Placidus was so greatly terrified and as
tonished that he fell down prostrate on the ground ; and
then, when he had a little recovered, he murmured : " What
is this sight that I have seen, this voice that I have heard ?
Make Thyself manifest to me, O Thou who speakest with
me, and I will believe in Thee." Then the Lord told him
who He was, and explained to him the mysteries of our
creation and our redemption : and when Placidus answered

THE STORY OF EUSTATHIUS PLACIDUS 5
that he believed indeed, and only wished to know how to
enter the Christian faith and to join the Church, He bade
him go to the Bishop of Rome, and ask from him that great
gift that is given freely and without price, the adorable gift
of baptism, and to ask the same for his wife and all his family.
So Placidus hurried home: and when he had bathed and
rested, and evening was come, he related what he had seen to
his wife and his" two sons ; and to his still greater wonder his
wife cried out : " This is He, the crucified, the God of the
Christians ! Last night in my sleep I saw a vision of One
whom I could not but worship : and when I asked Him who
He was, He answered, ' To-morrow do thou and thy husband
and thy two sons come unto Me,' -and now you have shewn me
how we may be saved indeed. So let us quickly seek the
fountain of Salvation." Then, as night drew on, they took
their two sons and those familiar slaves whom they could
best trust, and went secretly to the Bishop of Rome, and told
him all the story, and prayed him for the gift of baptism :
and he consented, and baptised them all, and gave them new
and Christian names ; to Placidus he gave the name of
Eustathius or " he that stands fast," and he called his wife
Theopiste, "she that puts her trust in God," and the elder
son Agapius, or " the loving one," and the younger son he
called Theopistus, after his mother. And when he had
baptised them, he gave them the great Sacrament of the
Lord's Body and Blood, and sent them away with his blessing.
Now Eustathius, for so we must now call him, could not
rest until he could visit again the place where he had seen
the wondrous stag, hoping to speak again with his God ; and

6 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
it was not long before he came again to the mountain which
had been the scene of his vision. There he sent away all his
retainers and servants, and knelt down and prayed, and
besought that the vision might come to him again. Nor had
he long to wait: for soon he saw the stag. again, with the
cross and the Crucified between its horns ; and the Saviour
addressed him in loving words : " Well done, Eustathius,
because thou hast received the washing of grace, and life
eternal is thine. But I have somewhat to tell thee : the enemy
of mankind is exceedingly furious and envious against thee,
because thou hast cast him behind thee : and even now he
plots against thee, and although thou must become a second
Job, to go through trials arid sorrows manifold, yet endure,
and in the end thou shalt come to thy former estate and
more." " Even so, Lord," answered Eustathius ; " for Thy
sake I am ready to undergo every trouble and trial." And
he went home, and told the divine message to his wife, and
both fell on their knees, praying in those words which Christ
Himself did teach us : " Thy will be done."
Now after a few days the Enemy began to have his wicked
will. First a pestilence broke out in the house of Eustathius,
and all his slaves died : and soon it spread to all else that
belonged to him, and in like manner perished all his horses
and cattle and sheep ; and he thought it better to leave the
tainted house, so that he took his wife and his two sons, and
moved to another. And when thieves came to know that the
former splendid palace was empty, they broke in by night
and robbed it and left it bare, leaving nothing behind, neither
gold nor silver nor raiment. And all these troubles Eustathius

THE STORY OF EUSTATHIUS PLACIDUS 7
and Theopiste bore with a tranquil and untroubled mind,
only thanking God that He. had left them their children
unhurt. In those days the Emperor Trajan returned from fighting
with the Persians : he had gained a great victory over them,
and he ordained rejoicings throughout Rome, and he gave a
splendid feast to all his nobles. Eustathius, as one of his
chiefest generals, should have gone to it : but in his state of
poverty and misfortune he thought that it would be un
seemly to be present : and he and his wife decided that it
would be better not to stay in Rome, where all had known
them, to be a laughing-stock to those who remembered their
former greatness ; and they took their two sons and went
aboard a ship bound for Egypt. At the feast the Emperor
missed him, and sent to what had been his palace, and
enquired after him : and when he and his nobles heard that
in so short a space of time his estate had been turned from
wealth and happiness to poverty and misery, and that he was
now nowhere to be found, they were both astonished and
sorry, and mourned for his misfortunes.
We left Eustathius and Theopiste on ship-board, for Egypt
bound. Now when the shores of that country came in sight,
the captain of the ship went to Eustathius, and asked him for
the money for his passage ; and Eustathius answered with
tears and sighs that he was a poor man, and had no money,
and asked that the debt might be forgiven him for the love
of God. When the captain heard this he was secretly pleased,
for he had cast longing eyes on Theopiste, who was a
woman of most exquisite beauty, and he saw that this was a

8 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
chance of getting her for his own ; so he pretended to be
furiously angry, and said to Eustathius that he would take his
wife instead of the passage money : and when Eustathius
implored his mercy and protested against this cruel and
shameful action, he bade two of his sailors take up Eustathius
as if to cast him into the sea, unless he would remain quiet
and promise him not to make any complaint when he came
ashore. So poor Eustathius was obliged to go alone, leaving
Theopiste behind : and he landed, and wandered through
Egypt, leading his two little sons one by each hand, begging
just enough bread for the three of them to live upon.
Once when he had reached the upper part of Egypt, he
found that it was necessary to cross the Nile, for the path on
the side where he was going came to an end and only went on
upon the other bank. He was a good swimmer, but the Nile
was high in flood and flowing very 'swiftly, so that he could
not swim over with the two boys together: and he decided to
leave one on shore and swim over with the other, and then
to return and fetch the first. He began to do so, and had
safely brought across the first boy, and was just swimming
back to fetch the second, but what was his horror when he
saw, while in mid-stream, a lion bound up and carry off the
waiting child ! His tears and groans were unavailing, but he
comforted himself with the thought that he at least still had
one son left, and turned back towards him ; but oh, worse
horror still, long before he could reach the bank a great wolf
rushed up and seized the second boy, and carried him off
before his father's agonized eyes! Then indeed he was in
despair, and he thought of letting himself go beneath the

THE STORY OF EUSTATHIUS PLACIDUS 9
waves and drown ; but he knew that self-murder was a sin
before God, and he decided that he must bear whatever was
sent him : so he swam to the shore, and struck off, the most
miserable man on earth save for his faith, into the desert ;
and presently he came to a village, where he hired himself
out to work in the fields for a pitiful wage.
Now let me interrupt the story of Eustathius for a few
minutes to tell you what became of the two boys. The lion
went off into the country, and was there seen by some shep
herds running along with the child in his mouth ; and they
saw that the child was alive and seemed to be unhurt, and
thought that God's providence had ordained that he should
be saved from the beast ; so they threw great stones at it,
and at last the lion dropped the child and ran away, and the
shepherds picked up the lad, and took him home to their
village. And nearly the same kind of thing happened to the
other boy ; for some men who were ploughing saw the wolf
dragging him along, and gave chase, and the wolf dropped
him, and they too took him home to their wives to be reared.
It happened that the shepherds and the ploughmen lived
near the same town, so that the two brothers were brought
up quite close to one another : but shepherds and ploughmen
live different kinds of lives, so that the two boys never saw
one another until they had forgotten most of their early
adventures — they never knew that they were brothers. And
in like manner all this time the protection and shadow of
the Most High was over their mother, the wife of Eustathius ;
for though the cruel ship's captain carried her off to his own
barbarian land, yet some mysterious power seemed to be over

10 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
her and he was never able to take her to wife : she lived there
alone, admired and respected by all, and at last the captain
died. Now after many days the people of that barbarian country
where Theopiste lived rose in revolt against the Emperor of
Rome : and at first their warfare was successful, and it seemed
as if the Empire must soon be hard pressed. Then the
Emperor Trajan remembered his former general Placidus,
and bethought him how he used always to be victorious in
his wars against barbarous peoples, and he wished that he
had him again to set him. at the head of his armies : and as
he had never heard of his death, he thought that he might be
living in some distant land, and he promised great riches and
honours to any of his servants who should find him and bring
him back to Rome to the Emperor's presence.
Two officers in the Emperor's army decided to under
take this search : and this not only for the great rewards
promised if they were successful, but because in old times
they had been among Placidus' most faithful servants, and
had loved him dearly, and they hoped eagerly that they might
be lucky enough to find him again. So they departed to seek
after him : ; and very thoroughly they searched the whole
kingdom, every town and hamlet, until at last they came to
the village where Placidus (whom we must now call Eusta
thius) was living. When they entered it, Eustathius saw them
from afar off, and his heart was moved within him, and as he
worked he prayed thus : " O Lord God, since Thou hast let
me see these my old servants and friends, Thou hast surely
allowed hope to rise again within my heart. I know that both

THE STORY OF EUSTATHIUS PLACIDUS u
my children are dead, the prey of savage beasts : do Thou
grant me to see them in the Resurrection at the last day. But
as for my wife, is it possible that Thou wilt allow me to look
upon her in this life as well ? " And as he prayed a voice
seemed to answer within him : " Be of good cheer, Eusta
thius ; thou shalt be raised to the great estate which thou
didst have formerly, and shalt see both thy wife and thy
children ; and if thou do not deny Me, in the Resurrection
thou shalt see all that is good for ever and ever."
Comforted by these words, Eustathius came down into
the village and approached the two soldiers ; he knew them
well, but they did not recognise him, so changed was he by
his years of toil and sorrow. They spoke to him first : " Hail,
good sir ! " said they ; and when he had greeted them in
return, they continued : " Do you know if there lives a
stranger in this place with wife and children, named Placidus ?
If you can tell us where he lives, and how to find him, we
will reward you well." " Why do you want him ? " said
Placidus. " He was a fellow-soldier of ours," they answered,
" and we have been looking for him for a very long time."
" I do not know him," said Eustathius ; " but at any rate
come into my cottage and rest ; you look tired, and it is late
in the day : you are strangers here, and I am a stranger too."
They suffered themselves to be persuaded by Eustathius
and entered his cottage and sat down : and first he brought
them water to wash off the stains of their long journey, |and
then he went out to his master, and begged of him some food-
and wine, for which he promised to pay when his wages were
due ; and this he set before them, and they ate gladly. Now!

12 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
while he sat talking with them, they were struck with some
thing in his face that seemed familiar: and little by little
they began to recognise in him the lineaments of their old
master. At last one of them whispered to the other : " Do
you remember how many years ago, fighting against the
savages, Placidus was wounded on the neck by a spear, and
the wound left a scar ? By this we shall be able to know for
certain whether we have found the object of our search or no."
So they made some pretext for standing up and looking from
behind at Eustathius as he sat ; and there they saw the
old scar ! Then both could no longer control themselves :
they fell upon him and kissed him, crying : " You are the
General Placidus, for whom we have been seeking so long " ;
and although at first he persisted in his denial, yet they
insisted, until he was forced to admit that it was indeed he.
But when they asked him : " Where are your wife and chil
dren ? " he answered sadly : " They are dead," and hearing
this, they wept, and lamented their good mistress with so
loud a cry that all the village came running together to see
what had happened. Then the soldiers told the villagers who
was the man who had served among them, unbeknown, as a
hireling ; and they clad him in a rich robe, and after they
had rewarded the villagers, at his request, for the kindly
manner in which they had treated him during his servitude,
all three set out on the homeward journey to Rome. And
as they travelled, Eustathius told them of all his adventures,
and how he had been bereaved of all that he had loved.
After fifteen days' journey they came to the place where
the Emperor was encamped : and he came out to meet his

THE STORY OF EUSTATHIUS PLACIDUS 13
old general, and kissed him, and asked him the reason of his
long absence and what had happened to him while he was
away ; and Eustathius told him his whole story. The
Emperor made him his commander-in-chief, and showered
upon him every honour that he could give, wishing to comfort
him for his great losses ; but Eustathius could never really be
happy, when he thought upon his wife and children and his
happy family life in former times, and then upon his present
bereavement. Eustathius, in the duties of his new office, made a thorough
inspection of Trajan's army: and comparing it with the
size of the barbarian army, of which he was well informed,
he came to the conclusion that it was not sufficiently strong
to bring the war to a successful end. He informed the
Emperor of this, and he advised him to adopt some form of
universal service, and to enlist recruits throughout the
Empire : and the Emperor listened gladly to his counsel,
and sent letters to every town and village, ordering that all
the young men most fit to serve should be trained as soldiers
and should be enlisted in the army. Now in time these letters
came to the far village where Eustathius' two sons, unknown
to each other and to their father, were growing up, and the
men of the village bore witness concerning them, that they
were the finest and strongest among the youths of the place,
and they would make the best soldiers : so both of them
were enlisted and sent to the Emperor's head-quarters : and
there Eustathius saw them, and although he knew not who
they were, his heart yearned towards them, and seeing by
their carriage and manners that they must be of good birth,

i4 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
he appointed them both to be his personal attendants ; so
they waited upon him and executed all his commands, and
he grew to love them more and more, and finally he ordered
that they should eat with him at his own table.
When the recruits had all been enrolled and the army of
the Roman Empire brought up to great strength, Eustathius
began to move forward against the barabarians : and he was
wholly successful in the war, and invaded their country,
driving the enemy before him ; and at last it happened by
accident, or rather by the good providence of God, that he
came to the town where his wife, all unknown to him, was
living. As I told you, the wicked sea-captain who had
carried her off was dead, and after his death she had gone to
lodge with some people of the town ; and desiring to be
much alone, she had built herself a kind of hut or booth in
the garden, and there she lived, working by day, and dividing
the night between sleep and prayer. Now it chanced that
Eustathius pitched his camp almost at this very house : and
his two young attendants put up a tent in the garden of it,
only a yard or two away from the booth in which their mother
lived, so that when they talked loud she could hear every
word they said, v
One day, their military work being done, they were sitting
in their tent talking : and they began to tell each other all
that they could remember about their early life ; and their
mother was sitting in her booth only a few feet away, listen
ing. And the elder of the two said to the other : " It is little
indeed that I can remember of my childhood : but I know
that my father was a general, and that my mother was a very

THE STORY OF EUSTATHIUS PLACIDUS 15
beautiful woman : there was another child, younger than
myself — a lovely boy, with light hair. I remember us all
leaving our house one dark night, and going on board ship,
and sailing away ; and when we arrived at the end of our
journey, my mother remained aboard, though I never knew
why, and my father took the two of us and led us away on
shore, weeping the while. I remember that he came to a
river and left me on the bank and swam across with my little
brother : and while he was coming back to fetch me, a lion
sprang out and seized me in his mouth, and went off with
me into the desert ; but before he could do me any harm,
some shepherds drove him off and saved me, and they brought
me up among them : but I never knew what happened to my
little brother and to my father."
No sooner had the elder of the* two young men finished
speaking, than the younger leapt up and fell upon his neck
and kissed him crying : " You are my brother, my dear, dear
brother. I too was seized by a wild beast, a wolf, and some
ploughmen saved me from him, and brought me up in the
same village " ; and so they stayed, hugging each other and
weeping for joy, because each had found a brother whom he
had believed to be lost.
Who can imagine what Theopiste thought, while all this
was going on ? She could not help believing that these were
her two sons, when she heard their stories, and yet she could
not believe the evidence of her ears : you cannot be surprised
that her eyes told her nothing, for they were now grown
youths, and she had never seen them since they were quite
babies. But more and more she became certain that they

16 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
were her sons indeed, but she would not do anything rash,
but decided to wait until the next day and to make up her
mind at leisure how to act.
The next day she asked for and obtained an audience with
the General; and she began thus: "Although I have now
lived long among these barbarians, I am not one of them : I
am a woman of Rome, carried off here into captivity. So
now I ask, since the Roman arms are victorious, that I may
be sent off back to my own country." She would have said
more, but her voice failed her : for while she was speaking
she had looked attentively at the General, and she had begun
to recognise in him the look and lineaments of her long-lost
husband. Eustathius was of course surprised at her sudden
silence and at last she could contain herself no more and
broke out : " Tell me, I pray you, tell me true : are you the
general that was once called Placidus, but whose name was
changed to Eustathius after a vision of Christ and holy
baptism ; who set out with wife and children on ship-board ;
whose wife was carried off by the cruel ship's captain to a
barbarous land ? That woman am I : but here I swear to
you that I am now just as when I was parted from you, for
the Shadow of the Most High was about me, and the captain
was never able to make me his wife, and since his death I have
lived all alone in a booth in the garden of this house."
She had hardly begun to speak when Eustathius began to
look closely at her, and by the time that she had finished, he
had recognised her for certain, and had her in his arms. What
a scene of joy when that parted pair met again ! Yet there
was still some sorrow in his heart, for he thought of his two

THE STORY OF EUSTATHIUS PLACIDUS 17
little sons. He told his wife how wild beasts had carried them
off, but she smiled, and said : " Let us give thanks to God ;
for even as He has brought you and me together, so He may
bring back our sons to us." Eustathius again told her how, as
he thought, they had perished ; and then she recounted to
him all that she had heard in her booth in the garden ; and
he sent for the two young men, and bade them tell him all
that they could remember of their early lives ; and no sooner
had they done so than he was sure that they were his sons
indeed, and he gathered them to his arms, and kissed them :
and so was this whole happy family united in one again. And
very soon Eustathius finished the war, and went back to Rome
with his wife and his sons, and great quantities of wealth, both
gold and captives, that he had taken from the barbarians, and
Trajan gave him all his former honours and added even more
unto them, so that he was still more prosperous and happy
than he had been of old. And thus they lived long and well,
and when, after Trajan's death, another Emperor came to
the throne and tried to make them give up the worship of
Christ, they were not afraid after a happy life to bear a good
witness before God and before men, and ended their days
constantly with the glorious and imperishable crown of
martyrdom.

ABBOT GERASIMUS AND THE LION
From the Greek

Abbot Gerasimus and the Lion

IN the Holy Land, about a mile from the river Jordan,
stood a famous monastery ; and the head of it was a
good and saintly man, called Gerasimus. He was one
day walking by the river bank, when he was astonished, and
not a little frightened, to see a lion coming towards him,
roaring : but when the lion had approached nearer, he saw
that he was roaring from pain, and not from anger, and that
he was holding up one paw, as if asking him to look at it, and
to help him if he could. The Abbot plucked up courage to
look more closely at it, and then he saw that a sharp thorn
had gone right through the pad of the paw ; it was bleeding,
and the wound had made the flesh fester, so that it must
clearly be hurting him badly. He took the paw in his hands,
opened up the wound, drew out the thorn, and cleaned the
place of all the festering matter that had collected there ; and
then tying it up carefully with a piece of rag, told the lion to
be off. But the gentle beast, when he found himself cured,
refused to go away, and treated the Abbot as his master : he
followed him wherever he went, and soon the monks, though
at first they had been frightened of so savage a visitor, became
quite used to the new disciple : and what showed more than
anything else his changed nature was that he no longer
wanted his former diet of flesh and bones, but was quite con
tented with the simple food, bread and boiled vegetables,
which Gerasimus gave him*

22 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
Now the brothers of this monastery lived, as all monks
should, a very poor and simple life : and to help them in the
work of the place th'ey had only one beast of burden, a single
donkey. The monastery itself was in rather a barren spot,
and the grass which served for the donkey's food was some
way off: and every evening, after the day's work was
done, they used to take the donkey's harness off and lead it
away to feed. After a time, seeing that the lion was so good
and tame, they did not see why they should not make use of
him, and so they used to send him out in charge of the donkey :
the lion took it out every evening to the grass, waited there
while it ate its fill, and then brought it back safely to the
monastery. But one dreadful day the lion, while the donkey
was feeding, went some distance off: and while he, was gone,
a camel-driver from Arabia passed by, and seeing a handsome
donkey without anybody to look after it, stole it and took it
away with him. The lion looked long and fruitlessly for his
charge, and then was obliged to go home sadly and alone ;
he went to the Abbot and stood there before him, his tail
between his legs, and his face cast doWn to the ground, a
picture of misery. Gerasimus not unnaturally thought that
the lion had gone back to his old habits and had killed the
donkey, and asked him sternly, " Where is the donkey ? " Of
course the lion could not tell him, not being a man, but stood
there with eyes fixed on the grqund, and remained silent. " I
believe you have eaten it," the Abbot went on. " Very well,
now you will have to do all the work that the donkey used to
do before." So the donkey's harness was put on the lion, and
every day he went down to the river with a kind of frame on

ABBOT GERASIMUS AND THE LION 23
his back, on which were four large jars, and he had to bring
them back to the monastery full of water for the use of the
monks ; and this he did regularly until one day a soldier, who
had come to get Abbot Gerasimus' blessing, took pity at the
sight of so noble a beast engaged in such menial toil, and
gave the monastery enough money to buy another ass to do
the work.
Not so very long after this had happened, the camel-
driver who had gone to Jerusalem in order to sell his dates,
came back again on his homeward journey: and soon after
he had crossed the river, he met the lion, which frightened
him so greatly that he left all his camels and the rest of his
train, and ran away. The lion at once recognised his old
donkey, and ran up to him, and bega'n to lick, him for pleasure ;
and then he took hold of the bridle between his teeth, and led
him, together with the three richly laden camels the driver
had left, to the Abbot, and by his roaring and frisking, and
wagging his tail, showed the old man how pleased he was to
have found the stolen property, and thus to be cleared of the
charge of having eaten the donkey that belonged to his
masters. I need hardly tell you that he was taken back into
full favour by the Abbot, who was sorry for having misjudged
him, and that after that time he lived an honourable life with
the monks, helping them in their toil and edifying all by the
gentleness and docility of his behaviour.
So five years passed, five happy years, and then it happened
that in God's good providence Gerasimus fell suddenly sick,
and after only a few hours' illness was called to the glory of
his Lord : and all this happened at a moment when it so

?4 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
chanced that the lion was away from the monastery for a short
time, When he came back, he went round looking for his old
master ; and he met Father Sabbatius, who had been Gerasi
mus' disciple, who said to him, " Dear lion, our father has
left us orphans, and has departed to the Lord : cheer up as
best you may, and take something to eat." But the lion went
on searching every nook and corner for Gerasimus : and at
last, as Sabbatius and the other monks could not make him
understand what had happened, they led him out to the old
man's grave, which was a few paces outside the monastery in
the churchyard, and they pointed to the mound, and then
showed by their grief and tears that the mortal remains of
their dear father were beneath it. At last the lion under
stood, and with a great roar dropped on the grave, beating
his head on the ground ; and there he stayed, refusing to
take food or drink, until at the end of three days he died,
right over his master's body. May God grant that we may
show ourselves as faithful to our heavenly Master, as did this
poor, dumb, soulless beast to the man who had been kind to
him upon earth ! Amen.

THE STORY OF THE FAITHFUL LAWYER
From the Latin

The Story of the Faithful Lawyer

MANY years ago, when the good Emperor Maurice
ruled over Constantinople, there lived in that city a
good and pious young lawyer : and one day when
he was sitting in his office, in came a man richly dressed and
of grave mien, who seemed by his appearance to be a merchant
or banker, and asked the lawyer if he would act for him in an
important piece of business. The lawyer said that he would
be glad to do so, and the stranger told him to be ready that
evening to take a journey with him to the place where the
business was to be carried out.
Now this stranger was a wicked magician, and he really
wanted the lawyer to become his assistant and help him in
his black arts ; and he hoped to gain his services in the way
that you will see.
The lawyer prepared himself for a journey, and met the
stranger, as he had arranged, at one of the gates of the city :
there they found a couple of fine horses waiting for them,
which they mounted, and they trotted out through flat, open
country until about midnight, when they found themselves
on the outskirts of a large city.
In they rode until they came to the gate of a magnificent
palace, where they tied up their horses and knocked at the
door, which was opened to them at once by black servants ;
and as they passed through the long corridors and waiting-
rooms the lawyet.noticed that eyerybody in the palace was as
27

28 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
, black as coal ; and all that met the stranger seemed to know
him well and to salute him with great respect and deference.
At last they came to a great hall, bigger than any room
you ever saw in your life. Hundreds of golden lamps hung
from the ceiling, and thousands of candlesticks stood all about
on the ground and on the tables, all with lighted candles in
them : and at the far end of the hall was a very high golden
throne studded with all kinds of precious stones, on which
sat a black man — but the very ugliest, foulest black man you
could possibly imagine. Lower down, on each side of the
throne, were smaller stools, on which other blacks were
sitting. When the black man on the throne saw the stranger, he
seemed greatly pleased, and made him welcome. " How do
things go with you ? " he said. " Are you satisfied and find
that you can do everything you want ? " " Yes, Sire," said
the stranger. " And for that reason I have come to pay my
respects, and bow down before you, and worship you : and to
thank you for all the great benefits I have received from you."
" Good," said the black man. " And in the future you shall
receive from me even handsomer gifts and greater power.
Come and sit down near me here."
Now the lawyer, much frightened at all he saw and at the
black king and courtiers, had been standing behind the
stranger: and when the stranger moved away to take the
seat of honour which was offered him, the black king saw him,
and turned to the stranger, asking : " Who is this that has
come with you, my good friend ? " " He is your servant,
Sire," answered the stranger. So the black man turned to

THE STORY OF THE FAITHFUL LAWYER 29
the lawyer, and asked him : " Is that right, young sir ? Are
you my servant ? "
But the lawyer gave him a very different answer from that
which the black man expected, for he signed himself with the
life-giving sign of the Cross, saying : "lam the servant of the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost." No sooner had
the words left his lips than there was a terrific crash, as of
thunder : the black man fell from his throne, and then the
throne itself disappeared ; the lights went out, and all the black
courtiers vanished howling. The walls began to totter and
crack : the earth rocked and then opened, swallowing down
not only the hall and the palace, but the whole city : the
stranger who had brought him thither was also no more to
be seen, and at last the lawyer was left standing alone in
a great waste without sound of human voice, and with
nothing near him except the two horses standing at the place
where they had been tied up. • So you may guess that he did
not waste any time looking for his companion, but jumped up
on horseback and galloped back towards Constantinople,
where he arrived just before daybreak. For some time he
felt the effects of his frightening adventure, and he stayed
much at home, giving thanks to God for his deliverance from
his great danger, and going constantly to church and re
doubling his ardour in the performance of his religious duties.
Now some time after all this had- happened, the lawyer was
employed by a rich and pious nobleman as his agent : he
managed for him his many and splendid charities, and they
would often go together to relieve the necessities of the poof
and to perform other good works.

30 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
One day, towards evening, tired with a long walk they had
taken on an errand of mercy into the poor part of the town,
they turned into the churchyard of St. Sophia, the great
cathedral of Constantinople, and went up to the fountain on
the east side of the church. This was enclosed under a roof,
for it was much used by the faithfiil for washing before they
entered the cathedral, and there was a famous picture
of the Saviour there, renowned for many miracles that had
been performed by it : it was even said that one day a wicked
Jew, angry at the grace and edification which it had afforded
to so many Christians, had plunged a sword into its side, and
that blood had flowed out — indeed, traces of it might still be
seen on the picture.
So thither they came, the lawyer and the nobleman, and
before they sat down to rest, they both stood in prayer before
the picture, each of them praying for God's favour and mercy.
And then the nobleman saw a very strange thing, which at
first frightened him greatly ; the eyes of the picture seemed
to be looking straight at the lawyer. First of all, he thought
it might be only an illusion due to the failing light, so on some
excuse he asked the lawyer to move over to another part of
the room : but the same thing happened, and'still the .Saviour's
eyes seemed to be fixed steadfastly on his companion.
Then the nobleman was greatly afraid, thinking that some
gin he had committed was causing the Saviour's tender gaze
to be turned" away from himself ; and he fell upon his f acej
weeping and crying but : " O my Lord; and,; Saviour, Thou
alone knoWest how I have done wrong ; yet, I beseech Thee,
turn not Thy face away from my sins, but have mercy upon

THE STORY OF THE FAITHFUL LAWYER 31
me and look upon me once more. ' I know too well that I am
a sinner, and wretched and defiled above all other men ;
but Thy mercies are infinite, and I have no other God but
Thee, my Saviour, who didst die for us sinful men, and
desirest not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should
turn from his wickedness and be saved."
After many prayers and cryings of this sort the nbbleriian
rose up from the ground, and began to wipe away the tears
from his streaming cheeks and from his eyes : and when he
dared once more to look upon the picture, to see if his prayers
had been heard, he saw that its gaze was still fixed on the
lawyer, and that on the face in the picture was a mild and
cheerful expression, and it seemed to smile on the lawyer.
And then he heard a grave, gentle voice that seemed to come
from the picture, and it said :
" Nobleman, thy charities shall be repaid thee an hundred
fold. Of all the riches that I have given thee thou hast
given freely to the poor, clothed the naked, fed the hungry,
visited the sick, taken in the orphans and widows, helped the
prisoners and poor debtors, given rich offerings to My churches:
and thou shalt be rewarded as is meet for all thy good works.
But to this lawyer / am in debt — I owe him thanks. How
can that be, thou wilt ask ? In a time of great danger,
affliction, and fear, he did not deny Me, but confessed that I
was the Son of God — God of a Virgin born ; wherefore I will
confess him before My Father that is in heaven, and make
him a reward meet for the confession of Me which he con
fessed." Just think how great and wonderful a thing was this : that

32 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
the great God and ruler of all should say to a man, His poor
slave and servant, that He was in debt to him, and owed him
thanks, and would repay him a meet reward !
When these two good and pious men understood the
purport of the divine voice, they were filled with great fear
and joy : they fell on their faces, lifting up their hearts in
thankfulness for the great reward in heaven which had been
foretold to them. Then they returned home ; and from
that day onward they persevered more abundantly yet in
watchings, and prayers, and fastings, and attended more
diligently than ever at public worship and in good deeds of
charity : and so at last they attained to a ripe old age in the
favour of God, until at last on the selfsame day they both
departed to their eternal rest.

THE STORY OF SAINT MENAS AND THE
EGG
From the Nubian

The Story of Saint Menas and the Egg

LONG, long ago, when Egypt was a Christian country,
there were still a few people who had not been con
verted, but remained heathens and believed in their
own false gods. One of these was a woman who lived near
the great city of Alexandria : she had every thing in the world,
except one, to make her happy ; a good husband, no lack of
money, fine health, a well-stocked farm, plenty of servants,
women and men too : but that one thing spoilt everything
for her ; and it was that she had no child. What was more,
everything to do with her seemed to suffer from the same
complaint : the maidservants who were married to the men-
servants had no children, the cows no calves, the sheep no
lambs, the goats no kids, the cats no kittens ; even the fowls
would not lay any eggs.
Now the woman was a good woman as far as her heathen
faith would let her be : and from her house, which was not
far from the river, she used to see the people going up to
worship and praise in the great church of St. Menas, which
was in the desert on the other side of the river. She had heard
of St. Menas, who years before had died for his religion in
Egypt, though he was born a Greek, and she had heard of the
many miracles that God had done at his shrine ; and although
she was not a Christian, she could not help half believing in
some of the stories about him and his power which her
neighbours had told her ; and one day, when she was thinking
35

36 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
about her great grief, and how nothing about her house would
increase and multiply, she said : " If only one of my hens
would lay, I promise that I will send the -first egg over to
St. Menas' church."
Well, so it came about : to her great joy one of her fowls
laid an egg ; so she took a maid with her and went down to
the river to go across and leave the egg for the Saint at his
shrine. She was just getting into the boat when she began to
talk to the ferryman. " Good day," said he. " Good day,"
said she. " Where can I take you to ? " he said. " Up the
river and across," she answered, " to the landing-place for
St. Menas' church." "But why should you want to go there?"
said the ferryman ; " you are not a Christian." So she told
him all about the egg which her fowl had laid, and how she
was going to take it to the church : and she hoped that if she
offered up this egg at the Saint's shrine, perhaps some of her
other animals might have children, and then perhaps her
servants, and last of all perhaps herself ; and if that should
happen, she would surely become a Christian too. " But
don't you trouble to go across yourself," said the ferryman.
" It is a long journey, and you don't look strong, and' your
husband will be wondering what you are about. Give me the
egg ; I am going across very soon, and I will take it to the church
for you, and put it in the shrine." So she gave him the egg,
and went home : and he took it down and put it in a safe
place in the hold of the boat where it would not get broken —
and then I am sorry to say he forgot all about it.
Three or four days afterwards the ferryman was sailing
his boat in mid-stream, and went down into the hold to fetch

SAINT MENAS AND THE EGG 37
a rope, and there he came across the egg. " What is this egg
doing here ? " he said to his son, who was on board with him.
" Don't you remember, father ? " said the boy. " That is
the egg you said you would take to St. Menas' church for the
woman who lives the other side of the river." But the ferry
man was hungry ; it was long since he had had his breakfast,
and the sight of the pretty little white egg was too much for
him ; and instead of performing his trust he told his son to
cook it for him : and he ate it, and very good he found it ;
and he thought no more of the poor woman and the promise
he had made to her.
Now about three months later the ferryman, after plying
his trade up and down the river, came back to his own village :
and when it was Sunday, he went to the church — it was St.
Mary's church, the dear Virgin's church, in his village — and
he meant to take the Holy Sacrament during the service. But
just after the priest and the choir had sung the great hymn,
" Holy, Holy, Holy," the ferryman saw a dreadful sight : in
front of him, charging straight at him, came St. Menas, in full
armour, mounted on a white horse ; and he held a spear of
flame, which he pointed full at the ferryman's breast. The
poor man remembered all of a sudden the wrong he had done,
and rushed to the picture of St. Mary on the screen of the
church in front of the chancel, crying : " Save me, save me,
dear Mother of God : I have done very wrong, I have sinned
greatly." But St. Menas came nearer and nearer, and soon
he stood above the ferryman's head, and frowned and looked
sternly upon him, saying : " What shall I do to you ? If it
were not for my Mistress, the dear Mother of God, I would

38 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
be the end of you altogether." And as he stretched out his
hand above the ferryman's head, the egg inside him seemed to
begin to swell and move ; he felt a rending, tearing feeling ;
he seemed to be split open in agony, and out of him came a
live fowl, about as big as a chicken of three months would be ;
and it jumped to the ground, and stood up, and crowed as
loud as ever it could, " Cock-a-doodle-doo."
Then St. Menas, still on his white horse, stooped down and
picked up the fowl, and rode off out of the church, while all
the people there stood amazed or sang his praises ; and he
rode on and on, down and over the wide river, until he came
to the woman's door, and there he called out her name ; and
when she came running out, he handed her the fowl, and said :
" Woman, take this fowl and let it run about with the others
in your farmyard : and then your cattle too will have little
ones, and your maidservants, and last of all you too ; and
when that happens see that you have your child baptized and
. call him Menas after me, and be baptized yourself at the same
time." When he had said this he disappeared in a flash of glory :
and the woman took the fowl and put it in her farmyard. The
very next day all her hens began to lay eggs ; and soon her
cats' had kittens, her goats had kids, her sheep had lambs, and
her cows had calves ; and then her maidservants began to
have bonny children, and last of all she herself had a baby
boy. So she went, she and her husband,, and took him to
St. Menas' church: and there the priest baptized him, calling
him Menas after the Saint, and baptized her and her husband
as well : and ever after that they lived in all happiness,

SAINT MENAS AND THE EGG 39
going often to service at the church and taking their little
son with them, and making many rich presents at the Saint's
shrine ; and the. story became known through all the country
round about, and all the people praised St. Menas and hon
oured him, because he had been found worthy that God
should do such great miracles through him : and as for the
ferryman, because he had flown to the protection of our Lady,
the glorious Virgin, he recovered again ; but he was long ill
and weak from the wound where the fowl had burst out, and
never again was he forgetful or broke a promise or failed to
fulfil a charge entrusted to him.

THE REWARD OF CHARITY
From the Latin

The Reward of Charity

JUST outside the city of Nisibis there once lived a poor
man and his wife ; she was a Christian — he, though a
good man, still a heathen ; and all the money they had
was a little stock of fifty crowns.
One day the man said to his wife : " Let us spend all our
fifty crowns at once, and just for this one time enjoy our
selves — eat, drink, and be merry. It is of no use spending
them one by one, getting no real enjoyment from them, and
being only paupers still at the end." " Very good," said his
wife : " but a better plan is to invest them and get a good
return : invest them with the God of the Christians."
" Where is He ? " answered her husband. " If you will show
Him to me, I will invest them with Him as you suggest."
" I will show Him to you," answered the wife. " And I am
willing to assure you that if" you invest them with Him, not
only will you not lose them, but He will give you good
interest and double your capital." " Good," said the man.
" Let us go and find Him."
Now in the city of Nisibis was a great church with fine
doors, and thither the woman took her husband : and out
side the greatest door was a kind of gallery covered in, where
many beggars sat : she pointed them out to him, and said :
" If you give the money to these beggars, it is investing it with
the God of the Christians." So he distributed among them
the whole fifty crowns, and home again they went rejoicing.
43

44 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
Now when three months had passed, the man and his wife
were reduced to the utmost straits of poverty ; they had
nothing to eat, and no money at all left with which to buy
food. So the man said to his wife : " Will not the God of
the Christians let us have some of that money which we
invested with Him, or we must needs die ? " " Yes," said
she. " Go to the place where you paid it in, and I am sure
that you will receive it promptly." So he went back to the
church and looked all round it most carefully, hoping to
find somebody who would render him his account and pay
him his money : but he could see nobody except the beggars,
who were still begging, and he was very sorrowful and anxious,
and thought that his journey to the church was going to be
without result.
Just as he was taking a last look round before starting for
home, he saw lying at his feet on the ground one of the
crowns which he had given to the beggars when he was there
before: so he picked it up and went home. When he had
arrived there, he shewed it to his wife, and said to her : " I
went to your church, and I could not see the God of the
Christians anywhere, and I could not find anybody to render
me my account : all I found was this crown, lying just at
the place where I gave away the fifty crowns before." " This
is clearly the handiwork of my God," said the woman. " He
is invisible and works invisibly, and this is His gift to you.
You had better go and buy with it something for us to eat,
and He will give us more presently on some other occasion."
The man went to the shop, and there he spent his crown
on some bread, some wine, and a fish: the fish he handed.

THE REWARD OF CHARITY 45
over to his wife to cook. She began in the usual way to cut
it open so as to clean it before putting it into the pan, and there
in the middle of its body she found a precious stone, so lovely
that she was quite dazzled with its beauty ; and when they
sat down to have their dinner, she told him what she had
found, and he too was delighted at the pretty thing. Neither
of them knew its value, for they were but simple people ; but
he said to her : " Give me the stone when I go out this after
noon ; I may find somebody who would care to buy it."
So when he next went out that afternoon, he took the stone
with him and went to the shop of an old man who was a
jeweller and a money-changer, and showed him the stone.
" What would you care to give me for this pretty stone ? "
said he.
" How much do you want ? " said the jeweller.
" Oh, you can give me what you like," said the man.
" I'll give you five crowns," said the jeweller.
" What, all that ? " said the man, who was really astonished
at the idea of getting so much for something that he thought
was no more valuable than a piece of glass, and feared that
the jeweller was only joking ; but the jeweller thought that
he was speaking sarcastically, and offered him ten. The man
still thought he was joking, and said nothing : so the jeweller
offered him twenty ; again he returned no answer, and the
jeweller went up to thirty, and forty, and fifty crowns : and
while he was swearing and vowing to him that he would really
pay the money, the man came to his senses, and argued with
himself that no jeweller would offer fifty crowns for a stone
unless it was really valuable ; and he went on putting up the

46 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
price and by bargaining they finally arrived at an agreement
that the jeweller should give him three hundred crowns for
it ; and these he took and went home to his wife with great
joy- " Well, husband," said she, seeing him thus rejoicing,
" for how much were you able to sell the stone ? " She hoped
that he had perhaps been able to get ten or twenty pence for
it : and you may imagine her amazement and delight when he
pulled out the three hundred crowns and said : " Look, this
is what I got for it." Then she greatly wondered at the good
ness of God, and said to her husband : " You see then,
husband, how good and generous is the God of the Christians.
Not only has He given you back with interest the fifty crowns
which you lent to Him, but in this short time He has in
creased your capital sixfold ; by this you may know that
there is no other God in heaven or in earth save Him alone."
For a short time he was silent after hearing these words of
his wife ; but then, when he thought again of this great
miracle that had been done for him, he could not but acknow
ledge the truth, and he pronounced that he was converted
and would become a Christian ; and all his neighbours came
to his house, greatly rejoicing at the good news of the worthy
couple's fortune and of the husband's turning to the true
faith; and he was baptized as soon as might be, and lived
with his wife a happy, good, and Christian life until extreme
old age came to them both. God do the same for us ! Amen.

THE STORY OF DOROTHEOS AND
THEOPISTE
From the Coptic

EL —

h"

o

vt» (r

i >*

<D v^

The Story of Dorotheos and Theopiste

IN a certain city of Egypt there lived a man named
Dorotheos, and his wife was called Theopiste. They
had all that could make life happy and pleasant — they
were young and rich, for their parents had left them much
wealth both in money and possessions : nay, they were as
good as they were happy ; they were accustomed to give
freely of their substance to the poor, and they had a great
devotion to the Archangel Michael, in whose name they made
all their largesse. In Egypt this great Archangel is com
memorated on the twelfth day of each month : and on each
eleventh day they made great preparations, sending rich gifts
to St. Michael's Church, and busying themselves with killing
and dressing sheep to make dinners for the poor ; and on the
twelfth day they would receive the life-giving mysteries of
the Sacrament, and then they would gather together the poor,
the blind, the deaf, the lame, orphans and widows, and any
strangers that were in the town, and would set before them a
banquet, and would wait upon them with their own hands.
And their good fame for this their charity went abroad through
the whole length of the land of Egypt.
Now after they had continued to do this for a long season,
the children of men, and especially the people of Egypt,
sinned grievously against the Lord : and He commanded
the heavens to pour no rain upon the earth for three years :
and the waters of the Nile did not rise, to bring fertility upon
E 49

50 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
the country : and -both men and cattle began to fail and
perish. Dorotheos and Theopiste did not cease from their
alms and charity, although they too suffered grievously from
the drought ; their cattle died, and at last they, who had
owned flocks on every hill, found themselves the masters but
of one single sheep. The eleventh day of the month Paopi
came round, and Dorotheos said to his wife: " To-morrow,
as you well know, is the festival of St. Michael. Let us send
what gifts we can to the church, and take the sheep and kill
it and dress it, so that we may make ready for the festival."
Theopiste was full of joy at his words, and answered : " I too
have had this in my mind ever since yesterday, but I dared
not speak to you of it, for I know the straits to which you
are reduced. But how glad I am that you are going to do
according to your custom, and that you have not forgotten
the gift of God ! " So the next day they did as they were
used, and they had nothing at all left except a little oil and a
little wine, and no good clothes except those in which they
were wont to go to receive the Sacrament. And when they
were at the church they prayed God- to help their stricken
land, and they asked St. Michael to, implore God to shew
mercy upon them and all the people of Egypt : and they
continued instantly in prayer for the whole of the coming
month. When they had come to the eleventh day of the next
month, Hathor, they were in still greater anxiety and trouble,
for the next day was St. Michael's greatest festival in the year,
and they knew not how to celebrate it. " What have we left,
my sister, in the Lord ? " said Dorotheos. " Perchance it

DOROTHEOS AND THEOPISTE 51
may suffice for our need." " Little enough," she returned ;
" we have a little bread which we can set before the brethren,
and a little oil, but neither wheat nor flour." " Well," said
Dorotheos, " each of us has our festal apparel : I will sell
mine first, to buy flour ; and to-morrow I will sell yours to buy
a sheep withal, that we may feed the poor according to our
wont." Dorotheos performed the first part of what he had pur
posed, and bought the corn, and when it was early the next
morning his wife offered him her garment and told him to go
to buy the sheep. But he answered : " If I take your gar
ments, how can you go with me to the church to receive the
Blessing of the Eucharist ? I, a man, can go where I like in
any poor rags, but a woman must not go unveiled before the
congregation." At this she wept bitterly, thinking that she
was like to be deprived of the Holy Things : but Dorotheos
comforted her, saying : " Give me the garment and let me
try what I can do. Perhaps God will send us a sheep to make
ready for the brethren." Now he hoped that he might be
able to use the garment as a pledge, and get the sheep, and
that his wife might be allowed to keep the garment until after
the service. And while he was away Theopiste busied herself
with getting ready the table for the poor, making bread from
the corn which her husband had bought, and with the little
oil which remained to them.
Dorotheos went out and presently met a shepherd. " I
want to buy a sheep," said he. " How much will you give ? "
said the shepherd. " One-third of a gold piece," said Doro
theos. " Very good," said the shepherd. " Give me the money,

52 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
and you shall have the sheep." Dorotheos handed him his
wife's robe. " Will you take this as a pledge ? " he said.
" Keep it for three days, and if by the end of that time I have
not brought you the money, you may keep it." " What is the
good of a silken garment to me ? " said the shepherd. " No
body in my house wears anything but wool." And he turned
away, leaving Dorotheos ashamed and weeping.
Now as he went mournfully home, he saw a great man
coming riding upon a white horse, attended by a large
retinue : he looked like one of the royal governors, and he
was really the Archangel Michael, though of course Doro
theos did not know him in his disguise : and they met near
the door of Dorotheos' house. The governor drew bridle
and saluted him-. " Hail, Dorotheos," said he. " Good and
peaceful man, where are you going, and why do you carry a
woman's robe in your hands ? " Dorotheos did not at first
answer his question, but returned him a compliment. " Is
not Theopiste alive ? " enquired the governor. " Yes, to do
you service," answered Dorotheos : and at last he was com
pelled to admit what he had been, about — how he had tried
to buy a sheep with the robe, but had failed.
" Look you," said the governor, " if I undertake to get you
a sheep, will you receive me and my retinue in your house to
day ? " " Yes," said Dorotheos, " and I shall be greatly
honoured by your coming." So the governor called to one
of his attendant angels (they were with him in the form of
soldiers), and bade him go again with Dorotheos to the shep
herd, and say : " The governor who lately passed by you in
the street wants a sheep worth one-third of a gold piece, and

DOROTHEOS AND THEOPISTE 53
undertakes to send you the money before midday." And they
went together and brought the sheep. " Now," said the
governor, " you have the sheep for the entertainment of my
people : for myself, I should like a fish. Do you think you can
get me one ? " " Yes," said Dorotheos : " I will pledge this
garment and get it." But the governor called to another of the
seeming soldiers, and bade him go with Dorotheos to the
market and there buy a fine large fish of the value of one-third
of a gold piece, again pledging that the money should be sent
by noon. " Is that all ? " said the governor. " Have you now
everything you want ? " " Yes," said Dorotheos. " Very
well," said the governor. " Then let us enter your house."
So they took up everything and went in : but all the time
Dorotheos was thinking within himself : " Where shall I get
the money to pay for the sheep and the fish ? And I shall
want more — fine bread for the governor to eat, wine for the
governor to drink, soft cushions for the governor to lie on: "
and he was very unhappy ; and he prayed in his heart : " Holy
Archangel Michael, help me this day : thou knowest that I
am thy servant and that I have done all for thee and for the
Lord Christ : so help me." St. Michael of course in the
guise of the governor, knew what was passing in his heart,
but he said nothing to him for the time.
When they had arrived at the house of Dorotheos, Michael
knocked at the door, and Theopiste came out. " Peace be
with you," said Michael. " How do you in these hard days ? "
" Peace to you, O governor," said Theopiste. " It is God
and His Holy Archangel Michael who have brought you to us
to-day. Come in and refresh yourself with such little enter-

54 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
tainment as we can provide for you." So they all came in,
and then she saw the sheep and the fish, and asked her husband
how he had come by them, seeing that he had not parted with
her garment ; and he explained, how the governor had
pledged himself for them, whereat she was overjoyed, and
praised the Almighty and the Archangel for the help they
had given. And the governor said: " Now it is time for me
to make ready to go to the church, for to-day is the day of
the Archangel Michael, and I would fain be present at the
Offering : do you, while I am away, kill the sheep ; but let
nobody touch the fish until I come back." And so he departed.
But the anxieties of Dorotheos were not yet at an end.
" Where shall I get fine bread," he said to his wife, " for the
governor's use, and cushions for him to sit upon ? " " God
has not forsaken us so far," said Theopiste, " and doubtless He
will provide. Meanwhile let us go to the cellar, and see if the
little wine we have .left is fit for the governor to drink." So
Dorotheos went to the cellar, in which there had been left
only one jar with a little wine in it : but when he opened the
door he found it was filled with jars, and kegs, and casks to
the very brim. He went back to his wife and asked if anybody
had brought in wine during the night. " No," she replied.
" Indeed, when I went yesterday to get a little wine to send
to the church for the Offering, there was but a very small
amount left at the bottom of a single jar." Then they went
to the place where they had left their oil, and there they found
seven jars filled with fine oil to the top : and in the larder
they found everything that they could want for the house —
butter and cheese, and honey, and vinegar, and bread, and

DOROTHEOS AND THEOPISTE 55
all kinds of household stuff ; and when they went to their
bedchamber, they found a chest filled with all manner of
raiment, and it was better and finer than that which they
had worn before, even on the day of their wedding. Then
they knew that a great act of grace had been done for them,
and they glorified God, the God of Michael : and Dorotheos
said : " God hath provided all things ; now that we have
made all ready, and that we have this fitting attire, let
us go forth, for the hour of the Offering is come." So they
went to the church, and long and earnestly they gave thanks unto
God before the great picture of the holy Archangel Michael ;
and they received the Mysteries and left the church, and they
did not forget to invite the poor to go home with them to
share in their new-found abundance. And Dorotheos and
Theopiste themselves waited upon the poor brethren, and all
were happy and joyful together.
Now while all were feasting, the governor, that was really
Michael, came with his soldiers and knocked at the door, and
entered. And he pretended to be greatly astonished when he
saw the place full of men and women. " What is this ? " he
asked. " This were well enough in times of abundance, but
can ye now so behave ? Have ye not bethought yourselves
that these are times of affliction ? " " Forgive us, my lord,"
answered the good pair. " There is no stranger among all
whom you see here — all are kinsmen of ours in God, and it is
to render thanks unto God and unto his Archangel Michael
that we give to-day this entertainment."
So the governor went and sat down in his place ; and he
said to Dorotheos : " Bring me the fish " : and they brought

56 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
it, and he said : " Cut open his belly " : and they did so.
And he said: "Take out his maw" : and they did, and it
was very large. " What is this, my lord ? " said DorotheOs.
" Open it," said the governor : and he did so, and in it he
found a bundle sealed with seals. And he was greatly sur
prised : and the governor said : " Big fish like this swallow
everything that they meet in the water. But open the packet
and see what is inside." But Dorotheos would not break the
seals, so the governor did so himself, and inside was fine, new-
minted money to the value of three hundred gold pieces : there
were two hundred and ninety- nine whole gold pieces and three
smaller pieces to the value of one-third of a gold piece each.
And Dorotheos and Theopiste and all the people were amazed.
" Come hither, my beloved people," said the governor,
" and let me speak with you. You are people of charity and
generous, and God has sent you this money under His own
seal. Take first these three smaller pieces, and give one to the
shepherd, and one to the man who sold the fish, and one to
the man from whom you yesterday bought the corn ; and all
the rest are for you yourselves." " Not so," said Dorotheos
and Theopiste : "we cannot take this money from you : all
men are bound to entertain the servants of the king, and we
have given you nothing except a little food. If you will, we
will take the' three small pieces to pay for the sheep and the
fish, and to redeem the garment we left yesterday in pledge
for the corn : but the rest we cannot take." " Yes," said the
governor, " it is money owed to you with its interest, and you
must take it." " Now you are mocking us," said the good
pair. " Never did we see your face before to-day, so how

DOROTHEOS AND THEOPISTE 57
can we ever have lent anything to you ? " "I will tell you,"
said the governor. " I came first into your house soon after
your parents died, leaving you much happiness and money :
and since then I have come into your house once every month,
and you have always sent me great and rich gifts, of which
those three hundred gold pieces are but the beginning of
repayment." " My lord," they answered, " we beseech you
to tell us who you are and what is your name." And this is
hOw the seeming governor answered:
" Well, I will tell you my name and who I am. I am
Michael, the governor of the dwellers in heaven and of the
peoples of the earth. I am Michael, general of the heavenly
host. I am Michael, ruler of the worlds of light. I am
Michael, that put to flight all enemies before the face of the
king. I am Michael, the channel of the mercies of God. I
am Michael, the steward of the kingdom of heaven. I am
Michael, that bring in the gifts of men unto God my king.
I am Michael, that walk with men whose hope is in the Lord.
I am Michael the Archangel, who minister unto all upright
people. I have ministered to you from your youth up to
this day, and I will never cease to minister to you until I have
brought you to Christ, my eternal King. Inasmuch as ye
have ministered unto my God and unto me with all your
power, never will I forget nor put away your offerings and
charities which ye did unto God in my name. Did I not
stand in the midst of you yesterday when you spoke to one
another about your accustomed gifts for the festival ? Did
I not hear you say, weeping, ' Now may God take us away
altogether from this world, since the hope of our accustomed

58 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
charity is gone from us ? ' Did I not see you when you
brought forth your garments, those fair garments in which
ye were wont to receive the Offering, in ord'er that ye might
sell them and have to give to the poor in my name ? All those
times was I present with you, and always will I be with you,
and I will not forget your gifts, but will present them before
my God and King: and your offerings will be acceptable
unto Him like the offerings of righteous Abel, and Noah, and
Abraham, because ye gave them in uprightness. Blessed are
ye, and as are your names, so shall your blessing be, for
Dorotheos, being interpreted, is ' The Gift of God,' and
Theopiste, being interpreted, is ' Belief in God.' "
When he had thus spoken, he handed over all the money to
them, and blessed them, leaving with them the Peace of God:
and then he became the Archangel indeed, very beautiful
and very bright, and all his soldiers became attendant angels,
and they went straight away up to heaven, leaving the com
pany of mortals full of fear and joy.
And Dorotheos and Theopiste did as the holy Archangel
had commanded them : they finished the festival with joy,
and ate and drank, and glorified God: and soon after the
drought ceased, and they became rich and prosperous once
more, all from the money which Michael had left to them :
and they never ceased from their observing of the festivals
of Michael, and their charities to the poor in his name, and
from the service of God, until they ended their life in a happy
old age, and then they saw their benefactor before the
Throne in heaven. May God give us all power to act like
them, and may Michael help us so to do ! Amen.

THE LITTLE PRIESTS
From the Latin

The Little Priests

ON the farther side of Syria there was an ancient
Christian city called Gonagon : and the people
who lived there were farmers and herdsmen, who
earned their livelihood by pasturing beasts, making butter
and cheese of the milk of their cows, goats, and sheep, and
selling them in the neighbouring cities.
There were once some boys looking after herds on a hill
about a mile from the town ; and as the care of such animals
does not take up the vihole day, they would often invent
games and little plays for themselves to pass the time. You
shall hear what happened to the game which they played one
fine day.
They had acted all sorts of parts, when one of them said :
" Let us play at offering the Eucharist, as they do in church " :
so they chose one of their number to be the Priest and two
more to be Deapons ; and they found a great flat stone, in
shape not unlike an Altar, and put a little piece of their bread
on it, and a little of the wine from their drinking-bottles in a
shallow earthenware cup. Then the little Priest stood before
the Altar, and the two little Deacons a step or two behind,
one on each side of him, just as they had seen done in church:
and because they were good boys, and had always listened
carefully to the service every Sunday, and some of them had
even sung in the choir and helped as acolytes in the sacred
ministry' of the Altar, they were able to remember most of the
61

62 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
service and of the prayers, and the Eucharist went on very
much as it did in church.
Now just before the little Priest was about to break the
bread, before the Divine words were said over the bread and
wine, there was suddenly a terrific clap of thunder, from the
cloudless sky ; and a flash of fire came down from heaven and
utterly consumed all that was on the Altar — nay, it even
destroyed the very Altar itself: and in fear and terror
all the boys fell flat on their faces on the ground ; they
could speak no word, and lay there as still and as silent as
the dead.
Towards evening their parents began to grow anxious about
them, because they had not come back to the city at the usual
hour when they were expected : and they at last went out to
look for them ; and there they found them on the hillside,
all stretched out and motionless as if they were dead. And
when they saw them they wept and lamented, thinking that
their dear children had perished : but as they saw no sign of
violence upon them, they picked them up, and each father
carried his own son back to his house, and did his best to tend
him and bring him back to life.
All the rest of that day and all the night they still remained
motionless : but when the next day dawned they began to
awake a little, and presently they recovered more and more ;
and then they told their parents exactly what had happened —
how they had held the service, and how the fire had come down
from heaven and consumed the bread and wine and struck
them all to the ground : and when they were better still, they
took their parents out to the place where the great Altar stone

THE LITTLE PRIESTS 63
had been, and showed them that it was gone, and the mark on
the ground that the flash had left.
Now the ruler over the city of Gonagon was a great and
holy Bishop, and soon people went to him and told him the
whole story : and first he went out with his clergy to the hill
side to see the place where the wonder had occurred, and then
he sent for the boys and bade them tell him the whole matter
from beginning to end ; and they did so frankly and freely in
their simple language, and he saw that they were telling him
the truth : and inspired by the Divine wisdom, he placed
them all in a monastery that was near : and meanwhile he
built a great church on the hillside, with its Altar exactly over
the spot where the destroyed Altar stone had been : and when
the boys had grown old enough he cut their hair and gave
them the clergy's habit, and made them monks and priests :
and so they served God all the days of their life, some in the
ancient city of Gonagon, and some going out into the world
to convert the heathen to the knowledge of Christ ; to whose
Kingdom may we all, like them, come in the end ! Amen.

TAKLA HAYMANOT AND THE TREE
DEVIL
From the Ethiopic

Takla Haymanot and the Tree Devil

IN Ethiopia, the country that people now call Abyssinia,
there was an ancient family only less famous than that
of the king, and from it sprang the great Saint of whom
this story tells. His distant ancestors were the Levites who
ministered in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness : in later
days the same family were responsible for bringing the people
of Ethiopia to the Jewish faith ; and later still other mem
bers of it converted the Ethiopians to our true religion. You
may see the antiquity of his descent when you know that
they inherited some of the land that Joshua had set apart
for the Levites, that they had been priests of the Law of
Moses in Ethiopia for a thousand years, and priests of the Law
of Christ there for five hundred more. The Saint's birth was
wonderful, for his mother was saved by the intervention of
St. Michael from the violence of a heathen king who wished
to marry her : and the same Archangel told his mother and
father that they would have a child who would be the chosen
of the Lord. After he was born, he grew so quickly in wisdom
and in the fear of God that he was made a deacon when he was
only fifteen years old : he soon sold all his goods and belong
ings (for his family were wealthy people) and devoted
himself finally to converting to Christianity the outlying
peoples of Ethiopia, who were still heathens : he was
appointed High Priest of Shoa by his Bishop, and confirmed
in the priesthood by Christ Himself, who appeared to him
67

68 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
and bestowed the Holy Ghost upon him by breathing thrice
upon his forehead. ' But I want to tell you of one of his
missionary adventures — how he converted the people of the
country of Katata.
He had heard with great grief that the people of this
country, which was a distant part of Shoa, were idolators,
worshipping idols, and trees, and stones ; and magicians too,
taking divinations by water and by fire, and by the flight of
birds. So he hurried across the great river which separated
Katata from the rest of Shoa, and took up his abode in the
town, and there began to teach the true faith. The idolators
were stubborn and angry, and would have laid violent hands
on Takla Haymanot ; but he reasoned gently with them,
asking them what they worshipped.
" A great tree," said one.
" Well," said the Saint, " what happens when you bow
down before it ? "
" A voice comes out of the tree," was the answer, " which
says, ' I am your god, that created you.' "
" Will you take me to it to-morrow ? " said the Saint :
and the people gladly consented, because they thought that
he would bow down to it with them, now that he knew of
its wonderful power.
So the next day they all went, a great crowd with the
Saint in their midst, towards the tree : and when they were
still some way off, the devil in the tree — I dare say you have
guessed the reason of the voice that came from it — called
out to the people that they were not to bring the stranger
too close to it : so he stopped behind on the road, while the

TAKLA HAYMANOT AND THE TREE 69
men of Katata went on close towards their tree. Then
Takla Haymanot, being left alone, prayed a mighty prayer.
" See, O God," he cried, " the cunning and craft of Satan,
the deceiver of Thy creation ! Let me now be the instrument
of his confusion: send Thy servant Michael to help me;
drive out this devil — but not before his lasting shame has been
made public before all the people he deluded. Meanwhile,
let the tree be plucked up by the roots and come here to me,
fulfilling the saying in the Gospel that they who have faith
as a grain of mustard seed may bid a sycamine tree be plucked
up by the roots, and it shall obey them." And then, his
prayer ended, he turned in the direction of the tree, and
adjured, it thus: " Unto thee do I speak, O thou tree, from
whose top the spirit of Satan speaks and leads away the
multitude : in the name of the Lord Christ whom I worship,
be thou torn up by thy roots and come hither, so that all the
people may see the power of my God." And then, just as all
the people were preparing to make their acts of worship
beneath it, the tree came up and began to move in the
direction of the holy man : there was a noise like the most
deafening thunder, and this and the blows from the roots
of the tree, as it walked, filled the people with an overwhelm
ing terror, and twenty-four of them died from fear.
When the tree had come near Takla Haymanot, the devil
in it began to abuse him shrilly, cursing him for disturbing
him in this place where he had found rest, and striving to
snatch away the tree from his power : then in a flash of fire
down came Saint, Michael from Heaven, invisible to all save
the devil and the Saint, and caught the devil by the throat,

70 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
and choked him soundly, until he howled and cried for pain,
and promised, if he were only let go, to leave the place for ever
and trouble the people no more.
St. Michael was half inclined to accept this offer, but
Takla Haymanot would have none of it : " He is the Deceiver
and the Father of Lies," said he, " and before he is allowed
to go he must openly confess his deceit. His disgrace must be
shown to all, and he must say aloud to the people of the city :
4 In times of old it was I who deceived you : from this time
onward you must worship Christ, with His Father and the
Holy Ghost.' Then he can go." "No," said the devil,
" that is impossible, and you know it : I cannot pronounce
those names." " Very well," said Takla Haymanot : " then
instead of the names of the Trinity, you must say : ' The God
of heaven and of earth, the God who created me and created
you, Him you shall worship and serve.' ' So the devil made
the confession of his deceit, and whined a good deal about it.
" Where shall I go next ? " he said. " The Twelve in Galilee
started the hunt, and then their Two-and-Seventy followers :
they have chased me out of Jerusalem, and Rome, and Egypt ;
and I thought that my throne was safe here in Shoa, and now
here I am beaten again. I can see nothing for it but to depart
into some desert place utterly uninhabited by man, and
meditate therein." As he finished speaking, Saint Michael ,
loosed his hold on his throat, and the devil took the form of a
tremendous puff of smoke, and vanished away into thin air ; and
Saint Michael, still unseen of the people, encouraged Takla Hay
manot, and bade him farewell, and himself ascended to heaven.
The people of Katata were by this time almost ready to

TAKLA HAYMANOT AND THE TREE 71
receive the Word of Life: but yet another miracle was
vouchsafed to them to establish their faith. At the prayer
of Takla Haymanot the twenty-four men who had died from
fear when the tree walked were restored to life. They
described how when they had died the angels of darkness
had seized their souls from their bodies and were carrying
them off quickly, saying : " Let us take these men who have
denied their Creator and worship idols, and plunge them into
everlasting fire " : . but while they were thus speaking, said
the dead, " we saw you come mounted on a chariot of fire, and
strive with the angels of darkness on "our behalf : and during
the combat Saint Michael the Archangel came, and said to the
angels of darkness, ' Give these souls to this man,' and at his
voice they released us, and we went back to our bodies, and
you raised us up, and here we are before you." And they asked
Takla Haymanot to instruct them and to baptize them, that
they might not have to return to that place of torment ; and
so he did, and many of their fellow-citizens with them, so
that on that day he baptized twelve thousand and three souls,
and on the morrow he baptized six hundred thousand and
fifty-nine — all the people of Katata.
Except one : and let me tell you what happened to him.
This man was the governor, and money was at the root of his
obstinacy ; he had been accustomed to tax all the people
who came to worship the tree, and he little liked losing the
three hundred pounds of silver that he took yearly from them.
The next day Takla Haymanot went to where the tree was
still standing after its devil had disappeared, and ordered it
to lie down : and lie down it did. Then the Saint was just

72 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
telling the people to get axes and chop it up, so that it might
serve to build a church, when the governor came and began
to load Takla Haymanot and his new followers with abuse.
Takla Haymanot said nothing, but bade his men go on
chopping: and just as the governor's railing became most
foul, and he threatened the Saint with violence, a splinter
from the tree flew up and struck him in the eye. Then he
fell down on the ground, and because of the intensity of the
pain that came upon him, he became like a pig, and tried to
choke himself with his own hand, and would rather have died
than live. He called upon the devil his protector, but the
devil could only answer from afar off : " You had better
leave the city to this man ; I cannot help you, for I could
not even save myself, and you will see me and hear of me no
more." Then the governor turned to Takla Haymanot and
implored his help, saying that he believed and would himself
be baptized a Christian ; and the people interceded for him,
and Takla Haymanot touched his eye and .healed it, and the
governor showed the strength of' his repentance by himself
taking an axe and finishing the cutting down of the tree ; and
a very pretty little cljurch they made of the wood of it.
This is only one of many hundreds of miracles which the
great man Takla Haymanot did : and when he had converted
all the outlying countries of Ethiopia to the faith and had
¦confirmed them in it, he left the world altogether, and spent
the many later years of his long life in a monastery, chastising
his body with many austerities ; and at last he died of the
plague, aged ninety-nine years and eight months. God send
us many like him !

SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE
From the Greek

Saint John Damascene

)4 BOUT a hundred years after Damascus was taken by
/ % the Saracens, there lived in that great city a pious
^A. ^- and wealthy Christian. He was high in the govern
ment service, trusted and respected by Mussulmans and
Christians alike ; and of the great wages he received for his
services, he spent only a very small part on himself and his
family, and devoted the rest to ransoming and buying the
freedom of the many Christian slaves who were brought into
Damascus by the wandering Arabs, the spoil of their raids.
To this good man was born a son, the child of many prayers :
his father named him John at his baptism, and it became
clear from his earliest years that he was a child of great
promise ; he cared little for the ordinary exercises of the
other boys of his own age — riding, shooting, use of the spear ;
but he proved himself a wonderful scholar at his books, and
learned as fast as he could be taught.
So rapid was his progress, that soon his father could really
find nobody capable of teaching him. The wise men of
Damascus were only learned in the false learning of the Koran,
while the Christians were few and weak, and most of them
only knew enough letters to follow the performance of the
Divine Liturgy. But now by God's providence our John's
father was helped when he was most in need, and a teacher
worthy of the pupil was found. One day the good man had
gone down to the slave market, after his usual custom, to see
75

76 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
if there were any Christian captives whom he could ransom,
and he saw that on this occasion some of the captives were
being sold and some led apart to be slain by their cruel gaolers.
Among these latter he saw one man to whom the rest clearly
looked with great reverence : they threw themselves at his
feet and besought him to give them absolution before they
accomplished their great journey into the unknown, and he
was not remiss in administering spiritual. consolations to his
doomed companions. He was a tall man with a grave and
handsome face, dressed like a monk ; and when even the in
fidels were astonished at the position he held among his fellow
captives, and the respect and veneration which they shewed
hirh, both they and John's father asked him if he held any
great dignity among them. " No worldly place or power,"
he answered, " but the dignity of a priest. Nay, more, I am
a monk ; and I have given up my life to the study of philosophy,
both that of the Fathers of our holy Church and that of the
Gentiles." Now while he thus spoke, tears gushed from his eyes: at
which the good man was not a little astonished, and said to
him : " Why weep, man of God, at the approaching loss to
you of this world ? Since by your monk's habit I see that you
have long yourself been dead to it and all its vanities." " It
is not the loss of my life for which I weep," said Cosmas (for
that was the man's name), " but I am troubled by the thought
of the wisdom and learning that must perish with me. I have
given the whole period of my long life to study; no word
that Aristotle or Plato wrote is unknown to me ; I have
probed the depths of science ; mathematics conceal no secrets

SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE 77
from me ; I have laboured at the mysteries of astronomy, so
that by understanding the work of creation I might come to
adore the Creator. On such foundations as these (and I did
not forget the lighter arts of music and poetry) I built the
superstructure of Theology, mistress of all arts and queen of
all sciences ; and now I must go suddenly to the grave, and
by the single stroke of a sword all these my possessions, so
laboriously acquired, must perish, and perish utterly, leaving
not a trace behind. Those who are in the world can beget
children, and so when they die they at least leave something
of themselves on the face of the earth : with us in religion
the only substitute is to instruct a pupil and to imbue him
with all that we ourselves know ; then, and only then, can we
feel that we do not perish utterly without heirs and represen
tatives. This I have never done : I had not the time in my
Monastery ; nor the opportunity, for never yet did I find a
youth capable of receiving all I had to give him ; so now I
am going to a childless death, and I shall leave no progeny
behind me to be the heir of all that I have acquired."
Who was delighted when he heard this but the father of
John ? " Be patient, holy man," he cried, " and cheer up your
drooping spirits : even now God may perhaps grant you
your desire " : and with these words he flew off to the Caliph,
reminded him that never before had he besought a favour of
him, and begged that he might now have the monk's life as ?.
gift. The monarch consented, and back again to the prisoners
flew the good man with his reprieve, and triumphantly
vindicated Cosmas from his captors. " Not only are you
free," he cried, " but henceforth a guest in my house ; nay

78 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
riiore, I make you master of all I possess, under myself alone.
In return, I ask you to teach my son John some of all that which
you know, together with his foster-brother, who. is named
Cosmas like yourself, and who is second only to John in
quickness and industry " : and even while he was then speak
ing he took the monk to his house with such expressions of
delight and satisfaction that you might have thought he had
found a hoard of some fabulous hidden treasure.
The monk did not tarry in taking up the duties of his new
office. The very next day the boys began grammar* and
rhetoric : and he did not forget the value of moral teaching,
enabling them to suppress their passions and look calmly on
all the things of this world — even the learning of it. Thence
they proceeded to mathematics — arithmetic, algebra, geo
metry were all mastered in turn ; and astronomy and celestial
mechanics followed after no long interval ; but they never
forgot that all this learning was but a preparation for some
thing better still, and they showed their genius and applica
tion more than ever in the study of metaphysics and of the
doctrines of Religion. At last, after the strenuous years in which
they had passed from boyhood to manhood, acquiring know
ledge but not losing humility, the monk handed them back
to John's father, saying that he had taught them all that he
knew himself, and asking permission to retire and end his days
in the sanctity of a monastery. With great regret he was
allowed to do so, while the young men did not fail to add to
their learning by private reading and to their virtue by prayer
and the observances ordered by the Church.
Years went slowly on. John's father died, and John, who

SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE 79
had followed his father's footsteps in the civil service, was
high in the Caliph's favour, and was at last invited by him
to become Vizier, the highest post, under royalty, that any
commoner could obtain. John was at first extremely unwill
ing to accept so high an office, and it was only with great
difficulty and after much pressure from the monarch that he
was forced to enter upon it. He governed well and justly,
and was respected by both Mussulman and Christian, though
some of the former sometimes murmured that one of the
subject race should hold the highest place in the State.
Now while all this had been happening at Damascus, a
wicked Emperor had arisen in the city that was then the most
important place in the Christian world, Constantinople. Leo
was his name, and he had the fierceness and brutality of a lion,
but not the lion's generous bravery. He fell into an unreason
ing hatred of all the beautiful pictures of Christ and of His
Mother with which the Christian churches throughout his
Empire were adorned, and tried to have them all taken down,
broken, and thrown away. Many of his clergy were of weak
courage, and did not dare to resist his will: some even con
sented to form a sham Council where the pictures were to be
utterly condemned : but even those who did not go to these
lengths remained silent in terror of the Imperial power. Then
Christ and His Virgin Mother found a true champion in our
John of Damascus, who employed all his skill and learning to
refute the Emperor's follies, and we still possess those treasures
of the Orthodox and Catholic Church, the treatises in which
the Saint brings to nought by his scriptural proofs and argu
ments the impious speculations and tyrannical orders of the

80 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
Emperor : perhaps if they had never been written we should
not to-day possess all those beautiful pictures of our Saviour,
of our Lady Mary, and of the Saints with which our churches
throughout the world are filled, and which are a glory to our
houses and homes. All who were not in the wicked Emperor's
power were convinced of John's reasoning, and good Chris
tians throughout the world were greatly comforted by his
writings. You can imagine the Emperor's fury at the result. There
was John, safe in Damascus at the Caliph's Court — the one
place in the world where the Emperor's power did not extend ;
and he was unable to stretch out towards him his persecuting
arm and punish him for his insolence (as he considered it), in-
opposing by reason and scholarship the Imperial decree. So
he composed a very wicked, wily, clever, mean stratagem to
ruin his enemy. He took great trouble to get hold of some
letters which John had written with his own hand : and he
gave them to the scribes who were always in attendance at
his court, and bade them practise daily until they could
imitate his handwriting so exactly that it could not be dis
tinguished from the true ; then, when they had accomplished
this, he had a letter written by them counterfeiting John's
hand, which professed to come from the Saint to himself, Leo,
and this is how it ran :
" Hail, Emperor !
" I rejoice that thou dost believe in the same religion
as I, and I write thee something that will be greatly to thy.
advantage. Know then, that this citv of Damascus is ill

SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE 81
fortified, and is held but by a weak garrison of Mussulmans ;
send hither quickly and secretly an expedition, and thou
shalt easily take it, and I will give thee no small help when
they arrive."
Then the wicked Emperor, laughing to himself at what he
thought must be the successful event of his trick, took this
forged letter and sent it to the Caliph of Damascus, with
another letter of his own, in which he told the Caliph that he
stood for peace at any price, and had not forgotten the
treaties long in force between the two countries : that
perhaps he would like to know how he was served by his most
trusted servants, and that he therefore enclosed a letter which
he had just received from John, the Caliph's Grand Vizier.
Who can describe the Caliph's fury when he received what
he thought was a certain proof of treachery on the part of
that servant whom he liked best and trusted most, on whom
he had showered all favours and every mark of kindness and
honour ? A man of hot and violent temper, he ordered John
to be brought before him at once, and without allowing him
to speak in his own defence, ordered the public executioner to
strike off that right hand which (as he supposed) had written
the traitor's letter, and told him to think himself fortunate
that he had not lost his head as well as his hand. So poor
John had to return home weeping and in pain — in pain less
bodily than in his mind, because he knew that he was unjustly
suspected of plotting against a master whom he had always
served obediently and faithfully ; and he saw no way by which
he would be able to clear his character and convince the

82 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
Caliph that he was wrongly accused ; and the one crumb of
comfort in his grief was that the Caliph, who had at first
ordered the severed hand to be hung up in the market square
as the hand of a traitor, relented so far (for he was not really
a cruel man, only hasty and quick-tempered) that he sent it to
him to keep in his own house, and so eased him of a little bit
of his disgrace.
Late that night John went into a little chapel or oratory
which he had built in his house, and there he knelt down
before a picture of the Blessed Virgin which he had always
treated with the greatest respect and honour, and thus he
prayed to her in the sweet verse he could write so well. I am
only sorry that a translation of his hymn into English gives so
poor an idea of the words he used ; but at any rate they were
something like these :
" Mother of God, most chaste, I bend in worship here before thee,
My hand lost, which did them defend by pictures who adore thee.
Thou knowest Leo's tricks, and more, his image-hating madness ;
Wilt thou not then my hand restore, and change my grief to gladness ?
The hand of God (from thee which was made man's, by Incarnation)
Brings many mighty things to pass, by thy strong Mediation ;
Then let It now restore my hand, thy prayers Its powers inciting,
That all my life thy praises and thy Son's unwearied writing,
And warring for our holy faith and combating all other,
It still may serve thee till my death, God's good and glorious Mother ! "
When he had finished his hymn, the pain in his wrist seemed
to grow easier, and he fell into a gentle sleep ; and while he
slept, the dear Mother of God appeared to him, just as he
had always seen her in that favourite picture, and said to
him, her eyes shining with compassion and joy: " Lo,
here is your hand restored just as it was before ; keep your

SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE 83
promise, and for the whole of the rest of your life let it be
like the pen of a ready writer to describe my praises and the
glories of my Son " ; and when he awoke he found his hand
joined on again to the wrist whence it had been severed, nor
was it painful or disfigured any more.
Although John, being in disgrace, kept as much as possible
to his own house, yet so wonderful a thing as this could not
be kept a secret, and it soon began to be known among the
people of Damascus that his hand had been miraculously
restored to him. Presently even the Caliph heard of it, and
ordered him into his presence : after he had looked at the hand,
he asked him what doctor had attended him, or what medi
cine he had used, for he would like to know by what means
this most marvellous cure had been effected. John replied that
it was the one Great Physician that had healed him, whose good
will and power towards men are equally great ; and the Caliph
understanding that a miracle had been performed, cried out :
" Now I see that you had done no wrong : that I condemned
you unjustly; that, as too often, I was hasty and would not
listen to your defence. I will take you back into power and
into my favour ; and in compensation for the wrong I did
you, ask of me any boon you please, and you shall have it."
Now what favour do you think John asked of the Caliph ?
Greater wealth ? More power and glory ? Or even that he
might be put at the head of an army to take vengeance on
the wicked and treacherous Emperor ? None of these —
indeed, you might almost call it the very opposite of them.
He asked leave to resign his offices, to give his money, lands,
and houses to the Christian poor of Damascus, and to be

84 STORIES FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST
himself allowed to retire into a monastery near Jerusalem to
devote himself entirely to a life of contemplation and the
attainment of spiritual perfection. The Caliph was- exceed
ingly loath to let him go ; not only had he found him a good
and trustworthy servant, but he loved him personally, and did
not want him to leave his court ; but John reminded him of
his promise to give him any boon for which he should ask, and
at length, though very unwilling, he had to yield, and John was
permitted to give up all the glories of this life — to die to the
world, and live to God — and Damascus knew him no more.
Although John lived in his monastery to a great old age,
I do not purpose to tell you at any length of his life there :
his adventures were mostly spiritual, and his whole history
one of progress in religion and virtue. All through his Ufe
as a monk he showed the humility of a saint ; and it is related
of him that on one occasion he had offended against the rules
of the house — it was surely a very little offence, for all he had
done was to write the words and music of a hymn for the funeral
of the brother of one of the monks — and as a penance was ordered
to take some baskets which he had made and go to Damascus
and sell them there in the public market. You can imagine
the contrast between this visit and the last : then, the Vizier
in all his glory ; now, the ragged, dusty monk (for the journey
was long and difficult) selling cheap baskets for a few half
pence in the streets, and being recognised by many of those
who were formerly his subordinates,, and I do not expect that
the Mussulmans forgot to jeer at one whom they wrongly
considered fallen from his former high estate. But he bore
all with great meekness, and as his life went on he was looked

SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE 85
upon with veneration and love by all in his monastery : he
devoted his time to writing many of the beautiful hymns
which the Greek Church sings in its services to this day, and
to the compilation of a great work of philosophy and religion
which is still a classic of the Church. Nor did he neglect
lighter literature, so that it all tended to an edifying and
Christian end, and I would that I had space in this book to
write out for you the wonderful religious novel that he com
posed ; unfortunately it is too long to be translated here, but
I hope that some day you will all read the Story of Barlam
and Joasaph, which is as interesting as it is religious.
So his life passed quickly on. His foster-brother Cosmas,
who had had with him the advantage of instruction by the
captive monk, and had retired with him to the monastery,
became in turn Bishop of Majuma and Jerusalem ; and
attempts were often made to induce John to accept similar
high office. But he always refused, saying that he could serve
his God better by his pen in a quiet cell than in the busy work
of ruling a diocese; and even when he did consent to be
ordained priest at Jerusalem, he quickly returned to his
monastery to work once more. So at last, full of years,
regarded as a saint and doctor of the Church even before his
death, he passed from his life of perfection on earth to a yet
more perfect life above : and God grant that some day we
may all hear from his own lips how the dear Virgin healed his
severed hand, and find him still singing his sweet hymns to
her and her Son in Heaven ! Amen.

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