The Monks of Syria and Persia

Let us go on from there to Syria, and to Persia, the region next to Syria. We will find that the monks of these countries rivaled those of Egypt in the practice of philosophy. Battheus, Eusebius, Barges, Halas, Abbos, Lazarus, who rose to the rank of bishop, Abdaleus, Zeno and Heliodorus flourished at Nisibis, near the mountain called Sigoron. When they first entered on the life of philosophy, they were called shepherds, because they had no houses, ate neither bread nor meat, and drank no wine. They lived always on the mountains and spent their time praising God with prayers and hymns, according to the rule of the church. At the usual mealtimes each of them took a sickle and went up the mountain to cut some grass, as though they were flocks at pasture; and this served as their meal. Such was their course of philosophy. Eusebius, of his own choice, shut himself up in a cell near Carrhae to live the life of philosophy. Protogenes lived in the same place, and governed the church there after Vitus, who was then bishop. This is the famous Vitus of whom it is said that when the emperor Constantine first saw him, he declared that God had often shown him this man in visions and had told him to obey whatever he said without question. Aones had a monastery at Phadana. This is the place where Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, on his journey from Palestine, met the young woman he afterward married, and where he rolled away the stone so that her flock could drink from the well. It is said that Aones was the first to bring into Syria the life withdrawn from all people and the strict philosophy, just as Antony first brought it into Egypt. [a]