Page:Theparadiseoftheholyfathers.djvu/248



ND Gelasia, the daughter of a man of the rank of tribune, desired earnestly to follow in the fear of God after this woman whose life and deeds were glorious, and her excellence consisted in never allowing the sun to go down upon her wrath against man, neither against her servants nor against [any] other man; and this blessed woman fled from the path of men of wrath which leadeth unto everlasting death.

ND again, there was a certain virgin, whose name was Juliana, in Caesarea of Cappadocia, and it was said concerning her that she was a believing woman, and a woman of understanding, and that in the time of the persecution when the writer Origen was fleeing from the heathen she received [him] and hid him [in her house] for two years; and she fed and kept him at her own expense, and made him to be satisfied and content with her ministration. Now I have found these things set down in a certain book which was in the handwriting of Origen himself, and I found this book in the possession of the excellent virgin Juliana in Caesarea who had hidden it, and who used to say that she received it from Symmachus, the expositor of the Jews. And I have not set down [in writing] the story of the excellences of these glorious women for any ordinary purpose, but that we may learn that by every means whatsoever we may, if we wish, find sundry and divers occasions for [obtaining spiritual] advantage.

N Ancyra, a city of Galatia, I met a man whose name was Heronion, an “Apakomots,” and an enlightened man, and his wife whose name was Bosphoria (or Dosphoria), and of their mode of living and acts I experienced an example. Now these folk had such a firm hope in the happiness (or good things) which were to come, that they neglected even their children, for they awaited with hope the actual [fulfilment] of the things to come, and they distributed among the poor and needy the income which they derived from their villages, notwithstanding the fact that they had four male and two female children. To these [children] they never gave anything whatsoever, except to the daughters who had married husbands.