John Moschus, Spiritual Meadow 131
https://caesarea-maritima.org/testimonia/429
Context
John Moschus was a monk in the Near East during the late 6th to early
7th centuries, whose writings have been celebrated as potent devotional readings but
have not received due attention also as historical sources. A native of Syria or
Cilicia, John moved throughout his career between ascetic communities in the Jordan
Valley and particularly around Jerusalem, but also in the Egyptian desert, the Sinai,
and Syria. During roughly his final decade, between stays in Cyprus and Rome, he
compiled his famous Spiritual Meadow (Λειμωνάριον, Pratum
spirituale). This long work vividly records his personal encounters with holy
persons across the eastern Mediterranean, including much information about monastic
practice and belief in local communities. The textual history has been notoriously
thorny. Beyond the patent peculiarities of Moschus’ Greek, later readers clearly
reworked the content in places after its composition; the multiple surviving Byzantine
manuscripts contain different stories in different sequences; and we currently possess
no modern critical edition. The best available Greek text, based chiefly on codices of
the 11th and 12th centuries at Paris, was published by the French theologian
Jean-Baptiste Cotelier in 1681 and reprinted with slight changes in Patrologia
Graeca 87.3 (1865). The great Italian humanist Ambrogio Traversari read a
separate and longer Greek text preserved in Codex Laurentianus Plut. X.3 (12th century);
that text has not been published, but Traversari’s Latin translation was published in
1479 and reprinted likewise in Patrologia Latina 74.2 (1879) and in
facing columns of the PG. This passage in the available Greek text tells
of one Procopius from Porphyreon, presumably the town near Caesarea, who consulted the
powerful monk (Ἀββά) Zachaeus about the severe epidemic (θανατικόν) at Caesarea.
Text
διηγήσατο ἡμῖν Προκόπιος ὁ σχολαστικὀς ὁ Πορφυρεωνίτης περὶ τοῦ ἀββᾶ
Ζακχαίου, λέγων ὅτι Οἱ δύο υἱοί μου ἐν Καισαρείᾳ ἀνεγίνωσκον.
γέγονεν οὖν μέγα θανατικὸν ἐν Καισαρείᾳ καὶ ἐθλιβόμην διὰ τὰ
τέκνα μου, μὴ ἀποθάνωσιν, καὶ τί ποιῆσαι οὐκ ᾔδειν· ἔλεγον γὰρ ἐν ἐμαυτῷ· ἐὰν πέμψω καὶ
λάβω αὐτοὺς, ὀργὴν Θεοῦ φυγεῖν οὐκ ἔνι. ἀλλ᾽ ἐάσω αὐτοὺς ἐκεῖ; μή πως ἀποθάνωσιν, καὶ μὴ
ἴδω αὐτούς. Μὴ γιγνώσκων οὖν τὸ τί ὄφειλον ποιῆσαι, λέγω· Ὑπάγω πρὸς τὸν ἀββᾶν Ζακχαῖον
καὶ εἴ τι εἴποι μοι τοῦτο ποιῶ. Ὑπάγω οὖν ἐν τῇ ἁγίᾳ Σιών· ἐκεῖ γὰρ διαπαντὸς ἐσχόλαζε·
καὶ οὐχ εὗρον αὐτόν. καὶ ἔρχομαι ἐν τῷ μεσαύλῳ, καὶ λέγω αὐτῷ περὶ τῶν υἱῶν μου. ὡς οὖν
ἤκουσεν, κατὰ ἀνατολὰς ἐστράφη καὶ προσεῖχεν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐκτεταμένος ὡς ὥρας δύο
μηδὲν λαλήσας. τότε στραφεὶς πρός με λέγει μοι· Θάρσει, μὴ θλιβῇς· τὰ παιδία σου οὐκ
ἀποθνήσκουσιν εἰς τὸ θανατικὸν, ἀλλὰ καὶ μετὰ δύο ἡμέρας παύει τὸ θανατικὸν ἀπὸ
Καισαρείας.1
Textual Note
Ed. Cotelier and Migne 1865Textual Note
Codices Parisini Graeci 914, 916, 917, 1596, 1605 (11th-12th centuries)Corrigenda Note
Minor corr. (punctuation, capitalization)Translation
Procopius the lawyer, who came from Porphyreon, told us this about
Abba Zachaios: “My two sons were spending time in Caesarea. There
was a deadly plague in Caesarea, and I was very worried that my
children might die, and I did not know what to do. I asked myself, should I send for
them to come home? No one can flee from the wrath of God. Should I leave them there?
They might die without me seeing them. Not knowing what I should do, I said, ‘I will go
to Abba Zachaios, and I will do whatever he says.’ So I went to Holy Sion, for he always
passed time there, but I did not find him. I went into the inner court, and I told him
about my sons. When he heard this, he turned to the east and continued reaching up to
heaven for about two hours without saying a word. Then he turned to me and said, ‘Take
heart, do not worry: your children will not die in the plague. In fact, two days from
now, the plague shall abate in Caesarea.’”2
Translation Note
Adapted from Wortley 2008Works Cited
- 1 John Moschus, Pratum spirituale, ex Supplemento Ducaei et Cotelerii Monumentis, in Patrologiae cursus completus: series Graeca, ed. Jacques-Pierre Migne and Jean-Baptiste Cotelier, vol. 87.3 (Paris: Thibaut, 1865), 2951–3116, ch: 131, col: 2296B-C.
- 2 John Moschus, The Spiritual Meadow: Pratum Spirituale, trans. John Wortley, Cistercian Studies Series (Collegeville, Minnesota: Cistercian Publications, 2008), p: 108-109.
How to Cite This Entry
Joseph L. Rife, “John Moschus, Spiritual Meadow 131,” in Caesarea Maritima: A Collection of Testimonia, entry published June 30, 2023, https://caesarea-maritima.org/testimonia/429.
Show full citation information...
Bibliography:
Joseph L. Rife, “John Moschus, Spiritual Meadow 131.” In Caesarea Maritima: A Collection of Testimonia, edited by Joseph L. Rife., edited by Joseph L. Rife. Caesarea City and Port Exploration Project, 2023. Entry published June 30, 2023. https://caesarea-maritima.org/testimonia/429.About this Entry
Entry Title: John Moschus, Spiritual Meadow 131
Authorial and Editorial Responsibility:
- Joseph L. Rife, general editor, Vanderbilt University
- Joseph L. Rife, editor, Caesarea Maritima: A Collection of Testimonia
- David A. Michelson, Daniel L. Schwartz, and William L. Potter, technical editor, “John Moschus, Spiritual Meadow 131”
- Joseph L. Rife, entry contributor, “John Moschus, Spiritual Meadow 131”
Additional Credit:
- TEI encoding by Joseph L. Rife
- URNs and other metadata added by Joseph L. Rife
- Electronic text added by Joseph L. Rife
- Testimonia identified by Joseph L. Rife