The life of Reverend Cosmas, the miserly hermit

In the book Limonar (from the Greek limon <unk>, to watch) <unk> a very common hagiographical composition of John Mosch, a Greek monk (died 622). Traveling through the monasteries of Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Cyprus, Constantinople and Rome, Mosch collected a lot of stories about the life of Christian pilgrims, collected also many of their sayings and morals; all these information he set out in his "Limonar".

<unk> There are known Russian translations of "Limonarch" 1) by Filaret, archbishop of Chernihiv, "Lug spiritual" (Moscow, published 1848, 1850, 1853) and 2) by an unnamed publisher: "Lug, siret flower" (Moscow, 1859).] the following story of the presbyter of the Vikantia monastery, the abbot Vasily, about the reverend Cosmas.

"While I was in Antioch, <unk> said the presbyter, <unk> came from Jerusalem to the most holy patriarch Gregory the Abbot Cosmas, a scope from the laurel [Lavra <unk> from the Greek language, part of the city, alley <unk> actually a series of celli, located around the abbot's residence in the form of alleys and surrounded by a fence or wall.

The laurel monks lived a hermitical life and wandered in their cells, gathering for worship on the first and last days of the week, and in the rest of the days keeping strict silence; life in the laurel was much more difficult than in other monasteries.

Now the name of the laureate is used only in the sense of an honorific title.] of France, he was a strict fasting man, a zealous believer, a steadfast keeper of church dogmas, an excellent scholar of the Holy Scriptures.

I went to the tomb of a holy elder to worship his ashes, and there I saw a beggar begging alms from those who entered the church. Seeing me, he bowed down three times before the tomb and, after praying the funeral prayer for the deceased, said to me: "Veliki, mister avva [i.e. father], the elder whom you buried here two months ago.

I have been twelve years at ease, I tell you the truth, I do not lie, and through this old man the Lord has given me healing. When I am in sorrow, he comes and comforts me, giving me relief. I will not hide from you another miracle about him: ever since you buried him, I hear him say to the bishop every night, "Do not touch me and do not come near me, heretic, you enemy of the holy Catholic Church".

When I heard this, I went to the patriarch and told him about my conversation with the beggar; at the same time I asked the patriarch to take the body of the elder and put it in another place.

<unk> Believe me, my son, that a heretic cannot do any harm to Saint Cosmas: all that you have told us happened so that the zeal for the faith and virtue of the elder would not be hidden from us and <unk> so that the wickedness of the bishop would be revealed, and he would not be revered as an Orthodox".

"I went to him in the laundry room, and the old man told me about himself that one day he had a thought that came to his mind, <unk> what the Lord's words to the disciples meant: "But now let the one who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag; and let the one who has no sword sell his outer garment and buy one" (Luke 22:36) and His answer: "It is enough" when they said: "Here are two swords".

And when he came to Kalamun, he saw a huge serpent coming down from the mountain of Kalamun, so great that it left a deep mark on the ground because of its weight, and the curves of its body formed great arcs, and it was crossing the path of the old man.

When the old man saw the devil's schemes, armed with prayer, he went on his way without fear, and being protected by the power of God, he passed through the serpent's body without injury, as though through the gate.

<unk> The two knives signify two kinds of godly life, <unk> activity or work and contemplation or immersion of the mind in the divine thought prayer, whoever possesses these two virtues, he is the perfect man".

"During my ten-year sojourn in the Lavra of Farnese with St. Cosmas, to whom I had come at the very beginning of my monastic life, he constantly instructed me with his divinely inspired discourses; one day, in reasoning with me about the salvation of the soul, he quoted an expression from the words of St. Athanasius the Great [St.

St. Athanasius, archbishop of Alexandria, a zealous defender of Orthodoxy against the Arian heretics, who suffered much from them and died in 373.

Such was the reverence of St. Cosmas for the great fathers and teachers of the church: with them, he too, at the end of his God-pleasing life here on earth, received a share in eternal life by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom glory belongs with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and ever.