Remember me in thy holy prayers, glory and honour of virgins, nun Asella.
Before beginning to write the life of the blessed Hilarion, I invoke the
Holy Spirit which dwelt in him, that, as he largely bestowed virtues on
Hilarion, he may give to me speech wherewith to relate them; so that his
deeds may be equalled by my language. For those who (as Crispus says)
“have wrought virtues” are held to have been worthily praised in
proportion to the words in which famous intellects have been able to
extol them. Alexander the Great, the Macedonian (whom Daniel calls
either the brass, or the leopard, or the he-goat), on coming to the tomb
of Achilles, “Happy art thou, youth,” he said, “who hast been blest with
a great herald of thy worth”—meaning Homer. But I have to tell the
conversation and life of such and so great a man, that even Homer, were
he here, would either envy my matter, or succumb under it.
For although St. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamina in Cyprus, who had much
intercourse with Hilarion, has written his praise in a short epistle,
which is commonly read, yet it is one thing to praise the dead in general
phrases, another to relate his special virtues. We therefore set to work
rather to his advantage than to his injury; and despise those
evil-speakers who lately carped at Paul, and will perhaps now carp at my
Hilarion, unjustly blaming the former for his solitary life, and the
latter for his intercourse with men; in order that the one, who was never
seen, may be supposed not to have existed; the other, who was seen by
many, may be held cheap. This was the way of their ancestors likewise,
the Pharisees, who were neither satisfied with John’s desert life and
fasting, nor with the Lord Saviour’s public life, eating and drinking.
But I shall lay my hand to the work which I have determined, and pass by,
with stopped ears, the hounds of Scylla. I pray that thou mayest
persevere in Christ, and be mindful of me in thy prayers, most sacred
virgin.