(5TH CENT.)
[Commemorated by the Greeks. Authority:--The Philotheus of
Theodoret, c. 12. Theodoret knew these hermits, and visited them. He
wrote whilst the latter was still alive.]
Thalassius was a hermit, living on the side of a hill near the village
of Pillima, in the diocese of Cyrus, in Syria, then governed by the
famous Theodoret, the ecclesiastical historian. Under his direction
was disciplined Limnæus, who, as a boy, having a too glib tongue,
learned to control it by imposing on himself, for many years, complete
silence. Limnæus afterwards became the pupil of the hermit Maro. He
lived in a sort of court, made of rough stone walls, open to the sky,
with a little door and window. Through the latter he spoke with the
people who visited him, but he suffered none, save the bishop, to
enter through the door. One day, as he went forth, he trod on a viper,
which bit his heel. He put forth his right hand to withdraw the
venomous beast, when it turned and fixed its fangs in his hand, and
when he endeavoured to grasp it by the left, it bit his left hand
also. He was bitten in more than ten places before he could disengage
the serpent, yet he would not allow the wounds to be dressed by a
physician, but signed them with the cross. He suffered great torture
from the bites, but recovered. He loved to assemble the blind around
his cell, and teach them to sing hymns to the glory of God. For their
accommodation he built two houses adjoining his cell, and he devoted
himself especially to their spiritual direction. Theodoret wrote of
him when he had spent thirty-eight years in this manner of life.