From his life written by his friend, St. Ephrem, Op. t. 2, p. 1, Ed.
nov. Vatic. See other acts of St. Abraham, given in Latin by Lipoman. 29
Oct., and by Surius, 16 March, mentioned in Greek by Lambecius, Bibl.
Vind. t. 8, pp. 255, 260, 266, and by Montfaucon, Bibl. Coislin. p. 211.
Two other kinds of Greek Acts are found among the MSS. at the ahbey of
St. Germain-des Prez, at Paris, Bibl. Coisl. ib. See also Jos. Assemani,
Bibl. Orient. t. 1, pp. 38 and 396, from the Chronicle of Edessa:
likewise Kohlius, Introductio in historiam et rem literariam Sclavorum,
p. 316. Aitonaviae, A.D. 1729.
About the year 360.
ST. ABRAHAM was born at Chidana, in Mesopotamia, near Edessa, of wealthy
and noble parents, who, after giving him a most virtuous education, were
desirous of engaging him in the married state. In compliance with their
inclinations, Abraham took to wife a pious and noble virgin: but
earnestly desiring to live and die in the state of holy virginity, as
soon as the marriage ceremony and feast were over, having made known his
resolution {595} to his new bride, be secretly withdrew to a cell two
miles from the city Edessa; where his friends found him at prayer after
a search of seventeen days. By earnest entreaties he obtained their
consent, and after their departure walled up the door of his cell,
leaving only a little window, through which he received what was
necessary for his subsistence. He spent his whole time in adoring and
praising God, and imploring his mercy. He every day wept abundantly. He
was possessed of no other earthly goods but a cloak and a piece of
sackcloth which he wore, and a little vessel out of which he both ate
and drank. For fifty years he was never wearied with his austere penance
and holy exercises, and seemed to draw from them every day fresh vigor.
Ten years after he had left the world, by the demise of his parents, he
inherited their great estates, but commissioned a virtuous friend to
distribute the revenues in alms-deeds. Many resorted to him for
spiritual advice, whom he exceedingly comforted and edified by his holy
discourses.
A large country town in the diocese of Edessa remained till that time
addicted to idolatry, and its inhabitants had loaded with injuries and
outrages, all the holy monks and others who had attempted to preach the
gospel to them. The bishop at length cast his eye on Abraham, ordained
him priest, though much against his will, and sent him to preach the
faith to those obstinate infidels. He wept all the way as he went, and
with great earnestness repeated this prayer: "Most merciful God, look
down on my weakness: assist me with thy grace, that thy name may be
glorified. Despise not the works of thine own hands." At the sight of
the town, reeking with the impious rites of idolatry, he redoubled the
torrents of his tears: but found the citizens resolutely determined not
to hear him speak. Nevertheless, he continued to pray and weep among
them without intermission, and though he was often beaten and
ill-treated, and thrice banished by them, he always returned with the
same zeal. After three years the infidels were overcome by his meekness
and patience, and being touched by an extraordinary grace, all demanded
baptism. He stayed one year longer with them to instruct them in the
faith; and on their being supplied with priests and other ministers, he
went back to his cell.
His brother dying soon after his return thither, left an only daughter,
called Mary, whom the saint undertook to train up in a religious life.
For this purpose he placed her in a cell near his own, where, by the
help of his instructions, she became eminent for her piety and penance.
At the end of twenty years she was unhappily seduced by a wolf in
sheep's clothing, a wicked monk, who resorted often to the place under
color of receiving advice from her uncle. Hereupon falling into despair,
she went to a distant town, where she gave herself up to the most
criminal disorders. The saint ceased not for two years to weep and pray
for her conversion. Being then informed where she dwelt, he dressed
himself like a citizen of that town, and going to the inn where she
lived in the pursuit of her evil courses, desired her company with him
at supper. When he saw her alone, he took off his cap which disguised
him, and with many tears said to her: "Daughter Mary, don't you know me?
What is now become of your angelical habit, of your tears and watchings
in the divine praises?" &c.
Seeing her struck and filled with horror and confusion, he tenderly
encouraged her and comforted her, saying that he would take her sins
upon himself if she would faithfully follow his advice, and that his
friend Ephrem also prayed and wept for her. She with many tears returned
him her most hearty thanks, and promised to obey in all things his
injunctions. He set her on his horse, and led the beast himself on foot.
In this manner he conducted her back to his desert, and shut her up in a
cell behind his own. {596} There she spent the remaining fifteen years
of her life in continual tears and the most perfect practices of penance
and other virtues. Almighty God was pleased, within three years after
her conversion, to favor her with the gift of working miracles by her
prayers. And as soon as she was dead, "her countenance appeared to us,"
says St. Ephrem, "so shining, that we understood that choirs of angels
had attended at her passage out of this life into a better." St. Abraham
died five years before her: at the news of whose sickness almost the
whole city and country flocked to receive his benediction. When he had
expired, every one strove to procure for themselves some part of his
clothes, and St. Ephrem, who was an eye-witness, relates, that many sick
were cured by the touch of these relics. SS. Abraham and Mary were both
dead when St. Ephrem wrote, who died himself in 378.[1] St. Abraham is
named in the Latin, Greek, and Coptic calendars, and also St. Mary in
those of the Greeks.
St. Abraham converted his desert into a paradise, because he found in it
his God, whose presence makes Heaven. He wanted not the company of men,
who enjoyed that of God and his angels; nor could he ever be at a loss
for employment, to whom both the days and nights were too short for
heavenly contemplation. While his body was employed in penitential
manual labor, his mind and heart were sweetly taken up in God, who was
to him All in All, and the centre of all his desires and affections. His
watchings were but an uninterrupted sacrifice of divine love, and by the
ardor of his desire, and the disposition of his soul and its virtual
tendency to God, his sleep itself was a continuation of his union with
God, and exercise of loving him. He could truly say with the spouse, _I
sleep, but my heart watcheth_. Thus the Christians, who are placed in
distracting stations, may also do, if they accustom themselves to
converse interiorly with God in purity of heart, and in all their
actions and desires have only his will in view. Such a life is a kind of
imitation of the Seraphims, to whom to live and to love are one and the
same thing. "The angels," says St. Gregory the Great, "always carry
their Heaven about with them wheresoever they are sent, because they
never depart from God, or cease to behold him; ever dwelling in the
bosom of his immensity, living and moving in him, and exercising their
ministry in the sanctuary of his divinity." This is the happiness of
every Christian who makes a desert, by interior solitude, in his own
heart.
Footnotes:
1. Bollandus, Papebroke, and Pagi, pretend that St. Abraham the hermit
lived near the Hellespont, and long after St. Ephrem: but are
clearly confuted by Jos. Assemani, Bibl. Orient. t, l, and Com. In
Calend. Univ. t. 5. p. 324, ad 29 Oct. The chronicle of Edessa
assures us that he was a native of Chidana, and was living in the
year of the Greeks, 667, of Christ, 356.