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Hilarion

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This article is about the life of Saint Hilarion. For other persons named Hilarion, see Hilarion (name).
Saint

Hilarion
Hilarion the Great, by Basil II, c.1000 (Vatican Library)
Abbot
BornAD 291
Thabatha, south of Gaza in Syria Palaestina, Roman Empire
DiedAD 371
Province of Cyprus, Roman Empire
Venerated inOriental Orthodox Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
Roman Catholic Church
CanonizedPre-congregation
FeastOctober 21
AttributesScroll

Hilarion the Great (291–371) was an anchorite who spent most of his life in the desert according to the example of Anthony the Great (c. 251–356). While Anthony is considered to have established Christian monasticism in the Egyptian Desert, Hilarion is considered by his biographer Jerome to be the founder of Palestinian monasticism[1] (see also Chariton the Confessor) and venerated as a saint exemplifying monastic virtues by the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church.

Biography

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Origin and life as a hermit

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Hilarion was born around 291 to pagan parents in Tabatha, a village five miles north of Gaza.[2] Hilarion was at least bilingual, speaking both Greek as well as Aramaic which was common around Gaza.[3] His pagan parents sent him in his youth to study with a grammarian in Alexandria, where he gave according to Jerome a remarkable proof of his ability and character and became an accomplished speaker.[4] While in Alexandria, he heard of the hermit Anthony and set off to study with him. After two months of learning the ascetic life from Anthony, Hilarion started to feel that the many visitors who came to Anthony for healing or exorcism were to much to bear and he decided to set of in the wilderness of Palestine to live alone as a hermit.[5][6]

"The Temptation of Saint Hilarion", by Octave Tassaert, c.1857 (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts)

Hilaron returned to Gaza where he found his parents dead and subsequently gave away his goods to his brothers and the poor.[7] Then, he established himself as a hermit in the desert inland from the coast road seven miles from Maiuma, the port of Gaza.[2] Though he went on one occasion to Jerusalem to venerate the holy sites, he chose not to live in the Judaean Desert as he did not wish to appear to confine God within prescribed limits, believing he could be close to God anywhere.[8] Around 308, he built a hut where he lived in solitude for 22 years and which survived into the time of Jerome.[9][7] Hilarion wove baskets as he had learned in Egypt where this was a common monastic occupation.[5] Here he also struggled against fleshly desires and Jerome said that the devil tempted Hilarion by igniting the "flames of lust" in the young man. Hilarion fought this sexual desire by mortifying his body with hunger, thirst and strenuous labour.[6]

Life in Gaza and attributed miracles

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After these 22 years, Hilarion was approached by a brave women who sought a cure for her sterility. First, he resisted, but soon he prayed for her upon which she was healed. From then on, Hilarion spent his life surrounded by disciples and people in need of healing and exorcism.[6] Jerome reports several episodes in which Hilarion heals people, drives out demons, foresees the future, performs miracles and speaks divinely inspired words of wisdom. In one instance, Hilarion was able to heal the three children of Helpidius, who would later become praetorian prefect[10] In Bethelea, Hilarion healed miraculously a certain Alaphion, which led to the conversion of the prominent family of the historian Sozomen.[11]

As there were no monasteries in Palestine or Syria at the time, people begun to flock to Hilarion for spiritual training.[9][12] Sozomen, possibly due to his local sources, singles out Epiphanius and Hesyach as the two most outstanding in the circle around Hilarion.[13] Epiphanius of Eleutheropolis became his disciple after returning from Egypt and would later go to Cyprus where he introduced monasticism and was elected bishop of Salamis around 367/368.[14] With many more people seeking his guidance, he established a monastery in during the reign of emperor Constantius (337–361) which by the time he was sixty-three consisted of a large community with many visitors.[11]

Final years and death

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Hilarion remained in Gaza until three years after the death of Anthony (around 356), upon which he went to the place where Anthony had died in Egypt in order to escape the crowds that visited him.[10][7] While he was there, the pagan Julian became emperor of the East in the winter of 361/362 and the city authority of Gaza attempted to arrest Hilarion who then had to flee. Jerome's and Sozomen's account differs slightly as Jerome writes that Hilarion escaped arrest in Egypt and lived there until Julian's death before travelling to Sicily, Hilarion went according to Sozomen directly to Sicily.[2] From there, he went soon to Epidauros in Dalmatia where he was said to have stilled the sea during the tsunami of 21 July 365 by drawing three crosses in the sand. Immediately after that, he went to Cyprus.[15]

Hilarion was welcomed in Cyprus by his old disciple Epiphanius who encouraged him to stay.[16] He initially settled near Paphos but later retired to a more remote place twelve miles away.[7] Here, Hilarion died at the age of eighty and was buried.[15] Ten month after Hilarion's death, his disciple Hesyach stole his body, which was perfectly preserved and smelled sweetly, and interred it in his own monastery at Maiuma.[13][15]

Veneration

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Sozomen reports that after Hilarion's body was interred at his monastery, the local population started to celebrate an annual festival at the place.[17] His relics continued to be venerated and are also mentioned by the anonymous Piacenza Pilgrim around the year 570.[18]

Hilarion was venerated from early time in both East and West as an example of monastic holiness. Bede included him in his martyrology and he appeared frequently in Pre-Conquest English monastic calendars before his feast was ousted by those of Ursula and Dunstan's ordination.[7] Charlemagne is said to have brought the relics of Hilarion to Moissac Abbey from where they where transferred to the church of Duravel in 1065.[19] Hilarion is the patron saint of Caulonia under the name Sant'Ilario.[20] In iconography, is depicted as an old man with a brown, rush-like beard divided into three points and he holds sometimes a scroll which reads: "The tools of a monk are steadfastness, humility, and love according to God."[21]

Sources

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Upon Hilarion's death, Epiphanius announced his death in a laudatory letter which served as primary source for both Jerome and Sozomenus who wrote subsequent hagiographies about Hilarion.[16] Jerome wrote his Life of Hilarion in Latin around 390 in the monastery of Paula in Bethlehem. Jerome's work was translated into Greek by contemporary writer Sophronius upon whose translation Jerome looked favourably.[22] Jerome was inspired by reading the Life of Anthony which also served as a literary model with regard to its content and ecclesiastic function of the text.[23] There are two major themes Jerome focuses on, one being Hilarion's search for a life of solitary prayer and contemplation and the other being Hilarion's role as successor to Anthony.[15] Jerome's goal was not so much to write a historical exact account but rater a hagiographic composition focusing on the life and deeds of Hilarion.[11] Though Jerome's historical accuracy has been occasionally questioned, there can be no doubt that Hilarion was a historical figure and that Gaza became during his time a center of monasticism.[9][24]

Hilarion's life is mentioned in the third, fifth and sixth book of Sozomen's Ecclesiastical history, which was written in the 440s.[25] Whereas in the third book no new information to Jerome's Life of Hilarion is added and is in parts less detailed,[26] Sozomen adds new information in the fifth book and sixth books, possibly thanks to his local sources and own family history. Sozomen's own origin and literary aims as a historian therefore result in a different historical sketch of Hilarion's life than that of Jerome.[25]

Hilarion is also mentioned twice in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.[27]

In Literature

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Johann Gottfried Herder wrote the poem "The Paradise in the desert" about the teacher-disciple relation between Anthony and Hilarion in 1797.[28] This motive was also taken up by Gustave Flaubert in his The Temptation of Saint Anthony and changed in such as Hilarion attempts to tempt Anthony away from his faith by creating doubt.[29] Hermann Hesse adapted a biography of Hilarion as one of the three Lives of Joseph Knecht, making up his Nobel Prize–winning novel The Glass Bead Game (also known as Magister Ludi).

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Butler, Edward Cuthbert (1911). "Hilarion, St" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 458.
  2. ^ a b c Barnes 2010, p. 188.
  3. ^ Ferguson, Everett (1993). Personalities of the Early Church. Taylor & Francis. p. 203. ISBN 978-0-8153-1061-7. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
  4. ^ Binns 1994, p. 75.
  5. ^ a b Bitton-Ashkelony & Kofsky 2006, p. 12.
  6. ^ a b c Shaw, Teresa M. The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity. Fortress Press. pp. 108–110. ISBN 978-1-4514-1888-0. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
  7. ^ a b c d e Farmer, David (14 April 2011). "Hilarion". The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Fifth Edition Revised. OUP Oxford. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-19-959660-7. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
  8. ^ Wilken, Robert Louis (1 January 1992). The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought. Yale University Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-300-06083-6.
  9. ^ a b c Binns 1994, p. 154.
  10. ^ a b Barnes 2010, p. 190.
  11. ^ a b c Bitton-Ashkelony & Kofsky 2006, p. 13.
  12. ^ Ward, Walter D. (17 December 2014). Mirage of the Saracen: Christians and Nomads in the Sinai Peninsula in Late Antiquity. Univ of California Press. pp. 32–33. ISBN 978-0-520-95952-1. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
  13. ^ a b Bitton-Ashkelony & Kofsky 2006, p. 16.
  14. ^ Barnes 2010, p. 184.
  15. ^ a b c d Barnes 2010, p. 189.
  16. ^ a b Barnes 2010, p. 185.
  17. ^ Erizos (12 September 2017). "E04018: Sozomen in his Ecclesiastical History mentions veneration and miracles at the tombs of *Hilarion (anchorite in Palestine and Cyprus, ob. 371, S00099) in Cyprus and Palestine. Sozomen describes the posthumous veneration of ascetics as common in Palestine, mentioning the 4th c. monks and missionaries *Aurelios (S01700), *Alexion (S01701), and *Alaphion (S01702). Written in Greek at Constantinople, 439/450". figshare. University of Oxford. doi:10.25446/oxford.13841888.v1.
  18. ^ Robert (15 May 2015). "E00506: The Piacenza Pilgrim, in his account of his visit to Gaza (Palestine), mentions the tomb close by of *Hilarion (anchorite in Palestine and Cyprus, ob. 371, S00099). Account of an anonymous pilgrim, written in Latin, probably in Placentia (northern Italy), c. 570". figshare. doi:10.25446/oxford.13748317.v1. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  19. ^ Baudoin, Jacques (2006). Grand livre des saints: culte et iconographie en Occident (in French). EDITIONS CREER. p. 267. ISBN 978-2-84819-041-9. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
  20. ^ The Society of Saint Hilarion
  21. ^ "Venerable Hilarion the Great". www.oca.org. Orthodoy Church in America. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
  22. ^ Efthymiadis, Stephanos (28 July 2013). The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography: Volume I: Periods and Places. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 202–203, 389. ISBN 978-1-4094-8268-0. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
  23. ^ Bitton-Ashkelony & Kofsky 2006, p. 9.
  24. ^ Barnes 2010, p. 192.
  25. ^ a b Bitton-Ashkelony & Kofsky 2006, pp. 14–16.
  26. ^ Barnes 2010, p. 187.
  27. ^ Ward, Benedicta (1975). The Sayings of the Desert Fathers - The alphabetical collection. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications. pp. 57, 111. ISBN 0 264 66350 0.
  28. ^ Johann Gottfried Herder: Das Paradies in der Wüste. (Wikisource)
  29. ^ Orr, Mary (13 November 2008). Flaubert's Tentation: Remapping Nineteenth-Century French Histories of Religion and Science. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-925858-1. Retrieved 13 October 2024.

Bibliography

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Wikiquote has quotations related to Hilarion.
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