True, St. Epiphanius,[3] bishop of Cyprus,[4] who saw Hilarion very often, wrote his praise in a short epistle, which is read even now,[5] but it is one thing to praise the deceased in public places, and another to narrate his virtues. Wherefore we, too, guided more by love for him (i.e., Epiphanius) than by a desire to offend him, and as we proceed to the work which he has begun, despise the words of those who slander, who, having formerly humiliated my Paul,[6] will perhaps now humiliate Hilarion also: they have slandered the former on account of his solitude, and they will reproach the latter for his sociability; the first was considered non-existent, because he was always hidden, the second would be considered vulgar, because he was seen by many. The same was once done by their ancestors, the Pharisees, who did not approve of the wilderness, nor of John's fasting, nor of the disciples, nor of the food and drink of the Lord the Savior. However, I will have a hand in the proposed work and, plugging my ears, will pass by the dogs of Scylla[7].

2. Hilarion was born in the village of Fawaf, lying about five miles [8] south of the Palestinian city of Gaza [9]; Since his parents were [3] devoted to idolatry, then, as they say, the rose blossomed with thorns. Being sent by them to Alexandria, he was given over to grammarian, where, as far as his age permitted, he presented great proofs of talent and morality: in a short time he became dear to all, and a connoisseur of eloquence. But what is above all this, he, believing in the Lord Jesus, found no pleasure in the wild passions of the circus, nor in the blood of the arena, nor in the unbridled theater, but all his pleasure was in the church assembly.

3. Hearing of the then glorious name of Antony,10 which had spread throughout all the nations of Egypt, and burning with a desire to see him, he set out into the wilderness. And as soon as he saw him, he changed his former clothes, and remained with him for about two months, contemplating his way of life and the severity of his morals: how frequent he was in prayer, how humble he was in his dealings with the brethren, how strict he was in his rebuke, how quick he was in exhortation, and how never could any weakness overwhelm his abstinence and the severity of his food.

Then, unable to endure any longer the multitude of those who flocked to him on account of various sufferings or attacks of demons, and not deeming it fit to endure in the wilderness (the sojourn) of the crowds of the townspeople, and (reasoning) that he should begin with what Anthony had begun, that the latter, as a brave man, received the reward of victory, while he had not yet begun to fight, he returned with some monks to his native land. Since his parents were already dead, he left part of his possessions to his brothers, and distributed part to the poor, leaving nothing for himself, fearing the example mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles or the punishment of Ananias and Sapphira, and, especially, remembering the Lord, who says: "Whosoever shall not renounce all his possessions, my disciple cannot be" (Luke 2:11). XIV, 33). He was fifteen years old then. Thus, stripped naked and (at the same time) armed in Christ, he entered the wilderness, which turns to the left, on the seventh miliary [11] from Mayoma, the harbor of Gaza [12], along the coastal route to Egypt. And since these regions were bloodied by robbers, and his relatives and friends warned him of the impending danger, he despised death in order to avoid death.

4. Everyone was amazed at his firmness, surprised at his age: in his eyes shone a certain inner flame and sparks of faith. His cheeks were smooth, his body thin and delicate, which could not endure any exhaustion and was exposed to the influence of even a slight cold or heat. And so, covering his limbs with a tunic, and having a leather girdle, given to him at departure by Blessed Anthony, and a village cloak, he enjoyed the vast and terrible [5] wilderness, between the sea and the marsh, eating only fifteen figs after sunset. And since the country was notorious for robbery, he was never accustomed to live in one place. What was the devil to do?

Where to apply? He, who had previously boasted, saying: "I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, and I will be like the Most High" (Isaiah XIV:14), saw that the lad was overcoming him and trampling on him before he could, according to his age, sin.

5. And so his senses began to awaken and inflame his maturing body with the usual fire (of passion). The young soldier of Christ was urged to think about what he did not know, and to dream of the charm of what he had not become acquainted with by experience. So, in anger at himself, striking his chest with his hands, as if he were able to banish thoughts with blows of his hands, he said: "I will make it, donkey, that you will not kick; I will not feed you with barley, but with straw; I will wear you down with hunger and thirst, I will burden you with a heavy burden, I will persecute you with heat and cold, so that you will think more about food than about voluptuousness." And so, supporting the weakening life after three or four days with the juice of herbs and a few figs, often praying and singing, digging the ground with a rake, so that the burden of labor would aggravate the burden of fasting. At the same time, weaving baskets from reeds, he imitated the feats of the Egyptian monks and the saying of the Apostle, who says: [6] "Whoever does not want to do lower let him eat" (II Thessalonica 3:10); he was so thin and his body was so exhausted that it could hardly stand on his bones.

6. One night he began to hear the weeping of children, the bleating of herds, the mooing of bulls, as it were the cries of women, the roaring of lions, the noise of the army, and again various wonderful voices, (heard) for him to depart, frightened first by the sound than by the vision. He understood that this was a demonic mockery, and, falling on his knees, imprinting the sign of Christ on his forehead, and arming himself with it, he fought even harder, prostrating himself and wishing somehow to see those at whose hearing he was terrified. Looking here and there with attentive eyes, he suddenly saw in the light of the moon that a chariot with rushing horses was rushing towards him, and when he called out to Jesus, all the charm was swallowed up by the earth that suddenly opened before his eyes. Then he said, "Cast the horse and the rider into the sea" (Exod. XV, 1) and: "These in chariots and these on horses, but in the name of God we shall be magnified" (Psalm 1:1). XIX, 8).

7. His temptations were many, and his demonic intrigues were varied day and night: if I wanted to enumerate everything, I would go beyond the limits of the book. How many times had he seen naked women on his bed, how many times had he seen splendid viands in times of famine! From time to time, during prayer, a wolf with a howl, or a fox with a cry, jumped over him, and while he sang, a crowd of gladiators appeared to him in a vision, and one, as if killed, fell at his feet and asked for burial.

8. One day he was praying with his head in the ground, and, according to the nature of human nature, his thoughts, distracted from prayer, thought of something else; Then a horseman jumped on his back and, striking him in the sides with his heels, and on the head with a whip, said:

"Hey, why are you dozing?", and mocking from above, if he was tired, he asked if he wanted barley.

9. So, from the sixteenth to the twentieth year of his life, he protected himself from the heat and rain with a small tabernacle woven of reeds and figs. Then he built a small cell, which exists to this day, five feet high, that is, below his height, a little longer than the height of his body, so that one might think that it was more a grave than a house. 10. He cut his hair once a year, on the day of Easter, and slept until his death on the bare ground and a reed pillow. He never washed the tunic he wore and said that it was unnecessary to seek cleanliness in sackcloth. And he did not put on another tunic until the old one was completely torn. Knowing the Holy Scriptures by heart, he read them, as if in the presence of God, after prayers and psalms. And as it would be long to relate separately his ascents of different times, I shall briefly collect them before the eyes of the reader, at the same time giving an account of his life, and then return to the order of the narrative. 11. From the twenty-first to the twenty-seventh year, for three years, he ate half a sextarium [13] of lentils moistened with cold water, and during the other three years, dry bread with salt and water. Then, from the twenty-seventh to the thirtieth, he supported himself with field herbs and raw roots of certain cereals. And from the thirty-first to the thirty-fifth he had six ounces of barley bread and lightly boiled vegetables without butter. Feeling that his eyes were darkened, and his whole body was shrinking from scabies and some scab that looked like pumice, he added oil to his former food, and continued this degree of abstinence until the sixty-third year of his life, not partaking of any fruit or vegetables or anything else. Then, when he saw that he was exhausted in body and believing that he was about to die, from the sixty-fourth year to the eightieth he abstained from bread, because of the incredible fervor of his soul, so that at this time; when others usually live less strictly, he, as if a novice, began the work of the Lord. For him a soup was prepared from flour and crumbled vegetables, weighing barely five ounces of food and drink; and he, leading such a life, never permitted fasting [9] until sunset, even on feast days or in serious illness. But it is time to return to order (of the narrative). 12. While he was still living in the tabernacle, in the nineteenth year of his life, robbers came to him by night, who either thought that he had something they could take, or considered it an insult to themselves that the lonely lad was not afraid of their attacks. And so, from evening until sunrise, wandering between the sea and the swamp, they could not find anywhere the place where he rested. Then, in the daylight, having found the lad, they asked him, as if in jest: "What would you do if robbers came to you?"

He answered them: "The naked man is not afraid of robbers." "But for that," they said, "you may be killed." "They can," he answered, "they can, and I am not afraid of robbers, because I am ready to die." "Then, marveling at his firmness and faith, they confessed that they had wandered by night and that their eyes had been blinded, promising to lead a more correct life in the future. 13. He had already spent twenty-two years in solitude, known to all only by the rumor that had spread throughout all the cities of Palestine; at this time, a certain woman from Eleutheropolis [14], seeing that her husband despised her because of her barrenness — for fifteen years she had not borne the nuptial fruit — was the first [10] to dare to disturb the solitude of Blessed Hilarion; when he did not suspect anything of the kind, she suddenly fell at his feet and said: "Forgive my insolence, forgive my necessity. Why do you turn away your eyes? Why do you flee from the beggar? Look not at the woman, but at the unfortunate one. Our sex gave birth to the Savior. "The gate does not require health, but the sick" (Luke 2:11). V, 31). At last he stopped, and then, only looking at the woman, asked the reason for her coming and weeping. And when he found out, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and commanded him to have faith, then, seeing it off with tears, after a year he saw him with his son. 14. This beginning of his miracles made known another, greater miracle. Aristeneta, the wife of Elpidius, who afterwards was prefect of the praetorium,15 who was very well known among her own and more famous among the Christians, returning with her husband and three children by Blessed Anthony, stopped in Gaza because of the illness of her children. There, either because of the spoiled air, or, as it became known later, for the sake of the glorification of the servant of God Hilarion, all three of them fell ill with fever [16] and the doctors refused them. The mother, weeping, lay and (then) passing as if from one corpse to another, did not call whom to mourn first. Learning that there was a certain [11] monk in the neighbouring desert, she, forgetting the pomp of the matrons, for she was conscious of herself only as a mother, went (to him), accompanied by slave girls and eunuchs; with difficulty her husband persuaded her to ride on a donkey. When she came to him, she said: "I beseech you by Jesus, our most merciful God, I adjure you by the cross and His blood, return to me my three sons, and may the name of the Lord the Savior be glorified in the pagan city, and His servant shall enter Gaza, and the idol of the Marne shall be broken" [17].

When he refused and said that he had never left his cell, that he was not in the habit of entering not only a city, but even a small village, she threw herself on the ground, often exclaiming: "Hilarion, servant of God, give me back my children. Those whom Anthony preserved in Egypt, let them be saved by you in Syria."