Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. In the Menology of the Emperor Basil on Dec. 8th; but in the Synaxarinm of the Church of Constantinople on Dec. 7th. Authority: — His life by Cyril the Monk, who wrote the lives of S. Sabas and S. Euthymius; he was a contemporary and an eye-witness of most that he describes.!
S. John the Silentiary was born at Nicopolis of Armenia, on Jan. 8th, 454, of an honourable and wealthy family. Upon the death of his parents he divided the 1 Lib. ix. Ep. 122. 2 S. Greg. Turon. aDe Gloria Martyrum,” lib. i. c. 28. *The remark of tbe Pere Giry is too sublime in its superiority to common sense and critical acumen to be passed over. “There are authors who think this key was given to S. Servais by the pope, and that it was one of those keys in which were inserted a filing of the chains of S. Peter. This is a. conjecture which has some plausibility, but as it is supported by no proof, it is not to be compared to the tradition of the churches of Maestricht and Liege, which declares that this key was given by S. Peter himself.”
[May i3, inheritance among his brothers, and shortly after retired into a cell with ten companions. He was then aged eighteen, and he spent ten years in solitude till he was drawn from it by the Bishop of Sebaste, who ordained him Bishop of Colonia. His sister was married to Pasinicus, governor of the province, a man who exercised tyrannical rule, and interfered with the bishops and other ecclesiastics in the discharge of their duties, so that after having been subjected to intolerable vexations, S. John was forced to appeal to the emperor against his brother-in-law. As soon as he had obtained redress, he suddenly disappeared from his see, having wearied of its cares and responsibilities, and secreted himself in the laura of S. Sabas, in Pales- i tine, where he was employed first in carrying stones for the labourers engaged in building, and afterwards as cook. Many years after, S. Sabas, admiring his virtue, brought him to Jerusalem to be ordained priest by the Patriarch Elias, but John asked to speak privately to the patriarch [the title of the bishops of the great ancient sees: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem], and he told him that he was already a bishop. Elias then spoke to S. Sabas, saying, “John has revealed to me something which makes it impossible for me to ordain him.” The venerable abbot burst into tears, thinking that the monk had fallen into some sin, and he spent many nights in prayer for him, till it was revealed to him that his conjecture was erroneous, and then going to John he was told all. John afterwards retired into a hovel built against the face of a rock in the desert, and there he planted a fig, and it grew in the face of the crag and overshadowed liis hut, and this caused much astonishment, for no figs grew in the garden of the laura. Now when an incursion of the Saracens [medieval Christian name for Arab and Muslim peoples] filled all the land with fear, the monks sent to him to take refuge in their fortified monastery; but he refused, saying, “ If God will not protect me, why should I care?” And all the while the Saracens were devastating the land a lion paced in the glen, or couched on the rock before his cell, and none dared approach. He died at the age of one hundred and four.
