Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. Greek Menaeas and Menologies, Menology of Basil, Russian Kalendar. Authority: — A Life by Cyril oi Scythopolis, written in 557; in Cotelerius, Mon. EccL Greecse, iii. pp. 220-376.] S. Sabas was born at Mutalasca in Cappadocia, in the year 437. His father, John Conon, and his mother Sophia were both of illustrious family. John followed the profession of arms, and being obliged to go with his legion to Alexandria, and unable to take his child with him, he left the little Sabas to the care of his brother Hermias. Sabas remained with his uncle till he was eight, and then, unable to endure the temper of his aunt, ran away to another uncle, a priest named Gregory, who lived at Scandos, not far from Mutalasca. This gave rise to angry recriminations between the brothers, and contests about the property of the father of Sabas. The boy, sick at heart at the discord, retired, before he was nine years old, to the monastery of Flavianum, where he occupied himself in learning the Psalter by heart. One day the baker of the monastery got wet through in a shower, and he put his clothes to dry in the oven. The other monks, not knowing this, lighted the fires to heat the oven, intending to do some baking. The baker came in and found, to his dismay, that his clothes had not been removed. However, Sabas daringly scrambled into the oven, and pulled them out. The monks admired the pluck of the boy, and in after years, when Sabas became famous, magnified the incident into a miracle. After ten years spent in this monastery, Sabas went to that ot Bessarion, governed by S. Elpidius, but was thought too young to remain in it, and was sent further, to S. Theoctistus. This abbot sent him on business into Egypt, where he met his father and mother. They naturally desired him to quit the monastic life, enter the army, and live with them, but he refused, and returned to Palestine.
When Sabas was aged thirty, he retired into a cavern, but appeared every Sabbath 1 and Lord's day at the monastery church to assist at the sacred mysteries. S. Euthymius chose him as his companion in his yearly retreats into the desert of Ruban. In one of these wanderings in the wilderness, Sabas discovered a cavern in the face of a precipice that overhung the brook Cedron. He reached it with some difficulty, and then hung a cord from the mouth, by which he was enabled to ascend to it and descend from it. He was aged forty when he retired to the cavern, and by the end of five years he saw himself surrounded by seventy disciples, whom he lodged in caves near him. He had much difficulty, however, in obtaining a supply of water, as that of Cedron was not drinkable; but one moonlight night he saw a wild ass pawing the gravelly soil at a distance from the brook, and, when it had made a hole, drinking the water that filtered through the gravel and sand into the place. This was a hint to Sabas, and he opened a well at the spot, and found a sufficiency of potable water. In one of his rambles among the rocks of the desert he came on an ancient sculptured cave-temple, and it struck him that it might serve eventually as a church. His disciples had become a hundred and fifty, and could not be accommodated in the simple oratory he had built on first entering the wilderness. He now built himself a tower above the rock, and pierced a passage, which wound down into the old temple, and he used it as his private chapel, till Sallust, patriarch [the title of the bishops of the great ancient sees: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem] of Jerusalem, ordained him priest, and consecrated the old Egyptian Churches. The offices of the Latin Church show traces of the ancient observance of the Saturday as a holy day in the West as well. Decs.] S. Sabas.
pagan temple as a church (a.d. 490). Sabas retired from the throng of monks for long tracts of time, into remote parts of the desert. On one occasion he tumbled into a pit of boiling sulphur and gypsum in the volcanic district of the Dead Sea, and was so severely scalded that he could not get over it, and his face was for some time disfigured. Once he resolved boldly to occupy a rock which it was alleged was haunted. When, however, he came to take up his abode in it, he found that the rents of the cliff were haunted, not by devils, but by innumerable ravens and crows, which flew screaming and croaking round their invaded home. In the desert he was praying one night, whilst his disciple slept on the sand. By the moonlight a great lion came up, and sniffed at the sleeping man. Sabas uttered a loud cry to God for help, and the king of the beasts ran scared away, without doing any injury to either of the hermits. On another occasion, Sabas lay down to sleep in a cavern, which was the lair of a lion. The beast came in full gorged from a meal, when Sabas was asleep, and taking the old man’s habit in his teeth, dragged Sabas outside. The monk awoke, and making the sign of the cross, got up, and crept back into the cave, lay down and went to sleep again. Not long after he found the lion again pulling at his clothes. Sabas sat up, and said, “ If you do not care to share your lair with me, go and seek a separate one for yourself, and let me sleep in peace.” The lion left him alone, and departed. Next morning Sabas abandoned the cavern.
The raven rock so delighted him that he resolved to establish on it a monastery. It was the site of an old Roman fortress, and still bore the name of Castellum. Among the ruins was a well-preserved hall, which with little trouble could be converted into a church. He carried thither a swarm of brothers from his own monastery, and placed over them a favourite monk, named Paul. Among his disciples were Egyptians and Armenians; he made each sing the offices, and celebrate the mysteries, in his own tongue; but lie required the Armenians to chant the Trisagion in Greek, because he found that some were disposed to add the paragraph of Peter the Fuller, “ Who was crucified for us,” as applying to the whole Trinity, and thus to renew the heresy of Sabellius. He built two infirmaries at Castellum, a hospital near Jerusalem, and another at Jericho.
About forty of his disciples had complained to the patriarch Sallust that the long absences of Sabas^ rendered him incompetent to act as abbot to so large a community, but had been dismissed with reproof. The number of the discontented increased, and during one of the long disappearances of the abbot, sixty of the monks left his laura,1 and established themselves in the desert of Thecua. On the return of Sabas, he heard, not only of this migration, but also that the malcontents were very badly off. He at once went to them, and, without rebuking them, built them a church, obtained for them a grant of land, and furnished them with food and money.
As Eutychianism [followers of Eutyches, who said Christ had only a divine nature; condemned at Chalcedon in 451] was making great inroads among the religious of Palestine, the patriarch constituted him head of all the ascetics or solitaries in the deserts, and Theoctistus he appointed cenobiarch, supreme over all the monasteries. One day Sabas was walking from Jericho to the Jordan with a young monk, his disciple, when they passed some travellers, amongst whom was a very handsome girl. “ Who was that one-eyed young woman ? ” asked S. Sabas of his companion.
“ She was not one-eyed,” said the young ascetic. “ You mistake, surely,” persisted the abbot. “ No, father; I know she has two eyes,” said the monk, 1 A laura was a monastery of separate cells. Those inhabiting a laura were called S. Sabas.
“ for I particularly observed them, and very beautiful eyes they are.” " Oh, indeed ! you particularly looked into the girl’s eyes, did you ?” exclaimed Sabas. And he added, “ Depart from v me, you are not suited to become a monk in my monastery.” Sabas was involved against his will in the troubles about Severus, patriarch of Antioch. Severus had embraced Eutychianism, and denounced those who held by the Council of Chalcedon as Nestorians [Nestorius (d. c. 451), whose teaching split Christ into two persons; condemned at Ephesus in 431]. The Emperor Anastasius favoured Eutychianism,* and had deposed Macedonius from the patriarchate of Constantinople, and put Timothy in his room (a.d. 51 i), who sent synodal letters to the bishops of the East Elias of Jerusalem and Flavian of Antioch refused to approve of the deposition of Macedonius, though they did not denounce Timothy, whom they believed to be orthodox. The emperor was highly incensed against Elias, who had hovered between condemning and approving the Council of Chalcedon, and shrank from committing himself to a course which would involve him either in heresy or in the hostility of Anastasius. Half measures did not satisfy the emperor.1 Elias sent S. Sabas with other venerable abbots to Constantinople to intercede for him with the emperor. All the abbots were admitted to the imperial presence except Sabas, whom the guards took to be a beggar, from his ragged appearance. The letter of Elias was read to Anastasius, in which he mentioned Sabas in terms of eulogy. The emperor asked where he was. He was discovered without, in a comer, repeating psalms. The old man, bent, with habit rudely patched, and ragged white hair, hobbled from behind the purple curtain that hung over the door. The emperor rose to meet him, and then requested the abbots to seat themselves. They all began to clamour for gifts; one wanted a piece of land, another money. Sabas asked 4 See about Flavian and Elias, July 4, pp. 99-105. P>ec.s for nothing, save that the emperor would leave the Church alone, and not meddle with her bishops. Sabas spent the winter in Constantinople, and returned to the East in May. He visited his native place of Mutalasca on his way, and converted his paternal mansion into a church. A council was held on his return, at Sidon; Elias of Jerusalem and Flavian of Antioch were present, as well as Severus, whom the emperor had intruded on the see of Flavian [a bishop’s “see” is his diocese, named from his seat (Latin sedes)]. Elias refused to receive the synodal letters of Severus, and the emperor sent Olympius, duke of Palestine, to banish Elias from Jerusalem, and replace him with John, who had promised to anathematize the Council of Chalcedon. Sabas hastened to Jerusalem, and standing on Calvary with other abbots, pronounced anathema against Severus, and those who communicated with him. When John was installed in the patriarchal chair, Sabas so instantly urged him not to denounce the Council of Chalcedon, that he agreed not to do so, and to refuse communion with Severus of Antioch. On a given day ten thousand monks assembled in the church of S. Stephen, as that of the Resurrection was too small to receive the crowd; and there John, with Sabas, head of the Anchorites on the one hand, and Theodosius [name of Roman emperors; Theodosius I (379–395) made Christianity the state religion], head of the Cenobites on the other, stood in the ambone, and all three pronounced anathema on Nestorius, Eutyches, and Severus.
Elias was visited in his exile by Sabas, who also was present at his death. Anastasius died about the same time, and Justinian [Byzantine emperor 527–565], who succeeded him, befriended the orthodox, and eagerly persecuted heretics.
The reign of Justinian was, indeed, a uniform yet various scene of persecution. Heretics were allowed three months in which to feel or feign conviction, and if too honourable to embrace tenets which they could not believe, were cruelly and relentlessly banished and plundered. The churches of S. Sabas.
the Montanists were given up to flames, and the unhappy heretics, rather than abandon their hysterical ravings, perished in the fires. The Jews, who had been gradually stripped of their immunities, were oppressed by a vexatious law which compelled them to observe the feast of the Passover at the same time as the Christian Easter. The Samaritans of Palestine were a motley race, an ambiguous sect, rejected as Jews by the Pagans, by the Jews as schismatics, and by the Christians as unbelievers. The Emperor Zeno had built a church, and placed a garrison on Mount Gerizim. Under Anastasius, the Samaritans surprised the fort and church; and when the Emperor Justinian showed himself ready to persecute to the death, they rose in revolt, set up a rival emperor, killed a bishop, and cut to pieces several priests. Justinian sent the regular forces of the East against them; twenty thousand were massacred, twenty thousand were sold as slaves, and the remains of that unhappy nation purchased safety by submitting with disgust and disbelief to baptism. It has been computed that one hundred thousand Roman subjects were extirpated in this Samaritan war, in the extension of the kingdom of the Prince of Peace. But, as Procopius observes, — “ It is not murder to massacre unbelievers.” The devout and orthodox Christians of Scythopolis having caught a Samaritan of rank named Sylvanus, who incautiously ventured himself among Christians, emulated the enthusiasm and zeal of their emperor by burning him alive in their market-place. But Sylvanus was a Roman citizen, and had powerful relations. His son Arsenius went to Constantinople and appealed to the emperor for redress. Then Peter, patriarch of Jerusalem, and other bishops of Palestine, deputed S. Sabas to go to Justinian and obtain immunity for the enthusiasts who had burned Sylvanus, and demand the execution of a few more obnoxious Samaritans, and the relief of the province from certain taxes which could not well be paid on account of the injury done by the Samaritan revolt S. Sabas was received by the emperor with the highest honour, galleys were sent to meet him, he was presented before the emperor by Hypatius of Ephesus, and Justinian cast himself at the feet of the old hermit to receive his blessing. S. Sabas was so successful in his mission, that he obtained orders from the emperor for the execution both of the unfortunate Arsenius, who had objected to his father's being burned alive, and also of all the chiefs of the Samaritans who had made themselves obnoxious to the bishops of Palestine. The emperor decreed, also, that the Samaritans should be forbidden assembling for religious worship, entering any public office, and enjoying any inheritance from their parents. Arsenius found that his only chance of life was to submit with rage in his heart to the mockery of baptism by the hands of S. Sabas.
Justinian sent for Sabas, before the saint returned to the East, to ask him what he could do for him. “ Nothing/* replied the holy abbot, “ except deliver the Church from the Arians [followers of Arius, who taught that the Son is a created being, not fully God], Nestorians, and Origenists.”
Justinian gladly promised to do his best to extirpate them. He hastened to confiscate the goods of the Arian churches. It is curious to note that this persecuting emperor himself died a heretic. Nicetius, bishop of Trfeves, wrote to the emperor when he was dying, “ Unless you destroy what you have taught, and exclaim, ‘ I have erred, I have sinned; anathema to Nestorius, anathema to Eutyches/ you deliver your soul to the same flames in which they will eternally burn." He died in his heresy.
S. Sabas, on his return, published the letters of the emperor; the patriarch and other bishops went to Scythopolis, Caesarea, &c., and proclaimed the decision of Justinian, and saw to the execution of its infamous requirements. Sabas went back to his laura, and died there shortly after. Dec. sO S. Nicetius.