United States or Botswana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Syrian monks in numbers settled in the monastery of Mount Nitria; and in that secluded spot there remained a colony of these monks for several centuries, kept up by the occasional arrival of newcomers from the churches on the eastern side of the Euphrates.
Oh, how they longed for even a bit of the hard black bread which was Lenten fare at the monastery beyond the hills! Day by day they grew more hollow-cheeked and despairing. At last one evening they came to Fronto in a body such a weak, pale body. "Take us back to Nitria, or we starve!" they cried. "We can endure this no longer!"
Then wondering, and blessing such a choir, he prayed to be taught what that might be; and straightway a voice came to him that this was the soul of Ammon, the monk in Nitria, who had persevered as an ascetic to his old age; and the distance from Nitria to the mountain where Antony was, is thirteen days' journey.
But, behold! within four-and-twenty hours of the theft, a procession of all the rascality, followed by all the piety, of Alexandria, monks from Nitria counted by the thousand, priests, deacons, archdeacons, Cyril himself, in full pontificals, and borne aloft in the midst, upon a splendid bier, the missing corpse, its nail-pierced hands and feet left uncovered for the pitying gaze of the Church.
But when they called loudly on the Lord, "the monsters, as if turned away by an angel," shot themselves into the water; while they ran on to Nitria, meditating on the words of Job, "Seven times shall He deliver thee from trouble; and in the eighth there shall no evil touch thee." The great St. Athanasius, fleeing from persecution, had taken refuge among these monks.
It was Fronto who had induced them to leave the pleasant monastery at Nitria, where the rest of their brethren were living in peace and plenty. It was Fronto who had led them into this miserable desert to serve God in solitude, as holy men loved to do in the early days of Christendom. Fronto was a holy man, full of faith and courage.
But the monks to whom Antony spoke about Ammon's death noted down the day; and when brethren came from Nitria after thirty days, they inquired and learnt that Ammon had fallen asleep at the day and hour in which the old man saw his soul carried aloft. And all on both sides wondered at the purity of Antony's soul; how he had learnt and seen instantly what had happened thirteen days' journey off.
Sustained by the insinuations and the promises of France, the Sultan demanded that Hungary should be left in the state in which it was in 1655; that henceforward that kingdom should pay him an annual tribute of fifty thousand florins; that the fortifications of Leopoldstadt and Gratz should be destroyed; that the chief of the revolted towns Nitria, Eckof, the Island of Schutt, and the fort of Murann, at Tekelai should be ceded; that there should be a general amnesty and restitution of their estates, dignities, offices, and privileges without restriction.
He had just finished an excellent dinner, with all his favorite fishes and meats and fruits and sweets, and he was feeling very happy. When suddenly he thought of the seventy monks who had gone out from Nitria many days before to live in the desert with the help which the Lord should send. And a pang smote him. Perhaps they were starving now, while he was feasting.
The monks of Mount Nitria and of the neighbourhood burned with a holy zeal to fight for Cyril, as they had before fought for Theophilus; and when they heard that a jealousy had sprung up between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, more than five hundred of them marched into Alexandria to avenge the affronted bishop.
Word Of The Day