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Flavianus and Diodorus and Aphraates, an athlete of virtue, I mean Acacius who later very wisely governed the church of the Beroeans, supplicating that all-famed man to pity the many myriads of people, and to refute the falsehood of their opponents, and to confirm the preachings of the truth. And all the wonders that this man worked, both going away and returning and in the greatest city itself, have been written by us in the Philotheus Historia, which it is easy for those wishing to learn these things to read. And that he gathered the entire multitude of the city to our assembly, I think no one who has considered human nature would doubt; for the extraordinary is by nature accustomed to draw everyone, for the most part, to itself. And that he also worked great miracles, even the enemies of the truth testify. And that famous Antony had done this also in Alexandria before this time, in the days of Constantius. For having left 268 the desert, he went about that entire city, teaching everyone that Athanasius is a herald of the apostolic teaching and that those of the party of Arius are opponents of the truth. Thus those divine men knew how to adapt what was suitable to each occasion, and when it is necessary to embrace quiet, and when to prefer the cities to the desert. And there were also others at that time emitting the splendors of the monastic philosophy; in the desert of the Chalcidians, Avitus and Marcianus and Abraham and others besides these, not easy to count, practicing in passible bodies the impassible life; and in the region of the Apameans, Agapetus and Symeones and Paulus; and in the region of the Zeugmateans, Publius and Paulus and others gathering the highest philosophy. and in the region of the Cyrrhestians, the all-famed Acepsimas was confined in a small house, and for a period of sixty years lived in this manner, neither being seen nor speaking; And Zeugmatius the admirable, although deprived of his sight, went about strengthening the sheep and fighting the wolves, on account of which they burned his ascetic hut. But Trajan the most faithful general built another and provided other care. and in the region of the Antiochenes, Marianus and Eusebius and Ammianus, and Palladius and Symeones and Abraham and others besides these who preserved the divine image undefiled. 269 And we have made a written record of the life of both these and those. And the mountain situated near the greatest city was adorned with similar meadows; for on this shone Peter the Galatian, and his namesake the Egyptian, and Romanus and Severus and Zeno, and Moses and Malchus and many others, unknown by the many, but known by God. At this time Ephraim the wonderful was pre-eminent in Edessa, and Didymus in Alexandria, writing against the doctrines of the opponents of the truth. And the one, using the Syriac tongue, sent forth the rays of spiritual grace; for though he had not tasted Hellenic education, he both refuted the manifold errors of the Hellenes and exposed the weakness of every heretical artifice. And since Harmonius, the son of Bardesanes, had long ago composed certain odes, and having mixed impiety with the pleasure of the melody, charmed his hearers and hunted them for destruction, Ephraim took the harmony of the melody from there, mixed in piety, and offered to his hearers a medicine at once most pleasant and beneficial. These songs even now make the festivals of the victorious martyrs more splendid. But Didymus, deprived of the sense of sight from boyhood, partook of both poetic and rhetorical learning; and through his hearing he received the lessons of arithmetic and geometry and astronomy and the syllogisms of Aristotle and the eloquence of Plato, not as things teaching truth, but as becoming weapons of the truth against falsehood. And indeed he learned of the divine scripture not only 270 the letters, but also their meanings. Among ascetics, therefore, and of virtue

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Φλαβιανὸς καὶ ∆ιόδωρος καὶ Ἀφραάτης, ἄνδρα ἀρετῆς ἀθλητήν, Ἀκάκιόν φημι τὸν χρόνῳ ὕστερον μάλα σοφῶς τὴν Βεροιαίων ἐκκλησίαν ἰθύναντα, πρὸς τὸν πανεύφημον ἄνδρα ἐκεῖνον, ἀντιβολοῦντες πολλὰς ἀνθρώ πων μυριάδας οἰκτεῖραι, καὶ τῶν μὲν ἐναντίων τὴν ψευδολογίαν ἐλέγξαι, τὰ δὲ τῆς ἀληθείας βεβαιῶσαι κηρύγματα. καὶ ὅσα μὲν οὗτος καὶ ἀπιὼν καὶ ἐπανιὼν καὶ ἐν αὐτῇ δὲ τῇ μεγίστῃ πόλει τεθαυμα τούργηκεν, ἐν τῇ Φιλοθέῳ ἡμῖν συγγέγραπται Ἱστορίᾳ, ᾗ ῥᾴδιον ἐντυ χεῖν τοὺς ταῦτα βουλομένους μαθεῖν. ὅτι δὲ ἅπαν τὸ τῆς πόλεως πλῆθος εἰς τὸν ἡμέτερον συνήθροισε σύλλογον, οὐδένα ἐνδοιάζειν οἶμαι τῶν τὴν ἀνθρωπείαν φύσιν ἐπεσκεμμένων· πέφυκε γὰρ τὰ παράδοξα ἕλκειν ἅπαντας ὡς ἐπίπαν πρὸς ἑαυτά. ὅτι δὲ καὶ μεγάλα εἰργάσατο θαύματα, μαρτυροῦσι καὶ οἱ τῆς ἀληθείας πολέμιοι. Τοῦτο δὲ καὶ ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ πρὸ τοῦδε τοῦ χρόνου πεποίηκεν ἐν τοῖς Κωνσταντίου καιροῖς Ἀντώνιος ἐκεῖνος ὁ πάνυ. καταλιπὼν 268 γὰρ τὴν ἔρημον ἅπαν ἐκεῖνο περιῄει τὸ ἄστυ, διδάσκων ἅπαντας ὡς τῆς ἀποστολικῆς διδασκαλίας κήρυξ ἐστὶν Ἀθανάσιος καὶ ὡς ἀντί παλοι τῆς ἀληθείας οἱ τῆς Ἀρείου συμμορίας. οὕτως ᾔδεσαν οἱ θεῖοι ἄνδρες ἐκεῖνοι τὰ πρόσφορα ἑκάστῳ προσαρμόττειν καιρῷ, καὶ πηνίκα μὲν χρὴ τὴν ἡσυχίαν ἀσπάζεσθαι, πηνίκα δὲ προτιμᾶν τὰς πόλεις τῆς ἐρημίας. Ἦσαν δὲ καὶ ἄλλοι κατ' ἐκεῖνον τὸν καιρὸν τὰς τῆς μοναχικῆς φιλοσοφίας ἀφιέντες μαρμαρυγάς· ἐν μὲν τῇ Χαλκιδέων ἐρήμῳ Ἄβιτος καὶ Μαρκιανὸς καὶ Ἀβραάμης καὶ ἕτεροι πρὸς τούτοις οὐκ εὐαρί θμητοι, ἐν παθητοῖς σώμασι τὴν ἀπαθῆ βιοτὴν μελετῶντες· ἐν δὲ τῇ Ἀπαμέων χώρᾳ Ἀγαπητὸς καὶ Συμεώνης καὶ Παῦλος· ἐν δὲ τῇ Ζευγματέων, Πούπλιος καὶ Παῦλος καὶ ἄλλοι τὴν ἄκραν φιλοσοφίαν συλλέγοντες. ἐν δὲ τῇ Κυρεστῶν, ὁ μὲν πανεύφημος Ἀκεψεμᾶς ἐν οἰκίσκῳ καθεῖρκτο, καὶ ἑξηκοντούτην χρόνον τοῦτον ἐβίω τὸν τρόπον, οὔτε ὁρώμενος οὔτε φθεγγόμενος· Ζευγμάτιος δὲ ὁ ἀξιάγαστος, καίτοι τὸ βλέπειν ἀφῃρημένος, περιῄει στηρίζων τὰ πρόβατα καὶ τοῖς λύκοις μαχόμενος, οὗ δὴ χάριν αὐτοῦ τὴν ἀσκητικὴν καλύβην ἐνέπρησαν. ἀλλὰ Τραϊανὸς ὁ πιστότατος στρατηγὸς ἑτέραν ἐδείματο καὶ τῆς ἄλλης θεραπείας μετέδωκεν. ἐν δὲ τῇ Ἀντιοχέων, Μαριανὸς καὶ Εὐ σέβιος καὶ Ἀμμιανός, Παλλάδιός τε καὶ Συμεώνης καὶ Ἀβραάμης καὶ ἄλλοι πρὸς τούτοις τὴν εἰκόνα τὴν θείαν ἀκήρατον διασώσαντες. 269 καὶ τούτων δὲ κἀκείνων τὸν βίον ἀνάγραπτον πεποιήκαμεν. καὶ τὸ ὄρος δὲ τὸ τῇ μεγίστῃ παρακείμενον πόλει λειμῶσι παραπλησίοις ὡράϊστο· καὶ γὰρ ἐν τούτῳ Πέτρος ὁ Γαλάτης διέλαμπε, καὶ ὁ τούτου γε ὁμώνυμος ὁ Αἰγύπτιος, καὶ Ῥωμανὸς καὶ Σευῆρος καὶ Ζήνων, Μωϋσῆς τε καὶ Μάλχος καὶ ἄλλοι πλεῖστοι, παρὰ μὲν τῶν πολλῶν ἀγνοούμενοι, παρὰ δὲ τοῦ θεοῦ γινωσκόμενοι. Κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον ἐν Ἐδέσσῃ μὲν Ἐφραῒμ ὁ θαυμάσιος, ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ δὲ διέπρεπε ∆ίδυμος, κατὰ τῶν ἀντιπάλων τῆς ἀλη θείας δογμάτων συγγράφοντες. καὶ οὗτος μὲν τῇ Σύρων κεχρημένος φωνῇ τῆς πνευματικῆς χάριτος τὰς ἀκτίνας ἠφίει· παιδείας γὰρ οὐ γεγευμένος Ἑλληνικῆς, τούς τε πολυσχιδεῖς τῶν Ἑλλήνων διήλεγξε πλάνους καὶ πάσης αἱρετικῆς κακοτεχνίας ἐγύμνωσε τὴν ἀσθένειαν. καὶ ἐπειδὴ Ἁρμόνιος ὁ Βαρδησάνου ᾠδάς τινας συνετεθείκει πάλαι καὶ τῇ τοῦ μέλους ἡδονῇ τὴν ἀσέβειαν κεράσας κατεκήλει τοὺς ἀκού οντας καὶ πρὸς ὄλεθρον ἤγρευε, τὴν ἁρμονίαν τοῦ μέλους ἐκεῖθεν λαβὼν ἀνέμιξε τὴν εὐσέβειαν καὶ προσενήνοχε τοῖς ἀκούουσιν ἥδιστον ὁμοῦ καὶ ὀνησιφόρον φάρμακον. ταῦτα καὶ νῦν τὰ ᾄσματα φαιδρο τέρας τῶν νικηφόρων μαρτύρων τὰς πανηγύρεις ποιεῖ. ὁ δὲ ∆ίδυμος, παιδόθεν τῆς ὀπτικῆς ἐστερημένος αἰσθήσεως, καὶ ποιητικῶν καὶ ῥητορικῶν μετέλαχε παιδευμάτων· ἀριθμητικῆς τε καὶ γεωμετρίας καὶ ἀστρονομίας καὶ τῶν Ἀριστοτέλους συλλογισμῶν καὶ τῆς Πλά τωνος εὐεπείας διὰ τῶν ἀκοῶν εἰσεδέξατο τὰ μαθήματα, οὐχ ὡς ἀλήθειαν ἐκπαιδεύοντα, ἀλλ' ὡς ὅπλα τῆς ἀληθείας κατὰ τοῦ ψεύδους γιγνόμενα. καὶ μέντοι καὶ τῆς θείας γραφῆς μεμάθηκεν οὐ μόνον 270 τὰ γράμματα, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ τούτων νοήματα. ἐν μὲν οὖν ἀσκηταῖς καὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς