Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/460

446 HESYCHIUS. dead body he surreptitiously conveyed from the isle of Crete, where he died, to the Holy Land. (Hieron. Vita S. Hilarionis^ passim ; Opera, vol. iv. pars ii. col. 74, &c. ed. Benedict; Sozom. H. E. iii. 14 ; Fabr. Bihl. Gr. vol. vii. p. 552.] 3. Aegvptius. An Egyptian bishop, who suf- fered martyrdom in the persecution under Diocletian and his successors in the East, perhaps about A. D. 310 or 311. It is not clear whether he was ex- ecuted at Alexandria or elsewhere. Hody and others regard him as identical with the Hesychius who revised the Septuagint, and whose revision was commonly used in Egypt and the adjacent churches. Fabricius, who thinks this identity probable, is also disposed to regard the martyr Hesychius as the same person as Hesychius of Alexandria, the author of the Lexicon ; but Thorschmidius regards the au- thor of the Lexicon as a distinct person. [Hesy- chius of Alexandria, below.] (Euseb. H. E. viii. 1 3 ; Hieronym. Praef. in Paralipom. and Praefat. in Qziatuor Evang. ; Opera, vol. i. col. 1023, 1429, ed. Benedictin ; Hody, De Bihlior. Textibus Ori- ginal, fol. Oxford, 1705, p. 303 ; Fabric. Bihl. Gr. vol. vii. 547 ; Thorschmidius, De Hesi/ch. Miles. Illudr. Christian. Conimentat. sect. i. apud Orellium, Hesycliii Opusc.) 4. Of Alexandria. See below. 5. Of Apameia, called, in the older editions of Porphyry's life of Plotinus, Justinus ('Iouottu'os) Hesychius, but in Creuzer's edition of Plotinus, to which the life by Porphyry is prefixed, Us- TiLLiANUS {OvaTiKXiavos) Hesychius, was the adopted son of Amelius, one of the later Platonists in the latter half of the third century. [Amelius.] Amelius gave or bequeathed to him a hundred books of commentaries, in which he had collected or re- corded the instructions of the philosopher Nume- nius. (Porphyr. Vit. Plotini, c, 3, apud Creuzer. Opera Plotini, 3 vols. 4to. Oxford, 1B35; Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vol. iii. p. 180, vol. vii. p. 152.) 6. Of Constantinople, a writer of unknown date, who wrote Eis x^^'^o"" o^"' A 0701 8'. Pho- tius, from whom alone we learn any thing of this writer, says that, " so far as could be judged from this piece, he appeared to be orthodox " Probably he was the Hesychius, one of the clergy of Con- stantinople, who raised in that city the cry of heresy against Eunomius, apparently about A. D. 360. [Eunomius,] Thorschmidius thinks that he was perhaps the author of the Ecclesiastical History, known by one or two citations, and ge- nerally regarded as a work of Hesychius of Jeru- salem. [Hesychius Hierosolymitanus, No. 7.] rPhot. Bibl. Cod. 51 ; Philostorg. H. E. vi. 1 ; Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vol. vii. p. 547.) 7. Hierosolymitanus, or of Jerusalem, an early Christian writer of considerable repute in his day, many of whose writings are extant. The date of his life and his official rank in the church have been much disputed. Cyril of Scythopolis, in his life of St, Euthymius (Bios rov dylov irarpos ripMV Evdv/xiov, Cotel. Eccles. Graec. Monum. vol. iv, p, 31), speaks of Hesychius, "presbyter and teacher of the church," as being with Juvenal patriarch of Jerusalem, when he de- dicated the church of the " Laura," or monastery of Euthymius, A, D. 428 or 429. Theophanes re- cords the irpoSoXri, advancement (i.e. ordination ?) of Hesychius, " the presbyter of Jerusalem," a. m. 5906, Alex, em (=a.d. 414); and notices him again as eminent for learning {ifvOei rais SiSaa-KaXlais) HESYCHIUS. the year following, a. d. 415. He gives him no higher title when recording his death, A. M. 5926, Alex. era,=A, d. 434. Photius, who has described some of his works, also calls him "Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem," but without mentioning the time when he lived. Yet, notwithstanding these tolerably clear intimations, Miraeus (Auctu- rium de Scriptor. Eccles. No. clxxv.), Possevinus (Apparatus Sacer, vol, i. p. 739, ed. Col, 1608 ), Cave, and Thorschmidt {Comment, de Hesychio Milesio), consider Hesychius the writer to be iden- tical with the Isysius or Isacius ('ItraKtos), bishop or patriarch of Jerusalem, to whom pope Gregory the Great wrote an epistle (Episiol. xi, 40. ; Opera, vol. ii. col. 1133, ed. Benedict.), and whose death occurred, according to the Alexandrian or Paschal chronicle, in a. d. 609. {Ckron. Pasch. p. 382, ed. Paris, vol. i. p. 699, ed Bonn.) But the absence of any higher designation than presbyter in Photius and Theophanes forbid the supposition that their Hesychius ever attained episcopal rank ; and the want of any distinguishing epithet leads us to con- clude that there was no other Hesychius of Jerusa- lem who had acquired distinction as a writer. The account of Hesychius in the Greek Menology is probably correct in its general outline. According to it, he was born and educated at Jerusalem, where, by meditating on the Scriptures, he ac- quired a deep acquaintance with divine things. He afterwards left Jerusalem, and followed a mo- nastic life "in the deserts" (it is not stated in what desert, but it was probably in Palestine), gathering from the holy fathers there, with bee- like industry, the flowers of virtue. He was ordained presbyter, against his will, by the patri- arch of Jerusalem, and spent the rest of his life in that city, or in other places where the Lord Jesus Christ had suffered. Trithemius, who calls him Esytius {De Scriptor. Eccles. No. Ixxxii), and Six- tus of Sena {Bibl. Sancta, lib. iv. p. 245, ed. Col. 1586), say, but we know not on what authority, that he was a disciple of Gregory Nazianzen, which is hardly probable. His principal writings are, 1, In Leviticum Libri septem. A Latin version of this was published fol, Basel, 1527, and 8vo, Paris, 1581, and is re- printed in the Bibliotlieca Patrum (vol, xii. p, 52, &c., ed. Lj'on. 1677). The authorship and original language of this work have been much disputed. In some passages the writer evidently speaks as one to whom the Latin tongue was vernacular ; and in some of the MSS. he is called Isychius, presbyter of Salona, not to be confounded with the Hesychius the correspondent of Augustin (Augus- tin, ^Ep. 197, 1 98, 199; Opera, vol. ii. col. 737, «&c., ed. Benedict. 1679, and vol. ii. p. 1106, ed. Paris, 1836), whom Augustin addresses as his " coepisco- pus;"but Tillemont thinks that the original was in Greek, and that there are internal indications that the writer lived at Jerusalem ; and Cave suggests that the passages in which the writer speaks as a Latin are the interpolations of the translator, whom he supposes to have been Hesychius of Salona. The work is cited as the work of Hesychius of Jerusalem by Latin writers of the ninth century. The Latin version is ancient, though subsequent to the time wlien the Latin version of the Scriptures by Jerome came into general use in the church. Con- siderable pains are taken in the work to confute the opinions of Nestorius, and, as is thought by many, of Eutyches. Now, as the heresy of the