Saint Anastasius of Sinai

These excellent dispositions led him to embrace the religious life. His fervor then moved him to visit the holy places of Jerusalem; which proves that his monastery was not in the vicinity of that city, since it was as a pilgrimage that he came there; and from there, pressed by the desire for a life more austere than the one he had led until then, although it was already very much so, he went to Arabia to the solitaries of Mount Sinai, wh ose virtue mont Sinaï Site of the first monastic life of Simeon. s delighted his heart and fixed him in their solitude.

He applied himself mainly to obeying blindly and serving all the brothers; which he did with such humility that the religious later attributed to these holy practices the marvelous gifts of science and wisdom that he received from God in abundance, and which were for others a source of instruction and edification.

Indeed, the Spirit of God that resided in him, and which destined him to confirm his brothers in the faith at a time when the churches of the East were troubled by heretics, did not leave him idle. Anastasius became, through his private counsel, his lively exhortations, his public discussions, and his pen, like the scourge of error, the torch of truth, the firm support of the orthodox, and the consolation of the afflicted Church.

The priestly character with which he was then invested gave him even more authority and credit to defend it against the Eutychians, who admitted only one nature in Jesus Christ—the divine nature—in which, according to them, the human nature had been confounded and lost, just as a drop of vinegar thrown into the sea is confounded with the water, but especially against the Acephali who said the same thing, while rejecting the authority of the first authors of the heresy.

The Acephali, who acte d independent Les Acéphales Monophysite heretical sects divided over the corruptibility of the body of Christ. ly, were themselves divided into two main sects: the Severians and the Theodosians, named after their leaders. The Severians held that Jesus Christ had been incorruptible, for fear that by calling him corruptible, they would have been obliged to admit a distinction between the body of Jesus Christ and the Word of God, a distinction that would have led them to recognize the two natures. But if Jesus Christ is incorruptible, he could not have suffered; therefore, the entire economy of Redemption was overturned. To save it, the Theodosians therefore said that the body of Jesus Christ was corruptible. In short, all were in agreement in supporting the confusion of the two natures in Jesus Christ: they differed on the way of explaining it. It was especially the Severians and the Theodosians who made noise in Alexandria and infested Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, and it was against them that Saint Anastasius had above all to struggle.

As he had a profound knowledge of the divine Scriptures and the works of the holy Fathers, and moreover was ignorant of none of the artifices of the heretics, he never attacked them without advantage, and none could resist the force of his zeal and his reasoning. Having to dispute with them, he explained, by clear and distinct definitions, the meaning of the terms he was to use to avoid any ambiguity, and agreed with them on what he could grant them without touching the faith, in order to fix himself solely on the subject of the controversy; and, so that they would not elude the force of his arguments by subtleties and evasions, as they usually did when they could not answer, he held them firmly to the question. Often he demanded from them admissions on points of doctrine, which they could not refuse him without too clearly manifesting the impiety of their dogmas; he obliged them to subscribe to them with him, and starting from there, he pushed them little by little and as if by degrees, and led them so subtly and so skillfully that he made them fall into contradiction, overwhelmed them with passages from Scripture and the Fathers, routed them, and reduced them to being unable to reply any further.

One sees his method explained at length in the book he composed on the manner of disputing against heretics, which is titled: *Hodegos or the Guide*, and he marks there how much it succeeded for him in the various conferences he had with them. He had several in Alexandria, sometimes in private and sometimes Alexandrie Place of refuge and study during the persecution. in public, in the presence of the patriarch, all the clergy, the most qualified personages of the city, and all the people. The Acephali, the Severians, and the Theodosians united against him, and opposed to him those in their sect who were most learned and skillful in dispute; among others, a certain Gregory and a monk named John Ziga, whom they regarded as their Achilles; but he confounded them with such brilliance that the people, indignant at the errors by which they had wanted to seduce them, added to the confusion they felt at seeing themselves defeated, that of heaping insults upon them, and nearly stoned them.

He tells us on this subject an anecdote that must have covered the supporters of Eutyches with shame, and incensed against them all those who had any sense of probity. It is that after the death of the patriarch Saint Eulogius, there came to Alexandria an Augustal prefect of the sect of the Severians, who brought and kept at his home for a long time fourteen writers or copyists, the most skillful he could find, to falsify the manuscripts of the holy Fathers, and principally those of Saint Cyril; so that the Saint, having subse saint Cyrille Church Father who praised Maximian. quently wanted to use one of these manuscripts to oppose the heretics, had the pain of seeing that it had been corrupted; but the imposture was soon discovered by confronting it with the copy kept at the patriarch's, which the heretics had not been able to obtain to corrupt like the others; for being produced by Isidore, prefect of the library, the true sentiments of Saint Cyril were recognized therein, which the heretics wanted to make favorable to the eyes of the people by means of these alterations.

One sees there how far the malice of the heretics goes, and how their blindness is voluntary and deplorable at the same time. For what could they claim by thus altering the text of the holy Fathers? Either these holy doctors had truly thought as they did, and in that case, why touch their writings? They only had to produce them as they were: or they had thought otherwise than they did, and then the changes they maliciously made in their writings accused them themselves before God and at the tribunal of their own conscience, and reproached them even more loudly for the impiety of their dogmas, which they could only support by stripping themselves of all sense of probity and honor. We remark this expressly, because it is not on this occasion alone that the heretics have put these diabolical means to use. They have at all times proceeded by the same ways to attack the truth; and what can one expect from those who are called the eldest sons of the father of lies, but disguises and impostures?

To return to Saint Anastasius, the heretics, seeing themselves defeated, called to their aid some bishops of their sect, whom they had in Egypt, and whom they believed to be even more skillful than those they had opposed to him. This resource did not succeed any better for them. The heretical bishops, arriving immediately in Alexandria, addressed themselves to the prefect to confer with Anastasius. This governor summoned the Saint, and told him the intention of the prelates. They assembled, and the beginning of the heretics was to accuse the Saint before the prefect of causing nothing but trouble in the city, among the people, and in their churches. Anastasius was not moved by these declamations; he said to them with much gentleness: "My venerable Fathers, you had not yet seen me; I have never had any private conversation with you; you have not learned my sentiments and my doctrine from my mouth; can you deny it? — That is true, said the bishops. — Do me the favor, then, of hearing me, he added, after which I flatter myself that your accusations will cease, and that you will render me more justice than you have done." The Saint had before him some Theodosians.

After this prelude, he asked for paper and a pen from the notaries who were with the prefect, and wrote these words: "I, Anastasius, monk of the holy mountain of Sinai, confess that the Word of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, was crucified and buried, that He suffered and that He rose again." "I did not speak, he said, in this formula, either of the flesh that the Word had taken, or of His descent and His conversation among men, or in a word of His incarnation, but only of His divinity, and I did it on purpose to oblige them to manifest the impiety that they hid in their soul with all those of their sect. I then presented the paper to them, and having read it, they praised it as very good. But, I said to them, if you agree that it is in the rules, it only remains to subscribe to it, and we are in agreement; we will communicate with you without difficulty. They subscribed to it immediately. I took back the paper, and addressing myself to the one among them who passed for the most skillful and the wisest, I said to him: Remember at least 'that Christ suffered in the flesh', as the apostle Saint Peter says, and not in His divinity. You would fall into the impiety of Severus if you had subscribed to the paper that I presented to you, taking it in the sense that the divinity suffered in itself: and it is for that reason that, in this writing, I made no mention of all that concerns the incarnation, having had in view, by this omission, only to oblige you to show your impiety by declaring yourself a Severian, or to understand my proposition in the sense that the Word suffered in the flesh and not in Himself, and that consequently there are two natures in Jesus Christ, as the orthodox faith teaches us."

"At these words, he adds, the heretics, astonished like men who return to themselves after a long drunkenness, did all they could so that I would return to them the writing they had signed; but it was useless. I answered them that they would never have it, and that I would oppose it to them at the universal judgment in the presence of Jesus Christ."

## WRITINGS AND SPIRITUAL DOCTRINE OF SAINT ANASTASIUS.

We do not possess all the works of the Sinaite; several have been lost to the ravages of time, and among these we have reason to regret the *Lives of the Holy Fathers* that he had written; that is to say, of several holy solitaries of Mount Sinai and the neighboring deserts. The Bollandists nevertheless believe that the life of Saint John Climacus, which we still have, is by him.

1° The principal of those that remain to us is his *Hodegos*, or the *Guide to the True Path*; it deals only with dogma. It should be noted that the first rule he gives to those who combat heretics is to lead a pure and innocent life, and to make themselves worthy of receiving the lights of the Holy Spirit, and to become its organ to defend the truth more powerfully; for although science is necessary, and it is not permitted to engage in disputation with the enemies of the faith without being well instructed in matters of controversy, and without being in a state to support dogma and combat error; it is certain that piety and the innocence of life attract great lights and powerful aids to confound heretics and even to convert them, and this appears sufficiently by the blessings that God has poured out in all times upon the ministry of the Saints whom He has employed for the conversion of souls, as has been seen in particular in Saint Dominic, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Francis de Sales, and Saint Vincent de Paul, not to mention so many apostolic men in previous centuries, who extended the kingdom of Jesus Christ as much by piety as by the lights of their zeal.

2° We also have, from Saint Anastasius, considerations on the Hexaemeron, or the work of the six days of creation. It is an exposition of the words of Moses on the creation of the world, which he does in a mystical and allegorical sense, without, however, claiming to destroy the literal sense, nor to contradict the literal explanations that the Fathers have given of it.

3° We also have from him a discourse that was preached on the fifth Sunday of Lent, and which is titled: On the Sacred Liturgy. This discourse is full of excellent instructions. He begins it with a eulogy of the psalms of David that were sung every day in the assemblies of the faithful.

He adds that assiduity in prayer and the taste one takes in it, as well as in the reading of the divine Scriptures, is like the mother of virtues; for it cannot be that a person who applies themselves assiduously and with piety to this exercise does not arrive at truly knowing God, and at obtaining from His goodness the help that their soul needs. He says that if those who wish to acquire the knowledge of the arts apply themselves to it for several years, with how much greater reason should those who wish to arrive at knowing God well and serving Him faithfully apply themselves to it through the exercise of prayer, which is an effective means to lead them there.

After a beautiful explanation of some parts of the holy Sacrifice, according to the ancient rite, as seen still in the liturgies that remain to us, which bear the names of Saint James, Saint Basil, and Saint Anastasius, he insists greatly on the forgiveness of enemies, and proves that the memory of injuries in the desire for revenge is, of all sins, the one that places the greatest obstacle to the mercy of God, and which causes the eternal loss of the sinner most quickly. He who has the misfortune to fall into a sin of impurity, or who commits homicide, then returning to himself, is seized with horror at his crime, conceives a lively regret for it, and enters into sentiments of penance; but when hatred and vengeance have slipped into a man's heart, he is continually preoccupied with them; if he lies down, he falls asleep with this evil sentiment; if he wakes, it is the first thought that presents itself to his mind; if he prays, if he walks, in whatever place he may be, and whatever he may be doing, he carries this venom in his soul; and when once this vice has cast its roots there, everything becomes useless to him: fasting, prayer, tears, confession, orison, virginity, almsgiving, and all the other good actions he performs; hatred against his brother destroys everything. Notice, he adds, that Our Lord did not say to us: "If you have something against your brother, go and be reconciled with him"; but that He said: "If your brother has something against you." If, therefore, we are obliged to heal the malice of our brother, what hope of forgiveness can he have who preserves hatred against him? I often hear people say: "Woe is me, I do not know what to do to be saved; I can neither fast, nor keep vigil, nor maintain continence; it is also too hard for me to leave the world, how shall I be saved?" You ask me how? Here is the means in two words: "Forgive, and you will be forgiven." That is a short and sure path to arrive at salvation. Here is another one still: "Judge not, and you shall not be judged."

The Saint takes occasion from these last words to exhort one not to judge ill of one's neighbor. "Even if," he says, "you had seen him with your own eyes fall into sin, remember that there is only one Judge, only one Lord who will render to each according to his works." Judgment is reserved for Jesus Christ; we shall all appear one day before Him to undergo it and receive the reward or the punishment that we have deserved. He who judges before the advent of Jesus Christ usurps His rights and is a kind of Antichrist. You have seen this man commit a sin, but you do not know if he will do penance for it, nor what the end of his life will be. The thief who had been crucified with Jesus Christ obtained, in a moment, his pardon, although he had been a thief and a homicide; and Judas became, in a moment, from an apostle and disciple of Jesus Christ, a traitor and a perfidious man. The latter was lost and the former was saved.

Let us go even further. I agree with you that this man whom you have seen commit this sin is condemnable; but are you a witness to all his other actions? Perhaps, after having sinned before your eyes, he performs a great penance in secret, and while you know him in your heart as a great sinner, he is already justified before God.

You must not, therefore, judge anyone, and even less the priest, for secret and uncertain faults of which you may have been told he is guilty. Do not say that he must be judged. Yes, he must be: but it is not by you that he must be examined and judged; it is God who must judge him, or his bishop. Why do you, who are only in the rank of the laity, attribute to yourself a power that belongs only to God?

Finally, Saint Anastasius ends his discourse with a very edifying story, which fits his subject very well. "There was," he says, "in a monastery, a religious who lived in his state with much lukewarmness and negligence. Having fallen ill with the sickness from which he died, he was not at all frightened; on the contrary, he gave thanks to God for it and looked with a smiling air at the moment when he was going to leave the world." It was the custom in this monastery that when one of the brothers was near death, all the others, with the superior, would assemble around him to assist him in his final moments, and would not move from there until he had rendered his soul. The security of the dying man particularly astonished one of the Fathers who were present. He approached him and said to him with confidence: "My brother, we have never noticed that you have fulfilled your duties with much exactitude; on the contrary, we have seen in you only great negligence; tell us then, I pray you, why you are so tranquil, and that, far from fearing in this formidable passage, you show, on the contrary, only joy? Make known to us, for the glory of the Lord, what grace He has granted you that gives you this security?"

Then the sick man, rising gently as much as his strength allowed him, said to the assembly: "My venerable Fathers, I cannot hide the negligences of my past life, and, at this hour, the angels of God have presented to me and have read before me a memorandum that contained all the sins that I have committed since I abandoned the world, and they then asked me if I confessed them. I answered them that yes, and that I could not deny them; but I told them, at the same time, that since I had the happiness of being a monk, I had never judged anyone, nor kept the memory of the injuries I had received, and that thus I conjured Our Lord to make me feel, by forgiving me, the effect of the promise He made to us when He said: 'Judge not and you shall not be judged; forgive and you shall be forgiven.' Scarcely had I said these words, when the angels tore up the memorial of my sins; which has been all the solicitude of my past life: behold then that I hope to go to God with this joy of which you are witnesses." After he had spoken thus, he breathed his last in peace, leaving to his confreres an example equally useful and edifying.

4. We have some other discourses of Saint Anastasius, which are full of instructions and very pious sentiments. Among others, there are two that he gave at different times on the sixth psalm. It can serve as a model of an act of contrition, since it revolves entirely on the regret one must have for one's faults, and it shows, at the same time, how one can meditate on the psalms, and form for oneself interior sentiments on those that these holy canticles contain.

One sees, by the exordium of this discourse, that the Saint preached it at the beginning of the Lenten fast; and the psalm, which he explains therein, was suitable for this time of penance.

He distinguishes, in the continuation of his discourse, several kinds of tears; some that are natural, which one sheds at the death of a relative or a friend, or which come from the abundance of humors, or which are born from the chagrin of not having succeeded in some ambitious project one had formed; others that come from a better principle, such as the fear of God, the apprehension of death and the pains of hell; and these lead, when one perseveres in them, to more perfect tears: to these holy tears that the love of God and the desire to possess Him make flow from the eyes of the penitent soul; and it is these that he says the royal Prophet shed in the bitterness of his heart, after having had the misfortune to sin against God.

But to excite sinners to return to the Lord with this humble and tender confidence, he ends his discourse with two examples, one of which, which is quite well known, is reported by Saint Clement of Alexandria. It is that of a young man whom Saint John the Evangelist, after having inspired in him the first sentiments of piety, had entrusted to the bishop of Ephesus to support him in piety during his absence. This young man, having then withdrawn himself from the guidance of this bishop and having frequented bad companions, had made himself the leader of a band of thieves, and had persevered in these brigandages, until the holy Apostle, having returned to Ephesus and having learned of his disorders, went himself to seek him, brought him back to the church, made him conceive sentiments of a sincere penance, and made him return to grace with God.

The second example is known to us only by the account that Saint Anastasius makes of it. He says that, in the time of the Emperor Maurice (582-602), there was, on the frontiers of Thrace, a notorious thief, who exercised horrible cruelties; so that he spread terror everywhere, and no one dared to travel in those regions anymore. Soldiers had often been sent to seize him; several traps had been set for him, but nothing had succeeded; finally, the emperor took the step of sending him his orders himself by a young man whom he charged to carry them to him. The thief had no sooner seen them than, as if he had been struck by a divine force, he abandoned all his sanguinary humor, and, like a gentle lamb, he came to throw himself at the feet of the emperor, made a confession of his crimes, and abandoned himself to his clemency.

He obtained pardon, and, a few days later, he fell ill and was taken to the hospital, where his illness worsened so much that he was soon at the point of death. Seeing himself near to dying, and revolving in the night his past sins in his mind, he conceived a very lively regret for them, and addressed this prayer to Jesus Christ: "I ask nothing new of you, O most gentle Savior, in imploring your mercy. As you have exercised it toward that thief who was crucified at your side, deign likewise to exercise it toward me, and receive the tears that I shed at the approach of death. You have received favorably those who had come to work only at the eleventh hour, although they had done nothing considerable; deign also, by the same goodness, to be content with my weak tears, and make them serve me, by your mercy, as a second baptism, to purify me and obtain for me the indulgence and the entire pardon of my past crimes. Time fails me, since I am soon going to render my soul into your hands; but I conjure you not to reject the humble prayer that I make to you, and do not demand from me an account of the good works that I have not done. My crimes surround me on all sides, and I find myself at the end of my life, after having spent it all in iniquity. But, O my God! you who have accepted the tears that your Apostle shed after he had denied you three times, accept mine, and pour them upon the memorial of your justice, where my innumerable crimes are written, and may your infinite mercy be like a sponge that erases them all."

He made this prayer in the presence of several people who were around his bed, and who later bore witness to it; and he accompanied it with so many tears that his handkerchief was soaked with them. Finally, he expired in these lively sentiments of contrition. At the same time, the doctor, who frequented the hospital, a very skillful man of great reputation, had a dream, or rather a vision while sleeping, where it seemed to him he saw around the bed of this sick man a troop of Ethiopians, who each had a paper where his crimes were written; and he also saw two personages radiant with light who presented themselves to examine if he had not done any good works. A balance was brought, and the Ethiopians having put into one of the pans all the papers where his sins were marked, it fell immediately and made the other pan rise very high. The two angels, who were present, said: "What! shall we have nothing here to put into the other pan that makes it tip more than that of his crimes? But what could we find? Scarcely has this man left his brigandages, how could we flatter ourselves that he had done a good action since? Let us examine, however, even better." They searched in the bed and found the handkerchief with which he had wiped his tears, and they said: "Let us put it into the empty pan, and God adding to it the weight of His clemency, we shall undoubtedly have what we desire." They had no sooner put it in than the pan fell, and the papers, which were in the other pan, disappeared. "The mercy of God," the angels cried out, "has prevailed over the iniquity of this sinner." They immediately took his soul, and the Ethiopians, covered with confusion, took flight.

The doctor awoke after this vision and went immediately to the hospital to assure himself of the truth of what he had seen in his dream; he found that the sick man had just expired, and that he still had on his eyes his handkerchief soaked with his tears. He also learned from those who were present at his death the marks of penance that he had given, and, taking the handkerchief, he went straight to the emperor to show it to him, telling him the vision he had had and what he had learned from the others, and added: "You are not ignorant, O most pious emperor, of what the Gospel said of the thief who obtained from Jesus Christ the pardon of his crimes when he was near to dying; here is one to whom this divine Savior has just granted the same grace under your empire."

We have reported this, concludes Saint Anastasius, as very true; but one must not take occasion from it to wait until the last hour to prepare for this terrible passage through penance. How many has this presumption not deceived? How many are there who have been surprised by a sudden death, without having the time to speak, to weep, or to make their will? Who is our guarantor that at this hour which must decide our eternal fate, we shall have the tears of this penitent thief, to offer them to God in expiation of our crimes? Let us not wait until then to weep for them; let us prevent this time by a sincere penance. Also, I have not reported these examples to favor the laziness of cowardly souls, but rather to excite them to emerge from their lukewarmness, and to render them more ardent to work for their salvation, so that, having done works worthy of penance, and expiated their faults, they may be found worthy of the kingdom of heaven.

5° Let us conclude with some thoughts or maxims drawn from the work of Saint Anastasius entitle d: *His One Hundred and Fifty-Four Ses Cent cinquante-quatre Questions A collection of maxims and answers concerning the Christian faith and morality. Questions*:

"Although one cannot be a true Christian without faith and good works, one cannot be a perfect Christian if one does not accompany faith and good works with humility.

"Although one may pray and worship God in all places; although silence and rest have their utility, the external sacrifice of the Eucharist is the thing most pleasing to God.

"Before approaching communion, one must examine oneself and purify oneself of one's faults; whoever does so may approach it whenever he sees fit.

"God ordinarily abandons us only to punish us or to convert us.

"One whom we believe to be a sinner is often righteous in the eyes of God.

"By the money of iniquity with which Jesus Christ says 'that we must make friends for ourselves in heaven,' one must not understand riches acquired by evil means, but those which are not necessary for our maintenance."

"We shall not be damned for not having adorned churches, but for not having relieved the poor.

"The examples of Job, Abraham, and David, who were married, who had children and many possessions, and who were consequently burdened with many cares, must remove from people of the world any pretext for neglecting their salvation.

"The Apostle says 'that all power comes from God'; but he does not say 'that there is no prince who is not established by God.' He sometimes gives bad ones to punish the people, but he does not give them all. He only permits them to be chosen or to attain power by other means. When Phocas had attained the empire (602-610), he caused much blood to be shed. A holy monk of Constantinople, who groaned a t his Phocas Byzantine emperor who granted the Pantheon to the Pope. cruelties, complained to God about it several times with the confidence that his simplicity gave him. 'Lord,' he said, 'why have you given such a prince to your people?' He heard a voice that said to him: 'Because I could not find a worse one.'"

"Fortune is a term that a Christian who confesses that God governs all things should not use, because it excludes the particular Providence of God.

"To fulfill the precept of continuous prayer, it is not necessary to be occupied with prayer at all times; it is sufficient above all to apply oneself to something useful, good, and pleasing to God.

"If there are more divisions and schisms among Christians than among infidels, it is because the devil, the author of these divisions, has no need of them to win over the peoples who, for lack of baptism, are already his."

"Saint Anastasius of Sinai, says Baronius in his annotations to the Roman Martyrology, is named on this same day in the Greek menologies. He was surnamed the Sinaite because, before being bishop of Antioch, he had been a solitary on Mount Sinai. He flourished under the reigns of Justinian and Justin the Younger; he was exiled by the latter for the Catholic faith. He was reinstated in his see under the reign of the Emperor Maurice and under the pontificate of Saint Gregory the Great. This Pope addressed several letters to him which are contained in his Register. He died in 598. Saint Gregory also wrote to his successor, named Anastasius like him, after having received his profession of faith, according to custom. Nicephorus is mistaken when he writes that Anastasius of Sinai was killed by the Jews. It was his successor, the second Anastasius, who met this end. This event took place in the seventh year of the reign of Phocas, in a sedition stirred up by the Jews; now, Anastasius of Sinai had departed from this world nine years earlier, under the Emperor Maurice. The Sinaite left some writings, among others an excellent work On True Dogmas, and some sermons that he had composed in his retreat on Mount Sinai. He translated the Pastoral of Saint Gregory into Greek."

Thus speaks Baronius, who, having taken the historian Nicephorus as a guide, has fallen with him into a double error, or rather into a single one that entails another.

There were at the end of the 6th century and the beginning of the 7th three holy personages by the name of Anastasius.

The first was patriarch of Antioch in 561 and died in 598. This is the one in the Roman Martyrology, minus the title of Sinaite.

The second, surnamed the Younger, succeeded the one also named by the Roman Martyrology and was massacred by the Jews.

The third is the one to whom the title of Sinaite belongs, who was not a bishop, but only a priest and monk on Mount Sinai. We have just given his life.

Now, Nicephorus has made these three Anastasiuses into a single Anastasius; Baronius has indeed indicated two, but he confuses the first with the third; and when he says that the Greek menologies cite Saint Anastasius of Sinai today, he should add that these menologies do not give him the title of bishop. From which it follows that if they do not give him the title of bishop, the qualifier of Sinaite does not belong to the patriarch of Antioch at all; or at the very least it is not the latter that the menologies intended to designate. Moreover, these three personages are perfectly known in the annals of the Church as well as in those of sacred literature: they are perfectly distinct.

Volume LXXXIX of the Patrologia Graeca reproduces all the writings of Saint Anastasius of Antioch.

Cf. Dom Collier; Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, by Father Marin; Acta Sanctorum.