The Ecclesiastical History Of Theodoret

There were also other men at this period who emitted the bright rays of the philosophy of solitary life. In the Chalcidian [774] desert Avitus, Marcianus [775] and Abraames, [776] and more besides whom I cannot easily enumerate, strove in their bodies of sense to live a life superior to sense. In the district of Apamea, [777] Agapetus, [778] Simeon, [779] Paulus and others reaped the fruits of the highest wisdom.

In the district of the Zeugmatenses [780] were Publius [781] and Paulus. In the Cyrestian [782] the famous Acepsemas had been shut up in a cell for sixty years without being either seen or spoken to. The admirable Zeumatius, though bereft of sight, used to go about confirming the sheep, and fighting with the wolves; so they burnt his cell, but the right faithful general Trajanus got another built for him, and paid him besides other attentions. In the neighbourhood of Antioch, Marianus, [783] Eusebius, [784] Ammianus, [785] Palladius, [786] Simeon, [787] Abraames, [788] and others, preserved the divine image unimpaired; but of all these the lives have been recorded by us. But the mountain which is in the neighbourhood of the great city was decked like a meadow, for in it shone Petrus, the Galatian, his namesake the Egyptian, Romanus Severus, [789] Zeno, [790] Moses, and Malchus, [791] and many others of whom the world is ignorant, but who are known to God.