Traduction Masquer
The Life of S. Hilarion

29.

His sixty-third year found the old man at the head of a grand monastery and a multitude of resident brethren. There were such crowds of persons constantly bringing those who suffered from various kinds of sickness or were possessed of unclean spirits, that the whole circuit of the wilderness was full of all sorts of people. And as the saint saw all this he wept daily and called to mind with incredible regret his former mode of life. When one of the brethren asked him why he was so dejected he replied, “I have returned again to the world and have received my reward in my lifetime. The people of Palestine and the adjoining province think me of some importance, and under pretence of a monastery for the well-ordering of the brethren I have all the apparatus of a paltry life about me.” The brethren, however, kept watch over him and in particular Hesychius, who had a marvellously devoted affection and veneration for the old man. After he had spent two years in these lamentations Aristæneté the lady of whom we made mention before, as being then the wife of a prefect though without any of a prefect’s ostentation, came to him intending to pay a visit to Antony also. He said to her, “I should like to go myself too if I were not kept a prisoner in this monastery, and if my going could be fruitful. For it is now two days since mankind was bereaved of him who was so truly a father to them all.” She believed his word and stayed where she was: and after a few days the news came that Antony had fallen asleep.

Edition Masquer
Vita S. Hilarionis

29.

Turbarum inimicus erat Hil. – Igitur sexagesimo tertio vitae suae anno cernens grande monasterium, et multitudinem fratrum secum habitantium; turbasque eorum, qui diversis languoribus, et immundis spiritibus occupatos ad se deducebant, ita ut omni genere hominum solitudo per circumitum repleretur, flebat quotidie, et incredibili desiderio conversationis antiquae recordabatur. Interrogatus a fratribus quid haberet, cur se conficeret, ait: Rursum ad saeculum redii, et recepi mercedem meam in vita mea. En homines Palestinae, et vicinae provinciae existimant me alicuius esse momenti; et ego sub praetextu monasterii ad dispensationem fratrum, vilem [Fort. utilem] supellectilem habeo. Servabatur autem a fratribus, maxime ab Hesychio, qui [0043B] miro amore venerationi senis deditus erat. Cumque ita vixisset [al. duxisset] lugens biennium, Aristaenete illa, cuius supra ecimus mentionem, praefecti tunc uxor, sed nihil de praefecti ambitu habens, venit ad eum, volens etiam ad Antonium pergere. Cui ille flens: Vellem, ait, ipse quoque ire, si non carcere huius monasterii clausus tenerer, et si eundi fructus esset. Biduum enim hodie est, quod totus mundus tali parente orbatus est. Credidit illa et substitit. Et post paucos dies veniente nuntio, Antonii dormitionem audivit.