Edition Masquer
Vita S. Hilarionis

23.

Bruta animalia curata. – Parum est de hominibus loqui, bruta quoque animalia quotidie ad eum furentia pertrahebantur, in quibus Bactrum camelum enormis magnitudinis, qui iam multos obtriverat, triginta et eo amplius viri distentum solidissimis funibus cum clamore adduxerunt. Sanguinei erant oculi, spumabat os, volubilis lingua turgebat, et super omnem terrorem rugitus personabat immanis. Iussit igitur eum dimitti senex. Statim vero et qui adduxerant, et qui cum sene erant, usque ad unum [0040B] omnes diffugere. Porro ille solus perrexit obviam, et sermone Syro: Non me, inquit, terres, diabole, tanta mole corporis: et in vulpecula, et in camelo unus atque idem es. Et interim porrecta stabat manu. Ad quem dum furens, et quasi eum devoratura bellua pervenisset, statim corruit: submissumque caput terrae coaequavit, mirantibus cunctis qui aderant, post tantam ferociam, tantam subito mansuetudinem. Docebat autem senex, hominum causa diabolum etiam iumenta corripere: et tanto eorum ardere odio, ut non solum ipsos, sed et ea quae ipsorum essent, cuperet interire. Huiusque rei proponebat exemplum, quod antequam beatum Iob tentare permitteretur, omnem substantiam eius interfecerit. Nec movere quempiam debere, quod Domini iussione, [0040C] duo millia porcorum a daemonibus interfecta sunt (Matth. VIII, et Marc. V); siquidem eos qui viderant, non potuisse aliter credere exisse de homine tantam daemonum multitudinem, nisi grandis porcorum numerus, et quasi a multis actus, pariter corruisset.

Traduction Masquer
The Life of S. Hilarion

23.

It is not enough to speak of men; brute animals were also daily brought to him in a state of madness, and among them a Bactrian camel of enormous size amid the shouts of thirty men or more who held him tight with stout ropes. He had already injured many. His eyes were bloodshot, his mouth filled with foam, his rolling tongue swollen, and above every other source of terror was his loud and hideous roar. Well, the old man ordered him to be let go. At once those who brought him as well as the attendants of the saint fled away without exception. The saint went by himself to meet him, and addressing him in Syriac said, “You do not alarm me, devil, huge though your present body is. Whether in a fox or a camel you are just the same.” Meanwhile he stood with outstretched hand. The brute raging and looking as if he would devour Hilarion came up to him, but immediately fell down, laid its head on the ground, and to the amazement of all present showed suddenly no P. 309 less tameness than it had exhibited ferocity before. But the old man declared to them how the devil, for men’s sake, seizes even beasts of burden; that he is inflamed by such intense hatred for men that he desires to destroy not only them but what belongs to them. As an illustration of this he added the fact that before he was permitted to try the saintly Job, he made an end of all his substance. Nor ought it to disturb anyone that ¹ by the Lord’s command two thousand swine were slain by the agency of demons, since those who witnessed the miracle could not have believed that so great a multitude of demons had gone out of the man unless an equally vast number of swine had rushed to ruin, showing that it was a legion that impelled them.