nt instilled into his tender mind the most generous sentiments of
virtue and religion. Being arrived at man's estate, he was compelled by
his friends to take a wife; but on the day of his marriage, he spoke in
so moving a manner to his consort on the shortness and uncertainty of
this life, that they made a mutual vow of perpetual chastity. She
afterwards became a nun, and he for his part built two monasteries in
Mysia; one of which, called Megal-Agre, near the Propontis, he governed
himself. He lived, as it were, dead to the world and the flesh, in the
greatest purity of life, and in the exercises of continual mortification
and prayer. In 787, he assisted at the second council of Nice, where all
admired to see one, whom they had formerly known in so much worldly
grandeur, now so meanly clad, so modest, and so full of self-contempt as
he appeared to be. He never laid aside his hair shirt; his bed was a
mat, and his pillow a stone; his sustenance was hard coarse bread and
water. At fifty years of age, he began to be grievously afflicted with
the stone and nephritic colic; but bore with cheerfulness the most
excruciating pains of his distemper. The emperor Leo, the Armenian, in
814, renewed the persecution against the church, and abolished the use
of holy images, which had been restored under Constantine and Irene.
Knowing the great reputation and authority of Theophanes, he endeavored
to gain him by civilities and crafty letters. The saint discovered the
hook concealed under his alluring baits, which did not, however, hinder
him from obeying the emperor's summons to Constantinople, though at that
time under a violent fit of the stone; which distemper, for the
remaining part of his life, allowed him very short intervals of ease.
The emperor sent him this message: "From your mild and obliging
disposition, I flatter myself you are come to confirm my sentiments on
the point in question with your suffrage. It is your readiest way for
obtaining my favor, and with that the greatest riches and honors for
yourself, your monastery, and relations, which it is in the power of an
emperor to bestow. But if you refuse to comply with my desires in this
affair, you will incur my highest displeasure, and draw misery and
disgrace on yourself and friends." The holy man returned for answer:
"Being now far advanced in years, and much broken with pains and
infirmities, I have neither relish nor inclination for any of these
things which I despised