he sky grew dark on a
sudden, rain fell in abundance, and the year proved remarkably fruitful.

St. Euthymius showed great zeal against the Nestorian and Eutychian
heretics. The turbulent empress Eudocia, after the death of her husband
Theodosius, retired into Palestine, and there continued to favor the
latter with her protection. Awaked by the afflictions of her family,
particularly in the plunder of Rome, and the captivity of her daughter
Eudocia, and her two granddaughters, carried by the Vandals into Africa,
she sent to beg the advice of St. Simeon Stylites. He answered, that her
misfortunes were the punishment of her sin, in forsaking and persecuting
the orthodox faith; and ordered her to follow the direction of
Euthymius. She knew that our saint admitted no woman within the precinct
of his Laura, no more than St. Simeon suffered them to step within the
enclosure of the mandra or lodge {187} about his pillar. She therefore
built a tower on the east side of the desert, thirty furlongs from the
Laura, and prayed St. Euthymius to meet her there. His advice to her was
to forsake the Eutychians and their impious patriarch Theodosius, and to
receive the council of Chalcedon. She followed his advice as the command
of God, and returning to Jerusalem, embraced the Catholic communion with
the orthodox patriarch Juvenal; and an incredible number followed her
example. She spent the rest of her life in works of penance and piety.
In 459, she desired St. Euthymius to meet her at her tower, designing to
settle on his Laura sufficient revenues for its subsistence. He sent her
word to spare herself the trouble, and to prepare herself for death; for
God summoned her before his tribunal. She admired his disinterestedness,
returned to Jerusalem, and died shortly after. One of the latest
disciples of our saint was the young St. Sabas, whom he tenderly loved.
In the year 473, on the 13th of January, Martyrius and Elias, to both
whom St. Euthymius had foretold the patriarchate of Jerusalem, came with
several others to visit him, and to conduct him into his Lent-retreat.
But he said he would stay with them all that week, and leave them on the
Saturday following, meaning, by death. Three days after he gave orders
that a general watching should be observed on the eve of St. Antony's
festival, on which he made a discourse to his spiritual children,
exhorting them to humility and charity. He appointed Elias his
successor, and foretold Domitian