Venerable Publius the Ascetic of Zeugma

Roman fresco from Zeugma, third century AD

The twenty-fifth of January is the feast-day in the Orthodox Church of another of the Antiochian ascetics of the fourth century, Saint Publius. Publius was an Eastern Roman judge or statesman of some standing before he decided to quit the world and found two monasteries near his hometown of Zeugma. This double monastery was notable in that it shared a single church which held Liturgies both in Greek and in Syriac. The holy Publius was quite far from being a chauvinist, and understood the equal need of Syriac Christians to give right glory to God in their own language and according to their own customs. It seems to me that certain modern Greeks might stand to correct themselves by learning a thing or two from the holy example of Saint Publius.

Saint Publius [Gk. Πόπλιος, Ar. Bâbiliyyûs بابليوس] was born to a wealthy family which lived in the province of Euphratēsía in Syria – specifically in the aforementioned city of Zeugma, which is now the town of Belkıs in ‘Antâb عنتاب on the border between Turkey and Syria. The town received this name, because it was the place on the Euphrates River where the mighty Xšâyâr Šâh I yoked his ships together for his armies to cross, during his invasion of Greece. Blessed Theodoret of Kyrrhos describes Publius as being both ‘good-looking in physique’ and even more beautiful in soul. After spending some years in the world, Publius repaired to a high place where he built himself a hermit’s hut and began selling off his entire patrimony – house, lands, herds, clothing, silver and bronze wares, all down to the last brass coin – and distributing it all to the needy.

Having thus freed himself from all worldly cares, Saint Publius attended himself to the one that remained to him: that of working constantly to follow in the humble and merciful path of his Saviour and God. Daily he sought to increase in himself the example of Christ. He took little time to rest for himself. What time he did not spend in prayer, he spent in song from the Psalter, and what time he spent in neither pursuit, he gave to furnishing forth what hospitality to guests his little shelter could provide, or to whatever needful manual tasks he had to hand about his dwelling.

Blessed Theodoret likens Saint Publius to a songbird and a siren, luring young men into a ‘trap’ of salvation through his voice and through his holy example. He gathered around him disciples, whom at first he instructed to live apart from him in separate cells. He enjoined upon his disciples a principle of strict non-possession, and would enforce this principle with great rigour. He kept and used a set of scales, and would severely admonish his disciples for gluttony if he found the disciples to be keeping bread of weight in excess of what was needful for subsistence. If he heard of their stripping the bran from the germ of the grain, he would chastise the party for dining on such sybaritic fare. He would come around to each cell at a certain unexpected hour and listen at the door. If he heard prayers and the songs of the Psalter, he would depart again without disturbing the one inside. But if he heard nothing, or if he heard the sounds of sleep, he would knock at the door heavily and reproach the sleeper for taking more for the body than was needful.

At length, some of the disciples of Saint Publius discussed among themselves and entreated the holy man that they should build a common building and create a common rule of life such as the one that Saint Basil and Saint Theodosios had established. In this way, his disciples argued, a greater uniformity of discipline could be observed, and the burden of visiting disciples in their cells would be lifted from Saint Publius himself. Saint Publius allowed himself to be prevailed upon in this matter, and had all the individual cells demolished and one central cœnobium built to house all the disciples together. Saint Publius established a common rule of life, and exhorted each of his disciples to seek to study and emulate those virtues he found in his brothers: a gentle one should copy another’s zeal; one who kept long vigils should seek to learn from a fellow’s fasting rule. Said Saint Publius:

It is by so getting what we lack from others that we shall achieve the most perfect virtue. Just as in city markets one sells bread, another vegetables, one trades in clothes while another makes shoes, and so supplying their needs from each other they live more contentedly – the one who provides a piece of clothing receives a pair of shoes in exchange, while the one who buys vegetables supplies bread – so it is right that we should supply each other with the precious components of virtue.

Saint Publius then drew about him mostly Greek-speaking disciples, and the cœnobium he established made its prayers and sang its Psalter in the Greek. And yet, Saint Publius also drew a following among the Aramaic-speaking Syrians, who came to him and asked to be instructed in his rule of common celibate living, and benefit by his wisdom. Saint Publius neither spurned them, nor sent them away, nor held himself aloof from them, but he remembered the Great Commission, and he took them in with open arms. He had built for them another cœnobium next his own, but also had a common church built, one in which both the Greek monks and the Syrian monks could worship and praise God in their own tongues. The two groups of monks would come and worship together at the beginning of the day and at the end, and offer up to God the songs of praise each in turn, in the tongue which their hearts knew best.

This rule of life and this bilingual Eucharist at the monastery of Saint Publius continued even until Theodoret’s time, when he recorded the life and acts of the holy man. After the repose of Saint Publius, a prior named Theoteknos was elected abbot among the Greeks, and among the Syrians Aphthonios was named abbot. The rules laid down by Saint Publius were transmitted to them and unto their successors, and were kept faithfully by them, producing two generations of holy men after Publius who lived to see their deeds and struggles recorded by Bishop Theodoret. Holy father Publius, wise teacher and father to many monks in two tongues, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Archaeological site at Zeugma on the Euphrates