E00713: Jerome, in his Life of Hilarion, presents *Hilarion (anchorite in Palestine and Cyprus, ob. 371, S00099) as a monastic leader and miracle-worker junior but equal to *Antony ('the Great', monk of Egypt, ob. 356, S00098). Written in Latin in Bethlehem (Palestine) in the early 390s.

Jerome, Life of Hilarion 14 and 24

Chapter 14
A noble woman named Aristenete visits both Antony in Egypt and Hilarion in Palestine and asks the latter to heal her children, who suddenly fallen ill, in the following words:

"Hilarion, serue Christi, redde mihi liberos meos. Quos Antonius tenuit in Aegypto, a te seruentur in Syria".

'"Hilarion, servant of Christ, give me back my children: Antony kept them safe in Egypt, do you save them in Syria".'

There follows a description of the healing. The passage concludes:

Quod postquam auditum est et longe late que percrebuit, certatim ad eum de Syria et Aegypto populi confluebant, ita ut multi crederent in Christum et se monachos profiterentur. Necdum enim tunc monasteria erant in Palaestina nec quisquam monachum ante sanctum Hilarionem in Syria nouerat. Ille fundator et eruditor huius conuersationis et studii in hac prouincia primum fuit. Habebat dominus Iesus in Aegypto senem Antonium, habebat in Palaestina Hilarionem iuniorem.

'When the matter was noised abroad, and the fame of it spread far and wide, the people flocked to him from Syria and Egypt, so that many believed in Christ and professed themselves monks. For as yet there were no monasteries in Palestine, nor had anyone known a monk in Syria before the saint Hilarion. It was he who originated this mode of life and devotion, and who first trained men to it in that province. The Lord Jesus had in Egypt the aged Antony: in Palestine He had the younger Hilarion.'

Chapter 24
In tantam enim a domino fuerat eleuatus gloriam, ut beatus quoque Antonius audiens conuersationem eius scriberet libenterque eius epistulas sumeret, et si quando de Syriae partibus ad se languentes perrexissent, diceret eis: "quare uos tam longe uexare uoluistis, cum habeatis ibi filium meum Hilarionem?"

'For to such a pitch of glory was he raised by the Lord that the blessed Antony among the rest hearing of his life wrote to him and gladly received his letters. And if ever the sick from Syria came to him he would say to them, "Why have you taken the trouble to come so far, when you have there my son Hilarion?"'

Text: Bastiaensen 1975. Translation: Fremantle et al. 1893.