Sabas of Jerusalem

Sabas of Jerusalem, abbot (439–532). Born in Cappadocia the son of an army officer, he decided to be a monk and at the age of eighteen he was sent to Jerusalem to learn from its solitaries, but Abbot Euthymius recommended him to live in a community. Here he was known as a very hard worker, unafraid of heavier tasks: he would chop wood and fetch water for all. But when he was thirty he was allowed to spend five days a week as a solitary in a cave. Here he made 50 baskets a week out of palm fronds. His parents implored him to leave the monastic life: on his refusal, they offered him money, but he would only accept three gold pieces, which he gave to his abbot Euthymius.

After the latter's death Sabas spent four years alone in the desert. The brook Cedron provided him with water and local people brought him bread, cheese, and dates. He was invited to found a new community and he eventually agreed. His laura enabled candidates to live a semi-eremitical life: at their highest point they numbered 150. Some of them asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to ordain him a priest: Sabas reluctantly agreed in 491, when aged over fifty. In spite of a monastic schism caused by his repeated withdrawals for prayer and solitude, he was highly esteemed by contemporaries, including Armenians and Egyptians. His mother, now a widow, provided a guest-house and two hospitals as well as a new monastery.

In 493 the Patriarch placed him in charge of all the hermit monks of Palestine. In spite of his special recommendation to the emperor Anastasius at Constantinople Sabas was turned away because the doorkeeper thought he was a beggar. He was later admitted and spent the winter there and argued against the Monophysite heresy. Later he embarked on a preaching tour on the same subject in Caesarea, Scythopolis, and elsewhere.

When he was ninety he went again to Constantinople on behalf of the new Patriarch Peter, to protest against the violent repression by imperial troops of a revolt by Samaritans. The Emperor Justinian received him with respect and offered to endow his monasteries. Sabas requested instead a reduction in taxes in Palestine, a hostel for pilgrims in Jerusalem, and a fortress to protect monks against raiders. All these were agreed. Soon after his return, Sabas fell ill, and was personally nursed by the Patriarch, but he returned to his laura where he appointed his successor and lay for four days in complete silence. He died on 5 December, a fine example of the holy man in antiquity. His monastery still exists, now inhabited by Eastern Orthodox monks, to whom Pope Paul VI returned the relics of Sabas in 1965. Feast: 5 December.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• Famous contemporary Life in Greek by Cyril of Scythopolis, ed. E. Schwartz (1939)
• Eng. Tr. in Alonso de Villegas Selvado, Flos Sanctorum (1623), see his Lives of the Saints, vol. 2, in D. M. Rodgers (ed.) English Recusant Literature (1970). Bibl. SS. 11, 533–5 and B.L.S. xii, 49–51