Hilarion (291–371), also known by the bynames of Thavata, of Gaza, and in the Orthodox Church as the Great was a Christian anchorite who spent most of his life in the desert according to the example of Anthony the Great (c. 251–356). While Anthony is considered to have established Christian monasticism in the Egyptian Desert, Hilarion, who lived in the coastal area near Gaza, is considered by his biographer Jerome (c. 342/347 – 420), to be the founder of Palestinian monasticism – regarding this claim see also Hilarion’s contemporary, Chariton (mid-3rd century – c. 350), founder of monasticism in the Judaean Desert. Hilarion is venerated as a saint exemplifying monastic virtues by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

Origin and life as a hermit

Hilarion was born around 291 to pagan parents in Tabatha, a village five miles north of Gaza. Hilarion was at least bilingual, speaking both Greek as well as Aramaic which was common around Gaza. His pagan parents sent him in his youth to study with a grammarian in Alexandria, where he gave, according to Jerome, a remarkable proof of his ability and character and became an accomplished speaker. While in Alexandria, he heard of the hermit Anthony and set off to study with him. After two months of learning the ascetic life from Anthony, Hilarion started to feel that the many visitors who came to Anthony for healing or exorcism were too much to bear and he decided to set off in the wilderness of Palestine to live alone as a hermit.

Hilarion returned to Gaza where he found his parents dead and subsequently gave away his goods to his brothers and the poor. He then established himself as a hermit in the desert inland from the coastal road, seven miles from Maiuma, the port of Gaza. Though he went on one occasion to Jerusalem to venerate the holy sites, he chose not to live in the Judaean Desert as he did not wish to appear to confine God within prescribed limits, believing he could be close to God anywhere. Around 308, he built a hut where he lived in solitude for 22 years and which survived into the time of Jerome. Hilarion wove baskets as he had learned in Egypt where this was a common monastic occupation. Here he also struggled against fleshly desires and Jerome said that the devil tempted Hilarion by igniting the “flames of lust” in the young man. Hilarion fought this sexual desire by mortifying his body with hunger, thirst and strenuous labour.

Life in Gaza and attributed miracles

After the 22 years he lived in his solitary hut, Hilarion was approached by a brave woman who sought a cure for her sterility. First, he resisted, but soon he prayed for her upon which she was healed. From then on, Hilarion spent his life surrounded by disciples and people in need of healing and exorcism. Jerome reports several episodes in which Hilarion heals people, drives out demons, foresees the future, performs miracles and speaks divinely inspired words of wisdom. In one instance, Hilarion was able to heal the three children of Helpidius, who would later become praetorian prefect. In Bethelea, Hilarion healed miraculously a certain Alaphion, which led to the conversion of the prominent family of the historian Sozomen.

As there were no monasteries in Palestine or Syria at the time, people began to flock to Hilarion for spiritual training. Sozomen, possibly due to his local sources, singles out Epiphanius and Hesyach as the two most outstanding in the circle around Hilarion. Epiphanius, who is known by the bynames ‘of Eleutheropolis’ and ‘of Salamis’, became his disciple after returning from Egypt and would later go to Cyprus where he introduced monasticism and was elected bishop of Salamis around 367/368. With many more people seeking his guidance, Hilarion established a monastery during the reign of emperor Constantius (337–361) which, by the time he was sixty-three, consisted of a large community with many visitors.

Final years and death

Hilarion remained in Gaza until three years after the death of Anthony (around 356), upon which he went to the place where Anthony had died in Egypt in order to escape the crowds that visited him. While he was there, the pagan Julian became emperor of the East in the winter of 361/362 and the city authority of Gaza attempted to arrest Hilarion who then had to flee. Jerome’s and Sozomen’s account differs slightly as Jerome writes that Hilarion escaped arrest in Egypt and lived there until Julian’s death before travelling to Sicily, Hilarion went according to Sozomen directly to Sicily. From there, he went soon to Epidauros in Dalmatia where he was said to have stilled the sea during the tsunami of 21 July 365 by drawing three crosses in the sand. Immediately after that, he went to Cyprus.

Hilarion was welcomed in Cyprus by his old disciple Epiphanius who encouraged him to stay. He initially settled near Paphos but later retired to a more remote place twelve miles away. Here, Hilarion died at the age of eighty and was buried. Ten months after Hilarion’s death, his disciple Hesyach stole his body, which was perfectly preserved and smelled sweetly, and interred it in his own monastery at Maiuma.

In literature

Johann Gottfried Herder wrote the poem “The Paradise in the desert” about the teacher-disciple relation between Anthony and Hilarion in 1797. This motif was also taken up by Gustave Flaubert in his The Temptation of Saint Anthony, though changed, as Hilarion attempts to tempt Anthony away from his faith by creating doubt.

Hermann Hesse adapted a biography of Hilarion as one of the three Lives of Joseph Knecht, making his Nobel Prize–winning novel The Glass Bead Game (also known as Magister Ludi).

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Excerpted from Wikipedia