By Gregory the Cellarer
15. As he neared the great <city> of Antioch, Lazaros saw some people standing in the middle of the road, lamenting over a girl who had just been abducted by the Armenian army as it passed by there. When he found out about this, he immediately started to pursue the<se soldiers>. Reaching the place where they had taken up their quarters, he went up to some of them and asked if they would point out their commander to him. Since they wanted to know why he was looking for him, the father responded, “Some of you have abducted a girl and that’s why I’m trying to see him, so that I may take her away, with his backing, after I’ve looked around and found her, wherever she may be.” The words were not even out of his mouth before the men, hearing <the word> “girl,” grew angry and began shouting at him roughly, “Abba, an evil demon led you here; be off so that you don’t lose your life along with the girl!” The <soldiers> made this angry response in order to frighten him, but the father was not scared at all by their words and instead became even bolder. He replied to them, “I’m telling you straight, that if you don’t hand her over to me right now I’m going to go directly to the katepano, and then I won’t just recover the girl from you on his orders, but I’ll also demand your punishment.” When they heard these words, the <soldiers> quickly changed their brutality into docility and their brash insolence to humility and started begging him to go away, saying that they would look <for her> after he had gone and would release her when they found her. But as they saw that Lazaros would not be convinced by their words unless he got the girl, they looked around and found her and brought her to him. “Take this girl, Father,” they said, “who hasn’t been touched by us and hasn’t suffered any harm, and go away, <but> give us your blessing yourself in compensation.” The father prayed for them and, taking the girl, turned back.
They had not yet reached her village, however, when night overtook them in the middle of their journey. Lazaros turned off the road a little way, stopped, and, after he had made a bed in the sand with his own hands, told the girl to lie down there and sleep. When he saw her pleading with him and begging him not to leave her, he said, “Lie down while I go a little way away from you to say my office; after I’ve finished, I’ll come back and lie down near you.” So he went away from her and said his office standing up; when he saw that she was asleep, he himself lay down at the spot where he was standing and went to sleep. He woke up in the middle of the night, however, and found her lying behind him, so he got up and stood singing psalms until the morning; and <then> he left there with her and went on his way. When they came near to her village, Lazaros prayed for her and sent her on her way. He continued on his journey, even though she begged him very much to go with her so that she might repay him for the favor that he had done for her; but he, fleeing the praise of men, as has been said, left her and continued on his journey. Thus the incidental task turned out no less <important> to him than the <main> task, and in fact more so, if the word of Christ is true, as indeed it is, that there is no greater love than this, that someone should lay down his life for his neighbor.
- Translation from the book The Life of Lazaros of Mt. Galesion: An Eleventh-Century Pillar Saint by Richard P. H. Greenfield.
