Asclepius of Syria

Venerable Asclepius of Syria was a hermit in Syria in the fourth and fifth centuries, and his disciple and follower was James. News of him is given by Theodoret of Cyrrhus in the twenty-⁠fifth chapter of his Religious History, and it is very scanty. The Russian source gives the commemoration as 27 February, and the Serbian one as 25 February, the two saints being commemorated on the same day.

While he still lived with his brothers in the village, Asclepius led a life of ascetic labour and abstinence. Later he chose the life of a hermit and began to live in a cell ten stadia from the cell of Polychronius, and lived in the same way as he: he had the same food, the same clothing and the same modest character. He showed the same love of strangers and of brothers as Polychronius, and had the same meekness and moderation. Asclepius lived in the greatest poverty and prayed unceasingly to God. Theodoret considers that Asclepius became famous as an ascetic of piety both in the world and in monasticism, and therefore received a double crown.

James was the follower and imitator of the life of Asclepius. According to the Serbian source, at the age of twenty James shut himself in a small cell near the village called Nimouza and spoke with no one. Only to those who came did he give answers, through a small hole made in a spiral. In the cell he lit neither fire nor lamp. Remaining so in the labour of privation, he died in peace in the fifth century.