160 Chapter 3 his direct communication. Moreover, by referring to God as ‘he who guides him [Elias]’, the hagiographer stresses Elias’ devotion to God as much as God’s guidance of the saint. The hagiographer chose to follow up on the two aspects of God’s communication – travel and healing – in separate episodes. Directly following the divine revelation, several healings and miracles are narrated without any mention of travel, and so the narrative first provides examples of this fulfilment of God’s promise to Elias. Only after several episodes, Elias finally starts his journey to Jerusalem while reciting psalms to call God as helper and guide. By adding the latter detail, the hagiographer represents the journey as a religious one and affirms Elias’ devotion, perhaps intending to recall the earlier divine communication by stressing Elias’ attitude to God as a guide. The addition is surely a conscious choice of the hagiographer, as in many other episodes no details of the journey or Elias’ behaviour while travelling are given. Elias’ initial desire and the succeeding divine approval is recollected again in the episode of his arrival. Having reached Jerusalem, Elias prostrates before the tomb of Christ and he is given the monastic habit by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, doing exactly what he initially intended to do four chapters earlier. So the hagiographer presents the motivating stimulus to travel in such a way as to illustrate aspects of Elias’ sainthood and he emphasised this motivation by repeatedly referring to it in the narrative. Several chapters and travels later Elias resides in Antioch. In this passage the hagiographer narrates another divine revelation that urges Elias to travel: […] ἐν ᾗ διάγοντι φαίνεται καὶ αὖθις αὐτῷ ὁ πολλάκις φανεὶς καὶ καθοδηγήσας· «Ὑπόστρεφε—λέγων—εἰς τὴν πατρίδα σου καὶ ἀποδύου πρὸς τὰ σκάμματα τῆς ἀσκήσεως», ἐσήμανε δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ τὸ ὄρος, ἐν ᾧ καὶ τὴν ἀσκητικὴν παλαίστραν ᾠκοδόμει. Καὶ δὴ ἀναστάς, εἴχετο τῆς ὁδοῦ· ᾔδει γὰρ ὁ καθαρὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ τίσιν ὑπακούειν χρή.546 […] while he was living there [in Antioch] the one who often appears to him and guides him appeared again, saying: ‘return to your fatherland and strip off for the trainings of askesis’547 and he also made known to him the mountain, on which he was building548 the ascetical wrestling school. And getting up, he took to the road, for the pure one in his heart knew to whom it was necessary to obey. In this passage the saint’s close connection to God is emphasised again, referring to the frequent direct communication of God to the saint (αὐτῷ ὁ πολλάκις φανείς) and by 546 Life of Elias the Younger 22, lines 407-413. 547 ἀποδύου: here probably meaning to strip off clothes before sports, indicating that he should prepare for ascetical exercise. Sport and especially wrestling metaphors are often used for ascesis. For the early Christian origins of this metaphorical usage, see Secord (2018). 548 The use of the imperfect (ᾠκοδόμει) suggests an action in progress, which we might interpret to mean that God showed Gregory a vision in which he sees himself building the monastery on the mountain.
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