Saint Barlaam and Saint Josaphat, hermits

The son of a king of East India, named Abenner, Jo saphat w as of extraordinary beauty: among the astrologers consulted concerning his destiny, one of them having said that he would be a Christian, his father, a fierce partisan of idolatry, in order to prevent the fulfillment of this prediction, had him brought up in a separate castle, where he gave him officers and servants upon whose fidelity he entirely relied. This human prudence was useless; Josaphat emerged from childhood, and began to make judicious reflections on all that he saw. He made them particularly on the state of restraint in which he was kept, and, wishing to know the reason for it, he addressed one of his tutors whom he loved more than the others and asked him why the king, his father, thus kept him prisoner. The tutor confessed everything to him. His words touched Josaphat's heart, and the Holy Ghost, accompanying them with His grace, inspired him with the desire to know the truth.

God revealed the disposition of his heart to a holy hermit named Barlaam, so that he might go and instruct him. The solitary obeyed this order from heaven, and, leaving the desert of Sennaar, where he dwelt , he bo arded a ship and went in merchant's attire to the castle of Josaphat. There, he made the acquaintance of the tutor of whom we have spoken, and told him that he had an important communication to make to the young prince. The latter desired to see the solitary. Barlaam gave him a beautiful and moving explanation of all the mysteries of the Christian religion, the maxims of the Gospel, the necessity of the sacraments, the inconstancy of all earthly things, the reward of the just in heaven, the dreadful punishments of sinners in hell, and finally all the truths of salvation. As he spoke, Our Lord poured His grace into the heart of the young prince; so that after several conferences, he received holy baptism without fearing the indignation of the king, his father. The holy solitary then exhorted him to the practice of good works, to contempt for vanity, to perseverance in the state he had just embraced, and to the study of Christian perfection.

Josaphat's father conceived the most violent despair when he learned of his son's conversion to Christianity; he nevertheless used every means to bring him back to the religion of his fathers. But all his efforts were useless; the young neophyte left the world and went into the desert in search of his dear Barlaam. He suffered incredible hardships; for, as he had taken no provisions with him, he lived only on wild herbs, often lacked water, and was almost constantly reduced to a state worthy of compassion. But divine love made him overcome all these difficulties with joy. After searching for two whole years for what he desired, he finally found Barlaam in the desert of Sennaar. He begged him to receive him as his disciple and promised him perfect obedience. His life was henceforth entirely angelic, and he undertook the exercises of solitude with such zeal that his master, who was accustomed to them, marveled to see himself surpassed by a young prince raised in all kinds of delicacies.

As they were thus both enjoying the sweetnesses of the solitary life, it pleased divine goodness to call Barlaam from this world to reward him for his labors. He had a revelation of the time of his death, and he gave notice of it to his dear disciple, in order to dispose him for this separation. He employed the little life he had left to encourage him to perseverance in the service of Jesus Christ. Seeing his hour approach, he celebrated the divine mysteries, in which he made him participate, and, after bidding him farewell with words full of tenderness, he died in the joy of the Lord while making the sign of the cross in the midst of the fervor of his prayer. As soon as his eyes were closed, Josaphat embraced his body, watered it with his tears, and, having wrapped it in the hairshirt he had received from him at the time of his conversion, he spent a day and a night singing psalms and buried him, with great respect, in a pit near his cave. At the end of this holy ceremony he let himself fall asleep, during which he had a vision, wherein the blessed deceased appeared to him to let him know the glory he enjoyed in heaven, and to assure him that he would receive a similar one if he persevered unto death in his good resolution. This hope filled him with joy and inspired him with new strength to practice with inviolable fidelity all the exercises worthy of his vocation. He did so until the age of sixty, thirty-five of which he spent in the deserts. A hermit, who had shown him Barlaam's cave, had a revelation of his death and took care to bury his body with that of his master.

This account is by Father Giry.