A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

21. MONACHUS, the MONK. Gregory is not accurately described by the title Monk, as he lived on the proceeds of his own property, a farm in Thrace, though much given to ascetic practices and entertaining a great reverence for religious persons. His spiritual director having died, he attached himself to St. Basil the younger, the ascetic, who lived during and after the reign of Leo VI. the Philosopher (A. D. 886-911), and is supposed to have survived as late as A. D. 952. After his death, Gregory composed two memoirs of him; the more prolix appears to have perished, the other is given by the Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum, Martii, vol. iii.; the Latin version in the body of the work, p. 667, &c., and the original in the Appendix, p. 24, &c. This memoir, though crammed with miraculous stories,contains several notices of contemporary public men and political events: and a considerable extract of it is given by Combefis in the Historiae Byzantinae Scriptores post Theophanem, fol. Paris, A. D. 1685. It precedes, in that work, the Chronicon of Symeon Magister. (Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vol. x. p. 206; Cave, Hist. Litt. ii. p. 69; Acta Sancttor., Martii, vol. iii., Proleg. ad Vit. S. Basilii.)