The Rise of a Scholar

Velut lampade quamdam divina luce fulgentem Didymum Dominus accednit. De cujus vita, atque institutis, quoniam ad Ecclesiae gloriam Dei munere concessus creditur, licet in transcursu, necessario tamen commemoranda nobis pauca videntur. Is namque in parva aetate, cum adhuc etiam prima litterarum ignoraret elementa, luminibus orbatus, majore desiderio scientiae veri luminis inflammatur: nec desperationem cupita adipiscedni passus est, cum audisset scriptum in Evangelio: Quod apud homines impossiblie est, possibile est apud Deum.  Hac igitur  divina  pollicitatione confisus indesinenter Dominum deprecabatur, non ut oculorum carnalium visum, sed ut illuminationem cordis acciperet. Miscebat tamen precibus studi ac laborem, et juges continuatasque vigilas, non ad legendum, sed ad audiendum adhibebat, ut quod aliis visus, hoc illi conferret auditus. Cum vero post lucubrationis laborem, somnus, ut fieri solet, legentibus advenisset, Didymus silentium illud non ad quietem, vel otium datum ducens, tanquam animal ruminans cibum, quem ceperat, ex integro revocabat, et ea quae dudum, percurrentibus aliis, ex librorum lectione cognoverat, memoria et animo retexebat, ut non tam audisse quae lecta fuerant, quam descripsisse ea mentis suae paginis videretur. Ita brevi, Deo docente, in tantam divinarum humanarumque rerum eruditionem ac scientiam venit, ut scholae ecclesiasticae, doctor exsisteret, Athanasio episcopo, caeterisque sapientibus in Ecclesia viris Dei admodum probatus. Rufinus Aquileiensis, Historia Ecclesiasticae, Lib II, Cap VII

The Lord kindled Didymus as a lamp shining with Divine light. Of his life and character, since it is believed that he was given by God for the glory of the Church, it seems necessary to us make brief mention. When he was of few years, while he was yet ignorant of the elements of letters, he was deprived of light, yet he was inflamed by a greater desire for the true light of knowledge, nor was he afflicted with despair of gaining what he desired, since he had heard that it was written in the Gospel, 'What is impossible for men is possible for God.' 1 Trusting in this Divine promise, he prayed to the Lord unceasingly, not that he might receive sight in his physical eyes, but that he might have illumination of heart. He combined labour with prayers and study and took to the toil of continuous vigils, not for reading but listening, that what sight gave to others hearing might give to him. But when after their work as usual sleep had come over the readers, Didymus, deeming that silence was given neither for rest nor idleness, like a clean animal chewing the cud, 2 what he had taken in, he would recall entire, and these things which others had raced through in their reading of books, in his mind and memory he would turn over and over, so that he seemed not so much to have heard what was read as to have written it out on the pages of his mind. Thus in a short time, with God teaching, he arrived at such erudition of Divine and human things that he became a teacher of the ecclesiastical school, having won the approval of bishop Athanasius and other wise men in the church of God. Rufinus of Aquileia, Ecclesiastical History, Book 2, Chap 7 1 Lk 18.27 2 Lev 11.3