The Lausiac History (Greek)

The Lausiac History (Greek)

continued

CHAPTER XVII. -- MACARIUS OF EGYPT

1 [1] I HESITATE either to speak or write the many great and incredible events that happened in connection with those famous men, the two Macarii, lest I should incur the suspicion of being a liar; indeed the Holy Spirit has declared that "the Lord destroys all them that speak falsehood." So do not disbelieve me, most believing one, for I am not lying. Of these Macarii the one was an Egyptian by race, the other an Alexandrian, a seller of sweetmeats. [2] First of all I will tell of the Egyptian, who lived a full ninety years. Of these he spent sixty in the desert, having retired there as a young man of thirty. And he was counted worthy to possess such great discernment that he was called the "aged youth." Because of this also he made the quicker progress. For when he was forty years old he received grace to contend against the evil spirits both by healing and forecasting the future. Also he was counted worthy of the priesthood.

2 [3] He had two disciples with him in the inner desert called Scete. There was always one of them at his service near at hand because of those that came to be healed, while the other rested in an adjoining cell. After some time had elapsed, having seen into the future with prophetic eye, he said to the man who waited on him, named John, who afterwards became a priest in the place of Macarius himself: "Listen to me, brother John, and bear with my warning; for you are being tempted and the spirit of covetousness is tempting you. [4] I have seen this, and I know that if you will bear with me you will be perfected in this place and glorified, 'neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling'; but if you will not listen to me, the end of Gehazi shall come upon you, of whose illness you are even now sick." Now it came to pass when fifteen or twenty years had elapsed after the death of Macarius that he disobeyed, and accordingly after robbing the poor fund contracted elephantiasis, so that there was not found on his body a whole part, on which one could put his finger. So this is what the holy Macarius prophesied. [5] Now concerning eating and drinking it is superfluous to relate, seeing that not even among the indolent is it possible to find gluttony or carelessness in these regions, owing both to the scarcity of necessaries and the zeal of the inhabitants. But concerning the rest of his asceticism I do speak, for he was said to be in a continual ecstasy and to spend a far longer time with God than with things sublunary. The following marvels are told of him.

3 [6] A certain Egyptian, enamoured of a lady married to a husband, and being unable to seduce her, consulted a magician, saying: "Lead her to love me, or contrive that her husband reject her. And the magician having received a sufficient sum, used magic spells and arranged for her to take the form of a mare. The husband having come in and seen her was surprised that a mare lay on his bed. He weeps and laments; he talks to the animal, but gets no reply. He calls in the priests of the village. [7] He brings them in, shows her to them, but does not discover what has happened. During three days she neither took fodder as a mare nor bread as a human being, thus deprived of both forms of nourishment. Finally, that God might be glorified and the virtue of the holy Macarius appear, it entered into her husband's heart to take her into the desert. And having put a halter on her as upon a horse, he led her into the desert. When they came near, the brethren stood by the cell of Macarius, struggling with the woman's husband and saying: [8] "Why did you bring this mare here? He said to them: "That she may receive mercy. They said to him: "What is the matter? The husband answered them: "She was my wife and was turned into a mare, and to-day is the third day that she has tasted nothing. They referred the matter to the saint, who was praying within.

4 For God had revealed the matter to him and he was praying for her. The holy Macarius therefore answered the brethren and said to them: "You are horses, since you have the eyes of horses. [9] For she is a woman and has not been transformed, except in the eyes of deluded men. And he blessed water, and pouring it from the head downwards on to her bare skin he prayed. And immediately he made her appear to all as a woman. Then giving her food he made her eat and sent her away with her husband thanking the Lord. And he advised her thus: "Never give up the church, never stay away from the Communion. For these things happened to you because you did not attend the mysteries for five weeks." 5 [10] Here is another example of his asceticism. He made in the course of time a tunnel running under the ground from his cell for half a stade and finished it off at the end with a cave. And if ever a crowd of people troubled him, he would leave his cell secretly and go away to the cave and no one would find him. Now one of his zealous disciples told us this, and said that he used to say twenty-four prayers on his way to the cave and twenty-four as he returned. [11] A report was prevalent concerning him that he raised a dead man, in order to persuade a heretic who did not acknowledge that there was a bodily resurrection. And this report was current in the desert.

6 Once a young man possessed with a devil was brought to him by his lamenting mother, bound to two young men. And the devil had this method of working. After eating three bushels of bread and drinking a beaker of water, he would belch out the food and dissolve it into vapour, for in this way what had been eaten and drunk was dissolved as it were by fire. [12] For there is a class (of demons) called fiery. Since there are differences among demons, as also among men, not of nature but of character. This young man then, not receiving enough food from his mother, often ate his own dirt and drank his own water. As then his mother wept and implored the saint, he took the lad and prayed over him beseeching God. And after a day or two, the malady having eased a little, the holy Macarius said to her: [13] "How much do you want him to eat?" She replied: "Ten pounds of bread." So having rebuked her, saying this was too much, and having prayed over him with fasting for seven days, he put him on to (a regime) of three pounds, with obligation to work. And so having cured him he restored him to his mother. And this wonder God wrought through Macarius. I never met him, for he had fallen asleep a year before my entry into the desert.

CHAPTER XVIII. -- MACARIUS OF ALEXANDRIA

1 [1] BUT I did meet the other Macarius, the Alexandrian, a priest of the place called Cellia. I sojourned in this Cellia nine years. He survived for three years of my stay there. And some things I saw (for myself), some I heard from him, and some things again I heard from others. This then was the method of his asceticism. If ever he heard of any feat, he did the same thing, perfectly. For instance, having heard from some that the monks of Tabennisi all through Lent eat (only) food that has not been near the fire, he decided for seven years to eat nothing that had been through the fire, and except for raw vegetables, if any such were found, and moistened pulse he tasted nothing. [2] Having practised this virtue to perfection, he heard about another man, that he ate a pound of bread. And having broken up his ration-biscuit and put it into a vessel with a narrow mouth, he decided to eat just as much as his hand brought out. And he would tell the story thus in a joking manner: "I seized hold of a number of pieces, but I could not extract them all at once by reason of the narrowness of the opening, for like a tax-gatherer it would not let me." So for three years he kept up this practice of asceticism, eating four or five ounces of bread and drinking as much water, and a pint of oil in the year.

2 [3] Here is another practice of his. He determined to dispense with sleep, and he told us how he did not go under a roof for twenty days, that he might conquer sleep, being burnt up by the sun's heat and shrivelled up with cold by night. And he used to say this: "Unless I had soon gone under a roof and got some sleep, my brain would have so dried up as to drive me into delirium for ever alter. And I conquered so far as depended on me, but I gave way so far as depended on my nature that had need of sleep." [4] As he sat early in the morning in his cell, a mosquito settled on his foot and stung him. And feeling the pain he squashed it with his hand after it was full of blood. So, accusing himself for having taken vengeance, he condemned himself to sit naked for six months in the marsh of Scete, which is in the great desert. The mosquitos there are like wasps, and even pierce the hides of wild boars. So then he was bitten all over and developed so many swellings that some thought he had elephantiasis. Returning to his cell after six months, he was recognized by his voice that it was Macarius himself.

3 [5] Once he desired to enter the garden-tomb of Jannes and Jambres, so he told us. But this garden-tomb had once belonged to the magicians who had great power long ago with Pharaoh. Forasmuch then as they had the power for long periods, they built their work with stones faced four-square, and made their tomb there, and stored away much gold. They also planted trees, for the place is rather damp, and they dug a well besides. [6] Since therefore the saint did not know the way, he followed the stars by a kind of guesswork, crossing the desert, as one does at sea. Taking a bundle of reeds he planted them one each mile as landmarks in order to find his way as he returned. So having travelled nearly nine days he approached the place. Then the demon, who always withstands the athletes of Christ, collected all the reeds and put them at his head as he slept about a mile from the garden-tomb. [7] So he arose and found the reeds, God having allowed this perhaps to try him further, that he might not trust in reeds, but in the pillar of cloud that led Israel forty years in the desert. He used to say: "Seventy demons came out from the garden-tomb to meet me, shouting and fluttering like crows against my face and saying: 'What do you want, Macarius? What do you want, monk? Why have you come to our place?

4 You can't stay here.' I told them," he said, "'Let me just go in and look round and go away.' [8] So," he said, "I went in and found a little brazen jar suspended and an iron chain against the well, rusted already by time, and some pomegranates with nothing inside because they had been dried up by the sun. So then he turned back and went on his way for twenty days. But when the water which he was carrying failed him and also the loaves, he was in great distress. And when he was nearly collapsing there appeared to him a maiden, so he declared, wearing a pure white robe and holding a cruse dripping with water. [9] He said she was some distance, about a stade, away from him, and he went on for three days, gazing at her as she stood with the vessel and being unable to catch her up, as happens in dreams; but he lasted out sustained by the hope of drinking. After her appeared a herd of antelopes, one of which with a calf stopped----there are many in those regions. And he said that her udder was flowing with milk. So, creeping under her and sucking, he was satisfied. And the antelope went as far as his cell, giving him milk, but not allowing her own calf to suck.

5 [10] On another occasion, while digging a well near to some vegetable shoots, he was bitten by an asp. Now this beast is able to cause death. And having taken it with both hands he seized it by the jaws and pulled it in pieces, saying to it: "When God did not send you, how did you dare to come?" Now he had several cells in the desert: one in Scete, the great interior desert, and one in the Libyan desert, and one at the so-called Cellia, and one on Mount Nitria. Some of these are without windows, and in these he was said to sit during Lent in darkness. Another was too narrow for him to stretch out his feet in it. Another, in which he met his visitors, was more spacious. [11] He healed so great a crowd of demoniacs that they cannot be counted. When we were there a highborn maiden was brought from Thessalonica, paralyzed for many years. He rubbed her for twenty days with holy oil with his own hands, praying the while, and sent her back to her city restored to health. After she had gone she sent him many generous gifts.

6 [12] Having heard that the monks of Tabennisi had a splendid rule of life, he changed his clothes and put on the secular garments of a workman, and went a fifteen days' journey to the Thebaid, travelling through the desert. And having come to the monastery of the Tabennesiots he asked for their archimandrite, Pachomius by name, a man of great reputation and possessing the gift of prophecy----though the story of Macarius had not been revealed to him. So meeting him he said: "I pray you, receive me into your monastery that I may become a monk. [13] Pachomius said to him: "You have already reached old age, and you cannot be an ascetic. The brethren are ascetics and you cannot endure their labours. You will be offended and will depart, cursing them. And he did not receive him either the first day or the second, till seven days had passed. But he persisted in waiting, fasting (all the time), and at last he said to him: "Receive me, father, and if I do not fast as they do and work, order me to be driven out. He persuaded the brethren to admit him; now the total number (of the occupants) of the first monastery was 1,400 men and remains so up to this day. [14] Well, he entered. When a little time had passed, Lent came on and he saw each man practising different ways of asceticism----one eating in the evening only, another every two days, another every five, another again standing all night but sitting down by day.

7 So having moistened palm-leaves in large numbers, he stood in a corner and until the forty days were completed and Easter had come, ate no bread and drank no water, neither knelt down nor reclined, and apart from a few cabbage leaves took nothing, and them only on Sunday, that he might appear to eat. [15] And if ever he went out in obedience to nature, he quickly came in again and took his stand, speaking to no one and not opening his mouth but standing in silence. And, apart from prayer in his heart and the palm-leaves in his hands, he was doing nothing. All the ascetics therefore, seeing this, raised a revolt against the superior, saying: "Where did you get this fleshless man from, to condemn us? Either drive him out, or know that we are all going. Pachomius, therefore, having heard the details of his observance, prayed to God that the identity of the stranger might be revealed to him. [16] And it was revealed; and he took him by the hand and led him to the house of prayer, where the altar was, and said to him, "Here, good old man, you are Macarius and you hid it from me. For many years I have been longing to see you. I thank you for letting my children feel your fist, lest they should be proud of their ascetic achievements. Now go away to your own place, for you have edified us sufficiently. And pray for us. Then he went away, as asked.

8 [17] On another occasion he told us this story: "Having perfected every kind of life that I desired, then I had another desire. I desired to keep my mind for five days only undistracted from (the contemplation of) God. And, having determined this, I barred the cell and enclosure, so as not to have to answer any man, and I took my stand, beginning at the second hour. So I gave this commandment to my mind: "Do not descend from heaven. There you have angels, archangels, the powers on high, the God of all; do not descend below heaven." [18] And having lasted out two days and two nights, I exasperated the demon so that he became a flame of fire and burned up all the things in the cell, so that even the little mat on which I stood was consumed with fire and I thought I was being all burned up. Finally, stricken with fear, I left off on the third day, being unable to keep my mind free from distraction, but I descended to contemplation of the world, lest vanity should be imputed to me."

9 [19] Once I visited this holy Macarius and found a village priest lying just outside his cell, whose head was all eaten away by the disease called cancer, and the actual bone appeared on the crown of his head. He had come to be healed and Macarius would not grant him an interview. So I besought him: "I pray you, pity him and give him his answer." [20] And he said to me: "He does not deserve to be healed, for it has been sent him as a punishment. But if you want him to be healed, persuade him to give up taking services. For he was taking services, though living in fornication, and for this reason he is being punished and God is healing his soul." So when I said this to the afflicted man he consented, and swore that he would no longer exercise his priesthood. Then he received him and said: "Do you believe that God is?" He said to him: "Yes." [21] "Were you able to mock God?" "No," he answered. He said: "If you recognize your sin and the chastening of God, on account of which you suffered this, reform yourself henceforward." So he confessed his fault and gave a promise that he would sin no more nor take the service, but embrace the position of a layman. Then he laid his hands on him and in a few days he was cured and the hair grew and he went away healed.

10 [22] Before my eyes a young lad was brought to him possessed by an evil spirit. So, putting one hand on his head and the other on his heart, he prayed so much that he made him hang in mid-air. Then the boy swelled like a wine-skin and festered so that he became a mass of erysipelas. And having cried out suddenly, he produced water through all his senses, and calming down returned to his original size. So he anointed him with holy oil and handed him to his father, and having poured water upon him ordered that he should touch neither flesh nor wine for forty days. And so he healed him. 11 [23] One day vainglorious thoughts troubled him, driving him out from the cell and suggesting to him as if by a divine dispensation that he should visit the city of the Romans to cure the sick. For grace acted powerfully in him against (evil) spirits. And when for a long while he would not obey, but was being vehemently pressed, falling on the doorstep of his cell, he put his feet outside and said: "Drag me, demons, pull me. For I am not going with my feet. If you can take me, then I will go." He swore to them: "Here I lie until evening. Unless you shake me, I will not listen to you." [24] So, having lain there a long while, he got up, but when night came on they attacked him again, and having filled a two-bushel basket with sand and put it on his shoulders, he tramped about in the desert. Theosebius the Cosmetor, an Antiochian by race, met him and said to him: "What are you carrying, father? Give me the burden and don't trouble yourself." But he said to him: "I trouble my troubler. For he is insatiable and tempts me to go out." So having tramped about for a long time he went into his cell, having punished his body.

12 [25] This holy Macarius told me the following----for he was a priest. "I noticed at the time of distributing the mysteries that it was never I which gave the oblation to Marcus the ascetic, but an angel used to give it him from the altar. I saw only the knuckle of the donor's hand." Now this Marcus was a young man, who learned by heart the Old and New Testaments, exceedingly meek and continent beyond all others. [26] One day having leisure----Macarius then being in extreme old age----I went off and sat by his door, thinking him superhuman, seeing that he was so old, and listened to what he said and what he did. He was quite alone inside; being already a hundred years old and having lost his teeth, he was righting with himself and the devil and saying: "What do you want, bad old man? See, you have had oil and have taken some wine. What do you want more, you white-haired glutton?"----scolding himself. Then to the devil: "Do I owe you anything now? You won't find anything. Go away from me." And, as if humming to himself, he was saying: "Here, you white-haired glutton, how long shall I be with you? "

13 [27] Paphnutius his disciple told us, that one day a hyaena took her whelp, which was blind, and brought it to Macarius. And having knocked with her head at the door of the enclosure, she entered, Macarius sitting outside (his cell), and threw the young one down at his feet. And he took it and spat on its eyes and prayed, and immediately it recovered its sight. And its mother having suckled it took it and went away. [28] And on the next day she brought the saint the fleece of a large sheep. And the blessed Melania said this to me: "I got that fleece from Macarius as a gift to a visitor. And what marvel, if He who tamed the lions for Daniel, also made the hyaena intelligent?" And he said, that from the day he was baptized he never spat on the ground, it being then sixty years from his baptism. [29] As to his bodily form, he was rather short, and beardless, having no hairs except on his lips and the tip of his chin. For owing to the excess of his asceticism the hairs of his beard did not even sprout.

14 One day, when I was suffering from accidie, I went to him and said: "Father, what shall I do? Since my thoughts afflict me saying, 'You are making no progress, go away from here.'" And he said to me: "Tell them, 'For Christ's sake I am guarding the walls' " I have told you these few stories out of many relating to the holy Macarius.

CHAPTER XIX. -- MOSES THE ROBBER

1 [1] A CERTAIN Moses----this was his name----an Ethiopian by race and black, was house-servant to a government official. His own master drove him out because of his immorality and brigandage. For he was said to go even the length of murder. I am compelled to tell his wicked acts in order to show the virtue of his repentance. Anyhow they used to say that he was leader of a robber-band, and among his acts of brigandage one stood out specially, that once he plotted vengeance against a shepherd who had one night with his dogs impeded him in a project. [2] Desirous to kill him, he looked about to find the place where the shepherd kept his sheep. And he was informed that it was on the opposite bank of the Nile. And, since the river was in flood and about a mile in extent, he grasped his sword in his mouth and put his shirt on his head and so got over, swimming the river. While he was swimming over, the shepherd was able to escape him by burying himself in the sand. So, having killed the four best rams and tied them together with a cord, he swam back again. [3] And having come to a little homestead he flayed the sheep, and having eaten the best of the flesh and sold the skins in exchange for wine, he drank a quart, that is eighteen Italian pints, and went off fifty miles further to where he had his band.

2 In the end this abandoned man, conscience-stricken as a result of one of his adventures, gave himself up to a monastery and to such practising of asceticism that he brought publicly to the knowledge of Christ even his accomplice in crime from his youth, the demon who had sinned with him. Among other tales this is told of him. One day robbers attacked him as he sat in his cell, not knowing who it was. They were four in number. [4] He tied them all together and, putting them on his back like a truss of straw, brought them to the church of the brethren, saying: "Since I am not allowed to hurt anyone, what do you bid me do with these?" Then these robbers, having confessed their sins and recognized that it was Moses the erstwhile renowned and far-famed robber, themselves also glorified God and renounced the world because of his conversion, saying to themselves: "If he who was so great and powerful in brigandage has feared God, why should we defer our salvation?"

3 [5] This Moses was attacked by demons, who tried to plunge him into his old habit of sexual incontinence. He was tempted so greatly, as he himself testified, that he almost relinquished his purpose. So, having come to the great Isidore, the one who lived in Scete, he told him about his conflict. And he said to him: "Do not be grieved. These are the beginnings, and therefore they have attacked you the more vehemently, seeking out your old habit. [6] For just as a dog in a butcher's shop owing to his habits cannot tear himself away, but if the shop is closed and no one gives him anything, he no longer comes near it. So also with you; if you endure, the demon gets discouraged and has to leave you. So he returned and from that hour practised asceticism more vehemently, and especially refrained from food, taking nothing except dry bread to the extent of twelve ounces, accomplishing a great deal of work and completing fifty prayers (a day). Thus he mortified his body, but he still continued to burn and be troubled by dreams. [7] Again he went to another one of the saints and said to him: "What am I to do, seeing that the dreams of my soul darken my reason, by reason of my sinful habits? He said to him: "Because you have not withdrawn your mind from imagining these things, that is why you endure this. Give yourself to watching and pray with fasting and you will quickly be delivered from them.

4 Listening to this advice also he went away to his cell and gave his word that he would not sleep all night nor bend his knees. [8] So he remained in his cell for six years and every night he stood in the middle of the cell praying and not closing his eyes. And he could not master the thing. So he suggested to himself yet another plan, and going out by night he would visit the cells of the older and more ascetic (monks), and taking their water-pots secretly would fill them with water. For they fetch their water from a distance, some from two miles off, some five miles, others half a mile. [9] So one night the demon watched for him, having lost his patience, and as he stooped down at the well gave him a blow with a cudgel across the loins and left him (apparently) dead, with no perception of what he had suffered or from whom. So the next day a man came to draw water and found him lying there, and told the great Isidore, the priest of Scete. He therefore picked him up and brought him to the church, and for a year he was so ill that with difficulty did his body and soul recover strength. [10] So the great Isidore said to him: "Moses, stop struggling with the demons, and do not provoke them. But he said to him: "I will never cease until the appearance of the demons ceases. So he said to him:

5 "In the name of Jesus Christ your dreams have ceased. Come to Communion then with confidence, for, that you should not boast of having overcome passion, this is why you have been oppressed, for your good. [11] And he went away again to his cell. Afterwards when asked by Isidore, some two months later, he said that he no longer suffered anything. Indeed, he was counted worthy of such a gift (of power) over demons that we fear these flies more than he feared demons. This was the manner of life of Moses the Ethiopian; he too was numbered among the great ones of the fathers. So he died in Scete seventy-five years old, having become a priest; and he left seventy disciples.

CHAPTER XX. -- PAUL

[1] THERE is a mountain in Egypt called Pherme, which borders on the great desert of Scete. On this mountain dwell some 500 men, devotees of asceticism. One of them, a man named Paul, had this manner of life: he touched no work, and no business, nor did he receive anything from any man beyond what he ate. But his work and his asceticism consisted in ceaseless prayer. So he had 300 set prayers, and he collected as many pebbles and kept them in his lap and threw out of his lap one pebble at each prayer. [2] Having gone for an interview with Macarius, the one known as Citizen, he said to him: "Father Macarius, I am afflicted." So he compelled him to say for what reason. But he said to him: "In a certain village there dwells a virgin who has lived the ascetic life for thirty years. They have told me of her that except on Saturday and Sunday she never eats. But all the while dragging out the long weeks and eating at intervals of five days she makes 700 prayers. And when I learned this I despaired of myself because I could not make more than 300." [3] The holy Macarius answered him: "I am now sixty years old; I make 100 set prayers and produce my food by my own work, and give the brethren the interviews that are their due, and my reason does not condemn me as having neglected my duty. But if you say 300 and are condemned by your conscience, you are clearly not praying them with purity, or else you could pray more and do not."

CHAPTER XXI. -- EULOGIUS AND THE CRIPPLE

1 [1] CRONIUS the priest of Nitria told me this: When I was young and because of accidie fled from the monastery of my archimandrite, I came in my wanderings to the mountain of the holy Antony. It lay between Babylon and Heracles in the great desert that leads to the Red Sea, about thirty miles from the River. So having come to Antony's monastery by the River where his two disciples dwelt at the place called Pispir----I mean Macarius and Amatas, who also buried him when he died----I waited five days for an interview with the holy Antony. [2] For he was said to visit this monastery at intervals now of ten days, now of twenty, now of five, as God led him, to do good to those who happened to visit the monastery. So a number of brethren were assembled, one with this need, another with that. Among them was a certain Eulogius, a monk of Alexandria, and another man, a cripple, who had come for the following reason.

2 [3] This Eulogius was a learned man, having had a good all-round education, who smitten with a love of immortality renounced the clamours (of the world), and disposing of all his goods left himself a little money, since he was unable to work. Well, suffering from accidie and wishing neither to enter a convent nor to reach perfection alone, he found a man lying in the market-place, a cripple, with neither hands nor feet. His tongue was the only part of his body that was undamaged, and was used to appeal to the passer-by. [4] So Eulogius stood and gazed at him and prayed to God and made a covenant with God (saying): "Lord, in Thy name I take this cripple and comfort him until death, that I also may be saved through him. Grant me patience to serve him! And approaching the crippled man he said to him: "Would you like me, great one, to take you to my house and comfort you? He said to him: "Yes, indeed. "Then shall I get an ass and take you? He agreed. So he fetched an ass and carried him and brought him to his own guest-chamber and took care of him. [5] Well, the cripple lasted on for fifteen years and was nursed by him, being washed and tended by the hands of Eulogius, and fed in a way suitable to his malady. But after the fifteen years a demon attacked him, and he rebelled against Eulogius.

3 And he began to dress the man down with great abuse and reviling, adding: "Assassin, deserter, you stole other folk's property, and you want to be saved through me. Throw me into the market-place. I want meat. He brought him meat. [6] Again he cried out: "I am not satisfied. I want crowds. I want to be in the market-place. Oh the violence! Put me where you found me. If he had had hands he would have quickly strangled him, to such an extent had the demon infuriated him. So Eulogius went off to the neighbouring ascetics and said to them: "What shall I do, because this cripple has brought me to despair? Am I to cast him out? I pledged myself to God and I am afraid. But am I not to cast him out? He gives me bad days and nights, so that I do not know what to do to him. [7] But they said to him: "While the great one is still alive"----for so they called Antony----" put the cripple in a boat and go to him, and take him to the monastery and wait till Antony comes out from the cave and refer the case to him. And whatever he says to you, go by his decision, for God speaks to you by him. And he heard them patiently, and putting the cripple into a rustic boat went out by night from the city and took him to the monastery of the disciples of the holy Antony.

4 [8] Now it happened that the great man came the next day in the late evening, as Cronius had said, wrapped in a cloak of skin. When he reached the monastery, this was his custom, to summon Macarius and ask him: "Brother Macarius, have any brethren come here? He answered "Yes. "Egyptians or from Jerusalem? And he had given him a sign: "If you see them inclined to be careless, say Egyptians; but when they are more serious and studious, say from Jerusalem. [9] So he asked him as usual: "Are the brethren Egyptians or from Jerusalem? Macarius answered and said to him: "A mixture. Now when he said to him "They are Egyptians," the holy Antony would say to him: "Prepare some lentils and give them a meal," and he would utter a prayer for them and say good-bye. But when he said "from Jerusalem," he would sit up all night, talking to them about salvation. [10] So that night he sat down, (Cronius) says, and called them all to him and, though none had told him what name he bore, called out in the dark and said "Eulogius, Eulogius, Eulogius"----three times. He, the learned man I mean, did not answer, thinking that another Eulogius was being called. He said to him again: "I am speaking to you, Eulogius, the man who came from Alexandria. Eulogius said to him: "What are your commands, I pray? "Why have you come? Eulogius answered and said to him: "He that revealed to you my name, hath also revealed to you my business.

5 [11] Antony said to him: "I know why you came. But speak before all the brethren, that they also may hear. Eulogius said to him: "I found this cripple in the market-place and I pledged myself to God that I would nurse him and so be saved through him and he through me. So since after all these years he torments me to distraction, and I contemplated casting him out; on this account I came to your holiness, in order that you might counsel me what I ought to do and pray for me, for I am terribly distressed. [12] Antony said to him with angry and stern voice: "Cast him out? But He Who made him does not cast him out. Will you cast him out? God will raise up a man better than you, and he will succour him. Eulogius, who had been calm up till now, trembled. And Antony leaving Eulogius began to castigate the cripple with his tongue and cry: "You crippled and maimed man, deserving neither earth nor heaven, will you not cease fighting against God? Do you not know that it is Christ Who is serving you? How dare you utter such words against Christ? Was it not for Christ's sake that he made himself a slave to minister to you? So having reprimanded him, he left him alone too. And having conversed with all the rest about their needs he returned to Eulogius and the cripple and said to them: "Do not wander about any more, go away.

6 Do not be separated from one another, except in your cell in which you have dwelt so long. For already God is sending for you. For this temptation has come upon you because you are both near your end and are about to be counted worthy of crowns. Do nothing else therefore, and may the angel when he comes not find you here. So they journeyed in haste and came to their cell, and within forty days Eulogius died, and in three days more the cripple died too. 7 [15] But Cronius, after staying in the regions round the Thebaid, came down to the monasteries of Alexandria. And it happened that the services for the fortieth day of the one and the third day of the other were being celebrated by the brethren. Cronius learned this and was amazed, and having taken a gospel and put it before the brethren took an oath, after telling what had happened, and said: "I was blessed Antony's interpreter in these conversations, since he does not know Greek; for I know both tongues and interpreted to them, speaking to these two in Greek, to Antony in Egyptian. [16] And Cronius told this story also: "In that night blessed Antony told me this: 'For a whole year I prayed that the place of the just and of sinners might be revealed to me. And I saw a tall giant reaching to the clouds, black, with his hands stretched up to heaven, and under him a lake as vast as the sea, and I saw souls flying like birds. [17] And as many as flew over his hands and head were saved. But as many as were struck by his hands fell into the lake. Then came a voice to me saying, These souls of the righteous which thou seest flying are the souls which are saved for Paradise. But the others are those which are drawn down to hell, having followed the desires of the flesh and revenge.' "

CHAPTER XXII. -- PAUL THE SIMPLE

1 [1] CRONIUS and the holy Hierax and a number of others, about whom I shall presently speak, told me this tale also. A certain Paul, a rustic peasant, exceedingly guileless and simple, was wedded to a most beautiful woman of depraved character, who for a very long while concealed her sins from him. However, Paul came in suddenly from work and found his wife and her lover behaving shamefully, Providence thus guiding Paul to what was best for himself. And laughing discreetly he called to them and said: "Good, good. I don't mind, truly. By Jesus, I'll take her no longer. Go, you have her and her children, for I am going to become a monk. [2] And saying nothing to anyone he hastened along the eight stages and went to the blessed Antony and knocked at the door. He came out and asked him: "What do you want? He said to him: "I want to become a monk. Antony answered and said to him: "You are an old man, sixty years old; you cannot become a monk here. But rather go back to your village and work and live an active life giving thanks to God, for you cannot endure the tribulations of the desert. The old man answered again and said: "Whatever you teach me, I will do it. [3] Antony said to him: "I have told you that you are an old man and cannot stand it.

2 If you really want to become a monk, go to a cenobium with a number of brethren, who can support your weakness. For I live here alone, eating after a five days' fast, and that without satisfying my hunger. With these and such-like words he tried to frighten Paul away and, since he could not endure him, Antony shut the door and did not go out for three days because of him, not even for necessary purposes. But Paul did not go away. [4] But on the fourth day necessity compelling him he opened the door and went out and said to him again: "Go away from here, old man. Why do you annoy me? You cannot stay here. Paul said to him: "It is impossible for me to die elsewhere than here. So Antony looked about and noticed that he had not with him any form of nourishment, neither bread nor water, and that he was now in the fourth day of his fast, and saying: "Lest perchance you die and stain my soul," he received him. And Antony adopted in those days a regime which he had never tried in his youth. [5] And having moistened some palm-leaves he said to him: "Take these, weave them into mats, as I do. The old man wove until the ninth hour, laboriously completing ninety feet. So Antony looked and was displeased and said to him:

3 "You have woven badly, unpick them and weave them over again" ----imposing this nauseous task upon him, though he was hungry and aged, in order that he might be disgusted and flee away from Antony. But he both unpicked and wove again the same leaves, though it was more difficult, because they were all shrivelled up.And Antony, seeing that he neither murmured nor was discouraged nor angry, felt compunction. [6] And after sunset he said to him: "Would you like us to eat a piece of bread? Paul said to him: "As you please, father. And this again moved Antony, that he did not rush eagerly at the mention of food, but had thrown the power (of choice) upon him. So he laid the table and brought in bread. And Antony, having put out the biscuits, weighing six ounces each, moistened one for himself----for they were dry----and three for Paul. And Antony struck up a psalm which he knew, and after singing it twelve times he prayed twelve times, to test Paul. [7] But he eagerly joined in the prayer, for he would have preferred being eaten by scorpions, so I think, to living with an adulterous woman. But after the twelve prayers they sat down to eat late in the evening. Now Antony, having eaten the one biscuit, did not touch another. But the old man, eating more slowly, was still at his little biscuit. Antony was waiting for him to finish and says to him: "Eat, father, a second biscuit. Paul says to him:

4 "If you will eat, I will too; if you do not eat, I will not. Antony says: "I have had enough, for I am a monk. [8] Paul says to him: "I too have had enough, for I too want to become a monk. He rises again and prays twelve prayers and chants twelve psalms. Antony sleeps a little of his first sleep and then gets up to sing psalms at midnight until day. So when he saw the old man eagerly following his mode of life he said to him: "If you can do thus every day, stay with me. Paul said to him: "If there is anything more, I do not know; for I can do easily these things which I have seen. Antony said to him the next day: "Behold, you have become a monk." 5 [9] So Antony, convinced after the required number of months that Paul had a perfect soul, being very simple and grace co-operating with him, made him a cell, three or four miles away, and said to him: "Behold, you have become a monk; remain alone in order that you may be tried by demons. So Paul dwelt there one year and was counted worthy of grace over demons and diseases. Among other cases, a demoniac was once brought to Antony, exceedingly terrifying, possessed by a spirit of high rank, who cursed even heaven itself. [10] So Antony, having examined him, said to those who brought him: "This is not my work, for I have not yet been counted worthy of power over this order of high rank, but this is Paul's business. So Antony went off and led them to Paul, and said to him: "Father Paul, cast out this demon from the man that he may go away cured to his home. Said Paul to him: "What are you doing? Antony said to him: "I have no leisure, I have something else to do. And Antony left him and went again to his own cell. [11] So the old man got up, and having prayed an effective prayer, addressed the demoniac: "Father Antony has said, 'Go out from the man.'" But the demon cried out, saying with blasphemies: "I am not going out, bad old man. So Paul took his sheep-skin coat and struck the man on the back with it saying:

6 "Father Antony has said, 'Go out.' " Again the demon cursed with some violence both Antony and him. Finally he said to him: "You are going out; or else I'll go and tell Christ. By Jesus, if you don't go out I am going this very minute to tell Christ, and He will do you harm. [12] Again the demon cursed yet more, saying: "I am not going out. So Paul got angry with the demon and went outside his dwelling at high noon. But the heat of the Egyptians is akin to the furnace of Babylonia. And standing on a rock on the mountain he prayed and said: "O Jesus Christ, Who wast crucified under Pontius Pilate, thou seest that I will not descend from the rock, I will not eat nor drink till I die, unless Thou drive out the spirit from the man and free the man. [13] But before the words were out of his mouth the demon cried out, saying: "Oh violence! I am being driven away. The simplicity of Paul drives me away, and where am I to go? And immediately the spirit went out and was turned into a great dragon seventy cubits long and was swept away to the Red Sea, that the saying might be fulfilled: "The righteous will declare the faith that is shown. This is the marvellous tale of Paul who was surnamed Simple by all the brotherhood.

CHAPTER XXIII. -- PACHON

1 [1] THERE dwelt in Scete a man named Pachon, who had reached his sixtieth year or thereabouts. Now I happened to be dejected, having been tormented by the love of women, both in my (waking) thoughts and my nocturnal visions. And I was nearly leaving the desert, passion driving me, yet I did not refer the matter to my neighbours, nor to my teacher Evagrius. But I journeyed secretly into the great desert and spent fifteen days in meeting the fathers who had grown old in the desert at Scete. [2] Among others I met Pachon. Well, finding him more guileless and better versed in asceticism than the rest, I was bold to refer to him the state of my mind. And he said to me: "Let not the affair disconcert you, for you are not suffering this from negligence. For the place is a witness in your favour, both because of the lack of necessaries and the absence of facilities for meeting women. But rather it comes from your zeal. For the war against impurity is triple. At one time the flesh attacks us because it is vigorous; at another the passions attack us through our thoughts; at another the demon himself in malice. I have found this after much observation. [3] Look how you see me, an old man now. I have spent forty years in this cell caring for my own salvation, and growing to be as old as this I have been tempted all the while. And he said this, confirming it with an oath:

2 "For twelve years after my fiftieth year the demon gave me no respite in his attacks by night and day. Supposing therefore that God had left me and on this account I was under his power, I preferred to die in an irrational manner rather than act improperly through bodily passion. And having gone out and explored the desert I found a hyaena's cave. In which cave I laid myself down naked in the daytime, in order that the beasts when they came out might eat me. [4] So, when evening came, as it is written: 'Thou madest darkness and night came: in it all the beasts of the forest will roam' ----the beasts came out, male and female, and smelt me, licking me from head to foot. And when I was expecting to be eaten up, they left me. So having lain down all night, I was not eaten. But reckoning that God had spared me, I returned again to the cell. Well, the demon, having restrained himself a few days, then attacked me again more vehemently than at first, so that I very nearly blasphemed. [5] He changed himself into an Ethiopian maiden, whom I had once seen in my youth in the summer-time picking reeds, and sat on my knee. So in a fury I gave her a blow and she disappeared. Well, for two years I could not bear the evil smell of my hand! So I went out into the great desert, wandering up and down discouraged and in despair.

3 And having found a little asp, I picked it up and applied it to my flesh, in order that I might die, even though it were by a bite of this kind. And I rubbed the beast's head on my flesh, as the cause of my temptation, but I was not bitten. [6] Then I heard a voice saying in my thoughts: 'Go, Pachon, struggle on. For this is why I have left you to be tyrannized over, that you should not be proud, as if you had any strength, but recognizing your weakness should not trust in your manner of life, but run for the help of God.' Thus convinced I returned and dwelt in confidence, and no longer troubling about the war I was in peace the rest of my days. But he, knowing how I despised him, no longer came near me."

CHAPTER XXIV. -- STEPHEN

[1] ONE Stephen, a Libyan by race, dwelt on the shores of Marmarica and the Mareotis for sixty years. He became an ascetic of great eminence with a gift of discernment, and was counted worthy of such a gift of grace that every afflicted man, whatever his affliction, went away free from affliction after meeting him. Now he was known to the blessed Antony; and he lived on also to our own days. I never met him, because his place was so far away. [2] But the holy Ammonius and Evagrius and their companions, who met him, told me the following: "We found him suffering from an illness like this, having developed an ulcer of the sort called cancerous. We discovered him being treated by a doctor, and working with his hands and weaving palm-leaves and talking to us, while the rest of his body was being operated on. He was behaving just as if another man were being cut. Though the flesh was cut away like hair, he was insensible, thanks to the greatness of his religious preparation. [3] But while we were on the one hand grieving and on the other hand feeling disgusted that such a life had ended in such suffering and such surgical operations, he said to us: 'Children, do not be troubled by this affair. For God does nothing of what He does for malice, but for a good end. For perhaps my flesh deserves chastisement, and it is fitting that it should pay the penalty now rather than when I have quitted the arena.' So he edified us with his exhortations and encouragements," But I have told this lest we should be disconcerted when we see saints suffering such afflictions.

CHAPTER XXV. -- VALENS

1 [1] THERE was a man named Valens, a Palestinian by race, but Corinthian in his character----for St. Paul attributed the vice of presumption to the Corinthians. Having taken to the desert he dwelt with us for a number of years. He reached such a pitch of arrogance that he was deceived by demons. For by deceiving him little by little they induced him to be very proud, supposing that angels met him. [2] One day at least, so they told the tale, as he was working in the dark he let drop the needle with which he was stitching the basket. And when he did not find it, the demon made a lamp, and he found the needle. Again, puffed up at this, he waxed proud and in fact was so greatly puffed up that he despised the communion of the mysteries. Now it happened that certain strangers came and brought sweetmeats to the Church for the brethren. [3] So the holy Macarius our priest received them and sent a handful or so to each of us in his cell, among the rest also to Valens. When Valens received the bearer he insulted him and struck him and said to him: "Go and tell Macarius, 'I am not worse than you, that you should send me a blessing.' " So Macarius, knowing that he was the victim of illusion, went the next day to exhort him and said to him: "Valens, you are the victim of illusions. Stop it. And when he would not listen to his exhortations, he retired.

2 [4] So the demon, convinced that he was completely persuaded by his deception, went away and disguised himself as the Saviour, and came by night in a vision of a thousand angels bearing lamps and a fiery wheel, in which it seemed that the Saviour appeared, and one came in front of the others and said: "Christ has loved you because of your conduct and the freedom of your life, and He has come to see you. So go out of the cell, do nothing else but look at his face from afar, stoop down and worship, and then go to your cell. [5] So he went out and saw them in ranks carrying lamps, and antichrist about a stade away, and he fell down and worshipped. Then the next day again he became so mad that he entered into the church and before the assembled brotherhood said: "I have no need of Communion, for I have seen Christ to-day. Then the fathers bound him and put him in irons for a year and so cured him, destroying his pride by their prayers and indifference and calmer mode of life. As it is said, "Diseases are cured by their opposites."

3 [6] But it is necessary to insert in this little book the lives of men like this, for the safety of the readers, in the same way as there was the tree of knowledge of good and evil among the holy trees of paradise; in order that, if ever a righteous act should be achieved by them, they may not be proud of their virtue. For often even virtue becomes the cause of a fall, whenever it is not accomplished with upright intention. For it is written: "I saw a just man destroyed in his just act; and this thing is indeed vanity."

CHAPTER XXVI. -- HERON

1 [1] THERE was a certain Heron, a neighbour of mine, an Alexandrian by race, an excellent young man, of good natural ability and pure in his life. He also after many toils was attacked by pride and flung off all restraints and cherished presumptuous sentiments against the fathers, insulting even the blessed Evagrius by saying: "Those who obey your teaching are dupes; for one should not pay heed to any teachers except Christ. He even abused Scripture to serve the purpose of his folly and would say: "The Saviour Himself said, 'Call no man teacher upon the earth.'" [2] His mind became so darkened that he too was afterwards put in irons, since he was unwilling even to attend the mysteries----truth is dear. He was excessively abstemious in his mode of life, so that many who knew him intimately declared that he frequently went three months without eating, being content with the communion of the mysteries and any wild herbs that might be found. And I too had an experience of him when I went to Scete with the blessed Albanius. [3] Scete was forty miles away from us. In the course of those forty miles we ate twice and drank water three times, but he without eating anything went on foot and said by heart fifteen psalms, then the long psalm, then the Epistle to the Hebrews, then Isaiah and part of Jeremiah, then Luke the Evangelist, then the Proverbs. And things being so, yet we could not keep up with him as he walked.

2 [4] Finally, driven as it were by fire, he could not remain in his cell, but went off to Alexandria, by (divine) dispensation, and, as the saying goes, "knocked out one nail with another. For of his own free will he fell into indifference, but afterwards found salvation involuntarily. For he frequented the theatre and circuses and enjoyed the diversions of the taverns. And thus, eating and drinking immoderately, he fell into a mire of concupiscence. [5] And when he was resolving to sin he met an actress and had converse with her. In consequence a carbuncle developed on his private parts, and for six months he was so ill that the parts rotted away and fell off. Later, restored to health without those parts and returned to a religious frame of mind, he came and confessed all these things to the fathers. A few days after he fell asleep before he had returned to work.

CHAPTER XXVII. -- PTOLEMY

[1] AGAIN another monk, Ptolemy by name, lived a life difficult, even impossible, to describe. He dwelt beyond Scete in a place called Climax. The place which bears this name is one in which no one can live because the well of the brethren is eighteen miles away. He then, carrying a number of pots brought them there, and collecting the dew with a sponge from the rocks during the months of December and January----for there is a plentiful fall of dew then in those parts----he made this suffice during the fifteen years he lived there. [2] And he became a stranger to the teaching of holy men and intercourse with them, and the benefit derived therefrom, and the constant communion of the mysteries, and diverged so greatly from the straight way that he declared these things were nothing; but they say he is wandering about in Egypt up to the present day all puffed up with pride, and has given himself over to gluttony and drunkenness, speaking no (edifying) word to anyone.And this disaster fell on Ptolemy from his irrational conceit, as it is written: "They who have no directing influence fall like leaves.'''

CHAPTER XXVIII. -- A VIRGIN WHO FELL

AGAIN, I knew a virgin in Jerusalem who wore sackcloth for six years and shut herself up in a cell, taking none of the things that bestow pleasure. In the end she fell, abandoned (by God) because of her excessive arrogance. She opened the window and admitted the man who waited on her and sinned with him, because she had practised asceticism not with a religious motive and for the love of God, but with human ostentation, which springs from vain-glory and corrupt intention. For, her thoughts being engrossed in condemning others, the guardian of her chastity was absent.

CHAPTER XXIX. -- ELIAS

1 [1] ELIAS, an ascetic, was a great friend of the virgins. For there are some souls like this, whose virtuous aims testify to their goodness. He had compassion on the class of women ascetics, and having property in the city of Athribé built a great monastery and brought into the monastery all the dispersed women, caring for them consistently (with his purpose), and procured them every kind of refreshment, and gardens and utensils and whatever their life required. These ladies, brought from different sorts of lives, had continual fights with one another. [2] Now since he was obliged to listen to them and make peace----for he collected some 300 of them----he found it necessary to remain in their midst for two years. Being still young, for he was some thirty to forty years old, he was tempted by desire. And having left the monastery he wandered fasting in the desert for two days, making this request in his prayer: "Lord, either kill me, that I may not see these women in trouble, or take away my passion that I may care for them in a rational way. [3] When evening had come, he fell asleep in the desert, and three angels came to him----so he told the story----and caught hold of him and said: "Why did you leave the monastery of the women? He explained the matter to them. "Because I was afraid I might harm both them and myself. They said to him: "Then if we relieve you of the passion, will you go and care for them?

2 He agreed to this. They made him swear an oath. [4] He said this was the oath: "Swear to us, by Him Who cares for me I will care for them. And he swore to them. Then one of them seized his hands, and another his feet, and a third taking a razor unmanned him, not really but in the vision. So he seemed to himself to have been cured, so to say, in the trance. They asked him: "Do you feel any benefit? He said to them: "I feel greatly lightened and am persuaded that I am relieved of my passion. [5] They said to him: "Go away, then. And he returned after five days, the monastery mourning for him the while, and went in and remained inside henceforward, in an adjoining cell, from which being near at hand he corrected them continually so far as he could. But he lived forty years more, always assuring the fathers: "Passion comes no more into my mind. Such was the gift of grace of that holy man who thus looked after the monastery.

CHAPTER XXX. -- DOROTHEUS

HE was succeeded by Dorotheus, a well-tried man who had grown old in a good and active life. Not being able to stay in the monastery itself, as Elias had done, he shut himself up in an upper chamber and made a window looking on to the women's monastery, which he used to shut and open. So he would sit continually at the window reminding them to keep the peace. And so he grew old up there in the upper chamber, without either the women going up to him or himself being able to come down to them. For there was no ladder fixed.

CHAPTER XXXI. -- PIAMOUN

[1] PIAMOUN was a virgin who lived the years of her life with her mother, eating every other day in the evening and spinning flax. She was accounted worthy of the gift of prophecy, of which this is an example. It happened once in Egypt during the overflow (of the Nile) that one village attacked another. For they fight over the distribution of the water, so that murders and woundings ensue. Well, a stronger village attacked her village, and men came in a crowd with spears and clubs to destroy her village. [2] But an angel appeared to her, revealing to her their attack. And, sending for the elders of the village, she said: "Go out and meet the men who are coming against you from that village, lest you also perish with the village, and urge them to cease from their malice." But the elders were afraid and fell at her feet beseeching her and saying to her: "We dare not meet them; for we know their drunkenness and madness. [3] But if you have pity both on the whole village and your own house, go out yourself and meet them." Not agreeing to this, she went up to her own cottage----it was night at the time----and stood continually in prayer, not kneeling down, and beseeching God thus: "O Lord, Who judgest the earth, to Whom no unjust act is pleasing, when this prayer reaches Thee, let Thy power nail these men to the spot where-ever .it finds them." [4] And about the first hour, when they were about three miles away, they were nailed to the ground and could not move. And it was revealed also to them that this hindrance had come to them through her petitions. And they sent to the village and asked for peace, declaring: "Give thanks to God and the prayers of Piamoun, for they hindered us."

CHAPTER XXXII. -- PACHOMIUS AND THE TABENNESIOTS

1 [1] TABENNISI is a place, so-called, in the Thebaid, in which there lived a certain Pachomius, one of those who have lived in the straight way, so that he was counted worthy both of prophecies and angelic visions. He was exceedingly devoted both to his fellow-men and his brethren. Accordingly, to him as he sat in his cave an angel appeared and said: "You have successfully ordered your own life. So it is superfluous to remain sitting in your cave. Up! go out and collect all the young monks and dwell with them, and according to the model which I now give you, so legislate for them;" and he gave him a brass tablet on which this was inscribed---- 2 [2] "Thou shalt allow each man to eat and drink according to his strength; and proportionately to the strength of the eaters appoint to them their labours. And prevent no man either from fasting or eating. However, appoint the tasks that need strength to those who are stronger and eat, and to the weaker and more ascetic such as the weak can manage. Make a number of cells within the enclosure and let three dwell in each cell. But let them all go to one building for their food. [3] Let them sleep not lying down full length, but let them make sloping chairs easily constructed and put their rugs on them and thus sleep in a sitting posture. And let them wear at night linen lebitons and a girdle. Let each of them have a worked goatskin cloak, without which they are not to eat. When they go to Communion on Saturday and Sunday, let them loosen their girdles and lay aside the skin cloak and go in with the cowl only. And he prescribed for them napless cowls, as for children, on which he ordered an imprint, the mark of a cross, to be worked in dark red. [4] And he ordered that there should be twenty-four sections, and to each order he assigned a letter of the Greek alphabet----alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and so on. So when the Superior asked questions, or busied himself with the affairs of the great multitude, he asked the second: "How is the Alpha section? or, "How is the Zeta? or again:

3 "Greet the Rho," and they followed a private meaning assigned to the letters. "And to the simpler and more unworldly thou shalt give the Iota, and to the more difficult and perverse thou shalt assign the Xi. [5] And so, in correspondence with the nature of their dispositions and manners and lives, he fitted the letters to each section, only the spiritual knowing what was meant. And it was written on the tablet: "A stranger of another monastery which has a different rule is not to eat with them, nor drink, nor enter into the monastery, unless he happens to be on a (genuine) journey. However, the man who has come to remain with them they do not allow to enter into the sanctuary for three years. But after a three years' probation and performance of the more toilsome labours, then he enters. [6] "As they eat let them cover their heads with their cowls lest one brother see another chewing. A monk is not allowed to talk at meals nor let his eye wander beyond his plate or the table. And he ordered them during the whole day to make twelve prayers, and twelve at the lamp-lighting, and twelve at the night-vigils, and three at the ninth hour. But when a group was about to eat he ordered a psalm to be sung before each prayer.

4 [7] When Pachomius objected to the angel that the prayers were few, the angel said to him: "I gave this rule so as to make sure in advance that even the little ones keep the rule and are not afflicted. But the perfect have no need of legislation, for by themselves in their cells they have surrendered the whole of their life to the contemplation of God. But I have legislated for as many as have not a discerning mind, in order that they, like house-servants fulfilling the duties of their station, may live a life of freedom." 5 Now there are a number of these monasteries which have observed this rule, amounting to 7000 men. But the first and great monastery is that where Pachomius himself dwelt, which itself also is the parent of the other monasteries; it has 1300 members. [8] Among them there was also the noble Aphthonius, who became my intimate friend, and is now second in the monastery. Him they send to Alexandria, since nothing can make him stumble, in order to sell their produce and buy necessaries. [9] But there are also other monasteries two hundred or three hundred strong. One of these, with 300 monks, I found when I entered the city of Panopolis. [In the monastery I found fifteen tailors, seven smiths, four carpenters, twelve camel-drivers, and fifteen fullers. But they work at every kind of craft and with their surplus output they provide for the needs both of the women's convents and the prisons. [10] [They keep pigs too, and when I blamed the practice, they said: "In our tradition we have received this, that they are to be kept because of the chaff, and the refuse of the vegetables and other scraps that one throws away, lest they be wasted. And the pigs are to be killed and their meat sold, but the tit-bits are to be devoted to the sick and aged, because the neighbourhood is poor and populous; for the tribe of the Blemmyes live near.

6 [11] But those who are to serve that day rise early and get to their work, some to the kitchen, others to the tables. They spend their time then until the meal-hour in arranging and preparing the tables, putting loaves on each, and charlock, preserved olives, cheese of cows' milk, [the tit-bits of the meat], and chopped herbs. Some come in at the sixth hour and eat, others at the seventh, others at the eighth, others at the ninth, others at the eleventh, others in the late evening, others every other day, so that each letter knows its own hour.[12] So also is it with their work. One works on the land as a labourer, another in the garden, another at the forge, another in the bakery, another in the carpenter's" shop, another in the fuller's shop, another weaving the big baskets, another in the tannery, another in the shoemaker's shop, another in the scriptorium, another weaving the young reeds. And they learn all the scriptures by heart.

CHAPTER XXXIII. -- THE TABENNESIOT NUNS

1 [1] THEY also had a monastery of women with some 400 members; it had the same constitution and the same manner of life, except for the sheep-skin coat. And the women are on the far side of the river, the men opposite them. So when a virgin dies, the (other) virgins, having prepared her body for burial, act as bearers and lay it on the river bank. But the brethren, having crossed in a ferry boat, with palm-leaves and olive-branches, take the body across, singing psalms the while, and bury it in their own cemetery. But apart from the priest and the deacon no man goes across to the women's monastery, and they only on Sunday. 2 [2] In this women's monastery the following thing happened. A tailor, living in the world, crossed the river in ignorance and sought work. A young sister came out----the place was deserted ----and met him involuntarily and gave him the answer: "We have our own tailors." [3] Another sister saw the meeting; and when some time had elapsed and a contention arose, actuated by diabolic motives inspired by great wickedness and an outburst of temper, she denounced the other before the sisterhood. A few others also joined her from malice. So that sister, distressed at having endured a calumny of a kind that had never even entered her thoughts, and being unable to bear it, flung herself into the river secretly and lost her life. [4] Likewise the calumniator, recognizing that her calumny was wicked, and that she had committed this abomination, went and hung herself, she too being unable to bear (the shame of) the affair. So when the priest came the rest of the sisters told him the affair. And he ordered first that the sacrifice should not be offered for either of them; and as for those who had not kept the peace, since they had been accomplices of the calumniator and had believed the scandal, he separated them (from the rest) for seven years, depriving them of Communion.

CHAPTER XXXIV. -- THE NUN WHO FEIGNED MADNESS

1 [1] IN this monastery there was another virgin who feigned madness and possession by a demon. And they detested her so much that they would not even eat with her, she preferring this. She would wander about in the kitchen and do every kind of menial work, and she was, as they say, "the monastery sponge," fulfilling in fact the words of Scripture: "If any one seem to be wise among you in this world, let him become foolish that he may be wise." She fastened some rags on her head----all the rest had the tonsure and wore cowls----and served in this guise. [2] None of the 400 sisters ever saw her chewing during the years of her life. She never sat at table, nor partook of a piece of bread, but wiping up the crumbs from the tables and washing the kitchen pots she was content with what she got in this way. Never did she insult any one nor grumble nor talk either little or much, although she was cuffed and insulted and cursed and execrated.

2 [3] Now an angel appeared to the holy Piteroum, an anchorite of high reputation who dwelt in Porphyrites, and said to him: "Why are you proud of yourself for being religious and dwelling in a place like this? Do you want to see a woman who is more religious than you? Go to the monastery of the Tabennesiot women and there you will find a woman wearing a crown on her head. She is better than you. [4] For though she spars with so great a crowd, she has never let her heart go away from God. But you sit here and wander in imagination through the different cities. And he who had never gone out went off to that monastery and besought the masters to let him go to the monastery of the women. They were emboldened to let him in, since he was famous and advanced in years. [5] And having gone in he demanded to see them all. But she did not appear. At last he said to them: "Bring me all, for there is one lacking. They said to him: "We have one within in the kitchen, a sale. For thus they style the mentally afflicted. He said to them: "Bring her also to me. Let me see her. They went off to call her. She did not answer, perhaps perceiving what was the matter, or even having had a revelation. They drag her forcibly and say to her: "The holy Piteroum wants to see you"; for he was famous.

3 [6] When she came, he perceived the rag on her forehead and fell at her feet and said to her: "Bless me. She also fell at his feet in like manner, saying: "Do you bless me, Master. They were all amazed and said to him: "Father, do not let her insult you, she is sale. Said Piteroum to them all: "You are sale. For she is mother both of me and you"----for thus they call the spiritual women----"and I pray to be found worthy of her in the day of judgment. [7] Having heard these words they fell at his feet, all confessing in different ways: one that she had poured the rinsings of the plate over her; another that she had beaten her with her fist; another that she had applied a mustard-plaster to her nose. And, in a word, all confessed outrages of one kind or another. So after praying for them he went away. And after a few days, unable to bear her glory and the honour bestowed by the sisters, and burdened by their apologies, she left the monastery. And where she went, or where she disappeared to, or how she died, no one knows.

CHAPTER XXXV. -- JOHN OF LYCOPOLIS

1 [1] THERE was a certain John in Lycopolis, who in his childhood learned the trade of carpentering----he had a brother a dyer. Later, when he was about twenty-five years old, he renounced the world. And having lived in various monasteries for five years he retired by himself to the mountain of Lyco, where he made himself three cells on the actual summit and went in and immured himself. One chamber was for his bodily needs, and another where he worked and ate, and the third where he prayed. [2] Having completed thirty years thus immured, and receiving the necessaries of life through a window from one who ministered to him, he was counted worthy of the gift of predictions. Among other instances he sent various predictions to the blessed emperor Theodosius, one concerning Maximus the tyrant, that he would conquer him and return from the Gauls; similarly also he gave him good news about the tyrant Eugenius. His reputation as a virtuous man was widespread.

2 [3] When we were in the desert of Nitria----by we I mean myself and the blessed Evagrius and his companions----we were anxious to find out accurately, in what his virtue consisted. Then said the blessed Evagrius: "Gladly would I be learning what kind of man he is, from some one who knows how to test character and speech. For if I am unable to see him myself, but can hear accurately from another's description the details of his manner of life, then I will not go so far as the mountain. I heard, and saying nothing to anyone kept silence for one day; but the next day, having closed my cell and committed myself and it to God, I hastened away to the Thebaid. [4] And I arrived after eighteen days, having gone partly on foot, and partly by boat on the river. But it was the time of the flood, when many are ill; which was also my experience. Well, I went and found the vestibule of his cell closed; for the brethren built on later a very large vestibule holding about 100 men, and shutting it with a key they opened it on Saturday and Sunday. So, having learned the reason why it was closed, I waited quietly till the Saturday. And having come at the second hour for an interview I found him sitting by the window, through which he seemed to be exhorting his visitors. [5] So, after greeting me, he said through an interpreter : "Whence are you? and why have you come?

3 For I conjecture that you belong to the convent of Evagrius. I said: "I am a stranger who started out from Galatia. And I confessed that I belonged to Evagrius' society. Meanwhile, as we talked, the ruler of the district came up, Alypius by name. He turned to him and left off talking with me. So I retired a little and gave way to them, standing some way off. As their conversation lasted a long time, I became disgusted, and in my disgust I murmured against the good old man, since he despised me and honoured him. [6] And annoyed in mind at this, I formed the plan of going away, disdaining him. But having called his interpreter, named Theodore, he said to him: "Go, tell that brother, 'Do not be petty-minded. I am just going to dismiss the ruler and talk to you.' " So I resolved to wait patiently, attending to him as a spiritual man. And when the ruler had gone, he called me and said to me: "Why are you vexed with me? What did you find worthy of blame, that you thought those things that neither applied to me nor befitted you? Or do you not know that it is written: 'They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick'? I find you when I want you, and you me. And if I do not console you, there are other brethren to console you and other fathers.

4 But this man is delivered up to the devil through his worldly affairs and, having respite for a brief hour, like a servant run away from his master, he has come to receive benefit. It would have been absurd that we should leave him and attend to you, when you have uninterrupted leisure to attend to your salvation. So I exhorted him to pray for me and was fully convinced that he was a spiritual man. [8] Then, having affectionately slapped my left cheek gently with his right hand, he said to me: "Many afflictions are in store for you, and many times have you been tempted to leave the desert. And you have been timid and have deferred (a decision). But the demon by providing you with pious and specious excuses unsettles you. For he suggested to you both a longing to see your father, and the instruction of your brother and sister with a view to the monastic life. [9] Behold then, I give you good news: both are saved, for both have renounced the world. And as regards your father, at this very moment he still has other years to live. So continue in the desert and do not wish on their account to go home to your native land, for it is written: 'No man having put his hand to the plough and turning back is fit for the kingdom of heaven.'" So, benefited by these words and sufficiently corrected, I thanked God, having learned that the pretexts which were driving me were finished with.

5 [10] Then again he said to me graciously: "Do you want to become a bishop?" I said to him: "I am one." He said to me: Where?" I said: "(I am bishop) over the kitchens, the shops, the tables and the pots. I am their bishop, and if there is any sharp wine I excommunicate it, but I drink the good. Similarly, I am bishop over the pot too; and if salt or any seasoning is lacking, I throw it in and season (the pot) and then I eat it. This is my bishopric, for gluttony ordained me." [11] He said to me with a smile: "Stop your jokes. You have to be ordained bishop, and toil much and be afflicted. If then you would escape afflictions, depart not from the desert. For in the desert no man can ordain you bishop." 6 So I left him and went into the desert to my accustomed place, and told these things to the blessed fathers, who after two months went by boat and met him. But I forgot his words, for after three years I fell ill with an illness of the spleen and stomach. [12] I was sent by the brethren from the monastery to Alexandria, under treatment for dropsy. The doctors advised me to betake myself from Alexandria to Palestine for the sake of the air. For (Palestine) has light airs, such as befit our constitution. From Palestine I came to Bithynia, and there----I know not how, whether from human zeal or from the good pleasure of Him Who is more powerful, God would know----I was counted worthy of the laying-on of hands, so much above my deserts, having become embroiled in the disturbance connected with the blessed John. [13] And for eleven months hidden in a gloomy cell I remembered that blessed man, that he had foretold these things which I endured. And indeed he told me this, designing by his tale to lead me to endure the desert. "Forty years have I spent in the cell. I have not seen the face of woman nor the appearance of money. I have seen no one chewing, nor has any one seen me eating or drinking."

7 [14] When Poemenia the servant of God came to interview him, he did not meet her, but he had a number of secret matters told to her. And he enjoined her, when she went down from the Thebaid not to turn aside to Alexandria, "for you will fall into temptation." But she, thinking differently, or forgetting, turned aside to Alexandria to see the city. But on the way she moored her boats near Niciopolis to rest. [15] So her servants went on shore and after some disorderly behaviour had a fight with the people of the place, who were desperate characters. They cut off the finger of one eunuch and murdered another, and even threw Dionysius the most holy bishop into the river, not recognizing him, and after wounding all the other servants, loaded the lady herself with insults and threats.

CHAPTER XXXVI. -- POSIDONIUS

1 [1] THE stories about Posidonius the Theban are many and hard to relate, how meek he was and how exceedingly ascetic, and what great innocence of soul he possessed----I do not know if I have met any such. For I lived with him at Bethlehem for one year when he dwelt beyond Poemenion, and I beheld his many virtues. [2] Among other things he himself told me this one day: "Living for a year in the Porphyrites district, the whole year I met no man, heard no talk, touched no bread. I merely subsisted on a few dates and any wild herbs I found. This happened one day. My food failing, I went out from the cave to go back to the world. [3] And having walked all the day with difficulty did I get two miles from the cave. Well, looking round I saw a horseman with the appearance of a soldier, having on his head a helmet in the shape of a tiara. And expecting him to be a soldier, I ran to the cave and found (on the way) a basket of grapes and newly-picked figs. I picked it up and went to the cave overjoyed, and had that food as my comfort for two months. [4] And this was the miracle he did in Bethlehem. A certain woman approaching her confinement had an unclean spirit and, when she was actually about to be delivered, she had difficult labour, the spirit tormenting her.

2 The husband, therefore, since his wife was suffering from the demon, came and besought that holy man to come. So he stood up----we were present, having come at the same time to pray----and prayed, and after kneeling down for the second time he drove out the spirit. [5] So he stood up and said to us: "Pray, for at this moment the unclean spirit is going out, and there should be a sign, that we may be convinced. So the demon on his way out of her threw down the whole wall of the precincts, foundations and all. Now the woman had been six years without speech. After the demon had gone out she gave birth to a child and spoke. 3 [6] I knew also the following prophecy spoken by this man. A certain Jerome, a priest, distinguished Latin writer and cultivated scholar as he was, showed qualities of temper so disastrous that they threw into the shade his splendid achievements. Well, Posidonius, who had lived with him many days, said in my ear: "The noble Paula, who looks after him, will die first and be freed from his bad temper, so I think. [7] And because of this man no holy man will dwell in these parts, but his envy will include even his own brother." The thing happened as he said. For, in fact, he drove out the blessed Oxyperentius the Italian, and another man Peter, an Egyptian, and Simeon, admirable men, whom I noticed with approval at the time. This Posidonius told me that he had not tried bread for forty years, nor indeed had he borne malice for half a day.