Sayings of the Desert Fathers (alphabetical collection)

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.38 · 2.0–2.44 · 3.1–6.3 · 7.1–20.2 · 21.1–26.17 · 27.1–36.1 · 37.1–42.7 · 43.1–46.5 · 47.0–60.1 · 61.1–69.3 · 69.4–69.41 · 70.1–75.4 · 76.1–89.7 · 89.8–89.86 · 89.87–89.177 · 89.178–100.1 · 101.1–104.1 · 105.1–108.1 · 109.1–124.1 · 125.1–126.15

1. 1.1In a time of listlessness Antony is shown by an angel the rhythm of work and prayer that will save him.
2. 1.2Antony asks why life and wealth are unequally given and is told to attend to himself, not to God’s judgments.
3. 1.3Antony gives three rules: keep God before your eyes, act on the testimony of Scripture, and do not leave your place quickly.
4. 1.4Antony tells Poemen that the great work is to take the blame for one’s own fault and expect temptation to the end.
5. 1.5Antony teaches that temptation is necessary for salvation.
6. 1.6Antony counsels Pambo not to trust his righteousness, not to regret the past, and to control tongue and belly.
7. 1.7Antony sees the devil’s snares over the earth and learns that humility passes them.
8. 1.8Asceticism without discernment leads away from God.
9. 1.9Antony teaches that life and death depend on how we treat our neighbor.
10. 1.10Like fish out of water, monks who linger outside the cell lose their stillness.
11. 1.11The hermit escapes the wars of hearing, speech, and sight, but still fights sexual temptation.
12. 1.12Antony shows brothers by the example of their dead donkey that visions which come true may still be from demons.
13. 1.13Antony uses a hunter’s bow to show that brothers must not be stretched beyond measure.
14. 1.14A young monk who worked a wonder falls into sin; Antony grieves, and the monk dies repentant within five days.
15. 1.15Antony likens a praised monk who cannot bear dishonor to a village adorned in front and robbed behind.
16. 1.16Antony tells a brother that another’s prayer is useless unless he himself strives and prays.
17. 1.17Antony praises abba Joseph for answering a question on Scripture with “I do not know.”
18. 1.18A silent old man compares chattering brothers to a courtyard without a door.
19. 1.19Antony steps down from the Gospel’s command to weaker counsels for brothers who refuse each, and ends by saying they need prayer.
20. 1.20Antony teaches a monk who kept back money that such renunciation leaves him torn by demons.
21. 1.21Antony persuades a community to take back a brother who had fallen, by the image of a wrecked ship brought to land.
22. 1.22Antony distinguishes three sources of bodily (sexual) arousal: nature, overeating, and demons.
23. 1.23God spares the present generation the trials of the ancients because of its weakness.
24. 1.24Antony learns that a city physician who gives to the needy and praises God equals him.
25. 1.25Antony foretells a time when the mad will call the sane mad.
26. 1.26Antony prays for Moses to explain a passage of Leviticus, and a voice speaks to him.
27. 1.27A father who never asks Antony anything says that seeing him is enough.
28. 1.28In a vision of the Fathers, Antony is said to be where God is.
29. 1.29Paphnutius’s parable of the man pushed deeper into the mud shames brothers who had falsely accused one of their own.
30. 1.30Antony is said to have been Spirit-bearing and to have known present and future events.
31. 1.31Antony’s disciple advises him not to answer the emperor’s summons to Constantinople.
32. 1.32Antony says that he no longer fears God but loves him.
33. 1.33Antony urges the fear of God, hatred of the world, and a life of hunger, vigil, and mourning.
34. 1.34Antony and Amoun fix the site of the Cells at a day’s walk from Nitria.
35. 1.35As a smith plans what he will forge, a monk must decide which virtue he pursues.
36. 1.36Obedience with self-control tames wild beasts.
37. 1.37Monks who trust their own labors and do not seek counsel fall into delusion.
38. 1.38A monk should disclose even the smallest details of his life to the elders.
39. 2.0A stray line printed before Arsenius’s first saying; it is the end of that saying.
40. 2.1In the palace Arsenius prays to be shown how to be saved and is told to flee.
41. 2.2As a hermit Arsenius is told to flee, keep silence, and be still.
42. 2.3Assailed by demons, Arsenius prays to God for grace to make a beginning of good.
43. 2.4Arsenius wore the finest clothes at court and the poorest in the church.
44. 2.5Arsenius says the Egyptian peasants won their virtues by labor, not learning.
45. 2.6Learned Arsenius says he has not yet learned the alphabet of an Egyptian peasant monk.
46. 2.7Arsenius tells archbishop Theophilus to keep away from wherever he is.
47. 2.8Theophilus gives up visiting Arsenius rather than drive him from his place.
48. 2.9Arsenius counsels striving for inner work according to God.
49. 2.10God appears to those who seek him and stays with those who hold him.
50. 2.11Arsenius tells a tempted brother that he may do anything except leave his cell.
51. 2.12Arsenius forbids a stranger to meddle; a story follows of a monk who mastered his thoughts little by little.
52. 2.13Arsenius explains he flees people because he cannot be with God and men at once.
53. 2.14Arsenius kept vigil all night and slept only briefly sitting at dawn.
54. 2.15One hour of sleep suffices for a monk who is a true fighter.
55. 2.16Arsenius stays away from the assembly because he was left out of a gift of figs, and the brothers learn humility.
56. 2.17Arsenius lived a year on one basket of grain and still shared it with visitors.
57. 2.18Arsenius endured the stench of his rotting palm-leaf water in exchange for the perfumes of his former life.
58. 2.19Arsenius tasted each fruit once a year, giving thanks.
59. 2.20Sick and poor, Arsenius thanks God for being counted worthy to receive alms.
60. 2.21When Scetis was sacked, Arsenius mourned it as the world mourned Rome.
61. 2.22Arsenius says renouncing every comfort is good only according to one’s strength.
62. 2.23Arsenius mistakes a monk lying at ease in pain for a layman.
63. 2.24Alexander keeps Arsenius’s word so exactly that he misses their meal, and Arsenius tells him to eat sooner.
64. 2.25Arsenius warns that even a sparrow’s voice disturbs stillness, let alone rustling reeds.
65. 2.26Arsenius refuses to see brothers who visit him only in passing on business.
66. 2.27A brother sees Arsenius at prayer as wholly like fire.
67. 2.28Arsenius rebukes a Roman noblewoman who traveled to see him, and Theophilus explains his harsh words.
68. 2.29Arsenius refuses an inheritance, saying he died to the world before the testator.
69. 2.30Arsenius prayed with outstretched hands from Saturday sunset until Sunday’s sunrise.
70. 2.31Arsenius and Theodore of Pherme both shunned human praise in different ways.
71. 2.32Arsenius leaves his disciples, is rebuked by a slave girl, and returns to them like the dove to the ark.
72. 2.33Arsenius tells a vision of three futile labors that picture unrepented sin, mixed motives, and pride.
73. 2.34Arsenius punished himself with fasting for having turned away visitors.
74. 2.35Arsenius tells Daniel to care for his spiritual father, who will intercede for him.
75. 2.36A former shepherd, offended at Arsenius’s pillow, learns how much Arsenius had given up.
76. 2.37Arsenius lies prostrate until an unexpected visitor leaves.
77. 2.38A vision shows that Arsenius’s solitude and Moses’ hospitality are both pleasing to God.
78. 2.39Dying, Arsenius forbids memorial meals, trusting only the charity he himself has done.
79. 2.40Dying, Arsenius forbids relics to be made of his body and confesses the fear he has had since becoming a monk.
80. 2.41Poemen blesses Arsenius, who wept all his life, since one must weep either here or in torment hereafter.
81. 2.42Daniel describes Arsenius’s appearance, habits, and life, and the garments he inherited from him.
82. 2.43Arsenius asks two disciples to watch him through a night’s vigil; they never see him sleep.
83. 2.44Arsenius compares a hidden soul to a virgin in her father’s house, honored while hidden.
84. 3.1Agathon warns that familiar freedom of speech is the mother of all passions.
85. 3.3No virtue grows without keeping God’s commandments.
86. 3.4Agathon never went to sleep in a quarrel.
87. 3.5Agathon accepts every insult except “heretic”; then (saying 6) he abandons a new cell for God’s sake.
88. 3.7Agathon often moved with nothing but a small knife.
89. 3.8Agathon compares bodily labor to leaves and inner watchfulness to fruit.
90. 3.9Agathon calls prayer the hardest labor; a note follows on his wisdom and frugality.
91. 3.11Agathon forbids a disciple to pick up a pea he did not put on the road.
92. 3.12Agathon sends a would-be disciple to return natron he had picked up on the road.
93. 3.13Agathon says he would obey a command despite the spiritual war it brings.
94. 3.14Agathon challenges a council’s decision, citing the psalm’s call to judge uprightly.
95. 3.15Agathon kept a stone in his mouth for three years to learn silence.
96. 3.16Agathon and Amoun bought and sold without haggling, in silence.
97. 3.17Agathon counted all exchange as charity, since a brother’s gain bears fruit.
98. 3.18Agathon stilled judgmental thoughts by warning himself not to do the same.
99. 3.19Even miracles do not make an angry man acceptable to God.
100. 3.20Agathon tells a disciple who fasts two days and still eats little that he carries a double battle.
101. 3.21Agathon tells a brother tempted to sexual sin to cast his weakness before God.
102. 3.22Agathon rebukes an old man who mocked Jacob’s grief, citing Paul: if God justifies, who condemns?
103. 3.23Agathon cuts off even a dear friend who leads him into fault.
104. 3.24One should always keep God’s judgment in mind.
105. 3.25Agathon gave away his knife to the brother who admired it.
106. 3.26Agathon would gladly exchange bodies with a leper as an act of perfect love.
107. 3.27Agathon nursed a sick stranger in the city for four months.
108. 3.28Agathon rebukes his favored disciple publicly to heal the others’ resentment, then comforts him.
109. 3.29Agathon, dying, stands in spirit before God’s judgment, unsure whether his work has pleased God.
110. 3.30An angel disguised as a cripple tests Agathon’s charity; the sayings of abba Ammonas follow.
111. 4.1Achilas refuses two respected elders but makes a net for a disgraced one, so as not to crush him with grief.
112. 4.2Achilas refuses a gift of apples and tells the brother not to disturb other cells.
113. 4.3Achilas mocks Isaiah for moistening his salt, calling it eating broth.
114. 4.4Achilas holds back a hurtful reply until it turns to blood in his mouth.
115. 4.5Achilas works all night, not from need but so that God may not accuse him of idleness.
116. 4.6Achilas recognizes an elder’s humble confession of temptation as a demonic attack, not true sin.
117. 5.1Ammoes kept his disciple at a distance lest idle talk creep in.
118. 5.2Isaiah confesses that he came to see his elder Ammoes as Satan.
119. 5.3Bedridden Ammoes refused even to look at what his disciple stored or did.
120. 5.4After a week of silence Ammoes tells a visitor that his own sins are a dark wall between him and God.
121. 5.5Ammoes abandons fifty measures of grain to leave a harmful place, citing monks who left even their books.
122. 6.1Antony tells Amoun that his greater fame comes from loving God more.
123. 6.2Poemen advises that if one must talk, the sayings of the elders are safer than discussing Scripture.
124. 6.3A brother trapped by a woman prays as Amoun taught and is carried back to Scetis.
125. 7.1Anoub stones and then begs pardon of a statue to teach his brothers to be unmoved by insult or honor.
126. 7.2Anoub never lied after his baptism.
127. 8.1Abraham shows a boastful elder that his passions are not dead, only bound.
128. 8.2Abraham rebukes a brother who eats often.
129. 8.3A scribe tells a brother to practice what he has before asking for the missing lines.
130. 9.1Ares lays heavy disciplines on a brother because he is a true worker who seeks a word for God’s sake.
131. 10.1Rest comes only to one who lives as if alone with God.
132. 10.2One must tear down completely to rebuild oneself.
133. 10.3A willing man can reach the divine measure in a single day.
134. 10.4Alonius argues that a lie to save a fugitive from death is better than handing him over.
135. 11.1As bishop, Aphy learns that grace has not left him; men now give the help God gave in the desert.
136. 12.1Apollo gladly helped others with work, seeing it as working with Christ for his soul.
137. 12.2A shepherd who murdered a pregnant woman becomes a monk and prays ceaselessly for forgiveness.
138. 12.3Apollo teaches that in welcoming a brother one welcomes God, after the examples of Abraham and Lot.
139. 13.1Andrew names exile, poverty, and patient silence as the monk’s marks.
140. 14.1Aio teaches that an ailing ascetic loses no merit if he accepts comfort unwillingly.
141. 15.1Ammonathas obtains in one night an imperial rescript exempting the monks from the poll tax.
142. 16.1Basil ordains a monk deacon and presbyter after testing his obedience.
143. 17.1Bessarion makes sea water sweet and rebukes his disciple for storing it: God is everywhere.
144. 17.2Bessarion walks across a river, feeling the water only to his ankles.
145. 17.3Bessarion prays the sun to stand still until he reaches an old man.
146. 17.4Bessarion and Doulas find a silent hermit dead in a cave and discover she was a woman.
147. 17.5Tricked into it by the clergy, Bessarion unknowingly casts out a demon by telling a sleeper to get up.
148. 17.6Bessarion stood forty days and nights among thorns without sleep.
149. 17.7Bessarion leaves the church with an excluded brother, confessing himself a sinner.
150. 17.8Bessarion slept only sitting or standing for forty years.
151. 17.9In times of peace one should humble oneself all the more.
152. 17.10Bessarion counsels silence and not comparing oneself; dying, he says a monk must be all eye like the cherubim.
153. 17.12Bessarion lived as a homeless wanderer, weeping like a shipwrecked man for the lost riches of the soul.
154. 18.1Benjamin, who had secretly taken a little oil from his jar, is shamed before brothers who took none.
155. 18.2An old man at Scetis had left untouched for three years the oil given him.
156. 18.3An old man knew no oil but the cheapest kind.
157. 18.4Dying, Benjamin commends Paul’s threefold rule of joy, prayer, and thanksgiving.
158. 18.5Benjamin counsels the royal road of moderation with steady perseverance.
159. 19.1Biare counsels little food, little work, and calm in the cell.
160. 20.0A stray word printed before the first saying of Gregory the Theologian.
161. 20.1Gregory names right faith, truthful speech, and bodily chastity as God’s demands on the baptized.
162. 20.2For those who strive with longing, all of life is one day.
163. 21.1Gelasius silently lets a thief sell his Bible, and the thief, moved by his goodness, returns it and stays.
164. 21.2A local magnate who seized Gelasius’s olives is warned by Symeon the Stylite and dies before he can repent.
165. 21.3Gelasius secretly raises to life a boy accidentally killed by his cellarer.
166. 21.4Gelasius refuses to join the anti-Chalcedonian usurper Theodosius of Jerusalem, even under threat of burning.
167. 21.5Gelasius answers a poor hermit that the hermit’s awl binds him more than the monastery’s lands bind Gelasius.
168. 21.6Gelasius cures his urge to go to the desert by trying its hardships in his courtyard for three days.
169. 22.1Gerontius warns that one can commit sexual sin in the mind while the body remains virgin.
170. 23.1Daniel passes unseen through barbarian raiders, then flees like the others.
171. 23.2Daniel tells a brother never to eat from one dish with a woman.
172. 23.3A possessed girl is freed when a monk she strikes turns the other cheek.
173. 23.4The soul thrives as the body is made lean.
174. 23.5Daniel reminds Ammoes that God is with them outside the cell as well as in it.
175. 23.6A thief whom Arsenius tried to win over keeps stealing and is expelled.
176. 23.7A monk who held the Eucharistic bread to be only a figure is convinced by a vision of the sacrificed Christ child.
177. 23.8Cyril of Alexandria leads a simple monk to discover by prayer that Melchizedek was a man, not the Son of God.
178. 24.1Dioscorus took up a new discipline every year.
179. 24.2Dioscorus says that if he saw his sins, several men could not weep enough for them.
180. 24.3Dioscorus warns monks to be found clothed in the heavenly wedding garment at the judgment.
181. 25.1Stillness and fasting together sharpen the inner eyes against the enemy.
182. 25.2Cut ties with many people to protect stillness.
183. 26.1Athanasius interprets the crows’ “cras” as foretelling Julian’s death the next day.
184. 26.2A crowd’s cry for a charioteer, “Mary’s son has fallen and risen,” coincides with news of Serapis’s fall.
185. 26.3Epiphanius tells monks that keeping the set hours is not enough; a monk must pray unceasingly.
186. 26.4Hilarion admits that Epiphanius’s practice of never sleeping at enmity surpasses his own abstinence from meat.
187. 26.5If Melchizedek, Christ’s image, blessed Abraham, Christ himself blesses all believers much more.
188. 26.6Epiphanius contrasts biblical figures heard or condemned regardless of loud or silent prayer.
189. 26.7David prayed at every hour, as his ‘seven times a day’ shows.
190. 26.8Epiphanius commends owning Christian books, whose very sight discourages sin.
191. 26.9Reading Scripture guards against sin.
192. 26.10Ignorance of Scripture is a precipice.
193. 26.11Ignorance of God’s laws betrays salvation.
194. 26.12The sins of the righteous are of the lips; a fragment of saying 13 compares the Decalogue and the beatitudes.
195. 26.14One righteous man can turn God to mercy for a whole people.
196. 26.15God forgives repentant sinners their whole debt but asks interest of the righteous.
197. 26.16God sells righteousness cheaply for small acts of charity.
198. 26.17God borrows in secret and repays openly before the angels.
199. 27.1As a child Ephraim dreamed of a fruitful vine growing from his tongue to fill the world.
200. 27.2A saint sees angels entrust a heavenly scroll to Ephraim, and knows his writings come from the Spirit.
201. 27.3Ephraim shames a prostitute; then a married couple living in continence and the hidden austerity of abba Joseph are described.
202. 28.1Euprepius urges faith that God’s power works in one’s own life.
203. 28.2Euprepius helps robbers plunder his cell and tries to give them the staff they left.
204. 28.3Losses should be accepted gladly as release from care.
205. 28.4Euprepius counsels utter simplicity and a heart of iron.
206. 28.5Humility, poverty, and not judging bring the fear of God.
207. 28.6Euprepius commends fear, humility, scant food, and mourning.
208. 28.7Euprepius learns from an old man not to speak first when visiting.
209. 29.1Eladius never raised his eyes to the church roof in twenty years.
210. 29.2For Easter Eladius made the extra effort of eating his bread and salt standing.
211. 30.1Evagrius teaches meditation on death, Hades, judgment, punishment, and the joys of the righteous.
212. 30.2Cut ties with many to keep stillness.
213. 30.3Undistracted psalmody is greater even than undistracted prayer.
214. 30.4Remembering death and judgment keeps the soul from sin.
215. 30.5Without temptations no one would be saved.
216. 30.6A spare, regular diet joined to love leads to freedom from passion.
217. 30.7Rebuked as a foreigner, Evagrius accepts it and resolves not to speak again.
218. 31.1Paphnutius would not let the beardless young Eudaimon stay at Scetis.
219. 32.1Zeno counsels avoiding famous places and men and never building one’s own cell.
220. 32.2Zeno learns to accept gifts and give them away, satisfying both givers and askers.
221. 32.3Zeno contrasts Egyptian monks who hide their virtues with Syrians and Greeks who hide their faults.
222. 32.4Zeno explains Job 15:15; then he is guided home by an angelic boy, and tests himself in the heat rather than steal a cucumber.
223. 32.7Zeno teaches that prayer for one’s enemies first makes all prayer heard.
224. 32.8Zeno shows a famous faster that his fasting was fed by praise and teaches him to fast in secret.
225. 33.1Zacharias tells Macarius that a monk is one who forces himself in everything.
226. 33.2Moses sees the Spirit of God resting on Zacharias at prayer.
227. 33.3Zacharias tramples his hood to show that a monk must be crushed in humility.
228. 33.4Beaten by his father for a vision, Zacharias learns from another elder that it was from God but that he must still obey.
229. 33.5Dying, Zacharias keeps silent about what he sees, and Isidore sees heaven opened to him.
230. 34.1Insult patiently borne is the best nourishment for a beginner.
231. 34.2Isaiah likens beginners in obedience to purple dye and tender branches.
232. 34.3A beginner who keeps changing monasteries is like a haltered beast.
233. 34.4The presbyter of Pelusium rebukes chattering brothers at a love-feast by pointing to one whose prayer rises like fire.
234. 34.5Isaiah acts out a parable: no reaping, no wages from God.
235. 34.6Isaiah serves barely boiled lentils, saying that seeing the fire at all is comfort enough.
236. 34.7God lets a rebellious soul suffer so that it will seek him.
237. 34.8Even a nod can wound a brother when one seeks revenge.
238. 34.9Avarice is distrust of God’s care and promises and the love of enlarging one’s holdings.
239. 34.10Slander comes from ignorance of God’s glory and envy of one’s neighbor.
240. 34.11Anger is strife, lying, and ignorance.
241. 35.1Elijah fears death, meeting God, and God’s sentence.
242. 35.2Elijah says Agathon is good for his generation, but the ancients could stop the sun like Joshua.
243. 35.3Repentance disarms sin, and pride empties love.
244. 35.4Elijah exposes a demonic illusion of a brother carrying wine, warning that thoughts too are demonic suggestions.
245. 35.5The mind is fixed on sins, on Jesus, or on people.
246. 35.6Psalmody without the mind is vain; affliction loved turns to joy.
247. 35.7A hermit attacked by demons calls on Jesus and is told that God is found by labor; another saying laments the loss of old monastic virtues.
248. 36.1A disciple who disobeyed his elder’s simple rule in his new cell is frightened by a demon and returns.
249. 37.1Macarius counsels Theodore to sell even his useful books, for poverty is greatest.
250. 37.2Theodore tells a restless brother he himself has found no rest in seventy years as a monk.
251. 37.3Theodore refuses a word to a brother who wants only to trade in others’ sayings.
252. 37.4Theodore counsels helping a friend fallen into sexual sin but quickly breaking with one fallen into heresy.
253. 37.5Theodore excelled in poverty, asceticism, and flight from people.
254. 37.6Theodore laments that monks no longer say “Forgive me” at table.
255. 37.7Theodore points out the futility of a fast that replaces bread with chickpea flour.
256. 37.8Theodore says it is no wonder a monk falls, but a wonder that anyone escapes the enemy.
257. 37.9Theodore tells a brother to practice before discussing advanced matters.
258. 37.10Theodore laments that handiwork has replaced the soul’s work as the monks’ main task.
259. 37.11Theodore explains that keeping God’s commandments, like visiting the sick, is the soul’s true work.
260. 37.12One who stands in repentance is not bound by a set rule.
261. 37.13No virtue equals not despising others.
262. 37.14Love of the cell, not contempt, makes a monk flee his neighbor.
263. 37.15Theodore must cut off even compassionate ties to remain a monk.
264. 37.16Many seize rest before God gives it.
265. 37.17Theodore forbids sleeping where a woman is.
266. 37.18Theonas gave away everything to the poor and still said he had not fulfilled God’s commandment.
267. 37.19Theodore will not break his week’s seclusion to visit a dying friend, trusting to meet him in the next world.
268. 37.20Theodore says that he himself is in danger and has no word to give.
269. 37.21Theodore helps a brother with his work once, then sends him away as a distraction.
270. 37.22Theodore blames himself, not his disciple, when the disciple paid a seller with dirty wheat.
271. 37.23A serpent at the cistern flees in shame before Theodore.
272. 37.24Theodore, having prayed to be freed from fear, says he would not fear even if heaven fell to earth.
273. 37.25Shown a pillar of fire as the measure of a deacon, Theodore refuses to serve in the diaconate.
274. 37.26In his old age Theodore passed each gift of food to the next visitor.
275. 37.27Theodore binds three demons outside his cell by prayer.
276. 37.28Theodore receives a count half-dressed, refusing to adjust himself for human approval.
277. 37.29Theodore throws off two robbers but then lets them take three-quarters of his goods, keeping his church tunic.
278. 38.1Theodore helped every brother at the bakery before making his own bread.
279. 38.2Theodore and Lucius stayed fifty years by always postponing their move to the next season.
280. 38.3If God counted our distractions in prayer, none could be saved.
281. 39.1Thoughts may trouble and hinder one at prayer without forcing one to act.
282. 40.1Theodore prefers honor, which one can humbly disown, to dishonor, which comes from sin and scandalizes others.
283. 40.2Theodotus and another elder compare fasting and vigil as disciplines of the body.
284. 41.0Theonas says the passions capture the mind when it turns from contemplating God.
285. 41.1The abba of Nitria tells Theophilus that the monk’s way is always to blame oneself.
286. 41.2Pambo will not speak to Theophilus: if his silence does not help, his words will not.
287. 41.3Desert Fathers at Theophilus’s table stop eating when told the dish is meat.
288. 41.4Theophilus describes the soul’s trial by demons and angels at death and its eternal outcome.
289. 41.5Dying, Theophilus calls Arsenius blessed for always remembering death.
290. 42.0Displaced words that complete the quotation at the end of the last saying of Theophilus.
291. 42.1Theophilus explains “redeeming the time” as turning every insult into gain by patience.
292. 42.2Theodora teaches that this age is a winter of trials needed to bear fruit for the kingdom.
293. 42.3Theodora warns that the devil attacks soul and body when one seeks stillness, and tells of a monk whose fever left when he prayed anyway.
294. 42.4Theodora tells of a man restrained by God’s law from returning insults, and of a Christian’s answer to a Manichaean about the body.
295. 42.5Theodora describes the true teacher; then demons confess that only humility defeats them.
296. 42.7A monk who leaves to escape temptation sees the tempter putting on sandals to follow him.
297. 43.1John the Dwarf waters a dry stick for three years until it bears the fruit of obedience.
298. 43.2John tries to live like an angel without work and is taught by his brother that a man must work to eat.
299. 43.3Fasting starves the passions as a besieging king starves a city.
300. 43.4John warns that satiety and familiar talk with a boy already amount to sin in thought.
301. 43.5John abandons his goods and flees rather than be provoked to anger.
302. 43.6Hearing anger at the harvest, John leaves the work and flees.
303. 43.7John alone accepts water from a great presbyter so as not to deprive him of his reward.
304. 43.8Accused of being full of poison, John agrees and says his inside is worse still.
305. 43.9John weeps at a brother who laughed at a love-feast.
306. 43.10John turns talk of rain and palm shoots into a word about the Holy Spirit renewing hearts.
307. 43.11Absorbed in contemplation, John sewed two baskets’ worth of rope into one.
308. 43.12John flees to God in prayer as a man climbs a tree to escape beasts.
309. 43.13Freed from temptation, John is told to pray for the battle to return, since the soul grows through it.
310. 43.14A vision of monks crossing the sea on wings shows that the present generation receives only weak wings.
311. 43.15John’s parable of two naked wives shows the slanderer condemning others while more exposed himself.
312. 43.16John’s parable of a reformed prostitute who shuts out her old lovers pictures the repentant soul fleeing to Christ.
313. 43.17John feigns illness to spare a lost guide’s shame; then (saying 18) he cures a forgetful monk by patience, likening himself to a lamp that lights others.
314. 43.19John counsels a weak brother to help others only if he can return unharmed, like Caleb.
315. 43.20John says Joseph’s humility, not his brothers, sold him, and raised him to rule Egypt.
316. 43.21Self-blame is the light burden; self-justification the heavy one.
317. 43.22Humility and the fear of God surpass all virtues.
318. 43.23John apologizes for sighing aloud in church; a line on humility as the door to God’s city is joined to it.
319. 43.24Honoring God brings honor from all; despising him brings ruin.
320. 43.25John walks around his cell three times to cleanse his ears of a quarrel.
321. 43.26John and a visitor talk of virtues through the night until noon without noticing.
322. 43.27John calls the cell a prison where one remembers God, and applies Christ’s words to visiting it.
323. 43.28Even the strong lion is trapped through its belly.
324. 43.29The Fathers of Scetis ate simply without forcing themselves, and stayed strong for God’s work.
325. 43.30Absorbed in God, John keeps forgetting the baskets until he brings the buyer in to take them himself.
326. 43.31John repeats “rope, camel” to himself so as not to forget the camel driver again.
327. 43.32John tells a chattering visitor that he has driven God away from him.
328. 43.33A visiting elder sees an angel fanning John as he sleeps.
329. 43.34John lists the virtues to begin each day, ending with constant remembrance of death.
330. 43.35After any outing John prayed until his mind regained its order.
331. 43.36John’s humility holds all Scetis on his little finger.
332. 43.37John defines a monk as toil.
333. 43.38An elder who goes out by night to avoid fame is lit by angels with torches and glorified the more.
334. 43.39John calls the neighbor the foundation of the spiritual house, on whom all Christ’s commandments hang.
335. 43.40Paësia, a benefactress of the monks who fell into prostitution, repents at John’s tears and dies that night, accepted by God.
336. 44.1John of the community keeps working when visitors come, saying a sinner has no time for courtesies.
337. 45.1Isidore took in difficult brothers others expelled and saved them by patience.
338. 45.2Demons fear Isidore because he never let anger reach his throat.
339. 45.3For forty years Isidore felt sinful thoughts but never consented to them.
340. 45.4In his youth Isidore made all day and night his prayer.
341. 45.5Isidore says that even burned to ashes he could not repay Christ’s coming for us.
342. 45.6Isidore abandons his wares and flees when he feels anger approach.
343. 45.8Isidore visits Alexandria and sees no one’s face but the archbishop’s.
344. 45.9Isidore warns against following one’s own heart instead of God’s will, urging endurance.
345. 46.1A good life without words helps more than words without a good life; together they form true philosophy.
346. 46.2Virtue is immortal; prosperity soon fades.
347. 46.3Some shrink from the road to virtue; others deny it exists; both must be taught.
348. 46.4Wickedness divides people from God and each other; virtue reunites them.
349. 46.5Isidore urges humility over arrogance and resisting greed from its first approach.
350. 47.0The end of the printed heading of the section on Isaac, priest of the Cells.
351. 47.1Isaac flees ordination but is found by the Fathers’ donkey and accepts it as God’s will.
352. 47.2Isaac learned from Theodore, who gave no orders, to imitate his elder and work in silence.
353. 47.3Isaac weeps that the great Fathers are dead and the monks are left orphans.
354. 47.4A reaping brother asks leave to eat even one ear of wheat, to the owner’s astonishment.
355. 47.5Isaac forbids bringing boys to Scetis, blaming them for the ruin of four churches.
356. 47.6Isaac ate the censer ashes with his bread.
357. 47.7Isaac rebukes the brothers for fine clothing and gives up giving them commands they ignore.
358. 47.8Isaac drives out a brother whose fashionable hood marks him as worldly.
359. 47.9Isaac never kept a grudge in his cell, nor let a brother keep one against him.
360. 47.10Isaac refuses sweetened gruel, wishing to bear his illness for thirty years.
361. 47.11Dying, Isaac tells the monks to keep God’s commandments as he did, and they will be kept safe.
362. 47.12A monk’s garment should be so poor that no one would steal it.
363. 48.1Joseph shows by changing clothes that one can be welcoming to visitors yet unchanged within.
364. 48.2Joseph counsels asking “Who am I?” and judging no one.
365. 48.3Joseph gives Poemen and a Theban opposite counsel on the passions, each according to his strength.
366. 48.4One who can do nothing else can be saved by keeping his conscience clean toward his neighbor.
367. 48.5Joseph explains that elders test new monks with crooked commands before telling them the truth.
368. 48.6Joseph says a monk must become wholly like fire.
369. 48.7Joseph’s fingers become like ten flames as he tells Lot to become wholly like fire.
370. 48.8Joseph tells a brother to weigh community and solitude and choose where his soul profits more.
371. 48.9An elder who has never learned his disciple’s name in two years shows his detachment.
372. 48.10Joseph rejoices that he is a king that day, having ruled over the passions.
373. 48.11Dying, Joseph drives away the devil with his staff.
374. 49.1Exile is greater than hospitality.
375. 49.2When praised, remember your sins and unworthiness.
376. 49.3The fear of God lights the heart like a lamp.
377. 49.4Deeds, not fruitless words, are what is needed.
378. 50.1Hierax counsels staying in the cell and speaking ill of no one.
379. 50.2Hierax never spoke or sought to hear worldly talk.
380. 51.1An elder tells John that monks who put God’s work first find it easy; those who put the body first struggle.
381. 51.2Antony never put his own advantage before his brother’s good.
382. 51.3John of Raithou urges fleeing the flesh’s desires as well as the world.
383. 51.4Imitate the austerity and stillness of the Fathers.
384. 51.5Do not defile the place the Fathers cleansed of demons.
385. 51.6The monastery is for ascetics, not traders.
386. 52.1A rich prostitute, refused entry to church, repents, gives up her money to be burned, and becomes a chosen vessel.
387. 52.2Humility is the monk’s first task, as the first beatitude shows.
388. 53.1Isidore refuses a meal invitation, citing Adam’s fall through food, the prowling devil, and Lot’s drunkenness.
389. 53.2Desire for the kingdom means despising money.
390. 53.3No one can live for God while loving pleasure and money.
391. 53.4Better to eat meat than to be proud of fasting.
392. 53.5Disciples should both love and fear their teachers in balance.
393. 53.6Desire for salvation means doing all that leads to it.
394. 53.7Isidore hides from visitors as beasts flee to their lairs.
395. 54.1John the Persian refuses to rebuke a sinner, since God himself is patient.
396. 54.2John the Persian gives away borrowed linen and, needing to repay, will not take a coin found on the road until it is publicly claimed by no one.
397. 54.3John the Persian washes the feet of robbers, who repent.
398. 54.4John the Persian trusts like the penitent thief that God, who gave him every virtue by grace, will give him the kingdom.
399. 55.1After twelve years of thankless service, Ammoes blesses his disciple John on his deathbed as an angel.
400. 56.1Obeying a joking command, John ties up a hyena and brings it to his abba, who humbles him.
401. 57.1An angel bars Isaac from his cell until he repents of condemning a fallen brother.
402. 57.2Isaac hurries from the Eucharist to his cell lest the light he received be extinguished.
403. 58.1Joseph names three things precious to God: patient illness, pure work, and obedience to a spiritual father.
404. 59.1Antony and Hilarion greet each other as the morning star and the pillar of light.
405. 60.1Ischyrion foretells declining generations of monks, but says those tested in the last trial will surpass their fathers.
406. 61.1An Egyptian elder sets aside fasting to welcome visitors, receiving Christ in them.
407. 61.2An old man suspected with the virgin who served him is vindicated when his staff blossoms on his grave.
408. 61.3An old man who ate six times with visitors to encourage them is still hungry, while his guest is full after one meal.
409. 61.4Paësius never ate by daylight; John, superior of a community, was never angry.
410. 61.5Dying, John leaves the brothers this: he never did his own will or taught what he had not done.
411. 61.6An elder shows monks that the devil makes them sleepy at spiritual talk and alert at idle gossip.
412. 61.7Basil tells a senator who kept back part of his wealth that he is neither senator nor monk.
413. 61.8A hermit refuses his father’s inheritance, saying the dead do not inherit from the living.
414. 62.1Cronius reads Elisha and the Shunammite as the barren soul that bears fruit when the Spirit visits it in stillness.
415. 62.2Cronius uses the ark and Dagon to show that a mind turning to God makes the passion fall.
416. 62.3Humility comes through the fear of God, which comes from withdrawal, labor, and remembering death and judgment.
417. 62.4Cronius uses Moses at the bush to teach that bodily labor is the field where the treasure is found.
418. 62.5A poorly dressed monk at Sinai, once a praetorian prefect, avoids a mission to court by calling himself a runaway slave.
419. 63.1Carion admits his son Zacharias surpasses him in humility and silence.
420. 63.2Carion’s son Zacharias, a cause of grumbling at Scetis, disfigures himself in the natron lake and is declared an angel.
421. 64.1Copres gave thanks in illness and curbed his own will.
422. 64.2Blessed is one who bears toil with thanks.
423. 64.3Copres rebukes himself and the monks for debating Melchizedek while neglecting God’s commands.
424. 65.1Cyrus explains that tempting thoughts show one is not committing the deed, and urges fleeing real women and praying.
425. 66.1Lucius shows the Euchites how work, prayer, and almsgiving together fulfill “pray without ceasing.”
426. 67.1Advised by Arsenius, Lot tells an old man spreading Origen’s teachings to stop, and the man leaves of his own accord.
427. 67.2Lot takes on half the sin of a brother who had sacrificed to idols to obtain a woman, and the brother’s repentance is accepted.
428. 68.1Lucius tells Longinus that exile, fasting, and solitude are worthless without control of tongue, thoughts, and life among others.
429. 68.2Longinus tells his sick body it may die rather than receive food out of season.
430. 68.3Longinus heals a woman’s breast cancer while calling himself an impostor.
431. 68.4A demon cast out by Zeno confesses it leaves because of Longinus’s distant prayers.
432. 68.5Longinus compares the soul conceiving the Spirit to a woman whose bleeding stops: give blood and receive the Spirit.
433. 69.1Macarius, falsely accused of fathering a child, works to support the woman until her confession clears him, then flees to Scetis.
434. 69.2Macarius tells of two naked hermits in the desert, saying he is no monk but has seen monks.
435. 69.3Macarius learns from Satan which monk yields to temptation, and by confessing his own struggles he helps the monk resist.
436. 69.4Antony, after testing Macarius’s patience at the door, marvels at the rope he plaited through the night.
437. 69.5Macarius foretells the ruin of Scetis by the signs of buildings, trees, and children.
438. 69.6Macarius marvels at a demon’s eagerness to drive a possessed boy and his mother away from Scetis.
439. 69.7Macarius makes a dead man reveal where he hid a deposit, saving a widow’s children; then (saying 8) he fetches a cake from Alexandria for a sick hermit.
440. 69.9Macarius defends his guileless simplicity as a gift won by twelve years of service.
441. 69.10Macarius paid for each cup of wine taken in company by a day without water.
442. 69.11The devil admits he matches Macarius in fasting and vigil but is defeated by his humility.
443. 69.12Macarius says the fear of God consumes the body as fire consumes a poker.
444. 69.13Sleeping on a pagan mummy in a temple, Macarius is unmoved by demons’ tricks and puts them to flight.
445. 69.14Exhausted, Macarius prays and finds himself carried to the river.
446. 69.15Macarius heals a paralyzed boy left at his door by telling him to run after his father.
447. 69.16Macarius tells the monks to flee their own mouths.
448. 69.17Macarius warns against angry rebuke; then (saying 18) he helps a thief load his own goods, blessing God.
449. 69.19Macarius teaches short prayer: “Lord, as you will, have mercy,” and in temptation, “Lord, help.”
450. 69.20One indifferent to honor and wealth, believing rightly, will not fall into passion or delusion.
451. 69.21Macarius the Great rebukes Macarius the citizen for wrongly excommunicating two brothers, and gives him a penance.
452. 69.22Macarius sends the gentle-natured Moses to the inner desert to find stillness.
453. 69.23Macarius has a brother insult and then praise the dead, teaching him to be dead to both.
454. 69.24A child’s remark about a rich lover and a poor hater becomes for Macarius a picture of God and the devil.
455. 69.25Macarius tells Poemen that what he seeks has now gone from the monks.
456. 69.26Macarius says no more about Antony’s answer when the monks do not ask, to avoid idle speech.
457. 69.27Macarius explains fleeing men as staying in the cell and weeping for one’s sins.
458. 69.28Harm no one and condemn no one.
459. 69.29Avoid sleeping in the cell of a brother of ill repute.
460. 69.30Macarius tells brothers offering comfort that he knows the way to the village himself if he wants it.
461. 69.31Macarius answered those who mocked his past but kept silent with those who revered him.
462. 69.32Macarius covered others’ faults as God covers the world, like a god on earth.
463. 69.33Macarius discovers by vision the hidden holiness of two young foreign monks, whose cell he later shows as a martyr’s shrine.
464. 69.34At Nitria Macarius’s only word is a call to weep now, before the tears of hell.
465. 69.35A demon admits that humility alone gives Macarius the victory.
466. 69.36Remembering wrongs from people weakens us; remembering demons’ wiles protects us.
467. 69.37Macarius still weeps over a fig he ate from stolen fruit as a child.
468. 69.38A pagan priest’s skull tells Macarius that his prayers bring some relief to the damned, and that apostates suffer worse.
469. 69.39A pagan priest beaten by Macarius’s rude disciple is converted by Macarius’s kind greeting.
470. 69.40Macarius helps a robber load his goods, but the camel will not move until they are unloaded.
471. 69.41Flee men, weep in your cell, and shun chatter.
472. 70.1Isidore shows Moses that the angels helping him outnumber the demons attacking him.
473. 70.2Moses carries a leaking basket of sand to a council to show that his own sins run out behind him unseen.
474. 70.3Insulted as an Ethiopian to test him, Moses was troubled but kept silent.
475. 70.4Ordained, Moses is driven from the sanctuary as an Ethiopian to test him, and accepts the humiliation.
476. 70.5Moses breaks a fast to feed visitors and is praised for keeping God’s command rather than men’s.
477. 70.6Moses: sit in your cell, and it will teach you everything.
478. 70.7One who flees people ripens; one who stays among them stays sour.
479. 70.8Moses avoids a visiting magistrate by calling himself a fool.
480. 70.9Moses warns that neglect of the Fathers’ commands will bring barbarians to Scetis.
481. 70.10Moses, a former robber, awaits death by the sword at the barbarians’ hands, and seven martyrs are crowned.
482. 70.11Only one dead to the world can attain what he seeks.
483. 70.12To die to one’s neighbor, think oneself three days in the tomb.
484. 70.13Moses, out of water for his guests, pleads with God until a rain cloud fills his vessels.
485. 70.14Die to your companion so as not to judge him.
486. 70.15Die to every evil before death, so as to harm no one.
487. 70.16God hears only one who knows himself a sinner and so does not see his neighbor’s sins.
488. 70.17Prayer is vain unless one stops doing what one prays against.
489. 70.18Moses’ instructions: God helps, fasting humbles, weep in temptation, blame yourself, and above all do not judge your neighbor.
490. 71.1Matoes prefers light, lasting discipline to hard, short-lived effort.
491. 71.2Nearness to God reveals one’s sinfulness, as with Isaiah.
492. 71.3In old age Matoes sees no good work in himself.
493. 71.4Satan sows all temptations and then feeds whichever the soul inclines to.
494. 71.5Matoes confesses he does not yet love even his friends as himself; then (saying 6) he permits breaking a fast for a visitor.
495. 71.7Matoes, praised by abba John, says perfection is honoring one’s neighbor above oneself.
496. 71.8Matoes judges sexual sin worse than slander, since slander is quickly repented.
497. 71.9Matoes and his brother, ordained presbyters against their will, never celebrated the Eucharist, holding ordination to be for the blameless.
498. 71.10Paphnutius counsels loving affliction, dishonor, and giving over rest, glory, and receiving.
499. 71.11Matoes gives a rule of humility, warning against intimacy with boys, women, and heretics and against quarreling.
500. 71.12Cut off contention and mourn, for the time is near.
501. 71.13Matoes says one who cannot control his tongue should live alone; monks in community must be round, not square.
502. 72.0The end of the printed heading of the section on Mark, disciple of abba Silvanus.
503. 72.1Silvanus shows that his favorite, Mark, obeyed so promptly that he left a letter half written.
504. 72.2Mark agrees without question when Silvanus calls a wild boar a horned buffalo.
505. 72.3Mark obeys the order to see his mother but keeps his eyes shut, and she does not recognize him.
506. 72.4Sent to visit his mother, Mark weeps at leaving Silvanus and does not go.
507. 72.5Mark asks Silvanus to stay three days, and on the third day Mark dies in peace.
508. 73.1Milesius raises a murdered man who clears a falsely accused monk and names the real killer.
509. 73.2Milesius and his disciples are martyred by Persian princes, who die by each other’s arrows as he foretold.
510. 74.1Motius counsels a new monk to avoid singular practices and live like everyone else.
511. 74.2Motius breaks down his door for joy to welcome the brother who had wronged him, and returns to his monastery.
512. 75.1Megethius owned only a needle, so he could leave his cell at any moment.
513. 75.2Megethius finds rest by eating half a loaf daily instead of a whole one every two days.
514. 75.3Spoiled food may be thrown out, but good food must not be wasted for daintiness.
515. 75.4Once the monks’ gatherings lifted them to heaven; now slander drags them down.
516. 76.1God obeys whoever obeys him.
517. 76.2A former slave turned monk insists on washing his masters’ feet and bringing them his wages each year.
518. 76.3Mius tells a soldier that God, like a man mending his cloak, does not throw away his creature.
519. 77.1Mark refuses to judge a presbyter accused by a demoniac, and sees the presbyter purified by an angel at the altar.
520. 78.1Macarius eats with the brothers once but then declines, saying they still need food as flesh.
521. 78.2Macarius tells Pachomius to discipline his own monks but judge no outsiders.
522. 78.3Macarius finds a brother always at prayer for four months and calls him an earthly angel.
523. 79.1Revenge returns to trouble the heart at prayer.
524. 79.2Prayer grows from meekness and freedom from anger.
525. 79.3Prayer is the remedy for grief and despondency.
526. 79.4Renunciation and self-denial make undistracted prayer possible.
527. 79.5What one endures in the ascetic life bears fruit in prayer.
528. 79.6True prayer requires grieving no one.
529. 79.7Seek God’s will, not your own, and your prayer will be calm and thankful.
530. 79.8Blessed is the monk who counts himself the refuse of all.
531. 79.9Stillness protects the monk from the enemy’s arrows.
532. 79.10The negligent servant should expect punishment.
533. 80.1Nisterus flees a serpent not from fear but to escape vainglory.
534. 80.2Nisterus teaches that every virtue pleases God, as Abraham’s hospitality, Elijah’s stillness, and David’s humility show.
535. 80.3Nisterus tells Joseph that since talking brings him no rest he should listen rather than speak.
536. 80.4Nisterus would give away both tunics piece by piece and wait for God to clothe him.
537. 80.5Nisterus counsels daily self-examination, prayer in God’s presence, and avoidance of oaths, lies, curses, and laughter.
538. 81.1Poemen likens the silent Nisterus to Moses’ healing bronze serpent; the start of another saying about Poemen wishing to see him follows.
539. 81.2Nisterus explains that he learned silence in the community by telling himself he was like a donkey before God.
540. 82.1Nicon, falsely accused of seducing a girl, bears punishment patiently until the real culprit confesses; a displaced passage of Nisterus follows.
541. 83.1As bishop, Netras became stricter than in the desert, lest worldly comfort destroy the monk in him.
542. 84.1The devil sets two loving brothers fighting over whether a bird is a dove or a crow, but they recognize his trick.
543. 85.1Xoius warns that wine is unfit for monks, especially when a demon is at work.
544. 85.2Xoius prays for rain at Sinai and it falls at once.
545. 86.1The thief was saved by one word and Judas lost all in one night, so no one should boast.
546. 86.2Mocked as a wine-drinker by a demon, Xanthias drives it out before he finishes his cup.
547. 86.3Xanthias says a dog is better than he, for it loves and faces no judgment.
548. 87.1A pagan priest tells Olympius that evil thoughts must be keeping the monks from seeing God, and the elders agree.
549. 87.2Olympius cures his desire for a wife by working himself to exhaustion for a clay wife and daughter.
550. 88.1Orsisius warns that only those fired by God’s fear, like Joseph, can bear authority without dissolving.
551. 88.2Orsisius compares a negligent soul to an untended lamp whose wick a mouse drags out, though God may restore the well-disposed.
552. 89.1Poemen walks back a long way rather than open his door before asking his forgotten question, and is told his name will be famous.
553. 89.2Ammonas tells Poemen, troubled by his brother’s friendship, to think himself a year dead.
554. 89.3Poemen does not answer about inviting the presbyters, saying a dead man does not speak.
555. 89.4Poemen heals an elder’s jealousy by humbly visiting him with food and waiting at his door.
556. 89.5Poemen refuses to intervene even for his nephew, telling the magistrate to judge him by the law.
557. 89.6Poemen restores a brother expelled on an anchorite’s word and moves the anchorite to repent by a parable of two mourners.
558. 89.7Brought to Poemen among all the brothers, a deformed child is healed when Poemen too makes the sign of the cross.
559. 89.8Poemen will not discuss heavenly matters with a visiting anchorite but helps him gladly once he asks about the passions.
560. 89.9Poemen prays that his plea for a prisoner will fail, lest he become a sought-after intercessor, and rejoices when it does.
561. 89.10Poemen makes his brothers fetch back their linen work from a merchant who bought it out of charity, refusing to profit at his loss.
562. 89.11Poemen leads a presbyter who expelled careless monks to admit his own sin and restore them.
563. 89.12Poemen teaches that wholehearted repentance is accepted by God even in three days.
564. 89.13Temptation reveals the true monk.
565. 89.14The soul must always be on guard against sexual temptation.
566. 89.15Unclean thoughts are powerless if one does not lend them a hand, as an axe is powerless without the woodcutter.
567. 89.16Gluttony, like Nebuzaradan the “chief cook,” lets the enemy burn the temple of the soul.
568. 89.17Poemen ate against his will rather than grieve a brother; and (saying 18) he warned against living among the jealous.
569. 89.19Poemen says wine is not for monks at all.
570. 89.20Unacted thoughts rot away like clothes left in a chest.
571. 89.21Evil thoughts die out through patience like snakes sealed in a jar.
572. 89.22Poemen first praises a farming monk’s almsgiving to encourage him, then, challenged by Anoub, tells him it is not monk’s work, and the brother leaves grieved.
573. 89.23Gentle encouragement, not rebuke, moves a denying sinner to repent.
574. 89.24Experience makes a man proven.
575. 89.25A teacher who does not practice is like a spring that cannot cleanse itself.
576. 89.26A widow’s grief at a tomb shows the constant mourning a monk should have.
577. 89.27True silence is in the heart; one may talk all day yet keep it.
578. 89.28One cannot stop thoughts coming any more than catch the wind, but one can resist them.
579. 89.29Stillness, thankful sickness, and pure service are equal works.
580. 89.30Poemen likens monks thirsting for the weekend Eucharist to deer seeking water after swallowing serpents.
581. 89.31Poemen recommends eating a little less every day, the royal road the Fathers found best.
582. 89.32Poemen examined his thoughts before the synaxis; and (saying 33) he leaves a brother free to choose what to do with an inheritance.
583. 89.34Poemen traces revenge from heart to look to tongue to deed, and urges stopping it at each stage.
584. 89.35Watchfulness, self-attention, and discernment guide the soul.
585. 89.36Self-abasement before God, not measuring oneself, and renouncing one’s will are the soul’s tools.
586. 89.37Silence is the victory over every trouble.
587. 89.38Bodily comfort is an abomination to the Lord.
588. 89.39Mourning both works and guards.
589. 89.40Attend twice to thoughts about bodily needs, then ignore them as idle.
590. 89.41True self-abasement is to count oneself below the beasts, which are not judged.
591. 89.42Remembering that words will judge us leads to silence.
592. 89.43Distraction is the beginning of evils.
593. 89.44Isidore leaves Scetis when it no longer offers hardship, seeking labor elsewhere.
594. 89.45Speak only when asked.
595. 89.46Poemen cites John the Dwarf: take a little of every virtue rather than rely on one.
596. 89.47Silence is better than praising one’s neighbor.
597. 89.48No achievement frees a person from care.
598. 89.49Poemen likens humility to breath, mourning to Abraham’s tomb, and imperfect charity to a poor crop that still saves from famine.
599. 89.52Discernment is the axe that fells the tree with few strokes.
600. 89.53One should live like Daniel, blameless except in serving God.
601. 89.54Self-will is a bronze wall between man and God; abandon it and one leaps over.
602. 89.55Alonius keeps silent when praised, lest he seem to accept it.
603. 89.56People talk of perfection while doing little.
604. 89.57Bodily comfort drives away the fear of God as smoke drives off bees.
605. 89.58Poemen opens his door in Lent, saying the door to keep shut is the tongue.
606. 89.59Keeping far from occasions of sin is like standing far from a pit, so God has time to help.
607. 89.60Poemen reads Noah, Job, and Daniel as poverty, toil, and discernment, the tools of the monk.
608. 89.61Poemen calls young Agathon “abba” because of his wise speech.
609. 89.62Poemen comforts a tempted brother, saying control of belly and tongue and exile will keep him alive.
610. 89.63Let your mouth speak what is in your heart.
611. 89.64God covers our faults as we cover our brother’s.
612. 89.65To learn the fear of God, stay near one who fears God.
613. 89.66Overcoming comfort and vainglory frees the monk from the world.
614. 89.67Poemen says our own wills are our demons; the real demons fight only saints like Moses.
615. 89.68God’s law for Israel was to abstain from anger, jealousy, hatred, and slander.
616. 89.69Poemen teaches mourning and almsgiving; then (saying 70) he urges double kindness to a fallen brother, telling of Timothy, who suffered the temptation of the brother he had expelled.
617. 89.71Like the Canaanite woman and Abigail, the soul that blames itself is loved by the Lord.
618. 89.72A widow mourning her family teaches Poemen the mourning a monk must have.
619. 89.73Do not measure yourself; cling to one who lives well.
620. 89.74John the Dwarf taught every visitor Paul’s hymn to love.
621. 89.75Through the fear of God Pambo had the Spirit dwell in him.
622. 89.76Poemen refuses to see his mother, promising she will see her sons in the next world.
623. 89.77The “lofty things” are self-justification.
624. 89.78Poemen answers heretics’ slander of the archbishop only by feeding them and sending them away.
625. 89.79Keep silent and do not compare yourself.
626. 89.80Do not trust your heart to one you are unsure of.
627. 89.81Humility brings rest anywhere.
628. 89.82Some shame carries the sin of fearlessness.
629. 89.83Self-will, comfort, and habit overthrow a man.
630. 89.84Silence brings rest everywhere.
631. 89.85Pior made a new beginning every day.
632. 89.86God who commands us to forgive seventy times seven will forgive the repentant much more.
633. 89.87Poemen answers with Antony’s word that God himself calls for comforting (praying for) his people.
634. 89.88Even the best keep most thoughts but yield some to the enemy.
635. 89.89Sisoes says some give the enemy nothing at all.
636. 89.90Poemen moves a hermit to free robbers he had handed over; then five more sayings follow on grumbling, letting dozing brothers rest, confessing blasphemous thoughts, God’s mercy, and self-blame.
637. 89.96One can spend a century in the cell without learning to live there.
638. 89.97The pure in heart see themselves as worse than a murderer and let self-blame swallow others’ faults.
639. 89.99Confessing “I have sinned” ends the self-accusation at once.
640. 89.100Poemen answers a brother who despises his inferiors with Paul’s image of vessels in a great house.
641. 89.101The enemy rejoices most over those who hide their thoughts.
642. 89.102Poemen holds up Joseph and Job as examples of enduring temptation to the end.
643. 89.103A community needs humble, obedient, and energetic members.
644. 89.104Poemen rules that a loan received as alms belongs to the lender and should be given away in his name if he refuses it.
645. 89.105Poemen never set his word above another elder’s.
646. 89.106Many Fathers were strong ascetics, but few had spiritual refinement.
647. 89.107Poemen tells Isaac that the watchful do not even notice a cock crowing.
648. 89.108Poemen and Anoub each defer to the other, and Poemen keeps silent in Anoub’s presence.
649. 89.109A devout vegetable seller tells the monks a parable of three friends: asceticism, chastity, and almsgiving; two more sayings follow.
650. 89.112Poemen reads the saying about selling one’s cloak for a sword as giving up comfort for the narrow way.
651. 89.113Poemen passes by a sinning brother without rebuking him.
652. 89.114Poemen warns against accusing even on the evidence of one’s senses, telling of a monk deceived by sheaves of wheat.
653. 89.115Poemen reads David’s lion and bear as anger cut off and lust crushed by labor.
654. 89.116Bearing insults and wrongs without retaliating is laying down one’s life for one’s neighbor.
655. 89.117A hypocrite teaches what he has not attained himself.
656. 89.118Anger at a brother is always without cause unless he separates one from God.
657. 89.119Weeping is the only way to redeem sins and acquire virtues.
658. 89.120Repentance is to sin no more.
659. 89.121People do not see their own wickedness, which lies behind them.
660. 89.122In every trouble, weep before God until he shows mercy.
661. 89.123Leave unprofitable friendships alone and they will fade.
662. 89.124Sin makes a man dead; good makes him live.
663. 89.125Poemen repeats Antony: take the blame for your faults and expect temptation to the end.
664. 89.126“Do not worry about tomorrow” is for the tempted: live one day at a time.
665. 89.127Only the healthy and passionless should teach others.
666. 89.128There is no point entering a craft without learning it.
667. 89.129All excess comes from demons.
668. 89.130As a builder gathers varied materials, take a little of every virtue.
669. 89.131Poemen would have pampered Nisterus’s difficult disciple, citing the beam and the speck.
670. 89.132Fasting and vigil kept the old monks from noticing trifles.
671. 89.133Many were strong, but few were stirred to zeal.
672. 89.134The missing virtue in the community is self-blame.
673. 89.135A watchful mind is all we need.
674. 89.136Poemen ascribes the psalm verse about companionship with the God-fearing to the Holy Spirit.
675. 89.137Simon tells a brother to keep watch over himself both inside and outside his cell.
676. 89.138Poemen pretends to sleep to hide his practice when Daniel comes to talk privately.
677. 89.139Do not pass on what you see and hear, for it stirs up the spiritual war.
678. 89.140Flee temptation twice, then turn and fight.
679. 89.141Poemen counsels Isaac to relax some of his strictness.
680. 89.142Poemen defines hatred of evil as hating one’s own sins and justifying one’s neighbor.
681. 89.143Keep company with one who has no will of his own.
682. 89.144In ecstasy Poemen was with Mary weeping at the cross.
683. 89.145Poemen likens persevering in heaviness to towing a boat, and self-blame to the stake that holds it in the dark.
684. 89.146Quench the enemy’s fire of thoughts with the water of throwing oneself before God.
685. 89.147Speech and silence are both good if for God’s sake.
686. 89.148Self-blame makes one’s brother seem precious; self-esteem makes him seem bad.
687. 89.149Listlessness attends every beginning but loses power once recognized.
688. 89.150Pambo fasted daily till evening, kept silence, and worked hard.
689. 89.151Theonas says grace stays with one who shares it; Poemen warns that the community requires giving up all control, and answers with a psalm of confession.
690. 89.154Do not even entertain thoughts of lust or slander; turn sharply from them.
691. 89.155Poemen calls the crying of children the voices of angels and refuses to leave.
692. 89.156Poemen gives steps for seeking reconciliation, ending by leaving it to God.
693. 89.157To teach a neighbor is to rebuke him.
694. 89.158Humble yourself rather than do your will; live where you do not harm your brother.
695. 89.160Fear God, pray, and do good to your neighbor.
696. 89.161The passions outlast the body like thorny roots.
697. 89.162Remembering one’s sins in the cell brings God’s help.
698. 89.163Befriend the self-disciplined, and even market business goes peacefully.
699. 89.164Let the mouth speak what the heart holds.
700. 89.165Steady practice and watchfulness keep us free of defilement.
701. 89.166Poemen laments the decline after Moses; then three sayings follow on keeping one’s order, living in the cell, and not pressing a debtor.
702. 89.170Poemen refuses meat at a meal lest the many brothers who follow him be scandalized.
703. 89.171Poemen counts himself fit to be cast where Satan is cast.
704. 89.172Turn your eyes from vanity, for license destroys souls.
705. 89.173Poemen does not intervene when his brothers fight, saying they will make peace and he was as if absent.
706. 89.174Lead brothers by example, not by commands.
707. 89.176A monk who keeps a boy with him despite passion is like a field eaten by worms.
708. 89.177Only good overcomes evil.
709. 89.178Controlling throat and belly overcomes the devil as David seized the lion’s throat.
710. 89.179Temptation shakes small and great; then (saying 180) Poemen returns to a troublesome younger brother who runs after them.
711. 89.181Poemen says the fear of God cannot coexist with stored delicacies; and (saying 182) that people are judged in the state in which death finds them.
712. 89.183Poemen speaks Greek miraculously to Syrian visitors, comparing God’s word to water wearing away stone.
713. 89.184Poemen says monks are to kill passions, not bodies.
714. 89.185Food, clothing, and sleep cannot be cut off, only reduced.
715. 89.186Eat bread and few vegetables, and do not seek supplies from family.
716. 89.187Poemen says Sisoes’ greatness cannot be told.
717. 90.1Pambo prayed not to be glorified, and God made his face too glorious to look at.
718. 90.2Pambo tells two brothers that fasting and almsgiving do not make a monk; a clear conscience toward one’s neighbor saves.
719. 90.3Pambo ranks obedience above fasting, poverty, and charity, since it renounces one’s own will.
720. 90.4Pambo weeps at an actress, both for her soul and for his lesser zeal to please God.
721. 90.5Pambo never regretted a word he spoke as a monk.
722. 90.6A monk’s garment should be too poor for anyone to steal.
723. 90.7Pambo tells laymen to greet monks for a blessing, for their mouths are holy.
724. 90.8Dying, Pambo says he lived by his own labor and regretted no word, yet goes to God as one who has not begun.
725. 90.9Pambo would not readily explain Scripture, professing ignorance.
726. 90.10One with a heart can be saved.
727. 90.11Monks should live in great asceticism with a clear conscience toward their neighbor.
728. 90.12Pambo’s face shone like Moses’ with Adam’s lost glory.
729. 90.13Pambo laughs at demons straining to carry a feather, mocking their weakness.
730. 90.14Pambo tells Theodore that mercy gives boldness before God.
731. 91.1Sisoes tells of the obedience of Athre and the humility of Hor, and defines exile as silence and detachment.
732. 92.1Pior works three harvests unpaid; when the employer is struck by God and repays him, Pior gives the money to the church.
733. 92.2Pior ate walking so as to treat food as incidental and feel no pleasure in it.
734. 92.3Pior carries his own sins behind him in a sack and his brother’s few in front to rebuke a council for judging.
735. 93.1Mastering a passion drives out the demon that accompanies it.
736. 94.1Pistamon counsels selling without haggling and keeping up handiwork calmly even if not needed.
737. 95.1Peter the Pionite accepts a little watered wine but judges himself for it as a luxury.
738. 95.2Peter teaches that a visitor’s talk is let in by one’s own questions, and that mourning must be made one’s own by long labor, like the slave who chooses lifelong service.
739. 95.3Peter sits among the elders so as to be the least, rather than be honored among the younger.
740. 95.4Give thanks, not boast, when God works through us.
741. 96.1An angel tells Paphnutius that because he judged no one, his name is in the book of life.
742. 96.2Paphnutius drinks wine at a robber’s sword-point and so wins the whole band to repentance.
743. 96.3The elders’ only counsel to Paphnutius was not to measure himself.
744. 96.4A monk who left to marry finds one wife a burden and returns to Paphnutius to become a proven monk.
745. 96.5Three elders tell a restless hermit, in increasingly simple terms, to stay in his cell.
746. 97.1Paul handles snakes and scorpions, explaining that purity restores Adam’s rule over creation.
747. 98.1Two quarrelsome brothers agree to bear with each other and live in peace.
748. 98.2Paul says night’s stillness suffices if the mind is watchful.
749. 99.1Paul warns that going out for small needs exposes a monk to demons; and he describes himself as sunk in mud, crying for mercy.
750. 99.3Paul spent Lent shut in with a little lentils and water, weaving and unweaving one basket.
751. 100.1Paul the Simple sees a fornicator enter church dark with demons and leave shining, converted by the reading of Isaiah.
752. 101.1Peter of Dios, though a priest, humbly stood behind others at prayer.
753. 102.1A Roman monk’s comforts scandalize an Egyptian peasant monk until the Roman reveals how much more he gave up.
754. 102.2An elder who expelled his disciple in anger is won by his patience and calls him father.
755. 103.1Rufus defines stillness as sitting in the cell in God’s fear, free of grudges and pride, the mother of virtues.
756. 103.2Rufus relates a vision ranking obedience above illness borne with thanks, hospitality, and solitude, and praises obedience.
757. 104.1Romanus never gave an order without resolving not to be angry if disobeyed.
758. 105.1Sisoes shames a vengeful brother by praying that God need no longer defend them.
759. 105.2Sisoes says three cups at a feast are not too many unless Satan is present.
760. 105.3Aged Sisoes refuses to leave the desert, the only place without women.
761. 105.4Sisoes was so absorbed that he could not remember whether he had eaten.
762. 105.5For thirty years Sisoes has prayed only to be guarded from his tongue, by which he still sins daily.
763. 105.6The passions stay because one keeps their pledge; give it back and they leave.
764. 105.7Sisoes, proud of ten months’ solitude, meets a hunter who has seen no one for eleven.
765. 105.8Sisoes accepts two cups of wine but refuses a third, warning of Satan.
766. 105.9Sisoes says that one of Antony’s thoughts would set him wholly on fire.
767. 105.10A father ready to drown his son at Sisoes’ command is stopped and becomes a proven monk through obedience.
768. 105.11Sisoes says Satan rages more as his time nears; then he wrestles God in prayer for his fallen disciple, and teaches that humility is greater than constant remembrance of God.
769. 105.14At his death Sisoes’ face shines as Antony, the prophets, the apostles, and Christ come for him.
770. 105.15Sisoes breaks his fast for guests despite a bishop’s concern for his reputation.
771. 105.16Sisoes says he lives off others like his baskets, and visitors are edified by his humility.
772. 105.17Sisoes tells Ammon not to prepare clever answers from Scripture but to gain purity of mind.
773. 105.18Sisoes unknowingly raises a dead boy by telling him to get up, and is grieved at the miracle.
774. 105.19Sisoes, who trusts God’s mercy, envies monks kept from sin by fear of hell.
775. 105.20Sisoes holds that wholehearted repentance is accepted by God even in three days.
776. 105.21Sisoes answers chattering visitors only to correct their assumption that he never eats.
777. 105.22Cut off each passion the moment it comes.
778. 105.23Sisoes answers with Daniel’s fast from desirable food.
779. 105.24Sisoes always kept his cell door shut.
780. 105.25Sisoes answers Arians only by having a book of Athanasius read aloud.
781. 105.26Aged Sisoes grieves at leaving the desert, where freedom of thought alone sufficed him.
782. 105.27Sisoes forbids his disciple to enter while he is occupied with God.
783. 105.28Sisoes left crowded Scetis for Antony’s mountain, where he stayed seventy-two years.
784. 105.29Do not command one who cares for you.
785. 105.30Sisoes tells of twelve monks who walked twelve miles astray rather than shame their guide.
786. 105.31Robbed by Saracens, Sisoes shares grains of barley from camel dung, keeping half for his brother.
787. 105.32Sisoes visits a sick elder on a fast day without breaking his fast.
788. 105.33An angel forbids Sisoes to hang over a cliff to defeat sleep.
789. 105.34Sisoes forbids killing even an attacker, teaching to blame trials on one’s sins and credit good to God.
790. 105.35Sisoes answers that he reads the New Testament and returns to the Old.
791. 105.36Sisoes of Petra says he lies down and rises in sin.
792. 105.37Sisoes hurried from church to his cell and was called possessed, though he was doing God’s work.
793. 105.38Sisoes tells a fallen brother to keep rising, since one departs in the state in which one is found.
794. 105.39Sisoes held that one should not do the work one enjoys.
795. 105.40Seek God himself, not his dwelling place.
796. 105.41Shame and fearlessness often lead to sin.
797. 105.42Silence and humility, with patient waiting on God, keep a monk standing.
798. 105.43Accept contempt, renounce your will, and you will have rest.
799. 105.44Each is tempted by his own desire.
800. 105.45Sisoes tells a brother to imitate what he sees rather than ask for words.
801. 105.46Sisoes refuses any other helper while his disciple is away.
802. 105.47Sisoes laments that he cannot find one man to speak with.
803. 105.48Monks forgo visiting Sisoes rather than risk contact with Meletian schismatics.
804. 105.49Dying, Sisoes asks the angels for time to repent, content even to groan a little over his soul.
805. 105.50Sisoes drives off a demon at the door by declaring himself the same Sisoes, well or ill.
806. 105.51Sisoes and his disciple tell each other their faults.
807. 105.52At Easter Sisoes agrees to eat bread, but nothing more, with the brothers.
808. 106.1Silvanus explains that eating out of courtesy does not end their own fast.
809. 106.2After a vision of many monks condemned and many laymen saved, Silvanus mourns and hides his face from the world.
810. 106.3Silvanus, found in ecstasy for hours, says he was caught up to see the glory of God.
811. 106.4Silvanus waters his garden with his face hooded so as not to be distracted by the trees.
812. 106.5Silvanus teaches a visitor who scorned manual work that Mary needs Martha.
813. 106.6Silvanus never admitted a thought that would anger God.
814. 106.7Silvanus gives a man his work in return for a donkey-load of bread.
815. 106.8Silvanus makes his monks move the garden fence back rather than enlarge their holdings.
816. 106.9Silvanus works as God’s slave and leaves his feeding to his master.
817. 106.10Woe to one whose reputation exceeds his deeds.
818. 106.11A true worker can begin anew every hour.
819. 106.12Silvanus’s face and body shone like an angel’s.
820. 107.1Simon climbs a palm tree and tells a visiting magistrate there is no anchorite there.
821. 107.2Simon sits eating bread and cheese at his gate so that a visiting magistrate despises him and leaves.
822. 108.1Sopatrus forbids women in the cell, apocryphal books, and disputes about the image of God.
823. 109.1A repentant sinner is better than a self-righteous man who has not sinned.
824. 109.2Sarmatas’ long fasts have given him only mastery over sleep.
825. 109.3Another elder explains that Sarmatas meant to eat and sleep only at the limit of need.
826. 109.4Sarmatas tells a brother to refuse his thoughts urging him to go out.
827. 110.1Serapion converts a prostitute by spending the night praying the whole Psalter for her; she becomes a recluse.
828. 110.2Serapion rebukes a brother whose shelf of books could have fed widows and orphans.
829. 110.3One who stands attentively before God, like a soldier at attention, cannot be frightened by the enemy.
830. 110.4Serapion exposes a brother’s false humility when he bristles at a gentle correction.
831. 111.1Serenus says the real test is keeping one’s rule outside the cell.
832. 111.2Serenus credits God, not his labor, with feeding him.
833. 112.1Bishop Spyridon finds thieves miraculously bound at his sheepfold, frees them, and gives them a ram.
834. 112.2Spyridon raises his dead daughter long enough for her to reveal where she hid a deposit.
835. 113.1Saio obeys even an order to steal, while his elder secretly returns the goods.
836. 114.1For thirteen years Sarah prayed not to be freed from temptation but for strength in it.
837. 114.2Sarah answers the defeated spirit of lust that Christ, not she, has conquered it.
838. 114.3Sarah lived sixty years by the river without looking at it.
839. 114.4Sarah answers anchorites who came to humble her that she is a woman by nature but not in her thoughts.
840. 114.5Sarah prays for a pure heart rather than to please all, and keeps death before her eyes at every step.
841. 114.7Even almsgiving done for human approval comes round to pleasing God.
842. 114.8Sarah recognizes Scetis monks by their choosing the rotten fruit.
843. 115.1Syncletica compares the hard beginning of the spiritual life to the smoke before a fire catches.
844. 115.2Monastic chastity must govern all the senses, not the body alone.
845. 115.3Prayer with fasting drives out evil thoughts like strong drugs repel venomous beasts.
846. 115.4Syncletica warns against the luxury of the rich, whose surfeit makes even honey tasteless.
847. 115.5Voluntary poverty is a perfect good for the able, strengthening the soul as washing strengthens cloth.
848. 115.6A monk or nun who moves from place to place grows cold like eggs abandoned by the bird.
849. 115.7Syncletica teaches that the devil’s trials, especially illness, purify sinners and perfect the righteous.
850. 115.8Illness does the work of fasting; enduring it with thanksgiving is the great asceticism.
851. 115.9Persevere through opposition like sailors who hold course, spreading the cross for a sail.
852. 115.10Merchants always want more; monks, owning nothing, want nothing for fear of God.
853. 115.11Imitate the humble tax collector and meek Moses so that the rock of the heart becomes a spring.
854. 115.12Teaching without first living the practical life ruins one’s hearers like a collapsing house.
855. 115.13Do not let anger outlast the day; hate the devil’s sickness, not the person.
856. 115.14The more one advances, the stronger the opponent.
857. 115.15Syncletica distinguishes true from demonic asceticism by its balance and steadiness.
858. 115.16In community, obedience is better than asceticism.
859. 115.17In community, steer by discernment and obey one’s spiritual father.
860. 115.18Syncletica explains the serpent’s wisdom and dove’s innocence.
861. 116.1Tithoes lowered his hands quickly in prayer lest he be rapt in ecstasy before others.
862. 116.2True exile is controlling one’s mouth.
863. 116.3The heart cannot be guarded while tongue and belly are unguarded.
864. 116.4Tithoes was blameless, like pure gold in the scales.
865. 116.5Tithoes, his mind still on his desert home, asks to be taken back to the mountain.
866. 116.6Tithoes apologizes for groaning in ecstasy before a brother.
867. 116.7Tithoes names self-control, prayer, and self-abasement as the road to humility.
868. 117.1Poemen foresees that a prostitute who gives alms will repent, and she does when Timothy speaks to her.
869. 118.1A proven monk terrifies lustful thoughts as a lion terrifies wild asses.
870. 118.2Fasting bridles the monk; without it he is like a lustful horse.
871. 118.3One who cannot curb his tongue in anger cannot master the passions.
872. 118.4Better to eat meat than to devour brothers by slander.
873. 118.5The slanderer is like the whispering serpent, ruining the hearer and himself.
874. 118.6Voluntary poverty is the monk’s treasure in heaven.
875. 118.7Meditate always on the kingdom of heaven and you will soon inherit it.
876. 118.8Obedience gives the monk boldness before the crucified Lord, who was obedient unto death.
877. 119.1A monk torn between Chalcedonians and their opponents fasts forty days until the Lord tells him he is right where he is, with the orthodox.
878. 119.2James fasts forty days in a cave against lust and is revived by holy communion brought by Phocas.
879. 120.1Felix says God has taken the gift of the word from the elders because hearers no longer practice it.
880. 121.1Philagrius returns a lost purse of a thousand coins, refuses a reward, and flees praise.
881. 122.1Phortas, though bedridden, refuses gifts not given for God’s sake and leaves his life to God.
882. 123.1Dying, Chomai warns against heretics and officials and urges giving over gathering.
883. 124.1Chaeremon lived far from church and water, carrying his supplies himself.
884. 125.1Pachomius’s disciples see in their pagan-born father proof that holiness is open to all who choose it.
885. 126.0The letter heading (Omega) of the printed collection, before the sayings of abba Hor.
886. 126.1Hor and Theodore abandon their building work, weeping at the thought of God’s sudden visitation.
887. 126.2Hor never lied, swore, cursed, or spoke needlessly.
888. 126.3Hor forbids worldly talk in his cell.
889. 126.4Hor refuses palm leaves another buyer had reserved, preferring to go without work for a year.
890. 126.5Hor says ill feeling is always mutual; and he refuses to receive a charitable count.
891. 126.6Hor tells Sisoes to imitate him in thinking himself lowest of all.
892. 126.8Hor and Theodore always began anew and gave thanks.
893. 126.9Humility is the monk’s crown.
894. 126.10Undeserved honor harms; the unhonored are glorified by God.
895. 126.11Answer proud thoughts by examining whether one has truly kept every commandment.
896. 126.12In every trial blame yourself and your sins, not others.
897. 126.13Hor warns against comparing oneself favorably to a brother, lest one fall through boasting.
898. 126.14Either flee people or play the fool before the world.
899. 126.15Confess slander to the one slandered, for slander is the soul’s death.