History of the Monks in Egypt 1

First, then, as the true foundation of our work, let us take John as the pattern of all good men; he alone would be truly more than enough to raise devout minds dedicated to God to the summit of virtue and to stir them to the heights of perfection. We saw him in the parts of the Thebaid, in the desert that lies next to the city of Lycus, dwelling on a rock of a steep mountain. The ascent to him was difficult, the entrance to his monastery blocked and shut, so that from the fortieth year of his age to the ninetieth, which he was then living when we saw him, no one entered his monastery. To those who came he let himself be seen through a window, and from there he gave them either the word of God for their building up or, if there was any comfort to give, his answers. No woman, however, ever came there, not even into his sight; and men came seldom, and at certain fixed times. He did allow a guest cell to be built outside, in which those coming from distant regions might rest a little; but he himself within, alone, free for God alone, ceased neither day nor night from converse with God and from prayer, pursuing with all purity of mind that which is divine and above every mind. For the more he withdrew from human cares and conversations, the nearer and closer God was to him. Indeed he had advanced in such sincerity of mind that he received from the Lord not only knowledge of present things but was also granted foreknowledge of things to come. For the Lord plainly gave him the grace of prophecy, so that he foretold the future not only to his fellow citizens and provincials, if they happened to ask, but often foretold also to the emperor Theodosius what outcome his wars would have, by what means he would win victory over the usurpers, and how many invasions of barbarian peoples he would suffer.

Once, when the people of the Ethiopians was attacking the Roman soldiery around Cyrene (which is the first city of the Thebaid on the side of Ethiopia), and had inflicted great slaughter on our men and carried off plunder, the Roman commander came to him, afraid to engage them because his soldiers were few and the enemy facing him a countless multitude. John named a fixed day and said: “Go without fear; for on the day I have said you will both overthrow the enemy and take spoils and recover the plunder.” When this had been fulfilled, he also foretold that the commander would be dear and acceptable to the emperor. But he held this grace of prophecy in such a way that he ascribed it more to those who asked than to his own merits; for he said that these things were foretold by the Lord not for his sake but for the sake of those who hear.

The Lord showed another very wonderful thing through him. A certain tribune, going to take command of soldiers, came to him and began to beg him to allow his wife to come to him; for he said she had endured many dangers only in order to see his face. He replied that it had never been his custom to see women, especially since he had shut himself in the monastery of that rock. The tribune persisted in begging, and began to assert that unless she saw him she would without doubt die of great sorrow. When he asked the same thing again and again and insisted that John would be the cause of his wife’s death, and that she would receive her ruin from the source from which she had hoped for salvation, the old man, seeing both his faith and his persistence, said: “Go; your wife will see me this night; yet she will not come here, but will stay in her own house and in her own bed.” After these words the man went down, turning over in his heart the ambiguity of the answer. And when he had told this also to his wife, the woman too was no less troubled by the uncertainty of the saying. But when the time for sleep came, the man of God was present in a vision and, standing beside the woman, said: “Your faith is great, O woman, and therefore I have come to satisfy your desire. Yet I warn you not to desire the bodily face of God’s servants, but to contemplate their deeds and acts in the spirit. For ‘it is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing.’ I am not righteous or a prophet, as you think; but because of your faith I interceded for you with the Lord, and he has granted you healing of all the diseases you suffer in your body. So from now on you will be well, both you and your husband, and all your house will be blessed. But you too, be mindful of the benefit God has conferred on you; fear the Lord always, and do not demand anything beyond what is due to you as your pay. Let it be enough for you, then, that you have seen me in sleep; seek no more.” When the woman woke, she told her husband what she had seen and heard, and described the man’s dress and face and all his marks. Her husband, amazed at this, went back to the man of God, gave thanks to God, and having received his blessing went on his way in peace.

At another time an officer of the soldiers came to him whose wife, pregnant, had been left by him in his house; and on the very day on which he had come to the blessed John she was giving birth and was in danger. Then the holy man of God said: “If you knew the gift of God, that a son has been born to you today, you would give thanks to the Lord. But know that the boy’s mother has been in danger; yet the Lord will be with her, and you will find her well. Hurry, then, and go back, and you will find the boy seven days old; and you will call his name John. Let him be brought up in your house for seven years without any pagan defilement; and when they are completed, hand him over to the monks to be taught holy and heavenly disciplines.”

Besides, to many who came to him, whether provincials or strangers, when the matter required it he revealed the secrets of their hearts; and if perhaps any sin had been committed by them in secret, he rebuked and reproved them privately and called them to amendment and repentance. He also foretold whether the river Nile would have abundance of water or scarcity. And if perhaps some blow and chastisement from God was threatening because of men’s offence, he likewise warned in advance and pointed out the cause for which the punishment was being brought. He also gave healings and cures of bodies to those who asked, in such a way that he avoided all boasting from it. For he did not allow the sick to be brought to him, but blessed oil and gave it, and those anointed with it were made well of whatever infirmity they had. Once the wife of a certain senator was blinded. She begged her husband to bring her to the man of God. When her husband answered her that it was not his custom to see women, she asked him only to tell him the cause of her weakness and to beg him to pray for her. When her husband had carried the message to him, he prayed, blessed oil, and sent it to her. Touching her eyes with it for three days, she recovered her sight and gave thanks to God.

But there are many deeds of his that it would take long to tell. So, leaving aside for now what we learned by hearing, let us come to what we saw with our own eyes. There were seven of us who came to him together. When we had greeted him and he had received us with every joy, he spoke graciously to each one of us; and he was asked by us to give us prayer and blessing together (for this is the custom in Egypt, that whenever brothers arrive they are at once joined to one another by prayer). He asked, then, whether there was any cleric among us. When we all said no, he looked at each one and perceived that there was one among us who was of this order but wished to hide it; for he was a deacon, and apart from one alone who was in his confidence, even his own companions on the journey did not know it. For being about to see such great men, he wished out of humility to conceal the honour of his rank, so as to be found lower in order than those to whom he judged himself inferior in merit. When holy John saw him, though he was younger than the others, he pointed at him with his finger and said: “This man is a deacon.” And when he still tried to deny it, John took him by the hand, kissed him, and said: “Do not deny the grace of God, my son, lest you fall into evil in place of good, into a lie in place of humility. For a lie must be avoided in every way, whether it seems to be told for evil or even for good; for every lie is not from God, but, as the Saviour says, is from the evil one.” He, hearing this, accepted it and bore his gentle rebuke calmly.

When we had offered prayer to the Lord, after it was over one of our brothers, who was severely afflicted with a tertian fever, asked the man of God to heal him. He said to him: “You wish to throw off something that is necessary for you. For as bodies are washed of dirt with soda or other cleansing things of that kind, so souls are purified by sicknesses and other chastisements of that kind.” And after he had discoursed to us at length on these things with mystical teaching, he nevertheless blessed oil and gave it to him; anointed with it, the sick man at once vomited up all the excess of bile, and restored to full health walked back on his own feet to the guest house. After this he ordered that the duties of kindness and hospitality be fulfilled toward us and that care be taken of our bodies; he himself, neglectful of himself, was concerned for us. For by long habit and continual custom he could now take food only in the evening, and little of it. For he was worn thin and his body dried up by abstinence; his hair and beard were sparse and thin, as if from great weakness, since no sufficient food nourished it and no richer moisture refreshed it. For even then, when he was already, as we said above, in his ninetieth year, he observed the rule of taking no food prepared by fire.

After the duties of hospitality, then, he came back and told us to sit, and only then asked where we had come from and why, though he had already received us joyfully and with all gladness as his own children. When we answered that we had come to him from Jerusalem for the benefit and progress of our souls, so that what report had long since brought to our hearing we might now see with our own eyes (since what the eye has seen usually clings more firmly in memory than what the ear has heard), then blessed John, with a most peaceful face and as if smiling, answered us thus out of the abundance of his joy: “I greatly wonder, dearest sons, that you have undertaken the labour of so long a journey, when you can see nothing in us worthy of it. For we are humble and small men, having nothing in us that should be sought out or admired. And yet even if there were something in us, as you think, is it anything like what you read in God’s prophets and apostles? They are read in all God’s churches for this very purpose, that people may not seek examples of life from far-off and foreign places, but that each may have at home and with himself what he ought to imitate. So I greatly wonder at the intent of your labour and zeal, that for the sake of your souls’ progress you were willing to cross such great regions and undergo such great labours, while laziness and sloth so bind us that we do not dare to go out of our cells. Nevertheless, since you think there is something in us from which you ought to profit, this must first be pointed out to you: that this very coming of yours to us, and your undertaking so great a labour to see us, should not have the aim of any boasting, so that each of you would wish not so much to advance in virtue of soul as to put himself forward and boast because he has seen those whom others know only by hearsay.

“The vice of boasting is grave and very dangerous, because it throws souls down even from the very summit of perfection; and therefore I want you to beware of this first of all. The form of this evil is twofold. For it happens to some at the very beginning of their conversion, when they have spent a little on abstinence or have given some money piously to the poor; and although they ought to regard it as having thrown away what hindered them, they act and think as though they were more eminent than those to whom they gave something. The other form of boasting is when someone who has reached the height of virtue ascribes it not wholly to God but to his own labours and efforts, and while he seeks glory from men, loses the glory that is from God. For this reason, little children, let us flee in every way the vice of boasting, lest we incur the fall that the devil incurred.

“Besides this, the greatest care must be given to our heart and thoughts. We must watch that no craving, no wicked will, no vain desire, nothing that is not according to God, fixes its roots in our heart. For from such roots there sprout at once vain and useless thoughts, and they are so troublesome that they do not stop even when we pray, nor are they ashamed when we stand in God’s sight and offer prayers for our salvation; but they carry our mind off captive, and while in body we seem to stand at prayer, in sense and thought we wander and are drawn away in different directions. If, then, there is anyone who thinks he has renounced the world and the works of the devil, it is not enough to have renounced with the mouth, so as to have abandoned possessions and estates and the other business of the world, unless he has also renounced his own vices and thrown away useless and vain pleasures. For these are what the Apostle speaks of: ‘vain and harmful desires, which plunge a man into destruction.’ This, then, is to have renounced the devil and his works. For the devil creeps into our heart through the occasion of some vice and the entrance of a wicked will, because vices are on his side, as virtues are from God. If, then, there are vices in our heart, when their prince the devil comes, they give place to him as to their own author and bring him in as into his own possession. And that is why such hearts can never have peace, never quiet, but are always troubled, always held fast, and are weighed down now by vain gladness, now by useless sorrow; for they have within them the worst of inhabitants, to whom they have made a place to enter through their passions and vices.

“On the other hand, the mind that has truly renounced the world, that is, that has cut off and amputated every vice from itself and has left the devil no entrance to it, that restrains anger, represses rage, drives out lying, detests envy, and does not allow itself not only not to slander its neighbour but not even to think evil of him or suspect him, that counts its brother’s joys its own and reckons his sorrow its own sorrow: the mind, then, that observes these things and things like them opens a place in itself to the Holy Spirit. And when he has entered and enlightened it, then joys are always there, always gladness, always love, patience, long-suffering, goodness, and all the fruits of the Spirit spring up. And this is what the Lord said in the Gospel: ‘A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.’ For the tree is known by its fruits.

“There are some who seem to have renounced the world, yet have no care for purity of heart, nor to cut away vices and passions from their soul and to order their character; they are eager only to see one of the holy fathers and to hear some words from them, so that, telling them to others, they may boast that they learned this from this man or that. And if perhaps by hearing or learning they have gathered a little knowledge somewhere, they at once want to become leaders and to teach, not what they have done but what they have heard and seen, and they despise the rest. They aspire to the priesthood and try to thrust themselves into the clergy, not knowing that it is a lesser condemnation if someone strong in virtues does not dare to teach others than if someone weighed down by passions and vices teaches others about virtues. So, my little children, we do not say that the clerical office or the priesthood is to be fled in every way, nor again sought in every way; but effort must be made that vices be driven from us and the virtues of the soul be acquired. It must be left to God’s judgment whom he wishes, and whether he wishes, to take to himself for the ministry or the priesthood. For ‘it is not the one who has thrust himself forward, but the one whom the Lord has taken up, who is approved.’

“But the chief work of a monk is to offer pure prayer to God, having nothing reprehensible in his conscience, as the Lord also says in the Gospel: ‘When you stand to pray, forgive your brothers from your hearts if you have anything against them; for unless you forgive your brothers, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive you.’ If, then, as we said above, we stand before God with a pure heart and free from all those vices and passions we mentioned above, we shall be able, as far as is possible, even to see God, and when we pray to direct the eye of our heart to him and to see the invisible with the mind, not the body, with the understanding of knowledge, not with the sight of the flesh. For let no one think that he can behold the divine substance itself as it is, so as to fashion in his heart some appearance or image of it like the image of some body. Let no form be thought of in God, no circumscription, but a sense and a mind that can indeed be perceived and can touch the affection of the mind, yet cannot be comprehended, described, or told. And therefore one must approach the Lord with all reverence and fear, and so direct the gaze of the mind toward him as always to perceive that he is above everything of splendour, brightness, radiance, and majesty that the human mind can conceive. And this we have said on condition that you are a pure mind, not taken up with any filth of a wicked will. And therefore those who seem to renounce the world and follow God must above all give their effort to this, as it is written: ‘Be still, and know that I am the Lord.’ If, then, he has known God, as far as is possible for a man, then at last he will also take in the knowledge of the other things that exist, and will recognize the mysteries of God; and the purer the mind in him, the more God reveals to him and shows him his secrets. For he now becomes God’s friend, like those of whom the Saviour said: ‘I no longer call you servants, but friends’; and whatever he asks of him, God grants as to a dear friend. The angelic powers themselves, too, and all the divine mysteries love him as God’s friend and attend to his requests. And this is the one whom neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor any other creature separates from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

“And therefore, beloved, since you have chosen this, to please God and to come to his love, take care to become strangers to all boasting, to every vice of the soul, to all bodily delights. And do not think that bodily delights are only those which men of the world enjoy; for an abstinent man, whatever he takes with craving must be reckoned a delight, even if it is something cheap and such as is commonly used by the abstinent. Even water itself, or bread, if it is taken with craving, that is, not to satisfy the body’s need but the soul’s desire, is counted for the abstinent man as the vice of delight. For in all things the soul must grow accustomed to being without vice. That is why the Lord, wishing to teach the soul to resist its desires and pleasures, said: ‘Enter by the narrow gate; for wide and broad is the way that leads to death, but narrow and strait is the way that leads to life.’ The way of the soul is wide, then, when it satisfies any desire of its own; but it is narrow when it fights against its pleasures.

“A more secluded dwelling and a solitary life are very useful for obtaining these things, because sometimes, on the occasion of brothers arriving and the frequent coming and going, the reins of abstinence and frugality are loosened, and through such occasions one comes little by little into the habit and use of delights; and thus sometimes even men already perfect are caught. That is why David said: ‘Lo, I fled far away and stayed in the wilderness; I waited for him who would save me from faintness of spirit and from the storm.’”

After holy John had discoursed to us profitably at length about the vice of boasting and very many other things, he finally added: “I will tell you also what happened recently to one of our brothers, so that earlier examples may make you more cautious. There was a monk among us, living in this nearby desert, whose dwelling was a cave: a man of the utmost abstinence, seeking his daily food by the labour of his hands, persevering in prayer day and night, and flourishing in all the virtues of the soul. But elated by his happy successes, he began to trust as it were in his own progress and to ascribe what he had achieved not to God but to himself. The tempter, seeing this presumption of soul, at once approaches and lays his snares. One day toward evening he forms the appearance of a beautiful woman wandering through the desert, who, as if weary after great toil, came to the door of the monk’s cave, pretending to be exhausted and worn out, threw herself inside, and falling at the man’s knees begged him to have pity on her. ‘Night,’ she said, ‘has overtaken me, unhappy woman, hiding in the desert. Let me rest in a corner of your cell, lest I become prey to the beasts of the night.’ At first, under the pretext of pity, he received her into the cave, asking what reason she had for wandering in the desert. She makes up a reason quite carefully, and meanwhile weaves the poisons of flattery and the venom of allurement through the whole texture of her story, showing herself now pitiable, now worthy of protection. With the elegance and sweetness of her speech she bends the man’s mind and turns it to desire for her with seductive love. Now among softer conversations jests and laughter are mixed; her wanton hand too reaches out to his chin and beard, as if out of reverence, and then strokes his neck softly and caresses his throat. What more? At last she leads the soldier of Christ captive. For at once he began to be disturbed within himself and to surge with the waves of lust, not at all mindful of his past labours, not at all of his profession and purpose. He bargains with the craving of his heart, and in the secret places of his thoughts makes a compact with false pleasure. The fool inclines his flanks and becomes ‘like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding.’ And when he was already trying to enter obscene embraces, she, letting out a most foul howl in a dreadful voice, slipped like the thin shadow she was through the hands of the one embracing her, and left him, chasing the empty air with shameful motions, with the foulest mockery. Then a multitude of demons, gathered in the air for this very spectacle, raised a great shout with a cackle of reproach: ‘O you who exalted yourself to heaven, how have you been plunged down to hell? Learn, then, that whoever exalts himself will be humbled.’

“Then, as if out of his mind, unable to bear the shame of his deception, he was deceived more gravely by himself than he had been deceived by the demons. For though he ought to have restored himself and renewed the contest, and to have wiped out the guilt of his former elation by making amends, with tears and the fruits of humility, he did not do this, but despairing of himself, as the Apostle said, ‘gave himself up to all impurity and iniquity.’ For he went back to the life of the world, having become the prey of demons. For he fled the sight of all the saints, so that no one could call him back from the precipice by saving warnings. For if he had been willing to return to his former life of abstinence, he would without doubt have recovered both his place and his grace.

“Now hear what was done concerning another man, tempted in a similar way, but with a temptation that did not pour out to a similar end. There was a man in this nearby city leading a most shameful life through every crime, so that he was considered most notorious in wickedness. At one time, pricked to the heart by God’s mercy, he was converted to repentance, and shutting himself in a tomb, he washed away the pollutions of his former crimes with fountains of tears, lying prostrate on his face day and night, not daring even to lift his eyes to heaven, or to utter a word and name the name of God, but he persevered in groans and weeping alone, and like one buried alive he sent up as it were from hell itself the bellowing and groaning of his heart. When a week had passed with him in this state, the demons came to him by night in the tomb, shouting and saying: ‘What is this you are doing, most impure and most wicked man? After you have been sated with every filth and every impurity, do you now want to come forth chaste and devout? And after you have grown old in crimes, and your strength is no longer enough to blot out your misdeeds, do you now want to seem a Christian, and modest, and penitent? As though any other place could now be given you, glutted with evils, than the one that is owed you with us! You are one of us; you can no longer be anything else. Come back, then, rather come back to us; and do not waste the time that remains to you in enjoying pleasure. We are preparing abundant delights, we are preparing the noblest harlots, and all such things as can restore to you the flower of most pleasing youth. Why do you wear yourself out with vain and empty torments? Why do you hand yourself over to punishments before the time? For what else will you suffer in hell than what you are now procuring for yourself? If punishment delights you, wait a little and you will find it ready. Meanwhile enjoy our gifts, which you always thought sweet and pleasant.’ While they reproached him with these and many more things of the kind, he lay motionless, not even turning his hearing to them, nor answering at all with any word. And when they repeated the same things more often, and other harsher things, and he did not move at all, the demons, falling into rage when they saw their words despised, set about wearing him out with blows, and left him half dead, tortured with many punishments. Yet in all these great torments he could not be moved even from the place where he had lain down for prayer. The next day some of his people, seeking him merely out of kindness, found him affected by incredible punishments; and asking the cause, when they had learned it, they begged him to allow himself to be carried back to his own house to be cared for. He refused and stayed in the same place. Then on the following night too the demons returned and tortured him with heavier blows. But not even so would he be moved from the place, saying that it was better to suffer death than to obey the demons any longer. Nonetheless on the third night a multitude of demons gathered, and rushing on him without any pity wore him out with every punishment and torment. And when his body had already failed under the tortures, his last breath still resisted the command of the demons. When the wicked ones saw this, they cried out with a loud voice: ‘You have won, you have won!’ And at once, as if put to flight by some power from heaven, they departed headlong, and never again aimed anything of their art or wickedness at him. He himself advanced so far in the virtues of the soul, and became so adorned in character, and filled with the power of all divine grace, that this whole region regarded him as if fallen from heaven and believed him to be one of the number of the angels, almost all saying together and with one voice: ‘This is the change of the right hand of the Most High.’ How many, by his example, who had already despaired of themselves, returned again to the hope of salvation and dared to expect the amendment of themselves of which they had previously despaired? How many, by admiration of him, were drawn back from the very hell of sins and restored to a disposition of virtue? For when he had been converted by so great a change, all things seemed possible to all. For not only did amendment of character and the taking up of virtues flourish in him, but much grace of God was also conferred on him. For the signs and wonders done by him testified how much merit he had with the Lord. So humility and conversion furnish the material of all good things; elation and despair are the cause of ruin and death.

“To escape the dangers of falls, and to acquire God’s grace and to grasp a clearer knowledge of the Godhead itself, a more secluded life and dwelling in the inner desert is very useful. I think I shall teach you this better not so much by words as by facts themselves and examples. There was a monk who lived in this desert, which is more inward than the others. When he had persevered for many years in abstinence, and advanced in time had now nearly reached old age, adorned with every flower of the virtues and raised high by the greatness of all continence, while he served God diligently with prayers and hymns, the Lord prepares rewards for him as for his veteran soldier, since while still in the body he was performing the duties of a bodiless life after the fashion of the angels; and judging him worthy to be provided with heavenly rations in the desert, who was awaiting the heavenly King in wakeful watches. God, then, wishing to reward his faithful purpose even in this world, took the care of his daily food into the solicitude of his own providence. For when the need of nature called for the use of food, entering his cave he would find bread placed on the table, of wonderful sweetness and wonderful whiteness; refreshed by it, and giving thanks to the divine goodness, he would turn again to hymns and prayers. Divine revelations, too, came to him, and many warnings from God about things to come. Placed, then, in such great progress, because he began to glory as if in his own merits and called the gift of the heavenly benefit a debt owed to his life, at once a small sloth of soul creeps into him, so small that he could not notice it. After this a greater negligence grew, so that he now became slower to the hymns and rose more sluggishly to prayer. The psalms too were not sung by him with the watchfulness of before; but when he had performed a little of his accustomed service, his soul, as if wearied with too much toil, hurried to rest, because his mind, having become reprobate, had fallen from higher things to lower, and his thoughts were sweeping him over various precipices. For there was already in his heart a certain secret, shameful, and abominable thought; yet his former habit, as when the current of water still carries a boat by its earlier impetus even after the rowing has stopped, likewise drew the man to his accustomed duties. For that reason he still seemed to stand in his place. When, then, after his prayers he looked for food in the evening as usual, entering the place where he was accustomed to eat, he found bread placed on the table as usual; refreshed by it, he took no care to amend what was turning over in his heart, nor did he perceive the damage of his change, but did not understand that one who despises small things will fall little by little. Meanwhile, when he was now goaded by the heavy fire of lust and, inflamed with shameful desire, was being swept back again to the world, that day he restrained himself and performed the usual services of hymns and prayers according to custom; and going in to take food, he did find bread placed on the table, but somewhat dirtier. He was astonished and became sad, for he understood that this kind of portent concerned him; yet he took the food and was refreshed. After the third day he began to be driven by goads threefold; for the image of a woman had taken possession of his thoughts, as if she were already present and with him and reclining with him, whom he seemed both to embrace and to have laid beneath him for shameful uses. Yet the next day he still went out to the usual duties of psalmody and prayer, but he stood with wandering eyes and a captive mind. And when, going in as usual in the evening, he looked for food, he did find bread on the table, but very dirty and very dry, and as if gnawed all round by mice or dogs. Then when he saw this, he groaned and shed tears, but not so much from the heart, nor so abundant, as could quench the flame of so great a fire. Nevertheless he took food, but neither as much as he wished nor of the kind he was used to, while meanwhile his thoughts surround him on every side like a barbarian cohort and hurl weapons at him from every side, and drag him back bound and captive to the world.

“Rising, then, he began to journey by night through the desert and to make for the city. But when day came, the city was still far off. Being scorched by the fiercest heat and wearied in the desert, he began to look round with his eyes on every side and to search whether there was a monastery anywhere nearby; and when he caught sight of a cell of some brothers, he made for it to rest with them. When the servants of God perceived that he was there, they at once ran out to meet him and, receiving him like an angel of God, bowed before him, washed his feet, invited him to prayer, set a table, and fulfilled all the duties of love according to the divine command. But when he had been refreshed and had rested a little, they began according to custom to ask of him, as of a most learned and renowned father, a word of edification, and to seek counsels of salvation. They asked him also how one could escape the devil’s snares, or, if ever he cast shameful thoughts into the mind, how they could be driven out and thrown off. Then he, when he was compelled to give counsel to the brothers, to teach them the way of salvation, and to speak about the snares of the demons which they lay for God’s servants, taught them fully and sufficiently, but kindled in himself the goads of compunction; and coming back to himself he said: ‘How is it that I warn others and am myself deceived? Or how do I correct others when I do not amend myself? Come then, wretch, do first yourself what you teach others to do.’ And when he had used such rebukes against himself and had understood that he had been miserably tripped up, he took leave of the brothers and at once betook himself at a very swift pace to the desert, and returned to the cave from which he had gone out, throwing himself down before the Lord in prayer and saying: ‘Unless the Lord had helped me, my soul would soon have dwelt in hell.’ And again: ‘I was almost in all evil’, and ‘they almost made an end of me on the earth.’ In him was fulfilled what Scripture says: ‘A brother helping a brother will be exalted like a fortified and strong city. A brother who helps a brother is like a firm city, and judgments like the bars of cities.’ After this, then, he remained all his life in mourning and tears, seeing that he had lost the benefit of the heavenly table granted him from God; for he began again to eat his bread in labour and in the sweat of his face. He shut himself up in the cave, and lying in sackcloth and ashes he remained mourning and weeping in prayer until an angel of the Lord stood by him and said to him: ‘The Lord has accepted your repentance and has been reconciled to you; but beware lest you be elated again and deceived. Brothers whom you yourself taught will come to you, bringing you blessings; do not refuse to accept them, and taking food with them, give thanks to your God.’

“I have told you these things, my little children, so that you may know both how great a firmness there is in humility and how very great a ruin in elation. That is why our Saviour taught us the first beatitude about humility, saying: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ At the same time I tell such examples so that you may be more cautious, lest you be led astray by demons in the subtlety of thoughts. For this reason too this rule is observed among the monks: that if anyone comes to them, whether man or woman, old or young, unknown or known, before everything prayer is made and the name of the Lord is invoked; because if it is some transformation of a demon, as soon as the prayer is made it will flee. And if the demons themselves suggest anything to your thoughts for which you ought to be praised and exalted, do not consent to them; but then humble yourselves the more in the sight of the Lord and count yourselves as nothing, when they suggest something to you about pursuing praise. Indeed demons have often led me astray by night too, and have allowed me neither to pray nor to rest, suggesting certain fantasies and thoughts to my senses through the whole night. But in the morning, as if with a kind of mockery, they prostrated themselves before me, saying: ‘Forgive us, Abba, because we caused you toil all night.’ But I answered them: ‘Depart from me, all you who work iniquity,’ and do not tempt the servant of the Lord.

“You too, then, little children, love quiet and silence, and give your effort to knowledge, and exercise yourselves so that by frequent conference you may present your mind pure to God, lest your prayers be hindered before God. For although those also do a good work, and have an approvable conscience, who, placed among people of the world, exercise themselves in good works and occupy themselves with devout and holy acts, whether practising hospitality, or serving in ministries of love, or carrying out works of mercy and visitation and other such works, in which some good men always contribute something, yet keep themselves chaste: these, then, are approved, and very much approved, who please God in good acts and are workers of God’s commandments who need not be ashamed. But nevertheless all these things involve earthly acts and are concerned with corruptible matters. But the one who toils in the exercise of the mind and cultivates spiritual senses within himself must be judged far above them. For he prepares a place within himself where the Holy Spirit may dwell, and taking a kind of forgetfulness of earthly things, he bears care for heavenly and eternal things. For he sets himself always before the sight of God, and casting behind his back all concerns for present things, he is bound by the warmth of divine desire alone, and placed in the praises of God he cannot be satisfied with hymns and psalms day and night.”

These and many other things like them blessed John spoke to us for three continuous days, and refreshed and renewed our souls. When we began to wish to depart from him, he gave us his blessings and said: “Go in peace, little children. But I want you to know this, that today the victories of the devout emperor Theodosius over the usurper Eugenius have been announced at Alexandria. It is necessary, then, that Theodosius himself also ends his life by his own death not long after.” And when we had set out from him, we found these things done just as he had foretold. A few days later some brothers followed us and announced to us that holy John himself had fallen asleep in peace. His death had been like this. For three days, they said, he allowed no one to come in to him, and kneeling in prayer he gave up his spirit, and so went to the Lord, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.