John the Hermit

CONCERNING ST. JOHN THE HERMIT, NEAR LYCOPOLIS IN EGYPT.

IN THE YEAR 393.

John the Hermit, near Lycopolis in Egypt (Saint)

[1] First in the Thebaid, on the western bank of the river, the nome takes its appellation from Lycopolis, the city of wolves, which was the homeland of John the hermit and on a nearby mountain gave him the convenience of a solitary life: Name in the Martyrologies John, I say, the Lycopolitan, as he is surnamed in the title of the Life to be produced below, and commended for true sanctity from the writings of Saints Jerome and Augustine, and to be found in almost all Latin manuscript and printed Martyrologies which did not long precede the times of Ado and Usuard: which I add because the Martyrology of St. Jerome and other more ancient ones derived from it nowhere mention him. The genuine Bede is also silent for this day; but whoever filled his gaps in the Dijon autograph wrote thus: "In Egypt, St. John the Hermit." The same is found in five ancient manuscripts: the Trier of St. Maximin, the Barberini of Cardinal Francis, the Vallicellian of the Oratorian Fathers, and the twofold Vatican: to which can be added the Monte Cassino, content with the expression of the name alone without mention of Egypt. with a eulogy But in order that we should not remain uncertain among several others of the same name praised in the Lives of the Fathers, the aforesaid Ado and Usuard have helped, whom other more recent Martyrologists have followed, and most recently Baronius, the reviser of the Roman Martyrology, most of them in almost the same words. In Ado it reads thus: "In Egypt, of the Blessed John the hermit, a man of wondrous sanctity, who, filled also with the prophetic spirit, predicted to the most Christian Emperor Theodosius the greatest victories over tyrants." Usuard begins thus: "In Egypt, the deposition of St. John, etc." The Roman edition adds the names of the tyrants, Maximus and Eugenius.

[2] All these in composing the eulogy thus seem to have looked to this passage of Augustine, book 5 of the City of God, chapter 26, where he praises the aforesaid Emperor, Concerning the predicted victories of Theodosius in 388. because in the straits of his cares he did not lapse into sacrilegious curiosities but sent to John, established in the Egyptian desert (whom he had learned by growing fame to be a servant of God full of the spirit of prophecy), and received from him the announcement of victory: namely, when about to fight against Maximus, whom the slaughter of Gratian and the success in great affairs that followed had made terrible, and the more glorious victory of Theodosius over him, twice won with heaven's favor, was gained in the tenth year of his reign, the year of Christ 388; which victory was shortly afterward confirmed by the capture and death of Maximus himself. The truthfulness of John in predicting future successes was again proved by the fifth year after these events, and 393. when the same Theodosius, taking up arms against Eugenius, as Rufinus writes in book 12 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 32, first inquired the will of God through the monk John, having sent, as Sozomenus would have it, Eutropius, the one who after Rufinus was the chief figure in the Empire under Arcadius: for then he who had predicted the first bloodless victory over Maximus, also promised this one, though not without a very great shedding of blood on both sides.

[3] But what he foreknew before it happened was not hidden from John on the very day when it was first announced at Alexandria; And the death of the Emperor, but he revealed it to the Brothers who had come to him (as we shall see at the end of the Life), adding that not long afterward the Emperor would end his life by his own natural death. And since he said this in the month of September (on the eighth before the Ides of which Socrates, book 5, chapter 24, writes the battle was fought), in the year of the common Era 394, Theodosius died in the year immediately following, within the fifth month after the victory, on the seventeenth before the Kalends of February. But John himself did not long survive either, since it is established from Evagrius that he died in the same September in which the battle had been fought, or in the following October. For he says thus: "When we had departed from him, we found that these things, namely what pertained to the victory, had been done exactly as he said: which was preceded by the death of the Saint himself; but after a few days certain brothers followed us, announcing to us that the same St. John had rested in peace."

[4] Wherefore, as certain as it is that the twenty-seventh of March was not the day of his deposition, although Usuard so wrote and it is read in the Boeddeken Passionale that John delivered up his spirit on the sixth before the Kalends of April, perhaps October 17, on which he is celebrated by the Egyptians. it seems to us equally probable that the proper day of his death is still honored among the Copts, namely the twentieth of the month of Baba, which corresponds to the seventeenth day of October, and is noted in the Coptic Martyrology (of which six manuscript months exist at Rome in the Maronite College of our Society) in these words: "The death of John the little hermit": for also in the Coptic calendar in Selden's On the Synedria of the Hebrews, page 381, the same day is noted as that of "the holy Father John." But a scruple is raised because in another calendar of the same people in the same author, page 363, the "Martyrdom of John" is read on that day: from which one might suspect that the John indicated here is the one whom we shall show was ordered to be killed with forty others in Egypt by Maximian, and is celebrated on September 20: since one month could easily have crept in for another. We therefore wrote to Rome to obtain the eulogy as it exists in the same manuscript, from which it would have been easy to determine something certain: but the answer was that the effort to find it had been in vain.

[5] Whether also by the Greeks in December: Meanwhile we rightly marvel that of this man, so celebrated among all the Greek historians who treated of the deeds of Theodosius, no mention at all is found in the Greek calendars. For what Baronius wrote in the notes to the Roman Martyrology, that the Greeks treat of him on the Ides of December, is evidently in part an error of memory and in part of a hasty pen: for the Menologion of the Greeks, published by Canisius, which alone he used, on that day

that is, on December 13, says not a word about any John; and although on the third day it has John, Heraclemon, Andrew, and Theophilus, who withdrawing into the interior desert, lived and departed there with great sanctity, it teaches however that these were natives of Oxyrhynchus: but Oxyrhynchus (to write correctly with Ptolemy) is distant from Lycopolis by fifty thousand paces, and between them the whole Hermopolitan nome intervenes: so that this John, whoever he is, is entirely different from our John.

[6] Two authors especially recorded his Life in writing: Evagrius in the Lives of the Fathers, rendered into Latin by his disciple Rufinus of Aquileia, chapter 1, and Palladius, Life written by Evagrius and Palladius: Bishop of Helenopolis, from the school of the same Evagrius, in chapter 43 of the Lausiac History, "Concerning John of Lycopolis," in a text so similar in almost every single paragraph that the disciple may seem not merely to have heard from his master what he professes, but almost to have transcribed it, with additions of things that had been done privately and personally between himself and John. Concerning Evagrius we have the testimony of Jerome to Ctesiphon against the Pelagians, who speaks thus and uncovers the cunning of the Origenist writer in these words: "He placed one John at the beginning of his book, who was undoubtedly both Catholic and holy, so that through his occasion he might introduce into the Church the rest whom he had placed there as heretics: according to the saying of Lucretius, 'When doctors try to give children loathsome wormwood, they first touch the rims of the cups with the sweet and golden liquid of honey.'"

[7] However, just as most people in the West read the remaining Greek books of Evagrius throughout the East, widely received even by the orthodox: and in Latin translation by his disciple, suspecting no fraud under such a pretext and with examples of such great virtue, in Jerome's time: so also the Canons Regular of the monastery of Boeddeken in the diocese of Paderborn formerly transcribed the Life of John from there into their Passionales for public reading, from whose distinguished manuscript codex, containing the Saints of the month of March, our Joannes Gamansius transmitted it to us: whence we could have given it here, had we not judged it better to use the words of Palladius rather than of Evagrius: both because, as we have already said, he added certain things specially his own to what had been related by his master; and because he expressed certain more minute circumstances which Evagrius neglected: and so we use Palladius, who, having been praised by St. John Damascene as having most truthfully described the miracles which the great and wonder-working Macarius performed, can with similar truthfulness be believed to have written given here from Palladius both what he saw with his own eyes in John the hermit and heard from him, and those things for which besides the testimony of Evagrius he appears to have had as witnesses also his fellow disciples who had gone as companions of the master to Egypt to see John.

[8] Although we confess that these were infected with Origenist errors, and therefore wish that we might be able to give us the Saint's life from a purer source, Evagrius' disciple, nothing prevents us from following these authors in the present case, insofar as they have truly Catholic writers agreeing with them regarding the certainty of the sanctity that is commended; and all the more securely as it is less likely that Evagrius wished to lie about a man most well known throughout the whole East, and this in that work to which in its entirety, in Jerome's opinion, he wished to give credibility by beginning with this narrative; for unless this were such as to contain things then commonly known and believed by all, it would not have been suitable for obtaining faith, which was intended by an author otherwise not of good faith. Having at hand the Greek text of Palladius from the Leiden edition of Meursius and the Paris edition of Fronto Ducaeus, and omitting the versions of others, we have made our own: and to it we have added from Cassian, book 4 of the Institutes of Those Who Renounce, chapters 33, 4, 5, and 6, in which the outstanding obedience of John is proved by remarkable examples, and an appendix from Cassian according to what Cassian himself, being in Egypt, heard related by those who esteemed so great a man and by contemporary elders.

[9] Peter de Natalibus had read these things and, judging such virtue worthy of being inserted into the catalogue of Saints, after having commemorated in book 4, chapter 6, the sanctity of St. John the Anchorite, declared especially by the prophetic spirit, of the same, not a different one, praising his obedience. wrote chapter 7 on St. John the Obedient from Cassian: if he had compared Cassian's chapter 33 with the Lives of the Fathers, from which he professes to have received what he has about the anchorite, he would certainly have recognized that one and the same man is he whose later glories as a solitary are there proclaimed and whose distinguished beginnings as a monk are praised by Cassian. Hermann Greven followed Equilinus in this error in his Additions to Usuard, and Peter Canisius in the Martyrology printed in German: likewise, but for the following twenty-eighth, Witford in the English Martyrology. Nor did Equilinus err in this alone: but also in the time during which he says he lived in seclusion, which was not seventy but only forty-eight years, as will be clear from contemporary witnesses. Meanwhile he rightly cites Sigebert, who in the first year of Theodosius -- namely, after the defeat of Maximus, when he was reigning without a colleague -- wrote that in Egypt the anchorite John was renowned for sanctity and the spirit of prophecy: provided it be understood that he had long since begun, namely from the thirtieth year of his seclusion, the year of Christ 375.

LIFE

From the Lausiac History of Palladius.

John the Hermit, near Lycopolis in Egypt (Saint)

BY PALLADIUS

CHAPTER I

John shines with the spirit of prophecy from the thirtieth year of his solitary life.

CHAPTER 43

[1] There was a certain man in the city of Lyco, John by name, who had been taught the carpenter's trade from boyhood, Born at Lycopolis and whose brother was a dyer by craft; who then, having reached the twenty-fifth year of his age, renounced the world: and having spent five years in various monasteries, he withdrew alone to the Mount of Wolves, and constructing a triple vault on its very summit, enclosed himself within it upon entering: he withdraws to the mountain so that one of the small chambers was that in which he prayed; the second, that in which he both worked and took his food; and the third served for other bodily necessities. Completing thirty years in this manner and receiving necessities through a window from an attendant, he was deemed worthy of the grace of prophecy, through which he also transmitted various predictions to the blessed Emperor Theodosius, he predicts the victories of Theodosius over the tyrants, and specifically concerning the tyrant Maximus, that conquering him he would subdue the Gauls; and likewise concerning the tyrant Eugenius he promised that he would indeed defeat him, but that he himself would afterward reach the end of his life and leave this earthly empire to his son. Wherefore much and great fame was spread abroad about him, as a holy man; and Theodosius the Emperor, now numbered among the Angels, honored and venerated him as a Prophet.

[2] Thus when a certain Commander came to him to inquire whether he would defeat the Ethiopians, who around Syene (which is the beginning of the Theban region) had at that time made an incursion and the subjugation of the Ethiopians, and were devastating the whole surrounding region -- when the Father told him that it would happen that when he went up he would overtake them, fight, and subdue them, and become glorious before the Emperors, so it was done, and the outcome of the event proved the truth of the prediction. How wonderfully beyond measure this Saint possessed the prerogative of Prophecy, we heard from the Fathers who had lived and stayed with him, whose praiseworthy life, celebrated by all who are there, gives assurance that they narrated nothing for favor, but rather something below the merit of the man of God.

[3] For when a certain Tribune had come to him and asked him to permit his wife also to approach him, Importunately asked a woman who was greatly patient and desirous to see him so that, setting out for Syene, she might be dismissed with his prayer and blessing for her; but he refused to be seen by her, since he had dwelt for forty years in that cave, and now having reached ninety years of age, had never gone out from there, nor had he himself seen a woman, nor had he allowed himself to be seen by any; since he did not even admit men to his presence, to admit a woman to his presence, but only blessed and greeted through the window those who came to him, conversing with each one according to each one's desires and inclinations. When the Tribune therefore prayed more insistently that he would order his wife to come to him (for the holy man was dwelling about five miles from the city, above on the mountain in the desert), he by no means consented, but saying that this could in no way happen, he dismissed the man in sorrow. But the wife did not cease to be troublesome every day, affirming with an oath that she would go nowhere unless she had seen the Prophet.

[4] When the holy man learned of the wife's oath from her husband, he promises to appear to her in a dream. considering her faith, he said to the Tribune: "This night I will be seen by her in her dreams, on this condition that she no longer seek to see my face in the flesh." The husband reported the Father's words to his wife: and behold, during the night the woman saw the Prophet coming to her and saying to her: "What have I to do with you, woman? Why did you wish to see my face? Am I a prophet, or do I hold the place of a righteous man? I am a sinful man, subject to the same things as you: nevertheless I have prayed for you and for the household of your husband, that it may be done for you according to your faith. Go therefore in peace": and having said this, he departed. The woman, having awakened, narrated the Prophet's words to her husband and described his appearance, and sent many thanksgivings through her husband to him: whom Blessed John, seeing, anticipated, saying to him: "Behold, I have fulfilled your request, for by visiting her I fully persuaded her that she should by no means wish to see me, but should go in peace."

[5] The wife of another Governor also, carrying a child in her womb while her husband was absent, he reveals the outcome of a dangerous childbirth. when she gave birth on that very day on which her husband had come to Father John, began to be in danger, suffering a fainting spell. But the Saint, bringing him a joyful message, said: "If you knew the gift of God, and that today a son has been born to you, you would glorify God: yet his mother was very close to the final crisis. Going then, you will find the boy seven days old, and you will give him the name of John, and when you have raised him as you wish until the seventh year, send him to the monks in the desert."

[6] And these wondrous things indeed he showed to those who came to him from foreign parts; he understands secrets: but to his own fellow citizens, who came to him continually, he made known whatever was for their benefit; foreknowing the future, and understanding the hidden things of each of them, and also foretelling many things about the Nile and the fertility of the land. Likewise he forewarned them from God of a certain divine punishment that threatened them and reproved those who were the cause. John did not perform healings openly; but by distributing oil, he healed very many of the sick. He heals a blind woman with blessed oil. For the wife of a certain Senator, who had lost her sight, with her eyes covered by a cataract,

whose pupils were covered with a cataract, asked her husband that she be brought to him. But when he said that he by no means met with women, and she pressed that at least he should be informed about her and entreated to offer a prayer for her, the husband did what his wife asked, and the Saint sent oil: with which she anointed her eyes three times over three days and received her sight, and publicly gave thanks to God.

[7] We were once seven Brothers, all foreigners in the desert of Nitria -- I and those who accompanied Evagrius, Albinus, and Ammonius: and we desired to learn carefully what the man's virtue was. Evagrius therefore said: By Evagrius' disciple Palladius "I would gladly learn from someone who knew how to evaluate his meaning and his speech, what sort of man he is: for unless I learn his manner of life, I will not go all the way to the mountain." When I heard this, I said nothing to anyone, but rested for one day: and at the next dawn I opened my little cell, and commending myself to God, departed for the Thebaid. I arrived after a journey of eighteen days, partly on foot and partly using a boat on the river: and indeed at the time of the flood, when it happens that many fall ill: which also happened to me. Approaching furthermore, I found his vestibule closed: for the Brothers had afterward built a very large vestibule which would hold about a hundred men, John is visited and which, closed with a key, was opened only on Saturday and Sunday: having inquired therefore why it was closed, I rested until Saturday, then at the second hour was brought into the presence of the righteous man, and found him sitting at the window through which he was accustomed to console those who came. Greeting me therefore through an interpreter, he said: "Where are you from and what have you come here for? For I surmise that you are from the society of Evagrius."

[8] While we were talking, the Governor of the province, Alypius by name, entered: his hidden murmuring about the Governor being preferred to him and as he hurried up, that great man broke off the conversation he had begun with me: and I withdrew somewhat and left them free space. But when they conversed longer, I began to be wearied, and impatient of the delay, to judge the venerable elder, who was honoring the Governor while disregarding me: and being troubled in spirit on that account, I was debating whether to leave, disregarding him in turn. But the servant of God, summoning the interpreter, Theodore by name, said to him: "Go, tell that Brother: 'Do not be faint-hearted, I will presently dismiss the Governor.'" And when the Governor had gone out, he summoned me and said: "What did you find blameworthy in me, that you thought such things, which neither befit me nor is it becoming for you to suspect? Do you not know what is written: 'They that are in health have no need of a physician, but they that are ill'? Matt. 9:12 You I find whenever I wish, and you likewise find me: and even if I were not consoling you, he perceives and reproves. other Brothers and Fathers would console you: but this man, as a surrender to the devil through secular affairs, and like a slave fleeing a harsh master to breathe for a brief moment, has thus found a short interval of time and comes to us to gain some profit. It would therefore have been absurd for me to leave him and converse with you, who constantly attend to your own salvation."

[9] Then, fully persuaded that the man was truly spiritual, I asked him to pray for me: he forbids returning to his homeland on account of relatives, and he with a certain jest gracefully tapped my left cheek with his right hand and said: "Many tribulations await you, for you have been greatly assailed to abandon the desert, frightened off by apprehension, while the demon presents to you pious and reasonable pretexts, suggesting to you both the longing for your father and the instruction of your brother. Behold, therefore, the good news for you: both are saved, for they have renounced the world: and your father will live yet seven more years. Persevere therefore steadfastly in the desert, and do not wish to return to your homeland for their sake: for it is written, 'No man, putting his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.' Luke 9:62" Greatly helped therefore by the words of the man of God and sufficiently strengthened, I gave thanks to God, who through the holy man's virtue had taught me that those occasions which pressed upon me had been removed.

[10] Again, using a similar jest with me, he said: "Do you wish to become a Bishop?" To which I said: "I already am one." "Of what city?" and unless he wishes to become a Bishop he replied. And I: "In kitchens, in storerooms, over tables, over wine-jars I exercise my 'bishopric': and indeed if the wine is sour, I cast it out and drink the good: likewise I inspect the pot, and if I see it needs salt or some other seasoning, I immediately add it and season it, and thus I eat from it: this is my bishopric, to this my gullet has ordained me." But the Blessed man, smiling, said: "Away with jests, for you will be ordained a Bishop, and you will endure much labor and tribulation; he commands him to persevere in the desert. and if you wish to escape them, take care not to leave the desert; for in it no one can ordain you." Departing therefore from him, I came to the desert to my accustomed place, and narrated to the holy Fathers all that I had learned about the venerable and spiritual man.

[11] Whence Palladius, on account of illness, left But I, wretched man, forgetting the words spoken to me by him, when I had fallen into a languor of the spleen and stomach, was sent from there to Alexandria by the Brothers, because the illness was tending toward dropsy. The Alexandrian physicians in turn advised me to cross over to Palestine for the sake of changing air, for the air there is more subtle and better adapted to the climate. From Palestine I migrated further to Bithynia: and there, I know not how, whether by human design or by the impulse of a greater good, which God alone knows, I was deemed worthy of Episcopal ordination, He is made a Bishop. and fell into that very calamity which Blessed John had predicted, to such a degree that I lay hidden for eleven months in a dark cell, and thus recalled that admirable man and that what I now endure had been foretold to me by him. I also recall that the outstanding champion of Christ, wishing to benefit me by a narrative of this kind and to induce me to endure solitude patiently and never leave it, spoke to me thus: "For forty-eight years I have dwelt in this cell, so that I have seen neither the form of a woman nor money, and no one has ever seen me eating or drinking anything."

ee. Evagrius and Heraclides in the Paradise have "Cyrene": but that is on the Mediterranean Sea, not in Egypt but in neighboring Libya. Syene, however, is the beginning of the Thebaid for those coming from Ethiopia.

CHAPTER II

Instructions given by John to Evagrius and his companions, and confirmed by examples.

[12] These things he told me, and I, as I said, reported them to the Fathers; who after two months sailed to him and conversed with him, and in turn narrated to us about him as follows. "When we came to him, John is visited by Evagrius and companions he received us with a cheerful face and greeted us, showing himself pleasant to each one. We asked him to immediately offer a prayer for us: for this is the custom of the Fathers who are in Egypt."

He asked us whether there was perhaps any cleric among us. And when we all said there was not, looking around at everyone, he recognized the one who was hidden: for there was one among us who had been deemed worthy of the Order of the Diaconate, A Deacon wishing to remain hidden with only one Brother aware of this, whom he had commanded to tell no one: because for the sake of humility and in comparison with such great Saints, he scarcely judged himself worthy of the name of Christian, much less of any rank. Pointing him out therefore with his hand, he said to all: "This man is a Deacon." And when he persistently denied it and tried to remain hidden, he grasped his hand through the window and kissed it, and admonishing him, exhorted him, saying: "Do not cast away the grace of God, my son; nor lie by denying the gift of God. He convicts him of falsehood: For falsehood is foreign to Christians, and whether it be in a great matter or a small one, it is nevertheless not praiseworthy, since the Savior says: 'Falsehood is from the Evil One.'" John 8. He then, convicted, was silent, accepting his fatherly rebuke.

[13] When we had completed our prayers, one Brother among us, whom a violent tertian fever had already seized, asked to be cured. And the Father indeed told him he cures a fever sufferer with oil: that the affliction was useful to him; yet on account of the small faith he had, he handed over oil and ordered him to be anointed: and when he had anointed himself, whatever he had within he expelled through the mouth, and being entirely freed from the fever, he returned on his own feet to the lodging. It was possible to see the man, now ninety years old, so afflicted in his whole body from his exercises that not even a beard had grown on his face. For he ate nothing except the fruits of trees, and that only after sunset, in such great old age: having long practiced and being accustomed neither to take bread nor anything of those things that come into use by being set over fire. When he had ordered us to sit down, we gave thanks to God that we were enjoying his company: and he, receiving us as his beloved children, spoke to us with a smiling face: "From where, O sons, and from what country have you come to a lowly and humble man?" After we told him our homeland and added, He does not approve of monks traveling for the sake of edification. "We have come to you from Jerusalem for the benefit of our souls, so that we might see with our eyes what we had received by hearing: for ears are less trustworthy than eyes; since hearing is often followed by forgetfulness, but the memory of a thing seen is not erased, but the account is in a certain way impressed upon the mind." The Blessed John then said to us: "And what wondrous thing did you come to see, O dearest sons, enduring such a journey and labor, desiring to see humble and lowly men who have nothing worthy of seeing or admiring? The Prophets and Apostles of God, admirable and praiseworthy everywhere, are read in the churches -- these one ought to imitate. But I greatly marvel," he said, "at your zeal, how you came to us scorning so many dangers for the sake of profit, while we, from our own sluggishness, do not even wish to step out of this very cave."

[14] "But come now," he said, "even if your endeavor is praiseworthy, he warns against presumption do not think it is sufficient for you, as if you had accomplished some great thing: but imitate the virtues which your Fathers attain. All of which, even if you should possess them (which indeed will rarely happen), not even then ought you to trust yourselves: for some who so trusted and reached the very summit of virtues at last fell from on high. But see whether your prayers are rightly ordered: whether the purity of your heart has been disturbed: whether your mind during prayer is occupied with other affairs: whether some other thought, entering the mind, turns it aside to something else: whether any memory of thoughts presents trouble to the soul. See whether you have truly renounced the world: and other vices; whether you have entered as if surveying our freedom; whether for vain glory you scrutinize our virtues, that you may seem to men to be imitating our works for display. See that perturbation of spirit does not cause you trouble -- not honor, glory, and human praise -- not the pretense of care for holiness, or self-love: do not think yourselves righteous, or boast of righteousness; do not be elated on account of virtues; do not let the memory of family sit in your minds while praying: let not the memory of compassion or of any other thing, nor even of the whole world, occur to you. Otherwise, foolish is that action by which one, addressing the Lord, is dragged downward by contrary thoughts."

[15] "This lapse of the mind happens to everyone with great simplicity who has not entirely renounced this world but strives to please it. For on account of the many things he undertakes, corporeal and earthly cares divide his mind: and while he afterward debates with the perturbations of the soul, he cannot see God. Nor ought anyone to contemplate his own knowledge too curiously, lest if perhaps he should be unworthy of such a possession and should have attained some part of it, he imagine that he has grasped the whole and utterly fall to ruin. For one must always approach God moderately and piously, to be free for God as far as each one can advance in mind and as far as men can attain. It is necessary, therefore, that the minds of those who seek God be at leisure from all other things: 'Be still and know,' it says, 'that I am God.' Psalm 46. He therefore who has attained the knowledge of God in part (for no one can receive it in its entirety) attains also the knowledge of all other things, and sees the mysteries of God, who shows them to him, and foresees the future, and contemplates revelations such as the Saints had, and performs virtues, and obtains from God every petition."

[16] He also said many other things about spiritual exercise: and that one must await death as a translation to a better life, to bridle the passions and not regard it as bodily weakness: that one also ought not to fill the belly, even with things readily available: "For he who has been sated," he said, "suffers the same suggestions as those who live in luxury: but one must strive through exercise to acquire complete insensibility to all appetites. Nor should anyone seek relaxation of spirit even in the things that are prepared: but let him be now distressed and afflicted, so that he may possess the most ample inheritance of the Kingdom of God. For it is necessary for us to enter the Kingdom of God through many afflictions: because the gate is narrow and the way is strait that leads to life, and few are they that find it: but the way is broad that leads to perdition, and many are they who enter through it. What then? We ought," he said, "to despise small things here, that afterward we may come to eternal rest. to pursue solitude. Furthermore, no one ought to be elated on account of things rightly done by him, but to be always humble, and to pursue more remote solitudes whenever one feels himself being exalted. For habitation near villages has often caused even those who were perfect to stumble. For this reason David, to whom such a thing had happened, thus sings: 'Behold, I have gone far away in flight and remained in the wilderness. Psalm 55. I waited for him who would save me from faintheartedness and tempest': for it has happened to many of our brothers also, that through arrogance they have fallen from their chosen aim."

CHAPTER 44

[17] "For there was," he said, "a certain monk who dwelt in a cave in the nearby desert and had shown every kind of spiritual exercise, A monk glorying in his own virtue, earning his bread with his own hands. After he had persevered in prayers and advanced in virtues, he then placed his confidence in himself, relying on the fair order of his life. But he who tempts also demanded him for testing, as he did Job: and in the evening he presented to him the phantasm of a beautiful woman, wandering through the desert: who, finding the door open, entered the cave; deceived by a demon in the form of a woman and falling at the man's knees, asked that she be allowed to rest there, because night had overtaken her. And he, taking pity on her, admitted her into the cave, which he certainly ought not to have done: and inquired about her wandering. She both told her story and interspersed flattering and deceitful words, and prolonged the conversation with him for a long time, gradually enticing him to love. Then more words are exchanged in turn, and laughter and jests: until she first seduced him with much talk, then also by touching his hand and beard and neck; he is deceived, and at last reduced the conquered Ascetic to servitude. When he was turning over internal thoughts, as one who now had the matter in hand, at last, reckoning the opportunity and security for fulfilling pleasure, he gave assent to the thought and shamefully attempted to lie with her, now become foolish and like a horse maddened after females. But she, having suddenly cried out with a great voice, he is mocked, vanished from his hands, not otherwise than as some shadow: and presently laughter of many demons was heard in the air, mocking him as led into fraud, and crying to him with a great voice: 'He who exalts himself shall be humbled.' You have been exalted even to the heavens, but you have been humbled even to the abyss. He despairs. From that point he rises in the morning, trailing nocturnal grief after him; and having spent the whole day in lamentation, despairing of salvation, he returned -- which he ought not to have done -- to the world. For this is the study of the Evil One: that when he has mocked someone, he may reduce him to such folly that he can no longer rise up. Wherefore, O sons, habitation near villages is not beneficial for us, nor conversation with women, from which arises a memory that cannot be erased, which we attract from sight and conversation. But neither ought we to lose heart and thrust ourselves down to despair: for those who have not cast away hope have not been deprived of the mercy of the compassionate God."

CHAPTER 45.

[18] "For there was," he said, "another young man in the city who had done many evil things and sinned grievously: but by the prompting of God, pricked with compunction on account of his many sins, A penitent youth shuts himself up in a tomb: he came to the tombs to bewail his former life. There, falling prostrate on his face, he dared not utter a voice, nor name God, nor even to make supplication, judging himself unworthy of life itself, and before death, shut up in the tombs of the dead, as if he had voluntarily abdicated his own life, groaning only from the depth of his heart. When a week had passed from that time, demons who had previously brought damage to his life stood by him at night, shouting and saying: 'Where is that scoundrel and profane wretch who, the demons insult him, sated with lusts and wantonness, now appears to us inopportunely temperate and suddenly honest: and when he can no longer prevail, then he wishes to be a Christian and of upright and orderly morals? What good

do you expect to come to you, when you are filled with our evils? Will you not rise quickly from here? Will you not come with us, with whom you were accustomed? Harlots and tavern-keepers await you. Will you not come and enjoy your desires, since all other hope is extinguished for you? Swift judgment will surely come upon you, who thus destroy yourself. And why, wretch, do you hasten to punishment? Why do you strive to inflict penalties on yourself sooner?' And saying many other things to him, they kept saying: 'You are ours, you have been enrolled in our order, trained to every iniquity. and savagely beat him who perseveres, once, You are liable to all of us, and you dare to flee? Will you not consent? Will you not answer? Will you not come out with us?' But he, steadfast in his weeping, did not even lend them his ears, nor did he answer a word to the demons who pressed him for a long time. After, therefore, they had accomplished nothing, saying the same things often to him, the evil and foul demons seized him and badly maltreated his whole body, severely beating him with scourges: beaten by the demons, and when they had thus grievously tortured him, they departed, leaving him half dead. He lay motionless, therefore, where they left him, and groaned again after he had recovered his senses."

[19] "When his relatives had searched for and found him, and had learned the cause of what had happened to his body, a second time; they asked him to return home: but he resisted those who often tried to force him. On the following night the demons for the same reasons treated him worse than before: but not even thus did his relatives persuade him to depart, since he said it was better to die than to live with such stains on his life. The third night nearly caused him to depart from among men, a third time when the demons attacked him with cruel torments and vexed him to the last breath. But after they saw that he had in no way yielded, at last they confess themselves defeated: they departed, leaving the man unconscious; and as they withdrew they cried out, saying: 'You have conquered, you have conquered, you have conquered.' Nor did anything evil happen to him anymore; but he dwelt in the tomb as long as he lived, purely exercising virtue. Indeed he was even honored by God with powers and the working of miracles; to such a degree that he brought many to admiration and provoked them to the zeal and emulation of honorable ways of life. Hence it came about that many also of those who had greatly despaired of themselves undertook good actions he becomes an example to the rest. and conducted themselves rightly, and what the Scripture says came to pass for them: 'Everyone who humbles himself shall be exalted.' Above all, therefore, O sons, let us practice humility, which is the first foundation of all virtues. And the more distant and remote solitude also greatly benefits us."

CHAPTER 46

[20] "For there was also another monk who, occupying the more remote desert, had conducted himself rightly and virtuously for many years, Another monk of great virtue, and yet, already worn out by old age, was tempted by the snares of demons. His exercise was to keep silence and to spend the day in prayers, hymns, and many contemplations, whence he also clearly saw certain divine visions, partly while awake and partly in dreams. Almost sleepless, he also maintained in other respects a certain likeness to an incorporeal life: for he neither planted the ground nor took any care for food, nor sought in plants what would sustain his needy body. But neither did he occupy himself with catching birds nor pursue any animal; but full of confidence, from the time he migrated there from the inhabited region, he had no thought of keeping his body nourished, and accustomed to being fed divinely, but forgetful of all things, he sustained himself with perfect desire for God, awaiting the divine call and his departure from this world. And so for the most part he was nourished by the delight of those things which are not seen but hoped for, and neither was his body wasted by length of time, nor was his soul grieving and sad: but in a certain honorable and venerable state he maintained a good condition. God moreover, honoring him, after a set interval of time, would cause bread for two or three days to be both seen and present upon his table, and he would use it whenever he entered his cave and felt that his body needed nourishment. There, when he had prayed and taken food, he again enjoyed hymns, persevering in prayers and contemplation. Thus daily sprouting and giving himself to present virtue and future hope, he was always progressing more and more; and he was now almost confident of his better lot, as if he already had it in his hands: which was the cause of his fall, since he almost lost his place through the temptation that afterward assailed him. For why should we not speak of one who was close to falling?"

[21] "After, therefore, he had come to this frame of mind, he gradually and unwarily reached the point through elation of spirit of thinking himself worth more than others, and of now possessing something greater than other men: and being of such a mind, he thenceforth placed his confidence in himself. Not long afterward, then, there was born in him first a certain small relaxation of spirit, so slight as not even to seem to be a relaxation. Then a greater negligence arose, which had progressed to the point of being felt: lapsed into negligence for he rose from sleep later for hymns, and his prayers were a little more idle, and his hymn was not so prolonged, and his soul told him it wished to rest, and his mind assented: and his thoughts fluctuated and wandered, and already he was secretly meditating something absurd. But his former habit of life still in a certain way drew back the ascetic, like a certain movement left from that earlier impulse, and preserved him in the meantime: whence, entering in the evening after his accustomed prayers, he found bread upon the table, which was supplied to him divinely, and refreshed himself. he is tempted by impure thoughts, But not even at that time did he cast away those accursed thoughts, nor did he reflect that the soul was being harmed by contempt, nor did he turn to seeking a cure for the evil; but thought it a small matter that he was not far from falling away from what it is fitting to do. The love of concupiscence therefore, having seized him in thought, carried him away to the inhabited region. Yet having meanwhile restrained himself until the following day, he returned to his accustomed exercise. After prayer and hymns, entering his cave, he found bread set before him, but not so carefully prepared nor so pure, but dirty and defiled. Although he was astonished at this and affected with sadness, on account of which he first finds filthy bread, he nevertheless took it and refreshed himself. The third night followed and added a triple evil. For his mind quickly brooded on its thoughts and his memory was so affected that a woman seemed to be present with him and lying beside him, and he had the thing before his eyes and as it were continued to do it. Yet he went out on the third day also to work, prayers, and hymns, then, having given consent, he finds gnawed bread, but since he no longer had pure thoughts, he frequently turned and raised his eyes on high and twisted them here and there: for the beautiful work was interrupted by that heat of thoughts. In the evening, therefore, needing bread, he found it indeed on the table, but as if gnawed by mice or dogs, and outside some dry remains. Then he groaned indeed and wept, but not enough to restrain the wickedness, and having been nourished not as much as he wished, he prepared himself for rest."

[22] "But thoughts assailed him in a mass, surrounding the wretched man on every side: and about to return to the world, by which his mind, conquered and taken captive, was led away into the world. Rising therefore, he went toward the inhabited region, entering the desert by night. But when daylight overtook him and the inhabited region was still far off, and he was afflicted by the heat, he was exhausted. Looking around in every direction, he searched whether any monastery might appear somewhere, into which he might enter and rest: which also happened, some pious and faithful Brothers receiving him, who, regarding him as a true father, washed his face and feet: and when they had prayed, they set a table before him on the occasion of teaching given to the guests, and asked that he take with charity what had been set before him. After he had refreshed himself, the Brothers asked that they might receive from him a word of salvation, and by what means they could be preserved from the snares of the devil, and how they might overcome base thoughts. And he, admonishing them as a father his sons, exhorted them to be strong and constant in their labors, as those who would shortly be placed in supreme rest. Discussing many other things also with them about spiritual exercise, he greatly benefited them. But when he had ceased from his admonition and recovered himself a little, he returns to himself, he considered how, while admonishing others, he was not admonishing or correcting himself: and understanding that he had been conquered, he swiftly returned again to the desert, bewailing himself and saying: 'Unless the Lord had helped me, my soul would have almost dwelt in hell; I was almost reduced to every evil; they almost consumed me upon the earth.' And in him was fulfilled what is said: 'A brother who is helped by a brother is like a fortified and lofty city, and like a wall that cannot fall.' Proverbs 18. Although from that time he mourned perpetually for the rest of his life, deprived of the table that was given him divinely, and seeking his bread with labor. and does penance. For when he had shut himself in his cave and spread sackcloth and ashes under himself, he did not rise from the ground earlier nor cease to weep until he heard the voice of an Angel saying to him in his sleep: 'The Lord has accepted your penance and has had mercy on you; but see that you are not henceforth deceived. For Brothers whom you admonished will come to you and bring you blessings: which when you have received, you will eat with them and give thanks to God perpetually.'"

[23] "These things, therefore, I have narrated to you, O sons, that you may practice humility, whether you seem to be in small or great things. John teaches how phantasms are to be discerned, For this is the first precept of the Savior, who says: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' And do not be deceived by demons, who stir up visions and phantasms for you: but if anyone should come to you, whether brother or friend or woman or father or teacher or mother or sister, first stretch out your hands in prayer; and if it is a phantasm, it will flee from you. Matthew 6. And if demons or men try to deceive you, flattering and praising you, do not obey them nor be elated in mind. For me too the demons have often deceived thus at night; and they did not allow me either to pray or to rest, presenting certain phantasms to me all night, and in the morning, mocking, they would fall prostrate on the ground, saying: 'Pardon us, Abba, that we have given you labors

all night long.' But I would say to them: 'Depart from me, all you who work iniquity; do not tempt the servant of the Lord.' Wherefore you also, O sons, pursue quietude, always exercising yourselves in contemplation, and how much the active life that you may possess a pure mind, beseeching God. Good indeed is that ascetic also who is continually exercised in the world and occupied in honorable actions: who shows kindness and mercy, and hospitality and charity; and giving alms does good to those who come, and bears aid to those who labor, and remains without any offense. He is, I say, also very good: may be surpassed by the contemplative. for he is engaged in action and carries out the commandments: but he is occupied with earthly things. Therefore more excellent and greater is he who is engaged in contemplation, who transfers himself from things to be done to understanding, leaving those to others to provide: but himself, having denied himself and forgotten himself, searches the heavenly things, and freed and disengaged from all things, standing before God, is not pulled back by any other care. For he who is of this kind dwells together with God, engages together with God, always celebrating God with constant hymns."

[24] Fed with heavenly food for a decade, "For I have known a man in the desert who for ten years tasted nothing of earthly food, but an Angel brought him heavenly food every third day and placed it in his mouth, and it was to him instead of food and drink. I know also that to this man demons came in phantasm, he spurns demons exhibiting themselves in the form of Angels: displaying angelic armies and chariots of fire and many attendants, as of some king arriving, and saying to him: 'You have conducted yourself rightly and virtuously in all things, O man: henceforth worship me and I will assume you like Elijah.' But the monk said to himself: 'I adore my King and Savior daily; and if this were he, he would not ask this of me.' After he had told him what he had in mind: 'I have the Lord my God as my King, whom I always adore, but you are not my king' -- he immediately vanished. But he was speaking of these things as if about another man, wishing to conceal the manner of his own life and deeds. But the Fathers who were with him said that he himself had seen these things. The blessed John, narrating these and many other things to us and discoursing for three days until the ninth hour, cured our souls. When he had given us blessings, he bade us go in peace, also speaking to us a certain prophecy: 'Today,' he said, 'the victory of the most pious Theodosius has been announced at Alexandria, he predicts the death of Theodosius: on account of the tyrant Eugenius having been removed from the midst, and the Emperor must die his own natural death': which indeed happened just as he said. It was possible to see the multitude of monks who were with him in the church, like certain choruses of the just, clothed in bright garments and continually glorifying God with constant hymns. After we had also seen many other Fathers, Brothers came announcing to us that the blessed John had been perfected in a wondrous manner: for having commanded he dies on bended knees. that for three days no one should be allowed to come to him, on bended knees in prayer, he was perfected, going to God, to whom be glory for ever."

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER III

Examples of rare obedience shown by John when he was in the monastery.

From John Cassian, book 4 of the Institutes of Those Who Renounce.

[25] Since this book treats of the formation of one who renounces this world, John is to be set forth as an example of obedience, by which, having been introduced to true humility and perfect obedience, one may also ascend to the summits of the other virtues, I think it necessary to explain certain deeds of the elders ... And that for those who strive to pursue higher things, not only an incentive to perfect virtue but also a model of purpose may proceed from these ... we shall set forth first Abbot John, who lived near Lyco, which is a town of the Thebaid, and who, elevated to the grace of prophecy by the virtue of obedience, so shone throughout the whole world that he was even rendered illustrious to the kings of this world by his own merit. For although he dwelt in the remotest afterward renowned for prophecies; parts of the Thebaid, as we have said, the Emperor Theodosius did not presume to proceed to wars against the most powerful tyrants before he was animated by his oracles and responses: trusting in which, as if delivered to him from heaven, he brought back trophies from desperate wars and enemies.

CHAPTER 24

[26] This blessed John, therefore, from adolescence until manly and perfect age, serving an elder as long as that man continued in the way of life in this world, tested by a master who tried his virtue clung to his service with such great humility that his obedience struck even the old man himself with the utmost astonishment. Wishing to test more clearly whether this virtue of his descended from true faith and profound humility of heart, or was affected and in a certain way forced and was displayed only before the face of the one commanding, the elder frequently imposed upon him many things that were even superfluous, less necessary, or impossible: of which I shall set down three, through which the integrity of both his mind and his subjection may be made manifest to those who wish to know. The elder therefore took from his woodpile a stick which had long since been cut and prepared for use as fuel, ordered to water a dry stick, and which, while the occasion for burning it was delayed, lay not only dry but nearly rotten with the passage of time. And having planted this in the ground before him, he commanded him to bring water and water it twice daily, so that, having taken root from prolonged moisture and greening again into a former tree, it might with spreading branches present a pleasant sight to the eyes and shade from the burning heat to those sitting beneath it. The young man, receiving this command with his usual reverence without any consideration of its impossibility, he simply does it for a full year, thus carried it out day after day, constantly bringing water for nearly two miles, never ceasing to water the stick: and throughout the entire span of the year, neither bodily infirmity, nor the solemnity of a feast day, nor the occupation of any necessity which might have honestly excused him from carrying out the command, nor finally the harshness of winter, could prevent him from the observance of this precept. And when the elder silently tested this diligence of his every day and saw that with the simple affection of his heart he kept his command as if divinely issued, without any change of expression or discussion of reason, approving the sincere obedience of his humility, and at the same time pitying so long a labor which he had spent through the whole year out of zeal for devotion, the elder approached the dry stick: "O John," he said, "has this tree put forth roots or not?" And when he said he did not know, the elder, as if inquiring into the truth of the matter and testing whether it was supported by its own roots, pulled up the stick before him with a slight motion, and throwing it aside, commanded him to cease watering it.

CHAPTER 25

[27] And so, when by such exercises the young man daily grew in this virtue of obedience, He pours out a small amount of needed oil, and the grace of his humility shone forth, and the sweet fragrance of his obedience was wafted through all the monasteries, certain Brothers came to the elder under the pretext of testing, or rather of edification, and when they marveled at the subjection they had heard of, the elder suddenly called him: "Go up," he said, "and taking the small jar of oil (which alone in the desert provided a most slender liquid of fat for his own use and for visitors), throw it down through the window." He, having flown up swiftly to the upper level, bringing it out through the window, let it fall to the ground to be smashed, caring or reflecting little on the absurdity of the command, the daily necessity, the weakness of the body, the scarcity of provisions, the austerities and difficulties of the barren desert; in which, even if money were available, nonetheless the lost article could not be found or replaced.

CHAPTER 26

[28] Again, when others wished to be edified by the example of his obedience, the elder called him: "Run, John," he said, He strains to move a huge stone. "and roll that stone here as quickly as possible." He immediately strove with such effort and exertion to push the immense stone, which not even a crowd of many men could move, now applying his neck, now his whole chest, so that the sweat of all his limbs not only drenched his entire garment but even moistened the stone itself from his neck; measuring little in this case too the impossibility of the command or the deed, out of reverence for the elder and the sincere simplicity of his obedience, by which he believed with total faith that the elder could command nothing in vain or without reason.

[29] It goes badly for Poemenia But just as from such simple obedience a great increase of virtues came to John as a young man, so the failure of others to obey his counsels when he was already an elder was sometimes the cause of many misfortunes. Palladius has an example in chapter 47. "He too -- that is, John -- although he did not converse with Christ's handmaid Poemenia, who had come to see him, nevertheless signified to her certain secret things and, commanding, said: 'Going down from the Thebaid, do not turn aside to Alexandria, otherwise you will fall into temptation.' But she, making light of the great John's prediction or having forgotten it, turned aside to Alexandria to see the city. On the journey, near the city of Nicius, she put in her boat for the sake of rest. But the servants, going out, for not having obeyed his admonitions. from a certain insolence, came to blows with the inhabitants of that place -- deranged and profligate men -- who cut off the fingers of one eunuch and killed another; and the holy Bishop Dionysius they unwittingly threw into the river, and filled her herself with insults and curses, with all the rest of her servants being wounded."

the metropolis of the Prosopitican Nome, distant from Lycopolis about 140 thousand paces, and from Alexandria indeed 70.