The Lausiac History 1 part 1/7

I too, lowly as I am, have resolved—out of reverence for the charge laid on me by your magnanimity, most eager learner—to set down for you in narrative form, from the beginning, this book: I who am now in my thirty-third year living within the brotherhood and, as it were, the solitary life, my twentieth year in the episcopate, and my fifty-sixth year of life altogether; and you long for the accounts of the fathers, both men and women, those whom I have seen and those of whom I have heard, with whom I lived in the desert of Egypt and Libya, in the Thebaid and Syene (under which dwell those called the Tabennesiotes), then in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Syria, and in the western regions, in Rome and Campania and the parts around it.

Thus, having a holy and soul-profiting remembrancer as an unfailing remedy against forgetfulness, you may put away through it every drowsiness that springs from irrational desire, every doubt and stinginess in your needs, every sluggishness and faintheartedness in your character, every quickness to anger, turmoil, grief, and irrational fear, and the distraction of the world; and so, with unceasing longing, you may advance in your purpose of godliness, becoming a guide for yourself, for those with you, for those under you, and for the most pious emperors.

By such achievements all who love Christ press on to be united with God.

And you also await daily the soul's departure, according to what is written:

"It is good to depart and to be with Christ";

and: "Prepare your works for your going forth, and make yourself ready for the field."

For he who always remembers death—since it will surely come of necessity and not delay—will not greatly stumble.

Do not slight the counsel of these instructions, nor despise their plainness and the unpolished quality of the diction.

For this is not the work of divine teaching—to speak with cleverness—but to persuade the understanding by thoughts of truth, according to what is said:

"Open your mouth for the word of God."

"Do not miss the discourse of the elders, for they too learned from the fathers."

I therefore, most learning-loving man of God, following this saying in part, have met with many of the saints—not out of idle curiosity, but having completed journeys of thirty days and twice as many, traversing on foot, as before God, the whole land of the Romans; and I gladly endured the hardship of the road for the sake of meeting a God-loving man, that I might gain what I did not have.

For if Paul—far better than I in conduct, knowledge, conscience, and faith—set out on the journey from Tarsus to Judaea to meet Peter, James, and John, and recounts it in the manner of a boast, holding up his own labours as a goad to those who live with sluggishness and idleness, saying:

"I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas," not content with the report of his virtue but yearning also to meet him face to face—

how much more ought I, the debtor of ten thousand talents, to have done this, not as conferring a benefit on those men but as benefiting myself!

Those who wrote the lives of the fathers—of Abraham and those after him, of Moses, Elijah, and John—did not narrate them in order to glorify those men, but in order to benefit those who read.

Knowing this, then, most faithful servant of Christ, Lausus, and admonishing yourself, bear also with our prattling, for the safekeeping of your pious mind, which by nature is tossed about by various vices, seen and unseen, and is able to find rest only through continual prayer and minding its own affairs.

For many of the brethren who pride themselves on labours and almsgiving, who boast of celibacy or virginity, and who put their trust in the study of the divine oracles and in zealous pursuits, have nonetheless failed to attain passionlessness; for under the guise of piety they fell sick, without discernment, with certain meddlesome pursuits, from which are born busy-bodying or evil-doing that drive out good-doing—the mother of minding one's own affairs.

Be a man, then, I beg you, and do not fatten your wealth;

which indeed you have done, sufficiently diminishing it by distributing to those in need, on account of the service of virtue that springs from this.

Nor should you, by some impulse and irrational presumption, in a man-pleasing way fetter your resolve with an oath—as some have suffered, who out of love of strife and vainglory enslaved their free will to the necessity of an oath not to eat or drink, and then again, falling pitiably back, in their love of life, listlessness, and pleasure laboured under the pangs of perjury.

If, therefore, you partake with reason and abstain with reason, you will never sin.

For divine is the reason that governs the movements within us, banishing what is harmful and admitting what is profitable.

For better is the drinking of wine with reason than the drinking of water with conceit.

And look for me at the holy men who drank wine with reason, and at the profane men who drank water without reason; and no longer blame or praise the material thing, but call blessed or wretched the disposition of those who use the material well or badly.

Joseph once drank wine among the Egyptians, yet he was not harmed in his mind, for he kept his disposition secure.

Those around the apostle Peter also partook of the use of wine, so that even their Teacher, the Saviour, was reproached for partaking, the Jews saying:

"Why do your disciples not fast as do those of John?" And again, heaping reproaches upon the disciples, they said:

"Your teacher eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners."

They would not have found fault over bread and water, but clearly over relishes and wine;

to those who again irrationally marvel at water-drinking and blame wine-drinking, the Saviour said:

"John came in the way of righteousness, neither eating nor drinking"—that is, meat and wine, for apart from other things he could not have lived—"and they say:

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say:

Behold, a glutton and a wine-drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners—because he eats and drinks."

What, then, shall we do? Let us follow neither those who blame nor those who praise, but let us either fast with John, with reason, even if they speak against us;

or let us drink wine in wisdom with Jesus, if the body requires it, even if they speak against us:

"Behold, gluttons and wine-drinkers!"

For neither eating nor abstaining is anything in truth, but faith working through love, extended to deeds.

For whenever faith accompanies every action, he who eats and drinks is uncondemned because of his faith;

for whatever is not of faith is sin.

But since everyone who errs will say that he partakes in faith, or does some other thing with irrational conviction in a corrupted conscience, the Saviour made a clear distinction, saying:

"By their fruits you shall know them."

Goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control are acknowledged as such.

For the fruit of the Spirit is this and that.

And that the one who is zealous to have such fruits will not, irrationally or aimlessly or unseasonably, eat meat or drink wine, nor will he dwell with any evil conscience, the same Paul said again: "Everyone who strives exercises self-control in all things"—abstaining, when the flesh is healthy, from the things that fatten it; but when it is ailing, or in pain, or sharing in griefs and trials, he will use foods or drinks as medicines for the healing of what afflicts it, while abstaining from the things harmful to the soul—anger, envy, vainglory, listlessness, slander, and irrational suspicion—giving thanks in the Lord.

Having dealt with this sufficiently, then, I once more bring another exhortation to your love of learning.

Flee, as far as you are able, the company of men who have nothing to offer and who adorn their skin unbecomingly—even if they be orthodox, not to mention heretics—men who do harm by their hypocrisy, even if they seem to drag along a great length of time with gray hairs and wrinkles.

For even if you suffer no harm from them owing to your nobility of manners, you will at least be made a little slack, or be puffed up in scorning them—which is harm to you.

But more than a bright window, pursue the holy company of men and women of devout life, so that through them, as through a finely written book, you may be able to see clearly your own heart as well, and by comparison may test your own slackness or carelessness.

For the bloom of color in faces flourishing beside gray hair, the orderliness of dress, the unpretentiousness of speech, the reverence of words, and the gracefulness of their thoughts will strengthen you, even if you happen to be in listlessness.

For "a man's apparel, the gait of his foot, and the laughter of his teeth declare the things concerning him," as Wisdom says.

Beginning, then, my accounts, I will not leave unknown to my narrative those in the cities, or those in the villages or in the desert places.

For it is not the place where these men dwelt that is sought, but the manner of their resolve.

Concerning Isidore. When I first set foot in the city of the Alexandrians, in the second consulship of Theodosius the Great, the emperor who now dwells among the angels because of his faith in Christ, I met in the city a wondrous man, adorned in every way both in character and in knowledge—Isidore the presbyter, who was the guest-master of the church of the Alexandrians;

who was said to have completed the first contests of his youth in the desert;

and I saw his cell on the mountain of Nitria.

I came upon him as an elder of seventy years, who, living fifteen more years, ended his life in peace.

This man, up to his very death, wore no linen except a small head-cloth, never touched a bath, and never partook of meat;

yet he had a body so sustained by grace that all who were ignorant of his way of life supposed that he lived in luxury.

If I should wish to recount in detail the virtues of his soul, time would fail me;

for he was so kind to all and so peaceable that even his unbelieving enemies revered his very shadow, on account of his exceeding goodness.

He had such knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and of the divine doctrines that even at the very banquets of the brethren his mind would be carried away into ecstasy and fall silent;

and when entreated to describe the ecstasy, he would say: "I journeyed away in my mind, caught up by a certain contemplation."

I myself knew this man to weep often at table, and when I inquired the cause of his tears, I heard him say: "I am ashamed to partake of irrational food, being a rational creature and one who ought to dwell in a paradise of delight, because of the authority given to us by Christ."

But he committed them [the virgins] to Christ, saying:

"He who created you will provide for your life, as he has for me."

Together with his sisters there was a community of seventy virgins.

When I, being young, came to him and begged to be grounded in the solitary life—my age being still in its vigor and needing not words but bodily labors—he, like a good colt-tamer, led me out of the city to the so-called desert places, five miles away;

for he knew that the elder [Dorotheus] lived in great austerity;

and he charged me to return again to himself for the sake of spiritual teaching.

But not being able to complete three years, having fallen into illness, I was thus removed from him before the three were up;

for his manner of life was squalid and exceedingly dry.

Once when I said to him:

"What are you doing, father, in such old age, killing your poor body in these scorching heats?" he answered, saying:

"It kills me, so I kill it."

For he would eat six ounces of bread and a bundle of small vegetables, and drink only as much water [as needed].

With God as my witness, I never knew him to stretch out his feet, nor to sleep on a mat, nor on a bed;

but throughout the whole night, sitting, he would plait a rope from palm fronds, for the sake of his sustenance.

Supposing that he did this on my account, I made inquiry and ascertained also from his other disciples, who lived apart, that from his youth he had kept this way of life, never sleeping on purpose, except when, while working or eating, he would close his eye, overcome by sleep, so that often even the morsel would fall from his mouth at the time of eating, from excess of drowsiness.

Once when I pressed him to lie back a little upon the mat, he said, grieved:

"If you can persuade the angels to sleep, you will also persuade the zealous man."

Once, about the ninth hour, he sent me to his well to fill the bucket for the partaking of the ninth hour.

It happened that, when I went, I saw an asp down in the well, and I no longer drew the water, but went and said to him:

"For I saw an asp in the well."

But he, smiling gravely, fixed his gaze upon me for a long while, and shaking his head, said:

"If it should seem good to the devil to turn himself into a serpent or a tortoise in every well and to fall into the springs of waters, will you remain never drinking?" And going out and drawing for himself, he, fasting, was the first to drink it down, saying:

"Where the cross comes, the malice of any creature has no power."

Concerning Potamiaena. This blessed Isidore, having met Antony of blessed memory, related to me a matter worthy of record, which he had heard from him: that a certain maiden so called Potamiaena, in the time of Maximian the persecutor, was a most beautiful girl, a servant of a certain master;

whom her master, having importuned with many promises, was unable to seduce;

and at last, enraged, he handed her over to the prefect of Alexandria at that time, giving her up as a Christian who blasphemed the times and the emperors over the persecutions, suggesting to him, along with money: "If she agrees to my purpose, keep her unpunished;

but if she persists in her austerity"—he begged that she be punished, so that she might not, living on, mock his profligacy.

Being brought before the tribunal, she was assaulted in her resolve by various instruments of torture.

Among which instruments the judge also ordered a great cauldron to be filled with pitch and set over a fire.

When the pitch was boiling and fiercely burning, he proposed to her:

"Either go and submit to the wishes of your master;

or, that you may know it, I order you to be plunged into the cauldron."

[She said:] "A judge who orders one to submit to profligacy!"

Then that man, in a rage, ordered her to be stripped and thrown into the cauldron.

But she cried out, saying:

"By the head of your emperor, whom you fear—if it has been decreed for you to punish me thus, command that I be lowered little by little into the cauldron, that you may know how great a patience Christ, whom you do not know, bestows on me."

And being lowered little by little over the space of an hour, she expired, the pitch having reached her neck.

[Concerning Didymus the Blind.] With him too I had four meetings, going to him at intervals over a period of ten years.

For he died at the age of eighty-five.

This man was deprived of his eyes, as he himself related to me, having lost his sight at the age of four, having neither learned letters nor attended teachers;

for he had the natural teacher in vigor—his own conscience;

who was adorned with such grace of knowledge that what is written was fulfilled in him after the manner of [literal] history:

For he expounded the Old and New Testament word by word;

and he so attended to the doctrines, setting forth the teaching concerning them subtly and firmly, that he surpassed all the ancients in knowledge.

Once when he was urging me to make a prayer in his cell, and I was unwilling, he said, recounting: "Into this cell the blessed Antony entered three times when he visited me;

and when he was entreated by me to make a prayer, immediately he bent his knee in the cell, and did not allow me to repeat my request a second time, instructing me by deed in obedience."

So that, if you walk in the footsteps of his conduct—seeing that you are a monk and a sojourner for the sake of virtue—lay aside contentiousness;

rise up, then, and eat, and send word, they say, to bishop Athanasius, that he too may know.

"And I noted down," he said, "the hour, the month, the week, and the day, and it was found to be so."

In the tenth year [the recluse] fell asleep, having composed herself as one who departs in the usual way and, not receiving an answer, reports it to us.

So, breaking through the door and entering, we found her fallen asleep.

Concerning her the thrice-blessed Melania, of whom I shall speak later, also said: "By sight I never saw her, but standing by the opening I entreated her to tell me the reason why she had shut herself into the tomb."

And she, through the opening, spoke to me, saying: "A certain man was harmed in his mind on my account;

and lest I should seem to grieve him or to slander him, I chose to bring myself alive into the tomb, rather than to cause to stumble a soul made in the image of God."

And when I said, she says,

"How then do you endure, meeting with no one, but wrestling with listlessness?" she said: "From dawn until the ninth hour I pray hour by hour, while spinning flax;

and during the remaining hours I go round in my mind among the holy patriarchs and prophets and apostles and martyrs;

and having eaten my morsel, I wait through the other hours, persevering and awaiting the end with good hope."

Concerning the rich virgin. In my narrative I will not pass over even those who have lived in contemptible fashion, for the praise of those who have done well and for the security of those who read.

[There was a woman] haughty in her resolve, exceedingly rich in money, who [gave] not even an obol to a stranger, nor to a virgin, nor to the church, nor to a poor person.

Despite many admonitions from the fathers, she would not rid herself of her material possessions.

She had relatives also, among whom she made her own sister's daughter her heir; to her, night and day, she would promise her possessions, having fallen away from the heavenly longing.

For this too is a form of the devil's deception: under the guise of love for kindred, he prepares one to labour in the pangs of covetousness;

for that he cares nothing for kindred is acknowledged, since he teaches men to murder brother and mother and father.

But even if he seems to instill care for kindred, he does not do this out of goodwill toward them, but in order to exercise the soul in injustice, knowing the sentence that "the unjust shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

But whenever someone tramples down his whole soul out of care for kindred, he falls under the law, reckoning his own soul for a vain thing.

And the holy psalmist sings concerning those who in fear take thought for the soul: "Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord?"—as much as to say, few;

"or who shall stand in his holy place? He that is innocent in his hands and pure in heart, who has not taken his soul in vain."

For all those take it in vain who neglect the virtues, supposing that it is dissolved together with the flesh.

Wishing to bleed this virgin, as the saying goes, for the relief of her covetousness, the most holy Macarius—the presbyter and superior of the almshouse for the maimed—devised the following stratagem;

for in his youth he had been a lapidary, one whom they call a gem-cutter.

[He said:] "Some precious stones, emeralds and jacinths, have come into my hands, and whether they are come-by honestly or stolen I cannot say.

They are not subject to valuation, being beyond price;

but the one who has them is selling them for five hundred coins.

If it seems good to you to acquire them, from a single stone you can recover the five hundred coins, and use the rest for the adornment of your niece."

Hooked, the virgin was lured and fell at his feet, saying: "By your feet, let no one else take them."

He therefore urged her: "Come to my house and see them."

But she would not consent; instead she threw down to him the five hundred coins, saying:

"For I do not wish to see the man who is selling them."

And he, having taken the five hundred coins, gave them for the needs of the almshouse.

But as time galloped on, since the man seemed to have a great reputation in Alexandria, being God-loving and merciful (for he flourished up to a hundred years, and we too were his contemporaries), she was reluctant to remind him.

At last, finding him in the church, she said to him:

"Ever since you took the gold from me, I have deposited it for the price of the stones;

and if you wish to come and see them in the lodging—for there they lie—come and look; if they please you, well; if not, take back your gold."

Now the almshouse had women in the upper rooms and men in the lower rooms.

And leading her in, he brought her into the gateway and said to her:

"Which do you wish to see first—the jacinths or the emeralds?" She said to him [the emeralds, or jacinths].

He led her up to the upper rooms and showed her women who were mutilated and had disfigured faces;

And he led her down again below and, showing her the men, said to her:

"Behold the emeralds; if they please you, well; if not, take back your gold."

Thus put to shame, she went out, and departing, fell ill from much grief, because she had not done the thing according to God;

afterwards she gave thanks to the presbyter, when the girl whom she had cared for died childless after marriage.

Having met and spent three years with the monasteries around Alexandria, with men most excellent and most zealous, about two thousand in number, I withdrew from there and came to the mountain of Nitria.

Between this mountain and Alexandria lies the lake called Maria, seventy miles long;

having sailed across it in a day and a half, I came to the mountain, on its southern side;

alongside which mountain lies the utter desert, stretching as far as Ethiopia and the Mazici and Mauritania.

On this mountain dwell about five thousand men, having various ways of life, each as he is able and as he wishes;

so that it is possible to live even alone, and as a second, and as one of many.

On this mountain there are seven bakeries serving [both these monks and those of the inner desert at Kellia, who number six hundred].

Having sojourned, then, on this mountain for a year, and having greatly profited from the blessed fathers Arsisius the Great, Putubastus, Asion, Cronius, and Serapion, and having been spurred on by them with many accounts of the fathers, I entered into the innermost desert.

On this mountain of Nitria there is a great church, in which stand three palm trees, each with a whip hanging from it.

And one is for the correction of monks who transgress, another for robbers, should any be caught, and another for chance passers-by;

so that all who transgress and are convicted as deserving stripes embrace the palm tree, and receiving the appointed blows on their back, are so released.

Adjoining the church is a guest-house, in which they receive the stranger who has come, the whole time until he departs of his own free will, even if he stays two or three years;

but having allowed him one week in leisure, the remaining days they keep him busy with work, either in the garden or in the bakery or in the kitchen.

But if he be a man of note, they give him a book, not permitting him to converse with anyone until that hour.

On this mountain there live also physicians and confectioners.

They use wine too, and wine is sold there.

And all these men work linen with their hands, so that they are all without want.

And indeed, about the ninth hour, one may stand and hear how from each dwelling the psalmody goes forth, so that one supposes oneself to be uplifted in paradise.

They occupy the church only on the Sabbath and on the Lord's Day.

There are eight presbyters who lead this church, in which, so long as the first presbyter lives, no other offers the sacrifice, nor preaches, nor judges, but they sit quietly beside him only.

This Arsisius and many other elders with him, whom we ourselves have seen, were contemporaries of the blessed Antony.

Among whom they related that they knew also Amoun the Nitriote, whose soul Antony saw being taken up and guided by angels.

This man said that he also knew Pachomius the Tabennesiote, a prophetic man, archimandrite over three thousand men, concerning whom I shall narrate later.

Concerning Amoun the Nitriote. He said that Amoun had lived in the following manner:

that, being an orphan, a young man of about twenty-two years, he was by force yoked to a wife by his own uncle;

and not being able to resist the constraint of his uncle, he consented both to be crowned and to sit in the bridal chamber, and to undergo all that pertains to a wedding.

But after all had gone out, having put the couple to bed in the bridal chamber and on the couch, Amoun rose, shut the door, and sitting down, called to his blessed bride and said to her:

"This marriage which we have married has nothing superfluous about it.

We shall do well, then, if from now on each of us sleeps apart, that we may also please God by keeping our virginity untouched."

And drawing from his bosom a little book containing words from the apostle and the Saviour, he read to the girl, who was inexperienced in the Scriptures, and for the most part adding everything from his own understanding, he set forth the discourse concerning virginity and chastity;

so that she, being convinced by the grace of God, said:

"And what do you bid for the rest?" "I bid," he said, "that from now on each of us remain apart."

But she would not consent, saying:

"Let us remain in the same house, but in different beds."

Having lived, then, eighteen years with her in the same house, throughout each day he busied himself in the garden and the balsam grove;

which balsam is planted like a vine, requiring much labour in being cultivated and pruned.

In the evening, then, coming into the house, he would make prayers and eat with her;

and again, having made the nighttime prayer, he would go out.

These things being thus accomplished, and both of them having advanced to passionlessness, the prayers of Amoun became effective, and at last she said to him:

"I have something to say to you, my lord;

so that, if you listen to me, I may be assured that you love me according to God.

For it is unfitting that you should hide such a virtue of yours, while dwelling with me in chastity."

And he, having given thanks to God, said to her:

"Then keep you this house;

and I will make for myself another house."

And going out, he took up his abode in the inner part of the mountain of Nitria;

for there were as yet no monasteries then;

and he made for himself two domed cells.

And having lived another twenty-two years in the desert, he died—or rather fell asleep—seeing his blessed wife twice a year.

Concerning him the blessed bishop Athanasius related a wonder in his Life of Antony: that as Amoun was crossing the Lycus river together with Theodore his disciple, and was reluctant to undress lest he should see him naked, he was found on the far side, carried over without a ferry-boat by an angel.

This Amoun, then, lived thus and was thus perfected, so that the blessed Antony saw his soul being led up by angels.

This river I myself crossed with fear, by ferry-boat;

for it is a channel of the great Nile.

Concerning Or. On this mountain of Nitria there was an ascetic named Or, to whom great virtue was attested both by the whole brotherhood and especially by the woman of God, Melania, who entered the mountain before me;

for I did not find him alive.

And they said this in their accounts: that he never lied, never swore, never cursed anyone, and never spoke except when there was need.

[Concerning Pambo.] This Pambo had very many noble deeds and excellences, among which was also this:

he was so contemptuous of gold and silver as the account demands.