Chapter XVII.
“I visited two
monasteries of St. Anthony, which are at the present day occupied by
his disciples. I also went to that place in which the most blessed
Paul, the first of the eremites, had his abode. I saw the Red Sea and
the ridges of Mount Sinai, the top of which almost touches heaven, and
cannot, by any human effort, be reached. An anchorite was said to live
somewhere within its recesses: and I sought long and much to see him,
but was unable to do so. He had for nearly fifty years been removed
from all human fellowship, and used no clothes, but was covered with
bristles growing on his own body, while, by Divine gift, he knew not of
his own nakedness. As often as any pious men desired to visit him,
making hastily for the pathless wilderness, he shunned all meeting with
his kind. To one man only, about five years before my visit, he was
said to have granted an interview; and I believe that man obtained the
favor through the power of his faith. Amid much talk which the two had
together, the recluse is said to have replied to the question why he
shunned so assiduously all human beings, that the man who was
frequently visited by mortals like himself, could not often be visited
by angels. From this, not without reason, the report had spread, and
was accepted by multitudes, that that holy man enjoyed angelic
fellowship. Be this as it may, I, for my part, departed from Mount
Sinai, and returned to the river Nile, the banks of which, on both
sides, I beheld dotted over with numerous monasteries. I saw that, for
the most part, as I have already said, the monks resided together in
companies of a hundred; but it was well known that so many as two or
three thousand sometimes had their abode in the same villages. Nor
indeed would one have any reason to think that the virtue of the monks
there dwelling together in great numbers, was less than that of those
was known to be, who kept themselves apart from human fellowship. The
chief and foremost virtue in these places, as I have already said, is
obedience. In fact, any one applying for admission is not received by
the Abbot of the monastery on any other condition than that he be first
tried and proved; it being understood that he will never afterwards
decline to submit to any injunction of the Abbot, however arduous and
difficult, and though it may seem something unworthy to be
endured.
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