Page:ParadiseOfTheHolyFathersV2.djvu/154

 he used to cry out by night and by day, saying, “Woe is me! woe is me!” And he ceased not to weep and to groan. Now there was in that desert a certain solitary old man who dwelt in a cleft in the rock, and when he heard the sound of the weeping and lamentation, his mercy for him revealed itself, and he went forth and met him, and they saluted each other. And the old man answered and said unto him, “Why weepest thou in this fashion?” And the young man said, “Because I have angered God, and because I have fallen into fornication.” Then was the old man astonished, and he said, “O how greatly did I fear and tremble at thy lugubrious voice. For I thought that thou hadst been entrusted with the governorship of the brethren, and that thou hadst governed unjustly, or that thou hadst squandered in an unseemly manner the work of the community. For the harlot repented, and for the unbeliever there is a foundation, and the thief is a son of the kingdom, but Ananias and Sapphira were slain because they stole the money of the community of the brethren, and thus is slain the soul of every one who with fraud or carelessness squanders the possessions of the religious houses. But be thou of good courage, O brother, and go back again to thy cell, and make thine entreaty to God as thou repentest, and He will stablish thee in thy former grade.” Then the monk went back to his place, and he shut himself in, and never again undertook to talk with any man, except him that handed in to him his food through the little window of his cell, and there he remained until the end of his life, and he attained to a most exalted state of perfection.

603. Abbâ Ammon of Rîtheaôn asked Abbâ Poemen about the impure thoughts which are produced in a man, and the vain lusts; and Abbâ Poemen said unto him, “It belongeth to Satan to sow them, but it is our affair not to welcome them.”

604. A brother asked Abbâ Ammon, saying, “Behold, there were two men, the one was a monk, and the other a son of the world; now the monk used to determine in the evening to cast away from him in the morning the garb of the monk, and the son of the world used to make up his mind that on the morrow he would take the garb of monkhood. Now it happened that both men died on the same night; how will they be regarded, and which determination will be reckoned to them?” The old man said unto him, “He who was a monk died a monk, and he who was a child of the world died as such, for as they were found [to be] so were they taken.”

605. A brother asked Abbâ Sisoes, saying, “What shall I do, father? For I have fallen.” The old man said unto him, “Rise up”; and the brother said unto him, “I did rise up, but