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Y the help of our Lord I will, therefore, begin [to write] for thee, [O Lausus,] the histories of the holy Fathers, and I will omit nothing concerning them which I will not make known in [my] discourse, neither the histories of those who lived in cities, nor of those who lived in villages or in caves, nor of those who became famous in the desert. Nay, I will even add to my discourse the histories of those who lived among the general assembly of a community, for no special country or place wherein they lived and wherein they perfected the life of ascetic excellence needs to be sought out, for [everywhere] they led the pure life and conversation of chastity and integrity, and performed the deeds of the simple mind wherein, through the help of Christ, they wrought and fulfilled the lives and deeds of angels.

Now at first, when I went to Alexandria in the second consulship of the Emperor Theodosius the Great, who now because of the orthodoxy of his faith in Christ sojourneth with the angels, I met in the city a wonderful man who was adorned in every respect with the most beautiful qualities of speech, and knowledge, and life and conversation, whose name was Isidore. He was a priest and was the overseer (i.e., manager or secretary) of the hospital, of the church of Alexandria, and it was said of him that in his early youth he had lived in a monastery in the desert, and that he triumphed in the contest of the ascetic life: I saw, moreover, his cell in the mountain of Nitria. I met him when he was an old man seventy years of age, and when he had lived fifteen years longer he departed from this world. Now to the end of his life this holy man never put on either a linen tunic or even a head-covering; he never washed, and he never ate flesh, and he never ate a full meal seated comfortably at a table; and yet, through Divine grace, his body shone. He possessed a sound and healthy body, and he was, by the grace of Christ, so fully endowed with strength that those who beheld him and who did not know him would not be persuaded that he lived a life of self-denial, and they thought and said that he must lead a life of great luxury and that he must eat abundantly of rich meats. Now, if