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 the blessed Paul understood all these things, did he say concerning men, ‘Because they have not decided within themselves that they will know God, He hath delivered them over unto an empty understanding so that they may work that which is unseemly’ (Romans 1:21–28). And concerning other men who think that the knowledge of God is in them, together with the corrupt mind which they possess, he said, ‘Because they have known God, and have not praised Him as God, and given thanks unto Him, He hath delivered them over unto the passions of disgrace.’ ”

Therefore from these things it is meet that we should know that it is impossible for a man to stumble and fall into filthy desire without the permission of the Providence of God.

OW I went about in Antinoë of the Thebaïd for a period of four years, and I learned concerning the whole of the system of the religious houses which were there; for there dwelt by the side of the city about twelve hundred men, who worked with their hands, and who lived the life of spiritual excellence. Among these there was a number of solitary monks who shut themselves up in caves, and among them was one who was called Solomon; he was a chaste and humble man, andunto him was given the gift of patient endurance. He used to say that he had passed fifty years in the cave, during which time he had fed himself by means of his labour, and he could repeat the Scriptures by heart.

ND there was Dorotheos, a priest, who used to live in a cave, and he possessed more goodness than many men, and led a spiritual life of high excellence; now he had been held to be worthy of consecration to the priesthood, and he performed the offices thereof for the brethren who dwelt in the caves. Unto this blessed man Melania the Less, the kinswoman of Melania the Great, concerning whom we are about to speak later, sent five hundred darics and begged him to spend them on behalf of the brethren [who were there]; buthe only took three of them, and then sent the remainder to the wandering monk Diocles, a man of knowledge and understanding, saying, “O our brother Diocles, thou art wiser than I am; I am not equal [to spending these]”; and having taken them Diocles was able to spend them wisely on those whom he knew of a certainty to be in want.