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 the knee before me, and say, ‘Father, let us vex thee [by day] in the same way as we did all night long,’ and I would say unto them, ‘Get ye gone from me, O ye workers of iniquity, for ye shall not vex the servant of God.’ Therefore, O my sons, after quietness, follow ye after and love peaceful meditation, and train yourselves at all times in the vision of excellence, and ye shall acquire in prayer to God the broadness of a pure mind. For he is a good and fair athlete of Christ, and a noble and strenuous man, who shall at all seasons train himself in labours, who shall do fair deeds continually, who shall shew forth love for the brethren and for strangers, who shall perform love and mercy, who shall visit and relieve all those who are nigh unto him, who shall help the suffering and support the sick, and who shall bring his days to an end without stumbling. For if a man bring his days to an end without stumbling, even though he labour in and be held fast by the things of earth, he is a fair, and good, and noble soldier and workman, and worker and doer of the commandments.

“But the spectator of the mind who leaveth all these things for others to administer [or provide] is far better, and more excellent and greater than he, and he pursueth spiritual instead of corporeal things, and leaveth the transitory things of this world unto others; for he denieth himself, and forgetteth himself, and taketh up his cross and cleaveth unto Christ, and he embraceth the things of heaven continually, and he maketh his escape from everything [earthly], and draweth nigh unto God, and he will not allow himself to be drawn to turn behind him through any care whatsoever. And such a man as this is, through his godly works, and the praises which he offereth up continually before God, with God, and, being free and unfettered by any tie whatsoever, he standeth before God in security, and his mind is not drawn away by any other care. He who is in this condition holdeth converse with God continually, and offereth up to Him unceasingly praise and glorifying. But it is necessary [that those who seek after God should forsake] everything which is visible, and should turn themselves completely towards God, and should commit themselves to Him that He may protect their lives; for the man in whom God dwelleth doth not know even that the world existeth, since the whole of creation is an alien thing in his eyes, because he is crucified unto all the world, and it is accounted by him as nothing.”

These then were the things which the blessed John related unto us (now he told us many others), and he held converse and talked with us for three days, and he healed our souls