"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Syncletica said, “An open treasury is quickly spent; any virtue will be lost if it is published abroad and is known about everywhere. If you put wax in front of a fire it melts; and if you pour vain praises on the soul it goes soft and weak in seeking goodness”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
Some monks called Euchites, or ‘men of prayer’, once came to Lucius in the ninth region of Alexandria.
He asked them, “What manual work do you do?” They said, “We do not work with out hands. We obey St. Paul’s command and pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). He said to them, “Don’t you eat?” They said, “Yes, we do.” He said to them: “When you are eating who prays for you?” Then he asked them, “Don’t you sleep?” They said “Yes, we do.” He said, “Who prays for you while you are asleep?” and they could not answer him.
Then he said to them, “I may be wrong, brothers, but it seems to me that you don’t do what you say. I will show you how I pray without ceasing although I work with my hands. With God’s help, I sit down with a few palm leaves, and plait them, and say, “Have mercy upon me, O God, after they great mercy: and according to the multitude of they mercies do away with mine iniquity” (Ps 51:1). He asked them, “Is that prayer, or not” They said, “It’s prayer all right.”
He said, “When I spend all day working and praying in my heart, I make about sixteen pence. Two of these I put outside the door, and with the rest I buy flood. Whoever finds the two pennies outside the door prays for me while I am eating and sleeping: and so by God’s grace I fulfil the text, “Pray without ceasing”.
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
A brother came to Poemen and said to him, “Many thoughts come into my mind and put me in danger.”
He sent him out into the open air, and said, “Open your lungs and do not breathe.”
He replied, “I can’t do that.”
Then he said to him: “Just as you can’t stop air coming into your lungs, so you can’t stop thoughts coming into your mind. Your part is to resist them.”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
A hermit was asked how a watchful monk could prevent himself from being shocked if he saw others returning to the world.
He replied, “A monk should remember hounds when they are hunting a hare. One of them glimpses the hare and gives chase, the others merely see a hound running, and run some way with him, when they get tired and go back to their tracks. Only the leading house keeps up the chase until he catches the hare. He is not deterred by the others who give up, he thinks nothing of cliffs or thickets or brambles, he is often pricked and scratched by thorns, but he keeps on until he catches the hare. So the man who runs after the Lord Jesus aims unceasingly at the cross, and leaps over every obstacle in his way until he comes to the Crucified.
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
A hermit said, “A tree cannot bear fruit if it is often transplanted. So it is with the monk”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
A hermit said to a brother, “Do not measure yourself against your brother, saying that you are more serious or more chaste or more understanding than he is. But be obedient to the grace of God, in the spirit of poverty, and in love unfeigned. The efforts of a man swollen with vanity are futile. It is written, “Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall”; “let your speech be seasoned with salt” and so you will be dependent upon Christ.”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
Anthony said, “Now I no longer fear God, I love him, for love casts out fear.”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V