haughtiness he made answer to him, saying, “What do hypocrites and deceivers seek here?” Then the blessed Evagrius entreated him to go with us to the place where we were lodging, but he did not by any means wish to go; and when, with the greatest difficulty, he had been persuaded to go with us, so soon as we had entered in and prayed, the blessed Evagrius fell upon his neck and kissed him, and with tears said unto him, “Verily, O my beloved, from all that divine service of angels thou hast been brought down to this depth of wickedness; and thou hast turned thyself from converse with God to converse with harlots; and instead of the life and service of angels thou hast chosen the life of devils! But I beseech and entreat thee not to cut off the hope of thy redemption, but arise, and come with us to the desert, for by my hands God the Merciful is able to restore thee to thy former grade.” Now his understanding had been so blinded by Satan that he did not know how to listen to what was said unto him, nor did he know what he answered. And he said unto Evagrius, “Up to the present I have certainly been wandering about, but now I have found the path of truth,” and he began to make a mock of the fathers, and to say, “Ye certainly wander about [i.e., err], and ye dwell in the desert under a false character, for the sake of men, and not for the sake of God, and ye are to the spectators as idols whom men decorate, and to whom they pay worship”; and thus, being full of the pride and boasting of Satan, he spurned the fathers and went forth and departed, and the blessed Evagrius and the brethren wept and groaned over him greatly.
Then that man carried off a certain virgin, who was an orphan and a nun living by herself, with a foul design to his monastery, and though he did this with the excuse that he was going to help her by means of alms of which she was in need, it was in reality that he might fulfil his wanton desire. And having lived with her in this degraded state for about two years, at length there came to him thieves by night, who first tied him with cords, and then smote him with hard and cruel blows, until he brought out whatsoever he had in his dwelling and laid it before them; and last of all they shut him up with the woman with whom he used to work out his wantonness in a house wherein there was straw, and, both of them being bound with cords, the thieves set fire to the house, and thus the two were consumed, and they died a bitter death. And in them was fulfilled that which was spoken by the teacher of the Gentiles, who said, “Because they did not decide within themselves to know God, God delivered them over to the knowledge of vanity, that they might disgrace their bodies
