little, and thought within himself, saying, ‘How is it that I am able to rebuke others, and remain myself without reproof?’ Then having understood his guiltiness, he ran back with all speed to the desert, and wept over himself, saying, ‘If it had not been that the Lord helped me my soul would have been destroyed by misery, for I am within a very little of [falling] into every kind of wickedness, and my life would have been destroyed in the earth.’ And it was fulfilled in him the saying, ‘A man is helped by his brethren, even as a city is helped by its fortress, and he is like a wall which shall never fall.’ And from that time onwards, for the whole period of his life, that monk mourned and wept because he was deprived of his heavenly table, and he obtained his daily bread only by means of great toil. And he shut himself up in the cave, and [put on] sackcloth and ashes, and he humbled himself in prayer; and he neither rose up from earth nor ceased from groans and sighs, until he heard in a dream a sound of angels which came to him, [and said], ‘God hath received thy repentance, and hath had mercy upon thee. Therefore take good heed that thou stumble not a second time into sin. And the brethren whom thou didst admonish shall come unto thee and console thee, and shall bring unto thee a blessing [which] thou shalt receive from them, and ye shall be refreshed and shall give thanks unto God always.’
These things which I have narrated unto you, O my sons, [shew] that ye should acquire humbleness of mind before every other thing in your life and works, and in all matters which shall be unto you, whether they be small or whether they be great, for this is the first commandment of our Redeemer, Who said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (St. Matthew 5:3). Take good heed that ye be not confounded by the Devil when filthy visions rise upon you, and go not astray after devils when they shew you a lying vision. But if anyone come unto you, be it brother, or friend, or wife, or old man, or father, or teacher, or mother, or sister, or son, or daughter, first of all lift up your hands in prayer, and if it should happen that any lying vision of devils should come, it will depart quickly from before you. And moreover, if men or devils would lead you astray, and would incite you [to sin] by flattering you, be not persuaded by them, and be not lifted up in your minds. For in this way they have led even me astray on several occasions, and the devils would let me neither pray nor take my rest in the night season, and they used to show me lying visions the whole night long, and then in the morning they would laugh at me, and would bend
