勞蘇之史 第 1 章 第 4/7 段

and having come near to leaving the desert, driven by this passion, I confided the matter neither to my neighbors nor to my teacher Evagrius;

but secretly making my way into the deep desert, for fifteen days I associated with the fathers who had grown old in the desert around Scetis;

among whom I also met Pachon.

Finding him therefore more guileless and more disciplined in asceticism, I took courage to lay before him the matters of my mind.

He said: "Do not suppose that you suffer this from slothfulness;

for both the place itself testifies on your behalf—both because of the scarcity of necessities and because there are no encounters with women;

for the warfare of lust is threefold.

For sometimes the flesh, being in full vigor, assails us;

sometimes the passions through evil thoughts;

and sometimes the demon himself, by his malice.

For I myself, having observed much, have discovered this.

"Behold, as you see, I am an old man;

I have been forty years in this cell, taking thought for my own salvation;

and having reached this age, I am tempted even to this very day."

And he swore that "For twelve years after my fiftieth year, the demon gave me no rest by night nor by day, ever assailing me."

"Suspecting therefore that God had departed from me—and that this was why I was being so overpowered—I chose to die irrationally rather than to disgrace myself through a passion of the body.

So I went out and, wandering through the desert, found a hyena's den;

into which den I laid myself naked in the daytime, so that the wild beasts coming out might devour me.

So when evening came, according to that which is written, 'You appointed darkness, and it became night;

in it all the beasts of the forest go about,' the wild beasts came out, both the male and the female, and they sniffed me from head to foot, licking me all over;

and just when I expected to be devoured, they withdrew from me.

So having lain there throughout the whole night, I was not devoured;

and reasoning that God had spared me, I returned again to my cell.

Then the demon, having held off for a few days, assailed me again more violently than before, so that I came within a little of even blaspheming.

Transforming himself therefore into an Ethiopian girl, whom I had once seen in my youth gleaning reeds in the summer, he sat upon my knees, and he so stirred me up that I thought I had intercourse with her.

In a frenzy therefore I struck her a blow with my fist, and she became invisible.

For two whole years thereafter I could not endure the stench of my own hand.

So becoming faint-hearted and despairing, I went out into the deep desert, wandering about;

and finding a small asp and taking it, I applied it to my genitals, that even thus, being bitten, I might die.

And though I rubbed the creature's head against those parts, as being the cause of my temptation, I was not bitten.

Then I heard a voice coming into my mind, saying: 'Go, Pachon, struggle on;

for it was for this reason that I allowed you to be overpowered—lest you should think great things of yourself as being capable, but rather, recognizing your weakness, you should not trust in your own ascetic life, but should run to the help of God.'

Thus assured, I turned back, and sitting with confidence and no longer taking thought for the warfare, I lived in peace the remaining days,

so that thought no longer drew near to me.

Concerning Stephen the Libyan. A certain Stephen, a Libyan by race, dwelt for sixty years off to the side of Marmarica and the Mareotis.

This man, having become an ascetic of the highest order and a man of discernment, was deemed worthy of such a gift of grace that everyone who came to him grieving, with whatever kind of grief, would depart free from sorrow.

He was also well known to the blessed Antony;

and he lived on even down to our own days.

Him I myself did not meet, on account of the great distance of the place;

but those around the holy Ammonius and Evagrius, who had met him, related to me: 'We came upon him fallen into such a sickness in those very parts about the testicles and the groin, which had made the ulcer called a gangrenous sore.

We found him being attended by a certain physician, working with his hands and plaiting palm-leaves and talking with us, while the rest of his body was being operated upon;

and he was so disposed as though it were another person being cut.

So when the limbs were being cut off like hairs, he was insensible, by reason of his surpassing divine preparation.

And when we, on the one hand, were grieving over this, and on the other were disgusted that such a life had fallen into such a malady and into such surgeries, he said to us:

'Little children, be not harmed by what is happening;

for nothing that God does, He does out of malice, but for a good end.

For perhaps these limbs were liable to punishment, and it is to my benefit that they pay the penalty here rather than after the exit from the stadium [of this life].'

Having thus comforted and supported us, he edified us.

These things I have related so that we may not be astonished when we see certain holy men fallen into such afflictions.

Concerning Valens. A certain Valens was by race a Palestinian, but in disposition a Corinthian;

for the holy Paul ascribed the passion of being puffed up to the Corinthians.

This man, having reached the desert, dwelt with us for many years;

and he drove himself to such a pitch of pride that he was deceived by demons.

For from his being deceived little by little, they brought him to think great things of himself, as though angels were conversing with him.

On one of those days, as they related, while he was working in the dark, he dropped the needle with which he was stitching the basket;

and when he could not find it, the demon made a lamp and he found the needle.

Again, being puffed up over this, he thought great things of himself, and was so puffed up that he even came to despise the communion of the holy mysteries.

It happened that some visitors came and brought sweetmeats to the church for the brotherhood.

So the holy Macarius, our presbyter, took them and sent a handful to each of us in our cells, among whom was also Valens.

But when Valens received it, he insulted and struck the one who had brought it, and said to him:

"I am no worse than you, that you should send me a blessing!"

When Macarius learned that he had been mocked, he went to admonish him a day later, and said to him:

But since he would not heed his exhortations, Macarius withdrew.

Now the demon, fully assured that Valens had been utterly won over to his deception, departed and fashioned himself into the likeness of the Saviour, and came by night in a vision of a thousand angels bearing lamps and a fiery wheel, in which he seemed to fashion the Saviour, with one going before and saying:

"Christ has fallen in love with your way of life and the boldness of your conduct, and has come to see you.

So come out of your cell, and do nothing else but, seeing him from afar, bow down and worship him, and then go back into your cell."

So he went out, and beholding the lamp-bearing array, and at about a stadium's distance the antichrist, he fell down and worshipped him.

And so deranged in mind was he again the next day, that he entered the church and, when the brotherhood was gathered, declared:

"I have no need of the Communion;

for I have seen Christ this very day."

Then the fathers bound him and put him in irons for a whole year, and healed him, tearing down his self-conceit by prayers and a life of indifference and freedom from care, and as the saying goes:

"Contraries are the cures for contraries."

(I have set this down in this little book for the safeguarding of those who read it, just as among the holy plants of paradise there was also the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;

so that, if ever some good achievement should befall them, they may not think highly of themselves on account of their virtue.

For often virtue itself becomes the occasion of a fall, whenever it is not accomplished with a right intention;

"I have seen a righteous man perishing in his righteousness."

There was a certain Hero, a neighbour of mine, an Alexandrian by birth, a refined young man, of keen mind and pure in life;

who, after many labours, was himself smitten with conceit, broke his neck in a headlong fall, and thought arrogantly against the fathers, even insulting the blessed Evagrius, saying that "Those who follow your teaching are deceived;

for one ought not to give heed to any teachers other than Christ."

And he even misused the testimony of Scripture for the purpose of his own folly, and said that the Saviour himself had said:

"Call no man teacher upon the earth."

He too was so far darkened that he himself was afterwards put in irons, since he was unwilling even to approach the holy Mysteries.

He was exceedingly austere in his manner of life, so that many of his acquaintances would relate that he often ate but once every three months, content with the Communion of the Mysteries and, wherever it might be found, some wild herb.

I myself had experience of him too, when I was going off to Scetis with the blessed Albanius.

Scetis was forty miles distant from us;

in the course of these forty miles we ate twice and drank water three times, but he, having tasted nothing, walked on foot and recited by heart fifteen psalms, then the great psalm, then the Epistle to the Hebrews, then Isaiah and part of Jeremiah, then Luke the Evangelist, then the Proverbs.

And while this was so, we could not keep up with him as he walked.

This man, in the end, as though driven by fire, could not sit still even in his own cell;

and going off to Alexandria by divine providence, as the saying goes, "he drove out one nail with another."

For he fell willingly into a life of indifference, only later finding salvation against his will.

For he frequented the theatre and the horse-races, and spent his time in taverns;

and thus, given to gluttony and drunkenness, he plunged into the mire of desire for women.

And as he was contemplating sin, falling in with a certain actress, he discussed with her the matters pertaining to his sore.

While these things were going on, there arose in him a carbuncle upon the glans itself, and he was so sick for a six-month period that his parts rotted away and fell off.

But afterwards, when he had recovered without those members, and had returned to a godly frame of mind, he came confessing all these things to the fathers;

but before he could put it into practice, he fell asleep after a few days.

Concerning Ptolemy. Yet another, Ptolemy by name, lived a life hard to describe or beyond all describing;

for he dwelt beyond Scetis, in the place called the Ladder;

and the place is so named, in which no one is able to dwell, because the well of the brethren is eighteen miles distant.

So that man carried off many Cilician earthenware jars, and in the months of December and January, gathering the dew—for at that time it falls heavily in those parts—with a sponge from the rocks, he managed to dwell there for fifteen years.

But having estranged himself from teaching, from the company of holy men and their benefit, and from continual Communion of the Mysteries, he so far departed from the straight path as to say that things are nothing, but are merely borne aloft in suspension—wandering about Egypt to this very day, and having given himself over to gluttony and drunkenness, holding converse with no one about anything.

And this calamity befell Ptolemy through irrational self-conceit, according to what is written:

"Those who have no guidance fall like leaves."

Concerning a virgin who fell. Again, I knew a virgin in Jerusalem who wore sackcloth for six years and was shut up in seclusion, taking none of the things that minister to pleasure;

yet she fell into the fall of pride.

And opening her window she admitted the one who served her, and joined herself to him in defilement—because she had undertaken her ascetic discipline not according to a godly purpose and the love of God, but according to a human pretence, that is, out of vainglory and a corrupt disposition.

For since her thoughts were taken up with condemning others, there was no guardian of her chastity.

Concerning Elias. There was a certain ascetic named Elias who was exceedingly a lover of virgins;

for there are such souls whose end bears witness to their virtue.

He, taking pity on the order of female ascetics, having means in the city of Athribis, built a great monastery and gathered all the wandering women into the monastery, caring for them accordingly, providing them with every comfort—gardens and oratories and whatever life requires.

These women, having been brought together from different walks of life, were continually quarrelling with one another.

Since therefore it was necessary for him both to hear their disputes and to make peace—for he had gathered about three hundred of them—he was obliged to act as mediator for two years.

Being young in age—for he was about thirty or forty years old—this man was tempted by desire;

and withdrawing from the monastery, fasting, he wandered through the desert for two days, praying thus: "Lord, either kill me, that I may not see them in distress, or take away my passion, that I may care for them reasonably."

So when evening came he slept in the desert, and three angels came to him, as he himself related, took hold of him and said:

"Why have you left the monastery of the women?" To whom he related the matter:

"Because I was afraid lest I should harm both them and myself."

"Well then, if we free you from your passion, will you go back and care for them?" To this he agreed.

They exacted an oath from him.

And he said the oath was of this sort:

"Swear to us: 'By Him who cares for me, I will care for them.'"

Then they took hold of him, one by the hands and one by the feet, and the third, taking a razor, cut off his testicles—not in reality, but in a vision.

So it seemed to him in his ecstasy, as one might say, that he had even been completely cured.

"Have you felt any benefit?" He said to them:

"I have been greatly relieved, and I am convinced that I have been freed from my passion."

And returning after five days, while the monastery was in mourning, he entered and from then on remained within in a side cell, from which, being nearer, he continually set them right as far as it lay in his power.

And he lived another forty years, assuring the fathers that "No passion arises in my mind."

This was the gift of grace of that holy man who cared so deeply for the monastery,

who, being unable to remain within the monastery itself, shut himself up in an upper room and made a window looking out toward the monastery of the women, which he would open and close;

and so he would sit continually by the window, mediating peace among them.

And in this way he grew old up there in the upper room, neither the women coming up nor he being able to go down.

Concerning Piamoun. Piamoun was a virgin who lived all the years of her life with her own mother, eating only every other day in the evening and spinning flax.

She was deemed worthy of the gift of prophecy.

Among these gifts it once happened in Egypt, during the season of the Nile's rising, that one village made an attack upon another;

for they fight over the distribution of the water, so that even murders and slaughters follow.

An angel appeared to her, revealing to her the attack of these men.

And she summoned the elders of the village and said:

"Go out and meet those who are coming from such-and-such a village against you, so that you too may not perish together with the village, and entreat them to desist from this outrage."

They said to her: "We do not dare to go out to meet them;

for we know their drunkenness and their madness."

"But if you would show mercy upon the whole village and upon your own house, go out yourself and meet them."

She, not consenting to this, went up into her own little room at night and stood praying throughout, not bending the knee, and beseeching God: "Lord who judges the earth, to whom nothing of the unjust is pleasing, when this prayer comes to you, let your power nail them fast to the place wherever it overtakes them."

And about the first hour, having been nailed fast at a distance of three miles, they were unable to move from the place;

and it was revealed even to them that the hindrance had come upon them through her intercessions;

and sending word to the village, they sued for peace, declaring: "Give thanks to God and to the prayers of Piamoun, which have shackled us."

Concerning Pachomius and the Tabennesiotes. Tabennesi is a place in the Thebaid so called, in which there arose a certain Pachomius, a man of those who had lived uprightly, so as to be deemed worthy of both prophecies and angelic visions.

He was exceedingly loving toward mankind and loving toward the brethren.

As he was sitting in his cave, then, an angel appeared to him and said to him:

"You have set in order the things concerning yourself;

so it is superfluous for you to sit in the cave;

come, go out and gather together all the young monks and dwell with them, and legislate for them according to the pattern which I give you."

And he handed him a bronze tablet on which these things were written:

"You shall permit each one to eat and drink according to his strength;

and assign to them tasks in proportion to the strength of those who eat;

and hinder neither fasting nor eating.

Assign, however, the heavy tasks to the stronger who also eat, and the light tasks to the weaker and more ascetic.

Make various cells in the enclosure, and let three remain in each cell.

But let the food of all be taken in a single house.

Let them sleep not lying down, but having made rather reclined built-up seats and placed their bedding there, let them sleep sitting.

Let them wear during the nights linen tunics, girded.

Let each of them have a worked goatskin cloak, without which let them not eat.

When they go to the communion on the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, let them loosen their girdles, lay aside the goatskin cloak, and enter with only the cowl.

He fashioned for them cowls without tufts, like those for children, on which he commanded that a brand in the figure of a cross be set in purple.

He commanded that there be twenty-four orders, and to each order he assigned a Greek letter, from alpha and beta and gamma and delta and those following in sequence.

So when he inquired and made careful enquiry concerning so great a multitude, the senior would ask the second-in-command:

"How fares the order of alpha?" or:

"Greet the rho," following some private sign of the letters.

And to the simpler and more guileless you shall assign the iota, but to the more difficult and more crooked you shall apply the xi.

And thus, in proportion to the condition of their dispositions and characters and ways of life, he fitted the letter to each order, only the spiritual ones knowing what was signified.

It was written in the tablet that: "A stranger from another monastery which has a different rule shall not eat with these, nor drink with them, nor enter into the monastery—unless he be found on a journey."

The one who enters to remain with them for three years, however, they do not receive within the inner precincts;

but having performed the more laborious works, thus he enters after three years.

When they eat, let them cover their heads with the cowls, so that a brother may not see a brother chewing.

It is not permitted to speak while eating, nor to direct the eye anywhere else beyond the platter or the table.

He laid down that they should make throughout the whole day twelve prayers, and at the lamp-lighting twelve, and in the night-vigils twelve, and at the ninth hour three;

and when the multitude is about to eat, he laid down that a psalm should be sung before each prayer.

When [he objected] to the angel that the prayers were few, the angel said to him:

"I appointed these so that even the little ones might be able to complete the rule and not be grieved.

But the perfect have no need of legislation;

for by themselves in their cells they have given over the whole of their living to the contemplation of God."

"But for these I have legislated—as many as do not have a discerning mind—that even as household servants fulfilling the order of the rule of life, they may be brought to a confident bearing."

There are, then, these monasteries—many of them holding to this pattern—amounting to seven thousand men.

And there is the first and great monastery, where Pachomius himself dwelt, the one which gave birth also to the other monasteries, having thirteen hundred men.

Among whom was also the good Aphthonius, who became my genuine friend, and who is now second-in-command in the monastery;

him, as one who could give no offence, they send to Alexandria to sell their products and to purchase their necessities.

And there are other monasteries of two hundred and three hundred;

among which, having entered into the city of Panopolis, I found three hundred men.

[In this monastery I saw fifteen tailors, seven smiths, four carpenters, twelve camel-drivers, fifteen fullers.] They work at every craft, and out of their surplus they also provide for the women's monasteries and the prisons.

[They also keep pigs;

and when I found fault with the practice, they said: "In the tradition we have received that they are to be fed on the siftings, on the parings of the vegetables, and on the cast-off refuse, so that there be no waste.

And let the pigs be slaughtered, and let the meat be sold, but let the extremities be consumed by the sick and the aged, since the region is small and densely populated;

for the nation of the Blemmyes dwells near them."]. The week-attendants, rising at dawn, busy themselves, some about the kitchen, others about the tables.

They set out the tables, then, until the appointed hour, having arranged everything, placing on each table loaves, prepared relishes, olives, cow's-milk cheeses, [the extremities of the meat,] and finely-cut vegetables.

There are, then, those who come in at the sixth hour and eat, others at the seventh, others at the eighth, others at the ninth, others at the eleventh, others late in the evening, others every other day, so that each letter recognizes its own hour.

Such also were their labours:

one works the land as a farmer, another a garden, another a smithy, another a bakery, another a carpenter's shop, another a fuller's shop, another plaiting the large baskets, another a tannery, another a cobbler's shop, another a calligraphy room, another plaiting the soft mats;

and they commit all the Scriptures to memory.

Concerning the monastery of the women. They have also a monastery of women, about four hundred, having the same ordinance, the same way of life, except for the goatskin cloak;

and the women are on the far side of the river, but the men on the side opposite.

When, then, a virgin dies, the virgins, having laid her out for burial, carry her and place her beside the bank of the river;

and the brethren, having crossed over by ferry, with palm-branches and olive boughs, with psalmody, carry her across to the other side, burying her in their own tombs.

Except for the presbyter and the deacon, however, no one crosses over to the monastery of the women, and this only on the Lord's Day.

In this monastery of the women there happened an affair of this kind:

a worldly tailor, having crossed over in ignorance, was seeking work;

and one of the younger women came out—for the place is deserted—and met him by chance, and gave him the answer that: "We have our own tailors."

Another, having seen the encounter, after time had passed and a quarrel had arisen, out of a diabolical suspicion, from much wickedness and a boiling of anger, slandered her before the sisterhood;

and a few others also ran together with her in the malice.

That one, then, being deeply grieved, as having suffered such a slander—one which had never even come into her mind—and unable to bear it, secretly threw herself into the river and died.

When the presbyter came, then, the remaining sisters reported the matter to him;

and he commanded that the offering be celebrated for not even one of these;

but those who had not made peace with them, as being privy to the slanderer and as having believed what was said, he set apart for seven years, making them excommunicate.

Concerning her who feigned folly. In this monastery there was another virgin who feigned folly and demon-possession;

and they so loathed her that they would not even eat with her, this being her own choice.

Wandering about the kitchen, then, she performed every menial service, and she was, as the saying goes, the sponge of the convent, fulfilling in deed that which is written:

"If anyone among us thinks himself wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise."

She, having bound a rag upon her head—for all the others are shorn, having cowls—thus was serving.

None of the four hundred saw this woman chewing all the years of her life;

she never sat at table, nor partook of a morsel of bread, but wiping up the crumbs of the tables and washing out the pots, with these she was content;

never having insulted anyone, never having grumbled, never having spoken little or much, although she was cuffed and insulted and cursed and abhorred.

An angel appeared, then, to the holy Piteroum, an anchorite sitting in the Porphyrite, a most approved man, and said to him:

"For though she contends with so great a throng, she has never withdrawn her heart from God;

but you, sitting here, wander in your thought through the cities."

And he who had never gone out departed to that monastery, and entreated the teachers to let him enter into the monastery of the women.

They, since he was esteemed and aged, took courage to bring him in.

And having entered, he sought to see them all.

"We have one madwoman within in the kitchen,"

for so they call those who are afflicted.

She did not obey, perhaps perceiving the matter, or even having had it revealed to her.

They drag her by force and say to her:

"The holy Piteroum wishes to see you."

When she came, then, he beheld the rag upon her forehead, and falling at her feet he said to her:

Likewise she too fell at his feet, saying:

They were all amazed and said to him:

Piteroum says to them all:

"For she is the amma both of me and of you"—for so they call the spiritual women;

"and I pray that I may be found worthy of her in the day of judgment."

Hearing these things, they fell at his feet, all confessing in various ways;

one as having poured the dishwater of the platter upon her;

another as having struck her with her fists;

another as having mustarded her nose;

and in a word, all reported various insults.

Having prayed, then, on their behalf, he departed.

And after a few days that woman, unable to bear the glory and honour of the sisters, and burdened by their apologies, went out of the monastery;

and where she went, or where she hid herself, or how she died, no one knew.

Concerning John of the city of Lyco. There was a certain John in the city of Lyco, who as a child learned the carpenter's trade;

but afterward, having become about twenty-five years of age, he renounced the world;

and having spent five years in various monasteries, he withdrew alone to the mountain of Lyco, and on the very summit having made for himself three domed cells and entered in, he walled himself up.

Now the one cell was for the necessities of the body, and the one where he worked and ate, and the other where he prayed.

Having been shut up for years and receiving through a window from the one who served him his necessities, he was deemed worthy of the gift of prophecy.

Among these he sent various prophecies to the blessed emperor Theodosius, concerning Maximus the tyrant, that having conquered him he would return from the Gauls;

and likewise he brought good tidings concerning Eugenius the tyrant.

Of him there went out a great fame as a virtuous man.

Being, then, in the desert of Nitria, both I and those around the blessed Evagrius, we sought to learn with exactness what the virtue of the man was.

The blessed Evagrius says, then:

"Gladly would I learn from one who knows how to test mind and word, of what sort the man is;

for if I myself am unable to see him, but am able to hear accurately the things of his way of life from another who relates them, I do not go off to the mountain."

Hearing this, I, having said nothing to anyone, kept quiet for one day;

but on the next, having shut my cell and committed myself to God, I dragged myself even that far, to the Thebaid.