HE was priest of Scete, and hermit in that vast desert. He excelled in
an unparalleled gift of meekness, continency, prayer, and recollection.
Once perceiving in himself some motions of anger to rise, he that
instant threw down certain baskets he was carrying to market, and ran
away to avoid the occasion.[1] When, in his old age, others persuaded
him to abate something in his labor, he answered: "If we consider what
the Son of God hath done for us, we can never allow ourselves any
indulgence in sloth. Were my body burnt, and my ashes scattered in the
air, it would be nothing."[2] Whenever the enemy tempted him to despair,
he said, "Were I to be damned, thou wouldest yet be below me in hell;
nor would I cease to labor in the service of God, though assured that
this was to be my lot." If he was tempted to vain-glory, he reproached
and confounded himself with the thought, how far even in his exterior
exercises he fell short of the servants of God, Antony, Pambo, and
others.[3] Being asked the reason of his abundant tears, he answered: "I
weep for my sins: if we had only once offended God, we could never
sufficiently bewail this misfortune." He died a little before the year
391. His name stands in the Roman Martyrology, on the fifteenth of
January. See Cassian. coll. 18, c. 15 and 16. Tillem. t. 8, p. 440.
Footnotes:
1. Cotellier, Mon. Gr. t. 1, p. 487.
2. Ib. p. 686. Rosweide, l. 5, c. 7
3. Cotel. ib. t. 2, p. 48. Rosweide, l. 3, c. 101, l. 7, c. 11.