HE lived a recluse on a mountain in Syria, and shut himself up ten years
in an open cage of wood. Theodoret asked him why he had chosen so
singular a practice. The penitent answered: "I punish my criminal body,
that God, seeing my affliction for my sins, may be moved to pardon them,
and to deliver me from, or at least to mitigate the excessive torments
of the world to come, which I have deserved." See Theodoret, Phil. c.
28. John Mosch in the Spiritual Meadow, c. 59, p. 872, relates that
Thalihaeus, the Cilician, spent sixty years in an ascetic life, weeping
almost without intermission; and that he used to say to those that came
to him: "Time is allowed us by the divine mercy for repentance and
satisfaction, and wo {sic} to us if we neglect it."