CHAPTER VIII

THE TRIUMPHS OF ABBA ELIJAH

AND we also saw another priest in the desert of Antinoë, the metropolis of the Thebaïd, whose name was Elijah; he was about one hundred and ten years old, and the monks used to say that the spirit of Elijah the Prophet rested upon him. Now this blessed man Elijah was famous in the desert, for he had lived therein for seventy years, and it is wholly impossible to find a word which would adequately describe the sterility and desolation of that desert, and of the mountain in which he lived. He never went down to Shainâ, but there was a narrow path along which a man could walk with the greatest difficulty and make his way to him [guided] by the rough stones which were placed on both sides of the way; and his dwelling was under a rock in the cave. Now his appearance was terrible, for by reason of old age which had laid its hold upon him he trembled greatly; nevertheless he worked signs daily, and he never ceased to heal the sick. And the fathers told us concerning him that there was no man among them who could remember the time when he went up [to live] in the mountain. In his old age he used to eat three ounces of bread every evening, and three olives, but in his early manhood he partook of food only once a week, and subsisted thereon.

Here end the Triumphs of Abba Elijah