CHAPTER LXII

OF THE BLESSED MAN EUSTATHIUS

EUSTATHIUS was a brother of Elpidius whom [we have mentioned] above, and this man followed so strenuously after the acquisition of impassibility, and made his body so dry (i.e., emaciated) by the labours of vigilant prayer, that the [light of] the sun could be seen between his ribs. And of him the following story is told by the brethren who were continually with him, that is to say by his disciples: He never turned himself towards the west, because close by the side of the door of his cave was a mountain which, because of its mighty bulk, was very hard [to ascend]; and he never looked at the sun after the sixth hour of the day, because the door of his cell was hidden by the shadow of the mountain so long as the sun was declining towards its place ofsetting. And moreover he could never see those stars which appear in the western part of the sky, and for five and twenty years from the time when he entered the cave wherein he dwelt he never went down from the mountain.