CHAPTER LXVIII

THE COMPASSIONATE MONK

[1] LIKEWISE in the city we found a monk who preferred not to be ordained to the priesthood, but had been led to the life after a short period of military service. He is spending his twentieth year in asceticism, in the following fashion. He lives with the bishop of the city, and is so humane and merciful that he goes his rounds even at nights, and has pity on those who are in need. [2] He neglects neither prison nor hospital, poor nor rich, but succours all, giving some advice about compassion, if without compassion; leading others onward; reconciling some and providing others with their bodily needs and clothing. And what generally happens in all great cities is found also in this one; for in the porch of the church a multitude of sick people laid on couches beg their daily food, some being married, others unmarried. [3] Well, it happened one day that the wife of a certain man was confined in the porch, at midnight in winter-time. So he heard her crying out in her pain, and abandoning his customary prayers went out and beheld her; finding no one he took the place of a midwife himself, not disdaining the unpleasantness of such occasions, compassion having made him not sensitive. [4] His clothes in appearance are not worth an obol, and his food runs a good race with his clothes. He cannot endure to lean over a writing-tablet since compassion drives him from his studies. If any of the brethren gives him a book, he immediately sells it, answering thus to those who scoff at him: “How can I persuade my Master that I have learned His art unless I sell Him Himself in order to practise the art perfectly?”