CHAPTER LXXI

THE BROTHER WHO IS WITH THE WRITER

[1] And now, when I have said a few words about the brother who has been with me from youth until this day, I will end my tale. I know that for a long time he has not eaten from desire nor fasted from desire. I consider that he has conquered desire of riches, the greatest part of vainglory. He is satisfied with what he has, he does not deck himself out with clothes, when despised he gives thanks, he runs risks for his close friends, he has engaged in contests with demons a thousand times and more; so that one day a demon tried to make an agreement with him and said: “Agree to sin just once, and whatever woman you mention to me in the world I will bring her to you.” [2] And again on another occasion, after buffeting him for fourteen nights, as he told me, and dragging him by the feet in the night he conversed with him audibly: “Cease worshipping Christ and I will not come near you.” But he answered and said: “This is why I worship Him and will glorify Him infinitely and adore Him, because you are utterly distasteful to me when I am thus engaged.” He has visited 106 cities and stayed in most of them, but by God’s mercy he has had nothing to do with a woman, not even in a dream, except for this contest. [3] I know that he received from an angel on three occasions the food he needed. One day, being in the inner desert and having not even a crumb, he found three loaves in his sheepskin still warm. Another time he found wine and loaves. Yet another time I learned that some one said this to him: “You are fainting; go then and receive from these men food and oil.” So he went to the man to whom this man had sent him and said: “Are you so-and-so?” And he said: “Yes; some one has ordered you to receive thirty bushels of corn and twelve pints of oil.” On behalf “of such a one I will glory,” whoever he was. I have known him often weep over men distressed by dire poverty, and he gave them all that he had except his flesh. I have known him also weep over one who had fallen into sin, and by his tears he led the fallen one to repentance. He once assured me on oath: “I prayed God that I might incite no man, especially the rich and wicked, to give me anything for my needs.”

[5] But for me it is enough to have been counted worthy of mentioning all these things which I have committed to writing. For it was not without God that your thought was stirred up to enjoin the writing of this book and the committal to writing of the lives of these saints. But you at least, most faithful servant of God, reading them with pleasure and accepting their lives and toils and so great endurance as a fitting demonstration of the resurrection, follow them eagerly, nourished with good hope, seeing the days in front of you to be shorter than those behind. [6] Pray for me, keeping yourself such as I knew you from the consulate of Tatian until this day and such as I found you when you had been chosen to be prefect of the most religious bedchamber. For a man whom such honour accompanied by riches and such power have not made incapable of the fear of God, such a one reposes on that Christ Who was told by the devil: “All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.”