The Old Man in the Desert Hut

“So I made my way toward the hut I had seen from a distance. There I found an old man in a garment made of skins, turning a mill by hand. He greeted us and received us kindly. We explained to him that we had been forced to land on that coast, and that the continued raging of the sea kept us from going on with our voyage at once. Once ashore, we said, we had wanted, as ordinary human nature does, to learn what the place was like and what the customs of the people were. We added that we were Christians, and that the chief thing we wanted to find out was whether there were any Christians in these lonely places. Then, weeping for joy, he threw himself at our feet, kissed us over and over again, and invited us to prayer. He spread sheepskins on the ground and made us sit down on them. Then he served a truly sumptuous breakfast: half a barley cake. Now, there were four of us, and he himself made the fifth. He also brought in a bundle of herbs whose name I forget; they were like mint, full of leaves, and tasted like honey. We were delighted with the very sweet taste of this plant, and our hunger was fully satisfied.” [a]

At this I smiled and said to my friend the Gaul: “What do you think of this, Gaul? Are you pleased with a bundle of herbs and half a barley cake as breakfast for five men?”

Then he, being a very modest man, blushed a little, and taking my teasing in good part, said: “You are acting just like yourself, Sulpitius. You never miss a chance to tease us about our fondness for eating. But it is unkind of you to try to force us Gauls to live like angels; and yet, out of my own fondness for eating, I could believe that even the angels eat. For my appetite is such that I would be afraid to tackle that half barley cake even on my own. Still, let that man of Cyrene be satisfied with it, who is always hungry either by necessity or by nature; or let those be content with it whose tossing at sea, I suppose, had taken away all desire for food. We, on the other hand, are far from the sea, and, as I have often told you, we are, in a word, Gauls. But instead of wasting time over such things, let our friend here rather go on and finish his account of the Cyrenian.”