Who Loves Idle Tales

By this proof the same old man made it plain that it was the devil who encouraged idle tales, and who always showed himself the enemy of spiritual conferences. Once, when he was speaking to some of the brothers on necessary and spiritual matters, he saw that they were weighed down with deep sleep and could not drive the heaviness of sleep from their eyes. So he suddenly brought in an idle tale. And when he saw that they woke up at once, delighted with it, and pricked up their ears, he groaned and said, “Until now we were speaking of heavenly things, and all your eyes were overpowered with deep sleep. But as soon as an idle tale was brought in, we all woke up and shook off the drowsiness that had overcome us. So consider from this who is the enemy of that spiritual conference, and who has shown himself the one who suggests that useless and fleshly talk. For it is shown most plainly that it is he who, rejoicing in evil, never stops encouraging the idle talk and opposing the spiritual conference.”