Theodore’s Visit in the Night

The same Theodore came to my cell unexpectedly in the dead of night, with a father’s curiosity to find out what I, still an untrained anchorite, might be doing by myself. I had already finished my evening office and was beginning to rest my tired body, lying down on a mat. When he found me like this, he sighed from the bottom of his heart, called me by name, and said, “How many, John, are at this hour speaking with God, embracing him and holding him fast with them, while you are deprived of so great a light, weakened as you are by lazy sleep!” [a]

And since the virtues of the fathers and the grace given to them have led us to turn aside to a story like this, I think it good to record in this volume a remarkable act of love that we experienced from the kindness of that most excellent man Archebius. In this way the purity of self-control, grafted onto a work of love, may shine out more readily, adorned with a pleasing variety. For the duty of fasting becomes acceptable to God when it is made perfect by the fruits of love.