Abbot Paul Burns His Year’s Work

Finally, there is Abbot Paul, one of the greatest of the fathers. He was living in a vast desert called the Porphyrian desert. Free from worry thanks to his date palms and a small garden, he had plenty to support himself and an ample supply of food. He could find no other work to do that would support him, because his dwelling was separated from towns and inhabited country by seven days’ journey or more through the desert, and carrying the goods would cost more than the work would fetch. So he gathered palm leaves and regularly required of himself his daily task, as though he had to live by it. And when his cave had been filled with a whole year’s work, he would burn with fire, every year, what he had labored over so diligently. He proved by this that without the labor of his hands a monk cannot stay in one place or rise to the heights of perfection. So although the need for food did not require it, he did it simply to purify his heart, to strengthen his thoughts, to persevere in his cell, and to win the victory over acedia and drive it away. [a]