The Old Man’s Words and Our Reply

Since we were eager to learn from his teaching, we came to his cell toward evening, somewhat anxious. After a short silence he began to praise our undertaking, because we had left our homes and visited so many countries for love of the Lord, and were trying with all our might to endure want and the trials of the desert, and to imitate their severe life, which even those born and raised in the same want and poverty could scarcely bear. We replied that we had come for his teaching and instruction, so that we might be initiated to some extent into the ways of so great a man, and into that perfection we knew from many signs to be in him. We had not come to be honored with any praise we had no right to, or to be puffed up by anything he said with pride of mind, which at the prompting of our enemy sometimes troubled us in our own cells. So we begged him rather to set before us what would make us humble and contrite, and not what would flatter us and puff us up.