The Second Conference with Abbot Isaac

Among the lofty customs of the anchorites, which with God’s help have been set out, though in a plain and unadorned style, the course of our story compels us to insert and find room for something that may seem, so to speak, to put a blemish on a fair body. Yet I have no doubt that it will give some of the simpler sort no small instruction about the image of Almighty God of which we read in Genesis. This is especially so when one considers the grounds of a teaching so important that people cannot be ignorant of it without terrible blasphemy and serious harm to the catholic faith. [a]