Abbot John’s Humility, and Our Question

In this coenobium, then, we found a very old man named John. His words and his humility, we think, must certainly not be passed over in silence, since in these he surpassed all the saints. We know that he was especially strong in this perfection, which, though it is the mother of all virtues and the surest foundation of the whole spiritual building, is altogether foreign to our way of life. So it is no wonder that we cannot reach the height of those men. We cannot bear the training of the coenobium, I will not say into old age, but are barely content to endure the yoke of subjection for a couple of years, and then at once escape to enjoy a dangerous liberty. And even for that short time we seem to be under the rule of the elder, not by any strict rule, but as our own free will directs. [a]

When we had seen this old man in Abbot Paul’s coenobium, then, we were struck first by his age and by the grace with which he was endowed. With our eyes fixed on the ground we began to beg him to be so kind as to explain to us why he had forsaken the freedom of the desert and that lofty profession, in which his fame and renown had raised him above others who followed the same life, and why he had chosen to come under the yoke of the coenobium. He said that, since he was not equal to the life of the anchorites and was unworthy of the heights of such perfection, he had gone back to the infant school, to learn to carry out the lessons taught there as that life required. And when our pleading was not satisfied and we would not accept this humble answer, at last he began as follows.