The Kind of Place Anchorites Should Seek

And so the man who is taking anxious care over the purity of his inner self should look for places whose fruitfulness and fertility do not tempt his mind to the trouble of farming them. Such land would drive him out of his fixed and steady post in his cell and force him to go out to some work in the open air. And so, with his thoughts poured out, as it were, into the open, he would scatter to the winds all his concentration of mind and all the keenness of his gaze on his goal. No one at all, however careful and watchful, can guard against this or even see it, except one who keeps his body and soul continually shut up and enclosed within walls. Then, like a splendid fisherman seeking food for himself by the apostles’ craft, he may eagerly and without moving catch the swarms of thoughts swimming in the calm depths of his heart. Looking down with searching eye into the depths as if from a high rock, he may shrewdly and skillfully decide which he ought to draw to himself with his saving hook, and which he can pass over and throw back as bad and nasty fish. [a]