FOR AVVA CASIAN
1. Avva Casian told: we went, me and Saint Ghermano in Egypt, to an old man, and hosting us, he was asked my us: why in the time of welcoming foreign brothers, the canon of our fasting – as we took in Palestine – you do not receive it? And he answered saying: the fasting is always with me, and keeping you always with me, I cannot. And the true fasting it is work and necessity and need, but it is of our will yet the fulfillment of love, because of need it is asked by the law of God. Through you then, welcoming Christ, it is my duty for me with all my diligence to give Him rest. And after I will see you off, I can again gain the canon of fasting. For the sons of the wedding cannot fast, as long the groom is with them. And when the goom will be taken away from them, then they will freely fast. (+)
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(+) Matthew IX, l5. Marc II, 19. Luke V, 34.
2. This same one said that there was an old man and a holy virgin was serving him, and the people were saying: they are not clean. And the old man heard. So, when he was about to terminate, he said to the fathers: after I will terminate, plant my staff at the tomb. And if it will bud, and it will make fruit, know that I am clean with her, and if it will not bud, and it will not make fruit, know that I have fallen with her. And they planted to staff, and the third day it budded and it made fruit. And all praised God.
3. He said again: we went to another old man, and he made us taste, and he was urging us eat more after we were full. And me, saying that we cannot anymore, he answered: but me, as the brothers were coming, six times I set the table, and urging each of them, together we were eating, and I am still hungry. But you, eating once, did you get full, so that you cannot eat anymore?
4. He said again this, that avva Ioan, a man abot of a large moastery, went to avva Paisie, who ws living for forty years in a very deep desert, and as the one who had lots of love towards him, and the daring from the love, said to him: I run, not from the brothers, but from the evil craft of the devils. And not being easily upset by any man, what did you accomplish? And he said: since I have become a monk, never has the sun seen me eating. And avva Ioan said: neither did it see me getting angry.
5. This avva Ioan, as he was towards the end, and wanting to go towards God, with desire and happiness, was surrounded by the brothers, asking him that instead of inheritance, he gives them a short, saving word, through which they will be able to ascend to the fulfilment into Christ. And he, sighing, said: never did I do my will, nor did I teach someone something that I did not do before.
6. He told again about another old man who was sitting in the desert, that he prayed to God to gift him that he should never fall slumber when a spiritual talk is started, and if someone will bring words of slender or words in vain, immediately he should fall asleep, so that his hearing should never taste this sort of poison. And this one was saying that the devil este strength of the words in vain, and the fighter against all the spiritual teaching, bringing also this sort of parable. For, he says, as I was speaking for their benefit to some brothers, they were taken by such a deep slumber, so that even their eye lids they could not move. As I wanted to show the work of the demon, I brought in the middle a vain word, which I poked fun at, and immediately they woke up. And sighing I said: as long as I was talking for heavely things, the eyes of all of you were taken by slumber, and when a vain word has flown, you all woke up with strength. That is why, beloved brothers, please, know the work of the sly devil, and pay attention to yourselves, guarind yourselves of slumbering, when you do or listen to something spiritual.
7. He also said that a rich man, giving up the world and his riches giving to the poor, he kept something for his rest, not wanting to receive the humble thinking from the complete giving up, and the true obedience of the canon of communal life. Towards whom, the one among the saints, Vasile, talked in this way: you both lost the riches, and did not become a monk.
8. He said again that there was a monk, living in a deserted cave, and it was announced to him by his bloor relatives, that his father is very upset with sickness, and he will die; so that he comes to inherit him. And he answered towards them: I have died to the world before that one. A dead man does not inherit from a living one.
FOR AVVA CRONIE
1. A brother said to avva Cronie: tell me a word! And he said to him how, as Elisei came to the Somanitean woman, he found her not having any grief with anyone. So she procreated and she gave birth through the coming of Elisei (+). The brother said to him: what is this word? And the old man said to ohim that if the soul will wake up, and it will pull itself from wasting and care, and if it will give up its will, then the Spirit of God comes to it, and it can give birth, because it is baren.
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(+) IV Kings 4, 10
2. A brother asked avva Cronie: what will I do to forgetfulness, which is enslaving my mind, and does not allow me to feel until it brings me to sin itself? And the old man answered: when the ones of different tribe took the Ark, because of the evil deed of the sons of Israil (+1), they pulled it until they brought it into the house of Dagon, their god. And then it fell with its face down (+2). And the brother said: what is this? And the old man said: that if they will manage to enslave the man’s mind with its own reasons, that is how they drag it until they will bring it on the unseen addiction. So, in that place, if that mind will turn and it will search for God, and it will remember of the eternal labor, immediately the addiction fals, and it is not seen anymore. For it is written: when you will turn and you will sigh, then you will be saved and you will know where you have been (+3).
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(+1) In others, of Ili.
(+2) I Kings, V, 2, 3.
(+3) Isaiah XXX 15.
3. A brother asked avva Cronie: how does man come to the humble thinking? The old man said to him: through the fear of God. The brother said to him: but through what sort of thing does he come to the fear of God. The old man said: I reckon, if he will collect himself from all the things, and he will give himself to bodily weariness, and as much as he will ve able to, he will remember the exiting from the body, and God’s judgement.
4. Avva Cronie said that if Moise would have not brought the sheep under the Sinai mountain, he would not have seen the fire in the pyre (+1). The brother asked the old man: what is the meaning of the pyre? And he told him that the pyre is interpreted as the bodily deed. For it is written, that the Kingdom of Heaven is like the treasure hidden in the field (+2). The brother said to the old man: so without the bodily weariness, man does not grow into any virtue? The old man said: truly it is written: looking at Iisus, the Beginning and the Fulfilment of the faith, who instead of the happiness which was set in front of Him, he suffered the Cross (+3). And again, David says: if I will give sleep to my eyes, and slumber to my eyelashes, and the other (+4).
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(+1) Exodus III. 2, 3.
(+2) Matthew 13, 44.
(+3) Jews, XII 2.
(+4) Psalm 131. 4.
5. Avva Cronie said that avva Iosif from the Pilusie told him these: as I was sitting in Sinai, a good and ascetic, and having a fair face. And he was coming to the church service, wearing a coat full of stiches, and a small and old maforion. And as I saw him once coming like this at the service, I said to him: brother, don’t you see, the brothers as they are like the angels at the service, in the church? How is it that you always come here wearing old clothes? And he said: forgive me, avvo, for I do not have other ones! So I took him to my cell and I gave him a leviton and whatever else he needed, and now he was behaving like the other brothers, and it was possible to see him like an angel. And once the parents needed to send ten brothers to the emperor, for some need. And they decided him to, together with the ones that were to go. And after he heard, he did a prostration to the parents, saying: for the Lord, forgive me, for I am slave of one of the great ones from there, and if he will recognize me, he will take the monachism from me, and will take me again, to be his slave.
So, after the parents went away and left him, I found out afterwards from who knew him well, that in the time when he was in the world, he was leader of the pretors, and in order not to be recognize, and to have trouble from people, he caused this. This is how much endeavor the parents had, to run from this world’s glory and rest.
FOR AVVA CARION
1. Avva Carion said: I have done many bodily wearinesses, more than my son Zaharia, and I have not reached his measure, in his humbleness and quietness.
2. There was in the Skete a monk who was called avva Carion. This one, having two children, leaving them at his woman, went to the monastic life. And after a time, as hunger came in Egypt and his woman got into hardship, she came to the Skete, bringing the two children with her. And there was a male one, and his name was Zaharia, and there was a female one. And she was sitting far from the old man, in the river meadow. For it is a river meadow next to othe Skete, where the churches are built at the river springs. And this was the custom in the Skete, that if a woman was coming to talk to any brother of hers, or to another relative, they were talking to each other by sitting afar. Then avva Carion’s woman said: there, you made yourself a monk, and there is hunger. Who, then, will feed your children? Avva Carion answered to her: send them to me here! The woman said to the children: go to your father! So, as they were walking to their father, the girl returned to her mother, and the boy came to his father. Then he said to her: there, it has been done well. Take the girl and go, and I will take the boy! So, he was raising him in the Skete, all knowing that it is his son. And after he came to age, murmur was done among the brothers about him. And as avva Carion heard, he said to his son: Zaharia, get up so we go from here, for the fathers are murmuring! The young man said to him: avvo, all here know that I am your son. And if we will go away, can I not say that I am your son? And the old man said to him: get up so that we go from here! And they went to Tebaida. And after they got a cell and they stayed a few days there, the same murmur was made for the child. Then Zaharia the child, going to the brimstone tarn, and undressing himself, he descended and sinked in, up to his nostrils. And staying in, as long as he could, his body was destroyed, as he became like a man covred with boils. And coming out, he dressed up with his clothes, and went to his father, and he barely recognized him. And as he went to the Holy Communion, according to the custom, it was discovered to Saint Isidor, the priest of the Skete, what he did. And seeing, and begin in wonder, he said: Zaharia the child last Sunday came and took communion like a man, and now he became like an angel.
FOR AVVA COPRI
1. Avva Pimen was saying about avva Copri, that he had reached such a measure, that although he was sick and was laying on the bed, he was giving thanks, and was stopping his will.
2. Avva Copri said: blessed is he who endures the weariness with gratefulness.
3. Once, the ones from the Skete gathered, quarreling about Melchisedec, and they forgot to call avva Copri. Later on, calling him, they asked him about this. And he, hitting himself three times over the mouth (+), said: woe to you, Coprie! Woe to you, Coprie! Woe to you, Coprie! For you have left the ones that God commanded you to do, and you are looking for the ones that He does not ask from you. And upon hearing these, the brothers ran to their cells.
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(+) In others, over the cheek.
FOR AVVA CHIRU
1. Being asked about the thought of fornication, Avva Chiru the Alexandrian answered this way: if you do not have thought, you do not have hope. If you do not have thoughts, you have deed. And this is so that the one who does not fight with his mind against the sin, nor does him answer against it, is doing it with the body (+). For the one who has deeds, is not being upset by deeds. Yet the old man asked the brother, saying: do you have the custom of talking to women? And the brother said: no! Old and new painters are my thoughts. Memories are the ones that upset me, and imaginings of women. And the old man said to him: do not be afraid of dead ones, but run from the alive ones, and lean yourself more towards prayer.
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(+) Meaning, the sin.