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| Chapter II. Of Bishop Archebius.
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Chapter II.
Of Bishop Archebius.
And when we arrived
there, God gratified our wishes, and had brought about the arrival of
that most blessed and excellent man Bishop Archebius,1687
| 1687 Archebius has
already been mentioned in Conference VII. xxvi; and in the Institutes
V. xxxvii., xxxviii., two stories are told illustrative of his kindness
and goodness of disposition; but he is not known to us from any other
source except Cassian’s writings. | who had been carried off from the
assembly of anchorites and given as Bishop to the town of
Panephysis,1688
| 1688 For the
situation of Panephysis, see the note on the Institutes, Book IV. c.
xxx. | and who kept
all his life long to his purpose of solitude with such strictness that
he relaxed nothing of the character of his former humility, nor
flattered himself on the honour that had been added to him (for he
vowed that he had not been summoned to that office as fit for it, but
complained that he had been expelled from the monastic system as
unworthy of it because though he had spent thirty-seven years in it he
had never been able to arrive at the purity so high a profession
demands); he then when he had received us kindly and most graciously in
the aforesaid Thennesus whither the business of electing a Bishop there
had brought him, as soon as he heard of our wish and desire to inquire
of the holy fathers even in still more remote parts of Egypt:
“Come,” said he, “see in the meanwhile the old men
who live not far from our monastery, the length of whose service is
shown by their bent bodies, as their holiness shines forth in their
appearance, so that even the mere sight of them will give a great
lesson to those who see them: and from them you can learn not so much
by their words as by the actual example of their holy life, what I
grieve that I have lost, and having lost cannot give to you. But I
think that my poverty will be somewhat lessened by this zeal of mine,
if when you are seeking that pearl of the Gospel which I have not, I at
least provide where you can conveniently procure
it.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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