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| Chapter IV. Of Abbot Chæremon and his excuse about the teaching which we asked for.
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Chapter IV.
Of Abbot Chæremon and his excuse about the teaching
which we asked for.
And so the blessed
Archebius thought it best to take us first to Chæremon,1690
| 1690 Chæremon is
perhaps the same person of whom a short account is given in the Lausiac
History of Palladius, c. xcii. | because he was nearer to his monastery, and
because he was more advanced than the other two in age: for he had
passed the hundredth year of his life, vigorous only in spirit, but
with his back bowed with age and constant prayer, so that, as if he
were once more in his childhood he crawled with his hands hanging down
and resting on the ground. Gazing then at one and the same time on this
man’s wonderful face and on his walk (for though all his limbs
had already failed and were dead yet he had lost none of the severity
of his previous strictness) when we humbly asked for the word and
doctrine, and declared that longing for spiritual instruction was the
only reason for our coming, he sighed deeply and said: What doctrine
can I teach you, I in whom the feebleness of age has relaxed my former
strictness, as it has also destroyed my confidence in speaking?
For how could I presume to teach what I do not do, or instruct
another in what I know I now practise but feebly and coldly? Wherefore
I do not allow any of the younger men to live with me now that I am of
such an advanced age, lest the other’s strictness should be
relaxed owing to my example. For the authority of a teacher will never
be strong unless he fixes it in the heart of his hearer by the actual
performance of his duty.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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