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| Chapter IV. Of the excellence which the aforesaid old man showed in the system of the anchorites.
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Chapter IV.
Of the excellence which the aforesaid old man showed in
the system of the anchorites.
If then anyone else
delights in the recesses of the desert and would forget all human
intercourse and say with Jeremiah: “I have not desired the day of
man: Thou knowest,”2108
I confess that
by the blessing of God’s grace, I also secured or at any rate
tried to secure this. And so by the kind gift of the Lord I remember
that I was often caught up into such an ecstasy as to forget that I was
clothed with the burden of a weak body, and my soul on a sudden forgot
all external notions and entirely cut itself off from all material
objects, so that neither my eyes nor ears performed their proper
functions. And my soul was so filled with divine meditations
and spiritual contemplations
that often in the evening I did not know whether I had taken any food
and on the next day was very doubtful whether I had broken my fast
yesterday. For which reason, a supply of food for seven days, i.e.,
seven sets of biscuits were set apart in a sort of
hand-basket,2109
| 2109 In prochirio id
est admanuensi sporta. | and laid by on
Saturday, that there might be no doubt when supper had been omitted;
and by this plan another mistake also from forgetfulness was obviated,
for when the number of cakes was finished it showed that the course of
the week was over, and that the services of the same day had come
round, and that the festival and holy day and services of the
congregation could not escape the notice of the solitary. But even if
that ecstasy of mind of which we have spoken should happen to interfere
with this arrangement, yet still the method of the days’ work
would show the number of the days and check the mistake. And to pass
over in silence the other advantages of the desert (for it is not our
business to treat of their number and quantity, but rather of the aim
of solitude and the Cœnobium) I will the rather briefly explain
the reasons why I preferred to leave it, which you also wanted to know,
and will in a concise discourse glance at all those fruits of solitude
which I mentioned, and show to what greater advantages on the other
side they ought to be held inferior.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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