named Zosimus. This man verily, as I said before, lived from the beginning in a minster in Palestine, and he had become the most approved in works of self-denial, and in all the monastic rules. And he blamelessly observed all the directions of the rule, and the perfection of the monastic service, and added similar practices for himself thereto, because he desired to subject his flesh to the spirit. So truly was he perfected in all monastic customs, that very often monks came to him from distant places, and from [other] minsters, that they might bind themselves to his example and to his lore, and subject themselves to the imitation of his self-denial. He kept all these customs in himself, and he never turned away his mind from the meditation of the Holy Scriptures. And all the goodnesses which he practised, he practised in the spirit, and one work he kept unceasingly and never tired of; that was psalm-singing, praise, and meditation on Holy Scripture. Very often also, according to what they said, he was made to be worthy of the divine illumination through a revelation from God of the heavenly vision, so that [it is] neither a wonder, nor eke an incredible thing, concerning those whom the Lord Himself said, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, because they shall see God.' So much the more shall those behold the openness of the divine enlightenment, who ever cleanse their bodies by sober habits, and by a mind ever awake to receive hereafter the future meed in the eternal blessedness; even as Zosimus himself said, that he himself had been committed to the minster from his mother's womb; and until his three and fiftieth year he was dwelling there under the rule, and after this he was assaulted by certain thoughts, as if [supposing that] he were perfected in all things, and needed not in his mind the example of any more teaching ; and he was thus speaking — ' whether there can be any monk on earth who can teach me anything new, or advance me in any thing of which I myself know nothing, or that I have not myself fulfilled in monastic works; or whether there be any of those who love the desert, who can be before me in his deeds."
Thinking these [things], and others like to these within himself, there stood before him an angel and said to him, ' Oh, thou Zosi-
