city entreated him to depart to his monastery, but he would not hearken unto their supplication, and he said, “I cannot transgress my brother’s command, and I cannot leave this place until we go back together to the monastery.” So he stayed there for seven years, being burned by heat in the summer, and dried up by the cold and ice in the winter, and with hunger, and thirst, and weeping and watching, he made supplication on behalf of his brother. Then at length one day his former companion himself came unto him, dressed in costly garments, and said unto him, “O So-and-so, I am he who was with thee the monk So-and-so, arise, get thee gone to thy monastery”; and the brother looked at him and said, Thou art not, for he was a monk, and thou art a man in the world.” Then God looked upon the trouble of that brother, and at the end of the seven years the woman died, and the brother who [had married her] repented, and again put on the garb of the monk, and went out to his companion; and when he saw him, he rose up, and embraced him and kissed him, and he took him with gladness, and they went forth to the monastery. Then that brother renewed his former ascetic works, and he was worthy of the highest grade of perfection. Thus by the patience of one man the other lived, and the saying, “A brother is helped by his brother, even as a city is helped by its fortress,” was fulfilled.
396. On one occasion two old men came to an old man, whose custom was not to eat every day; and when he saw them he rejoiced, and said, “Fasting hath its reward, and he who eateth for the sake of love fulfilleth two commandments, for he setteth aside his own desire and he fulfilleth the commandment, and refresheth the brethren.”
397. They used to tell the story of a certain brother who fell into sin, and he came unto Abbâ Lôt, and he was perplexed and confused, and was going in and coming out, and was unable to rest. And Abbâ Lôt said unto him, “What is the matter with thee, O my brother?” and he said, “I have committed a great sin, and I am unable to confess it before the fathers.” The old man said unto him, “Confess it unto me, and I will bear it”; and then the brother said unto him, “I have fallen into fornication, and I thought thou hadst discovered the matter.” And the old man said unto him, “Be of good courage, for there remaineth repentance; get thee gone and sit in thy habitation, and fast for two weeks, and I will bear with thee one half of thy sin”; and at the end of three weeks it was revealed unto the old man that God had accepted the repentance of that brother, and he remained with the old man, and was subject unto him until the day of his death.
