for thyself.’ ” Now the brother did not wish to accept the camel, but [his companion] entreated him [to do so], saying, “If thou dost not take him we shall waste what we have paid in hire for him.” So the brother took the camel and brought up his palm leaves. And after he had gone up to Egypt that brother took the camel a second time, and he came back that he himself might go up; and the brother said unto him, “Where takest thou the camel?” and he said unto him, “To Scete, so that we also may bring up our palm leaves”; and that brother repented and was very sorry, and he expressed contrition and said, “Forgive me, my brethren, for your great charity hath taken away my hire.”
425. One of the brethren said, “Whilst we were sitting and talking about love, Abbâ Joseph said, ‘Do we know what love is?’ And he said that Abbâ Agathon had a little knife, and that a certain brother came to him and said, ‘Father, the little knife which thou hast is pretty’; and Abbâ Agathon did not let him depart until he had taken it.”
426. Abbâ Agathon used to say, “If I could find an Arian to whom I could give my body and take his in its place, I would do so, because this would be perfect love.”
427. A brother asked Abbâ Muthues, saying, “What shall I do if a brother come unto me, and it be a time of fast or the morning, and I am in tribulation?” The old man said unto him, “If thou art afflicted, and dost eat with the brother thou doest well; but if thou dost not look at the man, and dost eat, this is a matter of thy will only.”
428. Mother Sarah used to say, “It is a good thing for a man to give alms, even though he do so for the approbation of the children of men, for from this he will come to do it for God’s sake.”
429. A brother asked Abbâ Poemen, saying, “If I find a place wherein there is pleasure for the brethren, dost thou wish me to dwell there?” The old man said unto him, “Where thou wilt not do harm to thy brother, there dwell.”
430. Abbâ Poemen used to say that whenever Isidore, the priest of Scete, used to address the brethren in the church, he spake the following words only: “My brethren, it is written, Forgive thy brother that thou also mayest be accounted worthy of forgiveness” (St. Luke 6:37; St. Matthew 6:14).
431. They used to say that at the beginning Abbâ Zeno refused to take anything from any man, and that those who brought him things used to go away sorrowfully because he would not be persuaded to accept them from them. And other men used to come and ask him to give them gifts as of a great old man, and they also went away sorrowfully because he re-
