taketh not of the meats he becometh a stranger unto them.”
572. They used to say that Abbâ Isaac went out and found the footprint of a woman on the road, and he thought about it in his mind and destroyed it, saying, “If a brother seeth it he may fall.”
573. A brother asked Abbâ Agathon concerning fornication, and he said unto him, “Go, cast thy feebleness before God, and thou shalt find relief.”
574. A brother asked a father, and said unto him, “There is a war of fornication against me,” and the old man said unto him, “If it be a good thing, why goest thou away from it, but if it be a bad thing why dost not thou command it [to depart]?”
575. A certain brother, being vexed by the spirit of fornication, went to a great old man, and entreated him, saying, “Do an act of grace, and pray for me, for I am disturbed by fornication,” and the old man made supplication unto God and entreated Him. And the brother came to him a second time, and said the same words as before, and the old man also was not neglectful in beseeching God on his behalf. Now when the brother had come to the old man, and troubled him in this way many times because he was disturbed by fornication, the old man afterwards entreated God, and said, “O Lord, reveal unto me the manner in which this brother liveth, and whence cometh the reason why I have entreated Thee so often on his behalf, and he hath not found relief.” Then God revealed unto him the affair of that brother, and he saw him dwelling with the spirit of fornication by him, and that brother lusting for it, and an angel was standing by [ready] to help him; and he was angry with that brother because he did not cast himself upon God, but was involving his mind therein. And straightway the old man knew that the cause lay with the brother himself, and he made him to undertand this, and he roused him up, and afterwards he took heed to himself.
576. A brother asked Abbâ Poemen, saying, “The body is feeble, but my passions are not weak”; the old man said unto him, “The passions make thorns to grow and burst into flower.”
577. A brother asked Abbâ Poemen concerning the passions of the body, and the old man said unto him, “They are like unto those who sang praises to the image of Nebuchadnezzar, for if those who sang had not burned men [people] would never have worshipped the image; and in this wise the Enemy also singeth to the soul by means of the passions, so that he may perchance be able to make it commit sin through the passion of the body.”
