and took a palm stick and departed to him, and when the man saw him, he was disturbed; and the old man said unto him, “Tell me what thou doest, and how thou livest,” and the tailor said unto him, “I do not myself know that I do any good, and I know only that when I rise up in the morning, before I sit down to the labour of my hands, I give thanks unto God, and praise Him, and that I set my evil deeds before mine eyes, saying, ‘All the men who are in this city will go into the kingdom of God, because of their alms and good deeds, except myself, and I shall inherit punishment for my sins’; and again in the evening, before I sleep, I do the same things.” Now when Abbâ Anthony heard these things, he said, “Verily, as the man who worketh in gold, and who doeth beautiful work, cleanly, and in peace, even so art thou; through thy beautiful thoughts thou wilt inherit the kingdom of God, whilst I, who have passed the whole of my life in the desert, separated [from men], have never overtaken thee.”
3. Abbâ Anthony received a revelation in the desert, saying, “In such and such a city there is a man who resembleth thee; he is a physician, and he worketh and giveth whatsoever he earneth to the poor and needy, and each day he, with the angels, ascribeth holiness to God three times a day.”
4. When Abbâ Macarius was praying in his cell on one occasion he heard a voice which said, “Macarius, thou hast not yet arrived [at the state of excellence] of two women who are in such and such a city”; and the old man rose up in the morning, and took in his hand a palm stick, and he began to set out on the road to that city. Now therefore, when he had arrived at the city, and learned the place [of the abode of the women], he knocked at the door, and there went forth one of the women and brought him into the house. And when he had been sitting down for a little, the other woman came in, and he called them to him, and they came nigh and sat down before him. Then the old man said unto them, “On your account I have made this long journey, and have performed all this labour, and with great difficulty have come from the desert; tell me, then, what works do ye do.” And they said unto him, “Believe us, O father; neither of us hath ever been absent from, or kept herself back from, her husband’s couch up to this day; what work, then, wouldst thou see in us?” Then the old man made apologies to them, and entreated them to reveal to him and to show him their labour, and thereupon they said unto him, “According to worldly considerations we are strangers one to the other, for we are not kinsfolk, but it fell out that the two of us married two
