that at this present we are trafficking, and are losing in respect of our souls very much more than we ever gained at any time of the profit of the fear of our Lord, because shamelessness and fearlessness have gained dominion over us. For in times past when the fathers were gathered together to each other they were wont to form bands and ascend into the heavens, but we are lax folk, and are dead in our sins. Whensoever we draw nigh to each other we come to speak that which is hateful about one another, and one by one we are raised up that we may descend to the bottom of the deepest abyss. And we do not make to sink ourselves and each other only, but also the fathers who come to us, and the strangers who gather together to us, and also the people who are in the world who visit us as if we were solitary monks, and as if we were holy men, and to these last we become a cause of stumbling and loss.”
“For thus also did Abbâ Sylvanus and Abbâ Lôt say unto me: ‘Let us not abide here any longer.’ And when I asked them, ‘Why do ye depart from us?’ they spake to me as follows: ‘Up to this day we have benefited by our abiding with the fathers, but from the time of Abbâ Pambô, and Abbâ Agathon, and Abbâ. Petra, and Abbâ John, the commandments of the fathers have been held lightly, and we do not observe the ordinances and the laws which our fathers laid down for us. And by assemblies together we suffer loss over and over again through the useless things which are spoken among us. And when we sit down at table, instead of doing so in the fear of God, and with gratitude, and eating that which God hath prepared for us with praise and thanksgiving, we occupy ourselves by conversing together and telling insipid stories; and as we sit at table in this fashion we become so much changed that we do not even hear what is being read to us on account of the noise of the profitless talk which we hold with each other. And besides this, after we have risen up from eating, we converse together with empty talk. What benefit is it to us to live in the desert, seeing that we profit nothing thereby?’ And Abbâ Lôt said, ‘Many times have I heard from brethren who are strangers, and from the people who live in the world, and who come to visit us, that we hold the commandments of the fathers lightly, and they have said of us, “We should never have thought that they were monks!” ’ And one of the brethren who were strangers said, ‘I have come to the fathers on several occasions, and [I see that] year by year they certainly observe less and less the early rules and conduct of the fathers.’ What now do ye wish? Will ye correct your
