its counterpart through its union with it, but also those devils which wage war against the soul, and they feel the labours of the body more than doth the soul. For immediately the devils see the monk afflicting his body with labours, they become afraid, and stagger about, because they are more tormented by the labours than is the man who is engaged in them. Therefore the blessed Evagrius, when the demon of fornication assailed him, stripped off his tunic and stood the whole night long, in the season of winter, under the open sky, and by these means he made the demon to suffer pain, and he fled from him. And again, when the demon of blasphemy attacked him, he stood naked under the open sky, in the season of winter, for forty days. And because the thought of gluttony stirred in the heart of Abbâ Zeno, and made him to eat a cucumber by stealth, he crucified his soul in the sun, during the season of summer for five days. In this wise the holy men were afflicting themselves with labours and tribulations, and when the devils were stirring up in them the thoughts of sin, the demons were afflicted and tortured far more than they thereby. Now the demons were afflicted and tormented by the labours of the patient endurance of the monks not only in their minds but in their persons, through the operation of the holy angels, and by the command of God, even as, on one occasion, one of the devils was tortured the whole night in the cell of those two brethren who were brothers naturally, when he wished to separate them from each other. For when the younger brother lighted a lamp the devil threw down the candlestick, and extinguished the light, whereupon the [elder] brother smote him [on] the cheek; and the other brother expressed his contrition, and said, ‘My brother, have patience, and I will light the lamp [again].’ And when God saw the patient endurance and humility of the young man, He commanded His angel, and he fettered the devil the whole night long in their cell; and the devil was tormented therein until the morning because of that [blow on] the cheek which he made the one brother to suffer from the other through his wicked agency; and that wicked devil was fettered and tortured the whole night long. And the devils are tortured not only when we afflict our bodies with labours, in order that we may not consent to the will of devils, but also when they stir up in us evil thoughts; if we constrain ourselves a little, and cast them from us, at the same time calling our Lord to our assistance, straightway the holy angels which cleave unto us will constrain the demons, and will drive them away from us, and we shall be full of light, and of fervour, and of glad-
