having lived the proper period of time in the coenobium, they dare to enter the cell, even as it is written concerning one of the brethren in the Book of Paradise, for immediately he had received the garb of the monk, he went and shut himself up as a solitary recluse, saying, ‘I am a monk of the desert’; and the Fathers went and brought him out into the monastery [again]. There are others, too, who seek to shut themselves up for a week at a time, and it in no wise helpeth them; and there are others, the children of this world, who at the beginning of their careers imitate the exalted rule of life of the Fathers, and who imagine that they can imitate the rule of the mind, that is to say, of the spirit, when as yet they have not fulfilled the rule of the body. Therefore their lives and works are not open to the Fathers, and they will not receive correction, but they live according to their own desire, and they are delivered over into the hands of the devils who make a mock of them.”
632. The brethren said, “One of the brethren asked Abbâ Poemen, saying, ‘My body is feeble, and I cannot lead an ascetic life.’ Abbâ Poemen said unto him, ‘Canst thou lead the ascetic life in thy thought, and not permit it to go with deceit to thy neighbour?’ Tell us how the feeble man was able to lead the ascetic life in his thoughts.” The old man said, “This question belongeth closely, both in order and meaning, to that which a certain brother asked Abbâ Poemen, saying, ‘My body is feeble, but my thoughts are not.’ Now in the former case he spake having regard to those who were afraid that through pains and sickness they would become negligent of the labours of spiritual excellence, and, in a different manner, that they might fall into pains and sickness by way of punishment; in the latter case he spake having regard to those who had toiled for a very long time in the labours of self-denial, and who had finally become enfeebled, either through old age, or through pains and sicknesses, and who were ceasing from ascetic labours. Now this is what Abbâ Poemen [meant] when he said, ‘If thou art not now able, by reason of thy weakness, to toil in the labours of the body as thou didst formerly, toil in the labours of the soul, that is to say, the ruling of the thoughts, which is the ruling of the mind; if thou art unable to fast from meats, fast from evil thoughts; and if thou art no longer able, through the weakness of the body, to stand up and to recite as many Psalms as formerly, make thy mind to stand up before our Lord, and pray before Him vigilantly with the prayer which is secret and pure, and be tranquil, and humble, and pleasant, and good, and forgiving,
