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| Chapter XXIV. Abbot Paul who every year burnt with fire all the works of his hands.
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Chapter XXIV.
Abbot Paul1000
| 1000 This Paul is perhaps the
same as the one mentioned in connection with Abbot Moses in Conference
VII. xxvi. As he was a contemporary of Cassian he must be carefully
distinguished from his more illustrious namesakes, the first hermit and
the disciple of S. Antony. | who every year
burnt with fire all the works of his hands.
Lastly, Abbot Paul, one
of the greatest of the Fathers, while he was living in a vast desert
which is called the Porphyrian desert,1001
| 1001 Also called the desert
of Calamus, Conference XXIV. iv., but its position has not been
ascertained. | and
being relieved from anxiety by the date palms and a small garden, had
plenty to support himself, and an ample supply of food, and could not
find any other work to do, which would support him, because his
dwelling was separated from towns and inhabited districts by seven
days’ journey,1002
| 1002 Mansio used here
and again in Conference XXIV. iv. for the stage of a day’s
journey. | or even more,
through the desert, and more would be asked for the carriage of the
goods than the price of the work would be worth; he collected the
leaves of the palms, and regularly exacted of himself his daily task,
as if he was to be supported
by it. And when his cave had been filled with a whole
year’s work, each year he would burn with fire that at which he
had so diligently laboured: thus proving that without manual labour
a monk cannot stop in a place nor rise to the heights of perfection:
so that, though the need for food did not require this to be done,
yet he performed it simply for the sake of purifying his heart, and
strengthening his thoughts, and persisting in his cell, and gaining a
victory over accidie and driving it away. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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