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THERE is however another and a fourth kind, which we have lately seen
springing up among those who flatter themselves with the appearance and
form of anchorites, and who in their early days seem in a brief fervour to
seek the perfection of the coenobium, but presently cool off, and, as they
dislike to put an end to their former habits and faults, and are not
satisfied to bear the yoke of humility and patience any longer, and scorn
to be in subjection to the rule of the Elders, look out for separate cells
and want to remain by themselves alone, that as they are provoked by nobody
they may be regarded by men as patient, gentle, and humble: and, this
arrangement, or rather this lukewarmness never suffers those, of whom it
has once got hold, to approach to perfection. For in this way their faults
are not merely not rooted up, but actually grow worse, while they are
excited by no one, like some deadly and internal poison which the more it
is concealed, so much the more deeply does it creep in and cause an
incurable disease to the sick person. For out of respect for each man's own
cell no one ventures to reprove the faults of a solitary, which he would
rather have ignored than cured. Moreover virtues are created not by hiding
faults but by driving them out.
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