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AND to prove this that we have said both by the testimony of the
ancients and divine oracles, we had better bring forward in his own words
and experience what the blessed Paphnutius felt on the subject of
admiration of miracles and the grace of purity, or rather what he learnt
from the revelation of an angel. For this man had been famous for many
years for his signal strictness so that he fancied that he was completely
free from the snares of carnal concupiscence because he felt himself
superior to all the attacks of the demons with whom he had fought openly
and for a long while; and when some holy men had come to him, he was
preparing for them a porridge of lentiles which they call Athera, and
his hand, as it happened, was burnt in the oven, by a flame that darted up.
And when this happened he was much mortified and began silently to consider
with himself, and ask why was not the fire at peace with me, when my more
serious contests with demons have ceased? or how will that unquenchable
fire which searches out the deserts of all pass me by in that dread day of
judgment, and fail to detain me, if this trivial temporal fire from without
has not spared me? And as he was troubled by thoughts of this kind and
vexation a sudden sleep overcame him and an angel of the Lord came to him
and said: "Paphnutius, why are you vexed because that earthly fire is not
yet at peace with you, while there still remains in your members some
disturbance of carnal motions that is not completely removed? For as long
as the roots of this flourish within you, they will not suffer that
material fire to be at peace with you. And certainly you could not feel it
harmless unless you found by such proofs as these that all these internal
motions within you were destroyed. Go, take a naked and most beautiful
virgin, and if while you hold her you find that the peace of your heart
remains steadfast, and that carnal heat is still and quiet within you, then
the touch of this visible flame also shall pass over you gently and without
harming you as it did over the three children in Babylon." And so the Elder
was impressed by this revelation and did not try the dangers of the
experiment divinely shown to him, but asked his own conscience and examined
the purity of his heart; and, guessing that the weight of purity was not
yet sufficient to outweigh the force of this trial, it is no wonder, said
he, if when the battles with unclean spirits come upon me, I still feel the
flames of the fire, which I used to think of less importance than the
savage attacks of demons, still raging against me. Since it is a greater
virtue and a grander grace to extinguish the inward lust of the flesh than
by the sign of the Lord and the power of the might of the Most High to
subdue the wicked demons which rush upon one from without, or to drive them
by invoking the Divine name from the bodies which they have possessed. So
far Abbot Nesteros, finishing the account of the true working of the gifts
of grace accompanied us to the cell of the Elder Joseph which was nearly
six miles distant from his, as we were eager for instruction in his
doctrine.
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