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ABRAHAM: Never to be resorted to by men at all is a sign of an
unreasonable and ill-considered strictness, or rather of the greatest
coldness. For if a man walks in this way, on which he has entered, with too
slow steps, and lives according to the former man, it is right that none --
I say not of the saints -- but of any men should visit him. But you, if you
are inflamed with true and perfect love of our Lord, and follow God, who
indeed is love, with entire fervour of spirit, are sure to be resorted to
by men, to whatever inaccessible spot you may flee, and, in proportion as
the ardour of divine love brings you nearer to God, so will a larger
concourse of saintly brethren flock to you. For, as the Lord says, "A city
set on an hill cannot be hid," because "them that love Me," saith the
Lord, "will I honour, and they that despise Me shall be contemned." But
you ought to know that this is the subtlest device of the devil, this is
his best concealed pitfall, into which he precipitates some wretched and
heedless persons, so that, while he is promising them greater things, he
takes away the requisite advantages of their daily profit, by persuading
them that more remote and raster deserts should be sought, and by
portraying them in their heart as if they were sown with marvellous
delights. And further some unknown and non-existent spots, he feigns to be
well-known and suitable and already given over to our power and able to be
secured without any difficulty. The men also of that country he feigns to
be docile and followers of the way of salvation, that, while he is
promising richer fruits for the soul there, he may craftily destroy our
present profits. For when owing to this vain hope each one separates
himself from living together with the Elders and has been deprived of all
those things that he idly imagined in his heart, he rises as it were from a
most profound slumber, and when awake will find nothing of those things of
which he had dreamed. And so as he is hampered by larger requirements for
this life and inextricable snares, the devil will not even allow him to
aspire to those things which he had once promised himself, and as he is
liable no longer to those rare and spiritual visits of the brethren which
he had formerly avoided, but to daily interruptions from worldly folk, he
will never suffer him to return even to the moderate quiet and system of
the anchorite's life.
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