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WHEN I was beginning my stay in the desert, and had said to Abbot
Moses, the chief of all the saints, that I had been terribly troubled
yesterday by an attack of accidie, and that I could only be freed from it
by running at once to Abbot Paul, he said, "You have not freed yourself
from it, but rather have given yourself up to it as its slave and subject.
For the enemy will henceforth attack you more strongly as a deserter and
runaway, since it has seen that you fled at once when overcome in the
conflict: unless on a second occasion when you join battle with it you make
up your mind not to dispel its attacks and heats for the moment by
deserting your cell, or by the inactivity of sleep, but rather learn to
triumph over it by endurance and conflict." Whence it is proved by
experience that a fit of accidie should not be evaded by running away from
it, but overcome by resisting it.
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