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WHEN then after no long time a desire for holy instruction had urged us
also to visit Egypt, we sought him out with the utmost eagerness and
devotion and were welcomed by him with such kindness and courtesy that he
actually honoured us, as former sharers of the same cell with him, with a
lodging in hiS own cell which he had built in the furthest corner Of his
garden. And there when in the presence of all the brethren at service he
had delivered to one of the brethren who was submitting to the rule of the
monastery sufficiently difficult and elevated precepts, which as we said, I
summarized as briefly as I could in the fourth book of the Institutes, the
heights of a true renunciation seemed to us so unattainable and so
marvellous that we did not think that such humble folks as we could ever
scale them. And therefore, cast down in despair, and not concealing in our
looks the inner bitterness of our thoughts, we came back to the blessed old
man with a tolerably anxious heart: and when he at once asked the reason
why we were so sad, Abbot Germanus groaned deeply and replied as follows.
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